McConnell Says: “President Needs to Face Facts”

U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday regarding the President’s $20 million, taxpayer-funded p.r. campaign to promote Obamacare: 

“Yesterday morning, I came to the floor to call attention to a quiet — and costly — p.r. campaign that President Obama is mounting on the taxpayers’ dime. While the President and his surrogates spend most of their time deflecting attention from his record, he’s got Washington bureaucrats working overtime to put a good face on it. 

“I mentioned yesterday that the administration is spending yet another $20 million in taxpayer money to promote a health care bill that most Americans want to see repealed. 

“But there’s more. There’s a pattern here that I, and I’m sure many other Americans find pretty outrageous at a time of trillion dollar deficits and a near $16 trillion debt. 

“The administration also spent more than $25 million in Stimulus funds on grants to a public relations firm, ostensibly to do public relations related to promoting the Stimulus. “It spent nearly $20 million on mailings to seniors to tout Obamacare — a mailer, by the way, that the Government Accountability Office found overstated the law’s benefits. Millions more in taxpayer funds were spent on postcards that promoted Obamacare’s small business tax credit – a credit that the GAO said was ineffective and infrequently used.                                        

“These are just a few of the ways the administration is quietly promoting its own failed policies; how it’s trying to change people’s minds about the President’s policies with their own money. 

“But there’s a larger issue here than the fact that the President is quietly marketing policies with taxpayer dollars that he’s clearly afraid to talk about in public. That’s bad enough. 

“But the larger point is the fact that we’ve got a nearly $16 trillion debt, the largest tax hike in history right around the corner, chronic unemployment, and sky high gas prices, and this President thinks it’s a good idea to spend $20 million to promote Obamacare. 

“We don’t have the money to begin with, and he’s spending it to market his policies? “The President needs to face facts. 

“Americans don’t want him spending their hard-earned money trying to spin policies they don’t like.

“How about setting some priorities first? “How about working with us to lower the deficit and the debt. How about working with us to fund things that we actually need? 

“We’re more than ready to work with the President, as I’ve said time and again over the past few years. But he needs to set some priorities.

“He needs to lead.”

Listen here for Senator McConnells full statement: