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Opinion: On Day 938 of his presidency, Obama says he’ll have a jobs plan in a month or so

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OK, let’s see if we can sort out this White House jobs package hocus-pocus because President Obama is counting on us not to. And no one wants to fail to not disappoint him:

Last winter in his State of the Union address, oblivious to the gathering storm over the nation’s national debt, the Democrat proposed massive new spending and loan programs -- he calls it investments -- to extend unemployment benefits and payroll tax cuts and to rebuild the nation’s roads, bridges and other union-made infrastructure kinds of stuff. He had a plan he would share soon.

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When in trouble, give a speech. Say, early September. Before all this Rick Perry 40% of the nation’s jobs come from Texas stuff really gets going.

The president has mentioned the plan often, despite widespread skepticism due to the lack of stimulus that came from spending $787 billion in stimulus money that was for sure going to hold national unemployment at 8%, but it’s now 9.1%.

So, perhaps another such plan might work.

As this administration sees reality, those Republican tea party terrorists kind of hijacked the marathon talks about raising the national debt ceiling, stubbornly and unreasonably making the debt negotiations over reducing the debt and spending rather than over spending spending.

As a result, it’s all their fault that Standard & Poor’s lowered the federal government’s credit rating for the first time because the rating agency didn’t see sufficient cuts.

The next day after the spending cuts agreement, with his obedient cabinet in attendance as witnesses, Obama said, yes, spending cuts were important as long as they didn’t affect vast investments for the future to extend unemployment benefits and payroll tax cuts and to rebuild the nation’s roads, bridges and other union-made infrastructure kinds of stuff.

Other Democrats are designing job plans costing $200 billion per year.

Because the country hasn’t heard enough of Obama calling on Congress to do things and his job approval touched a new low of 39%, he laid on a three-day campaign swing through Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois this week at taxpayer-expense because the White House declared it an official trip.

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Because Obama wanted to hear from regular Americans, he’s encased in an armored Darth Vader bus with heavily-tinted windows so no one can see him looking out at regular Americans.

And as the commander-in-chief meanders through the Heartland in this black vehicle, the entire road in both directions is cleared of regular Americans for the president’s entourage and motorcade to pass by safely.

The bus is reported to cost about $1 million, which works out to about $333,000 per day for this foray among regular Americans.

On its second day out Tuesday Obama’s bus made a couple of stops to chat with high school athletes and to acquire healthy presidential provisions -- one for ice cream cones (POTUS got vanilla) and another to load several bags of popcorn.

At his speaking engagements, Obama stressed the need to extend payroll tax cuts and to rebuild the nation’s roads, bridges and other union-made infrastructure kinds of stuff. Also some free-trade agreements. This was a repetition of what he had said on the first day of his Grand Ground Tour.

On his 938th day in office President Obama also said he would soon have a completed jobs plan. Maybe early fall, something like that. And he complained, ‘We could do even more if Congress is willing to get in the game.’

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Tomorrow with all this heavy work in his rear-view mirror, the president is scheduled to join his family on Martha’s Vineyard for a nine-day vacation.

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-- Andrew Malcolm

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