Why Obama Won't Trade the Keystone Pipeline for the Payroll Tax Cut

Townhall.com ^ | December 8, 2011 | Rush Limbaugh

[Kaslin]

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I have a theory. We're going this payroll tax business. Folks, let me tell you something. Obama announced yesterday after meeting with the prime minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, that he's gonna veto any bill that extends the payroll tax cut if the bill lifts his ban on the Keystone pipeline. Now, all we've heard for the last several weeks is how vital this whopping 2% payroll tax cut extension is to the preservation of the middle class. They even have a countdown clock at the White House. Days, hours, minutes until the middle class experience a thousand-dollar tax increase. It's amazing. And that is why the taxpayers are paying for all these recent campaign trips. See, Obama's not campaigning. He's pushing for this all-important tax cut. The White House website even has this countdown clock, which is ticking off the time to the expiration of the payroll tax cut.

Now, all of a sudden, Obama would rather veto this all-important bill and destroy the middle class, than allow the pipeline, which would create 200,000 middle class jobs. I don't know if you've noticed this or not. Did you notice how the media and the rest of the Democrat Party are saying that if we end the payroll tax cut, it will, quote, cost working families a thousand dollars? They never talk that way. When tax cuts are discussed, the Democrats and the media only talk about what it will cost the government, never what it's gonna cost you or me. They don't care what it's gonna cost you or me, never. But when it's a tax cut they want, it suddenly doesn't cost the government anything.

Have you noticed Obama is not worried what this is gonna "cost" the government? Have you noticed he's not worried what effect this is going to have on Social Security? This is the only funding mechanism for Social Security -- and there's a concern out there, ladies and gentlemen, that reinstituting this thing will be next to impossible, which puts even further pressure on Social Security funding. But when it's a tax cut that they want, it suddenly doesn't cost the government anything! No, it's gonna "cost working families" a thousand dollars. In truth, just in pure dollars and cents, the payroll tax cut has already cost Social Security trust fund more than $100 billion; and according to all accounts it hadn't even created or saved a single job yet.

Now, in the midst of all this is the Keystone pipeline. It's a no-brainer, right? In the normal ebb and flow, it is a no-brainer. It would increase on you supply of oil. It would reduce or dependence on foreign oil. It would lower the price of oil. It would create 20,000 jobs to start with the possibility of 200,000 by the time it was all done. No-brainer. Yet Obama is gonna go to the mat to make sure this Keystone pipeline's not okayed before the election. I think I may have figured out why. Everybody's focusing on the fact he's a Marxist and he's a hypocrite and all that. But if you look at it from his standpoint (and that at some point would be pure 100% selfishness), right now Obama's getting campaign contributions from both sides:

The environmentalist wackos are giving him money to keep it shut down, energy companies are probably donating him money, hoping that he will okay the pipeline. If he makes a decision before the election, he cuts off one of those streams of campaign contributions. It could very well be something as simple as that. We know this guy's out for himself first and always, 'cause you know this pipeline's gonna be approved. One way or the other. (interruption) Yeah, I do. I think after the election, yeah, it's gonna be approved. It's a no-brainer. It's gonna be proved. Regardless who wins. I mean, the odds are less it would be approved if Obama wins but still. But the fact -- remember, now, Obama is not worried about the votes of white working-class voters. Everybody's looking at this the wrong way.

Everybody thinks Obama can get votes by authorizing the Keystone pipeline. No! He wants the money from both sides of the issue coming in as campaign donations. Remember, his campaign is focused exclusively on getting the votes of the poor. The philosophy is the plan is create more poor people and get their votes. It's been documented. The White House has admitted: White working class families, their votes don't matter; undesirable, we don't care about it. Therefore, trying to secure the votes of the American people on the basis of sound economic policy (i.e., okaying the Keystone pipeline) is not a factor. The campaign money is a more important thing from both sides of the issue.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: The unions want that pipeline, and the unions trump the environmentalist wackos every time. That's why if Obama wins, after the election, that pipeline is gonna be authorized. That pipeline's gonna be okayed. The unions want it. Obama's buddies. Right now that's just campaign donations, both sides of the issue. That's why. The last thing Barack Obama is ever going to do -- and I mean this as seriously as I've meant anything. The last thing he's gonna do is what's good for the country. That's not his objective. It's not who he is; it's not what he's about. It never has been, and it never will be.

END TRANSCRIPT

[apillar]

Hopefully the Republicans will call his bluff and force him to veto it. Then he can try to explain how he raised taxes on all Americans by $1000+ to appease a handful of far left Evironuts.

[MCF]

Rush is forgetting Soros and his Brazilian oil investment and Obama’s Saudi masters.

[Buckeye McFrog]

I find it disgraceful that Obama put on this political kabuki theater with the Canadian PM standing just a few feet away. He may as well have just flipped him the bird.

[Phlap]

It’s the votes he would lose were he to disappoint the tree huggers. He could handle them being apathetic but he can’t have them being against him.

[ZOOKER]

You only have to look at where the pipeline runs to understand why the Dems are against it.

The pipelane, along with most of the latest discoveries of oil and gas, are in the heartland - in states that Obama can't hope to carry in the next election (PA is an exception in that it's a NE coastal state, but it leans Republican).

All that energy, all those jobs, all that money would flow into RED states. We could also see a population change, too, as workers move to where the jobs are. How can the Dems keep people on the plantation when their economy stagnates, while the Red states boom? The Dems have already lost some house seats because of population shift, this can only increase their pain.

Do I need to mention right-to-work laws in those states, too? Most of those jobs could be non-union, which is why the unions have been silent on this issue.

