Saturday, October 01, 2011

Jobs, Spending, Government

If you're a regular viewer of TV news, you've probably seen tape of the President saying he wants action on his jobs bill now. There's only a couple of problems with that...
Durbin says Democrats don’t currently have the votes for Obama jobs bill
The jobs plan is made up of a combination of tax increases on the wealthy, new infrastructure spending, an extension of the employee payroll-tax cut and additional funding for unemployment insurance benefits.

Republicans have voiced opposition to the plan, albeit less than with other pieces of legislation Democrats have proposed recently.

Durbin added that the president’s bill would need bipartisan support because there are senators both on the left and the right opposed to aspects of it.



That's Senator Dick Durbin (D) Majority Whip in the Senate. He says he needs Republican votes despite the fact that the Democrats have a majority in the Senate. Seems some of them (Senate Dems) do not like the plan.

Senate delays jobs bill to take on China
The president’s plan would combine $447 billion in temporary tax cuts and infrastructure spending over the next several years, which would be offset with permanent tax cuts that would raise $467 billion over the next decade.

While the tax cuts and spending have some support, there is bipartisan opposition to his tax increases, making that bill a tough sell in either chamber.

“We’ll get to that, but let’s get some of these things done that we have to get done first,” Mr. Reid said.

The office of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, declined to comment on the schedule.

The legislation Mr. Reid has placed ahead of the jobs bill is a bipartisan bill that combines the efforts of two other bipartisan bills to try to force China to increase the value of its currency, the yuan, compared with the U.S. dollar.

That's Senator Harry Reid (D) the Senate Majority Leader who sets the agenda.

Then there's this from Hot Air:

Just a reminder: Obama’s jobs bill still has no cosponsors
No co-sponsors have added their names to either the Senate or the House version even after more than a week, although readers have to dig a ways into the Washington Post report to find that out....


Only two folks seem to even recognize there is a bill: Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev) and Representative John B. Larson (D-Conn). Not one other member of either Senate or House has lent his/her name to this piece of...legislation.

In the House things don't look any better as few Democrat Representatives want to put their name on a bill that will, by best estimates, create jobs at a cost of $200K per job.

$200K Per Job? Timothy Geithner Says White House Jobs Plan Is Still a Bargain
"You've got to think about the costs of the alternatives," Geithner said when asked about Harvard economist Martin Feldstein's calculation that each job created by President Obama's American Jobs Act would cost taxpayers about $200,000.

"If government does nothing, it does nothing now because they're scared by politics or they want to debate what's perfect, then there will be fewer Americans back to work, the economy will be weaker," he said.


That's Timothy Geithner, tax cheat and TUrbo Tax challenged Secretary of the Treasury.

There are things the government could do: 1-Cut spending 2-Cut regulation 3-Get the heck out of the way

Then there's this problem on the deficit:
Exclusive: Democrats push tax hikes first in deficit talks

Yeah, new taxes. Just remember that the new taxes were tried back in Herbert Hoover's day. How'd that work out? And the Democrats once promised that they would consider spending cuts once before with the first President Bush. They agreed to make cuts after new taxes were passed. They didn't live up to that promise. They won't live up to this one. Democrats never agree to meaningful cuts.

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