[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 19 (Wednesday, February 6, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S681-S684]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       ECONOMIC STIMULUS PACKAGE

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank the majority leader, Senator Reid, 
who was here earlier today talking about the economic stimulus package. 
What I have tried to do is to understand at this moment where the 
Republicans are, and it is hard to follow because initially there was 
agreement between the Republican and Democratic leaders in the House--
Speaker Pelosi, Congressman Boehner, and Secretary Paulson of the Bush 
administration. They came up with the notion that to get the economy 
moving forward, we should send a rebate check of about $600 for 
individuals and $1,200 for families and additional money for children 
across the country, which is certainly an excellent starting point 
because the administration was persuaded to include the lower income 
families across America, and there were limits on family income as to 
eligibility.
  The Senate Finance Committee took up this proposal from the House and 
suggested a few changes. I think each one of them is a positive change. 
For instance, they said: Let's include 21 million seniors receiving 
Social Security checks. If the idea is to put the money in the hands of 
people who will spend it, certainly our seniors on fixed incomes, many 
who struggle with utility bills, keeping their homes warm, paying for 
gasoline, the cost of food and prescription drugs, they can use the 
money. An additional $500 or $600 will be spent by them. That was 
included in the Senate finance package. That was not in the original 
House version. I think that is a positive improvement.
  Then they also said: If we are talking about groups of people who 
should be recognized, those disabled veterans from previous conflicts 
and certainly from Iraq and Afghanistan should be included as well. 
There is argument here. Those men and women certainly deserve special 
consideration for all they have given to America. So that was added to 
the House version of the bill on the part of the Senate Finance 
Committee.
  Then they went to another category, and this is one the economists 
say is a very important category: people who are currently unemployed, 
those folks looking for jobs, many of whom are struggling to keep their 
families together while they find a job after they have been laid off 
from previous employment. If they receive additional money, economists 
say they are most likely to spend it in a hurry. So they encouraged us 
to include them in the relief we are providing with this tax rebate.
  I have been listening carefully to see if our Republican colleagues 
believe these people deserve help as well. I am beginning to believe 
this is the real problem the Republicans have. They are concerned about 
giving additional money to people who are currently unemployed. 
Yesterday, one Senator from Texas on the Republican side said that just 
encourages them not to find work. I took a look at the amount of money 
that is paid to people on unemployment. It is hard to believe that is 
the kind of money that will lead to a life of leisure, where you 
decide: Heck, I don't need a job; I have unemployment benefits.
  It turns out that unemployment benefits are not that generous--$500 a 
week would be a big number, and for many it is a lot less. If we 
suggest people will stop working with that kind of income, I think it 
overlooks the obvious. Many people in lower income categories struggle 
from paycheck to paycheck. Losing a job creates a family emergency. 
What we are talking about is whether we should provide additional help 
to those unemployed. This has been done before. It is not a new 
concept. In fact, historically, if you want to fire up the economy and 
put spending power in the hands of people across America, helping the 
unemployed is one of the first places you turn.
  The way the Finance Committee does it is to extend unemployment 
benefits, currently at 13 weeks, another 13 weeks, which will be 
another 3 months or so, except for States with the highest 
unemployment, and then they would be extended another 26 weeks

[[Page S682]]

total. That is a way of providing special help in areas of high 
unemployment.
  I took a look at the estimated number of people who will exhaust 
their jobless benefits State by State. In my State, it is 57,000 
people. Let's take a look at a State such as Senator McConnell's State 
of Kentucky: 11,458 people will see their unemployment benefits end 
unless we enact this Senate Finance Committee version of the bill; 
Arizona, Senator Kyl's home State, 18,846. Let's go down to Texas where 
Senator Cornyn says he thinks this encourages people not to look for 
work: 49,000 people are about to lose their unemployment insurance 
benefits.
  The point is, unemployment is at a relatively low level in this 
country, according to Senator Kyl. These are his words:

       Unemployment is at a relatively low level in this country, 
     and it would be a huge mistake to exacerbate the unemployment 
     situation by extending unemployment benefits.

