The Daily Signal - 3 Actions by Biden Administration Could Cost Millions of Jobs

Episode Date: February 17, 2021

Three actions by the Biden administration could put nearly 10 million American jobs at risk, says Alfredo Ortiz, president and CEO of the Job Creators Network.  Ortiz joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss the economic implications of the Biden White House's canceling the Keystone XL oil pipeline, rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change, and raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.  We also cover these stories:  Some fellow New York Democrats have harsh words for Gov. Andrew Cuomo with the news that over 15,000 residents of nursing homes and long-term care facilities died from COVID-19. The House of Representatives moves ahead with President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 "stimulus" package now that former President Donald Trump’s second Senate impeachment trial is over. Mainstream fact-check operations fail to correct Vice President Kamala Harris for saying the Biden administration had to "start from scratch" with a vaccine distribution plan. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, February 17th. I'm Rachel Deltudas. And I'm Virginia Allen. Three actions by the Biden administration could put upwards of 10 million American jobs at risk, according to Alfredo Ortiz, president and CEO of the job creators network. Ortiz joins the show to discuss the economic implications of canceling the Keystone pipeline, rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, and setting the minimum wage. at $15 an hour. Don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news. Some New York Democrats are having harsh words for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo after news broke

that over 15,000 residents of nursing homes and long-term care died from coronavirus. Cuomo did have a policy that required all nursing homes to take coronavirus positive patients. Ron Kim, a Democrat Assemblyman from Queen, said via the New York Post that they could have given us the information back in May and June of last year. They chose not to. Kim's uncle died from coronavirus. Cuomo reportedly for the New York Post was blaming the Department of Justice probe for delays in releasing the accurate coronavirus death tally of nursing home residents. State Senator Alessandra Biagi, a Democrat of Bronx, is also taking Cuomo to task. No, New York, Rov New Cuomo, you did not tell the entire Senate or Assembly that there was a DOJ investigation as the reason why you didn't share the nursing home numbers, Viaghi tweeted. On Tuesday, Cuomo fell short of issuing an apology during his briefing.

Here's what he had to say via Reuters. We should have provided more information faster. The House of Representatives is focused on moving ahead with President Biden's 1.9, trillion-dollar stimulus relief package now that former President Trump's impeachment trial is over. The package includes $1,400 stimulus checks for many Americans, funding for COVID-19 testing and vaccine manufacturing and distribution, as well as billions of dollars for state and local governments and schools. The House is expected to vote on and pass the package next week, which would send it to the Senate for a vote. The stimulus bill is likely going to be.

to face more opposition in the Senate, given the Senate's 50-50 Democrat-Republicans split. The package currently contains legislation that would raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, something moderate Democrats like Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kirsten Cinema of Arizona have indicated they oppose. If the package fails to pass in the Senate, it will return to the House for revisions. Millions of people in the Central United States are without power due to winter ice and snowstorm. More than 150 million people were under storm warnings and for the New York Times, 2.6 million homes and businesses had their power interrupted Sunday night through Monday morning, and 11 people have died since the storm became intense at the middle of last week.

Mainstream fact checkers are failing to correct Vice President Kamala Harris for saying that the Biden administration had to start from scratch with a vaccine distribution plan. Harris joined Axios on HBO over the weekend and had this to say. I mean, the challenge, Mike, is, you know, what I explained to the mayors. There was no stockpile, right? It's in many ways. No stockpile of vaccines, right? So we're looking at this.

There was no national strategy or plan for vaccinations. We were leaving it to the states and local leaders to try and figure it out. And so in many ways, we're starting from scratch on something that's been raging for almost an entire year. Harris's statement contradicts what White House advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said about a month ago when he told the press, we certainly are not starting from scratch because there is activity going on in the distribution. Neither CNN or the Washington Post corrected Harris. Politifact was the only mainstream fact-checking site to challenge Harris' claim. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Alfredo Ortiz of the Job Creators Network

as we discuss the economic implications of several of Biden's recent or proposed policies. Americans use firearms to defend themselves between 500,000 and 2 million times every year. But God forbid that my mother has ever faced with a scenario where she has to stop a threat to her life. But if she is, I hope politicians protected by professional armed security didn't strip her of the right to use the firearms she can handle most competently. To watch the rest of Heritage expert Amy Swearer's testimony on assault weapons before the House Judiciary Committee head to the Heritage Foundation YouTube channel. There you'll find talks, events, and documentaries backed with the reputation of the nation's most broadly supported

