Reid to Baucus: You Had Your Shot & You Blew It

The Hill:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is rewriting a jobs bill after Democrats complained of too many concessions to Republicans.

Reid announced Thursday that he would cut back on the jobs bill Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) introduced only hours earlier, essentially overruling the powerful chairman.

“We’re going to move this afternoon to a smaller package than talked about in the press,” Reid said.

The bill now include four components: tax credits for employers who hire new workers; a provision allowing businesses to write off the cost of capital investments; Build America Bonds, which allow state and local governments to lower their borrowing costs; and a one-year extension of funding for transportation programs in the Surface Transportation Act.

Baucus had stuffed the bill with many provisions that Democratic senators thought went beyond the goal of creating jobs, such as $31 billion in extensions to expiring tax provisions, including the research and development tax credit. That and other tax cuts were included to win GOP votes.

Reid said he made the decision to rewrite the bill before meeting with skeptical Democratic colleagues on Thursday afternoon.

Getting Max Baucus close to any legislation at this point is idiotic. It is good thing Reid put the kabash on "Baucus's Bipartisan No Jobs" bill. I mean really an estate bailout? Who are they trying to fool?

Put people to work. It is not a difficult concept. In fact here is an idea by Marshall Auerback of the Roosevelt Institute Braintruster, Job Guarantee Program (your suggested reading for the day).

A job-guarantee program is desired because a more-or-less free-market system does not (and, perhaps, cannot) continuously generate true full employment. Rather, our current system relies on unemployed labor and excess capacity to try to dampen wage and price increases. However, it pays unemployed labor for not working and allows that labor to depreciate and develop behaviors that act as a barrier to future private-sector employment. Social spending on the unemployed prevents aggregate demand from collapsing into a depression-like state, but little is done to enhance future growth and demand, which can be done via the job guarantee by providing them with employment, greater education, and higher skill levels.

I am Frank Chow and I approved this message