[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 10703-10704]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           LEGISLATIVE LOGJAM

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, last summer I said it felt as though 
the White House had hung a ``Gone Campaignin''' sign outside the Oval 
Office. President Obama didn't seem the least bit interested in passing 
serious, bipartisan solutions for the middle class. It was all 
campaigning, all the time.
  On the rarest of occasions when he did come to Congress, it was for 
internal campaign rallies with his party. Well, it has actually only 
gotten worse.
  Since last summer he has barely picked up the phone and his bill-
signing pen is literally starting to rust. Here is the reason: This 
summer the Democratic-controlled Senate seems to have put out a ``Gone 
Campaignin''' sign of its own. That is why the Democratic Senate has 
become a veritable graveyard of good ideas.
  Most people assume the purpose of the Senate is to pass legislation 
to help the American people, but these days the Democrats who run the 
Senate seem to think their role is actually to just bury good 
legislation. They are more interested in pleasing their far left 
political patrons--patrons who appear to oppose everything that could 
actually help the American middle class.
  Case in point: The Republican-led House of Representatives has 
already passed hundreds of pieces of legislation this Congress--
legislation introduced by Members of both parties, including dozens of 
jobs bills, that remain stuck here in the Senate. That means President 
Obama has not had to sign or veto them, and the Senate majority leader 
has been all too happy to protect him from choosing between helping the 
far-left fringe and the vast American middle. In other words, Senate 
Democrats are on a mission this summer to obstruct solutions for the 
middle class at every turn and to prevent almost any serious 
legislating from occurring at all--at all.
  Over in the House the minority party has been offered more than 160 
votes on their amendments since last July. Here in the Senate the 
Democratic leadership has blocked all but nine Republican rollcall 
votes.
  And it is not just Republican amendments getting squashed either. The 
Democrats who run the Senate are so scared of legislating these days 
they are blocking virtually every amendment on both sides. It has 
gotten to the point where one House Democrat, a Congresswoman from 
Texas, has now had twice as many rollcall votes on amendments since 
last July--15--as the entire Senate Democratic caucus combined. One 
Member of the House in the minority party has had more votes than all 
of the Democratic Senators combined over the last year. Between the 55 
Senate Democrats, they have had seven amendments in a year.
  In other words, the majority leader is treating his one caucus even 
worse than he is treating us.
  Even committee work can no longer escape the Democratic majority's 
political obsession. The majority shut down the committee process on 
important legislation that should have been and would have been 
bipartisan--bills about patents and appropriations.
  This is the kind of stuff that makes Americans so very mad at 
Washington. I mean, how do we justify stifling the voices of so many 
Senators and the tens of millions of Americans they were sent here to 
represent? It is indefensible. It has gotten worse and worse under 
current Democratic leaders.
  Of course, every now and then, when we push hard enough, we are able 
to force our Democratic friends to allow a few--a few--bipartisan ideas 
to go through, such as the job training and workforce development bill 
we expect to pass tomorrow. But, boy, that is the rare exception around 
here--a very rare exception. Instead, we usually just see the game 
playing on important issues.
  On energy, Democratic leadership blocked every attempt to provide 
relief to blue collar families who have been bulldozed by the 
administration's elitist war on coal jobs. They will not help the 
millions of Americans who struggle every single day with high utility 
bills, and they will not allow a serious vote on shovel-ready projects 
such as the Keystone Pipeline, either. Senate Democrats have blocked 
just about every effort to move forward on these issues. In so doing 
the Democratic leadership actually embarrasses the handful of 
Democratic Senators who still call for action on energy and Keystone--
even veteran Members who chair committees. It just shows what little 
influence those Members actually have under the current Democratic 
leadership.
  It all lays bare a very simple truth about today's Democratic Senate: 
If the far left hates it, it ain't happening.
  That is true with health care too. The middle class is being 
plummeted by ObamaCare. A recent study showed that an average 27-year-
old Kentuckian from Taylor County saw his premiums skyrocket by almost 
60 percent this year. Constituents such as he are looking to Washington 
for leadership and for solutions, but Senate Democrats will not even 
allow sensible bipartisan health care solutions to come to a vote.
  Instead, we just get more politics, such as the legislation we hear 
may be coming up later this week--a tactic designed by the Democratic 
campaign committee to make Americans forget--forget--that Democrats 
voted to raid Medicare--voted to raid Medicare--by $700 billion to fund 
new ObamaCare spending. Every Democrat in the Senate, on Christmas Eve, 
2009, without exception, voted to take $700 billion out of Medicare to 
help fund ObamaCare.
  Senate Democrats are actually trying to distract from their votes to 
raid Medicare by making it even harder to save and strengthen Medicare. 
But Americans will not forget that the sponsors of the proposal were 
the very same people who voted to raid Medicare in the first place, 
through ObamaCare.
  And they will not forget what happened last week either when 
Republicans advanced a series of bills aimed at increasing flexibility 
in the workplace and boosting upward mobility. We thought Democrats 
might want to work with us in a bipartisan manner to move these bills 
forward, but apparently the far left will not let them. Democratic 
leadership will not even consider legislation I have introduced that 
would help more moms and dads work from home while caring for young 
children. My bill aims to bring tax policy in line with what life is 
really like for working parents, and it would help young families save 
on child care costs too. But as I said, Senate Democrats have just gone 
campaigning.
  For the Democratic leadership, helping the middle class seems to be 
far from priority one. But the middle class needs help right now, and 
the only way to offer working moms and struggling college graduates 
real solutions is to break through the Senate Democratic logjam.

[[Page 10704]]

  There are two ways to accomplish that. Either our friends on the 
other side can get serious about working for the people who elected 
them or the people who elected them can make the decision for them.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________