DPCC Co-Chair Jeffries: We Are Going to Fight For the People

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WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08), Co-Chair of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee (DPCC), appeared on Bloomberg to discuss how Democrats are fighting for the people to lower health care costs, increase pay and clean up corruption. Below are excerpts from the interview. Click here to watch the video.

"What we've said is that we are going to fight for the people. We have an agenda that is focused on lowering health care costs. We want to strengthen the Affordable Care Act. We want to protect people with pre-existing conditions - more than 100 million Americans throughout this country. We want to dramatically lower the high cost of prescription drugs possibly by giving the federal government, through Medicare, the ability to use its bulk-price purchasing power to negotiate lower prescription drug rates for the American people. That's the reasonable thing to do. We are also going to work hard on increasing pay for everyday Americans. We know we don't have an unemployment challenge right now in this country, but we have an underemployment problem. We have a wage stagnation problem. Far too many Americans are working harder but falling further and further behind. We want to reverse that through a meaningful infrastructure plan. And then lastly, we want to clean up corruption Washington, D.C.

"That's part of the challenge here that Republicans passed a tax cut where 83 percent of the benefits go to the wealthiest 1 percent in America not to working families and middle-class folks. And then, as a result of what was done, have saddled us with up to $2 trillion in additional debt – so we should evaluate how do we rebalance our priorities to do things like infrastructure which, by the way, there's a lot of bipartisan support for that and the Chamber of Commerce –traditionally Republican leaning – has said we have to do something to fix our crumbling bridges, roads and tunnels.

"Well one, I think it's problematic where you had corporate tax cuts that were made permanent, individual tax cuts that are temporary – that you had corporations that were allowed to maintain the SALT deduction in full and that you had the SALT deduction dramatically eviscerated for individuals, so when you talk about rebalancing, I think that every reasonable American can look at what was done and say that was not fair for the overwhelming majority of the American people. In terms of specifics, that will be subject to fine print discussion moving forward post-November, but I think from a framework standpoint, there is reason to evaluate, particularly here in New York where so many people will be hit by the SALT issue.

"Well I think there will be generational change. Joe Crowley is going to be tough to replace but that does open up an opportunity for the House Democratic Caucus Chair position as well as potentially the Vice Chair position. I support the leadership of Nancy Pelosi. If we're back in the majority that will mean that she will have brought us to the promised land not once but twice. We do need to create additional opportunities for the entirety of the House Democratic Caucus to be on the playing field, to display its talent and ability I look forward to helping in that regard.

"Well you know I'm proud to represent the 8th Congressional District in the United States Congress and also work with David Cicilline from Rhode Island and Cheri Bustos from Illinois as one of the three Co-Chairs of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, which is a part of leadership and so there has been a transition that has begun - but I've said also the last thing we should do as Democrats right now is to engage in a family feud and a circular firing squad before we are successful hopefully on November 6. We can work those things out afterward, right now, we have a mission and that is to take back control of the House of Representatives."