Public Policy Research Institute. Start watching now at heritage.org slash YouTube. And don't forget to subscribe and share. I am joined by Alfredo Ortiz, president and CEO of the Job Creators Network. Mr. Ortiz, thank you so much for being here. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. All right. So before we dive in and talk about several of President Biden's actions and what they could mean for the economy,

could you just quickly share a little bit about the mission and work of the Job Creators Network for those who might not be familiar with your organization? Sure, Virginia, absolutely. Well, it's a great organization. It was founded about 10 years ago now. This is actually my eighth year, which is crazy how time flies. But it was founded by one of our greatest American dream stories, greatest entrepreneurs, Bernie Marcus, who founded the Home Depot.

And he really did it because he remembered what it was like to be a small business owner with just two stores in Atlanta. And then, of course, becoming the giant success that it is today, employing over 400,000 Americans, you know, across the country. But he remembered how tough it was back then. And under the Obama administration, you know, there was a very dark period of entrepreneurialism, and we called it negative entrepreneurialism in which more businesses were closing than were opening. And so Bernie believed that it was necessary really to start an organization that did real true advocacy work,

not just lip service to it, but actually got out there and did stuff. And so that's kind of the genesis of Job Creators Network. We have, you know, tens of hundreds of thousands of members, actually, at this point over the years. And we've got, you know, hundreds of other associations that are part of our coalition of associations, all representing free enterprise and in particular small business, which, as all of you know, it's the backbone of our country. It's the backbone of our communities. Just before COVID hit, two-thirds of new job growth was in the hands of small businesses.

There are 30 million small businesses out there that employed over 60 million people. Now, that's going to be changing a lot, especially as the lockdowns continue and especially as some of these onerous policies continue. And then also the onslaught of some of these new policies that the Biden administration are putting out and contemplating small businesses is truly under attack. But Job Creators Network is there to really defend those small businesses out there and to really represent the needs and voices of those who really, in many cases, just don't have the time nor the resources to do it themselves.

And we're so thankful for the work that you all do because that is so critical to be that voice for small businesses that, you know, quite frankly, they don't have the time to be focused on, you know, doing as much of that, the policy work that you all do. So I know it's a huge blessing for so many small businesses across America. I want to chat a little bit about a backgrounder that you all recently explained. And you explained in that background. that there are three actions by President Biden that could ultimately result in the loss of up to 10 million jobs across America. So let's talk a little bit about each of these three actions,

beginning with the Keystone pipeline. On day one, President Biden canceled the pipeline. Could you just explain the implications of the president's action here? Yeah, well, that was huge. And when you look at the actual numbers impacted for us, it was about 11,000, jobs literally overnight that just stopped, that went away. And, you know, the Biden administration, quite frankly, you saw the press secretary yesterday very flippantly answer, you know, a question that the reporter had, which is, you know, where did these folks go for these green jobs? And she basically says, you know, we'll get back to you. Well, that's not a great answer for those 11,000 folks who literally lost her jobs overnight. And that doesn't even take into account, you know, the impact on the towns and

the localities, the communities that were really counting on those jobs. I mean, the downstream effect of that, you know, we, we estimate it's probably three or four to one. So for every one job loss, there's probably no, there's three or four that are being impacted. So, you know, this could be an impact of over 40,000 people that are being impacted. 11,000 we know are just jobs lost right off the top. But, you know, there could be at least maybe up to 20,000 jobs that are lost when you look of the whole downward stream impact. And so, you know, and when you think about, you know, these were great union jobs. I'm not sure if you just heard yesterday the AFL-CIO head Trumpka, the president there,

was not too happy and in not so few words basically said, you know, that Biden should really rethink this kind of cancellation because those were great union-paying jobs. And not only the ones on the pipeline itself, but think about all the steelworkers that were actually making the pipes. Those were impacted as well. Again, more union jobs. So, you know, it's just tremendous that just literally overnight that he would take that kind of action.

I mean, you know, Virginia, things are bad when you've got the Canadians actually suing us. You know, it's probably a bad, bad day. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Well, as you alluded to, I've heard that argument of, okay, yes, these many jobs were eliminated, but we'll have even more, you know, green jobs created. what is your response to that argument?

Well, I mean, like I said, that's great. But what happens to those 11,000 folks who lost their jobs yesterday, right? Because today they don't have checks and they don't have jobs. And just to have, you know, for someone to basically say, don't worry, those jobs are coming. Well, that really is not too great for all those families that are out of jobs. And so, you know, it's basically taking action with no plan. And I think it's just to placate, you know, the climate levers that, you know, that are out there, the radical left, you know, the AOCs of the world. You know, Biden's just trying to placate them, you know, across the board.

