Republicans will protect unemployment by voting "no" on infrastructure

This week the Senate will vote on the infrastructure portion of President Obama's American Jobs Act. It would provide $50 billion in immediate funding for roads, bridges and airports, and $10 billion to establish a national infrastructure bank to leverage private and public capital to fund a broad range of projects, including water and sewer systems as well as transportation.

Greg Sargent points out that Republicans will once again block passage of this bill - even though they've supported this kind of thing in the past as a way to spur economic growth.

* Senator Lindsey Graham has claimed that “if you’re a Republican and you want to create jobs, then you need to invest in infrastructure that will allow us to create jobs.”

* Senator Richard Shelby has said: “Infrastructure spending is essential to our long term economic stability and growth.”

* Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson has claimed that an infrastructure bank is a “creative” way to spur “economic development and job growth.”

* Senator Richard Lugar has asserted that “addressing the aging infrastructure of our roads, bridges and railways is critical to our nation’s economic viability.”

Their excuse for voting no on something they have typically supported is that this bill is paid for by a 0.7 percent surtax on income over $1,000,000. Just to be clear - that means that no one will pay any additional tax on income up to $1 million. The surtax would only kick in on income ABOVE that.

These folks really need to address a couple of questions. Are you really that intent on protecting millionaires - 68% of whom support having their taxes raised? Or are you just that determined to see the economy continue to fail in some vain attempt to hurt President Obama politically?

I don't think there are any questions left about their motivation. And so I just hope the American people are paying attention.