Full speech available here. My 'live-blogging' 'analysis' here.
Trending at memeorandum, "FACT CHECK: Obama's jobs plan paid for? Seems not.", from the Associated Press...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama's promise Thursday that everything in his jobs plan will be paid for rests on highly iffy propositions.
It will only be paid for if a committee he can't control does his bidding, if Congress puts that into law and if leaders in the future - the ones who will feel the fiscal pinch of his proposals - don't roll it back.
BHO's claims:
1)"Everything in this bill will be paid for. Everything." Not true at all...
Essentially, the jobs plan is an IOU from a president and lawmakers who may not even be in office down the road when the bills come due. Today's Congress cannot bind a later one for future spending. A future Congress could simply reverse it.
Currently, roughly all federal taxes and other revenues are consumed in spending on various federal benefit programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' benefits, food stamps, farm subsidies and other social-assistance programs and payments on the national debt. Pretty much everything else is done on credit with borrowed money.
So there is no guarantee that programs that clearly will increase annual deficits in the near term will be paid for in the long term.
In other words, everything is NOT paid for with current revenue. We'll have to beg, borrow or steal it from China, future generations or Taxed Enough Already US workers and businessmen and women...who, mind you, are expected to create jobs for this army of ever-increasingly hostile and leftward-tilting 'workers'. Why should we?
2)"Everything in here is the kind of proposal that's been supported by both Democrats and Republicans, including many who sit here tonight." Really, BHO?
Obama's proposed cut in the Social Security payroll tax does seem likely to garner significant GOP support. But Obama proposes paying for the plan in part with tax increases that have already generated stiff Republican opposition.
For instance, Obama makes a pitch anew to end Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, which he has defined as couples earning over $250,000 a year or individuals over $200,000 a year. Republicans have adamantly blocked what they view as new taxes.
3)"It will not add to the deficit." Hardee-hardy-har-har! But of course it will add to the deficit. Anything you do adds to the deficit. You are a deficit-driving golfing machine, Mr. el Presidente!!
It's hard to see how the program would not raise the deficit over the next year or two because most of the envisioned spending cuts and tax increases are designed to come later rather than now, when they could jeopardize the fragile recovery. Deficits are calculated for individual years. The accumulation of years of deficit spending has produced a national debt headed toward $15 trillion. Perhaps Obama meant to say that, in the long run, his hoped-for programs would not further increase the national debt, not annual deficits.
How about both? He can't lift a little finger, it seems, without spending monies he doesn't have or deserve.
4)"The American Jobs Act answers the urgent need to create jobs right away." More importantly to you, it answers your need to get re-elected. And to give sop to the Unions, your 'army' of street thugs. Oh, and...
Not all of the president's major proposals are likely to yield quick job growth if adopted. One is to set up a national infrastructure bank to raise private capital for roads, rail, bridges, airports and waterways. Even supporters of such a bank doubt it could have much impact on jobs in the next two years because it takes time to set up. The idea is likely to run into opposition from some Republicans who say such a bank would give the federal government too much power. They'd rather divide money among existing state infrastructure banks.
That, and to ensure re-election, and to feed the goons. Gotta keep the goons happy.
I predict a strong TEA Party response to this, after it's dissected by good men and women in our elected Congress. I'll bet there will be much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teefs by the LeftLibProggs who might've heard BHO's line about cutting some 'sacred cow' social programs. Right on cue, from 'Wesley Mooch'...
Though the plan would be paid for by more deficit reduction, he left those vital details until later. It was gratifying to hear him call for higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy, but his warning of cuts to Medicare and Medicaid — lifelines to the most vulnerable — raised concerns about trading one important program for another.
There will be jobs created, Mr. Obama. Beginning after November 2012, after your defeat, things will start to improve.
Trust me on this.
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