The House passed jobs legislation yesterday, which more people might have noticed without health insurance reform taking all the oxygen out of the air. It is not large enough to address the full scope of the problem we face, is largely band-aids to keep jobs and to keep people who are unemployed from becoming destitute, but it is still a decent piece of legislation:
Shortly after increasing the debt ceiling, the House also narrowly passed a $150 billion jobs package, 217 to 212. The bill includes $48.3 billion in infrastructure projects, $26.7 billion for public sector jobs (teachers, fire fighters, police officers, etc), and $79 billion for social safety net programs such as unemployment insurance, COBRA, and Medicaid. Although it isn't in the legislation, Congress intends to pay for the jobs package using unspent TARP authorization funds, although it's unclear if the savings would cover the entire package.
The $76 billion for infrastructure and much needed state aid (the public sector jobs) came from TARP money. More will come from TARP money once the Treasury department and Senator Mark Warner finally work out the details of a small business lending program. We are at nine weeks and counting on those negotiations.
President Obama is seriously considering an executive order to create a bipartisan commission that could weigh sweeping tax increases and spending cuts to try to slash the soaring federal deficit, CNN has learned.(...)
If Obama signed an executive order to create the commission, however, it would not have the full force of law and thus the outside commission could not mandate that Congress vote up-or-down on the recommendations. This would also give the president more wiggle room to ignore the recommendations if the commission suggests, for example, raising taxes on people earning less than $250,000 a year, which would break an Obama campaign promise.
I am still highly dubious of any commission whatsoever. If Kent Conrad and others want to change Medicare and Social Security, then they should write and introduce that legislation themselves. Don't pass off the responsibility of your cat-food commission to someone else.
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