[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 41 (Thursday, March 13, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3708-S3710]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              THE ECONOMY

  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, my colleague from Illinois has been 
talking about foreign policy and, more specifically, about Iraq and the 
use of force. He touched on the issue of North Korea and terrorism.
  We do need to have more debate, aggressive and thoughtful debate, 
about all of these issues. There is no question that North Korea, in my 
judgment, and in the judgment of many in this country, is an urgent, 
serious threat to our country. They kicked out the inspectors. And they 
do have nuclear weapons, at least according to our intelligence 
officials. They believe North Korea does have nuclear weapons.
  The threat of terrorism continues in this country. Homeland security 
is a top priority. And all of these issues are very important. But I 
want to speak about an issue here at home; that is, domestic policy, 
especially this country's economy.
  We wake up every morning--for months in this country--hearing the 
lead story on the news being war with Iraq. It is the lead story every 
morning, bar none. It is an important story, no question about that. 
But there are a lot of folks who wake up in this country these days who 
are out of jobs. Some 8 million people--perhaps more than that, we are 
told--do not have work.
  Madam President, 308,000 additional people lost their jobs last month 
alone--308,000 people. Do you know who loses their jobs first? Oh, it 
is not Members of Congress and it is not people who drive big cars. It 
is the people who know the definition of ``secondhand,'' ``second 
shift,'' ``second jobs.'' It is the people who struggle at the bottom 
of the economic ladder. They are the last to be hired and the first to 
go.

  This economy of ours is in trouble. It is time to stop tiptoeing 
around and pretending about it. We have two Budget Committees meeting 
now in this Congress. We have a budget submitted by this President that 
is completely, in my judgment, irresponsible. That is not a partisan 
criticism, it is just a criticism of a budget that completely ignores 
what is happening in this country. It is a budget that pretends 
everything is just fine and all we need to do is keep doing what we 
have been doing and this country will see its economy come out of the 
doldrums. That is patently untrue, in my judgment. It is time for us to 
say that.
  Let me talk a bit about this plan and about where we are. There is 
not a Democrat or Republican way to fix what is wrong with this ship of 
state with respect to its economy. But there are right ways and wrong 
ways to do it. And I know that the moment we dare criticize the 
administration, we have all of these strident voices from the extreme 
of the political system who say: Well, how dare you criticize the 
administration or the President.
  Look, I think both parties have done plenty wrong in this country's 
past. But we face an intersection now that is unlike any intersection 
America has come to in a long time. This intersection is one where we 
confront both serious, urgent foreign policy problems--Iraq, North 
Korea, terrorism, and more--and, at the same time, confront very 
serious problems here at home--an economy that is languishing, without 
growth, an economy that, last month, saw 308,000 people lose their 
jobs.
  Now just think of one of those. I am not asking you to think about 
1,000, 10,000, 100,000 or 300,000--just one, who comes home and says to 
his or her family: Something happened at work today. I lost my job. It 
wasn't my fault. I have done the best I could. I am a good worker, but 
I have lost my job because the economy is not working well. It's soft.
  So what happens here in Washington, DC? Well, we act as if none of 
this is going on. This is a cheering section, to say: Well, things are 
going to be better. This is not a problem. What are you complaining 
about?
  Let me talk, just a little, about where we are with this economy of 
ours.
  We have a $10 trillion economy in this country. This is the biggest, 
the best economy in the world. None of us would want to live elsewhere. 
We are lucky to be Americans, lucky to be Americans alive now. But our 
responsibility, as Americans, is to nurture, protect, and foster the 
development of this great country of ours, and that means protecting 
this economic engine that produces the jobs and the opportunities for 
the American people.
  Now, in May of 2001, we had an economy that economists told us would 
produce budget surpluses at the Federal level as far as the eye could 
see. They said: I tell you, we're walking in tall clover here. There 
are going to be budget surpluses for 10 years, so you all ought to get 
about the business of providing big, big tax cuts.
  President Bush came to town and said: My heavy lifting is to ask the 
American people to accept big tax cuts. That is the easiest lift in 
American politics, I guarantee you. I would like to see one politician 
who works up a sweat asking people to accept tax cuts.
  So the President said: $1.7 trillion in tax cuts; that's my plan. I 
stood at this desk then, and I said: I think we ought be a little 
conservative. What if something happens? What if we are giving away 
money we don't get? What if we don't have these surpluses? What if 
something that we can't predict at this point occurs and these 
surpluses don't exist? What you are going to do is run into big 
deficits and have our children shoulder the consequences of this 
mistake.

  Well, I lost that debate. And so a $1.7 trillion tax cut proposed by 
the President was pushed through this Congress. And guess what. In a 
matter of months--just a matter of months--we discovered our economy 
was in a recession. Months after that, September 11, the most 
devastating terrorist attack against this country in its history; 
months after that, a series of corporate scandals unlike any we have 
ever seen in this country; during all of that time, the bursting of the 
technology bubble and the collapsing and pancaking of the stock market; 
and during all of that time, the prosecution of a war against 
terrorism.

