Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday blamed President Obama once again for the ongoing jobs crisis facing the nation.

“After nearly three years in office he has failed to make progress on his promise to turn the jobs crisis around,” accused McConnell.

Senate Democrats introduced the Teachers and First Responders Act on Monday to shore up jobs for teachers, police and firefighters.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and 32 other Senate Republicans on Monday introduced legislation aimed at creating U.S. jobs by reducing taxes and federal regulations and boosting domestic energy production and promoting exports.

The Jobs Through Growth Act, S. 1720, is a combination of several bills Republicans have offered in the Senate this year, including bills that would repeal last year's healthcare law and the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

"The Jobs Through Growth Act will help give the certainty and confidence that our private sector so badly needs to invest, grow and create jobs again," McCain said. "By cutting taxes, reforming our broken tax code, reducing spending and getting the burden of overregulation off America's back, we can get our economy moving again."

The Senate meets at 10 a.m. to continue work on H.R. 2112, the vehicle for the Agriculture, Commerce/Justice/Science and Transportation/HUD spending bill.

The Senate on Monday started by calling up the agriculture portion of the bill; votes on amendments to that portion are expected as early as today. More than 40 amendments were introduced to the bill on Monday, most from Republicans.

One amendment from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) would add language establishing a National Criminal Justice Commission Act, which would review criminal justice costs, practices and policies.

Several others from Republicans would put limits on spending in the bill. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) offered several amendments that would limit spending, as did Sens. David Vitter (R-La.) and Jim DeMint (R-S.C.).

The Senate agreed on Monday night to extend $36 million in Supplemental Security Income (SSI) to more than 5000 elderly and disabled refugees living in the U.S. The program had expired on Oct. 1.

The vote on S.1721 came after Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) apparently worked out a disagreement over who was eligble for the funds.

The Senate confirmed Cathy Bissoon to be a United States District Judge for the Western District of Pennsylvania by a vote of 82-3 on Monday

Prior to the confirmation a number of senators from both parties including Pennsylvania Sens. Bob Casey (D) and Pat Toomey (R) took to the floor to praise Bisoon and urge a positive vote from their colleagues.

The first appropriations funding bill crafted to conform to severe spending restrictions imposed by the summer’s debt-ceiling deal was called to the floor on Monday afternoon.

Agriculture appropriations subcommittee chairman Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.) and ranking member Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) both noted the enormous spending cuts they were forced to make in providing funding for the Department of Agrictulture and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for FY 2012.

The chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Agriculture committees on Monday told the deficit-reduction supercommittee that they have agreed to $23 billion in spending cuts to mandatory farm programs, in a bid to help the supercommittee find $1.5 trillion in spending cuts.

But the committee leaders also warned that they are not interested in cutting more from these programs, in part because they have already faced cuts and because they are proposing significant cuts already.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) mocked President Obama’s new presidential touring bus from the Senate floor on Monday, saying it was the ugliest he had ever seen. 

“I must say again that I have never seen an uglier bus than the Canadian one,” said McCain as part of a scathing speech in which he the president’s taxpayer-funded trip through states critical to his reelection campaign.