The Jobs bill debate

One of the main political stories over the past few weeks has been President Obama's jobs bill, a $447 billion package of measures meant to boost the economy. Obama has pressured Congress to pass the bill, traveling nationwide to build support and calling for its passage in his weekly radio address on Saturday. The bill faces steep opposition from the GOP, leading Senate Majority Leader McConnell to push for an immediate vote on the bill last week in an attempt to call Obama's bluff and demonstrate a lack of Congressional support. While debate over the bill has been heated, its supporters and opponents have made largely unrelated arguments; neither has really responded to the other side's objections.

Obama's case for the bill has focused on the urgency of the current situation, which he has called "an emergency," and the lack of a GOP alternative. He has portrayed the bill as providing a much-needed "jolt" to the economy, pointing to analysis by independent economists indicating that the bill would boost employment and growth in the short term. In his speeches supporting the bill, Obama has painted the Republicans as obstructionists placing political gain ahead of the interests of the country.

Paul Ryan is a leader and expert on policy among Republican representatives, and his arguments are representative of the Republican case against the jobs bill. Republican have contended that stimulus policies like Obama's bill have been ineffective in the past - Ryan accused Obama of proposing measures “that have proven to fail.” They have countered accusations of partisanship by criticizing Obama's approach, arguing that far from attempting to solve economic problems, he himself is "embracing conflict" by "campaigning on a bill that he knows won’t pass."

Both sides have been relatively ineffective in responding to their opponents' arguments. The 69 percent of Americans who say that Obama has not made real progress in fixing the economy imply that he must take claims that the new bill is just a continuation of old, failed policies seriously, yet Obama has done little to respond to these accusations or distinguish the new bill from the previous stimulus. Republicans, meanwhile, have failed to present an effective alternative to Obama's bill, making opposing it more difficult given the public demand for improvement in the economy. Instead, they have focused on deregulation, free-trade deals and spending cuts as more effective approaches. Yet they have failed to address Obama's objection that such measures promote growth only in the long term, while the jobs bill will produce immediate results. It will be difficult to successfully oppose the bill without responding to these arguments.