[[Page S3709]]

  You think about that, all of those consequences--a recession, the 
bursting of the technology bubble, the pancaking of the stock market, 
corporate scandals, a war against terrorism. All of that combined to 
create a dramatic difference in this economy. We have far less revenue 
coming in. And the result is, big deficits.
  Here is what we found:
  In May of 2001, Mr. Daniels, the head of OMB, said: We are going to 
have a $5.6 trillion surplus. We had better get about the business of 
having big tax cuts, he and the President said.
  Well, in 2 years, we went from a $5.6 trillion estimated surplus to a 
$2.1 trillion deficit. That is nearly an $8 trillion change in the 
economic fortunes of this country. And yet we have people acting as if 
it is not happening. None of this is happening, according to them.
  What is the antidote to this? What do we do? Well, let's ratchet up 
some more tax cuts. Short of money? Well, then, reduce your revenue 
stream. So the President proposes more large tax cuts.
  I suppose if you don't care about fiscal responsibility, about budget 
deficits, then you can do that. But the fact is, we have seen this 
calculation before. I come from a high school of nine. We didn't have 
higher math, but there is only one way to add one and one that equals 
two. That is the math book I studied.
  The fact is, this administration's budget does not add up. They say 
increase defense spending, increase homeland security spending, have 
less revenue, and have a few budget cuts in domestic discretionary 
programs, and it will all add up. It doesn't add up. They want to 
pretend that it adds up. The American people know it doesn't add up.
  On the domestic discretionary piece, they say let's increase these 
two big areas of spending: Defense, homeland security. Let's cut taxes. 
And incidentally, let's cut taxes on average for someone with $1 
million a year in income, let's cut their taxes on average nearly 
$90,000 a year. We can afford that, they say. But, they say, what we 
will do is take it out of domestic discretionary spending, nondefense. 
What does that mean? That means what we will do is cut back on title I 
spending. That is what they talked about in one of the budget 
resolutions today.
  I toured a school about 2 weeks ago. At the library there was a third 
grader, a young boy, great-looking young kid, looking at a book and 
pictures. I met him and said hi to him. I came up behind him and tapped 
him on the shoulder. The principal of the school, after we got out of 
earshot of the young boy, said: Do you know something about that boy? 
You can't tell it right now, but that young boy almost died. He was 
subject to the most severe abuse I have ever seen in a family. He was 
beaten badly, taken away from his mother because of the beatings. You 
know he is doing very well now. This little kid has kind of gotten 
through all of this. He is doing well. This kid is part of the program 
for the school, the title I funds for disadvantaged kids. That is the 
kind of investment we make in these kids. And this little boy needed 
some of that investment. That is what we do with title I, with Head 
Start. We give these tiny kids who don't have it so good an opportunity 
to get a head start in education.
  With Pell grants, kids who couldn't go to college get an opportunity 
to go to college. I had a young Native American stand up in a meeting 
once and say: Mr. Senator, I am an American Indian. I am the first in 
my family ever to go to college. I am able to be here because I have 
Pell grants, because we don't have any money. I will graduate from this 
college, and I will go back to teach school on the Indian reservation 
which I came from.
  He did. That is the value of investing in some of these programs such 
as education programs for some of these kids. We can just talk about it 
as if it is some amorphous program that does not mean anything with no 
names attached, but that is not the case. All of these investments in 
the lives of young children make a difference. So when we talk about 
fiscal policy and plans and budgets, it is just too easy for some 
people who don't understand that there is a constituency out there. 
They don't have lobbyists in the hallway. There are no 5-year-olds or 
6-year-olds or 3-year-olds waiting as we leave the Chamber to say: 
Please, Mr. Senator, will you help us. They don't have the voices here.
  The fact is, just taking one example of what we do that makes a 
difference in people's lives, in education of children, especially 
children who haven't had it so good, we have people who just blithely 
walk around here these days and say: This is not a difficult 
circumstance to get out of. Give the wealthy some very big tax cuts, 
spend $675 billion that we don't have, charge it to the kids, cut back 
on education programs, and cut back on many of the other programs that 
help people who don't have it so good and call it a day. Have a good 
night's sleep.

