[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16592-16594]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         DUELING HIGHWAY BILLS

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, we are going to see very different 
approaches to infrastructure and job creation today. The American 
people can decide for themselves which one makes more sense.
  The Republican proposal extends the current highway bill for another 
2 years, giving States and contractors the certainty they need to start 
new infrastructure projects and to create jobs.
  The legislation Senator Hatch is proposing today puts an end to the 
uncertainty for the next 2 years. This proposal also gives States the 
authority to

[[Page 16593]]

decide how this money is spent. If folks in Ohio or Kentucky want to 
build a bridge, Washington can't force them to build a bike path.
  The Republican proposal accelerates the review period and clears away 
the bureaucratic redtape. The President admitted a few months ago that 
the shovel-ready projects in his first stimulus bill didn't turn out to 
be as shovel ready as he thought. Our proposal helps make sure they 
are.
  Our bill prohibits the EPA from imposing burdensome and unnecessary 
new regulations on American cement producers and domestic boilers, so 
the cost of American-made materials for the projects paid for through 
this highway bill don't skyrocket just as they are set to begin. The 
bill keeps those costs down.
  Best of all, it is fully paid for through funds that were originally 
appropriated for another purpose but not spent. Whatever is left over 
after these projects are funded goes to pay down the deficit.
  The Democrats are taking a different approach. First, according to 
the CBO, the Democrats' proposal will do little for the economy and 
putting people back to work in the short term, because the money will 
be spent very gradually. According to the CBO, less than one-tenth of 
the funds in the Democrats' proposal will be spent next year. Less than 
one-tenth of the funds in the Democrats' proposal, which we will be 
voting on today, will be spent next year, and roughly 40 percent won't 
be spent until after 2015. This hardly matches the President's call for 
doing something ``right away.''
  Second, it costs another $57 billion we don't have.
  Third, they want to pay for this temporary spending bill with a 
permanent tax increase on job creators. Again, they want to pay for a 
temporary spending bill with a permanent tax hike on job creators.
  Fourth, they already know that Republicans and, yes, some Democrats, 
don't think we should be taxing job creators, particularly at a time 
when 14 million Americans are looking for a job--and that we will vote 
against any proposal that does so.
  In other words, the Democrats have deliberately designed this bill to 
fail.
  So the truth is that Democrats are more interested in building a 
campaign message than in rebuilding roads and bridges. Frankly, the 
American people deserve a lot better than that. The people of Kentucky 
deserve a lot better than that. The people in my State have serious, 
time-sensitive bridge projects--the Brent Spence bridge, I-69 bridge, 
Louisville bridges, and Sherman Minton bridge, which is currently shut 
down. They deserve better than that.
  The Associated General Contractors of America and the U.S. Chamber of 
Commerce have already spoken out against the Democrats' proposal.
  The rest of the American people can decide which approach they 
prefer: our proposal, which doesn't add to the deficit, doesn't raise 
taxes, empowers the States to make decisions on the local level, and is 
designed to gain bipartisan support or the Democrats' top-down 
approach, which perpetuates uncertainty, raises taxes on businesses at 
a time when we should be giving them more reasons to hire, not less, 
and which was designed in coordination with the White House political 
team to fail.
  These are the two approaches on display in the Senate today. The 
choice should be obvious.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the highway bill has been worked on for 
months by Senator Boxer, who is the chairman, and the ranking member, 
Senator Inhofe. They have arrived at a conclusion.
  I had a conversation yesterday with Senator Inhofe, and they have 
worked out almost all of the details on the bill. We have to do 
something on this bill because it expires at the end of this year--the 
1st of February, I believe.
  My friend, the Republican leader, whom I care a great deal about 
personally, is absolutely wrong. The American people support our 
approach. Seventy-six percent of the American people like it. People of 
all political definitions support it. Why? Because it is so fair.
  We are asking the top two-tenths of 1 percent of people who make 
money in this country to contribute a surtax of seven-tenths of 1 
percent of money they make over $1 million.
  Job creators? I don't think so. The funding mechanism the Republicans 
use this time is in violation of the agreement we made last July. We 
have an agreement. We have cut domestic discretionary spending enough. 
That was the agreement we made. What they have done is come back to 
whack it more, which, I repeat, is going back on our agreement on how 
much we are spending on appropriations.
  Not only that, but the Republicans do what they have done time and 
time again. We all know we would be better off if we didn't have as 
many regulations as we have. That is why every President, including 
Presidents Bush and Clinton, have done their best to eliminate 
unnecessary regulations. President Obama is doing the same thing. The 
Republicans come here and say that the way to create jobs is to get rid 
of regulations. On this way of paying for this--this smoke and mirrors 
that they have--they want to block implementation of health care 
reform, leading to higher costs and more uninsured Americans; block 
Wall Street reform, increasing the risk of future financial crises and 
taxpayer bailouts. Can you imagine, at this stage, that we would want 
to increase the power of those on Wall Street? I don't think the 
American people care about that. Also, they want to block antipollution 
protections, leading to dirtier air and more premature deaths and 
illness. They want to weaken food safety protections and weaken worker 
safety protections. I, of course, will urge my entire caucus to vote 
against this because it is the typical approach the Republicans have 
used, and it has not created a single job--a single job.
  There is commentary in today's newspapers about what the House has 
been doing. They haven't done anything to create jobs. With that 
extremely powerful Republican caucus, they have done nothing--nothing--
to create jobs.
  Now, Mr. President, I am glad we have a motto that says ``In God We 
Trust.'' But can you imagine, they voted yesterday whether we wanted to 
emphasize, to underline and underscore ``In God We Trust.'' They spent 
yesterday debating that issue in the House of Representatives. That 
didn't create a single job.
  There is not a single Senator who does not trust in God, that I know 
of. Yet that is what they are debating. People such as Arthur Fraijo 
are desperate for work, have been out of work all these years. Yet not 
a single thing they do creates jobs.
  The legislation we will vote on at 3 o'clock will produce hundreds of 
thousands of jobs now.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. My good friend has made a great campaign speech, but 
the election is in November of next year. If we want to accomplish 
something, we have to do it together. We have had a series of votes 
over the last few weeks clearly designed to fail. The proposal my good 
friend is talking about, in all likelihood, is going to have bipartisan 
opposition. It was not developed with Republican input, and it was not 
designed to get a positive outcome.
  The House of Representatives, on 15 different occasions recently, has 
passed bills with bipartisan support--bipartisan support--that we are 
not taking up. One of them--the 3-percent withholding bill--enjoys the 
support of the President of the United States as well. So it is my hope 
that in the very near future we can figure a way to actually pass 
something together that would become law.
  I wish we could put off the election until next year because these 
efforts to do these messaging amendments, as politically invigorating 
as it may be to the base of the Democratic Party, don't have anything 
to do with actually passing legislation that could have a positive 
impact. So we will have the two votes today, but I would urge my

