Last week, the House passed a slam-dunk jobs bill (H.R. 3606) 390-23.  The bill reduces red tape, securities regulations, and reporting requirements on small companies that desire to go public.  It also eliminated some of the new regulations implemented under Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley on companies that generate less than $1 billion in annual revenue.  With all the unctuous complaints about partisanship, one would expect the Senate to harness this rare opportunity to work together and pass the bill expeditiously.  With Harry Reid in charge of the Senate, all bets are off.

Reid announced that he would bring the House bill to the floor, but would attempt to attach a non-germane amendment to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, which expires May 31, through 2015 and raise its loan limit from $100 billion to $140 billion.  He is taking a no-brainer bill and sinking it with a poison pill.  What’s worse, the consideration of the House jobs bill was supposed to be the prize to Republicans for agreeing not to block Obama’s judicial nominees that are being rammed through the Senate in short order.

Unfortunately, the Ex-Im corporate welfare bank is not necessarily a poison pill for many Republicans.  In typical pale-pastel fashion, House leaders planned to bring a separate Ex-Im bill to the floor that would enact one-year reauthorization at $113 billion.

At a time when we are fighting against Obama’s corporate welfare, why are we picking winners and losers in the market by extending taxpayer loans to entities that are too risky to receive private-sector loans?  When we are scouring Obama over his loans to failed solar energy companies, why are we agreeing to expand the Fannie Mae of corporate welfare?

Republicans must call out Harry Reid for his duplicity and must stand united against the Ex-Im Bank reuthorization.

Earlier today, the Senate began voting on a series of 30 amendments to the highway bill (S.1813).  The three important amendments regarding energy subsidies that we referenced earlier (2 bad, 1 good) were postponed until next week.  However, here is a list of other commonsense amendments that were voted down by Democrats.  It is truly sad that at a time when gas prices are at a record high Democrats are willing to place the interests of the eco-radicals ahead of American consumers.  They also showed that, once again, they have no interest in creating jobs or cutting spending:

• Hoeven amendment no. 1537 that would provide for approval of the Keystone XL pipeline between Canada and the United States.  It was rejected 56-42 (60 votes were required).  Only 11 Democrats were willing to vote for Keystone, and even most of those only did so once they realized that the amendment would fail anyway.
• Collins amendment no. 1660 that would delay the implementation of EPA emission standards for industrial and commercial boilers, known as Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) standards, and grant the agency 15 months to propose new rules.  It was rejected 52-46 (60 votes were required).  8 Democrats voted for the amendment; Scott Brown voted against it.  Again, those Democrats got a hall pass to support an amendment that was destined to fail anyway.
• Vitter  amendment no. 1535 that would allow new oil and gas leases throughout the outer continental shelf. It was rejected 44-54 (60 votes were required).  3 Democrats voted for it; Brown, Collins, Murkowski, and Snowe voted against it.

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Earlier today, the Senate began voting on a series of 30 amendments to the highway bill (S.1813).  The three important amendments regarding energy subsidies that we referenced earlier (2 bad, 1 good) were postponed until next week.  However, here is a list of other commonsense amendments that were voted down by Democrats.  It is truly sad that at a time when gas prices are at a record high Democrats are willing to place the interests of the eco-radicals ahead of American consumers.  They also showed that, once again, they have no interest in creating jobs or cutting spending:

• Hoeven amendment no. 1537 that would provide for approval of the Keystone XL pipeline between Canada and the United States.  It was rejected 56-42 (60 votes were required).  Only 11 Democrats were willing to vote for Keystone, and even most of those only did so once they realized that the amendment would fail anyway.
• Collins amendment no. 1660 that would delay the implementation of EPA emission standards for industrial and commercial boilers, known as Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) standards, and grant the agency 15 months to propose new rules.  It was rejected 52-46 (60 votes were required).  8 Democrats voted for the amendment; Scott Brown voted against it.  Again, those Democrats got a hall pass to support an amendment that was destined to fail anyway.
• Vitter  amendment no. 1535 that would allow new oil and gas leases throughout the outer continental shelf. It was rejected 44-54 (60 votes were required).  3 Democrats voted for it; Brown, Collins, Murkowski, and Snowe voted against it.

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American Trucking

American trucking would qualify as a threatened species if we were an animal.

In the next few years this group, which is currently short drivers as it stands, will lose more than 10% not through attrition, but through regulations and subsidized competition.

It is pretty bad when under NAFTA it will be cheaper to move cargo as far as 90 miles North of the Mexican border to Mexico first, and then drive it as far as 600 miles in.

It is sad that it could become Mexico that ships a lot of our goods as well, since it would be cheaper by 30% to have goods hauled 600 miles to a Mexican port than 600 miles to an American port.

The plight of American trucking may be the only thing to unite the Teamsters Union with Republicans. So severe is the damage that my estimate is NAFTA may ultimately cost America 500,000 jobs. Tied with the damages happening due to new Department of Transportation rules and a minimum of 10% of American trucking jobs will be lost.

It would be bad enough if this was the only assault going on right now… but it is not. New rules on emissions have increased the cost of a new truck as high as 125%, cities and counties strapped for cash are pulling trucks over more often due to the higher ticket payouts trucks generate, new regulations make for less pay, new requirements make independent drivers face impossible to continue being independent, and so forth.

We are under a full assault, and we are losing.

Truckers are aware of what is happening, but the general public is mostly unaware. Talks of boycotts keep climbing from drivers… wether denying certain cities goods or with a rolling roadblock effort… the talk is getting grimmer in truck stops.

However those efforts would fail, ultimately because the affected cities would get goods anyways, the roadblocking trucks would get hefty tickets they could ill afford to pay.

