Bring Jobs Back Home Act -- Motion to Proceed
Floor Speech
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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, later today the President will sign a bipartisan workforce training bill into law. It is commonsense legislation that will help my constituents gain new skills to become more competitive. I was proud to support it. I am glad to see that the President is going to sign it.
Unfortunately, though, bipartisan accomplishments such as this one have become increasingly rare in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Last week President Obama took to the campaign trail to urge Congress to pass a new highway bill. He really did not need to, though; the Republican-controlled House of Representatives had already passed the highway bill earlier in the week. In fact, it sailed through on an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote, 367 to 55. The President said he would sign it if Congress sent it to his desk. I expect the Senate will do just that in fairly short order but only if the Democrats who run the Senate can put their never-ending political campaign on hold for just a minute because rather than focus on passing bipartisan legislation, not to mention the dozens of job-creation bills the House has already sent over to us, the Democratic majority seems to spend all of its time on bills designed primarily to create jobs for campaign consultants.
We got an especially vivid glimpse of this earlier this year when Senate Democrats admitted they were working with their campaign committee to craft a so-called agenda that was more about saving their own seats than anything else. Ever since, they have pretty much abandoned governing to use the Senate floor as a campaign studio. We saw the latest example last night when the majority brought up another recycled, designed-to-fail bill that has already been rejected by the Senate. It is a bill that is designed for campaign rhetoric and failure, not to create jobs here in the United States. That is not what it is about. But that is not stopping our friends on the other side from bringing it up yet again, just as they did right before the last election.
So, look. We have seen this movie before. Everyone knows the Democrats are simply not serious here. They specifically want the bill to fail.
What I am saying is let's just skip the campaigning and get something done for the middle class instead. Let's focus on bipartisan bills that can help families and create jobs here at home. Let's focus on things such as repealing the job-killing medical device tax and helping create energy jobs and reducing the tax burden on small businesses and restoring the 40-hour workweek and providing relief to Kentucky's coal families.
If we are going to have a debate about creating jobs here at home, then let's really have a debate about creating jobs here at home. This is not it. Senate Democrats, of course, know that. They also know all of their campaigning is getting in the way of focusing on passing bipartisan legislation--bipartisan legislation such as the highway bill.
Of course, we know the current highway bill is not perfect. Over the long term, Republicans have a lot of good ideas for reforming the highway trust fund in a more permanent way so it can be made sustainable for years to come, but for now we have to at least keep road and bridge projects moving forward in the meantime. The extension of the highway trust fund could be used to fund projects such as the resurfacing of several parkways that many Kentuckians use to commute to work, and it could be used to fund the widening of I-656 between Bowling Green and Elizabethtown. The judge executive of Hart County Terry Martin knows this transportation safety project is important for the Commonwealth, and he notes that the expansion to six lanes would allow for a smoother and safer flow of traffic for Kentuckians.
So let's focus on scoring bipartisan wins and jobs for our constituents instead of scoring political points. If Democrats can do that, then I am confident we will get this done because the American people didn't send us to Congress to campaign 24/7. When Senate Democrats do choose to work with us, there is a lot we can get done for the people of our country.
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