The Jobs Speech

So, last Thursday, the President made his vaunted jobs speech. You know, the one he asked permission from the Republicans for? The one he was told "no," and then had to reschedule?

So, how did it go?

Well, let me back up a little, and start from the beginning. The start of the process was bungled about as bad as it could have been.

He tried to "bigfoot" the Republicans, as Cenk Uygur put it, by having the speech in the well of Congress on the same night as the comical Republican debate - one of about 3,000 debates they are having BEFORE the actual primary season. He has to, by law, get permission from Congress to address a joint session of Congress, so he asked. Now, NO PRESIDENT has EVER been refused. What do you thing this Congress did to our first black president? Of course, they refused. And the manner in which they did it? Well, Thomm Hartman said, on his radio show, that they might as well have put the word "boy" at the end of the reply. No, instead they let him have his speech on the same night as the opening of the NFL season. Only Green Bay against the Saints. This guarantees that three and a half people would watch the President's speech live. (In fairness, the speech was before the game, and probably seventeen and a half people watched it - I listened to it on the radio while running errands.)

So, if you are the President who is touted by his supporters as a political genius, a "chess-master" whose political machinations are far above the comprehension of us mere checkers players, don't you anticipate the refusal by the Republicans? And if you did, was your brilliant strategy to bow your head, and say "yes sir, Thursday will be fine sir"? Again, the Republican response was UNPRECEDENTED! A president has NEVER been refused an address to a joint session of Congress. But apparently this WAS the strategy - for the President to look reasonable, and for the Republicans to look unreasonable.

Dude, you look weak. You look like Oliver Twist asking for a little more gruel, and being slapped by a fat, Victorian white guy.  Here's what you should have done:

You should have expected the refusal, and said "no problem, I have another place to make the speech." Then, as you should have pre-arranged, fly Air Force One to John Boner's district, and make a speech in front of a closed factory. You start the speech with: "Can you believe those sons' o' bitches...debating how to give more tax breaks to the rich while you have no jobs! I want to create jobs, and they won't even let me speak..." you get the idea. This puts Boehner in a horrible vice, squeezing him between the tea baggers and his constituents, and changes the conversation from cutting spending to jobs. It makes Congress the enemy of the President, who is fighting for the people.

Ah, well...to dream.

Still, his speech had some marginally good points. I liked how he kept saying "pass this bill, right away." It is a rhetorical device that this president hasn't used. It spoke to the urgency of the jobs situation. His whole tone was a little louder, a little faster and a little more urgent. These are key things he needed to do...about two years ago.

Substantively, his speech contained a few things that can possibly help the jobs situation. He called for infrastructure spending, around 200 billion dollars worth. This is great. Construction workers, teachers and manufacturers of building and energy products will do well with this. He called for a one-year extension of unemployment benefits. This is not only humane, and "liberal," but a boon to the economy as well, as ALL of this spending will go to the consumer economy. He also said that he would not sacrifice collective bargaining to get this.

Pardon me if I don't fire the gun in the air, release the balloons and high-five my neighbors.

Here's the main things that I heard from this speech. And I am admittedly a massive Obama skeptic at this point, but I heard three main things: 1) "Republicans and Democrats working together" and "this was a Republican idea," 2) "tax cuts," and 3) "everything will be paid for," which means that massive cutting of services will follow. I also heard the nail in the reelection coffin: "we must reform Medicare."

Let me run these down. First, Mr. President, stop agreeing with your opposition. You are running to become the DEMOCRATIC President in 2012. Constantly agreeing with, and adopting Republican policies is terrible for all of us. First, they are generally bad policy. The bottom 98% of us suffer when policies designed to benefit the top 2% are supported by BOTH sides of our political spectrum. Second, it is horrible politics. We Americans don't care if you are reasonable and bipartisan. When it is your only move, you look weak, and we hate that in a President - just ask Jimmy Carter. And by the way, has it helped? Do the Republicans work with you? NO! They just yell at you even louder, and then blame you when their horrible policies fuck us all. Finally, it shifts the political spectrum further to the right. No matter what you do, they call you the extreme left. When you adopt right wing policies, those become the positions of the liberal left to the beltway media. Agreeing with Republicans makes Democrats' jobs that much harder.

