President ‘In-Between’ previews his jobs plan

This ageless advice comes to us by way of Johnny Mercer, and the president would do well to heed it at this critical juncture in his presidency. On Thursday he plans to appear before the American people to unveil a jobs plan of such import that it required a joint session of Congress as its backdrop. He should cancel the speech.

I say this not because of any presumption that he had something new and meaningful to add to the conversation. Rather, it is because the speech, which he previewed in Detroit on Labor Day, endeavors once again to play both ends against the middle. These spectacles, in which the brilliant president outwits us dolts, are becoming hard to watch.

Evincing that special talent Harry Reid ascribed to him of not using a “Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,” Obama told the crowd:

On Thursday, we’re gonna lay out a new way forward on jobs to grow the economy and put more Americans back to work right now. I don’t want to give everything away right here ‘cause I want y’all to tune in on Thursday. But I’ll give ya just a lil’ bit. We’ve got roads and bridges across this country that need rebuildin’. We’ve got private companies with the equipment and the manpower to the do the buildin’. We’ve got more than one million unemployed constructions workers ready to get dirty right now… Labor is on board, business is on board, we just need Congress to get on board.

This morning, Albert Hunt at Bloomberg sketched in a few particulars of the jobs plan. It is to ask Congress for another $300 billion that will be used predominantly on infrastructure projects and to extend the payroll tax cut. Both are gestures to Democrats, many of whom of late have bemoaned the fact that the 2009 stimulus wasn’t larger.

Lest you think there are no crumbs in the jobs bill to appease the president’s enemies, he will also call for a decrease in the portion of the payroll tax paid by employers. The hot button issues of entitlement cuts and deficit reduction will receive honorable mention as well, though specifics will be reserved for a later date—perhaps one where they become another president’s headache.

The obvious question—how does he propose to pay for this additional stimulus?—is answered by unspecified tax increases to be levied in later years. The preview doesn’t reveal which group of taxpayers Obama envisions picking up the tab, but I’ll give you two guesses.

In brief, the “new” jobs speech promises to be a train wreck. Its sole casualty will be Obama, since he’ll never get the House to sign off on it. Even if it were to squeak through, the plan would alienate his liberal base further by offering too little too late. Plus it gives his GOP opponents additional talking points about a president fresh out of ideas. Once again, Obama attempts to be all things to all people, but this time the stakes are much higher.

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