biasiiington po5t July 38.2813 Obama's plan to link corporate tax reform, jobs spending is quickly rejected by GOP By Zachary A. Goldfarb and David Nakamura President Obama on Tuesday proposed spending more on creating jobs in exchange for an overhaul of business taxes. But the idea quickly devolved into the type of partisan finger-pointing that shows why any agreement will be so difficult. With great fanfare, Obama and his aides promoted what they called a new "grand bargain" that would sidestep disagreements and focus on a longtime Republican goal: a rewrite of the business tax code to lower corporate rates. The overhaul, administration officials said, would generate new revenue that could be used to pay for Obama's priorities, including hiring workers to build roads, bridges and other infrastructure. "Here's the bottom line: I'm willing to work with Republicans on reforming our corporate tax code, as long as we use the money from transitioning to a simpler tax system for a significant investment in creating middle-class jobs. That's the deal," Obama said Tuesday during a speech at an Amazon.com warehouse in Chattanooga, Tenn. The visit was part of his summer campaign to highlight his economic message and frame the fall debate over the federal budget. "If folks in Washington want a 'grand bargain,' how about a grand bargain for middle-class jobs?" Obama asked rhetorically. But within hours, Republican leaders in the Senate and House had rejected and ridiculed the idea as a tired repackaging of old proposals. "It's just a further-left version of a widely panned plan he already proposed two years ago, this time with extra goodies for tax-and-spend liberals," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), saying he had learned of the proposal late Monday night. David Plouffe, a longtime Obama adviser, tweeted that the Republican reaction to the proposal "lays them bare again." He wrote: "Not serious, Pavlovian opposition to even main