[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 1439-1441]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        HELPING THE MIDDLE CLASS

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, last week President Obama came over to 
Congress to deliver his annual State of the Union Address. His speech 
focused heavily on something Republicans have been talking about for 
the last 6 years: helping the middle class. Occasionally the President 
even sounded as if he had stolen a line from Republicans, which I can 
assure you Republicans were happy to provide.
  Seriously, Republicans were glad to hear the President pivoting back 
to the middle class. Providing relief for the middle class is the 
Republican priority in the new Congress and we are eager to work with 
the President to get things done for American families.
  Unfortunately the President's speech didn't show the same willingness 
to work together. In fact, Wolf Blitzer from CNN said: ``I don't 
remember a State of the Union Address where I heard a President issue 
so many veto threats to the opposite party in the United States 
Congress.''
  While it was good to hear the President focus on the middle class, 
his actual proposals for helping them left

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much to be desired, because unfortunately they were more of the same 
top-down, big government policies that have failed to help Americans 
over the past 6 years. For example, the President proposed a new tax on 
middle-class families' college savings accounts--the last thing 
families need when they want to save for their children to go to 
college. Fortunately, the President because he received so much 
pressure has been forced to withdraw this particular proposal, but his 
speech contained a lot of other proposals that would not provide the 
help American families need.
  If there is anything the past 6 years have shown, it is that big 
government is not the solution to our economic challenges. In fact, it 
is the cause of many of our economic problems.
  Take a look at ObamaCare. A Gallup poll released last week found that 
health care costs are one of American families' top two concerns. It is 
no wonder. ObamaCare was supposed to help our Nation's health care 
problems. It was supposed to drive down premiums and make health care 
more affordable. Instead, it has generally done the opposite.
  Since ObamaCare became law in 2010, health care premiums have risen. 
Millions of Americans have lost their health insurance plans. Others 
have lost access to doctors or to convenient hospitals. Still others 
are stuck in insurance plans paying more for less coverage. Then of 
course there are all the problems the law has created for workers and 
businesses and the pain millions of Americans will be feeling this tax 
season when they discover they owe the government money from their 
ObamaCare subsidies or that they must pay a tax penalty for failing to 
have government-approved health insurance.
  The American Action Forum recently ran the numbers and estimated that 
6,000 people in South Dakota will have to pay the ObamaCare tax penalty 
for not having government-approved health insurance. According to a 
calculator on the Wall Street Journal's Web site, the average 
individual in South Dakota will pay a $394 penalty this year, while the 
average family of four in South Dakota will pay a $650 penalty. Now 
that is a lot of money. That is a lot of money for a family in South 
Dakota, and it is only going to go up because the tax penalty will rise 
in 2016.
  As we can see on this chart, South Dakotans could be spending that 
tax money on a number of essential items if they didn't have to pay the 
penalty. In fact, for $394 in South Dakota you can buy 201 gallons of 
gas at current South Dakota prices, buy 6 weeks of groceries or make 
1.1 car payments with that amount of money. That is for an individual 
and the amount they can be basically hit with in terms of the tax 
penalty.
  If we look at how this impacts a typical South Dakota family--and the 
distinguished Chair knows exactly what I am talking about--if they 
didn't have to pay that $650 tax penalty, it could be used for 332 
gallons of gas in South Dakota at South Dakota prices, 3 weeks of 
groceries or almost two car payments. If we think about 332 gallons of 
gas in South Dakota, that would cover a lot of trips to school or to 
football practice or to dance practice. These are real-world impacts on 
real people. As ObamaCare has demonstrated, big government is not the 
answer.
  While it is great the President wants to focus on helping the middle 
class who suffered for years under his policies, he cannot help them if 
he insists on pushing more of the same failed top-down, big government 
policies. The last few years have involved laying a lot of burden on 
American workers and on the American economy to fund big government 
programs and the President's pet projects.
  Take the ObamaCare tax on lifesaving medical devices such as 
pacemakers and insulin pumps. This tax was put in place to help pay for 
the President's health care law, but it has ended up negatively 
affecting jobs in this industry. Even Democrats who voted for the 
President's health care law are pushing to get rid of this tax.
  Take the Obama Interior Department's recent decision to push for 
closing off large swaths of Alaska to energy development that would 
create jobs and benefit Alaska's economy, as well as strengthen 
America's energy independence or take the crippling new energy rules 
the President's EPA has proposed, such as a new tax on coal-fired 
powerplants that could result in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs 
and devastate entire communities; likewise, the EPA proposal to lower 
the ozone standard that would be the most expensive EPA regulation in 
history.
  I intend to reintroduce my bill, the bipartisan CASE Act, to make 
sure we tackle places with the worst smog in the country before forcing 
cleaner areas to meet what is an impossible standard.
  If we want to fix the economy, we have to stop weighing it down with 
taxes and regulations. We have to reject yesterday's stale policies 
with their focus on taxing, spending, and regulating. Instead of 
pushing big government solutions, we need to rebuild our economy from 
the bottom up.
  Republicans are focused on the future that embraces and fights for 
the potential of the people, not government. That means passing 
legislation to free businesses to create jobs. It means reforming our 
Tax Code to put more money in the pockets of American families and to 
make it easier for American businesses to compete around the globe. It 
means eliminating the kind of heavy Washington spending that is 
weakening the economy and piling up debt on the backs of the next 
generation of Americans. It means getting rid of redtape and 
regulations that are stifling energy development and the jobs that go 
along with it and preventing more American businesses from growing and 
hiring new workers. It means opening new markets abroad for American 
manufacturing and American farm products.
  The past 6 years have not been kind to American families. A recent 
Reuters story opened by saying, ``Barack Obama enters the final 2 years 
of his legacy with a blemish on his legacy that looks impossible to 
erase: the decline of the middle class he has promised to rescue.''
  Household income has fallen by more than $2,000 on the President's 
watch, according to Sentier Research. Meanwhile, prices have gone up. 
Millions of Americans are unemployed while millions more are stuck with 
part-time jobs because they cannot find more work. Millions of other 
Americans are so discouraged with not finding work over the past 6 
years that they gave up looking and dropped out of the labor force 
entirely. Wage growth has remained stagnant during the Obama 
Presidency. As a CNN headline put it after the President's State of the 
Union Address, ``Obama says wages are growing. They're not.''
  It is no surprise middle-class families aren't feeling an economic 
recovery or that Americans list lack of money and low wages as one of 
their top financial concerns.
  A New York Times headline from Sunday read ``Middle Class Shrinks 
Further As More Fall Out Instead of Climbing Up.''
  It doesn't have to stay this way. Republicans don't believe in a 
permanent middle-class decline. If we stop government from weighing 
down our economy with taxes and regulations and start freeing 
businesses to create new jobs and opportunities for American workers, 
our economy will rebound and the middle class will feel the effects.
  Republicans are already working on legislation to help the middle 
class and we will be sending our first job-creating bill with 
legislation to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline and the 42,000 jobs it 
will support during construction to the President very shortly. We hope 
the President will sign it.
  American families have had to spend 6 years in this economy. They 
shouldn't have to wait any longer for relief.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Thank you, Mr. President. I would like to thank my 
distinguished colleague from South Dakota, Senator Thune, for his very 
comprehensive review of where we are with

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the economy and the need for the Keystone Pipeline to pass. As always, 
Senator Thune in a very articulate manner made the case for our country 
to become more energy independent and also touched on national security 
and the stagnant situation we face with our economy.
  I thank the Senator for his remarks.

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