[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 172 (Wednesday, December 12, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12997-S12998]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ECONOMIC STIMULUS

  Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, much has been said during the last weeks, 
regarding the negotiations between the Senate and the House over 
economic stimulus legislation. Most recently, the rhetoric of House 
Republican leaders and even a couple of our Senate colleagues has 
become heated and even vitriolic. Some of their comments about our 
majority leader would be expected from a bunch of adolescents in a 
junior high school locker-room. They reflect much more on those who 
utter them than on the person about whom they are intended.
  The House Republican leadership also seems unduly preoccupied with 
the process our Senate Democratic Caucus reportedly might use to 
consider this proposed legislation. I really don't see how that is any 
of their concern. What they should be concerned about, instead, is how 
their proposals will affect our national economy and the citizens of 
our country.
  If people are wondering why we Senate Democrats are being so 
resolute, they should look at what the House Republicans are trying to 
foist upon us. Remember that their package was called ``show business'' 
by the Secretary of the Treasury. And that's the nicest thing one could 
say about it! It is a huge bundle of holiday goodies to the people who 
need them the very least: the wealthiest Americans and the largest 
corporations.
  Much of the House bill has nothing to do with providing an economic 
stimulus. Rather, it is a massive giveaway of taxpayer dollars. Take 
their proposal to repeal the corporate alternative minimum tax. That is 
a provision which requires profitable businesses, with numerous 
deductions, to pay a minimum amount of corporate taxes. Without it, 
they would pay little or even nothing.
  But the House Republicans did not only repeal this tax, they also 
made it retroactive to 1985, and they would immediately refund all the 
money companies paid under this provision during the last 15 years.
  According to the Wall Street Journal, that would result in a lump sum 
payment of $2.3 billion to the Ford Motor Company; $1.4 billion to IBM; 
$671 million to General Electric; $608 million to Texas Utilities 
Company; $572 million to Chevron Texaco; $254 million to Enron--in 
total, $25.4 billion of corporate payouts.
  It is bad enough that these huge checks come from the U.S. Treasury, 
from the taxes paid by working Americans. What is even worse is that 
they would actually come out of the Social Security Trust Fund's 
surplus. That is because the surpluses in the other funds--in the 
Federal general fund and in the Medicare Fund--have already been wiped 
out by last spring's excessive tax cut and by the current recession. 
Now the House Republicans want to use the only surplus left: in the 
Social Security Trust Fund, to give these huge cash payments to mostly 
profitable corporations, and masquerade them as economic stimulus. 
Minnesota's largest newspaper, the Star-Tribune, in an editorial, 
called the House stimulus package, ``. . . a brazen giveaway to 
affluent corporations.'' The Star-Tribune went on to say,

       Senate Republicans vowed to do better--and they introduced 
     an economic stimulus package that is a brazen giveaway to 
     affluent individuals.
       What the two packages have in common, apart from appeasing 
     narrow constituencies, is that they have turned fiscal 
     stimulus inside out. They would do almost nothing to help the 
     ailing economy today, but would continue to drain away 
     Federal tax revenues for years to come, long after the 
     economy has recovered.
       To their credit, Senate Republicans rejected most of the 
     corporate tax breaks that somehow found their way into the 
     House fiscal package. Those provisions are so arcane and so 
     irrelevant to the economy's current plight, that they could 
     only have been written by corporate lobbyists.
       But the Senate GOP approach has an entirely different set 
     of flaws. Its main tactic is to accelerate a series of rate 
     cuts in the individual income tax, cuts that were supposed to 
     phase in during the next several years. Because these rate 
     reductions go exclusively to upper-bracket taxpayers, the 
     Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that 55 
     percent of the tax relief would go to the top one percent 
     of households. That is bad stimulus policy, because such 
     households, already spending at high levels, tend to save 
     more new money than they spend. It is also disastrous 
     fiscal policy, because three-quarters of the tax cuts 
     would take place after 2002, making Washington's long-term 
     budget outlook even worse than it is today.''

  The Senate Republicans' proposal, which is also the President's 
proposal, would give $500,000 over 4 years to families making $5 
million a year. And that figure illustrates another unwise feature of 
their plan. It's not just a one-time, economic stimulus, it gives 
continuing tax reductions to the wealthiest Americans, even after an 
economic recovery is underway.
  The Republicans' insistence on these egregious proposals is why we 
don't have an economic stimulus bill today. I want to thank--and I 
believe the American people will thank--our Majority Leader, Senator 
Daschle, and our two principal Democratic negotiators, Senator Baucus 
and Senator Rockefeller, for standing strongly against these giveaways, 
and for insisting on a bill that will provide a real, immediate 
economic stimulus. Our Democratic stimulus bill will direct money to 
working Americans, to people who have lost their jobs during this 
recession, and to businesses specifically for reinvestments in our 
economic recovery.
  As the negotiations continue, I am hopeful that leaders in both 
Houses, from both parties, will retain those principles.

