I'm glad that in his speech on Thursday President Obama didn't say a word about green energy jobs. As I said in a previous post, I'm fairly convinced that subsidies for forms of energy that are not yet economically viable (e.g., solar and wind) are a waste of taxpayer money. (Research, on the other hand, is another story).
It seems like Ms. O'Grady, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal listened to a different speech than I did, or perhaps she didn't listen at all, just trotted out the old cliches one more time. Here is the first paragraph of her article:
For all its soaring rhetoric, President Obama's "jobs speech" last week didn't demonstrate a lick of insight into why economies grow or how wealth is created. It was merely trademark Obamanomics: using government diktat to move money that's over here, over there.
What is she referring to, exactly? Cutting payroll taxes? I thought conservatives believed tax cuts were the key to prosperity. Investing in infrastructure projects a la Eisenhower? Investing in education? Cutting government red tape and streamlining regulation? Yes, these were the core elements in the President's speech.
She mentions Alberta's oil sands as an example of the type of exploration that will lead to increased jobs, then blasts Obama for allowing regulators to slow down drilling on Federal lands. My understanding is that the oil sands remained unexploited for years is because the oil that they contain is filthy, expensive to exploit and high in greenhouse gases and replete with negative environmental effects. The only reason Canada has had success with this energy source in the last few years is that the cost of imported oil has gotten so high. But what is the way forward for our energy future? Clean natural gas from the U.S.? Maybe. Dirty tar from Canada? Highly doubtful.
Ms. O'Grady also mentions that the market tanked 300 points the day after Obama's speech. Come on! Anyone following the market that day knows that this move was all about Europe, notably the highly scary resignation of German ECB official Jurgen Stark. As I recall, the market was up on Friday morning (largely on Obama's well-received speech and plan) before this news hit.
Obama's plan is not the be-all end-all, but it is a practical, centrist step in the right direction, which may actually have a chance of passing. Given budgetary constraints and a divided government, this may be the best we can hope for right now.
If Mary O'Grady wants to criticize the speech, perhaps she should start by actually listening to it.
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