Obama’s “Jobs” speech.

Obama’s “Jobs” speech.

Obama’s speech on jobs was a campaign speech and lecture combination. Basically, it was a rehash of old proposals with a big price tag that he says will be paid for, but he tasks the congressional supercommittee already tasked with cutting $1.5 trillion worth of debt by Christmas with an added half a trillion more in order for him to spend more money on things that have not worked. Yippee!! Jobs crisis solved, or not. Here’s a wrap-up of some of the high/low points.

Here’s Michael Barone’s take over at The Washington Examiner.

Barack Obama looked and sounded angry in his speech to the joint session of Congress. He bitterly assailed one straw man after another and made reference to a grab bag of proposals which would cost something on the order of $450 billion—assuring us on the one hand that they all had been supported by Republicans as well as Democrats in the past and suggesting that somehow they are going to turn the economy around. He called for further cuts in the payroll tax (which if continued indefinitely would undermine the case of Social Security as something people have earned rather than a form of welfare) and for a further extension of unemployment insurance (perhaps justifiable on humanitarian grounds, but sure to at least marginally raise the unemployment rate over what it would otherwise be). He called for a tax credit for hiring the long-term unemployed (unfortunately, these things can be gamed). He gave a veiled plug for his pet project of high-speed rail (a real dud) and for infrastructure spending generally (but didn’t he learn that there aren’t really any shovel-ready projects?). He called for a school modernization program (will it result in more jobs than the Seattle weatherization program that cost $22 million and produced 14 jobs?) and for funding more teacher jobs (a political payoff to the teacher unions which together with other unions gave Democrats $400 million in the 2008 campaign cycle). “We’ll set up an independent fund to attract private dollars and issue loans based on two criteria: how badly a construction project is needed and how much good it would do for the country.” Yeah, sure. Like the screening process that produced that $535,000,000 loan guarantee to now-bankrupt Solyndra. And Congress should pass the free trade agreements with Panama, Colombia and South Korea. Except that Congress can’t, because Obama hasn’t sent them up there yet in his 961 days as president.

Obama assured us that this would all be paid for. But as far as I could gather, he punted that part of it to the supercommittee of 12 members set up under the debt ceiling bill. He now blithely charges it with coming up with more than its current goal of $1.5 trillion in savings by Christmas. Oh, and he’s going to announce “a more ambitious deficit plan” that will “stabilize our debt in the long run”–11 days from now.

It sounds to me like he’s suggesting we throw more money down the black hole of Democrat constituencies and add a bunch more to our children’s debt. It’s getting tiresome, and I’ve got to believe that Americans have tuned him out because they know this guy now, and he will not do anything for the private sector that would actually lift its burden so they can hire.

It was rather interesting that Tennessee Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn had Gibson Guitar’s CEO sitting next to her. Obama’s Justice Department has raided this American icon (non-union) private sector business and has shut down his factory (that will help jobs). And, who was sitting next to Michelle Obama? AFL-CIO’s Richard Trumka and crony capitalist and non-taxpaying GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt. That should show the difference between Republicans and Democrats.

Read all of Barone here:

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/unhappy-warrior

The Wall Street Journal has a great piece. They aren’t fooled by Obama’s temporary tax cuts and governmental interference and spending which only contribute to uncertainty in the private sector.

…the underlying theory and practice of the familiar ideas that the President proposed last night are those of the government conjurer. More targeted, temporary tax cuts; more spending now with promises of restraint later; the fifth (or is it sixth?) plan to reduce housing foreclosures; and more public works spending, though this time we’re told the projects really will be shovel-ready.

We’d like to support a plan to spur the economy, which is certainly struggling. Had Mr. Obama proposed a permanent cut in tax rates, or a major tax reform, or a moratorium on all new regulations for three years, he’d have our support. But you have to really, really believe in hope and change to think that another $300-$400 billion in new deficit spending and temporary tax cuts will do any better than the $4 trillion in debt that the Obama years have already piled up.  Snip –

The unfortunate reality is that even if Republicans gave Mr. Obama everything he wanted, the impact on growth would be modest at best. Washington can most help the economy with serious spending restraint, permanent tax-rate cuts, regulatory relief and repeal of ObamaCare. What won’t help growth is more temporary, targeted political conjuring.

Read it all here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904836104576558931723540102.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

This is from W. James Antle III over at The American Spectator who notes Obama can no longer claim to be above the fray – he’s in the thick of it.

We arrive at this destination because Recovery Summer did not materialize and shovel-ready was, as the president later admitted, not so shovel-ready. The unemployment rate that was never supposed to exceed 8.5 percent broke went above 10 percent and remains at 9.1 percent. The 3.5 million jobs created or saved in theory was met by a loss of jobs in practice. And what happens when the stimulus funds run out?

The politics are as tenuous as the economics. Overpromising yet under-delivering has hurt Obama politically. So this time he seems to want to overpromise and then let the Republicans under-deliver.

…If Washington is broken, the American people have a right to ask why (Obama) hasn’t fixed it. If the two parties can’t work together, Obama is not merely floating above the fracas like a neutral observer. He is the titular head of one of those two parties. If Congress has waited too long to address the jobs crisis, then so has the fellow living in the fancy white house on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Read all of Antle here:

http://spectator.org/archives/2011/09/09/putting-straw-men-back-to-work

Peter Ferrara over at National Review Online has a suggestion for a Republican response to Obama’s campaign threat:  “You should pass it. And I intend to take that message to every corner of the country.”

What drives the economy is not government spending, but incentives to increase production. What House Republicans must do is not negotiate with the president over his misleading fallacies, but follow Newt Gingrich’s advice by passing what would work, implementing that essential truth of Reaganomics. They should pass corporate- and individual-tax reform, closing loopholes in return for sharply lower rates. They should pass the appropriations bills to implement the Ryan budget, which provides for highly desirable tax reform. They should pass legislation to repeal Obama’s regulatory tsunami, which is killing the economy.

Then they should fan out across the country to explain to the American people what they have done and demand that the Democratic Senate pass their bills and the president sign them, or else admit they really do not care about jobs after all.

All in all, it looks to me like Obama did what many Republicans expected: He used Congress as a backdrop for a campaign speech, all the while acting like they were the problem. Must we remind the president that he had two years of Democratic Party control of Congress? In that time did he do anything to relieve those who create jobs from the burden of regulations, higher taxes and uncertainty? So, now it’s an emergency because he wants to be re-elected, and it’s the Republicans’ fault that job creation is in the ditch? It’s time to fight fire with fire, Republicans. I think you should look seriously at Ferrara’s suggestion.

Please read all of Ferrara here: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/276731/got-jobs-nro-symposium?page=4

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