Washington: Indian-American Congressman Ro Khanna has lashed out at US President Donald Trump for failing to fulfil his campaign promises like bringing back jobs and reviving the country's manufacturing sector.
"(It is) a Presidency of broken promises," Congressman Khanna, 40, who served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Department of Commerce in the previous Obama administration told PTI.
Khanna, who represents the hub of Silicon Valley in the US Congress, said that Trump has not lived up to the promises he made.
"He (Trump) promised to help expand coverage in healthcare and lower costs. He proposed a bill that would have cut coverage and increased premiums. He promised to help working families and not Wall Street. He has proposed budgets that would slash funding from working families and give tax breaks for Wall Street," he said.
"He promised to invest in American cities and broadband and infrastructure. He has curtailed the expansion of broadband and he has not fulfilled the promise to invest in infrastructure. So, he has not lived up to the promises he made to Americans across this country," Khanna said in response to a question.
Khanna, author of "Entrepreneurial Nation: Why Manufacturing is Still Key to America's Future", in his book laid out a blue print for reviving the country's manufacturing sector.
"If he was serious about creating manufacturing jobs, he would fund manufacturing, extend partnership, instead of defunding it," he said.
"He would fund apprenticeship programmes across this country, like Switzerland does. The Swiss apprenticeship programme prepares the workforce for manufacturing. He would make sure that we were ending corporate deferral and require companies to pay tax on their overseas earnings so that it would incentivise to bring back those jobs to the US," he said.
"So, I share the goal of bringing manufacturing back to the US. I've written a book on it, but it's not going to happen through his policies," Khanna said referring to the book he wrote in 2012.
"I have always believed that America remains the greatest superpower of innovation. Khanna is a leading thinker on how to make US manufacturing more competitive across this country, whether it comes to making high-technology planes, cars, steel bars, fire suits, or even blenders.
"The unconventional ideas in this book chart the path America can take to lead the world for years to come," Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla wrote after reading the book.
Khanna said he is very passionate about helping take Silicon Valley's vision and creating tech jobs and partnering with communities across the country, figuring out how to make partnership programmes and jobs programmes for the jobs of the 21st century.
"How do we make sure that entrepreneurship is not just in Silicon Valley but across this country? How do we make sure that we are rewiring labour markets to adapt to the needs to jobs in the future?" he said.
"I am also passionate about improving our healthcare system and for medicare for all. But making sure that we provide a wage increase for working families. We can do that by massive expansion of the earned income tax credit, making sure that we're making college debt-free. So having a progressive economic vision and apprenticeship programme for jobs of the 21st century," Khanna said.
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