[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 13730-13731]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          TROUBLING REALITIES

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, earlier this week we passed the 5-year 
mark since the financial crisis hit our country. Incredibly, President 
Obama tried to use that opportunity to take credit for the fact that 
things aren't as bad as they were back then, and he is back at it again 
today. Basically, his message is this: America isn't in a free fall, so 
everyone should give him a big pat on the back.
  Well, as far as deflections go, it is pretty creative, but it is also 
pretty misleading because in an effort to justify his own failed 
policies and preserve them, the President is papering over some pretty 
troubling realities. The truth is, for most Americans, the past few 
years have felt like anything but a recovery. It has been a story of 
lost jobs and underemployment and the loss of dignity that comes with 
both. It has been a period of stagnant wages and an increasing 
disparity between rich and poor. Then there are all the young people 
who have been stunned to realize, after graduating from college, that 
there just aren't any jobs out there. So now is not the time for 
victory laps because if this is his idea of success, I would hate to 
see what failure looks like.
  Today, nearly 8 million Americans who want full-time jobs can only 
find part-time work. That is nearly twice as many involuntary part-
timers as we had throughout most of the previous administration. And, 
of course, ObamaCare will make this much worse. What is more, the poor 
and middle-income folks and those just starting out on their own are 
some of the people who have been struggling the most in the Obama 
economy. The unemployment rate for low-income Americans, for instance, 
now stands at 21 percent--21 percent unemployment for low-income 
Americans--right about where it was during the Great Depression.
  The President likes to claim credit for jobs created since the so-
called recovery began, but what he fails to mention is that there are 
still fewer jobs today than before the crisis hit, while real median 
wages haven't gone up at all over the past 5 years.
  Even though Candidate Obama promised to ``spread the wealth around,'' 
we find that 95 percent of recent income gains have actually gone to 
the richest among us. Ninety-five percent of recent income gains have 
gone to the richest among us. In other words, we are again faced with 
the tragic irony that those on the left who claim most loudly to be 
standing for fairness and equality often end up getting the worst 
results for those who need help the most. To paraphrase President 
Reagan's old line about the apostles of ``fairness,'' maybe they are 
fair in one way: Their policies don't discriminate; they bring misery 
to everybody--unless, of course, we are speaking of the elite of the 
elite. We all know why that is. Because when government policies hurt 
economic growth by stifling opportunities and drying up investment, it 
is the American worker who loses. It is those at the bottom of the 
economic ladder who suffer the most.
  The best thing we can do to help the poor and working class is to get 
the private sector growing again. And we know how it is done--by 
implementing things such as a more competitive tax code, regulatory 
relief, approval of the Keystone Pipeline, and, of course, repealing 
ObamaCare, which is killing jobs.
  The fact is that the policies of today's Washington Democrats 
actually entrench unfairness and make the playing field even more 
uneven.
  Even the President's allies are beginning to understand. Big Labor 
wants to rewrite some provisions of the same ObamaCare law they helped 
muscle through. Why? Because, predictably, ObamaCare is now hurting the 
40-hour workweek and undermining the kind of employer-sponsored plans 
their members like and were told they would be able to keep. Union 
bosses also know that the President recently agreed to delay parts of 
the law for businesses. Now they want relief too. Why for business and 
not for unions? But what about everybody else? What about the

[[Page 13731]]

middle class? What about college graduates or young couples trying to 
make ends meet while they start a family? Don't those folks deserve 
some relief from ObamaCare too?
  That is why Senator Coats and I filed an amendment last week that 
would allow everyone else to take advantage of the ObamaCare delay 
already offered to businesses. If companies get to catch a break, then 
Republicans think the middle class should too. The Democrats who run 
Washington need to stop blocking us from even taking a vote on this 
important legislation--legislation that already passed the House of 
Representatives, by the way, on a bipartisan basis.
  After all, as I have already indicated, ObamaCare is a big reason we 
are turning into a nation of part-time workers and that so many 
Americans will lose their jobs and the health care plans they like. It 
is also one of the reasons the rate of those either working or looking 
for work has dropped back to Carter-era levels--Carter-era levels--and 
that the average time it takes to find a job is longer than it has been 
literally in decades.
  These are all good reasons not just to delay but to repeal this law 
and start over with bipartisan reforms that can actually reduce costs 
instead of killing jobs. I have confidence we will get there eventually 
because the only person who seems to be happy with ObamaCare is the guy 
it is named after--the guy it is named after. Because when everyone 
from union bosses to working moms wants to repeal this act, it is hard 
to escape the conclusion that the people standing in the way are more 
interested in what is good for their legacies than what is good for the 
country.
  But, look, I am still holding out hope. I hope the President will 
take this 5-year anniversary of the financial crisis as a chance to 
reflect and to change course. I hope he will finally admit that what he 
has tried thus far has not worked; that it is not enough to just 
improve the lot of those who have influence in government; that he has 
to work for the middle class too. I hope he starts working with Members 
of both parties to start over on health care, to put our economy on a 
sound and sustainable footing, to get spending under control so we do 
not leave the same kind of mess to our children, as CBO again warned us 
yesterday.
  Most important, I am hoping he starts thinking of ways to give those 
who are struggling in this economy a real chance to succeed. When he 
does, Republicans will be here ready to work with him, as we have since 
he first came to office.
  I yield the floor.

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