The saddest thing about a guy like Obama, as opposed to say, Bill Clinton, is that if you went forward in time and showed him all his mistakes, showed him an alternate vision-- one that's successful for the country-- he is such an ideologue that he would reject the advice out of hand.
But still that doesn’t mean that I won’t share the five things Obama could do to turn the country and the economy around.
Some of these are things anyone could do. OK, anyone but Obama:
1) Negotiate with Republicans on Obamacare—This signature piece of legislation is going down and it's taking Democrats with them. Obama actually holds most of the cards and would put the GOP in a tough spot if he offered concessions. Obama runs the risk of looking like the bitter clinger he always accuses the rest of us being. But Obama won’t negotiate because Obama’s never wrong about anything. That’s what his mom said anyway.
2 ) Fold Up Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank— The banking industry doesn’t lack for regulation. It lacks for the right type of regulation. Sarbanes Oxley was supposed to fix fraud at publicly traded companies. Dodd-Frank was supposed end too big to fail. Both pieces of legislation fail at their primary mission and make Wall Street more complicated. It’s time for a bipartisan effort that deleverages Washington in Wall Street and Wall Street in Washington. You want to clean up money in politics? Then give financial companies less reason to donate money. Give them more reason to stick to their customers rather than lobbying to do in the competition. Pass bipartisan reform that permanently keeps Wall Street and Washington away from each other and really reforms financial services.
3) Approve the Keystone Pipeline— The Keystone pipeline isn’t about Canadian tar sand oil, it’s about opening the U.S. to further development of light, tight oil and gas. While it’s estimated that Canada may have as much as 2 trillion barrels of oil in reserves, “the U.S. Geological Survey estimates the [US] has 4.3 trillion barrels of in-place oil shale resources centered in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, said Helen Hankins, Colorado director for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management” according to the Associated Press.
4.3 trillion barrels is 16 times the reserves of Saudi Arabia, or enough oil to supply the US for 600 years.
As I have pointed out all along, the Keystone issue isn’t about the safety of a pipeline. Obama and enviro-whacko friends know that if they allow Canadian tar sands oil to be developed via the Keystone pipeline, that the US will also start to develop their own tar-sands and shale oil. The US contains well over 600 years of known reserves and that would allow the US to be a net exporter of oil. If that happens, the green economy ruse that the left has sponsored, already reeling from bankruptcies and cronyism, would collapse. It would show that there is no shortage of oil and “green” energy can’t compete with fossil fuels.
4) Evaluate All Legislation and Executive Action for Job Cost—There’s probably ten million jobs in the Keystone pipeline, after accounting for post construction US shale development. PwC estimates that if shale oil is fully developed, US Gross Domestic Product could grow an additional 2-5 percent per year --that’s $300 to $800 billion in extra growth…every year…compounded-- greatly reduce the influence of OPEC, lower global energy prices, and ---with NatGas thrown in-- add at least a million jobs to manufacturing that are now just going to energy costs.
That means- I’m saying this, not PwC- that we could significantly reduce the deficit, without drastically cutting benefits for a generation of Americans who have planned to count on those benefits. It means-- I’m saying this, not PwC-- we don’t have to raise taxes. Actually, it means we could go to some sort of a simplified tax code, like the fair or flat tax.
See the danger to the progressives under the enviro-whackos here? We all win. There are no losers here to pit against anyone.
Along the way, the U.S. would create at least 10 million new U.S. jobs in ten years, plus keep an average of $500 billion per year here at home yearly. Over twenty years that would be an additional $12.5 trillion in GDP even at a modest 2 percent growth rate. At 4 percent, the numbers are closer to $15.5 trillion.
Do you know how much tax revenue $15.5 trillion in GDP produces? Today it produces $5.3 trillion. That would go along way toward working off our sins.
Now, imagine if we applied the same cost-benefit analysis in jobs to every piece of legislation. Forget about money, how many jobs will this kill for American workers? That’s the question every one in D.C. should be asking.
5) Resign-- Seriously, I'm only half-kidding about this. Obama’s in way over his head in the office of president of the United States. Obama-- and his mom-- seem to be the only ones who are ignorant of the fact. If this was any other type of job he would have been fired or they would have handed him a golden parachute. Would Joe Biden be better? Yes and yes. Almost anyone would be better, with the exception of the next presidential nominee of the party—either party—who will likely be much, much worse. Hillary-Jeb 2016? Ouch.
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