I am really, really busy and only caught some snips of the jobs speech, but please feel free to discuss. I’ll get up to speed tomorrow.
16 thoughts on “Jobs Speech?”
Maybe Obama’s best speech. Savy politics because it works to highlight the GOP dedicated obstructionism even to the casual voter.If the House doesn’t completely block everything (slim to no chance) then unemployment numbers will improve. If they block everything, then the GOP stands to take the hit for it in 2012. As I said before, Obama is running against the Teabaggers in the House in 2012.
“I am really, really busy ”
I’m not really doing much of anything right now, but did not watch the speech.
I watched the speech and thought it was pretty good. I felt a sense of sincerity coming from Obama. I get turned off by any of the American exceptionalism bullshit..which he kept it to a minimal, but none the less, I’m tired of hearing of how great we are as Americans. I need work, and Obama did hit on the point that millions of us are living a hand to mouth existence and don’t have the luxury to wait until the next round of elections for our situation to improve.
I also like his comment that we shouldn’t be in a race for the bottom in beating people down and denying them a livable wage…To me it’s a simple case of… lets share the wealth!
“I’m tired of hearing of how great we are as Americans. I need work”
Funny that we have been sinking for thirty years, now all the sudden, We’ve had enough.
I thought it was Obama’s best speech.
I did cringe at the enthusiastic “may God bless America!!!!” at the end, but I guess that’s what you must say.
He put the ball squarely in the GOP court, the court of a bunch of pouty little brats.
I have NEVER seen such a collection of rude, arrogant, smart assed, shit grinnin frat boy pricks in my life. I hope they all get pink slipped next election.
My wife kept saying how rude Boener appeared, I pointed out McConnel, Cantor, and Kyle; what a bunch of classic sour pusses.They make my skin crawl……
These guys need to get together and make it work, I believe we’ve had enough bullshit out of congress; as my olf foreman Frank used to say, “if you don’t want to get to work, just stay home!!”
Pretty damned simple.
Very good speech, great tone, and just enough ‘in you face’ to the Republicans without being blatant about it.
It was pretty Liberal, within the new context of our new austerity universe, of course. ‘It’s all paid for!’ is not a ringing endorsement of Keynesian economics, but at least he’s willing to spend – and it should make people realize who the fiscally reponsible party is, was, and has been. I would have liked for him to stress that, if deficics are really the concern, the best way to lower and then eliminate them, is throught getting people back to work.
I’m more of a direct stimulus fan than of tax credits, but the $4,000 for people like me who’ve been out of work for 6+ months (16 for me), and the one for returning veterans, sounds pretty smart to me.
Two things I heard that concerned me were bringing up Medicare and Medicaid, and more hints about his ‘grand bargain.’ I want to hear more about those.
Some optics:
I loved the shots of Kyl and McConnell sitting next to one another. They didn’t look happy – which made me feel better. Throughtout the whole speech, every time the camera turned to them, it looked as if they’d just exchanged turds and swallowed them.
John Boehner looked like he was in the turd-exchange/swallowing deal with Kyl and the Yertle.
And Eric Cantor looked like he’s had a very rough enema before the speech.
It might be me, but I only noticed the Republicans getting up off their stuffed wallets a couple of times:
When Obama mentioned Medicare – in the hopes that maybe he’s going to be taking the sting out of their self-induced Ryan Suicide Pact – and God I hope Obama didn’t.
And when he mentioned veterans. They’d better get on their feet for that – they’ve done more to increase VFW membership, and real estate at Arlington National Cemetary, since LBJ and Nixon in their hey-day.
Having said all of that – the Devil’s in the details.
As I said, he was as feisty as I’ve seen him since he took office. I liked that it’s called The American JOBS Act, and not some wonky BS name, like Democrats always do. I might have liked if he’d called it the Total Employment Act (TEA), just to f*ck with the Birchers and morons.
Unless I completely missed something – Me Likey! One of, if not his best, policy speeches as President (the Giffords one, excepted, since that was on a different topic).
This probably makes me an Obamabot in a lot of people eyes. Well, so be it. I’m tired of the negativity, I wanted some hope for 2012, and I think he did a good job of laying out the differences in approaches between the two parties. He was farily subtle about it, but I think he laid the groundwork for really getting in their faces if they dont “Pass this bill NOW!”
A friend called right after the speech to talk about it, because I had wanted to turn to FOX and watch them projectile vomit split-pea soup as their heads spun. My friend, not exactly a flaming Liberal, really like the speech.
Ok, I’ve yacked enough. Now I’m curious about everyone elses opinions.
