I called the WH with a jobs program/deficit payment plan for Obama to implement -- in this comment.

There might not be enough progress for the number of jobs to really affect unemployment numbers by the 2012 election, but surely the progress and goals of the Obama Soylent Green Manufacturing and Debt Payment Plan will win him millions additional votes!

What with the looming cuts to SocSec and Medicare, those cuts already in place for Medicaid, and the continuing high unemployment, I think we could kill two birds with one stone (heh) with the Obama Soylent Green Manufacturing
jobs program (jobs to build and then run the factories, warehouses, and the Obama SS Intake Centers) and Debt Payment Plan.  Then, as seniors and the disabled  --or anyone wishing to make a true sacrifice for low taxation of the rich and for the greater good (minors will need to have signed parental permission)-- turn themselves in to the Obama SS (Self Sacrifice, but that won't be spelled out)Centers, there will be fewer outlays for SocSec and the healthcare programs for inital savings, along with perhaps fewer children to educate.

But it gets better! There will be the product, Soylent Green, a nutritious, lower cost protein food for the poor and all those with little money.  There will be the sale of organs for even more profits, plus the intake centers will have to do physicals to determine which volunteers are suitable for organ harvesting -- more jobs!

What's not to like, Obama? It's win (jobs)-win (profit centers)-win (R's get lower taxes and debt repayment)-win (fewer recipients for the safety net programs)-win (for the ill and suicidal; no waste, no mess, no burial necessary)-BIG WIN (for the R's in winning office because Dems will no longer support the so-called Democratic Party).

A sure winner, and the nice lady who took my call said she would pass on my suggestion to the president.

Surely he will see the benefits which will accrue to him and the political party which has his truest, most heartfelt fealty.

"Shared sacrifice" -- You get sacrificed and the Uberwealthy get your share!

And I think he's feeling that he's winning since he is now very willing to let his Inner Republican show through.

His radio address on Saturday made me think a Repub was talking in his place -- or maybe he just hired a Republican speech writer? That might explain it, except he sounds so sincere. I think he's in his comfort zone: Being a Republican in word and deed.

And his plans to cut --er, he'll call it "strengthen"-- Medicare and SocSec sound so nicely Republican.  And he gets the Dems to take the blame for doing what the R's have been unable to do since FDR introduced SocSec!

Is there time for him to enter the Republican primary and run as a Republican?

Sorry to burst your bubble. If it's not working as i predicted, I give no excuses.

That's all you do.  Even as you make this claim, you're already lining up excuses - not for yourself, but for Obama.  The reasons you list for the horrible economy are all factors that you will inevitably argue are beyond Obama's control.  Greece?  What can Obama do?  Oil?  What can Obama do?  Budget deadlock?  (1) Obama must agree to Republican demands for massive spending cuts and no/slight tax increases to avoid economic Armageddon, or (2) failure to reach a budget deal is due to those unreasonable, intransigent Republicans and has nothing to do with the DEAL or Obama's weakness as a negotiator.

See?

Win-win!

No conversely, if the economy starts a real rebound in Q3-Q4 I'll be right back in your face and fully expect you to cop to your overreaching statements.

Absolutely!  Oh, ... wait.  I haven't made any overreaching statements, so I guess I shouldn't be too worried.  But I do like how you've already started to walk back your predictions, though.  From a "sharp reversal" and "markedly better" economy to merely "if the economy starts a real rebound" in just a couple of weeks.

You are spinning the fact that you always spin. You often, almost always give excuses. You aren't fooling anyone with this ridiculous post other than yourself.

So great, he's gonna fix unemployment... by firing people.

They have no problem saying two opposite things at the same time.

It worked in 2010 because people were so pissed at the Dems and Obama for doing nothing to help them, zero, zip, nada.  

It could be a rerun of that in 2012.

It's a sad day, and it makes a terrible commentary on the state of affairs, when this liberal finds herself pulling for Republican intransigence to hold; the problem is that we know how Obama deals with GOP stubbornness: he gives them more of what they want.  And I have zero - maybe less than zero - confidence that Dems who are making all these noises about how terrible this deal is shaping up to be, and how they just won't stand for it, will actually refuse to give the president what he wants.

Rock and a hard place.
Damned if we do, damned if we don't.
Kick in the shins or a sharp stick in the eye.

How does Obama offering $4 trillion in spending cuts and possible cuts to Social Security (or, sorry, changes that amount to cuts) and Medicare strengthen his hand in the future?

The nicest thing I can think of is that Obama thinks this is necessary (it's not), that it won't hurt the economy too much (it probably will hurt the economy), and that better he shape the future as a Democrat than have a Republican do it (but at a time when the GOP is so radicalized that his policy is substantively conservative!).  And also, it's a nice little achievement.

"A stopped clock" and all that.

Part of me understands that getting people to the point where they give up serves - quite well - the interests of the powerful, and so is as much a strategy as efforts to get out the vote.  Grind the people to the point where they won't come out to vote against you, and maybe you can still win.

Heckuva strategy - very Plouffian, I think; the man who in saying that unemployment doesn't matter is really saying that people who don't contribute anything don't deserve anything except the bottom of his shoe.

Call that dislike or hate or whatever.

Whatever you want to call it, if the reaction is separated from his results, it isn't logical and has some emotional or other component.

DADT was a great example. The repeal happened he signed it. It occurred within his first two years.

When I saw folks here arguing that Obama deserved zero credit for it, I knew that the reaction was completely separated from the facts.  I call that hateraid.

Now is not the time to judge hateraid on the economic stuff because the facts tell us that Obama deserves every bit of the heat he is getting.  Between this and the deficit stuff, he (and his supporters) have to suck it up and take the blasting they are getting.

But

I believe that I stated last week or so that we've probably hit the top of the unemployment numbers but acknowledged that it may nudge up slightly.

Given the projections I am reading for July, I think that's it.  We'll start dropping now.  Maybe not in a straight line but this is the worst it gets.

Obama inherited a lare amount of debt.  Add that to the household and mortgage debt and the economy was retracting when he took office.  He along with Bush bet that if the govt stepped in and stimulated the economy through bailouts and printing it could cause the economy to grow fast enough to make up for the increased debt.

They where wrong.  Some will say they just didn't think big enough.  That argument can be saved for another day.  Be it principal or execution the policy that Obama tried has failed.  

Now we have more debt, a slow economy that is still trying to retract and all that leads to zero job creation.

Dems just can't accept the economic reality that until we deal with our debt issues we will not rebound.  It sucks.  It won't be pretty but if we keep fooling ourselves that we can borrow and print our way to prosperity wenwil drag out the pain for years.

That means slashing everything, entitlements, military, NASA, etc....  Everybody loses.