Capitol Hill’s political impasse on jobs

The Labor Department released another lackluster jobs report Friday, announcing that the unemployment rate remained at 9.1% last month even though private employers added 137,000 positions. That’s five months now with roughly 14 million Americans out of work and another 9 million part-time employees unable to find full-time jobs. Meanwhile, Congress teeters from one near-shutdown to the next as lawmakers posture to avoid blame for the sputtering economy.

A good illustration of Congress’ dysfunction is its response to President Obama’s $447-billion jobs bill. The measure — a combination of tax breaks, infrastructure projects, aid to state and local governments and benefits for the unemployed — isn’t perfect, but it’s a perfectly good place to start the debate over how to spur economic activity and keep the country from sliding into another recession. Yet despite the urgency of the situation, neither the bill nor any of its parts has been brought up for a vote anywhere on Capitol Hill.

The main hurdle is the ideological gulf dividing Democrats, who want Washington to try to stimulate the economy, and Republicans, who want to reduce Washington’s influence over it. Nevertheless, there are elements of Obama’s plan that fit both parties’ philosophies, as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has noted. Rather than enacting those pieces, however, they seem more interested in positioning themselves for next year’s campaign, which is sure to be another referendum on the economy

This week the Senate engaged in a particularly cynical bit of political gamesmanship as Republicans tried to force a vote on the president’s jobs bill — not because they supported it, but because they knew several Democrats were leery of the tax hikes Obama has proposed to cover the bill’s cost over the long term. The move shifted the focus of the debate from how to create jobs — something everyone wants to do — to the tax increases Democrats would impose to pay for that effort, a politically treacherous topic. It’s a trap Democrats can’t seem to stop themselves from walking into.

Senate Democrats will eventually unite behind some version of Obama’s proposal, and Senate Republicans will filibuster it. If by some miracle the plan gets through the Senate, Cantor has made it clear that the House will not take up the full package — the spending proposals in it are a nonstarter with House Republicans. So the Senate is essentially going through the motions just so each party can try to make the other look obstructionist.

There’s still a chance that the special congressional “super committee” working on a major deficit-reduction plan could include in it some provisions to help the economy now, such as an overhaul that dramatically simplifies the tax code. But that seems too much to hope for from a Congress that can barely manage to keep the lights on.Trying to combat joblessness is tricky enough even without a divided government because there’s no surefire way to generate growth. But with 23 million Americans looking in vain for full-time jobs, unemployment is the single biggest problem of the day. Putting people back to work is crucial to almost anything else Congress wants to accomplish, from ending the foreclosure crisis to balancing the budget. Whether or not lawmakers agree with Obama’s plan, at least he came up with one. It’s time to stop playing politics with it and start legislating.