The Republican Party now has a jobs plan. It’s brand new, they say. But the funny thing is that the new plan is the old plan: tax cuts for millionaires, billionaires and corporate criminals, tax increases for the poor and middle classes, spending cuts for the care of the needy, and the elimination of corporate oversight. The only difference at all is that the new plan focuses particularly on the destruction of environmental regulation, clearing the way for corporate polluters to profit from spreading death and disability. But what might Obama propose?

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s memo [Republican delinked] outlining the GOP jobs plan was certainly timely. Our economy is facing towering challenges that call for bold, constructive ideas. Too bad Cantor’s proposed solutions are nothing more than a repackaged anti-government screed that seeks to help the pollution industry by repealing environmental and public health standards. In the midst of a recession spurred by rampant trading in unregulated mortgage debt, Cantor repeats the canards that clean air safeguards are the “job-destroying” villains. At a time when corporations have amassed what the Wall Street Journal called “record cash piles [Murdoch delinked]”— nearly $2 trillion—he says updating pollution controls at factories would require burdensome capital costs. Both Cantor’s analysis and his remedy ring false. Worse, if adopted his plan would do real harm to real Americans. It could kill. By blocking the Environmental Protection Agency from updating national smog standards, more than 4,000 Americans could die annually and more than 2,000 could suffer heart attacks each year. In the absence of mercury standards the plan would eliminate, 17,000 Americans would die prematurely, 11,000 people would have heart attacks, and 120,000 children would experience asthma attacks every year. These aren’t theoretical injuries or ideological blows. These are people’s lives turned upside down. The safeguards Cantor would get rid of reduce the times workers call in sick and the amount of medical bills we pay. They make the difference between taking our children to school and rushing them to the emergency room. They prevent our cities from being shrouded in smog, and they keep polluters from calling all the shots. Americans value these benefits, and they count on the Environmental Protection Agency to preserve them. A June poll conducted for the American Lung Association found that 75 percent of voters support the EPA’s effort to set stronger smog limits and 66 percent believe that EPA scientists—not politicians—should establish clean air standards… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Alternet>

Every penny spent protecting Americans from corporate poison is a penny Republicans can’t give to a corporate criminal. For the rest of the plan, Melissa Harris-Perry interviews Professor Jared Bernstein on why Republican tax cuts will not create jobs.

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On the other hand, Barack Obama will introduce a jobs plan next week, and I want to see boldness from him.

Progressive activists are urging President Obama to go big and go daring when he releases his new jobs proposals next week. MoveOn and around 70 other liberal groups sent a letter (pdf) Tuesday to the president, pleading with him to roll out a jobs plan that matches the scope of the unemployment problem – and signaling that Obama should not unveil a plan whose major selling point was that it could appeal to some Republicans. “Tax cuts and incentives for corporations have repeatedly failed to put Americans back to work,” the letter says. “It is time to move beyond these half-measures designed to appeal to a narrow ideological minority who have repeatedly shown their unwillingness to negotiate and their disinterest in real solutions.”… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Common Dreams>