[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 15 (Wednesday, January 30, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S460-S463]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ECONOMIC STIMULUS
Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I rise in morning business today to talk
about the so-called economic stimulus package we will be dealing with
in this body over the next few weeks. I think the Presiding Officer
knows that it is very seldom that I come to this floor to speak. I try
to only speak when I have something to say. I realize that today, I am
probably a voice in the wilderness and probably will be over the next
few weeks.
As are many Americans, all Americans who are familiar with being
around railroads, I know a freight train when I see it coming. I
realize the action taken yesterday in the House, by overwhelming
majority sending over to our body a stimulus package to deal with--I
realize the winds are blowing, and the fact is that the winds are
blowing in the direction of a stimulus package.
I am honored to serve in this body. I know that, contrary to much of
what the American public thinks, there are many things that happen on
this floor that actually show greatness of this body and greatness of
individuals.
I have seen on this floor both the majority leader and the minority
leader do things to cause something good to happen for our country.
When I have seen that happen--and most of the time it happens under the
radar screen--I have tried to go to them and thank them for taking the
positions they did, even if it was a private position to make something
good happen. I have seen other Senators take politically courageous
votes that were maybe not in their own best political interests but
were in the country's interests, and I have tried, too, on those
occasions when I have recognized that, to go up and thank them for what
they have done. Then, on the other hand, I have also seen occasions
when we in this body just bow to the political winds and do things that
are expedient because they are expedient, even though in our hearts we
know they are really not best for our country.
Today, all across America, there are young people, young children
gathered in classrooms, and they are learning in those classrooms that
which will equip them to be productive in life. They are learning not
just about facts and figures, but they are also learning about
character. They have teachers whom they look up to. They have parents,
hopefully, whom they go home to and look up to, coaches and others,
Sunday school teachers, and hopefully some of the people whom they look
up to from time to time are us in this body.
I know that right now in our country we are going through tremendous
economic turmoil as it relates to the markets in general. I think most
of us know that it is due to excesses that have taken place in the
marketplace, that in our country and in this world we have business
cycles that exist. That is what happens in a free market society such
as we have. Those excesses work themselves out, and over time, we begin
building again.
I know in the process of these excesses that in some ways they are
beyond the control of the average citizen, and there are people in this
country who are hurting. I know they are. My heart goes out to people
across this country who find themselves in economic situations that in
many cases are beyond their control. They have to do with markets. They
have to do with the way we ourselves have conducted ourselves as it
relates to fiscal policy. They have to do with things that are
happening in other parts of the world. I truly feel for people who go
home at night with tremendous economic distress. I am also always
happy--just honestly always happy--when I see Americans receive refunds
from the Federal Government. That is a good thing, and I am happy for
people when that occurs. I really mean that.
But in this backdrop, I must say that I find it so odd that today in
America we would consider a stimulus package, a package that in essence
is built on sprinkling money around America and then encouraging people
to quickly spend that money to ignite an economic stimulus in this
country. I doubt there are many people in this body--there may be some,
and I don't want to in any way criticize anybody because I know there
are some who may believe the stimulus package that came from the House
yesterday really is going to do some good. There are some, and I
understand that, but I bet there are not many in this body who believe
sprinkling money around America and asking people to spend it is going
to do much, is going to do much to affect the long-term status of this
economy.
But what I see happening is, all of a sudden, in the name of
bipartisanship--and I want to say I have been excited to see
bipartisanship taken up, and I want to put on the record that I have
exercised, as the Presiding Officer has, bipartisanship in many cases
to try to make something good happen. But in the name of
bipartisanship, what has happened is we have come--what has come out of
the House is a bipartisan bill in the name of economic stimulus that to
me is--and I hate to be this crass--nothing more than political
stimulus.
I hope this body will have the responsibility and the character to
deal with our economic situations over the long haul. It may be that
this body takes up this stimulus package, and it may be that this body
makes changes, and it may be that this body actually passes a stimulus
package that is similar to what came out of the House. But what I see
in this package is nothing but a political stimulus. It is a stimulus
to make the American people think that we as a body are doing something
to actually cause the economy to be stronger.
So at this moment, I fear we are going through one of those moments
where I am less encouraged about what might happen, but I am hoping
that somehow or another, we will deal with this in an appropriate way.
I think all of us know in our country that we together have been
fiscally reckless over the last several years. I think we know that
generations who come after us will be dealing with the brunt of our
actions. Not to be misunderstood, I am a strong believer in low taxes
and creating a structure in this country that people can count on to
move ahead and to make investments, but with that has to be the reality
that spending has to be under control. Yet there is always a reason in
this body and in the other body to spend money we do not have. I can go
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back and cite example after example, and for some reason I sense that
today we are in another one of those situations.
