WASHINGTON - Inland Southern California's Republican House members panned President Barack Obama's job-creation initiative Thursday night, describing the $447 billion proposal as the latest in a series of costly economic stimulus initiatives that have failed to end the nation's unemployment crisis.
The cool reception from area Republicans underscores the difficult road ahead for Obama's plan to lower the country's 9.1 percent jobless rate through a combination of tax relief, extended unemployment benefits and an injection of federal infrastructure spending.
Republicans, who hold House's majority, favor an approach that would tackle the $14.7 trillion national deficit by slashing spending, and would spark hiring by cutting federal regulations that they contend are making it hard for companies to do business.
"$447 billion is real money; it's a second stimulus," said Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, referring to 2009's $787 billion American Recovery Act. "He's not going to get everything he wants."
While Obama maintained that the spending in his plan would be paid for, Calvert's sentiments appeared to be shared by most Republicans. They stood to applaud only a handful of times as Obama laid out his plan to a joint session ofCongress , in contrast to Democrats, who cheered throughout the 40-minute address.
Rep. Joe Baca, the Inland region's only Democratic House member, said the newly unveiled American Jobs Act would devote billions of dollars to fixing a host of problems that have hit the country as a whole, and Inland Southern California in particular including, home foreclosures, crumbling roads, bridges and schools and, most importantly, unemployment.
"There was a time when people had jobs and people felt good about going to work; he's trying to get us back to that," said Baca, D-Rialto. "He clearly outlined a plan to put our people back to work."
The Inland unemployment rate is much higher than the national average at 15.1 percent in Riverside County and 14.3 percent in San Bernardino County.
The centerpiece of the proposal, $140 billion for infrastructure and transportation projects, has, at least in theory, support from some Republicans who wanted to see more of that kind of spending in the original stimulus bill.
Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands, said he was among those disappointed by the 2009 legislation and predicted Obama's new plan would have a difficult time passing the House unless "99 percent or more" of the cost were spent on transportation and infrastructure projects.
If the plan involves anything less, "somebody is nuts or smoking something,"Lewis said.
He said even popular infrastructure projects are regularly stymied by environmental red tape, and repeated that relaxed regulations would work better than increased spending.
Reps. Mary Bono Mack, R-Palm Springs , and Darrell Issa, R-Vista, also expressed disappointment in Obama's address in statements issued late Thursday.
Obama defended the bill's price tag. He said the legislation would revise targets of the new congressional deficit-reduction panel known as the "super committee," which is now tasked with finding $1.5 trillion in deficit reductions by later this year. Under his plan, the committee would have to increase that amount to $1.95 trillion to offset the jobs bill's cost.
Calvert said that idea amounts to "anteing up" on the committee's already difficult work, and lamented the ideological differences between the two parties.
"We're all interested in getting the economy moving again," he said. "Certainly the Inland Empire hasn't come out of the recession."
