Obama Chooses Politics Over Jobs

  Barack Obama continues to lean sharply left when given the choice between job creation and politics. With the country fearing a double dip recession due to high energy costs, stagnant growth, and continued high unemployment, his ideology will not allow him to bend for the good of the country. It seemed after the 2010 midterm smack down, he was willing to compromise when he agreed to extend the Bush tax rates for high income earners for the next two years. But, since then he's stated he will not agree to an extension beyond that, and he and his cohorts are ratcheting up the class warfare rhetoric leading up to 2012. It's enlightening that his ideological rigidity might be his ultimate undoing. Is he so out of touch with everyday Americans that he can't see beyond his progressive utopia to the pain his policies are inflicting? He relishes the role of a professorial lecturer enlightening the masses of  their stone age dependence on fossil fuels. He theorizes of a green energy tomorrow while doing all he can to inflict enough pain through high energy costs today, to allow the uncompetitive and well subsidized green world to blossom. It's evident green energy jobs cannot survive without huge government subsidies which American taxpayers are loathe to continue.

In January 2008, Obama told the San Fransisco Chronicle, "Under my cap and trade system electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Businesses would have to retrofit their operations. They will pass that cost unto consumers." Well, since cap and trade wasn't passed while the democrats held huge majorities his first two years, he's decided to empower the EPA to do what he couldn't do through legislation. In January of 2011 the Obama administration, for the first time ever, blocked an already approved bid to build one of the largest mountaintop removal coal mines in Appalachian history. Two new EPA pollution regulations will slam the coal industry so hard that hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost and electricity rates could skyrocket to over 23% according to a new study based on government data. He also said in 2008, "If someone wants to build a  coal power plant, they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them." That would be the ultimate result of Obama's idea of a cap and trade bill.

After the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico the administration put a moratorium on all deep water drilling, and even though the moratorium was lifted a de facto moratorium still exists. The interior departments decision to issue only a handful of permits has driven many rigs to Brazil, Cuba and Mexico, while the Gulf states have lost thousand of good paying oil industry and other ancillary jobs. Remember Obama promised to help the government of Brazil with it's offshore drilling on his March Latin American trip. He then said, "And when you're ready to start selling, we want to be one of your best customers." So much for energy independence, and job creation for hurting Americans. Even though he's given lip service to expanded drilling because of the political hit he's taking, he still has the Pacific Coast, Atlantic Coast, and the Eastern Gulf off limits to future energy production. A good portion of Alaska's Outer Continental Shelf is being kept under lock and key. According to the American Energy Alliance, expanding drilling in the OCS could create 1.2 million jobs nation wide and generate 8 trillion in economic output. The same narrative exists for further onshore production of both oil and natural gas which this administration is resisting.

Probably the most political move this administration has taken recently is the decision by the NLRB, "National Labor Relations Board," to sue Boeing over their decision to build a production plant in South Carolina for their new 787 Dreamliner. South Carolina is a conservative right to work state while Washington state, site of Boeings main product line is a very democrat union state. Boeing had gone ahead with the plant that would employ thousands with the understanding that the NLRB would not get involved. No jobs were taken from the state of Washington, and in reality two thousand jobs were added there for the production of the 787. If this lawsuit were to achieve, a chilling effect would be felt by all businesses considering relocation to increase competitiveness and expansion.

Preferring union interest over the interests of the country at large is not new for Obama. During the auto bankruptcies early in his administration, Obama took from the first in line preferred creditors to give to the United Auto workers which would not have happened in an ordinary bankruptcy. He has talked of increasing exports, a sure way to boost employment, but is sitting on three trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. These agreements were negotiated by the Bush administration, but of course opposed by unions. He is cynically demanding more taxpayer money be given to workers displaced by foreign competition through a Trade Adjustment Assistance expansion as a condition of these agreements. By doing this he will attempt to make the GOP look uncaring and fault them for the hold up, when it's obvious this is another payback to unions that give almost exclusively to the democrat party.

It's undisputed that Obama's political arm, "Organizing For America" was behind much of the union protests in Wisconsin early this year. The protests were in response to new GOP majorities attempt to reign in state employees collective bargaining rights through the leadership of GOP governor Scott Walker. The GOP has succeeded now that the state supreme court has ruled in favor of the new law. Had the law failed thousands of state workers would have been laid off to fill huge budget shortfalls. Apparently Obama was more concerned for the welfare of union bosses so he could grease the skids of campaign cash rather than those targeted for lay off. It is evident beyond a shadow of doubt that this administration is hurting economic growth and job creation because of ideological purity and subservience to political allies. You'd think the 2012 presidential election would be a cake walk for any republican that could articulate this. Only time will tell if a Reagan-esque figure will emerge.
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