(Credit: New York Times.)

Remember the first pivot to jobs? After wasting much of 2011 trying to strike a Grand Bargain with the Republicans on deficit reduction, which earned him the worst approval ratings of his Presidency, Obama finally woke up in the fall of that year and pivoted toward the jobs issue. He proposed the American Jobs Act, a major package of infrastructure investment, extended unemployment benefits, tax cuts and job protection for teachers, police and firefighters, and pilloried the GOP for opposing the plan and not caring about the jobs and incomes of ordinary Americans.

You could date the revival of Obama’s political fortunes from that pivot. His approval ratings started improving and he went on to score a solid victory in the 2012 election.

But in 2013, Obama has regressed to his early 2011 form. The president has wasted a good deal of time and political capital this year trying to strike yet another Grand Bargain with the GOP and, once again, he has little to show for it.  And, with new budget forecasts showing the deficit already falling sharply and Republicans showing little interest in budget compromise, the prospects for such a Bargain are fading by the day.

Indeed, all that Republicans seem really interested in is attacking him on the scandal of the day. So far, Obama has been able to weather these attacks, partly by counter-mobilization of his own base.  But how long can he expect this to last and, crucially, how can he develop a head of steam heading into the 2014 election, where he hopes his party can hold the Senate and take back the House?

There’s really only one way; replicate his jobs pivot from 2011. That means a full-bore effort to change how Washington is dealing with (really, not dealing with) today’s economic problems. Jim Tankersley, in a great Washington Post article on Tuesday, details the sorry state of the economic conversation in our nation’s capitol:

Washington has all but abandoned efforts to help the economy recover faster…There are no serious negotiations underway between the White House and congressional leaders on legislation to spur growth, and no bipartisan “gangs” of senators are huddling to craft a compromise job-creation package.

Yet economic growth remains slow by historical standards, and 11.5 million Americans are still looking for work. More than 4 million people have been unemployed for longer than six months. A Washington Post-ABC News poll found in April that two-thirds of Americans said jobs were difficult to find in their communities.

Only the President is capable of breaking through this not-so-benign neglect and refocusing the Washington conversation on jobs.  It won’t be easy; occasional attempts to change the conversation, as in his recent his recent Middle Class Jobs and Opportunity Tour, have been ignored by the press and the GOP alike.  But if he focuses relentlessly, rather than occasionally, on the issue and does succeed in breaking through, the rewards could be great, just as he found in his first pivot to jobs back in 2011.

America’s budget deficit is shrinking at a faster pace than at any time since World War II, and it is now projected to fall below 5 percent of GDP this year, 3 percent of GDP in 2014, and 2 percent of GDP in 2015, according to a Potomac Research report released Wednesday. That may please Washington politicians who have ignored jobs and unemployment over the last three years, but it isn’t good for the economic recovery.

The immediate deficit reduction efforts Washington has pursued repeatedly since Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in 2011 have in fact dampened the economic recovery, economists told the New York Times, and without the spending cuts and tax increases enacted in the last three years, unemployment would be a full-point lower and economic growth two points higher:

The nation’s unemployment rate would probably be nearly a point lower, roughly 6.5 percent, and economic growth almost two points higher this year if Washington had not cut spending and raised taxes as it has since 2011, according to private-sector and government economists.

After two years in which President Obama and Republicans in Congress have fought to a draw over their clashing approaches to job creation and budget deficits, the consensus about the result is clear: Immediate deficit reduction is a drag on full economic recovery.

Hardly a day goes by when either government analysts or the macroeconomists and financial forecasters who advise investors and businesses do not report on the latest signs of economic growth — in housing, consumer spending, business investment. And then they add that things would be better but for the fiscal policy out of Washington. Tax increases and especially spending cuts, these critics say, take money from an economy that still needs some stimulus now, and is getting it only through the expansionary monetary policy of the Federal Reserve.

The spending cuts have been especially damaging, as they have made up the vast majority of deficit reduction efforts since the end of the Great Recession. Modest tax increases targeting the wealthy went into effect at the beginning of 2013, but it is the expiration of the payroll tax holiday, which will raise taxes on the median American family by roughly $1,000 this year, that will hurt the recovery, the economists and analysts said. Nonpartisan reports have said the income tax increases on the wealthy would do little to affect growth.

That deficit reduction is holding back the recovery should not come as any shock. The stimulus bill President Obama signed into law in 2009 put the U.S. on a path to recovery that far outpaced the austerity-laden European economies, but as focus has turned to deficit reduction, growth has turned tepid. While rises in government spending have traditionally added to growth and pulled the U.S. out of economic downturns, it has plateaued since 2010, hampering recovery efforts this time. Reduced spending, in fact, “has detracted from growth in five of past seven quarters,” one investment bank wrote in a midyear report this week.