I mean, just as a little tangent. And look at what's happening with schools. You know, he says that, you know, that he cares about, you know, the school issue. But really, it's about teachers first. It's not about schools first. and, you know, that's leading to, you know, huge employment issues as well as parents can't go back to school, especially moms who really seem to be the ones that are getting the brunt of that. So, you know, but going back to your question on the pipeline, I mean, these are the actions that, frankly, are done just to basically placate the folks on the left that voted him into office. Wow. Let's chat a little bit about the Paris Climate Agreement, because you all have also pointed out that this is really bad news for the economy. This is really bad news. American jobs. Why does the Paris climate agreement threaten so many American jobs?

Yeah. In Virginia, if I could, could I spend just two more seconds kind of going back to a related issue, which is the cancellation of the oil and gas leases on federal land? Because I kind of throw that into, you know, the whole, you know, energy focus as well and what's going on. That could impact almost, you know, over 400,000 jobs. Wyoming, for example, would be, you know, impacted severely. I think I read just 60 or 70% of Wyoming land is actually federally owned land. And so a lot of the operations are on federally leased land. So that's another part there that just, again, overnight, you know, could lead to the loss

of our 400,000 jobs, almost an entire state potentially being impacted like Wyoming. So I just wanted to throw that in there to make sure we hit on that as well. Yeah. No, thank you for clarifying and adding that. So in terms of the Paris Accord, I mean, this is a direct hit, you know, in terms of the energy independence that we have so, you know, worked so hard to achieve over the years that the Trump administration was able to put in so that we could really have, you know, not only economic, you know, security and safety, but just overall domestic and international security and safety. This is all being threatened with, you know, rejoining the Paris Accord and the impact, for example, on energy costs that this is going to have, you know, quite frankly, you know, the only way this would all work, If you got China, if you got India, if you got all these other countries,

you basically drop their missions to zero. And I'm not to say, you know, I'm not one of those that doesn't believe that there's an issue. But I also don't believe that the world's going to end in 12 years and that we have to take these radical, you know, steps to really address, you know, what is really kind of an issue that I think the Democrats are really blowing out to the point where it just doesn't make sense and are just spreading literally tens of, you know, literally millions and millions of jobs. Our estimate and the estimates out there is that it could be up to about six and a half million jobs lost because of the Paris Accord.

Again, with the focus on, you know, clean energy and stuff like that. And how quickly would those jobs be lost? Well, you know, when you look at, you know, the Paris Accord, I mean, you're talking probably over a span of, you know, seven to ten years would be the majority of those jobs. And again, he comes back and says, oh, but those will be replaced with green jobs. Well, I really would like to see that plan because, you know, when you've got energy costs soaring, the reality is that, you know, what's going to replace it is not cheaper energy. It's actually more expensive energy. So I'm not really quite sure how they're going to start addressing the realities, for example, of inflation, which is really going to impact, you know, the inputs of our goods and services across this country and across the globe, quite frankly. Yeah.

Well, and certainly speaking of inflation, one of the other issues that you all address is the $15 minimum wage. And there's a lot of concern about, you know, inflation just going crazy if all of a sudden small businesses across America are required to pay workers a $15 minimum wage. Yeah, that's right. And, you know, and Bernie Sanders tried to kind of, you know, make people feel a little bit better about it by saying, don't worry, it's going to be something that we're going to be phasing in over five years. But if you look at the specifics of what he was proposing of that $15 minimum wage, it actually would increase to $9.50 from $7.25 where it is today, June of 2021. That's a 31% increase, Virginia, just this year in labor costs for these small businesses. And the people that are actually going to be hurt the most are actually your lowest skilled wage workers,

your youth of today. I mean, you're going to end up having what Greece had several years ago of youth unemployment that's, you know, 70, 80 percent because guess what? All those entry-level jobs that really do require that entry-level wage that doesn't justify an output, right, the output doesn't justify the $15 minimum wage per hour for those, you know, they're literally kids with their entry-level jobs that are just starting off in the workforce. Those are going to go away. You know, I live partly here in Georgia and then also in Virginia. And for example, the McDonald's down the street for me has completely replaced all the cashiers with kiosk, basically.

