Republicans 1, Teachers and First Responders 0

[ProSense]

Republicans 1, Teachers and First Responders 0

By Steve Benen

The proposal on the table seemed like a no-brainer. The public sector has been hemorrhaging jobs, dragging down the economy, and undermining the quality of public services. The White House and congressional Democrats came up with a pretty straightforward solution: direct $35 billion to states in order to protect/create 400,000 jobs for school teachers, police officers, and firefighters.

Sensitive to budget constraints, Dems agreed the bill shouldn’t increase the deficit at all, so they agreed to finance the plan with a 0.5% surtax that would only affect millionaires and billionaires — and even that wouldn’t kick in until 2013.

...A CNN poll released this week found that 75% of the public — and 63% of self-identified Republican voters — endorsed this jobs proposal, and 76% agreed with the financing plan...It’s tempting to think elected officials would be committing political suicide by fighting to kill a popular jobs plan during a jobs crisis. And yet, here we are.

For the second time in 10 days, the Senate on Thursday rejected Democratic efforts to take up a jobs bill championed by President Obama.

The vote to advance the bill was 50 to 50. Democrats needed 60 votes to overcome a Republican filibuster.

<...>

How many Republicans broke ranks and agreed that the proposal deserved an up-or-down vote? Zero. Not even one alleged “moderate” mustered the courage to give a wildly popular jobs bill a chance to get a vote.

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[randr]

1. Instead of being in a race to see who can help the nation the most

the Republicans are shoe stringing the proposals to move us out of the hole they put us in.

[ProSense]

2. All

the Republicans have to do is keep doing what they're doing. They will ignore public opinion, protests and whatever else as long as they can keep the economy down.

The only thing keep the economy from complete collapse is the President's policies that do not require Congressional approval.