That's why Obama wants to drag his feet - because an energy-based rebirth in flyover country will change the balance of power.

JMHO.

[rcrngroup]

That sonofabitch 0dumb0 is pure evil personified. If he is not the anti-Christ already, he is a direct forerunner for the anti-Christ. Why God allows this evil POS to continue to exist on this planet is beyond me. He needs to roast in Hell & the Lake of Fire for eternity, along with his chimpanzee phatass jezebel man-wife michelle.

[Tallguy]

Pennsylvania hasn’t ‘leaned Republican’ since Ronald Reagan’s re-election in 1984. The default position in PA is ‘lean Democrat’ — and that’s being charitable with all the election fraud in Philadelphia.

[ZOOKER]

My mistake, apparently.

Seems like I read somewhere that PA was more Republican than most eastern states, and that Obama might have an uphill battle there in '12.

I'm sure they also have mandatory union laws there, too, so fracking there would create union jobs.

In my defense, I did state that they were an exception. Bad luck that Obama lumps them in with the other "bitter clinger" states.

[woodbutcher1963]

“The Dems have already lost some house seats because of population shift”

The population shift and redistricting in Mass. resulted in Barney Fwank deciding not to run for another term.

The Lord works in mysterious ways !!!!

[fight_truth_decay]

December 7,
Conn Carroll Senior Editorial Writer,
Campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com

SNIP*Democrats are worried that Majority Leader Reid, D-Nev., will allow the Keystone legislation to be included in a final compromise on extending Obama's payroll tax cut. Yesterday, five senators, four Democrats and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., signed a letter to Reid asking him not to include the Keystone bill in any payroll tax cut compromise.

“This project has been under review for three years — including two exhaustive environmental evaluations," Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor. "By all accounts the State Department was ready to give it the green light by the end of this year, this month. But then presidential politics got in the way. The President started getting heat from the environmental activists he’s counting on to stuff envelopes next year, so he put off a decision until after the election. If this episode tells us anything, it’s that the President is clearly more concerned about getting himself reelected next year than getting somebody in Nebraska or Kansas or South Dakota or Missouri a job today. He’s so determined to keep his liberal base happy he’s even willing to go against the labor unions."

SNIP*
DECEMBER 8, 2011, 6:28 P.M. ET
What Prohibition Teaches Us About the Keystone Pipeline

China is currently running sea trials for its first aircraft carrier, these vulnerable supply routes and China's own energy insecurity provide an answer.

Frustrated with the U.S., Canada is talking with China about piping its oil west instead of south. Enbridge Inc. has proposed a pipeline to a port at Kitimat, British Columbia, where the oil would be loaded on ships bound for Asia. Native communities in the region are resisting the project. Somehow, though, demand will eventually pull the oil to market. "That oil is going to get produced, it's going to get refined somewhere, and it's going to get consumed," says Larry Nichols, executive chairman of Devon Energy

[Sam Gamgee]

He doesn’t care about jobs. But he does care about Hollywierd financial support.

[Diggity]

Much simpler than that. Obama is doing it because he knows the Reps will give in as they most assuredly will.

[fight_truth_decay]

jobs

He doesn’t care about jobs. But he does care about Hollywierd financial support.

There will be jobs in the oil [black gold] industry from the Keystone Pipeline, but you may have to move up North to get them. Like the old Gold Rush days when workers moved their families to pan for gold.

At the same time, Hollyweird films in Canada to save money instead of locations in the US. They seem to have no problem doing THEIR business with Canadians, home to this evil oil production/pipelines etc.

[Chode]

[ballplayer]

He wont have to explain anything because the Dolt Republicans wont bring thr Fact up that he is appeasing the Environuts. The Republicanm Party has Been Castrated

[Future Useless Eater]

The Super Committee failed to find a way to CUT $1.2 Trillion (over ten years)

which equals $120 Billion per year...

Extending the payroll tax cut another year will cost TWICE that amount - $240 billion.

The recession is over. It is time for those who HAVE JOBS to start funding Social Security again or else it will go bust.

HOWEVER, if we MUST keep this Social Security revenue cut, PAY FOR IT elsewhere.

Here is a way....

Let the US impose a Foreign Sales Tax on Imports equal to the average (tariff PLUS sales taxes) on OUR goods.

If for example, if US goods sold in foreign countries are subject to an average of 15% (tariff + sales tax) in those foreign lands, then return the favor, by subjecting all FOREIGN GOODS to an EQUAL 15% import sales tax.

...in other words, let FOREIGN MILLIONAIRES pay for our Social Security retirement funding!

[Graewoulf]

” - - - The last thing he’s gonna do is what’s good for the country. - - - “

But Rush, Obama SAID that now is the time for everyone to put Country above partisan politics!

Rush, are you implying that Coward-in-Chief, arrogant, High Poo-Bah, You Lie Obama is living a lie?

SHOCKING!

BTW Rush, have a MERRY CHRISTMAS!

[Nateman]

Who gets richer if the price of oil stays high? Mostly Islamic states. Barrack (Mohammad’s horse that flew to hell) Hussein (Mohammad’s Grandson) Obama (Swahili for Osama , Mohammad’s favorite general) is submitting to Mohammad’s sock puppet ALLAH.

[Diggity]

I thought years ago that one way to deal with imports is to place a tariff on import goods equivalent to the difference in wage rates. Say wages are 50% less in country x and is half of the cost then you would put a tariff on 25% on it.

Now I don’t think tariffs are good ideas. What the gov should do is eliminate all corporate income taxes so companies can make more money by producing here. That way instead of just collecting money from a tariff only to piss it away we can create jobs plus make the stock market more valuable which will do 401k plans a world of good.