President Obama pushing for his jobs bill last month (John Summers II/Reuters)
NBC's Mark Murray on
the latest NBC/WSJ poll:
When asked simply if Congress should pass the legislation or not, 30 percent of respondents answer yes, while 22 percent say no; 44 percent have no opinion.
But when the legislation's details are included in a follow-up question -- that it would cut payroll taxes, fund new road construction, extend unemployment benefits, and that it would be paid for by increasing taxes on the wealthy -- 63 percent say they favor the bill and 32 percent oppose it.
What's more, 64 percent of respondents agree with the statement that it is a "good idea" to raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations, because they should pay their fair share and can afford to pay more to help fund programs and government operations.
The biggest challenge the administration faces is that nearly half the public doesn't know enough about the legislation to say whether or not they support it in the abstract, but when you get into the specifics, the bill's key provisions are very popular.
So even though Republicans voted to kill the legislation last night, it makes sense for the administration and congressional Democrats to keep on hammering away at Republicans for opposing the jobs bill, both to raise awareness about the bill and its provisions, and also to give Republicans a chance to do the right thing, however unlikely that may be.
Democrats are going to do this by scheduling votes on key provisions of the bill as standalone items. Republicans will probably oppose those provisions, but in doing so they will strengthen the Democratic argument that its Republicans—motivated by a desire to defeat President Obama in 2012—who are the problem when it comes to job creation. As Harry Reid said earlier today:
Republicans think that if the economy improves, it might help President Obama. So they root for the economy to fail and oppose every effort to improve it.
That echoes what Jim Messina said yesterday:
Their strategy is to suffocate the economy for the sake of what they think will be a political victory.
That's a partisan line of argument, but it has the virtue of being true. And as Greg Sargent points out, Republicans haven't left Democrats any other option but to make their case directly to the public. Maybe Republicans will come to their senses and we'll get something done. If not, the only chance of getting something like the jobs bill passed into law will be by reelecting President Obama and giving him a Democratic majority.
There's no guarantee that the strategy will work in next November's election. Republicans very well may find that voters reward their obstructionism with more power. But whatever ends up happening, the bottom-line is that next November, voters need to choose between the party pursing job creation and the party responsible for this: