–Senate Majority Leader Suggests First Step To Scale Back Jobs Bill
–Sen. Reid: Funds Needed To Prevent ‘Unprecedented Layoffs’
–Senate Minority Leader McConnell: Obama’s Econ Plans Have Failed
–Sen. McConnell: Obama ‘Keeps Coming Back For More’

By John Shaw

WASHINGTON (MNI) – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday
the Senate should pass a $35 billion package that would allow states and
local governments to avoid laying off teachers and first responders.

In comments on the Senate floor, Reid said the funds he seeks would
help prevent up to 400,000 layoffs among teachers across the nation.
Layoffs of this magnitude, he said, would be “unprecedented” and would
further hamper the U.S.’s recovery.

The package Reid proposed would be funded by a 0.5% surtax on
household income above $1 million, a scaled-back version of the 5.6%
surtax that Democrats proposed earlier to pay for President Obama’s $447
billion jobs plan that was rejected last week.

Both Reid and Obama have indicated that they will try to break up
Obama’s larger jobs plan into smaller pieces such as the $35 billion
teachers and first responders package that Reid touted Tuesday.

In his remarks on the Senate floor, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
did not respond directly to Reid’s proposal but continued his
unrelenting attacks on Obama’s economic stewardship.

McConnell said Obama’s economic policies “have not worked as
advertised” and charged that the nation has not made “any progress”
after passage of the president’s $787 billion stimulus plan in 2009.

McConnell said Obama is trying to “deflect attention” from his
failed record by blasting congressional Republicans for obstructionism.

“He keeps coming back for more,” McConnell said in reference to the
president’s call for new jobs legislation.

McConnell has said that Republicans will continue to look for job
creating ideas and forward them to Congress’s so-called Super Committee
which is expected to assemble deficit reduction ideas by late November.

The panel could also include some short-term economic growth
policies in its final plan.

Congress’s deficit reduction committee is charged to submit a $1.5
trillion deficit reduction package by Nov. 23.

** Market News International Washington Bureau: (202) 371-2121 **

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