[[Page S12998]]

  I am approaching the end of my first year of service in the U.S. 
Senate. I remain extraordinarily grateful to the people of Minnesota 
for giving me this opportunity. It has been a remarkable year for me, 
and for all of us. I have developed an enormous respect for the Senate, 
as an institution, and for many of its Members.
  Yet, this economic stimulus debate reminds me of what I most disliked 
about Washington before I arrived here, and what I have seen too much 
of while I have been here. It is the national interest being subverted 
by special interests; subverted by the special interests of the most 
affluent people and the most powerful corporations in America, by the 
individuals and institutions who already have the most and want more 
and more and more.
  When I arrived here a year ago, we were looking at optimistic 
forecasts of Federal budget surpluses totaling trillions of dollars 
during the coming decade. What a wonderful opportunity, I thought we 
all would have to put this money to work for America by improving our 
Nation's schools, highways, sewer and water systems, and other 
infrastructure.
  What an opportunity for all of us to work together and fulfill a 25-
year broken promise that the Federal government would pay for 40 
percent of the costs of special education in schools throughout this 
country. What a tremendous accomplishment in which we could all share: 
provide better educations and lifetime opportunities to thousands of 
children with disabilities; allow school boards and educators to 
restore funding for regular school programs and services, so that all 
students would receive better educations; and reduce the local property 
tax burdens of taxpayers to make up for this broken Federal promise.
  I thought another of our top priorities would be a prescription drug 
program, to help our nation's senior citizens and people with severe 
disabilities afford the rising costs of their prescription medicines. 
During my campaign last year, I listened to so many heartbreaking 
stories of suffering and despair by elderly men and women--the most 
vulnerable, aged, and impoverished among us. They are good people, who 
have worked hard and been upstanding citizens throughout their lives. 
Yet, their retirement years are now being ravaged by the effects of 
these escalating drug prices on their fixed and limited incomes. Many 
seniors have cried as they told me their stories. Some have even told 
me they prayed to die rather than to continue to live in such 
desperation.
  The budget resolution we passed last spring provided $300 billion to 
fund a prescription drug program to help relieve these terrible 
financial burdens and to lift these good and deserving people out of 
their black despair. Yet, not one piece of legislation to accomplish 
this purpose has made it to this Senate floor this year. Not one.
  Now, we're told, these anticipated budget surpluses have disappeared. 
There won't be enough money to fully fund special education. There 
won't be enough money for a prescription drug program.
  Yet, there was enough money last spring to fund a $1.3 trillion tax 
cut--40 percent of whose benefits will go to the wealthiest one percent 
of Americans. Not enough for schoolchildren and the elderly. Over $5 
billion to millionaires and billionaires.
  And now they are at it again. Those in Congress who championed last 
spring's huge tax giveaway are proposing another one under the guise of 
an economic stimulus. And at the very same time, House Republicans on 
the Education Conference Committee have rejected the Senate's proposal 
to increase funding for special education to its promised 40 percent.
  They claim the entire IDEA program must first be reformed. Yet, a few 
weeks ago in the House, they passed an energy bill, giving over $30 
billion in additional tax breaks to energy companies and utilities. 
They didn't require any reform from them. The administration hadn't 
even requested these tax breaks--but the House Republicans just gave 
them to the big energy companies and utilities anyway.
  There always seems to be enough money around here for the rich and 
the powerful, be they people, corporations, or other special interests. 
But there's no money for special education funding for children or for 
prescription drug coverage for seniors.
  It's very hard for me to understand how 535 Members of Congress, who 
were elected to represent the best interests of all the American 
people, could have produced this result. It's very hard for me to 
explain it to the schoolchildren, parents, educators, and senior 
citizens I see back in Minnesota. And it's, thus, very, very hard for 
me to witness yet more of the same going into this so-called economic 
stimulus legislation.
  We should pass a good economic stimulus package. It would benefit our 
country. But we would better do nothing than to pass another shameful 
example of greed and avarice once again.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: Am I able to proceed 
for 15 minutes as in morning business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous unanimous consent, the 
Senator may proceed for 15 minutes.

                          ____________________