President Obama wants Congress to pass his jobs plan, and Democrats think the new deficit Super Committee is the appropriate venue for those initiatives. If creating jobs costs money in the near term, the Committee could simply offset those cuts with additional long-term deficit savings, beyond the $1.2 trillion floor required by the debt ceiling law.
But Republicans aren’t sold. I asked House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) whether this would be an appropriate course of action for the Joint Committee — new jobs spending now, more deficit cuts later. He demurred.
“The initial, sort of, mission of the Joint Select Committee was to try and affect the necessary cuts so that we could lift the debt ceiling the second tranche,” Cantor said at his weekly Capitol briefing. “And I think that is their goal, and I’m hopeful they’ll be successful.”
That doesn’t mean the committee won’t at least consider certain immediate stimulus proposals. But it’s perhaps a sign that Congressional Republicans are uneasy with the idea.
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