Congress Should Pass Obama's Jobs Plan - Piece by Piece

• Volume 55, Presented On: October 25, 2011
• Visit Full Debate Page

From the Panel

• Cecilia Rouse

• How to Avoid Another Painful Recession
  Elizabeth Weingarten, Slate, October 19, 2011
  An interview with economist Cecilia Rouse: Why she’ll argue for the motion, "Congress should pass Obama’s jobs plan—piece by piece,” at the Oct. 25 Slate/Intelligence Squared U.S. debate.
• David Stockman Criticizes Obama’s Jobs Plan, Other Economists Cheer
  Susanna Kim, ABC News September 9, 2011
  Cecilia Rouse, economics professor at Princeton and former member of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, said the president is proposing a "sensible" package of strategies while the private sector continues to struggle. Rouse said she was "particularly pleased" to see an extension in unemployment insurance for an additional year.
• President Bill Clinton Job-Creation Blueprint Fact Check
  Susanna Kim, ABC News, June 29, 2011
  ABC News asked labor economists and former government officials to take a look at 10 proposals among the 42nd president's blueprint.
• Investing in a Better Life
  Cecilia Rouse, Room for Debate, New York Times, August 23, 2011
  In these trying economic times, we should be looking for ways to effectively increase our investments in education, not cut them.
• The First Year of the Recession: Key Census Indicators of Family Well-Being in 2008 and the Administration's Policy Responses in 2009
  Cecilia Elena Rouse, Council of Economic Advisers, September 10, 2009
  Testimony before the Joint Economic Committee discussing the Census Bureau’s release of data on income, poverty, and health insurance coverage in the United States in 2008.
• Work-Life Programs: Attracting, Retaining and Empowering the Federal Workforce
  Cecilia Elena Rouse, Council of Economic Advisers, May 4, 2010
  Testimony before the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, United States Senate, presenting the main findings from the March 2010 CEA Report Work-Life Balance and the Economics of Workplace Flexibility, which discusses some of the changing patterns of the American workforce, the state of flexible work arrangements in our economy, and the economics of workplace flexibility.

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• For: Mark Zandi

• A 40 Percent Chance of Economic Doom
  Elizabeth Weingarten, Slate, October 18, 2011
  An interview with economist Mark Zandi: why he’ll argue for the motion, “Congress should pass Obama’s jobs plan—piece by piece,” at the Oct. 25 Slate/Intelligence Squared U.S. debate.
• An Analysis of the Obama Jobs Plan
  Mark Zandi, Dismal Scientist, September 9, 2011
  President Obama’s much-anticipated jobs plan is a laudable effort to support the struggling economy. The plan would go a long way toward stabilizing confidence, forestalling another recession, and jump-starting a self-sustaining economic expansion.
• How Another Recession Can Be Avoided
  Mark Zandi, Moody’s Analytics, August 26, 2011
  The economy is struggling to avoid recession. The political spectacle over the debt ceiling and Standard & Poor’s downgrade of Treasury debt have upended the already-fragile collective psyche. Consumers and businesses appear frozen in place. They are not pulling back yet, but to avoid a downturn it is vital for policymakers to act aggressively to stabilize sentiment.
• Analysis from Mark Zandi
  Dismal Economist, Moody’s Analytics, April 10, 2011
  More analysis from Mark Zandi.

• Richard Epstein

• Obama’s Jobs Bill: Read It and Weep
  Richard A. Epstein, Defining Ideas, a Hoover Institution Journal, September 27, 2011
  “The dim news about the current economic situation has prompted the Obama administration to put forward its latest, desperate effort to reverse the tide by urging passage of The American Jobs Act (AJA), a turgid 155-page bill.”
• The Road to Economic Perdition
  Richard A. Epstein, Defining Ideas, Hoover Institution Journal, September 7, 2011
  This nation will not be able to get off the road to economic perdition unless it junks both parts of the Obama administration’s economic policy—its futile macroeconomic programs and its mindless labor market restrictions.
• Commentary by Richard Epstein
  Read more commentary and op-eds by Richard Epstein, aggregated by the Hoover Institution.

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• Against: Daniel Mitchell

• Why the President’s Jobs Plan Won’t Create Jobs
  Elizabeth Weingarten, Slate, October 21, 2011
  An interview with Cato’s Daniel Mitchell: Why he’ll argue against the motion, “Congress should pass Obama’s jobs plan – piece by piece,” at the Oct. 25 Slate/Intelligence Squared U.S. debate.
• The Brian Wilson Show
  An interview with Cato’s Daniel Mitchell: Why he’ll argue against the motion, “Congress should pass Obama’s jobs plan – piece by piece,” at the Oct. 25 Slate/Intelligence Squared U.S. debate.
• Obama’s Failure on Jobs: Four Damning Charts
  Daniel Mitchell, Forbes, September 6, 2011
  Following this link for Mitchell’s four pieces of evidence that Obama is no friend to ordinary workers.
• Obama’s Jobs Errors
  Daniel J. Mitchell, New York Post, July 22, 2010
  Businesses are not charities—if it's not profitable to hire workers, it's not going to happen. And it takes money to create jobs—more specifically, labor isn't very useful or productive unless investors are providing capital.
• International Liberty: Restraining Government in America and Around the World
  Blog by Daniel Mitchell
  Read blog posts by Daniel Mitchell.
• Daniel Mitchell at the Cato Institute
  Find more links to Daniel Mitchell’s work at the Cato Institute.

