Nibbling At the Margins (Not the Bakken)

With unemployment at 9.6% and at least eight (8) million people out of work, and literally "everyone" calling for extension of tax breaks to keep the economy going, the President just can't do it (cut taxes). It goes against every grain in his body.

So, today, finally, a headline story: he will make permanent tax breaks for research and development (R&D). I can't imagine this will amount to a hill of beans. How many of those eight million unemployed folks are involved in research and development?

Don't get me wrong? I'm not sure across-the-board extension of tax cuts to the very wealthy makes sense, but this nibbling at the margins seems to be putting the first band-aid on a thousand paper cuts. This is an idea a junior US House representative would come up with, not the president. We need to see a broad-based plan to get the unemployed back to work.

To see how severe the unemployment picture has been, click here. Remember: President Obama assumed office January 20, 2009. 

That's my rant for the day.

Updates:

September 6, 2010: Now the administration wants $50 billion for infrastructure support; too bad this wasn't the emphasis in the original stimulus plan (the emphasis was on supporting state government expenditures and pet projects that had languished for decades). Nibbling on the margins. (Note: the recession must not be that bad: the vast majority of Americans, according to polling, are against new stimulus spending.)