President Obama is called The Anti-Jobs President on today's Wall Street Journal editorial page. I beg to differ. He's for some jobs and against others.
To gain clarity about Obama's bifurcated approach, just think about public sector versus private sector employment, and political supporters versus political opponents.
In fact, our President is all for raising taxes to pay for more public sector jobs. As proof, just recall his recent so-called American Jobs Act proposal when he urged Congress to approve additional taxpayer funds to support hiring more teachers.
What uses taxpayers may have for creating jobs themselves with their money is never of concern to him. He's confident that the government can make better decisions about spending that money than those who earned it. Besides, most of the high earners he intended to tax probably won't vote for him in November, while most teachers will. So he wants to create more taxpayer funded public sector jobs.
Accordingly, he isn't anti-all-job creation efforts. The President simply prefers government created and taxpayer funded public sector employment.
On the other hand, he's apparently opposed to specific private sector energy related jobs which don't require taxpayer funding. Or maybe he's just against serious North American energy independence efforts. Or perhaps he doesn't like the Canadians.
Now let's review the aforementioned editorial. After summarizing the reasons offered by the President for not approving the XL pipeline private sector jobs creating project, which would be market driven and therefore at zero cost to the taxpayer as well as a serious step toward North American energy independence, Obama's pipeline delay decision is summarized:
"This is, to put it politely, a crock.
Keystone XL has been planned for years and only became a political issue after the well-to-do environmental lobby decided to make it a station of the green cross. TransCanada filed its application in 2008, and State determined in 2010 and then again last year that the project would have "no significant impacts" on the environment, following exhaustive studies. The Environmental Protection Agency chose to intervene anyway, and the political left began to issue ultimatums and demonstrate in front of the White House, so President Obama decided to defer a final decision until after the election.
The missed economic opportunity was spelled out Tuesday by Mr. Obama's own Jobs Council, which released a report that endorsed an "all-in approach" on energy, including the "profound new opportunities in shale gas and unconventional oil." The 27 members handpicked by the President recommended that he support "policies that facilitate the safe, thoughtful and timely development of pipeline, transmission and distribution projects," and they warned that failing to do so "would stall the engine that could become a prime driver of U.S. jobs and growth in the decades ahead."
Only last week the White House issued a "jobs" report praising domestic energy production, but that now looks like political cover for this anti-jobs policy choice."
The editorial concludes with these comments:
"Environmentalists seem to think they can prevent the development of Canada's oil-rich tar sands, and that their rallies against Keystone XL will keep that carbon in the ground. They can't, and it won't. America's largest trading partner will simply build a pipeline to the Pacific coast from Alberta and sell its petroleum products to Asia instead, China in particular.
Such green delusions are sad, and Mr. Obama's pandering is sadder, though everything the country stands to lose is saddest. If Mitt Romney and the other GOP candidates have any political wit, they'll vindicate the Keystone's "national interest" and make Mr. Obama explain why job creation is less important than the people who make a living working for the green anti-industrial complex."
So there we have it. Let's sum up.
Political posturing trumps job creation in the private sector.
Political posturing trumps efforts at energy independence.
Political posturing trumps serious efforts at fiscal sanity.
Presidential politics this year will be in large part about pandering to supporters; public sector employees, environmentalists and the unions.
It will also include populist efforts to make the fat cats pay their "fair share."
Before 2012 has ended, we'll see how many jobs this approach is likely to create or save. Like the President's, for example.
Politics sucks.
Thanks. Bob.
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