Tag Archives: Employment

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Navy buys fuel for $15 per gallon from Democrat-connected green energy firm

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I found this Hot Air story on Right Wing News. Hot Air was at the top of John Hawkins’ list of the top 40 conservative blogs.

Excerpt: (with links removed)

This is going to help the Defense Department weather looming budget cuts, for sure.  Teaming up with the Department of Agriculture (which has a cheery Rotary Club ring to it), the Navy has purchased 450,000 gallons of biofuel for about $16 a gallon, or about 4 times the price of its standard marine fuel, JP-5, which has been going for under $4 a gallon.

You won’t be surprised to learn that a member of Obama’s presidential transition team, T. J. Glauthier, is a “strategic advisor” at Solazyme, the California company that is selling a portion of the biofuel to the Navy.  Glauthier worked – shock, shock – on the energy-sector portion of the 2009 stimulus bill.

The Navy sale isn’t Solazyme’s first trip to the public trough, of course.  The company got a $21.8 million grant from the 2009 stimulus package.

See, this is why we need to vote for lower and lower taxes. The more money that you give the government to spend, the more likely they are going to waste it buying votes and rewarding their supporters and fundraisers. Do you think that a private company could waste money like this, and stay afloat? No way – they have competitors to worry about. If they waste money, then they will go out of business. However, the government can just spend the money with abandon – it just gets added to the national debt. Eventually, the young people, who vote for for Obama in droves, will have to pay the money back. This will be hard for them to do given the fact that many of them are growing up without two parents supporting them, and often without a good education. What a mess. Leave the money in the hands of the private sector schools and private sector job creators – they actually have to care about pleasing customers and reducing wasteful spending.

Let’s do a quick review of more instances of stimulus spending.

What exactly was he trying to stimulate? His 2012 election campaign?

By the way, check out John’s list of the top 40 blogs – I am number 40.

News

Women in business report that regulatory uncertainty hurts job growth

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The Independent Women’s Forum explains what happened at a panel discussion of women CEOs.

Excerpt:

Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers hosted a panel discussion on Capitol Hill today that focused on the economy and job creation.  All of the panelists were CEOs.  All of them were women.

In their opening remarks, one word was mentioned by every panelist: uncertainty.

Another word, that went hand-in-hand with the uncertainty that America’s job creators are facing was “regulations.”  This word was also mentioned by every panelist.

Sandra Parrillo, President & CEO of Providence Mutual Fire Insurance, said that, as a property and casuality insurance company, they are very familiar with risk.  This year has been unprecedented in the amount of claims they’ve paid out due to an usually high number of natural disasters.  But Parrillo said her company faces enough uncertainty from nature; they don’t need uncertainty coming from Washington, DC, where hundreds of new rules are being written – often to solve problems that don’t really exist.

Lisa Hook, President & CEO, Neustar, Inc., said, “The outcome of the budget is less important to us than that there is a budget.”  Her company is traded on the stock market, and she says that the uncertainty fueling the ups and downs of the market, often driven by headlines from D.C., affects her business and her borrowing costs.

Several of the panelists derided Congress for failing to pass a budget for FY 2011.  They want to know that Congress is working to get its fiscal house in order.   They want to know what to expect from the executive branch as well, rather than having to readjust their budgets to deal with costly new regulations as soon as they are written.

Alison Brown, President & CEO, NAVSYS Corporation, went on to explain how difficult it is for small businesses to find access to working capital.  She said, “I have had to become my own bank.”  Her company isn’t publicly traded, and she pointed to Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley as two laws that have wrestled working capital from the hands of small business.

Catherine Heigel, President of Duke Energy South Carolina, echoed the sentiments of the other panelists.  She also pointed out Duke Energy would like to repatriate their foreign earnings, but without reform, they would face an effective tax rate of over 50 percent.  All of the panelists agreed that certainty (that often comes from having more cash available) could be restored to the American economy with regulatory reform, tax reform, and health care reform.  They pointed to these three areas as the areas that currently are most burdensome to businesses.

