PrintSeptember 13, 2010
Obama to kill more jobs
The latest job killing initiative by Barack Obama: focus new taxes on the oil and gas industry.
Just last week, President Obama explicitly targeted the industry for two massive tax hikes. First, he'd ban oil and gas companies from using the "Section 199" tax credit, a measure for domestic manufacturers enacted in 2004 to boost US employment. (The Senate is set to vote this week on its version of the ban.) Second, he wants to end "dual capacity" protection for US energy firms.Without this shield against double taxation on foreign revenues, American companies would be competing on an uneven global playing field. Again, Obama aims directly and specifically at the US oil and gas industry.Yet, by the federal government's own economic model, these tax hikes would lead to huge, immediate job losses. I ran the numbers through the Commerce Department's RIMS II model; it shows, under the proposed changes to Section 199 and dual capacity, Americans would almost immediately lose more than 150,000 stable, private-sector jobs.By repealing the tax credit US-based companies claim on the taxes they pay abroad, Obama's "stimulus" plan would effectively double-tax American businesses -- driving investment to foreign competitors that don't face the same tax burden.
Again, Obama is enriching foreign oil companies at the expense of domestic ones. He has done this previously when he extended billions in loans to the Brazilian oil company Petrobras with extensive offshore oil programs through the U.S. Export-Import Bank, while trying to kills off offshore oil exploration in the Gulf by our companies.
Obama did it again this past week when the Ex-Im bank extended another billion in loans to support Mexican oil development in the Gulf. Obama seems to relish the opportunity to redistribute power and wealth to foreign countries and companies at our expense.
Why?
As Dinesh D'Souza writes, not only is Barack Obama the most anti-business President in American history but he seems to relish the opportunity to enrich and empower foreign companies at the expense of American ones. D'Souza speculates this is a legacy of Obama's immersion in foreign cultures as a child and the anti-colonial views of his father. American companies were seen as greedy and rapacious. His father railed against neo-colonialism where foreign companies replaced foreign government officials as the ruling power in the third world. His Indonesian stepfather worked for an American oil company in Indonesia and earned far less and lived a lesser lifestyle than American executives posted there. Also, Obama feels Americans use too much energy and that the lesser-developed nations should be entitled to use more, at our expense. What better way than to extend our tax dollars to foreign oil companies?
This strategy also is a way to further to enrich promoters of green schemes that benefit Democratic donors. The stories are accumulating of politically connected Democrats plugged into green schemes that depend on government powers that be, since the economics don't exist-being showered with government money-that they recycle into Democratic campaigns.
America, Obama is just not into us.
