A year ago at his inaugural address, President Trump said “… we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the people.” When I heard him speaktonight, I thought about the average, middle-income family in Southwest Washington. Since that time, what kinds of opportunities have they had to improve their lives and the lives of their children?
A year ago, one of the goals President Trump set forth was to undo burdensome, costly federal bureaucracy. Working together, we have cut 22 bureaucratic regulations for every new rule – saving taxpayers $3.7 billion.
In his address last year, President Trump pledged to ask Congress for help in giving hardworking folks tax relief. Now, just one month after we passed tax cuts into law, we are already seeing employers boosting wages, giving bonuses to employees, and announcing plans to grow. Ninety percent of Americans will receive bigger paychecks in the next month. Companies like Boeing, Starbucks, FedEx, JPMorgan Chase and WalMart who employ thousands in Southwest Washington have joined nearly 300 other U.S. companies in investing in their employees by increasing pay and benefits. I’m also thinking of the small business owner in Clark County who told me last week during my town hall that he is increasing his employees’ hourly wage by three dollars as a result of the tax cuts we passed. Washington’s nonpartisan Chief Economist is predicting our state will see 20,000 new jobs – again, as a result of the tax cuts.
Tonight, the president pledged to work in a bipartisan manner on infrastructure, fixing immigration, instituting paid family leave, and on solutions that will help increase the physical and economic security of residents in Southwest Washington and across the country. Southwest Washington has suffered some of the highest jobless rates since the great recession; President Trump declared tonight that he’ll work to make sure the era of economic surrender is over. I’ll continue to partner with him in Congress when it comes to accomplishing these goals. If we can succeed, then Southwest Washington will indeed be better off than it is today.