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$1 Trillion for Health Reform and only $15 Billion for Jobs?


When Scott Brown became the first Republican Senator elected in Massachusetts for decades the political earth shook.  This seat was held by Ted Kennedy who made it his mission to see health reform passed into law.  The Democrats reaction was a realization that their priority of health reform was not apparently the priority in the public.  Polls seemed to bear this out showing health reform second or third on the list.  The Democrats regrouped and said from that point on the priority would be jobs, jobs, jobs.

The Democrats in the House today voted for a $15 billion jobs creation package in a 217-201 vote.  That is approximately 1% of the amount to be spent health reform and 2% of the cost of the bank bailouts.  This is a commitment to jobs?

Further, this bill in the House barely sqeaked by in a 217-201 vote.  Call me crazy but that vote margin does not impress and leave an impression that job creation is really a priority.  The less than zealous focus on jobs by Democrats was again shown when the Senate voted down Scott Brown's amendment to cut payroll taxes by by $80 billion with unallocated TARP money to spur the economy and job growth.  This after Brown reached out to Democrats by supporting their job bill.  Were the tax cuts approved, this and the jobs bill would still be only about 13% that spent on bailing out banks.


There is little evidence of bipartisanship in the House and Senate even on the public's top concern of job creation.  Scott Brown's amendment may well have been voted down because he is a Republican, and in the slash and burn politics in DC, you must destroy the other party no matter the impact on the country.  In this case Democrats won by defeating the amendment, and we all lost because even less money will be devoted to jobs creation.  Worse still is the fact that the Democrats jobs bill used to be about $80 billion AND bipartisan in the Senate until Harry Reid unilaterally tossed the agreement for a puny $15 billion bill instead.  And they say Washington is broken and tone deaf to the voters.

And now we are right back at health reform.  The Democrats epiphany about jobs lasted all of about 4 weeks before they went right back to health reform trying to use the reconciliation process the pass the unpopular bill.

Thanks to PoliticalCentrist.com for this article.