WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama jobs plan--unveiled in a speech last Thursday night before the NFL's first game of the 2011 regular football season between the ultimately victorious Green Bay Packers and the New Orleans Saints--was either a touchdown or a hail Mary pass, depending on which side of the aisle the politician is on or the political point of view of the listener.
The President will send his $447 billion jobs bill, the American Jobs Act, to Congress Monday night, a White House official said, according to the Wall Street Journal. He will announce the move Monday in a Rose Garden speech, surrounded by teachers, police officers, firefighters, construction workers, small-business owners and veterans, the official said. The president has said his proposal would be paid for through long-term deficit reduction, including tax increases on the wealthy.
The convenience store industry seems to remain skeptical that the plan will help the flailing economy. The morning after the speech, a CSP Daily News poll asked, "Will the jobs plan that President Obama laid out in his speech last night work? Of the more than 100 responses, more than 36% said no, and another almost 15% said probably not. Nearly 18% said some parts will, other parts won't. About 7% said probably, and approximately 6% said yes. Meanwhile, more than 18% said they didn't watch it.
Among its provisions, the President's proposed plan would:
- Cut the payroll tax in half to 3.1% for employers on the first $5 million in wages, providing broad tax relief to all businesses but targeting it to the 98% of firms with wages below this level.
- Offer a full tax "holiday" on the 6.2% payroll tax firms pay for any growth in their payroll up to $50 million above the prior year, whether driven by new hires, increased wages or both.
- Extend 100% expensing, allowing all firms to take an immediate deduction on investments in new plants and equipment.
- Includes administrative, regulatory and legislative measures--including those developed and recommended by the President's Jobs Council--to help small firms start and expand. This includes changing the way the government does business with small firms. The administration will announce a plan to accelerate government payments to small contractors to help put money in their hands faster. The President is also charging his CIO and CTO to, within 90 days, set up a one-stop, online portal for small businesses to easily access government services. As part of the President's Startup America initiative, the administration will work with the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) to conduct a comprehensive review of securities regulations from the perspective of these small companies to reduce the regulatory burdens on small-business capital formation in ways that are consistent with investor protection, including expanding "crowdfunding" opportunities and increasing mini-offerings.
- Offer a Returning Heroes Tax Credit of up to $5,600 for hiring unemployed veterans who have been looking for a job for more than six months, and a Wounded Warriors Tax Credit of up to $9,600 for hiring unemployed workers with service-connected disabilities who have been looking for a job for more than six months, while creating a new task force to maximize career readiness of servicemembers.
- Offer a tax credit of up to $4,000 for hiring workers who have been looking for a job for more than six months.
- Call for legislation that would make it unlawful to refuse to hire applicants solely because they are unemployed or to include in a job posting a provision that unemployed persons will not be considered.
- Expand the payroll tax cut passed last December by cutting workers payroll taxes in half next year. This provision will provide a tax cut of $1,500 to the typical family earning $50,000 a year. As with the payroll tax cut passed in December 2010, the American Jobs Act will specify that Social Security will still receive every dollar it would have gotten otherwise, through a transfer from the General Fund into the Social Security Trust Fund.
Click here for more details. And click on the video above or click here to watch the speech (click here to read the transcript).
President Obama's plan was widely praised by congressional Democrats and received mixed reviews from Republicans, said the SIGMA Weekly Report. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Ala.) said Republicans are ready to work with the president to improve the jobs market, but Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala) expressed concern that the plan did not include offsets to pay for its proposals and said he did not like the $112 billion price tag for the payroll tax cut.
The President has said he will ask the joint committee on deficit reduction to come up with additional measures to cover the cost of the plan and still meet deficit reduction targets. He also stated that he will release a detailed deficit reduction plan on September 19 that will both cover the cost of the jobs package and stabilize U.S. debt in the long-term.
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