White House is Busily Forging Political "blank checks" From the Statements of Supporters.

[cc2k]

I was going to title this "CEO's Writing Blank Checks," until I clicked through some of my links and read the statements.

I've been watching this "American Jobs Act" that the Presidential Teleprompter scrolled on about last Thursday in front of a joint session of Congress, and on national television.

At the time of the speech, the words "American Jobs Act" did not appear anywhere on the whitehose.gov website. Indeed, when Obama got down to reading the last occurance of "Pass this bill!" there was still no mention of the phrase "American Jobs Act" on whitehouse.gov.

It was around 8pm on Thursday, nearly a half hour after the speech, that the words first appeared there. Then, within 24 hours there were dozens of posts and stories on there about this wonderful piece of legislation, which, now, 3 and a half days later, is still vapors and fantasy.

One of the more interesting searches that I've been watching is a Google search for the phrase "backs american jobs act" on the whitehouse website.

There were the usual suspects there, Democrat leaders in the House and Senate jumped on board quickly (they will be expected to vote for it), and of course, the unions like it (they will probably write the actual bill).

However, I was surprised by some of the CEO's and business leaders that were "backing the American Jobs Act." Since backing a bill before it's written is basically writing a political blank check, it surprises me that CEO's like Ken Chenault (American Express), Richard Parsons (Citigroup) and Matthew Rose (BNSF) are "backing the American Jobs Act" before it's written and released. That seems irresponsible, even for CEO's who relied on the tax payer to save their companies, writing blank checks like this seemed over the top.

Like I said, I was going to focus on the "blank check" aspect and the CEO's and their reputations when I started this piece.

Then, I clicked through the "Matthew Rose, Chairman and CEO, BNSF Railway and Member of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness Backs American Jobs Act" link.

There, I find a very short quote they are attributing to Matthew Rose, CEO of BNSF Railway: Statement of Matthew Rose, CEO, BNSF Railway:

---

I commend the President’s focus on infrastructure and its role in creating long-term economic sustainability and jobs now. I hope that he and the Congress will be able to reform the current programs in ways that reassure Americans that they get a good return on their transportation dollar, and that federal policies open the door to more investment capital for transportation from all sources, including private markets.

---

Hmmmmmmmm, it seems that Mr. Rose never mentioned this fictional "American Jobs Act" in his actual statement.

After looking at more of those pages, I have yet to find any statement that includes the actual words "American Jobs Act" by anyone who, according to the headlines and links "backs the American Jobs Act."

It seems that all of these people who said anything positive about Thrusday's speech are being over-represented as actually backing a bill that has yet to be released.

The White House is basically forging blank checks from its supporters.

[cc2k]

Anyone with other thoughts?

I've thought about calling some of these "backers" and asking them if they actually support this legislation that has not been released yet, or if the White House is misrepresenting them.

[Former Proud Canadian]

They lie. Don't believe anything they say.

It is a wonder to me that anyone anywhere in the US believes anything this president says or this White House puts out.

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

It’s like buying a pig in a poke.

[NonValueAdded]

It has to be Barbara Streisand because if one key promise of Obama is codified into law, there will not be another hire made in America. No CEO in his right mind would sign on to this.

President Obama said during a Tuesday radio show [8/30] that hiring discrimination against the jobless "makes absolutely no sense" and that he supports legislation to ban the practice. source

What does that mean? It means that each and every hire decision will be challenged in an administrative process yet to be defined!!! Think about it. What other outcome is possible? Unintended consequence? They cynic says no, having the bureaucracy place a stamp of approval on each and every hire would be nirvana for this administration.

[BilLies]

I know where Obama got the concept of firing knowledgeable people who can do the jobs and replacing them with unqualified incompetents .... the Congressional elections of 2006 and the Presidential election of 2008.