Obama’s jobs plan – a very political speech

Last night saw an energised and passionate Barack Obama: a president urging a bitterly divided Congress to ‘stop the political circus and actually do something to help the economy.’ At this, the lowest point in his Presidency – he repeated his mantra time and time again: ‘You should pass this jobs plan right away’.

After months of political wrangling and the damaging, demoralising impasse over the debt ceiling, here at last was the long-awaited ‘pivot to jobs’. A chance for Obama to change the national conversation, to define the economic debate on his own terms. And, finally, to engage with the very real concerns of most Americans, which don’t focus around the deficit, but their futures, and their livelihoods.

The American Jobs Act, as it will be known, encompases a broad set of measures – including payroll tax relief, infrastructure spending, and money to keep more teachers in work. Obama promised that the cost, some $450bn, would be fully paid for – although responsibility for that will land in the laps of the new Congressional supercommittee, already tasked with closing a $1.5tr deficit gap. And there’ll be more details on the financing, to be revealed in another bill on Monday week.

The speech won the president 18 standing ovations – and although Republicans mostly sat in silence, there were a few moments when they broke into applause: a series of trade deals, for example, and the Georgia work-for-benefits idea. House speaker John Boehner even acknowledged that parts of the plan did ‘merit consideration’.

And there was plenty to satisfy the left too – a defence of collective bargaining rights, an appeal to work for the good of all: ‘No single individual built America on their own. We built it together.’ he declared, adding: ‘We shouldn’t be in a race to the bottom, where we try to offer the cheapest labour and the worst pollution standards. America should be in a race to the top. And I believe that’s a race we can win.’

According to the White House, if the bill does get approved, it could create a million jobs and boost America’s economic growth by between 1-3%. But at the moment, despite their desire to avoid looking like a negative, ‘do nothing’ brigade, it seems unlikely that the Republicans will let the whole package get through.

House majority leader Eric Cantor did say ‘let’s do the things we agree on…so we can have some results for people who are hurting so badly out there’, but others in his party were less optimistic: Mitch McConnell has already dismissed the entire bill as a ‘re-election plan’, while Senator John Kyle accused Obama of “merely dusting off a tired agenda of old ideas wrapped in freshly partisan rhetoric.”

So now the real sell begins, to the constituency that really matters – the general public. Obama has promised to take his argument to every corner of America – or at least, those corners which happen to be in key battleground states. Today it’s Eric Cantor’s district in Virginia. Next week, onto John Boehner’s home turf of Ohio. Top Obama strategist David Axelrod has been seeking inspiration from the past: “Harry Truman once said if you can’t make them see the light, make them feel the heat. And that’s what the president is going to do.”