Today's quote ... Washington Doesn't Get It: We Need More Jobs

A whopping 83 percent see unemployment as either a fairly big or very big problem; and 81 percent say the Obama administration hasn't done enough to deal with it.

And there just aren't a whole lot of things that more than 80 percent of Americans agree about.

Not coincidentally, large majorities of voters also see the government's economic policies as helping banks and Wall Street -- while few see themselves or average working families in general as benefiting.

So why isn't political Washington fully engaged in addressing the unemployment problem? For the same reasons it can't seem to get much of anything done these days: most notably the abject lack of boldness from the Democrats and persistent obstructionism from the Republicans.

Democrats have been particularly terrified for decades now of doing anything that can be said to actually cost the government money. (Republicans, ironically, have no such scruples.) So our modern ruling party has found itself boxed in by its own president's support for "pay-as-you-go budget rules". And the fact is that very serious concern about the deficit -- even now, when it's the least of our troubles -- is considered a hallmark of serious thinking in Washington. Those who don't toe the line are written off as crazy, wild-eyed radicals.

-- Washington Doesn't Get It: We Need More Jobs by Dan Froomkin

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-news/reporting/dan-froomkin,

Duh ...

WSJ/NBC Stimulus Poll: Americans Prefer Jobs Over Tax Cuts By 2:1

I did think Obama was reality based ...

Apparently not. Why, oh why, would Obama follow the same failed every-problem-deserves-a-tax-cut approach that the Republicans and BushCo used to get the country into the state it's in?

The President-Elect's plan is wrong, Reaganite, and retrograde. It is very similar to policies which created a persistent depressed economy in Japan - and represents the next step to the Japanification of the American economy, where credit spreads are high and economic activity is slow, because any new money is used to pay off debts which should have been written off, but have not been.

I thought he understood that we need jobs. Those without jobs need services, food, hope. Tax cuts for those who should be paying taxes instead of benefiting from the pain of others is perverted. Didn't Obama understand any of his own rhetoric?

Like most of the 'liberal' media ...

Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services questions sound like verbatim GOP talking points:

Arizona Daily Star: Labor official: All employees are welcome in state's unions