Articles For & Against

• For the Motion

• The American Jobs Act: Your Questions Answered
  Jon Carson, White House Blog, September 26, 2011
  White House responses to some of the questions, criticisms and misconceptions of the American Jobs Act.
• The American Jobs Act – A Bill Worthy of Its Name
  Heather Boushey and Gadi Dechter, Center for American Progress, September 14, 2011
  The jobs bill will create nearly 2 million new U.S. jobs by doing what presidents and legislatures across the political spectrum have routinely done in times of labor market weakness: Enact short-term, temporary spending programs that have bipartisan support and are proven to work.
• Obama’s Jobs Plan Prevents Election-Year Recession in Survey of Economists
  Timothy R. Homan, Bloomberg, September 28, 2011
  President Barack Obama’s $447 billion jobs plan would help avoid a return to recession by maintaining growth and pushing down the unemployment rate next year, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

• Against the Motion

• The President’s New “Jobs Speech”: More Economic Alchemy Likely
  Patrick Louis Knudsen, Heritage Foundation, September 7, 2011
  The President’s jobs plan will call for more of the same discredited Keynesian strategies (with a smaller price tag) as contained in his 2009 stimulus bill—a costly and spectacular failure.
• How Obama's Last Stimulus Bill Became a Comedy of Errors
  Jim Powell, The Daily Caller, September 19, 2011
  Now that President Obama is on the campaign trail, touting another big stimulus bill, it's worth recalling how the last one became not just a costly failure but a comedy of errors.
• The Spend Now, Tax Later Jobs Bill
  Alan Reynolds, Wall Street Journal, September 22, 2011
  Any plan that would impose permanently higher tax rates on income to pay for temporarily lower tax rates on payrolls is no stimulus or jobs plan under any sort of economics.
• Stimulus and the Depression: The Untold Story
  Harold L. Cole & Lee E. Ohanian, Wall Street Journal, September 26, 2011
  Temporary policies will do little to jump-start the economy, much as earlier temporary economic Band-Aids, such as the 2009 stimulus, did little to improve the economy.

Related Articles

• The American Jobs Act

• The American Jobs Act: Highlights, complete overview, or full text.
  On Thursday, September 8, President Obama outlined the details of the American Jobs Act during an address to a Joint Session of Congress. Read highlights, a complete overview, or the full text.
• The American Jobs Act Breakdown
  New York Times, September 9, 2011
  The NYT provides a breakdown of the cost of the 447 billion dollar bill by tax cuts & credits, employment projects, and infrastructure projects.

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• Bureau of Labor Statistics

• Employment Situation Summary
  Bureau of Labor Statistics, October 7, 2011
  The number of unemployed persons, at 14.0 million, was essentially unchanged in September, and the unemployment rate was 9.1 percent. Since April, the rate has held in a narrow range from 9.0 to 9.2 percent.

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• Senate Defeat of the American Jobs Act

• Obama Gets Back on the Bus to Push Jobs Act
  Peter Nicholas, Lost Angeles Times, October 16, 2011
  The number of unemployed persons, at 14.0 million, was essentially unchanged in September, and the unemployment rate was 9.1 percent. Since April, the rate has held in a narrow range from 9.0 to 9.2 percent.President Obama climbs back on board his big, black armored bus this week to shore up his popularity in a couple of battleground states and revert to Plan B in his campaign to pass a $447-billion jobs package, focusing on specific elements of the bill that he wants Congress to approve right away.
• Jobs Act: From “Pass This Bill” to “Pass Part of This Bill”
  Meg Handley, U.S. News & World Report, October 12, 2011
  Democrats have not yet determined which portions of the defeated bill will be spun off as separate proposals, but voting on pieces of the bill could begin as early as this month. Some proposals Democrats and Republicans might be able to agree on.
• RIP, American Jobs Act
  George Zornick, Nation, October 12, 2011
  Now comes phase two: beating up Republicans for standing in the way of job-creating legislation while using that pressure to hopefully at least get parts of the bill passed.

