The $300 Billion Dollar Question

What’s the $300 Billion Dollar Question on everyone’s minds after last night’s epic evening of television programming? And no, I’m not referring to the new NFL, where defense has been rendered illegal http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/nfl/gameflash/2011/09/08/4393_boxscore.html?xid=si_topstories.

I’m talking about President Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress. And the $300 Billion Dollar question is, “Will his new jobs plan save a single job other than his own?”

Now, before all my progressive friends turn against me and think I’m just bashing the President again, please allow me to finish. I commend the President for acting last night. I commend him for being stern and acting like a Commander and Chief. Furthermore, I commend him for laying out a proposal that, as he stated last night, “Should be passed right away.” But here’s the thing… With a Republican controlled House eager to cooperate with him on nothing short of his own resignation, does the White House really think this jobs plan has a snowball’s chance in hell of passing in the next 14 months?



I’d like to think of this $300 Billion Dollar plan as a stump speech which will ignite Obama’s re-election bid. Politically, it’s a savvy way to take the fight back to the Republicans. It places the ball of the economy in their court, if one were to assume the plan would actually work. And by actually work I mean, executed properly, not loaded with pork like a Christmas Tree Bill, and have the appropriations get down to the people who need them.

One can only assume that in this political climate this bill will not pass. It gives the President a launching pad for reelection, but what then? If reelected, will he go back to laying down and taking what the GOP gives him? Will this ambitious jobs plan disappear 14 months after it was originally introduced much like his promises to leave Afghanistan? And what happens to the 14 million plus Americans who need a middle class stimulus now?!

Well I’ve got a suggestion. In his time in office, this President has issued a record number of Executive Orders (86). So why not do the same thing to directly create jobs?

FDR did it in 1935. President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 7034 appropriating $4.8 billion for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). This measure went on to employ $3.4 million Americans. The Money was already appropriated by congress thru the New Deal. President Obama finds himself in a similar situation. The money is already there and Republicans cannot block it!

The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act in 2008 created what we today know as TARP. Well the purpose of TARP was to promote economic growth and to do it by keeping people in their homes and by creating “jobs”. $700 billion had been spent and according to this very administration and most of the folks who co-authored or voted for the bill (in an effort to sell it as a good idea of course), most of it has been PAID BACK to the tax payers. If such is the case, and the funds have already been appropriated and now returned, could TARP not be used to do what is was actually intended to do? This if you believe the bill, was to create jobs.

The President this very day could take those funds and issue an Executive Order creating what could be as many as 8 million jobs. Funny math you say? NOT SO FAST MY FRIEND.

The average cost of employing a worker who has a base of 50k is about 62k a year. It would cost roughly 600 billion to employ 10 million people. Roughly 8 million jobs could be created when you shave off the additional 100 billion returned from the 700 billion in TARP funding to offer those “tax incentives” for businesses hiring people who are from the military or have been looking for work 6 months or longer.

And even if you think those numbers are incredibly ambitious after overanalyzing the numbers, can it really be less then what POTUS offered up to the American people last night?

The only difference:

A.) There’s no political posturing involved

B.) We don’t have to wait for him to take this plan on the campaign trail

C.) The Money is already there.

Here’s the thing, doing something like this involves real leadership. The economy is not just a term we use loosely to explain the woes of our country, or at least it shouldn’t be. The economy is a barometer for what every American’s dinner table, bank account, savings, retirement fund, children’s college fund, and health looks like. This is a direct solution that can be applied today. It doesn’t need a campaign trail or a winding road through filibustering conservatives to reach its destination. If you think this solution works, speak out, let your voice be heard, and let’s skip the next 14 months of talk.

In the event that this jobs plan somehow does pass, well… I’ll eat my shoe right here on this blog. Best part about that? It will be a new shoe courtesy of the $$$ in my pocket thanks to having a job!

SO BRING ON THE JOBS Mr. President. But, let’s not act like you can’t issue this from the comfort of the Oval. FDR did it and they put him on a coin. You like coins? Because I sure as hell do!