Democrats and Republicans in Washington this week continued to hash out their differences over President Obama’s now-failed jobs bill. In Evanston, officials and community members expressed partisan views as well.
U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), whose district includes Evanston, blasted Senate Republicans on Tuesday for blocking Obama’s $447 billion American Jobs Act.
Education reform, which constituted one component of the bill, was outlined in a report by the White House earlier this month.
According to the report, entitled “Teachers’ Jobs At Risk,” Illinois would receive more than $1.2 billion in education funds. The money would support the creation of 14,500 teaching jobs, the fifth highest number of jobs out of any state.
Following the Senate Republicans’ filibuster of the bill, Schakowsky criticized the lack of cooperation in Congress on job creation in a statement Tuesday.
“With 14 million Americans out of work and six million set to lose federal unemployment relief by next year, this is not the time for members of Congress to place a brake on action that would create jobs,” Schakowsky said. “Americans deserve better than partisanship in Washington in the face of a real jobs crisis.”
Republican Evanston Township Committeeman Blair Garber disagreed with the notion that bipartisanship should be a goal for legislators.
“If there’s a good idea I’m sure people will want to support it from both sides of the aisle,” Garber said. I’m not sure bipartisanship as a goal is a good thing. If an idea is good, what does it matter that is it bipartisan or not?”
Garber said he opposes the bill and favors a system of education reform that rewards the most effective teachers, rather than a stimulus bill to create more jobs.
“Good teachers should be paid more for what they do and bad teachers should be gotten rid of,” he said. “Right now the system is inherently unfair.”
Northwestern political science professor Laurel Harbridge said Democrats may have a better chance of passing certain parts of the bill - such as the creation and retention of teachers’ jobs - by introducing them as separate pieces of legislation.
However, success still depends on whether House representatives decide these individual parts are worth pursuing and ultimately funding, Harbridge said. Education and teachers’ reforms, though commonly supported by people of both parties, are easy to vote down as part of a large bill, she added.
Funding of the bill is one of the top points of contention for Republicans, who oppose borrowing money and raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for it, Garber said.
“Nobody wants kids to go without, but is it worth billions of dollars we don’t have?” Garber said.
Evanston residents and constituents of the 9th district of Illinois will have a chance to ask Schakowsky questions during the representative’s first Twitter town hall on Thursday at 6 p.m. Twitter users can direct any questions and comments at Schakowsky by tagging #AskJan in their tweet.
