New U.S. Presidential Campaign To Feature Old Messaging on Jobs, the Environment
Those outside the U.S. have no idea how tedious it is to live in a more or less constant presidential campaign. Here, the candidates and the media are cranked up full-throttle for almost two full years out of every four, but the combatants never vanish, not even for a minute; the other two years they’re still dancing around the ring with their daily jabs and uppercuts.
The reason I bring this up is to warn readers that the tide is rising once more, and that we need to be prepared for another onslaught of pro-fossil, anti-environmental rhetoric; it’s just about ready to amp back up to its disgusting, full-on presence in Americans’ lives.
Is the message for 2016 new? Of course not. Therein lies its effectiveness. It’s a drumbeat, and it consists of three main points:
a) Environmentalism is a “job-killer”
b) Government (though only when it’s run by Democrats) is repressive, tax-and-spend, anti-business, focused on getting people onto welfare, and, on a good day, wasteful and ineffectual.
c) Go back to a)
So let me offer a few pieces of truth to keep in mind as we prepare to suffer through the din. We’ll start with a short chronological summary of the current administration on the environment, taken from this article in Politico. It abbreviates the most relevant parts of his presidency, where Obama:
• Spends about $80 billion on green energy through the economic stimulus package and announces the first fuel economy increase in decades, requiring new cars and trucks to reach 35.5 miles per gallon in 2016. The House passes the Waxman-Markey climate bill.
• Calls for an “all-out, all-of-the-above” policy. He touts U.S. oil production at its highest level in eight years. Obama finalizes another suite of fuel economy standards for new vehicles to hit 54.5 mpg by 2025.
• (The EPA) proposes a rule to limit greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants and says it will craft a similar regulation affecting the nation’s existing power plants — a much more ambitious effort.
• Signs deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The U.S. pledges to cut emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. China agrees to stop carbon dioxide emission increase by 2030.
Then, consider the general economic issues. Here’s a tongue-in-cheek recap presented by a Canadian’s op-ed after the mid-term elections a few months ago:
Many of us Canadians are confused by the U.S. midterm elections. Consider, right now in America, corporate profits are at record highs, the country’s adding 200,000 jobs per month, unemployment is below 6%, U.S. gross national product growth is the best of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.
The dollar is at its strongest levels in years, the stock market is near record highs, gasoline prices are falling, there’s no inflation, interest rates are the lowest in 30 years, U.S. oil imports are declining, U.S. oil production is rapidly increasing, the deficit is rapidly declining, and the wealthy are still making astonishing amounts of money.
America is leading the world once again and respected internationally — in sharp contrast to the Bush years. When you are done with Obama, could you send him our way?
Brace yourself, America. The train’s still a few miles away, but we all hear it coming down the tracks. And today we hear that Mitt Romney might run again. What an easy time in preparation he’ll have; he won’t have to learn any new debate points; he can even wear the same tie.
