House Republicans have proven once again that they can't be trusted when it comes to Medicare. Instead of taking this opportunity to pass a bipartisan agreement that finally fixes Medicare physician payments, Republicans decided to attack the Affordable Care Act and leave seniors wondering if this problem will ever be solved.
We applaud the president for taking steps to make sure hard-working Americans are paid fairly. The order will directly benefit middle-class families, ensuring that hard-working employees get paid overtime when they work overtime. Eighty-eight percent of salaried workers don't currently qualify for overtime protections because they make over $455 per week, which still leaves a family of four in poverty.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus' Better Off Budget reverses the damage their austerity agenda has inflicted on hard-working families and restores our economy to its full potential by creating 8.8 million jobs by 2017.
When we write better tax policies, we can provide a world-class education for our kids, fix our crumbling roads and bridges, and fund cutting-edge scientific research the way we used to. We should close loopholes that reward companies for parking profits overseas and for destabilizing our climate. We can stop making it profitable to ship American jobs overseas. We can expand and make permanent the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit, which help working families thrive.
Too many Americans are working seventy or eighty hours a week and living in poverty. Working in a job that pays the federal minimum wage should mean a working parent can take care of her kids. The CBO report released today confirms that paying Americans a wage they deserve helps hard working families get out of poverty and increases wages for those who need it most.
From Union Station to the Smithsonian and the Pentagon, federal workers spoke out courageously this year for dignity and fair pay. We've reached this point thanks to their actions and their efforts. We applaud President Obama for doing the right thing and putting working people first.
Every time we hear weaker regulation means a better economy, we should remember what happened to the Elk River and the effects of the spill on working families in West Virginia. We should also remember the devastating chemical fires in the Cuyahoga River in Ohio, the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and every other American landscape damaged in the name of corporate profits at taxpayer expense. The narrow interests that want weaker environmental standards, fewer workplace safety regulations, lower corporate taxes, and limited labor rights aren't representing working people.