A senator madam president . The presiding officer the senator from south dakota. Mr. Thune madam president , i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be dispensed with. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Thune madam president , i come to the floor today to talk about the damage obamacare is doing to the struggling economy. Now after months of unrelenting coverage of obamacares many problems and after fridays release of decembers dismal jobs report, im sure democrats here in the senate would prefer that we talk about almost anything else. After all, when you have held most of the power in washington here for the last five years, you dont want to mention the fact that your main legacy is a sluggish economy and a disastrous train wreck of a health care program. This past friday, we found out that december marked the weakest month of job growth since january of 2011. The economy added just 74,000 jobs in december, less than half of the monthly job growth needed for a real recovery
Trying to raise more taxes for washington to spend the money. How does this end . In the end, republicans, from everybody i talked to, they could live with the across the board cutting. It would hurt your state deeply. It would hurt the defense industry. Are you willing to just live with it . Heres what i hope will happen. We have in our alternative several proposals that the president has actually come out in favor of. There are improvements to the whats called the medicare provider tax, to get rid of the gimmick that states are playing. The president supports that. Our plan says we have to bring a federal Employee Pension benefit down in line with the market rates. Those are the kind of things that were talking about as alternatives that make a lot more sense, that wont have the impact on the people who are out there working. You know, the president is the one who proposed the sequester in the first place. Again, im questioning where this thing is going because hes not moved in any s
Sponsor of for that reason. These are indiscriminate cuts. We can do a lot better. What i hope to be able to hear from the president in the state of the union is he wants to join us in trying to effect much smarter cuts in spending. But thats what hes saying. We dont have to have the impact that you just described. Why not work with him on shortterm measure which he is talking about to delay this, find a different way to go about some of the cuts . The problem is, david, every time you turn around the answer is to raise taxes. And, you know, he just got his tax hike on the wealthy. And you cant in this town every three months raise taxes. Again, every time, thats his response. And weve got a spending problem. Everybody knows it. The house has put forward an alternative plan, and theres been no response in any serious way from the senate or the white house. Its time we really have to do it. This is how the president responded to that in his saturday address. Taking on the house plan and
In washington as the president prepares to deliver his state of the Union Address tuesday night. As we begins a second term, were being told he will return to his primary message of how to restore economic growth. Well talk to both sides this morning. Majority leader eric cantor and assistant democratic leader in the senate dick durbin. I want to welcome you back to meet the press. Pleasure, david. Thank you. There are so many areas that are contentious right now, and chief among them is the sequester word. This dirty word in washington, that means automatic spending cuts. It could begin in a matter of weeks with 85 billion in automatic cuts. Do you really want this as a republican leader . Look at the impact it would have in your state alone. The Associated Press wrote about this it this week. Sequestration, today a political football would cripple virginias economy if happens. Potentially no state would suffer more than virginia. The commonwealth would lose more than 130,000 jobs, mo
As we begins a second term, were being told he will return to his primary message of how to restore economic growth. Well talk to both sides this morning. Majority leader eric cantor and assistant democratic leader in the senate dick durbin. I want to welcome you back to meet the press. Pleasure, david. Thank you. There are so many areas that are contentious right now, and chief among them is the sequester word. This dirty word in washington, that means automatic spending cuts. It could begin in a matter of weeks with 85 billion in automatic cuts. Do you really want this as a republican leader . Look at the impact it would have in your state alone. The Associated Press wrote about this it this week. Sequestration, today a political football would cripple virginias economy if happens. Potentially no state would suffer more than virginia. The commonwealth would lose more than 130,000 jobs, more than any other states. Not only is Virginia Home to the pentagon, the Worlds Largest u. S. Nav