WASHINGTON — In response to the State of the Union address Tuesday night, U.S. Rep. Martha Roby (R-AL2) posted a video on her Facebook deriding the President’s speech for being full of “pie in the sky promises” and lacking in “common sense solutions to our problems.”
“I think it’s absolutely fabulous that the President is talking about more flexibility in the workplace,” Rep. Roby said in response to President Obama’s proposal to require every U.S. employer to offer paid leave, “but we have to be realistic about how we approach these type policies.
“The White House’s attempts to dictate how the workplace operates, they cost workers hours and income. Employers are drowning in red tape and mandates as it is, the last thing that we need is the federal government to issue more. We’ve got to get Washington out of the way about how people use their time, and the Working Families Flexibility Act… is the most realistic approach about how to give employees more choices with their time at work so that they can make the best decisions about how to balance their family life.”
The Working Families Flexibility Act, which is sponsored again this year by Rep. Roby and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), would give employees the option to take paid leave instead of overtime pay, a practice that is currently outlawed for private sector jobs under the Fair Labor Standard’s Act. The 2013 version of the bill passed the House but was stalled in the Senate.
“My wish is that President Obama would have committed tonight to work with Congress right now on bipartisan plans to boost job growth and give hardworking taxpayers some relief. But instead he continued again to list off these pie in the sky promises that sound great but they’re not realistic and they’re not serious. We need common sense solutions to our problems, not political speeches meant to ignite class warfare.”
Watch the whole video below.
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— Elizabeth BeShears (@LizEBeesh) January 21, 2015
