American Jobs Bill 2011: Too Late For A Do-over For President Obama

When President Obama delivered his much anticipated jobs speech on Sep. 8, I was actually driving on one of those highways the President said would benefit from the infrastructure spending included in his proposed $447-billion American Jobs Bill. Listening to the live speech, and judging from the audience reaction, it was a good speech reminiscent JFK-style and was what American public wanted to hear.

However, the proposed bill is short on implementation detail, and the claim that “Everything in this bill will be paid for. Everything” seems more of a wishful thinking and empty rhetoric as it rests on the assumption that the resulted budget and deficit cuts would not be rolled back by future leaders and policymakers. And that, of course, would not be President Obama’s problem.

Looking at the proposal on the basis of allocation, there does not appear to be any provision for the public sector, which is shedding jobs at an accelerated rate outpacing the job gains in the private sector due to budget cuts, revenue losses, and the winding down of the stimulus package. U.S.News noted [11] that since the end of the recession, government employment--including federal, state, and local jobs--has fallen by roughly 600,000.

Furthermore, there’s no provision for the housing sector which is still hemorrhaging from the financial crisis dragging down the rest of the U.S. economy.

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