Sen. Michael Bennet, the latest Democrat to announce his candidacy for the 2020 presidential nomination, downplayed Fridays' job numbers report, saying they just reflect statistics that have been in a "straight line" since 2009 when President Barack Obama took office.
"I'll give credit for [President] Donald Trump not screwing up the first two years he was here," the Colorado Democrat told MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "The biggest problem is that for 40 years wages have been flat and you just heard it on the report that we didn't get the wage growth that we thought we would see."
As a result, in Colorado, "which has one of the most dynamic economies on the planet," people can't afford housing or higher education, or afford a "middle-class life that we used to take for granted," Bennet said.
He acknowledged he couldn't blame that on Trump, but it is something that must be addressed as a country if "democracy is going to survive," but he believes the president is "completely destroying and trashing the democracy."
Further, the senator said a better job could be done to form small businesses, and in the meantime, pass his bill, the American Family Act, which would dramatically increase the child tax credit reduce childhood poverty by 40%.
"President after president after president hasn't done that," he said. "By the way, it would cost 3% of what Medicare for all would cost. 3% and you'd reduce childhood poverty in this country by 40%or two-and-a-half times less than Donald Trump's tax cut for the wealthy."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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