When the President first introduced the idea of his jobs bill there was a lot of criticism from certain folks that the Republican response would be simple, and effective; they will chop it up and have votes on individual components so it would look like they were doing SOMETHING.
My response was: BRING IT ON.
It seems that's also the WH response.
How this could possibly be good for Republicans, I have no idea, but there it is and it seems it's part 2 of the WH plan. Still think the Repubs are going to like the idea now?
Political AnimalBlog
October 06, 2011 3:35 PM
Looking to Round 2 of the jobs fight
By Steve Benen
-snip--
President Obama, in his press conference this morning, said something I hadn’t heard from him before.
“[If Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell] chooses to vote against it, or if members of his caucus choose to vote against it, I promise you we’re going to keep on going, and we will put forward maybe piece by piece each component of the bill. And each time they’re going to have to explain why it is that they’d be opposed to putting teachers back in the classroom, or rebuilding our schools, or giving tax cuts to middle-class folks, and giving tax cuts to small businesses. […]
“If … everybody on Capitol Hill is cynical and saying there’s no way that the overall jobs bill passes in its current form, we’re just going to keep on going at it. I want everybody to be clear. My intention is to insist that each part of this, I want an explanation as to why we shouldn’t be doing it, each component part: putting people back to work rebuilding our roads, putting teachers back in the classroom, tax cuts for small businesses and middle-class families, tax breaks for our veterans. We will just keep on going at it….”
--snip--
Would the purpose of these string of votes be political? Obviously, though Dems may hope to catch a break and wear down some GOP members. But as stunts go, this would make a lot of sense — going into an election year, with 9% unemployment, getting Republicans on record opposing every good idea on jobs puts the party in an awkward spot.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/...