The Rational Majority urges you to get the full details of the President’s plans at The President’s goals for America at www.barackobama.com/goals. The following thumbnail summary and SNAP-FACTUAL Pocket Card will give you the highlights:

President Obama’s

Goals for America

1. Create a million new manufacturing jobs: President Obama will:

• Reform the corporate tax code to bring down tax rates – cutting tax rates on domestic manufacturers by nearly a quarter – while closing tax preferences and loopholes to pay for it.

• End tax deductions for companies shipping jobs overseas, and use the savings to create a new tax credit for companies bringing jobs home;

• Create a new network of 15 to 20 manufacturing innovation institutes, one of which is opening in Youngstown, Ohio, to bring together business and research universities to ensure that the next generation of products are invented and manufactured here.

• Train millions of skilled workers through new investments in community colleges and student aid.

• Pursue an all-of-the-above strategy to produce reliable and affordable sources of energy here at home.

2. Double exports: In 2010 and 2011, exports rose by 36 percent, putting us on course to reach our goal. So far, these record-breaking exports have supported an additional 1.2 million jobs. To finish the job President Obama will:

• Make sure that no foreign company has an unfair advantage over American companies by offering more generous financing through the Export-Import Bank to match other countries that aggressively use better financing than allowed under international rules.

• Negotiate a new, expanded Trans-Pacific Partnership that will open up new markets that total 40 percent of global trade to more U.S. goods.

• Continue his efforts to stand up for American workers and businesses in the global marketplace, which have already doubled the rate of WTO cases against China’s unfair trade practices and established a new trade enforcement unit to ensure that American workers and businesses are competing on a level playing field.

3. Cut net oil imports in half: To reach this goal, President Obama will pursue an all-of-the-above energy strategy that is:

• Opening up millions of acres for exploration and development, including more than 75 percent of undiscovered oil and gas resources in the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic.

• Expanding domestic oil production by speeding up the leasing process and improving safety measures to prevent future spills, reducing the review period for drilling permits by two-thirds while implementing important safety measures that will prevent another environmental disaster.

• Doubling fuel economy standards, an essential step toward energy independence that will save 2.2 million barrels of oil a day by 2025 while effectively halving many families’ gasoline bills.

• Expanding the use of ethanol and other biofuels, including a renewable fuel standard that will save over 300 million barrels of oil by 2022.

• Promoting advanced vehicles, including natural gas, electric, and hybrid electric vehicles, and investing in clean domestic energy sources including wind, solar, clean coal, nuclear, and biofuels.

4. Support 600,000 natural gas jobs by the end of the decade. President Obama is:

• Streamlining the oversight of natural gas drilling, while protecting the quality of our air and water and requiring disclosure of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing on public lands;

• Improving access to natural gas fuels along heavily trafficked trucking routes, helping convert municipal bus and truck fleets to run on natural gas, and creating a new tax incentive for medium- and heavy-duty trucks that run on natural gas or other alternative fuels; and

• Supporting research and development into new ways to convert and store natural gas.

5. Support Higher Education President Obama will work with colleges and universities to:

• Create a Race to the Top-like initiative that rewards states that put in place reforms to hold down tuition, , provide public colleges with stable funding over time, and ensure that high school graduates are ready for college-level work;

• Evaluate and expand innovative practices like redesigning courses with technology, helping more students graduate on time, and recognizing more transfer credit and prior learning;

• Take away institutional funding from colleges that cannot or will not offer students a good value and an affordable price.

• Recruit 100,000 math and science teachers in the next ten years.

• Put in place community college classes to teach 2 million workers skills to take on a new job.

• Cut tuition cost growth in half over the next 10 years.

6. End overseas wars and rebuild the economy. President Obama will:

• Responsibly ended the war in Iraq.

• Will end the war in Afghanistan in 2014.

• Will commit to spend half the war dividend to reduce the debt.

• Will commit to spend half the war dividend on rebuilding America and creating jobs.

