About Obama's speech in the Rose Garden, this morning.

I have mentioned this in a previous post, but the current rhetoric, "Pass it now and pass it all," is good for only a few months - three/four months. After parts of this bill become law, what then?

I haven't a clue as to what he will come up with next. Perhaps he will try to demonize the GOP for not passing all of his suggested bill, but that criticism will not work, particularly because he will have signed the new legislation.

At any rate, here are the main points of his brief speech, this morning - just a few minutes ago:

• Pass this bill and it will put teachers back in the classroom where they belong.
• This will give returning service men jobs when they come home
• Police and firefighters will be put back to work.
• I am standing with construction workers who need to be put back to work. (all union people)
• Schools need renovation. -- 35,000 schools will benefit (again, all union jobs).
  
• Small business: tax cuts for hiring new employees for the next two years; ditto for increasing wages.
• $4,000 tax credit for hiring people who have not worked for 6 months (whether qualified or no).
  
• This jobs bill will help disadvantaged young people find summer jobs next year.
• Extend unemployment benefits again. (It is already set at 99 weeks !!).
  
• This give 1,500 tax cut to each middle class family (what in the world does this mean?)
  
• Increases taxes on the wealthiest of American families.
• And, most importantly, all of this is paid for.
• Folks are tired of "politics as usual."
• This is a bit of common sense that will take uncertainty out of the work place.

Of course, he does not mention the uncertainty that results from hundreds and hundreds of new and pending regulations not yet written. Of course, he does not mention the uncertainty is directly due to the unknown legislation that is coming out of the health care reform bill -- thousands of pages yet to be written. He did not mention the use of the EPA and OSHA to work his agenda apart from Congress, to the exclusion of Congress. He did not talk about the three international trade bills already at his desk, waiting for his signature. He did not mention anything about reforming any of our entitlement programs . . . . not a word. He did not mention the fact that unions, whether teacher, police, firefighter, or construction, have priced themselves nearly out of existence via their lush retirement programs. . . . . nothing about reforming these venues of financial disaster.

Understand that all of his ideas are good for no more than two years . . . what then. In fact, he has offered nothing that actually solves the problems we face, and he mentioned "over the next two years," he was, in fact, admitting this proposal's limitations.

Over the course of the next few months, the Congress will spend precious time working on this proposal and not working on dealing with the larger issues, issues that must be faced within the next five years . . . . . . which means we need to be working on these issues, now.

We need to solve the problem, not put a "Band Aid" over the problem.
His bill, admittedly, does not do this.