Economy

President Obama was in town today and here is an excerpt from his speech. "There are a lot of people who work very hard, do the right thing, are responsible but still find at the end of the month that they are not getting ahead," he said. "And that's the central challenge that drives me every day. He says this has been driving him every day and I assume he means for the last 6 years that he has been president but the facts show that the problem has worsened during this time. I believe he should realize that talk doesn’t do it and that action is needed. It is easy to criticize so what is the solution. He could announce tomorrow that he is opening the Green Mountain oil fields to private drilling and that he will give tax breaks to energy companies to produce more natural gas and then get out of the way and watch the miracle of the free market go to work. When this energy boom fires up and high paying jobs are created and exports sky rocket the economy will take off. As the cost of energy goes down it helps low and middle income people pay their utilities. It provides low energy cost for industry which will expand to supply the new consumers working in the energy business. Then he could offer interest free loans to business to install natural gas filling stations at all truck stops and more loans to truckers to change over to natural gas. He could encourage the already underway changeover to natural gas of garbage trucks, buses, trains and cabs in all the big cities. He could expand pipeline to the east coast so home owners could replace heating oil with natural gas. The frosting on the cake is that all of these changes will improve the environment and the could all be done with private money.