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In what is being touted by some as Obama’s New Deal, the President laid out his latest fiscal policies in two speeches this week. On Labor Day in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the President began a long-awaited articulation of his latest fiscal policies, which he continued in Cleveland, Ohio on Wednesday. Cleveland is where Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner just a month ago gave a major speech denouncing the Democrats’ plans to let the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy expire. It was at Boehner that Obama took aim in his speeches, saying that the Republicans have no new ideas and have constantly lobbied to extend tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. But critics who supported Obama’s first $700 billion economic stimulus plan are disappointed that he does not even use the term stimulus anymore, and that in fact his plan is too weak to stimulate the economy. Obama’s plans include investing in infrastructure building, letting tax cuts for the wealthy expire, making permanent tax cuts for the middle class, and allowing businesses to deduct the capital investments costs now rather than later. As if deferring to the Republican mantra of a bloated deficit Obama maintained that his new proposals would pay for themselves. It is highly unlikely that even this weak plan would make it through Congress.

GUEST: Max Fraad Wolff is an instructor at the Graduate Program in International Affairs at the New School University.

Read Wolff’s writings in the Huffington Post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-fraad-wolff