We Can't Wait?

President Obama has been holding town hall meetings and giving brief press conferences since September advocating his Jobs bill that was defeated in Congress. Since that defeat, the White House and Congressional Democrats have been trying to pass pieces of the Jobs bill with the President continually stating that "We Can't Wait" for Congress to act or for the next election when so many people are out of work now.

The November Unemployment Report showed a drop in the unemployment rate to 8.6% but that's after many months of 9% or higher. Furthermore, one month's report does not establish a trend, and this is the time of the year that seasonal jobs increase. So there is no assurance that the long term trend will continue to show improvement. Consequently, the President is right to be focusing attention ... at long last... on the unemployment problem as the economic downturn continues into the end of the fourth year since Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2007.

Unfortunately, we are now learning that at the start of the Obama Presidency the substantial federal funds made available by the 2009 Stimulus law were being providing to prop up public employment and state and local governments that were in deep economic trouble. Many of these public workers are now losing their jobs as government employers are cutting spending to balance their bloated budgets.

The Washington Post spelled out the effect that the end of the Stimulus funds flowing to the state and local governments has had when the October unemployment was released:

"Amid lower tax revenue due to the recession, state and local governments have cut 455,000 jobs since the beginning of 2010, almost half of them in education. Overall, the proportion of government jobs fell to 16.7 percent in October, its lowest level in three years...

During the recession of 2008 and 2009, public employers generally held steady, not slashing jobs substantially. But since then, particularly since federal stimulus dollars ran out in 2010, the losses have been persistent."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/economy-adds-80k-jobs-in-oct-unemployment-dips-to-9percent/2011/11/04/gIQAt2ynlM_story.html

Of course, the reason that tax revenue is down is due to the continued economic decline and unemployment trends that the 2009 Stimulus failed to help reverse, as advertised by the White House and Democratically controlled Congress when the Era of Hope and Change began. The temporary and ineffective nature of that $1 trillion Stimulus program is now becoming very clear. And with government workers being added to the unemployment rolls faster than private sector workers in recent months, Obama sees an urgent need to promote his Jobs bill or any piece of it he can get Congress to enact.

In addition, the Stimulus program tried to create so-called "green jobs". That effort too has not worked very well. Green energy companies, such as the Solyndra solar panel company that received about $500 million in federal grants from the US Energy Department, have recently filed for bankruptcy. In Solyndra's case alone its bankruptcy put over 1,000 people out of work.

While there has been employment improvement in some private sector areas recently, there is one partcular area that Obama Administration actions have held back: the energy industry that actually supplies current energy needs, not the future green industries that cannot sustain themselves without federal grants. The White House recently announced a delay in making a decision about the Keystone Pipeline XL project that is actually a real "shovel ready" project that could create over 100,000 American jobs in fairly short order.

The White House delayed the decision to approve the pipeline project until after the 2012 elections due to environmental issues raised by environmental groups regarding the fragile nature of certain lands over which the pipeline would be built. The TransCanada corporation is working with the legislature of Nebraska to change the route of the pipeline to avoid some the environmental concerns. Certainly any other valid issues could also be resolved to allow this project to move forward.

As TransCanada has stated: "The U.S. $13 billion Keystone pipeline system will play an important role in linking a secure and growing supply of Canadian crude oil with the largest refining markets in the United States, significantly improving North American security supply....

TransCanada is poised to put 13,000 Americans to work to construct the pipeline - pipefitters, welders, mechanics, electricians, heavy equipment operators, among other jobs - in addition to 7,000 manufacturing jobs that would be created across the U.S. Additionally, local businesses along the pipeline route will benefit from the 118,000 spin-off jobs Keystone XL will create through increased business for local goods and service providers." http://www.transcanada.com/keystone.html

This project is good for Americans workers who need jobs, good for our national security since it helps supply oil from a reliable neighbor that is already the largest source of imported oil into the US and good for economic growth and stability. Why do we have to wait until after the 2012 election for these jobs to be created? Sphere: Related Content