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Dayton
Daily News...
President
Obama pushes Boehner to pass
jobs bill
Obama says House speaker can kill or
help pass American Jobs Act.
By Kareem Elgazzar
CINCINNATI
— President Barack Obama
implored Republicans to get on board with his jobs bill before
thousands at a
concrete mixing facility in Cincinnati on Thursday.
The
American Jobs Act, a
$447
billion jobs bill, would set
aside money for infrastructure projects like replacing the almost
half-century
old Brent Spence Bridge, which spans the Ohio River between Ohio and
Kentucky.
It
was no coincidence the president
chose the Brent Spence Bridge as the location for his speech.
Nestled
in the middle of the districts
of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s, R-Kentucky, and U.S. House
Speaker
John Boehner’s, R-West Chester Twp., Obama admitted he knew where he
was and
why he was here. Plus, Southwest Ohio traditionally has been a GOP
stronghold.
“I
came here because Mr. Boehner and
Mr. McConnell are the two most powerful Republicans in government,”
Obama said.
“They can either kill this jobs bill, or they can help pass it.”
Obama
addressed a crowd of
approximately 2,000 people, standing under the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge,
which
is just east of the Brent Spence Bridge.
Obama
wasted no time speaking about
creating jobs and urging top Republicans to be more concerned with job
creation
rather than pushing him out of office.
McConnell
recently said his No. 1
priority was to get the president out of the White House.
“I’ve
got news for him, and every
other member of Congress who feels that way, the next election is 14
months
away,” Obama said. “Americans do not have the luxury of waiting that
long.”
Boehner’s
press office suggested Obama
was in Cincinnati for votes, not for jobs. Boehner, however, does agree
with
Obama on the need to build a new bridge.
“Listen,
like everyone in Cincinnati
and northern Kentucky, I know how important the Brent Spence Bridge is
to our
region,” Boehner said in his weekly address.
Boehner
spokeswoman Brittany Bramell
said people and the president need to realize bridge construction is
several
years way. “ ... but due in part to bureaucratic and environmental
requirements, it’s at least four years away from being ‘shovel-ready,’
which
begs the question, ‘why is the president suggesting it can create jobs
now?’ ”
Construction
for a bridge is scheduled
to being in 2015 and would be part of a $2.4 billion project.
White
House Press Secretary Jay Carney
said the Brent Spence Bridge is symbolic and “representative of
crumbling
infrastructure across the country.” Obama used the bridge as a prime
example as
to why Congress should pass his American Job Act.
“Behind
us stands the Brent Spence
Bridge, it’s located on one of the busiest trucking routes in North
America,
and it’s in such poor condition that it has been labeled functionally
obsolete
— think about that, functionally obsolete,” Obama said. “That’s why I
sent
Congress the American Jobs Act 10 days ago — it’s a bill that will put
people back
to work rebuilding America.”
The
president’s push to raise taxes on
the wealthiest Americans and corporations, an idea not welcomed by many
Republicans, is not intended to “punish success,” but to “make sure
that
everybody is paying their fair share — there’s nothing wrong with that.”
Obama
dismissed the idea that by
raising taxes on the rich, he was waging a war on the upper class.
“The
Republicans, when I talked about
this earlier in the week, they said, well, this is class warfare.”
Obama said.
“You know what, if asking a billionaire to pay their fair share of
taxes, to
pay the same tax rate as a plumber or a teacher is class warfare, then
you know
what, I’m a warrior for the middle class.”
Chris
Maloney, the Ohio GOP spokesman,
said now is not the time to raise taxes in a recession and that 13
Democratic
senators agree.
Read
it at the Dayton Daily News
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