LOUISVILLE, KY – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell appeared on ‘Fox News Sunday’ this morning. The following are excerpts from the interview:
On the Middle-Class Relief & Job Creation Act:
“The reason we are having to deal with these emergency measures like extending the payroll tax holiday another year is the President's policy all put in place in the first years of the administration when he had a completely compliant Congress have completely failed. They ran the debt up 35 percent. Unemployment basically hasn't budged. It’s now at 8.6 percent. So that's the reason we are discussing these kinds of temporary measures. So let’s take a look at it. I believe that we should extend the pay roll tax holiday another year, avoid a tax increase on working people for another year.”
***
“Of course, it has bipartisan support. But, we also need to have something in there that prevents the loss of jobs and something that will create the jobs, and that's why we inserted Boiler MACT supported on a bipartisan basis and the Keystone Pipeline supported on a bipartisan basis. One would save jobs; one would create jobs right now.”
“So we put together a bipartisan package that I think is going to enjoy pretty strong support among Democrats in the Senate.”
***
“In this bipartisan package that we’re just discussing, we make sure that millionaires don't get unemployment and don’t get food stamps. We freeze the pay for members of Congress and for all federal workers and continue to freeze the pay that has been frozen. This is a very balanced package. It doesn't do anything for millionaires. In fact it goes after them on the benefit side.”
On the Keystone XL Pipeline:
“We have the Keystone Pipeline in there. It’s a shovel ready project, the biggest and most important, ready-to-go project in America and wouldn't cost the government a penny, not one penny. Three years of environmental studies have already been done. The Secretary of State was ready to sign off on it. The President pulled it to the White House and delayed it for a year. This would create 20,000 jobs almost immediately.”
On the President’s opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline:
“The President is posturing here. He’d have to stand up to the AFL-CIO. I’m on the same side as Jimmy Hoffa and the AFL-CIO on this. The teamsters and the AFL-CIO both want the Keystone Pipeline, want it now. Look, the President’s been talking about creating jobs. This is ready to go immediately. All it requires is his sign off.
On the need for accountability and transparency at the CFPB:
“What we’re saying to the President is, join with us and reform this agency and make it accountable to someone, the people elected to Congress for its funding and for its oversight and then send up somebody and we'll be happy to confirm them. There’s nothing wrong with Mr. Cordray personally. This is about an unaccountable, an unelected czar. And we’re simply not going to confirm him or anybody else to this agency that shouldn't exist in its current form.”
