More of the same from Obama

Speaking before an appreciative audience of union workers in Milwaukee on Labor Day, President Barack Obama was in full combative campaign mode as he rolled out yet another Keynesian "stimulus" boondoggle, this time proposing to spend $50 billion -- two-thirds from crippling taxes on the private sector and a third borrowed from the Red Chinese -- to keep government contractors at work building and repairing roads, bridges and airport runways.

The president, who seems to believe the economy won't be saved until every American is on the federal payroll, vowed the jobs created would be "immediate" ... while his staffers, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it might provide some bulldozer jobs during 2011 -- none earlier.

Since the chance of this plan being enacted before the Nov. 2 elections is right up there with the chance that Madeleine Albright will be the next Miss America, what can the president have been thinking?

He revealed the strategy in the very same speech, in which he again branded his GOP opponents as "the party of no."

In fact, the administration felt no need to come up with a plan that would do much good if enacted. All they felt obliged to do was to present something. Then, when the Republicans predictably refuse to embrace this latest piece of economic suicide, the Democrats -- despite the fact they hold the White House and whopping majorities in both houses of Congress -- can complain, "It's not working only because the Republicans refuse to help!"

This is like watching a person of limited intelligence strap on a crash helmet and try again and again to take a running start and butt his way through a massive concrete wall. At first one tries, in good faith, to point out that won't work, demonstrating that there's an easy way around the wall -- slash taxes and government regulations, repeal massive, costly and confusing bureaucratic enactments that have businessmen and entrepreneurs paralyzed with uncertainty about what the tax and regulatory picture will look like in 2011, in 2012, in 2014.

As he tries again and again, one goes from concern to annoyance, possibly even to some guilty laughter. But unfortunately for Mr. Obama, the voters aren't laughing.