House Speaker John A. Boehner and likely Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said a new GOP Senate majority, coupled with a Republican House, means the fresh consideration of a host of jobs-related bills, as well as work on issues like health care, energy and education, among others.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, the two Republican leaders wrote that they will honor voters’ wishes by focusing first on jobs and the economy, which includes “renewing our commitment to repeal ObamaCare, which is hurting the job market along with Americans’ health care.”
Other initiatives they said will be taken up include measures authorizing construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline and legislation encouraging employers to hire veterans, as well as restoring “the traditional 40-hour definition of full-time employment, removing an arbitrary and destructive government barrier to more hours and better pay created by the Affordable Care Act of 2010.”
“Enacting such measures early in the new session will signal that the logjam in Washington has been broken, and help to establish a foundation of certainty and stability that both parties can build upon,” they wrote. “Will these bills single-handedly turn around the economy? No. But taking up bipartisan bills aimed at helping the economy that have already passed the House is a sensible and obvious first step.”
The two leaders pledged not to repeat mistakes made when “a different majority” ran Congress in the first years of President Obama’s tenure, “attempting to reshape large chunks of the nation’s economy with massive bills that few Americans have read and fewer understand.”
Other priorities the leaders say they plan to address is the tax code, health costs, global terrorism, excessive regulations, government bureaucracy and the national debt.
“The skeptics say nothing will be accomplished in the next two years. As elected servants of the people, we will make it our job to prove the skeptics wrong,” they wrote.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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