I thought he was from Vegas

I thought he was from Vegas

by digby

Harry Reid just came to the Senate floor and laid out a jobs plan that he says Republicans and Democrats should be able to agree to. Evidently we’re still going with the “look how reasonable we are” gambit:

Payroll tax cuts, extension of unemployment insurance, FAA authorization (which expires Sept 16th) & federal spending for national highways

There you have it. Basically the only thing that is any different from what we are already doing is the highways. But I think we’ll have to privatize them first.

If that’s the “jobs” program, it’s not much. And by announcing these ideas as the opening bid, they’re making it even more unlikely that the Republicans will agree to them. Well, maybe they’ll get the tax cuts. They usually like those.

Here’s hoping that the President doesn’t do that and comes in with a big jobs program. He won’t pass it — they’re nuts and everybody knows it. But somebody ought to make the case for what needs to be done, just so that people understand that something could be done. It won’t make any difference in people’s lives — that ship has sailed — but at least some tiny piece of liberalism might have a slight chance of surviving this.

Update: What I said about liberalism? Probably not:

Obama will call on Congress to offset the cost of the short-term jobs measures by raising tax revenue in later years. This would be part of a long-term deficit reduction package, including spending and entitlement cuts as well as revenue increases, that he will present next week to the congressional panel charged with finding ways to reduce the nation’s debt.

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I guess the deal will be ineffectual, phony stimulus now in exchange for cuts in “entitlements” and tax hikes that will never take effect. (I’m sure the economy will never, ever be strong enough for such a drastic measure.)

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