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Townhall
Finance...
Obama
Proclaims: Stimulus Forever
By John Ransom
9/9/11
Bet
you didn’t know that cement was
really, really bad for you.
It’s
not actually bad for you, but
that isn’t stopping the EPA from imposing more ridiculous rules, known
as MACT,
that will require the cement industry to invest billions in new
technology over
the next two years in order to improve air quality.
Hey:
We may not have jobs, but take a
deep breath. Can’t you breath easier knowing that you’ll breath easier
in the
unemployment line now that Obama’s extending the dole?
All
this as Obama calls on Congress to
give him more money to create more unionized government workers, more
buildings
to house them, more unionized workers to build bridges to ANYWHERE.
I
don’t know about you, but the
streets in my town don’t need another layer of asphalt. It didn’t work
out so
great the last time we tried this.
What
we need is for government to stop
genuflecting to enviros and unions while kneeling on the backs of Main
Street
and industry.
The
cement industry is just another
victim in Obama’s serial job-killing spree that includes banking,
investment,
construction, home building, energy, defense and autos.
At least we still have a thriving green job
industry that requires billions in federal subsidies.
Ok.
Maybe not thriving, by they do
require the subsidies. Hence Obama’s brave call for more spending to
support
failing industries and government in the guise of job creation.
Obama’s
top job-assassins at the EPA
plan on killing another 25,000 current jobs in the cement industry- you
know,
jobs employing real people who have kids and up-to-date mortgages and
don’t
need food stamps or unemployment or subsidies- even while Obama is
calling for
$450 billion in new federal spending to create new government jobs to
replace
the old private sector jobs he killed.
With
plans like this, we could be
spending federal stimulus money f-o-r-e-v-e-r.
Get
it? Or do I have to spell it out
for you again?
Estimates
for complying with the new
cement mandates, according to the EPA and the House Energy Committee,
are
between $2.5 and $3.5 billion 2013 for an industry that generates $6.5
billion
in sales annually.
Remember
the last trillion dollar stimulus
bill that failed?
It
didn’t work because the government
really sucks at making investment choices for the rest of us- see
Security,
Social for an example. All governments suck at it- see Greece, France,
Italy,
Portugal, etc. Asking the government to make investment decisions for
the
economy is like asking an alcoholic to make up a wine menu at a rehab
facility.
It’s
just something that common sense
tells you shouldn’t be done. Of course that presupposes one possesses
common
sense in the first place.
Maybe
that’s why Obama’s so bad at
investment choices. Obama’s spending money on investments in more stuff
that
doesn’t work with one hand- see energy, solar- while he’s killing jobs
with
regulations that don’t work in the other- see cement.
He
should really just try stopping
both. Or
alternately someone could stop
him.
Read
the rest of the column with links
at Townhall Finance
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