Obama lays out 'To Do' list for Congress in University at Albany visit

U.S. President Barack Obama talks about his  
"to do" list for Congress at SUNY-Albany
 (Larry Downing/Reuters) "Get to work putting America to work" could have been the 22-minute message President Obama delivered to Congress Tuesday at the University at Albany-SUNY's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering. What he presented was his "To Do" list for Congress. No doubt this will be written off as just-another-campaign-stop, even though New York is safe Democratic territory. Obama will be pushing pieces from the list he unveiled Tuesday in later speeches across the country. Given the obstructionist Republicans and their enablers in Congress, it's a message that needs constant repetition, in election years and not, on safe Democratic turf and contested ground.

In praising the high-tech school whose presence in the state capital has helped attract a major computer-chip employer, Obama told a crowd of some 250-300 educators, politicians and faculty at the university:

"This school and this community represent the future of our economy. I want what's happening in Albany to happen all across the country," Obama said."You are investing in your future. You are not going backwards."

Whether that was an intentional or coincidental knock of Mitt Romney's campaign I'll leave up to readers. "Backwards" is the direction the all-but-crowned GOP presidential nominee and other Republican politicians and right-wing pundits have made clear in campaign statements and policy pronouncements that they hope to achieve, having mocked and smeared the Obama campaign's use of the slogan "Forward."

A move in the forward direction on jobs could be made, the president said, if Congress would take action on five items he has previously proposed. He joked that he kept the list short so as not to overhwhelm lawmakers. Here is the list, condensed:

' Reward American jobs, eliminate tax incentives to ship jobs overseas

' Cut red tape so responsible homeowners can refinance

' Invest in a new hire tax credit for small businesses (a 10 percent tax credit)

' Create jobs by investing in affordable clean cnergy (renewing the Production Tax Credit)

' Put returning veterans to work using skills developed in the military (with a Veterans Job Corps)

These are far from radical proposals. They don't restructure the economy, they don't set forth a blueprint for an industrial plan, they don't rework the tax system, they don't reform job training or unemployment insurance, they don't propose a WPA program, they don't call for nationalizing natural resources or stiffen controls over the banks. All those things are needed. But the "to do" list is just five mild, straightforward, common-sense approaches, one of which'the Production Tax Credit'was first enacted 20 years ago under a Republican administration.

Yet it's unlikely a single one of them will be passed this year. Because Republicans have been determined since November 2008 to do everything they can to make Obama fail even if it means screwing the majority Americans. Indeed, screwing the majority of Americans seems to be, for them, a happy byproduct of their agenda.

Some of Obama's most avid backers have argued since January 2009 that the president shouldn't put forth proposals, big or small, that have no chance of passage. Among other things, that makes him seem like a loser, they say. They have the wrong attitude. In fact, the president'any president, as well as his or her party'ought to be pushing the envelope, showing what could and would be done if s/he had the political clout to do it. Showing what would be done if there was enough support in Congress to make it happen is a good way to get more votes on election day to change Congress so that it can happen.