This news item got a bit lost over the weekend, which may have been by intent. However, this excerpt shows you just how deeply indebted (or how like-minded) President Obama is to the radical “Green” lobby in the United States.
In a New York Times interview published Saturday, President Obama came out foursquare against the Keystone XL pipeline, claiming that it would not create jobs. “Republicans have said that this would be a big jobs generator,” Obama said. “There is no evidence that that’s true.”
(…)
Obama also blasted reports that job creation would be significant: ““[M]y hope would be that any reporter who is looking at the facts would take the time to confirm that the most realistic estimates are this might create maybe 2,000 jobs during the construction of the pipeline – which might take a year or two – and then after that we’re talking about somewhere between 50 and 100 [*chuckles*] jobs in an economy of 150 million working people.”
Wait a sec: he’s LAUGHING at jobs being created? Nice reaction from a guy overseeing the worst sustained five-year economy since the Great Depression.
Specifically, President Obama says that the Pipeline would only create “maybe 2,000 jobs” during its construction? That’s odd, since his own State Department has a slightly different number:
“Including direct, indirect, and induced effects, the proposed Project would potentially support approximately 42,100 average annual jobs across the United States over a 1-to 2-year construction period…”
Ehhh…, 42,000? 2,000? That’s sorta close: one’s only twenty-one times bigger than the other.
Hey, math is hard!!
Next, let’s look at this in context of Obama’s record. This is the same President who has thrown away billions of our tax dollars on failed Green Energy schemes which were supposed to provide “green jobs” for our economy. Let me say that again: Obama spent OUR money on Green Energy businesses that are currently failing or have already failed.
In contrast, the Keystone XL pipeline is a project that is PRIVATELY funded and is virtually guaranteed to succeed.
Just consider five of the green “investments” by the Obama Administration: Brightsource (which was offered $1.6 billion in taxpayer funds), Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*, Range Fuels ($80 million)*, Solyndra ($535 million)*, and Beacon Power ($43 million)*.
Of those five, the last four have already filed for bankruptcy, and Brightsource is in serious financial trouble.
While there is an ongoing argument about the impact of the pipeline on gasoline prices, that it will make us more energy secure is incontrovertible. Add that to the much-needed jobs for (and from) the private sector, and this should be the easiest approval of Obama’s tenure.
The American people have already figured this out, by the way:
The latest United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll finds that more than two-thirds of respondents, 67 percent, …support building the pipeline to carry Canadian oil to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast; that includes 56 percent of Democrats.
Less than a quarter of Americans, 24 percent, oppose the project, the poll shows.
One might think that a President who just made a big deal (again) about wanting to refocus on the economy and jobs would embrace something which is so widely popular and which would actually HELP the country’s jobs numbers.
That he seems indifferent to both should tell us all we need to know about his actual priorities, as well as his intentions.
Two Heads are Better Than One 
And no one talks about the price of gas. If it had been Bush….. This is the cruelest tax on the poor.
Wow, is THAT the truth, B-ville. It’s as if $4.00/gallon somehow magically has become our new baseline.
The stories about rising gas prices and “pain at the pump” were legion during Bush’s tenure. You almost got the idea that he was personally ordering the gas stations to fleece us. Yet with this guy, …not a peep. Heck, the only stories I’ve heard for at least two years are about how LITTLE control the President has over the price of gas.
Yeah, that’s just awesome.
And convenient.
Once again, JTR, you CLEARLY point out the abject hypocrisy that IS this regime. Jobs are only an issue with this President if they are public sector jobs. Strip away all of the rhetoric, and you are left with a CLEAR Socialist Progressive agenda that is focused on the destruction of Capitalism, the dismantling of personal freedom, and the growth of a ruling class.
In short, jobs of which HE approves. All other suggestions must be cast as either (A) stupid, (B) misguided, (C) or evil.
I’m really beginning to think that Sally (see her comment below) is right on the money.
Even if the whole project was job neutral, why would you not want more energy from a friend? They are going to produce it, you aren’t going to stop them by not building the pipeline.
This is the President wishing to push more green energy, high energy prices and keep the environmentalists happy.(assuming they can be) This is no different than the attacks on the coal industry, government wishing to force its agenda on Americans.
The president likes being president, likes to tell us how we should be, likes forcing what he believes on us. He however doesn’t like to govern, its something I noticed from the beginning. We have a salesman in the White House and he’s unable or unwilling to do what is needed, not what he wishes.
Agreed across the board, Blaine, with one small caveat: I think he believes that ‘what telling people what to do’ IS governing.
Some of his most loyal backers are Green Energy folks, so of course he sides with them.
Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was also a Saudi connection, as they certainly don’t want us to be energy independent.
And there could be plenty more, too.
But what I do know is this: the reasons he DOES give are vapid and outright lies. His reasoning for the lies are almost beside the point.
Given the New EPA director, Gina McCarthy, in her first speech as head of the department claimed: “curbing climate-altering pollution will spark business innovation, grow jobs and strengthen the economy.” We have a world of hurt coming our way.
It’s going to be a long 3 1/2 years.
Good piece, JTR
Thanks, Bret.
But I have to admit, Obama isn’t even making it hard for me anymore: he’s hiding in plain sight.
All of his foibles and failures are right there, out in the open.
Which is why I get so frustrated, of course: I can’t believe that EVERYONE can’t see what we see.
It’s a bit like screaming at the screen in a horror movie, telling the soon-to-be-killed actor that going down in the cellar, alone, to “find out what just made that noise” is very bad idea.
They never listen, and neither do far too many of our fellow citizens.
“There are none so blind as those who will not see”
He’s just evil.
As I just replied to Pgh (see my comment to him above), I think you’re closer to the truth than you may even realize…