Kozlowski: Republicans were wise to reject jobs bill

Last Tuesday, Pittsburgh played host to the latest Big Speech from the president and, like some… Last Tuesday, Pittsburgh played host to the latest Big Speech from the president and, like some of his previous speeches, it had very little effect.

The Senate just voted to kill President Obama’s $447 billion jobs bill, and already we’re hearing the usual accusations from both parties. Democrats say Republicans are mean-spirited and want the economy to remain in the toilet until Nov. 7, 2012, the day after the presidential election. Republicans say Democrats deliberately presented a lousy bill to put them in the untenable position of either voting for it and getting flayed alive by their base or voting against it and apparently voting in favor of bread lines. We haven’t heard the last of this, believe me.

Why did the Republicans oppose this bill? Well, for one thing, it’s difficult to believe that it will achieve its objectives when we consider how the last bill that was all about jobs turned out. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 committed the federal government to spending $787 billion and according to recovery.gov, as of October 7, $720.1 billion of that money had already been paid out.

Congressional newspaper The Hill reminds us that President Obama said that if the Act was passed, unemployment would not go above 8 percent  Also, the Council of Economic Advisers said that without the bill, unemployment might reach a high of 9 percent. And yet, according to the Labor Department, there are actually 1.5 million fewer people employed today as compared to when the bill was passed in February 2009. Unemployment stands at 9.1 percent, above the high the Council of Economic Advisers predicted in the case of no stimulus.

Even worse, despite the fact that we were assured during the last stimulus cycle that the money would go to “shovel-ready projects,” President Obama himself admitted that no such jobs existed. With stimulus spending over $787 billion and that money not accomplishing what it was supposed to accomplish, why are we to believe that the infusion of another $447 billion is going to work wonders for the economy? Even members of the president’s own party don’t think the bill will help much. Two Democratic senators, Ben Nelson and Jon Tester, even went so far as to break with their party and join a Republican filibuster against it.

Furthermore, the bill would have placed regulatory burdens on the recipients of its funds. Section 4 of the American Jobs Act requires that all iron, steel and manufactured goods used in projects funded by the bill be American-made, except in cases where the head of an involved federal department rules otherwise, either because doing so would be too expensive or the American goods aren’t of sufficient quality. This would be a hassle for companies involved in the program, particularly because it is hard to determine what “American-made” really means since supply chains are immensely complicated. For example, if you very literally read this provision, a firm couldn’t buy a Boeing Dreamliner, which is assembled in the U.S., because a lot of its components are made outside the country. The ability of federal bureaucrats to grant waivers might also lead to uncertainty — is the waiver going to be granted? — as well as an incentive to spend more time evading regulations than creating jobs.

Finally, regardless of the real possibility that the bill wouldn’t accomplish anything, it wouldn’t have been politically smart for Republicans to have backed it. This is more nuanced than “Republicans want the economy to suck until the elections.” In fact, the Republicans would like nothing better than for the economy to get better … provided that they can take the credit. Seeing a break in the Democratic Party ranks and realizing that a lot of the proposals in the jobs bill are palatable, the Republicans might be hoping to work out some kind of deal directly with the Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill and cut the White House out entirely. The Republicans already managed something similar during the debate over the deficit reduction bill, and likely see no reason why something similar couldn’t be accomplished on jobs. The defeat of the bill also makes the president look very bad politically. He comes out and gives a speech to a joint session of Congress. He’s running around the country pressing for this bill, and members of his own party oppose the legislation publicly. If you’re a Republican, this is a very bad time to hand the president the political victory of a passed bill.

So another piece of legislation has bitten the dust. Now we just have to see what kind of spin gets placed on it, and what kind of spin the American people ultimately believe.

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