Employed (With Benefits!) Job Killer Marco Rubio
Yesterday the Republicans in the Senate voted to block President Obama's $447 billion jobs bill from moving forward. Among them was Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who also recently announced that he would cosponsor another bill that would kill one out of every 10 federal jobs.
Two Democrats joined the Republicans to block the bill, Sens. Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Jon Tester (D-MT).
Never mind that the bill not only would create jobs, but it would cut payroll taxes, extend badly needed unemployment benefits, and fund infrastructure and road repairs, and would be paid for by an increase in taxes from the wealthy who would barely notice the difference.
The proposed jobs bill is also extremely popular among Americans according to a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. The poll shows that when given the details of what's in the bill, 63 percent of Americans favor the bill, only 32 percent oppose it, and 64 percent agree that it's a good idea to raise taxes for the wealthiest among us in order to pay their fair share.
Here's a little bit of what Marco Rubio and his Republican job killer colleagues snatched away from Floridians with their "no" votes:
Taxes:
The President’s plan will cut the payroll tax in half to 3.1% for employers on the first $5 million in wages, providing broad tax relief to all businesses but targeting it to the 98 percent of firms with wages below this level. In Florida, 410,000 firms will receive a payroll tax cut under the American Jobs Act.
Infrastructure:
The President’s plan includes $50 billion in immediate investments for highways, transit, rail and aviation, helping to modernize an infrastructure that now receives a grade of “D” from the American Society of Civil Engineers and putting hundreds of thousands of construction workers back on the job. Of the investments for highway and transit modernization projects, the President’s plan will make immediate investments of at least $1,578,600,000 in Florida that could support a minimum of approximately 20,500 local jobs.
Jobs:
The President is proposing to invest $35 billion to prevent layoffs of up to 280,000 teachers, while supporting the hiring of tens of thousands more and keeping cops and firefighters on the job. These funds would help states and localities avoid and reverse layoffs now, and will provide $1,669,500,000 in funds to Florida to support up to 25,900 educator and first responder jobs.
School Funding:
The President is proposing a $25 billion investment in school infrastructure that will modernize at least 35,000 public schools – investments that will create jobs, while improving classrooms and upgrading our schools to meet 21st century needs. Florida will receive $1,280,300,000 in funding to support as many as 16,600 jobs.
Construction, Jobs:
The President is proposing to invest $15 billion in a national effort to put construction workers on the job rehabilitating and refurbishing hundreds of thousands of vacant and foreclosed homes and businesses. Florida could receive about $2,701,800,000 to revitalize and refurbish local communities, in addition to funds that would be available through a competitive application.
The President’s plan proposes $5 billion of investments for facilities modernization needs at community colleges. Investment in modernizing community colleges fills a key resource gap, and ensures these local, bedrock education institutions have the facilities and equipment to address current workforce demands in today’s highly technical and growing fields. Florida could receive $288,400,000 in funding in the next fiscal year for its community colleges.
Unemployment Benefits:
Alongside these reforms, the President is reiterating his call to extend unemployment insurance, preventing 148,500 people looking for work in Florida from losing their benefits in just the first 6 weeks. And, across the country, the number saved from losing benefits would triple by the end of the year.
Payroll Tax Cuts:
The President’s plan will expand the payroll tax cut passed last December by cutting workers payroll taxes in half next year. A typical household in Florida, with a median income of around $46,000, will receive a tax cut of around $1,430.
You can see more of the plan here.
Basically, if you're out of work thanks to the economic policies the Republicans put in place over the years, you can now thank them for killing your chances of getting back to work anytime soon.
If you watched last night's GOP "Debate" you know that the Republicans have no jobs plan, and don't seem to be in a hurry to find one anytime soon. The only jobs Republicans may have inadvertently created last night would be those of a few additional fact checkers.
No, there's a good jobs plan out there, but it was proposed by President Obama. The Republican's only immediate mission in life is to make him a one term President, so those jobs must be blocked at all costs.
The only job the Republicans are interested in is their own. You pay their salary so that they can come to work for a couple weeks, obstruct anything the Democrats and the President try to put forward, then take a couple weeks off, do fundraisers, and then start the entire cycle all over again, as unemployment lines grow in their districts.
Nice work if you can get it, huh?
It's pretty clear who the real job killers are: The Republican Party, and of course, Florida's own Marco Rubio.
