When running for U.S. Senate, every political move counts. So it's no surprise that Rep. Mark Kirk, the Republican candidate for Roland Burris' Senate seat, has made the news with his opposition of the HIRE Act, a jobs bill that passed the House Thursday in a largely party-line vote of 217-201.
But Kirk was joined by nine other Chicagoland legislators -- including five Democrats -- in opposing the bill.
Of the eight Congressmen who represent Chicagoans (seven Democrats and Republican Peter Roskam), only four voted for the bill.
Melissa Bean, a Democrat from the North Suburbs, did not attend the vote after being "unavoidably detained" at the White House, but she submitted her opposition to the bill to the record.
"I haven't met a single employer that would hire a new person based on a payroll tax reduction. That provision's cost of $13 billion is untenable," Rep. Bean said in a statement. Bean is a moderate third-term Democrat from a swing district in northern Illinois, one that President Bush and President Obama both won by double-digits. Her district scores an R+1 on the Cook PVI, indicating a slight lean to the right.
But the bill was even opposed in solidly Democratic quarters. Bobby Rush represents Illinois' 1st, a majority-black district on the South Side that has given more than 80 percent of its votes to Democratic candidates since Hubert H. Humphrey. Rush voted against the HIRE Act, saying it "fails to do the heavy lifting" to help the unemployed.
"At a time when the African American community's unemployment rate hovers in the range of 17 percent, I cannot go back to them, look them in the eye and tell them 'I got big business a tax cut today' and simply walk away in the hopes that they'll be hired," Rush said.
"How many tax cuts do they need before they'll hire?"
Rush was joined by Jesse Jackson, Jr. and Danny K. Davis, both Chicago Democrats, and 20 other members of the Congressional Black Caucus in voting against the bill, forming a majority of the 40-member block. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Ca.), chairwoman of the Caucus, released a statement reiterating her stance: "As I said last week when this legislation passed the Senate, 'this is not the jobs bill' and we shouldn't confuse the millions of Americans who are struggling to find work. We should stop calling it a jobs bill, and instead acknowledge this is about business tax cuts." She echoed Rep. Rush's concerns about the bill's failure to address the high unemployment rates among people of color.
While Democrats worried that the bill wouldn't do enough to encourage job growth, Republicans painted the bill as another case of big government spending. In a statement, Kirk described the HIRE Act as a "second Stimulus bill," and said, "The American people need jobs -- not gimmicks."
But he seemed to agree with Democrats that the bill wouldn't create enough jobs. "Very few small businesses will spend $40,000 creating one new job just to get a $1,000 tax credit in return," Kirk said.
The bill returns to the Senate for deliberations on new provisions inserted in the House. In addition to a small business tax credit, the HIRE Act also extends the Highway Trust Fund and gives small businesses increased tax write-offs.