Pass your jobs bill, Obama? Nah, we'll pass.

Unemployment in the United States exceeded nine percent as of last month.

Michigan’s unemployment rate stands at 10.9 percent, with 60,000 more unemployed than this time last year.

Sadly, we can’t count on any help from Washington, D.C.

Last Thursday, President Obama announced he was submitting a jobs plan to Congress and urged lawmakers to “Pass the bill!” about 9,486 times in the one speech. (Why his administration waited this long to comprehensively address one of the most pressing issues of our times is beyond me.)

But it’s not clear his proposal, with its $447 million price tag, will even clear the Democratic-controlled Senate; according to the New York Times, “Republicans will almost certainly not bring the White House bill to the floor of the House, where its chances for approval are even more remote.”

The American Jobs Act:

• cuts the payroll tax in half for 98 percent of businesses

• provides a tax credit for those who hire veterans

• prevents teacher layoffs

• makes infrastructure investments and modernizes 35,000 public schools

• puts people to work rehabilitating homes, businesses and communities

• reforms the unemployment insurance program

• prohibits discrimination against the unemployed, and

• expands opportunities for low-income Americans.

Here’s the scary part, taken directly from a White House fact sheet:

To ensure that the American Jobs Act is fully paid for, the President will call on the Joint Committee to come up with additional deficit reduction necessary to pay for the Act and still meet its deficit target. The President will, in the coming days, release a detailed plan that will show how we can do that while achieving the additional deficit reduction necessary to meet the President’s broader goal of stabilizing our debt as a share of the economy.

So either they haven’t figured out how to pay for all this or they’re not ready to tell us yet.

John Dingell

I was about to write something bitchy at this point but I remembered a compelling op-ed I just read in the Washington Post, written by none other than Michigan’s John Dingell, the Dean of the U.S. House of Representatives and the third longest-serving member of Congress ever (he’s been there since 1955). Mr. Dingell laments the current atmosphere in Washington:

“The American people are fed up with finger-pointing, blame games and infighting by all of us in Washington — the president, Congress and the media.

In our debates over the fiscal 2011 spending bill and the debt limit, Congress put off its duties until the eleventh hour in favor of partisan squabbling and stubborn political games. I am ashamed of our performance — of us all, on both sides of the aisle. As a member of Congress who takes pride in this institution and holds its history and procedures in high regard, I am deeply disappointed by the unwillingness of members of all parties to come together for the common good.

We in Congress are tearing our country apart and weakening the foundation established by great leaders before us.

This partisan viciousness needs to stop.”

Too bad the GOP isn’t listening. Eric Cantor (R-Dickhead) has already promised that Republicans will oppose any stimulus spending, and a senior House Republican aide is quoted as saying, “Obama is on the ropes; why do we appear ready to hand him a win?”

I’m sure the 14 million unemployed people in this country are marveling at the Republicans’ political skills.



Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.