(Which makes my record pretty much perfect. Except for the odd 30 seconds here and there, I haven’t been entranced by the Golden Voice of Reason.)
But I do read David Dayen over at FDL. In this post he’s talking about the liberal bona fides of the jobs programs Obama listed.
School infrastructure repair and remodel sounds like a sure thing, 30 billion to 35,000 publics schools; that’s $85,000 per school. When you throw in community colleges at an unknown number, I worry that it might be too diluted, but still. Good.
The Job creation/ payroll tax thing? Sure sounds like a way for companies to cheat. We’ll see. Seems too little, and too easy to hire people and then whack them off the payroll – for profit! But I am much too dark these days.
But for sure, the work sharing program. I don’t know about other places, but I know that a lot of people in my old town used unemployment benefits to boost their income when the Company started into laying off for half-days, half-weeks, only to find out that each part-week they claimed counted as a full week of unemployment benefits, so that when they finally lost their jobs altogether, they had used up their benefit weeks without using up their benefit dollars.
I need somebody to clarify this, to promise that these job-sharers aren’t just getting fucked over under a different program.
And sincere thanks for your consistently great work, Mr. Dayen. I trust you, which is why I read you.
The payroll tax cut is a cut to the Social Security trust fund. Later on, he will say that since Social Security has a funding crisis (which he caused with the current payroll tax cut and wants to continue with this one), he will say we need to make a “grand bargain” to cut or eliminate Social Security altogether.
He is also looking to pay for all this by raising the Medicare eligibility age, so 64-66 year olds will be kicked to the curb and have to find health insurance in the private market. But not current oldsters–just non baby boomers of course! But don’t worry, you’ll get pie! In the sky! When you die!
You’ve got to wonder, if he’s going to make proposals that don’t do anything to stimulate the economy (tax cuts), and doesn’t have any chance of passing, why not pay for it with equally impossible taxes on millionaires, billionaires, and corporations?
Because he is a pusillanimous coward. THIS IS A BAD BAD BILL, PEOPLE.
Someone’s math (or quote) is _very_ wrong.
30 billion divided by 35 thousand is over 850 thousand _not_ 85 thousand. We need to spend _way_ more than that on education infrastructure but still, we’re talking about an entire order of magnitude.
Obama talks pretty but he doesn’t _do_ or stand for anything. He’s not getting my vote in ’12.