**this column originally appeared  as a point/counterpoint in the Sept. 19 edition of The Evening Whirl**

By Brian Wahby

Senator Roy Blunt and his Republican colleagues in the House and Senate are putting politics ahead of job creation. They are more focused on lowering President Obama’s approval rating than they are on lowering the jobless rate in America.

Two weeks ago, President Obama delivered one of the most important speeches of his Presidency to a joint session of Congress. He introduced a powerful bi-partisan jobs bill full of paid-for proposals that will help put Americans back to work. He called the bill the American Jobs Act and urged the Senate and the Republican controlled House to pass it right away.

Why would Republicans delay passing this bill? What do they have against it? Are they against America? Perhaps they’re against jobs? The truth is they’re against acting. Republicans are sitting on their hands and denying the American Jobs Act a vote in Congress because this bill will put people back to work and President Obama will get credit for his leadership.

Rather than passing this bill, Republicans like Roy Blunt are dusting off the tired old economic proposals that got us into this recession in the first place. Senator Blunt wants to make tax cuts for “job creators” aka the richest Americans permanent. The richest Americans have had these tax cuts since 2001 and our country has lost jobs. Republicans need to wake up and recognize that tax breaks for the rich don’t create jobs and are major sources of our budget deficits.

The Republicans in Congress have also started blaming our economic troubles on “big bad government regulations.” They incorrectly believe that a laissez-fair approach will make it easier for business to operate and will grow the economy. I’m always amazed by the short memories of Republicans like Roy Blunt and his friends. Deregulation of the banking industry is one of the primary causes of the Great Recession of 2008. Deregulation won’t create jobs it will just allow Senator Blunt’s friends; insurance executives, big oil executives and Wall Street bankers get richer.

The President’s plan, The American Jobs Act, will put Americans back to work and improve our nation’s aging infrastructure. The Jobs Act will provide immediate tax relief to workers and businesses in the form of payroll tax cuts – Republicans are always for tax-cuts for the wealthy, but they oppose the President’s proposal to cut worker’s taxes. It will also provide a complete payroll tax holiday for added workers or for workers whose wages are increased.

The President’s plan will also create a national infrastructure bank to modernize our roads, bridges, railways and airports. This will put hundreds of thousands of Americans back to work. The plan also includes tax credits for companies that are willing to hire unemployed veterans. The Jobs Act also allocates funds to improve 35,000 public schools across America. This will help our students compete globally in science and mathematics by modernizing public school science labs and making sure that urban and rural classrooms internet ready. Last but not least, the American Jobs Act will be fully paid for through additional cuts found by the Supercommittee and by allowing tax cuts for the richest Americans to expire.

As reported in the New York Times, Economist at Macroeconomic Advisors projected that the plan would add roughly 1.25 % to gross domestic product and create 1.3 million jobs in 2012. Most bullish is Moody’s Analytics, which forecast that the package would add 1.9 million jobs, cutting the unemployment rate by a point, and increase growth by 2%.

Here is a sampling of what the American Jobs Act will do for Missouri, just in case the provisions above might be too abstract for Senator Blunt and his staff. The plan will provide $718 million for infrastructure improvements across Missouri and employ an estimated 9,300 construction workers. The will also allocate $565 million to prevent layoffs for teachers and first responders. The President’s plan would also provide $422 million to improve public schools in urban and rural communities across Missouri.

It is time for Senator Blunt and his fellow Republicans in Congress to act. Americans are hurting like never before and the President’s plan will help put people back to work. Stop trying to score cheap political points and pass the American Jobs Act.

Editor’s Note: The honorable Brian Wahby is Chairman of the St. Louis City Democrats and an At-Large Member of the Democratic National Committee and a contributing columnist for the St. Louis Metro Evening Whirl. The Metro Evening Whirl in this editorial instance agrees with Wahby over our political conservative friend, U.S. Senator Roy Blunt.

The 15th Ward Democrats produced some great short videos about why they are Democrats.  We’ve included one of the videos below and you can head over to www.15thward.org to watch the rest.

(h/t Chris Kuban of Chemistry Multimedia LLC)

There vacancies for the 24th Ward Committeeman and Committeewoman position and we are looking for strong Democrats who would be interested in taking on a bigger role for the Democratic Party in the 24th Ward.  The search committee will meet on Tuesday, August 2nd at 7:00PM at the Carpenter’s Hall at 1401 Hampton Ave.

