Gibson CEO: Obama Admin Wanted Us to Use Foreign Labor

Wow. Apparently yes, it really is that simple. The Obama administration is going out if its way to destroy American companies and jobs.

Press release from KMJ-AM in Fresno, California:

Tonight, in an interview on KMJ’s “The Chris Daniel Show,” Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz confirmed that the US government wanted Gibson guitars to use foreign labor over American labor:
CHRIS DANIEL: Mr. Juszkiewicz, did an agent of the US government suggest to you that your problems would go away if you used Madagascar labor instead of American labor?
HENRY JUSZKIEWICZ: They actually wrote that in a [inaudible].
CHRIS DANIEL: Excuse me?
HENRY JUSKIEWICZ: They actually wrote that in a pleading.
CHRIS DANIEL: That your problems would go away if you used Madagascar labor instead of our labor?
HENRY JUSKIEWICZ: Yes

This makes low comedy out of President Obama’s latest jobs move, which is to tell federal agencies to just do something already.

Obama directed several federal agencies to identify “high-impact, job-creating infrastructure projects” that can be expedited now, without without congressional approval.

One week before he will make a major address to Congress on jobs, Obama is making sure they know he plans to move forward without them. The president has also directed the Education Department to come up with a “Plan B” updating the 2001 No Child Left Behind law in the absence of congressional action. The message to Congress is clear: Do your work or we’ll do it for you.

Under Wednesday’s order, the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, and Transportation will each select up to three high-priority infrastructure projects that can be completed within the control and jurisdiction of the federal government. The effort is labeled as a “common-sense approach” to spurring job growth “in the near term.” In practical terms, that means speeding up the permitting and waiver processes for green-building or highway projects to get the government out of the way. One of businesses’ foremost complaints with government infrastructure projects is that the paperwork is too cumbersome and creates unnecessary delays, according to White House economic advisers.

In other words, he really doesn’t have any private sector jobs ideas, so he’s just ordering the federal bureaucracy around to make believe he’s actually doing something useful.

Question for the administration and its sycophants at the Atlantic: If this is such a hot idea, why didn’t Obama think of it years ago? And in reality, how is pushing more infrastructure spending any different from anything else he actually has suggested over the past couple of years?

It’s not new at all, it’s just window-dressing on old ideas, and it’s just more government spending. Spending other people’s money is nearly the only thing this administration knows how to do. It also knows how to tax, and how to wield the regulatory state against private enterprise.

I’ve already given Obama a jobs program idea that doesn’t need Congress, and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley added to it this morning: My part, use executive orders to stop the march of the EPA et al in their massive job killing power grabs; Haley’s part, disband the National Labor Relations Board and halt its action against Boeing. He doesn’t need Congress for either of these. He doesn’t even need to leave the 9th hole, just have a staffer write up the EO and have the autopen sign it.

That he is choosing not to do either one says a lot. That his administration evidently pushed Gibson into using foreign labor, and then raided without filing any charges against them when they chose to continue employing Americans, ties a nice tight bow around it. If it’s not a green job or can’t directly benefit Big Labor, this administration wants to kill it dead.