During his address before a joint session of Congress, President Obama exhorted Congress to “pass this bill,” the American Jobs Act.
Until yesterday, no bill had been filed in the House. That changed when Republican Rep. Louis Gohmert bust a cheeky move and introduced H.R. 2911, the “American Jobs Act of 2011.”
We have heard a lot of rhetoric about job creation from President Obama over the last several days. After waiting to see what the President would actually put into legislative language, and then waiting to see if anybody would actually introduce the President’s bill in the House, today I took the initiative and introduced the “American Jobs Act of 2011.” It is a very simple bill, which will eliminate the corporate tax which serves as a tariff that our American companies pay on goods they produce here in America.
Ten days later, Obama’s message is: Show me some love and help me pass the “American Jobs Act.”
It was a long night but the results are in: Republican Bob Turner won the special election to fill the seat vacated by the disgraced Anthony Weiner.
While David Weprin’s name was on the ballot, Republicans and others, including former New York Mayor Ed Koch, cast the race as a referendum on President Obama. The New York Times reports:
As Mr. Turner declared that the election had been a referendum on the president, his buoyant supporters, gathered at a restaurant in Howard Beach, Queens, shouted “Yes, we can,” appropriating the galvanizing phrase of Mr. Obama’s 2008 campaign. Mr. Turner predicted that voters elsewhere would also rebuke Mr. Obama in the elections next year.
“We have lit one candle today,” he said. “It’s going to be a bonfire pretty soon.”
[…]
The unexpectedly tight race stirred anxiety among Democrats already worried about elections next year for president, the House and the Senate. The Turner campaign had eagerly courted disenchanted Democrats, and outside polling places around the district on Tuesday, multiple longtime Democrats confessed that despite concern about Mr. Turner’s eagerness to slash federal spending, they chose him hoping that his election would get lawmakers’ attention.
But make no mistake about it, the albatross around Weprin’s neck is named Obama, and Democrats who value honesty will tell you privately that the president’s 37 percent approval rating in the district is making it difficult for Weprin to win a race that in almost any other time would be a slam dunk, no matter how mediocre a campaign the Democratic nominee ran.
Polling conducted by Siena College shows that jobs and the economy are the top issues of the day, and Republican calls for voters to “send a message” to President Barack Obama clearly have worked far better than Democratic charges that Turner and his party want to eliminate Medicare and Social Security.
Israel is also a very visible issue, and popular former New York Mayor Ed Koch (D) has endorsed Turner because of the former mayor’s unhappiness with Obama’s level of support for Israel.
Rothenberg continued:
Democrats also want to avoid the public relations disaster that losing a reliably Democratic district would entail. The loss would play into the Republicans’ narrative about the president’s unpopularity, giving GOP talkers ammunition to argue that 2012 will be a nightmare for Democrats and that Medicare will not be the disaster for Republicans that Democratic strategists hope it will be.
Weprin, an Orthodox Jew, lost in a district with a heavy population of Jewish voters and where Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 3-to-1 margin.
If Weprin couldn’t make it there, can Democrats make it in Florida next year?
President Obama unveiled his $447 billion plan to put America back to work, the “American Jobs Act,” last night before a joint session of Congress. Although no legislation was introduced, Obama told Congress to pass his jobs package “right away.”
An embargoed excerpt from the speech stimulated my concern that Obama would not give voice to the racial gap in employment:
I am sending this Congress a plan that you should pass right away. It’s called the American Jobs Act. There should be nothing controversial about this piece of legislation. Everything in here is the kind of proposal that’s been supported by both Democrats and Republicans – including many who sit here tonight. And everything in this bill will be paid for. Everything. (Emphasis added)
I knew then Obama was not going to adopt the Congressional Black Caucus’ recommendation and acknowledge black Americans’ pain. In a letter to the President, CBC Chairman Emanuel Cleaver II wrote:
Acknowledge the depression-like unemployment crisis in the African American Community and articulate a targeted approach for job creation to ensure that communities with unique needs are assisted in a direct and comprehensive fashion.
Still, I tuned in. Obama did not predict how many jobs his plan would create. But if the past is prologue, infrastructure spending will put few African Americans back to work.
Consider also that African Americans represent roughly five percent of construction workers. So I question whether the proposed $80 billion in infrastructure spending will create jobs for “communities with unique needs.”
Overall, Black-owned businesses have received a proportionately lower number and dollar value of federal stimulus contracts when compared with other businesses.
President Obama will unveil his jobs plan before a joint session of Congress tonight.
There's been a lot of speculation about what will be included in his latest Big Speech. Rep. Maxine Waters questions whether the president will give voice to the jobless crisis in the African American community.
There are roughly 3 million African Americans out of work today, a number nearly equal to the entire population of Iowa. I would suggest that if the entire population of Iowa, a key state on the electoral map and a place that served as a stop on the president’s jobs bus tour were unemployed, they would be mentioned in the president’s speech and be the beneficiary of targeted public policy.
So, one question to be answered this evening is, are the unemployed in the African-American community, including almost 45 percent of its youth, as important as the people of Iowa?
