DALLAS — President Barack Obama's top economic advisor on Sunday urged Congress to enter into a "grand bargain on jobs" that includes corporate tax reform in exchange for $50 billion in short-term infrastructure spending and establishment of a federal infrastructure bank for long-term funding of highways, bridges, and mass transit infrastructure.
Gene Sperling, the director of Obama's National Economic Council, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that the president believes infrastructure spending is the most productive and quickest way to boost job numbers.
Obama included the proposed National Infrastructure Bank and a $50 billion "Fix It First" program to repair the nation's infrastructure in his fiscal 2014 budget request and is likely to include them in his budget for fiscal 2015.
Obama later proposed a pro-growth tax linked to a jobs package during a July speech in Chattanooga, Tenn. "We've got about $2 trillion of deferred maintenance here in this country," the president said. "So let's put more construction workers back on the job, doing the work America needs done."
That deal is still on the table, Sperling said Sunday.
"He (President Obama) has said he would be willing to do corporate tax reform that lowers rates to 28%, simplifies taxes for small businesses, but do it together with a major infrastructure investment," Sperling said. "Those are things we can work on together."
The plan called for reforming the federal business tax code and using the one-time revenues raised by the transition to a new system for improving infrastructure and creating jobs.
Infrastructure spending is an essential part of Obama's job creation package that includes extension of long-term unemployment benefits, immigration reform, and lower corporate tax rates.
"If we were to pass bipartisan immigration reform that would bring in more skilled workers, more [science, technology, engineering and math] workers into our economy, if we were to launch a major effort to create jobs and modernize infrastructure, of course that would increase the attractiveness of job location in our country," Sperling said.
"The economy is improving," he said. "We have economic momentum. What are we going to do with that momentum?"
Sperling said the Obama job creation proposal linked corporate tax changes with the infrastructure stimulus without entitlement cuts to ensure the measure could be supported by Democrats and Republicans.
The plan would put set the top corporate tax rate at 28% with a maximum rate of 25% for manufacturers. The Republicans have proposed a maximum corporate rate of 25% across the board, with the one-time revenue earmarked for future tax cuts.
"It's time for the Republicans to work with the president on the bipartisan opportunities we have for job creation in housing finance reform, in immigration, on manufacturing," Sperling said.
The Obama administration supports a proposed three-month emergency extension of unemployment benefits to give Congress time to decide how to extend those benefits through 2014, Sperling said. Congressional votes are expected on the measure this week.
The three-month extension would provide additional aid to 1.9 million unemployed that have exhausted state unemployment benefits, he said.
