Obama tells Congress: let’s get America back to work

A common sense blueprint for economic recovery: President Obama has been making a new push for his $450 billion jobs creation plan – warning “the only thing that’s stopping (this plan) is politics”.

Speaking at the White House this morning, the President urged Congress to pass his American Jobs Act without delay.

“Let’s get something done,” he urged. “Let’s get back to work.”

Flanked by an assortment of teachers, firefighters, small business owners and veterans – all said to be affected by the jobs bill – Obama insisted this was no time for partisan arguments. “These aren’t games we’re playing here,” he said.

“Folks are out of work.”

The text of the bill will go to lawmakers later tonight, once both houses come back into session. And officials have revealed that it will include a package of budget cuts to pay for it all – and more: there’s an extra $20bn of offsets included to “build in a cushion” and make sure there’s no dipping further into the red for the United States.

Let’s get something done. Let’s get back to work. President Obama

In a statement prepared before that briefing, House Speaker John Boehner said the final jobs legislation should contain ideas from both parties – while House majority leader Eric Cantor’s immediate response went even further: he’s pretty much ruled out half of it.

“Anything that is akin to the stimulus bill I think is not going to be acceptable to the American people,” he declared. Many Republicans have been deeply sceptical about the mixture of tax cuts and infrastructure spending, and view the last lot of stimulus spending in 2009 as an abject failure.

It’s unlikely that the jobs bill will make it through Congress in one piece – although the Democrats are pretty keen at the thought of a showdown with the GOP over a measure to help hundreds of thousands of teachers keep their jobs, or another giving firms a tax credit to hire military veterans.

Republican differences

And differences in Republican views on the economy will be highlighted tonight – when the would be presidential contenders face off in a televised debate sponsored by the Tea Party. Conservative activists at debate-watch parties around the country will chip in with their own questions – as latest polls gave their favoured candidate, Rick Perry, a commanding lead.

His biggest rival, the former Massachussetts governor Mitt Romney, goes into the debate with something of a political boost, after winning the endorsement of another former governor, Minnesota’s Tim Pawlenty. In an interview on Fox News this morning, Pawlenty described his erstwhile rival as having “the unique qualifications to confront and master our severe economic predicament.”

Like Romney, Pawlenty pitched his appeal towards moderate voters; and his endorsement can only help to highlight the sharp political differences between Romney and Perry over issues like Social Security.

In the last debate, on Thursday, Perry delighted his Tea Party supporters by describing Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme” and a “monstrous lie”, but it’s provided ample fuel for his rivals.

Mitt Romney’s already urged the party to adopt a candidate “who is committed to saving Social Security” – describing Perry as ‘reckless’. Even Michelle Bachmann, whose conservative populist thunder has rather been stolen by Perry’s rapid rise, has been pointedly critical, insisting it’s “wrong for any candidate to make senior citizens believe they should be nervous about something they have come to count on.”

Obama hits the road

As for the White House, they might well be looking forward the prospect of a 2012 fight against a Republican whose own side has accused him of scaring elderly people by trying to abolish their retirement security. For now, though, Obama will be heading off to some key battleground states, starting with Boehner’s home state of Ohio, to build public support for his jobs bill.

An activist President versus a ‘do nothing’ Congress: that’s the narrative the White House is hoping that voters will accept. And while the Republicans are still determined to resist any kind of public spending – they may have to give some ground, to avoid looking like the party that put the economic recovery at risk, and stopped Americans getting back to work.

Felicity Spector is the US political expert for Channel 4 News. Follow her on Twitter @felicityspector.