Working Together

Floor Speech

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, for the past 3 years, President Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress have spent most of their time pushing policies that actually undermine the private sector. They may have the best of intentions, but the fact is they made a bad economy worse. Unemployment has now stood at 9 percent for more consecutive months than for any other period since World War II, and there are now more than 1 million fewer jobs in this country than when the President's first stimulus bill was signed into law.

So the American people gave the President a chance to do something about jobs and the economy and he failed. That is why last year the American people put Republicans in charge of the House of Representatives--so they could try a different approach, and that is what they have done. For nearly a year now, House Republicans have been following through on their pledge to put Americans back to work by passing bill after bill aimed at helping businesses create jobs.

The problem is, every time Republicans pass one of these bills over in the House, Democrats in the Senate refuse to take it up. The Democrats who run the Senate are letting all these bills die.

Some people want to know why this is happening. They want to know why the Senate will not take up these bills. The answer is actually pretty simple. President Obama and his political advisers have put out the word they do not want Congress to get anything done around here until after next year's election, so the President can go around on the bus and blame Congress for the country's problems, and Democrats in the Senate are lining up right behind him. They are doing the President's bidding.

But that is not stopping Republicans in the House from doing the work they were elected to do, and it is not going to keep the Republican minority in the Senate from calling on Democrats to act.

To date, House Republicans have passed more than 20 pieces of legislation designed to do two things: make it easier for small businesses to create jobs and bills that would pass on a broad bipartisan basis.

Last week, I highlighted 15 such bills the House had already passed and that Senate Democrats should take up. This week, Senate Republicans will highlight several additional such bills the House passed just last week. We are going to keep on talking about these bills until Senate Democrats realize there is no reason we shouldn't take them up, pass them on a bipartisan basis, and actually do something on jobs around here.

For nearly 3 years, President Obama has demanded we pass massive legislation he knows Republicans have problems with. What we are saying is, let's start with things that have bipartisan support and that we know can pass instead of that other approach.

Since Republicans control the House and Democrats control the Senate, we are not likely to agree on big partisan stuff. But there are a lot of other job-creating measures we actually could agree on. Why don't we focus on them? Let's work together on the things we can all agree on, as we did last month on the trade agreements.

Here is just one example out of many. Last week, the House passed a bill called the Small Company Capital Formation Act, H.R. 1070. It got 421 votes, including 183 Democrats. Only one person in the House voted against the bill.

Here is a jobs bill that is about as popular as Mother's Day. There is no reason not to pass it in the Senate right now. Right now, promising businesses aren't going public because they simply can't afford the high cost of managing the mountain of government paperwork they are required to under current law. So instead of going out there and raising money to grow and hire, they are holding back. They are not expanding and they are not hiring.

We recently heard from the CEO of a pharmaceutical company from Fort Washington, PA, who said companies such as his are at a major disadvantage if they come up with promising new drugs. He has at least one such promising new drug in the pipeline for chronic kidney disease but can't take it to the next level. If firms such as this want to expand and hire, they need to be able to raise capital from investors so they do not go into debt. But current law keeps them from doing so because of all the regulatory burdens that come along with it. I think we should be removing these barriers to growth for companies such as this one, and 183 Democrats in the House actually agree with me.

President Obama actually supports the idea too. He said so in his speech to a joint session of Congress back in September. So this bill is as bipartisan as it gets. One will not find a bill any more bipartisan than this--passed overwhelmingly in the House and supported by the President of the United States. The only thing standing in the way right now is Senate Democrats. They just will not take yes for an answer.

It is only a matter of time before the American people catch on to the Democrats' refusal to act. Once they do, Republicans will be ready with a long and growing list of bipartisan bills that have already passed the House and that we believe the President of the United States would sign. So let's not delay any longer. Let's stop the games, and let's do the work we were sent to do.

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