At a Congressional Black Caucus event in Detroit yesterday, California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters took a few shots at President Barack Obama’s jobs tour for neglecting black communities. Since then the video has gone viral, and both liberals and conservatives have asked tough questions about Obama’s policies.
On Wednesday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” on MSNBC, “Hardball” host Chris Matthews said it was about time that point was raised, because unemployment in black communities was much higher than the overall unemployment rate.
“You have an unemployment rate in the black community of around 20 percent,” Matthews said. “And that’s a fact. In terms of, certainly, underemployment, it gets up to that level and it’s real. It’s high recession time and nothing’s getting better. And the question you have to ask is, ‘What is the difference between the president’s policy and the Republicans’ policy?’”
Matthews attempted to offer an explanation of Republican economic theory, but was unable to explain what Obama’s economic policy initiatives were.
“We know the Republican policy,” he continued. “Government gets small, get out of the way, lower taxes, lower regulation, lower everything. Get out of our face. Big business is going to solve our problems. Small business will solve our problems. That’s the Republican philosophy: laissez-faire. What’s the Obama strategy? I don’t know what it is right now. That’s the challenge.”
Matthews said Obama’s plan had to be more substantive than what’s currently being discussed.
“Now we’re getting these stories out now that he’s going to come back on Labor Day, or after Labor Day, and give us a jobs program and a deficit-reduction program both in two addresses,” Matthews said. “Well, let’s hope it’s more than just cutting the payroll tax, extending unemployment, something to do with Panama, Colombia and South America trade deals and patent reform. That’s too sundry. That doesn’t have any impact. That doesn’t have any bang to it.”
Instead, Matthews said it would take actual government jobs, with massive spending, targeting every congressional district in America.
“He has to draw the line, I think, and say the government can create jobs,” Matthews fumed. “Every member of Congress, left, right and center has spent most of his or her career trying to get government money into their district for jobs for projects of different kinds: water projects, sewer projects, defense plans, aerospace. They know government creates jobs.
“We grew up in Philadelphia with it in the Navy base. [It] creates jobs. Why doesn’t the president create those proposals for all the members of Congress — Republican and Democrat — including Bachmann in Minnesota, and say, ‘Yes, you can have the money on those projects that you’ve personally asked for’ and dare them to say no to their own projects?”