Defending Public Safety Employees' Retirement Act--Continued
Floor Speech
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Mr. THUNE. Madam President, last fall, Republicans promised that if we were elected to the majority, we would get Washington working. That wasn't a campaign slogan, that was a commitment. After 6 months of Republican control, I am proud to report we are delivering on that promise.
The past 6 months in the Senate have been the most productive months in a long time. We passed bipartisan legislation to approve the Keystone Pipeline. We passed a bipartisan bill to help prevent suicides among veterans. We passed the first significant bipartisan reform of Medicare in years, which will ensure that our seniors have access to physicians and that those physicians are judged by the quality rather than the quantity of the care they provide. We passed bipartisan legislation to give law enforcement new tools to fight human trafficking and provide support for trafficking victims. We passed a bipartisan bill to authorize funding for our national defense to provide for the needs of our men and women in uniform.
Those are just some of the highlights.
Every piece of legislation I mentioned passed with bipartisan support. One reason that happened is because the Republican majority has been committed to ensuring that all Senators, whatever the party, have the opportunity to make their voices heard.
Under Democratic leadership, not only were Members of the minority party shut out of the legislative process, but many rank-and-file Democrats were as well. During all of 2014, the Democratic leadership in the Senate allowed just 15 amendment rollcall votes--15 votes in an entire year. That is barely more than a vote a month.
By contrast, the Republican-led Senate has taken more than 130 amendment rollcall votes so far this year or more than 21 votes a month. That is not only more amendment rollcall votes than last year, it is more amendment rollcall votes than the Senate has taken in the past 2 years combined. That is through the first 6 months of 2015. We have another 6 months to go.
This week, the Senate is considering what I hope is going to be our next bipartisan achievement; that is, the legislation to help expand U.S. trade with other countries and increase the opportunities that are available for American businesses and American workers.
Over the past few years, exports have been a bright spot in our economy, supporting an increasing number of American jobs each and every year. In 2014, exports supported 11.7 million U.S. jobs and made up 13 percent of our Nation's economy. We need to continue to open markets around the globe to American goods and services, and the best way to do that is through new trade agreements.
Countries with which we have free and fair trade agreements purchase substantially more from us than other countries. In fact, in 2013, free-trade agreement countries purchased 12 times more goods per capita from the United States than nonfree-trade agreement countries--12 times more goods per capita.
For American workers, increased trade means more opportunity and increased access to high-paying jobs. Manufacturing jobs tied to exports pay, on average, 13 to 18 percent more than other jobs in our economy.
Unfortunately, while trade agreements have proliferated around the globe over the past several years, the United States hasn't signed a new trade agreement in 8 years. A big reason for that is the fact that trade promotion authority expired in 2007. Since 1934, almost all of the U.S. free-trade agreements have been negotiated using trade promotion authority or a similar streamlined, expedited process.
Trade promotion authority is designed to put the United States in the strongest possible position when it comes to negotiating trade agreements. Under TPA, Congress sets guidelines for trade negotiations and outlines the priorities the administration must follow. In return, Congress promises a simple up-or-down vote on the resulting trade agreement instead of the long amendment process that could leave the final deal looking nothing like what was initially negotiated.
That simple up-or-down vote is the key. It lets our negotiating partners know that Congress and trade negotiators are on the same page, which gives other countries the confidence they need to put their best offers on the table. That, in turn, allows for a successful and timely conclusion of negotiations.
Currently, the administration is negotiating two major trade agreements that have the potential to vastly expand the market for American goods and services in the European Union and in the Pacific. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is being negotiated with a number of Asia-Pacific nations, including Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, and Vietnam. If this agreement is done right, it could have huge benefits for American agriculture, among other industries.
Agriculture producers in my State of South Dakota and in the Presiding Officer's State of Iowa understand that trade promotion authority is the most effective way to secure trade agreements that will benefit our farmers and our ranchers. One pork producer in my State of South Dakota contacted me to tell me that a successful TPP deal could increase U.S. pork exports to just one of the Trans-Pacific Partnership countries by literally hundreds of millions of dollars in a year.
