I regret to say that Obama's speech today on middle-class jobs is bullshit.
Bullshit for what he says, and—more importantly—bullshit for what he doesn't say.
Obama's speech today is bullshit in the sense that it's all true, but none of it is important. He says Congress should pass a bunch of job-creation measures that Congress plainly has no chance of passing.
The truly important stuff is what he didn't say. There is something Obama could do on his own, without Congress, to create a lot of jobs—but there's no mention of it in his speech.
Analysis below the steaming orange pile.
1. What Obama said isn't important.
(The full transcript of Obama's speech, as prepared for delivery, is here. I assume that, as delivered, it was not significantly different.)
Obama says he intends to "highlight" this, "focus on" that, and "make the case for" the other thing—nearly all of which would require Congress to spend more money. But it's beyond obvious Congress won't appropriate any significant new money. So it's beyond obvious that none of the stuff in Obama's speech is going to happen.
So at best, Obama's speech should be seen as the beginning of the 2014 Congressional election campaign. In other words, it's a reprise of the American Jobs Act that Obama proposed in September 2011—another quite sensible plan that had absolutely no chance of passing Congress, and thus was just a campaign platform. And how well did the AJA work as a campaign platform? The American public in 2012 again gave the House to the GOP, and only let the Dems keep the Senate because the GOP was foolish enough to nominate several Tea Party lunatics as Senate candidates.
In other words, the 2011 American Jobs Act was both a legislative failure and a campaign failure.
Turns out the American people don't want promises of jobs; they want actual jobs.
There is no reason to think the agenda set out in Obama's speech today will do any better, in Congress or on the campaign trail. Instead we're apparently going to plod along creating around 200,000 jobs per month, which will have us back to 2007 levels of employment by...2021. Only, of course, those jobs will pay less than our 2007 jobs, and more of the new jobs will be part-time.
That's where we're headed, and nothing Obama said today changes it.
Sure, Obama did say that he's going to do some things on his own. But they're mostly the "focusing" and "highlighting" and "making the case" for the things that have absolutely no chance of becoming reality. The only thing he says he'll actually do—without Congress—is cut red tape for people who want to refinance their mortgages. This is good, and I'm glad he's going to do it, but it obviously won't put millions of unemployed Americans back to work. It's true, but not important; it's more bullshit.
2. The important stuff is what Obama didn't say.
There is one thing that Obama could do—without Congress—that would create a significant number of jobs. And his speech today gives no sign that he's considering doing it.
That is: use the EPA to crack down on greenhouse emissions, which would prompt corporate America to invest its record profits in green energy jobs.
The Supreme Court has ruled—twice—that the Clean Air Act requires the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide. Not allows; requires. (Massachusetts v. EPA (2007); American Electric Power v. Connecticut (2011)) And the logic of the Supreme Court's decisions means the EPA is probably also required to regulate other greenhouse emissions, like methane.
The EPA is an executive branch agency. It reports to the President. Obama could order the EPA to issue strict greenhouse regulations, pronto—no Congressional involvement needed.
If that happened, then corporate America would need to take its vast profits—
—and invest them in hiring people to install solar panels, wind turbines, and insulation. Factories would hire people to install systems to recapture heat from manufacturing processes and use it to generate power. Corporate America would rapidly convert its car and truck fleets to hybrids, or electric vehicles—which have to be manufactured by somebody. In other words, those vast profits would quit accumulating in CEOs' personal bank accounts, and would start being used to create jobs.
This is not a new idea. I wrote a diary about it nearly two years ago.
So where are the EPA regs cracking down on CO2? Um, they're in the works; Obama apparently wants his newly-confirmed EPA administrator to "expedite these rules and get them completed before Obama leaves office."
Great. Just in time to create a jobs boom that will be credited to his Republican successor.
And that's why Obama's speech today is bullshit.