By Carter Clews
With his sell-out late last week on the cap & trade bill in the U.S. Senate, Lindsey Olin Graham officially established himself as “The Watermelon Man.”
Green on the outside, pink on the inside, Graham will now serve as the pusillanimous poster boy for the amorphous mush that emerges when a Washington politician has soaked up far too much Potomac swamp water.
Adding insult to injury, The Watermelon Man got thumped by fellow Senator John Kerry, who convinced the diminutive Carolinian to co-sponsor the ruinous cap and trade bill by promising to let America drill for a little bit of its own oil and build a couple of nuclear power plants here and there. We hasten to add that rumors about the gullible Graham also buying into Kerry’s promises to walk on water and build a swing set on the moon have not yet been confirmed.
It is almost impossible to overstate the damage Graham has done across the board by sleeping with the enemy on this draconian socialistic measure. Not only has he increased the chances of the once-moribund bill’s passage by giving it bipartisan cover, he has also served notice on the American people that he has now become nothing more than a carbon-obsessed copy of all that he once pretended to oppose.
Like Marley’s Ghost, cap and trade was dead. Average, everyday Americans knew that it was government control in extremis. That it would give the greedy, grasping Washington political elite despotic dominion over the very air we breathe – and empower them to exact an onerous tax on every breath we take.
So, they told the politicians to back off, to stop scaring the children with dumbed-up stories about the earth on the brink of a fiery demise, and to cease making believe the carbon extant since the beginning of time had somehow transmogrified itself into the Deadly Creature from the Industrial Lagoon.
For once, the politicians, ever fearful of losing their plush offices and lavish perqs, listened. And then came The Watermelon Man.
Ever eager to cotton favor with the Far Left, a supine Lindsey Graham put his name on a bill that could open the door to the most massive government takeover since the founding of the Republic. Once Big Government’s gluttonous oligarchs arrogate to themselves the power to tax carbon emissions, they will at long last have achieved their coveted objective of controlling every aspect of the average Americans’ daily life.
As respected political pundit Charles Krauthammer recently wrote, “Since we operate an overwhelmingly carbon-based economy, the EPA will be regulating practically everything … Not since the creation of the Internal Revenue Service has a federal agency been given more intrusive power over every aspect of economic life.”
Krauthammer warns that under cap and trade hegemony, government will control “hospitals, plants, schools, and businesses.” But, that’s just the beginning. Thanks to Lindsay Graham’s devious collusion with John Kerry, government will also be empowered to tax and control the amount of heating oil you are allowed to burn; the temperature at which you can set your thermostat; perhaps, eventually, the number of rooms you can heat or cool; and, of course, the number of miles you can drive your car.
At first, predictably, the restrictions and “fees” will be hardly noticeable. Remember, in 1913, the first income tax Congress levied came to a grand total of 1 percent. So, perhaps, the first carbon tax on cars will be a minuscule 1/10 of a cent per mile. With the average American driving 12,000 miles a year, who could argue with paying a paltry $120 to save the planet?
But, then, naturally, just as the income tax escalated, so will the car carbon tax. Perhaps to a penny. Then to a dime. And eventually, if government holds true to form, to a dollar. And one day soon, invariably, inevitably, more. Much, much more. Until the gluttonous oligarchs of Big Government control every mile you drive – and every move you make. All under the guise of capping carbon.
And that will be the legacy of Lindsay Olin Graham. Ironically, the largest watermelon ever grown also originated in South Carolina. The world record Carolina Cross, as it is called, weighed in at a whopping 262 pounds. The pint-sized South Carolina cross who colluded with the Pecksniffian John Kerry probably weighs in at no more than 130 pounds soak and wet. But, The Watermelon Man has now set a world record for betraying the trust of the American people.
Carter Clews is the Executive Editor of ALG News.
