Jobs Obama is trying to kill
Image via WikipediaFor all his talk of job creation, Presi dent Obama has targeted many occu pations for extinction. Using un elected bureaucrats to implement a host of job-killing measures, his administration is generating piles of pink slips:He also mentions restrictions on the fishing industry. The one thing that all these job killers have in common is a control freak government that does not trust the free market to manage these businesses. Obama is actively trying to destroy the carbon based energy business while he subsidizes less efficient forms of energy like wind and solar. This will have a cascading effect on those who use energy like manufacturing.
Oil: Even before the BP spill, Obama's Interior Department had cracked down on domestic drilling. In 2009, regulators allowed less than $1 billion in new oil and natural gas leases on federally controlled areas -- both onshore and offshore -- compared to $10 billion under President George W. Bush the year before.
Then, in response to the Gulf spill in April, Obama slowed down things even further, with a moratorium on deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. That proved so unpopular that the administration officially ended it -- but it remains in force unofficially, as regulators bottle up drilling permits with red tape and delays, keeping workers idle. Most recently, Obama regulators placed the entire Atlantic and Pacific coasts off limits to drilling.
Factories: Rising regulatory burdens, energy prices and health-care costs -- Obama has left no stone unturned in making American manufacturing globally less competitive and in forcing jobs overseas.
For example, several new Environmental Protection Agency permit requirements have shut down the construction of coal-fired power plants needed to provide manufacturers with affordable electricity. Jeffrey Holmstead, a former top air-quality EPA official, noted that in 2009 the incoming Obama bureaucrats "withdrew permits that had already been issued," and that "dozens are being held up today because they have no way to meet a new standard that EPA has put out."
It will soon get worse. A barrage of new regulations, including measures intended to address global warming, will hit in January 2011 -- directly targeted manufacturers, and far more costly and complex than anything imposed by America's global competitors, like China, on their own industries.
Mines: The decades-long regulatory squeeze on minerals mining continues unabated, and the Obama administration has now added coal mining to the hit list. The attack includes global-warming regulations that seek to restrict demand for coal and also direct attempts to stop new coal mines from opening.
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This is a jobs issue the GOP needs to do a better job of exploiting.
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