President Obama's Speech 9-8-11

[Coito ergo sum]

Several Senate and House Republicans are planning to skip President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress Thursday night, in part because they don't believe the jobs proposal he will unveil offers anything new.

But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has found a way to keep those pesky Republicans in the building, or at least in his chamber.

Reid on Thursday scheduled a vote immediately following Obama's speech, and it's not one many Republicans will want to miss. As soon as Obama is done talking, the Senate will take up a measure disapproving of the $500 billion increase in the debt limit.

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer. ... ints-party

White House officials distributed a set of talking points early Thursday to guide Democratic legislators and advocacy groups who will be filling up the airwaves, Internet message boards and printing presses before and after Obama’s speech tonight to a joint session of Congress.

The talking points repeat Obama’s favored campaign-trail themes, depicting the economy as a victim of President George W. Bush; the Republicans as unpatriotic and greedy partisans; and Obama as an optimistic, fair-minded, reformist, bipartisan, fiscal moderate.

The White House’s pre-speech spin ramped up this morning when Carney appeared on morning TV shows to announce that the president’s package of proposals will be collectively titled “The Americans Jobs Act.”

The talking points begin with the claim that Obama’s proposals are “based on bi-partisan ideas” and “fully paid for by closing corporate tax loopholes and asking the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share.”

The GOP will likely insist that this is a poll-tested euphemism for a tax hike on business owners.

The “country ahead of politics” claim has appeared in many of Obama’s speeches. The phrase suggests that GOP legislators and allies are unpatriotic, and is a notable turnaround from President George W. Bush’s tenure, when many Democrats claimed that their Republican critics were illegitimately questioning Democrats’ patriotism.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/08/white ... z1XOgBmaLl

[Schneibster]

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com ... truth.html

I find much of the criticism overblown. Partly that's because I have yet to hear an account of what he should have done by his conservative critics. They seem to suggest he should have passed no stimulus, bailed out no banks or auto-companies, and let the economy heal itself over time. It's an interesting thesis, I suppose, if you can wipe your memory banks of 2008/2009.

[Coito ergo sum]

I think most of the criticism is on the waste in the Stimulus, the costly regulation of industry and business dragging down the economy, the boondoggle of the useless "cash for clunkers" program, etc.

[Schneibster]

I won't say I know you're wrong, but my opinion is different.

I think people want a leader, but also people want someone who will work with the opposition so if they weren't exactly in his court but voted for him anyway, they feel like he tried for a compromise between left and right. I don't think people think he led well, because the stimulus was too small, because we didn't get a public option, because we're not all the way out of Iraq, because he couldn't get Gitmo closed down. I think people were OK with how good a job he did of compromising; I'm not, but I didn't expect to be. I don't see a better challenger for my side in the coming election, so it's going to take a lot to convince me not to vote for him, in fact, depending on my health, I might go out and do something, and we'll surely have some money for him when the time comes.

ETA: And come election time, if we're down to 3000 troops in Iraq, and those only trainers and their support folks, I think he'll get substantial credit for getting us out of Iraq; and he got bin Laden, and is apparently presiding over the dismemberment of al Qaeda. I also think after folks think about it a little while they might start to like how he and Hilary are handling Pakistan. I think that the Congress was luckily similarly disposed, as well, and I think it's having a salutary effect.

I'll make a new post if I think of anything else.

[Coito ergo sum]

The speech was delivered pretty well.

I think the Republicans will have to agree to a lot of the proposals. I think that they ought to say "well - if this is what you think will fix the economy, then we'll pass it."

I don't think for a moment, though, that the "it's all paid for" line is in any way remotely correct. The "paid for" bit is contingent on Congress actually passing 1.6 trillion in cuts....I will, frankly, believe that when I see it.

[Coito ergo sum]

