As the Bureau of Labor Statistics was preparing to announce that South Carolina’s unemployment rate had reached an all time high of 12.3%, President Obama was boarding a plane headed for Copenhagen to broker a deal on “climate change.”
While more than a quarter of a million unemployed South Carolinians were wondering how they will make ends meet, President Obama was halfway around the world focused on global warming, instead of job creation.
As another one of our state’s citizens was getting the bad news printed on a pink slip, our President was praising the international environmental accord reached in Europe over the weekend.
It’s a matter of priorities, and I believe President Obama’s are misplaced.
Instead of focusing on meaningful job creation measures, the President has put his full support behind a job-killer called Cap and Trade. Its effects would be nothing short of devastating to our already struggling economy. According to the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University, Cap and Trade would cost South Carolina almost 19,000 jobs and $2 billion by 2020 and more than 220,000 jobs and nearly $17 billion by 2050.
With so many of our friends and neighbors out of work, Cap and Trade is one bill we cannot afford to let pass. I hope you’ll join me in calling on President Obama to put his focus on job creation through common sense initiatives like tax cuts and incentives for business to grow and expand, rather than pushing for job stifling energy taxes.
I work for a private industry and the Cap and Trade Bill would hurt my company. My company has reduced its workforce in order to be able to compete globally because the regulations in this country put us at an economic disadvantage. The consumption of oil that doesn’t produce but only pollutes is a no win situation. I find it hard to believe that American ingenuity is still relying on combustible engines in this day and time. I dislike it when there’s a blip of trouble in the Middle East; it noticeably takes money out of my pocket. As I said, the Cap and Trade Bill would hurt my company, but doing nothing to move away from the dependence on oil is money going up in smoke.
The current Administration’s priorities are beyond comprehension. I think the honeymoon was over long ago. There seem to be fewer supporters on a daily basis.
There was a sense of hope during and shortly after the election. Where is that now? The sense I get from most people is dispair, disbelief, discord and dismay.
All of these descriptions I believe come from the American people’s feeling of being disrespected.
How can this Administration and Congress have their priorities so backwards? Have they not read or at least heard of our history? Do they not understand that those who do not learn from the past are destined to repeat it? Are they trying to force us down some undisclosed path?
Only time will tell. It will tell us what the Feds have up their sleeves. It will tell if the American people are going to awaken from their slumbering indifference. Additionally, it will tell what the world reaction will be to our reaction.
The American people spoke in 08′. We need to be heard again in 10′.