Terrorism Insurance Program Authorization Act -- Motion to Proceed --

Floor Speech

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the ongoing humanitarian crisis at the border seems to be getting worse by the day. Large numbers of foreign nationals are unlawfully entering our country, and it is mainly due to the administration's failure to enforce immigration laws and secure the border.

This is a real crisis. So we are taking a hard look at the proposal the President sent over, but we want to make sure we actually get the right tools to fix the problem, and that is not what we have seen so far from the President. What he appears to be asking for is a blank check--one that would allow him to sustain his current failed policy.

Last night in a speech that attempted to shift the blame from his failed approach, he doubled down on a blank check, which is what he has asked for. He led Americans to believe that the problem could be solved if only Congress would pass his last-minute request, but it is not that simple. Much more needs to be done, and the President certainly knows it. His original letter to Congress called for reforms we all know are needed to address the crisis. Under pressure from the left, he has since backed away from these critical reforms, but lawmakers in both parties have not. So he needs to work with us to get the right policy into effect, not just throw money at the problem--get the right policy into effect.

He needs to halt this endless campaigning, at least for a moment. With the President actually in the region right now, one would think he would be able to carve out just a few minutes to view the situation on the border for himself. Apparently, though, he has decided there are more important things to do--such as campaigning with Gary Hart and practicing his bank shot.

All this continues to make the President look detached from the ongoing crisis on the border. Even a Democratic Congressman has called it ``bizarre.'' Honestly, this is just the latest example of a much broader pattern he has displayed, a pattern that makes him appear disconnected from the day-to-day concerns of most Americans.

The fact is on issue after issue--but especially on issues affecting the middle class--instead of addressing the huge problems his policies have created, the President keeps retreating into the bubble with his favorite leftwing pals--the kind of folks who always tell him what a great job he is doing, and of course that is what they do. Unlike most Americans, these are not generally the kinds of people who worry about car payments or utility bills or tuition or medical costs.

When the President does try to prove he is willing to listen to the concerns of average Americans--as he did this week--it is usually little more than a photo-op. But if the President is truly serious about helping the middle class, he will stop trying to convince everyone of that. He will join Republicans to actually do something about it because we have been asking him to join us for a long time now. It is about time he took us up on the offer.

We have already introduced a number of bills aimed squarely at addressing the squeeze our constituents are feeling. One of our bills would restore the 40-hour workweek and reverse a pay cut that is built into ObamaCare. Others would do things such as increase educational opportunities and put an end to policies that prevent women from getting pay raises when they outperform their male colleagues.

One bill I introduced with Senator Ayotte--the Family Friendly and Workplace Flexibility Act--would allow workers to take time off as a form of overtime compensation. It is an idea that is tailored to the needs of our modern workforce. It is something a lot of working men and women say they want, and there is no reason not to provide a little more flexibility to working families.

Another bill I introduced would reduce the cost and hassle of childcare for working parents by allowing them to write off a home office, even if they happen to have a crib in the room. Current law prevents working moms and dads from taking that deduction if they care for a child while working at home. This is simply unfair.

Making that change is just common sense, and so are all of the bills we have introduced.

Our middle-class agenda is not built around creating massive government bureaucracies or taking from one struggling neighbor to give to another. It is about identifying smart, commonsense fixes that can have a significant impact on the lives of the people we represent--middle-class Americans who have never felt more squeezed.

There is no reason the President and his Democratic allies should not be able to embrace such commonsense ideas too. Unfortunately, President Obama's Democratic majority in the Senate has blocked just about everything we have proposed--just as they blocked the dozens of bills that have already passed the House of Representatives.

As just about everyone acknowledges at this point, the Democratic-run Senate has become the place where good ideas go to die. The Democratic leadership will not even listen to its own Members anymore. So it is no wonder that one Democratic Senator remarked that he has never experienced a less productive time in his life than right now in the Senate. That was a Democratic Senator saying that--never experienced a less productive time in his life than right now in the Senate.

Well, it is time for Washington Democrats to stop obstructing jobs and opportunity for the middle class. They need to understand that their powerful pals on the left will continue doing just fine in the Obama economy. It is time to stop worrying so much about them and to start paying more attention to the vast American middle class, to the people who feel Washington has not been listening to them over the past few years.

I am talking about people whose wages are stagnant, people who are either unemployed or cannot find work to match their skills, and people who feel the burden of outdated policies that are diminishing opportunities in the workplace and leaving them torn between the demands of work and family.

Republicans are committed to doing everything we can to deliver relief and innovative new ideas to help these Americans. I hope President Obama and Washington Democrats will at some point here finally join us in the effort.

Source