In an address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress Thursday night, President Barack Obama unveiled his proposal for an economic growth package that would cost nearly $450 billion — a package he claims will “provide a jolt to an economy that has stalled.”
In his address, the president repeatedly urged members of Congress to pass the act immediately, promising that it would put thousands of teachers, construction workers and military veterans back to work.
The president ensured legislators that the program would be paid for in full with savings generated by the debt agreement passed by the legislature in July.
Obama’s plan, the American Jobs Act, focuses largely on providing tax breaks to small businesses that hire new workers and on increasing expenditures for major infrastructure projects.
In his speech, Obama said the largest corporations and wealthiest citizens must pay their fair share of taxes in order to steer the country’s economy back in the right direction.
But despite the urgency and uniqueness of Obama’s address to Congress, he wasn’t speaking to a full house.
A handful of Congressional Republicans boycotted the speech.
This partisan gesture is a reflection of a larger trend in American politics, said Jonathan Kropko, a former political science teaching assistant at UNC, in an email.
“(This) would be another example of the increasing acrimony between the parties,” he said. “And that trend has been growing for many years now.”
Although Republicans are likely to agree with the president on the issue of tax breaks for businesses and middle-class Americans, the bill is not expected to be voted on favorably, said Sarah Treul, an assistant professor of political science at UNC, in an email.
She said the president’s economic proposal does not include the types of changes necessary to substantially reduce the country’s unemployment rate, which currently stands at 9.1 percent.
“People tend to vote with their pocketbooks, and any job plan put forward by the president is unlikely to dramatically shift the nation’s unemployment numbers or the gap in expected GDP,” she said.
Kropko said the president’s speech and his modest proposals are not likely to have a substantial impact on how most Americans cast their votes in 2012.
“People who have yet to decide how they are going to vote in 2012 by and large are not going to be paying much attention,” he said.
Treul said Obama must make a more serious commitment to generate employment and reverse the economy’s downward trend even though he faces limited options when it comes to creating jobs.
“The amount of stimulus needed to truly foster immediate growth is in excess of $300 billion,” she said. “Jump-starting the economy by offering tax cuts or extending unemployment benefits will only work when Americans feel comfortable enough economically to stop saving and begin spending.”
UNC junior Kyle Smith said he believes it is the quality of the jobs created — not the number — that will make the difference.
“If we’re artificially manufacturing jobs that don’t really have a niche in the market, it could wind up hurting the economy more than helping it,” Smith said. “The unemployment percentage goes down, but it doesn’t help the economy.”
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