The Main Street Bailout

Obama has gotten back to his populist roots in what appears to be a mixture of both cutting unemployment and canceling out some of the backlash to the Wall Street bailouts last fall and earlier this year.
At a speech at the Brookings Institute, Obama said he wanted to use money left over (some $200 billion) from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), to lend to small businesses rather than the corporations that have been getting most of the bailout money so far.  He is also pushing for tax cuts to small local businesses, which could prove to be tremendously popular, if he’s able to push the legislation through.  It’s hard to think of anyone who wouldn’t support a plan designed to help the lower and middle classes, and if he does it right, it’ll be an incredibly shrewd move on Obama’s part.
I just thought of someone!  Ron Paul.  Trust a libertarian.  Anyway, besides Ron Paul, this could be an excellent check mark in Obama’s column, canceling out some of the vitriol that’s been spewing about with the heavy spending a lot of his programs have included.  It would be hard to label this measure as “socialist,” as well.
Here’s the problem:  first off, the measure needs to work. It was just now introduced, it has yet to be broken down into a specific, manageable plan, and it has yet to be pushed through Congress, which is a process that can leave the best, most valuable bill in tattered ruins.  Once it gets through Congress, it has to be implemented.  Once its implemented, there needs to be signs of economic recovery and a drastic drop in the unemployment numbers.
Then, of course, there’s the problem of the deficit. Obama says he’s going to halve the deficit by the end of his first term (he reinforced this during the Main Street bailout speech), but it’s going to be somewhat difficult for him to do this if he’s got so many spending programs.  He just stepped up a war:  that’s expensive.  He just bailed out an entire economy:  that’s expensive.  Now he’s giving money and tax cuts to local businesses.  How is he going to cut the deficit?
Now I personally am no economic analyst, and I won’t pretend that I know how the deficit works.  What I do know is that every President promises to lower taxes and reduce the deficit, and it’s a dangerous thing to do because, if you can’t pull it off, it’s such an easy target for your political opponents.  What I do know about America’s debts is that most of the entities we owe money to more or less trust that we’ll repay our debts.  So we don’t need to worry about them being called in just yet.  So prioritize, Barack, do you want to jump start the economy, or do you want to cut the deficit?
And hey, if you can do both, well… um yeah, sweet.
SHOULD he push it through, SHOULD it work, this will be Obama’s economic masterpiece.  As long as other things don’t cloud his presidency, this could put him back in office in 2012.