Psst: Obama's "New Grand Bargain" is None of the Above

Same old crap "roads bridges". Of the millions of people out of work, how many of them have union cards? Roads and bridges will more than likely be union jobs(card carrying). Obama's jobs plan is not thinking about the millions of non card carrying unemployed people that need work! I want to see something from this douchbag that is going to help all unemployed, not just union jobs(nothing against the unions). The tax code.....I hear its in the works that some in congress might be working on a total tax reform. I want to see that rather than Obama picking certain groups to help! (election issue?)



The news media has been breathlessly reporting on the president's forthcoming "grand bargain" proposal, which he says will create jobs. Reuters sketches out an outline of Obama's supposed compromise:

Obama wants to cut the corporate tax rate of 35 percent down to 28 percent and give manufacturers a preferred rate of 25 percent. He also wants a minimum tax on foreign earnings as a tool against corporate tax evasion and increased use of tax havens. The new twist is that in exchange for his support for a corporate tax reduction, he wants money generated by the tax overhaul to be used on a mix of proposals such as funding infrastructure projects like repairing roads and bridges, improving education atcommunity colleges, and promoting manufacturing, senior administration officials said.  Obama's proposal would generate a one-time source of revenue, for example, by reforming depreciation or putting a fee on accumulated foreign earnings.

In what conceivable way is Obama requesting more federal spending on infrastructure projects a "new twist"?   That's been his expensive instinct atevery single step of his presidency.  One "shovel ready" stimulus package and $825 billion later, the U-3 unemployment rate is still mired at 7.6 percent; the broader U-6 number is stuck in the 14-15 percent range.  Obama inherited an unemployment rate (U-3) of 7.8 percent.  In return for agreeing to Obama policies like rapacious spending and new taxes on foreign earnings, Republicans will receive a corporate tax rate cut -- which is already a stated Obama policy preference.  Flashback to last February:

The proposal calls for lowering the overall corporate tax rate from 35% to 28%, and the effective rate for manufacturing to 25%. The official, who laid out the plan's broad framework for CNN, said the proposal is essential to fixing a system that is "uncompetitive, unfair, and inefficient." The official told CNN the lower rate would be largely funded by eliminating dozens of tax loopholes and subsidies, and broadening the business tax base...

[The plan] explicitly ignores a recommendation of Obama's jobs council, which suggested exempting foreign income from taxation if repatriated to the US.  Obama not only dismissed this idea, he did the opposite,introducing a new minimum US tax on international corporations' foreign earnings. 

See?  White House officials really weren't kidding when they told reporters that Obama's latest jobs tour would feature zero new ideas.   The president's big "bargain" asks Republicans to accept one controversial Obama idea in exchange for another, less controversial Obama idea.  What a deal.  Last time around, the price Republicans were importuned to pay in order to secure corporate tax rate cuts was to drop opposition to tax hikes on "the rich."  Obama eventually secured the latter as part of the fiscal cliff deal, so why tie corporate tax reform to another big government demand now?  Shouldn't Obama be eager to embrace one of his own policies, which was recommended by both his (ignored) fiscal commission and (disbanded) job council?  Republicans won't go along with the "new minimum tax" nonsense, but there's bipartisan agreement that America's corporate tax rate -- the highest in the developed world -- should be lowered.  Holding that good idea hostage to yet more wasteful spending within another doomed "jobs" program is destructive.  Not that any of this matters anyway.  Here's how seriously both sides are taking the president's new public relations gambit (Brendan Buck is Boehner's spokesman):

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2013/07/30/obamas-latest-grand-bargain-is-neither-n1652451

Another thing to think about is this would be like stimulous. No lower unemployment numbers to speak of, like last time. Also one contractor told me that when a worker not woking is pulled from a pool, that is a job creation. When the job is done, he is laid off. When he is called to another jub, that is another job creation. That will really lower the unemployment number won't it!