The speech

... There are serious political questions surrounding Thursday's speech: Can Obama do anything to alleviate the nation's economic problems, and do we still want him as our president?

Both will depend on how Congress receives his plea. ...Chris Good, Atlantic

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President Obama gave one of the most impassioned speeches of his presidency when he addressed a joint session of Congress Thursday night. Too bad so many in the audience thought it was a big, fat joke.

“You should pass this jobs plan right away!” Obama exhorted. Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) chuckled.

“Warren Buffet pays a lower tax rate than his secretary — an outrage he has asked us to fix,” Obama went on. Widespread laughter broke out on the GOP side of the aisle.

“This isn’t political grandstanding,” Obama said. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) guffawed.

“This isn’t class warfare,” Obama said. More hysterics on the right.

“We’ve identified over 500 [regulatory] reforms which will save billions of dollars,” the president claimed. Majority leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) giggled.

It was, in a way, more insulting than Joe Wilson’s “you lie” eruption during a previous presidential address to Congress. ...Dana Milbank, WaPo
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The proposal itself is called “The American Jobs Act” and amounts to about $450 billion worth of ideas that have, at other times, commanded a bipartisan consensus.

- It completely eliminates the payroll tax for workers, which amount to a $175 billion tax break, and cuts it in half for businesses until they reach the $5 million mark on their payrolls, at a cost of $65 billion. The idea there is to target the tax cut to struggling small businesses, rather than the cash-rich large businesses. It also extends the credit allowing businesses to expense 100 percent of their investments through 2012, which the White House predicts will cost $5 billion.

- It offers $35 billion in aid to states and cities to prevent teacher layoffs, and earmarks $25 billion for investments in school infrastructure.

- It sets aside $50 billion for investments in transportation infrastructure, $15 billion for investments in vacant or foreclosed properties, and $10 billion for an infrastructure bank. It also makes mention of a program to “deploy high-speed wireless services to at least 98 percent of Americans,” but it doesn’t offer many details on that program.

- It provides $49 billion to extend expanded unemployment insurance benefits. $8 billion for a new tax credit to encourage businesses to hire the long-term unemployed, and $5 billion for a new program aimed at supporting part-time and summer jobs for youth and job training for the unemployed.

- It also encourages the Federal Housing Finance Authority to make it easier for underwater homeowners to refinance their mortgages. ...Ezra Klein, WaPo

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At times, the aggressiveness of Obama’s tone seemed to be a mismatch for the actual meat and potatoes of the speech, which was larded with proposals aimed at the ideological middle.

But, the tone of the speech will be the story — and will almost certainly define how both parties react to it.

For Democrats, the speech was a revelation — a glimpse of “Obama as fighter” that many within his own party have felt had been lacking since he took office in 2009.

For Republicans, the speech will be viewed through the lens of the 2012 campaign, an attempt by the President to reset the political calculus on the economy and put the ball firmly in their court.

For independents, the speech won’t likely leave that much of a mark. With the economy still stumbling, those not closely affiliated with either party are likely to wait and see whether things get better, worse or stay the same over the next few months. No single speech — no matter how good or bad — will change that reality.

To the extent that the speech has a lasting impact then, it will be to harden — or at least more clearly delineate — the lines of disagreement between Democrats and Republicans on the economy. ...Chris Cillizza, WaPo

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On substance, the American Jobs Act has a lot of good ideas. (Short fact-sheet; long fact-sheet.) I especially like the employer and employee payroll tax cuts (with some of the relief tied to payroll expansion), the unemployment insurance changes (with support for work sharing), and the new credit for hiring the long-term unemployed. At just under $450 billion the aggregate fiscal impulse is too small: something twice as big, or more, is called for. But the White House could be right to think the public would have been scared rather than reassured by a larger number. Restoring confidence is part of the task in all this.

And then there's the politics. A moderately-sized plan will hurt the GOP more if they reject it out of hand. Presumably for the same reason, the proposal is tilted towards tax cuts rather than spending increases. You can argue the economics of that both ways, but again it is tactically shrewd. ...Clive Crook, Atlantic, Financial Times

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... President Obama stood face to face Thursday night with a Congress that has perversely resisted lifting a finger to help. Some Republicans refused to even sit and listen. But those Americans who did heard him unveil an ambitious proposal — more robust and far-reaching than expected. ...We hope Mr. Obama keeps his promise to take his proposals all over the country. ... NYT editorial board

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This speech won’t solve Obama’s problems. Only a persistent, disciplined and focused effort to advance this proposal and the ideas behind it can begin to do that. And to put it charitably, follow-through has not always been this administration’s long suit. Still, the nature of this speech suggests Obama knows that what he had been doing wasn’t working. That’s a good sign. ...EJ Dionne,WaPo

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These days, the best — or at any rate the alleged wise men and women who are supposed to be looking after the nation’s welfare — lack all conviction, while the worst, as represented by much of the G.O.P., are filled with a passionate intensity. So the unemployed are being abandoned.

O.K., about the Obama plan: It calls for about $200 billion in new spending — much of it on things we need in any case, like school repair, transportation networks, and avoiding teacher layoffs — and $240 billion in tax cuts. That may sound like a lot, but it actually isn’t. The lingering effects of the housing bust and the overhang of household debt from the bubble years are creating a roughly $1 trillion per year hole in the U.S. economy, and this plan — which wouldn’t deliver all its benefits in the first year — would fill only part of that hole. And it’s unclear, in particular, how effective the tax cuts would be at boosting spending.

Still, the plan would be a lot better than nothing, and some of its measures, which are specifically aimed at providing incentives for hiring, might produce relatively a large employment bang for the buck. ...The good news in all this is that by going bigger and bolder than expected, Mr. Obama may finally have set the stage for a political debate about job creation. For, in the end, nothing will be done until the American people demand action. ...Paul Krugman

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In a 45 to 52 vote on Thursday night, the Senate failed to advance a resolution that would have disapproved of a pending $500 billion increase in the nation's debt ceiling. ...The Hill

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Obama made a forthright argument that primitive individualism has to be paired with what he called “another thread running throughout our history—a belief that we are all connected and that there are some things we can only do together, as a nation.” He cited the example of his (and history’s) favorite Republican:

    We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our Union. But in the middle of a Civil War, he was also a leader who looked to the future—a Republican president who mobilized government to build the transcontinental railroad, launch the National Academy of Sciences, and set up the first land-grant colleges.

All true. But it helped that, in the middle of the Civil War, there were no Senators or Congressmen from the part of the nation that, at the time, styled itself the Confederate States of America. In other words, Lincoln didn't have to deal with so many of the sort of people of the type we would today call “Republicans.” ...Hendrik Hertzberg, New Yorker

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Extending and expanding current policies is a necessary thing with economic and labor growth falling to lows since the recession. In the current political climate, this is probably as bold as the president can go. But to borrow a metaphor from football (which followed minutes the president stopped talking), this is neither a 40-yard bomb nor a straight draw for the running back. It's a checkdown pass. Carefully diagrammed, measured to bypass the defense, and just enough to move the ball downfield. ...Derek Thompson, Atlantic