Economic Recovery After the Pandemic

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, as a Nation founded on a history of rugged individualism, the American people are resilient and self- reliant. They will flourish and prosper absent the intrusion and heavy- handed weight of the government.

Apart from national defense, safety, and security, the less our government does, the better, especially here at the Federal level.

In fact, our country would be far better off if we had just paid this President and his administration to stay home, and they did nothing over these past 5\1/2\ months. It is sadly true that the less this government does to us while pretending to do things for us, the better off we will all be.

Incredibly, this administration's disastrous economic policies have produced fewer jobs in their first 5 months of the year than the Trump administration produced in the last 5 months of 2020 when the government restrictions and lockdowns in the name of the China virus were far more widely and strenuously enforced.

Unfortunately, at present time, we have employers, businesses, and job creators literally competing with their own government for employees because of the enhanced $300 a week Federal unemployment benefit.

Every business owner that I talk with in my district tells me that this is a major, ongoing problem. Every business has up signs saying: ``Help Wanted,'' ``Employees Needed.''

We even have this problem in my home district in the city of Charlottesville, in Albemarle County, with the Postal Service. They can't get people to come to work for the starting wage of $18 an hour for a mail carrier because they are getting paid $17 an hour to stay home and not work.

However, the tone-deaf, economically illiterate Democrats, especially those I serve with on the Education and Labor Committee, they tell businesses they simply need to raise their wages so far above what the Federal Government is paying folks not to work--again, $17 an hour in my home State of Virginia--that folks will finally refuse the free income not to work and return for a higher paycheck--this as businesses are struggling to recover from the government shutting them down for a year, again, in the name of the China virus.

We need to fully reopen our economy, end all restrictions, open our schools so parents can go back to work, and stop sending confusing and harmful messages, like requiring masks on public transportation.

In this very House, it was only a couple of weeks ago that we were pretending that even in a Special Order, speaking to an empty Chamber with no one near you--within how many feet?--you needed to wear a mask to keep us safe because we wanted to appear to the American people back home that we were doing something, the theater of wearing masks just a few weeks ago.

That is continuing now on public transportation. What kind of a myth and harmful message does that send to folks?

We need to stop paying folks not to work, reopen our economy, and turn the American people loose.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source