  Those who can sleep with those priorities, in my judgment, have a 
misplaced priority of public service. The priority in this country 
ought to be, first of all, to have a fiscal plan that adds up so this 
country's economy has a chance to grow and provide opportunities and 
jobs for people.
  There is no social program we work on that is as important for 
working people as a good job that pays well. So making this economy 
work, giving it the opportunity to work, having it add up so people 
have confidence in the future is critically important. And then at the 
same time preserving the opportunity for some very important things, 
whether it is helping family farmers during a disaster, helping young 
kids get a chance to start in school through the Head Start program--
all of those are so important.
  We are doing a shadow dance in this Chamber. Everybody here knows 
this nonsense does not add up, and no one is willing to say it because 
the minute you say it, people start screaming that you are somehow 
disloyal to this administration.
  I want this administration to succeed. I want this President to 
succeed. I want him to succeed so this country does well. I want our 
economy to grow. I want our foreign policy challenges with Iraq and 
North Korea and others to work out in the right way. I don't come here 
wanting us to fail. But if we don't stand up and point out the obvious, 
that we are headed down a path toward deeper and deeper Federal budget 
deficits with which we will saddle our children, if we don't change 
course, this country is not going to grow and will not provide 
opportunities.
  I suppose there will be many who will continue this shadow dance that 
goes on to pretend everything is just fine, but we know better than 
that. If we were headed towards these deficits with the previous 
administration, I guarantee you there would be 20 people in this 
Chamber every night putting blue smoke out the Chamber; they would be 
so upset about it. But somehow in the shadow of 9/11, we have moved to 
a circumstance where the most irresponsible fiscal policy I have ever 
seen proposed is judged to be a yawn by this Chamber.
  We have the two Budget Committees meeting, and they are saying: We 
can fit all this in. We can fit in big tax cuts. In fact, now they 
say--those so-called conservatives--deficits don't even matter. It is 
not a big thing to be worried about.
  I don't understand what has happened with respect to the relative 
positions of politicians these days. Conservatives say deficits don't 
matter? That is a different kind of conservative than I am familiar 
with. Deficits, of course, matter. Someone has to repay them.
  I don't mean to belabor this point, but on top of this fiscal policy 
that has us now headed towards the largest deficits in the history of 
our country, take Social Security out of the calculation, and you 
should. The Social Security surpluses should not be used to reduce the 
budget deficit. They are trust funds. The President proposes taking all 
the trust fund and using it, but they ought not. So if you take that 
out, you have a budget deficit this year of nearly $450 billion. But 
add to that a trade deficit of over $460 billion this year alone--the 
highest in human history. This economy is off course. We need to fix 
it.
  We need to stand up for the economic interests of America in trade 
and begin reducing that trade deficit, because we have to pay that with 
a lower standard of living in our future. That is not an option. That 
trade deficit is owed to other countries. You can make an argument as 
an economist that the budget deficit we owe to ourselves. Nonetheless, 
we will still have to bear that

[[Page S3710]]

burden. But our children will likely bear the burden of a 10-year 
deficit that is put on their shoulders by a fiscal policy that is 
irresponsible.
  We will have a budget debate next week. I will offer amendments. My 
colleagues will offer amendments. I don't have any interest in deciding 
that Republicans have the wrong answer and Democrats have the right 
answer. There are good answers that come from all parts of the Chamber. 
But the construct of this fiscal policy is just fundamentally wrong and 
everybody in this Chamber who knows how to add and subtract ought to 
know that. It is time for us to start speaking about it.
  I am perfectly interested in providing tax cuts to the American 
people when we have budget surpluses. But the tax cuts should be to 
working families and should be distributed fairly. But at a time when 
we have the highest deficits, to say let's ignore them and let's have a 
political construct that increases spending in the largest areas of 
spending in the Federal budget and decreases taxes with very large tax 
cuts and then pulls the rest out of it out of some very important 
things that invest in people in this country, including veterans and 
Indian health and education, and a whole series of things, that is 
wrong.
  We need to stand up and talk about it. I will speak about it at 
greater length next week. I wish I could come to the floor and say this 
is a wonderful fiscal policy. I just cannot. I feel obligated to say 
this is wrong; we are headed in the wrong direction. We need to fix it 
as a country. Our children's future depends on it.
  I will make one final point. On September 11, when this country was 
attacked, we were one country. I was proud of President Bush, and one 
of the best speeches I ever heard he gave to a joint session of 
Congress. This country responded as one. But this country does not do a 
service to its future by believing now--a year and a half following 
that period of time--that voices still, because they don't want to 
engage in debate over issues that are important to our future, are 
somehow disadvantageous to our country. We need a robust debate about 
the right fiscal policy. We disserve our constituencies if we don't 
bring this debate to the floor in an aggressive way. What works? What 
will restore economic health to the country? What do we do to improve 
economic growth, to provide jobs, to get people back to work, and get 
the economy moving again? Those are the questions we have to ask as we 
construct a budget and put this fiscal policy together.
  I regret I come to say this fiscal policy makes no sense at all and 
must be changed. I wish that were not the case, but it is. The result 
of that is I will be here with amendments, as will others, hoping we 
can improve this fiscal policy for our country's future.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska is recognized.

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