Obama's jobs bill blocked in Senate vote - Polidicks

[URL]http://www.denverpost.com/commented/ci_19093049?source=commented-[/URL] [QUOTE]WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's jobs bill was blocked in the Senate on Tuesday in its first major legislative test, forcing the White House and congressional Democrats to develop plans to revive elements of what the administration had portrayed as the centerpiece of Obama's push to revive a listless economy. With Republicans united in opposition, joined by three Democrats, the Senate voted 50-49 to open debate on the measure, 10 votes short of the 60 needed to overcome procedural objections. Given Obama's repeated demands, as he traveled the nation in recent weeks, that Congress pass the bill intact, the Senate's vote to block the measure represents a significant setback and comes after leaders of his own party had adjusted the measure to include a surtax on incomes of more than $1 million to round up additional Democratic votes. Anticipating the defeat earlier Tuesday during a stop in Pittsburgh, Obama acknowledged that he was planning what to do next. "If they don't pass the whole package, we're going to break it up into different parts," he said, echoing White House officials who have said they would seek to push individual components of the bill that had the best chance for passage. Obama nonetheless called the vote "a moment of truth for the United States Senate" and assailed Republicans for opposing the legislation when they had supported similar initiatives. Votes on pieces of the bill could begin later this month, perhaps as early as next week, Senate Democratic aides said. Party leaders said they needed to consult their caucus before they decide on the timing or choose the provisions to be considered separately. Several Democratic senators said they might join a handful of Republicans in searching for job-creation proposals that could gain bipartisan support — a formidable challenge in a chamber where comity seems to worsen by the week. House Republican leaders have said they do not intend to take up the president's $447 billion jobs bill as a whole. But they welcomed the signal from the White House that the administration would be open to a piecemeal effort. The House majority leader, Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., said he hoped "the president will drop his all-or-nothing approach and begin to work with us on areas of commonality," including initiatives that could promote hiring and economic growth. "We are willing to take up the things we can agree on," Cantor said. The president's bill is a mix of public-works spending and temporary tax cuts intended to respond to what Obama calls an economic crisis and an emergency. Senate Democrats tried to make the president's bill more palatable by adding a surtax of 5.6 percent, starting in 2013, on income in excess of $1 million. [/QUOTE] Sorry if this is late. I searched the forums and nothing came up.

republicans being dumbasses once again shocking

Sounds like it was opened for debate, not outright killed. Still, this means it will likely be changed a lot.

What does this "jobs bill" include? I'm not giving an opinion until I actually know what I'm going to rant about.

[QUOTE=dogmachines;32754575]Sounds like it was opened for debate, not outright killed. Still, this means it will likely be changed a lot.[/QUOTE] So they're going to gut it into a useless moneysink and then blame the President when it doesn't work?

Title is a bit misleading, as it wasn't killed: [quote]With Republicans united in opposition, joined by three Democrats, the Senate voted 50-49 to [B]open debate on the measure[/B], 10 votes short of the 60 needed to overcome procedural objections.[/quote]

