Democratic Inaction

Floor Speech

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, it is no secret that Congress isn't winning any popularity contest these days. Americans are fed up with lawmakers who are either focused on the wrong thing or determined to block any serious reforms that would actually get at the root of the problems we face. That is why Republicans have been focused not only on legislation which we think has a good chance of jump-starting private sector job creation in this country but which also has a good shot at actually becoming law. Put another way, since taking back the majority this year, Republicans in the House of Representatives have focused not only on legislation which avoids the economic missteps of the previous 2 1/2 years of Democratic control but legislation which also has a good shot of making it through a Democratic-led Senate.

You would never know it from listening to the President, but there has actually been a significant amount of bipartisan work that has been going on on Capitol Hill these days. House Republicans have passed bill after bill--many of them with solid bipartisan support--that would help spur private sector job creation and would help get this economy moving again, but the Democrats who have run the Senate for the past 5 years have ignored virtually all of it. Senate Democrats have decided it isn't in the interest of their party for Congress to get anything done right now. They have adopted a strict strategy of inaction. They simply won't take ``yes'' for an answer.

The contrast between Republicans who run the House and Democrats who run the Senate couldn't be starker. Since taking over the House this year, House Republicans have searched for areas of common ground and then invited Democrats who run the Senate to take them up and pass them and send them on down to the President for a signature. Almost every single time, Senate Democrats have said no.

House Republicans now count more than 15 pieces of legislation that would help us chart a very different path from the one the President and his Democratic-controlled Congress have charted over the past few years. This is legislation that would unlock America's energy resources, cut back on excessive regulations that are holding back job creation, and enable businesses, such as Boeing, to make their own decisions about how and where to expand.

Just last week, the House passed a bill to get rid of an IRS withholding tax on businesses that do work for the government. More than 400 Members of the House voted for this bill, including 170 Democrats. Here is how one prominent Democrat described this bill:

The repeal of this requirement will free up small businesses' cash flow, increasing their ability to add jobs and to bid on new projects.

Republicans support this legislation. Democrats support this legislation. The President included this legislation in his own jobs bill, and he supports the bill that passed the House last week. There is no reason the Senate shouldn't take it up right now. This is one small thing we can do right now to reduce the burden on employers across the country. We came together to help them earlier this month by passing free-trade bills. Let's build on that success and pass this bill the job creators are telling us will help protect and create jobs.

Like Senate Democrats, the President may think he benefits from the appearance of inaction in Congress. That is why he is running around the country reminding people how bad the economy is instead of urging Democrats who run the Senate to work with Republicans who run the House. But with all due respect to the President, the American people already know the economy is in bad shape. That is not news to anybody. They do not need the President to tell them that. They live it. What they need is for the President to get his party to agree to something that helps.

I know Democrats will argue that our proposals for job creation wouldn't be their first choice. My response is that the Democrats had 3 years to do something about jobs and the economy. The President's signature jobs bill cost nearly $1 trillion, and 2 1/2 years later there are 1 1/2 million fewer jobs in this country than on the day that legislation was signed. So why don't we try a different approach? Let's try an approach that actually takes into account the concerns of struggling business owners who are ultimately going to lift us out of this jobs crisis. They have told us what they want. It is not a mystery what we need to do to help these folks create jobs. Temporary fixes and more stimulus bills isn't it.

So our message is this: The Democrats in Washington need to start taking ``yes'' for an answer. Republicans have put forward more than a dozen concrete proposals to spur job creation in this country that avoid the economic mistakes Democrats made over the past few years. We have done the hard work of legislating and looking for areas where the parties overlap on the issues. It is time for the President to signal to Democrats in Congress that it is OK to work with us.

Everyone knows the economy is in bad shape. What Republicans are saying is that higher taxes and more government spending isn't the way to help it. Everyone knows the Federal Government in Washington is spending way too much money, money it doesn't have. What Republicans are saying is that the solution isn't to spend even more. Everyone knows that if the two parties are going to come together and act, we need to design legislation that appeals to both sides, and that is exactly what Republicans are doing.

It is time to put the political playbook aside and actually take action. Republicans in the House are doing their job. It is time for the President and Senate Democrats to do theirs.

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