James E. Mitchell, Jr., Charlotte City Council member and Past President of the National League of Cities, and Donald J. Borut, Executive Director, of the National League of Cities, are attending April 5th’s signing of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act.

NLC issued the following statement thanking President Obama, Majority Leader Eric Cantor and members of both political parties for their efforts to pass this Act:

While the economy is showing signs of improvement, it is still at a critical juncture. The JOBS Act creates a much needed source of capital for small businesses and entrepreneurs in communities across the country who have been stymied in their ability to participate in the economic recovery.

This is especially true for smaller, innovative companies that reside outside the traditional geographic regions for venture capital.  The JOBS Act will allow more communities to take part in the recovery by encouraging local companies to gain access to capital in order to grow businesses and expand employment.

Small businesses are the heart of Main Street.  In addition to employing local residents, they create a sense of place and support a city in developing its own talent and resources. This Act will help small and new entrepreneurs who want to take the chance to start their own business and create their own future.  It is this spirit of innovation that will drive a full national recovery in all of our communities.

Local governments regularly work across party lines, and this Act is a great example of what can happen when partisan rancor is set aside in an effort to rebuild our hometown economies. We hope it serves as an example for future bipartisan policy making, such as with the Marketplace Fairness Act, to help economic recovery in cities and towns across the nation.

The National League of Cities is dedicated to helping city leaders build better communities. NLC is a resource and advocate for 19,000 cities, towns and villages, representing more than 218 million Americans.

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On Wednesday afternoon, debt ceiling talks between leaders of Congress and the President broke down, causing frustration and fear to reverberate throughout the country.   House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) repeatedly pushed President Obama to accept a temporary resolution to the debt ceiling according to multiple sources that were present at the meeting.

“Eric don’t call my bluff. I’m going to the American people on this,” the president said, according to both Cantor and another attendee. “This process is confirming what the American people think is the worst about Washington: that everyone is more interested in posturing, political positioning, and protecting their base, than in resolving real problems.”

Cantor, speaking to reporters after the meeting, said that the president “abruptly” walked off after offering his scolding. “I know why he lost his temper. He’s frustrated. We’re all frustrated,” the Virginia Republican said.

Democratic officials report things went a little differently than Cantor is reporting. “The meeting ended with Cantor being dressed down while sitting in silence,” one official said in an email. “[The president] said Cantor could not have it both ways of insisting on dollar-for-dollar and still not being open to revenues.”

The president said he would be willing to sign off on over $1.5 trillion in discretionary spending and mandatory spending cuts. With additional negotiations, he added, he could move that figure up to $1.7 trillion, and with a willingness to consider revenue increases and tax loophole closures, he added, lawmakers could get to over $2 trillion. His preference, he said, was to continue to push for the biggest package possible, so long as it was balanced. Apparently this concession was not large enough for Cantor.

Cantor, who has taken over as the chief Republican negotiator from Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), responded by insisting that revenues were off the table. Without steeper cuts, he stated that the votes didn’t exist except to pass a smaller short-term resolution.

“It is easy to get to a higher number when you are not asking anything difficult from yourself,” Obama retorted. Cantor continued to press negotiators to cut $2.5 trillion. The president pointed out that Cantor was just looking for a way to say, “No.”

“Talk about arbitrary,” he said of Cantor’s figure, according to a Democratic attendee. “I am totally willing to do the hard stuff to get well above what you need and you won’t do it because you can’t put one penny of revenue on the table.”

“At least Mitch McConnell, to his credit, was willing to work for a solution,” the president added, acknowledging the proposal by the Senate Minority Leader to, essentially, give him the authority to lift the debt ceiling without passing commensurate cuts.

“I have reached the point where I say enough,” Obama concluded, according to Reuters. “Would Ronald Reagan be sitting here? I’ve reached my limit. This may bring my presidency down, but I will not yield on this.”

mistydawnphoto / Shutterstock.com

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The disastrous debt ceiling debate is not going well for anyone. Eric Cantor looks like a spoiled brat; President Obama appears like he cannot force Congress to get this simple thing done and the rest of Congress looks relatively incompetent as well. However, the debt ceiling debacle is helping out Obama’s image with one highly sought after group-independent voters. And Obama knows this.

