Washington, D.C.– U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following statement on the Senate Floor Tuesday in which he urged the President to work with lawmakers this year on bipartisan legislation rather than blaming the failure of his policies on Congress:

“Tonight the President of the United States will come to the Capitol to give us his sense of the state of our union. This is a venerable tradition. We welcome him.

“And yet it’s hard not to feel a sense of disappointment even before tonight’s speech is delivered. Because while we don’t yet know all of the specifics, we do know the goal. Based on what the President’s aides have been telling reporters, the goal isn’t to conquer the nation’s problems. It’s to conquer Republicans. The goal isn’t to prevent gridlock, but to guarantee it.

“Here’s how the ‘New York Times summed up the President’s election-year strategy in a recent article entitled ‘Obama to Turn Up Attacks on Congress in Campaign.’ Quote: ‘In terms of the president’s relationship with Congress in 2012 … the president is no longer tied to Washington, D.C.’ According to the story, winning a full-year extension of the cut in payroll taxes is the last ‘must-do’ piece of legislation for the White House.

“And here’s how a White House aide described the President’s election-year strategy just a couple of weeks ago, presumably just as tonight’s speech was being drafted. Referring to past displays of bipartisanship, he said, ‘[Then] we were in a position of legislative compromise by necessity. That phase is behind us…’

“So, as I see it, the message from the White House is that the President’s basically given up. He got nearly everything he wanted from Congress for the first two years of his presidency. The results are in. It’s not good. So he’s decided to spend the rest of the year trying to convince folks that the results of the economic policies he put in place are Congress’s fault, not his.

“Well my message is this: this debate isn’t about what Congress may or may not do in the future, it’s about what this President has already done. The President’s policies are now firmly in place. It’s his economy now. The President may want to come here tonight and make it sound as if he just walked in the door.

“A better approach is to admit that his three-year experiment in big-government has made our economy worse and our nation’s future more uncertain. And that it’s time for a different approach.

“That’s the message Americans delivered to the President in November 2010. They’re still waiting.

“The President will tell the American people tonight that he’s got a blueprint for the economy. What he fails to mention is that we’ve been working off the President’s blueprint for three years. And what’s it gotten us: millions still looking for work, trillions in debt, and the first credit downgrade in U.S. history.

“The President will propose ideas tonight that sound good and have bipartisan support. If he’s serious about those proposals — if he really wants to enact them — he’ll encourage the Democrats who run the Senate to keep them free from poison pills like tax hikes on job creators that we know from past experience turn bipartisan support into bipartisan opposition.

“If the President wants someone to blame for this economy, he should start with himself. The fact is, any CEO in America with a record like this after three years on the job would be graciously shown the door. This President blames the managers instead. He blames the folks on the shop floor. He blames the weather.

“Well, you’re certainly within your rights to walk away from the legislative process if you like, Mr. President. You can point the finger all you like. But you can’t walk away from your record. 

“I saw a survey the other day that contained a number of sobering findings. It was a poll of small business leaders. It said that more than eight out of 10 of them now believe the U.S. economy is on the wrong track. Eight in 10 said they’d rather have Washington stay out of the way than try to help them. Nearly nine out of 10 said they’d rather have more certainty from Washington than more assistance. And it said that nearly a third of all those surveyed said they’re not hiring on account of the health care bill. What this survey says to me is that the policies of this administration are crushing the private sector. They’re stifling job creation. They’re holding this economy back.

“Americans want Washington to get out of the way. And yet this President continues to have the same two-word answer he’s always had for seemingly every problem we face: more government. And this is the economy we’ve got to show for it.

“Last week, the President had an opportunity to do something on his own about the ongoing jobs crisis. The only thing that stood in the way of the single-biggest shovel-ready infrastructure project in America was him. The Keystone pipeline was just the kind of project he’s been calling for in speeches for months.

“And he said no. That one could wait. Here was a project that he knew would create thousands of jobs instantly. He said no.

“A project that wouldn’t have cost the taxpayers a dime. He said no.

“That would have brought more energy from our ally Canada and less from the Middle East. He said no.

“It all came down to one question: was the Keystone Pipeline in the national interest or not. He said no.
As one columnist put it, his own standard wasn’t the national interest. It was his political interest. Americans want jobs. And this President is studying an election that took place 60 years ago to see how he can save his own.

“He sided with his liberal environmental base over the energy and security interests of the American people.

“And that’s exactly what we’re now being told we can expect for the rest of the year.

“In last year’s state of the union, the President talked about how we need to ‘win the future.’

“This year, he just wants to win the next campaign.

“The President can decide he’s not interested in working with Congress if his party only controls one half of it. That’s his prerogative. He can give up on bipartisanship. But we won’t. Our problems are too urgent. The economy is too weak. The future is too uncertain.

“The President knows as well as I do that when he’s called for action on things for which there exists bipartisan support, Republicans have been his strongest allies. Last year in his State of the Union Address he called for free trade agreements. We worked hard to get them done, and we did.

“Since then, he called for an extension of the highway and FAA bills, and the jobs that come with them. We did both with strong bipartisan support. The President asked for patent reform. We got that done too.

“The President knows as well as we do we’re happy to work with him whenever he’s willing to work with us.

“If he turns his back on that good-faith offer, as we expect this year, we’ll remind people that the problems we face aren’t about what Congress may or may not do in the future, but what this President has already done.

“Let the President turn his back on bipartisanship. Let the press cover every futile speech and every staged event. But we intend to do our jobs. And we invite him to join us.”