Boehner confronts Obama on claim that GOP has no jobs plan

Boehner confronts Obama on claim that GOP has no jobs plan

By Russell Berman and Erik Wasson - 10-13-11 07:45 PM ET

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) challenged President Obama in a phone call over the president’s assertions that he has not yet seen the Republican jobs plan, the Speaker’s office said.

Obama called Boehner to congratulate him on Wednesday’s passage of three long-stalled trade agreements, but the Speaker quickly moved the discussion onto more contentious ground.

“I want to make sure you have all the facts,” Boehner told the president in the 10-minute call.

Boehner “respectfully challenged” Obama on the call, according to the Speaker’s office, reminding him that Republicans have outlined aspects of his jobs plan on which they would work with him. He also noted provisions in the president’s jobs plan, such as the trade deals, that the House has already approved.

Boehner’s office said the two also discussed transportation and infrastructure. “The Speaker expressed his desire to do something on the issue, but to do it in a fiscally-responsible way,” Boehner’s office said.

House Republican leaders unveiled a “Plan for America’s Job Creators” in May, centered on a combination of deregulation, tax cuts and the trade agreements that passed on Wednesday.

The Speaker’s office rarely provides details of conversations with Obama; its decision to do so on Thursday underscores the souring of their relationship since their negotiations on a “grand bargain” on deficit reduction collapsed over the summer.

The White House did not release a readout of the Obama-Boehner conversation.

With his own jobs plan dead in Congress, the president has repeatedly asked the GOP to present him with an alternative. He warned Thursday that he’s “not going to wait around” for Republicans to join him in trying to jumpstart job growth.

Obama said that, after he challenged reporters to discover the GOP’s plan for short-term job creation, he has yet to hear of one.

“What we haven’t seen is a similar willingness on their part to try to get something done,” Obama said.

Boehner has responded to Obama’s attacks by sharpening his critique of the president’s leadership, accusing him of “giving up on governing” to campaign for reelection.

Senate Republicans made their countermove Thursday, unveiling a jobs package and calling on Obama to enter into negotiations to reconcile it with parts of his jobs bill.

Senate Democrats rejected that proposal outright.

“This is a political fig leaf that would likely add to the deficit while doing nothing to create jobs,” Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement.

Asked how the bill, which includes a balanced-budget amendment, increases the deficit, Schumer’s office cited its repeal of healthcare reform. The Congressional Budget Office in January said repeal would add $145 billion to the deficit over 10 years. In contrast, a balanced-budget amendment could force some $9 trillion in spending cuts.

The White House has sought to portray the GOP as standing in the way of job creation, especially since the president’s jobs package was defeated in a procedural Senate vote on Tuesday.

The Senate GOP’s response package includes proposals that are anathema to Democrats, such as the complete repeal of Obama’s healthcare reform law and financial regulatory reforms, but it also has a number of proposals that enjoy bipartisan support.

“We have to be for something,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said. “I wish the president would have a jobs summit … This is an offer by the Republican Party.”

Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who led the effort to craft the Jobs Through Growth Act, said that the package was developed in part because Obama has been touring the country claiming the GOP does not have its own jobs agenda.

“We are tired of him going around the country saying we don’t have a jobs plan,” Paul said of Obama. “We want to have a constructive conversation with him.”

“There has been no outreach by the president or his people to us,” McCain added.

Paul predicted that the Senate GOP’s bill, if enacted, would create 5 million new jobs.

The Republicans said that most of the package has been floating around for months, and McCain said almost the entire GOP caucus is onboard with the plan. He said he expected all to be co-sponsors soon.

Of the proposals in the bill, McCain said that “tax reform certainly is something that is bipartisan” and that he hopes the proposal to grant a tax holiday to allow corporations to repatriate overseas income could also make it through the Democratic-controlled Senate.

He said that he disagreed, however, with a proposal by Schumer to tie repatriation to a proposal for a national infrastructure bank.

The GOP jobs act also proposes a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution, a type of line-item veto, a complete moratorium on federal regulations, medical malpractice reform, a reform of the National Labor Relations Board and a series of measures to ease regulations on oil, gas and mining activities.