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I Think There Were Two Messages In Last Year's Election. One Is Pretty Obvious. People Were Mad As Hell At The President [barack Obama] - And Wanted To Send A Message. We All Got That. Our New Members Were Also Hearing, And I Was Hearing As Well, That People Didn't Like The Fact That The Congress Was Dysfunctional. Now They May Have Been Confused About Where The Dysfunctionality Was Cause The President Kept Pointing To The House. Factually, That's Not Accurate. The Dysfunction Was In The Senate.

-Mitch McConnell

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I Think There Were

Mitch McConnell

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I Think There Were Two Messages In Last Year's Election. One Is Pretty Obvious. People Were Mad As Hell At The President [barack Obama] - And Wanted To Send A Message. We All Got That. Our New Members Were Also Hearing, And I Was Hearing As Well, That People Didn't Like The Fact That The Congress Was Dysfunctional. Now They May Have Been Confused About Where The Dysfunctionality Was Cause The President Kept Pointing To The House. Factually, That's Not Accurate. The Dysfunction Was In The Senate.

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It's A Shame That We Have To Use Whatever Leverage We Have In Congress To Get The President To Deal With The Biggest Problem Confronting Our Future. And That's Our Excessive Spending.

More Young People Believe They'll See A U.f.o. Than That They'll See Their Own Social Security Benefits.

What We Do Know Is That The American People, Regardless Of How They Feel About The Abortion Issue, Don't Think That Taxpayer Money Ought To Be Used To Pay For Abortions.

I'm Not Going To Critique The President's Every Utterance, But I Do Think America Is Exceptional. America Is Different. We Don't Operate In Any Way The Russians Do. I Think There's A Clear Distinction Here That All Americans Understand, And No, I Would Not Have Characterized It That Way.

The President Feels Not Only Do We Need To Change These Rogue Regimes, But Even Our Friendly Allies, Who Really Basically Have, Sort Of, Benign Dictatorships, Need To Get With The Program If They Want To Have Long-term Security And Prosperity From Terrorism.

I've Said Repeatedly Publicly, And Other Members Have, That Until You Adjust The Eligibility For Entitlements, Do Things Like Raising The Age For Medicare For Future Beneficiaries. Not For Those Currently Receiving Or Those About To Receive. Have Serious Means Testing For High Income People. You Know Warren Buffett's Always Complaining About Not Paying Enough Taxes. And What I'm Complaining About Is We're Paying For His Medicare. We Ought Not To Be Providing These Kinds Of Benefits For Millionaires And Billionaires.

Obama Hasn't Been Working To Earn Reelection, He's Been Working To Earn A Spot On The Pga Tour!

Sometime In The Near Future We'll Have A Vote On Repealing Obamacare, Essentially The Same Vote That We Had In 2015. I Would Remind Everyone That In That Proposal There's A Two-year Delay, A Two-year Delay Which Would Give Us The Opportunity To Work Out A Complete Replacement On A Bipartisan Basis With Our Democratic Friends.

The New Troops In Iraq Need To Be Iraqi Troops.

The Biggest Problem Confronting The Country Is Our Excessive Spending. If We're Not Going To Deal With It Now, When Are We Going To Deal With It? And We've Watched The Government Explode Over The Last Four Years. We've Dealt With The Revenue Issue.

Americans Don't Think We Should Be Raising Taxes On Anybody, Especially In The Middle Of A Recession.

It Seems With Every New Day, We Have A New Veto Threat From The President.

This Heinous Crime Should Be Of Particular Concern To All Of Us. . . . I Know My Colleagues Will Agree That The Murder Of Americans Overseas Cannot Go Unpunished. I Will Continue To Closely Follow Developments In This Case[.]

I Think There Were Two Messages In Last Year's Election. One Is Pretty Obvious. People Were Mad As Hell At The President [barack Obama] - And Wanted To Send A Message. We All Got That. Our New Members Were Also Hearing, And I Was Hearing As Well, That People Didn't Like The Fact That The Congress Was Dysfunctional. Now They May Have Been Confused About Where The Dysfunctionality Was Cause The President Kept Pointing To The House. Factually, That's Not Accurate. The Dysfunction Was In The Senate.

After Adding Trillions To The Debt On Big-government Policies Most Americans Didn't Ask For And Which We Couldn't Afford, Democratic Leaders Say They Need More Money, Which They Intend To Take From Small Business, Even Though Small Businesses Create The Majority Of New Jobs.

We Hear The Stories Every Day Now: The Father Who Puts On A Suit Every Morning And Leaves The House So His Daughter Doesn't Know He Lost His Job, The Recent College Grad Facing Up To The Painful Reality That The Only Door That's Open To Her After Four Years Of Study And A Pile Of Debt Is Her Parents'. These Are The Faces Of The Obama Economy.

While Other State Governments Stiff Their Vendors, Close Parks, Delay Tax Refunds, And Ignore Unacceptably Poor Service Levels, Indiana State Employees Are Setting National Standards For Efficiency.

We [democrats] Are Looking For Things That We Think Would Make A Difference, Improve The Country, And Enjoy Some Bipartisan Support.

