The Economy

Floor Speech

Mr. McCONNELL. It has been 1 week now since the President unveiled his second stimulus. Today, 1 week later, White House aides are expected to hold a briefing to explain it all to the Democrats who do not understand the details.

One would think they would want to be briefed on details before the President demanded they pass it right away, not after. Then, again, the White House probably expected stronger support from Democrats than it has gotten so far. After all, this bill's top selling point, according to the President, is that both parties should like it. Yet so far the only thing both parties in Congress seem to agree on is there has to be a better way.

Earlier this week, after several of us suggested the President would have a hard time convincing Members of his own party to support this plan, a number of them have proved us right. While the President was in Ohio insisting over and over that Congress pass the bill, it seemed as though the only Democrats who were even willing to talk about it on Capitol Hill were tearing it apart. We had the Democratic majority leader basically treating it like a legislative afterthought. One freshman Senator called parts of the bill frustrating and unfair. Another Democrat called a central part of the bill terrible. One veteran Democrat was tamping down expectations of it passing in one piece. Another veteran Democrat suggested a completely different approach to jobs. I know the President and his advisers are keen on this idea of making Republicans look bad, but from what I can tell, he has a big problem at the moment lining up supporters in his own party.

That brings me to the real issue. The truth is, the President has a problem that no amount of political strategizing can solve: His economic policies simply have not worked. Yet he and his advisers seem to be the only folks in Washington who are not ready to admit it. We are in the middle of a crisis. The average length of unemployment is at an alltime high. Median income is going down instead of up. Poverty levels are higher than they have ever been in two decades. Millions of Americans cannot find work. The numbers just keep getting worse and the President's solution is to demand another Washington stimulus bill. Is that because the first one worked out so well?

The first stimulus is a national punch line: turtle tunnels, sidewalks to nowhere, and now we are hearing reports that the White House fast-tracked a $ 1/2 billion loan to a politically connected energy firm that their own analyst said was not ready for prime time. This place, this energy firm, was supposed to be the poster child of how the original stimulus would create jobs. Now it is bankrupt and most of its 1,100 employees are out of work. And they want another stimulus?

Even if we do not know about any of the waste or the alleged cronyism, here is the bottom line: 2 1/2 years after the President signed the first stimulus, there are 1.7 million fewer jobs in this country. That is 1.7 million fewer jobs after borrowing and spending $825 billion to create them. What more do we need to know than that? We have done that. We have gone down that road before. Shouldn't we try something different? How about we do what just about every job creator in America is telling us they need in order to create jobs? Tax reform. Loosening the grip of government regulations and free-trade agreements. That is how we will create a better environment for jobs in our country. It might mean the President doesn't get his tax hikes, but it would mean more jobs.

I know some people sometimes get attached to a single idea, and this President seems to have come into office with one big idea; that there is not a problem we have in this country that bigger government cannot solve. At a certain point, we have to take stock. We have to check the results and see how we are doing. I think it is pretty clear to most people what the results suggest. It is time to change course.

I yield the floor.

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