{"id":2395,"date":"2021-08-26T15:56:20","date_gmt":"2021-08-26T15:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=2395"},"modified":"2021-08-26T15:56:20","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T15:56:20","slug":"labor-secretary-walsh-comes-to-toledo-to-tout-infrastructure-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2021\/08\/26\/labor-secretary-walsh-comes-to-toledo-to-tout-infrastructure-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Labor Secretary Walsh Comes to Toledo to Tout Infrastructure Bill"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Labor Secretary Marty Walsh<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Fletcher Word
\nSojourner\u2019s Truth Editor<\/p>\n

U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh paid a visit to Toledo and Laborers Local 500 on Tuesday, August 17, to talk up the Biden Administration\u2019s $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. He was accompanied by U.S. Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, who voiced her support for the Act, but also demanded more.<\/p>\n

Local 500 Business Manager David Fleetwood served as master of ceremonies for the event that was held at the Local 500 training facilities on Nebraska Avenue. The morning breakfast, closed to the public, was attended by a number of laborers, city and county officials and local agency leaders.<\/p>\n

Fleetwood introduced Walsh as a \u201clifelong champion of equity \u2026 committed to creating an economy that works for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
David Fleetwood<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Walsh, a union leader from Boston, was first elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1997, then as mayor of Boston in 2013 and was appointed to his current Labor Secretary position when President Joe Biden assumed office. He was certainly at home in front of a labor audience at the Local 500 facility.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a president that wants to fight to make sure we rebuild the middle class, and build bake better,\u201d he said defending the administration\u2019s economic plan. \u201cThere have been 4.1 million jobs added to the economy by the Biden Harris administration.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Walsh was in Toledo to talk about the infrastructure act just passed by the U.S. Senate and now in the U.S. House of Representatives awaiting passage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have talked about an infrastructure bill for the last four years, for the last eight years,\u201d said Walsh. \u201cThis is the first time in my memory that a major piece of legislation has gone through borh parties.\u201d<\/p>\n

The administration\u2019s infrastructure bill was passed by the Senate with all 50 Democratic votes and 19 Republican votes.<\/p>\n

Now, the House has the bill on its agenda and the split among moderates, progressives and mainstream Democrats are fully on display. Nine House moderates have sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, demanding that the Senate version pass as is. Pelosi has said she wants the House to take on both the current infrastructure bill and a much larger $3.5 trillion budget bill simultaneously.<\/p>\n

Kaptur, in her speech to the labor union explained her support for the infrastructure package and her desire that more be added, particularly to aid the upper Midwest states.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThis is the first time, in my career, we have a chance to make a difference,\u201d she said of the infrastructure bill. \u201cThere will be a lot of negotiation,\u201d she added of the ongoing process.<\/p>\n

Kaptur then explained, addressing the secretary more than her labor audience, that she was dismayed that money for rail for the upper Midwest was not a part of the legislation. \u201cWe are not in the infrastructure bill here,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n

Describing the Chicago, to Cleveland, to New York route as \u201cthe fifth most congested corridor in the country,\u201d she took issue that dollars for that corridor are sorely lacking unlike the case of the congested East and West coast routes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need someone to care about the industrial heartland of the country; we need a voice, Mr. Secretary. We gotta have modernized rail here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Addressing power and energy, Kaptur turned to the current scandal involving First Energy. The company has agreed to pay $230 million fine for its role in a bribery scheme. The purpose of the scheme was to get legislation passed for a $1 billion bailout for two of its power plants in Ohio.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are gonna give billions to those crooks?\u201d she asked Walsh. \u201cKaptur is going to be tough in the House,\u201d she promised the secretary and her labor audience.<\/p>\n

Shifting to the subject of the push to electrify automobiles, Kaptur expressed concern about the possibility that the Midwest industrial area will suffer if a manufacturing plan is not implemented before such a massive change occurs. She noted that electric cars will need far fewer moving parts that the current combustion engines use. She called for an office to be established in the White House \u201cthat plans for readjustment \u2013 we need a plan for this to be done systematically.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur part of America has been heavily harmed by past administrations that didn\u2019t care,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Fletcher Word Sojourner\u2019s Truth Editor U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh paid a visit to Toledo and Laborers Local 500 on Tuesday, August 17, to talk up the Biden Administration\u2019s $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. He was accompanied by U.S. Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, who voiced her support for the Act, but also demanded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[71],"class_list":["post-2395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2395"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2399,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2395\/revisions\/2399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2395"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=2395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}