To Senator Reid Cap-and-Trade is Just a Tax; But With the Advantages of Being Deceitful and Expensive

To a politician, the best tax is a disguised tax, apparently levied by someone other than yourself, some of whose proceeds you can kick back to your campaign contributors, in this case Wall Street.
First, we had this via the WSJ on March 17:
White House Official Boosts Cap and Trade Revenue Estimate

A top White House economic adviser told Senate staff a proposed cap and trade system could raise "two-to-three times" the administration's existing $646 billion revenue estimate, according to five people at the meeting.

This could mean the cap and trade system could actually generate between roughly $1.3 trillion and $1.9 trillion between fiscal years 2012 and 2019.

Jason Furman, deputy director of the National Economic Council, offered the estimate at a Feb. 26 meeting on Capitol Hill with a bipartisan group of staffers, most of whom are attached to the Senate Finance Committee, according to five Senate aides who attended the meeting. They spoke on condition they wouldn't be identified by name....MORE

Last week we started hearing that the middle class tax cuts were so much hot air:

From the AP:
Obama mum on proposal to scrap tax cut
From ABC:
Obama Budget Chief on Hill Dems Plan to Scrap Middle Class Tax Cut: "We have two years to figure this out"

Then a couple days later, from Bloomberg:

...Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he is open to financing an overhaul of the U.S. health-care system with revenue generated from efforts to rein in greenhouse gas emissions. Reid, a Nevada Democrat, told reporters yesterday Democrats are determined to finance the cost of any expansion of health care with savings found elsewhere in the government’s budget in order to avoid widening the federal deficit.

“I don’t think we should take anything off the table as to what we’re going to do with health care, what we’re going to do with this carbon that’s killing our country with global warming,” said Reid. “But the one thing that in our budget that’s very clear: We pay for everything."...

Pretty slick. First we lowball the size of the tax while offering to give the taxpayers a fraction of their money back. Then we admit that, well, the tax will be triple what we said because, well, we need the money. Then we yank the original sweetener!

The only thing left to do is pay the 20% vigorish to the Wall Street firms, the carbon traders, accountants, lawyers, lobbyists, project developers, verifiers etc., etc.

Then you tell the folks back home about the green jobs you created!

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. All politicians are liars.