Senate Republicans Urge Democrats Not to Block Job Creation Amendments

Mar 31 2014

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor calling on Majority Leader Reid to allow Republican amendments that focus on job creation:

"Today is the nominal deadline for most people to sign up for Obamacare. And while one Senator from the other side of the aisle said yesterday that there's 'no such thing as Obamacare,' that will come as news to millions of our constituents - the millions of Americans facing higher premiums, cancelled plans and the loss of doctors and hospitals they liked as a result of this law.

"Obamacare is definitely real to the Middle Class families we represent. And if our friends on the other side want to make the pain of this law go away, then they can work with us to replace it with smart, bipartisan reforms. But trying to wish their own Obamacare law away or simply pretending it's not there - well, that's just insulting to the people we represent. The American people deserve better than that.
"Now, on a related matter:
"We'll be having a vigorous debate this week in the Senate about how to create jobs and rebuild the Middle Class.

"On the one side, Democrats will be offering more of the same.

"They'll propose treating the symptoms instead of meaningfully improving the prospects of people struggling out there.

"On the other side, Republicans will be proposing concrete ways to break the cycle of unemployment and hopelessness that pervades the Obama economy - ideas aimed at helping people reach their true potential and build a better life for themselves.

"The Republican message is all about innovation and opportunity - and making it easier for more people to join the ranks of the Middle Class. It's about reforming the underlying causes of unemployment, instead of just perpetually treating the symptoms and it's about how we create the jobs of the future that will allow Americans to do more than just pay their bills.

"Republicans will offer a series of jobs amendments this week that underline our determination to reorient America's economic trajectory. We want to lift our country from stagnation to growth, from hostility toward enterprise to an embrace of innovation, and from a system rigged by government elites for their own benefit to one that can work for the Middle Class again.

"So Americans will hear about two competing agendas this week.

"On the one hand: a tired, government-centered Democrat agenda designed by, and for, ideologues of the Left.

"On the other: a modern, enterprise-oriented Republican agenda designed around the hopes and the potential of the Middle Class.

"This is a debate Republicans welcome. It's one we've been wanting to have for a long time.

"And we hope Washington Democrats will actually be serious this time when they say they want to focus on jobs.

"Because every time they say it, they keep getting distracted and 'pivoting' to other issues.

"Here's something else we expect from the majority too: votes on amendments for positive reform.

"The American people deserve at least that much. After so many years of failure, the Middle Class deserves the chance for something better.

"Remember: there are nearly 4 million Americans who have been unemployed for six months or longer. These Americans deserve to have a Congress that's committed to making it easier, not harder, to create jobs.

"So let's have this debate. Let's vote on Republicans' jobs amendments. And let's give some hope again to the Middle Class families who've suffered for too long."

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