The nation is suffering. People are in desperate need of work. With an unemployment figures now standing at 9.2%, every concerned party is trying to come up with a plan to put Americans back to work. President Obama has said he will present his plan when Congress returns to work in September, and other Democrats are trying to come up with solutions as well.
One plan being floated around by John Larson, a Democratic Representative from Connecticut, would include jobs creation as part of the duties of the newly formed Super Committee. Larson’s plan would demand the Super Committee, in addition to their main task of coming up with $1.5 trillion in savings, come with a plan to create jobs and lower the unemployment to 5.5% by 2014.
Seems like a great plan. Instead of passing bills through the regular congress and having those bills die in the Republican controlled House of Representatives, Larson’s plan will leave job creation up to the Super Congress, knowing that if this body fails, then the same “triggers” will be activated – cutting from both the military and entitlement programs, as well as revenue increases. This trigger will hurt both Democrats and Republicans, thus a true effort to compromise will be made.
But John Boehner is already pulling the breaks on this plan. Ezra Klein posed the question to Boehner’s office on Friday and filed this report;
I ran Larson’s proposal by House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) office on Friday afternoon, and it was immediately shot down. The response: Deficit reduction will spur job creation and, therefore, the super committee does not need to take on an additional mission.
“As every economist and every rating agency has made clear, getting our deficit under control is the first step to help get our economy growing again and to create jobs,” said Michael Steel, spokesman for Boehner. “Without knowing the specifics of this proposal, my concern would be this is some sort of new window-dressing for the same tired old, discredited Washington stimulus spending proposals.”
But this reaction is obvious – If Americans work, Republicans lose. So Republican’s job now is to make sure America stays unemployed. That way, they hope to win in the next election.
