Troubling Realities

Floor Speech

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, earlier this week we passed the 5-year mark since the financial crisis hit our country. Incredibly, President Obama tried to use that opportunity to take credit for the fact that things aren't as bad as they were back then, and he is back at it again today. Basically, his message is this: America isn't in a free fall, so everyone should give him a big pat on the back.

Well, as far as deflections go, it is pretty creative, but it is also pretty misleading because in an effort to justify his own failed policies and preserve them, the President is papering over some pretty troubling realities. The truth is, for most Americans, the past few years have felt like anything but a recovery. It has been a story of lost jobs and underemployment and the loss of dignity that comes with both. It has been a period of stagnant wages and an increasing disparity between rich and poor. Then there are all the young people who have been stunned to realize, after graduating from college, that there just aren't any jobs out there. So now is not the time for victory laps because if this is his idea of success, I would hate to see what failure looks like.

Today, nearly 8 million Americans who want full-time jobs can only find part-time work. That is nearly twice as many involuntary part-timers as we had throughout most of the previous administration. And, of course, ObamaCare will make this much worse. What is more, the poor and middle-income folks and those just starting out on their own are some of the people who have been struggling the most in the Obama economy. The unemployment rate for low-income Americans, for instance, now stands at 21 percent--21 percent unemployment for low-income Americans--right about where it was during the Great Depression.

The President likes to claim credit for jobs created since the so-called recovery began, but what he fails to mention is that there are still fewer jobs today than before the crisis hit, while real median wages haven't gone up at all over the past 5 years.

Even though Candidate Obama promised to ``spread the wealth around,'' we find that 95 percent of recent income gains have actually gone to the richest among us. Ninety-five percent of recent income gains have gone to the richest among us. In other words, we are again faced with the tragic irony that those on the left who claim most loudly to be standing for fairness and equality often end up getting the worst results for those who need help the most. To paraphrase President Reagan's old line about the apostles of ``fairness,'' maybe they are fair in one way: Their policies don't discriminate; they bring misery to everybody--unless, of course, we are speaking of the elite of the elite. We all know why that is. Because when government policies hurt economic growth by stifling opportunities and drying up investment, it is the American worker who loses. It is those at the bottom of the economic ladder who suffer the most.

The best thing we can do to help the poor and working class is to get the private sector growing again. And we know how it is done--by implementing things such as a more competitive tax code, regulatory relief, approval of the Keystone Pipeline, and, of course, repealing ObamaCare, which is killing jobs.

The fact is that the policies of today's Washington Democrats actually entrench unfairness and make the playing field even more uneven.

Even the President's allies are beginning to understand. Big Labor wants to rewrite some provisions of the same ObamaCare law they helped muscle through. Why? Because, predictably, ObamaCare is now hurting the 40-hour workweek and undermining the kind of employer-sponsored plans their members like and were told they would be able to keep. Union bosses also know that the President recently agreed to delay parts of the law for businesses. Now they want relief too. Why for business and not for unions? But what about everybody else? What about the middle class? What about college graduates or young couples trying to make ends meet while they start a family? Don't those folks deserve some relief from ObamaCare too?

That is why Senator Coats and I filed an amendment last week that would allow everyone else to take advantage of the ObamaCare delay already offered to businesses. If companies get to catch a break, then Republicans think the middle class should too. The Democrats who run Washington need to stop blocking us from even taking a vote on this important legislation--legislation that already passed the House of Representatives, by the way, on a bipartisan basis.

After all, as I have already indicated, ObamaCare is a big reason we are turning into a nation of part-time workers and that so many Americans will lose their jobs and the health care plans they like. It is also one of the reasons the rate of those either working or looking for work has dropped back to Carter-era levels--Carter-era levels--and that the average time it takes to find a job is longer than it has been literally in decades.

These are all good reasons not just to delay but to repeal this law and start over with bipartisan reforms that can actually reduce costs instead of killing jobs. I have confidence we will get there eventually because the only person who seems to be happy with ObamaCare is the guy it is named after--the guy it is named after. Because when everyone from union bosses to working moms wants to repeal this act, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the people standing in the way are more interested in what is good for their legacies than what is good for the country.

But, look, I am still holding out hope. I hope the President will take this 5-year anniversary of the financial crisis as a chance to reflect and to change course. I hope he will finally admit that what he has tried thus far has not worked; that it is not enough to just improve the lot of those who have influence in government; that he has to work for the middle class too. I hope he starts working with Members of both parties to start over on health care, to put our economy on a sound and sustainable footing, to get spending under control so we do not leave the same kind of mess to our children, as CBO again warned us yesterday.

Most important, I am hoping he starts thinking of ways to give those who are struggling in this economy a real chance to succeed. When he does, Republicans will be here ready to work with him, as we have since he first came to office.

I yield the floor.

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