[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 26 (Wednesday, February 12, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2276-S2278]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Economic Policies

  These are challenging, difficult, tricky times. Every one of us in 
this Chamber wants this President to succeed. We want our country to 
succeed. I do not want us to have foreign policy failures. I do not 
want us to have an economy that is in trouble. I want this President to 
succeed. I am a Democrat. He is a Republican. It is in my interest and 
our country's interest for him to do well. It is also in our interest, 
where we have differences of opinion, differences on policies, for us 
to bring out those differences and debate them aggressively.
  There is an old saying that when everyone in the room is thinking the 
same thing, no one is thinking very much. I know some do not like that. 
There are some who think if questions are raised these days, shame on 
you. But with the challenges we have in both domestic and foreign 
policy, we ought to have questions flying from every direction in every 
corner and every philosophy of this Chamber and then pick the best of 
those ideas and suggestions.
  There is a tendency for each side to want the other to lose these 
days, and so instead of getting the best of each, we get the worst of 
both, and that does not serve the interests of this country, whether it 
is foreign policy challenges, which I just discussed, or the challenges 
in economic policy which I am going to talk about for a moment. We 
really need to understand that there is not only one way to address 
these. On some occasions, there are wrongheaded ideas, things that will 
make things worse with the economy or with foreign policy. There are 
some good ideas, some brilliant ideas, some in the middle. Our job is 
to select from the range of alternatives and to work with this 
President.
  I will talk for a moment about the challenge with respect to the 
economy. I know there are others who want to speak. I started by 
talking about the Estrada nomination, but I do want to take a moment to 
talk about the foreign policy and the economic policies that I think 
are significant challenges as well.
  Yesterday, Mr. Greenspan came to the Congress and I think he poured a 
5-gallon pail of cold water on President Bush's fiscal policy 
proposals. I am thankful for that because the President is proposing, 
in the face of the largest budget deficits in history by far, more tax 
cuts, the bulk of which will help upper income taxpayers. I do not 
think that is what we need to do for the economy.
  As I said earlier, this economy is not going to grow if every day, in 
every way, the lead story is about war, as it has been every day and 
every week and every month for some long while. This economy does not 
grow when that happens. The price of oil increases. People are 
uncertain about the future, and they manifest that uncertainty by what 
they do. So we need to get through this.
  When we get through it, the question is: How is a jump start provided 
to this ship of state of ours? How is this economy provided a boost? 
The President says what we need to do is more tax cuts. He said what we 
ought to do is exempt dividends from taxation.
  That is interesting. Certainly, if one were discussing tax reform, if 
that were the subject, they would have that as part of their 
discussions, no question about that. Of course, that is not the subject 
at the moment. The subject at the moment is, should we do an economic 
stimulus package? So the President takes the opportunity to say let's 
exempt dividends.
  I am wondering why exempting taxation from dividend checks has a 
priority over exempting taxation from work, such as paychecks. Dividend 
checks should be exempt; paychecks should be taxable? Is that a value 
system that says let's tax work and exempt investment? If so, does that 
make sense? I do not know. I do not know how one chooses that approach.
  I will talk now about where we are and how we have gotten to this 
point. Mitch Daniels, who runs the fiscal policy program at the White 
House--he is at the Office of Management and Budget--has been the 
prognosticator of where we have been and what we have been doing.
  On March 2, 2001, which is not quite 2 years ago, he said:

       It has become clear that this new era of large surpluses is 
     more dangerous to the taxpayer than the preceding era of 
     large deficits.

  So Mr. Daniels was gnawing at his fingernails worried about these 
large surpluses: Woe are we; the surpluses are going to kill us. He 
said these big surpluses are a big problem. That was about 2 years ago.
  Then about a year and a half ago, he said:

       We're going to have an enormous surplus, $160 billion or 
     more.

  So he must have gotten his crystal ball at a Dollar Store, I guess, 
because in November--that is, about 15 months ago--he said:

       It is, regrettably, my conclusion that we are unlikely to 
     return to balance in Federal accounts before, possibly, 
     fiscal year 2005.


[[Page S2277]]


  What happened in that short period of time? Well, we ran into a 
recession. I stood at this desk when they were proposing their $1.7 
trillion tax cut and said: How can you be so certain? Maybe we will not 
have surpluses. Maybe we will run into some problems. Guess what we ran 
smack into. A recession, a September 11 terrorist attack, a war against 
terrorists, the largest corporate scandals in the history of this 
country, the tech bubble burst, the stock market pancake, and all of 
those surpluses that Mr. Daniels was worried about turned to big 
deficits.

