OPINION:
President Obama imposed regulations to help specific businesses, such as Tesla Motors and Solar City, while destroying others, such as coal companies. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has achieved massive wealth with subsidies from taxpayers. His company makes electric toys for well-to-do people. I have trouble subsidizing rich people buying cars. Tesla and Solar City have never made money, do not pay income taxes and have huge tax-loss carry-forwards.
Mr. Obama also takes credit for increased gas and oil production, but his policies have done everything to stop it. I saw this morning that under Mr. Obama the federal government has confiscated 553 million acres of land. He also has stopped pipelines, not based on science but based on an agenda.
And I have to wonder why Mr. Obama didn’t introduce comprehensive immigration reform laws to Congress in 2009 or 2010 when Democrats had complete control. And why didn’t he introduce a carbon tax during those two years? Haven’t he and his supporters said climate change caused by humans is more dangerous to future generations than terrorism? Did he prefer to keep these issues as political currency rather make real change?
I believe the economy actually came out of the recession in June 2009 because of a few easily identifiable things: TARP, the gas price dropping from over $4 in the summer of 2008 to below $2 by January 2009, and the massive drop in interest rates and injection of liquidity into the market. All of those occurred prior to Mr. Obama taking office.
So why does the media give Mr. Obama credit for bringing the economy out of a recession 130 days after he took office? The facts show that his policies could have had nothing to do with it. The media should instead give Obama and the Democrats credit for the slowest economic recovery in 70 years and the horrendous, cumbersome, costly Obamacare law that has (possibly) helped 20 million people at the expense of over 300 million other people.
JACK HELLNER
Springfield, Ill.
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