[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 884-886]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, last night the President delivered the 
State of the Union Address. So it was interesting to hear the acting 
minority leader talking about homeland security, budgeting for homeland 
security. I know the Presiding Officer, through his service to our 
Nation overseas, wearing a uniform, keeping us safe, keeping us free--
the Presiding Officer has concerns, as do I, about what we heard last 
night.
  It was interesting to hear some of the commentary after the 
President's speech as we talk about securing the homeland and what it 
means for the American public. Andrea Mitchell, MSNBC, ``I think that 
on foreign policy his''--meaning President Obama's--``projection of 
success against terrorism and against ISIS, in particular, is not close 
to reality.'' The President of the United States, ``not close to 
reality.''
  I have just come back from a trip to the Middle East, been to Saudi 
Arabia, Qatar, Israel. I concur with Andrea Mitchell; that on the 
specifics of the President's assessment of success against terrorism 
and against ISIS, this President ``is not close to reality.'' So 
Republicans are going to continue to bring forth the issues to the 
American people of what reality is like in the world, in spite of the 
way the President may address it, because of the specific failures of 
this President and his foreign policy.
  It is interesting. Last night in the State of the Union Address, the 
President started by saying that ``the state of the Union is strong.'' 
The state of our Union is strong. But President Obama mistakenly took 
credit for that strength. He implied it was because of his policies, 
because of his actions. On that point this President could not have 
gotten it more wrong. The state of our Union is strong because of the 
strength of the American people.
  Americans are resilient. Americans are hardworking. In the November 
elections, the American people showed they can act decisively. It is 
interesting, this morning's headline, New York Times: ``Staunchly 
Liberal Wish List Brushes Off G.O.P.'s Gains.'' Headline, New York 
Times, bright, bold, above the fold. ``Staunchly Liberal Wish List 
Brushes off G.O.P.'s Gains.''
  So we are a resilient nation. People know what they believe. They 
know how they feel. They voted those beliefs. When the American people 
chose Republicans to lead both Houses of Congress, they said clearly 
they wanted change, a change from Barack Obama, a change from the 
direction he has been taking this country. People want Democrats to 
start working with Republicans to get things done.
  The American people said in the November elections they are tired of 
the gridlock, they are tired of the dysfunction, tired of Democrats 
running the Senate to protect their own jobs and not caring about the 
jobs of middle-class Americans.
  President Obama had a great opportunity last night, an opportunity to 
show that he understands what Americans have been telling him. Instead 
he went out and he gave the same speech he always gives. It was a 
partisan attack on Republicans and the Americans who voted to put the 
Republicans in charge in the House and in the Senate.
  It is interesting listening to the commentary after the speech. Wolf 
Blitzer, 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 Congress.''
  So we have Andrea Mitchell, MSNBC, saying that in terms of foreign 
policy the President's views ``are not close to reality.'' CNN, Wolf 
Blitzer, ``I do not 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,'' especially when it is at a time, as the New 
York Times pointed out, of GOP gains in the elections, the President 
specifically ignoring what has happened across this country in the 
November elections. President Obama seems to have missed the November 
elections entirely.
  Republicans know we have an obligation to the American people to 
deliver effective, efficient, and accountable government. We have an 
opportunity and an obligation to put Americans first. Last night 
President Obama showed he still wants to put Washington first. 
Republicans are not willing to help this President continue down the 
same wrong road that the American people have rejected. Let's be 
honest. This past election was a rejection election, rejecting the 
policies of this President, this administration.
  We are charting a new course and a better direction. We are already 
making progress. The Senate is working like it has not worked in years. 
We are debating actual legislation, laying on the floor the Keystone 
Pipeline jobs bill. We are allowing Senators to offer amendments. We 
actually had votes on three amendments yesterday. We are going to pass 
this bill. We are going to send it to the President's desk.
