[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 10 (Tuesday, January 24, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S52-S53]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        THE PRESIDENT'S POLICIES

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, tonight the President of the United 
States will come to the Capitol to give us his sense of the state of 
the Union. This is a venerable tradition, and we welcome him. Yet it is 
hard not to feel a sense of disappointment even before tonight's speech 
is delivered because while we do not yet know all the specifics, we do 
know the goal. Based on what the President's aides have been telling 
reporters, the goal is not to conquer the Nation's problems, it is to 
conquer Republicans. The goal is not to prevent gridlock but to 
guarantee it.
  Here is how the New York Times summed up the President's election-
year strategy in a recent article entitled ``Obama to Turn Up Attacks 
on Congress in Campaign.'' Here is the quote:

       In terms of the president's relationship with Congress in 
     2012 . . . the president is no longer tied to Washington, 
     D.C.

  According to the story, winning a full-year extension of the cut in 
payroll taxes is the last--the last--``must do'' piece of legislation 
for the White House.
  Here is how a White House aide described the President's election-
year strategy just a couple of weeks ago, presumably just as tonight's 
speech was being drafted. Referring to past displays of bipartisanship, 
he said:

       [Then] we were in a position of legislative compromise by 
     necessity. That phase is behind us. . . .

  So, as I see it, the message from the White House is that the 
President has basically given up. He got nearly everything he wanted 
from Congress for the first 2 years of his Presidency. The results are 
in. It is not good. So he has decided to spend the rest of the year 
trying to convince folks that the results of the economic policies he 
put in place are somehow Congress's fault and not his.
  Well, my message is this: This debate is not about what Congress may 
or may not do in the future, it is about what this President has 
already done. The President's policies are now firmly in place. It is 
his economy now. We are living under the Obama economy. The President 
may want to come here tonight and make it sound as if he just somehow 
walked in the door. A better approach is to admit that his 3-year 
experiment in big government has made our economy worse and our 
Nation's future more uncertain and it is time for a different approach. 
That is the message the American people delivered to the President in 
November of 2010, and they are still waiting.
  The President will tell the American people tonight that he has a 
blueprint for the economy. What he will fail to mention is that we have 
been working off the President's blueprint now for 3 years--for 3 
years. And what has it gotten us? Millions still looking for work, 
trillions in debt, and the first credit downgrade in U.S. history.
  The President will propose ideas tonight that sound good and have 
bipartisan support. If he is serious about these proposals, if he 
really wants to enact them, he will encourage Democrats who run the 
Senate to keep them free from poison pills such as tax hikes on job 
creators that we know from past experience turn bipartisan support into 
bipartisan opposition.
  If the President wants someone to blame for this economy, he should 
start with himself. The fact is, any CEO in America with a record like 
this after 3 years on the job would be graciously shown the door. This 
President blames the managers instead. He blames the folks on the shop 
floor. He blames the weather.
  Well, you are certainly within your rights to walk away from the 
legislative process if you like, Mr. President. You can point the 
finger all you like. But you cannot walk away from your record.
  I saw a survey the other day that contained a number of sobering 
findings. It was a poll of small business leaders. It said that more 
than 8 out of 10 of them now believe the U.S. economy is on the wrong 
track. Eight in ten said they would rather have Washington stay out of 
the way than try to help them. Nearly 9 out of 10 said they would 
rather have more certainty from Washington than assistance. And it said 
that nearly one-third of all those surveyed said they are not hiring on 
account of the health care bill. One-third of them said they were not 
hiring on account of the health care bill. What this survey says to me 
is that the policies of this administration are literally crushing--
crushing--the private sector. They are stifling job creation, and they 
are holding the economy back.
  Americans want Washington to get out of the way. Yet this President 
continues to have the same two-word answer he has always had for 
seemingly every single problem we face: more government. And this is 
the economy we have to show for it.
  Last week, the President had an opportunity to do something on his 
own about the ongoing jobs crisis. The only thing that stood in the way 
of the single biggest shovel-ready infrastructure project in America 
was him. The Keystone Pipeline was just the kind of project he had been 
calling for in speeches for months, and he said no; that one could 
wait. Here is a project he knew would create thousands of jobs 
instantly. He said no. A project that would not have cost taxpayers a 
dime. He said no. That would have brought more energy from our ally 
Canada and less from the Middle East. He said no. It all came down to 
one question: Was the Keystone Pipeline in the national interest? He 
said no.
  As one columnist put it, his own standard was not the national 
interest, it was his own political interest. Americans want jobs, and 
the President is studying an election that took place 60 years ago to 
see how he can save his own job.
  He sided with the liberal environmental base over the energy and 
security interests of the American people. That is exactly what we are 
now being told we can expect for the rest of the year.

  In last year's State of the Union, the President talked about how we 
need to win the future--win the future. This year he just wants to win 
the next campaign. The President can decide he is not interested in 
working with Congress if his party only controls one-half of it. That 
is his prerogative. He can give up on bipartisanship, but we will not; 
our problems are too urgent. The economy is too weak. The future is too 
uncertain.
  The President knows as well as I do that when he has called for 
action on things for which there exists bipartisan support, Republicans 
have been his strongest allies. Last year in the State of the Union, he 
called for free-trade agreements. We worked hard to get them done and 
we did. Since then he called for an extension of the highway and FAA 
bills and the jobs that come with them. We did both with strong 
bipartisan support. The President asked

[[Page S53]]

for patent reform. We got that done too.
  The President knows as well as we do we are happy to work with him 
whenever he is willing to work with us. If he turns his back on that 
good-faith offer, as we expect he will this year, we will remind people 
the problems we face are not about what Congress may or may not do in 
the future but what this President has already done--what has already 
happened.
  Let the President turn his back on bipartisanship, let the press 
cover every futile speech and every staged event, but we intend to do 
our jobs. We invite him to join us.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________