By Richard E. Cohen and Sam Goldfarb, CQ Staff

The economic address House Speaker John A. Boehner plans to deliver Thursday will be watched as an indicator of whether this fall’s congressional debate over job creation and deficit reduction will become another all-out partisan confrontation.

Boehner, R-Ohio, is expected to outline his alternative to the jobs package President Obama proposed last week. Despite an evenhanded initial response from GOP leaders, that plan is attracting opposition from rank-and-file Republicans.

It will not be the first time that Boehner, as the leader of the House Republican majority, has set the terms for a major economic debate. His speech last spring to a gathering of economists in New York laid out the GOP’s ultimately successful campaign for spending cuts amounting to at least as much as any increase in the national debt limit. After months of partisan debate, Congress and Obama enacted a debt limit and deficit reduction package (PL 112-25) in August that capped discretionary spending and established a joint congressional committee to find additional savings.

The legislative challenge facing Boehner and the political stakes involved may now be even greater. With a stagnant economy and persistent unemployment stirring voter anxiety, the Speaker needs to offer a credible, if not necessarily specific, alternative to Obama’s economic strategy. The president has already taken his plan on the road in an attempt to build support for his demand that Republicans allow his legislation to move through Congress.

Lawmakers will be watching particularly closely to see if Boehner, during his speech to the Economic Club of Washington, clarifies his position on Obama’s proposed extension of the Social Security payroll tax cut. Extending that one-year economic stimulus measure is viewed as one the few potential areas of bipartisan agreement on tax and spending issues.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., appeared to open the door last week to an extension of the current payroll tax cut for employees. Boehner, by contrast, has made no specific reference to the payroll tax cut during the past couple of weeks.

Boehner has been more reluctant than Cantor to endorse short-term measures to prompt hiring, even if those policies involve cutting taxes. Instead, the Speaker has argued for reducing the budget deficit.

Boehner’s rejection of spending to stimulate the economy has generally been well received among the Republican rank-and-file. Breaking with that strategy carries risks, but there is also political risk in opposing the president’s plan as Obama travels around the nation promoting its benefits.

But House Republicans believe they have a good case to make against Obama, economically and politically. “After the president’s bus tour last month ended in my district, we awaited the results with anticipation. But over half of his money is for continuing two current programs. That is the definition of insanity,” said Aaron Schock, R-Ill. “We need to remind the American people of what we have done. Boehner will reiterate our position. We are not going to change that.”

But since hearing voters rail in August against the gridlock in Congress, Republican leaders have made a concerted effort to strike a more conciliatory tone than they offered during the protracted debate over raising the debt ceiling.

Willing to Take On the President

In a seemingly cooperative spirit, Boehner last week directed committee chairmen to examine aspects of the president’s jobs bill under their jurisdiction. Despite the leaders’ early suggestions that they would try to find common ground with the president, rank-and-file Republicans have taken a more skeptical view of prospects for bipartisan economic policy.

Obama has proposed roughly $240 billion in tax reductions, more than half the $447 billion cost of his package (S 1549). The heart of the plan is a 3-percentage-point reduction in the payroll tax paid by workers, extending and enlarging the 2- percentage-point reduction (PL 111-312) that expires at the end of the year. The administration would also reduce the payroll tax paid by employers and offer tax incentives for investments in equipment and hiring of additional workers.