[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 19 (Wednesday, February 6, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Page S688]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ECONOMIC STIMULUS

  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, in the remaining moments of morning 
business, I wish to highlight a couple important points about our 
economic stimulus efforts in the Senate.
  We have had an opportunity over the last couple weeks to analyze 
carefully what the American people expect in terms of a jolt to our 
economy and what they expect this body to do. Unfortunately, we have 
been stymied by a lot of politics. I think it is important to point out 
very briefly the elements of what the Senate is trying to do, at least 
on the Democratic side and, secondly, to highlight its importance to 
the American people.
  First of all, with regard to the basic elements--I will not go into a 
long discussion--in order to stimulate this economy, we have to invest 
in strategies we know will work. One of those is unemployment 
insurance. We know that. All the economists say that. It is not because 
Democrats assert that; economists say one of the only ways that is 
proven to jolt our economy is to invest in unemployment insurance. This 
proposal on the Democratic side does that. The House proposal doesn't 
do that in the area of unemployment insurance. It doesn't address that.
  The package this side of the aisle has been pushing is a $500 rebate. 
It is across the board for everyone and obviously for those who are 
married it is double that. But significantly, in this proposal 20 
million American senior citizens are provided some relief. That wasn't 
addressed in the House proposal. I think that is an important omission. 
In order to get this right, in order to jolt our economy, we need to 
help seniors. We also need to make sure a quarter of a million disabled 
veterans are helped as well. That is an important feature.
  Thirdly, avoiding foreclosure; doing everything we can in this 
stimulus package in a short-term way to help families avoid foreclosure 
is another critically important element.
  Home heating costs: In my home State of Pennsylvania--and I know the 
same is true in Ohio and across the country--there has been a 19-
percent increase in the costs that families have to heat their homes, 
in 1 year. So if that is happening in Pennsylvania, we know it prevails 
around the country. This proposal in this Chamber does that. It adds $1 
billion for home heating costs.
  Finally, helping businesses and energy: As to the cost to businesses, 
I think small businesses should get help in this rough economy, and 
this proposal helps our businesses. It also makes investments we should 
have--or I should say implements strategies we should have done months 
ago when it comes to incentivizing energy efficiency and other tactics 
to move toward a more energy independent economy.
  So whether it is energy, whether it is helping businesses, whether it 
is making sure our seniors get relief, that our families get relief and 
that we focus on unemployment insurance, home heating costs, all these 
elements are critically important. It is not perfect. The Presiding 
Officer knows--and he shares this view with me--we wanted to do more 
with regard to food stamps. We are still going to try on that. But if 
that doesn't happen and some other things don't happen that I want, we 
still have to move this forward. I wish the other side of the aisle 
would allow us to go forward in a way that addresses these basic 
problems. We have seen a lot of talk on the other side but not nearly 
enough action to say we are going to support a proposal, not just what 
the House sent us but an improved and a much more significant proposal 
to hit this economy in the way we should hit it: With a stimulus to get 
the economy moving, to create jobs, to provide relief for our families, 
and to move into the future together. We can do that here. We should do 
it this week and make sure we don't pass something which is watered 
down and which would not do the job.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________