  Then we are going to turn to more jobs bills and the important issues 
the American people care about. We are going to work on reforming our 
health care system. In his speech last night President Obama offered no 
solutions on the major issues facing this country. Instead, he offered 
the same old tired policies of higher taxes, more Washington spending, 
more bureaucracy, more obstruction of bipartisan solutions coming out 
of the new Congress.
  The President said Congress should focus on areas where we agree. 
That is

[[Page 885]]

exactly what Republicans have been doing. We are moving bipartisan 
bills, bills that overwhelming majorities of Americans support. The 
President continues to threaten to veto them, things such as the 
Keystone XL Pipeline bill that supports 42,000 American jobs. That is 
not my number. That is what the State Department--the President's own 
State Department--said, it would support 42,000 American jobs.
  In a poll last week, 65 percent of Americans said the President 
should sign that into law. We will pass bills to allow for more exports 
of American energy and to give the President trade promotion authority 
that he has asked for and that America needs. We will pass commonsense 
reforms to America's health care system, to end many of the outrageous 
and expensive mandates for coverage that people do not want, do not 
need, cannot afford.
  We will pass bipartisan education reform to give all of America's 50 
million students a better chance to succeed. We will push for tax 
simplification, to make taxes less fair, less complicated. That is what 
Americans need to compete in the 21st century. We do not need higher 
taxes, more debt to pay for spending and more IRS agents, things the 
American people do not believe we need.
  Republicans are going to send the President bills that will help 
expand our economy by growing the private sector, not by growing the 
Washington bureaucracy. We are going to pass bills that increase how 
much families earn and how much of that they actually get to keep, not 
just how much Washington gets to take and the President gets to spend.
  So the state of our Union is strong. It is also in greater agreement 
than it has been in years about the direction this country should take. 
President Obama could have taken the opportunity last night to actually 
talk about this. He could have offered a positive plan to work with 
Republicans and Democrats in Congress instead of the defiant tone he 
placed upon the country.
  He made threats to veto bipartisan legislation. He chose to double 
down on more obstruction, more unaccountable Washington bureaucracy, 
more wasted tax dollars. The American people have rejected this course. 
The American people want a better path, not the same old tired speech 
from a President now in the final quarter of his time as President.
  The speech is over. Now the President needs to decide what he is 
actually going to do. Is he ready to get on board with bipartisan ideas 
or does he want to spend the next 2 years as a lameduck. There are 
Democrats in this body who agree it is actually time for the Senate to 
get back to work. They are ready to listen to ideas, good ideas, work 
with Republicans to help America, to help the American people thrive.
  This President should work with all of us. That is what Americans 
want. They want us to work together. They want us to change the 
direction our country has been headed for the first 6 years of 
President Obama's time in office. This Republican Congress is listening 
to the American people. The President continues to ignore them.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, similar to the rest of the country, I 
listened with close attention to the President's State of the Union 
Address last night. I had a pretty good seat down front. I got to 
listen to the President very closely. Of course I was interested 
because this presented a great opportunity for the President, following 
a very eventful election on November 4, to state his vision for the 
country and most particularly to talk about his plans for working with 
the new Congress that was elected in November.
  It was a big election for a lot of reasons but one was that we got 
nine new Republican Members of the Senate. I have been in the Senate in 
the minority and I have been in the Senate in the majority. I can tell 
you I like it a lot better in the majority. But the fact is that 
notwithstanding a very good election, from my perspective, on November 
4, one that sent a real clear message, I was left to wonder whether the 
President got that message.
  While I believe this was a referendum on Washington's dysfunction in 
dealing with so many of the issues that face hard-working American 
families, what the President seemed to promise was more dysfunction. 
But I for one am here to say we are not going to follow the President 
down this low road. We will try to find areas where we can work with 
the President. He did mention a few: things such as trade, things such 
as criminal justice reform. There are a few things the President seemed 
to indicate were not partisan issues. We look forward to working with 
him on those issues.
