Sean Hannity and Tim Pawlenty slam the bipartisan jobs bill that the AP also criticized for not creating very many jobs, but of course neither Hannity or Pawlenty like the fact that Harry Reid is now backing away from that bill.
But instead of advancing the bigger bill, Reid announced that he would break it into two parts, bringing the jobs-related incentives to a vote on Feb. 22. The remaining measures would move later as a separate bill.
"We feel that the American people need a message," Reid told reporters Thursday. "The message that they need is that we're doing something about jobs."
All the fast-tracked provisions have bipartisan support, but GOP senators were caught off-guard by Reid's bifurcated strategy, announced just as Republicans were releasing statements in praise of the larger bill. Senior Democratic aides said Reid made the move to quell squabbling among Democrats about the contents of the larger bill amid rising criticism that the legislation included too many special-interest perks.
Pawlenty pretends that the GOP cares one iota about job creation when their party has shown themselves to react to nothing other than placating their big money donors and making sure we drive down wages in America until all of us are making the same wage as the burger flipper at a fast food chain or less. His solution to get people back to work, "broad based tax cuts" and cutting the payroll tax.
We'll see what actually comes out of this bill in the days to come, but I don't count on Pawlenty and his ilk to be honest brokers in the debate on how to fix this. Here's Pawlenty's list of what we should be doing.
Extending the Bush tax cuts
Cutting capital gains
Cutting marginal income tax rates
Cutting the employee payroll tax
How about doing something about outsourcing and our trade laws Mr. Pawlenty? I'm all for lowering taxes on most working Americans and the poor and what's left of the middle class. Somehow when Republicans are running the show, that's never what happens though. The ones who reap the benefits of the tax cuts are always the highest earners. I hope Harry Reid has got the sense to quit repeating their mistakes and thinking trickle down economics works.
