Paycheck Fairness Act -- Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. The Obama economy has had a devastating impact on the people we represent. It has hurt millions in the middle class and people from every region of the country in almost every walk of life. When we consider the debate in the Senate, a few statistics jump out in particular.

Under this President's watch more than 3.7 million American women have fallen into poverty. The average American woman now makes about $730 less than when the President took office. If she is a college graduate, she has actually seen her income shrink by about double that amount. In other words, when it comes to American women overall, what we have seen over the past 5 1/2 years is less income and more poverty. That is the story Senate Democrats don't want to talk about.

Perhaps that is why for weeks now they have blocked the efforts Republicans have made to improve the picture. Senate Democrats want to control this debate from start to finish and basically do nothing to help with our efforts to expand opportunity and jobs for women and for men. It would appear, as some have put it, they have no interest in solutions or any concern for the consequences of their actions. We see that in how uninterested they seem to be in the statistics I just mentioned, and we can see it in some other policies they have been defending literally for months.

Take Obama's 30-hour workweek rule, which is basically forcing employers to slash workers' hours. Who is impacted the most by it? As one study pointed out, it is women. Nearly two-thirds of those adversely impacted by this arbitrary provision of ObamaCare are women, but Washington Democrats don't seem to care about that. They don't seem to care about the ways people we represent are being hurt by their policies.

As I said, they continue to block all the innovative ideas that Republicans have been offering to turn the tide. Just look at what happened on the Senate floor yesterday. I, along with several other Republican colleagues, offered a series of measures that would not only have helped the jobs picture in our country, it would have provided greater opportunities for men, women, and families desperate to get ahead. Had Democratic Senators not blocked these ideas, they would have passed.

Why did Senate Democrats object to Senator Collins' proposal to restore the 40-hour workweek? Do they think it is fair that Obama's 30-hour workweek discriminates against working women? Do Democrats think it is fair to protect the rules that disproportionately reduce their wages?

Why do they object to the workplace flexibility proposal that Senator Ayotte and I offered? Here is legislation that would have given working moms and dads the option to take time off to help them find a better work-life balance--flexibility that is more critical than ever now that ObamaCare's 30-hour work rule is forcing people to pick up a second or third job just to scrape by.

Why are Democrats so opposed to a policy that a lot of working women say they want, a policy that is tailored to the needs of the modern workforce and that many government employees already enjoy?

Why do Senate Democrats object to our job creation legislation, which includes so many smart ideas from so many different Senators? Here is a bill that strikes right at the heart of what has ailed our country for 5 1/2 years, a lack of jobs and opportunity. Passing it should have been a no-brainer.

But Senate Democrats blocked all of it, every last one of our proposals, just like they shut down the proworker legislation Senator Paul and I offered last week. The Right to Work Act is smart policy that promises to boost competitiveness while advancing workers' rights, ensuring they are not limited by the dictates of a union.

It is similar to another bill I am proud to cosponsor: Senator Rubio's RAISE Act, which would allow workers to get a raise even if union bosses didn't want them to. Take for instance a worker who outperforms her colleagues and then is told by a union boss to sit down and accept less pay than she deserves--not a dime more than the coworker she is outperforming. It is completely and totally unfair, and workers such as she shouldn't be penalized by some archaic rule dreamt up before the age of ``Mad Men.''

These are the ideas that everyone who claims to stand for workplace fairness should want to help us pass. Yet Washington Democrats always seem to find some excuse not to. Maybe the Big Labor bosses they are answering to are telling them they cannot. Who knows. Or maybe it is the trial lawyers they seem to be so attentive to these days.

It makes sense when we consider what Senate Democrats have been talking about this week, a bill that even publications such as the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and the Boston Globe have said is bad policy. At a time when the Obama economy is already hurting women so much, this legislation would double down on job loss, all while lining the pockets of trial lawyers. In other words, it is just another Democratic idea that threatens to hurt the very people it claims to help.

It is time for Washington Democrats to stop protecting trial lawyers and start focusing on actually helping the people we were sent to represent. We have already seen what 5 1/2 years of Washington Democratic control has meant: more poverty and lower wages for women. So they need to stop blocking innovative ideas that would move us further along the path to opportunity because, look, the college graduate who has seen her annual paycheck decline by $1,400 over the past several years is counting on Senate Democrats to change their game plan. The part-time worker who cannot imagine how she is going to make ends meet under ObamaCare's 30-hour work rule is counting on Democrats to think outside the box.

The American people are tired of Washington Democrats' 5 1/2 years of failed policies and all the political games that helped us get here in the first place. Americans actually want solutions and they want them now and we owe it to them to start passing the kinds of innovative ideas Republicans are committed to pursuing, no matter how many times the majority tries to shut us down.

I yield the floor.

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