Speech? No watch.
My eyes are where the rubber meets the road. How much will Obama compromise (cave) once the bills are marked up in congress? With out any tax increases, how will his proposals be funded? What about the ‘Super-Congress’? How will that groups proposals affect job creation?
Bottom line: Actions speak louder than words.
I forgot it was on so early, and missed the first 10 minutes. I did like how he got cranked up and scolded the TP on its animosity toward collective bargaining, (some) regulation, and so on. Would’ve liked it better if he had looked directly at poodle-headed Rand Paul and said, “If you don’t believe in the good government can do, get the hell out of Congress!” But alas no.
In the end I agree most with Chief’s bottom line. We’ll see.
>> Actions speak louder than words.
Obviously not. This president has gotten more actually accomplished than any democratic president since … mmm … I don’t know exactly, my own personal knowledge only goes back to Carter, and he’s certainly gotten more done than either Carter or Clinton … and yet we still get stuff like this:
>> How much will Obama compromise (cave) once the bills are marked up in congress?
That is an almost purely optics-based criticism right there.
-me
My favorite part of the speech were the following lines:
“Ask yourselves — where would we be right now if the people who sat here before us decided not to build our highways and our bridges; our dams; our airports? What would this country be like if we had chosen not to spend money on public high schools, or research universities, or community colleges? Millions of returning heroes, including my grandfather, had the opportunity to go to school because of the GI Bill. Where would we be if they hadn’t had that chance?
“How many jobs would it have cost us if past Congresses decided not to support the basic research that led to the Internet and the computer chip? What kind of country would this be if this Chamber had voted down Social Security or Medicare just because it violated some rigid idea about what government could or could not do? How many Americans would have suffered as a result?
“No single individual built America on their own. We built it together.â€
I think it was THE most imporatant moment, because it can set the foundation for the future.
If the GOP does the expected and ducks or denies to help in this situation, if he’s smart, Obama can go into full anti-Conservative mode and turn Reagan’s famous line around on the Republicans:
‘The nine most dangerous words in the English language are: “I’m here in the government and I won’t help.”‘
Go ahead, GOP, how do you answer THAT one!?!?
Ian,
Maybe my time horizon is longer than yours. It seems as if Obama says to himself, “The votes aren’t there.”
As a negotiator, he should be aiming for the whole enchalida. Of course he knows he won’t get it all. But I still maintain that one cannot let the opposition know what one is willing to settle for. One asks for the world and see how far the opposition is willing to come.
This president has gotten more actually accomplished than any democratic president since … mmm … I don’t know exactly, my own personal knowledge only goes back to Carter, and he’s certainly gotten more done than either Carter or Clinton….
I would need that quantified, rather than simply proclaimed, but in any case neither Clinton nor Carter had to bring us back up to baseline after the devastation of GW Bush, and Carter didn’t have Reagan’s ruination on top of it. And we aren’t even close to pre-GW Bush baseline yet.
Here’s just one example, which occurred to me when Obama sounded waffly on the question of regulations: As soon as he came into office, Bush eliminated safety regs for the coal-mining industry. I can remember as far back as LBJ, and I recall that from the late 1960s until about 2001, coal-mining fatalities in this country were reduced to near-zero. Shortly after Bush rolled back the regs, we had one mass-fatality accident after another, and they’ve continued since 2009 because Obama hasn’t acted to restore the pre-Bush status quo. So coal miners continue to die.
Yes, actions– and inaction– really do speak louder than words.
“President Obama today announced the next phase in the Administration’s program to increase fuel efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas pollution for all new cars and trucks sold in the United States. These new standards will cover cars and light trucks for Model Years 2017-2025, requiring performance equivalent to 54.5 mpg in 2025 while reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 163 grams per mile.”
There is a 2017 standard set of 35.5 MPG. How big is this?
“The standards will reduce carbon dioxide pollution by over 6 billion metric tons –equivalent to the emissions from the United States last year.. or what the Amazon rainforest absorbs in three years.”
maha – thanks for that link.
My point is that, like the jobs speech, the reinstatement of mine safety regulations was two years late… and in this case, that tardiness cost workers’ lives. I remember hearing in late 2008 that the incoming Obama administration was parsing Bush’s executive orders line-by-line, as a kind of triage to determine which horrible follies should be corrected first. Even though I don’t live anywhere near coal-mining country, that was one of the most urgent corrections that occurred to me.
There are a lot of Bush travesties that remain to be corrected, the most frustrating perhaps being tax cuts for the wealthy. Last night’s speech reminded me too much of Obama’s rousing debt-negotiations speech which, in the end, essentially came to nothing.
