Mr. President: Prepare Three Envelopes!

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The Hits Just Keep Coming for President Obama.

There must be times when President Obama must wonder “what was I thinking”!  The piling on of bad news just keeps digging the economic hole President Obama must climb out of before it is time for voters to mark that ballot in November 2012.

Even God seems a little grumpy these days sending an earthquake and then a hurricane through Washington DC .  Who could blame him after this list of body blows:

Holy Gallup Polls!

• Net Zero Jobs ‘Created or Saved’ in August. There were zero net nonfarm payroll jobs created in August with 58,000 fewer net jobs created during July and June.

• Solyndra Goes Dark.  Solar energy darling Solyndra visited by the president last year and granted a $535 million US DOE loan guarantee filed for bankruptcy, shut down its Fremont, California plant visited by the President and laid off its 1, 100 workers.

• Ozone Rules Moonwalked. Amid growing political pressure, President Barack Obama on Sept. 2 told U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to withdraw the controversial draft Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards.

• Emissions reporting—Not on My Watch! In addition on August 19 US EPA postponed for four years the controversial greenhouse gas emissions reporting rules that require emitters to release internal data about their operations to the public. Industry groups squealed loudly about the costs and opposed sensitive information to competitors.

• The Tea Party Strikes Back—Well in the House at Least. In an Aug. 30 letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner, President Barack Obama said his administration is considering seven proposed regulations that would have an estimated cost to the nation’s economy in excess of $1 billion each.  In response, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., proposed a legislative agenda to repeal the 10 “most harmful job-destroying regulations” includes several proposals affecting coal-fired power plants the Administration is trying to save for the next term by withdrawing them.

• Show Me the Money!!! September 30 is the end of the Federal fiscal Year and while the House passed its budget the Senate has not so a new spending battle looms over appropriations or continuing resolutions for the Transportation Department, FAA extension and other spending.

• Consumer Spending Increased but Only Because We ate Savings. Personal spending increased 0.8% in July from June but annualized 3-month moving average of real consumer spending held at July’s low 0.4 percent pace as energy prices rebounded. But to get even this small increase in real spending, consumers had to eat savings since personal savings rates fell to 5.0 percent from 5.5 percent, as real disposable income fell 0.1 percent from July.

• Consumer Confidence Tanks.  Consumer confidence plunged 14.7 points in August to 44.5. The drop in the index was the largest since October 2008 in the aftermath of the Lehman Brothers collapse and the main wave of the financial crisis. Uncertainty surrounding the debt-ceiling agreement, S&P downgrade and volatile stock market performance caused consumer confidence to fall.

Prepare Three Envelopes

You remember that old joke, don’t you?  The new guy finds three envelopes in his desk the day he starts his new job.  The instructions say: open them in the number ordered when you get in trouble.

Envelop # 1: Blame your predecessor!  Ok that didn’t work and after three years no one believes it any more!

Envelope #2:  Re-organize.  OK, Mr President you had a chance with the Deficit Reduction Commission report prescribing all manner of bad medicine.  It seemed awful at the time so you rejected its recommendations.  Maybe it’s time to call them back for a do-over.  Your economics team except for Treasury Secretary Geithner are all gone but it didn’t help.  Defense Secretary Gates “retired” but everyone thought he did a great job so leaving does not help you, Mr. Obama.  EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s proposed regulations are hammering you and you keep withdrawing them but your base still likes them so firing her is only half a loaf.  If you fire Hilary Clinton she might run against you again.

There is only one thing left to do Mr President.

Envelope # 3: Prepare Three Envelopes and leave them in the top drawer of the desk!  Besides retiring now will get you lifetime health care with no death panel and a nice pension.

Then you can tell your critics to sit on it and twirl!  The Republicans will be nonplussed since none of their candidates have a chance unless they can run against you.  Your party will have a food fight over replacing you—it is such poetic justice!

Related articles

• President Zero; Update: White House runs away from costly EPA regs (michellemalkin.com)
• Obama scraps tighter smog rules (bbc.co.uk)
• Breaking: Obama asks EPA to withdraw proposed ozone rule (junkscience.com)
• Obama Gets Hearts – and Darts – for Halting Proposed Ozone Rule (blogs.wsj.com)
• Obama requests EPA withdraw ozone draft law (marketwatch.com)
• Obama undercuts EPA, refuses to raise ozone standards (americablog.com)
• Obama asks EPA to back off draft ozone standard (latimes.com)
• Obama Halts Controversial EPA Regulation (time.com)