Economic Recovery, Free Enterprise, and Keystone

Now that the U.S. economy is showing signs of life, President Obama is not wasting a moment to take credit for this recovery.

“The steps we took nearly six years ago to rescue our economy and rebuild it on a new foundation helped make 2014 the strongest year for job growth since the 1990’s,” he said in a recent speech.

For sure we can expect the president to continue this message in his upcoming State of the Union address, as he works to rebuild his credibility, thinking toward his final two years in office and his place in history.

And it’s working. The president is creeping back up in the polls. His current Gallup 45 percent approval rating is the highest it has been in almost 8 months.

But President Obama is a politician more interested in selling his political wares than sharing with the American people where the really great breakthroughs are occurring in our country. This news doesn’t interest him because it is about American ingenuity, freedom, and entrepreneurship and has absolutely nothing to do with government.

The good news is showing up at the gasoline pump as Americans watch plunging gasoline prices. Current prices are the lowest since our President took office in early 2009.

Behind the story is the explosion over recent years of American production of oil and gas. The United States has now surpassed Saudi Arabia as the number one oil producer in the world.

American oil production is now almost twice where it was 6 years ago and it is all because of technological breakthroughs. Technologies developed right here, in the good old USA.

The oil and gas locked up in shale rock has been known for years. What wasn’t known was how to get it out at commercially feasible costs.

But now, as result of American entrepreneurs and engineers, it has happened and the world is changing.

In Texas alone, oil production doubled from 2011 to 2014.

And in Texas, because of this huge energy revolution, lies the big economic story, as reported by economist and blogger Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute.

“Job creation in Texas has been so strong in recent years that the state has actually been single-handedly responsible for all of the net US job creation since 2007,” according to Perry.

Since 2007, Texas has created a net 1.4 million new jobs compared to the rest of the country – the other 49 states plus the District of Columbia – where there remains a total net loss of 400,000 jobs over this same period.

“So when we hear about a recovery in the US labor market and a declining jobless rate, we can thank the state of Texas for its significant contribution,” Perry sums up.

The American recovery is happening despite government, not because of it.

No bureaucrat, no government planner, could have ever predicted the miraculous energy breakthroughs that are impacting our economy so significantly.

Despite this, the president says he’ll veto the bi-partisan legislation that the new congress is likely to send him to approve the Keystone pipeline.

The pipeline would move oil from more unconventional sources – tar sands in Western Canada – to American refineries on our gulf coast.

It’s approval would show America supports private risk taking in unconventional arenas, it would produce more oil, it would lower energy prices, and it would lessen control of Middle East oil producers over our lives. And, according to USA Today’s editors, construction of the pipeline would create 42,000 jobs.

The President’s own U.S. State Department has given the green light for this project, calling the environmental risks minimal.

But our President says no. His priority is not free enterprise but political power and left wing environmentalist ideologues.

The recent elections hopefully show that Americans are waking up to where the truth and their interests lie.

Photo credit: “Barack Obama playing golf” by White House (Pete Souza) / Maison Blanche (Pete Souza) – The Official White House Photostream [1]. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.