House Republicans have passed “dozens of good, common-sense jobs bills,” and now it’s time for the Obama administration and Democratic party leaders in the Senate to stop “sitting on the bench” and help millions of unemployed Americans get back to work, Republican Rep. Marlin Stutzman of Indiana urged Saturday.
In the GOP weekly address, Stutzman said President Barack Obama’s aim to make 2014 a “year of action . . . should start by giving each of these jobs bills an up-or-down vote in the Senate.”
“Our economy just isn’t creating enough jobs,” Stutzman said. “More than 10 million Americans are unemployed. Last month, roughly 350,000 Americans—a little more than the population of Tampa, Fla.—stopped looking for work. Health care premiums have gone up. And millions of families have lost their insurance because of the new healthcare law.”
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But the lawmaker said Republicans are “trying to help any way that we can.”
“In the House, we’ve passed dozens of good, common-sense jobs bills,” he said. “Each one would help Americans get the jobs they deserve. Unfortunately, all of these proposals are gathering dust in the Senate.”
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House-passed bills include the “Northern Route Approval Act” for the Keystone pipeline, which proponents say will create thousands of jobs and remove legal and regulatory obstacles that delay its construction; the ” Offshore Energy and Jobs Act,” which supporters say opens the most resource-rich areas to new offshore energy production, and requires the Obama administration to move forward with lease sales that have been delayed or canceled; and an energy bill aiming to prevent the imposition of “job-killing regulations” on hydraulic fracturing.
“President Obama’s latest slogan is a ‘year of action’ but his administration and his party’s leaders in the Senate are sitting on the bench,” Stutzman said. “They seem to have surrendered to a new normal of high unemployment. cInstead of standing shoulder to shoulder with out-of-work Americans, they’re focused on making it easier to live without a job. They’re focused on bigger government and less opportunity."
It’s time the president turn words into action, Stutzman said.
“Mr. President, the American people haven’t backed down and neither can we,” he said. “Call on your party to give these jobs bills a vote."
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