Creating Jobs by Providing Payroll Tax Relief for Middle Class Families and Businesses--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McCONNELL. The last time my good friend the majority leader and I had a discussion on the floor, he reminded everyone he would get the last word. Of course, since he has prior recognition to me, he can get the last word if he chooses. So I will just remind him of that at the outset. He will get the last word if he chooses to. I will not fight for the last word, but I will make this point with regard to the observation from my good friend.

We have just heard essentially the argument going into next year's election. Argument No. 1 is it could have been worse. That is an inspiring message to take to the American people. It could have been worse.

We also heard argument No. 2. The second argument goes essentially like this: After being in the administration in power for 3 years, No. 1, it is George Bush's fault. Among other causes of our current dilemma that have been cited by the President and others, in addition to the previous administration, it was a tsunami in Japan, it is the European debt crisis, of course it is the Republicans in Congress, it is those millionaires, it is those people in Wall Street. In short, it is everybody's fault but ours. That is the argument they are left with when they are going into an election year facing the American people and they have nothing else to say.

People don't think the stimulus worked. People don't like ObamaCare. They don't like Dodd-Frank. There is absolutely nothing, in terms of positive accomplishment, our good friends can cite; thus the argument: It is anybody's fault but mine.

It will be an interesting discussion going into next year, but it strikes me that our job in the Senate is not to frame campaign arguments on a weekly basis but actually try to get something done. As my friend indicated, there are things that need to be done before the end of this year: The Defense authorization bill that we will finish this week, the appropriations bills in one way or another--either a combination of them or a continuing resolution, each of them, through the end of the next fiscal year.

We have tax extenders. We have the doc fix. We have the completion, in spite of the exercise we will engage in tomorrow, with two approaches to continuing the payroll tax extension. I have already indicated the overwhelming majority of Republicans think it should be extended, and so we will have to figure out how to package that and actually accomplish something, not just come out on the floor and score political points but actually accomplish something for the American people on things such as unemployment insurance, extension of the payroll tax reduction enacted a year ago, and the doc fix. These are the kinds of things that actually have to be done. The more time we spend on the floor with these political messaging votes, the less time we actually have to do what the American people sent us to do.

So I will be working with my friend, the majority leader. I mean, we work together every day. When we get past the political speeches and the show votes, there are things that need to be done, and we will be working together to get those things accomplished before Christmas.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source