Three years in, and the Obama administration’s attempts to fix unemployment have been about as effective as trying to scratch your ear with your elbow.
Nate Beeler / Washington Examiner (click to view more cartoons about "Obama's Bad Economy")
Despite countless tricks, schemes and maneuvers to change the labor outlook in this country, the administration either lacks the ability to work their way through the problem, or it simply refuses to for fear of going against the Progressive agenda. Good leaders usually surround themselves with those qualified to make up for their weaknesses. Given Obama’s obvious executive experience shortfalls, one could only hope he would have chosen experts, rather than far-left job-killing ideologues, which are to job-creation what Hurricane Irene was to the East Coast.
As Obama prepares yet another speech to introduce his latest and greatest “plan” to jump-start the economy and create jobs, his hand-picked minions are scurrying to-and-fro doing his dirty work. One shining example is General Electric (GE) CEO Jeffrey Immelt, who Obama appointed as chairman of Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Immelt’s appointment seemed illogical considering under his watch, GE’s stock dropped nearly 60 percent and Immelt was named as one of the five worst CEOs in 2008 — not to forget his business dealings with Iran and weaseling out of paying corporate taxes.
Nonetheless, Immelt was appointed. Speaking at a GE plant in Schenectady, NY, in January, President Obama recognized Immelt as someone who “understands what it takes for America to compete in the global economy.” I’m sure it is somehow Bush’s fault, but somewhere between Obama’s mouth and my ears, the word “compete” got lost in translation. To the average person, competing in the global economy means winning, but it apparently means something quite different to those who embrace “spread the wealth ideology.” For Immelt, it obviously means spreading America’s jobs around — to China.
On August 24, 2011, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-OH demanded that Immelt resign in order to save the Obama administration the embarrassment of his firing. In a press release, Kucinich accused Immelt of “exporting highly-sophisticated technology to the Chinese in order to book short-term profits for GE.” Referring to a report in the Washington Post, Kucinich claimed Immelt gave airplane display system “Synthetic Vision technology created by NASA” and subsidized by American taxpayers.
“U.S. taxpayers’ investments,” Kucinich wrote, “will end up creating jobs in China.” Kucinich claims under Immelt’s leadership, “GE has cut one-fifth of its US workforce while increasing overseas employment.” Kucinich closed with the statement that Immelt “is more qualified to be head of “Jobs and Competitiveness for a country other than the United States.”
The job-killing mania does not stop here, but continues with the Obama administration recently making a brazen attempt to dictate where a large job-creating company, Boeing, can and cannot produce its 787 Dreamliner aircraft. According to the New York Times’ Joe Nocera, Boeing has “827 Dreamliners on order” to be built by non-union workers at a plant in North Charleston, South Carolina.
The word “non-union” is significant here, and the Obama administration has its fingerprints all over the recent action taken by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which is filled with a number of labor union-loving Obama appointee zealots who care more about unions than they do about the 5000 North Charleston workers who may be unemployed, if the NLRB complaint against Boeing is not reversed.
Five thousand workers in Charleston pales in comparison to the recent discovery that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under the direction of Obama appointee Lisa Jackson, is expected to unroll new ozone regulations that, according to a Manufacturers Alliance study, could cost up to 7.3 million jobs by 2020.
Obama has wasted three years playing golf, appeasing his political allies and promoting his Progressive agenda rather than creating jobs, and is blind to the suffering of everyday Americans, many of whom would like to celebrate the possibility of a job to go to on this Labor Day 2011.
© Copyright 2011 Susan Stamper Brown. Susan’s weekly column is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For more info contact Cari Dawson Bartley at 800- 696-7561 or email cari@cagle.com. Email Susan at writestamper@gmail.com.
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