Joaquin Castro: “Thank you, Congresswoman Jackson Lee. Thank you for all of your work on this and many other issues. You are one of the…”

“Thank you, Congresswoman Jackson Lee. Thank you for all of your work on this and many other issues. You are one of the most tireless folks, Republican or Democrat, who is involved in all the floor debates and amendments and proposing legislation. So thank you. Just a few things that you mentioned. You were talking about the bill that we just discussed, and it was essentially saying that for sizeable businesses, not small businesses, because the small businesses are exempted from the requirements of the Affordable Care Act. That is worth repeating again. Small businesses are exempted from the requirements of the Affordable Care Act, so this was about larger businesses. Instead of requiring that they offer health care coverage to their employees at 30 hours, the Republicans wanted to move it up to 40. One of the myths has been that all of these employers are reducing hours and cutting employees hours and this is hurting the workers. Well, the Congressional Budget Office, which both sides use as a neutral resource to figure out what's what, said that there is no evidence of that. There is no trend that says that part-time work versus full-time work is increasing because of the Affordable Care Act. I also pointed out earlier in the discussion that part of the challenge in this economy is that American business has bounced back, but ordinary Americans still have not fully bounced back.…”