Open your eyes: this is the revolution. Yesterday, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives spent an entire legislative session debating a hollow abortion bill. The idea behind it was to reiterate legislation that already exists: denying federal funding of abortions. It passed, but will go nowhere, do nothing and help no one. The measures it proposed are already fully codified in law. Waste of time, energy and paperwork? Absolutely.

Earlier this week, Democrats in the Senate voted 51-49 to advance President Obama’s American Jobs Act, but lacking any Republican support, it failed to reach the crucial, 60 vote margin necessary to move forward. Waste of time? Absolutely. Your time.

Another week comes to an end, over a month after the president first proposed the jobs bill, and the GOP sits fiddling their thumbs. These duly elected officials accept their healthy government salaries, while millions of Americans remain unemployed, underemployed and on the verge of losing their homes. And as the call for action increases from the occupiers of Wall Street, to the demonstrators at the Capitol, the foundations of political power in Washington hardly even notices.

GOP operatives’ claim that the Jobs Act amounts to nothing more than another stimulus package is a matter of semantics. What is lost in their lack of analysis is the fact that the legislation, as proposed by the president, would generate 2 percent economic growth and create 2 million jobs over the next year; all this while reducing the national deficits by $6 billion. That is stimulus worth believing in.

But instead of working with the president and across the aisle with Democrats to pass the bill, or make it even better with their own innovative ideas, Republicans choose inaction: continuing the twisted game of fates intent to further cripple Obama politically.

In the face of increasingly divisive, partisan gamesmanship, President Obama asked advisers on his jobs council to consider options available to the administration which would allow him to implement aspects of the jobs proposal, without requiring Congressional action.

This move, though controversial, shows the president finally understands he has to make bolder, decisive choices. Recent NBC News polls show that 63 percent of Americans approve of President Obama’s plan, and he has a responsibility to his constituents to act, even if that means bypassing Republicans in the House and Senate.

At least one out-spoken member of the Congressional Black Caucus agrees. Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. of Illinois, during a Wednesday interview with The Daily Caller, said President Obama should “declare a national emergency” and use “extra-constitutional” measures to create jobs. “When we recognize that the Congress is in rebellion, I think the president of the United States will follow the correct course. He’s doing that now.”
Jackson, a longstanding supporter of the president, suggested a broader progressive government approach which, though impractical in the present political climate, provides a necessary sounding board between Obama’s centrist efforts and Republican obstruction and Tea Party extremism.

Jackson proposes a $804 billion government sponsored works program: “Direct hiring of 15 million unemployed Americans at $40,000 a head, some more than $40,000, some less than $40,000 — that’s a $600 billion stimulus. It could be a five-year program. For another $104 billion, we bailout all of the states. For another $100 billion, we bailout all of the cities.” Rep. Jackson concluded “we need a plan that meets the size and scope of the problem.”

Wherever one stands on the merits and feasibility of Jackson’s proposal, no one can deny it is guided by genuinely liberal, progressive ideology which believes in the role of government. This stands in direct disagreement with the GOP and Tea Party libertarian rhetoric that government is too big and does nothing useful. But more importantly, Jackson’s proposal raises an imperative and crucial question about what constitutes the parameters of real stimulative government intervention.

In the GOP war of words waged against the president, what have often gone unnoticed are the lies and half-truths being written, told and rehearsed. One major fallacy has been that Obama’s first stimulus program failed in its promise to save and create ‘shovel-ready jobs’. The thousands of firemen, police officers, teachers and state construction workers across the country tell a different story. Why? They’re still working.

In August 2011, the CBO reported that the 2009 Recovery Act was currently supporting 2.9 million American jobs. Republicans continue to demagogue stimulus, without which the economic landscape and unemployment levels would be dire. Their farcical proposition – that Stimulus spending and government intervention doesn’t work -has been consistently communicated by conservative pundits and the Republican Congress, but doesn’t stand up against a litmus test of facts, figures and statistics.

In times of economic crisis, government has a crucially important role to play. People matter. Results count. And we don’t need to go too far back in our history to find examples.

Michael Hiltzik, the Pultizer Prize winning author and Los Angeles Times reporter, explores this issue in his latest book, The New Deal: A Modern History. Hiltzik writes, “The WPA [Works Progress Administration] produced…1,000 miles of new and rebuilt airport runways, 651,000 miles of highway, 124,000 bridges, 8,000 parks, and 18,000 playgrounds and athletic fields; some 84,000 miles of drainage pipes, 69,000 highway light standards, and 125,000 public buildings built, rebuilt, or expanded. Among the latter were 41,300 schools. The transformative power of this effort is inestimable.”

Hiltzik further explains the Public Works Administration built monumental projects from sea to sea. In Washington State alone the Grand Coulee Dam put 8,000 men to work and used materials and equipment from 46 states.

In Southern California, 536 school buildings were rebuilt. In New York City, the Tri-borough Bridge project, tying together three of the city’s five boroughs, was rescued from insolvency by a PWA grant and loan. The GOP have become so skillful at attacking President Obama’s leadership and policy efforts, that in so doing they’ve undermined what is possible if they actually did the work they were elected to do. Possibility has been taken hostage.

Perhaps they all need a history lesson. But with the race for the White House in full-force, it seems only more distractions and posturing are on the menu. Even the leading Republican presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney and Herman Cain have nothing to say. Cain, during a press conference Wednesday, was asked a critical question about how his 9-9-9 tax plan would work. His answer: “I have no idea.”

Have Sarah Palin and Donald Trump lowered the bar for presidential aspiration so low, that this is an appropriate response from someone seeking to become the leader of the free world? And given the nation’s extraordinary challenges, should we not seek equally extraordinary leaders?

As President Obama weighs his options to implement the American Jobs Act, I hope he considers that despite the opposition, his responsibility remains unchanged. As I have said before, those who fight power often do so at great risk to themselves. Obama’s unique legacy is far greater than finding a resolution to the resistance: it requires re-engineering.

By facing GOP obstinacy with equal force, he can re-engineer the broken political machine and make it work for all of us.

Edward Wyckoff Williams is an author, columnist, political and economic analyst, and a former investment banker. Follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.