I know this package is going to change, and I know some of the
components of this package cannot be calculated exactly this way, but
what I would like to say is, if you take $150 billion and spent the
money today--I look at these pages on the floor who have come here so
excited about their work. I want them to know that actually we in this
body will never deal, in my generation, with paying for the $150
billion. The next generation might, but I doubt it. It will actually be
$329 billion in 20 years at present rates, and in the generation after
that, $722 billion.
I know my time is drawing to a close. I know I am probably a voice in
the wilderness. I am very discouraged about the wind I see blowing at
this time. I am very discouraged about a package I think many people,
if not most in this body, doubt is going to have any long-term effect
on our economy. So I ask that my colleagues consider this, my
colleagues with whom I enjoy serving: No. 1, that we call this package
for what it is, a political stimulus package; that we begin today
dealing in a bipartisan way with the tough decisions we have to make,
and if there are anomalies out there we need to deal with where people
are truly being hurt, let's deal with them; that we adopt the Conrad-
Gregg bill to truly deal with long-term entitlements; and that we ask
the administration, when they bring their budget forth on February 4,
to bring forth a real budget that lays out to the American people the
deficits we will have to deal with in the future.
This country has been built on sacrifice. It has been built on us and
generations before us making tough decisions and making sacrifice. I
hope this body, in a bipartisan way, will do the same.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Hampshire is
recognized.
Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. President, I begin my remarks this morning by
addressing the points made at the close of Senator Corker's remarks.
The Senator talked about the need to look at some of our long-term
budget problems--Social Security, Medicare, and even our tax structure.
There are areas where we can see that the Tax Code is not as simple or
straightforward as we want it to be, where we know there are imbalances
in the Medicare program, and where we need to address how we are going
to pay for future generations who will be retiring.
These are tough and long-term important problems with which we need
to deal. Senator Corker mentioned bipartisan legislation that I have
cosponsored by Senators Gregg of New Hampshire and Senator Kent Conrad
of North Dakota to create a bipartisan commission to look hard at these
issues. The result will not just be another report. Instead, it will
actually prepare legislative recommendations that will be brought to
Congress to get an up-or-down vote.
Sometimes that kind of an approach is the best way of dealing with
what appear to be intractable problems because such a structure can
generate consensus and in some ways force Congress to take action, even
if the short-term political issues might discourage action.
I hope that this approach will be adopted. I hope it is an approach
that will make an impact because, as I have spoken on the Senate floor
and at home in New Hampshire, these are long-term issues that have to
be addressed. It takes leadership, but it also takes consensus.
The one point we also have consensus on in the country right now, and
certainly in New Hampshire, is that we have witnessed a weaker economy
over the last 6 to 12 months. In New Hampshire, just as in any other
part of the country, that is felt first by families, by working
families who see the slower growth, families who feel the pinch of
higher energy prices, families who see credit tightening and are
struggling to deal with that slowdown.
We are the strongest country in the world, the strongest economy in
the world, but that does not make us immune from the economic cycle.
When we see an economic slowdown, we understand we cannot necessarily
turn the economy around instantly, but we need to take action. We need
to lay the groundwork for near-term economic growth and the groundwork
for long-term economic growth. That is what we need to focus on as we
debate an economic growth package in the Senate.
We have begun to act with a housing modernization bill, commonly
referred to as FHA modernization, that will help States and homeowners
modify their mortgages, stay in their homes, deal with the slowdown in
real estate prices and reduce the impact of the credit crisis on home
ownership. We passed that bill in the Senate last month. The House has
also passed its version. This is an area where we need to act quickly
to resolve the differences between the two versions and send it to the
President for signature.
The issue of timeliness is going to come back on us again and again
as we debate this economic package because the one thing we understand
and know about any economic package is that if it is going to have an
impact, it needs to be done in a timely way. It should focus on the
near term. It should include provisions we believe will have an
immediate impact on investment and growth, and it should be temporary.
We know that we have to deal with long-term problems about which the
Senator from Tennessee spoke, but we also understand the impact that
the slowdown is having. We can put together a package that meets the
following criteria: focuses on the next 12 months, encourages
investment and economic growth, and is done in a timely way.
