[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 49 (Thursday, March 27, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1784-S1785]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
MIDTERM ELECTIONS
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, yesterday the Democrats in the Senate held
a news conference in which they rolled out their agenda, which has been
described differently by different news organizations. The headline
from the Washington Examiner said: ``Majority threatened, Democrats
take up populace agenda to distract from ObamaCare.'' The Wall Street
Journal headline said: ``Senate Democrats try to change subject from
ObamaCare.'' The New York Times in reporting on that story, their
headline was: ``Democrats, as Part of Midterm Strategy to Schedule
Votes on Pocketbook Issues.'' So that was a little more, perhaps,
flattering headline.
In the story in the New York Times, it goes on to say:
The proposals have little chance of passing. But Democrats
concede that making new laws is not really the point. Rather,
they are trying to force Republicans to vote against them.
Later on in the story, the New York Times goes on to say:
Part of the goal is to energize the Democratic base, which
will be crucial to turnout in the more conservative states
where the party needs to win this year.
So everybody kind of gets the joke that this is really about the
midterm elections. The agenda the Democrats are now rolling out is
designed to try to create a distraction away from their economic record
and from ObamaCare.
It is interesting to me because the Democrats have been the majority
in the Senate now for 8 years. So you would think by now this sort of
an agenda would have been inactive. In fact, for a few years they had a
filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. They had 60 votes and could do
literally anything they wanted. Most of these items now are being
rolled out because it is, as I said, an election year, and they are
saying: These are things that we can do for the American people.
Well, I think the American people are saying enough already. You have
done enough to us. Please don't do any more.
The agenda is being described as a fair shot for everyone. Well, I
think the American people, perhaps, don't see it as a shot for them as
they do a shot at them.
If you look at the last several years as any indication of that, it
hasn't worked very well. The agenda that has been advanced by the
Democrats here in the Senate and by the President of the United States
has left us with a sluggish economy, chronic high unemployment, massive
amounts of debt, the lowest labor participation rate, literally, that
we have seen in 35 years. In fact, last year the economy grew at 0.9
percent. So you have this sluggish economy sputtering along, and the
American people are asking: Where are the jobs? Where is the take-home
pay?
Since the President took office, household income in this country has
gone down--not up--by $3,700 per family. If you look at all the
policies put in place by the Democratic majority, there isn't really
anything that you could point to that helps create jobs mainly because
it is heavy handed, top-down management from Washington, DC.
The American people need policies that will unleash the American free
enterprise system and unleash the entrepreneurs and small businesses
that would allow them to grow this economy and expand this economy.
That is better for everyone. Every middle-class American in this
country wants a better quality of life, a better standard of life for
their children and grandchildren than what they have experienced. This
may be the first generation of Americans where this is not true. Why?
Because policies in Washington, DC, make it more difficult, more
expensive, to create jobs.
You can go down the list. If you look at ObamaCare, according to the
Congressional Budget Office, ObamaCare is going to result in 2.5
million fewer full-time workers. According to the CBO, there will be
2.5 million fewer full-time workers over the next decade and $1
trillion in lower wages. Fewer jobs and lower take-home pay is what we
are seeing as a result of the policies that have been put in place by
the Democratic majority in the Senate and by the President of the
United States.
Yesterday there was another announcement about yet another delay of
ObamaCare--which will be, I think, the 30th delay that we have seen so
far with regard to that legislation. In speaking about that delay, the
majority leader of the Senate said yesterday that he thought the delay
was necessary because people weren't educated enough about how to use
the Internet. Only in Washington, DC--only in Washington, DC--do you
see politicians blaming the American people for their failures because
that is essentially what the ObamaCare legislation is. By and large I
think most people would conclude it just isn't working. It didn't add
up in the first place, and it is not working.
It is creating fewer jobs, higher premiums, higher deductibles, lower
take-home pay for the American people, fewer choices for doctors and
hospitals, and the idea that it is the fault of the American people
because they are not educated enough to use the Internet--my dad is 94
years old. He lives in my hometown of Myrtle, SD, a town of about 500
people. He uses the Internet every single day.
I don't think the problem is the Internet or that people in this
country aren't educated enough to use the Internet. I think it has a
lot more to do with the fact that incompetence here in Washington, DC,
led to a failed rollout that confused millions of Americans. That is
not the responsibility of, nor should we blame, the American people for
that. That is government trying to do big things and not doing them
well. The government doesn't do complicated things very well.
So when you hear of the new agenda coming out from the Democratic
majority in the Senate, that we are going to do this for the American
people; we are going to do that for the American people and talk about
a minimum wage increase--again, you have a Congressional Budget Office
saying that raising the minimum wage by 40 percent, which is what is
being proposed, would, in fact, cost the economy up to a million jobs
and also would raise prices.
It is going to raise prices on the people that will be hurt the most
by price increases--lower-income Americans. Instead of putting policies
in place that cost the American economy jobs, we ought to be looking at
things that actually create jobs.
We have a proposal called the Keystone Pipeline which the President's
own State Department has said would create 42,000 jobs. So those are
real jobs, shovel-ready jobs that would be available today. Instead we
want to put policies in place that are actually going to cost the
economy jobs. If you're an American citizen out there and you hear
Washington, DC, is going to do more for you, yet again, you have got to
be saying: Whoa, you know, hold the phone. We have seen enough of that
already. We have seen this picture before, and we have seen what
results when the government tries to do big and complicated things. It
just doesn't work very well.