In many ways the panel today was depressing.  All of the CEOs recognized that we are in a tough time, and all of them expressed disappointment that they could not expand and add more jobs in the current business climate.

There is a problem on the left where they have this idea that they can seize profits, control businesses, impose politically correct agendas, and engage in judicial activism and businesses will just keep hiring, producing and so on. It’s the ultimate narcissism. Bureaucrats are so busy spending other people’s money and making speeches about how generous they are that they completely forget who is paying the bill.

News

Josh Mandel wants to create jobs in Ohio with more oil drilling

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Josh Mandel is pushing for energy development and more jobs in Ohio.

Excerpt:

Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, a candidate for the U.S. Senate, was in Tuscarawas County this week touting the potential benefits the oil and gas industry could bring to Ohio, including the possibility of 200,000 additional jobs.

Mandel is stepping into the debate over whether Ohio’s federal lands should be used for oil and gas exploration.

“I believe responsible exploration for oil and gas will be a win-win-win for families and senior citizens in Tuscarawas County,” Mandel told The Times-Reporter during a telephone interview Monday, hours before he held a meet-and-greet in Bolivar.

“It will create jobs, bring down utility bills, and it will contribute to the national security of our country. With more energy produced here in America, we will be safer as a nation.”

Mandel, a Republican from Lyndhurst, near Cleveland, is running for the seat in the Senate held by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Avon.

[…]The oil and gas boom in eastern Ohio will benefit not only the men and women working on the rigs, but also construction workers, truck drivers and service industry employees, Mandel contends. He said it will help waiters and waitresses, who will serve more customers, owners of hotels and motels and people who own businesses up and down the supplier’s chain.

But Mandel says he does see a threat to the industry.

“There are bureaucrats in Washington and in the state who are trying to block responsible oil and gas exploration,” Mandel said. “I will do everything in my power to combat the Washington bureaucrats who are trying to block new jobs and affordable energy in Ohio.”

[…]Mandel served two terms in the Ohio House of Representatives before ousting incumbent state Treasurer Kevin Boyce in 2010. He is a Marine Corps veteran who served two tours of duty in Anbar Province, Iraq.

Josh has a stellar record to run on.

Excerpt:

Amidst this week’s news of of Fitch downgrading the United States’ outlook from stable to negative, Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel has announced that Fitch has given the highest possible short term rating of F1+ for Ohio’s general obligation (GO) bonds.  Fitch credited Treasurer Mandel’s conservative investment strategy and cautious management of our tax dollars as key factors in making their rating determination:

“The rating reflects the strength of the state’s general obligation credit, the ample liquidity provided by investments in the state treasurer’s liquidity account, and the procedures in place to insure timely payment of optional tenders of bonds that have not been remarketed.”

They also noted:

“The investment profile is conservative as the fund is invested in U.S. Treasury and agency securities, highly rated commercial paper, and money market funds.”

Amidst a struggling economy and sluggish national growth, Fitch spoke of notable increases in the state treasurer’s liquidity account, as well as the state’s bolstering of its rainy day fund.

Fitch also noted Ohio’s improved budget stabilization fund balance in their rating. Ohio’s budget stabilization fund reached a low point in 2009 under previous administrations when the fund had been depleted down to just $0.89. In July, Ohio’s AA+ credit rating outlook was raised by Standard & Poor’s from “negative” to “stable,” in part because of conservative management of debt in the Treasurer’s office.

Since being elected, Treasurer Mandel has focused on reining in state budget costs by streamlining operations, eliminating waste, and serving as a steadfast fiscal watchdog for Ohio taxpayers’ hard-earned money.

The Republican-led General Assembly and Governor Kasich tackled Ohio’s $8 billion budget shortfall and spending imbalances head on, thus improving our state’s credit ratings.

Josh is going to be running for the Senate seat current occupied by left-wing radical Sherrod Brown in 2012.