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Hilarious/depressing headline of the day, from Politico:
On Jobs Bill, White House Bets On Boehner's SupportThey can't actually be serious.Look, maybe sending out this message is part of the White House's strategy. Maybe they understand that there is no way anything meaningful on jobs passes the Congress, so once again they're going through the motions of seeking Republican support for the American Jobs Act, and when that fails, they'll use it as one more piece of evidence that Republicans are mindless obstructionists willing to sabotage the economy to serve their political ends.Republicans, on the other hand, are never going to agree to anything that would actually improve the economy, because that would increase the chances that Barack Obama gets re-elected. Happily, it also happens that the things they support for ideological reasons -- high-end tax cuts, primarily -- would have almost no impact on jobs. That means they can support some tiny version of Obama's proposal that would be ideologically amenable (thereby passing something so they look less obstructionist), but not risk helping Obama in any way by actually helping the economy. Handy!President Barack Obama needs House Speaker John Boehner’s help to muscle a jobs bill through Congress, but he’s betting that Boehner needs the win just as badly.
The White House strategy rests on the risky assumption that Obama can sell Boehner on a new political reality: With voters desperate for jobs, neither leader can afford to do nothing.
