WASHINGTON -- In blocking the American Jobs Act, Congressional Republicans are voting against positions that broad swaths of the party have supported in the past. It's a flip-flop that President Obama is working hard to highlight on his campaign swing through the battleground states of Virginia and North Carolina.
The White House built the jobs bill with pieces of legislation that had been previously supported by leading Republicans so that they could hammer them with those past votes and statements, making the case that the GOP's opposition to jobs legislation is rooted in pure politics.
That indictment was made most directly by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), head of the Democratic National Committee, on Sunday when she accused Republicans of stalling jobs legislation so that they can capitalize on economic misery at the polls.
"They're the ones that have just been crossing their arms and hoping for failure. I mean ... it's so irresponsible for them to allow the economy to just remain stagnant, you know, so that they can get a political victory in the election next year," she said.
The jobs bill was beaten back in the Senate last week, with 51 Democrats voting to end a GOP filibuster, nine short of the 60 votes needed. The Republican Party was united in opposition.
Democrats have vowed to continue bringing the jobs bill to the floor, with Obama mocking the GOP on the campaign trail Monday.
"Maybe they just couldn't understand the whole thing all at once," he said, offering to break it into digestible "bite-sized pieces."
