I wonder if this is the verdict on Obama’s attempt to explain why we  need tax increases as part of deficit reduction.

Well it gets a little better. Google news now has reference to The Los Angeles Times story Obama pressures Republicans on federal debt ceiling.

The news conference represented a rare instance of Obama using the presidential megaphone to defend his position. In the past, the president has been prone to delivering lengthy answers in a professorial tone, relying on abstract ideas. By contrast, Obama on Wednesday laid out his arguments in simple, everyday terms, echoing an ex-president that he has been studying: Ronald Reagan.

I guess I am not the only one to notice how rarely Obama uses his opportunities to influence the tenor of the debate

My comment on this story was:

Obama flubbed it again. He failed to make the point that the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy are job killers. Having missed that opportunity, Boehner made his usual silly point that rescinding those tax cuts is the jobs killer.

With those tax cuts, the wealthy are free to (and have) sucked that money right out of the economy. They (among other things) either invest it overseas and export jobs, or they lend the money back to the government by buying Treasury securities. Rather than invest it in the economy, they have just given it back to the government, but expect to be paid interest now. I don’t blame the wealthy for doing this. It would be silly to invest in more capacity without having enough market demand to sell what the new capacity would produce.

Had this money been put into the hands of the middle-class, they would have spent more of it than the wealthy do. This spending would draw forth investment in capacity (job creation) to meet the economic demand from the middle-class. This is absolutely essential if we are to get a self-sustaining economic recover with lower unemployment.

With just a stimulus to create demand, the recovery will require more and more deficits and never sustain itself without government help.