[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Page 12621]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           DEFENSE SEQUESTER

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, 4 years after the great recession 
began, millions of Americans are still looking for work, millions more 
have literally dropped out of the workforce altogether, and uncertainty 
about our Nation's future continues to spread. The stories of 
disappointment and of loss haven't diminished; they have, in fact, 
multiplied.
  What is worse, a President who was elected on a pledge that he would 
turn all those things around is still pointing the finger at his 
predecessor. Three and a half years after he took office, he is acting 
as though he just showed up. I think most Americans are smart enough to 
know he has made things worse. He has hammered small businesses with a 
barrage of new regulations, with dozens more in the pipeline. He 
expects them to plan for the future without even knowing what their tax 
and health care liabilities will be. Last week he even spearheaded a 
legislative effort to take even more of what nearly 1 million of these 
small businesses earn, and then he told Republicans that if we don't go 
along with it, he will raise taxes on everybody else.
  That was the message last week: Either give me what I want--raise 
taxes on 1 million of our most successful small businesses--or we will 
let everybody's taxes go up, is what he said at the end of the week. In 
other words, he used small businesses as little more than a bargaining 
chip. The week before that he told business owners that they are not 
really responsible for what they have built. Listen to that. To 
business owners, the President said: You are not really responsible for 
what you have built. No amount of White House spin or manufactured 
outrage can change what the President said in Roanoke, and no amount of 
finger-pointing can change the fact that his policies have actually 
made things worse.
  But what is most upsetting to a lot of us is the fact that the 
administration pretends its policies would help the economy or create 
jobs when it knows they won't. It knows these policies are not going to 
create any jobs. What is most upsetting is the deception that lies at 
the heart of so many of the sales jobs, from health care to the 
stimulus.
  Americans wanted the President to focus on jobs, and he focused on a 
health care bill that we now learn not only includes a tax on the 
middle class but will lead to hundreds of thousands of fewer jobs. Now 
the President claims he is fighting for the middle class, but 3\1/2\ 
years into his Presidency their wages are still stagnant while their 
dependency on government assistance actually continues to rise. Wages 
are stagnant, and dependence on government assistance continues to 
rise.
  In some cases the President doesn't even bother with the sales jobs; 
he just keeps his plans a secret. That is what we are now seeing with 
the defense cuts he demanded during last year's budget negotiations. 
Literally for weeks, Republicans asked the President to tell the 
American people how he planned to carry out these cuts. He refused.
  Mr. President, the Senate is not in order.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senate will be in order.
  The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. As I was saying, for weeks Republicans asked the 
President to tell the American people how he plans to carry out these 
cuts. He simply refused to do so. So last week Congress passed 
legislation requiring him to do so. In fact, it cleared the Senate, I 
believe, unanimously.
  Then yesterday there was this: An Assistant Secretary down at the 
Department of Labor is now telling people they are under no legal 
obligation to let employees know if they will lose their jobs as a 
result of these cuts. Let me say that again. We have an Assistant 
Secretary of Labor who just yesterday said that employers are under no 
legal obligation to tell their employees they may lose their jobs as a 
result of these cuts. In other words, the President is trying to keep 
those folks in the dark about whether they can expect to lose their 
jobs. Why? Well, I think it is pretty obvious: to insulate himself from 
the political fallout that will result. The President doesn't want 
people reading about pink slips in the weeks before his election, so 
the White House is telling people to keep the effects of these cuts a 
secret--don't tell anybody, he says, keep it a secret--until, of 
course, after the election. Once again, a President who holds himself 
out as a great defender of the middle class and the goals of organized 
labor is putting his own political goals ahead of the hard-working 
Americans who will be affected by these policies. Rather than let those 
who will be affected by the cuts know about them, he will make 
everybody nervous.
  For 3\1/2\ years--3\1/2\ long years--this President has pushed an 
ideological agenda without regard for the consequences it would have on 
the very middle-class Americans he purports to defend.
  The President may not want to admit it, but the economic mess we are 
in is his legacy--his legacy. After 3\1/2\ years of finger-pointing--
3\1/2\ years of finger-pointing--he owes it to the American people to 
be straight about it.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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