[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 89 (Tuesday, June 10, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3517-S3519]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              The Economy

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, as every Member of Congress knows, 
Americans are hurting, and after 5\1/2\ years of the Obama economy, 
they are getting pretty discouraged, as a recent CNN poll reported.
  That ``pessimism,'' Erin Currier, director of the Economic Mobility 
Project at the Pew Charitable Trusts, stated in a recent CNNMoney 
article, ``is reflective of the financial realities a lot of families 
are facing. They are treading water, but their income is not 
translating into solid financial security.''

[[Page S3518]]

  Unfortunately, Senate Democrats have responded to the economic 
instability facing so many Americans by essentially doing nothing. 
Instead of legislation to create jobs and expand opportunity, Democrats 
have tied up the Senate this year with politically motivated show votes 
designed to go nowhere.
  Back in March the New York Times reported that Democrats planned to 
spend the spring and summer on messaging votes ``timed to coincide with 
campaign-style trips by President Obama.''
  The Times reported:

       . . . Democrats concede that making new laws is not really 
     the point. Rather, they are trying to force Republicans to 
     vote against them.

  Democrats have certainly been following that playbook. This week, in 
their latest election-year political stunt, they will take up a 
designed-to-fail student loan bill. According to plan, it will be 
accompanied by some ``campaign-style'' stops by President Obama.
  The Democrats' bill would do nothing to make college more affordable 
or reduce the amount of money students have to borrow, and it would do 
nothing to address the real problem facing recent college graduates; 
that is, the lack of jobs.
  The Democrats' student loan bill would provide some former students 
with old loans a taxpayer subsidy which, based on Congressional 
Research data, would be worth about $1 a day. To provide this, their 
bill would raise income taxes by $72 billion.
  Meanwhile, Democrats have conveniently ignored the fact that student 
loan repayment plans that could lower monthly payments by more than 
their proposal are already available to all students with Federal 
loans.
  Republicans have student debt solutions, such as simplifying the 
student loan process so more students can take advantage of the 
affordable repayment options that already exist in current law, but 
young Americans need a lot more than student debt solutions. The best 
thing we can do for graduates is to help create jobs.
  Young people in particular are suffering in the Obama economy. The 
current unemployment rate for those 16 to 24 years old is 13.2 
percent--more than twice the national average. Unemployment among those 
16 to 34 years old is 9.2 percent--significantly higher than the 
overall unemployment rate of 6.3 percent. Nationally, 6.1 million 18- 
to 24-year-olds are living below the poverty line, and 36 percent of 
young adults are living at home with their parents.
  It is no wonder that CNNMoney reports that ``young adults, age 18 to 
34, are most likely to feel the [American] dream is unattainable.''
  What young people need is not a government subsidy but access to 
jobs, good-paying, full-time jobs with the opportunity for advancement, 
but those jobs are few and far between in the Obama economy.
  While young people may be having the hardest time finding jobs, no 
one in the Obama economy is doing well. Nationwide, nearly 10 million 
Americans are unemployed, almost one-third of them for 6 months or 
longer.
  The unemployment rate has hovered at recession-level highs for the 
entire Obama Presidency. Since the President took office, the average 
length of unemployment has increased from 19.8 weeks to 34.5 weeks. 
Approximately 14 million Americans have been forced to join the Food 
Stamp Program since President Obama took office, bringing the total 
number of Americans receiving food stamps to more than 46 million.
  Meanwhile, everywhere families look prices are going up. Gas prices 
have almost doubled during the Obama Presidency. Food prices have 
increased, and the President's policies are just making things worse. 
Chief among the President's policy disasters, of course, is ObamaCare, 
which has driven up the price of everything from premiums to 
pacemakers.
  The President told the American people his health care law would 
drive down health care premiums by $2,500. Instead, prices have risen 
by almost $3,700, and they are still going up.
  ObamaCare has meant new burdens for just about everyone: higher 
premiums and deductibles, more expensive medications, fewer doctors and 
hospitals from which to choose, lost jobs, and increased taxes on 
businesses both large and small. Millions of Americans were forced off 
their health plans--the plans they were promised they could keep--and 
into the health exchanges, where they were frequently forced to pay 
more for plans they liked less.
