Politics

Reid guarantees Obama’s jobs bill will lower 9.1% unemployment rate [VIDEO]

Nicholas Ballasy Senior Video Reporter
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Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told The Daily Caller that he guarantees President Barack Obama’s $447 billion jobs plan will lower the nation’s 9.1 percent unemployment rate if it becomes law.

Watch:

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The third ranking Senate Democrat, Chuck Schumer of New York, has joined Reid in backing a 5 percent surtax on millionaires to pay for Obama’s jobs plan, which was unveiled during an address to a joint session of Congress last month. Schumer called the proposal “bold” and one of Obama’s “finest moments.” (RELATED: Reid: ‘Even the tea party’ supports a 5 percent tax increase on millionaires)

“Drawing the line at a million dollars is the right thing to do,” Schumer Wednesday. “In the eyes of many, it is hard to ask more of households that make $250,000 or $300,000 a year. Many of them are not rich, and in large parts of the country that kind of income does not get you a big home or lots of vacations or anything else that’s associated with wealth in America.”

“Independents, Democrats and Republicans, and even the tea party,” Reid said, “agree it’s time for millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share of taxes.”

The White House predicted that the $821 billion stimulus package — signed into law by the president in 2009 — would prevent the nation’s unemployment rate from rising above 8 percent. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the nation added jobs this September, but the unemployment rate remains at 9.1 percent.

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