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As expected, the American Jobs Act failed to pass a cloture vote last night. The vote was 50-49. Democrats held the vote open so “New Englander of the Year” Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) could return from Boston and cast the final vote in favor, giving them the talking point that a majority supported the bill. Tom Coburn, under treatment for prostate cancer, missed the vote. Harry Reid switched his vote to no at the last minute to enable him to bring it up again, so Shaheen’s vote was needed for that majority.
Two Democrats, Jon Tester and Ben Nelson, voted with all Republicans save Coburn against the legislation. Nelson gave no explanation, while Tester released a statement saying that “The things I support in this bill are outweighed by the things I can’t support.”
We shouldn’t be sending billions of dollars in bailout aid to states. And I can’t support tax gimmicks that do little to create jobs and fail to address a much bigger underlying problem: The need for a big, broad and bipartisan plan to cut the deficit and to make sure we can pay our bills and rebuild our economy.
Moving forward, we need to focus on investing in the things that create jobs in this country: Our critical infrastructure, education, and research and development. We need significant but responsible cuts to government spending. We need a wholesale reform of our tax code to make sure that millionaires and corporations pay their fair share, and to make taxes more fair for working families. And we need to ensure that critical initiatives like Social Security and Medicare are built to last, so they can benefit our kids and grandkids.
This measure does none of those things. It is an expensive, temporary fix to a problem that needs a big, long-term solution. And I look forward to working together, putting politics aside, to find a solution that’s right for Montana and the nation.
I find that to be mostly gobbledygook. What he calls “bailing out states” I call “saving the jobs of teachers and cops and firefighters.” And any look at the unemployment rolls shows that the loss of 500,000 jobs in the public sector since 2008 is one of the major drags on growth. His alibi amounts to “this bill doesn’t solve every problem ten years out in the manner I want so I’ll vote no.” It’s a typical politician’s dodge. Nelson would at least just say “I don’t want to raise taxes on anyone” and be done with it; Tester’s excuse is more of an insult.
Just because there was majority support for the cloture vote doesn’t mean there was majority support for the legislation. Joe Manchin, Jim Webb and Joe Lieberman all expressed their opposition to the underlying bill. So the bill itself is going nowhere, though it was a political vehicle all along more than a serious piece of legislation.
Now the plan is to break the bill up into component parts and to call out Republicans as obstructionists. That was the focus of the President’s statement after the vote:
Tonight, a majority of United States Senators voted to advance the American Jobs Act. But even though this bill contains the kind of proposals Republicans have supported in the past, their party obstructed the Senate from moving forward on this jobs bill.
Tonight’s vote is by no means the end of this fight. Independent economists have said that the American Jobs Act would grow the economy and lead to nearly two million jobs, which is why the majority of the American people support these bipartisan, common-sense proposals. And we will now work with Senator Reid to make sure that the individual proposals in this jobs bill get a vote as soon as possible.
In the coming days, Members of Congress will have to take a stand on whether they believe we should put teachers, construction workers, police officers and firefighters back on the job. They’ll get a vote on whether they believe we should cut taxes for small business owners and middle-class Americans, or whether we should protect tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires.
This is a tactic that many liberals sought, to make Republicans defend their position again and again and again. Some conservative Dems are about to get caught in that crossfire. But that shouldn’t really be of anyone’s concern.
However, a jobs bill that over time could add more jobs than the American Jobs Act, and one that costs nothing up-front, passed the Senate while the AJA was failing yesterday. More on that in a minute.
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Independent economists have said that the American Jobs Act would grow the economy and lead to nearly two million jobs
I’ve heard that before…trying to remember when….2009 maybe? How did that work out?
Talk to Nevadans if you want to hear how government stimulus money creates jobs.
Oh, and for you Mr. Dayen, thank you for not giving me the “comment awaiting moderator approval” treatment, there are a few places here that keep me in that limbo, doesn’t matter the time of day.
0 and the dims didn’t try to get anything done early in the administration’s life when they had the votes and the momentum. Now they are making this big ‘push’ when there is, of course, no possibility of it being done. This is thus proven to be nothing more than a move in the presidential campaign, QED.
Was watching CNN at the doctor’s office, and Obama has already said he’ll break up the bill so parts of it can get passed, that is, the parts the Republicans agree with. That means more tax breaks for billionaires, the tax holiday on offshore money, etc.
Taxing the rich, jobs stimulus, and unemployment insurance payout – still dead.
Didn’t we all know he’d fold and give the GOP only the parts they wanted and reject the rest?
What I find most insulting in all this jabberwocky-talk of deficit reduction is that now only defense spending is the “third rail”, while Pres. Origami continues to lay SS on the table for dicing and splicing. (:>
medi wrote: “Didn’t we all know he’d fold and give the GOP only the parts they wanted and reject the rest?”
—–
Vegas bookies wouldn’t even take a bet on that.
