Floor Speech of Senator Mike Enzi - American Dream Starts with a Job

FLOOR SPEECH OF SENATOR MICHAEL B. ENZI

June 15, 2011

Mr. President, I come to the floor this afternoon to talk about jobs.  There is no more important issue for American families today than jobs.  For three long years, we have been waiting for the economy to get back in gear and start creating the jobs necessary to keep America strong.  I’m afraid that Congress and this Administration have not done their part to foster the healthy, job-creating economy we need. We have heard plenty of talk about job creation, but the rhetoric simply does not match up with any action.  So today, I will speak about the headwinds we face, as well as offer some simple solutions to help spur job creation.

This week the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness presented President Obama with five steps to create job growth.  I agree with most of the suggestions.  Some of them are steps that I have been urging for some time, like streamlining job training programs and speeding up government permitting processes.  But unfortunately, for the most part, these are just baby steps.  The truth is the most significant step the federal government could take to allow greater job growth is even easier than a baby step – it can get out of the way.  

Last month’s dismal job numbers paint a very clear picture.  Unemployment rose to 9.1 percent – far above the 8 percent level promised by the Administration at the time of the passage of the stimulus bill.  Nearly 14 million Americans remain unemployed and actively looking for work, and more than half of them are long-term unemployed.  With only 54,000 jobs created last month, and 3 million job openings, the problem is clear. 

These numbers also reveal some solutions that could go into effect if government would step out of the way.  For example, 7,000 of the jobs created last month were in the mining industry.  Those of us from mining states know that the mining and domestic energy production industries offer good jobs with good pay.  Yet the Administration has made it incredibly difficult for this industry to continue creating jobs.  It has slowed the permitting process for new mining and drilling activities to a crawl and directed EPA to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.  Simply stated, the President’s policies are making things worse.

The broadest result of this misguided energy policy will be increased prices for Americans.  That will only dig our economic hole deeper.  American families are already coping with the terrible job market and a struggling housing market.  Increasing reliance on foreign energy sources and ignoring the sources we could harvest here at home makes no sense.

In certain regions of the country, the result of this misguided energy policy is lost jobs and bankrupted American companies.  On the Gulf Coast, many of the thousands of jobs that were supported by the offshore drilling industry are simply gone due to the moratorium, permit and bureaucratic delays on off-shore drilling in the Gulf.  Some production has moved to Brazil and other countries that are not impeding their domestic energy production.  And we are their customers!  Ironically, one of the largest discoveries of oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico was just announced last week.  This discovery proves that there are still massive amounts of domestic energy available to help alleviate higher prices if the government would simply get of the way.  Unfortunately, the slowdown in exploratory drilling as a result of last year’s moratorium is expected to lead to a 20 percent production decline by next year.  Again, the Administration’s policies are making things worse. 

Another way we can assist the jobs recovery by simply getting out of the way is by reducing the regulatory burden the federal government places on employers.  The first step here would be to repeal the Healthcare law that is already driving up costs and paralyzing employers who are uncertain of their future obligations.  Unfortunately, the President and his supporters in Congress are fighting this effort every step of the way.

Although the President issued an Executive Order on January 19 of this year directing agencies to reevaluate the regulatory requirements they impose to ensure they are tailored to impose the least burden, less prescriptive and justified by cost-benefit analysis, we have yet to see any regulatory relief from any federal agency.  I hope the entire Administration will take this directive seriously, particularly because regulatory burdens fall most heavily on the small businesses whose hiring will pull us out of this ongoing recession.  Small businesses represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms, employ just over half of all private sector employees, pay 44 percent of total U.S. private payroll, and generated 64 percent of net new jobs in this country over the past 15 years.   I owned and operated such a small business.  I can tell you that if I had thousands of pages of regulations from the Healthcare law hanging over my head, I would hesitate before creating new positions that increased my exposure.  Small business people are calculated risk takers.  They think through every move because their livelihood, and that of their employees, literally depends on it.  Instead of throwing up road blocks, we should be clearing the path for their increased hiring. 

Reducing the regulatory burden imposed by the federal government would be an important step.  But we also need to make sure that the Administration’s independent boards and agencies get the message.  So far, it is clear they have not.  An extraordinary effort is underway at the National Labor Relations Board to deter Boeing from expanding into a Right to Work state, where it would create new work for over a thousand employees who had recently rejected their union.  The case has drawn a great deal of attention not because Boeing is a “big” company, but because the agency’s fact-twisting and publicity-seeking reveals a strongly biased agenda.  Mr. President, our economy cannot recover when this Administration’s policies result in exporting jobs rather than airplanes.  The wisdom of the National Labor Relations Act is to defend the right of employees to collectively bargain when they choose to do so; not stepping in to limit employees’ ability to exercise their right not to form or join a union. 

At the National Mediation Board we’ve seen rulemaking to change the way election results are counted to favor organized labor.  When that did not do the trick and the majority of employees still voted against the union, the agency launched multiple investigations trying to smear the employer.  These government sponsored efforts to increase union density have done nothing to create jobs.  In some cases, the federal government has been counterproductive to that goal, and should get out of the way. 

Pending before the Senate and being held hostage under political pressure are the three free trade agreements with South Korea, Columbia and Panama.  These pacts have been negotiated for years and will open markets to our producers.  Yet this Administration is blocking them from passage and refusing to consider reasonable compromise.  This is wrong, and it is hurting our economy and job growth.

In the Committee on which I now serve as Ranking Member, the Majority has scheduled three hearings on the “middle class” and job growth.  The first one asked the question of whether the American dream is slipping out of reach.  I made the point then that I am repeating today.  The American dream starts with a job.  The focus on pay, benefits and organizing does nothing to create a job.  Neither does stalling the growth of domestic energy production industry, or increasing the regulatory burden on American businesses.  An unelected, unconfirmed General Counsel at a small agency getting in the way of a business management decision does not create jobs.  And neither does blocking free trade agreements with our partners around the globe. 

The American dream is not out of reach.  But this Administration must stop getting in the way of job creation so that it never becomes so.