UPDATED Obama get's spanked

Take your jobs plan and shove it, Mr. President: Your policies have harmed Chattanooga enough

President Obama,

Welcome to Chattanooga, one of hundreds of cities throughout this great nation struggling to succeed in spite of your foolish policies that limit job creation, stifle economic growth and suffocate the entrepreneurial spirit.

Forgive us if you are not greeted with the same level of Southern hospitality that our area usually bestows on its distinguished guests. You see, we understand you are in town to share your umpteenth different job creation plan during your time in office. If it works as well as your other job creation programs, then thanks, but no thanks. We’d prefer you keep it to yourself.

That’s because your jobs creation plans so far have included a ridiculous government spending spree and punitive tax increase on job creators that were passed, as well as a minimum wage increase that, thankfully, was not. Economists — and regular folks with a basic understanding of math — understand that these are three of the most damaging policies imaginable when a country is mired in unemployment and starving for job growth.

Even though 64 percent of Chattanooga respondents said they would rather you hadn’t chosen to visit our fair city, according to a survey on the Times Free Press website, it’s probably good that you’re here. It will give you an opportunity to see the failure of your most comprehensive jobs plan to date, the disastrous stimulus scheme, up close and personal.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 helped fund the Gig to Nowhere project, a $552 million socialist-style experiment in government-owned Internet, cable and phone services orchestrated by EPB — Chattanooga’s government-owned electric monopoly.

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The Gig to Nowhere is a Smart Grid, a high tech local electricity infrastructure intended to improve energy efficiency and reduce power outages. After lobbying for, and receiving, $111.6 million in stimulus money from your administration, EPB decided to build a souped-up version of the Smart Grid with fiber optics rather than more cost-effective wireless technology. This decision was supposed to allow EPB to provide the fastest Internet service in the Western Hemisphere, a gigabit-per-second Internet speed that would send tech companies and web entrepreneurs stampeding to Chattanooga in droves.

In reality, though, the gig, like most of the projects funded by your stimulus plan, has been an absolute bust.

While the Smart Grid will cost taxpayers and local electric customers well over a half-billion dollars when all is said and done, there has been little improvement in the quality of EPB’s electric service. Worse, despite being heavily subsidized, EPB’s government-owned Internet, cable and telephone outfit that competes head-to-head against private companies like AT&T and Comcast is barely staying afloat, often relying on loans from electric service reserve funds to afford its business expenses.

Further, there has been no credible evidence to suggest that EPB can even provide a gig of service consistently and reliably. Any companies hoping to utilize the Gig to Nowhere are quoted monthly billing costs that make the service unfeasible. As a result, Chattanooga has remained a relative ghost town for technological innovation. Almost no economic development whatsoever has resulted from the gig.

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What the gig has brought, however, is that shocking price tag. Because of your unwillingness to balance the budget, Mr. President, the $111.6 million federal handout to subsidize the Gig to Nowhere will actually cost federal taxpayers $158.2 million, due to interest. Once EPB received the stimulus infusion to fund the pork project, the electric monopoly took out a $219.8 bond that will balloon to $391.3 million by the time Chattanoogans are done paying it off.

The bond’s first payment comes due this fall and there remain significant questions about how EPB can manage to pay the debt without hiking electric rates on EPB customers.

Building a Smart Grid to get into a telecom sector already well-served by private companies was a bad idea from the start. But getting government involved in places it doesn’t belong is a hallmark of your administration. As a result, you and your policymakers were happy to fund the Gig to Nowhere.

You claimed that the Smart Grid would create jobs for Chattanooga. But in reality, all it did was push America deeper in debt and lure a local government agency into making a terrible financial decision that will weigh on Chattanoogans like a millstone for decades to come.

So excuse us, Mr. President, for our lack of enthusiasm for your new jobs program. Here in Chattanooga we’re still reeling from your old one.

— The Free Press

UPDATE:

Editor fired for anti-Obama headline says bosses responded to pressure

A Tennessee newspaper editor who was fired for a headline critical of President Obama says his bosses bowed to pressure from the president's supporters, claiming he wouldn't have been canned if he had said the same of former President George W. Bush. 

Drew Johnson's editorial, titled "Take your jobs plan and shove it, Mr. President: Your policies have harmed Chattanooga enough," went viral and drew national attention earlier this week when Obama visited the city. 

The Chattanooga Times Free Press editorial page editor was later ousted. The newspaper released a statement Thursday saying Johnson had been fired for "placing a headline on an editorial outside of normal editing procedures." 

But in an interview with Fox News, Johnson said that policy -- requiring that last-minute changes to headlines be approved -- was only implemented after they published his piece.

Johnson explained he was simply thinking of the "Take This Job and Shove It" song and thought it was an "apt title," and used it to replace a "placeholder" headline. He said his criticism of the president's jobs plans was in line with the views of many readers, but his bosses were dealing with complaints.

"(The editor) said that she was disappointed in the headline, that she thought it was crass and she'd gotten a lot of complaints by Obama supporters," he said, recalling a meeting he had with the editor earlier in the week. 

"Today I come into work and am told that I'm fired for violating that policy that wasn't put in place until the day after I wrote the piece," Johnson told Fox News on Thursday, calling it a "retroactive firing." 

Johnson has adamantly defended himself, in a series of interviews and on Twitter. 

He argues that while the execs at the paper slammed his headline, they also left it up online as the story drew considerable Internet traffic.

"I just became the first person in the history of newspapers to be fired for writing a paper's most-read article," he tweeted. 

He later added: "To answer a question I've gotten a lot: I feel confident that if the headline had referenced Bush instead of Obama, I would still have a job." 

The newspaper denied Johnson's firing had anything to do with the content of his editorial. They said the headline was "not the original headline approved for publication" and that Johnson "violated the normal editing process" by changing it. 

"The Free Press page has often printed editorials critical of the president and his policies," the newspaper stated. 

The Times Free Press has two editorial pages -- one conservative and the other liberal.