WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor calling on Senate Democrats to focus on the middle class, not on a poll-tested, campaign-crafted agenda:

“I want to start by acknowledging the Majority Leader’s candor yesterday in outlining his party’s agenda for the rest of the year — in admitting that he asked his party’s ‘political arm,’ the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee, to come up with it.
 
“Maybe he didn’t intend to admit his party’s so-called agenda is actually a political gambit, or that it basically has one intent: to bail out imperiled Democrats – Democrats desperate to distract from how Obamacare is devastating the Middle Class. 
 
“And yet, it slipped out anyway.

“But that wasn’t the only Freudian slip we heard at yesterday’s press conference. ‘When we play the political games that we're playing here,’ one of the Majority Leader’s top lieutenants said, Middle Class families ‘feel that we are detached from their priorities.’
 
“I couldn’t agree more.

“Maybe this is why even the press isn’t taking this ‘agenda’ seriously. The New York Times reported that helping struggling Americans is ‘not really the point’ of Democrats’ agenda, and that a main goal is actually just ‘to energize the Democratic base’ and drive turnout in places they need to win in November. The Times also noted that the show votes associated with the Democrat agenda ‘will be timed to coincide with campaign-style trips by [the President].’
 
“And according to The Washington Post, ‘Democrats hope to use the votes…as fodder…in hopes of staving off potential losses in several states.’
 
“Look: It doesn’t get much more cynical than that – to demonstrate such a total lack of seriousness in such troubling times for the Middle Class.
 
“At this point, Washington Democrats are in their sixth year of trying to fix the economy. And the Middle Class continues to suffer. It’s just not working. So, as I’ve been saying for months now, this presents Washington Democrats with a choice.
 
“One option they have is to try something different. That means coming to the middle and working with us on bipartisan solutions that can create jobs, increase take-home pay, and give a leg up to the Middle Class.
 
“The other option is to double down on failed ideology and political gimmicks; the kinds of things that get the Democrats’ Left-wing base excited.
 
“In short, Washington Democrats have a choice between helping the Middle Class and pleasing the Left.
 
“So when they release a poll-tested, campaign-crafted Obamacare distraction ‘agenda’ packed to the brim with Lefty show votes – I think Middle Class families can tell whose side Washington Democrats are really on. And it’s not theirs.
 
“The people we represent deserve better than this. They’re hurting. Really hurting. And all Washington Democrats seem to have for them is a bunch of show votes.
 
“I mean, how will show votes help our constituents? How will they help the people who’ve been writing to me about the impact of Obamacare on them and their families?

“One woman who wrote me from Louisville had been enrolled in Kentucky’s high-risk pool for people with pre-existing conditions. She said she’d been battling cancer for years and that, in 2012, her cancer metastasized and moved into her liver, pelvis, lung, and diaphragm. Just imagine hearing devastating news like that. Now imagine hearing a year or so later that you were going to lose the insurance you liked too – insurance that had helped you manage your cancer treatment. And worse – that your new Obamacare plan was going to classify your chemo medicine as a specialty drug that cost more than $1,000 for a 3 week supply.
 
“Obamacare, this constituent wrote, ‘is about as helpful in saving my life as a wet paper sack to help cover me from rain.’
 
“And I’d note that she contacted me because she wanted me to know that Obamacare stories like hers are anything but ‘lies,’ despite what some in this chamber might imply.
 
“Does anyone really think constituents like her care about some show vote? No, she needs relief from Obamacare.
 
“So does another Kentuckian who wrote me from Henderson County. That’s because his premium will jump from $400 a month to over $1,100 a month under Obamacare.  ‘Americans,’ he wrote, ‘were told that we could…keep our existing policy [if we chose]…Not only was [this] a lie – [it’s] a lie that will cost me an additional $700 per month!’
 
“How’s a political show vote supposed to help him?
 
“It’s not.
 
“And there’s not a thing the Democrat Party’s ‘political arm’ can do to fix these problems.
 
“Kentuckians, and the countless Americans suffering under Obamacare, need real solutions.

“Not gimmicks. Not base-pleasing ideology.
 
“Solutions.
 
“Look: Washington Democrats forced America’s Middle Class into this impossible situation. They basically blocked every reasonable attempt to reform this law – or to change it in any meaningful way. Yet now that Obamacare’s become politically difficult for them, they’re deflecting blame. Just this morning, we saw several imperiled Obamacare Democrats pen an op-ed that underscores the point. But Americans won’t be fooled.

“Americans agree that it’s time for Washington Democrats to work with us to remedy the mess they created — and that means repealing this law and replacing it with real reforms. It’s time for them to work with us on a real jobs agenda too – to take up the numerous jobs bills the House has already sent over and get them onto the President’s desk.
 
“Americans are fed up with the games and the tricks. They want serious solutions.
 
“You don’t need a campaign pollster to figure that one out.
 
“And Republicans believe it’s about time the American people got those solutions.”