Congress Passed Few Jobs Bills in 2011

(NewsCore) - Despite the urgent appeals out of Washington to tackle the jobs crisis, Congress succeeded in passing more laws naming post offices in 2011 than those aimed at propping up job-seekers and businesses.

Though what constitutes a jobs bill is not an exact science, only six laws appear to meet the basic definition. Congress passed three trade deals, a patent reform package, a bill to repeal a withholding provision for government contractors and most recently the year-end payroll tax cut extension.

The latter was the most sweeping of the year's jobs bills. It covered an extension of the payroll tax cut at current rates, an extension of long-term unemployment aid, a provision pertaining to the stalled Keystone pipeline and other smaller measures.

The extension, however, lasts just two months and leaves it up to lawmakers to negotiate a longer-term package early next year. If the debate follows the pattern of 2011, the process will be laced with partisanship, the outcome uncertain.

Political deadlock prevented a glut of proposals from both parties from advancing this past year. House Republicans saw much of their legislation stall in the Senate. Democrats on the Hill stood next to no shot of getting their proposals taken up in the Republican-dominated House.

Lawmakers instead found common ground on the least controversial of proposals -- like naming US Postal Service buildings, which they did 10 times in 2011, in addition to naming other federal buildings.

The epic debt-ceiling debate and other budgetary battles consumed much of the year's legislative energy. For a brief period, lawmakers talked about using the so-called supercommittee -- the panel established out of the debt-ceiling debate and tasked with reducing the long-term deficit -- to enact jobs-focused reform. The panel broke apart without a deal.

The persistent deadlock on economic proposals gave way to compromise on a few occasions. Lawmakers were able to work out the kinks this year on three trade deals -- with South Korea, Panama and Colombia -- which leaders of both parties ostensibly supported.

Congress also passed the "America Invents Act," a law aimed at overhauling the patent process and spurring American innovation. And lawmakers came together to repeal a provision that would withhold three percent of payments to government contractors -- a bill that also contained tax credits for companies that hire jobless veterans.

In a "year in review" circulated Friday, House Speaker John Boehner's office called on President Barack Obama to urge Senate Democrats to approve "more than 25 bipartisan, House-passed jobs bills that are languishing on their doorstep."

Obama, meanwhile, has tried to move unilaterally. Only pieces of his American Jobs Act made it through Congress, and he has tried to go around Congress through what the White House describes as the "we can't wait" initiative. Through this, the administration has announced new rules to protect workers who provide in-home care for the elderly; $2 billion in support for entrepreneurs; $4 billion in private/public energy upgrades to buildings; and other proposals.

Source: http://www.myfoxny.com/dpps/news/congress-passed-few-jobs-bills-in-2011-dpgonc-20111230-kh_16700065

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