GOP Attacks Obama On Jobs, Then Blocks Jobs Bill

House Minority Leader John Boehner continues to attack President Obama for a lack of job creation, and yet his own party continues to stand in the way of whatever Obama and Democrats in Congress propose to address the issue.

Republicans hoping to capitalize on the public’s economic concerns to score electoral gains went on the attack against Obama’s jobs agenda.

“Check your facts, Mr. President,” U.S. House of Representatives Republican leader John Boehner said in a statement. “More debt, higher taxes, and bigger government may be President Obama’s idea of a ‘jobs program,’ but it’s hurting our economy and making it harder to put people back to work.”

But Republicans, who created the mess to begin with, reject whatever Democrats propose for political reasons, and play petty politics in the process. Most recently, they mucked up the COMPETES Act by throwing in an anti-porn amendment that had nothing to do with the bill, just for the purpose of stopping its passage.  The bill would create jobs by investments in training, science and research.

But the Republican motion to recommit the bill — a parliamentary tactic that gives the minority one final chance to amend legislation — contained language prohibiting federal funds from going “to salaries to those officially disciplined for violations regarding the viewing, downloading, or exchanging of pornography, including child pornography, on a federal computer or while performing official government duties.”

That provision scared dozens of Democrats into voting with Republicans to approve the motion to recommit. After it became clear the GOP motion was going to pass, dozens of additional Democrats changed their votes from “no” to “yes.” In the end, 121 Democrats voted with Republicans — only four fewer than the number of Democrats who voted with their party.

But because of additional changes contained in the motion, Democrats decided to pull the bill from consideration immediately following the passage of the motion to recommit.

The GOP motion also stopped all funding authorizations in two years as opposed to the five years contained in the original bill, abolished each new program established through the legislation, and froze all existing programs at their current funding levels until the federal budget is balanced.

Rep. Lynn Jenkins of Kansas tried to make it about whether Democrats support porn.  Democrat Bart Gordon of Tennessee called her out for what a cheap ploy this is (h/t Think Progress)

JENKINS: If you think spreading pornography with a government computer is an act that should lead to dismissal, then vote for this motion. […]

GORDON: For God’s sakes. And when it gets to the conference, we’ll take care of that even more. But everyone raise your hand that’s for pornography. C’mon raise your hand. Nobody? Nobody is for pornography? Well I’m shocked so I guess we need this little bitty provision that means nothing is going to gut the entire bill. This is an embarrassment. If you vote for this, you should be embarrassed.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.