Rick Raw: Obama Rolls Out Plan to Jump Start Sagging Recovery–More Empty Rhetoric

By Rick Grant Commentary rickgrant01@comcast.net

In a Labor Day speech in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, President Obama rolled out a new plan to jump start the sagging recovery. Clearly, it was a desperation move to save the Democrats from a blood bath in the midterm elections and show he is working hard to reignite the recovery.

More significantly, his speech had rough edges to show he means business and save his own ass from plummeting poll numbers. For reasons that are not completely his fault, Obama is in floundering around in deep trouble.

Throughout his presidency, Obama has been plagued by partisan politics. Republicans have dug their heels in and refused to cooperate with him. Effectively, Republicans have sabotaged his initiatives, with extreme prejudice. It’s open warfare on the Hill led by General (Sen.) John McCain, riding a white horse.

Obama’s plan to throw $50 billion at new infrastructure improvements such as road repairs and new bridges was empty rhetoric, considering the bill would not pass this year, and probably wouldn’t pass in the future. Besides, the new jobs would go to Mexicans, since they dominate most construction crews.

The President qualified his remarks with the caveat, " Now, the plain truth is, there’s no silver bullet or quick fix to the problem." Indeed, there are 30 million unemployed people with no prospect of ever finding a job in the foreseeable future that would agree with him. Now, the recovery has stalled, mired in a partisan impasse on the Hill.

On a conference call with reporters on Monday, a senior administration official acknowledged that the infrastructure bill will not add any new jobs until at least 2011–that is if it passes at all.

"This is not a stimulus, immediate-jobs plan. This is a six-year preauthorization of transportation projects that is front-loaded with money to try and spark the economy once Congress passes it." the senior administration official said.

Of course, as usual, Obama was making promises he can’t keep to bolster his poll numbers. Talk is cheap. He can’t fool the voters into believing that things will improve due to this new jobs fantasy.

It’s like Obama is living in a fool’s paradise thinking that infrastructure spending will create jobs for the unemployed. It’s too speculative and requires a bipartisan stamp of approval. Well, that’s not going to happen in this belligerent political climate.

These so called jobs are in construction. Not everyone is able or qualified to do road work. The companies hire Mexicans because they work hard for much less pay than American workers.

If a certain construction company gets caught hiring illegal aliens, they are fined and they turn around and do it again. Besides, does an aeronautical engineer who lost his job really want to do road construction? No, but in desperation he might consider it.

The truth is: People are just not feeling the recovery. Jobs are still scarce or non existent and people are struggling with desperation and depression. Obama’s tax incentives to small businesses did not work in the past and people are skeptical about such a nebulous initiative.

Business owners are not expanding or hiring because of the uncertain political future. Everyone is scared to make a big purchase, such as a new car or flat screen TV for the same reason that businesses are holding back.

We retirees have seen our income shrink because we didn’t get a cost of living raise in our Social Security checks. Now we find out our health insurance has gone up significantly. So, we’ve had to make more sacrifices to survive as food prices rise and our dwindling income is not stretching through the month.

More significantly, we retirees were promised by President Obama that he would make up for the lack of a cost of living increase in our Social Security income by giving us a one time $250 stimulus check. Obama reneged on that promise, which really pissed us off. I heard him promise this $250 stimulus in two separate speeches.

Thus, most Americans are disillusioned by Obama’s abysmal track record. He makes pretty speeches and promises, but goes back to Washington and hits the wall of Republican opposition. He lacks the strong leadership to overcome the opposition.

His Labor Day speech did nothing to reassure the American public that has been hit hard by the recession and the total lack of recovery. We want action, not words.