Much of Barack Obama’s jobs bill is stalled in congress

  During his State of the Union speech, Barack Obama focused much of his attention on his “jobs bill” for the upcoming year. But  most of this agenda has been stalled in congress for one simple reason– there is no money left to pay for the much ballyhooed jobs bill. The government is broke.

  The reason that much of this bill is stalled in congress is the fact that both Democrats and Republicans would not allow the president to use left over TARP money for the jobs bill.

An $80 billion-plus Senate plan promised an infusion of cash to build roads and schools, help local governments keep teachers on the payroll, and provide rebates for homeowners who make energy-saving investments. Two months after the plan was introduced, most of those main elements remain on the Senate’s shelf.

Obama’s proposed $250 bonus payment to Social Security recipients is dead for the year

  Some smaller portions of the job bill are still moving forward, but the vast majority of the jobs bill was dead on arrival. It seems to me that the jobs bill was a casualty in the unrelenting pressure to pass a healthcare reform bill that the American people did not want in the first place.

  When Scott Brown was elected, healthcare reform looked to be dead– and it should have been. The top priorities in the minds of the American people right now are the economy and jobs. Scott Brown’s election gave the president an “out” to abandon healthcare reform and focus on jobs. He could have claimed that he did everything possible to pass healthcare reform but that it just wasn’t in the cards; he could have claimed that he was turning his attention to jobs.  But he just couldn’t let go of healthcare reform so he continued to push it even as the economy kept getting worse.

  Now the government is faced with the embarrassing reality that there is just no way they can infuse the economy with the money that they promised in the jobs bill. The jobs bill was celebrated when it was signed, but most of it will never be implemented.

  This seems to be a serious miscalculation on the part of the administration. Jobs should always have been the focus of this administration, yet the jobs bill took a back seat to healthcare reform and now it looks like the jobs bill has fallen victim to the healthcare reform bill. 

  The jobs bill seems to have had quite a bit more public support than did the healthcare reform bill; if the president had decided to tackle the jobs bill first, he may have been able to use the momentum he gained by it to move forward on healthcare reform. He could have had both bills if he played his cards right– but he didn’t and now there is no money to pay for the jobs bill.

 The Democrats could pay dearly for this miscalculation in November.