The key word he said that jumped out at me is "uncontroversial." As in, we have tons of people looking for work, and tons of shit we hafta do to rebuild our own infrastrucure. We have a shitload of teachers and cops we'd all like to see go back to work. We'd rather China not come over and buy us from out of the blue. Everybody likes tax cuts on small businesses, whether or not they REALLY make a difference in hiring. None of these things are "whacky, zany!" left-wing ideas.
None of these things should be controversial, but I'm pretty sure they will be, and we all know why. While Obama seems more forceful and energetic than usual, this seems to be word-for-word the same as his last 2 or 3 big speeches, and I'm sure six months from now it'll be the same speech as well, since as soon as he stops reading his teleprompter (I just made that up!!!) the political gamesmanship for the cameras and Twitter feeds will begin, meaning no dealing or compromise, but doubling down on gridlock, since for some reason we've talked ourselves into thinking that "transparency" is more important than actual progress. As Matt Yglesias wrote earlier today, the days of deals getting done behind closed doors is over, and that's not a good thing. At all. As I wrote HERE a while back, right before I had a PRETTY snappy little Krispy Kreme (nom nom nom!) analogy, I care less about how the sausage is made and more about getting the best sausage possible. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case anymore for a lot of people.
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