PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

As a former deputy director of Oregon’s Economic Development Department – now called Business Oregon – President-elect Donald Trump’s action to get involved in the “Carrier issue” set off positive notions, as well as alarm bells.

More applaud than alarm, however, because saving jobs for the U.S. is what leading political figures should be doing. President Barack Obama sat on his hands. President-elect Trump jumped into the fray.

Saving jobs in the nation’s Rust Belt is just what Trump said he would do when he ran for election. And the fact that he inserted himself in the issue produced a solid result, at least in public relations terms. About 800 jobs remain in the U.S., which otherwise would have headed south.

Important to note here that Trump had a huge resource in Indiana where the Carrier jobs were located: His vice-president-elect, Mike Pence, is governor of that state and it was relatively easy for him to vote for and gain approval for the incentives Carrier won to keep the jobs in Indiana.

If – or, more likely, when – Trump inserts himself in other states, he won’t have Pence. But he will have the bully pulpit of the Oval Office.

Many are questioning what Trump had to do to keep the Carrier jobs and whether he will be able to keep up the intervention. Some have said that there are not enough incentive dollars around to grant awards to all the companies considering re-locating manufacturing operations to Mexico or other countries where wages are far lower. And others have commented that Trump’s action were in no way conservative, which means there should have been no government intervention in private business.

Here is how my friend Ron Eachus wrote about the subject in the Salem Statesman-Journal where he is an editorial columnist:

“He got involved. He intervened. He pressured them and got a small, but symbolically important win. Whatever else one might think of his persona or proposed policies, he demonstrated why so many in the Rust Belt saw him as the best choice when it came to protecting their manufacturing jobs from globalization and international trade.

“It was a personal, hands-on approach they’d been hoping for. And for the time being, a success. But such a victory in an early skirmish comes with a siren call — an alluring appeal to entice one to ignore or disregard the inherent danger of the course taken.

“The president-elect, now negotiator-in-chief, says he’s going to do this all over the country, using threats of public humiliation and imposition of tariffs and promises of really big corporate tax cuts and regulatory relief to cut deals. But private individual deal making with companies lacks transparency and will inevitably lead to an inconsistent and inequitable treatment of companies that could further undermine the economy and faith in the political process.

“Duplicating Carrier isn’t going to be that easy. It helped that vice president-elect Mike Pence was also still governor of Indiana, thus chairman of the board of the state agency that granted $7 million worth of public dollar incentives to Carrier. Getting similar concessions for other companies in other states might not go as quickly or smoothly.”

Ron is right. It won’t be easy for Trump to duplicate his Carrier success.

But my view, one honed during my days at Oregon’s Economic Development Department, can be summed up in one phrase: Every job counts.

If a president or a governor acts to save, not just one job, but 800 jobs, so much the better. Especially for those whose jobs are saved.

Even recognizing all of the political pros and cons here – disparate views about the role of government in saving or helping to create jobs – it always has been a mystery to me why “the jobs issue” ranks so low on many political priority lists.

It should be higher.

Those with the saved jobs have the benefit of the jobs. They support their families. They pay taxes.  They know the worth of working.

So, at least for a time, let’s set aside the debate about whether government should act. Just save the jobs.

PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

Washington Post writers put it bluntly in a headline a few weeks ago: “The fall of the house of Obama is coming, and it’s his own fault.”

That was a reminder that President Obama came into office on a pledge to restore bi-partisan order in the Nation’s Capitol ,but did almost the reverse when he could not get his way.

To go around Congress, which would not do his bidding, he turned to executive regulations.

According to Washington Post:

“The safety-pin-wearing left is aghast at the realization that President Donald Trump could actually follow through on his promise to cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama on his first day in office.”

Further:

“The reason Obama’s legacy is so vulnerable today is that the 44^th president relied more on executive actions – issuing not only executive orders, but also a record number of rules, regulations, agency directives to legislate around Congress and impose his agenda.

“After he lost control of the Senate in 2014, Obama announced at his first Cabinet meeting: We’re not just going to be waiting for legislation…I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone and I can use that to sign executive orders and take executive and administrative actions to move the ball forward.”

Now, some on the left would say that Obama had no choice because Republicans in Congress would not work with him to find middle ground. Perhaps. But, what a president, any president, must do is cajole, pester, persuade and do everything in the substantial power of the Oval Office to prod action out of Congress, regardless of which party is in charge.

Obama, in particular, should have worked the middle because of the pledges he made while running for and winning the presidency.

Washington Post writers contended that Obama “set a land speed record” for major regulations which, taken together – there were more than 600 – cost the economy $100 million or more.

Here are a few Obama orders that likely will be overturned.

• Immigration: When Obama could not pass his immigration reform to provide amnesty for entire categories of people not in the U.S. legally, he tried to impose it on the American people.

• Cap and trade: When Obama could not pass his environmental cap-and-trade bill, he used the Clean Air Act to impose it by executive action and, in the process, twisted the meaning of the law that even the New York Times contended was beyond credibility.

• Guantanamo Bay: With a stroke of his pen, President Trump can reverse Obama’s order to close the prison.

• Climate change: Trump can scrap the climate change deal that Obama signed in September 2016, which is non-binding in the first place.

• Transgender bathrooms: Remember this piece of stupidity. It will be relatively easy to quash the Education Department’s requirement for higher education institutions to allow transgender students to use bathrooms that do not match their biological gender.

• Clean power plan: It will not be as easy to trash the so-called “clean power plan” operated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) because the EPA would have to revoke it formally, which could lead to litigation. There is little doubt but that Trump will try.

There are some in Washington, D.C. who suggest that Trump would really shake things up by issuing a single executive order on day one of his Administration repealing all of Obama’s executive orders. Then, the Administration could go back and decide which ones to reinstate.

Obama, who claimed to build his Administration on the rock of bi-partisan consensus, actually, to quote a Biblical reference, was a “foolish man who built his house on the sand.”

Thus, it won’t last. Just watch what happens starting January 20, 2017.