When the Going Gets Tough…
The soft, squishy, flaccid, limp hold summits:
President Obama took time Thursday — before jetting off to Asia for a 10-day tour — to announce a December jobs summit aimed at synching job growth with the massive government spending meant to “break the back” of the recession.
The announcement came as the Labor Department reported another 502,000 new jobless claims, two high-tech mainstays announced big layoffs and the unemployment rate reached 10.2 percent.
Obama said the White House forum will gather CEOs, small business owners, economists, financial experts and representatives from labor unions and nonprofit groups “to talk about how we can work together to create jobs and get this economy moving again.”
You just have to admire the kind of mind that would think of asking nonprofit groups how to create jobs and make money. That’s brilliant.
Unless by nonprofit group he means General Motors and Chrysler.
“The economic growth that we’ve seen has not yet led to the job growth that we desperately need,” Obama said.
I know, it’s just so unfair. You bankrupted this country and paid off every special interest group that supported you (thanks, teachers!), and how many jobs do you have to show for it? Negative-190,000 last month alone.
Summits. This guy loves summits so much he should have a constant nose-bleed.
The beer summit, remember?
And who could forget the Fiscal Responsibility Summit (ummit-ummit-ummit), without which we’d be in a whole lotta trouble.
Oh, come on, you remember:
That is why today, I am pledging to cut the deficit we inherited in half by the end of my first term in office.
…
To start reducing these deficits, I have committed to going through our budget line-by-line to root out waste and inefficiency…. We will replicate these efforts throughout the federal government, eliminating programs that don’t work tomake room for ones that do…. We’ll end thetax breaks for companies shipping jobs overseas and stop the fraud and abuse in our Medicare program….
But that money is now promised to pay for health insurance—it can’t reduce the deficit if it’s paying off a new entitlement.
And why have you been promising to do this since March? What’s stopping you?
That is why I have called this summit today, and why I have invited leaders from both sides of the aisle:because we all have a role to play in this work. Because I believe it is time for a frank conversation about thefiscal challenges we face—challenges that concern every single one of us, no matter where on the politicalspectrum we fall.
So today, I want all of you to start talking with each other and exchanging ideas. I want you to question eachother, and challenge each other, and work together not just to identify problems, but to identify solutions.
That is the purpose of the breakout sessions that are starting right now. I know that each of you brings a wealth of expertise and experience on a broad range of topics, and I appreciate your willingness to participate inthese sessions. I expect that this process will be engaging and productive, and I look forward to hearing the results when you report back later this affernoon.
Did anybody mention tax cuts, Mr. President? Or do you have an F-chip to bleep out such unpleasant words?
This is who he is and what he does. We thought we elected a president, but we got a kindergarten teacher.