President's Speech Gets Lukewarm Reception

BRADENTON – President Obama's call to Congress to pass a $447 billion jobs plan was predictably met with strong resistance from Republicans running for President and from most of those in Congress. For months, the White House wavered on whether to attempt a massive jobs bill because they feared that anything that could get passed would be so watered down and loaded with compromises that it would be doomed to fail and then used against the President in the 2012 election.

But with Americans running short on patience, the economy at large continuing to sputter (no job growth in August) and a double-dip recession appearing more likely, President Obama decided to roll the dice and try to promote something big enough to have the possibility of working. His proposal came for the most part pre-negotiated, in the sense that it included as pillars Republican calls for infrastructure projects and tax cuts for small businesses and was smaller than most Democrats and many economists perceive as necessary.

The initial response from Republicans was not positive with several prominent members of the party calling it ”more of the same“ and ”just another speech.“ They pointed to the original $787 billion dollar stimulus program and argued that it hadn't worked, though the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office claimed that the spending, which largely plugged cutbacks by struggling states and municipalities, staved off a full-on depression. An earlier CBO report estimated the hole in the economy caused by the 2008 global economic meltdown at around $3 trillion.

Proponents of the President's proposed jobs bill argue that with less than a third of that hole being plugged by the nearly $800 billion already spent, a full recovery was never possible, thus the need for more direct spending. Republicans who oppose the plan argue in favor of spending the summer focusing on business deregulation, which they say will do more to create jobs. With the 2012 presidential election in the wings, partisan politics is also a factor. A positive result from a jobs bill would clearly bolster the incumbent's chances in what is predicted to be a very close race, leaving skeptics to wonder whether the parties will be able, or willing, to accomplish any major initiatives so close to the campaigns.

Many economists argue that the bill is still too little to fix the lingering trillion dollar per year hole in the U.S. economy and are unsold on the presumption that tax cuts will directly contribute to job creation. Nonetheless, everyone seems to agree that given the environment on spending, anything more ambitious would be destined to fail. The President says that all of the spending will be paid for, an element of the speech that was not leaked to the press prior. He says he will reveal the plan in detail next week and some Republicans are reserving judgment until they see what those cuts look like.

In what was received as an uncharacteristically forceful speech, the President continuously implored Congress to ”pass this bill“ and pledged to travel the country to drum up support among American taxpayers. If the President is able to get Congress to pass the legislation as offered, its outcome will undoubtedly decide much of his fate come next November. If Congress is unwilling to pass the bill in a way he feels is adequate, the President will have to decide whether half a loaf of bread is worse than none at all – which in politics is often the case. Meanwhile, the American people are left wishing that the economic fate of our nation – the fate of their very existence in some cases – were on a short list of imperatives that could remain above partisan politics. Clearly, that is not the case.

Click here to read the transcript of the President's speech.