Obama's virtual economy: Fiddling with the dials on the real world

A cynic might argue that none of these pretend ideas for reviving a $15 trillion economy in the second term matters much because the lasting damage was done in the first term, with ObamaCare’s redo of the health sector—16% of the economy—and Dodd-Frank, which even the bureaucrats asked to write things like the Volcker Rule admit they can’t figure out.

A cynic might say further that much of what Mr. Obama is outputting from his laptop for the next four years are pop-gun ideas or phantom tax policy. The Buffett Rule will never become a real law. On Wednesday Mr. Obama proposed an array of corporate tax changes—some up, some down—but as the reporting noted repeatedly, with virtually “no specifics.” Ctrl-Alt-Delete. The scheme to revive manufacturing—taxes overseas that are reprogrammed into domestic hires—would challenge even Sim City’s programmers.

Cynical resignation and a president living in a videogame economy aren’t what the U.S. needs at this turn in history. The biggest burden on this week’s two Republican front-runners, Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney, will be to describe—in detail—what really happened to the U.S. economy the past three years. Against that reality, Mr. Obama will repeat until November that he wants an economy “where everyone plays by the same set of rules.” If he’s writing them, it may not compute.