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| March 25th, 2004 |
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Media Contact(s): Adam Elggren (202) 224-3370 |
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Printable Version |
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HATCH: STOP PLAYING POLITICS WITH JOBS
Urges Senate to Pass JOBS Bill |
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Washington — Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) had harsh words Wednesday for Senate Democrats who voted against shutting off a Senate filibuster of a bipartisan tax bill designed to create jobs and strengthen the U.S. economy.
At issue is an amendment to the Jumpstart our Business Strength (JOBS) Act (S. 1637) that would strike down proposed overtime regulations issued last year by the Department of Labor, which is currently reviewing 81,000 comments both for and against the proposed regulations.
“This is a political game during a political year, a purely partisan vote,” Hatch said. “The Democrats know that if an overtime regulations amendment is in this bill, it is going nowhere. But they’re willing to sacrifice a bill that could produce literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of jobs just to score some points. It’s despicable.”
“The overtime regulations have been put out for comment,” Hatch continued. “They’re not even in place, and they are not going to bind anybody. My colleagues can make all the arguments they want about how important overtime pay is — I think they have some good arguments — but we ought not to consider change until after the regulatory process is completed. We shouldn’t force the issue in favor of the trade unions and not consider the jobs, our economy, and the unfairness in the system that are currently being reviewed.”
Hatch said S. 1637 is necessary to repeal provisions in the tax law that give a tax benefit to U.S. companies that export U.S.-made products. The provisions have been declared illegal by a World Trade Organization (WTO), and the European Union has begun assessing sanctions of 5 percent on certain U.S. exports. S. 1637 also includes a wide variety of tax provisions designed to benefit U.S. manufacturing firms to relieve the sting of losing the export subsidy.
“Our job in Congress is to do everything we can to help our U.S. companies succeed,” Hatch said. “It is a tragedy that progress on this bill has been stopped because of phony amendments. It’s too important to play political games on it. We need to act now to eliminate the billions of dollars in trade sanctions that are pinching some of our industries and costing us sales and production. We need this bill to ensure our nation’s long-term economic growth.”
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