The economy faces a persistent budget crisis. Pushback from Wall Street has gutted most of the banking reforms, unemployment is stuck around 8 percent, corporate profits have been soaring while there is no wage growth -- and the newest White House proposal is... a free trade zone with Europe. This idea of a Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Area was tossed in, reportedly at the last moment, to President Obama's State of the Union, and is being promoted in the government's latest report on trade. You don't know whether to laugh or cry. This is a classic case of changing the subject to a cause that will not address any of the economy's deeper ills and could well worsen them. It recalls the very old joke about the drunk looking for his keys under a lamp post. He mentions to a cop that he lost the keys somewhere else, but "this is where the light is."