Maybe Obama’s best speech. Savy politics because it works to highlight the GOP dedicated obstructionism even to the casual voter.If the House doesn’t completely block everything (slim to no chance) then unemployment numbers will improve. If they block everything, then the GOP stands to take the hit for it in 2012. As I said before, Obama is running against the Teabaggers in the House in 2012.
“I am really, really busy ”
I’m not really doing much of anything right now, but did not watch the speech.
I watched the speech and thought it was pretty good. I felt a sense of sincerity coming from Obama. I get turned off by any of the American exceptionalism bullshit..which he kept it to a minimal, but none the less, I’m tired of hearing of how great we are as Americans. I need work, and Obama did hit on the point that millions of us are living a hand to mouth existence and don’t have the luxury to wait until the next round of elections for our situation to improve.
I also like his comment that we shouldn’t be in a race for the bottom in beating people down and denying them a livable wage…To me it’s a simple case of… lets share the wealth!
“I’m tired of hearing of how great we are as Americans. I need work”
Funny that we have been sinking for thirty years, now all the sudden, We’ve had enough.
I thought it was Obama’s best speech.
I did cringe at the enthusiastic “may God bless America!!!!” at the end, but I guess that’s what you must say.
He put the ball squarely in the GOP court, the court of a bunch of pouty little brats.
I have NEVER seen such a collection of rude, arrogant, smart assed, shit grinnin frat boy pricks in my life. I hope they all get pink slipped next election.
My wife kept saying how rude Boener appeared, I pointed out McConnel, Cantor, and Kyle; what a bunch of classic sour pusses.They make my skin crawl……
These guys need to get together and make it work, I believe we’ve had enough bullshit out of congress; as my olf foreman Frank used to say, “if you don’t want to get to work, just stay home!!”
Pretty damned simple.
Very good speech, great tone, and just enough ‘in you face’ to the Republicans without being blatant about it.
It was pretty Liberal, within the new context of our new austerity universe, of course. ‘It’s all paid for!’ is not a ringing endorsement of Keynesian economics, but at least he’s willing to spend – and it should make people realize who the fiscally reponsible party is, was, and has been. I would have liked for him to stress that, if deficics are really the concern, the best way to lower and then eliminate them, is throught getting people back to work.
I’m more of a direct stimulus fan than of tax credits, but the $4,000 for people like me who’ve been out of work for 6+ months (16 for me), and the one for returning veterans, sounds pretty smart to me.
Two things I heard that concerned me were bringing up Medicare and Medicaid, and more hints about his ‘grand bargain.’ I want to hear more about those.
Some optics:
I loved the shots of Kyl and McConnell sitting next to one another. They didn’t look happy – which made me feel better. Throughtout the whole speech, every time the camera turned to them, it looked as if they’d just exchanged turds and swallowed them.
John Boehner looked like he was in the turd-exchange/swallowing deal with Kyl and the Yertle.
And Eric Cantor looked like he’s had a very rough enema before the speech.
It might be me, but I only noticed the Republicans getting up off their stuffed wallets a couple of times:
When Obama mentioned Medicare – in the hopes that maybe he’s going to be taking the sting out of their self-induced Ryan Suicide Pact – and God I hope Obama didn’t.
And when he mentioned veterans. They’d better get on their feet for that – they’ve done more to increase VFW membership, and real estate at Arlington National Cemetary, since LBJ and Nixon in their hey-day.
Having said all of that – the Devil’s in the details.
As I said, he was as feisty as I’ve seen him since he took office. I liked that it’s called The American JOBS Act, and not some wonky BS name, like Democrats always do. I might have liked if he’d called it the Total Employment Act (TEA), just to f*ck with the Birchers and morons.
Unless I completely missed something – Me Likey! One of, if not his best, policy speeches as President (the Giffords one, excepted, since that was on a different topic).
This probably makes me an Obamabot in a lot of people eyes. Well, so be it. I’m tired of the negativity, I wanted some hope for 2012, and I think he did a good job of laying out the differences in approaches between the two parties. He was farily subtle about it, but I think he laid the groundwork for really getting in their faces if they dont “Pass this bill NOW!”
A friend called right after the speech to talk about it, because I had wanted to turn to FOX and watch them projectile vomit split-pea soup as their heads spun. My friend, not exactly a flaming Liberal, really like the speech.
Ok, I’ve yacked enough. Now I’m curious about everyone elses opinions.
Speech? No watch.
My eyes are where the rubber meets the road. How much will Obama compromise (cave) once the bills are marked up in congress? With out any tax increases, how will his proposals be funded? What about the ‘Super-Congress’? How will that groups proposals affect job creation?
