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Democratic Committee Meeting

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Obama for America, Lynchburg Virginia Division


To create jobs, the President unveiled the American Jobs Act – nearly all of which is made up of ideas that have been supported by both Democrats and Republicans, and that Congress should pass right away to get the economy moving now.

The purpose of the American Jobs Act is simple: put more people back to work and put more money in the pockets of working Americans – without adding a dime to the deficit.



Republicans say NO to Everything and Obstruct the Jobs Act.


Obama for America in Lynchburg

Rex Young, Lynchburg and Bedford


Kathryn Loomis,  Lynchburg, Campbell and Appomattox


Jeff Rosner, Katie Cyphert, Maria Childress, Christine Darby, Martha Hicks, Will Scott and Josh Petersen


Tax Cuts to Help America's Small Businesses Hire and Grow

• New Tax Cuts to Businesses to Support Hiring and Investment: The President is proposing three tax cuts to provide immediate incentives to hire and invest:

◦ Cutting the Payroll Tax in Half for the First $5 Million in Wages:    This provision would 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. 

◦ Temporarily Eliminating Employer Payroll Taxes on Wages for New Workers or Raises for Existing Workers:    The President is proposing a full holiday on the 6.2% payroll tax firms pay for any growth in their payroll up to $50 million above the prior year, whether driven by new hires, increased wages or both.   This is the kind of job creation measure that CBO has called the most effective of all tax cuts in supporting employment.


◦ Extending 100% Expensing into 2012:   The President is proposing to extend 100 percent expensing, the largest temporary investment incentive in history, allowing all firms—large and small—to take an immediate deduction on investments in new plants and equipment.

• Helping Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses Access Capital and Grow:   The President's plan includes administrative, regulatory and legislative measures—including those developed and recommended by the President's Jobs Council—to help small firms start and expand. This includes changing the way the government does business with small firms.   The Administration will soon announce a plan to accelerate government payments to small contractors to help put money in their hands faster.    The President is also charging his CFO and CTO to, within 90 days, stand up a one-stop, online portal for small businesses to easily access government services.    As part of the President's Startup America initiative, the Administration will work with the SEC to conduct a comprehensive review of securities regulations from the perspective of these small companies to reduce the regulatory burdens on small business capital formation in ways that are consistent with investor protection, including expanding "crowdfunding" opportunities and increasing mini-offerings.   Finally, the President's plan calls for Congress to pass comprehensive patent reform, increase guarantees for bonds to help small businesses compete for infrastructure projects and to remove burdensome withholding requirements that keep capital out of the hands of job creators.


Republicans say NO and are willing to fight to the death to kill the plan. 


 Putting Workers Back on the Job
•Tax Credits and Career Readiness Efforts to Support Veterans' Hiring: The President is proposing a Returning Heroes Tax Credit of up to $5,600 for hiring unemployed veterans who have been looking for a job for more than six months, and a Wounded Warriors Tax Credit of up to $9,600 for hiring unemployed workers with service-connected disabilities who have been looking for a job for more than six months, while creating a new task force to maximize career readiness of servicemembers. 


 •Preventing Layoffs of Teachers, Cops and Firefighters:    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, requiring that funds be drawn down quickly. Under the President's proposal, $30 billion be directed towards educators and $5 billion would support the hiring and retention of public safety and first responder personnel.
 

•Modernizing Over 35,000 Schools -- From Science Labs and Internet-Ready Classrooms to Renovated Facilities:    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.     This includes a priority for rural schools and dedicated funding for Bureau of Indian Education funded schools. Funds could be used for a range of emergency repair and renovation projects, greening and energy efficiency upgrades, asbestos abatement and removal, and modernization efforts to build new science and computer labs and to upgrade technology in our schools.     The President is also proposing a $5 billion investment in modernizing community colleges (including tribal colleges), bolstering their infrastructure in this time of need while ensuring their ability to serve future generations of students and communities. 

 •Making an Immediate Investment in Our Roads, Rails and Airports:    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.   The President's plan includes investments to improve our airports, support NextGen Air Traffic Modernization efforts, and resources for the TIGER and TIFIA programs, which target competitive dollars to innovative multi-modal infrastructure programs.    It will also take special steps to enhance infrastructure-related job training opportunities for individuals from underrepresented groups and ensure that small businesses can compete for infrastructure contracts.   The President will work administratively to speed infrastructure investment through a recently issued Presidential Memorandum developed with his Jobs Council directing departments and agencies to identify high impact, job-creating infrastructure projects that can be expedited in a transparent manner through outstanding review and permitting processes.    The call for greater infrastructure investment has been joined by leaders from AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka to U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue. 

•Establishing a National Infrastructure Bank:    The President is calling for Congress to pass a National Infrastructure Bank capitalized with $10 billion, in order to leverage private and public capital and to invest in a broad range of infrastructure projects of national and regional significance, without earmarks or traditional political influence.    The Bank would be based on the model Senators Kerry and Hutchison have championed while building on legislation by Senators Rockefeller and Lautenberg and the work of long-time infrastructure bank champions like Rosa DeLauro and the input of the President's Jobs Council. 

