House GOP To Collide With Obama On Jobs!

With a week left before Congress returns from summer recess, Republican lawmakers on Monday unveiled a jobs agenda that puts them on a collision course with President Obama, who will release a competing jobs package after Labor Day.
House Majority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., outlined his party's plans to lawmakers in a memo in which he said it is "essential that the House continue our focus on the jobs crisis" in the coming weeks and months.

The jobless rate has been stuck above 9 percent for months, and both parties are eager to show they are taking action to reduce unemployment. Obama said Monday he would announce his own proposals next week, but his plan will likely center on more stimulus spending, a nonstarter in the GOP-dominated House.

And Obama is all but certain to oppose the Republican plan, which includes a massive tax cut and an attempt to roll back some of the key environmental regulations his administration put in place to reduce so-called greenhouse gas emissions.

This political impasse will likely mean that no big jobs bill will get signed into law anytime soon.

"I don't think there will ever be a comprehensive jobs bill," Democratic strategist Doug Schoen told The Washington Examiner. "The gap is too wide."

Cantor on Monday outlined a series of bills the House will take up in September, including the repeal of regulations Republicans deem burdensome to businesses. Key among those are new standards and rules about to be implemented by the Environmental Protection Agency that are aimed at curbing pollution from power plants, farms and industry.

The Republican agenda will also take aim at the National Labor Relations Board with legislation that responds to the NLRB's recent decision to try to block Boeing from moving aircraft production to a new plant in South Carolina. The proposed bill, "Protecting Jobs From Government Interference Act," would prohibit the NLRB from restricting where a company can move production, Cantor said in the memo.

The GOP agenda will also include a huge tax break for small businesses that would allow them to take a tax deduction equal to 20 percent of their income. Cantor said this tax cut would "free up funds for small-business people to retain and hire new employees, and reinvest in and grow their businesses."

Republicans say they want more robust tax breaks than the payroll tax cut that Obama will likely include in his jobs plan.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's office called Cantor's plan "an ideologically driven GOP 'no jobs' fall agenda" and said it would jeopardize clean air and water and make it easier for corporations to send jobs overseas.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Cantor's plan is an effort to respond to criticism from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that Congress has not taken sufficiently aggressive action to revive the economy.

"When they even stall common-sense measures like continuing the payroll tax cut for the middle class, it's clear Republicans are still putting politics ahead of our economic recovery," Schumer said. "Their agenda seems intended only to provide cover for blocking the kind of pro-growth proposals needed to make a difference."