From Congressman Peter Roskam:

The New York Times runs out of words

In a recent article from the New York Times, they make a stark confession – they ran out of words to describe how good the jobs numbers are:

“The real question in analyzing the May jobs numbers released Friday is whether there are enough synonyms for ‘good’ in an online thesaurus to describe them adequately.

“So, for example, ‘splendid’ and ‘excellent’ fit the bill. Those are the kinds of terms that are appropriate when the United States economy adds 223,000 jobs in a month, despite being nine years into an expansion, and when the unemployment rate falls to 3.8 percent, a new 18-year low.”

Many economic experts credit the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as a major contributing factor to the decreasing unemployment rate.

Businesses small and large across the country are reinvesting the tax cuts they received through the new tax law into their businesses and employees – this means more jobs and higher wages for hundreds of thousands of hardworking taxpayers, including taxpayers in the Sixth District.

The New York Times continues:

“’Salubrious,’ ‘salutary’ and ‘healthy’ work as words to describe the 0.3 percent rise in average hourly earnings, which are up 2.7 percent over the last year — a nice improvement but also not the kind of sharp increase that might lead the Federal Reserve to rethink its cautious path of interest rate increases.”

While the New York Times is celebrating the all-time low in unemployment, Sean Casten is busy looking for new ways to raise taxes on Sixth District residents.

In just the last few months, Casten has proposed or supported at least five different tax hikes on taxpayers:

When asked during a radio interview with WLS about a plan to raise taxes on gas, Casten said,

“…absolutely we should raise the gas tax.”

Casten has been one of Mike Madigan’s most consistent supporters for a progressive tax hike.

Sean Casten supported Mike Madigan and his party voted to override the Governor’s veto, burdening Illinois taxpayers with a 32 percent state income tax hike.

Casten opposed the Governor’s recent budget because he said it didn’t do enough to raise taxes on Illinois residents.

Earlier this year, Casten announced his intention to repeal the tax breaks Sixth District families and small businesses received through the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and support a plan to instead, raise their taxes.

It’s clear that Casten doesn’t support the policies that prompted the New York times to write this:

“Employers are creating more jobs, leading more people to work and fewer people to be unemployed, and leading wages to rise.”

“While the New York Times has run out of words to describe how vibrant our economy is, thanks to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Sean Casten has limited his vocabulary to two words: RAISE TAXES,” said Roskam for Congress spokesman Veronica Vera.

“Families and businesses in the Sixth District are thriving because of this new tax law, but Casten has vowed to reverse those gains and impose new, burdensome taxes on our residents.

“That’s not the kind of representation Sixth District residents are looking for.”