•Project Rebuild: Putting People Back to Work Rehabilitating Homes, Businesses and Communities.   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.   Building on proven approaches to stabilizing neighborhoods with high concentrations of foreclosures, Project Rebuild will bring in expertise and capital from the private sector, focus on commercial and residential property improvements, and expand innovative property solutions like land banks.   This approach will not only create construction jobs but will help reduce blight and crime and stabilize housing prices in areas hardest hit by the housing crisis. 


•Expanding Access to High-Speed Wireless in a Fiscally Responsible Way:     The President is calling for a deficit reducing plan to deploy high-speed wireless services to at least 98 percent of Americans, including those in more remote rural communities, while freeing up spectrum through incentive auctions, spurring innovation, and creating a nationwide, interoperable wireless network for public safety. 


Republicans say NO WAY.     We will block anything that makes Obama look good. 



 More Money in the Pockets of Every American Worker and Family

• Cutting Payroll Taxes in Half for 160 Million Workers Next Year.   The President's plan will expand the payroll tax cut passed last December by cutting workers payroll taxes in half next year.   This provision will provide a tax cut of $1,500 to the typical family earning $50,000 a year.     As with the payroll tax cut passed in December 2010, American Jobs Act will specify that Social Security will still receive every dollar it would have gotten otherwise, through a transfer from the General Fund into the Social Security Trust Fund. 

• Helping More Americans Refinance Mortgages at Today's Historically Low Interest Rates:    The President has instructed his economic team to work with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, their regulator the FHFA, major lenders and industry leaders to remove the barriers that exist in the current refinancing program (HARP) to help more borrowers benefit from today's historically low interest rates.    This has the potential to not only help these borrowers, but their communities and the American taxpayer, by keeping borrowers in their homes and reducing risk to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.


Republicans have made defeating Obama their top job.     The country and the people be dammed.     They obstruct everything.



Pathways Back to Work for Americans Looking for Jobs 

• Reform Our Unemployment Insurance System to Provide Greater Flexibility, While Ensuring 6 Million People Do Not Lose Benefits: Drawing on the best ideas of both parties and the most innovative states, the President is proposing the most sweeping reforms to the unemployment insurance (UI) system in 40 years help those without jobs transition to the workplace.    Alongside these reforms, the President is reiterating his call to extend unemployment insurance, preventing 6 million people looking for work from losing their benefits and extending what the independent Congressional Budget Office has determined is the highest "bang for the buck" option to increase economic activity.

 ◦ Reemployment Assistance:   States will be required to design more rigorous reemployment services for the long-term unemployed and to conduct assessments to review the longest-term claimants of UI to assess their eligibility and help them develop a work-search plan. These reforms are proven to speed up UI beneficiaries' return to work. 

◦ Work-sharing:    The President will expand "work-sharing" to encourage arrangements using UI that keep employees on the job at reduced hours, rather than laying them off. 


◦ State Flexibility for Bold Reforms to Put the Long-Term Unemployed Back To Work:   The President is proposing to provide additional funds to allow states to introduce new programs aimed at long-term unemployed workers, including: 


■ "Bridge to Work" Programs:    States will be able to try reforms -- building off while improving on the model of programs like Georgia Works or Opportunity North Carolina --that provide a "bridge to work" for the long-term unemployed by permitting workers to continue receiving UI while they take temporary, voluntary work or pursue work-based training.    The President's plan would encourage the development of such proposals, and provide support to help states comply with applicable minimum wage and other worker rights laws. 

■ Wage Insurance: States will be able to use UI to encourage older, long-term unemployed Americans to return to work in new industries or occupations. 


■ Startup Assistance: States will have flexibility to help long-term unemployed workers create their own jobs by starting their own small businesses. 


■ Other Reemployment Reforms: States will be able to seek waivers from the Secretary of Labor to implement other innovative reforms to connect the long-term unemployed to work opportunities.


• Tax Credits for Hiring the Long-Term Unemployed:    The President is proposing a tax credit of up to $4,000 for hiring workers who have been looking for a job for over six months. 


• Investing in Low-Income Youth and Adults: The President is proposing a new Pathways Back to Work Fund to provide hundreds of thousands of low-income youth and adults with opportunities to work and to achieve needed training in growth industries.    The Initiative will do three things: i) support summer and year-round jobs for youth, building off of successful programs that supported over 370,000 such jobs in 2009 and 2010; ii) support subsidized employment opportunities for low-income individuals who are unemployed, building off the successful TANF Emergency Contingency Fund wage subsidy program that supported 260,000 jobs in 2009 and 2010; and iii) support promising and innovative local work-based job and training initiatives to place low-income adults and youths in jobs quickly. 


• Prohibiting Employers from Discriminating Against Unemployed Workers: The President's plan calls for legislation that would make it unlawful to refuse to hire applicants solely because they are unemployed or to include in a job posting a provision that unemployed persons will not be considered.


Fully Paid for as Part of the President's Long-Term Deficit Reduction Plan: The President will release a detailed deficit reduction plan in the coming days that will pay for every penny of the American Jobs Act and include additional deficit reduction sufficient to stabilize our debt as a share of our economy.    He will also call on the Joint Committee come up with the additional deficit reduction necessary to pay for the American Jobs Act and still meet their deficit target.


Republicans want to kill it all.    They are interested in regaining the Presidency and NOTHING ELSE.     If you know someone who votes with the GOP try to hip them to reality. 




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