McConnell: ‘America’s Watching, Let’s Get to Work’
December 17, 2007
Troop Funding, FISA Reform, AMT Fix, Appropriations
Washington, D.C. – Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor Monday regarding priorities to accomplish before recess:
“Heading into our last work week, Republicans remain focused on the two principles that have guided us all year: protecting and defending the country from harm and protecting taxpayers’ wallets. In these last few days, we’ll face some of the most crucial tests of the year on both fronts.
“On security, Senate Republicans will amend the House version of the Appropriations Bill to include funding for the troops in Iraq. Our men and women in uniform deserve our support wherever they’re serving.
“These funds are dangerously overdue. Delaying them further could put the Pentagon in serious straits — and potentially jeopardize the universally acknowledged gains of the Petraeus Plan.
“We will also need to act wisely on reforming the FISA law that lets our intelligence agents track terrorists overseas. The success of this law over the last several years should be obvious to everyone.
“The Intelligence Committee has produced a bill that would retain its core strengths; that has broad bipartisan support; and that, with slight modification, the President would sign into law. We need to act on this version of the revision without any political games.
“On protecting taxpayers, we have two major pieces of legislation to finish: AMT, and a fiscally-responsible omnibus bill.
“A quarter of the way into the fiscal year, we’ve passed one of twelve appropriations bills from last year.
“We need to evaluate this omnibus, and make sure it’s written in a form the President will sign. That means funding for our forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, no excess spending — and no poison pills in the form of politically-motivated policy riders.
“Crucially, we also need to assure middle class Americans we’re not going to raise their taxes, or further delay their tax refunds. The House needs to patch the AMT tax that now threatens 23 million taxpayers it was never meant to affect, and they need to do so without raising other taxes on these households.
“We saw last week we could get legislation out the door when we work together. After Republican insistence, we passed an Energy Bill without raising taxes or utility rates. We’ll need to repeat that effort this week on several issues that lie at the very heart of our responsibilities to the American people.
“We need to ensure the safety of our citizens. We need to keep them from being hit by new and unnecessary taxes.
“We’ll need to do all this, and act on several important executive nominations. New week. Much to do. America’s watching. Let’s get to work.”
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