What should the main provisions of an economic growth package be? It
should put money into the pockets of families and do it through a tax
rebate. People pay taxes. At the end of the day, every dollar of
revenue that is collected by the Federal Government ultimately started
with an individual, a family, a worker, whether it is excise taxes on
gasoline or income taxes. Even the taxes we levy on businesses
ultimately are passed through to consumers in the products and services
those corporations sell. As I said, people pay taxes. It is not a
mistake to allow a family to keep a little bit more of what they earn,
to give them a rebate over the next 12 months to help deal with those
energy prices, help deal with their mortgage payments or help invest in
items that will make for a better quality of life for them and their
children. This needs to be part of this growth package.
Business investment also needs to be a part of this growth package.
In New Hampshire, that means small businesses. They are the ones that
provide jobs, cover their employees with health care, and are
responsible for most of the investment in New Hampshire and across the
country. I think one of the most important provisions that is being
discussed in this growth package is a way to encourage those small
businesses across the country to make new investments in their plant,
improve productivity, make investments in their employees, and create
new jobs. Jobs are not created in Washington; they are created across
the country. Businesses large and small put up capital, take a risk,
hire that new worker, train that new worker. That is where the
difference is made. This package needs to include very real and
meaningful incentives for those businesses to spend, build, create new
jobs, and improve productivity.
If we are going to have any impact, though, we cannot stand in
Washington and debate. We need to act in a timely way. This cannot be
done over a 4-month, 5-month or 6-month protracted debate. If it takes
that long, it will be too late to have any impact.
Congress does not often act in a timely way. We know that; we
understand that. The key to getting something done soon is to work in a
bipartisan way. That means compromise. That means everyone will not
have everything in the package they might like to have. We cannot have
535 Members of Congress all writing their own economic growth package.
We do have the basis for a bipartisan agreement in legislation that has
passed the other body by a very strong bipartisan vote, with Democrats
and Republicans supporting the two core principles I talked
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about: tax relief for families and individuals and encouraging business
investment for small businesses and larger firms that are creating jobs
every day.
A bipartisan approach has to be the way this issue is addressed in
the Senate. We all understand the rules of the Senate allow unlimited
debate and unlimited amendments. This is one case where we need to
exercise a little bit of discipline, where we need to exercise a little
bit of common sense. We cannot have every Senator offering three, four
or five different provisions to this legislation. The bill would
collapse under the weight. By delaying passage and implementation, we
make it much more difficult for anything we do to have a positive
impact.
I hope, as the debate moves forward, we work to keep this growth
package in line with the bipartisan agreement that has been
established, the framework that has been put together. Such a process
does not mean we will not have an opportunity to debate the package or
even make some modifications. If we go astray, if we let our own egos
and personal needs drive this debate, we will not get this legislation
done, and the American people will look at the institution of Congress
yet again and be frustrated at its inability to act in a bipartisan
way, at our inability to act in a timely way, and our inability to take
the steps necessary to make a difference in our economy.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Texas is
recognized.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, may I inquire how much time remains on our
side?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. There is 9 minutes 37 seconds
remaining.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I wish to express my agreement with the
wise words of the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire and expand
on the theme he spoke to, along with the Senator from Tennessee
earlier.
When I was younger and was going to college, I thought I wanted to
become a doctor, but that was until I encountered organic chemistry and
physics, and that persuaded me that maybe there was something else out
there for me to do. But I did learn about the Hippocratic oath which is
what the medical profession takes, this oath basically to first do no
harm. I think that ought to be something that guides us as we look at
how do we deal with this impending challenge with regard to our
economic situation.
I do think we have started off in a very strong way, and I express my
congratulations to Speaker Pelosi, Republican Leader Boehner, and
Secretary of Treasury Hank Paulson for the work they have done which
met with as close to universal approval on a bipartisan basis as you
can get in the House of Representatives for what the Speaker has called
a targeted, temporary, and timely economic stimulus. That will
hopefully allow us to avoid a recession and, of course, all the fallout
that would result from that recession, including people out of work and
obviously negatively affecting the quality of life for a lot of
Americans, including my constituents in Texas.
We have to look at this as both a short-term issue and a long-term
issue. I hope the kind of bipartisan cooperation and the movement we
have seen will start a trend. I am encouraged, as my colleagues have
already heard, by some of the work that is being done on a long-term
basis by Senator Kent Conrad and Senator Judd Gregg, both the chairman
and the ranking member of the Budget Committee on which I serve, to
deal with the impending long-term crisis of entitlement spending. If we
do not do anything in the next 30 years, the only programs that we will
have money to spend on as part of the Federal Government is Medicaid,
Medicare, and other entitlement spending, plus the interest on the
national debt. That is it. We will not have any money to spend on
national defense, research, innovation, education, and other programs
that are very important to the continued prosperity and future of our
country.
