Posted on 10/19/2011 8:58:45 AM PDT by jazusamo
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday said Congress needs to worry about government jobs more than private-sector jobs, and that this is why Senate Democrats are pushing a bill aimed at shoring up teachers and first-responders.
"It's very clear that private-sector jobs have been doing just fine; it's the public-sector jobs where we've lost huge numbers, and that's what this legislation is all about," Reid said on the Senate floor.
Reid was responding to recent comments from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who accused Democrats of purposefully pursuing higher taxes as part of the teacher/first-responder bill, S. 1723, so that Republicans would oppose it. McConnell said the bill was meant to fail in order to give Democrats an issue to run on in the 2012 election, but Reid said the Republicans are simply trying to defeat President Obama any way they can.
The legislation Reid is defending is part of Obama's jobs package. Vice President Biden was in Pennsylvania, an important election state, on Tuesday to push for the administration's plan on increasing the number of teachers.
Reid reiterated his emphasis on creating government jobs by saying Democrats are looking to "put hundreds of thousands of people back to work teaching children, have more police patrolling our streets, firefighters fighting our fires, doing the rescue work that they do so well … that's our priority." He said Republicans are calling the bill a "failure" because they are "using a different benchmark for success than we are."
Private-sector jobs have increased over the last 19 months, while government jobs have lagged. They've also seen cuts in several states that are struggling to balanced their books.
Reid also said a majority of people polled support the bill, and that the tax hike needed to fund the $35 billion spending program is minimal.
"My friend, the Republican leader … is complaining about a tax of one-half of 1 percent … on people who make more than $1 million a year to pay for a program that would stop teachers from being laid off and rehire some of the teachers that have been laid off," Reid said.
Democrats who support the bill have said it would help save 400,000 teacher jobs and thousands of first-responder jobs that have either been cut or could soon be cut. Reid said Wednesday that these layoffs are "rooted in the last administration," but did not explain further.
Senate Democrats are hoping to pass S. 1723 as early as this week, although votes could be delayed until early November, depending on the progress made on passing a 2012 spending bill.
Reid also dismissed efforts by the Republican House to ease environmental regulations as a way to create jobs.
"The Republican response has been cutting back environmental health safeguards, I guess hoping that a sicker, more polluted country is a better place to create jobs, and it's not," Reid said.
“it’s the public-sector jobs where we’ve lost huge numbers”
Dingy Harry is in for a real disappointmen when the GOP takes back the Senate and Presidency next year and get serious about chopping public sector jobs.
Don’t deceive yourself, Biden knows full well that public sector jobs are non productive in the economy. They do, however, make a population of slaves.
Just thinkin’ aloud here...: Reid was a boxer in his past life wasn’t he........too many to the head I guess.
Yep, I believe you drilled it. :)
Hey, calling Harry Reid a “doddering old fool” is an insult to doddering old fools.
The principles of limited Government, Government that did not get in the way of the material & spiritual progress, achieved by responsible individuals, was premised not on idiotic ideology--such as every Leftwing movement in history--but on reason applied to the actual & specific experiences of the families from whom our leaders sprang. (See America Grounded On Experience & Reason.)
In contrast to the cloudborne thinking that sees bigger & ever more centralized Government as the answer to human problems; the Founders of America relied on what had already been demonstrated by responsible peoples to actually work for human betterment. Understanding & explaining the contrast is the key to turning the demagogues & clowns out of office.
William Flax
“Creating jobs” spends more of the public purse than it “creates” revenue, period.
Good video. He’s dead on the money.
It is not the federal govt’s job to hire teachers and firefighters - even if they actually did that with the taxes they confiscate. Reid would prefer states be stripped of their choice to hire or not. The fed knows best don’t ya know.
Agreed!!
My husband belongs to a tile union, his yearly hours should be from 1200 to 1500 HARRY...2010 he worked a whopping 140 hours, and boy did it ever get so much finer in 2011...a whopping 320, yep HARRY JUST FRICKIN' FINE!!!
“Amerika’s nomenklatura”
For those who remember the old Soviet Union, it was a grim place — at least for average citizens. But not so for those in government. Contrary to the official ideals of equality and a classless society that the ruling communist regime espoused, the USSR created a privileged class of party members inside government — the nomenklatura.
This semipermanent bureaucracy earned higher incomes, got better health care, ate better food and had greater job security than average Russians, the much-despised proletarians. Today, our bloated federal government seems, in significant ways, to be creating this same dynamic.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=528809
The federal government fired 0.55% of its workers in the budget year that ended Sept. 30 — 11,668 employees in its 2.1 million workforce. Research shows that the private sector fires about 3% of workers annually for poor performance, says John Palguta, former research chief at the federal Merit Systems Protection Board, which handles federal firing disputes.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2751377/posts
I thought he was a wrestler, like his buddy Paul Welfare.
OMG...the man is unfit for public office!!
The lie from Genesis 3 - you can be as gods.
Amateur boxer in his High School years.
only 33%? I think it’s more than that.
especially once TSA does,too.
now he’s an amateur senator.
Private-Sector Jobs Are a Major Factor in Employment Growth
NY TIMES 8/28/11
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2769979/posts
...and in the Slimes, of all places.
I’d add not A major factor, THE major factor.
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