Coalition Letter In Support of Labor Secretary Nominee Andrew Puzder
January 30, 2017
The Honorable Lamar Alexander Chairman
U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
428 Senate Dirksen Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Patty Murray
Ranking Member
U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
428 Senate Dirksen Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Senators:
On behalf of the undersigned organizations and our members, we write to express our strong support for the nomination of Andrew Puzder for Secretary of the United States Department of Labor. For the past eight years, the Labor Department has overwhelmed job creators with burdensome regulations, creating immense uncertainty for employers. This has led to a subpar economic recovery, including gross domestic product growth that has averaged less than 2 percent under President Obama. What is worse, nearly 95 million Americans remain outside the labor force.
As a longtime successful businessman and employer, Puzder understands what it takes to get Americans working again. We believe a change of labor policy at the federal level is crucial to encourage job creation and spur economic growth. Andrew Puzder would bring a welcome, fresh perspective to the U.S. Labor Department that our country needs. Over the years, he has warned about the harmful impact of overly burdensome workplace regulation, and his firsthand experience dealing with those burdens should prove invaluable in identifying and targeting regulations that do more harm than good.
During the Obama administration, the Labor Department imposed $55.7 billion in total finalized regulatory costs and added nearly 70 million hours in paperwork burden for job creators. Under the Obama Labor Department, for the first time in 35 years, more American businesses closed than launched. This decline in entrepreneurship and opportunities has made it harder for people to find work and many Americans have simply given up looking for jobs altogether.
American workers need a Labor Secretary with real-world experience creating jobs and opportunities, and we believe Andrew Puzder will fulfill that role. As House Committee on Education and the Workforce Chairwoman Virginia Foxx noted in an oped last month: “Under his strong leadership, CKE Restaurants has thrived and grown to more than 3,700 restaurants worldwide. CKE restaurants and franchises in the United States employ more than 75,000 men and women.”
By making sure the Labor Department promotes deregulatory policies, Andrew Puzder can foster and encourage the business formation that makes job creation possible. Those are goals that our organizations support and all Americans can get behind.
Sincerely,
Kent Lassman President, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Grover Norquist President, Americans for Tax Reform
Steven J. Allen Vice President & Chief Investigative Officer, Capital Research Center
Jeffrey Mazzella President, Center for Individual Freedom
April Ponnuru Senior Advisor, Conservative Reform Network
Tom McCabe Chief Executive Officer, Freedom Foundation
Adam Brandon President, FreedomWorks
Andresen Blom Executive Director, Grassroot Hawaii Action, Inc.
Kristina Rasmussen President, Illinois Policy Institute
Andrew Langer President, Institute for Liberty
Dr. Robert McClure President and CEO, The James Madison Institute
Lisa B. Nelson CEO, Jeffersonian Project
Kristina Barton, Senior Vice President Senior Vice President, National Center for Policy Analysis
Paul Gessing President, Rio Grande Foundation
David Williams President, Taxpayers Protection Alliance Dann Mead Smith President, Washington Policy Center
Jonathan Downing CEO, Wyoming Liberty Group
