Fresh strategy set for jobs bill action

WASHINGTON – With Republicans killing prospects for a comprehensive jobs bill, the White House is planning a fall strategy it hopes will wrangle enough GOP votes for a package some economists say would add as many as 1.9 million jobs to a sagging economy – at least temporarily.

The White House’s new 60-day legislative-political strategy is designed to pressure Republicans in Obama-friendly districts to support his proposed $447 billion jobs bill and accompanying tax increases – or face blame at home heading into the 2012 election year.

To drive the strategy, President Barack Obama will go on the road more this fall, presumably to many of those Republican districts, rather than sitting at a negotiating table in Washington as he did this summer for weeks with congressional Republicans.

The need for a Plan B was evident Monday as House Republicans said flatly that they won’t approve the entire jobs bill as Obama has demanded.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., told reporters the entire package is dead in the House. The measure includes extension and expansion of a one-year payroll tax cut, extension of unemployment benefits, and cash for public works projects.

“The president continues to say, ‘Pass my bill in its entirety,’ ” Cantor said. “The outset, the all-or-nothing approach, is just unacceptable.”

Obama responded by asking anew for a vote on the entire plan by the end of October. “It’s been several weeks now since I sent up the American Jobs Act,” Obama said. “I want it back. I’m ready to sign it.”

The Democrat-controlled Senate is unlikely to marshal all of its Democrats – let alone the added Republicans it would need – to pass the bill, and the Democrats in the House couldn’t pass it unless they could lure away a bloc of Republicans.

Thus, senior administration officials outlined their plan to use October and November to bear down on 61 House Republicans from districts that voted for Obama in 2008, 14 of which also voted for Democrat John Kerry in 2004. They will also focus on some Senate Republicans.

The White House hopes to isolate the members, threatening to drive a wedge between them and their national party leadership.

Nationally, the White House will argue that failure to act would mean tax increases for 102 million Americans on Jan. 1, and the cutoff of unemployment checks for millions more.

Locally, it will be armed with lists showing precisely how many people would face tax increases or the loss of jobless benefits in each district or state.

Although Cantor declared that the jobs bill is dead as a package, insiders believe it’s possible Congress could enact parts of it. Obama would sign parts, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday, though he would press Republicans to explain why they wouldn’t pass other parts.