Jobs package may come in steps, Obama says

WASHINGTON — A legislative package aimed at creating jobs may come out of Washington in “incremental steps,” President Barack Obama said Tuesday after a high-level meeting at the White House with congressional leaders of both parties.

Obama and the leaders met Tuesday morning to chew
over ideas on job creation, health care reform, reducing the deficit
and other issues. Obama rejected Republicans’ assertion that lawmakers
should start over on health care reform but said he was still open to
their ideas. He scheduled another bipartisan meeting about a health
care overhaul for Feb. 25.

The White House and congressional Democrats have shifted their attention to job creation since health care reform has stalled in Congress.
On Tuesday, Obama was optimistic that lawmakers would be able to agree
on steps such as eliminating capital gains taxes for small businesses
and increasing the flow of capital to small banks.

But he said that a jobs package could be approved piecemeal.

“I think that it’s realistic for us to get a package
moving quickly that may not include all the things I think need to be
done,” Obama told reporters after the meeting. “It may be that that
first package builds some trust and confidence that Democrats and
Republicans on Capitol Hill can work together, and then we move on to the next aspect of the package, and so forth.”

The meeting included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., House Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Obama said he hopes to see jobs bills moving through Congress over “the next several weeks.”

Before the meeting Obama also said he wanted to
discuss his idea for a commission charged with finding ways to slash
the deficit.

But Republicans don’t want to wait for a commission’s recommendations, Boehner said.

In the meeting Boehner asked Obama to use executive authority to force Congress to cut “wasteful Washington spending,” a statement from Boehner’s office said.

“We cannot afford to simply put the spending issue
to a commission that won’t even release its recommendations until the
end of the year,” Boehner said.

Obama said it’s “fair to say the American people are frustrated” and promised to “move forward in a more bipartisan fashion.”

The White House and lawmakers from both
parties are anxious to try to kick-start job creation as the
unemployment rate remains near 10 percent and the latest jobs report
showed 20,000 jobs shed in January.

Senators are trying to move forward on a jobs bill before recessing next week for the Presidents Day
holiday. Senate Democrats have unveiled job-creation ideas including
spending on highways and school renovation projects and extending
unemployment benefits.

Democrats have said they will proceed alone on a bill but a proposal by Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.,
may be one area of bipartisan agreement. The bill would let any company
that hires a worker who has been jobless for at least 60 days take a Social Security payroll tax holiday on that worker for the rest of this year.

Hatch and Schumer estimate that a $50,000 worker hired March 1 would save a company $2,583 in payroll taxes and that a $90,000 worker hired April 1 would save $4,185.

Obama’s meeting with the congressional leadership comes as the Labor Department
reported that U.S. job openings and layoffs rose in December. The total
number of open jobs in the U.S. rose in December to a seasonally
adjusted 2.50 million. Layoffs rose 3.4 percent to 2.08 million.

Compared with a year earlier, job openings fell 22.5 percent.

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