With the nation’s persistent job woes proving impervious to easy fixes, President Obama is convening a White House jobs summit aimed at finding out what might work.
The forum — widely scorned by Republicans — is an effort by the White House to find a policy solution to an urgent political problem.
Joblessness is expected to be a major campaign issue for Democrats heading into the 2010 congressional elections. Obama is facing dueling pressures to reduce the deficit and create more jobs.
“A lot of people are rightly concerned about employment in this country,” said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. But, “I don’t know of an economic model where an economy that is contracting, particularly at a quarterly rate of almost 6 percent, is adding jobs.”
The White House forum precedes what is expected to be a grim new jobs report from the government on Friday. Some economists are predicting unemployment will ultimately reach 11 percent next year before it starts coming down.
The current jobless rate is 10.2 percent. Critics are assailing Obama’s forum as a public relations ploy with no good end.
“What is the White House’s answer to our struggles? A ‘jobs summit,’ and most likely another proposal to grow government, raise taxes and place more debt on the shoulders of our children and grandchildren,” said Rep. Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican.
Obama has described his jobs forum as a sort of best-practices conversation with business leaders and economists. The guest list includes numerous supporters from the private sector, but no critics of administration policy.
Invited participants include Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt, Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase, Honeywell CEO David Cote and many others, some of whom serve in a frequent, external advisory role for Obama.
Some of the ideas under consideration include tax incentives for businesses that create new jobs, various ways to spend leftover stimulus funds, a second round of stimulus spending or creative new outlets for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.
But a major hurdle for the administration in devising new spending programs are the promises they made when Congress approved the $787 billion stimulus earlier this year — notably that unemployment would not exceed 9 percent if the funding was approved.
Democrats in Congress are looking at extending unemployment benefits, increasing infrastructure spending and aid to states, and loans to small business, among other options.
One notion under discussion at the White House is paying down the federal debt with the leftover proceeds of the TARP allocation — more than $200 billion — to smooth a path politically for another round of stimulus spending.
But the federal budget is facing numerous pressures, not the least of which is the president’s plan to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan next year. The administration has not said how it plans to fund the operation, which is expected to cost at least $30 billion.
Obama also has promised to cut the deficit in half during his first term, and hold off on tax increases for the middle class. The federal deficit is a record high $1.42 trillion.