And there's only two folks there that are handing out the orders once they're ready. And what's going to end up happening is that as technology continues to get cheaper and cheaper, the inflection point between using labor and using technology is just going to get that much easier for small business owners to say, you know what, I'd much rather just buy this one-time purchase, put in some technology, and get rid of this fluctuating labor issue that, you know, They don't have to worry about people calling in sick. They don't have to worry about COVID. They don't complain.

They don't sue, right? And so that's just the reality. It's going to force even more so. And quite frankly, the CBO, which issued just, I think, yesterday, their report, says that up to 2.7 million jobs could be lost because of this federal minimum wage of $15 per hour. And frankly, as I read through the entire thing, they gave lip service to the technology issue, Virginia. But I am telling you, being, first of all, I actually came from the restaurant industry, so I know that industry well. But having so many of my members are small business owners that are in the restaurant industry,

this is a killer. And they will put in technology and they will remove labor because guess what? There's only a finite profitability that these restaurants work with. In many cases, it's 2 to 3%. And so there is going to be that point. They're going to be like, you know what, it just doesn't make sense for me to have labor at $15 dollars per hour entry level of work that technology can quite frankly do and my payout can be in two or three years. And so this is a reality. We're very, very concerned about it. I know Bernie Sanders is doing

everything he can to try to make sure you can go into budget reconciliation. The latest estimate is a $54 billion hit over 10 years to the deficit, which according to Bernie Sanders justifies it to be under reconciliation. He says we've got tons of lawyers try to make sure that they make the parliamentarian understand who has the final say on this one that it is a budget impact. But again, we're very concerned about it. We hope that Senator Manchin out of West Virginia sticks to his guns. He says he opposes the $15 minimum wage and that he would be voting against it. So we hope that he does stick to his guns. So ultimately, who are the winners and losers if the minimum wage goes to $15 an hour?

Yeah, so according to the CBO report, it says, you know, almost a million people could pull out of poverty. So that's obviously a great thing because, you know, the more we can do that, the best, you know, the better this country is. But you have, like I said, almost 2.7 million people losing their jobs. And the thing is Virginia, there are programs out there. And frankly, one of the things that's in the COVID relief bill that we do support and we think has a lot of merits is the expansion of the earned income tax credit. It achieves the same objective without killing our small business owners. It's actually one of the most effective and efficient program, government programs that we have out there. Are there problems with it?

Yes, every single government program has problems with it, has people that are trying to cheat the system. But in terms of its effectiveness and its efficiency, it's actually pretty darn good. And so we'd much rather, for example, see and support that expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit. I think part of the problem is, quite frankly, it has a very wonky name to it. We like calling it the working American's credit. But I think an expansion of that would achieve the same impact that they're trying to achieve. But, you know, that's the problem with folks like the CBO and for folks like Bernie Sanders. They're just so worried about trying to basically pay back the unions.

You know, the SCIU, for example, has spent, you know, something like $80 million on the Fight for 15 campaign. And so this is a big push to try to get more people unionized. and to quite frankly answer, you know, the request of the SCIU to really push something like this through. And so, but again, it's going to hurt our small business owners tremendously, especially the smallest of small. I noticed that Amazon was out there promoting the $15 minimum wage. Interestingly enough, though, they're actually already above, their average wages are already above $15. What a convenient way of eliminating all of your competition, basically, by promoting something that's smaller businesses can't afford to do.

Wow. That is telling. So we know right now that within, you know, Biden's proposed $1.9 trillion stimulus package, he'd originally been advocating for the $15 minimum wage within that and then sort of pulled back and said, okay, I recognize that's probably not going to, you know, go over right now. Of course, as you mentioned, Senator Sanders is continuing to really, really push for this $15 minimum wage. He's talking with lawyers. He's trying to see how it can be implemented as quickly as possible.

So talk a little bit about the timeline of when, okay, if this is pushed through, what would that timeline look like? And then just how likely do you think we will see this eventually get past of a $15 minimum wage for all small businesses across America? Yeah. Well, you know, Bernie Sanders, you know, as the new chair of the Senate Budget Committee, I mean, he's going to do everything possible to make sure that this gets incorporated into the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill. So, you know, that's something that's literally being discussed right now. It just passed into the reconciliation process. You know, they did all the, you know, all the kind of the rulemaking that they had to do to get it there.

