BLOOMBERG.COM : Obama Must Get Bold - Obama's ‘Jobs First’ Agenda will specify savings beyond the $1.5 trillion and use those extra billions for job creation. He won’t label it stimulus, of course. Stimulus has been stigmatized

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Obama will call it a "Jobs First" agenda, or something else that shows he’s in touch with the average household. - Obama's next Truman-Style Campaign.

BLOOMBERG.COM
Obama Must Get Bold, Tell Republicans ‘It’s On’
Aug 18, 2011

By Jonathan Alter

Jonathan Alter was a senior editor, media critic and columnist for Newsweek, where he worked for 28 years and covered five administrations and seven presidential campaigns. Jonathan Alter is also a Bloomberg View columnist, is the author of “The Promise: President Obama, Year One.”

Obama Must Get Bold, Tell Republicans ‘It’s On’: Jonathan Alter


Some excerpts :

At least the president is on task. After headlines about a pivot to jobs in December 2009, September 2010, January 2011, May 2011 and July 2011, he’s finally shifting the conversation to what Americans truly care about.

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This week’s bus tour across three Midwestern states seemed to refresh the president and improve his presentation. He began talking about “rebuilding America” instead of his old professorial references to an “infrastructure bank,” which is a good idea but tone deaf politically considering that many voters don’t really know what infrastructure means and despise banks.

Truman-Style Campaign

More important, Obama began sticking it to Congress, laying the groundwork for a 1948 Harry Truman-style campaign. Rebooting his presidency will require a bold plan that says to an obstructionist opposition: “It’s on, guys!”

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The specifics of Obama’s speech are secret, and many haven’t been worked out. But I hear that it will contain more than simple pleas to Congress to pass the economic agenda the president began offering this summer, which includes extending the payroll-tax holiday, approving public-works spending, enacting a patent bill, ratifying trade deals and extending unemployment insurance.

Don’t be surprised to see him also propose a major tax credit for hiring new workers, construction money for schools, an ambitious youth employment program (if he doesn’t hold a high percentage of the youth vote, he loses the election) and a few of the other job-creation ideas he’s been demanding his Cabinet and staff cook up. Some of these ideas can be implemented without Congress, like providing debt relief for strapped homeowners.

I’m hoping he’ll also explore creative ideas like one offered by Cliff Sloan, a veteran of the Clinton White House. Under Sloan’s plan, the president would sign an executive order requiring that all new (or renewed) contracts with the federal government contain a job-creation clause requiring that in exchange for the privilege of doing business with Uncle Sam, corporations (which have plenty of cash on hand) must agree to a net increase in payroll of at least one percent for the duration of the contract. With thousands of new contracts signed every week, this would have an immediate effect even if compliance was spotty.

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