  I am quoting from a statement that Senator Kyl made, not Senator 
Cornyn. I want to make that correction for the record. Senator Kyl was 
the one who questioned the wisdom of extending unemployment benefits.
  So in Senator Kyl's home State, it appears that 18,846 people are 
about to see their unemployment benefits come to an end, and he, I 
assume from his argument, believes that is a good thing because now 
this will prod them into looking for work, and he is not supporting 
extension of these unemployment benefits for 18,846 people in his home 
State.
  That has become one of the major elements of debate in terms of 
whether the Republicans will support the Senate Finance Committee 
version. Let me add, it was a bipartisan vote that brought the bill out 
of committee--Senator Grassley of Iowa, joining with, I believe, 
Senator Smith of Oregon and Senator Snowe of Maine, if I am not 
mistaken. All three voted for the Senate Finance Committee version of 
the bill that was brought to the floor.
  Let's take a look at some other States where unemployment benefits 
might be important. In the State of Mississippi, 7,819 are about to 
lose their unemployment benefits unless the Senate finance version 
passes as an economic stimulus. As I mentioned, in my home State of 
Illinois, 57,000 are looking for assistance in that regard.
  As I go through this list--North Carolina is another good example. 
North Carolina, 48,000 people in the State, obviously suffering from 
some high unemployment, are about to lose their unemployment benefits. 
The State of Ohio, 35,320 otherwise will lose their unemployment 
benefits.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
this table so all the States, based on the current U.S. Department of 
Labor data, will be reported officially in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                       Estimated number
                                                        of people that
                                                      will exhaust State
                        State                          jobless benefits
                                                       (January to June
                                                             2008)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alabama.............................................              12,510
Alaska..............................................               6,913
Arizona.............................................              18,846
Arkansas............................................              16,505
California..........................................             218,496
Colorado............................................              12,996
Connecticut.........................................              17,250
Delaware............................................               3,776
D.C.................................................               4,769
Florida.............................................              86,092
Georgia.............................................              39,826
Hawaii..............................................               2,654
Idaho...............................................               5,151
Illinois............................................              57,093
Indiana.............................................              33,598
Iowa................................................               8,736
Kansas..............................................               7,754
Kentucky............................................              11,458
Louisiana...........................................              11,140
Maine...............................................               4,019
Maryland............................................              15,848
Massachusetts.......................................              34,275
Michigan............................................              72,136
Minnesota...........................................              19,237
Mississippi.........................................               7,819
Missouri............................................              17,727
Montana.............................................               2,996
Nebraska............................................               6,009
Nevada..............................................              15,645
New Hampshire.......................................               1,848
New Jersey..........................................              66,415
New Mexico..........................................               6,142
New York............................................              84,866
North Carolina......................................              48,245
North Dakota........................................               1,562
Ohio................................................              35,320
Oklahoma............................................               7,515
Oregon..............................................              20,695
Pennsylvania........................................              58,976
Rhode Island........................................               7,038
South Carolina......................................              21,960
South Dakota........................................                 304
Tennessee...........................................              22,037
Texas...............................................              49,104
Utah................................................               4,029
Vermont.............................................               1,763
Virginia............................................              17,076
Washington..........................................              18,253
West Virginia.......................................               4,179
Wisconsin...........................................              32,401
Wyoming.............................................               1,147
                                                     -------------------
    Total...........................................           1,282,149
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: U.S. Department of Labor data.

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, as this economy continues to deteriorate 
and we see these wild gyrations in the stock market, there are a lot of 
people concerned. Yesterday, the stock market went down over 300 
points. I know it has its good days and bad days, but it has had more 
bad days than good days for a long time.
  A lot of people in days gone by paid little or no attention to the 
stock market. My mom and dad did not own a share of stock during their 
married life. They were too busy raising three kids. They could not 
afford anything like that. If they could put a few bucks in the savings 
account to save up for the next used car, that is all they looked 
forward to.
  A lot of people view it differently because that stock market 
reflects the value of 401(k) plans, IRAs, retirement plans, and savings 
that people count on in years to come. When the stock market is heading 
south, people are looking at it in worried terms.
  What we are trying to do is invigorate this economy and get it moving 
again. For the longest time, the Republicans have argued that the best 
way to invigorate the economy in good times and bad is to give tax cuts 
to the wealthiest people in America. They have this notion that if 
wealthy people have more money, they somehow will fire up the economy.
  I come from a different economic school. It started with Principles 
of Economics that I took at Georgetown University not too far from here 
when Father Zyrinyi came into our class and explained the marginal 
propensity to save. If you are a wealthy person, you are more likely to 
save the next dollar handed to you than a poor person, who is more 
likely to spend it. So if you want to get the economy going and fired 
up, you would give as many dollars as you can to those in lower income 
categories.
  Historically, the Republican approach has been just the opposite: 
Give the tax cuts, give more spending power to people who are 
wealthier--folks who have not asked for it and folks who, in many 
cases, do not need it. In my opinion, a tax code, if it is to be fair, 
is going to be progressive and say to those struggling at the lower 
ends--the working families and middle-income families--let's be 
generous to them because they are the ones living paycheck to paycheck.
  Well, now the chickens have come home to roost with this economy. As 
the economy is heading downward, the Bush administration has discovered 
poor people. They have discovered working families. It is no longer 
just a matter of tax cuts for people making over $300,000 or $400,000 a 
year.
  So if we are going to be sensible and really want to enliven this 
economy, the unemployment benefits are the obvious place to turn. 
Extending unemployment benefits is not only humane and moral for 
families out of work, but it works to try to breathe some life into 
this economy and start more consumer demand and, with that consumer 
demand, the expansion of business and the expansion of employment and 
profits and ultimately an improvement in the stock market. That is just 
fundamental Keynesian economics that we have studied over the years.
  This resistance on the Republican side to helping unemployed people 
is troublesome. It is the same mindset that was in vogue on the 
Republican side for years when they opposed increasing the basic 
minimum wage in this country. That used to be bipartisan. It wasn't 
politically dogmatic to be against increasing the minimum wage. Even 
Republican Presidents did. But then came this new mindset which said 
that even if people are working for a small amount of money, they can 
just get another job if they need to get by. That is hardly consistent 
with family values, but it prevailed. Over a long period of time--10 
years, in fact--there was no increase in the Federal minimum wage, 
until Democrats took control of Congress last year. We point to that 
with pride because it is something House and Senate Democrats promised 
would be high on the priority list, and we did it. Again, we were 
focusing on people left behind in an economy that

