The American Jobs Act

Rather than wait for the bill to pass so I could see what is in it, I decided to spend some time reading President Obama’s proposal for job creation…you know, the one we have to pass now if we love him.  You can find the full text of the bill here.

After reading it, I now understand why, to date, no Democrat has offered to sponsor the bill.  It has all of the indicia of “Son of Stimulus”, so I doubt that any Democrat, particularly one running for office in 2012 would want his or her finger prints on it.  But, you be the judge of that.

The bill, among other things, proposes to spend:

• $30 billion for Teacher Stabilization to prevent teacher layoffs (see page 13),
• $5 billion for First Responder Stabilization to prevent law enforcement layoffs (see page 16)
• $25 billion to modernize schools using only union labor, and with an emphasis on “green” (see page 16),
• $2 billion on airport construction, using, of course only union labor (see page 23),
• $27 billion on highway projects, using, of course, only union labor (see page 24),
• $4 billion on intercity passenger rail (see page 26),
• $3 billion on new buses (see page 26),
• $2 billion for Amtrak (see page 27),
• $6 billion to modernize fixed rail systems and bus stations (see page 28),
• $5 billion on anything else the Secretary of Transportation can think of concerning surface transportation infrastructure (see page 29), and.
• $15 billion for construction workers (union, of course) to refurbish vacant and foreclosed homes (see page 48).

In addition to that, the President includes $9 billion for even more jobs training programs…Reemployment NOW, Bridge to Work, and Pathways Back to Work (see  pages 79, 80 and 94).

Finally it includes a “lawyers relief act”, as apparently all bills must, which makes it unlawful to discriminate in the employment process just because someone is currently unemployed (see page 109).

Of course, all of this will be paid for by “taxing the rich” as Jim detailed in a post earlier.

I did not notice a Dodd/Frank Stabilization to prevent 30,000 Bank of America layoffs, but, perhaps that was just an oversight.

If you don’t care to read all the legalese, beginning at page 126 there is an analysis of the bill, written mostly in “people” that goes through the proposal section by section.  But, I warn you, the analysis ends on page 157, and the next numbered page is 199.

Maybe if the bill is passed we’ll see whats on pages 158 through 199.