Issue Position: Economy and Jobs

Issue Position

When President Obama took office in January 2009, he inherited an economy in shambles. Years of reckless spending and lax oversight under the previous administration led the U.S. into financial disaster. When President Bush came into office, he inherited the largest budget surplus in history, and when he left office, he handed the Obama administration soaring deficits and an economy that was shedding an increasing number of jobs every month. Millions of families across the country lost their homes--more than 35,000 of them here in Washington State. We were on the brink of another depression.

President Obama and Congress took swift action by passing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that will save or create an estimated 3.5 million jobs and has provided 95 percent of Americans with a tax cut. Yet there's still work to be done to stabilize the economy.

I chair the Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, which oversees what I call the nation's "safety net" programs--unemployment insurance, the welfare system (technically called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families or TANF), and the foster care system. Because of the distressed economy, this safety net has been tested like never before. The unemployment rate is what's considered a "lagging indicator," meaning that even as other areas of the economy improve, unemployment will remain high. To address this problem, Congress has extended unemployment benefits to the longest number of weeks in history. About six unemployed workers are competing for every available job. People need to be able to support their families while they look for work, and unemployment benefits help these families do that.

Despite the high unemployment rate, executives on Wall Street continued to take home huge bonuses. CEO pay at a Standard and Poor's 500 company is on average more than $10 million--while the median household income for a family of four is $70,000. Wall Street played a lead role in digging the economic hole in which we now find ourselves. While the rest of the nation is trying to claw its way out, executives continue to reward themselves with millions of dollars in bonuses. The last two years should have been a loud wake-up call to Wall Street, but it seems that many executives haven't yet heard the message. To help them hear more clearly, I cosponsored legislation introduced by Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) that would tax excessive executive bonuses.

I also helped craft the TANF Emergency Contingency Fund, which created or save some 160,000 jobs throughout the U.S. This fund helps states provide assistance to needy families and creates subsidized jobs programs that temporarily provide wage subsidies to employers, including small businesses, who hire unemployed workers. This program has garnered wide bipartisan support and has helped unemployed workers in every corner of the nation get work. Already, Washington State has received more than $66 million in funding from the program.

Still, the unemployment rate has remained steady at around 10 percent, and millions of families continue to struggle to make ends meet. I know that the President and Congress will continue to work on improving the economy and creating more jobs, and I am confident that we will be able to meet the challenge.

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