Republicans have blocked efforts, such as Obama’s American Jobs Act, that would have further stimulated the economy. That legislation would have led to the creation of a million jobs and added to growth, according to independent analysts, and would have aided states and local governments and federal agencies that have laid off more than 500,000 public employees, many of them teachers and public safety workers, since the end of the recession. With government borrowing costs at historic lows and unemployment still high, it’s that sort of shot in the arm the economy needs. But after Congress let sequestration, the damaging budget cuts that could wipe another 700,000 jobs out of the economy, take effect in March, it is now focused on finding even more deficit reduction in the immediate future.

This past Friday, the Atlantic’s Matthew O’Brien dug up a study by Northeastern University which found that, after submitting an application for a job, a person’s chances of being called back for an interview completely collapse if they’ve been out of work for more than six months.

Researcher Rand Ghayad sent out 3,600 fake resumes to 600 job openings. He held constant the gender, educational background, and the racial ambiguity of the names of the fake applicants. But he mixed up how long the fake applicants had been out of work, how often they’d switched jobs, and whether they had any industry experience. In a result O’Brien understandably characterized as “terrifying,” the length of unemployment completely overwhelmed the other two variables as an influencing factor on who got a call back:

As long as you’ve been out of work for less than six months, you can get called back even if you don’t have experience. But after you’ve been out of work for six months, it doesn’t matter what experience you have. Quite literally. There’s only a 2.12 percentage point difference in callback rates for the long-term unemployed with or without industry experience. That’s compared to a 7.13 and 8.95 percentage point difference for the short-and-medium-term unemployed.

There was no similar drop-off for how often a worker had switched jobs in the past. Fake applicants who’d gone through five to six jobs but had experience in the relevant industry were still over 7 percent more likely to get a call back than those without experience. And the latter’s chances were roughly equal to someone who’d only held one or two jobs but lacked relevant experience.

O’Brien recommends that the government start targeting the long-term unemployed for hiring. (The long-term unemployment problem following the Great Depression, for example, arguably wasn’t solved until the mass government-hiring program otherwise known as World War II.) That’s further than any lawmakers have yet proposed going, but in 2011 President Obama and the Democrats tried to something about this exact problem. Their $447 billion American Jobs Act included a tax credit worth up to $4,000 a piece for any firm that hired someone who’d been out of work longer than six months.

The legislation was, of course, filibustered to death by Senate Republicans.

At that point, 6.2 million people were in the ranks of the long-term unemployed, and the number was still over 5 million as September 2012. No small part of that decrease is due to people giving up on finding work entirely, and thus no longer showing up as part of the labor force. The longer these Americans have to go without the chance to work, the more damage is done to their own individual ability to flourish, and thus to the long-term health of the economy as a whole.

Several conservatives, desperate to develop a response to the shooting in Connecticut that doesn’t involve restricting access to deadly weapons, have proposed improving mental health care or hiring more police officers. These ideas aren’t necessarily bad ones, though it’s worth noting the mentally ill aren’t actually more prone to violence. Nor are these ideas mutually exclusive with common-sense gun control.

The real problem with them is that they have little chance of becoming law, because national and state level Republicans have consistently attempted to slash government spending on mental health care and public employees like police.

The biggest expansion of mental health care in recent years came in the Affordable Care Act, which, of course, Republicans tried to fully repeal. Many House Republicans also voted against a Bush-era move towards requiring insurers to treat mental illness like physical illnesses.

State Republicans have frustrated another major attempt to increase access to mental health services: the Obamacare Medicaid expansion. Medicaid is the single largest payer of mental health care in the country, as treatment remains prohibitively expensive for many poor and middle-class Americans. But only one Republican Governor has agreed to accept federal funding for expanding Medicaid services.

The Congressional GOP’s plan to block grant Medicaid would only exacerbate this problem. Moreover, budget cutting during the Great Recession has slashed state funding for mental health care, a steep decline that Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell (R) proposed to accelerate after the shooting in Connecticut.

The GOP record on funding police departments in recent years is equally dismal. Red states have been responsible for the bulk of cuts to public sector jobs during the Recession, which result in significant cuts to police forces (and teachers, incidentally).

The American Jobs Act would provide significant support for state hiring of more police, but House and Senate Republicans have obstructed the bill for over a year. And the House Republican budget could very well cut federal grants that allow states to hire new police officers.

America’s fledgling economic recovery is being threatened by “obsessive concern with cutting deficits that has infected both parties,” a group of 350 economists wrote in a letter to lawmakers this week. Instead of focusing on deficit-reducing austerity measures that will do nothing to fix the “mass unemployment, rising poverty, and declining wages” that are holding back the recovery, Congress should focus on public investments that will boost job and economic growth, the letter states:

Yet too many in Washington are fixated on cutting public spending to balance the budget, not on how to put people back to work and get our economy going. There is no theory of economics that explains how we can deflate our way to recovery. Businesses are not basing investment decisions on how much Congress cuts the debt in 2023. As Great Britain, Ireland, Spain and Greece have shown, inflicting austerity on a weak economy leads to deeper recession, rising unemployment and increasing misery. [...]

