McConnell says Democrats ‘ducked’ on five budget resolutions

{mosads}With a few Republicans joining Democrats on a few of the resolutions, Democrats, as expected, defeated five resolutions, including one brought up by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), which Republicans said was identical to President Obama’s budget proposal that had previously been defeated.

“Yesterday in the Senate we got a vivid look at why the challenges in this country are so difficult to address,” McConnell said. “With a looming deficit some have called the most predictable in history, with a national debt at a level none of us ever even imagined, with millions unemployed and millions more underemployed, with the biggest tax hike in history looming at the end of the year, and with entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security drawing ever closer to insolvency, here’s what Senate Democrats did yesterday: they ducked.

“They were presented with five different options for dealing with these problems, and they voted against every single one of them.”

Although all five resolutions were expected to be defeated, Americans should note that Democrats didn’t even vote on the proposal brought up by Sessions.

“Now no one was particularly surprised to see Democrats reject the proposals. We hoped some of them would support them, but we weren’t all together surprised that they didn’t,” McConnell said. “But every American should be surprised that Democrats didn’t offer a single plan of their own, not one — not a single plan of their own. And they didn’t even support a plan offered by the president of their own party. But sadly that’s what passes for leadership the Democrat-led Senate these days: oppose everybody else — including a president of your own party — and hope nobody notices you’re not  doing anything yourself.”

McConnell said if Democrats were second-guessing their opposition yesterday, they are welcome to “work with” Republicans.

“I would imagine there are some Democrats this morning who are having second thoughts about their party’s performance yesterday. And if I’m right about that, I invite them to stand up and work with us.”

Notably, of the five budgets, the Sessions budget was defeated 0-99 and a budget proposal by House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), which has received strong criticism from Democrats, was also defeated, 41-58.