President Barack Obama speaks as he honors Jimmie Johnson for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Championship in the East Room the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2011. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
President Barack Obama speaks as he honors Jimmie Johnson for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Championship in the East Room the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2011. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
President Barack Obama gestures during an event in the East Room of the White House to honor NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson for his fifth consecutive championship on Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2011, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
A job postings board is shown at Central City Concern employment access center Friday, Sept. 2, 2011, in Portland, Ore. U.S. employers stopped adding jobs in August, an alarming setback for an economy that has struggled to grow and might be at risk of another recession. The government also reported that the unemployment rate remained at 9.1 percent. It was the weakest jobs report since September 2010. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
FILE - In this Aug. 31, 2011 file photo, some of an estimated 4,000 people wait to enter a job fair called the "For The People Jobs Initiative," where job seekers met employers, job counselors, skills trainers and others, at Crenshaw Christian Center in South Los Angeles. Congress must abandon its politically driven refusal to work with President Barack Obama and take action on his job proposals because Americans are demanding help, a top White House aide said Thursday, Sept. 8, 2011. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)
FILE - In this Aug. 18, 2011 file photo, people wait in line during a job fair, sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus, on the campus of Atlanta Technical College in Atlanta. Congress must abandon its politically driven refusal to work with President Barack Obama and take action on his job proposals because Americans are demanding help, a top White House aide said Thursday., Sept. 8, 2011. (AP Photo/Atlanta Journal & Constitution, Bob Andres, File) MARIETTA DAILY OUT; GWINNETT DAILY POST OUT
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Facing a frustrated public and a skeptical Congress, President Barack Obama will pitch at least $300 billion in jobs proposals aimed at getting Americans back to work quickly and forcing Republicans to take a share of the responsibility for solving the country's economic woes.
The underlying political strategy: If Obama can't get his ideas passed heading into his re-election year, he at least hopes to show why he shouldn't take the fall.
In a rare speech Thursday to a joint session of Congress, Obama is likely to offer a package of ideas that would affect people in their daily lives ? tax relief, unemployment insurance, spending to support construction jobs, aid to states to keep people in their jobs. Businesses would get their own tax breaks. And he will promise a long-term plan to pay for it all.
Yet all of it ultimately will depend on a Republican-controlled House that has a different economic approach and no political incentive to help a Democrat seeking a second term.
White House officials said Obama planned to formally send his plan ? coined by the administration as the American Jobs Act ? to Congress next week.
Obama's chief of staff, William Daley, urged Republican lawmakers to abandon their politically driven refusal to work with Obama and take action on his jobs proposal. Daley declined to provide details of the president's jobs proposal, saying only that it would help teachers, construction workers, first responders and small businesses, and that many of the ideas have been supported by Republicans in the past.
"The only reason some of these people may not support it now is because of the politics that's going on, which is again unfortunate for the American people," Daley said.
He said the jobs programs would be paid for without borrowed money, and hinted that some of the funds would come from higher taxes on wealthier Americans. They "ought to pay a little more," Daley said.
Obama's goal is also to put Republicans on the spot to act ? in their face, and in their chamber. Obama is expected to speak for up to 45 minutes, beginning at 7 p.m. EDT.
Before Obama even said a word, political and economic reality raised two questions: Will any of his ideas get approved, and will they actually work?
When asked about some of the ideas Obama is expected to discuss, majorities of Republicans, Democrats and independents were all skeptical that the proposals would do a lot to create jobs, a Pew Research Center poll out Wednesday found. A series of new polls by major news organizations finds that the mood is downright dismal about the direction of the country, with Obama's standing and approval on the economy at or near the lowest levels of his presidency.
Yet voters are holding all leaders accountable, supporting the White House's point that Congress is under pressure to act, too. An Associated Press-GfK poll found that more people assign chief blame for the economy to former President George W. Bush and congressional Republicans and Democrats than to Obama.
Democrats familiar with the president's plans say the White House sees the speech as a pivot point after spending the spring and summer focused on negotiations over deficit spending. They say the fall offers the president a window to press congressional Republicans to act on his economic plan ? and if they don't, Obama will spend 2012 running against them as obstructionists. Whether that's enough to win over voters is another matter.
Obama's chief campaign strategist, David Axelrod, said the president won't start with ideas that have been "preapproved" by Republicans in Congress.
"Ultimately, the test for any of these ideas: Are they right? Can they help the economy? Can they help get people back to work?" Axelrod told The Associated Press.
The president's plan to pay for his ideas is a political necessity in a time of fiscal austerity. Deficit-boosting stimulus spending is out. But here, too, he is banking on a lot of help.
Obama plans to cover the cost by asking a new congressional supercommittee debt panel to go beyond its target of finding $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction by the end of November, so the extra savings can pay for short-term economic help. That debt panel meets for the first time Thursday.
In one upbeat sign for those looking for a Washington compromise, House Speaker John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor have told Obama they see potential areas of agreement on jobs ? for example, infrastructure, which Obama has pushed repeatedly. Cantor also signaled to reporters Wednesday that he might support a payroll tax cut.
"It is not games and politics for people out across this country. It's real," Cantor said about the state of the economic debate. "The fact that we have had such sustained joblessness in this country, the fact that people are doing anything they can in many instances just to stay afloat and to pay the bills, it's real."
At the heart of Obama's plan will be extending, by one more year, a payroll tax cut for workers that went into effect this year. The president wants the payroll tax, which raises money for Social Security, to stay at 4.2 percent rather than kick back up to 6.2 percent. That tax applies to earnings up to $106,800.
Obama is expected to seek continued unemployment aid for millions of people receiving extended benefits. That program, too, is set to expire at year's end.
Among the other potential proposals by Obama:
?Tax credits for employers who hire.
? A major school construction initiative.
? Aid to local governments to prevent layoffs of teachers and other workers.
?Other tax help for businesses, such as continuing to allow them to deduct the full value of new equipment.
Since Obama took office in January 2009, nearly 2 million Americans have lost jobs. Almost 14 million people are out of work.
The unemployment rate, which stood at 5 percent at the start of the deep recession and 7.8 percent when Obama began in office, is at 9.1 percent. Most troubling is the trend line. After a period of steady if modest job creation, employers have stopped hiring.
___
Associated Press writers Ken Thomas, Christopher S. Rugaber, Jim Kuhnhenn and Larry Margasak contributed to this report.
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-09-08-US-Obama-Jobs/id-74fbc3d812854db698db492252643239
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