Political Strategy

Floor Speech

Madam President, 2 weeks ago the New York Times published an article on the congressional Democrats' plan for the rest of the year. It boiled down to one thing: Campaigning. That is right; 8 months out from the election, Democrats in Congress have given up on legislating. Instead, they are going to spend the next 8 months focused on show votes, which will--and I quote from the story--``be timed to coincide with campaign-style trips by President Obama.''

While these votes will focus on ``pocketbook issues'' Democrats hope will appeal to voters, the votes are not designed to actually accomplish anything. The New York Times goes on to say:

Democrats concede that making new laws is not really the point. Rather, they are trying to force Republicans to vote against them.

The article goes on to say:

Privately, White House officials say they have no intention of searching for any grand bargain with Republicans on any of these issues. ``The point isn't to compromise,'' a senior White House official said.

So that is where we are. The economy is stagnant, unemployment is hovering at recession-level highs, 10 million Americans are unemployed--nearly 4 million of them for 6 months or longer--household income has fallen, health care costs are soaring, and Democrats have decided to give up doing anything about it so they can get reelected in November.

This political strategy was front and center last week when Democrats blocked all Republican amendments during the Senate debate of the employment benefits extension bill. Republicans wanted to offer a number of amendments that were focused specifically on job creation. After all, the only reason we are considering extending unemployment benefits for the 13th time since 2008 is because so many Americans still don't have jobs. While unemployment benefits can provide limited short-term help, they do nothing to get unemployed Americans what they really want--steady, good-paying jobs with an opportunity for advancement.

Republicans thought that we should accompany yet another extension of emergency unemployment benefits with measures to make it easier and cheaper to create jobs for the millions of Americans currently searching for work. We proposed amendments to create jobs with measures such as reining in burdensome regulatory requirements and improving job training for people who are unemployed. Democrats, however, didn't want to take any votes on Republican proposals, so they simply refused to allow amendments to be considered. That is not the mark of a party that is serious about helping the unemployed.

If Democrats were really serious, they would be focused on permanent relief through jobs rather than merely treating the symptoms of unemployment. Democrats brought up unemployment benefits not because they offer real, long-term help to the unemployed but because they think these benefits might win them a few votes in November.

They are planning to keep on doing the same thing. Soon Democrats plan to bring up a 40-percent minimum wage hike that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates will cost up to 500,000 jobs by the end of 2016. By the way, 57 percent of those job losses--according to the CBO--would be held by women. But that is not stopping the Democrats who hope that a minimum wage hike will gain them votes at the polls even if it hurts workers in the process.

This week Senator Reid filed cloture on the motion to proceed to a similarly political bill, the so-called Paycheck Fairness Act. All Senate Republicans believe in equal pay for equal work. Paycheck fairness has been the law of the land since 1963. Democrats are playing politics with equal pay and attempting to distract from the real harm that their policies have done to women. Right now there are 3.7 million more women living in poverty than there were when the President took office. Since the President took office, the poverty rate for women has increased from 14.4 percent to 16.3 percent. Income for female college graduates has dropped by over $1,400, and the median income for women is down by $733 since the President took office.

It would be nice if this legislation that is being proposed by the Democratic majority provided women with real economic help, but it is far more likely to line the pockets of trial lawyers. In fact, this election-year ploy would actually hurt women by increasing Federal regulations that would cut flexibility in the workforce for working moms and end merit pay to reward quality work.

If Democrats were really serious about helping women, they would work with us on bills to create jobs and to expand workplace opportunities for women as well as for men--bills such as Senator Rubio's legislation to amend the National Labor Relations Act to allow employers to give merit-based pay increases to good workers; or Senator Collins' bill to repeal ObamaCare's 30-hour workweek rule, which is reducing hours and lowering wages for many workers, particularly women, who make up 63 percent of those affected; or the bill proposed by Senator Mike Lee, which would help employers balance work and family life by allowing private sector employers to give workers the choice of monetary compensation or comp time for the overtime hours that they work; or Senator McConnell and Senator Ayotte's bill, which would give hourly workers access to flexible work arrangements like comp time off and flexible credit hours; or my bill combining several of my colleagues' proposals to stimulate job creation and increase hours and wages through energy development, job training, and regulatory relief. Then, of course, there is Senator Fischer's proposal to give women the tools and knowledge they need to fight discrimination at work.

Many of these proposals have passed the House of Representatives and are awaiting action by the Senate. These bills would create new jobs, open new opportunities, and help reverse the economic decline that women have experienced over the past 5 years. But Democrats don't seem to be interested in providing economic relief to women. They are interested in elections and scoring political points.

Democrats can go on campaigning for the rest of the year if they want. They can twist the legislative process for their own political ends and ignore the economic pain they have caused women and men. Meanwhile, the middle class in this country continues to fall further and further behind.

Republicans in the Senate will continue to propose legislation to create jobs and opportunities for Americans and help make up the ground that the American people have lost in the Obama economy. Democrats can still change their minds and join us, and I hope they will because the situation has not gotten any better. We still have chronic high unemployment, lower take-home pay, and lower household income.

We have almost 4 million people who have been unemployed for more than 6 months. The labor participation rate--the number of people who are actually in the labor workforce today--is at the lowest level we have seen in 35 years, meaning there are millions of Americans who left the workforce.

Those statistics are crying out for solutions that will do something about the need for jobs in our economy, that will do something about growing and expanding our economy, so those people who are unemployed can find the work they need to improve their standard of living and that of their families as well.

So I hope all of these issues I have mentioned--these are all amendments that have been filed by my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle. So far there is no indication, no suggestion that any of these amendments are going to get an opportunity to be offered, to be debated, and to be voted on--amendments that actually would improve the outlook for not only men in this country but women as well, by growing the economy, expanding the economy, creating the types of good-paying jobs that will create opportunities for advancement for hard-working Americans.

If the Senate is going to continue to be a place where debate and amendments are shut down, blocked by the other side simply so they can have show votes designed to appeal to a political audience as we head into the midterm elections; if we aren't going to be doing anything to solve the real-world problems millions of Americans who are unemployed have, or millions of Americans who have been hurt by this economy, and millions of Americans who have seen their standard of living and their quality of life eroded by bad policies coming out of Washington, DC, that make it more difficult and more expensive to create jobs--that is what we ought to be focused on. Republicans come to the floor, as we did last week when we were debating unemployment insurance, with amendments designed specifically at growing the economy and creating jobs. At every turn we have been blocked from offering those amendments and, in turn, we are talking about nothing more than political rhetoric in an election year that does nothing to address the real problems of the American people. They deserve better. We can do better. I hope we will. I hope the Democrats will change their minds and join us and allow us to have that debate, to have those votes, and allow us to do something meaningful for middle-class families.

I yield the floor.

Source