Obama Is Of Two Minds

President Obama genuinely thinks that his idiotic grin and rehearsed verbal cadences are sufficient to make every American believe what he is saying. Even when what he is saying directly contradicts what he has just said or done a mere day or two before. He has taken Lincoln’s aphorism and twisted it into “I can fool all of the people, all of the time.” Consider his recent statements and actions on energy policy.

In his State of the Union address, the President sounded almost, well, presidential when talking about energy. He seemed to be supporting the Republican “all of the above” options for energy sources. He advocated bigg[er] tax cuts for domestic manufacturers, incentives for new companies to move into areas where old industry had moved out, and doubling the tax deductions of high tech companies which make their products in the United States.

In later speeches, he advocated increasing domestic natural-gas production by using the process called “fracking.” No, that’s not taken from Battlestar Galactica. It is simply shorthand for “hydraulic fracturing” of rock to release the natural gas contained in its grasp. He told us he was going to break the ban on offshore oil drilling in order to reduce dependence on oil being purchased from Middle East dictators. He promised on multiple occasions that he was open to any and all proposals to produce what is necessary to release or capture domestic energy supplies. He even mentioned coal as a resource a couple of times.

While touting all these abundant resources, he sensibly followed the line of many fiscal conservatives who were desirous of cutting taxes on businesses in exchange for eliminating certain “redundant, counter-productive and unnecessary” income tax deductions. All in all, not an entirely bad agenda. And the American people are certainly united in the concept of weaning ourselves off tenuous foreign energy products.

So how is this actually working out in thought, word and deed? Let’s look at those tax cuts for domestic manufacturers and energy-producers. The Crony Socialist-in-Chief spoke as if he meant all viable manufacturers and producers. But the reality is he meant only his pet projects and crony-owned businesses. He has set aside $800 billion in economic stimulus funds but has used them almost exclusively for “green” projects, many of which have failed or are failing.

On the other hand, where viable and successful operations such as oil drilling and fracking are concerned, he has specifically targeted them for “having received taxpayer subsidized payments” and therefore unworthy of the government’s assistance. What he is talking about is programs such as the oil depletion allowance. Many of us would say that at least some of those allowances are way over the top, but in fact they are little different from standard deductions allowable to all corporations (including his favored green projects), like capital inventory depreciation. If Solyndra hadn’t gone bankrupt, it would have had similar deductions available to it.

So instead of incentivizing these proven industries, he is working with his fellow Democrats to write punitive tax laws that will continue the pattern of putting American companies and workers at a disadvantage in the world market. Even “windfall profits” taxes are back in the leftist lexicon. On the other hand, he seems to favor deductions for companies which engage in “windfall losses.” Very logical. Punish profit and reward failure.

As we’ve discussed before, Obama isn’t really the least bit desirous of increasing domestic American energy production. He is interested in picking winners and losers and favoring pie-in-the-sky green projects while stalling or killing projects with a proven track record. As for fracking, it seemed like only minutes after Obama gave the process a thumbs-up that the Environmental Protection Agency produced a report replete with mathematical and scientific errors, sermonizing, and goals posing as practical solutions to kill a fracking project in Wyoming.

Among the “goals” the Wyoming company must meet in order to get to the natural gas is a 95% reduction in “toxic” and “greenhouse” emissions. The EPA twisted the noxious Clean Air Act to accomplish killing the project, then made it clear that any other company anywhere else in the United States which used similar methods would be subject to the same job-killing and project-killing measures. So much for developing the abundant natural gas resource.

As for all the offshore drilling, only a handful of permits have been actually provisionally granted pending further EPA determination. The approvals are largely for exploration rather than drilling. To show his support for domestic American oil drilling and oil production, Obama announced that “drill, baby, drill is a bumper sticker slogan, not a strategy.” Even his erstwhile political ally, former President Bill Clinton, said that was just plain wrong.

Speaking of the Clintons, how about that Keystone XL pipeline? The EPA couldn’t stop it at the US-Canadian border because of treaty obligations, so the State Department under Hillary stepped in to do the dirty work. 20,000 “shovel-ready” jobs which don’t even require drilling on American soil gone with the stroke of a pen. But never fear, if the State Department ever bows to public pressure, the EPA has offices all along the proposed pipeline to claim that it will produce environmental disaster (including the ruin of some sandhills in Nebraska).

Of the stimulus funds Obama claims he is going to lavish on domestic energy production, most is being frozen for future consideration. But he has set aside $80 billion for immediate use for any huckster or snake-oil salesman who can come along with a magical “green” energy project. Never mind the failure of Solyndra and several other similar favored companies. Never mind the creation of a minuscule number of jobs which disappear as quickly as they are created. Never mind that many of those jobs “created” by the administration and its cronies cost the taxpayers as much as a million dollars per job. Just say the magic incantation “green,” and the money is yours.