States Having to Clean Up Washington Democrats’ Job Market Mess
‘The policies that we needed in March 2020 are not the policies we need in May 2021. That has been obvious to Republicans, economists, and the American people. The sooner that my Democratic friends here in Washington can catch up, the better.’
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding the economy:
“When the 117th Congress and President Biden were sworn in back in January, our nation had already turned the corner in our battle with the coronavirus.
“New cases and deaths had already peaked and started to plummet.
“The vaccines made available in record time thanks to Operation Warp Speed had already started to roll out nationwide, at a rate which the Biden Administration inherited and sustained until April.
“And the five bipartisan COVID packages that Congress passed in 2020 had the American economy packed with dry powder and primed for an epic comeback.
“Economists across the spectrum agreed. One of President Obama’s CEA chairmen said ‘we have no historic parallel with anything like this level of excess saving.’ Larry Summers, another top Obama advisor and President Clinton’s Treasury Secretary before that, said the bipartisan December package was already enough to elevate a measure of household income to ‘abnormally high levels, unheard of during an economic downturn.’ We were already adding back jobs.
“But instead of tailoring another bill to build on this momentum, they pushed ahead with the $2 trillion partisan plan the far left wanted.
“Republicans predicted it would hurt our recovery if Washington kept taxing working people so the government could pay others a bonus to stay home. I stood here in February and quoted an expert who said: ‘In an expanding economy that is putting the virus behind it, paying people more in unemployment than they could receive from working is an act of substantial economic self-harm. It would keep workers on the sidelines, stop the unemployment rate from falling as rapidly as it otherwise would, and slow the overall recovery.’
“We all knew what would happen. But Democrats insisted on continuing to pay people more not to work.
“In April, as the President’s policies took effect, we only added about 266,000 jobs. That’s nearly 800 thousand under estimates. Just as jobs openings soared to more than 8 million, the biggest number ever recorded.
“We are literally taxing the American workers who are back on the job for the sake of slowing down our economic recovery.
“Instead of an agenda to reopen America, Democrats muscled through policies that would actually prolong parts of this crisis. And that’s what’s happened.
“A record number of small businesses say they have open jobs they cannot fill.
“Governors across America are having to take matters into their own hands and turn off these extra-generous benefits. In states like Arizona, Georgia, Montana, Ohio, and West Virginia, we have governors having to clean up this mess which at least one of their own Senators voted for!
“The policies that we needed in March 2020 are not the policies we need in May 2021. That has been obvious to Republicans, economists, and the American people.
“The sooner that my Democratic friends here in Washington can catch up, the better.”
Related Issues: Economy, COVID-19
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