Washington (CNN) — President Barack Obama made a Rose Garden pitch Monday morning for his jobs creation plan.
“This is the bill I’m sending to Congress today,” Obama said holding up his proposal, adding that it is “a bill that will put people back to work all across the country.”
The president was joined by teachers, veterans, small-business owners and others who, according to the White House, would benefit from the American Jobs Act’s passage.
“The only thing that is stopping passage of this bill is politics,” the president said, as he urged people to get the message to their members of Congress to approve the measure.
“These are not games we are playing,” he said. “People are out of work.”
Obama hit the road Friday to rally public support for the plan, calling it critical to efforts to invigorate an ailing economy and avert a new downturn.
Speaking at the University of Richmond in Virginia, he said: “This has been a terrible recession. You expect action, and you deserve it right now.”
Obama unveiled his $447 billion proposal Thursday to a sharply divided Congress amid growing fears of a new economic downturn.
It is unclear whether the American Jobs Act — consisting largely of targeted tax cuts, infrastructure spending and new job training assistance — can win over skeptical congressional Republicans, particularly in light of Obama’s falling approval ratings and the looming presidential campaign.
To help cover the cost of the plan, Obama has said he will push to increase the $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction being pursued by a special joint congressional committee.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and other top House Republicans offered measured praise for Obama’s plan Friday, sending a letter to the president saying his “ideas merit consideration by the Congress, and (GOP leaders) believe the American people expect them to be given such consideration.”
Among other things, Obama’s plan would extend and expand the current payroll tax cut — a proposal estimated to cost $240 billion.
The current cut, which has cost $112 billion so far, allows employees to pay 4.2% instead of 6.2% on their first $106,800 of wages into Social Security. Obama wants to continue the break — now set to expire at the end of the year — while reducing employee contributions further, to 3.1%.
At the same time, the president wants to cut the payroll tax businesses pay in half — to 3.1% — on the first $5 million in wages.
Obama’s proposal also includes a new $49 billion extension of unemployment benefits, which were lengthened to the current 99-week maximum in 2009. Top Democrats argue that that money would immediately be pumped back into the economy in the form of new consumer spending.
Nearly 43% of America’s unemployed have now been out of work for more than six months.
In addition, the plan proposes $60 billion for infrastructure development such as repairing roads and bridges, including the establishment of an infrastructure bank to help finance such projects.
Other provisions in the president’s proposal include $25 billion to refurbish schools, $35 billion to avoid layoffs among teachers and first responders, and tax incentives for small businesses to hire the long-term unemployed.
Under the Obama plan, businesses could receive a tax credit of up to $4,000 for hiring workers who have been out of a job for more than six months.