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• Senate Version of the American Jobs Act

• S.1660 – American Jobs Act of 2011
  Harry Reid, 112th Congress, October 5, 2011
  It has the same job-creating measures as the President’s original jobs bill, however, with a surtax starting in 2013 of 5.6 percent on income exceeding $1 million. The bill is entirely paid for.
• Congressional Budget Office
  October 7, 2011
  CBO score of Harry Reid’s version of the American Jobs Act, which the CBO estimates would decrease deficits by $6 billion over the coming decade.
• Obama's Jobs Bill Fails to Advance in Senate Despite White House Push
  FoxNews.com, Published October 11, 2011
  President Obama's $447 billion jobs bill failed to clear a procedural hurdle in the Democratic-controlled Senate Tuesday night despite a White House push that accelerated in the 11th hour.

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• Senate GOP Alternative Jobs Plan

• Jobs Through Growth Act: The Republican Plan To Put Americans Back To Work
  John McCain, Rand Paul, and Rob Portman, October 13, 2011
  Read the press release and scroll down the page to read the jobs plan.
• Senate GOP Unveils Its Jobs Agenda
  Manu Raju, Politico, October 12, 2011
  Senate Republicans have rolled out a jobs plan that amounts to a conservative’s dream agenda: targeting labor and environmental regulations, enacting a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution, lowering corporate and individual tax rates, encouraging energy production and expanding free trade, according to a draft obtained by Politico.
• Senate GOP Jobs Plan: Details TBD
  Suzy Khimm, Wonkblog, Washington Post, October 13, 2011
  Senate Republicans have put out a sweeping plan they’re dubbing the “Real American Jobs Act.” It’s mostly a roundup of about two dozen GOP bills, but it also includes one significant new proposal that Republicans are billing as “comprehensive tax reform.” The GOP’s plan so far defers most of the concrete details — including how they’d pay for broad-based tax cuts — to later.

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• Job Plans From The House

• The House Republican Plan for America’s Job Creators
  House Republicans’ pro-growth agenda builds on the GOP Pledge to America, their governing agenda focused on job creation and economic growth. It addresses economic challenges, fostering innovation and investment, and helping job creators without raising taxes.
• Make it in America
  House Democrats’ Make it in America plan is billed as a way to create jobs, improve the roads and highways that move our goods, help businesses get the money needed to expand and create jobs, train and equip Americans to develop and build the products of the future, and make powering our homes, factories and cars more affordable and cleaner.
• Rebuild the American Dream Framework
  September 13, 2011
  The Congressional Progressive Caucus introduced the Rebuild the American Dream Framework, which outlines six areas of focus for immediate and long term job creation: Make it in America Again, Rebuild America, Lead the Green Industrial Revolution, Jobs for the Next Generation, Not Just Jobs—Good Jobs, and Fair Taxes—Shared Sacrifice.

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• Taxes

• Obama Looks to Limit Tax Breaks for Wealthy
  Richard Rubin, Steven Sloan and Margaret Talev, Bloomberg, September 13, 2011
  President Barack Obama asked lawmakers to again consider increasing taxes for high earners, private equity managers and oil and gas companies to pay for his $447 billion job-creation package, running into Republican resistance along the way.
• Getting the Facts Straight on America’s Tax Burden
  Dan Pfeiffer, White House Blog, September 26, 2011
  “As we continue to have a robust discussion about the President’s plans across our country, it’s important to understand exactly how they will affect Americans – from the middle class to the highest earners.”
• Buffet Rule Facts and Fictions
  Gene Sperling, The White House Blog, September 21, 2011
  “…still, since not all of the reports about the Buffett Rule have been accurate, I want to clarify what we mean – and why the President believes this is an important principle. So let’s look at what this rule is and is not.”
• Obama to Propose “Buffet Tax” on Millionaires
  Alister Bull, Reuters, September 18, 2011
  President Barack Obama, in a populist step designed to appeal to voters, will propose a "Buffett Tax" on people making more than $1 million a year as part of his deficit recommendations to Congress on Monday.
• The Buffett Alternative Tax
  Wall Street Journal, September 20, 2011
  The rich don’t pay lower average tax rates.
• The Buffet Tax Deception
  Elizabeth MacDonald, FoxBusiness, September 21, 2011
  IRS data show the rich already pay more in federal taxes than the lower brackets.
• Can Tax Cuts Pay for Themselves
  Simon Johnson, New York Times, October 13, 2011
  Can tax cuts “pay for themselves,” inducing so much additional economic growth that government revenue actually increases, rather than decreases? The evidence clearly says no.
• Obama Tax Hikes: The Economic and Fiscal Effects
  William Beach, Rea Hederman Jr., John Ligon, Guinevere Nell, and Karen Campbell, Heritage Foundation, September 20, 2010
  Heritage Foundation economists explain why employment and the economy cannot be made to grow through higher taxes—and how crucial it is for Congress to recognize this fact.
• Do Taxes Narrow the Wealth Gap?
  Room for Debate, New York Times, September 19, 2011
  President Obama on Monday called for Congress to adopt his plan to reduce the federal deficit -- a package that includes $1.5 trillion in tax increases, primarily affecting wealthy individuals and American corporations. Experts debate the role of tax policy in the U.S. economy.