The Web site rollout is a perfect example of that, as is the 2,700-
page
[[Page S1785]]
ObamaCare legislation followed by about 25,000 pages of regulations,
which people in this country have to try and discern and figure out.
I would submit that there are things that will create jobs. We know
the Keystone Pipeline will create jobs. Passing trade promotion
authority and allowing our trade negotiators to create more market
opportunities for small businesses and farmers and ranchers and
entrepreneurs in this country and around the world will create jobs.
Passing trade promotion authority and getting the Trans-Pacific
Partnership and the European trade agreement enacted they say will
expose American businesses to 1 billion new consumers worldwide. Those
are the types of things that do create jobs, and we know that.
Instead of having an election year agenda that is transparently
stated to be that, why don't we actually talk about things that will
create jobs and will improve the overall standard of living for people
in this country?
I would make one other observation, and that is another thing coming
out of the administration right now, which will be incredibly harmful
to the economy and make it very difficult for lower income and middle-
class Americans to make ends meet, are policies coming out of the EPA
that are going to drive the cost of energy. Energy is an important
input. It is a huge factor in places such as South Dakota where we have
a cold-weather climate and an agricultural-based economy. We travel
long distances to get places. When you talk about raising the cost of
energy in a State such as South Dakota, you are significantly
increasing the cost of doing business in a way that will make it more
difficult and more expensive to create the jobs we need, get people
back to work, and get the economy growing at a faster rate. These
things are harmful to job growth.
I talked to a bunch of small businesses in my State last week and
asked them about some of these policies. I asked them: What are the
biggest obstacles right now to your success and what are things that
could be done that would actually be helpful?
Of course, ObamaCare is something that immediately comes up, but also
the whole issue of the minimum wage. The smallest business owner I
talked to I believe had 30 employees and the largest had maybe a little
over 200 employees. They said, look, this is a job killer. What that
means is we are not going to be able to hire as many people. It adds
significant higher operating costs every year to our businesses and
makes it more difficult to create the jobs for the people who actually
need those jobs, most of whom, in a lot of these places, are going to
be young people who are trying to get that first job and make their way
up the economic ladder.
There are lots of things we could talk about that do address the
problem rather than just addressing the symptoms, and we want to vote
on an extension. We are going to vote on an extension of unemployment
insurance, which will be the thirteenth time we have done that. When
you go through an economic downturn, obviously there is a need to help
people who have lost jobs and been displaced in the economy. But when
are we going to start focusing on the problem rather than the symptom?
The problem is we have almost 4 million Americans who have been
unemployed for more than 6 months. We ought to be looking at what we
can do to create jobs for the people who don't have jobs in our
economy. I have introduced an amendment to the unemployment insurance
legislation, which I don't think is going to get voted on, that has
some simple solutions.
One of those things is to waive the employer mandate for any employer
who hires somebody who has been unemployed for more than 6 months. So
if you are a long-term unemployed person and an employer hires that
person, you get a waiver from the employer mandate which could save an
employer several thousand dollars a year. It also calls for a 6-month
payroll tax holiday for employers, which if you have a $40,000-a-year
employee on your payroll, you would save about $2,400. You could save
$4,000, $5,000, or $6,000 a year in the cost of hiring someone with
those two suggestions. Another suggestion is to allow people to have
access to low-interest loans--up to $10,000--to relocate to places
where there is lower unemployment.
My State of South Dakota is looking for workers. When I travel
through my communities, we can't find workers. One of the biggest
obstacles for people to get to jobs is to relocate. If we gave them a
low-interest loan that would allow them to move to places where there
is low unemployment and where there are jobs, it would make a lot of
sense.
Finally, it adopts the SKILLS Act that has passed the House of
Representatives, which consolidates 35 Federal programs into 9 programs
so you don't have all of this duplication and overlap in all of these
Federal programs for worker training and shifts that resource out to
the States where States can design programs that actually prepare and
equip the people in their States for the jobs that are available.
Those are the types of solutions we ought to be talking about rather
than top-down, heavyhanded, government-driven solutions that make it
more difficult to create jobs and is equivalent to throwing a big wet
blanket on the American economy at the time we can least afford it.
My State of South Dakota is a good example. We have balanced our
budget every year since 1889. We have zero personal income tax, zero
corporate income tax, and we have a very well-trained, hard-working,
educated workforce. We have a good climate for doing business with a
light regulatory touch. We have a low unemployment rate and a vibrant
economy mainly because we understand that it isn't the government that
creates jobs.
When the Senate Democrats and the President come out with the
election-year, poll-tested agenda, which is clearly driven simply to
try to generate votes in the midterm elections rather than actually
solve the problems--and it says that in the stories. The stories are
very transparent about what they are trying to do. We ought to be
focused on things that actually create jobs, such as passing the
Keystone Pipeline, passing trade promotion authority, and looking at
real solutions that do more than just treat symptoms, and actually get
at the problems.
The problem is we have too many people in this economy who have been
unemployed for a long period of time. We need to get them back to work
and get the economy growing faster than 1.9 percent a year. If we get
growth back up to 3 or 4 percent a year, it will dramatically change
the future for middle-class families in this country, and that is what
we ought to be focused on.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. I thank the Chair.
(The remarks of Mrs. MURRAY pertaining to the introduction of S. 2164
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills
and Joint Resolutions.'')
Mrs. MURRAY. Thank you, Mr. President.
I yield the floor.
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