President Barack Obama's promise Thursday that everything in his jobs plan will be paid for rests on highly iffy propositions.
It will only be paid for if a committee he can't control does his bidding, if Congress puts that into law and if leaders in the future — the ones who will feel the fiscal pinch of his proposals — don't roll it back.
Underscoring the gravity of the nation's high employment rate, Obama chose a joint session of Congress, normally reserved for a State of the Union speech, to lay out his proposals. But if the moment was extraordinary, the plan he presented was conventional Washington rhetoric in one respect: It employs sleight-of-hand accounting.
A look at some of Obama's claims and how they compare with the facts:
OBAMA: "Everything in this bill will be paid for. Everything."
THE FACTS: Obama did not spell out exactly how he would pay for the measures contained in his nearly $450 billion American Jobs Act but said he would send his proposed specifics in a week to the new congressional supercommittee charged with finding budget savings. White House aides suggested that new deficit spending in the near term to try to promote job creation would be paid for in the future — the "out years," in legislative jargon — but they did not specify what would be cut or what revenues they would use.
Essentially, the jobs plan is an IOU from a president and lawmakers who may not even be in office down the road when the bills come due. Today's Congress cannot bind a later one for future spending. A future Congress could simply reverse it.
Currently, roughly all federal taxes and other revenues are consumed in spending on various federal benefit programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' benefits, food stamps, farm subsidies and other social-assistance programs and payments on the national debt. Pretty much everything else is done on credit with borrowed money.
So there is no guarantee that programs that clearly will increase annual deficits in the near term will be paid for in the long term.

OBAMA: "It will not add to the deficit."
THE FACTS: It's hard to see how the program would not raise the deficit over the next year or two because most of the envisioned spending cuts and tax increases are designed to come later rather than now, when they could jeopardize the fragile recovery. Deficits are calculated for individual years. The accumulation of years of deficit spending has produced a national debt headed toward $15 trillion. Perhaps Obama meant to say that, in the long run, his hoped-for programs would not further increase the national debt, not annual deficits.

OBAMA: "The American Jobs Act answers the urgent need to create jobs right away."
THE FACTS: Not all of the president's major proposals are likely to yield quick job growth if adopted. One is to set up a national infrastructure bank to raise private capital for roads, rail, bridges, airports and waterways. Even supporters of such a bank doubt it could have much impact on jobs in the next two years because it takes time to set up. The idea is likely to run into opposition from some Republicans who say such a bank would give the federal government too much power. They'd rather divide money among existing state infrastructure banks.

http://news.yahoo.com/fact-check-obamas ... 34313.html

[laklak]

I don't understand the whole thing. It's going to save an average of $1500 for every average American. Define "average" for me, please, because I'm betting dollars to doughnuts that I don't fall into that category despite an over 50% reduction in family income over the last couple of years. There will be a 50% "payroll tax" decrease, this is supposed to help small businesses. He wants to reduce FICA contributions to a total of 6.2%, OK, that will reduce the company's FICA exposure, but that's a reduction of 3% of total payroll (on jobs up to 106,000 per annum), not 50%. The rest of "payroll taxes" comes directly out of the employee's paycheck, so how is reducing tax rates on individuals going to save the business any money? It makes no sense.

As for paying for it through tax cuts, there currently aren't any cuts on the table. The term "cuts" implies an actual decrease in spending, not just reducing the slope of the increase curve. Therefore this isn't "paid for" any more than my next boat is "paid for" because I've decided to use cheap tequila instead of reposado in my margaritas over the next ten years.

Then we're going to "close corporate loopholes" and "increase taxes on the rich". Yadda yadda yadda yadda, same old shit on a different day. What loopholes? The only way to close corporate loopholes is to scrap the entire tax code and start from scratch. Who is rich and how are you going to tax them? Increase the maximum tax rate on income? Drop in the fucking bucket. All the rich people in the country don't have enough income to pay off our deficit if you tax them at 100%. The usual liberal catchphrase is "the rich own x% of the country", which sounds great but only means they own the majority of assets. We don't tax assets, only income, so exactly how are we going to go about this?

The GOP is no better. They'll oppose the whole package even though at least half of it comes directly from their playbook. It just politics as usual.

I'll repeat my mantra - stop regulating the life out of business and stop spending more than you bring in. Anything else is just sound and fluffy, feel-good fury. Doesn't mean squat.

[Schneibster]

The speech was delivered pretty well.

I agree. It wasn't a complete barnburner, but it was pretty good.

I think the Republicans will have to agree to a lot of the proposals. I think that they ought to say "well - if this is what you think will fix the economy, then we'll pass it."

Cantor is reportedly trying to figure out how to pass it piecemeal so Obama doesn't get the credit.

I don't think for a moment, though, that the "it's all paid for" line is in any way remotely correct. The "paid for" bit is contingent on Congress actually passing 1.6 trillion in cuts....I will, frankly, believe that when I see it.

Polling says folks are less interested in the deficit than the economic problem. That's been true for a while, and the Republican House caucus has been ignoring it. I think a bunch of tea party congresscritters went home and got manhandled by their constituents. We'll see if it worked.

