Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., blasted Republicans yesterday for caring more about defeating President Obama than fixing the economy, saying that her congressional colleagues are “hoping for failure.”
Wasserman Schultz said on CNN’s State of the Union that Republican jobs proposals “would just allow corporate America to write their own rules again” and “create no jobs now.” She also said that “at the end of the day, we need jobs now. That’s what the American people are clamoring for.” She then added this odd comment, probably a minor gaffe: “The public needs to get on-board.”
A recent Wall Street Journal/MSNBC poll showed that, when given only the name, 44 percent of Americans have “no opinion” on the American Jobs Act, with 30 percent supporting and 22 percent opposed to the bill. The poll did show that support for the bill doubles when the poll questioner described various items in the bill.
Wasserman Schultz dismissed the significance of two Democratic senators’ votes against Obama’s American Jobs Act, and said that a lack of co-sponsors for the legislation in Congress “is really not reflective of the widespread support that exists in the Democratic caucus” for the bill.
She also praised Obama and the Democrats for their management of the economy to date. “We’ve stopped the economy from dropping like a rock, like it was before President Obama took office,” Wasserman Schultz said. “We’ve begun to turn things around but we need to pick up the pace of recovery and we need that short-term infusion so that we can do that.”
Wasserman Schultz also described Republicans as “crossing their arms and hoping for failure” on the economic front. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has observed that House Republicans have passed several bills, including tax reform, a bill to balance the budget, and an energy development package, which Senate Democrats have tabled.
