Senator Warner released the following statement after the President’s speech about jobs last night:

“I think the President issued the right call to action,” Senator Warner said. “There is no single 'silver bullet' solution to this sluggish economic recovery, but we certainly can take smart, targeted actions that will help encourage new jobs and investment. It is high time for Congress to demonstrate that we can work together to get important stuff done. I continue to believe the best thing we can do to jump-start the economic recovery is to begin fixing our nation's long-term balance sheet through a responsible, comprehensive and bipartisan plan that will reduce our deficits and debt.”

The Senator spent most of August traveling around Virginia to discuss job initiatives he has been working on in Congress. 

• Senator Warner, working with Republican Northern Virginia Congressman Frank Wolf, introduced The America Recruits Act in June. The legislation promotes new jobs in advanced manufacturing in distressed communities such as Southside Virginia by providing a $5,000 per job forgiveable loan for each new job that's moved to the U.S. from overseas. The jobs must be maintained for at least five years, and the cost of the loans would be more than offset by new federal, state and local income and sales tax revenues each new job would generate. This new tool would be in addition to local and state economic development incentives.

• Senator Warner, along with Texas Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry, is an original co-sponsor of  a bipartisan plan to create a national infrastructure bank. The Build Act, which was introduced in March and has the endorsement of both the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO, would encourage greater private investment and create new jobs repairing our nation’s crumbling roads, rails and ports. It is estimated an initial $10 billion public investment could leverage up to $640 billion in private investment over ten years. 

• Senator Warner is working with Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman on a bipartisan proposal to dramatically reduce regulatory red tape, and we expect to introduce the legislation in a week or so. Modeled after the UK's "One In-One Out" program, the legislation will require federal agencies to remove one existing regulation for each new regulation they propose to enact. Senator Warner sees this as an effective tool to compel regulators to review the overall burden imposed by regulations, and it will help to clear-out the maze of outdated, ineffective rules that clutter the federal code and discourage new business investment.  

• Senator Warner also is a strong supporter of pending free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, which are expected to see Senate action in coming days.  Virginia exports $19 billion each year, and exports to these three countries represent only $370 million of that total.  He also supports reforms to speed-up the U.S. Patent and FDA drug approval processes.

• Obviously, one clear way to strengthen the economy, revive consumer and investor confidence and encourage greater investment and job creation is to responsibly address our nation's debt and deficits. For more than a year now, Senator Warner has led the Senate’s so-called “Gang of Six” in an effort to craft a bipartisan plan to gradually eliminate nearly $4 trillion from our nation’s $14 trillion national debt.  The Go6's bipartisan agreement came too late to be included in last month’s resolution to the Aug. 3 debt limit deadline, but Senator Warner continues to speak out for commonsense, bipartisan solutions that will begin to fix our country’s balance sheet.