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‘Republicans will offer amendments to improve this critical legislation, and move it back to the package President Obama originally proposed – 40 percent tax relief, no wasteful spending, and a bipartisan approach’

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor Thursday regarding the SCHIP legislation and previewed trillion-dollar spending bill debate that will begin next week:

“Republicans have had an opportunity this week to highlight many of our better ideas related to ensuring low-income children receive quality health care.

“We’ll continue to offer our plans to improve this program, and possibly finish up the SCHIP bill today, which lets us turn to the economy next week.

“The economy is clearly the top issue on the minds of all Americans. I think we all agree that we need to act to strengthen our economy and create jobs.

“The bill produced by the Democratic Congress falls short on a number of important fronts.

“First, it doesn’t fix the main problem, which is housing.

“We need to address that, and my colleagues will have better ideas to stimulate homeownership.

“Next, we need to let taxpayers keep more of what they earn.

“And, finally, we should not be spending taxpayer dollars we don’t have on programs we don’t need.

“We’ve seen a lot of reports recently on what’s in the bill – everything from buying cars for federal employees to beautifying ATV trails to spiffing up the headquarters building at the Department of Commerce.

“In a time of a trillion-dollar deficit we cannot afford Washington business as usual. We must insist on the highest standards. Are these projects necessary? Will they stimulate the economy? Will they create jobs? Should we ask the American taxpayer to foot the bill?

“Republicans believe that letting individuals and businesses keep more of what they earn will have a quicker stimulative effect than having the government spend it on projects, particularly ones that are likely to be delayed for three to four years.

“We look forward to offering amendments to improve this critical legislation, and move it back to the package President Obama originally proposed – 40 percent tax relief, no wasteful spending, and a bipartisan approach.

“Republicans have better ideas to dramatically improve this bill that will go at the problem, create jobs, and stimulate the economy.

“We have better ideas to address the housing crisis, which is where this problem originated.

“But in order to pass these, and other commonsense amendments, we need support from our friends across the aisle.

“Fixing our economy requires innovative ideas, commonsense solutions and bipartisan cooperation.

“It’s clear from last night’s vote in the House, that the only thing bipartisan about this bill is the opposition to it. It simply doesn’t meet the standard for bipartisan cooperation set by President Obama and welcomed by Republicans in Congress.

“Republicans stand ready to work with our friends across the aisle to create bipartisan legislation which will actually stimulate the economy and create jobs.

“We’re ready to start now.”

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WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday regarding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Later this morning the Senate is expected to vote on the ‘Kids First Act’ amendment:

“This morning, the Senate will return to debate on children’s health insurance legislation. I think we had a good day of debate yesterday.

“I know that Members of both parties were participating in important committee business for much of the day. I want compliment Senators Coburn and Burr for the outstanding job they did managing Republican time while our Finance Committee colleagues were occupied at a mark-up.

“Republicans are committed to making sure every child has access to affordable health insurance. But there are some pretty important differences between Republicans and Democrats in how you get there.

“Today, the Senate will vote on our Republican alternative, the Kids First Act.

“Just to remind my colleagues, the Kids First Act refocuses the SCHIP program on its intended purpose – providing insurance to low-income, uninsured children.

“The Kids First Act closes a number of loopholes and gimmicks that are being used to expand the definition of ‘low income’ to families making $88,000 per year. I don’t know anyone in Kentucky who would characterize $88,000 as ‘low-income.’

“Some states have used SCHIP to cover adults, even when thousands of eligible low-income children are still lacking coverage. Let me repeat that – insurance for children is being used instead for adults. That’s wrong and the Kids First Act would ban such practices.

“The CBO reports that our legislation will provide coverage to nearly 2 million low-income children who currently lack health insurance. And it does so in a fiscally responsible manner without raising taxes.

“I know that many of my Republican colleagues also have commonsense ideas to improve this legislation.

“Republicans understand that taxpayer resources are too scarce to be squandered away by waste, fraud, or abuse. And Republicans are prepared to offer amendments to fix these problems and make the bill better.

“For example, one provision of the bill allows a select few states to expand coverage to more than three times the federal poverty level. We don’t think it is fair to provide special treatment to certain states, and we expect an amendment to address that.

“The bill also provides government health insurance to 2.4 million kids who already have health insurance. Republicans believe those kids should be able to keep the coverage they have and we’ll have amendments let kids who already have health insurance keep that coverage, freeing up more resources for more kids in need.

“Just as working families are trying to get the most out of every dollar, Republicans believe government needs to do the same by rooting our waste, fraud, and abuse in all its programs, including Medicaid and SCHIP.

“These are just a few of the ideas that we will be discussing today and tomorrow as the Senate continues this very important debate.”

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‘Hopefully it will end up being more stimulus and less pork’

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell appeared on CNN news program “American Morning” Wednesday morning. The following are excerpts from the program:

On the Senate Republicans’ Meeting with President Obama:

“… I invited him to come up in December, and he did yesterday. We enjoyed having him. He listened to our suggestions. I think his biggest problem is oddly enough, not with us, but with Congressional Democrats, who seem not to have gotten the memo about the nature of a stimulus, which is that it ought to be timely, temporary, and targeted.”

On the Democrats’ Trillion-Dollar Spending Bill:

“The House package, we haven't seen the Senate package yet, we haven't had the debate on the floor, but the House package has still got things like, you know, repairing ATV trails and fish passages and other things, you know, that may be worthwhile projects but are certainly not going to meet the standard of timely, temporary, and targeted. So, there's widespread agreement that we need a stimulus package. We're still working on it in the Senate. Hopefully it will end up being more stimulus and less pork.”

On Fixing the Housing Problem:

“Well, there are two things that we think are essential. Number one, we need to go right at the housing problem, that's what started all of this. We have a proposal for 4% mortgages that we think would dramatically go right at what started the whole thing.

“…many people would refinance. It would deal with the leveraging problem that the whole country has, too much debt, both the government and individuals. In addition to that, the President himself, of course, also indicates that the housing problem is important. We just approved a second tranche of the troubled asset relief program. He indicated yesterday he thought a substantial portion of that would be devoted to housing. I don't know whether that will happen or not. But it should. But we believe that a part of the stimulus package, this 4% mortgage proposal, would go directly at the housing problem which started the whole mess.”

On Tax Relief for Individuals and Businesses:

“In addition to that, there's no question, that tax relief, both for individual taxpayers, get those middle-class tax rates down so it will be reflected in people's take-home pay immediately and also some business tax relief. I think the president believes there ought to be some business tax relief. We think that's important. And in terms of the tax portion of the overall package, the President had originally said he thought it ought to be 40%. We agree with that.

“Unfortunately, it looks like in the House package it's crammed down to about 20%. And much of that tax relief doesn't go to people who pay income taxes. So, where we had differences with the House democrats is that the package just doesn't seem to reflect our priorities, nor the President's.”

On the Cram-Down Proposal:

“Yeah, what I do oppose is giving judges the ability to change the terms of the contracts, the so-called cram-down proposal. What that would do in effect is raise mortgage rates for everyone in the country who is in compliance. It’s important to remember that over 90% of Americans are making their payments on time. They haven't done anything wrong and they didn't deserve to have their interest rates raised by some unelected judge.”

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Recent Press Releases

Fixing our economy requires innovative ideas, commonsense solutions, cooperation

January 29, 2009

McConnell: ‘Republicans are committed to making sure every child has access to affordable health insurance’

January 28, 2009

McConnell on CNN’s ‘American Morning’ calls for housing help, tax relief

January 28, 2009