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The American people ‘expect us to rise to big challenges and to put aside differences and to work on their behalf’
WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday regarding the economic rescue plan:
“After Monday’s vote in the house, the question is not how we got here, but how we get out. And to get our economy back on its feet.
“So after extensive consultation between the Majority Leader and myself and the leaders in both parties here in the Senate, we believe that we have crafted a way to go forward and to get us back on track.
“This is the only way to get the right kind of solution for the American people.
“Both Senator Obama and Senator McCain are coming back tonight to embrace this effort and to help us reassure the American people that we’re going to fix this problem.
“No one is happy with the situation that we’re in, but it’s a situation that we have. And the American people didn’t send us here just to do easy things. They expect us to rise to big challenges and to put aside differences and to work on their behalf.
“So tonight the Senate will vote on an economic rescue plan designed to shield millions of Americans from shockwaves of a problem they didn’t create.
“Now, Mr. President, we have two problems. We have the equity markets and we have the credit markets. And a way of thinking of it is like this: Our whole economy, you could think of as the human body, but the credit markets as the circulatory system.
“Right now, as the distinguished Majority Leader pointed out, the credit markets are frozen. And so the circulatory system is not working as it should. If the circulatory system doesn’t work, then it begins to choke off the body, the economy.
“So with the step we take tonight, we’re confident we will be able to restore the circulatory system, if you will, regain health to the economy, the body, if you will; and get the problem fixed for the American people.
“Now, I said yesterday we’re going to fix this problem this week.
“The Senate will speak tonight. We will send to the House a package that if passed will address the issue.
“We will have demonstrated to the American people that we could deal with a crisis in the most difficult of times, right before an election, when the tendency to be the most partisan is the greatest.
“We’re in the process of setting that aside, rising to the challenge, both Democrats and Republicans, and doing what’s right for the American people.”
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