Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) criticized Congress Friday for being out of touch with average people and not spending enough time focusing on jobs.
“Members of Congress too often don’t think about how the things we do affect the daily lives of people. And we don’t meet enough single parents and we don’t meet enough people that are struggling,” Brown said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “That’s why Congress has to focus more on jobs than we have, frankly.”
Brown went on to boost the payroll tax cut extension that Democrats in the Senate have backed, while criticizing the version of the extension that Republicans have proposed.
“This is a tax cut that will put money into people’s pockets…Republicans, at all costs, say no if it’s paid for by people making over $1 million a year. They want to come up with phony pay-fors and they didn’t do anything until we brought this to the fore.”
The Senate voted down both Democratic and Republican payroll tax cut proposals on Thursday, but the Ohio senator expressed hope that the two parties could come to some agreement.
“It’s not dead,” Brown said. “We’re going to continue…We’ve got to do it.”
Brown also sparred with Morning Joe host and former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough over the issue of entitlements.
The senator mentioned the case of a 62-year-old from Youngstown, Ohio who was looking forward to being covered under Medicare. “And you’re going to tell the woman in the hotel that changes sheets and tell the guy that works construction or a woman works in the diner, we’re going to raise the eligibility age so we can have a grand deal that you guys talk about? No,” said Brown.
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