Economic Growth

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on another matter, later today Vice President Pence will visit Wheeling, WV, to discuss Republicans' pro- growth agenda. For the better part of a decade, the people of West Virginia heard a lot of talk from Washington.

During the 2008 Presidential campaign, then-Senator Biden told a crowd in Charleston, WV, that he supported the coal industry and that the Democrats' policies would help West Virginia's economy. ``This is about jobs,'' he said.

But the Obama-Biden administration turned out to be a crash course in the difference between rhetoric and results. Across the entire private sector, fewer Virginians were employed the day President Obama left office than on the day he was sworn in. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the State's manufacturing workforce shrunk by more than 13 percent from 2009 through 2016, and its mining and logging workforce collapsed by 37 percent.

Let's be clear. Public policy is not the only factor at work in our economy, but there is no denying that Washington can make life harder for job creators or make it easier. The Obama economy was a tough pill to swallow--tax hikes and burdensome regulations. Their policies cut against the rhetoric, and the outcome was disappointing.

That was then. This is now. When Vice President Pence lands in West Virginia today, he will be able to share a different story. He will be able to say that, thanks in part to regulatory relief and generational tax reform, the number of Americans saying that now is a good time to find a quality job hit a 17-year high just 2 months ago.

He will be able to say that West Virginia's unemployment rate has been lower in every month of this unified Republican government than it was during any month of the Obama Presidency.

It is the American people who are achieving all of this. Republicans are just happy that our policies are helping to create conditions for workers and job creators to thrive.

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