It was supposed to be a speech about government engineering for job growth, including giving America another dose of “green jobs.”

What it turned out to be was the greatest surprise in the history of presidential speechmaking–a prime time address that the founding fathers would have applauded.

And the genesis of last night was several months ago when Obama decided to audit (through remote technology) the summer seminars held by the Institute of Humane Studies at George Mason University to learn about the ideas and ideals of a free society.

“‘Sleep less, think more’. That intrigued me,” said Obama after his address calling for deregulating the tax code by eliminating special provisions across-the-board; privatizing an estimated $1.5 trillion in federal assets over the next four years  to transition away from New Deal/Great Society welfarism; and establish a commission to explore separating government from money and banking.…

“Suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.”

Climate and energy alarmists war with reality. And now and again, the incentives line up for a particular alarmist to blow the whistle on some aspect of the governmental ‘cure’ to their problem. The incendiary Joe Romm, for example, trots out free-market-type arguments against carbon sequestration and nuclear (both too expensive).

Hansen on Cap-and-Trade

NASA scientist and uber-climate-alarmist James Hansen informed the climate policy debate in 2009/2010 with his blistering criticism of CO2 cap-and-trade. “The truth is, the climate course set by Waxman-Markey is a disaster course,” he said. “It is an exceedingly inefficient way to get a small reduction of emissions.…

“It is clear that solar and wind are competitive in many situations right now.”

– Joe Romm, Climate Progress, April 21, 2011.

“If it wasn’t clear before it is crystal clear now that the people pushing a massive government spending program for clean energy are living on ‘Another Earth’.”

– Joe Romm, Climate Progress, July 28, 2011

In April, Joe Romm at Climate Progress reiterated his claim that politically correct renewable energies are well on their way to competitive viability–if not there already. Now, with business-as-usual federal subsidies for wind and solar at risk, there is fear and loathing at Climate Progress (Romm’s bully blog at the Center for American Progress).

Mad Joe Romm is extra mad at Obama and the WHOLE budget debate–as if record, unsustainable budget deficits were not reality.…

[Editor Note: Obama’s transformationist energy policy, enabled by taxpayer largesse, is being whipsawed by the federal deficit crisis. And the energy/environmental statists are running scared. “[Obama] has bought into and reinforced the GOP narrative that debt and spending concerns reign supreme,’ lamented Joe Romm at Climate Progress, “which will undermine short-term and long-term efforts to create jobs or promote clean energy or reduce oil dependence or cut carbon pollution.”

Today and tomorrow, economist Richard Ebeling outlines the macro crisis. On Wednesday, Lisa Linowes of Wind Action makes a case for ending all energy subsidies as a contribution toward fiscal reform.]

The economic crisis through which the United States and much of the rest of the world are now passing is not another supposed instance of the “failure” of unrestrained capitalism.…