Rep. Brady: Lawmakers Should Focus on Smart Policies, Not Just Bill

Lawmakers' focus should be on driving pressure on a coronavirus vaccine and helping the United States return to "normal lives and a healthy economy," and focused, smart policies are needed to make that happen, Rep. Kevin Brady said Thursday. However, Congress could remove much uncertainty surrounding coronavirus stimulus legislation if it would move to working on a targeted package, the Texas Republican said on CNBC's "Squawk Box."

There are a number of provisions that should come out of the Democrats' bill before Republicans will likely approve it, said Brady.

"Rather than let's pick a number and just stuff spending into that, what do we really need?" said Brady. "If you start from that standpoint, I think the Senate bill created some very immediate, practical, targeted relief that can be very helpful both on healthy lives and a healthy economy."

He added that it was also "pretty crucial" for President Donald Trump to enact executive orders, including on unemployment benefits, but Congress can "remove a lot of this uncertainty by moving to a package this week."

Meanwhile, economic policies are needed to help businesses reopen and succeed, Brady said.

"Most of our small, Main Street businesses are begging for workers to come back," he told CNBC. "We need to have an economic policy that reconnects workers to those businesses."

Brady said he's confident that there are some common sense answers, and at the same time, he's "more optimistic than others" that an agreement can be reached on coronavirus stimulus legislation, but at the same time, he thinks there are some "smart things we can do right now."

"Right now it just seems like people are pushing in a trillion dollars or taking it off the table or talking about it, when we really ought to be focused on, look, how do we reconnect workers back to their jobs," said Brady. "How do we help businesses create safe, healthy workplaces for their customers and their workers?"

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