Snap Fact #326 - Comparing Platforms: Building the economy through repairing the infrastructure.

But just as the recession was not created overnight, we knew it would take time to recover from the crisis – and more needs to be done. Last September, President Obama put forward the American Jobs Act to provide an immediate boost to the economy and strengthen the recovery. We have already enacted key parts of the American Jobs Act – payroll tax relief, tax credits for businesses that hire veterans, and an extension of unemployment insurance that also included reforms like work-sharing, a “Bridge to Work” to help the long-term unemployed reconnect with the labor force, and support for unemployed workers looking to become entrepreneurs. But Republicans in Congress blocked other provisions that independent analysis said could create one million jobs.

And we continue to fight for measures that would strengthen the recovery and create jobs now, including keeping teachers and first responders on the job, putting construction workers back to work by investing in our roads, bridges, schools, and water supply, helping families refinance their mortgages and save hundreds of dollars a month, cutting taxes for small businesses that invest and hire, and putting veterans back to work. That’s why we continue to fight for relief for the long-term unemployed, including a ban on hiring discrimination against the unemployed and a reformed and expanded universal worker training proposal to provide more training and job search assistance to all displaced workers regardless of how they lost their job. The President’s plan includes many measures that have long had bipartisan support.

Republican: The United States is the only nuclear power not modernizing its nuclear stockpile.  It took the current Administration just one year to renege on the President’s commitment to modernize the neglected infrastructure of the nuclear weapons complex—a commitment made in exchange for approval of the New START treaty.

This Snap Fact is part of a major multi-part series that will compare the Democratic and Republican Platforms. These documents are the philosophical foundations that tell us how the winning candidate will govern.A lot of work went into this series researched by Allen Robbins. Outside of The Rational Majority’s SNAP-CAP heading, every word in the body of each SNAP-CAP is taken verbatim from 100s of pages comprising the two party platforms. Read and compare these CAPS so you will know which candidate is on YOUR side.

Democrat: Putting Americans Back to Work - When President Obama took office, the economy was in the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression. His Recovery Act represented the largest education investment since President Johnson, the largest infrastructure investment since President Eisenhower, the single largest clean energy investment ever, and the broadest tax cut in American history. It helped keep teachers, police officers, nurses, and firefighters on the job. It ensured that as we rebuilt our country, we bought American-made iron, steel, and manufactured goods wherever feasible, consistent with our international obligations. It helped the President stop the bleeding and reverse the free fall.