On the recordOctober 12, 2011
This is what Mark Zandi said about the President's job proposal: [It] would help stabilize confidence and keep the U.S. from sliding back into recession. [It] would add 2 percentage points to GDP growth next year, add 1.9 million jobs, and cut the unemployment rate by a percentage point. The plan would cost about $450 billion, about $250 billion in tax cuts and $200 billion in spending increases. Many of the president's proposals [may be] unlikely to pass Congress, but the most important have a chance of winning bipartisan support. They deserve bipartisan support. Again, most of these proposals have been made by Republicans, not just by Democrats. But even if we cannot get the Republicans to support the proposal--because at least on the spending side it is the President's proposal; on the revenue side, it is now a Democratic Senate proposal in terms of the millionaires' surcharge--but if the Republicans will not vote for it, if they will not offer a substitute, an alternative of their own, if they will not seek to amend it to improve it, for heaven's sake, allow us to take up this bill.
