WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama hasn’t managed to nudge Congress toward approving his proposed jobs bill or the tax increases to pay for it, but his campaign says he’s making progress with the American people.
The Obama campaign’s chief strategist says in a memo Tuesday that polls show growing support for both Obama’s proposed $447 billion jobs bill and tax increases on wealthier Americans.
The campaign released the memo hours before the Democratic controlled Senate is expected to take a first test vote on the proposals. Despite their majority, the Democrats do not have the support of all of their senators, and none of the Republicans. That leaves them well short of the 60 votes they need to get any of the proposals to the full Senate for a vote.
“By a huge majority, Americans support the measure that the United States Senate will consider as the way to pay for the American Jobs Act so that it won’t add one dime to our nation’s deficit,” Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod says in the memo.
He noted that an ABC-Washington Post poll this week found 75 percent of Americans support raising taxes on incomes over $1 million, as Senate Democratic leaders propose.
Axelrod also cites several public polls finding a majority of Americans supporting the proposed jobs plan as well as individual sections, such federal spending on roads projects and extending a one-year cut in the payroll tax.
Overall, he noted that a recent ABC-Washington Post poll found that 52 percent support the jobs bill while 36 percent opposed it.
On the individual proposals, he cited a September CNN poll that found:
- percent support federal money for state governments to hire teachers and first responders;
- 65 percent support extending a two percentage point cut in the payroll tax;
- 64 percent support new federal spending to build and repair roads, bridges and schools;
- 58 percent approve cutting the payroll tax paid by employers.
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