The Economy

Floor Speech

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, over the past few weeks, Americans have gotten what seems like a daily dose of bad news about the state of the economy. Whether it is more joblessness, threats from ratings agencies, the price of gasoline, goods and housing, or a slowdown in manufacturing, people are finding very little reason for optimism, and they are getting little comfort from an administration that seems more interested in deflecting the bad news than facing up to it. Amidst the onslaught of bad news last week, President Obama's message was that we had hit some bumps in the road--we had hit some bumps in the road--and that people need to be patient in the face of what he called economic ``headwinds.'' He even joked about the wildly mistaken predictions he and others at the White House had made a few years back about the job-creating potential of the stimulus.

Well, I don't think the 14 million Americans who are looking for jobs right now find any of this very funny. I don't think the 23 percent of Americans who now owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth are laughing about their predicament. I don't think recent college

graduates, who are burdened with tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt and who can't find a job, are amused that the stimulus turned out to be a failure.

In fact, I think Americans are deeply troubled by the fact that an administration which claims to be concerned about creating jobs has spent the better part of the past 2 1/2 years--the better part of the last 2 1/2 years--pushing policies that seem as though they were designed to destroy jobs instead. Indeed, I think there is a growing consensus out there that, far from improving the economy, the President has made it worse.

The facts speak for themselves. The day the President took office, 12 million Americans were out of work. Today, nearly 14 million Americans are out of work. That is a 17-percent increase in the unemployment rate under President Obama. So employment is clearly worse.

Gas prices have nearly doubled. When the President came into office, the average price of a gallon of gas in the country was $1.85. Today, it is $3.69. So gas prices have gotten worse.

The national debt has reached crisis levels. In the last 2 years, the debt has gone from $10.6 trillion to $14.3 trillion--a 35-percent increase from when the President was sworn into office. And his own budget projects it will only continue to grow. So the debt is far worse.

Health insurance premiums have gone up. For more than a year, the President devoted what seemed like every waking moment to a health care proposal that he said would lower health insurance premiums by as much as $2,500. Instead, health premiums for working families continue to rise, and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says they will continue to grow by as much as $2,100 per year. So health insurance costs have gotten worse.

Home values continue to plummet too. In my State of Kentucky, home prices have fallen about 7 percent in the last year, while new home construction is down almost 15 percent. I have constituents with excellent credit telling me they can't get a mortgage because of new lending rules that have made it hard even for people who have worked for years and built a stellar credit rating to even get a loan. Nationally, home values have gone down 12 percent since Inauguration Day. So home values have gotten worse too, driving down the equity people have built over many years.

When it comes to policy, the President is fond of dividing the world into two camps. In his view, those who disagree with him are on the wrong side of history. Those who agree are on the right side. Well, at this point, I think most Americans agree if this is the right side of history, they are not interested; they would rather have their jobs back.

At this point, I think it is safe to say the patience of the American people has run out. Administration officials made a lot of promises of a brighter future. They have had their chance to deliver. Americans don't have infinite patience. They do not want to be told to wait a little longer when all the evidence shows that their circumstances and their prospects are only getting worse. They want a change in direction.

One of the liberal think tanks in town recently issued a press release that I think embodies the disconnect between Democrats in Washington and the experience of most people outside of Washington. In the face of all the bad economic news we have been getting, this particular think tank announced it had 10 charts which purported to show that, contrary to the claims of some, the United States is actually a low-tax country.

Never mind the fact that we have the second highest corporate tax rate in the world; never mind the fact that nearly 14 million Americans are out of work; never mind the fact that the time it takes out-of-work Americans to find a new job is now longer than it was during the Great Depression--and that since the housing crisis began, average home values have fallen more dramatically than they did even during the Great Depression. Never mind all that. These guys have 10 charts they want to show you that prove government should take more money out of the hands of taxpayers so they can spend it themselves.

I think this is all you need to know about the Democratic approach to the economy. It never seems to change. Take almost any major economic indicator you want, Americans are worse off than they were in 2009. It is time Democrats wake up to this fact. It is time they do something to solve these problems and help the people right in front of them.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Source