O To Congress on the "PRESiDENT's Economic Plan" Sept 8, 2011

In music there's a saying about a performance that was "too small for the house." That's becoming true of the president.


President Obama will this week be addressing a joint session of Congress that doesn't really want to hear from him about a jobs plan that he doesn't really have.

When Mr. Obama entered office, he told us unemployment would not rise over 8% if we passed his stimulus. Now his economic advisers have just told us that unemployment will not fall below the 9% mark through next year. As if to underscore the grim news, the latest jobs report—released in time for Labor Day weekend—shows zero net job growth for August.


The irony is that the president has blown the one chance to do something of substance without looking weak. Back in July when he was negotiating with Speaker Boehner, the two had agreed on a grand bargain that would include real cuts in entitlements. The "give" on the Republican side was that the deal would address "revenues," which to the president means raising taxes and to the speaker means relying on growth to bring in more money to the Treasury's coffers.
For the president, that deal would have allowed him to do something serious about spending—in a highly public and bipartisan way. Even better for him, it might have split the opposition. For such a deal would likely have left Republicans bickering, with some arguing we should wait for a Republican president and others screaming "sellout."
The president, however, got greedy, and killed the deal when he asked for more. That's been his problem all along.

Notwithstanding incessant calls to rise above politics, on issue after issue the president has proved himself incapable of matching his large rhetoric with equally large actions