Editor’s note: This article was first published in September 2011; Obama’s jobs plan (the American Jobs Act), fears of a US default after that summer’s debt-ceiling standoff, Spain’s election campaign with Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba as Socialist candidate, the reinstated wealth tax and the income thresholds reflect that time.
US President Barack Obama has drawn up a programme to create jobs in the United States. Just as is happening in Spain, the Republicans are now asking why he didn’t do it sooner. In response, Obama told CNBC that the situation is too serious to play “politics” with the aim of winning votes.
Barack Obama said that in the past he had tried to carry out certain points of the programme he is now presenting and had met only with “obstacles” when it came to getting them approved by Congress, and that, even though a high percentage of Americans agree with some of these measures, he will again have trouble pushing them through.
The points in the programme include lower taxes for business owners, avoiding layoffs of public employees and investing to promote public works.
To raise the money needed for these initiatives, Obama’s programme includes a tax increase for individuals earning more than $200,000 a year and for families with annual incomes above $250,000, as well as limiting the tax breaks of companies that until now had benefited from reductions.
Obama argued that to start a process of job creation and so boost consumption, some people will have to pay a little more. In a speech similar to that of Rubalcaba in Spain (Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, the Socialist Party’s candidate), he basically said that those who earn more will pay more. It would be the equivalent of the debate Rubalcaba has opened in Spain over the wealth tax (Impuesto de Patrimonio).
See also: Leadership qualities for running a company or business in times of crisis
Obama ended by saying that the United States is heading in the right direction and that all that’s needed is for the Republicans to start rowing the same way. Although confidence in the US economy has been restored and the fear of a possible default by the country has been dispelled, the economy is at a delicate moment. In essence, his message was:
Now is not the time to fight among ourselves with games and strategies to win votes, but to join forces to create jobs, restore consumption and save the United States.
One of the most notable differences we see between the United States and Spain is that in the United States a large percentage of millionaires and big business owners, such as Warren Buffett, approve of these measures, while in Spain our millionaires are not, in principle, very keen on having to pay more.
Featured image: White House (Chuck Kennedy), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
