Some Democrats are pushing to make job creation a top priority for the congressional supercommittee that is focused on the very different task of reducing government budget deficits.
Ahead of a major address on jobs next week by President Barack Obama, Democrats and their allies are hoping to clear a path to legislative approval for their partyÂ’s ideas. One of the easiest ways would be to hand the task to the deficit-reduction committee, which has broad powers to move bipartisan legislation quickly through Congress.
On Friday, House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson of Connecticut introduced three measures aimed at doing that.
“Every member of Congress – Democrat and Republican alike – heard the same thing from their constituents over the last month: they’re tired of the partisanship and fighting in Washington and just want Congress to get things straight so they can get back to work,” Mr. Larson said in a statement. “The Super Committee, with its deadlines and triggers, has a unique opportunity to overcome the recent gridlock in Congress to make that happen.”
Also, a liberal think tank, the Center for American Progress, plans to release a proposal on Tuesday that calls on the congressional supercommittee to take up the job of job creation, even without any enabling legislation.
“The economy needs help,” says a draft of the report by the Center for American Progress. “There is little debate on that point. As the Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 winds down, economic growth is beginning to stall, and the already weak labor market is under siege. Over the past several weeks, a broad consensus has developed that the federal government must increase its efforts to spur job creation.”
The supercommittee was created by last monthÂ’s Budget Control Act. The CAP report says thereÂ’s nothing in the act that prevents the supercommittee from including short-term job creation in its package of recommendations.
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