Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

Third Base Politics

Uncategorized

A Speech is Not a Plan

Thursday was President Obama’s address to Congress and the nation on his latest “jobs plan”.  For the better part of 3 years Obama has tried and failed in his efforts to re-energize the American economy, now he looks to introduce yet another potential solution.  And he wants his plan passed.  Just in case anyone in Congress didn’t know that Obama supports Obama’s “American Jobs Act”, he told them to pass it.  Not once, not twice, but seventeen times.

To reinforce the message that they do indeed want their proposal passed, White House adviser Valerie Jarrett went on MSNBC and said the same thing.  While that’s the official White House message, it’s what Jarrett admitted after saying Congress should pass their plan immediately.  Turns out the plan hasn’t been written yetTo quote Jarrett:

The President is going to draft the legislation, make the job a little easier for Congress and send it up there next week.

Next week?  This plan is something the Obama administration has been talking about publicly for weeks, and surely had been contemplating privately before that, yet instead of coming to Congress and the American people with the bill in his hand ready to go Obama gave us a general outline of a plan.  There’s nothing on paper, no specific points to debate or have the CBO analyze, yet the mantra is to pass this currently nonexistent bill.  Obama’s taken a page out of the Wimpy playbook: he will gladly give us a plan next week for agreements to pass it today.

One of the few specific promises from Obama’s speech was that his bill will be fully paid for.  It’s possible it will be, but it won’t be done by Obama.  Rather than take a stand and announce that he will make the cuts necessary to make this deficit neutral, the President passed the buck to the super-committee of 12.  Obama has tasked the members, already charged with reducing the deficit $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years, with finding another 447 billion in reductions in order to make his own plan deficit neutral.  I’m all for reducing the deficit, but for Obama to claim that telling someone else to make the cuts is paying for the bill is grossly irresponsible.

This current proposal is just the latest example of a Presidency with far more style than substance.  Only a President so devoted to style could insist upon Congress passing a bill that doesn’t even exist yet, or claim to be paying for their plan by asking others to do that work for them.  Like so many other actions during this Presidency, Obama’s “American Jobs Act” is designed to save exact one job in this nation: his own.



Welcome to 3BP!

Have a tip? Interested in posting on 3BP? Drop us an email at tips @ thirdbasepolitics .com. (remove the spaces)

Third Base Politics is an Ohio-centric conservative blog that has been featured at Hot Air, National Review, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and others.

Archives

You May Also Like

Third Base Politics