[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 121 (Monday, September 23, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9005-S9006]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              THE ECONOMY

  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, fellow Senators, I will not get a chance 
today to accomplish what I intend to accomplish. I assure those who are 
listening they will not have to wait long to get the rest of it because 
as we get time this week, we will start talking a little bit.
  The majority side, led by the majority leader and the chairman of the 
Budget Committee, last week took to the floor one or two times with 
lengthy discussions about the American economy, with comments by each 
of them about who was to blame for the economic shortcomings that exist 
today.
  I start with the economic downturn. Many Members and a few Americans 
remember the name Joseph Stiglitz. He was chairman of President 
Clinton's

[[Page S9006]]

Council of Economic Advisers. He is quoted in the Atlantic Monthly, 
October 2002, page 77. He was known as an erudite and academically 
brilliant economist. He summarized when asked: When did the downturn 
start?
  He said:

       The economy was slipping into recession even before Bush 
     took office, and the corporate scandals that are rocking 
     America began much earlier.

  In this article he is explaining the American economy, which had been 
so buoyant for almost 10 years. We spoke of it from both sides of the 
aisle, with great admiration and fantastic respect for who did what, 
who did not do what, and why did this American economy grow.
  He is suggesting the beginnings of the downward trends, in response 
to a question:

       The economy was slipping into recession even before Bush 
     took office . . .

  Not when he sent us a budget; not when he sent us a tax bill; not 
when he recommended we have tax cuts to perk this economy up; not when 
he recommended we spend more money to continue perking it up. Before 
those events occurred, the American economy was slipping into 
recession.
  It is all right by this Senator that we come to the floor and state 
what we think. It is all right with me if we state them in political 
tones. It is all right with me if we state them with overtones that are 
patently political. It is someone's responsibility, when they think 
that is the case, to at least try to respond.
  I will not be able, in the next 5 or 6 minutes, to respond to what 
probably was more than an hour last week by two or three on the other 
side, led by their leader, the majority leader, and the chairman of the 
Budget Committee, and what they had to say when they blamed the 
President of the United States for almost everything that is going 
wrong with the economy, in spite of many of them knowing that this is 
the fact, that this is the salient fact--that it all began long before 
that. We may be even fortunate that the economy, in its downward 
pressures, did not get worse. Perhaps it did not get worse because we 
did some things right under the leadership of the President and with 
Congress. Although it was difficult, hard work, we did follow most of 
his suggestions to try to get out from the slippage.

  In less than a week we will enter the new fiscal year, the year of 
2003. Let me repeat, in less than 1 week we will be entering the new 
Federal fiscal year, fiscal year 2003. As this new fiscal year 
approaches without us having enacted even one appropriations bill for 
next year, I have been struck by some of the statements being made on 
the floor--principally on that side of the aisle, and principally by 
leaders of the majority party.
  Recently, the majority leader and the chairman of the Senate Budget 
Committee have taken to the floor to criticize the President's handling 
of the economy. I would like to be as honest as I can about this, so 
let's try to be honest as to what this is all about. This is politics, 
in my humble opinion, at its worst. Unwilling or afraid to face up to 
their own responsibilities, unable to defend their own record for 
failing to enact a budget in the Senate for the first time in the 
history of the Budget Act, they are now trying to confuse the public 
and somehow blame the President or the House of Representatives--which 
happens to be Republican by a few votes--for their failure. So now the 
time has come to play the blame game and to run away from whatever you 
have done and pin it on somebody else. That is this time of year.
  This is important, and I would like the record to be clear. Back in 
May, the majority leader blamed the lack of a budget on an evenly 
divided membership in the Senate. Earlier this month, the chairman of 
the Democratic National Committee, Mr. McAuliffe, appearing on a Sunday 
morning show--I think it was ``Face The Nation''--said: Don't blame us: 
. . . we need 60 votes for a budget.
  Finally, last week the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, 
referring to an amendment that was voted in the Senate on June 20, 
clearly implying that it was a Senate budget, literally said here on 
the floor:

       . . . we got 59 votes for that proposal on a bipartisan 
     basis. We needed a supermajority, which is 60.

  Let me be as clear as I possibly can. We have not voted on a budget 
resolution in the Senate this year. We have not voted on a budget this 
year in the Senate. This will be the first time in the Budget Act's 
nearly 27-year history that the Senate has not adopted a budget 
blueprint. Say what you want about what it is or what it is not, we 
have always seen fit to adopt one. As tough as it was, as many hard 
votes as it took in the hours allotted under law, we always got one. We 
got one out of the committee when we were practically tied, for all 
intents and purposes. But no budget resolution has been brought to the 
floor of the Senate to be debated and voted on this year.
  The chairman of the Budget Committee knows this. The majority leader 
knows this. To even hint that we have considered a budget is an 
absolute insult to those of us who worked to make this process a 
functional part of fiscal decisionmaking here in the Senate.

  If my time is up, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Wyden). The Senator from Nevada, the 
assistant majority leader.

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