Calling on lawmakers to "stop the circus" and get to work, President Barack Obama told a joint session of Congress on Thursday night that immediate action is needed to rescue the U.S. economy and create jobs.
Republicans riposted that the president's latest potpourri of new spending and targeted tax cuts "just won't work."
Acknowledging that any recovery "will be driven not by Washington, but by our businesses and our workers," Obama nevertheless outlined a $450 billion jobs plan that faces long odds in Congress.
In his speech, Obama said the American Jobs Act would halve payroll takes for small-business owners, issue $4,000 tax credits for new hires, modernize and repair 35,000 schools, rehire "thousands of teachers," fund transportation projects and extend long-term unemployment benefits.
While the president said many of the proposals have been embraced by Republicans, his renewed call for "the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to pay their fair share" will encounter stiff resistance from GOP members who have opposed any tax increases.
To counter that expected opposition, the president proposed giving the "typical working family" a $1,500 tax cut next year.
"This expands on the tax cut that Democrats and Republicans already passed for this year. If we allow that tax cut to expire -- if we refuse to act -- middle-class families will get hit with a tax increase at the worst possible time. We cannot let that happen," Obama said.
Jabbing Republicans with a partisan edge, the presidentdeclared, "I know some of you have sworn oaths to never raise any taxes on anyone for as long as you live.
"Now is not the time to carve out an exception and raise middle-class taxes, which is why you should pass this bill right away," Obama said to a standing ovation of Democrats in the House chamber.
"This isnt political grandstanding. This isnt class warfare. This is simple math. These are real choices that we have to make, and Im pretty sure I know what most Americans would choose," Obama said.
Borrowing Florida Gov. Rick Scott's "Let's get to work" slogan, the president tried to whip supporters into a push for immediate action.
The National Resources Defense Council, a leading advocate for the "green-energy" jobs and tough environmental regulations promoted by the administration, applauded.
President Obama has presented a real plan to get Americans back to work -- unlike Republican leaders in Congress whose so-called jobs agenda would destroy our environmental and health safeguards," said NRDC president Frances Beinecke.
The next step is to build on the presidents plans by fully embracing clean-energy jobs," she said.
But as Obama tried to reach over the heads of lawmakers and appeal to the American people, critics were unimpressed by his bid to balance new spending and selective tax cuts.
"More of the same," grumped former Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Holtz-Eakin. "A payroll tax holiday, more state aid and infrastructure proposals, new higher tax credits. Nothing new, and many of these are in current law."
Holtz-Eakin said the country would be better served by aggressively pursuing "a broader approach of passing trade agreements and pro-growth tax reform" while tackling spiraling entitlement costs.
Noting Obama's brief reference to trade agreements, Rep. David Rivera, R-Miami, said afterward, If the president is going to continue pointing to the free-trade agreements as potential engines for economic growth, he should let his actions speak and send all three agreements to Congress where they will no doubt garner bipartisan approval.
Trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea have been bottled up by the administration for months.
Obama said he would unveil specific deficit-reduction proposals next week. But here, too, there was deep skepticism. Early reports indicated that the White House will propose raising tax revenues in later years -- increasing deficits in the near-term.
"The American public is glazed over with this president who has a love affair with the sound of his own voice," said Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus. "Even more deficit spending? Paid for only after he leaves office? We've heard all this before."
Since Obama took office, the United States has lost 2.4 million jobs and labors under the highest percentage of long-term unemployed workers since the Depression.
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said, "There are some things that the president outlined that I think we can be supportive of, but my problem with this, quite frankly, is that a lot of it just wont work.
"A lot of it sounds like things weve already tried, such as more government spending; $800 billion didnt create jobs, how is $447 billion going to create jobs?"
Bottom line, Rubio said, We need to create an environment where job creators feel the incentive to go out and create jobs, and you do that through regulatory reform, tax reform, certainty moving forward and confidence in Americas future.
U.S. Rep. Bill Posey, R-Rockledge, expressed disappointment that the president failed to address job-killing federal regulations in his speech.
Ive got a 3-foot stack of new and proposed federal regulations on my desk in Washington which represents just four months -- April through July -- of federal rule-making, said Posey.
"At present, federal agencies are working on crafting more than 4,000 regulations. The average per-employee cost of federal regulations totals about $5,282 for a large employer and $7,647 for a small employer. Is it any wonder jobs arent being created in America?"
Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 801-5341.