What Is A Committee Person?

The Democratic Party in the City of St. Louis consists of 28 Wards that elect a Committeeman and Committeewoman from each ward. These 56 committee people are what comprise the Democratic Central Committee, which is the Democratic Party of the City of St. Louis.

What Does A Committee Person Do?

A committee person is the Democratic Party Representative for your ward.  Committee Members organize and elect Democratic candidates up and down the ballot and maintain a ward organization to communicate effectively to the citizenry of the Ward.

How Do I Become A Committeeman Or Committeewoman?

A three-member panel appointed by the Democratic Central Committee Chairman Brian Wahby will convene on August 2nd at 7:00PM at the Carpenter’s Hall at 1401 Hampton Ave. to interview and search for candidates to fill the vacancies in the 24th Ward.

How Can I Find Out More Information?

You can contact Jack Coatar, Executive Director of the City Democrats if you have any additional questions at jack@citydems.org or 314.827.4850.

It was great to see the swagger in President Obama’s step last week.  The image of him strutting down the long White House corridor towards the East Room will stay with me forever.   The President announced to the world something that we’ve been waiting nearly 10 years to hear – Osama Bin Laden is dead.

The President and his national security team took a big risk when they snuck into Pakistan, without permission and under the cover of nightfall to kill America’s number one enemy.  It took nearly a year of intelligence gathering about bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound and careful planning to pull off this daring nighttime raid.  Hopefully this successful mission will put to bed the age old Republican talking point that Democrats are soft on defense issues and only Republican president’s can keep the American people safe.

The President called for unity in the wake of this big victory for America.  He invoked the sense of unity that existed in our country in the weeks and months following 9/11.  This time, that unity lasted for only a few short hours.  By Monday morning, the right wing talking heads and some of the leading Republican presidential candidates were praising former President Bush for making all this possible.  Some of them without any actual intelligence to support their position praised the “enhanced interrogation techniques” for providing information that led to Bin Laden’s death.

It pains these Republican Presidential candidates to see President Obama succeed.  They know that their chances of ever becoming President shrink every time the President and his team competently handle a crisis and clean up another one of the Bush Administration’s messes.  Their efforts to belittle the President’s accomplishments are backfiring and they are the ones the look petty.

Let’s look at a couple of examples from the past few weeks.  The President decided to put an end to the birther nonsense, which is nothing more than a veiled attempt to discredit America’s first black President, by releasing his “long form birth certificate.”  This won’t stop the conspiracy theorists, but it should at least silence the serious Republican presidential contenders.  I’m sure it will only silence them until they can devise another conspiracy to talk about President Obama’s race.

It’s no secret that our nation is facing a serious debt crisis that is a result of years of out of control spending by both parties and a shortfall in revenues thanks to the Bush Tax cuts.  The President and his team try to come up with real, grown up solutions to our nations debt crisis.  They recognize that continuing to cut taxes for the rich can’t solve this crisis and that entitlement programs really do need to be reformed.  Rather than responsibly deal with this crisis and work with the President, Republicans proposed a disingenuous plan to solve our nations debt crisis on the backs of the poor and elderly.  They proposed slashing Medicare and Medicaid to cut costs while at the same time giving more tax breaks to America’s richest one percent and to their corporate bosses.

Finally, last week a new jobs report was released that shows the American economy created 244,000 jobs during the month of April and that U.S. payrolls grew at the fastest rate in five years.  This is great news not just for President Obama but for the country as a whole.  Yet, Republicans continue to sing the same old song that they can do a better job fixing the economy by implementing the tired old economic policies that got us into this mess in the first place.

President Obama may never win the respect of the right-wingers, but he is winning the respect of independent voters and of America’s middle class.  Most Americans aren’t interested in hyper partisanship.  They are interested in having good jobs and a decent quality of life for themselves and their children.  They want a President and a Congress that simply get the job done.  I can’t speak for the Congress, but we have a real leader in President Obama who is making tough choices and working every day to make this country a better place.

Brian Wahby is Chairman of the St. Louis City Democrats and Missouri’s At-Large Member of the Democratic National Committee.