For the second time in a week, President Obama has presented a plan that cannot possibly pass and that he almost certainly does not expect to pass.
Last week's jobs bill was simply another stimulus of the kind that he and the his party rammed through two years ago and which has manifestly failed to do what the White House said it would do. One thing it did do was to help balloon the federal deficit to levels so high they became a major issue in the midterm elections, won overwhelmingly by the Republicans.
Does Obama really think House Republicans, who voted unanimously against the first stimulus, will now vote in favor of a second one?
Now the president proposes to deal with the swollen deficit with a package he says will cut it by some $3 trillion over 10 years. This would be accomplished principally by raising taxes by a trillion and a half dollars. Another trillion plus would come from counting as savings war funds the president never planned to spend in the first place. Another $430 billion would come from lower interest payments which would result if the rest of his plan were to pass, which it won't.
The two plans -- the jobs bill and the deficit bill -- are legislative losers, but Obama thinks they'll prove political winners that he can use against the Republicans next year. But that assumes people will even remember a year from now that he even offered them.
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