"A Plan to Talk About Jobs, Elbowed Aside by Health Care"

Yesterday, President Obama finally took a step away from the endless debate over health care to look at the problem of unemployment. Going along with the pleas of many and the White House's new plan to address the unemployment rate (still at 10 percent) ,Obama focused on the topic of jobs in a trip to Savannah, Georgia. Obama has begun an attempt to push through some legislation before having to begin the campaign process at the end of March. His trip to Georgia was only one of the stops along his “White House to Main Street” tour. In a speech to a crowd at Savannah Technical College, Obama proposed a "$6 billion proposal to provide cash rebates to homeowners who replace windows, insulate or install energy-saving heating and cooling systems." This proposal is being called cash-for-caulkers to imitate the previous cash-for-clunkers program. While Obama was on this tour, however, his advisers back in the White House proceeded to write a statement on why they should continue to harp on health care. Basically, the Obama administration has started to address the problem of unemployment, but have not and may not ever push aside the health care issue to take care of it. Obama's time to push through any bills through Congress is coming to an end and he may run out of time.

I think that is good to see that the issue of health care is finnally being put to the side for at least a second, and the Democrats are looking to place their focus on something else. It is depressing, however, to see that Obama's advisors look to push health care with the Democrats through, alone if necessary. As far as action goes, I think this is just more talk. People are getting tired of hearing about health care and how it's going no where, and Obama is giving them something else to hear. It looks as though the time to actually do something is running out, and nothing will be accomplished before that time runs out. This is a victory for the Republicans because the next election will most likely greatly favor the Republicans, and they will come back into power with the Democrats loosing their ability to push bills through in Congress. The Republicans seem to have come back from being a significant minority and come back to power without the Democrats being able to change much.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/us/politics/03obama.html?ref=politics