Moody’s: Obama’s Plan Would Add 1.9 Million Jobs
Moody’s chief economist says President Barack Obama’s plan would put 1.9 million people back to work.
But that misses the point of what is going on now: ideology, the “we want our political sports team to win this one” attitude, preventing the other sports team from scoring a point, and upcoming elections make it highly unlikely Obama will get enough of this in place to provide relief to a chunk of America’s suffering unemployed.
When people say Obama needs to or will act like Harry Truman the dirty little secret is this: only Harry Truman could act like Truman. Can Barack Obama now re-define himself as a relentless political fighter and likely winner? Increasingly — to strip it all away — he is being seen in his political battles as weak, a caver and in 2012 a likely loser.
So the plan may be solid but politics and ideology trump (excuse the word) all. Can Obama work within this context — and is political team smart enough to anticipate what they will face? It’s laughable to hear Obama’s opponents accuses him of Chicago style politics. Chicago style politics doesn’t isn’t usually accompanied by the chant of “Patty cake, patty cake..”.
On the other hand, Obama’s speech played well with independents. First Read:
Democratic pollster Geoff Garin yesterday conducted a dial test [in Ohio] …of 32 swing voters to gauge the president’s speech for the pro-Obama Super PAC Priorities USA Action. Consider the source, of course, but Garin said Obama’s speech tested well among the respondents. “Many respondents came into the room feeling discouraged, dispirited, and disappointed, but in last night’s speech they saw the Barack Obama they had hoped they were electing in 2008,” Garin said in a memo to reporters. “Their simple message to President Obama is: Keep it up. They saw the speech as a beginning, and they want the President to continue pressing the case for the agenda he laid out before Congress.” In an email to First Read, Garin even compared the speech to Obama’s Iowa J-J address in Nov. 2007. To be sure, the president has had other speeches score well, but what’s hurt the White House is staying focused on selling its message around the country for a sustained period of time.
Obama’s problems are this:
1. Yes he delivers a good speech.
2. He doesn’t do sufficient follow through.
3. His lofty and fighting speeches don’t match his increasing image as a caver not a compromiser.
4. His speeches have now hit a law of diminishing returns because his content may be good but if he doesn’t fight for what he detailed in ringing speeches, why bother paying attention to or getting excited about the great speeches?
How much of this plan will he fight for and will he hold the GOP acccountable for parts they reject?
Instead of being “another Truman” can Obama become “another Obama” — one that is talked about for years as a positive, fighting Presidential type?
It won’t be easy since as The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder points out the GOP has created a political trap for Obama where appearing reasonable in this toxic polarized climate makes him appear wimpish:
The GOP has created a political feedback loop that is calculated to destroy President Obama’s credibility as a change agent. They’ve figured out that when government is gridlocked and sclerotic, even silly and absurd, no one in Washington comes out smelling like a rose. No one seems reasonable, because nothing gets done. The reasonable man just looks weak.
A Washington Post poll in August found that 78 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the way the country’s political system is working, and almost as many have little or no confidence that Washington can solve the country’s economic problems.
So what’s Obama to do? When it comes to Congress, the answer is: not much. If he decides to change course and do the Full Paul Krugman–propose a huge new government-spending plan, a trillion-dollar stimulus–Keith Olbermann might be happy for a day, but that’s about it.
If he turns ruthless on Republicans, he risks losing his role as the voice of reason, a role he is trying so hard to build in the hopes it will pay off when there’s a Republican nominee to draw a contrast with.
The jobs speech may well be the last event of political significance that the president participates in from Washington, aside from his State of the Union address in January. His travel schedule will ramp up dramatically after the United Nations General Assembly closes in late September, and he’ll set a campaign pace that will punish even the hardiest of Secret Service agents. If Dodge ain’t working for you, you get out. So look to the president to take his case to the people that the reasonable man deserves a second term.
Don’t hold your breath expecting for Obama’s plan to be enacted. You’ll turn blue.
2 Responses to “Moody’s: Obama’s Plan Would Add 1.9 Million Jobs”
When the President says “Jobs” the Republicans say “Debt”. When the President says Debt the Republicans say Jobs. What’s going on here?
Granted that in the long term, reducing debt will help increase jobs, but if we reduced debt by 450 billion dollars right now, it would not create a single job. Better to put that money directly into job creation.
Businesses constantly take out loans for investment in a return that will pay back both the debt and provide a profit. Government cannot by law make a profit. However Government can and does sell bonds to invest in a return. The investment is in our people and the return our nation’s overall success from Defense to Economy to infrastructure to tax cuts…ect..
Right now our overall success requires jobs, so that our unemployed can get back into spending money like the employed are spending money. Spending money, or, the circulation of money, builds our economy. The more it circulates, the more the economy grows. In fact, the economy WILL NOT grow if the circulation of money does not increase. It’s an impossibility.
It is, and, it has always been, the function of Government to regulate the economy. Slow it down when it speeds to fast, and, speed it up when it slows to much. The Government does this through various methods depending upon the circumstances. However by and large the economy is a free market, but like a bull in the china closet or a bear in the pickle barrel, “free” must have a leash to prevent anarchy and the resultant destruction of our nation from economic collapse.
Taking away the government’s ability to regulate the economy, as they have always done, in the manor that the Republican’s want to do, especially now when it is critical, will destroy this nation. There is no doubt.
In the President’s speech, he gave details of his proposal to create jobs and in that proposal is massive tax cuts that the Republican’s wanted. In fact never has income taxes been cut by this much. This proposal represents a massive compromise to the Republican Party and an investment that will WITHOUT A DOUBT CREATE MILLIONS OF JOBS. Jobs will grow the economy and enable the government to pay it’s debts far sooner that without jobs the President’s proposal will create.
There is no excuse for the Republican party not to accept this proposal.
It is interesting how political posturing affects the willingness to view things. Most economists outside of partisan think tanks such as AEI and Cato agree that the first stimulus package did in fact save millions of jobs. Yet the meme constantly expressed by virtually every conservative is that it did nothing. It was a complete failure meant only as a political payoff to certain groups. The actions taken to save the car companies are vilified, yet there are jobs in existence today that would not be there had that action not been taken. Not only in the factories of the rescued companies but also in the factories of their parts suppliers and all of the jobs in their distribution network and dealerships.
The most basic phrase associated with the free market system is supply and demand, yet it seems an entire sector of our political system has completely forgotten that second word. If you point out to a conservative that it is far more likely that the cause of businesses not hiring is that without customers buying things they have nothing for those new hires to do, they will do anything to deny that simple fact because it has to be the government’s fault. That seems to be the entire raison d’etre of the modern conservative movement, attacking government at all levels and demanding that we return to a simpler time of smaller government that they credit with many things that just aren’t going to work in the 21st century with its needs for modern infrastructure and massive social changes that are not the fault of the government. Yet it is immensely difficult to have any rational discussion with them on this. I’ve tried and ignorance and conspiracy theories tend to get in the way.