On Wednesday, Dem. Sen. Claire McCaskill contradicted both President Obama and Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, saying that the House Republicans’ tax deal shouldn’t be declared DOA (as Reid was doing at the time) and that there are several Democrats who favor approving it with the XL Keystone pipeline attached. President Obama pushed the pipeline approval beyond the 2012 election, which would effectively kill it, and had accused Republicans of putting politics ahead of the economy in attaching the pipeline to the payroll tax cut extension that he wants, but isn’t paid for. The president threatened to veto the Republican bill, should the Senate pass it. But that’s when he thought the Senate Democrats would stick together with Harry Reid. McCaskill going public suggests that several more Democrats want to pass the Republican bill.
Well, check out this action from today’s White House press conference:
The White House is expressing cautious optimism that a compromise can be reached on an oil pipeline provision that Republicans insist must be part of a Social Security tax cut extension.
White House spokesman Jay Carney declined several opportunities to say that President Barack Obama would veto the tax cut if it contained language aimed at expediting the Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL pipeline project. Obama last week said he would reject efforts to tie the pipeline to the payroll tax.
Obama’s green base should prepare for a Christmas betrayal.
The politics of the pipeline were never on the Luddites’ side. The pipeline is safe. It will create thousands of jobs while increasing our fuel supply, while keeping our ally Canada a few inches closer to us and a few inches farther from China. A whopping 78% expect the pipeline to get approval.
Obama could have burnished his centrist credentials by approving the pipeline and taking it off the table as an issue. But he bowed to the left, and now the Republicans are enjoying whipping him back around to the right. They will end up getting the credit for forcing him to defy his own base to create jobs.
And if Obama vetoes the bill? Then pass it again, and deploy political theater against him.
Obama cannot win this fight. The optics are too bad. And he must have PA to get re-elected. He must. I guess Obama thought the Repubs didn’t have the stones. They called and raised (to mix my metaphors).
You can bet Sen. Casey (D-PA) is howling behind closed doors that he MUST have this Keystone deal, or he will be politically finished in PA. He is up for re-election. If he does not get this, he might as well just throw in the towel.
Future political ad in PA:
“Sen. Casey could not get the XL Pipeline deal through the Senate, because he cared more for Obama than for his constituents.”
Boom! Taste my nightstick!
Rabid environmentalism needs to be fought and defeated. A little environmentalism is a good thing but when it comes between people and their lives, the Environmentalist must step aside. Humans are more important then snail darters.
Make him pick up that veto pen again and again. He can’t hide his true colors forever.
YES. Force him to veto one job-creating bill after another.
Eventually, even the unions and die-hards may come to realize: they’re expendable, we’re expendable, everyone but Obama is expendable in his world view.
I had an oppty to discuss the pipeline with a Lib neighbor whose primary argument emerged that it would only make oil cheaper and more widely available. Yep – that was her argument. It was actually refreshing to hear a Lib voice their true underlying opinion for once, instead of smokescreens like ‘the environment’ or other strawmen
Nice.
They really think that we can run industry, get goods to market, travel from point A to point B with things like solar power and wind power providing the energy.
So, just how many square miles of solar panels and wind farms will we need to provide all our energy need?
And how many more every year?
And how much would energy cost?
And how many people would be impoverished by the higher prices and the resulting spiral of inflation?
And how many people would die in the heat and cold when the unreliable power gives out in a period of unusual weather? Think days and days and days of no power, no cell phones, no internet, no transportation(!), and thus, no ability whatsoever to fix the problem when it goes on long enough, because all your eggs are in one basket.
Oh, right, there are too many people. “The Earth is full.” We’ll reach a point of equilibrium when enough people die off, and we’ll control the birth-rate from there. And they accuse Republicans of being heartless.
Let’s compare the federal revenues from the XL pipeline versus those from increasing federal income taxes on millionaires by 1%. Raising the federal income tax of those with incomes over $1M by 1% would add less than $1billion to the annual federal tax revenues. The federal tax revenues generated by an oil pipeline and its associated jobs would far exceed that number for several decades.
The GOP candidates should take the initiative and promise to green-light the XL pipeline in return for the support of the various unions affected.