Economy & Jobs

“This afternoon, Congress made a historic mistake in passing a seriously lopsided tax overhaul the will almost entirely benefit wealthy Americans and corporations at the expense of middle-class and working families,” said Courtney. “This bill will exacerbate our national deficit and sets up the rationale that Republicans will use to launch their long-anticipated attacks against Social Security and Medicare, which Speaker Paul Ryan has already brazenly promised to do. It is also a sneak-attack on the Affordable Care Act that will result in 13 million Americans losing insurance, and will cause health care costs to rise for millions more through the repeal of the individual mandate."

"If President Trump decides to revoke DACA it would punish children for the actions of their parents. Not only is that fundamentally unfair, it will indiscriminately deport some of the brightest most talented students in our country. At Eastern Connecticut State University in Windham, I met a few days ago with staff who reported that there are 93 DREAMers enrolled there with many of them pursuing STEM majors and averaging 3.55 GPAs. Our nation's employers are telling Washington in the strongest terms possible, we need those kinds of students in America's workforce, not in handcuffs. As an original cosponsor of the HOPE Act which will codify DACA and thus protect these young people, I will work to stop any harmful rush to judgment by the president."

“This news is no surprise- it’s a confirmation that the hard work to bring jobs to the region is paying off. It validates the impact of an increased workload at Electric Boat, which in turn creates jobs at the hundreds of Connecticut-based parts suppliers on the EB supply chain. Thankfully, we’ve partnered with local community colleges, the Eastern Connecticut Workforce Investment Board, and the US Department of Labor to create a strong job training program to ensure these local jobs are being filled by local residents. Our community is on the right track.”

Last February, President Donald Trump convened a group of manufacturing CEOs at the White House to discuss his administration’s idea of growing American jobs by imposing a border adjusted tax (BAT). As reported the next day, the BAT received lukewarm support at best, and unexpectedly, the CEOs instead pivoted the meeting toward the critical need to close the so-called skills gap preventing companies from filling high quality jobs with highly trained workers. Indeed, the next day, a national newspaper’s headline read: “Factory CEOs to Trump, ‘Jobs Exist, Skills Don’t.’” Fast forward to the present: The BAT was declared dead by congressional leadership at the end of July, but the most recent report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that 6.2 million job openings exist across the country, one of the highest levels on record.