My impression after talking to senior White House officials is that the president is going a little larger than we’ve been led to expect. I’m not authorized to give details of the plan, but I think it will be worth watching his speech because he will be making some news. Keeping in mind that the jobs plan is kind of a hybrid between actually trying to improve the economy and the jobs situation on the one hand, and scoring political points on the other, I think they’ve done a good job. We all know that the Republicans will be resistant to passing anything that helps the president, and we also know they have some pretty bizarre economic beliefs about what does and doesn’t create jobs. There are things in the proposal that are designed to appeal to Republicans and that they have supported in the past. And there are other things that the Republicans won’t support because they don’t believe they will work, or just because they’re not nice people. A third category can be described as things that are extremely hard to be against.
I believe the ideas in the president’s speech will be put into a Senate bill and it will move with Reid and Durbin’s leadership.
John Boehner will be in an interesting spot. Will he wait for Reid to pass something and send it over to the House? Or will he create his own product incorporating things he can support and then lard it up with Republican priorities that the president can’t support?
I think it might be hard to sustain a filibuster for the bill, especially since the Republicans retain substantial leverage by virtue of running the House. They don’t need to kill it by filibuster, and the Senate Republicans can pass responsibility for killing it on to the House. Why not take that path? In truth, this thing might not be killed at all. It might be more of a battle over what is and is not in the final product.
The president is going to spend the next couple of months pushing this bill, and we can either support him in those efforts or we can stand on the sidelines flinging poo.
I’ll let you make up your mind after you see the speech and learn what’s in the bill.
Below the fold, I have the video of the president’s speech embedded, so you can watch it here, starting at 7pm EST.
Thanks Booman. I’m just happy to know that you got contacts man. Awesome.
Glad to hear he’s going big on the proposal. While I have my doubts that the republicans will let him have anything at all, this has to be done if the president wants to hold on to power, IMHO.
I hope the speechwriters included some actual stories of real people struggling so that all who hear it are forced to identify with being in such a situation and then telling us how this part of the proposal will solve this person’s problem – and millions more just like him/her. That kind of thing works on people. Perhaps contrast the horror stories with a personal story of someone in the privileged class and how the economy has been treating them. And then suggest that there’s an imbalance here.
goddamn Boehner is drunk. Listen to him slur his words.
he’s totally soaking with Jack D.
LOL
blotto on national television. Just disgraceful.
Do we know who’s not showing up?
Just read the speech on Kos. Definitely one of his better ones, and that is saying something, as we know speechmaking is his strength.
Those who anticipated that he’d move from “governing mode” to “campaign mode” — well, I tip my hat to you. The parts in the second half about how America was built are very similar to the soaring rhetorical style of the campaign, and nicely juxtaposed to the tea party rhetoric.
Yet, he refuses to identify the pain caucus by name – just in terms like “those who would disagree”. That means that it’s going to take a coordinated Democratic full court press – in the press – to push this.
He also does a good job of pointing out that all of the details in the proposal have been pushed for and endorsed by Republicans in the past.
I’m also going to guess that someone in his inner circle read that article from the former GOP operative – the name of the bill is simply the American Jobs Act. No “Investment and Recovery and Stimulus” stuff – easy on the brain of the low intellect voter.
Finally, the proposal has enough real, stimulus oriented content (along with the usual weak tax cuts) that if it were passed it would in fact boost jobs significantly.
All in all – promising. But I’ve also felt that after other speeches in his Presidency. They key is going to be the follow-up.
Hmmm … I read the speech but now I’m watching it. TarheelDem, your comments about Obama being black and being careful about how he acts are still making me think. But it seems to me is that there is a clear change in tone – and facial expressions. This is the President-as-adult who has FINALLY had it with the spoiled brat he’s created through being too tolerant.
I like this. This is the sort of strength we haven’t seen since November 2008.
I hope this works with America.
We will see how the “President as adult” plays with the voters because the usual suspects are going to be putting out the same “angry black muslim radical socialist” bullhockey. By seeing how it plays, I mean how the general public reacts; will they this time realize that the GOP attacks are crap. I suspect that the trip to Iowa gave him a sense that ordinary Americans trust this adult just like they did in 2008.
He was still careful. He did not directly call them out. (But MSNBC did. Reaction shots of Cornyn and Ryan.) He is not ready to lay the pain at the foot of the Republicans until he goes into full campaign mode, probably frustrating the hell out of us until the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.