Waters added:
This evening, as the President speaks to the nation about his plan to create jobs, he must acknowledge the economic disaster in the African American community, whose unemployment rate hovers at roughly 16.7 percent, almost double that of the general population and equal to depression-era levels. He must then articulate how the plan he puts forth will target the communities with the highest rates of unemployment, including the African American community.
While Obama may not say our name, Gallup has given us a new name, “outlier.” CBS News reports:
Now, with Hispanic approval ratings getting closer and closer to the national average, Gallup notes that “blacks have become an extreme outlier -- the only major racial group showing well-above-average approval.”
Still, black Americans' unwavering support may not be enough to get Obama to acknowledge black pain. As Waters observed:
There are those, who believe that the President, because he is black, cannot talk specifically about issues directly impacting the black community, like high unemployment. They suggest that doing so would endanger the President’s chances of being re-elected. I share the desire to reelect the first black President.
But, I would offer a slightly different analysis. If the unemployment rates in the African American Community continue to climb, like they did in August by almost a full percentage point, those African American voters who came out to the polls for the first time in 2008 but who have since lost their home and/or their job, may not return to the polls. Therefore, targeting public policy to a community who accounted for 13 percent of the electorate in ‘08, and who is now experiencing the culmination of a decade of economic crisis, is not just good policy, but good politics.
President Obama will release his long-awaited jobs plan on Sept. 7 before a joint session of Congress. In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Obama wrote:
Our Nation faces unprecedented economic challenges, and millions of hardworking Americans continue to look for jobs. As I have traveled across our country this summer and spoken with our fellow Americans, I have heard a consistent message: Washington needs to put aside politics and start making decisions based on what is best for our country and not what is best for each of our parties in order to grow the economy and create jobs. We must answer this call.
Therefore, I respectfully request the opportunity to address a Joint Session of Congress on September 7, 2011, at 8:00 p.m. It is my intention to lay out a series of bipartisan proposals that the Congress can take immediately to continue to rebuild the American economy by strengthening small businesses, helping Americans get back to work, and putting more money in the paychecks of the Middle Class and working Americans, while still reducing our deficit and getting our fiscal house in order. It is our responsibility to find bipartisan solutions to help grow our economy, and if we are willing to put country before party, I am confident we can do just that.
Thank you for your consideration.
After some consideration, Boehner wrote back that day won’t work due to “parliamentary or logistical impediments.”
Obama agreed to the delay. He will speak on Sept. 8, which coincides with the season opener of the NFL.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said in a statement:
Today, the President asked to address the Congress about the need for urgent action on the economic situation facing the American people as soon as Congress returned from recess. Both Houses will be back in session after their August recess on Wednesday, September 7th, so that was the date that was requested. We consulted with the Speaker about that date before the letter was released, but he determined Thursday would work better. The President is focused on the urgent need to create jobs and grow our economy, so he welcomes the opportunity to address a Joint Session of Congress on Thursday, September 8th and challenge our nation’s leaders to start focusing 100% of their attention on doing whatever they can to help the American people.
It looks like “somebody done hoodooed the hoodoo man.”
Hell hath no fury like a member of Congress whose constituents are facing an unemployment “epidemic.” Rep. Maxine Waters continues to give voice to African Americans who know a rising tide does not lift all boats.
Days after urging the President to “fight harder,” Waters took the fight to Don Graves, the executive director of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. During the Congressional Black Caucus’ town hall meeting in Miami, Graves said “certain communities have been hit harder than other communities.”
Waters wanted a more targeted response:
Let me hear you say black.
According to the Miami Herald, Graves responded “meekly”:
Black, African-American, Latino –- we’re going to focus on getting people back to work.
It may be time for President Obama to get back to work. The latest Gallup daily tracking poll shows his approval rating has slipped to 38 percent; 54 percent disapprove of his job performance.
Obama’s support among whites and Hispanics is 32 percent and 44 percent respectively. The president is standing on shaky ground with swing voters. Just 35 percent of independent voters give him a thumbs up.
The bottom line: The 88 percent approval of black Americans is keeping Obama in the game.
A new Gallup poll found only 11 percent of Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in the country. Their top concerns are the state of the economy and “unemployment/jobs.”
There is no demographic breakdown but with black unemployment at depression levels, it’s safe to assume that black folks are not content with the situation.
Still, African Americans are reluctant to voice their discontent. But the code of silence is cracking. Social activist Marcia Dyson recently wrote:
The suggestion that such criticism is “hating” is ridiculous; surely we can make distinctions between bitter attacks and enlightened analysis. And the argument that publicly criticizing our first black president is an act of racial disloyalty is immature. We must be grown enough to know that politics at its best is about engaged citizenship, not tribal worship. You can love black people and do what’s best for the race without agreeing with everything the president does or says. If we don’t use our public platforms to encourage, solicit and push the president to do what we think is right, we’ve surrendered both our civic duty and our racial responsibility.
Former CBC Chair Elijah Cummings told CNN’s Candy Crowley the president needs to “fight harder” for African Americans:
Almost every African American I have talked to said they want him to fight and fight harder… Their attitude is that if the Republicans are not going to work with us, we’re just going to have to go it alone and stand up to them. Don’t back down, period.