CHANGE: GOP Looks Forward with New Agenda for Poor and Middle Class.

AEI President Arthur Brooks compared the 1,500 hours of training a cosmetology license requires in D.C. to just 135 hours to become a real estate agent, which he said is typically a second job for a wealthier two-parent household.

“That’s anti-poor, and it’s un-American, and we need a solution,” Brooks said.

Brooks highlighted the cosmetology example because opening a home salon is a job that many single mothers could turn to that would allow them to earn money while being with their children.

Cantor said that the House GOP agenda, called “An America that Works,” is aimed at helping Americans by introducing policies that will make it easier for people to “pursue the happiness that was the vision of the founders of our country.”

“There are way too many barriers right now to success,” he said. “The licensing question in particular is one that strikes at the heart of what America is about.”

Note to Eric Cantor: This is good stuff, but you won’t improve the job prospects of the poor and working-class by opening the borders. You know it, I know it, and they know it.