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President Barack Obama, in a speech at the beginning of the month, proposed an imperfect but passable set of proposals to spur job creation.
The $450 billion package included the kind of measures designed to attract support from every corner of Congress: deeper cuts in Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes for both employers and employees; money for schools and roads; incentives for businesses to create jobs; and funds to protect teachers' positions and extend unemployment.
He said he'd offer a way to pay for them in a few days. Last week, Obama released the details. He also destroyed any lingering bipartisan support, not to mention any chance of getting his proposal through Congress.
Instead of employing the so-called "balanced approach" to deficit reduction that he has touted throughout the past year, the president's proposal relied on tax increases alone. Worse, Obama proposed a series of well-worn measures that Congress has rejected over and over again.
Obama's proposal included limiting deductions for families earning more than $250,000; increases in taxes on certain investments; repealing subsidies for oil and gas drilling; and changing the depreciation schedule for corporate jets.
The plan was dead before it reached the other end of the Mall.
If the president's proposal was a political feint, it would be bad enough - divisive and a waste of everyone's time. If it was a serious effort at creating jobs, the president would be better off leaving that to somebody else.
Make no mistake: The proposals are all overdue. All of them should be part of any serious deficit reduction plan, along with cuts in federal spending.
But that's not what the president has proposed. That's not what anyone in Washington has proposed.
The president's jobs plan is a relatively modest effort to jump-start hiring and shore up sectors of the economy that need it. The plan won't restart a stalled economy, but an economy this stuck needs every push it can find.
What it doesn't need is a proposal that has no chance of passing. What it doesn't need is another nakedly political proposal by a president who has missed too many chances to provide leadership.
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Political theater - Nero fiddles while Rome burns
Same 'ole, same 'ole. Meanwhile ... Greece looms on the horizon for the good 'ole U.S. of A.
Sad. My generation failed.
We have a massive Federal Government filled with many bright, intelligent, and well paid people. But instead of focusing their efforts on solving the looming economic collapse they are focused on self-serving politcal games whose goals are more about retaining political power than saving our nation.
These "leaders" we have elected claim the Republican Party brand and the Democrtatic Party brand.
The mistakenly view their highest fiduciary responsibility to belong to those special interests who write the largest checks to fund future political campaigns. Meanwhile, the media-entertainment industry gives their tacit approval, turning a blind eye to the corruption becuase their advertisers are the same special interests buying the politcal process.
The Beatles summed it up well; "Obal-dee, obla-da ... life goes oooon-on, la, lal, la, life goes on..."
Folks, the money has been spent and soon the credit cards will be maxed out. It isn't going to be pretty.
The pampered class in D.C. will survive quite well. The rest of us?
We're road kill.
Me? After church today I'm going to watch the NFL. I plan to enjoy 'life as we know it' for as long as I can. I'm making a crock pot of my homemade chili. Dog on my lap. HD TV and surround sound. It's a rainy day, so the yard work will have to wait ...
Hard times lie ahead.
I can hardly imagine the "new
"The plan was dead before it reached the other end of the Mall."
In spite of the repeated TV ads, with an angry President Obama demanding his jobs bill be passed without delay, as of Friday, it had not been submitted to Congress.
You can read it online, and it has been widely distributed to the press, but you would think that if he was serious, he would have a Democratic representative place it in the hopper where it could be assigned to a committee and scored by the CBO.
This delay can only mean it is nothing more than political theater, an effort to make as many class envy points as possible before the hollow reality of the proposal can be exposed as the useless sham it is.
According to independent analysts, even if it produced all the jobs claimed in the hype, and did not destroy other jobs with its unintended consequences, both highly unlikely considering the results of previous similar plans, the cost per job would be about $300,000 per job.
The longer the President can delay that becoming the official score, the longer he can puff and strut.
The Rules Of The Game.
Understanding about the up comming Election Year would be helpful regarding all Legislation being considered now and in the future..Obama is not going to separate Himself from the Democratic Party Platform, as far as His Voting goes on Larger Issues, He needs undivided suport of the Established Base of the Democratic Party to win the 2012 Election....Also Republicans face Massive Feedback from Grass Roots Movements, these factors at times may be quite limited but at other times it operates to motovate the voters and this is always a Serious Consideration for any Politician holding or seeking office, possible outcome of Self-defeating and divisive Movements within the Republician Party include (1) Presentation of an unelectable Candidate...and..(2) Division within the Party itself.
In Closing I would say that consider all legislation presented by both Democrats and Republicians as a type of Tugg-a-War moving toward the 2012 Election Year..Happy Voting
Of course his plan was dead
Of course his plan was dead the moment he proposed it; perhaps the editorial board is living in a dream world. Anything the President proposes is dead on arrival at the House of Representatives. At least the republicans have had the honesty to admit that. So he could have proposed deeper cuts, and the republicans would have found a way to be against them also in order to avoid any semblance of actually working in the interest of the american people. So how do you survive this toxic political environment? You propose a program the elements of which have been supported by all sides, and you work like heck to get it passes. At this point, if it does no harm that will be a help. Then you run on the clear and spoken obfuscation of the republicans and on their clear support for the welfare of the top 1%, the rest be damned. And it appears to me that is what he has decided to do, and it is about time.