The budget hawks have the sequence backwards. Public outlay for jobs and recovery come first, growth is restored, and revenues follow. Budget cuts in a deep slump lead only to a deeper slump.

Austerity measures have plagued Europe in recent years, and the so-called “fiscal cliff” — the spending cuts of tax increases that could take place at the end of the year — would implement an even larger austerity package than European countries have implemented. The economists called for a different approach, telling lawmakers to invest in the nation’s faltering infrastructure, to reverse the decline in public sector jobs, and to increase the affordability of higher education.

President Obama proposed a package that would have accomplished many of those goals in 2011. The American Jobs Act would have invested in infrastructure and provided aid to states to prevent layoffs of teachers, firefighters, and police officers, and it would have both boosted economic growth and created roughly one million jobs, according to economic estimates. Republicans blocked the bill from passage in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

To pay for such investments, the economists suggested a solution that has been anathema to Washington lawmakers: borrowing money at historically-low interest rates available to the government right now. Congress, the economists said, should also “stimulate recovery without increasing deficits by increasing taxes on the wealthy and pumping the proceeds directly into the economy.”

LOUISVILLE — There is no better time than now to invest in America’s crumbling infrastructure, Kentucky Rep. John Yarmuth (D) told ThinkProgress in an interview this week. With the nation facing high unemployment and in need of a massive upgrade to its roads, bridges, and other infrastructure projects, the government should take advantage of historically low borrowing costs to put people back to work, Yarmuth said:

YARMUTH: These are surefire job creators, it’s work that has to be done. This is not elective surgery, this is life-saving surgery, as far as the infrastructure is concerned. And we’ve never been able to borrow money cheaper. As a matter of fact, people are giving us money for 10 years now. It is the absolute right time to do it, and I think the payback over time would be substantial.

Watch it:

Yarmuth’s home district experienced a major infrastructure crisis in 2011, when a bridge between Indiana and Kentucky was closed because of structural deficiencies. That isn’t a rare problem: across the country, bridges and roads are failing in increasing numbers.

Republicans, however, have consistently opposed infrastructure investments that would fix those problems, even as roads and bridges in their own districts and states crumble.

As Yarmuth notes, the United States has never been able to borrow money cheaper. Real interest rates on government bonds are now lower than the rate of inflation, meaning the government would have to pay back less than it borrowed to fix the problems. And as he also noted, the problems are not optional: roads, bridges, sewer systems, and other infrastructure needs must be addressed at some point.

Republicans, meanwhile, repeatedly blocked the American Jobs Act when it was proposed last year, complete with its investments in infrastructure. They pushed for reductions in the amount of infrastructure spending contained in the 2009 stimulus law, and they want to lower the cost of highway bills that would pay for new and existing improvement projects. In the name of fiscal responsibility, Republicans have prohibited necessary spending on the nation’s infrastructure, even though the projects will only grow more expensive in the future.

Last night, the Romney campaign launched an intentionally dishonest ad falsely portraying a 2008 McCain campaign quote as Obama’s own. Romney’s campaign then blasted out an email to supporters from Communications Director Gail Gitcho with the subject line “Game On.” The email only expanded on their deliberately dishonest claims:

The White House doesn’t want to talk about the economy and continues to attempt to distract voters from President Obama’s abysmal economic record.

In defending their misleading ad, the Romney campaign bizarrely claims they were forced to resort to intentional dishonesty because the president refuses to talk about the economy.

President Obama, however, has been talking about almost nothing but the economy and his jobs plan, which independent economists agree will put millions of Americans back to work. Even a cursory review of the president’s recent remarks at official events posted on the White House website underscores the president’s eagerness to discuss the economy and ways to get it moving:

Tomorrow, I’m heading to New Hampshire to talk about another proposal in the American Jobs Act, and that’s a tax cut for nearly every worker and small business owner in America. Democrats and Republicans have traditionally supported these kinds of tax cuts.  Independent economists from across the political spectrum have said this proposal is one of the best ways to boost our economy and spur hiring. It’s going to be easier for us to hire our vets if the overall economy is going strong.  So there’s no reason not to vote for these tax cuts. -November 21, 2011

Now, the single greatest challenge for the United States right now, and my highest priority as President, is creating jobs and putting Americans back to work. – November 14, 2011