[[Page S683]]

is not as powerful and as healthy as we would like it to be. Now 
unemployment benefits fit the same category.
  When I think of plants across Illinois that have closed, putting 
people out of work--not to mention smaller businesses--it is through no 
fault of their own that people who once worked at a good manufacturing 
plant in Illinois or any other State don't have a job today. They have 
lost their benefits, lost their health insurance in many instances, and 
don't know which way to turn. Some have limited education and need time 
to at least get back to school or back for some training so that they 
can make some money again. Why wouldn't we want to help these people?
  Beyond the economics of it, doesn't it seem only fair, if we are 
going to try to help people and help the economy, that we would start 
with the unemployed? The list which I have submitted, which will be 
printed in the Congressional Record, is an indication of how many, 
nationwide, it would help. The number is roughly 1.3 million who would 
be helped by the extension of unemployment insurance benefits.
  When Senator Kyl argues it would be a huge mistake to help the 
unemployed in America, he is arguing against the bipartisan approach to 
fighting recession which we have had for the longest period of time. I 
hope his opinion on this bill does not prevail. We need to do our best 
to try to help the families who are trying to get by.
  In my home State of Illinois, since President Bush took office 7 
years ago, relative to inflation, the median household income has 
decreased by 10 percent. So instead of an improvement in income, 
families in my State have seen their income go down during President 
Bush's administration.
  The number of residents of my State living in poverty since President 
Bush came to office has grown by 10 percent in that same period of 
time. And that was a period of time when the Republicans and the 
President were resisting the idea of increasing the minimum wage, 
incidentally.
  Health care premiums in Illinois have risen 29 percent since 
President Bush took office, and 152,000 more people in my State don't 
have health insurance since President Bush came into office.
  Those families lucky enough to get their kids in college are facing 
sticker shock. The cost of college in Illinois has risen 51 percent 
since President Bush was sworn in.
  A gallon of gas, of course, is up 77 percent in cost, which is an 
added expense, particularly to low-income families.
  To make ends meet, families across America, and certainly in 
Illinois, have no place to turn but debt. Debt for these families has 
increased at a rate four times faster than it did in the 1990s. And it 
is not just families sinking in debt. The President's new budget makes 
it clear that America is sinking in debt. Senator Conrad, chairman of 
the Budget Committee, made a presentation to us yesterday indicating 
that President Bush inherited a surplus when he came into office and a 
national debt in the area of $5.7 trillion, and now it could virtually 
double by the time he leaves office. So this is the reality that faces 
us.
  Mr. President, how much time remains in morning business?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. On the majority side, 10 minutes.
  Mr. DURBIN. Ten minutes. I see no other Members seeking recognition, 
so I will stay on this point in recognition of the economic situation 
we are facing.
  The national debt of America has doubled in the last 7 years under 
President Bush. We have accumulated more debt under President Bush than 
under all of the previous Presidents of the United States combined. 
Now, that is the kind of statement that could easily be challenged but 
I don't think will be because we have the facts to back us up. We have 
incurred this debt because we have had a war the President has not paid 
for, nor asked Congress to pay for, and we have had a tax cut policy 
which is unique in the history of our country. No President of our 
country has ever asked for a tax cut in the midst of a war.
  Here is a figure that ought to concern us as well. Since March 2001, 
foreign investors have financed nearly 80 percent of our Federal budget 
deficit. So in order to get by, if you are spending more than you are 
raising in taxes, we have to borrow it, and we borrow it from foreign 
governments, which increasingly become our bankers and mortgagers. It 
is not a healthy relationship when countries such as China, Japan, 
Korea, and the OPEC nations become the largest creditors of the United 
States. They have a lot more clout than we might like to see.

