Contact: Ron Boehmer 202-225-2906
WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Representative Mark Pocan (WI-02) today joined House Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley (D-NY) and Vice Chair Linda Sánchez (D-CA) to launch the Jobs for America Task Forces, a unified effort from the House Democratic Caucus to craft a real legislative agenda that will benefit hardworking Americans and middle-class families.
Pocan is the Co-Chair of the Access to Jobs Task Force, one of five Democratic Caucus Jobs for America Task Forces aimed at identifying opportunities and solutions for American workers. The Access to Jobs Task Force will help workers achieve their full potential by expanding access to capital, encouraging entrepreneurship and small business ownership, increasing educational opportunities – including vocational skills development, professional licensing, and apprenticeship training – and eliminating senseless and outdated social barriers to work that affect many communities.
Here are the remarks, as delivered:
Thank you, Julia, and thanks to Joe and Linda for putting this together—and all my other colleagues for being here. When you hear us talk about better jobs, better wages, and a better future, let me try to put it another way coming from America’s heartland, from Wisconsin.
It’s really what people talk about at their kitchen tables—can they afford their mortgage or rent, can they have health care for their family, can they take a family vacation, can they send their kids to college if they want to go. That’s what people actually talk about.
Just contrast that with what we’re doing right now in Congress. We’ve spent the first eight months trying to take away health care from 20 million people, we want to now cut taxes for the wealthiest in this country, and some people are willing to shut down government over a wall.
Well, I can tell you in Paul Ryan’s district, which is the neighboring district to mine, if the wall means you’re keeping employers in, they might support that, but 25,000 people used to make cars in the 1st Congressional District, in Paul Ryan’s district—no one does today.
The subcommittee that I’m on, along with Ami Bera, Marc Veasey, and Lisa Blunt Rochester, is to talk specifically about access to jobs, what we can do to help do that—that covers everything from higher education, apprenticeships, access to capital, entrepreneurship.
Those are the goals that we have with this committee, and we are up to the task and looking forward to make sure that our Caucus continues to focus on what’s most important to people across the country, and that’s talking about jobs and wages, something the Republicans simply aren’t doing.
And it is my honor to introduce, I believe the word is spectacular I am supposed to use, Representative from Pennsylvania, Brendan Boyle.