I’m not sure that the spoil brat was the result of being too tolerant of the Republicans. It had as much to do with certain Democrats. Now, post-2010 and debt ceiling crisis, the ones who can change most likely will and the the ones who can’t have already announced their retirement.
The sections of most import were the firm defense of collective bargaining, the attack on the byzantine tax code, and the promise to take this argument to every part of the country.
The part that folks will be waiting on is the plan for the “grand bargain”. The contentious part of the “grand bargain” will be the timing of cuts to various things. The Democrats will want to put them beyond January 2012, the Republicans will want to put them before to the election to whittle at Obama’s base.
BTW, I discovered today that the “neutron bomb” part of the joint committee legislation does not get triggered until January 2013. Think about a victorious Republican House, Senate, and President sitting down in January 2013 with mandatory spending cuts on their table.
Did I get it right that the Congress passed the patent bill today, or did I mishear that part. If so, that might mean that software and other high-tech goods will have different intellectual property protections than EULAs and copyrights. But I’ve not heard any discussion of the contents of the patent bill.
My hope is that the Republicans decide to grant him this bill and save their fight for the joint committee. That would be their best play having blown the debt ceiling crisis politically (but not yet legislatively). But Obama on the road again is going to help immensely because it gets him beyond the Village media setting the narrative. A swing through the small town South would be fun to watch. Watching white folks shake hands with a guy they call a radical muslim socialist extremist. If anybody at the White House is interested, I can suggest an itinerary. (A sneak peak: Farmville VA; Halifax, VA; Lexington, NC; Monroe, NC; Laurens, SC; Rome, GA; Johnson City, TN; Cumberland, KY; Murfreesboro, TN; Muscle Shoals, AL; Dothan, AL; Philadelphia, MS; Pascagoula, MS.)
Congress did pass the patent reform:
http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/09/senate-passes-landmark-bill-overhauling-us-patent-syste
m.php?ref=fpb
I can’t speak to the bill contents either. But I’m skeptical when the companies lining up to commend it are Fortune 500 (and Fortune 5 in some cases) — that plus the only way anything gets through the Senate on an 89-9 vote usually means it’s of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.
I’m not sure that the spoil brat was the result of being too tolerant of the Republicans. It had as much to do with certain Democrats.
Could be. To carry the analogy, maybe the parent has been wanting to crack down on this spoiled child for a long time but the other parent held him back.
Whatever – I think the point is that he’s speaking to Congress with the sort of tone that most non-partisan Americans would if they were given the chance.
I see that most of the left is upset that the proposal is still pretty weak. And I can see that and certainly agree with it. I still think we’re in this situation because Obama and company let things get this far before fighting back. But, given that we are here, if they can get this through it will help a bit and give the Democrats a better chance in 2012.
The best possible scenario is that not only to the Democrats win, but Obama looks back on the his first 34 months and realizes he should have pushed harder, earlier. That he keeps the tone he showed tonight and uses it with the right-wing Democrats who try to get in the way.
Wow … I guess I still am hoping for change.
Politically the fact that the proposal is being attacked from the left is a good thing because the Republicans have already framed it as Stimulus 2.0 and claim that the first stimulus bill failed.
So Obama takes the argument to the country. My preference as stated elsewhere is that he start with some hard right areas in the South and lay out his plan and then ask what else we should be doing and take notes. Then when he comes back, sort the GOP propaganda out from real proposals, consider those and ask that the better ones be added to the bill, citing the person whose idea that was (if they agree to it).
Local media are much more excited and sympathetic than the Villagers. And people who actually talk to Obama and have no other agendas sometimes change their position. We saw that in the 2008 campaign, which is why the GOP had to invent not-Joe the not-plumber.
Boehner looks stoned!
Hillary looks like she’s sucking a lemon, what’s that?
Michelle looks like she wants to stick a knife into someone.
Thanks for the invitation to fling poo. I’ve already stated my opinions of the plan, I won’t beat a dead horse. However, I’d like to answer a specific point in the speech.
“We can’t wait fourteen months…” Hell, man, you’ve already waited thirty four months to notice that people are suffering.
And that is the key problem, isn’t it? If he’d taken this tack in December 2009 instead of the meaningless job summit – when he still had a large House majority and the possibility of a reconciliation bill in the Senate for 2010 – there is no doubt that the economy would have been better and so would have been the election results in November 2010.
I know, I know. We keep being told that there was nothing else Obama could have done for the economy. Not buying it. A different person would have used the December 2009 Jobs Summit to launch a campaign for a new Jobs Act – just as Obama is doing now and he’s promised to take it to the people in every part of America.
