Tag Archives: Barack Obama

News

LSU Professor: Repeal of oil industry tax credits will cost 150,000 jobs

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From Marathon Pundit.

Excerpt:

Two days ago I participated in a blogger conference call with Dr. Joseph Mason, a professor of finance and the Hermann Moyse Jr./Louisiana Bankers Association Endowed Chair of Banking at Louisiana State University’s E. J. Ourso College of Business.

Since the Deepwater Horizon blowout began spilling oil into the Gulf of Mexico, Mason has been a consistent voice in support of energy industry jobs. A moratorium on drilling in the Gulf could would have devastating results on employment, Mason warns. But that’s not the only threat to energy industry jobs. On Monday Mason released his latest study on tax policy, “Regional and National Economic Impact of Repealing the Section 199 Tax Deduction and Dual-capacity Tax Credit for Oil and Gas Producers.”

Dual-capacity allows oil companies to deduct taxes it pays abroad, something I was able to do when I owned a mutual fund comprised exclusively of foreign stocks. Section 199 allows companies to deduct up to nine percent of their net income derived from domestic oil production.

Okay…so what if the oil industry pays more tax? Well, that puts our nation’s energy industry at a disadvantage. Specifically, Mason argues, “Without it US-based [energy] firms compete on an uneven global playing field against Russian and Chinese firms that receive substantial state support.”

“The higher energy taxes would cost by my estimates,” Mason added, “some $341 billion in lost economic activity and $68 billion in wages.”

Wages means jobs…Just in the next year our economy will lose 150,000 jobs in the next year if President Obama and the Democrats have their way on dual-capacity and Section 199. And they might. Yesterday the Senate struck down an amendment by Florida Senator Bill Nelson, a Democrat who sees the light, to keep Section 199 in place.

As for job losses, where will they come from? Obviously in the Gulf states, but in others too. Texas will lose 38,000 jobs and Louisiana 13,500. But in other states–such as California, the painful effects will be felt as well: 23,000 lost jobs there, as well as 4,000 more in Ohio, Indiana will suffer 3,000 layoffs, and my own Illinois, which is not a big oil producer, will lose 4,500 positions. And that is just in year following the repeal of Section 199 and the dual capacity credit.

I’ll conclude with a quote from Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), “You can’t love jobs while hating the people who create them.”

I stole his whole post! I hope John doesn’t mind.

As for job losses, where will they come from? Obviously in the Gulf states, but in others too. Texas will lose 38,000 jobs and Louisiana 13,500. But in other states–such as California, the painful effects will be felt as well: 23,000 lost jobs there, as well as 4,000 more in Ohio, Indiana will suffer 3,000 layoffs, and my own Illinois, which is not a big oil producer, will lose 4,500 positions. And that is just in year following the repeal of Section 199 and the dual capacity credit.

I’ll conclude with a quote from Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), “You can’t love jobs while hating the people who create them.”

News

Obama to appoint anti-business radical to regulate businesses?

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From ABC News. (H/T Verum Serum)

Excerpt:

President Obama will announce this week that Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard Law School professor who first proposed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, will be named to a special position reporting to both him and to the Treasury Department and tasked with heading the effort to get the new federal agency standing, a knowledgeable Democrat told ABC News.

Warren currently chairs the Congressional Oversight Panel of the Troubled Assets Relief Program and has been seen by many on the Left as a force for greater accountability and transparency, and a check against the forces in the Obama administration more closely allied with the financial sector. Many officials in that sector eye her warily as too anti-business…

Naming Warren as an assistant or counselor to both the president and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner would allow the president to bypass a Senate confirmation process that could prove lengthy and contentious.

Morgen writes:

The official White House announcement tomorrow will no doubt emphasize Warren’s role in originating the idea for this agency, and her impressive academic credentials. (Credential number one – she’s a “dear friend” of Obama’s dating back to law school.)

But expect there to be major fireworks over this appointment. Just how anti-business is Warren? Here is only a preview, from her blog on TPM in 2005 (emphasis added):

The middle class is being carved up as the main dish in a corporate feast.  Strugging with flat incomes and rising costs for housing, health care, transportation, child care and taxes (yes, taxes), these folks are under a lot of financial strain.  And big corporate interests, led by the consumer finance industry, are devouring families and spitting out the bones.

Well, I think it’s safe to say she isn’t a fan of this particular industry, if not corporations in general. But with the Consumer Financial Protection Agency charged with regulating everything from mortgages to credit cards, and the companies who market them, you would think it would be helpful to have someone with at least a semblance of impartiality heading it up.

Apparently the White House disagrees.

This is why corporations aren’t hiring. They’re waiting for anti-business Obama to get voted out in 2012.

News

Stimulus-funded plant produces $33,000 batteries that go 100 miles

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From the left-wing Associated Press. (H/T Gateway Pundit)

Excerpt:

President Barack Obama celebrated the opening of an advanced battery plant in Michigan on Monday as a critical boost for hybrid and electric cars — and a success for his administration’s economic stimulus program.

But even as mass-produced advanced batteries start rolling off assembly lines, costs are high for consumers, and hurdles remain.

“This is about the birth of an entire new industry in America, an industry that’s going to be central to the next generation of cars,” Obama said Monday in a phone call broadcast at the opening of A123 Systems Inc.’s lithium ion battery plant in Livonia, Mich.

“And it’s going to allow us to start exporting those cars, making them comfortable, convenient, and affordable. …. When folks lift up their hoods on the cars of the future, I want them to see engines and batteries that are stamped: ‘Made in America,’” Obama said, according to a transcript of the call released by the White House…

…Despite the fanfare, the battery industry faces many hurdles. Gas-electric hybrid vehicles represent about 1 percent of new vehicle sales, and many plug-in hybrids and battery electric cars are just entering the market.

Costs are high. The government has estimated that a battery with a 100-mile range costs about $33,000, although stimulus money could bring that down to $10,000 by the end of 2015.

That stimulus money came from job-producing investors and private companies. The government wasted the money, after taking a cut for their unions.