[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 46 (Monday, April 5, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Page S3732]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          THE AMERICAN ECONOMY

  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I just heard the distinguished Senator 
from Iowa talk about the American economy. It seems to this Senator 
that for some it doesn't matter what happens to the American economy; 
it is not good or it is not good enough. That seems to me to be playing 
politics with the reality of the American economy.
  Job growth in the first quarter of this year averaged more than 
170,000 per month. The Friday number was not an aberration. The 
increase on Friday was 308,000 jobs for that quarter. That is not an 
aberration. It is a continuation of month after month of growth, once 
we got out of this recession.
  Fiscal and monetary policy still matter. The tax cuts President Bush 
pushed through Congress and the steadiness of the Federal Reserve Board 
have been able to bring this economy to a true test. Truly, we have 
been involved in a war, a recession, and come out of it with the 
American economy growing rapidly. With productivity gains continuing, 
with corporate earnings improving, job growth should continue to 
accelerate.
  Every time you have a set of good things happen to America, which we 
have all been waiting to share with each other as Americans, it is 
instantly politicized and spoken of by some as if the good things 
didn't happen. It is like changing the subject because you don't like 
the subject even if it is true, so you turn to the other subject and 
you talk about something else.
  I assume there will be a vote on those issues raised by the 
distinguished Senator from Iowa before this year is out. But I don't 
believe they have anything to do with whether America's economy grows, 
how much it grows, or whether we have productivity increases. You know 
historically when you had productivity increases, it meant there was 
more to be distributed. Generally it meant more people could be paid 
more, that corporations could make more profit so they could grow and 
prosper. We have been having incredible productivity growth, the 
highest and most sustained in our Nation's history, and we all knew 
sooner rather than later that would begin to respond in jobs. Everyone 
who looked at the economy kept saying it is a matter of when. That 
``when'' happened in this last quarter. The ``how'' is very simple--a 
well-managed set of policies by the Federal Government, especially 
directed at small business.
  If you look at the tax cuts, America's small businesses, millions of 
them, were in the front lines receiving assistance so they could grow 
and invest and hire. I bet if we could look at these new jobs, we would 
find it is the small businesses that were helped by the tax cuts that 
are finally getting around to hiring people.
  Instead of realizing this is good for everyone, watch; today they on 
the other side tried to find excuses as to why this is not good. I 
think the facts are going to prevail. We have all been saying let the 
economy recover, let jobs come back, and that is happening.

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