GOP: Abandon Health Care, Focus on Jobs

Jobs dominated a high-powered roundtable on "Face the Nation" Sunday, as had the topic filled President Obama's State of the Union address Wednesday.

Senator John Thune, R-S.D., said that the best domestic policy would be to stop debate on health care and instead focus on helping small businesses.

"[T]he best thing that we could do with respect to jobs is put that massive health care expansion on the shelf, work on measures that actually do reduce health care costs for small businesses, make it clear to small businesses that we're not going to raise their taxes in the middle of a recession," Thune told moderator and Chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer.

He also argued that TARP funds should no longer be used primarily for economic stimulus, and rather redirected to tax relief for such businesses.

"I think there would be Republican support if you were to redirect some of the stimulus bill, much of which hasn't been spent, towards small business tax relief," Thune said.

He said it would be difficult for Democrats to win Republican support for job stimulus proposals if they sought TARP funds to pay for it. "That is not what TARP was intended to do," Thune said, "And that is what we understand to be their proposal."

Governor Ed Rendell, D-Pa., responded, "See, John, I think that's the weakness of your position. Everyone is for a jobs bill but nobody wants to pay for it. Right now we need a jobs bill. And you guys in Washington should pass it in the next four weeks."

Thune called many of the Obama administration's proposals "jobs killers."

"They have taken an agenda to the left," Thune said, "and I think what you saw in Massachusetts and Virginia and New Jersey was the American people saying, we don't like this hard shift to the left."

Governor Jennifer Granholm, D-Mich., whose state has been hit hard by job losses, argued that "health care is a jobs issue, too. But for us, I can tell you, if you sit around the coffee tables of Michigan, jobs are the alpha and the omega. It is the beginning and the end. And so the real focus . . . direct emphasis on job creation is critical."

She added that Americans will all agree that "the deficit's important. But jobs are urgent."

Barbour jumped on the bandwagon: "[I]t's interesting that the American people have been saying from the day Barack Obama got sworn in, 'Jobs are the biggest issue in the country, get our economy back going, it's the biggest issue for the country.' But for the last eight months, all I've heard about is the Democratic Party trying to ram health care down the country's throat."

Granholm disagreed: "The reason why I'm shaking my head is, obviously the first thing the Obama administration did was to put a huge stimulus package which was focused on jobs on the table. A third of that was tax cuts."

She credited Mr. Obama's stimulus package with creating 42,000 new jobs in Michigan.

"I think you've got to give this thing a chance to work," she added.