Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., on Sunday blamed last week’s poor jobs report on welfare programs “paying people not to work.”
In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Scalise said it’s no surprise the report Friday showed employment increased far less than expected in September.
“Paying people not to work is still a drag on the economy,” Scalise said, pointing also to “some of the other welfare programs [Democrats] set up earlier this year making it easier for people to stay at home rather than get a job when every employer you talked he was looking for workers.”
“Then you put on top of that the regulations that they keep adding. Agency after agency, going after small businesses, making it harder to keep the supply chain moving,” Scalise said.
“It’s been disappointment after disappointment every month because of this failed Biden agenda,” he added.
According to Scalise, mandates are also responsible for layoffs of “a large swath of people” including hospital workers and police officers who leave the job rather than get a COVID-19 vaccination.
“What President [Joe] Biden needs to work on is, number one, get an FDA commissioner,” he said, adding, “it’s been called a rudderless ship over there. “
“They’re not working on therapeutics and things to help us get through” the COVID pandemic, he said.
“In the meantime they won’t hold China accountable. They won’t even have a hearing in Congress on where this virus originated, even though all the evidence points to the lab in Wuhan,” he claimed.
Scalise also blamed Democrats for not working across the aisle to pass an infrastructure bill.
“You saw the president last week go to the Capitol again. He was supposed to close the deal and instead he made it very clear that the tax and spend multi-trillion dollar bill is tied directly to the infrastructure bill and undermines the whole process,” he said. “They really should be working with us on an infrastructure package that would pass overwhelmingly, but instead they have an insatiable appetite to raise taxes and spend more money.”
