GOP'ers Urge Senate To Bring 'Forgotten 15' To Floor

By Andrea Salazar

Six Republican members of Congress urged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) Thursday to bring 15 Republican jobs bills that passed the House with bipartisan support to the Senate floor for debate.

Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and Reps. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) and Bill Flores (R-Texas) called for an end to overregulation, via measures included in the “Forgotten 15,” as a means to expand businesses.

“These are all things the House has done and the Senate ought to be working on, and done in a bipartisan way,” Thune said. “We need to be working on things for which there is bipartisan support, and I would argue that the 15 that passed in the House would have bipartisan support in the Senate as well.”

Some of the “Forgotten 15,” or “Ignored 20” as Portman called them, include bills that would prohibit the government from regulating the Internet and greenhouse gas emissions and that would allow for offshore oil drilling.

Asked about the stalemate between Democrats and Republicans on increased revenue, Sens. Thune and Hutchison rejected the idea that increasing taxes would solve, what Thune called, a spending problem.

“I am for revenue increases the old fashioned way - by growth in the private sector,” Hutchison said. “Create jobs and then we will have more revenue. That’s the way you get more revenue. The idea of raising taxes permanently for spending programs that are temporary is bad policy. That’s why we’re saying we don’t want tax increases, we want to encourage business.”

Echoing Hutchison, Flores, a businessman himself, dismissed the president’s jobs plan and called for less business regulation.

“The president’s American Jobs bill will not work because it’s a Washington solution,” Flores said. “The American people want Main Street solutions.”