[QUOTE=dogmachines;32754575]Sounds like it was opened for debate, not outright killed. Still, this means it will likely be changed a lot.[/QUOTE] it didn't even reach the floor for voting. -whoops sorry misread and misworded. was blocked at the floor and didn't come to a vote. here's a larger article- [url]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/senate-republicans-succes_b_1008103.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#sb=1653,b=facebook[/url] [release]When I heard President Obama announce The American Jobs Act, I mistakenly thought the Republicans wouldn't dare vote against "American jobs." For the first time, the Democrats had come up with a title for a bill that borrowed the successful Republican tactic of naming legislation in a way that makes it politically impossible to vote against. You probably remember some of the good ones. The Republicans aggressively triple-dog-dared members of Congress to vote against the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act. After all, who would be idiotic enough to go on record as having voted against the "USA" and "patriotism", especially when it's shouted in all-caps during the aftermath of 9/11? Only one senator, Russ Feingold, voted against it. One. The Bush years also gave us Orwellian titles like the "death tax", the Healthy Forests Initiative and Clear Skies Act. Incidentally, the Clear Skies Act was a cap-and-trade program that was fully supported by the Republicans and the Bush White House. Weird how that works. Pollster and Fox News Channel contributor Frank Luntz is often credited with popularizing the use of tricky opposite-day titles. In fact, he's often credited with coining the pejorative misnomer "Democrat Party" in lieu of the correct "Democratic Party" title in order to emphasize the "rat" syllable and to strip the party of its association with democratic politics. (It's also worth noting that Luntz urged Republicans to use the less dire term "climate change" instead of "global warming." Today, I often hear even far-left liberals mistakenly using this Luntz euphemism. It's just that successful.) But there it was. The American Jobs Act. [highlight]The Republicans didn't just vote against "American jobs," they literally filibustered them. While the GOP presidential candidates debated their plans to further screw the American economy Tuesday night, every single Republican senator approved the filibuster and overwhelmingly blocked The American Jobs Act from even coming to a vote on the floor of the U.S. Senate.[/highlight] No, there isn't a 9/11 disaster to provide an awful, acrid wind in the sails of this particular bill. But there are a variety of other factors that should have at least stirred a sense of humanity and patriotism within the congressional Republican caucus. Unemployment is stuck at 9.1 percent. Corporations are sitting on $2 trillion in cash, in fact, the largest pile of liquid assets since 1959, and they aren't spending that money on anything, much less new jobs since they've convinced their existing employees to do twice the work for lower pay and dwindling benefits. Simultaneously, corporate profits are at an all-time high, corporate taxes are at an all-time low and middle class wages have been stagnant for decades. The political discourse is aired on cable as though it was a football game, while real Americans lose their homes and corporate criminals sashay between the rain drops unpunished -- many of them failing up to better gigs. Meanwhile, the president, who's only been in office for less than three years, is being blamed for all of it, while the 30 year dominance of trickle-down small-government Reaganomics is receiving another boost of adrenaline from the austerity movement. How well is austerity doing, by the way? In England, where austerity rules the day, unemployment reached its highest level in 17 years this week. Despite its obvious failure elsewhere, the Republicans -- especially the ones running for president -- want to slash everything in sight despite a supermajority of public support for raising taxes on the super rich. Even a majority of Republican voters support a tax increase on the wealthy. And when they're not deliberately sabotaging the economy by opposing anything that might fuel the economic recovery, they're focusing on jobs -- and by "focusing on jobs" I mean "de-funding Planned Parenthood" and "legislating James O'Keefe prank videos." Lumped all together, it's no wonder why the Occupy Wall Street movement is gaining so much momentum. The Republicans are inadvertently feeding it every day. [b]What would the American Jobs Act have accomplished? The bill would have reduced the deficit by $6 billion over ten years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The Republicans filibustered deficit reduction. The bill would have created nearly two million new jobs. The Republicans filibustered the creation of two million new jobs. The bill would have increased the gross domestic product (GDP) by two points. The Republicans filibustered increasing the GDP. The bill would have cut taxes for 98 percent of businesses. The Republicans filibustered a tax cut for businesses. The bill would have offered a tax credit for military veterans returning from war. The Republicans filibustered a tax credit for the troops. The bill would have reduced unemployment by a full percentage point. The Republicans filibustered a reduction in unemployment. The bill would have been paid for by a 5.6 percent surtax on millionaires -- a surtax that, again, a majority of Republican voters support. The Republicans filibustered paying for the bill.[/b] The ultimate irony here is that, despite it all, the Republicans have a solid chance of winning the White House next year. Obviously they're counting on the collective attention deficit disorder of the American voter who will naturally forget about how the Senate Republicans filibustered the American Jobs Act on top of having presided over the destruction of the economy as well as a horrendous record on job creation during the Bush years when they controlled the Congress and the White House, and when they cut taxes to the lowest rates in American history. Still no jobs, and yet they believe that further tax cuts will somehow create more jobs even though the Bush tax cut succeeded in accomplishing nothing except to contribute to a doubling of the national debt while it turned a surplus into a record deficit. Yeah. Let's have more of that. If you're angry about the gloomy status of the economy, bookmark this post and remind yourself occasionally which group of politicians filibustered an iron-clad solution for job creation and economic growth. And tell your friends about it, too, because even if you can't participate in one of the Occupy Wall Street protests, you can help to spread the word about who supported American jobs and who tried to kill American jobs.[/release]

[QUOTE=Hidole555;32754584]What does this "jobs bill" include? I'm not giving an opinion until I actually know what I'm going to rant about.[/QUOTE] [url]http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislative/reports/american-jobs-act.pdf[/url] [url=http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/08/fact-sheet-american-jobs-act]Here's an overview if you don't feel like reading all 200 pages.[/url]

[QUOTE=StarWarsMan;32754654]Title is a bit misleading, as it wasn't killed:[/QUOTE] To some of the people on this site, if the Democrats can't get everything exactly the way they want it, then it's good as dead. And it's only obstructionist when the Republican Party wants to debate a bill.