  Did that change Mr. Daniels' mind about what we ought to do with the 
economy? Oh, no. He has only one speed in his transmission. In 
January--just a year ago--he said:

       We project effective balance in 2004.

  So he is still using that same crystal ball. A month later he says:

       Despite everything, the outlook is promising for balance in 
     the year after next and for a return to large surpluses 
     thereafter.

  That was 1 year ago. Still predicting, Mr. Daniels says:

       Despite simultaneous war, recession and emergency, we are 
     in a position to fund the requirements of victory, plus a 
     stimulus package, and still be near balance.

  That was 1 year ago.
  March 27--11 months ago: The U.S. budget is in an extremely good 
position, Daniels said, adding that:

       OMB expected the fiscal year 2002 budget deficit to be 
     about $50 billion.

  This is a guy who was excessively worried about having surpluses that 
were too large. I assume he was not sleeping; he was worried about 
large surpluses. A year later, he is saying it is only going to be a 
$50 billion deficit. That will be the smallest recession deficit in 
modern times.
  But then we come to February 2003, the same man, same crystal ball 
apparently, same prognosticator:

       Our projections, which incorporate extraordinarily 
     conservative revenue estimates, see deficits peaking this 
     year, heading back thereafter.

  Now let me show the chart of Mr. Daniels. In 2002, he predicted our 
surplus would be $283 billion. We did not have a surplus. We had a 
deficit of $159 billion. In 2003, he predicted we would have a surplus 
of $334 billion. We did not have a surplus. We had a deficit of $304 
billion. In 2004, he predicts a $387 billion surplus. He missed it by 
well over half a trillion dollars.
  I do not know what to make of this. This is the guy who is driving 
the stage, with apparently 8 or 10 runaway horses, and does not have 
the foggiest idea what is happening in this economy. He says we are 
going to have big surpluses--that is his biggest fear--turns them into 
the largest deficits in this country's history and says: Oh, by the 
way, I can solve that. Let's do more tax cuts, the bulk of which will 
go to upper income people, and let's decide to keep taxing work but we 
will start exempting investment--a value system that is curious to me. 
Why would work be taxed and investment be exempted? Is work less worthy 
than investment?
  Yesterday, we had 10 Nobel laureates in the field of economics, along 
with 400 economists, who put an ad in the New York Times, I believe it 
was--it could have been the Washington Post--saying that this proposed 
fiscal policy is going to lead to bigger deficits and bigger problems; 
it is going to saddle our children and their children with the burdens 
that we create, and it makes no sense at all. It certainly will not 
stimulate or jump start this economy.
  This country is a strong, resilient country. It will overcome bad 
policies from Democrats and Republicans, and it has had plenty in two 
centuries. It has also been benefited by good policies, by visionaries 
who had the strength and the endurance to stick to those good policies 
that they knew would allow this country to grow, that they knew would 
invest in working families, they knew would give investors and 
entrepreneurs an opportunity. This country is a great place, but it 
faces very serious challenges at the moment. Those challenges will not 
be resolved--domestic and foreign policy--by having our heads in the 
sand. Al-Qaida and terrorism is a very serious abiding threat in this 
country right now.

