Today, the top Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, Patrick McHenry (NC-10), joined Bloomberg TV’s Balance of Power to discuss his new role as the leader of House Republicans’ Task Force on Jobs and the Economy, getting Americans back to work, and what should be in an infrastructure package.
Watch the full interview here or by clicking the image above.
On House Republicans’ Task Force on Jobs and the Economy:
“The work of House Republicans right now is to build the case—not just against what the current Administration is doing for our economic recovery in getting people back to full employment—but what is the vision for American prosperity for the next five to ten years? What is our agenda of how we have a prosperous economy, not for a short run, not for an election cycle, but for the next generation? That is the view and the work we are putting in right now. What does economic policy look like in our competition globally? What do we need to do to get people back to work and feeling safe and secure in the workforce? How do we support childcare so people can get back to work? How do we reform education so we have teachers back in the classroom so parents can go back to work? That is what we are focused on with this economic task force. I am proud to be a part of driving innovation and a deeper conversation on policy.”
On the labor shortage:
“It's a huge problem. I see it not just in my district, but I hear the stories all across America. We have a massive number of jobs, and we have economic data that shows we have ten million Americans sitting on the sidelines but nine million unfilled jobs. That is the latest data we have. It shows there is something else afoot. From what I understand and what my view is, we have a multilayered effect. We have overly generous unemployment benefits keeping people on the sidelines—nicely, prosperously—on the sidelines. There is concern about the virus and peoples’ safety in going back to the workforce. But we also have, which I think is as big as the too generous unemployment benefits, is the lack of childcare and of childcare resources. We saw this with school districts that refused to open even when the science said that young children were not susceptible to the virus at the same rate as adults were. We saw this with the fights that many unions, teachers’ unions, have put forward across the country to keep schools closed. We need to get things back open, and I think that multilayered effect of childcare, reducing these unemployed benefits, and having greater confidence about the virus will get people back to work in the fall.”
On infrastructure:
“Infrastructure is roads, bridges, and capital investment. Paying people is not a capital investment, at least not to any accountant I've interacted with. So, we can deal with societal challenges, but we don't need to deem everything as infrastructure. That’s just silly. My constituents think it is ridiculous to call all of these things infrastructure—health care and childcare as infrastructure. No, we need roads and bridges, we need rail, we need airports, we need ports, we need a robust infrastructure that needs to be continually updated. That is why I think we can come to a reasonable conclusion on infrastructure. That is what I'm for. My hope is the president will buy into this and not just get to the question of environmental policy and childcare as a way to say no to roads and bridges.”
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