In the article Gridlocking the Lives of the Jobless by E.J. Dionne, Jr., he states the following:

For the moment, Republicans have no interest in moving the nation’s debate toward investments in job creation because they gain twice over from keeping Washington mired in discussions on the deficit. It’s a brute fact that Republicans benefit if the economy stays sluggish. And despite their role in ballooning the deficit during the Bush years, they will always outbid Democrats on spending cuts.

So is there any way out for those looking to Washington? The recent disappointing jobs numbers have at least had the salutary effect of reminding Democrats that they cannot agree to anything that further slows the recovery. “The first principle has to be ‘do no harm,’” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, a key House Democratic negotiator in the deficit talks. “There is a danger of making things worse if you adopt very deep cuts in the short term.”

To this article I responded with the following comment:

Yesterday I received an email from Biden saying that he has a plan to take idle government real-estate and stop wasting money on it.  Does that mean that he is going to put this real-estate on the market where there is already a glut of real estate?

Today I hear that the Veep is aiming toward a bipartisan deal to cut $1 trillion in spending.

Meanwhile corporations are withholding $2 trillion of their cash from investing in new plants, equipment, and jobs.  Why? Because there is not enough demand (i.e. spending) in the economy to warrant further investment.

So now both Republicans and Democrats are going to solve the lack of spending in the economy by cutting spending.  I suppose they might also cut taxes to raise tax revenue.

We need a law to make English at least one of the languages spoken in this country.  I mean dictionary English, not political double speak.

For Obama to change the direction of the national conversation on the economy, he first has to know where the new direction is.