Accomplishments of the New Congress

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McCONNELL. Now, Madam President, on another matter, in the last election the American people chose a new direction with a new Republican majority in Congress. We have been working hard ever since to get Congress back on their side and back to work. Over the past year, Americans have seen committees up and running again. Americans have seen bills passed again. Americans have seen meaningful bipartisan bills being signed into law again. Americans have also seen Members of opposing parties working together to make progress on important issues, from trade to Medicare to cyber security. We have seen examples of it this year on some of Washington's stickiest issues.

We saw the Senate pass a bipartisan multiyear highway bill this summer, 65 to 34. The Republican chairman and the Democratic ranking member worked closely to bring this about. We also saw the Senate pass a bipartisan replacement for the broken No Child Left Behind law last summer, 81 to 17. I would like to thank Senator Alexander and Senator Murray for working closely across the aisle on that achievement. These represent significant accomplishments for the new Congress and significant wins for the American people. After all, some pundits said Washington could never take these issues on at all. But we did, and we now expect to finish Congress's work on all of those matters in the coming days.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source