The President tried to signal a strong focus on jobs with his speech to a joint session of Congress yesterday. In it, he bluntly asked Congress to pass his American Jobs Act. He outlined several center-leaning ideas in his speech that Republicans have supported in the past. See description of the bill: The American Jobs Act
Political Aims: A Clintonian Strategy
With the American Jobs Act, the President hopes to repeat the strategy of President Bill Clinton after the 1994 Republican takeover of the House:
(1) Take the center ground, making the opposition appear extreme if it doesn't give his ideas a fair hearing. Solidify his position with centrist swing voters and have a legislative work product to campaign on.
(2) Acknowledge and use proposals from the other side, making it harder for the opposition to obstruct legislation for partisan purposes
(3) Split the other camp, isolating the moderates from the extremists.
Is It A Win-Win?
The President has a good chance of succeeding with this strategy. Most Americans want to get behind a jobs package that appears centrist. The President's proposals are the only proposals on the table at the moment. If the bill passes, the President has a significant legislative victory relating to jobs under his belt. If Republicans knock it down, the President can make a campaign against Congress in the election.
What About The Senate?
An earlier version of this post operated under the assumption that most of the action would be in the House. However, the bill has moved first in the Senate instead. With the ratio of Democrats and Republicans, there was simply no way that the bill was going to get the margin for cloture (60 votes). This clearly suggests that the President and Democrats are trying to draw Republicans out and dare them to block the bill in its earliest stages so that Democrats can rally around it.
What Can The Republicans Do?
(1) Use the House to bring an alternative package up for consideration.
This would blunt any arguments that the Republicans are simply the "party of no" and put Republican job creation proposals squarely against the American Job Act.
(2) Fundamentally change the character of the bill through the amendment process.
Republicans may hope to use the House to add proposals to the bill that will make it unacceptable to Democrats or force the President to veto his own bill. Politico reports that House Republicans have sent a letter to President Obama suggesting that each part of the bill be subject to scrutiny on its own. This means that Republicans understand that they will suffer if they don't appear to give the President's bill a fair hearing, but that they can use the procedures of the House to muddle the issue significantly. In this case the House will want to actually pass a version of the bill and work with Senate Republicans.
(3) Simply reject the bill in the House of Representatives.
This is the least likely outcome because it gives the President and the Democrats the upper hand and allows them to campaign on the bill.
Conclusions
(1) The American Jobs Act has a moderate chance of passage - despite the divided Congress, whether it's a dead letter depends on forthcoming political maneuvers outlined above.
(2)If the President is serious about passage, it is absolutely crucial that he split off a group of moderate Republicans.
(3) The best Republican strategies are to split up the bill and debate each portion, pass the bill with unacceptable alterations (forcing a Presidential veto or Congressional deadlock), or both.
(4) The Democrats must move quickly, have the bill considered in its entirety, and be willing to allow opposition amendments made in good faith. Democrats need to do everything in their power to prevent the bill from getting so defaced that the President could contemplate a veto. If the bill dies, Democrats will want to make it clear that they did everything in their power to pass a clean bill in good faith.
I hope that this does pass. Our President has a great vision for the future. Middle class Americans have been on the back burner for years. If our country does not do something soon about this? We will fall and have a revolution. It may be going on right now on Wall street.
ReplyDelete"Cutting the payroll tax cut in half for 98 percent of businesses: The President’s plan will cut in half the taxes paid by businesses on their first $5 million in payroll, providing a tax but targeting the benefit to the 98 percent of firms that have payroll below this threshold.
ReplyDeleteA complete payroll tax holiday for added workers or increased wages: The President’s plan will completely eliminate payroll taxes for firms that increase their payroll by adding new workers or increasing the wages of their current worker (to ensure that this tax cut is focused on small businesses, the tax relief is capped at $50 million in payroll increases)
Encouraging businesses to make investments by extending 100% business expensing into 2012. This extension would put an additional $85 billion in the hands of businesses next year.
Help entrepreneurs and small businesses get access to capital, grow and hire by expanding Small Business Administration backed loan limits, cutting red tape and reforming our patent system." And that's just a SMALL PART of it.
I just don't see a down side to this bill, I hope these corporate darlings put their agendas aside and realize that other people need to eat, and work, and do business in this country. I look forward to being an asset to a small business job rather than a burden, and having to turn to some minimum wage customer service nonsense because these big businesses only need us to work their cash registers and fold their imported garments. This Jobs Act will help bring jobs back INTO America, not help the corporations that outsource.
"By eliminating pages of loop holes and deductions we can lower one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. Our tax code should not give an advantage to the companies that can afford the best connective lobbyist, it should give an advantage to companies that invest and create jobs right here in America." -Barack Obama Sept. 8, 2011 on the American Jobs Act.