It has been nearly impossible to escape the coverage of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and Occupy Denver (OD) coverage. These protests/parties may have peaked or they may not have. Frankly, I think the whole thing is a waste of time and resources. The people participating seem to have no clear goals, objectives, and are doing little except to disrupt the normal life of everyone who interacts with the area they “occupy”. Maybe that is really the goal; have fun and pretend to make a difference.

I say “pretend to make a difference” because nothing has changed and nothing will change because of the street theater that has been going on. I can understand the frustration that is boiling over everywhere, with people unemployed, under employed, and the realization that what has been done by the federal government to remedy this situation is not working. People want to identify with anything that puts a voice to their frustration. But the sign-spoken remedies of “End Corporate Greed”, “Eat the Rich”, and “Down with Capitalism” that these people put forth are at best platitudes and at worst feloniously stupid.

The majority of people in America are still right of center on the political spectrum. They won’t always vote that way, but mainstream America is mostly conservative. The machinations and shouting of these protesters is not going to change that. It will actually work the other way. Mainstream America sees dirty, pot smoking, drum beating, protesters claiming to represent them. Those same OWS and OSD crowd demand free electricity, free WiFi, plus the right to deny the use of public property to others, so they can continue to waste the time and resources of the local authorities. All of that it in the name of nothing they can articulate clearly. Mainstream America is much more likely to shy away, rather than to support them. Assuming of course, that anyone not under the influence can figure out what the protesters want to have supported.

Think I’m wrong on that? Flashback to the late 1960s and 1970s. I grew up listening to the 5 o’clock news, with my folks. The news anchor would insinuate how important those protesters of the Vietnam War were, and how they were changing America. The protesters led the evening news as often as the war did. George McGovern, the Democratic presidential candidate, campaigned in 1972 to end the Vietnam War just as soon as he was elected. It was his big campaign promise. The vote was to choose between end-the-war McGovern and another four years of Richard Nixon. Nixon won in a landslide. The Vietnam War was not popular. People from all walks of life wanted it over. But those protesters were actually looked on as draft dodgers and anti-American by the majority of voters. They voiced their displeasure with the anti-American sentiment at the ballot box. The same is likely to happen to anyone who is foolish enough to openly support the OWS crowd, and their t-shirt fixes.

One of the most frustrating things I see in politics is the self righteous person who declares that he doesn’t vote for a party, he votes for the person. H will continue by telling me he votes for the person he thinks will do the best job. On the surface that sounds so profound. This person lofts himself up on his ideals, while at the same time taking a smug and condescending view of those who appear to lazily vote strictly Republican or Democrat. But, as with so many things in life, and especially politics just looking at the all the flashing lights of the surface will blind you to the reality of the situation.

I vote a straight Republican ticket during each election. I do not do so out of blind allegiance to the unfailing wisdom of the Grand Old Party. I do it because I understand how our political system works. That last particular statement should appeal to those who share my core political beliefs and those on the polar opposite. It should resonate because my decision on which party to give my support to is based on cold logic that can be equally applied to left or right. So let’s try to suspend (mostly) partisanship for a moment and keep an open mind.

In Germany, Great Britain, and many other political systems that have a prime minister/chancellor as their head, an election is held to send representatives to the capital city, much like our own system. Those representatives are as diverse as our own Congress, which sends both Ron Paul the Libertarian and Bernie Sanders, the self professed socialist to represent some segment of “the people”. Here is where the American system parts ways with the Euro-model. After all of their representatives’ get to the big city, they elect their equivalent of president. But, as there are so many different political parties represented no one of the parties has a majority. So they have to get together to form a collation. That collation picks the head of the country and sets the state agenda.

So President Obama’s plan to create jobs is to have more shovel-ready infrastructure jobs. Obviously like the Brent Spence Bridge in Cincinnati. This is the bridge Obama chose as his back drop for his first sales pitch after the joint session of Congress introduction of his plan. That bridge will not be funded under his plan and is not scheduled to be started until 2013. 

Part B is for the federal government to bribe small businesses, with their own money, to hire additional workers. He proposes giving businesses $4,000 for each new worker, providing that worker has been unemployed for at least six months. But then he wants to raise taxes on those same people to pay for it. Those “millionaires and billionaires”, that the President wants to pay “their fair share”? The group his plan target actually make as little as $200,000 per year and are heavily comprised of small business owners.

This is not a jobs program. What we have here is a reelection speech, pushing class warfare, and relying on the ignorance of the American public to give him four more years to take us irretrievably down the road to Euro-Socialism.  (Ask Greece how that is working out) But America is not nearly that stupid, as evidenced by every poll that is taken lately. With that said; here are my thoughts for what the President should do if he really wants to create more jobs.

I call this The Addition by Subtraction Plan.