[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 88 (Tuesday, June 12, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3932-S3933]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Job Creation

  The first thing I wish to mention is that my friend the Republican 
leader talked about the fact that the President has not done enough to 
create jobs.
  Mr. President, we all have heard that longstanding joke--in fact, it 
was not a joke. I represented a young man who murdered his parents, and 
the joke during that period of time was, I guess now your defense is 
going to be that he is going to claim he is an orphan. There was 
nothing novel or new or unique in the experience I had representing 
that young man who had killed his parents, but the Republican leader's 
remarks remind me of that. He is saying that the problem with this 
country is President Obama. That is like the fact that someone kills 
their parents and then claims they are an orphan.
  Republicans have blocked bill after bill after bill. These pieces of 
legislation have been suggested by, introduced by friends of President 
Obama. These were all job-creating bills, and simply every one of 
these, with rare exception, has been stopped on a procedural basis by 
the Republicans.
  Then the Republican leader cites nonrelevant Republican amendments 
they would like to offer on the farm bill as ways to create jobs. But 
it is precisely these nonrelevant, nongermane amendments that keep the 
Senate from doing its work--its job-creating work--like the farm bill. 
The farm bill involves 16 million people who work doing farm programs. 
We have not done one in 5 years. The highway bill is something we are 
waiting for Republicans in the House to move with us on.
  So I would just simply say that we live in a world that is imperfect. 
We live in a country that is imperfect. But let's give credit where 
credit is due. President Obama and this administration found themselves 
in a terribly deep hole when he was elected 3\1/2\ years ago. The 
administration he replaced lost more than 8 million jobs--about 1 
million jobs a year in the prior administration. And President Obama 
has had 27 straight months of private sector job creation. So I think 
we deserve and he deserves some credit for the work he has done in that 
regard.
  So I really strongly object to the Republican leader's remarks. It is 
just simply wrong. And if we had some cooperation from my friends on 
the other side of the aisle, as we say, we would have a lot more jobs 
created in this country. But my friend has said that his No. 1 issue is 
to defeat President Obama, and that is what has happened here. We 
simply have not been able to legislate appropriately because that is 
their mantra.

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