I don’t know if the venues President Obama has chosen for his stimulus pitches are the result of brilliance or incredibly poor research by his team.
He goes to Elkhart, Indiana, the RV capital of the world. RVs are not known as high mileage vehicle with a small carbon footprint. President Obama seems to have been drawn to the town because the unemployment rate jumped from around 4% to 15%. Wanting to showcase his stimulus plan to create jobs what better place to make that pitch, right? But what are Obama’s view on what the good folks of Elkhart actually produce?
- Driving SUVs or RVs is irresponsible because they use too much gasoline
- Carbon Cap and Trade will put a heavy burden on RV companies
- No tax breaks for people who could afford to buy RVs, because they are the evil rich.
President Obama then chooses Caterpillar as another locale to make another pitch saying that the stimulus, by driving infrastructure work will in turn drive sales of Caterpillar products. However, Senator Obama opposed and continues to oppose the Columbia Free Trade agreement. Caterpillar tried very hard to get this approved so that they could maintain or increase sales in Columbia rather than lose those sales to Canadian companies. So a Free Trade agreement, where Caterpillar could competitively sell their products in a free market is bad. But taking your tax dollars to create infrastructure projects that may result in increased sales of Caterpillar products is good.
In other words, rather than have the people of Columbia buy Caterpillar products, it’s better for taxpayers to be forced to buy Caterpillar products. Rather than give an incentive to wealthy Americans to buy RVs from the good people of Elkhart, Indiana it’s better to force taxpayers who are overburdened with debt to take on more debt to do what exactly for the RV industry? Pay extended unemployment benefits?
Why do we have a government that is killing the free market and replacing it with a taxpayer funded stimulus package?
