Reviewing Obama's Economic "Plan"

If you blinked Monday afternoon, you would have missed President Obama’s brief – very brief – comments on the deadly mass shooting unfolding just down the street from where he stood to give a previously scheduled speech that turned into a brutal attack on Republicans over the economy.

And later, a clueless Jay Carney came out to say that not only did the White House never once consider cancelling the president’s speech as people lay dead at the Navy Yard and a frantic man hunt was underway by every law enforcement agency in town, but he defended the president’s GOP bashing, complete with a backdrop of Americans who are hurting while Americans were being shot just down the road as "entirely appropriate today for the president to talk about.”

But then it was a pivot to the more important news for the Obama administration: the looming budget showdown with the GOP who are threatening a government shutdown. Using this forum as an opportunity to once again not rally support for his proposals within congress, but rather to raise support for his lack of a vision from the masses of the people by wagging his finger at Republicans. Below are some of the lines of attack and general confusion that Obama used;

"...And in our personal lives, I think a lot of us understand that people have tightened their belts, shed debt, refocused on the things that really matter..." Because that's what smart people do when times are tough.
"...we put in place tough new rules on big banks, rules that we need to finalize before the end of the year..." New rules put in place before they were finished?

"Because even though our businesses are creating new jobs and have broken record profits, the top 1 percent of Americans took home 20 percent of the nation’s income last year, while the average worker isn’t seeing a raise at all." Classic class warfare, implying that when rich people make money, it's not possible for you to better your own situation.

"...the trends that have taken hold over the past few decades of a winner-take-all economy, where a few do better and better and better, while everybody else just treads water or loses ground..." In case there was any doubt of the previous point. Does he really believe everyone else is stagnant because the wealthy are doing well? He already has the most progressive tax system in decades.

"And as Congress begins another budget debate, that’s what Congress should be focused on." Not Benghazi, Syria, Putin, the IRS, the NSA, but the budget.

"The problem is, at the moment, Republicans in Congress don’t seem to be focused on how to growth economy and build the middle class." Democrats questioning Syria and the NSA don't count.

"...I am still hoping that a light bulb goes off here." That's it, win them over with kind words.

"So far, their budget ideas revolve primarily around even deeper cuts to education, even deeper cuts that would gut America’s scientific research and development, even deeper cuts to America’s infrastructure investment -- our roads, our bridges, our schools our energy grid. These aren’t the policies that would grow the economy faster." The Republicans obviously didn't get the memo about the deceit magically stopping, so why are they still so worked up over reducing government spending when it's so obvious that all this spending is making everything so awesome?

"So I do believe we should cut our programs that we don’t need. We need to fix ones that aren’t working the way they’re supposed to or have outlived their initial mission. We’ve got to make government faster and more efficient." Interesting, that's the way some people would describe the Department of Education.

"But that’s not what is being proposed by the Republican budgets. Instead of making necessary changes with a scalpel, so far at least, Republicans have chosen to leave in place the so-called sequester cuts that have cost jobs, harmed growth, are hurting our military readiness." Again, way to win some friends and support, I also thought the only reversal of sequester cuts that passed was proposed by.... wait for it... Republicans!

And top independent economists say this has been a big drag on our recovery this year. Our economy’s not growing as fast as it should, and we’re not creating as many jobs as we should because the sequester’s in place." Are these the same economist that predicted the 'Recovery Summer' of 2010 with employment falling to 6%?

"So, if Republicans want the economy to grow faster, create more jobs faster, they should want to get rid of <the sequester>. It’s irresponsible to keep it in place." Everyone get that? Sequestor bad and it's the Republicans fault! Can we get to the 2014 election now?

"After all the progress that we’ve made over these past four-and- a-half years, the idea of reversing that progress because of an unwillingness to compromise or because of some ideological agenda is the height of irresponsibility" Translates to 'This economy will fail if we stop spending $4 Trillion dollars a year in Washington, and the only solution is to spend more.'

"These folks standing behind me, these are people who are small business owners; people who almost lost their home; young people trying to get a college education. And all of them went through some real tough times during the recession." And if you look behind them, you may see some of the slaughtered people that are dying just down the street as I speak.

"Having said that, I cannot remember a time when one faction of one party promises economic chaos if it can’t get 100 percent of what it wants. That’s never happened before. But that’s what’s happening right now." Says the guy that gets what he wants from congress over 97% of the time.

I could go through the entire speech and get really nit picky, but suffice to say the only plans he proposed are 1.) cancel the sequester and 2.) spend more on domestic initiatives, namely education and infrastructure. Basically get us back to the hay day to the Keynesian spending spree of 2009 that arguably made things 'not as bad as they could have been' because apparently 5 years of trying to climb out of this mess can be derailed as something as simple as a maxed out credit card. 

In case you missed the real intent of this speech, it was to lay the entire blame of all the countries problems at the feet of the Republicans in the ramp up to the 2014 election. The idea that the issues with this country are far exceeding funding for school lunch programs and budget deadlines seems to elude this President about as broadly as the Oscar for Lindsey Lohan.