Stimulus Package

Floor Speech

STIMULUS PACKAGE -- (Senate - February 05, 2008)

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, Americans are probably wondering why the rebate checks we have been talking about now for almost a month are still being debated on the floor of the Senate, and we owe them an answer.

Two weeks ago they saw what looked like a bipartisan agreement between Democrats and Republicans in Congress and the White House over the details of a deal. They saw Speaker Pelosi and Leader Boehner, to their great credit, resist the temptation to add pet projects that they knew would only slow the package down--and rob it of its stimulative effect. They heard a chorus of pleas from economists, trade groups, and Members of both parties in both Chambers endorsing this approach. This package had to be targeted and it had to be timely, or it wouldn't work at all.

So most days we find ourselves trying to explain to people why it takes so long to do things in the Senate. But this time was going to be different. Here was that rare situation when both parties agreed to put politics and individual interests aside and come together for the good of the people.

But then the stimulus bullet train turned into a rickety stage coach here in the Senate. When it got right down to it, Senate Democrats couldn't do what House Democrats had done. They couldn't resist--not even one time--a chance to play politics.

If Americans are wondering why their checks aren't in the mail, they can find it in last week's news clips. Of particular interest is an AP story entitled ``Politics Creeps into Stimulus Package.'' Democrats are holding onto the stimulus bill, the article said, not to speed up the rebate checks, but to try to make Republicans look bad in November. Asked about the amendments we were expecting to take up this week, the senior Senator from New York said, ``It's tough votes for them.'' It's tough votes for them.

Now, the same AP article also helpfully points out that the senior Senator from New York is no sideline observer in this debate. It notes that he moonlights as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. For people outside the beltway, that means he is in charge of recruiting and helping Democrat candidates for the Senate--which, this week, according to the AP, evidently involves holding up the stimulus bill over votes he thinks will help his candidates against Republicans in November.

Now I don't know if the thrust of this article was entirely accurate. But if it was, these are precisely the kind of shenanigans Americans had been hoping we could get past this year. And, frankly, Senate Republicans were hopeful after the speed with which the House approved its version of the growth package that Senate Democrats would also see the wisdom in coming together to deliver relief in a timely manner.

It's disappointing that politics would come to play a part in a deal that seemed refreshingly free from it for a change. But unfortunately, it seems the never-ending campaign that tainted so much of last year's Senate business has carried over to this year.

Last night, my good friend the majority leader suggested that Republicans were delaying action on the stimulus plan because we asked for some time to review his latest proposal--a full 4 days after he said he would deliver it. Never mind that passage of the Senate Democrats' bill forces a conference, worsening an already-prolonged process. Never mind that once we did take a look, we noticed an extra $1 billion in spending, which I think most Americans would consider a significant addition. And never mind that our friends on the other side had no intention of voting on the package today anyway.

We could have disposed of this stimulus package a week ago, but our Democratic colleagues wanted, as they said, to put their ``stamp'' on it.

Mr. President, I don't think Americans care one bit whether this bill has a Republican or a Democratic stamp on it. They are completely fed up with political gotcha. Americans want--and deserve--results.

Taxpayers will get their rebate checks and businesses will get their much-needed relief, but not without having to watch a show here for a few more days or a week--put on for the sake of a depressingly familiar political circus.

That is unacceptable to Republicans. I presume it is unacceptable to the 385 Democrats and Republicans who voted the stimulus package out of the House.

It is unacceptable to the more than 100 million American families who are probably still wondering why we are talking about this bill at all.

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