Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, center, listens to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, left and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during a bipartisan summit on health care with President Barack Obama in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Feb. 25, 2010. Obama urged lawmakers from both parties to use a meeting today to find ways to overhaul the health-care system, saying Congress can't afford to ignore one of the "biggest drags" on the U.S. economy. Photographer: Shawn Thew/Pool via BloombergIt was a modest measure to designate several thousand beachfront acres of St. Croix as a National Historic Site, but in the hands of a skilled congressman such as Rep. Nick J. Rahall II, it became yet another jobs bill.
Likewise the Travel Promotion Act, which would create a nonprofit group to push U.S. tourism, has been billed as a job-producing machine by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat.
It doesn't stop there - backers last week unveiled a bipartisan bill to create a visa category for entrepreneurs, predicting it "will create jobs in America."
From immigration to clean energy to expanding the social safety net, there's no better way to grease the skids for new government programs in Washington nowadays than to declare them job-producing bills, then watch supporters line up and potential opposition crumble.
When Mr. Reid dubbed as a jobs bill a simple $15 billion measure to offer payroll tax breaks and continued highway construction funding, it helped head off a potential Republican filibuster. Likewise, the Trade Promotion Act, which would tout the U.S. as an international tourist destination, sailed through the Senate after it was tagged with the almighty jobs-bill moniker.
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Given an unemployment rate hovering near 10 percent, the focus on jobs is not surprising.
House and Senate lawmakers raised the jobs issue on the chamber floors at least 154 times over the past week, and the jobs issue is more popular in Congress now than it has been in nearly two decades - since the 1991-92 recession.
President Obama joined the jobs chorus Tuesday, touting a $6 billion plan to offer up to $3,000 rebates for energy-efficiency home upgrades as "a common-sense approach that will help jump-start job creation."
Mr. Obama, who used the word "jobs" 11 times in his 17-minute speech in Savannah, Ga., said the issue is dominating his time right now.
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By Kara Rowland - The Washington Times
Obama was excoriated for continuing the Bush administration's strictest national security policies, including indefinite detention, military commissions and a "targeted kill" program that authorizes the government to take out suspected terrorists anywhere. Published 8:56 p.m. July 29, 2010
By Sean Lengell - The Washington Times
The House ethics committee officially lodged charges against Rep. Charles B. Rangel, including that he used his office to raise $8 million for a college public policy center named after him and didn't file taxes while he was Congress' chief tax writer. Published 8:56 p.m. July 29, 2010
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