Feel good legislation chock full of handouts.
Via The Advocate:
The stack of paper to the right of New Orleans Congressman Cedric Richmond stood about a foot tall.
The sprawling, 1,334-page “Jobs and Justice Act” that Richmond touted Thursday likely won’t come anywhere close to a president’s desk in the near future.
But Richmond, the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, described the voluminous document as a comprehensive fix to much of what ails black America.
The bill would add money for schools, job training and social services, and put billions into infrastructure. It would jack up the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, fund two years of free community college for students, boost federal scholarships for low-income students, and pump tax dollars into aging, lead-contaminated local water systems.
It would also ban racial profiling by police, eliminate the death penalty, mandate “de-escalation” training for cops, and end mandatory minimum sentences for federal drug crimes. Federal election days, meanwhile, would become federal holidays.
Richmond — flanked by other black members of Congress, Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial — acknowledged there’s about zero chance the bill goes anywhere in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
The New Orleans Democrat, though, said the Congressional Black Caucus wanted to offer a “blueprint” and “guiding light” for tackling a range of issues confronting black families in the United States — and to document what policies his coalition stands for.
“That is a very comprehensive piece of legislation,” Richmond said.
Richmond said the Congressional Black Caucus began working on the sprawling bill shortly after their first meeting with President Donald Trump, a Republican whom Richmond has repeatedly criticized for racial comments and proposed cuts to social programs.[…]
Richmond also criticized Republican leaders — especially Trump — who’ve touted the dropping black unemployment rate as evidence that GOP policies have made life better for black families.
Richmond called the unemployment rate a “simplistic” measure of well-being — and said policies started by former President Barack Obama, Trump’s predecessor, deserved much of the credit for economic growth.
“Black unemployment was at zero when we were sharecropping. That doesn’t mean we were doing well,” Richmond said. “Let’s not just use that (the unemployment rate) as the barometer.”