Dallas News: White House's War on the American Worker

Op-Ed

By John Cornyn

It's hard to deny that the Obama administration has declared a war on the American worker. One need look no further than two recent reports from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. In a report released earlier this month, the CBO found that Obamacare will reduce the size of the American labor force by 2.5 million full-time workers over the next decade. Meanwhile, in a separate study, the CBO found that the president's goal of raising the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour could kill up to 1 million jobs.

When the labor force is about to do a vanishing act to the tune of 2.5 million workers -- and an additional 1 million jobs are potentially on the chopping block -- the rational thing to do would be to change or avoid the policies that are to blame. Unfortunately, that sort of common sense is in short supply at this White House, where inconvenient facts have little sway over political priorities.

In fact, the White House has doubled down on these policies, and even gone so far as to tell the American people that fewer workers and reduced hours are actually good things. To quote the top White House economist, working less to maintain Obamacare benefits "might be a better option than what they had before."

It's a sad day when the White House and congressional Democrats are celebrating the prospect of a smaller American labor force. Sadder, still, when you consider the thousands of additional jobs being withheld from the American people on account of burdensome regulations and political posturing. But these are the realities of the Obama administration and the policies it promotes -- policies that are decreasing opportunities for Americans and increasing their dependency on the federal government, policies that, collectively, amount to a war on the American worker.

I've met and corresponded with some of these workers -- workers like the single mother I met in Tyler and the teacher from Irving, both of whom have had their hours cut as a result of Obamacare. They recognize something that seems to be utterly lost on this administration: Work is not just about money and income. It's about dignity, self-reliance and self-respect.

In other words, jobs are important in ways that extend well beyond their immediate economic value. Opportunities for work have social and moral value. They promote strong citizens and, by extension, a strong country. Yet, under the guise of liberal compassion, the policies of the Obama administration have consistently rejected this reality. There's nothing compassionate about deliberately making Americans more dependent on the federal government, nor is there compassion in robbing them of paid hours or incentivizing them to leave the labor force entirely.

A truly compassionate agenda would seek to expand opportunity rather than dependency. It would place a higher value on the dignity of work and the self-reliance of American workers. For that matter, a truly compassionate agenda would aim to dismantle Obamacare and replace it with patient-centered alternatives that encourage both work and job creation.

The last five years have been a policy experiment in the exact opposite. The result has been a historically sluggish recovery, a decline in median household income and less economic opportunity for Americans. As Republicans, it does us no good to simply point to these facts and say, "I told you so." The status quo is not written in stone.

With the right mix of economic policies, America can return to the strong growth rates and robust job creation it enjoyed during the 1980s and 1990s. I urge the president to work with us toward a future full of opportunities for Americans. This is the America that was handed down to us by our forefathers, and it's the America we must pass on to our children and grandchildren.

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