[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5366-5367]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            BROKEN PROMISES

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, it is no secret that most Americans are 
tired of candidates for political office who make promises they don't 
keep. And who can blame them? For years, politicians have been going to 
Washington promising to make government more effective, more efficient, 
to balance the books, make life more secure, and restore Americans' 
confidence in their country again. And time and time again, they have 
either failed to get it done or didn't even make an effort in the first 
place.
  Frankly, it is hard to think of any politician who has promised more 
and delivered less than our current President. He was the one who would 
erase old divisions and bring people together. He was the one who would 
rise above politics as usual and usher in a new era of bipartisan 
harmony. A lot of people believed him. Naturally, a lot of them are 
even more jaded now than ever. They are jaded because a candidate who 
said he was different turned out to be just another politician who 
seems more concerned with reelection than reform. Not only has he 
failed to step up to the challenges we face, he has actually aggravated 
them. Social Security, for example, is now expected to go broke 3 years 
sooner than we expected. The Tax Code is more complicated than ever. 
The national debt is bigger than any of us could have imagined. Health 
care costs are higher. Gas prices are up. Millions cannot find work. 
And even most college graduates--those best equipped to step into the 
modern economy--either cannot find work to match their skills or can't 
find any work at all.
  Instead of fixing problems, he has made them worse.
  What is he doing now? Well, the President who was supposed to change 
the direction of the country now wants to change the subject. He spends 
his days running around the country blaming whatever doesn't happen to 
poll well that day for the consequences of his own policies. He spent 2 
years expanding government and constricting free enterprise, and now 
that the results are in he spends his time pointing the finger at 
others for problems that originated right in his White House. It is the 
millionaires; it is the banks; it is big oil; it is the weather; it is 
Fox News; it is anything but him. And it's absurd. I mean, if you 
believe that a President who got everything he wanted for 2 years--2 
whole years--has nothing to do with the problems we face, then I have a 
solar panel company to sell you.
  The President spent 2 years reshaping America in the image of Western 
Europe, and now he wants us to believe our economy is performing as if 
a Western European economy has nothing to do with it.
  Nowhere is this more apparent than in the challenges facing the young 
people in America today. As we all know, one of the defining 
characteristics of Western European economies is the high unemployment 
rate, particularly among young people and recent college graduates. 
Sluggish growth and inflexible labor laws are two of the main reasons 
young people have been locked out of the labor market in those 
countries literally for years. Today unemployment is above 20 percent 
among young people in the European Union. In Spain the unemployment 
rate among people under the age of 25 is a staggering 50 percent.
  Some of this is no doubt a result of the European debt crisis, but 
the more fundamental problem is decades of policies rooted in the same 
big government vision the President has been busy imposing right here 
in the United States. It is hardly a coincidence that as President 
Obama has tried to reshape the United States in the image of Western 
Europe, our own youth unemployment rate has been stubbornly high. That 
is what happens when you increase regulations on businesses that hire 
college graduates. That is what happens when you impose health care

[[Page 5367]]

mandates on them. That is what happens when you impose new labor rules, 
such as the one Senator Enzi is leading the charge against this week 
that makes it even costlier for businesses to hire. We see the long-
term effects of these things in Europe, and unless this President 
changes course we will see the same lack of opportunity for young 
people right here.
  So today the President will bring his latest poll-tested message to 
the students at the University of North Carolina, and I am sure he will 
give a very rousing speech full of straw men and villains who stand in 
the way of their dreams. I am sure he will also express his strong 
support for things on which all of us already agree. But what he will 
not talk about is the extent to which the decisions he has made are 
limiting their opportunities in the years ahead.
  Some of them already see this. I mean, you have to think most of 
these students are sharp enough to put this President's rhetoric up 
against his record and to conclude that it simply doesn't add up. As 
the promises of this President's campaign collide with real life, I 
think young people across the country will realize they got sold a bill 
of goods. The next time they are promised change, they will know enough 
to kick the tires first.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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