President Obama ramped up the pressure on senators to vote for his jobs bill when it comes to the Senate floor for a vote next week, aggressively arguing in his first press conference in two months that Congress needs to pass the bill or produce an alternative.
“As we look to next week, every senator out there that is looking to vote against this jobs bill, needs to explain why they would vote against something … at such a crucial time for our economy,” he said during a briefing with reporters Thursday.
“If Capitol Hill says the current jobs bill can’t pass in its current form, we’re just gonna keep going at it. Each part of this bill, I want an explanation why they think it shouldn’t be passed.”
“I would love nothing more than to see Congress act so aggressively that I can’t campaign against them as the do-nothing Congress,” he said at the conclusion of a wide-ranging press conference lasting more than an hour.
The White House Wednesday embraced Reid’s plans to scrap Obama’s suggested offsets for the Jobs Act in favor of a 5.6 percent surtax on millionaires.
As long as the Senate ensures that plans to pay for the $447 billion bill are “fair and balanced,” and not overly burdensome on seniors and the middle class, President Obama said he’s “comfortable” with the changes.
Obama has proposed paying for his jobs plan by increasing taxes on couples making more than $250,000, but Tuesday Reid said he was having a hard time convincing his Democratic colleagues to accept tax hikes at that level. Later, on Wednesday, Reid announced a plan to replace Obama’s revenue-raisers with a 5.6 percent income tax surcharge on millionaires. The proposal would raise $445 billion over 10 years, sufficient to cover the proposed spending in the President’s jobs package.
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