What Voting ‘No' on the Jobs Plan Means

Last night, Republicans in Congress voted against the President's plan to put 2 million Americans back to work -- killing jobs in their own home states. Senator McCain's former campaign economic adviser Mark Zandi says that if Congress does nothing, "the odds are very high we'll go into a recession next year."

CORE MESSAGE

Last night, Republicans in Congress chose to lay off teachers, leave veterans without jobs, and let our bridges crumble.

Connect: Americans are in desperate need of good jobs and ready to get back to work.

Define: But instead of creating more jobs, Republicans in Congress voted to lay off teachers, leave our veterans without jobs, and let more of our roads and bridges crumble. That must be what they call Tea Party economics. 

Expose: Republicans in Congress voted against ideas they know work and have supported in the past because they know if more Americans have good jobs, it would help the President politically.

Call to action: Politicians willing to keep Americans jobless for political gain have no business leading America.

TAILOR THIS MESSAGE

You can use the White House state-by-state fact sheets about the impact of the American Jobs Act to tailor this message to Senators who voted against it:

"Last night, [YOUR SENATOR WHO VOTED 'NO'] voted to lay off [FILL IN NUMBER] teachers, leave our veterans without jobs, and let more of our roads and bridges crumble by passing up hiring [FILL IN NUMBER] construction workers [IN YOUR STATE]."

ATTACKS AND RESPONSES

"The Jobs Act won't work, just like the stimulus didn't work."

• They should try telling that to the millions of Americans who have jobs because of Obama's original stimulus bill.
• Even the top economist to the last presidential election's Republican nominee says "The argument that the stimulus had zero impact and we shouldn't have done it is intellectually dishonest or wrong."
• Sen. McCain's former campaign economic adviser says President Obama's jobs plan will create two million American jobs. It will keep nearly 300,000 teachers on the job in our classrooms and put Americans to work right away fixing our crumbling roads, bridges, and schools.

"Obama is going to kill jobs by raising taxes on job creators."

• Let's put money into the hands of the real job creators in this country -- American small businesses and the middle class. That's exactly what the President's jobs plan would do.
• We can't go back to "trickle down." We saw what it led to under Bush: the slowest job growth since World War II and record deficits.
• When President Clinton told millionaires and big corporations to pay their fair share in taxes, we got millions of new jobs and strong economic growth.

"Democrats are the ones who don't support Obama's jobs bill."

• Let's get one thing clear: 2 million Americans will remain without jobs because Republicans united to kill the President's jobs bill, even though it contains ideas they've supported in the past.
• Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell said their top priority is to defeat the President. They've shown they're willing to lay off millions of Americans and let our bridges crumble beneath us to get what they want.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

• Over 60% of Americans support federal funding to fix our crumbling roads, bridges, and schools, and three out of four Americans support using federal funds to put teachers, firefighters, and cops back to work.
• The President's jobs plan is made up of practical ideas that both parties have already supported, including a tax credit for companies that hire new workers, investments in the nation's infrastructure, and tax credits to businesses hiring out-of-work veterans.
• More tax giveaways for millionaires and big corporations just mean more money for millionaires and big corporations that already have more money than they can spend, not jobs.

We develop messaging by aggregating, analyzing and distilling polling, tested messaging, and expert recommendations, and monitoring the media to identify what is and isn't working.  See here for some of the experts and organizations we draw on.