Democrats are playing politics on jobs. And that’s a good thing

[bigtree]

10/05/2011


from Jonathan Bernstein at WaPo: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/democrats-are-playing-politics-on-jobs-and-thats-a-good-thing/2011/03/28/gIQAOp3wNL_blog.html

Barack Obama’s jobs bill is getting a new shot of energy today as Senate Democrats rolled out a millionaire’s surtax to finance it. Early reporting suggests that the very popular idea may be enough to http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/democrats-are-playing-politics-on-jobs-and-thats-a-good-thing/2011/03/28/gIQAOp3wNL_blog.html">unify Senate Democrats, even while making it even less likely that tax-phobic Republicans will drop their opposition. Republicans might say that the Democrats are playing politics by pushing things they know will never pass. And Republicans would be right. But Democrats should play politics in this manner — it’s in their interests to do so. And Republicans are the ones who pushed Dems in this direction in the first place.

I think there are three lessons so far from the jobs bill saga.

The first is that taking the fight to the voters really doesn’t do much good up on Capitol Hill . . . It’s simply very difficult for presidents to override the preferences of Members of Congress.

The second is that much of what you heard in 2009-2010 about Obama erring by “letting” Congress take the lead in writing key legislation was mostly nonsense. The bottom line is that Congress always winds up writing legislation — just as Senate Democrats are re-writing Obama’s jobs plan this time around.

And the third is that while the best plan for Obama would be to find some way to actually improve the economy, as long as Republicans are going to block everything that Obama (and economic conventional wisdom) believes will work, then Obama and the Democrats are free to propose whatever polls well. So they might as well do just that. The American Jobs Act, now modified by Senate Democrats, is a start at that; I’d expect that we’ll see a lot more next year.

Put that all together, and it appears the incentives created by Republicans are for the Democrats to play politics on jobs as much as possible . . .


http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/qoi0PxqxVuuSTXgQKAXH.A--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9aW5zZXQ7aD0yNzU7cT04NTt3PTUxMg--/
President Barack Obama speaks at Eastfield College in Mesquite, Texas, Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2011. (AP photo/Susan Walsh)

read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/democrats-are-playing-politics-on-jobs-and-thats-a-good-thing/2011/03/28/gIQAOp3wNL_blog.html

[OHdem10]

1. Politics is a good thing. Does anyone believe there was no

politics in in developing our constitution? Yes, there was
politics then, that is how things get done.



Politics is means by which Democracies accomplish
things.

Too often we make politics sound like something bad.

That is why good political skills serve people well.

[MrDiaz]

2. POLITICS

Yeah I love how we can use jobs as a political advantage, but then get angry when repukes use politics in everything they do. NUMBER ONE thing to do right now is to create jobs, fuck all the politics! If this was a post 6 years ago everyone would crush BUSH for using something so crucial to the goodwill of the country for something like POLITICS. THIS IS WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE COUNTRY. The HUGE double standard that is going on between both parties.