The political side-show in DC continued tonight as the Senate failed to pass a procedural vote to move forward the president’s “jobs” bill. While the bill garnered all but 2 Democrat votes, many more stated they would oppose the bill if a final vote was authorized.
No one in Washington had any expectation that the bill would ever see a vote in the Senate and even the president spent no time pursuing Democrat votes, or once approached Republican House or Senate leaders to ask what it would take to get a bill through. Even Democrats have admitted that this bill was never intended to see passage; this is a political stunt on the part of the Obama administration clearly for campaign purposes.
The president has been crisscrossing the country touting his jobs bill purely as a political tactic. The president’s 2012 strategy has come into focus: Mr. Obama will attempt to steer blame away from himself towards Congress. The president has chosen to ignore that more than twice as many Democrats in the Senate face re-election next year as he goes all-in in a panicked gamble to hang on to power. Democrats across Capitol Hill must be growling, “Thanks for nothing, pal!”
If your agenda is your top priority, protecting your legislative advantage is paramount; however Mr. Obama, cares only that he remain living in the White House. His anti-Congress ploy, even if successful, would mean a lame-duck administration facing a House and Senate dominated by Republicans. Whether this tactic will affect his fund raising ability is debatable, but Democrats facing a pummeling in 2012 will be playing duck-and-cover. Only the most secure Democrats will be willing to take the stage with the president and their numbers are dwindling.
With the failure of his jobs bill, the president is now faced with accepting what his administration said it would never allow: a chopped up bill including only the least offensive components. The slicing and dicing begins this week as the Senate pulls individual parts of the jobs bill out for votes; the president’s relevancy further dissolves as he will sign a bill he publically said he never would.
By the weekend the president began to back-track saying that if Congress did not pass the entire package he was prepared to break it into pieces and try to pass job-creation legislation that way.
The president’s plan combines payroll tax cuts for workers and businesses with $175 billion in spending on roads, school repairs and other infrastructure, as well as unemployment assistance and help to local governments to avoid layoffs of teachers, firefighters and police. Is it fair to call a job that last 4 or 5 weeks a new job? The president will make the argument that it is. Businesses are not going to hire a new employee because a school gets a few new lights, they get to paint 6 bridges instead of 4 or unemployment benefits are extended. Why not have business leaders write a jobs bill, as the folks in Washington have no concept of what inspires businesses to add employees.
Saving the jobs of teachers, firefighters and police is a noble cause, but aren’t we at 9.1 percent unemployment because we spent nearly a trillion dollars “saving” rather than “creating” jobs in 2009?
Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader summed up the president’s bill rather succinctly today, “The legislation we’ll be voting on today is many things, but it’s not a jobs bill. And Republicans will gladly vote against any legislation that makes it harder to create jobs right now.”
Dick Durbin, the president’s cohort from Illinois in the Senate said, “If the voters think this is unfair for the minority party to just say we’re not going to support this president, no matter what he comes up with, if they believe that’s unfair, then they’ll make those feelings known to those members of Congress.”
The similarities in stimulus v3.0 to the $800 billion-plus 2009 stimulus v1.0 measure are astounding; a virtual “Mini Me” of political spending. The key difference between 2009 and today is a 5.6 percent surcharge on income exceeding $1 million, which would cover the cost of the president’s bill only after a decade of the new taxes.
Now that the latest attempt at stimulus has failed, the House and Senate will pivot to approving trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, which Republicans have been imploring the White House to move forward for more than 2 years.
How will the voting public regard a president that pushes a bill only for his own political benefit while they are suffering? Is it presidential to score political points and create campaign demons while folks are losing their homes, can’t afford school supplies for their kids or cover their medical expenses?
Americans are getting angrier and angrier while the president and other politicians in Washington play games. Where are the jobs bills supported by the business community? How about asking a few of those horrible millionaires what they’d like to see in a bill that would help them grow their businesses? Face it; the only jobs that mean a thing in Washington are the jobs of the politicians themselves.
The following is the Conservatively Speaking jobs bill; it’s actually quite simple:
1. Roll back all new regulations enacted after January 20th, 2009.
2. Freeze all business regulations for 5 years.
3. Repeal Dodd/Frank.
4. Enact a 2 year moratorium on repatriated corporate profits.
5. Enact a flat tax.
6. Pass a balanced budget amendment.
If you do items 1 – 4 immediately, you can concentrate on items 5 and 6 over the next 12 months. Just those first 4 items will so dramatically change the perspective of private businesses that unemployment will plunge. Repealing Dodd/Frank will allow money to move from Wall Street to Main Street and maybe some of those protesters can go home and get a shower.