I don’t think Obama’s lack of legislative experience is the problem. I think his problem is “lack of leadership.” And no, I don’t mean “Lack of leadership” in the shovel-ready Conservative narrative sense.

Firstly, look at his goals. All of his legislation has either been to grab more power for the Federal government or spend money on credit. According to his ideology, that’s how you fix things. This idea is not universally wrong.

Now let’s look at how he goes about passing things. He doesn’t organize people, oddly. He spent a whole year trying to sell a healthcare reform bill to Democrats. And now, he’s struggling to do the same thing with his jobs bill. Why doesn’t he organize his talent? Why doesn’t he pull people together and introduce something someone can swallow?

Like I said, an executive’s job is to establish vision and organize talent. First, Obama has certainly supplied plenty of vision. I mean, that’s all he’s done. The trouble is, that vision isn’t realistic or tangible. It’s according to an ideology that sees wealth as a constant that morality requires our leaders to fairly distribute. But that logic is based on a false premise, as you all know. Wealth is a thing we create in proportion to incentive. (not just monetary incentive)

Second, Obama has mismanaged talent. Look at the people he surrounds himself with. Likeminded thinkers. He’s not looking for the best decision, he’s selling decisions made by his ideology. It’s like a religion – likeminded people can convince themselves of anything if they stick together. Even from the business community, he finds the one or two guys that agree with him.

Like I’ve said before, what if Obama had behaved amicably in his first year? What if he passed a bipartisan healthcare bill? What if he continued in his India-trip activity and promoted our exports instead of scaring everyone with cap’n trade and Rich People Taxes?

If anything, Obama was too good at passing legislation. So good, he manifested the Tea Party, a group who’s single purpose was to hold up his frantic law passing. So you can’t say that now  the problem is we can’t pass laws in a hurry, or use the debt ceiling debate as an example. That’s silly.

I just made another report to Attackwatch.com:

Here’s an unfair attack on Obama’s jobs plan. It lists all these tax rates which conflicted with his assertion that the rich pay less than the poor in taxes, obviously a Conservative trick.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html

I just reported noisydove.com to attackwatch.com

That’s an old and annoying Democrat talking point: Rich boss pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. Indeed, raising the cap gains tax would reduce investment, which is the opposite of what we need. Besides that, Buffet’s tax rate is only lower because he isn’t counting the corporate tax which is paid on that money too.

It’s annoying that our ‘leadership’ is unwilling to fix things. Here’s a campaign slogan: Don’t fix it, tax’n patch it. Our debt is racing toward $20 Trillion, and the best idea they have is a runt version of the trickle-style stimulus we’ve been using. We’re going to trickle ourselves to death.

We need serious reform! What about reforming Medicare? Use means testing or raise the age. Because if we can get the deficit under control, the debt won’t matter. YES – our $15 trillion debt is offensive. But with the size of our GDP, it’s manageable. What makes it not manageable is the deficit and the lack of willingness to balance the damn budget.

If we could get the deficit under control, then we could do something serious, like drop $4-5 trillion on infrastructure updates. Maybe we could set up a smart-grid, something that could actually handle and distribute all this electricity the Liberals are demanding to magically appear from wind and solar. Maybe we could set up a super-broadband, and bring it to every town. Maybe we could update some water and sanitation.

What about reforming the tax system? You want to increase exports? How about taxing all the shit we buy, which includes all the imports we buy, and stop taxing the American work that goes into making our exports? Something like Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan. That kind of change would be profoundly good for both business and government efficiency.

What about zeroing the cap gains tax??? Yeah, it would hurt Warren Buffet’s feelings… But all the non-deranged people and businesses would have to let go of their money. They’re hanging onto it out of uncertainty: Risk. The way you overcome risk is with reward. Lower taxes on investment means higher reward, resulting in higher tolerated risk, and thus investment.

What about all these rich people who aren’t struggling? We could just tax them more to pay for bills labeled according to the electorate’s biggest current concern. Then we wouldn’t have to do any actual reform right now that could frighten old people and threaten Obama’s reelection. Even if we can’t force it through, we’ll be able to vilify the Republicans and set them up as the “Party of No,” or the “Anti-Jobs Party.” We’re already trying to get, “The Tea Party Recession” out there in preparation. Yes We Can! Yes We Can!

Everyone catch Obama’s speech???

No surprises, although, he did mention Medicare. He started off describing his American Jobs Act (or some-such name) which is basically the same little stuff we’ve been doing since 2001: Infrastructure spending, payroll tax cut, and a hiring tax credit.

