Obama vows to force votes on key parts of jobs plan
WASHINGTON -- President Obama vowed Thursday to force a series of congressional votes on key elements of his jobs plan if Republicans won't pass the entire $447 billion package.
The threat, posed at a news conference in the East Room of the White House, was Obama's way of saying he won't let Republicans quash the proposal without paying what could be a political price.
"We will just keep on going at it and hammering away until something gets done," Obama said. "Each part of this, I want an explanation as to why we shouldn't be doing it."
The package of construction spending, state aid, tax cuts and unemployment insurance has run into solid Republican opposition in Congress. Even Senate Democrats have changed the way Obama would pay for the plan, and they won't vote on it until later this month.
Still, the president defended his effort to campaign nationally on the merits of the plan rather than negotiate privately with Republicans on a compromise. He didn't argue when a reporter suggested it was reminiscent of President Harry Truman's 1948 campaign against what he called a "do-nothing Congress."
"If Congress does something, then I can't run against a do-nothing Congress," Obama said. If they do nothing, he said, "then I think the American people will run them out of town."
He belittled Republican presidential candidates and those in Congress for focusing on rolling back regulations and consumer protections enacted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, rather than stimulative measures that could create jobs now.
He even challenged reporters to run Republicans' economic plans past the same "independent economists" who have said the president's plan could produce a 2% improvement in economic growth and create 1.9 million jobs.
Republicans immediately countered that they have offered to seek compromises on a number of the president's jobs proposals while offering suggestions of their own.
"We're legislating. He's campaigning. It's very disappointing," House Speaker John Boehner told National Journal.
While the jobs bill commanded center attention at the news conference, Obama also was asked about the European debt crisis, street protests against Wall Street practices, administration loans to renewable energy companies, Chinese currency manipulation and Pakistan's links to the Taliban and terrorism.
• He said the European debt crisis that has racked financial markets worldwide must be solved soon by the continent's leading economies, such as Germany and France. "They've got to act fast," he warned, calling for "a very clear, concrete plan of action that is sufficient to the task" in time for next month's G-20 summit in Cannes.
• He sympathized with street protesters on Wall Street and elsewhere who he said are "giving voice to a more broad-based frustration" with financial practices. "The American people understand that not everybody's been following the rules, that Wall Street is an example of that," he said.
• He defended his administration's loans to renewable energy companies, not all of which have been successful — most notably solar manufacturer Solyndra, which went bankrupt even after receiving a $535 million federal loan guarantee. "The overall portfolio has been successful," Obama said, while acknowledging that "there were going to be some companies that did not work out."
• He refused specifically to endorse Senate Democrats' effort to retaliate against China's currency manipulation but said there was a "strong case to make" to the World Trade Organization that Beijing has kept its currency artificially low and should let it rise against the dollar.
• He said Pakistan's intelligence agency has links to "unsavory characters" opposed to the establishment of a democratic Afghanistan, for fear that the emerging nation sides with India in the future. "They should not be feeling threatened by a stable, independent Afghanistan," he said.
