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Borrowing money to pay for public works is not going to fix the American economy, U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell said Monday.

“The only way you get economic growth is in the private sector,” the Senate minority leader said to about 100 people at a luncheon at Henderson Community College sponsored by Northwest Kentucky Forward. “People have to believe it’s a good idea to expand employment.

“The only way the government gets more revenue is for the private sector to be growing. the only way unemployment goes down is for the private sector to be growing.”

And for that to happen, he said, the private sector must be convinced it makes sense to risk spending money.

There is a large difference between Western European economies, he said, which are “mostly concerned with security not opportunity,” and the U.S., which was settled largely by risk-takers. “Opportunity does involve the possibility of failure. Failure is not permanent in America. We’re the land of second opportunities. It’s never over in this country until you quit — or you die.

“The whole notion that we need to be protected from every conceivable outcome, no matter what, squeezes risk and opportunity out of your country.”

But he said abolishing risk appears to be exactly what the administration of President Barack Obama wants to do.

“They’ve got people over at the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) trying to take over the Internet, people over at the National Labor Relations Board trying to get rid of the secret ballot in labor union elections (and) they passed a budget last year that doubled the national debt in five years. the big stimulus bill that passed with very little Republican support … will borrow close to a trillion dollars from your children.”

He predicted that Democrats will not be bragging this fall about what they’ve done because “nobody likes it.

“It’s a lot more important than Democrats vs. Republicans. It’s what works vs. what doesn’t. I don’t think we need any other evidence than what we’ve got already.”

But he intimated that Republicans stand to gain from the fall elections, perhaps taking control of the Senate once again.

He noted he recently met privately with the president for the first time since Obama took office. “Maybe, just maybe he thinks he’ll be meeting with me more often in the future,” which drew applause.

“I don’t want the president to fail — I want to see the president change. I’d like to see the American people make the president a born-again moderate,” a line that also drew applause.

Other points McConnell made during his 40-minute presentation included:

- Cap and trade: the carbon emissions proposal “is deader than a doornail in the United States Senate,” he said, although Obama may try to implement it through the regulations of the Environmental Protection Agency.

- Health reform: “The health care bill is the single worst piece of legislation that has passed in my time in the Senate.”

- Wildlife refuge: Chances of a wildlife refuge being developed in the Henderson County river bottoms, an idea that has percolated for decades, are slim at best because the focus currently is on reducing the federal budget deficit.

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