“It’s important for the American people that everybody in this town set politics aside, that everybody in this town set our individual interests aside, and we try to do some tough stuff. And I’ve already taken some heat from my party for being willing to compromise,” Obama said Friday as he delivered a message to Republicans worried about angering the GOP’s right flank. “My expectation and hope is, is that everybody, in the coming days, is going to be willing to compromise,” he said pointedly.

Over the past week or so, Obama has continually pointed out that he is willing to compromise to solve the debt ceiling debate, even offering up Medicare and Social Security as sacrificial lambs, angering the progressives.

Republicans have been insisting on no tax increases at all as part of a debt-and-spending deal. Critics call it an extreme position, noting that U.S. tax revenues are at near-historic lows as a share of the overall economy. Meanwhile, top Democrats have opposed Obama’s proposal to scale back cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients, among other changes to entitlement programs.

People following the debate know that Obama “has been more than willing to make hard sacrifices to reach a compromise,” said Matt Bennett of Third Way, a Democratic-leaning group that pushes for bipartisan accords and moderate policies. Although Obama will take some of the blame if a debt crisis occurs, independent voters will be more likely to side with Obama. “They say polarization is bad for the country,” Bennett said, “and extreme ideology is a road to nowhere.”

Polling by the Pew Research Center suggests that independent voters are more concerned about the inability to raise the debt ceiling by the deadline. This could serve to help Obama next year for re-election, especially when compared against the Republican field of candidates who offer no solution on the debt ceiling.

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In case you haven’t been paying much attention, and I don’t really blame you if you have kept your eyes closed, Rep. Paul Ryan may singlehandedly be responsible for the impending self-implosion of the Republican Party.  Less than six months after Republicans had their sweeping midterm election win, the tables have turned yet again. Republicans have steadily been losing ground with the majority of voters.  After promising to create jobs, they have instead focused on cutting programs in an attempt to “balance the budget.” They have teleported us back to the mid 90’s and focused on legislating morality.  You know abortion, gays, prayers, that kind of useful stuff.  Then Ryan’s Medicare plan.  It is just politics 101, you don’t piss off seniors.  Senior citizens vote in droves and they like Medicare.  Really.  They enjoy having a low cost government run insurance.  Sounds unbelievable right?  No person in their right mind wants to shop around private insurance companies, with a little coupon, to find the best deal.  Especially a senior citizen.  This is my version of hell.  And the costs will be astronomical.

Many pundits point out that the Medicare problem needs to be “fixed.” And how do these same pundits propose we “fix” the problem?  As usual on the backs of elderly and the poor.  Cut programs.  It is always a spending problem and never a revenue problem.  Guess what?  If we didn’t extend the ridiculous tax cuts to really really rich people, we would not have a freaking Medicare problem.  Common sense.  But, no…we have far too little of that.  Instead the Republicans are jumping on the doomed ship that is Ryan’s Medicare privatization plan.  And the sink is already sinking.  It is plummeting fast to the bottom of the ocean since the shocking victory in upstate New York on Tuesday night.

Despite Paul’s significant contribution to the demise of the GOP, Republican insiders are now trying to draft him to step into the ring for the presidential race in 2012. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is the latest leader in the GOP party to endorse Ryan.

“Paul Ryan is about real leadership,” he told reporters at a weekly press briefing. “I think what this public so desperately wants to do right now . . . [is] see a Washington that will lead. They don’t want to see individuals that dismiss the current problems as something that we can just sweep under the rug.”

Ryan, however, has stated he has no interest in running.. “I’ve been very clear about this, I’m not running for president,” he said on NBC’s Meet the Press last week. “If you’re running for president, you’ve got to do a lot of things to line up a candidacy. I have not done any of those things.”

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