With the nation $16 trillion in debt, a jobs gap that isn’t closing, falling incomes, and declining competitiveness, this is President Obama’s agenda, as explained during last night’s debate with Mitt Romney:
And what I want to do, is build on the five million jobs that we’ve created over the last 30 months in the private sector alone. And there are a bunch of things we can do to make sure your future is bright.
Number one, I want to build manufacturing jobs in this country again. Now when Governor Romney said we should let Detroit go bankrupt. I said we’re going to bet on American workers and the American auto industry and it’s come surging back.
I want to do that in industries, not just in Detroit, but all across the country and that means we change our tax code so we’re giving incentives to companies that are investing here in the United States and creating jobs here.
It also means we’re helping them and small businesses to export all around the world to new markets.
Number two, we’ve got to make sure that we have the best education system in the world. And the fact that you’re going to college is great, but I want everybody to get a great education and we’ve worked hard to make sure that student loans are available for folks like you, but I also want to make sure that community colleges are offering slots for workers to get retrained for the jobs that are out there right now and the jobs of the future.
Number three, we’ve got to control our own energy. Now, not only oil and natural gas, which we’ve been investing in; but also, we’ve got to make sure we’re building the energy source of the future, not just thinking about next year, but ten years from now, 20 years from now. That’s why we’ve invested in solar and wind and biofuels, energy efficient cars.
We’ve got to reduce our deficit, but we’ve got to do it in a balanced way. Asking the wealthy to pay a little bit more along with cuts so that we can invest in education like yours.
And let’s take the money that we’ve been spending on war over the last decade to rebuild America, roads, bridges schools. We do those things, not only is your future going to be bright but America’s future is going to bright as well.
Obama, shorter: stop Benedict Arnold CEOS, more clean energy industrial policy, and implement the Buffett rule.
That’s it, really. I mean, good heavens, if those are the answers, “How should America deal with its structural economic problems and create jobs?” can’t possibly be the questions.
And those, of course, are the questions. Again, I am reminded of when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, testifying before the House Budget Committee, told Chairman Paul Ryan the following: “We’re not coming before you to say we have a definitive solution to that long-term problem. What we do know is we don’t like yours.”
Obama seems to have adopted the Geithner Defense during this campaign season.
But what did the president say, what agenda did he layout that would deal with the jobs gap:
Or the economic growth gap:
Or budget gap:
Not much, I’m afraid.
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