Our only two hopes are for the public to hear us, or for politicians to hear us.

If you, reading this today, emailed this to ten others, you can do you part to save 600,000 jobs. Bring awareness, bring stability, bring back common sense! Thank you for your time.

P.S. another way you can help is to donate to my campaign, a donation of $5, $10, $15, or $20 can go a long ways to helping my campaign to help truckers. In Oregon ANYONE can contribute, and in any amount they wish to do so. Click here to donate

I am Michael Harrington and I endorse this message!
MichaelHarrington.org

To hear the White House and President Obama tell it, high gasoline prices are here to stay and we better get used to them. If Americans would quiet down and accept $4.00 a gallon gas, it would certainly make the President and his environmentalist allies happy—but it would also require us to forget everything we know about American energy.

During the years I was speaker the average price for a gallon of gasoline was $1.13, and when President Obama took office in January 2009 the average price nationwide was $1.89 a gallon. Three years into the Obama presidency, the average is $3.47 a gallon.

Today, prices like those we enjoyed three years ago seem like a fantasy, and under the president’s current policies, they are. But these were prices Americans paid in the recent past. We can achieve $2.50 a gallon gasoline if we want to.

Read More →

To hear the White House and President Obama tell it, high gasoline prices are here to stay and we better get used to them. If Americans would quiet down and accept $4.00 a gallon gas, it would certainly make the President and his environmentalist allies happy—but it would also require us to forget everything we know about American energy.

During the years I was speaker the average price for a gallon of gasoline was $1.13, and when President Obama took office in January 2009 the average price nationwide was $1.89 a gallon. Three years into the Obama presidency, the average is $3.47 a gallon.

Today, prices like those we enjoyed three years ago seem like a fantasy, and under the president’s current policies, they are. But these were prices Americans paid in the recent past. We can achieve $2.50 a gallon gasoline if we want to.

Read More →

Cross-Posted: TobyToons.com (Conservative Political Cartoons)

Cross-Posted: TobyToons.com (Conservative Political Cartoons)

Obama on Jobs

Barack Obama has a plan and here it is plain and simple.

He waited until September to present his “jobs plan” for several strategic reasons. And ALL of them are political and about his reelection campaign.

For the first six weeks or so nobody will see any difference and Obama can say the plan is working. The September unemployment numbers will come out in early October and he can say they were “preplan” no matter what the numbers say. Then in November the retail stores will begin to hire seasonal help and no matter what the October unemployment numbers are Obama will try to leverage the holiday hiring and say his plan is working.

When January rolls around and the unemployment number dip, Obama will say that is due to the end of the seasonal hires but more Americans are working and his plan is working. Flat unemployment numbers for the first quarter and the GOP pounding Obama on the economy and government spending will have Obama crying foul that the GOP and Tea Party are trying to make him look bad during an election year. Maxine Waters will come out and say it’s because he is black and the Tea Party racist are out to get Obama by spreading incorrect unemployment and economic numbers and that the US is well on the way to recovery.

By April, when the unemployment rate is still over 9%, Obama will then turn to the “name-blame-game” touting the GOP, Tea Party, Hurricane what’s-its-name, European countries, China, Greece, Italy, the problems with Syria, middle east and the UN failed sanctions on Iran/Iraq/Isomebody. By then Obama will be in full campaign mode and his speeches will target blacks, Hispanics, middle class, liberals, and anyone else who will listen stating that the county was in a deep hole from George W. Bush and that America is coming out of it now but we are only half way there. He will state the “hope and change” plan was an 8 year program and now is not the time to change horses.

The July unemployment numbers will be released in early August and somehow they will come in at 8.8% down a full 3/10^th of 1 point. Obama will claim victory and state once again, America is on the way back don’t stop this momentum now.

August will also see the GOP elect their nomination for President and as the summer winds down, the rhetoric, media, spin, and Obama love affair will be back in full swing touting that the GOP has no answers so keep Barack in there to “finish the job”

November will come around and Obama and the liberal media will be singing praises for the great recovery America is headed into and now is not the time to stop giving hope and change.

So there it is all laid out for everyone to see. But somehow people won’t see it this way, they will drink the Obama socialist liberal kool-aid and think yeah I guess we need to give Obama another shot. If the Americans do that, well say good bye to the America we know and love. It will be like what the terrorist did to America on 9/11 only this time the destruction will continue to come from within.

Throughout the entire debt ceiling imbroglio, Democrats incessantly regurgitated the talking point about the need for “a balanced approach.”  They were so uniform and synchronized that they sounded like the sheep in Animal Farm.  Ironically, their idea of a balanced approach was singularly focused upon Oil Company and corporate tax deductions, which are negligible compared to the crushing debt.  The targeted oil tax deductions would have brought in $2 billion in annual revenue, while the cancellation of the corporate jet depreciation deduction would have saved only $3 billion over 10 years!

Well, it turns out that illegal aliens, most of which pay zero in net taxes, enjoyed $4.2 billion from the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC) last year.  That’s more than the annual revenue from the selected oil tax deductions and corporate jet deductions combined!

Yesterday, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Collection released a shocking report detailing how illegal aliens are able to utilize a filing loophole to obtain billions in ACTC funds.  The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and ACTC (unlike the base child tax credit) are totally refundable and can award the recipient with a negative tax balance.  Appropriations for the EITC in FY 2010 were $54.7 billion and $28.3 billion for the ACTC.  While EITC appropriations are protected from illegals (those who don’t engage in identity theft) because they are only awarded to those who provide a valid Social Security number, the same cannot be said for the ACTC.

Here is the punchline of the Inspector’s report:

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