[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5809-5810]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     NEED FOR SERIOUS FISCAL ACTION

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, all across the country this morning, 
Americans are struggling--and they are not getting much in the way of 
help or hope from Washington. Those who are unemployed or eager to hire 
are frustrated by the mountain of burdensome new rules and regulations 
Democrats have imposed on them in the past 2 years and by the 
uncertainty that comes with every proposal to create another one. They 
are shocked that a White House which does not even try to balance its 
checkbook would repeatedly propose to raise taxes. And more and more, 
they are worried about the consequences of our debt and the President's 
reluctance to do anything about it.

[[Page 5810]]

  But even more upsetting to many Americans is the repeated attempts of 
the White House to seem as if it is doing something about these things 
when it is not. That is just what the President has sought to do in 
talking about the need to reform entitlements and lower the debt, but 
refusing to lift a finger to do either. And that is just what I fear he 
will do again this afternoon in outlining his vision for tackling these 
problems without so much as presenting a single new idea or anything 
approaching a workable plan to get us there.
  The truth is, the President is only entering this debate at all 
because he can no longer ignore the growing bipartisan calls for 
action. If he were serious, he would be talking about a detailed 
roadmap for action, not just grabbing headlines by announcing another 
speech.
  Of course, we can hope that the President presents more than just his 
vision for the future this afternoon. But those who have hoped for that 
from this President have been disappointed many times before. What we 
are likely to get instead is a broad-brush notion of what the President 
wants to see--a vision that includes calls for strengthening 
entitlement programs that few people would disagree with but which will 
never come about absent Presidential leadership; a partisan call for 
tax hikes on struggling job creators, and, I fear, a call for tax hikes 
on energy producers when gas prices are already creating heavy burdens 
for so many.
  No doubt we will also get a fair share of finger-pointing and an 
attempt to cast Republicans in the worst possible light for actually 
laying out a serious plan to address the crises we face while others 
merely talk about their vision. But we can still hope that the 
President leaves the scapegoating aside for a change and finally admits 
the obvious: that we can only solve these fiscal crises if we do so 
together.
  So either the President agrees today that Republicans have a point 
when it comes to the seriousness of our fiscal problems and admits that 
the old approach of pretending they do not exist will not work anymore 
or those problems will become harder and harder to solve. Either he 
pretends that old programs, unlike everything else in life, do not need 
to adapt to survive or he joins us in acknowledging those programs will 
no longer be there for the people who are counting on them if we do not 
take serious action now.
  We need to keep our promises to seniors and to a rising generation of 
Americans--and we will--but we can no longer afford to make promises to 
younger workers that we all know we cannot afford to keep.
  Look: if big government created jobs and opportunity, then we would 
be in the middle of a boom right now. That experiment has failed. And 
that is why the national conversation has shifted from how much 
Democrats want to expand the scope of government to how much both 
parties should rein it in.
  The fiscal crisis we face will not be solved by ``freezing'' 
unsustainable government spending or by raising taxes on the very small 
businesses we are counting on to create jobs. And the programs we 
cherish as Americans will not be preserved for the next generation 
through speeches alone. Americans do not want to hear the President's 
vision today--he has had 2 years to lay that out. They want to hear his 
plan.
  Americans do not want to hear the President criticize or distort the 
serious efforts of those in our party who want to solve our problems 
head on. They want to hear a detailed counterproposal of his own. And 
they do not want to hear that the price of gas at the pump is going to 
get even higher, or that their opportunities to find or create jobs 
will shrink. Now is not a time for mere speeches or political attacks. 
It is a time for action.
  That is what Americans want from this President. That is what they 
are failing to get. I hope that changes today.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COONS. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call 
be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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