The American Jobs Act

Here’s what the American Jobs Act does:

• First, it provides a tax cut for small businesses, not big corporations, to help them hire and expand now, and provides an additional tax cut to any business that hires or increases wages.
• Second, it puts more people back to work, including up to 280,000 teachers laid off by state-budget cuts, first responders and veterans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan, and construction workers repairing crumbling bridges, roads and more than 35,000 public schools, with projects chosen by need and impact, not earmarks and politics. And, it expands job opportunities for hundreds of thousands of low-income youth and adults through a new Pathways Back to Work Fund that supports summer and year round jobs for youth; innovative new job training programs to connect low-income workers to jobs quickly; and successful programs to encourage employers to bring on disadvantaged workers.
• Third, it helps out-of-work Americans by extending unemployment benefits to help them support their families while looking for work and reforming the system with training programs that build real skills, connect to real jobs and help the long-term unemployed. It bans employers from discriminating against the unemployed when hiring, and provides a new tax credit to employers hiring workers who have been out of a job for over 6 months
• Fourth, it puts more money in the pockets of working and middle class Americans by: 1) cutting in half the payroll tax that comes out of every worker's paycheck, saving families an average of $1,500 a year, and 2) taking executive action to remove the barriers that exist in the current federal refinancing program (HARP) to help more Americans refinance their mortgages at historically low rates, save money and stay in their homes.
• Last, the plan won’t add a dime to the deficit and is fully paid for through a balanced deficit reduction plan that includes closing corporate tax loopholes and asking the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share.
• Every day, people in this country are working hard to meet their responsibilities.
• The question now is whether Washington will meet theirs. The time for obstruction and gridlock is over. Congress needs to put country ahead of politics, and pass the American Jobs Act.
• The American people know that the economic crisis and the deep recession weren’t created overnight and won’t be solved overnight. The economic security of the American middle class has been under attack for decades.
• That’s why the President believes we need to do more than just recover from this economic crisis.
• He’s rebuilding the economy the American way -- based on balance, fairness and the same set of rules for everyone from Wall Street to Main Street where hard work and responsibility pay and gaming the system is penalized.
• It’s an American economy that’s built to last and creates the jobs of the future, by forcing Washington to live within its means so we can invest in small business entrepreneurs, education, and making things the world buys, not outsourcing, loopholes and reckless financial deals that put middle class security at risk.
• The American Jobs Act, part of the President’s strategy to rebuild the economy, is something that Congress can do right now to create more jobs and put more money in the pockets of the American people.

Contact your Congress person today and urge them to support the bill and put our nieghbors back to work!