I suppose it really is a step up from the lengthy, meandering lecture of the latest “economic pivot” for which the president stumped last week, wherein the he took almost seventy minutes to basically complain that “I’m just a bystander in this economy, rabble rabble rabble” and talk up the misguided merits of the many “investments” he wishes he could make if it weren’t for those obtuse Republicans. …But only a small step. CNN reports:

Speaking at an Amazon.com distribution plant in Tennessee Tuesday, President Barack Obama will propose a “grand bargain” with lawmakers on spurring job growth, according to one of his top advisers.

“As part of his efforts to focus Washington on the middle class, today in Tennessee the President will call on Washington to work on a grand bargain focused on middle class jobs by pairing reform of the business tax code with a significant investment in middle class jobs,” said Dan Pfeiffer, a senior adviser to the president.

Obama will suggest Congress cut corporate tax rates – long a goal of Republicans – while simultaneously making jobs investments, which Democrats and the president have been championing.

The White House would not say Tuesday how much each part of the bargain – the tax changes and the investment – would amount to.

Hmm. We’re still waiting on specifics, but I suppose the big attempt at ‘compromise’ here is that he’s for the moment shelving raising taxes and instead offering to allow for some easing up on businesses — but in exchange, of course, we have to make some of those precious Keynesian “investments” in “infrastructure” that he supposes will “create” jobs and help jump-start the economy. If Republicans do refuse to let the government deficit-spend still money on such assuredly fruitless endeavors, of course, the president can then at least say that they just don’t want to do it because he’s the one who proposed it, and my, aren’t they just such spiteful obstructionists?

And I might venture that the decision to propose the whole idea in front of an Amazon plant probably has something to do with the fact that Amazon is going on a hiring spree — as if it’s somehow due to President Obama’s oversight of the economy, and not in spite of it.

Update: Some specifics and immediate reaction, via the Washington Examiner:

Obama wants to cut the corporate tax rate of 35 percent to 28 percent and give manufacturers an even lower rate of 25 percent — a proposal the president floated last year. Rather than link the corporate tax cuts with an overhaul of the individual rate, as he did previously, Obama will instead press for more federal spending on his jobs blueprint. The president will also call for a minimum tax on foreign earnings. …

“The president has always supported corporate tax reform,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner.  “Republicans want to help families and small businesses, too. This proposal allows President Obama to support President Obama’s position on taxes and President Obama’s position on spending, while leaving small businesses and American families behind.”