Green Jobs for All!

On those rare occasions when President Obama deigns to discuss his supposed desire to help Americans find jobs, he is always careful to specify that those jobs must be green - that is, environmentally correct.  Not for him the high-paying hardhat jobs of the Keystone pipeline or the Bakken oil shale; no, the only worthy employment in Obama's America is at (bankrupt) Solyndra making solar cells nobody wants, nobody needs, and nobody can afford anyway.

The redoubtable Rep. Darrell Issa has long been aware that green jobs are a scam and has pointed it out at every opportunity.  Not every day, however, is even he able to make this point in quite so dramatic a form as arose during an official Congressional investigation recently.

The Truth Comes Out - And What A Truth!

Rep. Issa had hauled deeply reluctant representatives of the Bureau of Labor Statistics before his panel and compelled them to testify, under oath, on the subject of just exactly how many "green jobs" had been created and what exactly they consisted of.  Quoth the transcript:

REP. ISSA: If you sweep the floor in a solar panel facility, is that a green job?

MR. GALVIN: Yes.

REP. ISSA: Thank you. If you drive a hybrid bus — public transportation — is that a green job?

MR. GALVIN: According to our definition, yes.

REP. ISSA: Thank you. What if you’re a college professor teaching classes about environmental studies?

MR. GALVIN: Yes.

REP. ISSA: What about just any school bus driver?

MR. GALVIN: Yes.

REP. ISSA: What about the guy who puts gas in the school bus?

MR. GALVIN: Yes.

REP. ISSA: How about employees at a bicycle shop?

MR. GALVIN: I guess I’m not sure about that.

REP. ISSA: The answer is yes, according to your definition. And you’ve got a lot of them.

What about a clerk at the bicycle repair shop?

MR. GALVIN: Yes.

REP. ISSA: What about someone who works in an antique dealer?

MR. GALVIN: I’m not sure about that either.

REP. ISSA: The answer is yes. Those are — those are recycled goods. They’re antiques; they’re used.

What about someone who works at the Salvation Army in their clothing recycling and furniture?

MR. GALVIN: Right. Because they’re selling recycled goods.

REP. ISSA: OK. What about somebody who opened a store to sell rare manuscripts?

MR. GALVIN: What industry is that?

REP. ISSA: People sell rare books and manuscripts — but they’re rare because they’re old so they’re used.

MR. GALVIN: OK.

REP. ISSA: What about workers at a consignment shop?

MR. GALVIN: That’s a green job.

REP. ISSA: Does the teenage kid who works full time at a used record shop count?

MR. GALVIN: Yes.

REP. ISSA: How about somebody who manufacturers railroads rolling stock — basically, train cars?

MR. GALVIN: I don’t think we classified the manufacture of rail cars as –

REP. ISSA: 48.8 percent of jobs in manufacturing, rail cars counted, according to your statistics. About half of the jobs that are being used to build trains.

OK. How about — just one more here. What about people who work in a trash disposal yard? Do garbage men have green jobs?

MR. GALVIN: Yes.

REP. ISSA: OK. I apologize. The real last last is, how about an oil lobbyist? Wouldn’t an oil lobbyist count as having a green job if they are engaged in advocacy related to environmental issues?

MR. GALVIN: Yes.

Bus drivers?  Oil-industry lobbyists?  Janitors?  The Salvation Army, of all things?  All green jobs, and all existing only due to the beneficial rule of President Obama!  Thanks to the dogged determination of Rep. Issa, the very concept stands revealed as the laughingstock it always was.

Even the illustrious Rep. Issa has missed a trick here.  Take careful note of his observation that dealing in recycled goods and garbage are, by definition, green jobs.

A great many jurisdictions in America use the force of law to demand that citizens recycle their trash.  Every person unfortunate enough to be living under those rules has a government-mandated daily job sorting through their garbage, despite the long-proven fact that many forms of recycling waste money, energy, and resources.  That doesn't matter to the environmentalist movement, any more than the lack of actual jobs matters to Mr. Obama.

Thus, a simple solution presents itself: Mandate recycling nationwide, as the environmentalist movement has long demanded.  Shazzam, every single American instantly has, by the definition of the Bureau of Labor Statistics as explained under oath, a green job!

Of course, this "job" is actually enslavement - something you have to do whether you want to or not, cannot quit, and aren't paid for.  But then, that's the definition of socialism, where the fruits of your labor are stolen and used elsewhere under the decree of an all-powerful government.  What else is new?