[Coito ergo sum]

I think the Republicans will have to agree to a lot of the proposals. I think that they ought to say "well - if this is what you think will fix the economy, then we'll pass it."

Cantor is reportedly trying to figure out how to pass it piecemeal so Obama doesn't get the credit.

To get credit, first a good result will have to come from it. The mere passage of everything he's asked for is only a good thing if it works.

I don't think for a moment, though, that the "it's all paid for" line is in any way remotely correct. The "paid for" bit is contingent on Congress actually passing 1.6 trillion in cuts....I will, frankly, believe that when I see it.

Polling says folks are less interested in the deficit than the economic problem. That's been true for a while, and the Republican House caucus has been ignoring it. I think a bunch of tea party congresscritters went home and got manhandled by their constituents. We'll see if it worked.

On deficit reduction, http://www.gallup.com/poll/148472/defic ... hikes.aspx Americans' preferences for deficit reduction clearly favor spending cuts to tax increases, but most Americans favor a mix of the two approaches.

According to a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, 8 in 10 respondents say they are concerned about the growing federal deficit and the national debt. 37 percent believe job creation/economic growth is the No. 1 issue. 22 percent of poll-takers name the deficit/government spending as the top issue the federal government should address.

But, frankly, what the general public thinks about the economy doesn't impact my view on it much. They generally don't know where the U.S. is on a map, so I don't particularly rely on the general public for my economic analysis.

The deficit, however, is part of the economic problem. If the party in the Presidency was reversed, you'd better believe the Democrats would be kicking the President in the balls over skyrocketing deficits. I think even you would admit that. It's the same reason people laud Clinton as Mr. Fabulous when it comes to deficits, since he presided over a surplus.

[Schneibster]

On deficit reduction, http://www.gallup.com/poll/148472/defic ... hikes.aspx Americans' preferences for deficit reduction clearly favor spending cuts to tax increases, but most Americans favor a mix of the two approaches.

According to a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, 8 in 10 respondents say they are concerned about the growing federal deficit and the national debt. 37 percent believe job creation/economic growth is the No. 1 issue. 22 percent of poll-takers name the deficit/government spending as the top issue the federal government should address.

That's actually changed; jobs and the deficit are much closer to one another as concerns than they were at the time of either ARRA or healthcare reform. I believe (with Greg Sargent) that this is due to two factors: Obama allowed the Republicans to pivot to deficits, and mentioned them himself when he never should have, in order to look bipartisan. In other words, he got taken in by the Flacks. Read all about it.

The preoccupation with the deficit hasn’t even resulted in higher approval ratings for Obama on the deficit. This week’s Post poll found that Obama’s approval on the deficit is stuck at 36 percent, which, tellingly, is identical to his approval on both jobs and the econonmy. This supports the idea that public anxiety about the deficit is largely a proxy for anxiety about the economy. Yet perversely, deficit hysteria has led to an emphasis on deficit reduction in a way that makes it harder to address the economy — it persuades the public that spending cuts will create jobs and increases public skepticism that government action can fix the economy, which then leaves Dems less maneuvering room to propose meaningful job creation policies.

This shows clearly that the Republican priority is not the American people but getting that nigger out of the White House; they're even trying to shut their constituents up when they show up at town halls and ask when they're going to do something about the economy. It's pretty fuckin' sad.

But, frankly, what the general public thinks about the economy doesn't impact my view on it much. They generally don't know where the U.S. is on a map, so I don't particularly rely on the general public for my economic analysis.

More to the point, they don't know how money works. "Fungible" is something to do with rot. Economics is rocket science. And the average IQ is 100.

The deficit, however, is part of the economic problem.

Sure, but that doesn't mean it's either the biggest part, or that a solution that does address the biggest part cannot increase it unless it's inconsistent. In fact, it is perfectly consistent to want to fix the economic problem in the short term by increasing the deficit, and fix the deficit in the long term by a combination of increasing revenue (and fixing the economic problem will increase tax receipts, that's obvious) and decreasing spending (and we haven't touched the military yet, this is going to get ugly, trust me).

If the party in the Presidency was reversed, you'd better believe the Democrats would be kicking the President in the balls over skyrocketing deficits. I think even you would admit that.

If there were skyrocketing deficits, yes... but we just discussed the worth of public opinion. Maybe you forgot. You seem to do that a lot.

It's the same reason people laud Clinton as Mr. Fabulous when it comes to deficits, since he presided over a surplus.

Ummm, actually he's lauded because he presided over the longest economic surge in the history of the country, but do feel free to continue pretending.