Discussions of the benefits of trade tend to focus on the economic benefits, and with good reason--it helps our economy. It creates good-paying jobs and raises the standard of living for people in this country and gives access for consumers to lower cost goods and services. But new trade agreements also have the potential to result not just in economic gains for America's farmers, ranchers, and manufacturers but in national security gains for the country.
When we make trade deals with other countries, we are not just opening new markets for our goods, we are also developing and cementing alliances. Trade agreements build bonds of friendship with other nations that extend not only to cooperation on economic issues but to cooperation on security issues as well.
It is also important to remember that just because the United States isn't negotiating trade agreements doesn't mean other countries will not be. In fact, the United States hasn't signed a single new trade agreement over the past 8 years, but that hasn't prevented other countries from signing numerous trade agreements over the same period. If America fails to lead on trade, other nations such as China will step in to fill the void, and these nations will not have the best interests of American workers and American families in mind.
The bill before us today will help pave the way for the United States to cement alliances with friendly nations through trade and will help ensure that any trade deals the United States enters into will be favorable to our economic and our national security interests.
The Senate passed a version of this bill last month with a bipartisan majority, and I am hopeful we will have a similarly strong bipartisan vote yet this week. Republicans believe our Nation's problems are best solved when Members of both parties come together to find solutions for the American people.
Republicans' plans for our second 6 months in the majority are the same as those for the first 6 months of our majority; that is, to make sure we continue to move forward in a way that addresses the challenges that are facing our country. Unfortunately, last week we saw an unfortunate return to partisanship on the part of the Democrats when they blocked an appropriations bill to fund our troops. It is not that Democrats have a problem with this bill; in fact, many of them voted to support the funding this bill provides when they voted in favor of the National Defense Authorization Act last week. The authorization act is the first step in a two-step process which has to be followed by the appropriations bill that actually provides the funding. But Democratic leaders and the President, even though many of them supported the Defense authorization bill, are upset that government agencies such as the EPA and the IRS aren't receiving the Democrats' preferred level of funding, so they have decided to hold appropriations bills hostage in an effort to get what they want.
It is unfortunate that Democrats are holding money for our troops hostage in order to get more funding for the EPA and the IRS. If Democrats believe the funding levels in the appropriations bills are not acceptable, they will have the opportunity to offer amendments to increase the funding. But in order to do that, they have to allow us to actually proceed to consideration of these bills on the Senate floor. What they are, in effect, doing now is filibustering any attempt to bring any spending bill to the floor; most recently, as I mentioned, the funding bill for our troops. The bill that funds our national security interests in this country is currently being held hostage. We can't even get it on the floor to debate it.
We are not only talking about ultimately passing it, we are talking about even having a discussion on the floor of the Senate about something as important as funding our troops and the important military objectives we have as a nation. Yet, right now, we have a filibuster being conducted by the Democrats--again, because they want to get more funding for their favorite agencies. Well, that is a bad way to go about this.
I am hopeful that this obstruction--which is largely driven by the Democratic leadership--that most rank-and-file Democrats will rethink a strategy that involves opposing every opportunity to fund our Nation's priorities and to get things done for the American people.
After years of stagnation in the Senate under Democratic leadership, I think even most Democrats have enjoyed governing in a functioning Senate again. We have dozens of bipartisan bills to show for the first 6 months of this year, and our record of accomplishment can continue if the Democrats abandon their strategy of obstruction and continue to work with us to solve the challenges facing our Nation. They can start by not objecting to proceeding to even getting a bill that funds our national security interests here on the floor of the Senate so we can debate it. As I said, if they don't like the funding levels in there, we will have an open amendment process in which they will be able to offer amendments to change those funding levels. But what they are doing right now is fundamentally wrong, not even allowing consideration of an appropriations bill that funds our military and pays our troops on the floor of the United States Senate. I hope that will change.
I hope that the Democrats will join us in making the next 6 months of 2015 as productive as the first 6 months have been and that we can point to bipartisan achievements that are good for the American people, that focus on their basic daily needs, and that will promote policies which will grow our economy and create jobs and lead to a higher standard of living and increased take-home pay for middle-income families across this country.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
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