George Rebane

Over a year ago when the left started lathering about cap and tax legislation that was supposed to reduce our need for imported oil and create green jobs, certain observers on the right dared to ask ‘what is a green job?’.  It was not an idle question since the government was going to tax us hundreds of billions, and then give the money to people claiming they knew the answer.  Well, a year later, and as syndicated columnist Byron York in today’s Union points out, no one still knows what a green job is.  In spite of that and the promise of ‘full accountability’, the next version of cap and tax (Kerry/Lieberman) is on the congressional launch pad.

The ignorance and confusion has reached such heights today that the government is asking bidders for green jobs related funding to offer their definitions of what a green job is.  ‘We don’t know what it is, but we’re determined to go into more debt funding it.’  Maybe they can draw from our historical waltz with trying to define what is obscene.  I recall some judge saying that ‘While I can’t define obscenity, but I’ll know one when I see one.’  I predict green jobs will wind up being like that.

As Russ Steele points out on NCMW, we need to discriminate between green and yellow and purple jobs in California, because we’re getting ready to shoot ourselves in the other foot economically by cobbling together funding programs that will piss away (certified obscenity) billions for little benefit beyond buying Democrat votes.  And in that sense the quixotic quest for green jobs will be an obscene waste of more scarce resources.

I am reminded of the fact that no poor country (read economy) has ever cared for its ecology.  In truth and unarguably, the greenest jobs are those that allow us to create the wealth necessary to provide for a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment.   In the end it doesn’t matter, the looney left will again bleat their ultimate raison d’etre for government spending, ‘But we can’t just do nothing!’  Yes we can, give ‘nothing’ from the government a chance.