The Leader's Ledger

State Of Play: Bipartisan Opposition Emerges Against How President Obama Pays For His Plan

Senate Dems Blast President Obama’s Methods To Pay For His Plan. President Barack Obama’s new jobs plan is hitting some unexpected turbulence in the halls of Congress: lawmakers from his own party. ... “Terrible,” Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) told POLITICO when asked about the president’s ideas for how to pay for the $450 billion price tag. “We shouldn’t increase taxes on ordinary income. … There are other ways to get there.” “That offset is not going to fly, and he should know that,” said Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu from the energy-producing Louisiana, referring to Obama’s elimination of oil and gas subsidies. “Maybe it’s just for his election, which I hope isn’t the case.” ... as details of the plan began to be vetted on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, it was clear that the White House needed to redouble its sales job — or tweak its plan ... But the tax increases clearly have generated concern among a number of Democrats who are calling for broader changes rather than tax hikes on specific industries. “If we’re going to change something, we got to be sure that we do it in the total [tax reform] package, that they know what the rules of the road are,” said Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.). ... “When you start singling out certain industries, there’s an unfairness to it,” he [Sen. Mark Begich] said in an interview. “On the pay-fors, I have a problem.” Politico

• Bipartisan Opposition In The House: Key House Democrats Oppose President Obama’s Pay Fors. President Barack Obama's plans to pay for his jobs legislation are facing a cool reception from some House Democrats who wonder how the proposals — which went nowhere in the 111th Congress, when Democrats held majorities in both chambers — can attract support now. ... Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.), who is the ranking member on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, delivered a speech in June in defense of many of the same tax deductions Obama is now targeting. "In the case of the charitable deduction, one has to keep in mind that the recipients of the contributions include universities, hospitals, churches and soup kitchens that provide critical services to working families," Levin said. In July, Democratic Reps. Jared Polis (Colo.) and Mike Quigley (Ill.) sent a letter to Obama warning him that a proposal that subsequently made it into Obama's jobs pay-for "could devastate our hopes for recovery" if it caused a "collapse" in the commercial real estate market. ... Sandra Swirski, executive director of the Alliance for Charitable Reform, a group that has opposed Obama's plan to limit deductions in the past, wasn't worried that the president's most recent proposal would gain traction this time around. "It's been pretty roundly rejected," she said. Roll Call

Majority Of Americans Don’t Believe President Obama’s Jobs Plan Will Lower Unemployment. A majority of Americans don’t believe President Barack Obama’s $447 billion jobs plan will help lower the unemployment rate, skepticism he must overcome as he presses Congress for action and positions himself for re- election. ... By a margin of 51 percent to 40 percent, Americans doubt the package of tax cuts and spending proposals intended to jumpstart job creation that Obama submitted to Congress this week will bring down the 9.1 percent jobless rate. That sentiment undermines one of the core arguments the president is making on the job act’s behalf in a nationwide campaign to build public support. Bloomberg

State Of Play (2): The White House Continues To Redefine Its Position On The President’s Plan

WH On Defense Over Their Position On The President’s Jobs Plan. The White House is getting a tad bit sensitive about whether it would accept anything less than Congressional passage of the President's full job package. ... Majority Leader Eric Cantor has already said he would jettison nearly all of the spending provisions. Still, Tuesday afternoon the White House took the unusual step of officially clarifying previous remarks its own spokesman made during a briefing. A senior administration official, according to pool report, came back to the press cabin while Air Force One was taking off and pointedly countered any notion that the President is willing to settle for piece-by-piece consideration of his jobs plan. ... Earlier that day, White House spokesman Jay Carney quite rationally conceded that Obama would be forced to accept a piecemeal approach to his jobs plan if House Republicans continue to refuse to vote for the entire package. "If Congress were to send a portion of the American Jobs Act, the President would of course not veto it. He would sign it," Carney said. "Then he would return to press Congress to get the rest of the job done." Although logical, the message must have ruffled some feathers over at Obama campaign headquarters. Talking Points Memo

• Leader Cantor: It’s Troubling That The Administration Continues To Push The All Or Nothing, Take It Or Leave It Approach. “There are big differences, but it’s time for us to set those aside and see if we can deliver results,” he said Tuesday during an economic discussion at the American Action Forum. “Now is not the time to raise taxes on anybody if you want to grow the economy.” ... The House leader also criticized Obama’s top campaign adviser, David Axelrod, who told ABC’s “Good Morning America” earlier Tuesday that the administration wouldn’t break up the package and turn it into an “a la carte menu.” “It’s troubling, the message of all or nothing, take it or leave it,” Cantor said. “That’s not the way anything works and not the way Washington works. Been there done that’. ... “There’s a significant amount of stimulus spending in this proposal,” he said. After the “2009 stimulus failure why do we want to do something like that again?” ... “I don’t believe we should allow areas of disagreement to get in the way of areas where we do agree,” he said. The Hill