It's not that you never compromise, that would be crazy. And Republicans are crazy, they never compromise. They drag you further to the right, and we have to suffer that trip with you. No, you fight for a Democratic position. You make our case, loud and often, which puts pressure on THEM to move LEFT! That way, the compromise is actually somewhere in the middle. I mean, Jesus Christ man, you are supposed to be a Democratic president. MAKE THE DEMOCRATIC CASE!

The next point is the tax cuts. If you do the math, over half of this proposal is tax cuts. For fuck's sake, our taxes are at historic lows! If tax cuts were a panacea for economic woes, we'd have the greatest economy in history right now. But we don't, we have one of the WORST economies in our history. And big business, the S&P 500, is sitting on TWO TRILLION dollars in cash right now. Really?! You want to reduce the payroll tax for them? What the fuck!?!

Look, the original stimulus package was over a third tax cuts. Many economists argue that that is one reason why it fell short - not enough spending. We don't need tax cuts. Our economy doesn't need tax cuts. Only the wealthiest Americans want them. And when you pay for them by having the disgusting "Super Congress" cut spending later, they come out of our pockets. Services that benefit Americans will disappear so that the money can flow to the top. In the middle of the worst jobs crisis since the Great Depression, and the kick-off of your reelection campaign, more than half of your proposal is to transfer yet MORE money to the top 2%. Man, you must be the stupidest politician, or you must hate us. Good luck getting our votes with that strategy.

Which leads to a repeated point here - when he said, near the beginning of his speech, that "everything will be paid for." He said that it will be up to the Super Congress committee to find an extra half-trillion to pay for this jobs bill. That means that this bill is NOT STIMULUS. It is NOT a jolt to the economy, because it will kill jobs on the back end as services are cut. So, for 200 billion in infrastructure spending, we cut an additional half-trillion in overall spending. Well guess what? That half-trillion is spending in the economy. This plan ends up shorting us on close to 300 billion in spending that would create - wait for it - JOBS!!! Fuck! And look, as I have said many times, I am a crank who works two jobs. I don't have time to research this. And yet I can figure out that this plan actually puts us on the hook for another 300 billion of wealth transfer to the top 2%. That is the net figure in this transaction the way the President has proposed it. This is terrible, terrible, terrible.

And the cherry on top of this turd sundae - the "reform" of Medicare. Now, to be fair, Medicare is not like Social Security. Medicare is in trouble, and does not have SS's HUGE surplus. (Whenever you hear that SS is in trouble, know that that argument is total bullshit.) Medicare does face insolvency. And, there are some reforms that could really help. But the devil is in the details. For instance, if you get rid of the Medicare debacle that Bush put in place, you will save billions that now are skimmed off the top to enrich corporations.

Also, if the Affordable Care Act had actually tried to be affordable, like with a public option, and drug reimportation, Medicare would largely be out of the woods. Medicare is in so much trouble because medical costs have NO CONTROL! And the derisively named "Obamacare" does much too little to control them. Reforms along these lines would be wise and welcome.

But if the President's proposal is to raise the eligibility age, then he has once again sided with the wealthiest CEOs, and is content to watch you suffer and die so that the top 2% doesn't have to part with a nickel extra to help the nation that has been so good to them. And believe me, this will not be lost on the seniors, or those approaching seniorhood (like me). We will turn on this president at the polls. Even talking about Medicare reforms in an election year is crazy, unless you can make it crystal clear how every American's lives will be better for these reforms.

So, bottom line? This speech was largely a disaster. It showed urgency, and some amusing repetitions of the phrase "right away," but was more of a weak president saying how much he is in favor of the ideas of his political opponents. And although the tone was urgent, which could put pressure on Republicans if he framed it better, instead had a pleading quality. It was as if he was saying "cum oooooon, guys...help me with jooooooooooobbbs. Please? Pretty please? I'll let you ride my bike!" And, the math works out horribly for us, and fantastically for the top 2%. Whose surprised?

Nobody whose been paying attention, that's who.