DPCC Co-Chair Bustos: Democrats Must Focus on Jobs and the Economy
WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Congresswoman Cheri Bustos, Co-Chair of the House Democratic Policy & Communications Committee (DPCC), appeared on PBS NewsHour with Judy Woodruff to discuss how Democrats are fighting to make sure that all hardworking men and women have a chance to succeed. Below are excerpts from the interview. Click hereto watch the video
"I think the way we need to look at the Affordable Care Act is, while it's made some tremendous improvement in people's lives, there is a lot of work we need to do, still. Prescription drug prices are too high and unaffordable for too many people, co-pays, deductibles and premiums are too high for too many people. The folks just talking on the show demonstrate that. What resonated most with me was, at the end of the story, you have people saying, come here, look us in the eye, talk to us, listen to us, and that is everything to do with what we need to do as Democrats going forward, if we ever want to win back the majority in 2018, that's exactly what we need to do."
"We have communities all over Central and Northwestern Illinois, the area that I represent that have lost their jobs to outsourcing. Agriculture and manufacturing are the two economic drivers in my congressional district. When you have people who lost their jobs, one example was the Maytag plant in Galesburg, Illinois. It was 13 years ago this September, when Maytag sent every last one of their jobs over to Mexico, and yet, all these years later, the people who had these jobs still haven't recovered their wages to the same level they did before. I've talked to people who then took another job who ended up being outsourced and now are working as a clerk in a grocery store making half of what they did a dozen years ago. That's what resonated, when people can harken back to making America great again, that resonated with people who lost their jobs and who aren't making what they did before."
"I think we should be talking non-stop about jobs and the economy. We have the right policies. We have a whole Make it in America package that focuses on making products in America. We have job retraining programs. We have the right programs, but we talk about things that are more divisive than they draw us together. I think if we talk about our values and what we stand for as Democrats, making sure that hard-working men and women have a chance to succeed. When I go home and listen to people, that's what they want us to focus on, not things that divide people."
"In my role in the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, we have met with more than 150 of our Democratic colleagues; we've met with all the major caucuses from the Congressional Black Caucus, the Progressives, Blue Dogs, [and] the New Dems. This is a very much a bottom-up report, our coalescence of ideas. This will be about jobs and the economy. We'll roll this out this month and then when all the Congressional members go back home for the August district work period, they'll be talking about jobs and economy and we'll be united on that."
"People want to know that their member of Congress is going to Washington and fighting for them, that we don't view everything through lens of that it's all partisan and we can't work with Republicans. I know the people of my congressional district send me to Washington and expect me to get a job done. They want me to work hard, because I make a pretty good wage, especially in comparison to a lot of families. They want me to fight for them if there is a fight to be had and they want me to get results. I don't think that's so much different whether you're in San Francisco, New York City or Chicago. I think that's what people want in their members of Congress and frankly that's what they deserve."