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.
This week, Republicans will continue to outline additional details of their extreme budget that ends the Medicare guarantee, destroys jobs, and cuts taxes for the wealthy. In Committee hearings this week, Republicans are expected to lay out cuts that undermine health care coverage and target our federal employees in order to preserve tax cuts for the wealthy.
We’ve got a number of questions on the “election-year giveaway” (according to Bruce Bartlett) Republicans brought to the House Floor today. While it’s entertaining watching Republicans contort themselves to make this look like it’s about small businesses, the numbers make it pretty clear that it’s about relief for the wealthiest while everyone else bears the cost. Here are some questions for Republicans that continue to leave us scratching our heads:
It is hard to call us to responsibility, but that's what our public wants. Our public wants it on the right, they want it on the left, and they want it on the middle. This is a totally fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation, and you know it. And I know you know it. And America ought to know you know it.
Last month, the Senate passed a long-term transportation bill with an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 74-22. Instead of following their lead and getting serious about compromise, Speaker Boehner and House Republicans have been unable to coalesce around a long-term plan of their own, potentially placing 2 million jobs at risk.
Hundreds of thousands of unemployed people are desperate for new skills to pull them back into the job market, but when they visit a job-training center, they are often turned away. As Motoko Rich reported in The Times on Monday, Seattle’s seven centers had money to train only 5 percent of the 120,000 people who came in last year seeking new skills, and the numbers are similar elsewhere.
Hundreds of thousands of unemployed people are desperate for new skills to pull them back into the job market, but when they visit a job-training center, they are often turned away. As Motoko Rich reported in The Times on Monday, Seattle’s seven centers had money to train only 5 percent of the 120,000 people who came in last year seeking new skills, and the numbers are similar elsewhere.
Taxes are never popular, especially in April of an election year. But the Republicans’ latest effort to tilt the tax code in favor of the wealthy, and starve the government of needed revenue, is particularly cynical.
This week, the House Ways and Means Committee reported H.R. 9, the Small Business Tax Cut Act, which would give every business in the United States with fewer than 500 employees a deduction equal to 20 percent of its gross receipts.
This week, Republicans are rolling out more specific details of their extreme budget that ends the Medicare guarantee, destroys jobs, and cuts taxes for the wealthy. Committees are holding hearings on the specific spending cuts to critical programs that Republicans want to make in order to keep funding tax cuts for the wealthy.
This week House Republicans are bringing another bill to the Floor that gives an across-the-board tax cut to the wealthiest Americans. Republicans are trying to hide under the claim that this bill will help small businesses, but the facts don’t back them up.