Bottom line: Actions speak louder than words.
I forgot it was on so early, and missed the first 10 minutes. I did like how he got cranked up and scolded the TP on its animosity toward collective bargaining, (some) regulation, and so on. Would’ve liked it better if he had looked directly at poodle-headed Rand Paul and said, “If you don’t believe in the good government can do, get the hell out of Congress!” But alas no.
In the end I agree most with Chief’s bottom line. We’ll see.
>> Actions speak louder than words.
Obviously not. This president has gotten more actually accomplished than any democratic president since … mmm … I don’t know exactly, my own personal knowledge only goes back to Carter, and he’s certainly gotten more done than either Carter or Clinton … and yet we still get stuff like this:
>> How much will Obama compromise (cave) once the bills are marked up in congress?
That is an almost purely optics-based criticism right there.
-me
My favorite part of the speech were the following lines:
“Ask yourselves — where would we be right now if the people who sat here before us decided not to build our highways and our bridges; our dams; our airports? What would this country be like if we had chosen not to spend money on public high schools, or research universities, or community colleges? Millions of returning heroes, including my grandfather, had the opportunity to go to school because of the GI Bill. Where would we be if they hadn’t had that chance?
“How many jobs would it have cost us if past Congresses decided not to support the basic research that led to the Internet and the computer chip? What kind of country would this be if this Chamber had voted down Social Security or Medicare just because it violated some rigid idea about what government could or could not do? How many Americans would have suffered as a result?
“No single individual built America on their own. We built it together.â€
I think it was THE most imporatant moment, because it can set the foundation for the future.
If the GOP does the expected and ducks or denies to help in this situation, if he’s smart, Obama can go into full anti-Conservative mode and turn Reagan’s famous line around on the Republicans:
‘The nine most dangerous words in the English language are: “I’m here in the government and I won’t help.”‘
Go ahead, GOP, how do you answer THAT one!?!?
Ian,
Maybe my time horizon is longer than yours. It seems as if Obama says to himself, “The votes aren’t there.”
As a negotiator, he should be aiming for the whole enchalida. Of course he knows he won’t get it all. But I still maintain that one cannot let the opposition know what one is willing to settle for. One asks for the world and see how far the opposition is willing to come.
This president has gotten more actually accomplished than any democratic president since … mmm … I don’t know exactly, my own personal knowledge only goes back to Carter, and he’s certainly gotten more done than either Carter or Clinton….
I would need that quantified, rather than simply proclaimed, but in any case neither Clinton nor Carter had to bring us back up to baseline after the devastation of GW Bush, and Carter didn’t have Reagan’s ruination on top of it. And we aren’t even close to pre-GW Bush baseline yet.
Here’s just one example, which occurred to me when Obama sounded waffly on the question of regulations: As soon as he came into office, Bush eliminated safety regs for the coal-mining industry. I can remember as far back as LBJ, and I recall that from the late 1960s until about 2001, coal-mining fatalities in this country were reduced to near-zero. Shortly after Bush rolled back the regs, we had one mass-fatality accident after another, and they’ve continued since 2009 because Obama hasn’t acted to restore the pre-Bush status quo. So coal miners continue to die.
Yes, actions– and inaction– really do speak louder than words.
joan16 — actually, the Mine Safety and Health Administration announced new regulations in January.
From the White House blog
“President Obama today announced the next phase in the Administration’s program to increase fuel efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas pollution for all new cars and trucks sold in the United States. These new standards will cover cars and light trucks for Model Years 2017-2025, requiring performance equivalent to 54.5 mpg in 2025 while reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 163 grams per mile.”
There is a 2017 standard set of 35.5 MPG. How big is this?
“The standards will reduce carbon dioxide pollution by over 6 billion metric tons –equivalent to the emissions from the United States last year.. or what the Amazon rainforest absorbs in three years.”
maha – thanks for that link.
My point is that, like the jobs speech, the reinstatement of mine safety regulations was two years late… and in this case, that tardiness cost workers’ lives. I remember hearing in late 2008 that the incoming Obama administration was parsing Bush’s executive orders line-by-line, as a kind of triage to determine which horrible follies should be corrected first. Even though I don’t live anywhere near coal-mining country, that was one of the most urgent corrections that occurred to me.
There are a lot of Bush travesties that remain to be corrected, the most frustrating perhaps being tax cuts for the wealthy. Last night’s speech reminded me too much of Obama’s rousing debt-negotiations speech which, in the end, essentially came to nothing.