The Obama “listening tour” is rumbling to a halt, and there’s great news: the President is so inspired by what he learned that he will “unveil new ideas to create jobs and help the struggling poor and middle class in a major speech after Labor Day,” as reported by the Associated Press.
Labor Day? That’s September 5, almost three weeks from now. Meanwhile, America can simmer in the juices of soaring unemployment and crushing debt while Obama takes yet another expensive vacation, this time to Martha’s Vineyard. (Remember all those gassy Obama promises that he “would not rest” until his latest “pivot to job creation” bore fruit? Never mind.) Once he’s finished enjoying a few million dollars’ worth of taxpayer-financed rest and relaxation, he’ll carve yet another epic speech into the tablets of history.
What can a breathless public look forward to?
Obama’s plan is likely to contain a mix of tax cuts, jobs-boosting construction projects and steps to help the long-term unemployed, a senior administration official told the Associated Press. The official emphasized that Obama’s proposals would be fresh ones, not a rehash of plans he has pitched for many weeks and still supports, like his idea of an “infrastructure bank” to finance construction jobs.
That sounds about as “fresh” as used chewing gum. I’m sure “tax cuts” will mean extending his little payroll tax cut, which he boasts of endlessly. Maybe he’ll throw in some more trickle-up lollipops, combined with another angry demand for the people who actually do create jobs to fork over more of their income to the government.
“Steps to help the long-term unemployed?” You mean like extending unemployment benefits again? Because he’s been talking about that forever, too. We already have unemployment benefits that last halfway to forever. Are we going to get another laughable claim that unemployment checks create jobs? If that were true, wouldn’t we be swimming in jobs by now?
And “jobs-boosting construction projects?” That means “fat taxpayer-financed payoffs to union bosses.” Let’s have some more of Obama weeping about the need to “rebuild” a devastated America… or maybe he can just abandon his last pretense of rational thought, and call for one massive program to dig holes, and another to fill them in. Construction jobs would blossom like poppies in the fields of Oz!
These are the same three ideas Obama mumbled about during his fifteenth “pivot” to job creation. They’re the same ideas he’s been pushing for the past two years. As you may have noticed, they have utterly failed to stimulate job creation, or much of anything else, beyond the growth of our national debt. Now he’s announcing a “major speech” in three weeks to rehash them again?
This is not only another embarrassing official performance from Obama, but politically stupid. He’s abandoned the field to the GOP challengers for the next three weeks, essentially declaring open auditions for his prospective replacements. Hopefully they will make the best of the opportunity. The Oval Office has never been so painfully vacant.
