Can Obama raise the cost of GOP stonewalling?
Whatever alchemy goes into Moody's economist Mark Zandi's calculations, his simple declarative forecasts do have a way of framing political stakes. Here's the top line as served up in Mike Allen's Playbook:
MARK ZANDI for Moody's Analytics, "An Analysis of the Obama Jobs Plan": "President Obama's jobs proposal would help stabilize confidence and keep the U.S. from sliding back into recession. The plan would add 2 percentage points to GDP growth next year, add 1.9 million jobs, and cut the unemployment rate by a percentage point. The plan would cost about $450 billion, about $250 billion in tax cuts and $200 billion in spending increases. Many of the president's proposals are unlikely to pass Congress, but the most important have a chance of winning bipartisan support. ...
Adding two percentage points to GDP growth would would go a long way toward winning Obama reelection. So here's the question, posed by Obama's promise to take his plan to the people: can he make the cost of sabotaging the economy higher for the Republicans than the cost of not sabotaging the economy? In other words, if they stonewall the whole program, including payroll tax cuts, can he effectively blame them for the economy's continued (or accelerated) stall?
Put another way: could Republican sabotage of the economy reach a tipping point at which the majority of Americans recognize it for what it is, forcing them to desist?