The Washington Job

Steve Benen processes the White House "jobs summit" today and comes up with the problem.  It's not even Clinton's famous "It's the economy, stupid!" like he used in 1992,  it's "It's the unemployment, stupid!"

I looked up the transcript of that '92 debate, and Dean's description is spot-on. The specific question was, "How has the national debt personally affected each of your lives. And if it hasn't, how can you honestly find a cure for the economic problems of the common people if you have no experience in what's ailing them?"
Bush started talking about interest rates, and then transitioned to talking about his grandchildren. He eventually said, "I'm not sure I get it. Help me with the question and I'll try to answer it."

The moderator intervened: "I think she means more the recession, the economic problems today the country faces rather than the deficit."

The clarification mattered -- because the question didn't really make sense. The voter wanted to know if the candidates could relate to families suffering through tough times, but she asked how "the national debt personally affected" their lives.

Eighteen years later, the White House wants to create jobs, but it's afraid of increased deficits and debt. This, like the '92 debate question, is a mistake. The debt isn't the problem; unemployment is.

As Speaker Pelosi explained last week, "We're never going to decrease the deficit until we create jobs, bring revenue into the Treasury, stimulate the economy so we have growth. We have to shed any weakness that anybody may have about not wanting to be confrontational on this subject for fear that we'd be labeled not sensitive to the deficit.... The American people have an anger about the growth of the deficit because they're not getting anything for it."

The assumption is that voters will be impressed if policymakers bring down the deficit by a fraction of a percent against GDP. They'll be far more impressed with those who get America working again.

If Obama and his economic team can't or won't see the forest for the trees, the trees are going to fall on quite a few Dems in 2010 and 2012.  The debt isn't the problem.  The tens of millions of Americans out of work and tens of millions more who haven't seen a raise in years and seen their health care premiums explode are most certainly the real problem.
Have a summit to fix that.