  But the biggest problem we have and which still faces our country is 
the fact that notwithstanding one pretty good quarter of economic 
growth, our economy and our recovery are still pretty fragile. We know 
the number of people, the percentage of Americans in the workforce is 
at about a 30-year low. Some of that is because they have looked for 
work and they cannot find work, Americans who are seeking full-time 
work and have to settle for part-time work. Part of it is because of 
the President's own policies, things such as the Affordable Care Act--
ObamaCare--which incentivizes employers to put people on part-time work 
in order to avoid some of the penalties.
  But notwithstanding my optimism after this important election we had 
in November and the potential we have working together--the President 
and Congress--to try to address the challenges that face our country, 
my optimism was quickly tempered. Why only tempered optimism? I heard, 
as the Senator from Wyoming, my friend Mr. Barrasso, mentioned, the 
President has issued seven veto threats since the election--seven veto 
threats; this from a President who in the first 6 years of his term of 
office has only vetoed one bill.
  But the first thing he does after this election, where it should have 
been a wake-up call to him and others--should have been a wake-up call 
to all of us--he is issuing seven veto threats to bills that have not 
even been voted out of the Senate, that have not even made their way to 
his desk. To me that sends a very disturbing message that the 
President, instead of just being Commander in Chief, wants to be the 
obstructionist in chief. I do not know how else to interpret that.
  Then there is the President's disquieting tendency to take credit for 
things other people have done, and for his own failures, to blame them 
on someone else. It is truly disturbing. Since this new Congress has 
convened, it seems to me it has been a tale of two branches of 
government.
  While the Congress has shown a commitment to working together--and in 
my private conversations with my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle, many of them are eager to work with us to try to find solutions 
to these challenges on a bipartisan basis.
  This is one reason why the majority leader, Senator McConnell, chose 
the Keystone XL Pipeline legislation, because it enjoys broad, 
bipartisan support. We thought it was important to demonstrate, right 
out of the starting gates, that we actually listened to what the 
American people told us on November 4--that they want us to work 
together and they are tired of the dysfunction. But it appears the 
President hasn't noticed or, perhaps more accurately, he doesn't really 
care what the American people said on November 4.
  If the President isn't going to listen to the American people and the 
voters who voted in a referendum on his policies--those are not my 
words; those are his--I wish he would at least listen to what he 
himself has said. He has said time and again that elections have 
consequences.
  Well, I agree with that. Who wouldn't. But this is the same President 
who 22 times said he did not have the authority to issue an Executive 
action on immigration and then turned around and did it. Twenty-two 
times he said he didn't have the authority, and then he did it.
  What I have learned in Washington is we can't just listen to what 
people say. We have to watch what they do. We have a track record of 
the past 6 years

[[Page 886]]

of what this President has done and not just what he has said.
  As I say, the intransigence and the tone deafness was pretty shocking 
last night. Notwithstanding, the President gave a good speech. What I 
think the President really hadn't cracked the code on--as anybody in 
elected office has to understand--is that there is a difference between 
running for office and actually governing once the election is over. 
But this President seems to be in a perpetual campaign mode, making 
promises that sound like campaign promises rather than recognizing the 
reality of divided government and looking for opportunities to work 
together to actually solve problems.
  So he is back on the campaign trail again. I think he is going to 
Idaho and other places around the country touting his new agenda--
hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes. Of course, somebody has 
to pay the bills, but the President mainly talked about free stuff last 
night. Free stuff is always pretty popular. I am surprised he didn't 
offer Americans free beer and pizza while he was at it. It is very 
popular.
  But the American people are not dumb. They understand somebody is 
going to have to pay the bill, and the President ignored that entirely. 
He also ignored that for the past 6 years this President has added $7 
trillion to the national debt. It is now over $18 trillion.
  Now, I know that it is impossible for the human mind to wrap itself 
around a figure that big. That is so big that it is incomprehensible in 
many ways. But we didn't hear a thing about the President adding $7 
trillion to the national debt.
