McCarthy: time for Obama administration to reprioritize and refocus on the economy

 Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) gives his weekly take on what's important. In his words:

 "I was on a panel of Members of Congress on a new live CNBC “Squawk Box” feature to discuss issues, and inevitably, most of our discussion centered on job creation in this country.  The September unemployment report indicated that 263,000 American jobs were lost this past month, and the unemployment rate has risen to 9.8%.  In addition to these numbers, the White House updated its February 2009 Stimulus job projection estimate and no state was on track to meet the Administration’s goals.  According to these projections, our country is an alarming 6 million jobs short of the Stimulus projections.  In response to these disconcerting reports, my colleagues and I reached out to the White House once again to try to get something done. This time, we sent a letter to the President expressing our desire to re-prioritize and re-focus efforts on our economy and job creation. In the letter, we communicated our country’s need for bipartisan cooperation to form new policies that enable our small businesses and entrepreneurs to create jobs and put Americans back to work.

 "The Financial Services Committee is completing a series of hearings on legislative proposals to significantly alter the regulation of our country’s financial system.  We are expecting an intense few weeks coming up, with as many as 8 or 9 bills to be reviewed and amended by the committee during October.  In one hearing this week, we discussed structural issues at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).  As you have heard me say before, the SEC has a stove piped organizational structure that showed its weakness in failing to uncover the Madoff scandal.  I continue to advocate for a structure that would provide for better communication among the SEC’s policymakers and those conducting the inspections and examinations.

 "It’s always good to see people from home in D.C. and this week I was able to have lunch with my good friend Mel Owens who was visiting and touring our nation’s capital. As a reminder, if you are visiting Washington, D.C. and would like to schedule a tour of the Capitol or other sites, please contact my office.

In the Senate, the health care reform bill was scored by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) with a projected cost of almost one trillion dollars. First, spending another trillion dollars is not what American taxpayers need right now. Equally disappointing was that after the Senate bill was voted out of committee, Republican committee members came to find out that more than 70 changes were added to the bill behind closed doors. Once again, another example that shows the need for transparency and that a common sense fix is needed to allow the public to review legislation for at least 72 hours before a vote.  Currently, I along with 180 of my colleagues have signed a discharge petition supporting this common sense 72-hour review.  We can do better. I hope the Democratic leadership in the House allows an up or down vote on this needed reform.