[[Page 16594]]

good friend to join me in looking for things on which there is enough 
bipartisan support to actually make a law, not just try to make a 
point.
  I am sure it is the case that most Americans support raising taxes on 
high-income individuals. My guess is they might have a different view 
if they knew that four out of five of those individuals were actually 
business owners. Nevertheless, it is time, it seems to me, for us to 
quit making the campaign speeches and remember the election is in 
November 2012, not this month of 2011, and see if we can't work 
together to pass legislation the President can sign and that will help 
move the country in a different direction.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, my friend, the Republican leader, comes 
before this body today and says we should do our campaign speeches next 
year when the world knows my friend has said his No. 1 priority in this 
Congress is to defeat President Obama.
  We have had on the Senate floor for the last 10 months a campaign 
speech every day directed by my friend and his Republican colleagues in 
his caucus doing everything they can to make President Obama look bad 
and doing nothing to help our economy. Their goal is to do everything 
they can to drag down this economy, to do anything they can to focus 
attention negatively on the President of the United States in hopes the 
minority leader can get my job, perhaps, and that President Obama will 
be defeated.
  So let's not talk about campaign speeches on the Senate floor. Let's 
talk about reality. I do not believe we should be concerned about a 
piece of legislation that asks the richest of the rich to pay a few 
pennies of their vast fortunes to put people like my friend back to 
work. That is what this is all about. The American people agree with 
what we are doing. We are trying to have this government involved in 
things that create jobs, not slogans, not ``let's get rid of those 
regulations'' or do we believe in God or that kind of stuff.
  That has not created a single job. What we want to do is create jobs. 
We also don't want to go back on the agreement we worked on for months 
regarding the deficit reduction plan and raising the debt ceiling, 
where we agreed on what our spending should be for this coming year. We 
will see how sincere my Republican colleagues are. The CR expires in 2 
more weeks. The CR is the continuing resolution. Let's see if they go 
back on their word in that regard; that they will begin threatening to 
shut down the government if they do not get whatever slogan looks good 
during any specific period of time.
  We have the FAA that is about to go out of business again because the 
Republicans are unwilling to pass a bill without some labor issue that 
has nothing to do with the bill that was passed--zero to do with it. 
Even the person who runs Delta Air Lines, that has been the focus of 
this, wants the FAA bill done. They recognize they have been hurt very 
badly by what the Republicans have done to focus attention on them--
attention they do not want focused on them.
  So I hope we can, on a bipartisan basis, do the things that are good 
for the country, and I think creating jobs is one of the most important 
things we should do. I would say to my friend: We can stay here all 
day, and I will get in the last word. We can extend to 11:20 now, but I 
will get in the last word in our conversation today.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, it is certainly the case the majority 
leader can always have the last word, but I would say, with all due 
respect to my friend, he just made another campaign speech.
  I think what the American people would like to see us do is actually 
pass something together that will become law--pass something together 
that will become law. That is how to get an accomplishment out of the 
U.S. Constitution. That is how to send something to the President.
  We know how to work together to make things happen. We have done that 
in the past. All I am suggesting is that the exercise we are going to 
have later today has nothing to do with making law and making a 
difference. It is about making a point. We both know how to do that. We 
both know how to make points and make laws. What we are doing later 
today is not about making laws.
  I am told by staff I need to move to proceed to S. 1786.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The motion will be pending.
  The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I would finally say this: I hope we will 
have a new dawn arising soon where we will see my Republican friends 
break away from this lockstep they have been in. I can't imagine they 
believe they are doing the right thing by voting against asking the 
richest of the rich--.02 percent of the richest people in America--to 
contribute a small amount toward creating jobs in America. That is what 
this is all about.
  I would hope someday we will see a few Republicans break from the 
pack and vote to create jobs rather than trying to defeat President 
Obama come next November.

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