Obama Jobs speech- $60 billion for schools.

 America's two largest teachers unions, which have often clashed with the Obama administration on education policies, praised the president for including $60 billion in relief for cash-strapped school districts in his jobs packageannounced Thursday evening.

"We have for months been talking about jobs jobs jobs jobs jobs," Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, told The Huffington Post. "We know that there needs to be a lifeline because the economy has not grown the way it should, and that is what this plan is about. It's about putting people back to work, growing the economy, making sure how families feel stabilized."

The speech follows a year of widespread teacher layoffs and education cuts that sparked concerns about sacrificing educational quality for short-term financial stability. The drying up of stimulus funds worsened the blow.

"You see, people taking furlough days, you see people taking modest raises or pay cuts, you see digging deeper in their pockets, you see higher class sizes, you see effects for families teachers and kids," Weingarten said.

Though Obama did not report a price tag for the plan, media outlets cited White House officials as saying it would cost $450 billion. The plan would set aside $60 billion for the repair of 35,000 schools and teachers' jobs.

The President proposes more jobs - its about time

The President’s Bold Jobs Bill (Maybe)The President is sounding like a fighter these days. He even says he’ll be proposing a jobs bill in September – and if Republicans don’t go along he’ll fight for it through Election Day (or beyond).That’s a start. But read the small print and all he’s talked about so far is extending the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits (good, but small potatoes), ratifying the Columbia and South Korea free trade agreements (not necessarily a job-creating move), and creating an infrastructure bank.

An infrastructure bank might be helpful, depending on its size. Which is the real question hovering over the entire putative jobs bill – its size.

Some of the President’s political advisors have been pushing for small-bore initiatives that they believe might have a chance of getting through the Republican just-say-no House. They also figure policy miniatures won’t give aspiring GOP candidates more ammunition to tar Obama as a big-government liberal.

But the President is sounding as if he’s rejected their advice.

That’s good policy and good politics.