"You can trust me, I was on JournoList"
n objective scientist Leftist pundit try to give helpful advice to the GOP on climate policy. First, it was RawMuscleGlutes, and now juicebox mafioso Lil' Mattie Yglesias has decided to be a helpful helper who only wants to help:
The structure of the long-term deficit debate goes like this. Democrats won't agree to major cuts in projected spending on programs for the elderly unless Republicans agree to a "balanced" package that also includes tax increases. But Republicans don't want to raise taxes on the rich. The sensible compromise would be to raise taxes on the non-rich, but obviously neither party wants to put forward a tax plan that would just lead to them getting clobbered by the opposition. But a Republican who was willing to propose raising additional tax revenue through a substantial carbon tax wouldn't just get slammed by the full force of the progressive community.
…
I'm not one to go all gaga over grand bargains, but this is the grand bargain that actually makes sense—a proposal that would divide both parties' core coalitions.
See! He's willing to compromise for the sake of The Country!
Yglesias bases his Grand Bargain proposal on a piece in The Guardian by liberal think-tanker Dean Baker who explains his argument to us Neanderthals using a WWII analogy:
Imagine if in response to Japan attacking Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, our political leaders had debated the best way to deal with the deficits from war spending projected for 1960. This is pretty much the way in which Washington works these days.
He then goes on trying to bolster his argument about DC obstructionism and can-kicking by talking about non-climate event Hurricane Sandy. Because World War II and Climate Change are exactly the same thing. You get that you flyover bitter-clingers?
Well, I've got an analogy for Messrs. Yglesias and Baker: Imagine you are a high school freshman who is mercilessly bullied, day-to-day, by others in your class and one day, when you seem particularly vulnerable, the biggest bully of them all approaches you and offers you a deal. He will be your friend (and what constitutes "friendship" will be determined by him) if you just give in and sign a legally-binding document which states that you will allow him, of your own free will, to pants you in front of the entire school and agree to give him your lunch money in perpetuity. Would you ever in a million years agree to that kind of a deal?
I can see how someone like Yglesias would think that the kind of triangulation he's proposing might appeal to the John Boehners of the world. I hope that Speaker Boehner understands that what's in it for him is complicity in a scheme whose widespread expense for and intrusion into the American economy will make what the EPA has done over the last forty years look like street corner panhandling and whose popular justification is at least at least as fraudulent. If not for the sake of the longterm health of our economy, Speaker Boehner, then for the sake of avoiding having your pants around your ankles and no lunch money, for the love of God don't give any such proposal even a second's consideration.
