Jobs & the Economy
Throughout the 117th Congress, House Democrats have partnered with President Biden to enact policies that expand economic opportunity for businesses, workers, and communities across America. Under President Biden and Congressional Democrats, the unemployment rate is at its lowest in more than 50 years with more than 10 million jobs created, helping more of our people get ahead in today’s economy and Make It In America.
Democrats pursue an economic agenda that helps American businesses create good-paying jobs and ensure that workers have the tools not only to get by but to get ahead in our global economy. From raising the minimum wage to providing skills training and apprenticeship opportunities to ensuring equal pay for equal work, from making childcare more affordable to making it easier to save for retirement, Democrats’ economic policies are aimed at helping workers and their families attain real economic security at every stage of life.
Democrats have also delivered historic legislation investing in infrastructure and greater access to high-speed internet, taking the lead in the clean-energy economy, and supporting innovation and entrepreneurship. The generational Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has already begun to expand economic opportunity for Americans in communities across the country and takes action to repair our nation’s roads, bridges, ports, and other infrastructure while creating nearly 1.5 million jobs annually over the next decade. It contains the first major American investment in climate resilience to help communities upgrade their critical infrastructure and mitigate the impact of climate change-driven extreme weather. Likewise, the Inflation Reduction Act also advances America’s clean energy goals, turbocharging clean energy research and transmission while promoting electric vehicle domestic manufacturing to reduce American dependence on gasoline while revitalizing our auto industry.
The CHIPS and Science Act includes bipartisan measures to revitalize the domestic semiconductor industry and spur research. By strengthening domestic supply chains, this law acts directly to accelerate American innovation in the long-term while acting immediately to address inflation and create good paying jobs. House Democrats will continue to champion skills training and education at every level – from early childhood learning through higher education – to prepare our people for success and advancement in a changing economy. In all of these efforts, Democrats will continue to look for ways to make access to opportunities more equitable and to combat the lingering effects of legalized discrimination that continue to make it harder for minorities to access credit for loans, seek investment capital for startups, and build wealth to pass on to the next generation.
With historic job creation under President Biden, House Democrats will continue to advance policies that expand economic opportunity for working families, support small businesses, and create better-paying jobs.
We have, as the Speaker indicated, been here for two months. We've been here for two months and we have not taken a single action to create jobs in America. In fact, we've done two major things that will undermine, in my view, jobs in America.
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Wednesday morning reiterated Democratic arguments against the Republican spending bill for fiscal 2011, and said House Republican rules will ensure nearly $5 trillion in new debt despite the party's claims that it is cutting spending.
Frankly, we're going through an exercise right now where we are cutting vital programs which will build our country, educate our children and care for our families. We need to cut spending. We need to reduce the deficit. We need to bring spending down, but, frankly, the process going on now is not well thought out. There were no hearings on it, no exposure to the public's ability to come in and say the quality of these cuts that we're considering. So, I think that we need to focus, as we Democrats have been focusing on, educating our children. We cut pell grants in the Republicans' proposal. We need to invest in research and, frankly, an awful lot of the business community that watches this program understands investing as opposed to spending on nonproductive matters. We ought to cut the latter and invest in the former.
We need to cut spending but make critical investments that allow our nation to out-innovate and out-build our competitors throughout the world, and Republicans fail that test.
Our nation is in deep fiscal trouble, and cutting spending is part of the solution. But we can’t cut spending in a reckless, short-sighted way that mortgages our country’s economic future.
If our country continues on a course of fiscal irresponsibility, and continues to pile debt on our children, we will all feel the consequences, no matter our party. It is vital that our two parties work together to put our fiscal house in order. So when I tell the House how disappointed I am in Republicans’ spending bill for the rest of the fiscal year, I’m coming from a perspective of real worry about our debt—a defining challenge that must be met seriously and thoughtfully. Sadly, that’s not the seriousness we see in Republicans’ spending bill for the rest of this fiscal year.
In 1993, we looked the fiscal situation of our country in the eye. We had sustained $1.4 trillion of deficit spending under President Reagan and $1.1 trillion of deficit spending under President Bush. We put legislation on the floor and said that we need to meet our fiscal responsibilities. Not a single Republican voted for that legislation. But over the next eight years, we had a net surplus in this country—the only time in the lifetime of anyone in this body that it’s happened. Unfortunately, the last administration ran up $3.8 trillion in deficits. And we inherited an economy that was in substantial freefall. We adopted legislation that tried to stabilize the economy, and the good news is that the economy has stabilized. But we still haven’t gotten to where we want to be—far too many Americans remain out of work.
The Republican Spending Bill does not make the tough choices between necessary cuts and smart investments in our future so that we can out-educate our competitors. The Republicans have put forward an irresponsible proposal that arbitrarily cuts:
This week, the House is considering the Republican Spending Bill, a short-sighted and irresponsible proposal that arbitrarily cuts critical investments that grow the economy and create. Democrats agree with Republicans that spending cuts are necessary, but their plan does not make the tough and careful choices needed to cut spending while investing in our future.
Today begins the war over E2I2.The great budget battle of Bill Clinton's presidency was waged around a set of initials also inspired by the "Star Wars" character R2D2. Clinton's lieutenants jauntily encapsulated his fight against Republican cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, education and the environment as a defense of M2E2.