The Worst Day Of My Political Life Was When President George W. Bush Signed Mccain-feingold Into Law.

Tiger Woods And John Edwards Had A Better Year Than The Stimulus Bill.

If You've Got A Brand New Administration Coming Into Office You Want To Have, At The Very Least, A National Security Team In Place On Day One.

By Their Own Admission, Leaders Of The Republican Revolution Of 1994 Think Their Greatest Mistake Was Overlooking The Power Of The Veto. They Gave The Impression They Were Somehow In Charge When They Weren't.

I Think It Is To The Advantage Of My State To Have The Opportunity To Come To Meetings Occasionally And To Vote In Person, Rather Than Just By Proxy.

79 Senators, Including That Great Conservative Elizabeth Warren, Said They Didn't Like The Medical Device Tax, So We Will Go At That Law - Which In My View Is The Single Worst Piece Of Legislation Passed In The Last Half Century - In Every Way That We Can.

Public Disclosure Of Campaign Contributions And Spending Should Be Expedited So Voters Can Judge For Themselves What Is Appropriate.

Mitt Romney Has Spent His Entire Life Finding Ways To Solve Problems.

Syria And Iran Have Always Had A Pretty Tight Relationship, And It Looks To Me Like They Just Cooked Up A Press Release To Put Out To Sort Of Restate The Obvious. They're Both Problem Countries; We Know That. And This Doesn't Change Anything.

I Think Some Of Our Members May Have Thought The Default Issue Was A Hostage You Might Take A Chance At Shooting. Most Of Us Didn’t Think That. What We Did Learn Is This - It’s A Hostage That’s Worth Ransoming. And It Focuses The Congress On Something That Must Be Done.

The White House Has A Choice: They Can Change Course, Or They Can Double Down On A Vision Of Government That The American People Have Roundly Rejected.

It Took Us In This Country 11 Years To Get From The Declaration Of Independence To The Constitution.

Where We Are Now Is We Have Resolved The Revenue Issue And The Question Is What Are We Going To Do About Spending. I Wish The President Would Lead Us In This Discussion Rather Than Putting Himself In A Position Of Having To Be Dragged Kicking And Screaming To The Table To Discuss The Single Biggest Issue Confronting Our Future.

What Happens In Committee If The Committee Functions, More Often Than Not, Not Every Time But More Often Than Not, A Bill Comes Out With Bipartisan Support.

The Debt They Ran Up In The First Year Of The Obama Administration Is Bigger Than The Last Four Years Of The Bush Combined.

We Ought To Make Sure That The Eligibility For Entitlements Meets The Demographics Of America.

Forcing Free Market Plans To Compete With These Government-run Programs Would Create An Unlevel Playing Field And Inevitably Doom True Competition.

We Certainly Will Have A Vote On Proceeding To A Bill To Repeal Obamacare... It Was A Very Large Issue In The Campaign. And, The Reconciliation Process Does Present An Opportunity And We're Reviewing That To See What's Possible Through Reconciliation.

It Just Doesn't Occur To An American That Someone Else Will Solve Their Problems. Americans Take Pride In Solving Problems For Themselves. And If We Fail, We Get Back Up And Try Again. It's What We Do. It's Who We Are.

Republicans Will Not Be Reduced To Being The Tax Collectors For The Obama Economy.

It's Important To Remember That Some Of Our Best Sources In The War Against Radical Islamic Terrorism Are Muslims, Both In America And Overseas.

If You Believe One Of The Biggest Problems Confronting The Country Is Overregulation By This Administration, The Single Most Effective Way To Begin To Rein In The Aggressive Regulators, Who In My View Have Done Great Damage To This Economy, Is In The Bills That Fund The Regulators.

The Worst Experience Any Majority Can Have Is That You Convene And You Look Around And Nothing's Ready To Go.

I Honestly Thought We Wouldn't Hold The U.s. Senate. I Thought We'd Come Up Short And I Didn't Think President Donald Trump Had A Chance Of Winning. Given My Expectations, Doubly Exciting Because I Thought We'd Come Up Short On The Senate. We Had A Lot Of Exposure. That Was Really Something. But It Never Occurred To Me That He Might Be Able To Win As Well.

We're Certainly Gonna Keep Our Commitment To The American People To Make Every Effort We Can To Repeal [obamacare].

Are We Still A Country That Takes Risks, That Innovates, That Believes Anything Is Possible? Or Are We A Country That Is Resigned To Whatever Liberty The Government Decides To Dish Out?

More Women Are Graduating From College Now Than Men.

On The Issue Of Iraq, It Is My Hope, And My Challenge To My Colleagues, That Our Debate Will Be Based On What Is Best For The Future Of Our Nation And For Iraq, Not What's Best For A Political Party Or Presidential Campaign.

I'm Really Proud Of This Supreme Court And The Way They've Been Dealing With The Issue Of First Amendment Political Speech.

Eventually, Americans Would Be Stuck With Government-run Health Care Whether They Like It Or Not. That's When The Worst Scenario Would Take Shape, With Americans Subjected To Bureaucratic Hassles, Hours Spent On Hold Waiting For A Government Service Rep To Take A Call, Restrictions On Care, And, Yes, Lifesaving Treatment And Lifesaving Surgeries Denied Or Delayed.

