Congress Passes, President Signs Law to Save Hundreds of Thousands of American Jobs
On the side of teachers, firefighters, public safety officers...
Last week, Congress passed and the President quickly signed into law a bill that will save literally hundreds of thousands of American jobs. The law provides $16 billion in Medicaid funding assistance and $10 billion for teachers' jobs. Failure to pass this bill would have meant state and local governments - which cannot operate a budget deficit and are still reeling from massive shortfalls since Wall Street nearly triggered a second Great Depression in 2008 - would have been forced into a new round of layoffs.
In North Carolina alone, some 5,700 public school teachers will be in class instead of in unemployment lines because of this law. Our economic recovery depends on fixing the jobs crisis. In signing this bill into law, President Obama and Democrats in Congress prevailed against a nearly unanimous Republican opposition, which seems determined to make the crisis worse.
On the side of Wall Street and outsourcing...
House GOP Leader, John Boehner
This law was fully funded, in part by closing a corporate tax loophole that rewarded multi-national corporations for exporting our jobs. Republican allies of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in the Senate had filibustered the bill for months to protect this tax break for outsourcing.
After the Senate overcame Republican obstruction to pass the bill and send it to the House for final consideration, House Republican leader, John Boehner attacked - without irony - closing the outsourcing loophole as a "job killing tax hike" and derided the teachers, firefighters, and police officers whose jobs would be saved as "liberal special interests."
The House passed the bill by a vote of 247-161. Not one Republican from North Carolina voted for this bill. AFL-CIO President, Richard Trumka, released a statement:
"With today's vote, House Republicans showed they value Wall Street and tax cuts for the rich over teachers, police and firefighters. This is yet another example in the laundry list of anti-jobs votes they've taken. They voted 'no' even though the Congressional Budget Office estimated this measure will reduce the deficit by $1.4 billion.
"This bill reduces the deficit by closing tax loopholes that reward companies for sending American jobs overseas. So not only did these Republicans vote against saving jobs in America -- they voted to keep encouraging corporations to outsource jobs during this recession. [...]
"Come November working people will remember who stood for jobs and who stood in the way."
We will, indeed, remember in November.