CANTOR WON’T
Public Policy Polling might be a Democratic-centric firm, but that
doesn’t mean that Republicans can’t use the data for their own
interests. That’s why staffers and outside supporters for Reps.
Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy,
who have a new book coming out shortly that criticizes past and
current GOP leadership, were over the Labor Day holiday weekend
sharing PPP’s Ohio poll, which showed that only 28% of
John Boehner’s home-state voters
supported a promotion for him to Speaker of the House should the
GOP win a majority later this year.
“Change doesn’t have to be limited to tossing out the
Democrats,” said one Cantor supporter who called to push the poll
numbers.
“Six months ago, as the tide really started to shift for
Democrats in the House, you sensed that Cantor was happy just to
ride along and become majority leader,” says a House Republican
leadership aide. “But as the months have passed, you’ve sensed that
maybe he thinks he’s ready for the big job.”
Cantor and McCarthy, who serves as Cantor’s deputy whip,
have recruited a strong class of conservative and electable
candidates for the 2010 cycle, and deserve credit for it, says the
leadership aide. That group, which may number as many as 45 or
perhaps even more depending on voter sentiment in two months, might
serve as the core group to push a Cantor for Speaker
campaign.
STIMULUS DESPERATION
Wall Street investment analysts and economists were scratching
their heads yesterday over the Obama Administration’s
announced new plan for what
it called a “front loaded” $50 billion stimulus that would focus on
U.S. infrastructure. The White House claimed the billions — which
could exceed more than $100 billion in new deficit spending —
would be spent to rebuild or repair 150,000 miles of roads,
railways, 150 miles of airport runways, and to purchase a new
air-traffic control system.
“I thought that that was what the trillion dollar stimulus
funding was supposed to do back in 2009,” said an economist working
for Citibank. “If they are looking for a name for this one, I’d
suggest ‘Obama’s Last Gasp to Keep Labor Voting Democratic in
November.’”
Indeed, according to White House aides and staffers at the
Departments of Transportation and Labor familiar with the
conversations, a great deal of the funding would end up in the
pockets of firms that use organized labor. “I wouldn’t say it’s a
majority necessarily, but if the plan works the way we hope it
will, new jobs would be created and many of those jobs would be
union jobs.”
A White House source says that leading up to the Labor Day
holiday announcement, the administration held extensive talks with
the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA), which
had spent millions this spring on pushing a new
highway-construction bill, as well as several railroad unions,
including the Teamsters-backed Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way
Employees, which represents railroad construction workers, the
International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, and
the Sheet Metal Workers International Association , among others.
Also advising the White House on the plan: the National Air Traffic
Controllers Association (NATCA), which has been pushing for the new
air-traffic system for years.
“This is essentially the same approach the Obama
Administration used in the $800-plus billion stimulus plan that
hasn’t worked,” says a New York-based Goldman Sachs analyst for
sectors of the transportation industry. “‘Front-loaded’ is just
another way of saying ‘shovel ready.’ I wonder how many reporters
are going to bother to ask the White House how much of the previous
hundreds of billions that were appropriated for stimulus haven’t
been spent.”
Reports on unspent stimulus funds have varied, in part
because so much of that funding was budgeted for release in 2011
and 2012. “The Obama Administration is essentially asking taxpayers
to front them another $50 billion to fund projects today that the
government budgeted for a year or two from now,” says the Goldman
analyst.
In providing background briefings to reporters on Saturday
and Sunday, White House staff insisted that the $50 billion
proposal was not a “stimulus plan,” but a “jobs bill.” But Wall
Street analysts said that if the White House were serious about
creating jobs, there were other proposals sitting on Capitol Hill
that would do a better job.
On Monday, the White House also announced a proposal that
would allow businesses to deduct 100 percent of investments in new
equipment and plant facilities in the first year, the first truly
pro-business, private sector growth initiative the White House has
proposed. But Wall Street economists point out that a similar
so-called “bonus depreciation” proposal — albeit allowing the
write-offs over a longer period of time — has been stuck on
Capitol Hill for months, blocked by Democrats.
“This is a good idea, but no one should give the Obama
credit for coming up with it,” says the Goldman analyst.
“Businesses were able to do this in the Bush Administration, and
the tax law was expiring. Business has been trying to get bonus
depreciation extended for months and the Obama Administration
essentially ignored them.”
