expected to take place sometime this week. 60 votes are needed to overcome republican efforts to block the measure. here s athena jones with more on jobs bill and earth whether it ever pass. reporter: putting americans back to work is president obama s priority. say we can grow the economy as much as 2%, and as many as 1.9 million workers. reporter: he s been pushing the plan everywhere. at a press conference last week, on the road, on facebook and twitter, and in his weekly address. this is not the time for the usual games or political gridlock in washington. reporter: the bill would cut payroll taxes, extend unemployment benefits, give tax credits for hiring veterans or the long-term unemployed and provide money to keep public workers on the job and invest in rebuilding schools and road and paid for with a 5.6% tax on income over $1 million starting in 2013. the political stakes for mr. obama are high. no president since franklin roosevelt has bun re-elected with
this nuclear crisis in japan, right? you have that, the oil spill in the gulf, rising gas prices, and we still seem, jessica, pretty stuck with the same primary energy sources. is that going to change? is the government making any progress? you mean, are we going to fix it? are we going to fix it? yeah. there s a big political fight. we see the president pushing to invest in alternative energy. his critics push for his allowing for drilling for oil. at this moment when the americans want washington to stop investing, not so big. the american people aren t actually helping that much either because a poll done by a bipartisan group that backs infrastructure investment found that 60% of americans think that the federal gas tax goes up every year.
in washington. it s the credit limit on what we can borrow as a country. and we re maxed out? we re $300 billion away, which sounds like a lot to you and i but is nothing to washington. frankly, i want to be clear. in congress they are professional debt ceiling raisers. so this is a big political fight right now about raising the debt ceiling again so american can borrow more money to pay its bills. so had is the debt ceiling? that is how much money we can spend that we don t have. it s $14.3 trillion is what the debt ceiling is right about now. we re very, very close. and before we can spend beyond that, congress has to say, okay, we re going to raise the debt ceiling so we can borrow more money. we re borrowing money from investors to pay the bills in the united states. we ve been doing that for a long time. what does it mean if we hit the ceiling or if the ceiling is not allowed to be raised? according to austin ghoulsby and the white house, it hurts u.s. markets, hurts inte
inspector general there, but others with non-prosecuting some of the civil rights division cases that they should have been. so now the idea is these guys now are not prosecuting cases in which the black people are charged with potentially discriminating against whites. my sense is this is a big political fight. does it amount so much in terms of substance, no. bret: even k.t., if you have j. christian adams coming out, former justice department attorney saying this was bigger, broader, mandate from above. this guy had been wearing a white hood and carrying a burning cross, instead of black beret and a billy club we d still see protests in philadelphia. i think it is a real issue. and disappointment of it is that this is a president who a lot of people supported it because they thought he was a post-racial president. we want to get beyond that. so much of what president obama is doing is through the eyes of race. even talking about al-qaeda. now al-qaeda is attacking
division cases that they should have been. so now the idea is these guys now are not prosecuting cases in which the black people are charged with potentially discriminating against whites. my sense is this is a big political fight. does it amount so much in terms of substance, no. bret: even k.t., if you have j. christian adams coming out, former justice department attorney saying this was bigger, broader, mandate from above. this guy had been wearing a white hood and carrying a burning cross, instead of black beret and a billy club we d still see protests in philadelphia. i think it is a real issue. and disappointment of it is that this is a president who a lot of people supported it because they thought he was a post-racial president. we want to get beyond that. so much of what president obama is doing is through the eyes of race. even talking about al-qaeda. now al-qaeda is attacking uganda, example of the fact that al-qaeda doesn t value blacks as much as they do white lives.