Obama’s New and Improved Jobs Plan, Still Misses the Mark

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting a different result. In a nutshell, that is how the new & improved jobs plan Barack Obama repeatedly told congress “you should pass right away” is best summed up. Same old, same old that plunges us deeper in debt, taxes the so called rich and places more burdens on business, which will cost us jobs, not create them.

Shortly after being coronated as king in 2009, in the minds of many liberals, Obama rolled out his multi-Billion dollar “stimulus” to spur job growth with the warning of it had to be passed to keep unemployment below 8% in America. Within months, we exceeded 10% unemployment and have remained above an 8% rate ever since, slightly above 9% at this time.

Oh, we’re told how well that one worked and saved jobs. DNC chair, transplanted Florida Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz saying, “[The] mantra that the Recovery (stimulus) Act did not work is such baloney,” adding in regards to the new & improved plan, “the plan would be paid for by ‘closing corporate loopholes,’ bringing jobs back to the U.S., and by raising taxes on the ‘wealthy and more fortunate’.”

The very acts that sent American jobs overseas in the first place!

Wasserman Schultz continues, “At the end of the day, we have to make sure that we don’t continue to deepen our problems by laying off more teachers, firefighters and police officers. We have to make sure we put construction workers back to work like the American Jobs Plan would do by investing in the infrastructure we need, and we have to make sure that this is paid for by folks who are not paying their fair share now, making sure that the wealthy and more fortunate step up to the plate, and that's how we're going to get this done.”

Same old, same old. Spend tax dollars we don’t have to bolster public unions and construction unions, not one dime of new wealth created. The very new wealth that must be created to refill our dwindling treasury to pay for those needed services in the first place. And of course, the mantra of the left, stick it to the wealthy and corporations. The very corporations that produce wealth and sign paychecks while paying Billions of dollars each year in taxes, licenses, leases and fees, while the government spends Trillions.

Evidence that Obama and his Democrat minions in congress are clueless on our economy recovering lies in their ignoring millions of private sector jobs waiting to be filled in the Oil Industry. Yes, oil, that hated industry the left painted cross hairs on years ago and continues to try to bankrupt.

Mark Green of the American Petroleum Institute brings this out in his post The President's Missed Opportunity. Brought to our attention by Mr. Green, “A new study released this week by Wood Mackenzie showed that with pro-energy development policies in place, the oil and natural gas industry could generate an additional 1 million jobs by 2018, growing to 1.4 million by 2030 - all without additional federal spending. To the contrary, those added jobs would bring with them increased tax revenue, nearly $800 billion in cumulative receipts to government by 2030 - enough to have funded NASA's entire budget the past 50 years.”

The study, after informing us, “this report looks at the potential threats to production, jobs and government revenues associated with a continuation on the current path of an increased regulatory burden and slower permitting relative to historical levels,” warns of, “Wood Mackenzie’s analysis found that U.S. policies which encourage the development of new and existing resources could, by 2030, increase domestic oil and natural gas production by over 10 million boed, support an additional 1.4 million jobs, and raise over $800 billion of cumulative additional government revenue. Whereas increasing regulatory burdens on the oil and gas upstream sector will result in higher development costs, which can potentially hinder the growth of production, tax revenues, and job creation.

Continuing the current path of policies which slow down the issuance of leases and drilling permits, increase the cost of hydraulic fracturing through duplicative water or air quality regulations, or delay the construction of oil sands export pipelines such as Keystone XL, will have a detrimental effect on production, jobs, and government revenues.”

API President and CEO Jack Gerard released a statement, Monday September 12, 2011 saying in part, “The administration is not just turning its back on oil and gas jobs. It is proposing more taxes on an industry doing one of the best jobs of creating them while also delivering more than $86 million a day in revenue to the government.”

“Let’s exhaust every opportunity to create jobs and start by building on what works. Create more U.S. jobs by producing at home more of the oil and natural gas our nation will be consuming. With a few common sense changes in energy policy, an industry that created more than 9,000 jobs this summer alone – and now supports 9.2 million across the nation – could do far more.”

With OPEC dropping hints of cutting back on production, citing decreased demand, a large part being people who are unemployed and can’t afford to drive currently, we need not only the jobs ready to be filled by oil, but our energy security as well.

For all of the cries of “pay their fair share” we continue to hear, it remains lost by the left and others who continue to place cross hairs on the oil industry that it would be far better to “share the wealth” in the form on paychecks to millions of American workers, not just handed over to the government to squander.

Obama and his Democrat minions in congress continue to cry about “subsidies” to the oil companies and “tax loopholes” saying they are going to end them. Their misuse of the words raises the image of our taxes being given to the industry, when they are not, as explained in a Las Vegas Review-Journal article Big Oil ‘subsidies?’

Very revealing in this continual call from the left in ending “subsidies” and “loopholes” for the oil industry, which will decimate jobs there, not add any, is an open admission by California’s Democrat legislature that extending a $100-million film tax credit to Hollywood liberals “will create jobs.”

If retaining tax breaks to Hollywood film makers creates and saves jobs, how many more jobs could be created all across the nation by retaining them where there are millions of jobs sitting, just waiting to be given the go ahead?

For our National Security, Economic Security and the livelihoods of millions of American workers, it’s time the crosshairs came off of the oil companies they be allowed to do what they do best, employ millions more currently unemployed supplying our nation with the resources we so desperately need.