My Review: Obama's Newest "Jobs" Speech

So our President has delivered yet another speech on jobs. My initial reaction to the speech before it was given is that he's given 99 other speeches on jobs, so what difference will speech number 100 make?

But now the speech has been given, and it's time to tell you my reactions to it. In summary, this speech announces his plans for a stimulus II... the plan may have a smaller dollar amount ($450 billion) than his first one, but the philosophy behind the proposals is exactly the same.

To start my review, let's pull from his speech a short phrase that he uttered at least 13 times: "Pass my bill now!"

First, there is no bill, there's only a speech. PresBo PROMISES to have the actual legislative language for a bill out on Monday, but at the present time there is no bill to pass.

Second, this "do it now!" mentality echoes his other major pushes. Whether it was his $800 billion stimulus package or ObamaCare, PresBo insists that all his proposals are critical and must be passed IMMEDIATELY! Remember Pelosi's famous comment that we would have to pass ObamaCare in order to find out what's in the bill? That's Obama's SOP, and it carries over to this proposal. Even though he announced this speech weeks ago and made us wait to hear his proposals, even though there is no legislative language yet written to back up his speech, he wants the (unwritten) bill passed NOW!!!!!!!!!! It's a simple and transparent ploy to rush approval before us normal folks have much of a chance to tell him how little we like his plans... assuming that's what will happen.

Now let's move on the actual substance of his proposals. I will address them in the order I wish, not the order they were presented.


Extend long-term unemployment benefits
This one isn't a new proposal, it's been part of the Democrat playbook since before PresBo took office. Note that this proposal isn't about newly laid-off workers, but about unemployment benefits for those that have been out of work for more than two years. At what point do temporary unemployment benefits become long-term welfare? I submit we've already reached that point. As to boosting the economy, those benefits have been extended numerous times during the Obama administration, and we can see that they apparently didn't stimulate much of anything, so why do we think yet another extension would have a different effect?

Extending unemployment benefits encourages the unemployed to remain unemployed longer. Studies have shown this, and even PresBo's economic adviser Alan Krueger has admitted this. Analysis shows that by extending the unemployment benefits to 99 weeks, that raised the unemployment rate from 0.5% to 1.5%... so further extensions will come at an economic cost.

Mortgage refinancing
PresBo already has such a program in place that was funded by his $800 billion stimulus bill, so again, this isn't a new proposal. He pledges to "work with" Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and "industry leader" to make his existing program work better. The bottom line here is that our Federal government doesn't have a clue how to make that happen, so PresBo is making a promise that he hopes somebody else can tell him how to deliver. Chances that this program will work any better than the old are slim, and PresBo was silent on how much this program would cost.

More infrastructure construction spending
PresBo wants to funnel billions to the state for building and repairing roads and bridges. Sound familiar? Yeah, this is the same kind of "infrastructure construction projects" that Obama's $800 billion stimulus used... and it didn't work then. Which means this is another recycled proposal instead of something truly new. What makes anybody think it will work differently this time? Remember the President joking a while back about how those "shovel-ready" projects weren't quite as shovel-ready as they had thought? How is this time different?

He also wants to create a national infrastructure bank, which means an entire new DC bureaucracy, and that's never a good thing.

So far we've seen a series of proposals that are simply restatements of long-standing Democrat proposals... most of which don't have huge chances of passing, and none of which will do anything to boost the economy. So, let's continue.

School Construction/Repair & "Save the teachers"
PresBo proposes several spending programs to "keep teachers employed" and to build new schools. Let's deal with these separately.

First, the schools. Building new schools and repairing existing schools has traditionally been a state prerogative, which means this is an expansion (possibly unconstitutional) of Federal authority. We've already seen how "construction" projects don't work to stimulate the economy, and this proposal is little more than that.

Second, the teachers. Way back in the 1950's, there were almost 2.5 teachers for each administrator... these days the figure is closer to 1 to 1. And student achievement hasn't increased at all, in spite of massive and ever-increasing amounts of money being spent on education. So maybe saving these "teachers" isn't such a great thing after all...

Keeping in mind that each dollar spent by the federal government has to first be removed from the economy via taxation or borrowing, it's hard to see how this will boost anything.

Also, PresBo has been steadily expanding spending on education since he took office, so these proposals ALSO aren't anything new.

Tax Increases
Though Obama asked the deficit reduction committee to "pay for" his proposals, he did recommend how they should do this: tax increases on higher earners. Tax increases do not create jobs, they destroy jobs. Tax increases do not boost economic growth, they suppress it. So this proposal flies in the face of everything Obama told us his plan is supposed to achieve.

Hiring tax credit
This is another recycled proposal that most definitely isn't new. In fact, it's been tried before and it didn't work then. Why? Employers seldom make permanent hiring decisions based upon temporary tax benefits. The most likely outcome, and one we've seen in the past, is that this tax credit will go towards new employees that companies had already decided to hire. Again, hard to see how we get any boost out of this.

Payroll tax cuts
The problem with payroll tax cuts is that they only effect how much is taken from your paychecks... the IRS is still going to charge you the same total in taxes, you'll have just paid less over the year. And as to a reduced Social Security contribution... that won't change at all how much SS has to spend during this time, which means any shortfall has to be made up out of the general budget. So this LOOKS like they're doing you a favor, but they aren't really.

There were other proposals, but all along the same vein. These are the major proposals, and you see how they went. Nothing new, and nothing effective.


And now for the last component of his plan, and that's how this $450 billion in new spending will be "paid for" as he promised it would be. His answer? "I don't know, but I'll pass the buck." Yes indeed, he promised it would be paid for, and asked the deficit reduction committee to handle it. They are already supposed to find $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over ten years, and he asked them to expand their mandate to include his additional $450 billion in spending. And if they can't find all that? Automatic spending cuts in the defense budget.

Note another thing... he's claiming his $450 billion in new spending increases THIS YEAR will be paid for with $450 billion in spending cuts or tax increases OVER THE NEXT TEN YEARS. That's not paid for, by any stretch of the imagination.

So that's the "new" plan by PresBo. Tell me, do you see anything in it that will jump-start the economy? Do you see much in it that is "new," even?

Yeah, me either.

UPDATE:
A new mantra is emerging from the Democrats, in addition to "pass it now." That new mantra? Pass it as one bill, and don't break it up into smaller chunks. So, not only do we have to pass PresBo's bill IMMEDIATELY, we have to accept his proposals as is. That's compromise?