Democratic Members of Congress, through the Democratic Caucus New Media Working Group, will be participating in a Congressional Twitter Town Hall, Thursday (tomorrow), from noon-1 PM EST, and I wanted to personally invite you to join us. We’re taking questions with the #AskDems hashtag. You’ll be able to follow Democratic responses here.
We’re focusing on budget issues and spending priorities. Since we anticipate far more questions than we can possibly answer, we’re encouraging Twitter users to retweet the questions they’re most interested in seeing answered. Remember, if you don’t use the #AskDems hashtag, we won’t see it during the town hall.
The Twitter Town Hall is being ‘hosted’ by Rep. John Larson, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, Rep. Mike Honda, chair of the New Media Working Group, and me, Rep. John Garamendi. I’ll post a list of Members of Congress confirmed to participate on my Twitter feed soon. It would be great to see this community participate in the conversation.
We’re focused on the budget and job creation, because America’s highest priority is job creation. We are in the midst of a fragile recovery. Indeed, February was the twelfth straight month that the private sector job growth. According to nonpartisan estimates, over three million Americans are employed because of Democratic policies passed in the last two years, including the Recovery Act. These are good numbers, but far too many Americans are still out of work through no fault of their own.
Unfortunately, as we enter the tenth week of this 112th Congress, the Republican controlled House has not presented a single job creating bill. I’m a patient man and understand that with a caucus in disarray, House Republican leadership would be slow out of the gate to propose legislation that actually creates jobs and helps our economy grow.
Yet here we are, ten weeks into the new 112th Congress, and the two signature bills pushed through the House by the Republican Majority destroy 700,000 jobs and take away health care coverage from 33 million Americans respectively. That’s not what the American people sent us to Congress to accomplish. Ten weeks, zero jobs. Where are the jobs?
There are plenty of good ideas floating in Congress and across the country that would help more Americans secure the peace of mind and dignity that comes with having a good job. America is waiting for action by House Republican leadership. I, for one, am running out of patience. Millions of Americans facing skyrocketing credit card bills, mortgage and rent payments, school costs, and health expenses are running out of time. I hope you’ll join us tomorrow to talk about the jobs problem, and more importantly, the jobs solution.