It’s troubling to me that he’s still calling this a downturn, and claims this bill will ‘jolt’ us out. We’re obviously in a contraction, and simply need to evolve in the new economy, which requires serious reform to quicken, not more duct-tape and bailing-wire on our old ways. (Infrastructure is important to this, but it’s the fact that he thinks infrastructure spending will stimulate the economy that’s troubling. Didn’t he learn that one?) He also claimed this bill will create jobs upon jobs… Believe… Of course, none of this would ‘jolt’ our economy regardless. It’s way too small of a bill. We’d need $2-3 Trillion for any affect.

The first really funny part was when he claimed this bill will be “paid for.” Yeah, I know, right? Guess how? Well, you know how there’s that bipartisan deficit commission that was supposed to figure out some $1 Trillion in cuts by Christmas or our military gets gutted? Well, he wants them to find cuts in proportion to the American Jobs Act as well… Yup…

Next he described a second piece of legislation, some kind of debt-fixing bill. And here’s where I realized I’m finally learning how to listen to this guy talk. He started out with some general specifics – basically saying that the bill will raise taxes on the rich. Then he started shifting between phrases that indicated what the bill actually contains, and phrases that indicated how he thinks things should be. That’s his trick. That’s how he sounds so smart and reasonable. He mixes insinuation with actual claims, wishes with actual legislative clauses. He says what the bill will do: raise taxes. Then he recites a few lines of poetry about how Medicare needs reform and how our debt needs to be brought under control, neither of which the bill actually addresses.

It’s like a sales person selling an automatic egg sheller. “It cracks eggs. You shouldn’t have to get your fingers messy. It separates yolk from white. You should have significantly more time for the important things in your life. It will handle as many as six eggs at a time. You should have a pay raise every week, and you’re sexual performance will likely improve noticeably.”

After that he drifted into pure song, glorious ambiguous inspiring song. It was regular sweet Obama poetry, really nice, until it took an abrupt turn into out-and-out campaign rhetoric. It was his usual style. He mischaracterized a few Republican arguments, and made arguments against those mischaracterizations. Just as he did earlier describing his deficit bill (his trick) he subtly started describing how great the world should be, and how certain awful things shouldn’t be, effectively insinuating that the evil Republicans were the antithesis of these grand ideas. How annoying…

Oh yeah, two other funny things happened. Throughout the beginning of the speech, when he was talking about the jobs bill, he kept prompting Congress to action, “Act now!” Over and over. “Don’t wait!” I kept expecting to see a 1-800 number to start flashing at the bottom of the screen so I could call and order. And seriously! If implementing this plan is so ass-puckering urgent, why didn’t you present it weeks ago, before your vacation? Call now! It’s not like this thing is some kind of invention. It’s a leftover casserole. These prices won’t last!

The other repetitious thing, for half the ideas he described in or around the jobs bill (mostly around) he claimed were Republican ideas, ideas Republicans had supported in the past. If you weren’t already familiar with the current political climate, political history, or Obama’s style of feigning a bipartisan image, you might think Obama was just stealing all the Republican’s ideas.

Bottom line? This was more a prime-time campaign speech than a proposal. Sorry this was so long.

I managed to get an outline of Obama’s jobs plan. What do you think?

Obama’s three-part jobs creation plan. A continuation of WTF (Win The Future)

1.       Quick Jobs© Stimulate Private Hiring
We will begin awarding private companies who hire a worker who has been unemployed for more than 73 weeks, has participated in a Federal, State, or local jobs training program, and has successfully been accepted into the Quick Jobs© program, with a 6-month membership in Amish Mart’s Jelly of the Month club. [counted as taxable income]

2.       Jobs-Jobs-Jobs© Green Jobs Program
We will start dumping all kinds of money into Green projects. Vote for this bill and some of this juicy cash will end up in your district.   Acceptable projects will include wind and solar farms. Once these farms are up and running, they will stimulate someone to start building the necessary electrical infrastructure necessary to actually bring power from these types of energy plants somewhere useful, which will create even MORE jobs.

3.       Fair Fees Service (FFS)
In order to fund Obama’s New Deal without more Bush-esc deficit spending, and to maintain his promise not to raise taxes on people earning less than $250k, we will institute Fair Fees. These fees will be accessed on hard work and good ideas.

