The Wall Street Journal reports today: “The prospects for President Barack Obama’s $447 billion jobs plan grew dimmer Monday as he unveiled the fine print of how it would be paid for—primarily through tax increases that Republicans said would destroy jobs, not create them. . . . Republicans in Congress . . . disputed the White House contention that the plan would cause no additional job losses for the struggling economy. ‘It would be fair to say this tax increase on job creators is the kind of proposal both parties have opposed in the past,’ said Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio). ‘We remain eager to work together on ways to support job growth, but this proposal doesn’t appear to have been offered in that bipartisan spirit.’”

And The Hill noted yesterday, “The White House said Monday that President Obama wants to pay for his $447 billion jobs bill by raising taxes on the wealthy and businesses. Jack Lew, director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), said the tax hikes would pay for Obama’s entire bill, which the administration is sending to Congress Monday evening.”

Reacting to this news in a speech on the floor this morning, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said, “Last week, President Obama came up to Capitol Hill to unveil a stimulus bill he’s calling a jobs plan; and yesterday, the White House explained how they’d like to pay for it. . . . The first thing to say about this plan is that it’s now obvious why the President left out the specifics last week. Not only does it reveal the political nature of this bill, it also reinforces the growing perception that this administration isn’t all that interested in economic policies that will actually work. . . . [T]he specifics we got yesterday only reinforce the impression that this was largely a political exercise. For one, they undermine the President’s claim that it’s a bipartisan proposal — because much of what he’s proposing has already been rejected on a bipartisan basis. The half-trillion dollar tax hike the White House proposed yesterday will not only face a tough road in Congress among Republicans, but from Democrats too.”

Comments

comments