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Let’s not jump to conclusions…
The president’s jobs speech to a joint session of congress is receiving praise from many as the correct political approach, and very smart timing. We applaud his vigor in fighting for American jobs, and those of us on the left are excited to see him talk more like “candidate” Obama with the 2012 election so close.
What I cannot get my head around, is the wave of commentary on his plan’s bipartisan approach. A bipartisan plan is certainly admirable and usually the best option. But I hesitate before saying that the president drawing on GOP ideas will garner widespread support for his plan. While the sane human mind would assume politicians will support the implementation of their OWN IDEAS, house republicans ( and the wider party) have shown that policy must not only be good, but spearheaded by themselves. The democratic president can try to agree with them all he wants, but they simply will not let it happen.
Republican congressmen continuously call for federal spending in their districts to ‘grow the economy’ and repair crumbling infrastructure. But as Rachel Maddow pointed out recently, they turn to debt & deficit fear-mongering to blast their own spending ideas once the president publicly approves or ads the idea to a comprehensive plan.
Locally, most representatives seem to be all about federal spending, but the money can no longer come flowing when they stand up on the national stage just to score points for their party in the next round of elections, and whomever the GOP nominee will be in 2012.
Just take Governor Rick Perry, who touts a balanced budget in Texas while getting on the same anti-spending bandwagon as the rest of his party. That would make sense, unless you you remember where much of the Texas budget fixing came from: federal stimulus passed under Obama’s guidance, and quietly accepted by Perry. “We’ll take the money, but please, don’t give it to us!” it seems to me that conservative politicians really have no problem with hypocrisy. It’s not just about getting away with, they don’t seem to see that it’s wrong.
I hope the president’s plan passes quickly, I really do. Americans are tired of being broke and jobless, we need to get back to work. But I can’t in good conscience expect house and senate republicans to be forthcoming for (practically) the first time in Obama’s presidency.
