Facing nearly universal Republican opposition to President Obama’s mammoth jobs-creation plan, White House officials on Tuesday said they would not object if Congress passes only pieces of the $447 billion proposal, a move the GOP says increases the chances that Congress can agree on legislation to help the ailing economy.
When Obama announced his plan last week in a speech before a joint session of Congress, the GOP was careful not to immediately slam it. But by Tuesday, a day after the legislation was sent to the Hill and after White House officials revealed they want to pay for the plan by raising taxes on upper-income earners, few Republicans were holding back their opposition. By early afternoon, it was so obvious that Obama’s bill had no chance of passing either chamber intact that even the White House was talking about taking a piecemeal approach.
For Republicans, the worst part of the plan — besides its hefty price tag — is Obama’s intention to raise taxes on individuals earning $200,000 or more and families earning $250,000 or more.
“Calling people who make $250,000 a year ‘rich’ is disgraceful,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told The Washington Examiner on Tuesday. “That is out of touch with American small-business people.”
House Republican freshmen also declared the tax increases a nonstarter.
“This starts us down the path of the same old class warfare rhetoric,” said Rep. Allen West, R-Fla.
West, like other GOP freshmen backed by the Tea Party, said he is wary of a bill that resembles the nearly $1 trillion stimulus package that Republicans say did little to create jobs.
“I call it a Mini-Me stimulus,” West said of Obama’s latest plan.
Republican House leaders remain more muted in their criticism of Obama’s plan. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said there is bipartisan opposition to Obama’s plan and it has no chance of passing the chamber.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., hinted the House may take up the parts of Obama’s jobs plan that would provide tax cuts to small businesses, but he showed little interest in the rest of the package, which would spend hundreds of billions of dollars on infrastructure improvements and school construction to create jobs.
“Anything that is akin to the stimulus bill is not going to be acceptable to the American people,” Cantor said.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama would agree to sign the parts of his proposal that arrive on his desk and then push for Congress to take up the rest of it.
Congress, Carney said, “will still have a significant amount to explain if they only took some of the measures they could have taken, but not all of the ones.”
McCain agreed that the two parties would have to find a way to strike some kind of deal.
“The president’s approval ratings are in the tank,” McCain said. “Look at congressional approval ratings. They’re worse. So there is a certain motivation for us to be able to tell our constituents we could agree with the president on some things.”
