President Barack Obama is so hopelessly inexperienced in foreign policy that he is careening from position to position on the Mideast chaos, just like Jimmy Carter did when he led the United States into disaster in Iran, New York State Republican Committee Chairman Edward Cox tells Newsmax.TV.
Obama’s scattered approach is unlike that of President Richard Nixon, who believed the United States should take a strong leadership role in the world, based on a thought-out strategy — and executing that plan even amidst opposition, said Cox, who is a Nixon son-in law.
Nixon demonstrated that belief when he normalized relations with communist China, Cox said.
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“Mr. Obama doesn’t have that experience and so, like Jimmy Carter, he is going from one thing to the other,” Cox said.
Libyan strongman Moammar Ghadhafi “has to leave — no, we don’t mean he should leave; yes, he does have to leave,” Cox said. “The United States has to be consistent, has to lead, and Mr. Obama does not understand that, and he is looking a lot more like Jimmy Carter. And we know the disaster that happened when he handled the Iranian situation — and we are still suffering from that because the ayatollahs now control Iran because Jimmy Carter, President Carter was indecisive.”
On another issue that is driving people to distraction with escalating gas and oil prices, Cox said the Obama administration is missing the point on energy issues. Obama needs to be more in tune with “something that my father-in-law President Nixon started — energy independence,” said Cox, who served in the Reagan administration as senior vice president and general counsel of the U.S. Synthetic Fuels Corp.
“The Obama administration is not doing anything about that, they’re focused on solar and wind,” he said. “That’s good, but minimal impact on our energy situation. What we really have here in the United States is huge supplies of natural gas and the administration should be encouraging the extraction of that gas from shale and a lot other ways and the use of that gas not just for turbines to make electricity but also for transportation.
“Natural gas can be converted into fuels and be used in transportation as a substitute for oil and if we do this and do it effectively we would no longer be at the mercy of people who do not like us in the Middle East and where we import a lot of oil from now.”
In his home state of New York, which he described as “blue as Massachusetts,” Cox said Republicans not only engineered a comeback but also are having an influence on Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo. In the 2010 elections, the GOP won back the state Senate, went from having two members of Congress to eight, picked up enough seats in the assembly so it is no longer veto proof, and has Cuomo talking like a Republican.
“He’s been talking our talk and I think he will not raise taxes,” he said. “But I’m not sure he understands pro-growth policies. New York is the highest tax state in the United States, we need to cut taxes if we’re going to come back and bring jobs back to New York and get New York back as the great state it once was.”
One area where Cuomo is not talking like a Republican is in his dealing with unionized government workers. Cuomo initially called them “special interests,” but his description has morphed them into “stakeholders,” Cox said.
“They are there negotiating with him, he’s giving them something, getting something from them, and doing that he’s having them swallow some tough medicine,” Cox said. “On the other hand, they are getting some things that make them structurally stronger over the long haul.
“Basic changes that are now being made in New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and Michigan, and Wisconsin, those changes are not happening in New York. As a result New York is becoming less competitive compared to other states and the exodus of jobs and business will continue until we have good Republican policies that are pro-growth put in place.”
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