OUTFORCING of Jobs, DOWNFORCING of Energy Supplies -- Obama's "Great LEAHP Backward"
Author: Jim Guirard
Source: TrueSpeak.org
President's Barack Obama's much-ballyhooed White
House "summit" on jobs in December 2009 seemed at the time
(and still does) to fly into the teeth of his own major proposals on energy,
on the environment and on healthcare -- all of which are huge job-killers.
Unless he issues convincing reversals of
all three initiatives, he will seem like nothing but a self-deceptive
fool -- or even a cynical scam artist -- when he projects the "robust
job growth" of which he has been so loosely speaking of late.
First, the US House of Representatives'
razor-thin 219-212 passage of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid cabal's 1400-page
American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act back in August was loudly
advertised by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others as a "jobs, jobs, jobs,
jobs" bill -- when it is in fact exactly the opposite.
Now, an even more dangerous and ruinous
companion measure is being promoted and hyped in the Senate by Senators
Barbara Boxer and John Kerry, whose monumentally false title is the "Clean
Energy Jobs and American Power Act" -- and whose so-called "Green
Jobs" and "Green Energy" schemes are so poisonous to
the national economy and the national security as to merit the dreaded
label of "GANGRENE" (pun fully intended) and the equally
dreaded remedy of AMPUTATION.
The prospect of job growth under the job-killing
provisions of the Committee-approved bill is so implausible that this
Kerry-Boxer concoction has prudently been set aside "until sometime late
in the Spring" -- and may never see the light of day in the full
Senate.
But in the meantime, it will be displayed
as proof of the President's continued commitment to the "Climate
Change" goals of the recent UN-sponsored conference in Copenhagen,
which actually fell apart at its patently un-scientific seams.
First, the OutForcing of Jobs
While President Obama and the Pelosi-Reid "Progressives" in
Congress foretell a glorious future of "energy independence"
and countless millions of new "Green" jobs, here are a dozen
or more general -- namely, regulatory and tax-related as opposed to
energy-specific -- elements of their energetic OUTFORCING of American
jobs (especially high-carbon manufacturing, mining and refining jobs)
and of capital investment.
But that is only the first half of the
nightmare. Completing the roadmap to economic disaster for America will
be yet another dozen examples of the equally deadly DOWNFORCING of almost
all major domestic sources of energy, resulting inevitably in Less Energy
at Higher Prices -- a "Great LEAHP Backward" to be sure).
First, the disincentives which are largely
not energy specific, followed by those that are:
o Strident NIMBY (not in my backyard) opposition
to most new plant sittings -- especially petrochemical and heavy manufacturing
facilities;
o Overly stringent environmental and "environmental justice"
regulations, restrictions and even outright prohibitions on both new
and existing plants;
o Excessive taxation -- corporate taxes (already 2nd highest
in the world); "Excess Profits" taxes; personal income taxes; capital
gains and dividends taxes; "Cap and Trade" taxes, fees and penalties;
"Healthcare Reform" taxes, fees and penalties; excise taxes;
and death and inheritance taxes.
o Excessive paperwork, OSHA, Workman's Comp, environmental and
multiple other "compliance" burdens;
o Excessive union-driven fringe and overhead costs, often exceeding
wages;
o Blocking of tort reform and major
"class action" reform at State and Federal levels;
o Attacking, undermining state
"Right-to-Work" laws;
o Widely expanding Davis-Bacon
wage rates, including to all "Stimulus"-funded projects;
o Expanding Big Labor powers via
the "Card Check" threat to free and fair voting in union affairs.
While no single one (or even two or three)
of these anti-business and high-tax factors is fatal to the economy, the
cumulative disincentives they impose on job retention, job creation
and capital formation are plainly suicidal -- particularly when underpinned
by the Government's "TARP-style" partial take-overs of selected
companies and even entire segments of the economy.
