Post by jgaffney on Oct 12, 2011 20:36:38 GMT -5
After the defeat of his "Pass This Now!" jobs (sic) bill, President Obama met with his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. You remember, that's the council that Obama nominated jeff Immelt, the chair of GE to. You remember, Ge was the company who has exported almost all of its jobs overseas and, last year, paid ZERO taxes on its profits. Now, that's competitive!
Anyway, the transcript has this:
The American Jobs Act that I’m putting forward obviously contains many ideas like infrastructure investment that should be pretty straightforward. And our hope is that we are able to get those passed in the next couple of months. But we’re not going to wait for Congress. So my instruction to Jeff and Gene and Valerie and all the advisors who are sitting around the table is scour this report, identify all those areas in which we can act administratively without additional congressional authorization, and just get it done.
First of all, yes, Republicans supported some of the very same measures in 2009 with the first Stimulus Bill. However, we have seen how ineffective those measures were in reviving the economy. So, why should we be obligated to try the same thing again?
Second, the President might trip over a slight complication buried in the Constitution: he can't spend money that has not been authorized by Congress, specifically, the House. He can't reallocate funds from, say Defense, to Transportation. He can reallocate general Transportation funds, but not those funds authorized for a specific project or program. And, funds like that make up the majority of the allocated funds. So, other than blowing smoke up everyones' a$$, Obama isn't really going anywhere with that scheme.
From now until November 2012, every Republican dialogue should start and end with a remake of the same phrase that Democrats were hammering Republicans with in 2008: "The failed economic policies of Barack Hussein Obama...."
Anyway, the transcript has this:
The American Jobs Act that I’m putting forward obviously contains many ideas like infrastructure investment that should be pretty straightforward. And our hope is that we are able to get those passed in the next couple of months. But we’re not going to wait for Congress. So my instruction to Jeff and Gene and Valerie and all the advisors who are sitting around the table is scour this report, identify all those areas in which we can act administratively without additional congressional authorization, and just get it done.
First of all, yes, Republicans supported some of the very same measures in 2009 with the first Stimulus Bill. However, we have seen how ineffective those measures were in reviving the economy. So, why should we be obligated to try the same thing again?
Second, the President might trip over a slight complication buried in the Constitution: he can't spend money that has not been authorized by Congress, specifically, the House. He can't reallocate funds from, say Defense, to Transportation. He can reallocate general Transportation funds, but not those funds authorized for a specific project or program. And, funds like that make up the majority of the allocated funds. So, other than blowing smoke up everyones' a$$, Obama isn't really going anywhere with that scheme.
From now until November 2012, every Republican dialogue should start and end with a remake of the same phrase that Democrats were hammering Republicans with in 2008: "The failed economic policies of Barack Hussein Obama...."
