Republican Back Lash Growing To Obama's American Jobs Act

Sep 13: As President Obama traveled to Columbus, OH to push for his $447 billion American Jobs Act [See WIMS 9/9/11] and urged Congress to pass the Act with "No Games. No Politics. No Delays."; Republican opposition to the proposal seems to be building.

    At a press conference with Republican leaders, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) warned against using "permanent tax increases…to pay for temporary spending," as President Obama has proposed. Speaker Boehner said, "The House is going to continue to work to create a better environment for economic development and job growth in our country. We're going to consider legislation this week that would stop the government from telling companies where and where they cannot locate. And we'll also have the Congressional Budget Office looking at the President's proposal as we prepare for hearings in the House on his proposal. 

 

    "As a former small businessman myself, I can tell you that we've got a little different approach to creating jobs than our friends across the aisle. When you look at what we saw in the President's pay-fors yesterday, we see permanent tax increases put into effect in order to pay for temporary spending. I just don't think that's going to help our economy the way it could. And the fact is, is that having talked to thousands of people over the August recess, and thousands of employers over the same recess, what the American employers want is they want some certainty about what's happening in Washington, certainty about what the tax rates [are] going to be, certainty about what their health care costs and commitments are going to be and certainty about the regulatory onslaught that they're under. These are the kind of things that I think need to be addressed if we're going to create the kind of environment where employers will feel comfortable in adding more employees to their company."

 

    On the Senate side, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said, ""Last week, President Obama came up to Capitol Hill to unveil a stimulus bill he's calling a jobs plan; and yesterday, the White House explained how they'd like to pay for it. The first thing to say about this plan is that it's now obvious why the President left out the specifics last week. Not only does it reveal the political nature of this bill, it also reinforces the growing perception that this administration isn't all that interested in economic policies that will actually work. But none of this is really news. Over the past few days, press reports have made it perfectly clear that this legislation is more of a reelection plan than a jobs plan. It's an open secret which Democrats all over Washington have been acknowledging to reporters since the moment the President unveiled it. . .

 

    "But the specifics we got yesterday only reinforce the impression that this was largely a political exercise. For one, they undermine the President's claim that it's a bipartisan proposal — because much of what he's proposing has already been rejected on a bipartisan basis. The half-trillion dollar tax hike the White House proposed yesterday will not only face a tough road in Congress among Republicans, but from Democrats too. . . The President can call this bill whatever he wants. But in reality, all he's really doing is just proposing a hodge-podge of retread ideas aimed at convincing people that a temporary fix is really permanent and that it will create permanent jobs. And then daring Republicans to vote against it. . ."

 

    Access the release from Speaker Boehner (click here). Access the statement from Senator McConnell (click here). Access information from the White House on the American Jobs Act including state by state impacts (click here). [#All]

 

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