Workers working more than 30 hours per week will be charged a 5% fee on all wages over 30 hours, and %8 on hours above 40 hours. In addition, anyone in an advanced position (obviously having worked hard already) such as management or company officer, will be accessed a yearly fee, in addition to hourly fees, of $1000. Salary employees will be assessed a 3% fee on all earnings. A yearly fee will be accessed on all professional degrees, excluding law and journalism degrees.

Fair Fees will be accessed on all good ideas by the newly created Fair Fees Service, a vast bureaucracy that will create thousands of new jobs. The fees will be calculated according to an adorably confusing algorithm that will require an advanced degree in accounting to understand, thus resulting in even MORE jobs, and will in all likelihood result in a new accounting specialty in schools, requireing new teachers, and EVEN MORE JOBS.

We will fund the FFS with fee calculation fees. These fees will be a flat rate of 7% accessed on all Fair Fees, as well as all other non-tax fees, non-tax penalties, non-tax taxes, and non-tax calculation service fees and non-fee payments and penalties.

Wow! We’re really getting excited about this new program! The more we talk to each other about it, the more we’re convinced it will ‘fix’ the economy. Too bad we have to worry about the Obama-hating Republicans and their deformed child The Tea Party slowing down Obama’s ingenious progress with their blind and ignorant Obama hate.

I’d say the Liberals are basically neutered. They were out of control, but totally blew everything, like Lenny and a fragile furry creature. America’s probably learned its lesson for a decade or two, unless Sarah Palin gets elected and gives the old pendulum yet another big health *kick*

I was pondering some parallels today between Bush’s decisions about the Iraq invasion and Obama on healthcare reform.

Bush’s mistake was letting some over-confident civvies dictate troop numbers per his strategy, as opposed to his old man’s approach to desert storm and shield. Bush I sent what the Generals requested. Bush II sent what Rummy thought he could get away with.

Obama took a similar approach to healthcare reform. He let some civvie non-doctors slap together the most absurdly Liberal stack of horseshit they thought they could get away with, and inadvertently gave his enemies a big heavy stick to thump on him with for the foreseeable future.

They both had a brilliant chance to do something amazing – and shitted all over it. Bush had the chance to free Iraq in a sudden and awesome way. Just think about it!!! What if they had gone in with a slightly longer-term strategy and/or an appropriate number of troops to keep the peace in Iraq. In 2002 we would be where we are NOW in Iraq. Think of the credibility Bush would have had! Afghanistan – check, Saddam – check, Iran???

Likewise, Obama could have socialized US medicine by his 8th year in office. What if he had passed a small highly popular bill for health reform in his first year? Something including Republican ideas that would tight a few of them in? Something with real benefits that would be felt within the year or next? By end of year two, or sooner, he would have had health-reform-credibility and the capital needed to easily pass another ginger step. By his second term he could have carefully constructed the real “Big Fucking Deal.”

Of course, he would have also needed to keep that cap and trade bill stuffed up the collective Liberal ass, and not pulled a recklessly irresponsible and totally thoughtless ‘stimulus’ bill. I’m not saying he should have continued the tax-cut Bush approach to bracing and patching the economy. I’m saying he would have had to constructed and passed an actual stimulus bill, not a goody-grab labeled as such.

He went the belligerent rout though, and will have been a lame-duck the second half of his presidency, assuming he doesn’t find a way to pull-off a second term.

I haven’t been catching a lot of news since my class started, but isn’t it funny how surprised and outraged the Obama guys are about S&P? It’s so f-ing funny. The administration was trying to tell S&P that they had big mistakes in the way they calculated the agreement’s debt reduction:

First off, you’re only counting income dollars once. We know for a fact – just ask the CBO – that we can count many of those dollars twice, assuming you have an overly optimistic imagination and accounting ‘style’. Second, you’re not counting the unicorn pastures we plan to construct, which will, by 2014, have attracted approximately 100,000 unicorns. Third, uhmmm, why aren’t you assuming that by this time next year Obama will not have charmed the economy back to a non-recession growth rate? Are you some kind of Tea Party terrorist RACIST?

In other news… Why the hell were 22 Navy SEALs crammed in a Chinook en route to battle, or en route to anywhere? What were 22 SEALs even doing all in the same geographical region? Are we back to Billy-C’s SF abuse? That’s like taking 22 Navy SEALs and putting them all on the same BIG FUCKING SLOW-ASS HELICOPTER VERSION OF A GOSH-DARN TRAILER-HOUSE!!!!! WHAT THE F****************************K!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!