The Administration Still Wants To Govern From The Far-left And That's Going To Produce Kind A Partisan Result Here In The Congress.

The Classic Example I've Used - I'm Sure You've Heard Me Say It Before - Was Mark Begich In Alaska Who Was Here For A Full Six Years And Never Had A Roll Call Vote On An Amendment On The Floor Of The Senate, Which Dan Sullivan Tells Me He Used On Virtually A Daily Basis. So The Notion That Protecting All Of Your Members From Votes Is A Good Idea Politically, I Think, Has Been Pretty Much Disproved By The Recent [barack Obama] Election.

The Money That Goes Into Social Security Is Not The Government's Money. It's Your Money. You Paid For It.

Whether It's Before The Election Or After The Election, The Principle Is The American People Are Choosing Their Next President And Their Next President Should Pick This Supreme Court Nominee.

For Everybody Who Thinks It's Warming, I Can Find Somebody Who Thinks It Isn't.

What I Said To The Members [of Congress] Who Hoped They Would Be Chairmen: Let's Don't Have That Problem. Be Thinking Now About Legislation That You Have, Preferably That Enjoys Some Democratic Support Because We Certainly Didn't Think We Were Going To Have 60 And We Don't.

America Is About To Turn The Page On Barack Obama's Four-year Experiment In Big Government.

I Don't Think There's Any Equivalency Between The Way That The Russians Conduct Themselves And The Way The United States Does.

I Think It's Not Just Republicans Who Would Like To See The Senate Run Differently. I Think There Are A Reasonable Number Of Democrats As Well.

As The Leader Of The Republicans What I'm Telling That We Elected The President To Be President. It's Time For Him To Step Up To The Plate And Lead Us In The Direction Of Reducing Our Excessive Spending.

And This Year, When We End The Cruel, Defeatist Practice Of Passing Children Who Cannot Read Into Fourth Grade, And When Our Most Diligent Students Begin To Graduate From High School In 11 Years, And Get A Head Start On College Costs With The Dollars They Earned Through Their Hard Work, Others Will Take Notice Of Indiana Yet Again.

We Have A Debt The Size Of Our Economy, Which Makes Us Look A Lot Like Greece.

I'm In Favor Of Doing Tax Reform, But I Think Tax Reform Ought To Be Revenue Neutral As It Was Back During The [ronald] Reagan Years. We've Resolved This Issue.

The Single Most Important Thing We Want To Achieve Is For President Obama To Be A One-term President.

We Didn't Make Much Progress On The Country's Agenda. And In My View It's Because The Senate Basically Hadn't Done Much Of Anything, With A Couple Of Exceptions, For The Last Four Years [of Barack Obama's Presidency]. And That's Going To Change.

For Four Years, Americans Have Waited For The Faintest Light To Flicker At The End Of The Tunnel. And This President Has Let Them Down Again And Again And Again. It Is Time To Move On. It Is Time For A Leader Who Will Lead. That Leader Is Mitt Romney.

I've Often Wished We Had More Women In The Senate.

I Think The Important Thing To Remember Here Is That We Haven't Been Attacked Again At Home Since September Of 2001.

We're Living Under The Obama Economy. 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.

It Is A Statement To The Obvious, However, That [barack] Obama - Of Obamacare - Is The President Of The United States, So I Don't Want People To Have [unrealistic] Expectations About What May Actually Become Law With Obama - Of Obamacare - In The White House. But We Intend To Keep Our Commitment To The American People.

You'll Regret This, And You May Regret This A Lot Sooner Than You Think.

The Bill That Job Creators And Out-of-work Americans Need Us To Pass Is The One That Ensures Taxes Won't Go Up - One That Says Americans And Small-business Owners Won't Get Hit With More Bad News At The End Of The Year.

A Reporter Asked Recently, 'what Keeps You Up At Night?' I Replied That I Generally Sleep Well, But If I Ever Do Have Trouble, I Don't Have To Count Sheep. I Count All The States I'm Glad I'm Not The Governor Of.

Given The Scope Of These Programs, It's Understandable That Many Would Be Concerned About Issues Related To Privacy. But What's Difficult To Understand Is The Motivation Of Somebody Who Intentionally Would Seek To Warn The Nation's Enemies Of Lawful Programs Created To Protect The American People. And I Hope That He Is Prosecuted To The Fullest Extent Of The Law.

The Minimum Wage Is Mostly An Entry-level Wage For Young People.

It's A Shame That The President Doesn't Embrace The Effort To Reduce Spending. None Of Us Like Using Situations Like The Sequester Or The Debt Ceiling Or The Operation Of Government To Try To Engage The President To Deal With This.

We All Know That Social Security Is One Of This Country's Greatest Success Stories In The 20th Century.

I Know How It Feels When You're Coming Into A New Situation, That The Other Guys Won The Election.

All Citizens United Did Was To Level The Playing Field For Corporate Speech. We Now Have, I Think, The Most Free And Open System We've Had In Modern Times.

Citizens United

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