updates from the front

So apprently Harry Reid has decided that we are going to vote on the American Jobs Act (aka the Obama plan), or at least a teensy tiny peice of it. Well since the theme of this Congress has been responding to a huge economic crisis with half-measures that seems appropriate.

 

The bits of the original jobs act which have been chosen to see the light of day can be found in S 1723 (http://lis.gov/cgi-lis/query/z?c112:S.1723:) a scaled down measure focusing on teachers and first responders. Word from the Senate is that this bill should see a vote today or tomorrow (the Senate is on recess all next week so friday is sort of a hard deadline if they want this to move anytime soon) although the Khaddafy story is going to be dominating the news cycle so if they were hoping for coverage they may hold off.

 

Now, you would think that firefighters and kindergarden teachers would be an easy sell, not to mention that whole "create jobs and stabilize the economy" thing that everyone is paying so much lip service to these days. Still, I'm sure republicans will find something to complain about even with this bill which has been hand picked for them. At this point, if Bill Gates and the ghost of Ronald Reagan got together to design a stimulus the right might still reject it as "class warfare". Someone should probably point out that just because someone disagrees with you doesn't make it class warfare. you might just be wrong. but I digress.

 

Anyway, keep an eye out for a senate vote on this first chunk of the jobs bill. If it goes well, we may see this strategy repeated. Then, if we are really lucky, they might even find the guts to fight for some of the more important but less popular measures. ..Ok so that last part probably won't happen. But a girl can dream!

 

Anyway, preventing teacher layoffs and getting a few more early childhood education professionals back to work in our public schools actually seems like a pretty good first step to me. So, I'll stifle my harumphs about not getting everything I want and just hope that this thing passes.

 

I'll do my best to keep ya posted!