President Obama has made a variety of claims about the American Jobs Act, most notably the fact that the bill would boost the economy — and be fully paid for. How do those claims stand up to scrutiny? According to the non-partisan CBO, pretty well.
The Congressional Budget Office on Friday confirmed that President Obama’s jobs bill would be fully paid for over ten years and also gave its seal of approval to a Senate Democrat version that includes a surtax on millionaires. […]
CBO also said that the bill “could have a noticeable impact on economic growth and employment in the next few years.”
All told, the American Jobs Bill, the CBO concluded, would reduce the deficit by $3 billion over the next 10 years, and that doesn’t factor in potential savings associated with increased revenue from a healthier economy.
The CBO’s findings don’t come as a big surprise — Democrats tend to take arithmetic seriously when crafting legislation — but they leave Republicans with no excuses for failure. The bill that’s on the table, as objective matter, creates jobs, cuts taxes, is fully paid for, and reduces the deficit. As far as Congress is concerned, that’s not a bad combination of qualities.
And on the other hand, we have the Republicans’ alternative jobs plan, which doesn’t really exist beyond vague and ineffective platitudes.
It’s a detail President Obama was eager to share in his weekly address this morning.
“So any Senator out there who’s thinking about voting against this jobs bill needs to explain why they would oppose something that we know would improve our economic situation. If the Republicans in Congress think they have a better plan for creating jobs right now, they should prove it. Because one of the same independent economists who looked at our plan just said that their ideas, ‘wouldn’t mean much for the economy in the near term.’
“If their plan doesn’t measure up, the American people deserve to know what it is that Republicans in Congress don’t like about this jobs plan.”
