Mitch McConnell is salivating over the thought of Americans
running out of money and becoming so desperate for survival.
That they are free and open to be exploited by corporations who will
treat them poorly and pay them so meager like such meager wages,
they won't even be able to pay their bills.
That's what Mitch McConnell is salivating over as we speak.
Why do I say that?
Well, he recently gave a speech and he was talking about the labor shortage, okay?
And he wanted to express some optimism about the labor shortage.
For anyone who's concerned about all these positions that are going unfilled, he says
you've got a whole lot of people sitting on the sidelines because frankly they're
flush for the moment, meaning they have so much money, they don't know what to do.
So they're not working.
What we've got to hope is once they run out of money,
that will start concluding it's better to work than not to work.
This is how detached from reality our politicians are.
And I say our politicians because remember there were also some
corporate Democrats who wanted unemployment benefits to end
prematurely in the middle of a global pandemic.
So Americans who felt unsafe going back to work would have no choice.
They would be desperate and they would take any job regardless
of what the risk would be to both their health and
honestly their minds live going to work every day with that fear
of getting sick with coronavirus, not a good feeling.
But let's get back to Mitch McConnell's argument here.
So, Republicans have long blamed get a load of this,
have long blamed that $1400 direct payment to Americans for
worsening inflation and helping keep people out of the workforce.
Now let that sink in for a minute, $1400 won't
even cover half of the rent in most metropolitan
areas of the country for one month, for one month.
Home boys, cash and checks from his corporate donors.
He's trading individual stocks based on insider information,
which we would go to prison for.
But senators get to do it with impunity of course.
He thinks that $1400 from like literally two years
ago is what's persuading Americans to not work.
What world does this guy live in?
No, by the way, not a word about the Federal Reserve printing money,
handing it over to corporations, handing it over to private equity firms.
Not a word about how that led to record inflation for assets,
record inflation in the housing market, record inflation and I say inflation.
But I mean, look honestly,
the reason why we're experiencing turbulence right now in the stock
market is because the value of those shares are not like based on nothing.
It's not based on productivity, it's not based on sales,
it's not based on the health of these corporations.
It's based on corporate stock buybacks that happened with money that was
provided by the Federal reserve.
Not a word about that because that helps his stock portfolio
Mitch McConnell's chilling.
He loves those corporate stock buybacks loves it.
He's heavily invested.
But he's super salty about that 1400 dollars you got from
the federal government years ago, we gotta find a way to make them desperate.
Gotta pave the way for these corporate executives to exploit them.
That's who Mitch McConnell is.
That's right wing populism for you, disgusting.
By the way, unemployment, as we speak,
unemployment as we speak, sits at a historic low of 3.6%.
What is he talking about?
Now, Moody's Analytics estimates that households did in fact build up
extra cash totaling 2.6 trillion dollars from the beginning of the pandemic
through the end of 2021.
But let's also consider the fact, that savings increased generally, right?
Like they're not looking at a specific group of American workers,
they're not looking at minimum wage workers and say like wow, look at this
during the pandemic, minimum wage workers were really stacking the cash.
Know that generally speaking Americans including those who were lucky enough
to work from home,
were able to save a little extra money because where would they spend it?
Everything was shut down, okay?
But what is the situation today?
Because remember, inflation is the other thing that these right wingers complain
about day in day out, understandably inflation is hurting everybody, right?
Okay, we should probably focus on corporations that have just decided to
arbitrarily price gouge a so they can increase their corporate profits.
Not a word about that from Mitch McConnell either.
But let's take a look at the financial health of ordinary Americans today.
So, there have been some Americans who quit their jobs.
Over the past two years Americans have been quitting jobs at near record rates,
but hiring and job openings remain strong.
That indicates that many people are quitting for higher paying jobs,
good for them, especially in low wage industries and the service sector,
which seems to have struggled the most to hire and retain workers.
Maybe they should consider paying their workers more to entice them
to go back to their restaurants or to whatever service industry job they
previously had turns out that they found work that pays them better.
Free market baby.
What happened?
Suddenly when the free market is used to the advantage of labor?
Don't love it so much anymore.
Let's make them desperate.
So they have no choice but to go back to jobs where there not paid enough and
they're treated poorly.
But, let's get to the real heart of what's encouraging
Mitch McConnell's dumb argument here.
Kentucky, McConnell's home state was briefly the epicenter
of the great resignation.
The sheer number of workers quitting and leaving the workforce was powered by
structural conditions that existed long before the pandemic and
were exacerbated by COVID-19.
That includes lack of affordable childcare, a low minimum wage and
worries over safety during a still raging pandemic.
Let's focus on minimum wage and child care.
If you've got kids to take care of and
you also have a minimum wage job, you can't afford childcare.
It makes a lot more sense for you to stay home and be with your kids because
again your wages wouldn't even cover the childcare necessary for you to go to work.
Mitch McConnell in that same speech bragged,
about defeating build back better which was the social spending bill that
would have provided a social safety net for people.
But more importantly, it would have provided childcare for Americans.
So if they choose to go back to work, they could easily do so.
He bragged about defeating that in the same speech.
So which one is it?
Do you want people to go back to work?
Because if you do, a great way for
you to use your position of power is to support them in that effort.
But people like Mitch McConnell actively work against the American people.
And what's amazing about all of this,
is the fact that even the United States Chamber of Commerce,
the very business interests that fund these disgusting politicians who work
against us on a daily basis realizes, man child care is a little bit of a problem.
Our businesses are having a little bit of an issue getting people back to work
as childcare, what are we gonna do?
Don't believe me.
Here's a headline from a study done by the United States Chamber of Commerce.
Data Deep Dive, A Decline of Women in the Workforce.
Data show that women who left the labor force during the pandemic often to
take on childcare duties have not yet returned.
Wow, what a shocker?
Let's take a look at some of the data provided by this US Chamber of
Commerce study.
Many women resigned their careers due to lack of childcare,
58% of parents unable to find childcare,
26% of parents unable to afford childcare.
In the last two years, 16,000 childcare centers were forced to close
their doors and many more were operating at limited capacity.
This diminished the accessibility and
affordability of childcare across the nation.
In many cases, parents most often women stayed home to care for their children.
Half of all workers and nearly 60% of parents cite lack of childcare
as their reason for leaving the workforce.
So go ahead and brag about defeating social spending programs that
support families and make it easier for people to go back to work Mitch.
But you don't then get to turn around and
paint people as lazy individuals are just sitting on the sidelines.
People who should be punished because they're allegedly flushed with cash.
We live in America.
There's only a few people at the very top who are flushed with cash.
The rest of us are already either dealing with bankruptcy or
are living on the edge or are one just one health
emergency away from joining those going through bankruptcy.
That's what America is about.
Unlike you Mitch McConnell, ordinary Americans are not privy to insider
information that they can just easily trade individual stocks on.
So if that story made you angry, I feel you wanna provide
a little bit of relief by going to the final video here.
Let's go to video D two.
This will make you feel better.
Then we'll go to break.
>> [NOISE]
>> Just illustrative of leadership in this country in every way.
It doesn't matter if you're talking about Democrats or
Republicans just absolute goofs, absolute lunatics, people who don't fight for us,
people who don't work on our behalf, people who fight against us and
just use their position of power to enrich themselves.
That's who Mitch McConnell is.