Congressional Democrats rallied today in Washington with Vice President Joe Biden and a raft of public employees to highlight the need for the jobs bill that will provide aid to states to hire or rehire laid-off teachers, firefighters, and police. The International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) is backing up the effort with this ad.
The bill has $35 billion in funding to help pay for staffing at fire and police departments across the country as well as at schools—that includes $1 billion in funding to protect firefighters' jobs. The IAFF estimates that 15,000 firefighter and paramedic jobs have been lost or are threatened due to lack of funds.
This bill is paid for by a 0.5 percent increase on income over $1 million. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has schedule a cloture vote on the bill for Friday. He's also having some fun goading Republicans about it:
"Seventy-five percent of Americans believe we should help state and local governments put teachers, police and firefighters back to work," Reid said on the Senate floor Wednesday morning, citing a CNN poll released earlier this week. "And 76 percent of Americans agree the wealthiest people in this country should help get our economy back on track.
"I repeat: three out of four Americans—including two-thirds of Republicans—support the Democrats' Teachers and First Responders Back to Work Act," Reid said. "Republicans in Congress aren't just out of touch with America - they're out of touch with other Republicans."
That logic is unlikely to move any Republicans, or Assholes of the World poster boy Sen. Joe Lieberman, who spent the afternoon tweeting his opposition. So the vote this week just to have a debate on whether it's a good idea to have teachers and first responders back at work is quite likely to fail, but at least Democrats are on track to put that on the Republicans (and it would really help if Tester and Nelson don't act like Lieberman).