Democrats in the U.S. Senate have acted to move part of the president’s job bill forward estimated to save the jobs of more than 400,000 teachers and other public service jobs nationwide.
The bill was part of the larger jobs bill proposed by President Barak Obama that got voted down in the Senate last week. Senate Democrats have broken up the bill into parts in order to get the majority of the pieces through.
In a White House report entitled “Teacher Jobs at Risk,” the President outlined the education plan, which would put aside $30 billion in order to “avoid and reverse teacher layoffs now, and to provide support for the re-hiring and hiring of educators.”
The plan would focus on all 50 states but more educator jobs would be saved in states with high populations.
In California alone, the bill is expected to save as well as create jobs for 37,300 teachers and educators in grades K-12. The report also states that not only will educator jobs be saved but over 35,000 schools will go through renovations to modernize the schools, creating jobs in construction and other fields.
“Here in America, we are laying off teachers in droves,” said President Obama at a campaign stop in Texas. “It makes no sense, and it has to stop. This bill will prevent up to 280,000 teachers from losing their jobs—and support almost 40,000 jobs right here in Texas. Congress should pass this jobs bill so we can put our teachers back in the classroom where they belong.”
The only hurdle that seems to be standing in the way of the bill passing is the way it is funded.
The funding would come from a surtax, or an additional tax, on the .5 percent most wealthy. This tax is expected to pay for the bill without adding to the current deficit. Most Republicans in the Senate are against the bill, claiming it is just another bailout.
“It is disappointing that Senate Democrats are still focused on the same temporary stimulus spending that’s failed to solve our jobs crisis instead of bipartisan legislation that would lead to private-sector job growth,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
“Democrats have a choice: They can try to divide the country along partisan fault lines for the sake of an election that is still 13 months away, or they can work with us on passing bipartisan legislation—such as tax reform, domestic energy production, regulatory reform—that gets at the root of the jobs crisis now,” continued McConnell.
However, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) defended the bill, saying, “Our economy cannot afford to lose any more jobs.”
Reid continued saying that “These programs have worked in the past,” citing success in his home state of Nevada. Reid concluded that Republicans had “nothing constructive” to say on the bill but are only focused on winning the 2012 election.
