I wasn’t surprised that Paul Krugman didn’t slam my good buddy Barack’s jobs plan, a mix of tax cuts and increased government spending that makes more sense than anything congressional Republicans will ever put together.

But I thought it excessively generous of Krugman to describe the plan as “bold,” given the fact that it’s long-overdue and just happens to coincide with the start of Obama’s re-election campaign.

Krugman stated that Obama’s $447 billion plan is bigger and better than what he expected. But then he noted that it’s much too small to do what is needed to restore the country to anything approaching economic health, even if Obama doesn’t encounter the GOP opposition he and other sane people are expecting.

One could argue that Krugman was right to put a positive if ambivalent spin on Obama’s jobs plan, if only to remind people that Republicans and the Federal Reserve are cynically opposed to all job creation plans, and because Obama’s plan “may finally have set the stage for a political debate about job creation.”

But this argument isn’t likely to impress those who are out of work or underemployed, and/or in danger of losing their homes. The economic tailspin continues, and politicians might finally “debate” whether to try to stop it… This is progress?

Truthdig published something before the jobs speech that seems just as accurate afterwards:

Time and again, Obama has shown that he will only tinker around the edges, relying on the same tired supply-side initiatives that will not work: more incentives to build business confidence, subsidies to reduce labor costs and to promote exports, and maybe even tax cuts to please Republicans. He told a Labor Day crowd in Detroit that he wants to match the more than 1 million construction workers with an infrastructure-related rebuilding program to improve the nation’s roads and bridges. That is an improvement over his efforts to date, but it falls far short of the 20-plus million jobs we need.