In politics, every policy is critical to every social need, provided that the politicians desire the policies and the people are currently concerned with the need. So, President Obama declares cap-and-trade energy legislation to be “a jobs bill,” even though it will cost the economy jobs overall, as a Heritage study shows. Ben Lieberman explains:

Sure, the president can visit wind-turbine factories and boast about the few hundred green jobs at each. But the billions of dollars in government subsidies to the wind industry siphon resources and jobs away from other parts of the economy.
Worse, the higher cost of wind-generated electricity and other alternatives kills even more jobs, especially in the manufacturing sector, which needs reasonably-priced energy to compete in the global marketplace.

The next decade looks bleak, indeed. Hopefully, American voters will see the error of their ways — and force American politicians of both parties to see the error of theirs — in time to repair the damage before the subsequent decade begins testing just how low our nation can sink.