If He Would Ask Me...

If I were Obama's speech writier, my outline below would be my first draft of a speech on a jobs agenda, without going too much into the details of the plan itlself. If he asked you, what would you tell Obama to say tonight Thursday night?

Set the stage without saying the name “Bush”.
• Remind everyone what brought us here. Years of deregulation, tax cuts on the wealthy and corporation’s left us with a 2007 recession and a 2008 banking collapse that lead to the worst economic conditions since the great depression.

Remind everyone what has worked, but let everyone know how dissatisfied you are with the slow recovery.
• In 2009 we stopped the slide and created 3.7 million jobs after passage of a jobs stimulus package of investments, a third of which was targeted tax cuts and incentives.

• The stock market has recovered nearly all of the losses following the 2008 bank collapse.

• Corporations are profitable.
• The federal government is being paid back from our loans that saved the auto industry.
• We reformed the financial industry so a bank collapse won’t happen again.
• Interest rates and taxes are both historically low.
• Despite all this, jobs aren’t being created fast enough.
• When the jobs stimulus ended, growth slowed.
• We cannot be satisfied with the pace of this recovery.

Talk tough.

• Remind everyone that your will do your part, but you cannot not accept solutions languishing in Congress.

• The transportation infrastructure bills and jobs packages have not moved in Congress.

• The recent brinksmanship over the debt ceiling did not put a single person back to work, but it damaged the country’s credit, credibility and the economic recovery.

• Partisanship, inaction or returning to the failed policies of the past will not create a single job. It is time to put country ahead of party and ideology and do something.

Remind everyone that we will never get a handle on the debt without creating jobs.

• Everytime they talk about debt, say the debt will be reduced through job creation. (Polling shows people are not real concerned about the debt, but the R's have neutered any effective job creation due to a focus on the debt.)
• The best thing for reducing our debt is to promote jobs and create long term plan for growth.

• Create a near-term jobs package and a 10-year plan to balance the budget.
• Your proposed jobs package will build on what has worked and strengthen the recovery.

Announce the package without validating failed Republican policies.
• Nobody will votes for a fake Republican when they can vote for the real thing.
• Investments in schools, roads and the infrastructure the Greatest Generation built that have powered our national economy for 50 years.
• Targeted tax incentives that promote investments in some of the industries that create American jobs, such as home building and more.

Package the message.
• Repeat it. Over and over again.
• It’s a jobs package, not a stimulus.

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Bill?

As the economy grows slowly and Obama's approval numbers decline, I have read Democrats wistfully dream of days gone by and the Presidency of Bill Clinton. Some have wondered out loud what the hell Obama has accomplished as they look back at the good ‘ol days of Bill.

It got me thinking. The economy sure rocked during the 90’s, which led to balanced budgets. There was cheap gas, SUV’s everywhere and tech stocks were rising. Yeah, the economy was great, but what else did Bill accomplish? Social Security wasn’t shored up, health care wasn’t reformed and the environment wasn't protected. What the hell did Bill accomplish other than get reelected? Maybe I have a short-term memory, but I cannot think of anything.

Can you?

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Tinker Belle for President

While I only digested the low lights of the Republican Presidential debate held last week, it got me thinking about their belief systems. What can we say about people who support, believe and worship the following concepts?

• Supply-side economics
• Creationism
• Tax cuts as government revenue generators
• Being gay is a choice
• Cutting spending as economic stimulus

It seems that every one of the Republican Presidential candidates has based their campaigns on various forms of fantasy.

Surely they are appealing to primary voters, so I must ask these voters: How can one go through life when everything you believe in has been shown through math, economics and science to be pure fiction? Is there comfort in blissful stupidity?

While all the above points to the GOP teahadists/diehards/candidates as being loony, it also demonstrates an electoral strength not held by the Democrats. When your supporters back you due to some sort of “faith” (economic or otherwise) it’s pretty hard for your opponents to shake their dedication at the polls.

Why do I try to understand these people?

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Why run away from health care?

I have repeatedly said that the components of the health care reform bill are more popular than the rhetoric of the whole. 

For decades Democrats have run successfully in support of many of the components of the health care bill.  So, why is it any different now that they can claim success?  I think Democrats ignore the issue at their own peril and essentially wave the white flag.  E.J. Dionne, agrees and points out that some Democrats are now running on the components of health care, many of which just kicked in.  I predict those who don't hide from their vote will be the most successful in November and those who do will be tossed out.

We will see.

ALSO:  FiveThirtyEight's analysis of this issue is here.

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Healthcare Passes!

In watching the coverage of the passage of this bill, I was struck by a few things. Pelosi is a terrible public speaker or maybe she was excited/drunk/tired. I heard her stumble over word after word and it was painful to watch. More importantly, I saw how unprecedented this was. Voting by party is not all that uncommon, but most bills of this stature have some degree of support from the other party. When Medicare was passed under the Johnson administration, there was bipartisan support. This bill was not bipartisan at all. This was 100% Obama and most of the Democrats.

If this legislation is successful and achieves what it is supposed to achieve, then the Democrats can take all of the credit. If it fails, then they will have a difficult time. If this does well, Republicans will not have much to say since many were vocal critics and had nothing but doom and gloom predictions. Personally, I am cautiously optimistic. The bill doesn't have everything I would have wanted, but it is mostly good. While I think we have a good system right now, I think we are close to having one that is not good. Healthcare and insurance costs are going up much faster than people's wages and I don't see how we can sustain a system like this for very long.

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