Sen. Rob Portman Credits Jim Renacci for Helping Spur Long-Overdue Worker Wage Increases

Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) wants Ohio voters to know that regardless of what his colleague in the U.S. Senate says, it’s not just the rich who are benefiting from President Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Stumping Sunday for fellow Republican Rep. Jim Renacci (R-OH-16), who is seeking to replace Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) as Ohio’s other U.S. senator, Portman brought good news on the economy.

Watch Portman’s address below: 

Portman discussed wage growth, a go-to criticism for Brown, who stated in debates with Renacci that wage growth for the middle class has “flat lined.”

While that has been the trend over the last two decades, wages have started to rise again under Trump, which Portman credits that to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

In a report from the Labor Department Friday, wages were up 3.1 percent year over year, the biggest increase in a decade, while unemployment has fallen to the lowest level since 1969 at 3.7 percent.

“And you know who got the highest wage increases? Blue collar workers,” Portman told the audience during a rally for Renacci at Mr. Spots BG, a restaurant in Bowling Green.

Portman said Renacci, who currently represents Ohio’s Sixteenth Congressional District, “really isn’t a congressman” in terms of his expertise.

“Although that’s his title, he’s really a business person, and he’s been incredibly successful creating businesses in Ohio. He really gets it. That’s why he’s incredibly respected in Congress,” Portman said.

Renacci, a CPA, has brought his expertise in tax law to the table in helping craft Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

“He happens to serve on the tax-writing committee, so I’ve worked with him really closely on this tax reform issue because I’m on the Senate tax-writing committee,” Portman explained. “He’s the one who said: ‘You know what? We’ve got to take care of Ohio, and small businesses.'”

“If you’re a small business in Ohio, like Mr. Spot, you know, you get the immediate expensing. You get the 20 percent deduction, you get the ability to keep more of your own money and invest it in your business,” he continued.

That’s why small businesses are thriving again in Ohio, Portman concluded.

“And they’re doing it all over Ohio,” he said. “We just had 26 meetings all over the state … people are really investing in their businesses, aren’t they? And they’re people! And so, that’s what Jim Renacci is all about. Because he gets it. He has started 60 businesses. He has created, you know, 1,500 jobs. He’s had 3,000 people work for him but he has created an additional 1,500 jobs here in Ohio. So he doesn’t just talk the talk he walks the walk”

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Anthony Accardi is a writer and reporter for The Ohio Star.

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