Dems move to stage two of jobs fight: Hammer the GOP
Believing the public is on their side, President Obama and Democrats in Congress plan to spend the next few weeks pressuring Republicans into passing their ideas for creating jobs -- or letting them pay the political price.
The Senate on Tuesday night blocked Mr. Obama's $447 billion "American Jobs Act," after two Democrats and every Republican supported a filibuster against the bill.
Since the entire package couldn't pass, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday he plans to introduce individual elements of the plan -- which have won bipartisan support in the past -- over the next few weeks.
In the meantime, Democrats are trying to convince voters that Republicans are to blame for the continued economic gloom.
"Too many families are struggling just to get by," Mr. Obama said Wednesday at a forum on Latino Heritage in Washington. "Apparently none of this matters to Republicans in the Senate because last night, even though a majority of senators voted in favor of it, the Republican minority got together and blocked this bill."
"I've got news for them," he continued. "Not this time. Not with so many Americans out of work. We will not take no for an answer."
Meanwhile, Vice President Joe Biden was at a firehouse in Flint, Michigan on Wednesday to talk about how the Jobs Act would provide funding for state and local governments to keep first responders on the payroll. Since the GOP filibustered the bill -- thus preventing official debate on the Senate floor -- "we have to go over the heads of our colleagues and go to the public" to argue in favor of the bill, Biden said.
He told the firefighters behind him that the administration is "prepared to fight like crazy to do whatever we can to make sure you have the resources to protect us."
Biden said he's heard Republicans argue that any job creation from the bill would be temporary, but Biden said, "Temporary is important... Temporary is a lifetime for somebody without a job, somebody losing their house."
Mr. Obama's political arm is also capitalizing on the Republican obstruction. Jim Messina, the president's 2012 campaign manager, sent an email to supporters ahead of the vote in anticipation of the filibuster, charging that Republicans want to "suffocate the economy for the sake of what they think will be a political victory."
" Senate Republicans want to block it," Messina wrote of the jobs bill. "Not because they have a plan that creates jobs right now -- not one Republican, in Congress or in the presidential race, does. They only have a political plan."
Sen. Charles Schumer, who is in charge of Democratic messaging as head of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, wrote in a memo today that Democrats should try portray Republicans as beholden to the Tea Party, to the detriment of the country.
"With the economy at a crossroads, the GOP's current political strategy--block anything that could improve the economy, lest it boost the President's standing--has the potential to backfire," Schumer wrote. "If Republicans continue opposing job-creating measures, they risk being blamed for whatever economic reality the country confronts in 2012. But Democrats must make this case. In the coming weeks, we will."
He added that the Tea Party's growing unpopularity "has the potential to be the GOP's Achilles' Heel."
While polls show voters are unimpressed with the president's attempts to revive the economy, they're even less impressed by the work of Congress. When asked who's to blame for the state of the economy, 12 percent of Americans polled by CBS earlier this month said Mr. Obama, while 15 percent said Congress.
Republicans insist that even though they don't like the president's plan as a whole, they're ready to work with Democrats.
"Our job on behalf of the American people is to find common ground and to do our best for them and we will continue to do that," House Speaker John Boehner said on Wednesday. They've pointed to progress on three long-pending free trade agreements, which are finally moving through Congress, as evidence that Democrats and Republicans can work together.
Rather than making investments in areas like infrastructure and state aid right now, Republicans say Congress should focus on deficit reduction and deregulation to promote job growth.
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The history of their behavior proves they cannot be trusted to work to benefit ordinary Americans. It also proves they place political power over the well being of Americans and the country. Their behavior proves they have more allegiance to Grover Norquist and their party over our constitution and country.
Any party that does that cannot be rewarded for doing so.Therefore, they are undeserving of votes and support from ordinary/struggling Americans.
Hey it worked when the liberals pushed that f*cked up health bill. Why shouldn't it work now?
President Obama toured the Solyndra manufacturing facility in California in 2010. The bankrupt firm, which received a $535 million federal loan guarantee under the Obama economic stimulus program, is now being investigated by Congress, the FBI and the Treasury Department's Inspector-General.
Oklahoma billionaire George Kaiser has been in the headlines in recent months thanks to his role as a major investor in Solyndra LLC, the now-bankrupt California solar panel maker hailed by President Obama as a model for America's "clean energy future."
Congress is investigating why the Obama administration gave Solyndra a $535 million loan guarantee despite multiple warnings from career bureaucrats and private sector investment experts that the company was a poor risk, lacked a realistic business model and was likely to go bankrupt as a result.
Other investigations are being conducted by the FBI and the Treasury Department's Inspector-General, and the issue is likely to remain on the public mind throughout the 2012 presidential campaign as Republicans claim Solyndra's failure demonstrates that government "cannot pick winners and losers in the marketplace."
Because Kaiser was a campaign "bundler" - an individual who collects contributions to a candidate from others that are then simultaneously given to the candidate - who raised about $250,000 for Obama during the 2008 campaign, congressional Republicans and media analysts have speculated that the Solyndra loan guarantee was nothing more than using tax dollars to reward a political supporter.
But the Solyndra scandal is far from Kaiser's first brush with political controversy. As the Sunlight Foundation's Bill Allison reports today, Kaiser has become extraordinarily wealthy by taking advantage of the federal tax code in ways that some tax experts - including the IRS - believe to be illegal.
As Allison describes it in his Sunlight post today, "in one six year period, during which he increased his net worth enough to land him on the Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, Kaiser reported taxable income to the Internal Revenue Service just once, totaling $11,699--equivalent to a full-time hourly wage of $5.62."
that somehow this is a new tactic, or, strategy?!
When did they STOP blaming the side for everything wrong?
I must have missed it!
That's what you get when you don't read the news for a day, huh?
I would like to see a comparison of this "jobs plan" and the initial stimulus. In other words, an analysis of how much funds are to be allocated to various things such as road construction, etc.
This type of analysis would be extremely beneficial to the American People.
Obama has brought about what I am sure he considers a very good scenario. If the "jobs plan" (stimulus II) passes, he gets to give more money to big labor. If it does not, he can blame it on the republicans for blocking the bill.
The only problem is that there is insufficient support for another round of taking money from taxpayers for his own gains so this road is going to backfire on Obama.
If this were to pass, somehow it has to be paid for. That is the bottom line. Regardless of what else is in the debate and it can't be paid for by political capital.
Any tax increase comes to bear on everyone in the nation. Tax increases on corporations increase prices of consumer goods. Tax increases on "the rich" reduce what they can pay to their employees.
The government is simply inefficient with how it uses money. The government needs to stay out of anything and everything that can be done privately.
And the vast majority of the jobs bill didn't go to "big labor" it was going to keep necessary service workers employed and help the unemployed.
Call it Jobs Bill Stage 2?
Yes that or any other name will get it it through the Senate and on to his desk for him to sign.
Give it up Barry.
Wreak it into pieces and try to pass them separately to get as much through as possible, which is exactly what we need.
Completely shows that both sides are bought and paid for, but that is another story altogether.
The GOP plan to balance the budget Includes radical sending cuts tha will plunge the country into depression and the destruction of Medicare and Medicaid. Of course that is a radical solution.
And the Democrats have never had full control because Republicans are on auto filibuster I. The Senate and the Democarts never had 60 votes.