Since targeted tax breaks and unlimited unemployment benefits have done so much to spark the economy so far, Barry's going to propose more. Way more. $300 billion more.

This is 'part of a long term deficit reduction' plan, hahaohwow.jpg.

Politically, couldn't be more full of fail. Over half is tax cuts, but of course the right will trash it, call him a socialist, say he's the most anti-business president ever, meow chow. Meanwhile the left has one more reason to jetsfansatthenfldraft.jpg and some more of them will realize he doesn't actually share their views on anything.

Seriously, how does he not get this? How does he not understand that every political constituency will roll their eyes at this bull****?

Obama gonna Obama

But in the end I think Obama doesn't care what's in his proposal. He's hoping that the GOP will kill it enabling Obama to blame the GOP for the unemployment.

Can anyone remember a proposal more DOA than whatever Obama could conceivably say?

I'm struggling to come up with a single reason to care about this speech.

Obama is such a sissy.............

300B??? Thats it? LOL that even sounds puny

Obama should just tell his regulatory agencies to back off. Stop hindering business. Costs taxpayers no money.

Oh he cares, it needs to pander to his base. I liked the White House statements that he might decide to roll the plan out in segments. Sort of like his campaign speaches last year, why limit yourself to a couple of ideas of spending when you can promise diferent spending ideas to diferent regions of the country and then throw it in at the end that he will also reduce the defecit.

I am guessing that he already knows it would be political suicide for the Reps to support his plan. It will have tax increases and a ton of new spending.

Cite plz. As a recently laid-off drone, need to get the unlimited free monies. Festival! Festival! Obama is making a big mistake feeding that meme.

Obviously I don't read enough SE outside of the college football threads, pics or GTFO

Obviously it's a very important speech because it's before a joint session of Congress and he promised to have a plan before he went on vacation. Now he unveils it on national TV in front of a joint session of Congress.

Oh yeah as an aside the infrastructure bank thingy. Apparently it takes deposits, issues bonds with the implicit guarantee of no defaults by US govt, and makes loans. A couple of opposing views:

Why We Don't Need An Infrastructure Bank? Japan Is Why

Quote:

A president who preaches internationalism must look to the experiences of other countries. Japan is a mega model for state infrastructure banks. Its Japanese Postal Bank (JPB), with its 25,000 branches, is the world’s largest bank. JPB attracts about one out of every three yen of household savings. It is the world’s largest holder of personal savings with household deposits of some $3.3 trillion. Japan has the JPB. It also has high speed trains. The model looks like a good fit for us. Right?

It so happens that JPN is also the world’s largest political slush fund. Politicians at all levels direct its funds to voters, constituents, friends, and relatives for infrastructure, construction, and business loans. They basically use it to buy votes, curry favor, and get rich. They waste depositor money for political gain. If there are losses, we have enough reserves to cover them.

The Coming Infrastructure Bank as an Off-Balance Sheet Scam

Quote:

We're referring to Washington's latest marketing tool to sell spending to a skeptical public, a new federal "infrastructure bank." For the low, low price of $30 billion or so, President Obama says Congress can conjure hundreds of billions in new "grants and loans" to rebuild "roads, bridges, and ports and broadband lines and smart grids."

He says the bank would put "all those construction workers" back to work and "be good for the economy not just for next year or the year after that, but for the next 20 or 30 years." In a cats and dogs living together moment, the Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO are both in favor. Since both unions and construction companies would be beneficiaries, this alone ought to give taxpayers pause.

This is the Fannie Mae model applied to public works. The new bank would be a government-sponsored enterprise, or GSE, whether or not anyone admits it. The bank would have an implicit subsidy for its debt because it is backed by the government. And the debt it issued would be "off-budget," which means it wouldn't show up in annual outlays. When she first proposed the concept in 2008, Connecticut Democrat Rosa DeLauro explicitly described the bank as a "public private partnership like Fannie Mae."

Huge LOL with the off budget accounting which is something Obama and the Dems roundly criticized Bush for in financing Iraq war. Most transparent admin in history? I doubt it.

lol

How the **** does anyone consider Obama a progressive any more? I mean I voted for this guy, sure, but seriously wtf... This dude is the more red democrat ever. His words mean nothing, he is as bad as the plethora of right wing newstainment hacks with his ridiculous rhetoric.

Ending war in Iraq? El Oh El
Reigning in the corporate welfare state? El Oh El
Ending the insane loss of rights in exchange for safety? El Oh ****ing El

This whole conversation by both sides is just window dressing to try to hide that we are getting ****ed in the *** on the other side of the glass.

Exactly. The two party dictatorship

The only question is whether you prefer to be told you are a lazy no good or if you want someone to tell you that none of this is your fault, as you are taxed and sent off to wars for the benefits of banks and the left over remnants of the British Empire.

You forgot guantanamo......

I honestly think the Republicans best political plan would be to give this one to the President. It will be pretty unpopular to fight against a "jobs plan" right now, and when unemployment is still about 8.5% next fall they can say, once again, that the Presidents stimulus has been ineffective.

A jobs proposal is nothing but a diversion of what the real problem is.

Think about the wildfires in Texas...a lot of homes burnt down. Let's say that the solution was building fireproof homes (not saying it is, just using this as an analogy). Instead of offering up that solution, it's as if Obama is offering those with burnt down houses free cable and internet.

ok but at the same time keep in mind the President is not King of the US. he's one person, albeit a powerful one, in a huge political machine.

I agree, but from a political standpoint it's really not important. The left isn't going to like this because its "too small" and the right isn't going to like it because its "lol Obama". However, the people that really matter in Presidential elections (the uninformed and generally uncaring independents) are going to hear "jobs plan" and very likely the next day "Republicans oppose jobs plan". Obama will then use that opposition to bash Republicans all the way to the election. Politically I think its best for Republicans to just give this to the President, and when it fails bury him with it next year.

How is any of this going to help the housing market

The housing market is beyond help. The govt needs to find a way to get out of the housing market with minimum disruption. And it will hurt the economy for the near term.

Most of those things he gives the direct orders on what does and does not happen (military doj) and the other should have been vetoed.

I don't know if you know this but the white house just signed reducing our troops in Iraq to 3,000 by the end of this year.

This is so incredibly small. 200 billion of this is just extending programs that are already in place (payroll tax cut, unemployment benefits). The other 100 billion is too heavily geared toward tax cuts. There needs to be way more infrastructure spending.