LA Mayor: U.S. need compromise to pass cuts, investments

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa talks economy, bipartisan compromise, US Conference of Mayors and Mitt Romney’s recent comments on teachers, police officers and firefighters.

Villaraigosa says, “Mayors across the country, Democrat and Republican, have called on the Congress, just as the President has, to pass the Surface Transportation Bill. That’s two million jobs that we can put people back to work, repairing our roads, our highways, our ports, our airports. And what’s happened? Absolutely nothing. When the President says that we can save 325,000 teacher, firefighter, and police officer jobs, what’s happened with that proposal? Mr. Romney, the House leadership has said ‘No’ to that. All we’ve seen from them is cut, cut, cut. No investment. And I think that’s what this election is going to be about. It’s not only going to be about where the unemployment rate is, it’s going to be about what we’re going to do in the future to make America’s economy strong again, from the middle class up.”

He continues, “The 325,000 jobs that the President is talking about is saving jobs, not adding jobs. Two, there’s no questions that we have to cut programs and cut the deficit. The President has proposed a $4 trillion cut over the next ten years. Mr. Romney talks about cutting the deficit and also proposes a $5 trillion tax cut, primarily targeted to the wealthy, that we can’t afford. But what Democrats and Republican mayors are saying is we gotta do both. We gotta cut some spending, no question about it. But we gotta make investments in infrastructure, transportation, in education, in helping us export when 95% of the new markets are outside the United States of America.”

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