In a North Carolina appearance ignored by everyone who wasn’t there, President Obama pushed his “jobs bill” to a group of students by saying, “If you love me, you’ve got to help me pass this bill!”
This is one of the strangest and most disturbing moments in this failed presidency. “If you love me?” That’s so very “Il Duce” of him. I wonder if the Founding Fathers ever thought the American presidency would be reduced to a pathetic and desperate man begging for power by exhorting his followers to express their personal affection for him.
Obama went on to give the students a “homework assignment” of pestering their congressional representatives to get his bill passed. This particular cult of personality requires a little elbow grease to join! Unfortunately, being an Obama supporter involves expecting things to be given to you, not moving around and working and stuff.
Obama didn’t mention the price tag for his bill, because his previous statements on the subject are no longer operative. We now know that he wants to fund it with $400 billion in tax hikes, with the Super Committee setting aside its deficit-reducing work to find him the rest of the money he needs. The bill was originally supposed to cost $300 billion, then it was $350 billion, then $450 billion last Thursday when Obama formally launched his campaign to push it. A Fox News report tells us the latest price tag is $650 billion and climbing:
The White House said Monday that the President Obama’s proposed national infrastructure bank could back $100 billion to $200 billion in new state and local road, bridge, mass transit and other projects over the next decade-it hopes in more “public-private” partnerships with funding from private investors.
That could increase the effective size of the President’s $450 billion jobs bill to the range of $550 billion to $650 billion, including new infrastructure spending from non-federal sources over the next 10 years. Administration officials claimed that potential greater impact would come at a minimal cost and risk to taxpayers.
It’s going to take a lot of love to get $650 billion in pork and slush through a Congress that isn't terribly interested in joining the Obama 2012 re-election campaign as fundraisers.
In Obama’s defense, he might not have been lying about the true price of the bill – it’s possible he just doesn’t know, because he really is that incompetent. While he was busy marching around like a robot and chanting “Pass this bill!” he forgot to actually submit the bill to Congress, so Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) wrote a different bill and grabbed the name Obama has been using, “The American Jobs Act.” No, no, don’t bother reporting Rep. Gohmert to Attack Watch. I already took care of it.
Gohmert’s bill doesn’t raise taxes on working Americans to fund payoffs to Democrat constituencies, like Obama’s does. His bill is only two pages long, and wipes out both corporate income taxes and the Alternative Minimum Tax.
So, remember: every time you say you love Barack Obama, a $650 billion slush-fund fairy gets its wings. If you really care about him, you'll do whatever it takes to pass whatever his bill ends up being called, whatever it spends and whatever it costs. Because that's what love is.
Update: To expand a bit on the matter of Obama's now-nameless bill missing its baptism, the problem is that Obama got it over to the House, where it is constitutionally required to originate, but none of the House Democrats came forward to sponsor it... which is even funnier than saying Obama didn't submit it.
So, Obama did submit the bill to the House, but none of the House Democrats wanted to risk their political lives by touching it, so it just kind of sat neglected in the caucus in-box.
Or, Obama was supposed to throw his arm around some terrified representative and say "You, my friend, shall have the honor of sponsoring my historic jobs bill!" but got distracted and forgot to do so.
Or, Louie Gohmert strolled up behind Obama and said "I'll take care of it, Mr. President!" and Obama nodded absently, without realizing who was talking.
The whole situation is utterly bizarre, given how much effort Obama has been putting behind this save-my-presidency bill. It should be noted that Harry Reid did get the bill filed properly this morning in the Senate, but that's not good enough.
