Chairman’s Note: How can Republicans get away with shouting about jobs and then when measures supported by economists across the ideological spectrum arise, they vote them down? That’s what Senator Thune has done by voting against the American Jobs Act this week, a measure economists say could create nearly 5,000 jobs in South Dakota. It makes you wonder, what exactly does Senator Thune oppose? Financial support to safeguard our cops, firefighters, and teachers from needless budget cuts? Investments to modernize our crumbling public schools and pot-holed highways? Retraining programs for folks to move to high-growth industries? Or maybe it’s the tax cuts for 20,000 small businesses in South Dakota alone. If not those things, it must be his opposition to an average tax cut of $1430 for every worker across South Dakota. In any case, his opposition to this jobs bill is starting to look like opposition to every jobs bill that comes from anyone with a D behind their name. Thune is not “working together” to solve a jobs crisis. He’s sowing dissent to perpetuate a jobs crisis.
