Obama brews a $300B weak tea on jobs

President Barack Obama's self-vaunted jobs initiative is, it sounds, as weak as I expected before his showdown with John Boehner a week ago about when he would speak.

The tax break for hiring? I agree with the idea, but the devil's probably in the details. It should be for non-contract jobs, only "payable" after 1 full year of the employee's work, and should have other restrictions. Ideally, those restrictions would include forbidding it to companies that have ever had NLRB, OSHA or EPA citations.

A public works program? OK as is, but make it MUCH bigger. Put unemployed construction workers to work on fixing public sewer, water and gas lines, etc. And, rather than just pass-through money, directly hire workers if necessary.

And, unless you can present clear evidence that they will add net jobs AND net wages below the executive level, don't tout free trade agreements now on the table as part of your jobs package.

Update: It's SOOOOOO weak that House Dems (apparently out of lack of trust reasons) want a pre-speech meeting with Dear Leader.

And, here's my take on some possibly better ideas the NYT rounded up.

UPDATE: OK, Faux says the total is now $450 billion, though it offers no breakout. It does have this unintendedly ironic/hypocritical comment from Dear Leader, though.

There should be nothing controversial about this piece of legislation,” Obama said in excerpts released by the White House ahead of his speech.

That would be because there's nothing substantive, probably? And, whence the unnamed spending cuts to pay for this?