A Different Approach

Floor Speech

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, there is no denying the fact that the policies of the past 2 1/2 years have made a bad situation worse. For 2 1/2 years, Democrats completely dominated this town. They got everything they wanted. And what happened? Unemployment has hovered at around 9 percent for 32 months. The so-called misery index is worse than it has been in more than 25 years. Consumer confidence is at levels last seen during the height of the financial crisis. But if one number really stands out, it is this: 1.5 million. That is the number of fewer jobs we now have in this country since the day President Obama signed his signature ``jobs bill'' into law.

These are just some of the numbers that all of us, Republicans and Democrats, read about every single day. But it is not the numbers that compel us to action; it is the stories that lie behind them. It is the millions of men and women who have seen their dreams shattered, their lives upended, and their potential unfulfilled.

What Republicans have been saying is that if we truly want to help improve the situation we are in, if we want to turn this ship around, then we need to learn from our mistakes and take a totally different approach. We know what policies haven't worked. We have tried that. What sense does it make to try those same policies again and again? That is why Republicans in the House and the Senate have been taking a different approach.

Democrats may control the White House, and they may control the Senate, but for the past 10 months Republicans in the other half of Congress have done their best to correct the mistakes and excesses of the previous 2 1/2 years and set us on a different course.

They have done something else that Democrats have not done over the past few years: Week after week, the Republican majority in the House of Representatives has been passing bills that actually have a chance--actually have a chance--of gaining bipartisan support and becoming law. They are actually trying to do something.

Unlike the President and the Democrats who run the Senate, House Republicans are designing legislation to pass rather than fail. They want to make a difference rather than make a point, and the only thing keeping these bills from becoming law is that the Democrats in the Senate will not take them up.

We know the President's strategy. His so-called jobs bill has one purpose and only one: to divide us. Just this morning I read a story that quoted some Democratic operative almost bragging about the fact they do not expect any of the legislation the President has been out there talking about on the bus tour to pass. They openly admit these bills are designed to fail.

It is not exactly a state secret that Republicans--and, yes, some Democrats--don't think we should be raising taxes right now on the very people we are counting on to create the jobs we need to get us out of the jobs crisis. Yet the one thing every single proposal Democrats bring to the floor has in common is it does just that.

So the Democrats' plan is to keep putting bills on the floor they know ahead of time we will vote against instead of trying to solve the problem. They do not even hide it. The President's top strategist actually issued a memo a few weeks ago stating the President would use this legislation not as a way to help people but as a way to pummel Republicans.

Meanwhile, House Republicans have passed bill after bill after bill actually designed to do something. On March 31 they passed H.R. 872, the Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act. It got 57 Democratic votes--57 Democratic votes--in the House, a bipartisan bill that could pass and become law. On April 7 they passed H.R. 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act. It got 19 Democratic votes. The list goes on and on. There are 15 of these, Madam President--15 of them--that have passed, and each with significant Democratic support--one with 33, one with 28, one with 21, one with 23, one with 16, one with 10, and one with 47 votes.

So there are 15 of these bills that have passed the House with bipartisan support, and in the Senate we don't take up any of them because we are busy taking up bills that everybody knows are not going to pass.

This week, over in the House, they are going to pass four more bills making it easier to hire out-of-work Americans. Just last week, House Republicans passed a bill that would repeal a law requiring the IRS to withhold 3 percent of future tax payments from any company that does business with the government--a bill the President himself said he would be willing to sign into law, and 170 Democrats voted for it. So why don't we pass it in the Senate? The President is waiting to sign it.

This is just the latest example of a simple bipartisan bill that struggling businesses are begging us to pass but that Senate Democrats are holding up right now because it doesn't fit the story line.

I am not saying we have to vote on every one of the bills the House passed just as they are--there is an amendment process for that--but why not take them up? Every one would help create jobs, and none--none--would raise taxes. That is what we call compromise. It is called finding common ground, and it is how the American people expect us to legislate.

What we are witnessing in Washington right now is two very different styles of governance: a Republican majority in the House that believes we should actually do something about the problems we face and which has put together and actually passed bipartisan legislation that would help address those problems, and a Democratic majority in the Senate that has teamed up with the White House on a strategy of doing nothing--nothing--all for the sake of trying to score political points and spreading the blame for an economy their own policies have cemented in place as they look ahead to an election that is still more than a year away.

The President's economic policies have failed to do what he said they would, and now he is designing legislation to fail. Americans are actually tired of failure. So Republicans are inviting Democrats to join us in succeeding at something--anything--around here that would make a difference.

I guess to sum it up, Madam President, what we are saying is, why don't we quit playing the political games? The problems we face are entirely too serious to ignore. Let's take up the bipartisan bills that House Republicans have already passed and actually do something. There is no better time to tackle the problems we face than now. Let's not squander this moment because some political strategist over in the White House is enamored with their own reelection strategy.

Let's take advantage of this moment to act when the two parties share power in Washington. As I often note, it is only when the two parties share power that they can share the credit and the blame. That is why some of the biggest legislative achievements have taken place at moments like this, and that is why I have been calling on Democrats in Washington--privately and publicly--for the past year to follow the example of those Congresses and those Presidents before us who were wise enough to seize an opportunity such as this one for the good of the country.

We face many serious crises as a nation. We know how to solve them. Let's not let this moment pass us by.

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