Tag: jobs

Obama’s First Six Months: The Fail

Obama’s First Six Months: The Fail

Domestic

Even being kind and peering through rose-colored glasses won’t give the appearance that President Obama has succeeded in his major policy initiatives – especially when you look at real data from his first two quarters in office.

The biggest challenge he talked about in the final days of election season was the economy and his policies and initiatives have fallen well short of promise. It could be worse than just the bare unemployment figures indicate.

While there are mild signs of recovery, the overall data after two fiscal quarters of Obama’s Presidency indicate the big fail on most promises. States are the beggars next in line to come after US Taxpayers and you should expect to see lots of lobbying from them during the second half of the year.

He promised not to raise taxes on the middle class, but he certainly has. With tobacco taxes as first step and the coming Cap and Trade Bill, pretty much every person in the US will see some impact to their budget in the form of a hidden energy tax.

The effects on industry are likely to quell the mild recovery mentioned above, but he’s pressuring the Senate right now to get it passed pronto. Let us hope the Senate stops this monstrous blow on the economy and your wallet. This might also impact the balance of power in congress, as vulnerable Dems come under fire for voting for Cap and Trade.

If Cap and Trade doesn’t stall the economy, then his health care reform plan will, and that looks headed into a maelstrom of congressional indecision. Congress will take this up right after the holiday break and you should expect some major contention. It seems that everyone wants universal health care, but not many want to pay for it.

In other areas he’s appearing like Bush III rather than a Democrat president, indeed the biggest “change” might be hypocrisy.

On ethics President Obama’s promised transparency in government has been displaced by realpolitik, and the end of influence he promised has been tossed in favor of pay to play and patronage. Congress doesn’t seem to mind since they are the new jet setters on our dime, and for now the MSM is still backing the President’s plays.

Foreign

When it comes to the war on terror, Obama is a series of reversals and that’s the only reason he gains a passing grade. Here are but a few:

  • He promised to stop warrant less wiretaps, but has reversed on that.
  • He promised to end unlimited gitmo detention, but reversed on that
  • He promised to close gitmo, but now runs into the same rock and hard place Bush did.
  • He promised to release Abu Ghraib photos, but wisely reversed after counseling on that.

In every major challenge to the US from tinpots and tyrants, he’s talked softly and wielded a feather boa. The only reasons he gets a C in foreign policy are his firm prosecution of the war in Afghanistan and his follow through on the Bush policy and negotiations in Iraq. He is clearly on path to alienate some allies such as Israel, Columbia, and Japan from his soft stance and passive/agressive meddling.

The recent Honduran issue shows clearly that he is as isolationist as any hard core paleocon rightwinger, although his approach is passive / aggressive rather than blunt as a paleocon’s would be. The mixed message of “not a coup but not legal” and the pressure through OAS that our state department is sending sure isn’t impressing our allies who are opposed to Chavez’s Bolivarian Revolution in Central and South America.

I am certainly not one of those who are hoping for Obama to fail and consider it stupid for anyone to wish for that – but it appears that in many areas he is not succeeding. Hope and Change has metamorphosed into Hypocrisy and Carterdom.

Energy and Jobs

As long as energy is expensive and less abundant we will be harming our ability to compete on the world market, and decreasing jobs at most local levels. It’s a steady static downward spiral that we cannot afford to stay in.
One party has blocked new sources of energy steadily for thirty years, and during that time we’ve seen steady offshoring jobs and decreasing expectations in America. It’s time to put a stop to that, it’s time to build America anew. But ignoring reality will not gain us any relief.

There are new technologies for solar, wind, and geothermal that show a great deal of promise, but they are not ready today and cannot do the job. We must continue to use coal over the next thirty years, and we must find ways to make it cleaner while doing so. We must expand our use of nuclear energy as well to fill the gap of burgeoning energy needs.
Remember when energy prices go up, so too do food prices. While that’s a discomfort here in the US, in many countries it’s the difference between having flour or soy protein for a meal, or eating grass or foraging in the woods for food daily in poor countries. We must make energy abundant for our children and grandchildren, as well as relieve this dire pressure for the rest of the world, but we must first immediately increase our energy production capabilities across the board in our own country if we are to maintain the ability to solve the future energy problems. 50-70 Petawatthours of electricity will be needed by 2050, and we are in the 12-15 petwatthour range now. That’s a huge task and challenge, and it will take Americans working together and using an “all of the above” approach to solve.

The other impact to jobs of importing so much energy is that it’s money we send offshore – if we send the money offshore, it’s not here anymore working in our economy, which also leads to fewer jobs. The wealth of the future lies in energy creation, and it’s about time that the US started leading that new wave energy sources as we have all others. Here you see John McCain speaking in Ohio on the extreme import of extending the energy base we have now to create jobs and security while building the path to our energy future.

This topic might seem a bit dry, but it’s actually critically important to our future, especially now in this time of economic downturn. Please give it your attention.

