Last Tuesday, in remarks delivered in Paducah, Kentucky, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell complained about Americans being "flush" with cash in the context of employers having difficulty filling job openings:
You've got a whole lot of people sitting on the sidelines because, frankly, they're flush for the moment. What we've got to hope is once they run out of money, they'll start concluding it's better to work than not to work.
Simply put, Mitch McConnell wants Americans to go broke.
It is true that Americans built up their savings during the pandemic in part of because of stimulus payments and enhanced unemployment benefits. Of course, those enhanced unemployment benefits ended were short-lived while the last stimulus payments was approved almost 18 months ago. Nevertheless, one would think a so-called fiscal conservative like McConnell would encourage Americans to save their money instead of rooting for them to go broke. But in the era of Trump, the cruelty is the point and now it's out in the open. Chances are McConnell might soon get his wish as inflation is diminishing savings not to mention wage growth.
Then again how many Americans are actually on "sitting on the sidelines"? After all, we have an unemployment rate of 3.6% which is essentially back where we were right before the pandemic began. Conservatives might counter with the labor force participation rate. While it hasn't quite got back to pre-COVID levels, there has been a long term decline in the labor force participation rate for two decades much of which owes to an aging population which has retired.
When it is all said and done, McConnell is the last person who should complain about Americans being flush with cash when he himself is flush with campaign contributions on hand to the tune of nearly $7.4 million. Not only is McConnell contemptuous of working people but he is demanding of others what he will not do himself. In other words, McConnell is a typical Republican.
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