The Republican Party learned little from the last election. Tweaking the party platform will not get it done. Harping on taxes is obsolete. As Americans have less and less income and assets, taxes become secondary. Promising new jobs from tax cuts gets right back to the Bush doctrine. A losing argument.
Obama’s announcement to congress this week that he will pursue cap and trade is the golden opportunity.
This will shut down more and more production and cut power supply to the bone. Blue collar jobs will go away in droves. The blue collar is the core of the Democratic party. But, Obama is trading them off for environmentalists. Can’t have it both ways, but the Republicans don’t get it. Obama gets it according to his speech. He is going to try to work both sides of the street. The Republicans will let him get away with it.
If the Republicans don’t jump all over this, all is lost.
Every refinery, steel plant, power plant and every manufacturing business, large and small, will have to purchase carbon credits. The auto industry can’t afford carbon credits. Many other manufacturing businesses can’t either right now. Power plants will close. Electricity costs will rise. Utility bills for blue collar workers will rise dramatically. None of this bodes well for any economic recovery. Nor does it work for the blue collar worker. Many more will join the ranks of the unemployment. Many more will not be able to pay utility costs and keep their houses. Obama says he won’t raise taxes on 85% of Americans, this is a tax and it’s on 100% of Americans. Obama is lying.
Scrapping this idea and moving fast to supplement our energy needs to bolster manufacturing in the U.S. will add far more jobs than the $800 billion pork project just passed.
Offshore drilling, more clean coal power plants, building new nuclear plants, drilling in Alaska, new refineries, shale extraction, combined with the efforts in wind and solar will kick start the economy. Coal gasification could add thousands of jobs. Conversion of autos to CNG would be a whole new industry. Retail facilities would need to put in new equipment. Consumers would need to put a compressor in their garages. These are all know forms of cheap energy that will bridge the country until alternative energy can kick in twenty years from now.
These actions would fuel new manufacturing in this country at economic rates. Obama’s plan will fail. Manufacturing as a percentage of the GDP will decrease even more. If the Democrats pass card check to expand unions, more jobs will be lost.
Wake up Republicans and get with the program, you can really put the Democrats on the defensive and begin to make inroads with the blue collar workers.
