GOP Jobs Act

                      Since Obama took office in 2008, he has been haunted by a growing statistic and that is the unemployment rate. When Obama became President the unemployment rate was 7.8 percent (Silver). However, it has reached  9.1 percent in September 2011 (Bureau of Labor Statistics). Moreover, the president’s job approval rate has been declining from 66% in January 2009 to 41% in September 2011 (Bertane and Newport). People have become frustrated and have turned their blame on the current administration. The mains issues voters are concerned with right now is the economy and unemployment. President Obama is trying to give hope to Americans with his “American Jobs Act”.   Obama had been trying to override the opposition in Congress by going straight to constituents. He has been going straight to the voters all over America telling them to encourage their representatives to pass the bill. In some cases it has been on top of failing infrastructure projects or in home states of his opposition in Congress. However, this week the jobs bill failed to be passed in the Senate due to Republican opposition. According to the Associated Press article found on The Washington Post, the Republican Senators had a problem with “higher taxes on the wealthy and spending proposals” (Washington Post). According to the Associated Press, the Democrats plan on breaking up the bill into pieces and hope to pass some parts of it.  President Obama is not feeling discouraged and instead he’s going straight to the American public again. After the defeat, President Obama had this to say in a weekly address “And if they vote ‘no’ on that, they’ll have to tell you why. They’ll have to tell you why teachers in your community don’t deserve a paycheck again. They’ll have to tell your kids why they don’t deserve to have their teacher back. They’ll have to tell you why they’re against common-sense proposals that would help families and strengthen our communities right now” (Associated Press/Washington Post).

However, it seems that the Republicans finally got fed up with being portrayed like the enemy of the middle class and unemployed and have presented their own jobs act.  The bill was written by Senators John McCain, Rand Paul, and Rob Portman and called “Jobs Through Growth Act” (Grant). So what is in this “Jobs Through Growth Act”? Not much and most of the ideas in this act are borrowed from previous pieces of legislation.  The “Jobs Through Growth Act” proposes a balanced budget amendment just like the summer Republican favorite “Cap, Cut and Balance.”  The act also proposes the “repeal of the health care reform legislation and cuts in EPA regulations” (Adams). Once again more cuts in social programs and bureaus. There is a proposed maximum of 25 percent on corporate and income taxes (Grant). In addition, the bill would “eliminate or sharply reduce taxes on profits made by American corporations outside the US”(Grant).

When I read all of the proposals I thought that it was a joke. First let me say that I think it is a good part on the Republicans to put a jobs act out there. Now they can say that they have a jobs act, but it is the Democrats not passing it through. However, proposing a flat tax and a tax reduction on corporate profit seems like a dangerous idea to me. This past week thousands of people showed up for the “Occupy Wall Street” protest in Times Square. Also, cities all over the globe saw protests this past week.  People are becoming more and more frustrated with this coddling of the wealthy and corporations, so this proposal seems like it will aggravate more people. I’m also confused about how this proposal is supposed to put people to work.

                                                                                Works Cited

Adams, Susan. "Do the Republicans Have a Jobs Plan? - Forbes." Information for the World's Business Leaders - Forbes.com. Forbes.com. Web. 16 Oct. 2011. http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2011/10/14/do-the-republicans-have-a-jobs-plan/.

Bertane, Clancy, and Frank Newport. "Obama's September Approval Rating Remains at Term-Low 41%." Gallup.Com - Daily News, Polls, Public Opinion on Government, Politics, Economics, Management. Web. 16 Oct. 2011. http://www.gallup.com/poll/149966/Obama-September-Approval-Rating-Remains-Term-Low.aspx. 

"Current Population Survey (CPS)." U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Web. 16 Oct. 2011. http://www.bls.gov/cps.

Grant, David. "What's New in the GOP Jobs Plan? - CSMonitor.com." The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com. Web. 16 Oct. 2011. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2011/1014/What-s-new-in-the-GOP-jobs-plan.

Press, Associated. "Obama Praises Trade Deals and Pushes Congress to Pass Elements of Jobs Bill - The Washington Post." The Washington Post: National, World & D.C. Area News and Headlines - The Washington Post. Web. 16 Oct. 2011. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/congress/obama-praises-trade-deals-and-pushes-congress-to-pass-elements-of-jobs-bill/2011/10/15/gIQAiwChlL_story.html.

Silver, Nate. "On the Maddeningly Inexact Relationship Between Unemployment and Re-Election - NYTimes.com." Election Forecasts - FiveThirtyEight Blog - NYTimes.com. Web. 16 Oct. 2011. <http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/on-the-maddeningly-inexact-relationship-between-unemployment-and-re-election>.