Rob Portman: “everybody around here agrees that the U.S. economy is getting better--there is no argument about that--and that workers…”

“everybody around here agrees that the U.S. economy is getting better--there is no argument about that--and that workers are needed. Yet, in this massive partisan spending bill, a lot of which is not even about COVID-19, the Democrats are insisting on a substantial increase to the already extraordinary Federal Government add-on to State unemployment payments, making it harder to get people who can go back to work. Just this morning, we learned that the economy added 379,000 jobs in February and that the unemployment rate dropped to 6.2 percent. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and the consensus of economists is that unemployment will continue to trend lower. It underscores what the CBO has said recently, which is that, without any additional stimulus, the economy will recover to prepandemic levels by midyear, this year--that is June 30--not in September as the Democrats' approach would suggest. Look at your own States. Employers are looking to hire people. ``Help wanted'' signs are up. As the economy starts to improve, we want to get people back to work. Adding to the good news, President Biden now tells us that vaccines will be available by the end of May for all who will want them. That will further kick-start the economy.…”