Obama's jobs plan faces hurdles in Congress, reporters say

As President Obama took center stage in a joint session of Congress Thursday night, he called on Congress to act immediately on a $447 billion economic plan to increase jobs and boost the economy. Now that the foundation of plan has been laid out, our reporters took on the question "Now what?" at our reporters' roundtable discussion.

"Pass this jobs bill" is a phrase President Obama chanted more than a dozen times, but National Journal's Major Garrett says that is not going to happen.

"The bill will not be passed the way the president put it in his speech or sent it up in legislation language next week," Garrett said. "Some components might be but that will be on Republican terms much more than on President Obama's terms."

In order to get components from the bill to pass, President Obama urged voters to notify their congressional representative to pass this bill. New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny thinks this is a way to rally not only Democratic voters but, strategically, independent voters as well.

"The only voters who really matter, I mean it's hard to say or it's bad to say, but the 10 percent in the middle," Zeleny said. "Perhaps not even 10 percent, so they are going after the people who are listening for a sense of reasonableness so they want the Democrats to be as a fighter but those voters in the middle seen as a reasonable person."

Hotline's Reid Wilson agrees that independent voters are key individuals in hopes to get this bill passed.

"He gotta get not only his own side fired up but also the Independent voters to view him as the only adult in the room," Wilson said.

In Obama's jobs plan, he promised a continuation and expansion of the payroll tax cut that would give $1,500 a year to working people. Even though the bill hasn't been sent to Congress yet, President Obama continues to spread his message of his jobs plan to different parts of the country.