7. Reducing the deficit by more than $4 trillion. President Obama will:

• Cut annual domestic spending to its lowest level as a share of our economy since President Eisenhower;

• Rein in defense spending based on the advice of our military leaders;

• Reform Medicare by reducing the cost of health care through improving quality, getting a better deal on prescription drug prices, coordinating care and other measures;

• Ask the wealthiest Americans to pay higher taxes on incomes over $250,000; and

• Close corporate loopholes and wasteful tax subsidies to big oil companies.

In past SNAP-CAPS we have likened the President to a patient Chess-Master who can envision the end game from the start. He can see many moves ahead and he is able to play forward towards the final check mate while his opponent usually struggles with only the next move in front of him. (see SNAP-CAPS 210, 213, 237, 249, 250, 270, & 305.)In business, in government, in almost any endeavor, the person who can see, plan, and act from a long term perspective has a huge advantage over any short term thinkers. This is perfectly exemplified by the current candidates for the office of the President of the United States.

While we have already spoken of our Chess-Master, his opponent doesn’t seem to ever see past his audience of the moment. Some would call it “flip-flopping”, some would say he has “no moral compass”, and others would opine that he “just doesn’t get it”.  Whatever you call it, the bottom line is that Governor Romney doesn’t have a grasp on the nature of the game. Day by day he proves that he is inept and not competent to be the President of the United States.

As we close in on November 6th, Governor Romney has not put forward a plan for Job creation, other than his stolen pledge the he would create 12 million jobs in the next 4 years. Anyone paying attention knows that impartial Moody’s forecast says that if everything stays as it is today, 12 million jobs will be created in the next 4 years. Romney has simply co-opted Moody’s numbers and is falsely taking pre-credit for the predicted likely future result.

Consider that an August 30, 2012 the Washington Post exposed Romney’s thinly veiled plagiarized promise to create 12 million jobs by reducing debt, reforming the tax code (the rich will get richer in this reform while the middle class will subsidize the billionaires), removing regulatory restraints, and encouraging free trade.  

Let’s look at the numbers. Currently, the relatively lackluster job market produces only about 150,000 added jobs per month. Everyone, including the President, believes that is an anemic and unacceptable rate of job growth. Everyone agrees that more growth is needed; but do the math and you will quickly see that if we stumble along and this “sluggish” pace, a total of 7.2 million new jobs will have been created by 2016.

In order to reach 12 million we need 250,000 new jobs each month, surely an achievable figure, especially since in President Bush’s final stretch we were losing 750,000 each month. Now let’s look at some of the other estimates that the Washington Post obtained from unimpeachable impartial sources.

First, “the Congressional Budget Office is required to consider the effects of the so-called “fiscal cliff” if a year-end budget deal is not reached, which many experts believe would push the country into a recession. But even with that caveat, the nonpartisan agency assumes 9.6 million jobs will be created in the next four years. (This is a revision downward; CBO had estimated 11 million in January.)”

“But Moody’s Analytics, in an August forecast, predicts 12 million jobs will be created by 2016, no matter who is president... And Macroeconomic Advisors in April also predicted a gain of 12.3 million jobs.”

“In other words, this is a fairly safe bet by Romney, even if he has a somewhat fuzzy plan for action. We have often noted that presidents are often at the mercy—or the beneficiary—of broad economic trends, and Romney’s pledge appears to be an effort to take advantage of that.”

With two dramatic, but increasingly likely conditions, the new employment number is likely to go much higher. First is the re-election of the President to a second term. Alongside that, if we get a Democratic controlled House and a filibuster-proof Senate to partner with the President in the 113th Congress job creation might eclipse the 12 million prediction by a mile. Given this fortunate possible occurrence, a rational jobs bill will be passed and the country will come roaring out of the recession.

In his first term, the President has created a forward looking infrastructure that initially had stopped the bleeding, quickly turned the downtrend into an uptrend for 29 consecutive months to date, and now is poised for further growth, this in spite of a downright disloyal and destructive opposition from the Republicans in Congress.

Rather than speaking irrelevant and inane platitudes, President Obama has unveiled a real plan of action to build on the foundation he has already laid and to put even more Americans back to work and rebuild the beleaguered middle class. The President’s omnibus plan will begin to bring manufacturing back to America, enhance our energy independence, address the deficit, and help our communities reinstate their police, fire fighters, and educators so we can rebuild our country.