President Obama: Be Bold, Surprise the Nation

If all we have heard and read about President Obama's upcoming speech are correct, this might be another missed

opportunity in the boldness-for-real-change department. What we have read and heard so far seems to indicate that

the president and his team are opting for a stimulus package redux after the pattern of the first $800b package, which

Republicans and the Tea Party folks have successfully sold to the public as a total failure.

I hope that the president would surprise us by coming out with a program that directly and massively attacks the two critical problems at the roots of the recession: the mortgage crisis, which has evaporated billions of dollars of wealth

in the middle class, and the high unemployment numbers, which have not budged due to the fact that corporate

America is sitting on billions of dollars in cash instead of using it to hire people, who will become active consumers and producers once again, of new products and services.

There are two items that must be in the president's new initiatives:

(1) A program to mop up the mortgage mess, by putting aside several billion dollars for directly buying up mortgages at the value of homes in today's market and refinancing at current rates for 30 years. The program should be run through

Fannie Mae and the housing departments of the states and the cities. The homes should be sold back to the current home owners.

(2) A program to give businesses large and small an incentive to hire people. Reducing the payroll tax to close to zero for 10 years is the kind of a bold program that is needed.

The first program would breathe financial life into the middle class all over the country, which has been devastated with

lost property values. The second program would finally give private industry the kind of long-term certitude they have been calling for, as for as a condition to start putting their huge cash reserves to work in the marketplace. Both

programs, if implemented will increase the likelihood of a second term for President Obama. The question is whether the Republicans will be willing to stop such programs through the legislative process, even though they are essential for

a quick economic recovery, just to deny the president a second term.

Fubara David-West.