And so real over the next week or two, you know, we're going to see the final elements. I know that Biden specifically says he doesn't think it's probably going to make it through because of the reconciliation and the bird rule. But like I said, Senator Sanders is not giving up. And if there's one thing I've learned from that guy is that he definitely doesn't give up. And I think he's going to fight. And if it doesn't make it in the COVID relief bill, I think he's going to Biden will support a standalone bill on that as well. And again, though, it really is, I think, coming down to Senator Sinema out in Arizona and Senator Mansion out in West Virginia to stand up. and say no to the progressive left and this push that's just going to decimate our small

business community across the country. You know, if they cave, unfortunately, I think Virginia, this thing has a pretty real chance of actually making it through. And as I said, the first impact would be June of this year where the minimum wage would go from 725 to 950. So at the end of the day, I mean, we can all get behind the idea of economic growth. I mean, I think whether you're on the left or you're on the right, you know, you want people to have the opportunity to get jobs if they want to have jobs to earn money for their families. But the left and the right definitely disagree on how we get there, how we get to that place of economic prosperity.

So just kind of totally removing politics from the equation. Could you talk a little bit about what we have seen actually works in the past? What are the proven methods of economic growth? Yeah, well, you know, kind of sticking a little bit on the theme of minimum wage, you know, what I don't understand is why the left is so busy, you know, arguing for floors when we should be talking about how do we raise ceilings, not raising floors. There's some, there's a program that we started putting out there about three years ago. And we continue to support and we continue to try to get, you know, folks, you know, to look at this. but it's the fight for 50, the 50,000, not 15, which is $50,000 per year jobs. And it comes through improvement in terms of the, you know, basically technical skills, technical abilities.

We think there's a huge opportunity there. I think a lot of these folks who are, who have been in these, you know, minimum wage jobs, longer term, you know, and again, there's probably no fault of their own. They've been stuck in these jobs. I think some of them could really benefit from an ability to be able to enhance their, you know, basically their output by increased abilities and, again, skill sets that they frankly just don't have there. And I think we should be pushing for that. If you look at electricians, if you look at journeymen, plumbers, et cetera, these wages of a lot of these folks, entry level are already about $55,000 per year, which clearly is above a $15 minimum wage that these guys are. shooting for. But it's a great sound bite. It's a great, you know, tagline. But again, you know,

we like the idea of really trying to improve the skill sets of Americans, given the opportunity, given that ability. There's been some great programs globally. I think Germany, quite frankly, is probably the leaders in this where government and private companies work together to be able to enhance, you know, through apprenticeships, you know, the skills and the outputs of a lot of these entry-level workers. So we are. huge proponents of, again, skills training. I would love to see the investments put behind that. If we could take $5 billion a year, which is roughly the deficit hole that's going to be created by the minimum wage, put that into skills training, I think we'd have a very, very successful

economic growth in this country that would be unmatched versus the minimum wage increasing. Well, and you all are so much so on the front lines of this issue. I know you've received a lot of pushback recently. Can you share a little bit about the situation with Twitter? Yeah, unfortunately, we must be doing something right because Twitter suspended us last week. It's actually been about 10 days now. We quickly responded within 24 hours with a letter from our attorney to them, no response yet. We had two reporters call them, no responses from that either. And what they claimed was that we somehow were breaking their spam policy, which is complete bull, if you ask me, and there was nothing there.

We went back. We did our own internal audit. There was nothing that we did that broke their policy. But interestingly enough, we were promoting basically that Twitter and other companies like Amazon, AWS, which is the website services. They're hosting platforms and stuff. They'd be regulated like a utility. And interestingly enough, right after that, we somehow got shut down for this bogus breaking

of their policy, again, with no response. and not even quite frankly any specifics that they could point to as to where we broke that policy. Wow. Incredibly frustrating. It is. It is. It is. But we got to keep on speaking out, which is why programs like what you have is just so critical because this is basically our voice now.

This and radio effectively is what we have left. But we're going to keep on putting out what we can. And, you know, I urge all of your listeners to go to job creators. Network.com because it's a great source of information. We try to keep it as relevant as current as possible and as handy as possible for all small business centers out there. Well, I will say I certainly appreciate getting your emails. I find the information incredibly helpful just for staying up on, okay, what is going on? What are those pieces of legislation that are being pushed forward? What would they mean for us as Americans, for small businesses? So truly thank you

all for the work that you're doing. Absolutely. So appreciate you. the show. Thank you very much. Thank you for the time and have a great day. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal Podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and IHeartRadio. Please be sure to leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. And as always, please encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening and we'll be back with you all tomorrow. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Rachel Del Judas,

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