NUMBER OF THE DAY: 11 -- That's how many committees received a referral of the president's American Jobs Act after it was transmitted to the House last night. From the House clerk's Web site: 'The Speaker laid before the House a message from the President transmitting the legislative proposal, the 'American Jobs Act of 2011,' together with a section-by-section analysis of the legislation - referred to the Committees on Education and the Workforce, Energy and Commerce, Financial Services, House Administration, Judiciary, Oversight and Government Reform, Rules, Science, Space, and Technology, Small Business, Transporation and Infrastructure and Ways and Means and ordered to be printed(H. Doc. 112-53).' Interestingly, Appropriations is not one of them, despite the fact that the bill specifically calls for direct spending. Still, if you're a chairman you're more likely to have a piece of this bill than not.
ACT I: THE UNVEILING -- The president released the legislative text -- and a section-by-section summary -- of his American Jobs Act yesterday. Here's what it would do:
* Expand the president's payroll tax cut so that employees would pay 3.1 percent in 2012, down from 4.2 percent now and 6.2 percent at the original rate. It would also drop the portion paid by employers from 6.2 percent to 3.1 percent on the first $5 million in wages.
* Provide a series of other tax breaks to business, including establishing a 100 percent bonus depreciation rate for 2012, doubling the existing tax credit for businesses that employ veterans who have been out of work for more than 6 months and creating two new tax credits for those who hire previously unemployed veterans.
* Spend $55 billion on schools for construction and 'teacher stabilization.' Almost all of the $30 billion in teacher stabilization money would essentially be block-granted to the states. However, states would have to go through an application process to get their money -- a good way for the White House to pin conservative governors into either asking for federal aid or denying extra money to their schools. States that don't submit 'approvable' applications could still get money, but the Education Department would decide where to distribute it within the state.
* Spend $6 billion on grants from the Justice and Homeland Security departments to hire and rehire first responders.
* Spend $50 billion on various transportation projects, of which $27 billion would be for highways and rail projects.
* Create an infrastructure bank, called the American Infrastructure Financing Authority, that would, according to the White House, 'provide direct loans and loan guarantees to facilitate investment in economically-viable infrastructure projects of regional or national significance.' The up-front cost would be $10 billion, with the bank given the authority to establish and collect fees to pay for its future administrative costs.
* Pump $15 billion into a new program that would put construction companies to work refurbishing abandoned homes.
* Facilitate the auction and licensing of some government-held spectrum.
* Transfer 'D block' spectrum from the auction block to public safety entities and create the Public Saftey Broadband Corporation.
* Extend unemployment benefits into 2013.
* Create a 'Bridge to Work' program through which employers could hire folks who would continue to receive unemployment benefits as compensation.
* Spend $4 billion on aid to states for hiring programs.
* Give the Labor Department $5 billion to subsidize employment and training of low-income workers and summer jobs programs.
PAY-FORS --
* Limit itemized deductions to 28 percent for married couples who earn $250,000 or more and single filers who earn $200,000 or more. In the past, the White House has estimated this proposal to raise revenue by $321 billion over 10 years, according to the Tax Policy Center.
* Eliminate tax advantages for corporate jets, breaks for oil and gas companies, and the carried-interest rule that allows hedge fund managers to pay the capital gains and dividends rate rather than the ordinary income tax rate on their earnings.
* Increases the target of the supercommittee's deficit-reduction plan to match any increase in spending after the plan is 'scored' by the Congressional Budget Office.
ACT II: THE RESPONSE -- Congressional Republicans were harsher in their assessment of the text version of the president's plan after offering warm words following his speech to a joint session last week, as Carrie Budoff Brown and Fast Break write for the hometown paper. 'House Republicans scoffed at Obama's suggestion to fund the jobs proposal by raising taxes on high-end earners, private jet owners, and oil and gas companies. They gently rejected his call for extending unemployment insurance benefits without the promise of reform. They compared the president's infrastructure bank program to embattled financial institutions Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, describing both as black holes for tax dollars,' Carrie and Jake write. 'That's not all. Anything that looks like the 2009 stimulus law won't fly either, so more than $45 billion for rehabilitating schools and homes is essentially dead on arrival. 'I don't believe members are going to be interested in pursuing that,' House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told reporters Monday. 'I'm certainly not. There are perhaps laudable goals behind all the proposals, [but] the fact is we don't have the money. And we've got to prioritize. And right now, it's about getting people back to work.'' http://politi.co/qbmFok
-- '[W]hile the president's new mantra is 'pass this bill now,' the legislation's fate seems more along the lines of, pass some of this bill at some point, maybe. Democrats in the Senate plan to try to move ahead with Mr. Obama's bill, once its costs have been evaluated by the Congressional Budget Office, sometime over the course of the coming weeks. It is far from clear the bill can pass that chamber even with the Senate under Democratic control," Jennifer Steinhauer and Helene Cooper write in the New York Times. http://nyti.ms/ozvGDZ
ACT III: GETTING SOMETHING DONE -- Carrie, Jake and others have noted the best shot for the president to get a piece of his legislation is the $240 billion payroll tax cut he proposed. Not everyone in the GOP is a big fan of his approach, but there may be enough of a groundswell for that break to get it into law. If there are other pieces that move forward, the House has given 11 committees authority to take a look at the proposals and amend them.