Free Republic

Few people are enthused about the the president’s jobs plan, as Obama’s low approval and climbing disapproval rates attest, but Republicans have said they’re willing to work with him on some of his proposals. House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, for example, has said his vision and the president’s vision might overlap in the territory of corporate tax reform. That doesn’t mean, however, that House leadership concedes the importance of comprehensively passing the president’s bill with all the urgency Obama has sought to make seem imperative. In fact, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said today on CNBC that Republicans are...

EXCERPT: Congressional Republicans can hammer out a deal with Congressional Democrats for tax reform somewhere between what House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan proposed in the budget passed by the House, and what the Simpson-Bowles Commission appointed by President Obama proposed. There are enough Senate Democrats who support the Simpson Bowles proposals to pass such a bill through the Democrat controlled Senate. That would involve reducing the federal corporate tax rate from 35% to somewhere between 20% to 25%, and closing enough loopholes to make Obama corporate crony General Electric pay some corporate income taxes. Ryan proposed individual tax reform...

<p>As President Obama campaigns for more government spending-a.k.a. his jobs plan-new unemployment claims provide fresh evidence the economy is stalling and in danger of slipping into a second recession. Big government could easily take unemployment above 15 percent and create a hole too big to ascend.</p>

By now we have repeatedly seen and heard Obama's vision of the American Jobs Plan, which as has been discussed previously is dead on arrival, specifically due to Republican opposition. As to what the republican oppose specifically, watch below as Boehner gives the first public appearance presenting the republican talking points on the AJA.And here are the prepared remarks from Boehner's website:In an address to the Economic Club of Washington today, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) will call for bipartisan action to “Liberate America’s Economy” from the shackles of excessive regulation, higher taxes, and out-of-control spending that are stifling...

Rep. Jim McDermott appeared on Fox News to push President Obama's $447 billion 'jobs plan'. While doing so, he somehow shifted the focus to the space program stating, "We have no way of getting groceries to our people who are up in the space lab" while trying to make the case. As Jim Hoft from Gateway Pundit points out: "Last we checked – Obama shut down the shuttle program, Jim."

President Barack Obama’s new jobs plan is hitting some unexpected turbulence in the halls of Congress: lawmakers from his own party. As he demands Congress quickly approve his ambitious proposal aimed at reviving the sagging economy, many Democrats on Capitol Hill appear far from sold that the president has the right antidote to spur major job growth and turn around their party’s political fortunes. “Terrible,” Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) told POLITICO when asked about the president’s ideas for how to pay for the $450 billion price tag. “We shouldn’t increase taxes on ordinary income. … There are other ways to...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday morning said President Obama’s plan to raise taxes to pay for a $447 billion jobs bill had no chance of passing the Senate. He called Obama’s jobs package — announced last week to a joint session of Congress — a political exercise, describing it as “disappointing.” McConnell’s forceful criticisms of the plan signal Obama will have a difficult time passing any of his proposal through Congress. There is also brewing Republican opposition to an extension of the payroll tax holiday, which GOP lawmakers have viewed skeptically as a temporary fix. McConnell said...

Barack Obama's jobs plan may be one of the worst policy proposals I've ever seen. As I pointed out last week, the plan to "pay for" the jobs proposal with tax hikes is just lunacy. It eliminates every bit of stimulus effect that could possibly come from additional government spending. Over at Zero Hedge, John Poehling has run the numbers on the American Jobs Act (AJA). Even if you take very optimistic figures, the jobs bill turns out to be unbelievably costly. For those eager to put some math to the rhetoric coming from the White House over the president's...

President Obama has apparently adopted the old adage “If at first you don’t succeed . . . spend, spend again.” On Thursday night, the president laid out his plan for job creation, a $447 billion stimulus proposal, most of which we have seen before. After all, if Congress passes this new round of government spending, it would be the seventh such stimulus program since the recession began. George W. Bush pushed through two of them, totaling some $200 billion, and Obama already has enacted four more, with a total price tag of roughly $1.3 trillion. The result: Three years and...

So that was what we have been waiting for? That was what all the hype was about? With a little over a year until the next election, that was the "best shot" that Obama has for fixing the unemployment crisis in this country? The Obama Jobs Plan (also now known as "the American Jobs Act") is going to cost $447 billion and it is going to do next to nothing to create more jobs. Many Americans were hoping for something bold and new from Obama, but instead what they got was a bad joke. When Obama stated that there...

Mitt Romney is putting meat on the bones of his contention that he will be the nation’s turnaround artist. Romney announced his jobs plan — an array of specific steps packaged in a 160-page tome entitled “Believe in America” — in a speech in North Las Vegas, at McCandless International Trucks Inc. The end goal of his plan is a restoration of national prosperity by the completion of his first term. “The entire jobs-and-economic-growth plan will achieve about 4 percent year-over-year GDP growth,” a Romney aide asserts, citing the campaign’s economic models. “This means the economy will create eleven and...

In an effort to bring down the stubbornly high unemployment rate, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is lobbying Washington officials to give local workers an advantage in winning some of the more than 166,000 jobs expected from transportation projects planned for the region. Federal rules prohibit local hiring preferences on federally funded transportation projects, under the premise that all U.S. taxpayers help to pay for the work and should have an equal shot at getting the jobs. The rule also stems from concern that making local hiring a factor in awarding contracts will increase the cost of projects. But with Washington jittery...

<p>As President Barack Obama prepares to pitch a new jobs plan to Congress, he said Tuesday there are steps the government can take that could add up to a million jobs to the U.S. economy and boost growth by 1.5%.</p>

President Obama said Monday that the jobs plan he will unveil next week will include ideas with bipartisan appeal. Speaking in the White House Rose Garden, Obama said his proposals will "put more money in the pockets of working families and middle-class families." The president's plan, to be unveiled after Labor Day, is expected to include tens of billions of dollars to renovate thousands of public schools and a tax break to encourage businesses to hire new workers, according to people familiar with White House deliberations. Though he did not offer such specifics in his remarks, Obama said his proposals...

Last Monday, President Obama made news by promising to give a speech in September detailing, "a very specific plan to boost the economy, to create jobs and to control our deficit." But has that "very specific plan" already been downgraded to an outline? That is, at least, the impression I got watching Obama advisors Robert Gibbs and David Axelrod on yesterday's Sunday morning shows. "The president is going to outline a short-term plan to accelerate the economy," Axelrod said on ABC's This Week, "in the face of the hits we've taken, because of the Arab Spring and oil prices, because...

The White House announced that President Obama will deliver a major address on job creation early in September. Mr. Obama could address proposed Labor Department regulations that would hobble employers with paperwork, reducing hiring. These regulations include affirmative action rules for minorities and women at on-site construction jobs for federally-funded projects; requirements for federal contractors to keep records of the race, sex, and earnings of employees; rules governing dust levels in coal mines; and rules to expand preferences for veterans in the workplace. Such regulations are even more extraordinary in light of Mr. Obama's avowed pursuit of regulatory simplicity and...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats on Saturday called on Republicans to join them in an effort to curb the shipping of American jobs abroad. "It's a shame when the White House's top economic advisor says outsourcing of American jobs is inevitable, or even that it benefits our economy," Rep. Nick Lampson of Texas said in the Democrats weekly radio address. "Americans know our country gains when we export American goods -- not American jobs." Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives this week proposed their "American Jobs Plan," similar to one by the party's presumptive presidential nominee, Sen. John Kerry (news...