President Congeniality: Obama Welcomes the new Congress With a Keystone Veto Threat.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/president-congeniality-1420590093
President Obama welcomed the 114th Congress Tuesday with an Obama-as-usual gesture: The White House said he will veto a bipartisan bill approving the Keystone XL pipeline if it gets to desk, as seems likely.
The House is expected to approve the pipeline again this week, while John Hoeven (R., N.D.) and Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) have introduced a Senate bill with 60 co-sponsors that is poised to overcome a liberal filibuster. Mr. Obama’s threat is an attempt to peel off enough Democrats so he doesn’t have to veto.
Mr. Obama claims to want more spending on infrastructure, but apparently not if the financing is from private business rather than taxpayers. The President says Keystone won’t matter to the economy because it will create “maybe 2,000” temporary jobs. But his own State Department reported last year that the project would employ some 10,000 construction workers, and that the $3.3 billion investment would support another 16,000 providing the pipe, tools, trucks and services (insurance, hotel rooms) for the project. There are another 26,000 indirect jobs that come from Keystone workers spending their wages on the likes of food, rent or vacations.
Congress is finally acting in bipartisan fashion because Mr. Obama has delayed his Keystone decision for six years. Members of both parties should move ahead despite the veto threat and call his bluff. At least the country will see who is the real obstacle to faster growth and job creation.
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