Our government needs their patriotism and sense of duty.  And that’s why I’ve ordered the hiring of more veterans by the federal government.  (Applause.)  Our economy needs their tremendous talents and specialized skills.  So I challenged our business leaders to hire 100,000 post-9/11 veterans and their spouses over the next few years and yesterday, many of these leaders joined Michelle to announce that they will meet that challenge. (Applause.) -November 11, 2011

So Congress still needs to act.  But if Congress continues to stand only for dysfunction and delay, then I’m going to move ahead without them.  (Applause.)  I told my administration, I want you to keep on looking for actions that we can take without Congress –- steps that can save consumers money, make government more efficient and responsive, help heal the economy, improve our education system, improve our health care system. We want to work with Congress, but we’re not going to wait. -November 8, 2011

And yet, while our economy has added more than 350,000 private sector jobs just over the past three months, more than 850,000 veterans remain unemployed.  Too many can’t find a job worthy of their tremendous talents.  Toomilitary spouses have a hard time finding work after moving from base to base to base.  And even though the overall unemployment rate ticked down last month, unemployment among veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan continued to rise.  That’s not right.  It doesn’t make sense — not for our veterans, not for our families, not for America — and we’re determined to change that. -November 7, 2011

So my hope is, is that the folks back home, including those in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives, when they look at today’s job numbers…think twice before they vote “no” again on the only proposal out there right now that independent economists say would actually make a dent in unemployment right now.  There’s no excuse for inaction. -November 4, 2011

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ThinkProgress filed this report from the Western Republican Leadership Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Former Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle (R) declared late last week that she could “never” support a tax on millionaires if elected to the Senate next year. In an interview with ThinkProgress at the Western Republican Leadership Conference, Lingle, who is currently vying to replace Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI), expressed her opposition to a tax on millionaires. President Obama has proposed using the tax to fund the American Jobs Act, which would put 1.9 million Americans back to work.

Lingle objected to the phrase “millionaire’s tax,” preferring instead to call it a tax on small business. “I could never support something like that,” said the former two-term governor:

KEYES: It sounds like you’re against the millionaire’s tax that President Obama has proposed?

LINGLE: I guess I’d have to explain a little bit about my state to you, Scott. In my state, the majority of businesses are small businesses. The majority of them report their income as personal income. So while people may want to call it a “millionaire’s tax,” in fact, it’s a tax on small business, because almost every business in Hawaii will report their income as personal income. They have an LLC, they have a sole proprietorship, and that means if their business only earns $250,000, now they have to pay higher taxes at a time they’re struggling to keep people employed. So for me, they put that label on it, others put that label. I call it a small business tax, and therefore I could never support something like that.

Listen to it:

Conflating millionaires and small businesses in order to argue against increasing taxes on the wealthy is a common tactic on the right. However, as ThinkProgress economics editor Pat Garofalo explained in U.S. News & World Report, “fewer than 2 percent of small businesses make enough to file in the top two income tax brackets.”

A millionaires tax isn’t just supported in Hawaii, one of the most liberal states; it’s supported across the country. Polls regularly show overwhelming support for raising taxes on the wealthy — 73 percent of Americans, including two-thirds of Republicans, supported the idea in a September poll. Under the American Jobs Act, that money would be used to put 5,000 construction workers and teachers back to work in Hawaii.

Last night, the Senate voted on one piece of President Obama’s jobs bill — $35 billion in funding for states to protect the jobs of teachers and first responders who might be laid off due to budget constraints. The measure failed to overcome a filibuster by a 50-50 vote. Sens. Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who voted against Obama’s entire jobs bill when it was put up for a vote earlier this month, voted against this more targeted measure. Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) also broke ranks to join Nelson and Lieberman in voting against the bill last night.

It’s rather difficult to understand Pryor’s position. On his Senate website, the Arkansas senator touts his own “Six point solution to job creation” — a nine-page PDF document which touts the need for education funding. In a section titled “Preparing tomorrow’s job-generators to compete (and win),” Pryor’s jobs plan claims that it ensures “that Arkansans have the right education and training…because a competitive workforce is vital to growing the economy.” That appears to be empty rhetoric from Pryor, given that he just voted against a bill that would have provided over $275 million to support over 4,000 jobs for Arkansas’ educators.

The bill last night also would have provided funding for “the creation of additional jobs for, law enforcement officers and other first responders.” Again, Pryor has a very recent history of promoting the need for funding first responders because, as he said, “firefighters put their lives on the line to protect their communities” and therefore need federal funds to “do their jobs efficiently and effectively.”

So why did Pryor vote to defeat funding for education and first responders that he purportedly supports? It might have something to do with the fact that bill imposes a surtax on millionaires. In the past, Pryor has voted against such efforts. And yet, just last month, his office expressed this concern: “It is maddening that hundreds of millionaires pay virtually no federal income taxes, and this should change.”

What is truly maddening is trying to understand why Pryor can’t vote in a way that is consistent with his rhetoric.