  It was just a few months ago that there was speculation by one 
economist in China that they may decide to move away from a dollar-
denominated international transaction to use the Euro, which is a 
stronger currency than the American dollar. Just that rumor, from a 
low-level economist in China, sent chills through the stock market, and 
we saw stock prices go down. It is an indication of how dependent we 
are becoming as a nation as we go further in debt to fund a war which 
now costs $4 billion a week and also to fund tax cuts in the midst of 
that war primarily for the wealthiest people.
  The President has said many times that he believes in the so-called 
ownership society. But the ownership society hasn't given most American 
families greater control over their financial destiny. The owners of 
the ownership society, by and large, have zip codes overseas. They are 
foreign investors who own the debt of America.
  There are a lot of suggestions of how to get out of this. Some have 
suggested corporate tax cuts and others, but I think direct help to 
working families is the most effective way to do it. The rebates we 
would send to those families is money that could be well spent. I think 
this extension of unemployment insurance has been proven to be very 
effective. Mark Zandi, who is with Moody's Economy.com, estimates this 
would be the second most effective stimulus measure of all the ideas 
under consideration, generating $1.64 in increased economic activity 
for every dollar of rebate. This money can be distributed very quickly, 
since the weekly benefits are capped at $350 for a single individual in 
Illinois, and it wouldn't cost that much to extend it.
  The Senate finance package is a great bill. We could have done 
better. I wish we could have included, for example, an improvement in 
food stamps. Over the holidays, last Christmas season, I went to food 
banks around Illinois. These are some great people. They do not work to 
make a lot of money, but they work to do a lot of good in their 
communities. They gather surplus food and distribute it to families who 
need it, and they are finding that more and more working families are 
showing up at food banks, and more and more families, even if they are 
working, can qualify for food stamps. So food stamps, which, 
unfortunately, don't provide enough money to really cover the cost of 
meals, could be improved, and that would help our economy. It is not 
included in the Senate finance package, but it should be.
  Finally, I think we need to understand that one of the other ways we 
can help bring this economy forward is to invest in the infrastructure 
of America. I just flew in this morning from Chicago--one of our great 
American cities. But even that city, with its mass-transit system, 
needs a massive capital investment, not only to repair what is there 
but to extend it for service to other areas. It would be good for our 
economy, certainly good for the environment, and it will create good 
jobs. These are jobs that can't be outsourced. When we are doing 
infrastructure projects in Maryland or in Tennessee, we are doing 
projects that have real value, not only for the communities but for the 
men and women who are at work and whose paychecks are invested back 
into the communities.
  So I am hopeful that at some point beyond this current discussion 
about an emergency stimulus package, we can extend our stimulus 
approach to even more investment--investment in highways and mass 
transit; in bridges, in making certain they are safe and we don't 
witness the kind of tragedy we had not that long ago in Minneapolis; 
investments in water resource development--for instance, the locks and 
dams on the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, desperately in need of 
rebuilding. All those are good opportunities to put people to work, to 
reduce the unemployment rate, and to put money back into the economy. 
There is hardly a

[[Page S684]]

State in our Nation that can't come up with critical infrastructure 
projects we could invest in to make America stronger. It is one of the 
few things Government does which we can show has a direct relationship 
to economic growth.
  Certainly we understand that this current economic crisis we face had 
its genesis in the subprime mortgage market, and we shouldn't overlook 
the fact that 2.2 million Americans stand to lose their homes to 
foreclosure. I think the administration's proposal so far has been 
anemic. This notion that we would ask mortgage companies and financial 
institutions to voluntarily restructure mortgages will take us, 
perhaps, a short walk down the road but not where we should be. We need 
to find better ways to give these families, if they can, the ability to 
stay in their homes and make their mortgage payments.
  I have a bill that changes the Bankruptcy Code, that allows a 
bankruptcy court to take an honest look at a person's income potential 
and restructure a mortgage so that they can stay in their home and 
won't face foreclosure. Foreclosure is a disaster not only for the 
family losing the home but for those who loaned the money for that home 
and, ultimately, for the neighborhood surrounding it.
  So Mr. President, there is certainly much we can do. I am sorry we 
didn't get a lot more done yesterday. We tried, but the Republicans 
resisted again. They wanted another day off, and we had it. Instead of 
getting serious about amendments to the Foreign Intelligence 
Surveillance Act, instead of having the debate leading up to amendments 
and the vote on the economic stimulus package, the clock ran out.
  Well, it is about time for the Senate to roll up its sleeves and get 
to work so America can get to work. I hope that today the votes that 
are scheduled will be the beginning of an honest debate and that at the 
end of the day we will pass an economic stimulus package, conference 
with the House, and send it to the President for his signature before 
we break for our Presidents Day recess period which begins next week.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Tennessee.

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