At a Cincinnati, Ohio, concrete plant – the same one used by President Obama to promote his economic plan last month – jobs are in jeopardy by new federal regulations proposed by the Obama Administration. The vice president of the plant, Brad Slabaugh, spoke out. The VP of Hilltop Basic Resources, traveled to Washington, DC, to share his story with lawmakers.
“This is the side of the story the President didn’t tell when he traveled to our community last month,” said Speaker Boehner, “And I commend Brad for traveling to the Capitol to share it. It’s about jobs – jobs in the Tri-State area, and jobs across this country.”
The Republican Plan for America’s Job Creators focuses on removing government barriers to private-sector job growth like the “cement MACT” rule. “Everyone agrees some government regulations are needed; it’s part of the federal government’s constitutional mandate,” said Speaker Boehner. “But some federal regulations, like this one, do more harm than good, and they’re making it very difficult for small businesses in our economy to add jobs and expand.”
In Texas yesterday, President Obama continued to demand an immediate passage to his jobs bill. Democrats in Congress were publicly raising concerns and expressing outright opposition to many ideas in the President’s plan, including raising taxes on job creators in a struggling economy.
The Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told WLS Radio last week, Democrats might not even have the votes for a simple majority at this point. “There are some Senators who are up for election who say, ‘I’m never going to vote for a tax increase while I’m up for election, even on the wealthiest people,’” Durbin said. “So, we’re not going to have 100 percent Democratic Senators.”
Dick Durbin attached an amendment to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, resulting in Bank of America being forced to impose a $5 fee on customers who use debit cards. Durbin is trying to create a run-on-the-bank by telling Americans to stop doing business with Bank of America.
“Occupy Wall Street” college graduates and a largely unemployed crowd are demanding, among other utopian things, the forgiveness of school loans. I wonder if they know that Obama has requested permission to step up robocalls via cell phones for those who are delinquent in paying back their college loans.
Since Solyndra declared bankruptcy after squandering $535 million on the manufacture of $6 solar panels which was planning on selling for $3 and hoping that volume sales would prop up the huge loss, the Department of Energy decided to quadruple its rat hole investment.
In a haste to meet the Friday deadline, the Department of Energy completed $4.7 billion in power loans. SunPower ($1.3 billion), First Solar ($650 million), Prologis ($1.5 billion), all California-based companies, received loan guarantees.
Three massive solar power plants will be built in California. They will place solar panels on commercial buildings in 28 states. San Jose’s SunPower Co. with its California Valley Solar Ranch will cover with solar cells in rural parts of San Luis Obispo.
The Solar Ranch will generate 250 megawatts of electricity. NRG Energy Inc., the power plant operator, will own the Solar Ranch, having purchased it from SunPower for an undisclosed amount. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has agreed to buy the power generated. The project has created 350 jobs.
First Solar Inc. of Arizona will build a solar power plant in Riverside County for $1.5 billion and another plant in northern Los Angeles County for $646 million.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Prologis, a developer and owner of industrial real estate received partial loan guarantees of $1.4 billion to install solar panels on buildings across 28 states. It will generate 752 megawatts of electricity. The company is headquartered in San Francisco and Denver.
SolarCity of San Mateo received a partial guarantee of $344 million to install solar panels on military housing in 33 states.
The mad dash of the Department of Energy to meet the loan guarantees deadline indicates that crony capitalism is alive and well in this administration. It does not matter that the previous four recipients of loan guarantees for renewable power have gone bankrupt, unable to deliver cheaper energy as touted.
Our hard-earned tax dollars are redistributed in the grand scheme of the Marxist-Leninist agenda because Obama thinks that redistribution of wealth makes a nation richer, not poorer. The productive class is picking up the tab for these exorbitant expenditures, yet things are getting worse. Almost 20 percent of the labor force is unemployed and underemployed, that is roughly 25 million people.
This administration is creating a class of powerful bureaucrats who do not answer to anybody, not even Congress, and who rule by regulation and taxation fiat (the EPA, IRS, and the Department of Energy). They are taking the wealth of the most productive class through taxes, Eminent Domain, increased strict manufacturing and zoning regulation, water use regulation, land use regulation, and giving this wealth to the federal government to spend it generously on pet projects. Our nation’s wealth is distributed to the government elite. We are empowering bureaucrats at the expense of the individual Americans.
Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh, Ileana Writes is a freelance writer, author, radio commentator, and speaker. Her books, “Echoes of Communism”, “Liberty on Life Support” and “U.N. Agenda 21: Environmental Piracy,” “Communism 2.0: 25 Years Later” are available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle.
