Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) on the Senate floor Wednesday blasted Democrats for pushing legislation targeting China’s currency and claimed the White House was pressuring lawmakers behind the scenes to drop the bill.
“I worry we are diverting the Senate’s time from the big game which is the joint-committee and its work on reducing the deficit,” said Kirk. “I have heard the president of the United States has called senators asking this bill not come up.”
Kirk called the measure which is expected to consume the entire week in the Senate a waste of lawmakers’ time. He noted that the bill’s chances of being called up by House leadership, who have expressed opposition to it, and being signed by President Obama, are slim. “When you look at the prospects for this legislation in the House you will learn that the prospects for this legislation are dim at best,” he said.
Despite Kirk’s pessimism, it seems likely his Senate colleagues at least will give the bill their stamp of approval. The bill was moved to the Senate floor on Monday by a strong bipartisan majority of 79-19.
The Senate floor was dormant for most of Wednesday afternoon with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who is the floor manager for The Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2011, S. 1619, occasionally coming to the floor to express his support.
The legislation is, in part, designed to pressure the Chinese government to stop undervaluing its currency.
House Speaker John Boehner has strongly criticized the measure. "It’s a pretty dangerous thing to be moving legislation through the U.S. Congress forcing someone to deal with the value of a currency," he said on Tuesday.
