Obama on Jobs: Edgy Politics, No Price Tag, and TLC for Small Business

President Obama was taking a brief detour from his teleprompted remarks on jobs. "Sometimes it's hard to break out of the bubble here in Washington and remind ourselves that behind these statistics are people's lives, their capacity to do right by their families," he riffed. He was at that moment deep within the bubble -- standing alone at the lectern of a downtown D.C. think tank, wearing the capital's standard-issue dark suit, addressing a mostly silent audience of scholars and graybeards.

I'm going to try not to read anything into the fact that Afghanistan got prime time and an audience of cadets at West Point, while jobs got a few dozen academics on a weekday morning a few blocks from the White House. Every political professional in the country, from the president on down, knows that next year's congressional elections will be about the economy. And let's face it, regardless of where the president is or who is there with him, there is no way to jazz up an announcement about infrastructure investment, business tax cuts, and energy-efficiency retrofits.

Obama did not put a price tag on his proposals in his speech Tuesday at the Brookings Institution, and senior aides resisted pressure to offer even a ballpark estimate in a background conference call beforehand. Nor was it clear, either from Obama or his aides, how they would offset the cost of their proposals and how much they would rely on $200 billion that banks are paying back to the government under the Troubled Assets Relief Program. Presumably financing will be Topic A or at least B at the White House on Wednesday, when congressional leaders are scheduled to meet with the president to discuss jobs.

In the absence of a big number, the most interesting and admittedly least consequential parts of the speech were the edgy political parts. Obama described the dire economic reports he received as he began his post-election transition a year ago and his conclusion that "it was too late for me to request a recount." It was the only joke he made in his 28-minute speech and it served its purpose -- as in, remember that awful mess that I inherited and had nothing to do with creating?

Obama also had a very sharp response to Republican attacks on him as a big spender. "Despite what some have claimed," he said, his $787 billion economic recovery package "is only a very small part of our current budget imbalance." He said the deficit had been building dramatically for eight years before he arrived.

"Folks passed tax cuts and expansive entitlement programs without paying for any of it -- even as health care costs kept rising, year after year. As a result, the deficit had reached $1.3 trillion when we walked into the White House. And I'd note: These budget-busting tax cuts and spending programs were approved by many of the same people who are now waxing political about fiscal responsibility, while opposing our efforts to reduce deficits by getting health care costs under control. It's a sight to see," the president said.

That didn't dampen GOP spirits or headlines. Sample from House Republican Leader John Boehner (caps his, not mine): "BIG IDEA IN THE PRESIDENT'S BIG SPEECH: CONTINUE THE DEFICIT SPENDING BINGE."

The partisan back-and-forth will matter far less in the end than whether Obama's policies produce positive trend lines in economic growth and, most of all, hiring and job creation. If and when that happens, the president wants to be sure his recovery package -- the one that passed with only three GOP votes in all of Congress -- gets credit. He said Tuesday that it is already working and will continue to ramp up in the next few months. He also said it forms the basis for several of his new recommendations.

One of those is to put more money into infrastructure. The recovery act already has funded more than 10,000 projects to upgrade roads, bridges, water systems, Superfund sites, broadband networks, and clean energy, according to Obama. "We're going to see even more work -- and workers -- on recovery projects in the next six months than we saw in the last six months," he said. "Even so, there are many more worthy projects than there were dollars to fund them...So adding to this initiative to rebuild America's infrastructure is the right thing to do."

Similarly, Obama said he would build on "particularly popular and effective" recovery act programs aimed at promoting energy efficiency and clean energy jobs. The initiatives drew so many applicants, he said, that "a lot of strong proposals -- proposals that will leverage private capital and create jobs quickly -- did not make the cut," including proposals for high-tech manufacture of wind turbines and solar panels. Also in the energy area, Obama would offer rebates to people who retrofit their homes to become more energy-efficient. He said that has the triple effect of creating jobs, saving families money, and reducing pollution.

The third big area Obama discussed is tax and credit aid for small businesses. Building on tax cuts in the recovery act, he said he wants to completely eliminate capital gains taxes on small business investment and extend write-offs. He also called it "worthwhile" to give small businesses a tax incentive to add and keep workers and said he would work with Congress to pass one. In addition, he proposed waiving fees and increasing guarantees for loans backed by the Small Business Administration. The Treasury Department will continue to use TARP money to help small businesses get bank loans, he said.

Will any of this happen, and how fast? As always, the wild card is Congress. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid both said they were working with Obama to pass a jobs package. Reid called his fellow Democrat's ideas promising and Pelosi praised his leadership.

Republicans generally can't say enough good things about tax cuts and small businesses, and everyone in Congress likes to announce infrastructure projects in their states and districts. So if the GOP wants it, here's a chance to depart from a strategy that liberal MSNBC calls "the audacity of nope." I'm not saying hold your breath. But this could bear watching.