"One 'A' and one 'B' On Obama's Report Card"

I am totally against the majority of President Obama's agenda. I believe the less government intervenes in our lives the better,  while Obama remains committed to his "community organizer" training in the belief that big government is efficient and beneficial.

However, as oil climbs over $100 dollar per barrel, and while Union teachers protest, instead of teachiing,  I will give the President credit for two efforts he has put forth to better our nation.

  1)  President Obama is the only Democrat who has come out in support of holding teachers responsible for educating our kids.  His Race to the Top program provides incentives for schools to achieve higher teaching goals, to include a willingness to fire teachers who are not doing the job and stopping the almost automatic grants of tenure to teachers who are failing.

2)  I believe the President is partly on the right side of the energy issue.  While his "Cap and Trade" policy was a stunning effort to socialize national energy, his efforts to spur production of electric vehicles, his willingness to expand nuclear power plants and his emphasis on promoting both wind and solar power are right on.  The time is now for us to realize that $6.00 gas is a hair breath away.  India and China are now industrial powers and their explosive demand for oil can only drive oil prices into the stratosphere.  Our petroleum engineers have already proven that we are rapidly approaching max oil production so there is no out for us; we must begin converting our factories and automobiles and home and office heating to natural gas, solar, electric, wind energy and nuclear.  President Obama was also right that this conversion could very well make us the leader in alternative energy development and could  be a tremendous boost to our economy.  The jobs to be created and the money to be made in this arena are unlimited.  Can you imagine the number of jobs that could have been created if the Dems had targeted that $870 billion dollar ear-marked laden Stimulous bill into alternative energy efforts?

Unfortunately, the Republicans are dinosaurs with respect to this issue, or perhaps more approriately, Ostriches with their heads buried in ground.  Very few of our Republican leaders will rise up and admit that our energy policy has been a failure for the past three decades.  They need to tell those oil company lobbyists to lunch elsewhere.

So, while Obama is still cuddling up to his biggest campaign contributors, the unions, he is at least pushing for teachers to perform...and while the Republicans sit on their hands, Obama is up front and aggressive in recognizing and proposing solutions to our energy problems.  I give him an A on Energy policy and a B for education.