Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, let me say in response to the colloquy we just heard that it used to be the assistant majority leader's view that, as he put it, if you don't want to fight fires, don't become a firefighter, and if you don't want to cast tough votes, don't come to the Senate. Obviously, those days have changed.

What really happened over the last week is the refusal to have an open amendment process, the refusal to treat both sides the same. The final proposal we objected to yesterday requiring all the amendments to get 60 votes but final passage only 51 still does not restore the Senate to the way it has formerly functioned. Any Member of the Senate ought to be able to have a fair chance to get his or her amendment adopted. That is the way it used to be around here before the majority leader decided to dictate everything everyone does.

So what we are seeking is fundamental fairness and, on this particular bill, an open amendment process and an opportunity to pay for it. I think the real concern was that the majority leader was afraid that some of the Republican amendments might actually pass, might actually enjoy bipartisan support.

So we will get back to that bill. It is a very important bill. But if anybody had any doubts that Washington Democrats wanted to see the unemployment insurance bill fail, well, I think we had those doubts erased yesterday and by the comments just made. It is just the latest example of Senate Democrats putting politics over policy. And in this case it is doubly tragic because this time they are putting politics over struggling families who deserve some certainty from Congress.

Look. It is no secret that our Democratic friends plan to spend the year exploiting folks who are still struggling in this economy for political gain. They have been telling reporters that for weeks. That is no secret, but that doesn't make it any less disturbing. It is still wrong.

I would probably want to be talking about something other than ObamaCare too, if I had voted for it. They want to talk about anything other than ObamaCare. But to create a conflict where the possibility of agreement was so close while more than 1 million people are stuck in the middle is just simply outrageous--making pawns out of these people stuck in the middle of this political game.

Here is the larger issue. Here we are in the sixth year of this administration, and we are still talking about emergency unemployment benefits--6 years into the Obama administration. After all the stimulus bills and all the other big-government solutions we were told would help the little guy, we are still looking at record long-term unemployment. We are still looking at hundreds of thousands of able-bodied men and women basically giving up on finding work in this economy in the last month alone, in just 1 month. One report I saw even suggested that about half of our Nation's counties have yet to return to their prerecession economic output--half the counties in America.

The bottom line: The Obama economy isn't working for middle-class Americans.

Democrats tell us again and again that their policies will help people who are struggling. Yet we always seem to end up in the very same situation--debating whether to provide more emergency help instead of talking about how to provide a long-term solution and a stable economy that doesn't require permanent life support from Washington.

What is needed is a fundamental course correction. What is needed is for our colleagues to finally acknowledge what has failed and then actually work with us on the underlying problem. That is what Republicans are saying in this debate. What we are saying is, how about actually trying to create jobs for a change?

That will be the President's challenge today when he speaks in North Carolina. We hear he might lay out some ideas to get the private sector moving again. If that is the case, then maybe he will be taking a step in the right direction--a step away from big-government policies that have failed so many Americans for so many years--because if he is truly serious about getting the economy back on track and creating jobs, he will do more than just talk about job creation or bipartisanship today; he will actually work with us on real bipartisan solutions to get there, and there are some simple ways he can show he means it.

The Republican-controlled House has sent over a number of bills that would give a boost to jobs and to our economy. A good start would be for the President to lean on Democrats who run the Senate to take up those for immediate consideration.

He could acknowledge the real pain ObamaCare is inflicting on middle-class families and then work with us to start over with real bipartisan reforms that actually lower costs and won't hurt the economy the way ObamaCare does.

He could call for true bipartisan tax reforms.

He could announce construction of the Keystone Pipeline. I see the Senator from Pennsylvania on the floor, who will remember that the President came to a lunch with Senate Republicans last year, and the President said he would make a decision on the Keystone Pipeline last year, sometime during 2013. Apparently, that was in the same category: If you have your policy and you like it, you can keep it. If you have your doctor and you like them, you can keep them. I will make a decision on Keystone Pipeline by the end of 2013. Well, we are still waiting.

He could actually deliver on one of the brightest spots of his economic agenda: trade. That means that instead of allowing the United States to lag behind our trading partners, the President could find a way to bring his party on board with a bipartisan bill introduced last week that would get the administration back in the game of helping American workers with increased exports.

These are just a few of the many areas where we could work together to get some good things done for the American people.

I hope he will be serious in his speech today. I hope he will focus on actually getting the job done instead of just providing another distraction from the pain of ObamaCare and the Obama economy because if this devolves into just another political exercise that is focused more on making a point than making a real difference in the lives of people who are struggling, that is not going to help middle-class families get back on their feet. That won't help college graduates find full-time work. All it will do is continue a cycle of economic pain that the President needs to work with Republicans to stop.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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