[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 111 (Tuesday, July 30, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Page S6030]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   RECOGNITION OF THE MINORITY LEADER

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Markey). The Republican leader is 
recognized.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, today, the President will continue his 
campaign road tour in Chattanooga. We hear he plans to make an 
announcement about corporate taxes. And while I understand he is 
looking for headlines here, reports indicate that the policy he intends 
to announce doesn't exactly qualify as news. It is just a further-left 
version of a widely panned plan he already proposed 2 years ago--this 
time with extra goodies for tax-and-spend liberals.
  The plan, which I just learned about last night, lacks meaningful 
bipartisan input, and the tax hike it includes is going to dampen any 
boost businesses might otherwise get to help our economy. In fact, it 
could actually hurt small businesses. And it represents an unmistakable 
signal that the President has literally backed away from his campaign-
era promise to corporate America that tax reform would be revenue 
neutral to them.
  Not only is this a rebuke to one of his party's most senior 
Senators--the Finance Committee Chairman--it also represents a serious 
blow to one of the best chances for true bipartisan action in 
Washington. I truly hope the President reconsiders this plan and 
consults with Congress before moving any further.
  Two summers ago, Republicans and Democrats came together to agree on 
a set of spending caps for the following decade. President Obama agreed 
to it, as did the leaders of both parties in the Senate and the House.
  It was essentially a promise made to the American people that 
Washington would reduce spending by $2.1 trillion, and I was happy to 
help lead the effort.
  Well, 2 years later Democrats are now trying to find ways to walk 
away from it.
  They are pressing to abandon the 2011 agreement in favor of higher 
spending, as evidenced by appropriations bills like the one we're 
considering this week--which hikes up spending by double digits. And 
the President is now actually threatening to veto bills that live up to 
that commitment we all made.
  Let me repeat that: The President of the United States who, during 
the campaign, took credit for the very savings Democrats now want to 
walk away from, is threatening to veto spending bills that would 
actually follow the law and live up to the commitment he himself 
signed.
  This represents a stunning shift for Democrats, who just recently 
were warning against breaking the agreement. The Chairwoman of the 
Budget Committee said last year that we have to be able to count on 
agreements that have been made, instead of threatening a Government 
shutdown. Yet that is just what she and her party are now threatening 
to do--to shut down the Government unless an agreement we all made is 
torn up and thrown away.
  So if Democrats want to shut down the Government because they can't 
wiggle their way out of a deal they agreed to, I guess there is not 
much we can do to stop them. But Republicans intend to stick by the 
commitments made to our constituents.
  That said, there is also this to remember: Republicans have always 
said that there may be more effective ways to achieve comparable 
spending reductions. If Democrats want to propose smarter spending cuts 
that achieve the same kind of savings they committed to in 2011, we are 
ready to listen. Comprehensive Government spending reforms would be a 
good place to start.
  Because Republicans understand that America's largest fiscal 
challenges stem from the fact that programs our fellow Americans hope 
to rely on in their most vulnerable years are going bankrupt. And 
Republicans are saying that the only way to avert the kind of panicked, 
poorly thought out spending cuts and tax increases we have seen in 
Europe is to implement forward-looking reforms today. That is why it is 
always so amusing when the President and his allies try to brand the 
kind of innovative government spending reforms we favor as ``European-
style austerity,'' as he implied again this weekend.
  Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, what the Europeans 
are doing in response to the threats from their creditors is 
essentially the opposite of the approach favored by Republicans. The 
type of long-term spending reforms we envision are often the only 
antidote against the kind of austerity we see in Europe. Because 
European austerity is not about protecting future generations from 
spending cuts, it is about staying afloat today. And the tax increases 
Europeans enact under duress--and the kind of pain Detroiters 
experience under bankruptcy--these are exactly the things Republicans 
aim to avoid. And we aim to avoid those things by acting intelligently 
today, while we still have time.
  Unlike Democrats, Republicans are not looking for some colorless 
discussion about raising taxes here or snipping there or moving numbers 
around on a budget chart. We would rather have a more holistic, 
forward-looking conversation, one about modernizing Government to meet 
the challenges of the 21st Century.
  Where we ask questions like:
  How do we modernize entitlement programs so they'll actually be 
accessible to Americans when they need them?
  Which government programs should be reformed, updated, or no longer 
make sense in a 21st Century economy? How can services be delivered in 
the most efficient and technologically savvy way?
  And what structural reforms can we implement to ensure the most 
robust economic growth and job creation for this generation and those 
to come?
  By addressing the big questions now--by identifying and implementing 
forward-looking reforms today--we can do a lot more than just reduce 
the deficit in the short term. We can also create jobs now, grow the 
economy now, make Government work better now, and eliminate the threat 
of a debt crisis everyone knows is coming, a debt crisis that would 
usher in the very kind of European-style austerity Democrats claim not 
to like, but keep accelerating towards.
  But in order for this to happen, Democrats need to work with us.
  As a first step, they should step back from the brink with their plan 
to shut down the Government. And they need to stop threatening to tear 
up agreements we all previously assented to. The Budget Control Act 
might not be perfect, but at least we were able to secure important 
spending control for the American people. And if Democrats want to 
trade some savings for innovative reforms that can serve our country 
even better over the long term, then there are policymakers ready to 
talk.
  But Republicans are not going to just give up on the commitments made 
to our constituents. Not only would that be a betrayal of a promise we 
all made, but we have already seen where the Democrats' left-leaning 
policies and European-inspired ideas lead.
  More of that is the last thing our country needs right now.

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