Lawmakers, White House regroup on jobs

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after Senate Republicans killed his $447 billion jobs bill, President Barack Obama said he isn’t taking no for an answer. In his first, combative appearance since a united Senate GOP caucus filibustered the jobs plan to death, Obama promised to keep the pressure on Congress for his job initiatives.

NBC/WSJ poll: Despite defeat, Obama’s jobs bill is popular

“Now a lot of folks in Washington and the media will look at last night’s vote and say, ‘Well, that’s it. Let’s move on to the next fight.’ But I’ve got news for them: Not this time. Not with so many Americans out of work,” he said. “Not with so many folks in your communities hurting. We will not take no for an answer.”

After pressing for Congress to award his jobs package an up or down vote, Obama and his Democratic allies promise to force additional votes on separate pieces of the measure, like infrastructure spending, jobless assistance and tax cuts for individuals and businesses.

“We will keep organizing and we will keep pressuring and we will keep voting until this Congress finally meets its responsibilities and actually does something to put people back to work and improve the economy,” said Obama, who spoke at an event organized by the White House recognizing Latino contributions to American history.

The White House is using the jobs issue as a political sword as the 2012 campaign heats up. But it’ll take a more bipartisan approach to actually deliver results sought by an angry public.

Obama’s plan died at the hands of Senate Republicans on Tuesday, even though the president had been campaigning for it across the country for weeks. The $447 billion plan fell on a 50-49 tally in the 100-member Senate, falling well short of the 60 votes needed to crack a filibuster by Republicans. They opposed to its stimulus-style spending and its tax surcharge for the very wealthy.

Now, the White House and leaders in Congress are moving on to alternative ways to address the nation’s painful 9.1 percent unemployment, including breaking the legislation into smaller, more digestible pieces. And on Wednesday, both the House and Senate are poised to approve long-stalled trade pacts with Korea, Panama and Colombia.

In the weeks and months ahead, Democrats promise further votes on jobs. But it remains to be seen how much of that effort will involve more campaign-stoked battles with Republicans and how much will include seeking common ground in hopes of passing legislation. Further complicating matters is a deficit “supercommittee” that is supposed to come up with $1.2 trillion or more in deficit savings — some of which Democrats may want to claim for jobs initiatives.

Tuesday’s tally also shows that Republicans believe they have little to fear by tangling with Obama.

“Republicans will continue to seek out any Democrat who’s more interested in jobs than in political posturing and work with them on bipartisan legislation like the trade bills we’ll vote on tonight,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Wednesday. “What we will not do, though, is vote in favor of any more misguided stimulus bills because some bill writer slapped the word ‘jobs’ on the cover page.”

The White House appears most confident that it will be able to continue a 2-percentage-point Social Security payroll tax cut through 2012 and to extend emergency unemployment benefits to millions of people — if only because, in the White House view, Republicans won’t want to accept the political harm of letting those provisions expire.

White House officials also are hopeful of ultimately garnering votes for the approval of infrastructure spending and tax credits for businesses that hire unemployed veterans.

Senate Democrats will begin sorting through their options on jobs at a weekly closed-door caucus on Wednesday.

Obama’s plan would have combined Social Security payroll tax cuts for workers and businesses and other tax relief totaling about $270 billion with $175 billion in new spending on roads, school repairs and other infrastructure, as well as unemployment assistance and help to local governments to avoid layoffs of teachers, firefighters and police officers.

Obama said the plan — more than half the size of his 2009 economic stimulus measure — would be an insurance policy against a double-dip recession and that continued economic intervention was essential given slower-than-hoped job growth.

Unlike the 2009 legislation, the current plan would be paid for with a 5.6 percent surcharge on income exceeding $1 million. That would be expected to raise about $450 billion over the coming decade.

Leaders of the GOP-controlled House have signaled they support tax cuts for small businesses and changes to jobless insurance to allow states to use unemployment funds for on-the-job training. And they’ve indicated they’ll be willing to accept an extension of cuts to the Social Security payroll tax. But stimulus-style spending is a nonstarter with the tea party-infused chamber.

“Now it’s time for both parties to work together and find common ground on removing government barriers to private-sector job growth,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said after the vote.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.