Go big or go home! Conseil des économistes à Obama...

J'aime! Il est plus que temps qu'Obama soit à la hauteur dans ce dossier et qu'il cesse de blâmer le Congrès. "No drama Obama" devra passer à l'attaque et démontrer plus de vigueur.

"There are many seminal moments in the course of a presidency. For a cadre of President Barack Obama's economic backers and political boosters, however, Thursday's much anticipated speech on job creation, along with the subsequent campaign to sell his vision, has taken on an air of importance rarely felt during his administration.

Details of the proposals the president will make have not yet surfaced. But the consensus has clearly emerged that the administration needs to do something that is at once politically daring and philosophically bold.

"If you are not going to do something real, don't do it," said David Cutler, a Harvard economist who backed the president in the 2008 campaign. "If you want to shake things up, shake things up."

What that would entail, Cutler admits, is a willingness to push policy proposals that may have little hope for congressional approval but would, if implemented, have immediate benefits for an anemic economy. Extension of the payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits would be a start. Aid to states and, more importantly, municipalities would also be useful, as would be money for infrastructure projects, school repairs, and other projects. But key to it all is the need to fundamentally alter a political narrative that currently values budget discipline and austerity measures over economic stimulus.

"The president's job is to change that," said Cutler. "I'm hopeful. I did support him in 2008. I think he was dealt a very bad hand by the world and I think he now gets a chance to try and lead us. And I guess, I don't know, maybe I'm wishing too much to hope that Republicans do want to do something -- or at least their constituents do."

Cutler is far from the only one holding on to fraying slivers of hope. The Huffington Post interviewed a half dozen economists or academics who either formally endorsed then-Senator Obama during the 2008 campaign or were cited in the press as supporters. Several expressed disappointment with his stewardship of the economy and his receptiveness to calls for austerity."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/08/obama-jobs-speech-economists_n_953837.html