During a national conference call of White House flacks and three mayors this afternoon, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn urged Congress to pass the American Jobs Act. McGinn claimed that “the bright spots in our local economy have been because President Obama encouraged the use of federal funds to create jobs.” In a more direct jab at Republicans in Congress, he mocked their priorities: “I haven’t had a single person come up to me and say, Mayor, what are we gonna do about that debt limit?“

The call wasn’t particularly enrapturing, and was unsubtle in its purpose of plugging Obama’s agenda. However, these mayors and cities are actually counting on this bill. The positive impact this could have on Seattle is huge: McGinn cited past federal assistance with the South Park bridge, Mercer Avenue improvements, rail projects, energy efficiency grants, and money for job training and development. Bottom line: If this passes, we’ll have more local government jobs and construction jobs. This means more money in our local economy and larger municipal revenues—something we clearly need right now.

I’m sure that McGinn’s advocacy is just the push that Congress needs.

17 replies on “McGinn Urges Congress to Pass Jobs Act”

  4. The Jobs Act would also eliminate tax exempt interest for high net worth individuals, wiping out a large portion of the investor base for the city’s bonds and driving up borrowing costs. Not a great deal for the city, or any other municipality.

  5. @4 sounds like a plan, then.

    SIGN THIS BILL!

    Very excellent side effects!

    (p.s. in case you didn’t know, we don’t have a state income tax, county income tax, or city income tax here, moron)

  7. Just asking, but, um, any chance anyone from Congress or at least their staffers were on the phone? Telling White House staff that Congress should pass a bill proposed by the White House is like me asking my wife for my boss to give me a raise.

  8. Right now …. why? I still haven’t seen any details on it. I would make an informed comment if there was more information. Sorry, but I do tend to only get information through media on matters like this and Google just pulls up articles, none of which (that I have seen) show any reason to be for or against this.

  10. @7, these conference call pressers are for media people to dial into if they want. The hope is that they’ll write articles (or more likely, blog posts like this) and that will build support. Yesterday the White House did another call like this aimed at veterans’ advocates to get them pushing it as well.

  11. @5, interest the city’s bonds, as well as those issued by municipalities nationwide, is exempt from FEDERAL income tax. The Jobs Act would remove this exemption from FEDERAL income tax for wealthy individuals, thus removing the primary incentive for them to purchase muni bonds as opposed to US Treasuries, for instance.

    You, sir, are an idiot.

  12. @6 “So if they pass this bill, and it doesn’t work, can we all agree that Obama should go? “

    Well the Bush Era tax cuts really arnt creating the number of jobs people thought it would. If the jobs bill doesnt work, another round of tax cuts doesnt seem likely to work as it hasnt for 10 years. Tragic is it that any jobs bill or tax cut package doesnt offer any auditing that shows exactly how many jobs were created. So its just Democrats and Republicans blindly hoping their plans will work. With the Dems if it doesnt work, at least you have some infrastructure paid for (new bridge, school, etc). For GOP, citizens have a few bucks in their pockets, but for lower or middle class, it doesnt add up to much. In 2003 I ended up getting an extra 50$, which would basically pay for a pair of shoes at a discount store.

  16. Past federal assistance with the South Park bridge? That’s more like present federal assistance with the South Park bridge. Pork is a success! Long live PORK!

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