If Obama TRULY wants to improve our #Economy, here’s what to do: “Get Out Of Its Way…”

Well I certainly feel more confident now, knowing that the President is finally clearing his busy golf-&-vacation schedule in order to once again “focus like a laser” on the economy.

“See? When I bite my lip and squint reeeeaaal hard, it makes it LOOK like I’m focusing….”

From TheHill.com:

President Obama will deliver the first in a series of economic speeches Wednesday aimed at gaining the upper hand in this fall’s looming budget showdown with Congress.

(…)

Senior Obama adviser Dan Pfeffier told reporters in an email Sunday that Obama wants to steer Congress away from “phony scandals” and to prioritize economic benefits for the middle class in the looming budget wars.

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***UPDATE 7-24-2013: Here’s a review of Obama’s speech, via Erika Johnsen…

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Yay???

Ed Morrissey over at HotAir apparently shares my enthusiasm, as well as my sense of déjà vu:

I’ve lost count of the pivots back to jobs and economic growth Barack Obama has promised over the years. (The NRCC counts eleven times, but that seems low.)  His first promised pivot came in December 2009, when he promised to put off ObamaCare and conduct a “hard pivot” to jobs, which had continued their decline 10 months after the passage of his $800 billion stimulus.  That ended up being a 360-degree pivot as the White House put on the full-court press for ObamaCare anyway.

A year later, after the disastrous midterm elections, Obama pledged that economic growth would be his “singular focus.” Eight months later, Obama again insisted that it was his “singular focus,” despite not putting forward any pro-growth agenda and a Democratic Senate actively blocking the Republican House’s legislation.

The result: American GDP growth in 2011 came to 1.8%, less than 2010′s wan 2.4%, and in 2012 came to a similarly stagnant 2.2%.

“Okay folks, let’s have a big round of applause for…..ME!”

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No, the President would rather pretend to focus on the economy, while actually trying to foment resentment towards a wide swath of folks, but especially those in the Oil, Gas and Coal industries. For example, how encouraging is it for people in those sectors to continually hear populist rhetoric regarding “tax breaks for Oil and Gas“, which he and his minions repeat ad nauseam:

Retweet if you think we should eliminate wasteful tax breaks for the oil and gas industry, saving American taxpayers $4 billion a year.

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) July 15, 2013

When I read this Tweet, I literally laughed out loud: it’s just so completely and factually wrong! The Oil and Gas companies already PAY more than their “fair share” in taxes, and they do so while making a far-less-than-excessive profit margin.

John Stossel nails it:

Another myth: Big Oil makes “excess” profit.

Nonsense.

The oil business is fiercely competitive. If one company charges a penny too much, other companies steal its business. Apple’s profit margin is about 24 percent. McDonald’s makes 20 percent. Oil companies make half that.

Per gallon, ExxonMobil makes about 7 cents. Governments, by contrast, grab about 27 cents per gallon. That’s the average gas tax.

If anyone takes too much, it’s government.

Not enough? Okay, then: over at EnergyForAmerica.org, they have a post that thoroughly details the alleged “tax breaks”/subsidies for oil and gas. However, it can be summarized by this handy-dandy graphic (*click* on the image to enlarge):

**CLICK IMAGE to ENLARGE**

Obama’s demonizing of Big Oil and Big Gas, along with his continued delay of the Keystone XL Pipeline and his personal jihad against the coal industry, puts the lie to his “all of the above” pandering, even as it effectively depresses potential investing in those sectors. And that, coupled with another hundred examples, is practically guaranteeing our economy will continue to limp along for the foreseeable future.

Come to think of it, given his “solutions” to our economic woes, we’d be far better off if Obama focused on his golf game, instead of the economy.

How sad is that?