[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Page 10774]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      NEEDING PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, last night the President provided more 
detail on his administration's efforts to stop the oilspill in the 
gulf. If implemented successfully, some of what he said was 
encouraging. However, I wish the President would have used this 
opportunity to focus entirely on stopping the spill and to cleaning it 
up instead of using this crisis as an opportunity to push for a new 
national energy tax.
  The immediate issue here is a broken pipe that has been spewing 
hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil a day into the ocean for more 
than 8 weeks. The fact that the White House wants to use this crisis as 
an excuse to push more of its legislative agenda on the American 
people--with the same kinds of arguments it used to push health care--
is really nothing short of startling.
  During the health care debate, Americans were told we couldn't afford 
to put off the administration's vision of government-driven reform. 
Health care costs were rising so quickly, the President said, that 
inaction was not an option. We heard the same thing last night. It is a 
recurring theme out of this White House.
  In the middle of a jobs crisis, Americans were told they needed to 
spend nearly $1 trillion on longstanding Democratic priorities that 
Democrats called a stimulus bill. They passed it, and we lost another 3 
million jobs.
  Out-of-control health care costs are pricing people out of the market 
and threatening to bankrupt government, so they passed a massive 
government-driven health care bill that promises to send health care 
costs even higher than they already are.
  Our financial crisis was caused in large part by recklessness at 
government-sponsored entities such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and 
their solution to that crisis was to pass a massive government 
intrusion into Main Street without even addressing Fannie or Freddie.
  Now, in the midst of the worst environmental catastrophe in American 
history, they are talking about a new national energy task to achieve 
their ideological goal of passing global warming legislation. Americans 
are pleading with the administration to fix the immediate problem in 
the gulf and the White House wants to give us a new national energy tax 
instead.
  Every time we face a crisis, it seems this administration takes us on 
another ideological tour of the far left's to-do list, when all the 
American people want from it are some straightforward, practical 
solutions.
  So the White House may view the oilspill as an opportunity to push 
its agenda here in Washington, but Americans are more concerned about 
what it plans to do to solve the crisis down in the gulf. Americans 
have had enough of this crisis rhetoric coming out of this White House. 
They want real answers to real problems. And it doesn't get more real 
than the problem in the gulf.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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