An Opening Hand

President Obama's proposals to spur hiring is receiving a chilly reception on Capitol Hill. The Associated Press reports

In a sharp challenge to the GOP, President Obama proposed paying for his new jobs plan Monday with tax increases that Republicans have already emphatically rejected. The reception to his new proposal was no more welcoming, setting the stage for a likely new fight with Congress....

The proposal drew criticism from House Speaker John A. Boehner (R., Ohio), who had previously responded in cautious but somewhat receptive tones to the $447 billion jobs plan made up of tax cuts and new spending that Obama first proposed in an address to Congress on Thursday.

Whenever it comes to closing- or even reducing tax loopholes, out comes the GOP with its class warfare rhetoric. Brendan Buck, the spokesman of the House Speaker, commented "It would be fair to say this tax increase on job creators is the kind of proposal both parties have opposed in the past."

Let's check in one how one corporate behemoth is creating jobs:

Bank of America Corp. plans to slash 30,000 jobs over the next few years in the first wave of a broad cost-cutting program that aims to boost profitability and investor confidence in the struggling financial services giant.

The reductions will come in consumer banking and other support areas, such as technology and operations. The Charlotte-based bank on Monday said attrition and the elimination of unfilled positions will play a "significant part" in the job reductions.

The cuts equal a little more than 10 percent of its 288,000-member workforce.

Henry Decker notes

Bank of America received $45 billion dollars of capital investments and emergency funding through the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program, it paid zero dollars in federal income tax in 2009 and 2010, and last year it received a tax refund of $1.9 billion from the IRS despite making $4.4 billion in profits. But despite all of this goodwill from the U.S. government, Bank of America is choosing to eliminate 30,000 more jobs in a climate of over 9 percent unemployment.

The real "job creators," of course, are you and me, and everyone else injecting dollars into the American economy and creating demand. That, at least, is something apparently understood by Barack Obama, who has done something uncharacteristic: put forward a progressive proposal, giving the GOP a chance to offer a counter-proposal. No matter what the President would have submitted, Republicans would have opposed it and opening negotiations with what you yourself actually believe in is a good start.

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