House Passed Jobs Bill

Floor Speech

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, later today the Senate is likely to finish the highway bill, and once we do--I listened carefully to the majority leader's remarks--once we finish the highway bill, we ought to immediately turn to the bipartisan jobs bill that passed the House last Thursday. The vote was 390 to 23. Let me say that again. The vote in the House was 390 to 23. The President also indicated that he would sign the House bill. So it strikes me that with the jobs emergency we have in this country with 8.3 percent unemployment--many more millions of Americans having given up trying to get in the workforce--the thing to do is to pocket this broad bipartisan bill and try to create jobs immediately.

I heard my friend the majority leader indicate that he wants to have a different version of it, to kind of recraft it. All that will do is slow down the process and make it more difficult to get this important jobs legislation to the President's desk rapidly. So I hope the majority leader will reconsider whether we need to kind of reinvent the wheel here. This is already a broadly supported bipartisan bill that the President has said he will sign as soon as we send it to him. I don't know why in the Senate we would want to make something that ought to be pretty simple extraordinarily complicated.

The Democratic-controlled Senate turns to something contentious instead of doing something that almost all of us agree on--certainly in the House--and the President agrees on that would focus on jobs and actually do some good. The American people think we have spent a lot of time spinning our wheels around here. Rather than trying to sort of manufacture gridlock and create the illusion of conflict where none should exist, why don't we demonstrate that we can actually get something done together? In a moment when millions of Americans are looking for work and millions more are struggling with the high price of gas, we have the opportunity to really do something together right now. As soon as we finish this highway bill, we can take up this jobs bill and send a small but important signal to job creators and innovators that we want to help make it easier for them to hire.

Later today we will have another chance to move forward on the Keystone Pipeline. Despite the President's continued stubborn opposition to it, we will have another vote offered by Senator Pat Roberts.

The House-passed jobs bill isn't just important for what it does but for what it also represents. It is a rare and welcomed signal that lawmakers in Washington still value the risk-takers and the entrepreneurs who have always been so vital to our Nation's greatness. After 3 years of policies that undermine free enterprise through the picking of winners and losers, this legislation sends an entirely different signal. It is a welcome step back in the right direction.

By clearing away redtape, it should encourage the kind of entrepreneurship that not only leads to new pockets of industry and the jobs that come with them but which also helps people fulfill their dreams--and without adding to the deficit. This bill doesn't add anything to the Federal deficit.

This is precisely what we should be doing right here in Washington. It is the message we should send. We don't need fewer Apples or Microsofts or Facebooks; we need more of them. We need them for the value they add to our lives, the edge they give us in the world economy, the jobs they provide to hundreds of thousands of American workers, and for the satisfaction they bring to those who help turn them from an idea into a reality.

So let's send this important signal that we still believe in opportunity, we still believe in innovation, and that when a common good is in sight--when we can see a common good right before us--we can still work together to actually achieve it.

This is so crucial that I want to renew what my colleague Jon Kyl did last night, which is to offer a unanimous consent request--I have told the majority leader I am going to do this--to turn to this important piece of bipartisan legislation, passed overwhelmingly in the House and supported by the President of the United States, immediately after we finish the highway bill.

Let me say again, there is no purpose served by manufacturing controversy here in the Senate--manufacturing controversy when none should exist. We have an important piece of jobs legislation passed overwhelmingly in the House, supported by the President. The highway bill will clear here later this afternoon or tomorrow. I think most Senators would rather be working on that which the American people believe would actually help create jobs than to see the Senate embroiled in another controversy which I fear my good friend the majority leader is seeking to precipitate as soon as the highway bill is concluded.

UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--H.R. 3606

I ask unanimous consent, notwithstanding any other rule of the Senate, that immediately following the disposition of the pending transportation bill, the Senate proceed to the consideration of H.R. 3606, a bill received from the House, which would increase American job creation and economic growth by improving access to public capital markets for emerging growth companies; I further ask unanimous consent that the bill remain the pending business to the exclusion of all other business until disposed of.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, not to continue the debate interminably, but it is a question of priorities. We can agree that we ought to pass this jobs bill. Certainly if it were called up, it would be open for amendment and the majority leader could offer the Ex-Im Bank amendment if he chose, and other Senators could as well. But it is a question of priorities: Do we want to have a big fight in the Senate over procedure--and we have had some procedural differences which I will address not right now but later--relating to the confirmation of judges, which is the responsibility of the Senate under the Constitution of the United States, or do we want to turn immediately to a jobs bill that we overwhelmingly agree to, as the majority leader has conceded in his remarks?

It is a question of priorities. Do we want to have the Senate in a big fight over procedure after we finish the highway bill or do we want to turn to an overwhelmingly bipartisan jobs bill supported by the President and passed by the House? It is a question of priorities. What do we want to do next for the American people?

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I think that colloquy underscores my point. My friends on the other side are concerned that the jobs of 17 individuals may be delayed for a few months. I doubt if any of them is unemployed at the moment. It is highly unlikely that any of these individuals will not be confirmed in an orderly process as we have been engaged in this year.

The issue is a question of priorities. What is more important, getting these 17 individuals into a job a little bit quicker than the majority has experienced so far or turning to a measure overwhelmingly supported by Republicans and Democrats in the House and supported by the President of the United States and that might create, in the very near future, hundreds of thousands of jobs? So it is a question of priorities. That is why I say this is a manufactured dispute.

I will have much more to say, in great detail, about the judges issue. But for the moment, the point is this, quite simply: What are our priorities? Do we want to pass an overwhelmingly bipartisan jobs bill the President supports as soon as possible--certainly open for any amendment the majority leader might seek to offer--or do we want to create a controversy over judges who are almost never denied confirmation when we have been confirming judges all along?

I don't know that there is much point to continuing this discussion any longer this morning. I will have a lot more to say about how we ended up in a situation where the majority leader is seeking to manufacture a crisis that shouldn't--a conflict or a crisis that doesn't exist.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McCONNELL. We have been discussing--this is not the best time for the debate on the judges, but the point is this: We have been processing judges. It is highly unlikely any of these district judges are not going to be confirmed. We have done a number of them this year. We have done seven this year. District judges are almost never defeated.

This is a very transparent attempt to try to slam-dunk the minority and make them look as though they are obstructing things they aren't obstructing. We object to that. We don't think that meets the standard of civility that should be expected in the Senate. So any effort to make the minority look bad or to slam-dunk them that is sort of manufactured, as this is, is going to, of course, be greeted with resistance. It could be that that is precisely what my friend the majority leader has in mind, to try to make the Senate look as though it is embroiled in controversy where no controversy exists.

So my suggestion is why don't we do first things first. First things first. And it strikes me that an overwhelming bipartisan jobs bill clearing the House would be something the American people would applaud. It is supported by the President. Why don't we take that up? The majority leader or any of us can offer any amendments we think are appropriate and move it toward passage, because that is the kind of thing people expect of us.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source