• Business Perspective

• Why the Jobs Plan Falls Short
  Thomas J. Donohue, Wall Street Journal, September 16, 2011
  While the jobs plan President Obama proposed last week contains some ideas that American business supports, it falls short. It focuses too much on government spending and temporary tax breaks and too little on the trade, energy, tax, regulatory and entitlement reforms that will jolt our economy and job market back to life.
• Employers Say Jobs Plan Won’t Lead to Hiring Spur
  Motoko Rich, New York Times, September 9, 2011
  The dismal state of the economy is the main reason many companies are reluctant to hire workers, and few executives are saying that President Obama’s jobs plan — while welcome — will change their minds any time soon.
• Jobs Act Good Start for Small Business
  Larry Nannis, Washington Business Journal, September 16, 2011
  While this bill is far from a silver bullet, it does hold a good deal of promise for small business owners.
• Obama Jobs Bill and Taxes -- What Does It All Mean For Business?
  Dean Zerbe, Forbes, September 9, 2011
  While there is merit to the tax proposals (some of it already current law), the bill lacks electrifying and game-changing proposals.

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• Education

• Assessing Obama's Jobs Plan, K-12 Style
  National Journal, September 12, 2011

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• Super Committee

• Members of the Bipartisan Deficit Panel
  New York Times, September 8, 2011
  Congressional leaders have named the 12 members of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, which is charged with coming up with recommendations to reduce federal budget deficits by at least $1.5 trillion over 10 years. The Times provides a look at where the members stand on issues that will likely be discussed and how they voted on recent budget bills.
• Around the Halls: President Obama's Deficit Reduction Plan and the Super Committee
  Brookings Institution, September 19, 2011
  As President Obama releases his plan for economic growth and deficit reduction, the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction begins its work to find $1.5 trillion in deficit reductions. Brookings scholars discuss Obama's plan and the implications it has for the super committee and the U.S. economy.
• Super Committee vs. Fiscal Commission: It's Different This Time
  Alex Brill, Real Clear Markets, September 14, 2011
  The Super Committee's job is a challenging one, especially considering their November 23 deadline for a vote on a deficit reduction package. In addition to finding mandatory spending cuts and entitlement reforms, the committee faces significant hurdles in translating the broad income tax recommendations of the Fiscal Commission into legislative reality.
• Lawmakers Advise Super Committee to Be Cautious
  Alan Fram and Mary Clare Jalonick, Associated Press, October 13, 2011
  Congress flooded its Super Committee with a jumble of advice Thursday about taming the government's out-of-control debt.

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• Polls

• Americans Favor Obama Jobs Plan by 45% to 32%
  Frank Newport, Gallup, September 14, 2011
  “By 45% to 32%, more Americans want their member of Congress to vote for rather than against a jobs bill similar to the one President Obama proposed last week, with the rest having no opinion.”
• Obama Approval Plummets Among Americans Skeptical of Jobs Plan
  Julianna Goldman, Bloomberg.com, September 14, 2011
  A majority of Americans don’t believe President Barack Obama’s $447 billion jobs plan will help lower the unemployment rate.

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• Additional Reading

• A Jobs Plan We Can Afford
  Robert I. Lerman, Urban Institute, September 19, 2011
  This brief lays out a feasible, cost-effective strategy for job creation. It would create 4 million new jobs at a budget cost of less than $60 billion and is far more affordable and effective than President Obama’s $448 billion proposal to create up to 2.1 million jobs.
• The Way Forward: Moving From the Post-Bubble, Post-Bust Economy to Renewed Growth and Competitiveness
  Daniel Alpert, Robert Hockett, and Nouriel Roubini, New America Foundation, October 10, 2011
  This paper analyzes the current economic crisis and proposes a three-pillared recovery plan. The first is a five-to-seven year public investment program that repairs the nation’s crumbling public infrastructure. The second includes a debt restructuring program that addresses the banking and real estate sectors in particular. Finally, the authors propose global reforms that can begin the process of restoring balance to the world economy.
• The Polarization of Job Opportunities in the U.S. Labor Market
  David Autor, Center for American Progress and Hamilton Project, April 2010
  This paper analyzes the state of the U.S. labor market over the past three decades to inform policymaking on two fronts. The first is to rigorously document and place in historical and international context the trajectory of the U.S. labor market, focusing on the evolving earnings, employment rates, and labor market opportunities for workers with low, moderate, and high levels of education. The second is to illuminate the key forces shaping this trajectory.