That is a looming disaster out on the horizon I hope we will respond
to. We cannot afford to take the year off in Congress because we know
we are in an election cycle. We have a Presidential election coming up
in November, and a third of this body will stand for election as
well. But as the Republican leader, Senator McConnell, has pointed out,
we have had an election every 2 years since 1788 in this country--we
are going to have another one in November--and we can't use that as an
excuse for simply sitting back and becoming spectators rather than
active participants in trying to solve the challenges on the economic,
security, and all other fronts on both a near-term basis and a long-
term basis.
Of course, there are other things we need to do to be able to restore
public confidence in the U.S. Congress and Government, and one of the
things you will be hearing more about is the proposal that we will be
making for a 2-year budget, the idea being that, as we saw last year,
on an annual budget we basically spend all year in the appropriations
process with very little opportunity for oversight of this huge
bureaucracy--the executive branch of the Federal Government. And
without oversight, we know bad things can happen. Perhaps with
oversight bad things can happen, but we cannot be asleep at the switch
when it comes to the oversight responsibilities we have for the Federal
Government and Federal spending.
One example I wish to point out is something my colleagues have heard
me comment on before, and it is a Web site called expectmore.gov. I
hope people who are hearing what I am saying here today will take the
opportunity to look at this expectmore.gov Web site created to
demonstrate the review by the Office of Management and Budget of over
1,000 Federal Government programs. What they found out is that 22
percent of those programs either are ineffective or else--what may be
even worse--they weren't able to tell one way or the other whether they
were effective, as Congress intended. That is 22 percent of 1,000
different programs. Yet Congress has done virtually nothing to
eliminate those ineffective programs or to make sure those that could
be improved and could be effective are in fact improved and the
problems corrected. I hope we would use this as an opportunity to deal
with our budgetary problems both in the near term and the long term.
I have proposed another initiative, based on the sunset commission
that exists in my State, and exists in a number of other States, where
periodically we would go back and look at the very reason for the
existence of Federal programs. In my State, the sunset commission has
been very effective in allowing the State legislature to look at
programs--government programs--to determine whether they are still
needed and to start at a zero-based budget and force these agencies to
justify their budget, rather than what happens here in Washington,
which is that things tend to grow and grow and grow and develop their
own constituency, and then a bureaucracy that has a vested interest in
their growth and proliferation, and there is very little impetus, very
little pressure on Congress to eliminate ineffective and unnecessary
programs.
I hope we will continue this early spirit of bipartisan cooperation
on the emergency stimulus package that came out of the House, and we
will do more to carry on this trend when it comes to dealing with our
mid- and long-term economic problems, not for ourselves but for our
children and for our grandchildren.
There are things in the economic stimulus package that came out of
the House that I have some questions about. But I do agree it is
important for confidence building in the markets and to demonstrate we
are actually capable of acting when action is required that we act on a
timely basis to pass this House-passed measure. I believe there were
only 35 votes against the House stimulus package yesterday, and as I
said earlier, that represents overwhelming bipartisan support for this
negotiated product.
I know there are Members of the Senate, myself included, who have
some other ideas about what we might be able to offer to improve that.
The problem is, as we all know, under the rules of the Senate it is
basically a free-for-all once that bill comes to the Senate floor, and
there can be numerous amendments, there can be filibusters and other
delays, which I think are dangerous indeed when a timely response is
called for in terms of this targeted, temporary stimulus package.
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My conclusion is I think we are better off and the country is better
off in the long run showing that we can act on a prompt basis by
passing the House version.
Now, that does not mean we can take the rest of the year off or we
don't have to be responsive to other concerns that arise, as I have
indicated earlier. If there are other things we need to do, then I
think there are other opportunities for us to do them. But I do think
it is important early on in the year to demonstrate our commitment to
working together to solve America's problems.
I saw a poll the other day that said 98 percent of the respondents
were sick and tired of the bickering and the partisanship they see in
Congress. I am shocked anybody would have to take a poll to conclude
that, and why it wasn't 100 percent rather than 98 percent. But here is
a chance for us to act, and I hope we will act in the short term to
deal with this economic challenge we face in the markets, but then in
the long term to make sure that the prosperity we have enjoyed, thanks
to our parents and grandparents, will be handed down to our children
and grandchildren.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown). The Senator from Georgia is
recognized.
Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized
for up to 7 minutes as in morning business and to maintain the existing
30 minutes for the majority side.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The
Senator is recognized.
Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I commend Senator Cornyn on his remarks,
and I want to add that I too think it is important to address the
stimulus package that has come from the House quickly and decisively. I
fall in the category of one of those who has some other ideas as well,
but I think while the iron is hot and while we do have a surgical and
strategic proposal before us, we should act.
Immediate action can make a large difference in when the infusion
comes back into the economy, when the tax breaks can be taken advantage
of by business in terms of depreciation and expensing, and in
particular for the housing market, the increased loan limits for Fannie
Mae, Freddie Mac, and FHA loans will be essential in saving some houses
in foreclosure and those ultimately facing foreclosure, because they
will be purchased by people who will qualify under the new loan limits
and who will be able to take that loan and make it a performing asset.
It is to that subject I want to talk for a second. Experience is a
great teacher. There is an old saying if a cat sits on a hot stove, it
will never sit on a hot stove again. Of course, they never sit on a
cold stove; they just get out of the business of sitting on stoves. In
my experience in the private sector as a businessman, for years I was
in the real estate business in the 1970s, in particular, in the period
of time between 1968, as a matter of fact, and 1999. In the mid 1970s,
the United States faced a housing crisis almost identical to what is
about to happen in this country today. In 1973 and 1974, we had a huge
housing boom, with increasing values, where credit got easier, loan
limits got higher, and underwriting got lower. What ended up happening
was that a lot of bad loans were made. In that particular period of
time, many were to homebuilders rather than homeowners. But suffice it
to say it was the same underwriting problem and the same deficiency in
terms of loans. A plethora of foreclosures took place, new homes went
back, and the United States found itself in 1975 in a recession with a
3-year supply of single-family houses on the market, unsold and with no
housing market.
The President and the Congress took action. They passed a $6,000 tax
credit, where a family could collect $2,000 a year for 3 years if they
purchased any standing new home in inventory and occupied it during
those 3 years. Within the course of a year, we had reduced as a country
a 3-year supply of housing to a 1-year supply of housing. We had
reinvigorated the construction trade, the subcontractors, the building
suppliers, those who manufactured carpet, washing machines, dryers, and
all the components so important in the overall economy that are spurred
by a home purchase.
Yesterday, I introduced, along with Senator Gregg, Senator Craig,
Senator Allard, and Senator Chambliss, S. 2566, calling for us to
repeat history in this country, to reenergize the housing market that
is so sluggish, at a strategic time. We can save houses in pending
foreclosure from actually being foreclosed upon and turn them into
occupied single-family dwellings. Very simply, S. 2566 would do the
following:
It would provide a $15,000 tax credit--$5,000 for 3 years--to any
individual, couple, or two people living together filing separately, if
they purchased and occupied as their home any single-family dwelling on
the market that was: A, a new home permitted for construction before
September 1 of 2007 and now vacant; B, a home that has been foreclosed
on that was owner occupied and is now in an REO--real estate-owned--
category of any lender, bank, or financial institution; and, C, any
property pending foreclosure that is owner occupied.
We all know from reading the paper that foreclosures are going up in
geometric proportions. What is about to happen in the first quarter of
this year is the largest realm of foreclosures that has taken place in
this country in years. What is going to go into the second quarter of
this year is those banks being told by regulators they have to get rid
of that inventory, that they can't keep it on their books, and banks
and lenders are going to do what they have always done. They are going
to get rid of them by deeply discounting the prices to try to get
people to come and buy those houses.
Now, what that does to Mr. and Mrs. America who live in a house
making their payments is it depresses the value of their house, it
lowers their home equity line of credit available because the value has
gone down, and it stagnates the very consumer the economy has depended
on over the last decade for the longest protracted period of growth in
our history.
I come to the floor today to ask all the Members of the Senate to
take a look at S. 2566, to take a hard look at it, and to make sure
they look back at the history of 1975, when we faced almost an
identical problem, took the strategic action this bill recommends, and
had a result that was absolutely right for the economy and right for
the American homeowner.
I understand all kind of incentives, I understand giving money back,
I understand trying to send people to do things, but there is nothing
better than helping to make the No. 1 investment every American family
wants to make. An incentive to do that, at a time that very market is
in trouble, is one of the keys to seeing to it that whatever lies ahead
for us in our economy is a much lower trough, and maybe even a peak,
where we at the right time strategically invest in the American family,
in homeownership, and take those houses in ownership by lenders and put
them in the ownership of families.
Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time, and I suggest
the absence of quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Casey). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
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