Pipe(line) Dreams

Once again, the Obama administration is picking winners and losers when it comes to energy. The president has vowed that America will be a net energy exporter. There’s only one roadblock: Obama himself. While the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has cracked down on American coal production, which adds more than $1 trillion in gross domestic product (GDP), generates more than $360 billion in household income and supports nearly 7 million jobs, the Obama administration... Read More

Increase Jobs by Reducing Regulations

When companies must spend money to comply with an ever-increasing flood of federal regulations, they need to make cuts in other areas. This usually means holding off on job creation or even cutting their existing work force and employee hours. What does it cost American businesses to comply with federal regulations? The Competitive Enterprise Institute puts the figure at $1.8 trillion a year — more than half what it costs to run the federal government. Government agencies spend... Read More

Culture of Corruption

As I tried to suppress my anger over the news this week about the unfolding corruption within the Obama administration, I took a look back to see if our Founding Fathers had anticipated this. It didn’t take me long to find a quote from Thomas Jefferson, who wrote: “Experience has shown that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” This is precisely what we are facing... Read More

Better Late Than Never

As an exporter, I half-heartedly believed President Obama’s proposal to double U.S. exports in five years. That pledge was made in his State of the Union address in 2010, which means the clock is ticking on his plan to double American exports from $1 trillion to $2 trillion by 2015. His National Export Initiative (NEI) was supposed to “help farmers and small businesses increase their exports.” At the core of this plan was to create an environment that allows... Read More

When a President Mocks Small Business

As an entrepreneur who has worked my entire life to create new businesses, hire more than 200 employees and risk everything I own on my companies, I join the chorus of Americans who are outraged by President Barack Obama’s recent outburst, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” This is clearly the most definitive proof that Obama does not understand small business, does not like small business and lacks the rudimentary... Read More

Ugly Campaign Battle Over Outsourcing Isn’t All Bad

The Obama and Romney campaigns are slinging mud at each other over outsourcing jobs. What most people would think is just an ugly brawl of a typical campaign battle; I consider it a positive development when the national dialogue turns to keeping jobs in America. Preventing the outsourcing of U.S. jobs must be an issue that is seriously debated by the presidential candidates. Whether or not Mitt Romney created jobs or outsourced jobs while at Bain Capital is irrelevant. The issue... Read More

Union Loss Is America’s Gain

The failure of the vote to recall Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker sends two distinct messages: the majority of voters want their elected officials to maintain a government living within its means; and that unions can no longer dictate how a government operates. Now that Walker has become the only sitting governor to defeat a recall vote, many are counting on him to carry Wisconsin this November for Mitt Romney. This would be the first time Wisconsin voted for a Republican... Read More

Overregulation and Job Creation Can’t Work Together

Several weeks ago, I wrote that as of 2008, small businesses faced an annual regulatory cost of $10,585 per employee, according to an SBA regulatory impact study published two years ago. The Office of the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration estimates that the annual cost of federal regulations in the United States increased to more than $1.75 trillion in 2008. On the heels of this data, I came across a 2009 study from the California State University’s... Read More

Do Something to Send a Message to the Do-Nothing Congress

A Washington Post column recently suggested that “to call this 112th Congress a do-nothing Congress would be an insult — to the real Do-Nothing Congress of 1947-48. That Congress passed 908 laws. To date, this one has passed 106 public laws. Even if they triple that output in the rest of 2012 — not a terribly likely proposition — they will still be in last place going back at least 40 years.” Most people agree that the 112th Congress is the worst Congress in... Read More

Obama’s War on Coal Claims Its First Victim

I have previously addressed Obama’s war on the coal industry. But now it has claimed its first victim: himself. The United Coal Mine Workers of America, surprising Obama supporters in 2008 by supporting him, are turning their backs on a president and administration that seems committed to putting them out of business. Despite all the warning signs of his anti-domestic energy positions, Obama still received $884,000 from the oil and gas industry during the 2008 campaign, more... Read More