  Not content with the high health care bills, now the President is 
adding insult to injury by putting in place EPA regulations that will 
drive up electricity bills for all American families. The President's 
de facto energy tax will hit low-income families and seniors on fixed 
incomes the hardest. It will also slash tens of thousands, if not 
hundreds of thousands, of jobs. Coal plants will close, leaving their 
workers unemployed, and manufacturers will send jobs in America 
overseas to countries with more affordable energy.
  The worst part is that President Obama's EPA regulations will 
devastate family budgets and the economy for nothing because the 
President's proposals will do almost nothing to reduce the 
concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. As long as our 
country is acting unilaterally, there will be no meaningful effect on 
global emissions, but the President is pressing on anyway and 
apparently Americans will have to get used to their massive new energy 
bills.
  The President's policies are having a devastating effect on American 
students, families, and the middle class, but instead of trying to make 
things better, the Democratic leadership in the Senate has chosen to 
take up gimmicky legislation, not to help Americans but to get 
Democrats reelected.
  Yesterday a bipartisan veterans bill, which would address the 
systemwide VA crisis, was introduced in the Senate. The failures at the 
VA are a national embarrassment and a betrayal of our compact with our 
veterans. Congress has an obligation to make sure nothing like this 
ever happens again.
  Today we could be discussing the best ways to fix our VA system. 
Instead, we are going to be discussing a bill designed not to improve 
things for Americans but to win the Democrats a few votes. Instead of 
proceeding to a student loan bill that was designed to fail, we should 
proceed directly to the VA reform bill.
  The House of Representatives acted decisively to bring greater 
accountability to the VA 3 weeks ago. Today they are moving forward on 
a VA reform bill that includes many of the provisions of the bill that 
was introduced in the Senate last night. Now that we have a bipartisan 
VA reform bill in the Senate, we should be acting with the same sense 
of urgency.
  If Democratic leaders in the Senate truly wanted to make things 
better for American families, they wouldn't be focused on gimmicky show 
votes. Instead, they would be working with Republicans to fix the VA 
crisis. They would back a repeal of the ObamaCare medical device tax, 
which has already cost tens of thousands of jobs and will cost many 
more if it isn't repealed. They would support Republican efforts to 
repeal the ObamaCare 30-hour workweek rule, which has resulted in lost 
hours and decreased wages for way too many workers in this country, and 
they would embrace legislation to halt the devastating EPA rules the 
President has proposed and protect millions of American families from 
crippling energy bills.
  They would push--they would push for job-creating measures such as 
the Keystone XL Pipeline and the 42,000 jobs it would support or trade 
promotion authority for the President to open new markets to American 
farmers, workers, and businesses, and create those good-paying jobs.
  We throw around a lot of statistics in the Congress--1 million people 
this, 10 million people that. It is important for us to remember the 
faces behind the numbers: the parents trying to figure out how they 
will afford to pay both their daughters' tuition and their new 
ObamaCare premiums, the college graduate who can't find a job and is 
currently living in his parents' basement, the single mother whose 
working hours have suddenly been cut because her employer can't afford 
to pay the ObamaCare mandate, a father who has been out of a job for 
months and can't get an interview anywhere.
  These Americans need help, and the President's policies are not 
helping. The good thing is it doesn't have to

[[Page S3519]]

stay that way. We can get America working again, but it is going to 
take something different than the policies of the last 5\1/2\ years.
  I challenge my Democratic colleagues to join us in passing real jobs 
legislation, the kind of legislation that will open a future of 
opportunity and economic security for all American families.
  What college graduates don't need are political gimmicks. What 
college graduates need more than anything else are good-paying jobs 
with opportunities for advancement. That is what we should be focused 
on, not political show votes, not election-year sloganeering but real 
meaningful policies that will grow and expand our economy in this 
country and create the good-paying jobs our young college graduates 
need and that will lift more lower income families into the middle 
class.
  That is what this Senate ought to be focused on. We can change to 
that focus, and we can start doing some things that will make this 
country stronger and provide a better and more prosperous and a more 
secure future for middle-income families.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Heitkamp). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.