The Economy: Instead Of Presenting A Plan That Focuses On Growing The Economy, President Obama Focuses On Raising Taxes

The Obama Administration Prepares To Make 2013 The Year Of The Tax Increase. Mr. Obama said last week that he wants $240 billion in new tax incentives for workers and small business, but the catch is that all of these tax breaks would expire at the end of next year. To pay for all this, White House budget director Jack Lew also proposed $467 billion in new taxes that would begin a mere 16 months from now. ... These tax increases would not be temporary. What this means is that millions of small-business owners had better enjoy the next 16 months, because come January 2013 they are going to get hit with a giant tax bill. ... That's the downside of temporary tax breaks and other job-creation gimmicks: The incentives quickly vanish, and perhaps so do the jobs. ... So even if the White House is right that its latest stimulus plan will create "millions of jobs" through 2012, by this logic a $240 billion tax hike on small businesses in 2013 would cost the economy jobs. The Wall Street Journal

• Long-Term Unemployment Remains A Staple Of The Obama Presidency. For President Barack Obama, facing the prospect of a double-dip recession, the pressing economic problem isn’t just stubbornly high unemployment. It’s also the record number of long-term unemployed. About 44 percent of unemployed workers have gone without paychecks for six months or longer, according to the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank. It’s an unprecedentedly high number that had never climbed past 26 percent during the past 50 years. ... “We have an immediate problem, which is that people are dropping out of the labor force,” said Howard Rosen, a visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “It drains the potential of our economy to grow.” The working-age population increased by 3.8 million over the past two years, but the net size of the labor force has declined by 768,000, he noted. Politico

77% Of Americans Feel The Economy Is Getting Worse. Americans' confidence in the U.S. economy is now at its lowest point since February 2009 -- near the conclusion of the recession that officially ended in June 2009. Gallup's Economic Confidence Index was -52 in August, above its financial crisis lows, but much lower than the -21 to -35 range measured from June 2009 to June 2011. ... Americans' current level of economic confidence -- which represents their views on the current state and future direction of the nation's economy -- is decidedly negative. Seventy-seven percent said the economy was getting worse in August, the highest -- by far -- since February 2009 ... Gallup

• 58% Of Americans Say They Are Worse Off Now Than They Were 3 Years Ago. CNN

Committee Check
 

• Video Alert: Budget Chairman Paul Ryan - 3 Steps To Pro-Growth Tax Reform - Watch it .... HERE

Keeping Tabs

Why Obama Is Losing the Jewish Vote. New York's special congressional election on Tuesday was the first electoral outcome directly affected by President Obama's Israel policy. Democrats were forced to expend enormous resources in a losing effort to defend this safe Democratic district, covering Queens and Brooklyn, that Anthony Weiner won last year by a comfortable margin. A Public Policy Poll taken days before the election found a plurality of voters saying that Israel was "very important" in determining their votes. Among those voters, Republican candidate Robert Turner was winning by a 71-22 margin. Only 22% of Jewish voters approved of President Obama's handling of Israel. Ed Koch, the Democrat and former New York mayor, endorsed Mr. Turner because he said he wanted to send a message to the president about his anti-Israel policies. The Wall Street Journal

Twin Defeats Spark Democrat Fears. The Democratic Party’s rare loss of a congressional seat in its urban heartland Tuesday, accompanied by a blowout defeat in a Nevada special election, marked the latest in a string of demoralizing setbacks that threatened to deepen the party’s crisis of confidence and raise concerns about President Barack Obama’s political fortunes. Even before the polls closed, the recriminations – something short of panic, and considerably more than mere grumbling – had begun. On a high-level campaign conference call Tuesday afternoon, Democratic donors and strategists commiserated over their disappointment in Obama. A source on the call described the mood as “awful.” “People feel betrayed, disappointed, furious, disgusted, hopeless,” said the source. Politico

Off The Beaten Path

The Case Of The Mysterious 6 Foot Hot Dog Statue – KFAB

Feel Good: Sleeping Puppies Are Apparently Really Cute – The Daily Mail

New Emotion Detector Can See When We're Lying – BBC