  What he did take credit for--this is interesting because I have 
mentioned he takes credit for things he had nothing to do with and he 
blames other people for his own failures. But here is where he was half 
right. He did say that the deficit--the difference between the money we 
bring in and the money we spend--actually had gone down a little bit.
  That is true, but the fact remains that we are still adding to the 
national debt for every dollar of deficit spending. But what the 
President also did not say is the main reason why the annual deficit 
had gone down was because he advocated one of the largest tax increases 
in recent history--perhaps in all of American history--during the 
fiscal cliff debate. Then, of course, there was the sequester, which 
are the caps put on discretionary spending, which the President railed 
against even though he was the one who thought this up during the so-
called supercommittee deliberations.
  I couldn't help but think, as the President kept talking about 
raising taxes, increasing spending, and not dealing with problems such 
as the looming debt, that he was turning us more into Europe, a welfare 
state, where everybody would look to the government to take care of 
them, not a country that we were left by our parents and grandparents, 
where we could exercise our individual freedom and seek opportunities 
to rise above what we had been left by previous generations.
  To me that is the most important difference in what the President 
said last night and what he might have said, because our children do 
deserve more opportunities. The truth is that for most of us who are 
people my age, we are going to be OK. But the fact is the next 
generation, my children and beyond, have been bequeathed more debt.
  Now the President wants to add on to that debt--more taxes, more 
spending, bigger government.
  If there was one thing that was rejected in this last election, it 
was what we have had for the past 6 years. What we have had for the 
past 6 years was a grand experiment in government. We have always had 
this debate about the size and the role of the Federal Government, but 
we have never had such an aggressive attempt to grow the size of the 
government in recent memory, certainly since the New Deal, as under the 
past 6 years. What the American people, I believe, rejected was this 
experiment in big government.
  Perhaps that would be understandable if there weren't examples of 
what actually does work, what does grow the economy, what does put more 
money in hard-working taxpayers' pockets, and what does provide more 
jobs and opportunity. One reason why it seems somewhat obvious to me is 
because I see what has been done in places such as my home State of 
Texas, and it has been done in other States where they put their trust 
in people and not in bigger government that somebody has to pay for.
  The formula is not all that unique. Governor Perry, who just left 
office after 14 years, when people talked about the ``Texas miracle,'' 
said: No, it is not a miracle; a miracle is a supernatural event. This 
is the Texas model. It is a conscious effort to choose policies that 
actually work, that grow the economy and create jobs, lower taxes, and 
result in less red tape and a balanced budget.
  Wouldn't that be nice? We haven't had a balanced budget in Washington 
since 2009. It is really malpractice.
  There are other policies that would foster a better business 
environment and encourage businesses to invest and grow because that 
creates jobs, that creates rising wages and a successful middle class. 
So the fact is that if it works in the States, it can work here too.
  Now, measures such as reforming the Tax Code to provide tax relief in 
a way that incentivizes people to work harder and produce more are pro-
growth tax policies--not regressive policies such as the President has 
proposed, which would make it harder.
  Improving infrastructure projects--the President talked about 
infrastructure last night, but he has also issued a veto threat on the 
Keystone XL Pipeline. We are--I agree with the Senator from Wyoming--
going to approve it, put it on his desk, and then it is up to him. 
Then, of course, there is putting Americans back to work and repealing 
oppressive government overreach--such as ObamaCare.
  There is a difference between governing and campaigning. The 
President--there is no doubt about it--is a world class campaigner. He 
is right that he won two elections by running very successful 
campaigns, but he seems absolutely disinterested, detached, and, 
indeed, actually an obstacle to governing, which is the job in front of 
us.
  In closing, I would say the state of the Union is always a work in 
progress, but it should always be improving. It is my sincere hope the 
President will realize the hand he has been dealt, which is one of 
divided government, and that rather than campaigning perpetually, 
making promises for free stuff, higher taxes, and bigger government, 
that he would work with us to solve some of the very clear challenges 
that confront us, primarily ones that will help grow our economy and 
put Americans back to work.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be allowed to 
speak for 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.

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