Obamateurism of the Day

Jim Geraghty notices that Barack Obama made a strange choice of venue for his speech about putting people back to work through energy efficiency.  First off, Obama decided to highlight a company that laid off over 7,000 people this year:

That’s why the Recovery Act included the single biggest investment in job-creating clean energy in our history: in renewable sources of energy; in advanced manufacturing; in clean vehicle technology; in a bigger, better, smarter electric grid that can carry clean, homegrown energy from the places that harness it to the places that need it.

And after these investments have been given the better part of a year to take root, a picture of their impact is starting to emerge. I just received a report from Vice President Biden that confirms that as a result of the steps that we’ve taken, a major transformation of our economy is well underway. We are on track to double renewable energy production, and double our capacity to manufacture clean energy components like wind turbines and solar panels right here in the United States by the year 2012 — doubling it. (Applause.)

But there’s a lot more that we can do, and that’s what I’ve come to Home Depot to talk about. …

That’s why I’m calling on Congress to provide new temporary incentives for Americans to make energy-efficiency retrofit investments in their homes.  And we want them to do it soon.

I know the idea may not be very glamorous — although I get really excited about it.  We were at the roundtable and somebody said installation is not sexy.  I disagree.  (Laughter.)  Frank, don’t you think installation is sexy stuff?  (Applause.)  Here’s what’s sexy about it:  saving money.  Think about it this way:  If you haven’t upgraded your home yet, it’s not just heat or cool air that’s escaping — it’s energy and money that you are wasting.  If you saw $20 bills just sort of floating through the window up into the atmosphere, you’d try to figure out how you were going to keep that.  But that’s exactly what’s happening because of the lack of efficiency in our buildings.

So what we want to do is create incentives that stimulate consumer spending, because folks buy materials from home improvement stores like this one, which then buys them from manufacturers.  It spurs hiring because local contractors and construction workers do the installation.  It saves consumers money — perhaps hundreds of dollars off their utility bills each year — and it reduces our energy consumption in the process.

As Obama took office, Home Depot was closing several dozen locations:

Home Depot Inc. plans to eliminate 7,000 jobs while shutting down its smaller home improvement brands as the recession continues to batter the nation’s housing market. Its shares climbed more than 5 percent in morning trading.

The nation’s biggest home improvement retailer said Monday the cuts will affect about 2 percent of its 300,000 workers and cause the Atlanta-based chain to record a $532 million pretax charge, mostly in the current fourth quarter, which ends Feb. 1.

Most of the cuts affect workers at Expo Design Centers, YardBIRDS, Design Centers and HD Bath, a bath remodeling business. Combined, the four operate about four dozen locations.

Those chains’ stores will close in the next two months. Liquidation sales are set to begin Tuesday morning, executives said.

But even more than that, did anyone put together what Obama was saying and where he was saying it? Home Depot is a do-it-yourself store.  The idea of stimulating jobs through weatherizing homes works when people hire other people to do the work on their houses.  The purchase of weatherization materials may create a few more jobs, but it will hardly put a nation back to work when people buy their supplies at Home Depot, except for a few jobs at Home Depot itself.  I doubt seriously that manufacturers of insulation and caulk are gearing up to hire tens of thousands of new workers to meet the massive weatherization demands of America’s do-it-yourself crowd based on Obama’s tax credits.

It’s for that reason that most people don’t find insulation and caulk “sexy,” as Obama argues here.  Capital-gains tax rate cuts are a lot more sexy — and a lot more effective than weatherization credits in terms of job creation.

Got an Obamateurism of the Day? If you see a foul-up by Barack Obama, e-mail it to me at obamaisms@edmorrissey.com with the quote and the link to the Obamateurism. I’ll post the best Obamateurisms on a daily basis, depending on how many I receive. Include a link to your blog, and I’ll give some link love as well. And unlike Slate, I promise to end the feature when Barack Obama leaves office.

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