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Obama tries to retain momentum on jobs
The
White House launched a proactive effort on Wednesday to clarify the
administration’s intent to “not take ‘no’ for an answer” in their
ongoing fight for passage of President Obama’s $447 billion jobs
package.
Obama’s jobs bill — the American Jobs Act, which he has campaigned to
pass in a series of speeches over the past month — failed in a Senate
vote Tuesday night, falling short of the 60 votes it needed to move to
debate.
“Last night, even though a majority of senators voted in favor of the American Jobs Act, a Republican minority got together as a group and blocked this jobs bill from passing the Senate,” Obama said Wednesday in a speech at the White House Forum on American Latino Heritage, held in Washington, D.C.
“A lot of folks in Washington and the media will look at last night's vote and say, 'well, that’s it. Let’s move on to the next fight.' But I’ve got news for them: Not this time,” Obama said.
White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer followed up on Obama’s speech with a blog post on the bill titled “We can't take ‘no’ for an answer.”
Pfeiffer wrote: “The next step now is for Congress to take up each
individual piece of the American Jobs Act. Will [Republicans] oppose
each of these common-sense measures that will get the American people
back to work and put money in the pockets of middle class families?”
Additionally, Vice President Biden appeared on all of the major
morning talk shows on Wednesday “to make clear that the fight is not
over on Jobs Act,” according to his official Twitter feed.
White
House press secretary Jay Carney said the administration expects Reid to
schedule what they hope will be “a series of votes” on components of
the bill.
Reid has indicated that the Senate will take up individual pieces of
the jobs act “in the next few weeks.” Republicans have expressed their
support for several pieces of the bill, but many lawmakers on both sides
indicated they would not support the full package as it was introduced.
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