One CAN bet that anything the repuglicans support won’t help the economy one damn bit.
My grandpa, an influlential democrat, must be rolling over in his grave.
If I thought that this so-called “jobs bill” was anything other than election-campaign kabuki, I would be angry at Tester.
Don’t try to speak for all Nevadans. Government stimulus saved hundreds of jobs in education – jobs that our worthless Republican governors (both Gibbons and Sandoval) and our feckless State Legislature didn’t feel needed to be saved so the Republicans could prostrate themselves before Grover Norquist and the Democratic pols could avoid taking risky votes.
It doesn’t help that Gibbons, in an act of utter insanity, supported and got passed an initiative that forces the State to fund education well before the Legislature even knows with certainty how much money is in the budget.
Parsing the minutiae of how and why the jobs bill failed is a waste of time.
The main thing to take from this is that after a couple of weeks of the “new” Obama going on the “offensive”, the republicans have so little fear of him that they are going to stick anything he sends up to the hill, right where the sun doesn’t shine.
After nearly three years of the rehab job he’s done on them, followed by his laying down like a cur dog for them, why on earth would they fear anything that he says or does?
We now have about 14 months of the lamest lame-duck in our political history. I had been thinking that, as catastrophic as his presidency has been for democrats and progressives, he STILL wouldn’t stoop to Bush’s tactic of ginning up another war to pump his tanking administration, but after the events of the past few days, I’m starting to think that that’s the plan.
We. Are. Fucked.
“Didn’t we all know he’d fold…?”
I think most honest progressives knew that, and have known it for quite a while now.
Of course, after the mid-term hammering, any “progressive” or “reform” posturing b him is just campaign-kabuki, and not even very good campaign kabuki, at that.
And the republicans know it perfectly well, too.
“Talk to Nevadans if you want to hear how government stimulus money creates jobs.”
I don’t need to talk to Nevadans. I’m literate enough to read how FDR practically poured the U.S. Treasury into the effort to turn the depression around…and it worked. Perhaps you’ve heard of the New Deal, and it’s salutary effect on America in a time of dire need?
The comment from Tester was ridiculous psychobabble, in reality he is a political coward who refuses to take any risk. Tester doesn’t get the difference between investment and expense, and it is no coincidence that his “big long term solution” he wants as an alternative is strangely nonexistent.
Kabuki bullshit.
Like the Public Option, Obama can now claim he wanted to do something to help average Americans without having done anything to actually help average Americans.
In fairness to this sleazy “leader” and his buddies on both sides of the aisle, the American people deserve what they’re getting if they’re going to keep falling for this bullshit.
I “read” that the actions by FDR were instrumental in helping us recover from the “great depression”. Why don’t we TRY that????? Maybe it will work again. /s
Look you cannot deny that stimulus, direct stimulus, creates jobs. It is just nonsense to say otherwise. You can say that if you have tax cuts some will save the money or pay down debt and that will not help. That is essentially what the Bush tax cuts did. The rich just decided to save the money. So rasing the taxes on them may not hurt the economy all that much either, and it would help reduce the deficit they all have the vapors about.
This stimulus is mostly SS tax cuts. It is not a direct stim but it will help since most people will spend the SS cuts. But the biggest criticism is it is just too small and, oh yeah, nearly forgot, there is zero chance in getting it passed. I think you might call that Kubuki. Get your popcorn out and watch the proceedings.
I think the days of falling for his bullshit are fading fast. Notice his approval ratings are still falling and unlikely to recover much. But then some may not really like the alternative from the thugs. We’ll just have to wait and see.
You know I think there is an x factor out there. I read somewhere the corps have 2t dollars being held back just in the US and maybe as much overseas. Maybe the numbers are not exact but it is a lot of money and it could form a stimulus all by itself. But the “animal spirits”, as Keynes called them, are not there. What we have instead is uncertainty, about Europe, Obama, now China and wars. I also think the lingering effects of the housing crisis are still with us and may be for years. So no one wants to take a chance. Would they take the chance under Pres Romney? Odd to think you may need a thug to turn this thing around and do nothing.
How many examples would one have to cite before the use of the word “rare” would become amusing?
‘Guy, the conservatives (and evidently, Obama, too…) fear the idea of goverment saving our asses. They’d rather block that, and leave us all to the tender mercies of corporate trickle-down.
Which, demonstrably, has utterly failed.
You put your finger on it, Forest.
It’s like a plan; Now that he’s been politically neutered, the GOP has no fear of anything that Obama says about them, so he can poster and whine about the “obstructionists”, and way too many dems and progressives are willing to forget that he came in with the clout and the mandate to make the real changes that we so desperately needed (Note the past tense; I think this particular opportunity is down the tube…) and then squandered that clout with his lunatic “bipartisan” bullshit.
Next.
Not to mention that the “payroll tax holiday” is an indirect attack on Social Security funding. Obama can be such a sneaky bastarD.