Morning Bell: The Obama Energy Tax Game Plan

Conn Carroll / June 15, 2010

In February of this year, after Sen. Scott Brown’s (R-MA) victory put Obamacare on life support, health insurer Anthem Blue Cross announced a 39% rate hike for its individual market subscribers in California. Despite the fact that the President’s health care plan will only drive health insurance rates higher, the White House seized on this story to revive the government takeover of the health insurance industry. Two months later when the President’s financial regulation plan was stalled in the Senate, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Goldman Sachs with fraud in marketing some of its subprime mortgage investment products. Again, the White House pounced on this news to get its preferred legislation through Congress.

Now that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has turned into an environmental disaster, the White House is again trying to turn public anger at one corporation into massive government intervention of an entire sector of the economy. In an email to his leftist Organizing for America activists, President Barack Obama previewed his Oval Office address tonight calling on Congress “to move forward on legislation to promote a new economy powered by green jobs, combat climate change, and end our dependence on foreign oil.” Separately, Joel Benenson, a pollster for the Democratic National Committee and Obama’s presidential campaign, circulated a memo on Capitol Hill arguing that a comprehensive energy bill “could give Democrats a potent weapon to wield against Republicans in the fall.” Politico reports that Benenson’s recommended “messaging architecture” includes the slogan “Making BP Pay Isn’t Enough” and adds: “frame the opposition” as “Big Oil and corporate polluters who have blocked energy reform for decades” and “politicians protecting the special interests that fund their campaigns.” (more…)