[QUOTE=Ridge;32754691]To some of the people on this site, if the Democrats can't get everything exactly the way they want it, then it's good as dead. And it's only obstructionist when the Republican Party wants to debate a bill.[/QUOTE] It's not just debate when statistics show Republicans have used the filibuster more than twice as much as any Democratic session of congress in history. But keep telling yourself how reasonable the Republicans are. Denial feels good, eh?

[QUOTE=Ridge;32754691]To some of the people on this site, if the Democrats can't get everything exactly the way they want it, then it's good as dead. And it's only obstructionist when the Republican Party wants to debate a bill.[/QUOTE] except when the republicans cockblock anything and everything that comes from the democratic party, even when a bill is essentially the exact same thing they proposed when bush was in office. Things like 'Obamacare' was based majorly on Romney's similar plan (which is now denied with a bunch of backpedalling), and is almost identical to Bob Dole's plan. It isn't even 'debating', it's "we want our way and all of the credit or we fuck up everything", and with the invention of the tea party and all of these tea GOP asshats the game of cat and mouse that they usually play has been tipped because they're pushing everything too far to topple Obama and crash everything. From what I understant, it's so the republicans can, in essence, rise back up as the underdog party that creates a new version of the government that is only to their liking. It sounds like a god damn bond villain plot and the things happening in these political bullfights should be considered treasonous.

Maybe if he introduced it back in 2009 he would of had the fucking bill passed. I hope this asshole doesn't get elected again, worst president I've ever voted for. I'd place this guy under bush, he's competent and has done all the same shit bush did and more.

[QUOTE=Atlascore;32754761]Holy fuck. [b]Why[/b] did they vote against it, they're for more than half the shit in that bill. This is going to hit the Republicans so hard.[/QUOTE] They want Obama to be a 1-term president so much they're willing to actively go against legislation that even they favor so they can continue to blame Obama for the problems in this country. They make me sick, putting their political agenda in front of the very people that support them.

Republican bill proposed by Obama Gets voted down by Republicans Whatever happened to a little thing called treason? I'm not saying you have to go along with the President but they are literally trying to block any progress, even if it is their way of doing it.

[QUOTE=Hidole555;32754584]What does this "jobs bill" include? I'm not giving an opinion until I actually know what I'm going to rant about.[/QUOTE] Here are the key provisions, from a post of mine in a different thread: [QUOTE=Megafanx13;32754440]Here's a detailed yet simple list of the key provisions in his plan: 1. Cutting and suspending $245 billion worth of payroll taxes for qualifying employers and 160 million medium to low income employees. 2. Spending $62 billion for a Pathways Back to Work Program for expanding opportunities for low-income youth and adults. 3. Spending $50 billion on both new & pre-existing infrastructure projects. 4. Spending $49 billion on extending unemployment benefits for up to 6 million long-term beneficiaries. 5. Spending $35 billion in additional funding to protect the jobs of teachers, police officers, and firefighters. 6. Spending $30 billion to modernizing at least 35,000 public schools and community colleges. 7. Spending $15 billion on a program that would hire construction workers to help rehabilitate and refurbishing hundreds of thousands of foreclosed homes and businesses. 8. Creating the National Infrastructure Bank (capitalized with $10 billion), originally proposed in 2007, to help fund infrastructure via private and public capital. 9. Creating a nationwide, interoperable wireless network for public safety, while expanding accessibility to high-speed wireless services. 10. Creating additional regulations on businesses who discriminate against hiring those who are long-term unemployed. [editline]12th October 2011[/editline] As for the bill's funding, it'll come from letting the Bush Tax Cuts expire and introducing a 5% surtax on people making over $1,000,000 a year.[/QUOTE]

The worst part is the ones blocking this bill are going to be running both the White House and Congress in a couple of years.

Two party system at its best. No wonder Washington disliked it.

[QUOTE=Fhenexx;32754785]They want Obama to be a 1-term president so much they're willing to actively go against legislation that even they favor so they can continue to blame Obama for the problems in this country. They make me sick, putting their political agenda in front of the very people that support them.[/QUOTE] there was a smart move by the dems at one point earlier this summer, where they suddenly opted out of voting for a bill that the reps were voting against just to show they're voting purely to be republican. When suddenly every vote was against the bill, some of the reps panicked because they honestly supported the bill, but were too party-centric to vote for it in the first place, and subsequently either backed down from the vote or voted it up just to balance things out to a tie again.