John McCain’s Jobs for America: Simpler, Lower Taxes

In this ongoing series I’m examining the McCain Economic plans. There are 8 parts to the Jobs for America plan so I”m looking at them one at a time. The previous article on energy can be found here.

John McCain’s plan calls for simpler taxes, and relief for small business, family farms, and entrepreneurs in the form of tax cuts. Entrepreneurs are the bedrock of american prosperity and in high tax environs they cannot continue to move America forward.

By allowing first year deductions to business on capital equipment and techology investments  Jobs for America allows American workers to have the newest equipment, and helps put us back into a building and growth mode across the country. This also opens up opportunities for manufacturers who make those tools, those products, and that equipment.

That’s exactly what the Democrats do not like, they don’t like a growing America – they’d rather America be cloistered and isolated in a no-growth philosophy of decay like Europe. Barack Obama’s “Green Jobs” plan is code for hiring activists, lobbyists, and community organizers to lobby for more controls on business, more of your tax dollars, and less growth through energy initiatives and lifestye tailoring through legislation. These “green jobs” will choke growth and innovation in proven energy sectors like Nuclear, and keep us in the energy stasis we’ve been in for 35 years. It’s just more of the same with a new name. Jobs don’t come in colors, and if you artificially pump up just one sector of the economy you cripple others and stifle true innovation.

Trickle down Taxation:

Barack Obama’s plan would tax those small businesses, decrease the jobs they can offer, and increase the prices you have to pay when you buy gas, milk, bread, or school clothes. Barack’s plan is to use business as a surrogate and to indirectly tax you through them. These are the Democrats favorite tools: trickle down taxes. Barack doesn’t think you are smart enough to figure out that when you “tax the rich” you tax family farms, small business, and most American’s retirement plans and 401-k’s as corporate stock prices accomodate the higher taxation. If you work for a business, or buy things from a store then Barack’s tax plans will impact you thousands of times throughout the year — each time you go to a store. Barack Obama’s plan hits the poor, people on fixed incomes, and the middle classes the hardest in the end.

By cutting corporate tax rates, John McCain insures a growth economy, contrasted to the Obama plan which would throttle the engines of american productivity, and your pension plan or 401K by raising corporate taxes. If you are in a union, if you are in a pension plan, if you have savings, if you have a retirement account, Obama’s plan will indirectly and negatively impact those.

John McCain will ban internet and new cell phone taxes, the benefit of that should be clear to all.

Jobs for America will encourage private investment in research and development, and challenge American industry. Instead of all research coming from government grants we need to take the binds off private research by allowing tax credit for Research and Development. It is technology that keeps us strong in the world economy, and we must challenge US business’s to do much more of that.

Below you can see the Jobs for America tax reduction plan from John McCain’s campaign site:

Keep Tax Rates Low: Entrepreneurs are at the heart of American innovation, growth and prosperity. Entrepreneurs create the ultimate job security – a new, better opportunity if your current job goes away. Entrepreneurs should not be taxed into submission. John McCain will keep the top tax rate at 35 percent, maintain the 15 percent rates on dividends and capital gains, and phase-out the Alternative Minimum Tax. Small businesses are the heart of job growth; raising taxes on them hurts every worker.
Innovation Tax Policy
Ban Internet Taxes: John McCain believes we must make a farsighted, robust, and fervent commitment to innovation and new technologies to sustain our global competitiveness, meet our national security challenges, achieve less costly and more effective health care, reduce dangerous dependence on foreign sources of oil, and raise the quality of education in the United States. John McCain has been a leader in keeping the Internet free of taxes. As President, he will seek a permanent ban on taxes that threaten this engine of economic growth and prosperity.

Ban New Cell Phone Taxes: John McCain understands that the same people that would tax e-mail will tax every text message – and even 911 calls. John McCain will prohibit new cellular telephone taxes.

Cut The Corporate Tax Rate From 35 To 25 Percent: A lower corporate tax rate is essential to keeping good jobs in the United States. America was once a low-tax business environment, but as our trade partners lowered their rates, America failed to keep pace. We now have the second highest corporate tax rate in the world, making America a less attractive place for companies to do business. American workers deserve the chance to make fine products here and sell them around the globe.

Allow First-Year Deduction, Or “Expensing”, Of Equipment And Technology Investments: American workers need the finest technologies to compete. Expensing of equipment and technology will provide an immediate boost to capital expenditures and reward investments in cutting-edge technologies.

Establish Permanent Tax Credit Equal To 10 Percent Of Wages Spent On R&D: This reform will simplify the tax code, reward activity in the United States, and make us more competitive with other countries. A permanent credit will provide an incentive to innovate and remove uncertainty. At a time when our companies need to be more competitive, we need to provide a permanent incentive to innovate, and remove the uncertainty now hanging over businesses as they make R&D investment decisions.