President’s Jobs Measure Is Turned Back in Key Senate Test

On September 13, 2011, Senator Harry Reid introduced Obama’s American Jobs act (S. 1549) in the senate. A couple days later on September 21 Representative John Larson introduced Obama’s American Jobs act (Hr. 12) in the House of Representatives. Not one person (from either party) wanted to co-sponsor or sponsor this bill. Obama’s jobs bill main features were to cut payroll taxes, invest in schools, highways, public works and roads, and increase taxes for the “richer” citizens. The ultimate resulting of this bill in the eyes of president Obama would be a domino effect ending in lowering unemployment levels. The Jobs Bill needed a 60 person vote to even make it to the senate floor, voting on Tuesday revealed a fifty to forty-nine vote (the jobs bill did not pass). Two Democrats Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Jon Tester of Montana joined the majority of the Republican side voting “no” towards the bill. Harry Reid voted against the bill intentionally so he could re-introduce it in the future. Obama planned for this bill to use $447 Billion dollars, by making new taxes. Essentially the “hot button” (the bad part of the bill Republicans thought) was the president would increase taxes for many couples making more than $250,000 per year. Republicans and some Democrats did not like the bill as a whole, but agreed that they would like apiece bill (only some parts of the bill would be passed).

Even to get representatives and senators to introduce this jobs bill President Obama had to use a number of pathways to try and get the American people to understand the importance of his bill. The major pathways used were the election, cultural change and lobbying pathways. Obama needed an election-favoring yes to even get his bill to reach the senate floor. Also using lobbying pathways and cultural change, Obama talked to the American citizens and government officials to persuade/tell them about his bill. Essentially why the American citizens should be voting yes. The republicans do not agree with Obama’s Jobs bill, due to several flaws the most important being that wealthier people have to pay more money, when they believe that people should be making there own money, and just the pure cost of the bill. There is also a political part to this event, Republicans are rooting for the economy to fail intentionally, to make sure Obama does not get re-elected into office. This bill might stimulate the economy a Republicans worst fear currently. Most America citizens are hurting, they need a sense of urgency, instead of taxing the wealthier citizens, find the waste of money in government. Many people believe instead of using million's and million's on the war, we should be putting that money into our economy. Both parties need to come together and pass pieces of the Jobs Bill and raise government revenue. Website- NY Times