Some of the people on this site keep asking what else Obama could have done for the economy. THIS is what Obama should have done 2 years ago.
In complete agreement with you about timing. However, more asphalt and tax cuts are not going to do anything bit make contractors richer. As for the SS and Medicare cuts, don’t get me started or I’ll go completely bersek. He’s not only touched the third rail, but he’s dancing on it. Yeah, it’s all the greedy boomers mooching on SS and Medicare that are responsible for the lack of jobs. Riiiight.
He said nothing at all about Social Security cuts. Nothing about Social Security at all as a matter of fact. It was all about Medicare and Medicaid. And it hinted at the issue of controlling provider costs, not reducing benefits.
Making contractors richer for the moment is not a bad thing. I bet they’ve got a lot of things that they’ve held back spending on. It’s not like it’ll go all into savings. They’ve been hit pretty hard.
And construction does use lots of labor and creates lots of jobs. It also backfills the state jobs involved in letting the contracts and supervising the work. And for some projects, it will be state and city crews not contractors doing the work.
I want to see the bill before I get bent out of shape.
I heard him with my own ears talk about “Social Security Reform”. I really hate the word “Reform” as if it were some giant rip-off that needs to be stopped.
I looked in the transcript published in the next diary above and can’t find any reference to Social Security but an entire paragraph on Medicare and Medicaid.
Help me find it. Cite it in context.
Because if it was in the delivered speech, I missed it.
It wasn’t in the speech. It exists only in the minds of those who cling ferociously to their President Sellout narrative, facts be damned.
FUCK YOU! I don’t know your age or sex, but whatever I would punch you in the fucking mouth for calling me a liar.
Now that’s just rude and I’m surprised to hear that from you. People call me out on my words all the time (even in this thread, they have) and I do my best to just ignore it. Thankfully this is a dead thread by now so I’ll save you some embarrassment.
There was no mention of SS cuts in the speech. There was some suggestion that we may need to reform programs that seem like what people would normally call “entitlements” although that word was not used. There was also talk of Medicare and Medicaid reform. But that doesn’t really mean anything. It’s in the speech. It doesn’t mean anything will come of it and the “reforms” may actually be good ones, like creating additional funding for the programs. He acknowledged that programs (other than SS) do have some solvency issues that need to be looked at.
That’s all.
Nothing personal to you. I like your comments but I think someone (and not me) might deserve an apology.
I came down for supper. The TV was on. I heard Obama say, “…reform Social Security and Medicare to preserve their long-term viability.” I said, “What’s that got to do with jobs?” My grandson shushed me.
Listening to later commentary, I guess he had proposed keeping the payroll tax cut or maybe extending it. That was probably just before where I came in.
In December 2009, the business people at the jobs summit were rolling out the Republican cut taxes and reduce regulations line. Remember the green shoots?
The business group that Immelt has assembled has not seen the consequences of where that line goes. This time he has business wanting the government to do something and do something quickly.
It was partly bad strategy but also not having the focus of the country on what was important. The healthcare reform debate was a distraction, and Joe Lieberman and the four jackasses had just held the debt ceiling bill hostage.
It’s not all thinky-thinky stuff.
The speech was okay. Just okay. Not bad, not great. But probably appropriate for the venue. The proposals seem good though. Not enough to really get things moving but all of this should be do-able if the R’s are willing.
I am interested to see if he gets a bit more explicit in his stump speech he starts giving as he travels key districts across the country (starting tomorrow, I think.)
Hopefully he is giving interviews to all of the local TV stations as well and names the names of the local congressperson / Senator he needs the help of, and advises the viewers to remember next November if they vote no.
People generally trust their local news and local news organizations would love to get an interview with The President. This may be inconvenient for him but it makes a huge difference.
That is the Dem Mighty Wurlitzer. The local press will ALWAYS go and talk to the POTUS, and it is considered a BIG DEAL. It makes the news.
Obama’s been here many many times and the local news goes all-in covering his photo op’s and public events (sometimes even LIVE, in place of your favorite soap opera, etc) but he rarely gives their star reporter a private interview for even just a few minutes. Big mistake, I think. Huge. He should be kissing their asses and sending them autographed photos of them together afterward.
Do you have any friends?
No. Not a one. WTF?
I thought that it was a very good speech, and well delivered, with a certain amount of passion and URGENCY.
PASS THIS BILL NOW!!
If he NOW takes it to the Repukes, he may have something.
Yep. The “I’m going to take this to every part of the country.” is the key part.
Wow. You’re way too important to hang with me at the next NN. 😉