Obamer's job billFollow

When it forced the GOP to rush even further to the fringe Right so they can say "No!"?

Witness the GOP ******** about extending the payroll tax cuts. I guess that money is better left in the hands of the government than in the hands of businesses workers. Funny, huh?

Edit: It's actually a cut from employees' payroll taxes. Of course, the first time, I wrote "hands of government" twice so each edit brings me a little closer to what I meant to say.

Edited, Sep 8th 2011 9:33pm by Jophiel

So its a political maneuver? Neat!

Apparently it's unheard of for some people that politicians are, in fact, politicians.

That's what I was thinking. Obama gives them what they want, but they refuse to take anything from his hand.

Seems a lot more politically motivated then economically motivated.

Option 1.

The bills passes (most likely not in full), Obama is seen as a president who does seem to get, on top of that he managed to get Washington to work together on something that really needs to be fixed.

Option 2.

The bill fails, republicans are seen as anti job creation, Obama then takes this to the campaign trail touting he had a plan in place that could be easily paid for that created jobs and offered companies tax relief to do so.

Either way Obama wins, and most importantly in the independent section.

My own opinion is there is a lot of fluff in the bill, and the majority of the jobs appear to be temporary infrastructure projects. The shining point to me is the tax credit for businesses to hire people who have been unemployed for 6 months or more. (then again that probably only stands out because the Premier of Ontario just decided to announce a tax credit for companies to hire new immigrants, not all Ontarians.)

I'm not fully up to speed on things yet, but it strikes me as similar to the last package and about half the size. The last package was viewed as less than an overwhelming success by the middle. Given how small this one is I don't see it doing much but adding to the argument that he spent billions of dollars and the economy didn't improve. I don't see this one really helping him any come re-election.

Yeah something like that.

I like it when my boss piles more work on me too...

Certainly no one is forcing them to be a Congresscritter. Last I checked, it's even a job that pays well with some pretty sweet benefits. But, if they're really feeling put upon with all this "figure out solutions to problems facing America" nonsense, they can always resign from the super-committee.

This has been the least productive Congress in decades. I'm sure they'll find the time.

They might need to cut out another reading of the Constitution, I suppose.

If the committee can't find a solution, no one else was going to either. Another important note is that, if the committee produces a plan, Congress is beholden to give it an up-or-down vote. No filibusters or or never making it to the floor because the Speaker or Senate Majority Leader sticks it in the bottom of the pile on his desk.

Edited, Sep 9th 2011 12:30pm by Jophiel

Where the hell is the "chicken" smiley? Could use it right about now.

As Ugly points out, just saying that your plan is centrist and consists of stuff both parties agree with and it should be passed right away (which he repeated like 5 times in the speech) doesn't make that actually true. It just means you said it. This is hardly the first time the Democrats have fallen over themselves to insist that something they're doing is "exactly what Republicans want, so if they oppose it they're just being partisans!".

The problem, as I've pointed out numerous times in the past is the incredible flexibility the Left seems to have when using descriptive words. They use the phrase "tax cut" in ways that don't actually involve cutting any taxes. They use the word "saving" in a way that is nearly synonymous with "spending". The word "fair" often means the exact opposite when used by the Dems. And these are just a few examples off the top of my head.


In the specific case of this jobs plan, it sure looks like he's doing more of the same thing he's done in the past. He's using the promise of jobs to throw money at the unions who support him, while leaving the more productive parts of the economy to pay the bill. Does anyone really think the problem with our economy is that we don't have enough public school teachers, or that our schools don't have sufficient interwebs? As I said in the other thread about jobs, we can choose to spend money on building up infrastructure, but it's a mistake to do this thinking it will create jobs or boost the economy.

While I'm sure there are a few ideas in there that conservatives will agree with, I'm equally certain that the proposed plan contains many times more poison pills within it. The very discriminatory application of funding for these new jobs is just the start of the problems. What exactly does he propose in terms of helping people refinance their homes, for example. What are these tax credits he proposes for as well?

There's also some interesting contradictions in the speech. He talks about how important it is to simplify the tax code and eliminate deductions, but then turns around and immediately proposes what are essentially just another set of deductions and exemptions to the tax code. So he's not so much for simplifying it as changing it to benefit groups he likes (to vote for him!). And predictably all the costs rest on his political enemies while the benefits go to his friends (with a bit sprinkled about for the regular people as well of course!).

He also talks about how it's different because it'll be paid for "and here's how:", but then follows that with basically saying we'll just pile it onto existing debt we have to pay for. I'm sorry, but when we just got dinged for basically failing to be aggressive enough about reducing out debt and questions about this super committee's ability to actually deliver on the debt reduction they've been asked to provide, it seems bizarre to just handwave away the costs of this program by saying that the super committee will just have to find another $500B to cut "somewhere".

And for those of us who already suspect that the Dems will do everything they can in that committee to pay off those debts with tax increases of some kind, this just ups the ante on an already questionable process. What happened to not just kicking the can down the road? This is basically just an extreme example of this and is just putting more pressure on an already boiling over debt problem.

He didn't have to watch the speech Joph, it's obvious what's going on.

I read the transcript. Didn't get a chance to watch the speech. Was there some part I mentioned that wasn't accurate to the words he actually spoke? Given that inevitably when people complain that he's not doing what they thought he promised when they heard the speech you will be the first to dig out a transcript and show how he really didn't promise this, or that, or the other thing, I figure it's legitimate for me to start with the transcript today and save us some time.


Don't you agree? What about my post doesn't match what he said?