Is Obama’s Jobs Act Backfiring?

Well, here we are. It’s Friday. It’s been a week of ups and downs. Protests going on all over the U.S. Steve Jobs died at the age of 56. The Texas Rangers are playing the Detroit Tigers in the American League Championship Series. 103,000 jobs were added in the month of September. Unemployment is still at 9.1%. The American Jobs Act still hasn’t been voted on.

Let’s be honest. This was all a political move by the President from the beginning. He knows the Republican controlled House will not vote for the bill. It raises the deficit and it taxes the wealthy. He plans on the bill being shot down in the House, to use it as leverage for his 2012 re-election campaign. But his plan is backfiring… in the Senate.

ibtimes.com

It seems there just isn't enough Democrat Senators that are goo-goo ga-ga over this bill. Uh-oh. 


GOP Senators, like the President, asked that the bill be voted on in the Senate. They knew the bill did not have enough votes, regardless that the Democrats have control.


Mitch McConnell demanded a vote on the floor yesterday saying, “I think we ought to accommodate the president of the United States on a matter that he has been speaking about frequently over the last few weeks and give him his vote.”

McConnell knew it wouldn’t pass. There weren’t enough Democrat supporters let alone Republicans. Smart move McConnell, smart move.

To save the president from embarrassment, Harry Reid yanked the plan off the floor yesterday. To gain more votes from Democrats, Harry Reid revised the date of millionaire tax surcharge from 2013, to December.

“I’m fine with the approach they’re taking,’’ the President said.

So much for his past statements on raising taxes on the wealthy. I guess we can cross off what he’s said before:

“Nobody’s looking to raise taxes right now. We’re talking about potentially 2013 and the out years”

We’ll see what happens next week when they have a vote. I’m sure Dick Durbin will be spend this weekend rounding up as many votes as he can. My guess is they won’t vote for the bill until they have a guaranteed 60 votes of yes to break the filibuster. That includes trying to round up votes from Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), Joe Liebermann (I.-Conn.) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.).

I find it amusing that we are still in this debacle, four weeks after this bill was introduced. Obviously if it has taken this long to gain votes, something is wrong with the plan. This bill is a mini stimulus package, filled with the same Keynesian economic policies that the Recovery Act contained. The Stimulus Package of 2009 simply didn’t work. When Obama took office in January 2009, the unemployment rate was 7.7% and rising. Today, it has stalled at 9.1% for the third straight month. There are no “shovel ready jobs” to show from the previous stimulus. 

Times are tough. Unemployment is high. The debt is nearly uncontainable. And Democrats are careful on what they are voting for, especially with their upcoming elections. Obama is keen on passing this bill. Except this time, he doesn’t have the votes he needs in the House.

And maybe even in the Senate.