White House Economist Touts Jobs Plan, Slams GOP

By Lisa Kellman

One of the White House’s top economic officials assailed congressional Republicans on Monday for refusing to support President Obama’s American Jobs Act.

In a speech at the National Economic Club in Washington, National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling called Obama’s $447 billion package the right medicine to help boost the nation’s ailing economy.

“We need a bold immediate jobs plan and a balanced plan for long term fiscal discipline,” he said.

The president’s plan includes a mix of tax cuts and spending provisions aimed mostly at helping the struggling middle class. Obama has proposed paying for the plan by raising tax rates on those making more than $250,000 per year and establishing a higher minimum tax rate for millionaires.

The bill has seen action in the Senate, but has failed twice with Republicans and a small handul of Democrats voting against it due to a proposed offset inserted by Senate Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that would raise taxes on millionaires.

Sperling, who said that entitlement programs should also be tweaked in order to cover the cost of the plan, said that Congress has acted too slowly on bringing down the country’s 9.1 percent jobless rate.

“Unemployment is simply too high, the projections for near term growth too weak, the risk to the economy too elevated, the national crisis of long term unemployment too profound to sit on our hands and do nothing.”

The White House estimates that the president’s bill would create nearly two million jobs and would grow the economy by up to two percent.

During his speech, Sperling also accused Republicans of failing to propose a suitable jobs plan.

“They have not even come forward with an alternative plan that any top independent forecaster could possibly estimate as spurring growth to 1 to 2 percent next year or adding 2 million new jobs,” he said.

House Republicans, however, have blamed Obama and Senate Democrats for opposing a series of job creation bills that have passed through the lower chamber. GOP leaders say that the so-called “forgotten 15” would jumpstart the economy by undoing unnecessary regulations on American businesses.

“These bills are common-sense bills that address those excessive federal regulations that are hurting small business job creation,” said Rep. Bobby Schilling (R-Ill.) over the weekend.