House passes the state aid/teacher funding bill which @gop repuglicans will still bitch about

source http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/8/10/891860/-House-passes-the-state-aid-teacher-funding-bill?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos%29

After the Dems dispensed with and inane Republican effort to get two months paid vacation at the end of the year, and approved $600 million for a border "security" bill that does nothing to address comprehensive immigration reform in any way, and which the Republicans will continue to bitch about anyway, they got down to the actual business of the day: passing the $26.1 billion to help keep the states afloat for the remainder of the year.

With the time running out, the vote count stood at 247-161.

The Speaker's Office framed the debate in a blog post yesterday.

Just last week, House Republican Leader John Boehner referred to this legislation to protect hard-working American's jobs as a "special interest bailout."

Special interests? Really? The legislation will save or create more than 319,000 American jobs—20,000 more teacher jobs than reflected in previous estimates from the Department of Education (161,000 teacher jobs saved and 158,000 jobs created or saved, including police officers, firefighters and nurses). These funds are needed immediately to prevent layoffs and actually rehire teachers and prevent law enforcement officers from losing their jobs.

Congressional Republicans would rather extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest few and saddle Americans with a $700 billion bill than support legislation that:

Saves and creates more than 319,000 American jobs – including teachers, nurses, firefighters, and police officers;

Is fully paid-for by closing costly corporate tax loopholes that allow corporations to ship American jobs overseas;

Reduces the deficit by $1.4 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

That's good messaging to take into the fight against Republicans over the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, which Republicans remain steadfastly committed to, even though they admit it would "dig the hole deeper" on the deficit. They don't really care about the deficit, just as they don't care one whit about the middle class, about stabilizing this economy and bringing back good jobs. They proved that again today, when only one two (Cao and Castle) of them voted to throw this lifeline to the states.

The President will sign the bill tonight.