Nancy Pelosi Resists President Obama On Bi-Partisan Jobs Plan
The Obama administration's efforts to find common ground with congressional Republicans ran into two pockets of resistance Tuesday: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Leader John Boehner.
At a closed-door White House session, Pelosi expressed skepticism over an administration proposal to offer tax breaks to businesses that create new jobs. And Boehner urged President Barack Obama to abandon much of the Democrats' current agenda on the ground that it's killing jobs by creating uncertainty in the markets.
The White House session with congressional leaders was supposed to be a step toward bipartisanship, with a focus on jobs. But Pelosi made it clear that there's disagreement, even among Democrats.
White House economic advisers Christina Romer and Larry Summers defended the administration's proposal to give employers a $5,000 credit for each new worker they hire as well as help with Social Security taxes.
Pelosi countered that no one she's consulted believes that the plan will actually lead to the creation of new jobs, sources said.
“She questioned the efficacy of it,” one Democratic aide said.
Another Democratic aide said that Pelosi has "some concerns about the tax side" of the jobs bill Senate Democrats are trying to pass but that she didn't say she'd refuse to move the bill through the House if it clears the Senate.
White House spokesman Bill Burton declined to discuss specifics of what was said in the meeting, but said, "There are a lot of ideas on how to create jobs from both Democrats and Republicans. What we're focused on is making sure that we move as quickly as possible to get a jobs bill passed and Americans back to work."
Pelosi's push back against the tax credit plan is the latest in a series of breaks with White House officials.
Most recently, she questioned Obama's proposal for a three-year freeze on discretionary nonsecurity spending, saying any freeze should apply equally to defense as well as domestic spending.
But the jobs bill is a particularly sore spot. The House passed a $154 billion jobs package in December but that bill has been cast aside in the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid needs to win support from moderate Democrats and persuade at least one Republican to cross over on a cloture motion.
Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly said Tuesday that his boss is "a very strong supporter of this president," and that she thought Tuesday's meeting was "very productive."
"She's glad the president called it. She knows Democrats have to work with Republicans to pass this critical jobs bill," Daly said.
Sources said Obama spent part of Tuesday's meeting tangling with Republican leaders, accusing Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of wanting to "kill" his top domestic priorities.
Boehner told the president that Democrats should "dispose of" their plans for health care reform and a cap-and-trade bill as well as other initiatives because the uncertainty surrounding them is dragging down the economy.
Sources said Obama was clearly irritated and told Boehner: “You just want to kill all of these bills."
Boehner shot back, saying, “No, you are wrong," and said his party really did want to work with Obama in a bipartisan fashion.
Obama complained that his administration isn't getting enough credit for what it's done to improve the economy, including providing increased Medicaid aid to the states.
When the subject turned to reducing the deficit, sources say Obama tried to take McConnell to task for supporting a bill to create a bipartisan debt-reduction commission and then voting against it.
McConnell said he raised the issue of a fiscal commission before Obama was inaugurated last January but that the president didn't respond for more than a year — just before Reid brought the measure to a vote.
Obama pushed McConnell and Boehner to appoint members to a debt commission he plans to create through executive order, which he said would be based on the failed bipartisan plan.
Boehner laid out a series of concerns over the plan, saying it would lead to kicking the can down the road and that the panel's recommendations should be voted on before an election rather than after one.
Neither McConnell nor Boehner committed to appointing members to the commission, saying they needed to see the details of Obama's proposal first.
Boehner said that Obama should use his authority to rescind spending — and send such a proposal to the Hill, pledging GOP cooperation if Obama did so.
But the main focus of the meeting was on ways to reverse the nation’s 9.7 percent unemployment rate.
Obama made a pitch for a bipartisan jobs bill that would include funding for infrastructure, a cut in capital gains tax and the hiring tax credit, sources said.
Pelosi — along with the rest of the Democrats, indicated that she supported more infrastructure spending, including "Greening" efforts throughout the country.
According to sources, Boehner agreed that cutting capital gains was a good idea but raised concerns about whether it was workable, pushing for it to be lowered from 10-15 percent to 5-10 percent.
McConnell called for bipartisan support on four issues that Obama mentioned in his State of the Union address: trade, offshore drilling and expanding nuclear production and clean coal technology.
Sources: Politico
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