Importantly, both this dozen or more
"killers" and an equal number of energy-specific items presented
below are traceable almost entirely to the congressional Democrats --
my fellow Democrats, I am sad to say -- and to a President who is in
process of stomping on jobs and capital even more so.
Also, the DownForcing of Energy Supplies
Next come the powerful job-killing elements
of the "Progressive" Democrats' DOWNFORCING of virtually all
domestic energy supplies -- except for the marginal ones of wind, solar,
thermal and heavily subsidized ethanol -- which are as follows:
o Either discouraging or forbidding oil
and gas exploration and production from the ANWR Coastal Plain; from virtually
all new "Offshore" waters; from most Western Federal Lands; from
Rocky Mountain shale oil deposits; and even from Canadian Oil Sands
o Restricting most coal-fired (even
"clean coal") power plants -- and mining of the coal to powers
them;
o Opposing new nuclear power plants and centralized nuclear waste
storage for over 30 years -- with plans now to de-fund the Yucca Mountain
depository in Nevada;
o Blocking all, except one, new petroleum refineries and many petro-chemical plants for over 30 years;
o Opposing new hydro-power plants, and even some existing ones;
o Imposition of a highly restrictive
assortment of "carbon footprint" penalties and fines for achieving
the so-called "Greening" of America -- no matter what the cost.
Those who complain that for too long
we have had "no energy policy" are dead wrong. For many years,
we have had the de facto policies of ":Less Energy at Higher
Prices" (LEAHP) detailed above -- whose principal elements are now
being made even more restrictive, more onerous and more expensive by
the new Obama Administration.
In these circumstances, Obama's and Pelosi's drumbeat
mantra of "jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs" needs four more words inserted
therein -- jobs OUTFORCED, jobs DOWNFORCED, jobs FORSAKEN and jobs ABORTED.
Anti-CO2 Crusade of the "Branch
Carbonian Cult"
In the final analysis, it is those zealots
of what should be called the "Branch Carbonian Cult" who are
so fervently worshiping at the pseudo-religious altar of Anthropogenic
(man-made) Global Warming -- rather than solar, ocean currents, volcanic and
other natural cycles -- who are threatening to bring this great nation
to its knees via the unforgiving nature and tactics of their correctly
descriptive new name ....
o "Branch" because it is a radical offshoot from the main body of science-based environmentalism;
o "Carbonian" because of its mistaken fear of carbon dioxide as a primary cause of the alleged AGW; and
o "Cult" because of its self-evident structure and practices -- which are in full accord with most elements of the typical religious cult, Branch Davidian, Branch Jim Jonesian or otherwise.
Led first by the dour, tree-hugging Al Gore and his EPA Secretary and "ghost writer" Carol Browner, and now by the Elmer Gantry-style Barack Obama and his own Energy Czar and "ghost thinker" Carol Browner -- such a remarkable coincidence of names !! -- with the lady's latest incarnation having come to the Obama White House via the Socialist Internationale.
And, of course, they are doing all of this in the "Progressive" spirit of President Obama's loudly proclaimed "Audacity of Hope" -- which in this case is actually an Audacity of HYPE about a vital trace gas (carbon dioxide) in the atmosphere which over the last century has risen from a normal 1/4000th to an "alarming" 1/3000th of the whole.
According to the "Branch Carbonians"
and their "Great LEAHP Backward" on both jobs and energy,
only a radically low-carbon (and therefore suicidal) solution will save the
planet. And anyone who dares to disagree is condemned as a corporate
polluter, a tool of "Big Oil" and (alas) a Heretic -- as explained
in detail in the August 23, 2009 AmericanThinker.com posting at http://www.americanthinker.
JIM GUIRARD -- TrueSpeak.org 703-768-0957 Justcauses@
A Washington DC-area attorney, writer and national security strategist, Jim Guirard was longtime Chief of Staff to former US Senators Allen Ellender and Russell Long of Louisiana. His TrueSpeak.org web site is devoted to truth-in-language and truth-in-history in public discourse.