You probably heard promises during the debate over the House-passed cap-and-trade energy tax/rationing scheme that some of the wealth transfer would be “recycled” to the poorest of our poor, to offset at least in part the higher costs they would face as a result of Obama’s plan that he openly admitted was intended to cause energy prices to “necessarily skyrocket”. Energy costs are embedded in everything, so the cost of everything goes up; energy tax hikes are highly regressive, so seniors and the poor, anyone on a low or fixed income, gets hit the worst.

Now we read that the U.S. has agreed in Copenhagen to an annual wealth transfer to developing countries in the name of “global warming.” Of the $100 billion annual total, assume we pay a third — as we usually do. Our entire overseas development aid budget last year was $26 billion. So we’re about to increase that by 130.

But the important point, made to us by the Cornwall Alliance’s Cal Beisner, is that this deal negates Obama’s promise to use the money from selling cap-and-trade allowances to protect families from the rising energy costs of cap-and-trade. There just isn’t enough to do both. Nicely played, comrades.