[QUOTE=Ridge;32754691]To some of the people on this site, if the Democrats can't get everything exactly the way they want it, then it's good as dead. And it's only obstructionist when the Republican Party wants to debate a bill.[/QUOTE] lol ridge is posting everyone hey come gather around ridge is posting look here he goes!

[QUOTE=dogmachines;32754575]Sounds like it was opened for debate, not outright killed. Still, this means it will likely be changed a lot.[/QUOTE] That's what a filibuster is supposed to be. However in practice it is used to stall a bill from being passed until the bill eventually dies in Congress.

Usually I can at least understand the reasoning behind stupid political moves, but what was the reasoning behind blocking this? The bill almost looks too good to be true, the only negative I can think of is how they plan to pay for this, and as far as I know the White House hasn't released that info yet.

[QUOTE=thrawn2787;32754790]Republican bill proposed by Obama Gets voted down by Republicans Whatever happened to a little thing called treason? I'm not saying you have to go along with the President but they are literally trying to block any progress, even if it is their way of doing it.[/QUOTE] I'm I was in President Obama's place, in my final months in office. I would use my power as the head of the military to have the Republicans responsible tried for treason.

Honestly, the bill does very little to "create" any jobs outside of the construction industry or public service.

[QUOTE=SPESSMEHREN;32754870]Honestly, the bill does very little to "create" any jobs outside of the construction industry or public service.[/QUOTE] Even though I think the renovation of America is great, I think it's important for people to keep in mind that these 2 million jobs are temporary construction jobs.

[QUOTE=Atlascore;32754905]Jobs are jobs, and those places were the hardest hit by the recession anyway.[/QUOTE] Yeah but temporary construction projects aren't really a solution to the jobs issue, just a delay.

[QUOTE=SPESSMEHREN;32754870]Honestly, the bill does very little to "create" any jobs outside of the construction industry or public service.[/QUOTE] Which is alright. Those are mostly the only jobs the government can create anyways. The economic theory behind it is that it gives money to otherwise unemployed people, who then spend the money at stores and shit. That increase in demand causes a store or corporation to be able to expand and hire more workers. It is sort of like using a defribulator, you give a single shock to the heart and the heart does the rest of the work. Or you give a single spike to demand and the economy starts doing the rest of the work, in theory.

[QUOTE=Zeke129;32754834]lol ridge is posting everyone hey come gather around ridge is posting look here he goes![/QUOTE] Are you like six goddamned years old? I'll meet you at the flag pole at 3 o'clock, if that's what you want. The bill hasn't been killed, it hasn't been destroyed, they just want to take part in the sole job they have, which is to discuss a bill at hand before blindly voting it. They're not as dim-witted as people like Nancy Pelosi, who believe that we should pass a bill into law, then find out what the hell it does.

[QUOTE=fox '09;32754779]Maybe if he introduced it back in 2009 he would of had the fucking bill passed. I hope this asshole doesn't get elected again, worst president I've ever voted for. I'd place this guy under bush, he's competent and has done all the same shit bush did and more.[/QUOTE] Are.. are you serious.. normally with that name and avatar I'd say gimmick account..

I think its time for me to get a passport and a visa to Canada. Since we cannot get a damn thing done here without someone being really fucking stupid not to look past the parties and actually see the common good in this.

[QUOTE=yawmwen;32754922]Which is alright. Those are mostly the only jobs the government can create anyways. The economic theory behind it is that it gives money to otherwise unemployed people, who then spend the money at stores and shit. That increase in demand causes a store or corporation to be able to expand and hire more workers. It is sort of like using a defribulator, you give a single shock to the heart and the heart does the rest of the work. Or you give a single spike to demand and the economy starts doing the rest of the work, in theory.[/QUOTE] Until, a year later, they are all unemployed again and the economy stalls yet again. And just in time for the elections! [editline]12th October 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=areolop;32754958]I think its time for me to get a passport and a visa to Canada. Since we cannot get a damn thing done here without someone being really fucking stupid not to look past the parties and actually see the common good in this.[/QUOTE] Don't let the border patrol hit your ass on the way out, if you're that much of a limp wristed defeatist.