Washington, D.C.– U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor Thursday regarding the need for bipartisan action to keep student loan interest rates from rising and extend tax relief for Americans:
“It has been a week now since the Republican leadership in the Senate and the House sent several good-faith bipartisan proposals to the White House in an effort to resolve the student loan issue.
“And what has the White House done? Nothing. The President has yet to respond.
“One can only surmise that he’s delaying a solution so that he can fit in a few more campaign rallies with college students while pretending someone other than himself is delaying action.
“Today, the President’s taking time out of his busy fundraising schedule to hold an event at UNLV — where once again he’ll use students as props in yet another speech calling on Congress to act.
“What the President won’t tell these students is that the House has already acted and Republicans in both chambers are ready to work on solutions as soon as the President can make the time.
“All the President has to do is just pick up his mail, choose one of the bipartisan proposals we laid out in our letter, proposals he’s already shown he supports, and then announce to the students that the problem’s been solved.
“Unfortunately, the President is more interested in campaigning for the students at UNLV then actually working with Congress to find a solution.
“Mr. President, open your mail. The solution’s right in front of you.
“The only people dragging their feet on this issue are over at the White House.
“Dragging their feet to fit in yet another college visit.
“Republicans in Congress have been crystal clear on this issue for weeks: we’re ready to resolve this issue.
“It’s time the President showed some leadership and worked with Congress to provide the certainty young people and their parents need.
“I encourage the President, if he really wants to do something to help students, join us in working to find a solution.
“Every day that he’s silent on solutions, is another day closer to the rapidly approaching deadline.
“On another matter, yesterday I stood with the Speaker of the House and his conference leadership and called for at least a one-year extension of current tax rates to provide certainty to families and job creators around the country that their taxes will not be going up on January 1st.
“In the Obama economy we are facing a looming fiscal crisis — that some have called the most predictable in history. Millions are unemployed and millions more are underemployed and the country is facing the largest tax hike in history at the end of the year.
“This tax hike the President wants would hit hundreds of thousands of small businesses. To put that in perspective, this tax hike would hit job creators that employ up to 25 percent of the workforce.
“We can’t allow that to happen. The economy is far too fragile right now.
“Former President Bill Clinton said we’re in an economic recession and earlier this week before the Obama campaign got to him, he was for temporarily extending current tax rates.
“Yesterday, the Democrat Senate Budget Committee Chairmen came out and said he was for temporarily extending current tax rates.
“And I would like to remind everyone it was the President who said you don’t raise taxes in a down economy. Well, the economy is slower now than it was when he last extended current law, so why on earth does the President want to raise taxes making it harder for the economy to grow, job creators to hire, and families to make ends meet?
“It doesn’t make any sense.
“Let’s extend all of the current tax relief right now — before the election. Let’s show the American people we are listening to them. Let’s send a message that in these challenging economic times taxes won’t be going up for anyone at the end of the year.
“And let’s not stop there. Let’s tackle fundamental, pro-growth tax reform. The Speaker and I and our conferences have been calling for these reforms for years.
“The time to act is now and if the President is serious about turning the economy around, preventing taxes from going up at the end of the year is one bipartisan step he could take right now.”