  The fact is, homeland security is not adequately funded and everybody 
knows it. But no one will admit it. North Korea is a bigger problem 
than Iraq and everyone understands and no one will admit it. Yes, Iraq 
is a problem, but it is not the only problem. It does not even lead the 
list with respect to North Korea and the issue of terrorism.
  Having said all that, against that backdrop of foreign policy 
challenges as aggressive and difficult as we have seen in some long 
time in this country, we have an economy that is sputtering and has 
lost strength. It will not gain strength by deciding to borrow more 
money and add to the Federal budget deficit and do it for the purpose 
of reducing the tax burden of those at the upper income levels.
  Upper income people are wonderful people who do a lot for this 
country. But should a proposal, when we are up to our neck in Federal 
debt--should a proposal that gives an $80,000 average tax cut to the 
American who earns $1 million a year be a priority in this country?
  Yesterday, I was at a hearing and I was told by the Secretary of the 
Interior: By the way, we will close, we will zero fund a school called 
the United Tribes Technical College. It is a wonderful school, 32 years 
in existence. Native Americans from across the country, some 40 States, 
go to school there. It gives them a chance in life. These schools are 
very important. Why are we going to defund it? Why doesn't the 
administration want to fund it? It is a matter of choices. I asked, 
What choices? Exempting dividends? Or funding an Indian school that 
does wonderful things for people who want to advance their education?
  These are the choices. Yet there are too many wrong choices being 
made.
  My hope is as we confront these economic challenges and foreign 
policy challenges, this country will succeed. We have survived a lot. 
This country has been through a lot. We have survived a Great 
Depression. We beat back the oppressive forces of fascism and Hitler. 
This country has achieved what no other country in the world has 
achieved. But it is not because it has made bad choices, it is because 
it made good choices.
  The question is, What are those good choices? They do not come from 
one location. They come from all corners of this Chamber, all corners 
of this country. They come from, yes, the executive branch, but they 
come from the legislative branch, as well. It does no service to our 
country to not have an aggressive, vigorous debate about these issues.
  Let me finish where I started. I don't particularly enjoy coming to 
the floor of the Senate saying we ought not vote at this point on Mr. 
Estrada. That is of Mr. Estrada's doing, not ours. That is of the White 
House's doing, not ours. When they ask us to give someone a lifetime 
appointment to the Federal bench, and then say to us we have no right 
to receive answers to basic questions asked--questions asked and 
answered by other candidates--we have no right to those answers, then 
we have a responsibility to say, well, advise and consent does not mean 
that we rubberstamp anything sent down to the Congress. It means it is 
an obligation of ours to evaluate. Is this person worthy of being on 
the Federal bench? How do they reason? How do they think? How do they 
approach this job?
  I mentioned when we asked questions, or my colleagues on the 
Judiciary Committee asked questions of Mr. Estrada, he said he would 
not answer them. Those same questions were asked of Mr. Hovland. He is 
now a district judge. He answered. Questions were asked of Freda 
Wolfson. She answered the questions. Ed Kinkeade answered the 
questions. Linda Rae Reade answered the questions. All are Federal 
judges now because they came to the Congress, not expecting and 
demanding to be approved, just presenting themselves as the President 
has done through nomination, to say, here I am; now, Members of the 
Senate, your job is to give advice and consent and to vote on this 
nomination. I am willing to answer questions. Here I am. Here is who I 
am. Ask me questions. I will answer them.
  Mr. Estrada's approach was different. He said: Here I am. But I will 
only tell you my name and you get a chance to look at me, but I will 
not answer your questions. We cannot allow that to

[[Page S2278]]

happen. If it happens on this nomination, it will happen on the next 
nomination.
  What we have said to Mr. Estrada is, answer the questions. We have 
submitted a list of things he refused to answer that others have 
routinely answered. We said: Release the information from your term 
working in the Solicitor's office. Others have done that. Mr. Estrada 
is not a judge so we do not have much of a record to go on regarding 
how he thinks and how he approaches his responsibilities.
  He should, and I hope he will, decide to meet the basic requirements 
of providing information to the Senate. When he does that, in my 
judgment, I think we ought to proceed. Until he does, in my judgment, 
we ought not proceed under any circumstance.
  Our job is to give advice and consent on a lifetime appointment. 
Anyone who treats that lightly does not understand the responsibility 
under article II of the Constitution.
  Let me finish by saying I take no pleasure in saying that Mr. Estrada 
has additional requirements in front of him. But it is he himself who 
has visited that upon this Senate. Had he answered the questions and 
provided the information, we would not be in this situation. But we are 
in this situation of requiring this nominee, before he is voted upon, 
to provide the basic information that we have requested in 
consideration of whether he ought to receive a lifetime appointment on 
the second highest court in this country. If and when he provides that 
information, I will be happy to vote and make a judgment on Miguel 
Estrada.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. President, I rise first of all in support of the 
Estrada nomination and to say a word or two about it. Mr. Estrada's 
qualifications are excellent. I reviewed them the other day and it 
struck me that the man is so smart it is almost scary: Harvard Law 
School, Phi Beta Kappa graduate, clerk of the court of appeals, clerked 
on the Supreme Court, argued numerous cases before the Supreme Court.
  I clerked on a court of appeals, and I mean no disrespect to the 
members of the Federal judiciary when I say I wish every Judge had Mr. 
Estrada's qualifications when he or she went on the bench. Mr. Estrada 
is competent, qualified, honest, and he deserves to be on the court of 
appeals.
  I regret the filibuster that is currently underway to prevent his 
confirmation. It is unfair to him. It is bad for the country. Worst of 
all, it introduces a note of discord into the Senate that makes me 
discouraged about our ability to do the other things we need to do for 
this country--to pull together behind a prescription drug plan, behind 
a jobs bill, behind a strong defense that will protect our men and 
women in uniform, protect our country, create jobs in Missouri and 
around the country. It will also inhibit our ability to accomplish what 
we need to do in health care for small business.