It’s “important to use this period when gas prices are low to accelerate the transition to a clean-energy economy”, he said.
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President Barack Obama on Friday said the latest jobs report showing the unemployment rate at an eight-year low of 4.9 percent was a testament to the strength of the American economy.
The chairmen of the House and Senate budget committees are so dismayed with the proposed oil fee and other spending proposals from the White House that they have rejected the traditional meeting with the president’s budget chief next week after the budget is formally presented to Congress on Tuesday. “Every one of us have seen cycles where gas prices go down and then they pop back up”.
USA employers added 151,000 jobs in January, a deceleration from recent months as companies shed education, transportation and temporary workers but hired others in manufacturing, retail and food services.
Yesterday, President Obama took advantage of the low price of a barrel of oil (just about $31, today) to propose a a barrel tax.
While Congress finally passed a five-year $300 billion infrastructure spending bill in December, they failed to increase the gas tax that has been funding the Highway Bill since the early 90s despite of the fact that inflation almost demands it. “Some of that revenue can be used for the investments in basic research and technology that’s going to be needed for the energy sources of the future”, Obama told reporters at a White House news conference.
Sullivan doesn’t think a new $10 per gallon tax on a barrel of oil will help anyone right now.
“There’s no doubt that while we have made significant progress… there’s still anxiety and concern about the general direction of the economy”, he said. He adds, “Why would we want to pass up the chance for American businesses to produce and sell the energy of the future?”
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Obama said the data provides proof his administration’s policies are working and claimed the economy would have done worse if Republican strategies had been adopted.
