[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 101 (Wednesday, June 18, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5730-S5733]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CHECKLIST FOR CHANGE
Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, Republican Senators--men and women--
welcome this opportunity to talk about the checklist for change offered
by Democratic Senators. As Senator McCain has said: We all want change.
But there is a right change and a wrong change. So I wish, in my few
minutes, to take a few of the items on the Democratic checklist for
change and talk about what I consider to be the right change and the
wrong change.
Let's start with taking care of our military families and veterans.
That probably should go at the top of our list because of our respect
not only for the men and women who are fighting overseas but for those
who are at home, both families without children or families with
children. Those who are here also served.
We all have been seeking to update the GI bill for veterans so we can
provide educational benefits to veterans today and to men and women who
are on active duty that fit today's circumstances. Here is the major
difference between Republicans and Democrats, an example of what I
would consider to be the right change and the wrong change. Most
Republicans favor an updating of the GI bill for veterans, as
recommended by Senators McCain, Graham, and Burr, that would allow more
servicemembers to transfer educational benefits to dependents. It would
allow servicemembers to transfer educational benefits to their spouses
or to their children. After serving at least 6 years, a member could
transfer up to half of his or her education benefits to a spouse or
children, or both. After serving for 12 years or more, a servicemember
could transfer all of his or her education benefits to a spouse,
children, or both.
In bottom-line terms, the Republican bill would do what the
Democratic checklist says--take care of our military families and
veterans--but most Republicans support the idea of giving this
transferability of benefits, which could provide up to $72,000 for a
dependent or a spouse's education. The bill sponsored by most Democrats
did not include that transferability of benefits. We believe we have
the right change and that they have the wrong change.
Let me take another item on the checklist--enforced fiscal
accountability, or protect the family checkbook, both of those. Here is
an example of what we believe would be the right change in fiscal
accountability and helping balance the family budget.
The Democrats had an opportunity, because they have the majority in
this Chamber--remember, when we are talking about change, change in
this Chamber would mean we would go from a Democratic majority to a
Republican majority. The Democrats are in charge here. They set the
agenda. What we talk about is what they bring up, the same as in the
House of Representatives.
The Democratic budget provided a tax plan which will cause most
Americans to be paying a lot more. Over the next 5 years, their tax
plan provided for 84 million women to see a $1,970 increase, because
they would allow the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts to expire. Also, 48 million
married couples would see a $2,700 increase, and 12 million single
women with children would see a $1,000 increase. And more than 6
million low-income individuals and couples will no longer be exempt
from the individual income tax.
Again, the right change for women and men in America would be the
Republican version of lower taxes. The Democratic version is higher
taxes.
Let me go to a third item--making America energy independent. How
will we do that? The new economics professors on the other side of the
aisle have come up with a brand new economics theory which would repeal
supply from the law of supply and demand. They
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are led by Senator Obama, who is the leading economics professor on
that side with this new theory. In the New York Times this morning he
said he opposes drilling in Alaska for oil and gas. He is not, in his
words, a proponent of nuclear power, which provides 70 percent of our
carbon-free electricity. He would consider banning new coal plants--and
coal provides 45 percent of our electricity--and in 2006 he voted
against expanding oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. That
leaves him, it seems to me, with very little to supply electricity and
oil for a country that uses 25 percent of all the energy in the world.
Instead of a national energy policy, that side has a national windmill
policy.
They still have demand, but we agree with demand; that is, using less
oil. Many of us on the Republican side voted for fuel efficiency
standards. We believe in green buildings. We are ready to move toward
electric plug-in cars and trucks to reduce our demand. But we are going
to have to plug them into something. So we need five or six new nuclear
plants a year, we need to explore offshore, we need to take the
moratorium off oil shale, and we need to go into the very narrow part
of Alaska where we would propose to explore there, still leaving nearly
17 million acres for wilderness.
We believe in the law of supply and demand. They do not believe in
supply. We have the right change, we believe. They have the wrong
change when it comes to energy independence.
In health care, the right change we believe would be a policy that
would merge the idea of giving every American an opportunity to afford
health insurance by reforming the Tax Code but using at the same time
two words, ``private sector,'' to make sure you can buy your own policy
and choose your own doctor. They want the wrong change which would
create a Government system where you could not do that.
Finally, I notice that education is not even on the Democratic
checklist. I am not so surprised. I wouldn't put it on either if I had
their set of priorities because they are opposed to the one thing that
most women in America want more of, which is flexibility of time. They
are opposed to giving parents more choices of schools. We have choices
of colleges and universities and community colleges, but working moms
cannot have a choice of the school or of an afterschool program. Some
bureaucrat decides that. That is the wrong change. We would give them
the right change. The Democrats oppose a Pell grant for kids, which I
proposed, which would give $500 to every low-income child for
afterschool music lessons, programs, other afterschool education
activities. We support charter schools. Some of the other side do, but
mostly they are opposed to that.
We would favor paying teachers more for teaching well. I did that in
Tennessee when I was Governor. That mainly benefited women because
there were more female teachers than men. We wanted them to have a
better professional career and time in the classroom, but it was the
Democrats who said no to that. And it is better for the students, to
pay outstanding teachers more for teaching well because then the
classrooms keep better teachers which is good for students.
Finally, in No Child Left Behind there is something called the
Teacher Incentive Fund. I thank Senator Durbin for joining me in trying
to support that, but many of the Democrats on the other side have said
no because that money is being used to find ways to pay principals more
for being better principals, and to pay teachers more for being better
teachers. They want a flat pay for all of them because that is what the
unions want. So we want the right kind of change on education, but it
is not even on the Democratic checklist.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 1 minute remaining.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I believe it is a good thing for us
to talk about change. There is a right change and a wrong change. We
believe in the law of supply and demand. They believe only in demand.
We believe in lower taxes; they in higher taxes. We believe in change
that allows you to buy your own policy and choose your own doctor. They
would have a Government program. We believe in giving moms and dads
more flexibility in choosing schools. They believe in letting the
bureaucracy do it.
I welcome this debate. We look forward to change. We just want to
make sure it is the right change instead of the wrong change.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona is recognized.
Mr. KYL. Madam President, as we began this day, the Senate had
pending before it a very important piece of legislation addressing the
necessity of extending some provisions in our current Tax Code that
enable our businesses to compete with others abroad. There were tax
provisions, for example, that provide tax credits for businesses that
invest in research and development. I think everyone in this Chamber
supports extending those important provisions of the Tax Code, yet we
cannot consider the legislation and get it done.
In addition, we have soon-to-be-pending important legislation on
housing to deal with the crisis that has gripped this country in the
last year or so. But instead of taking those matters up and debating
them and getting the people's business done, we have taken some time
out, pursuant to the Democratic leader's change in schedule here, to
talk about change the Democrats would bring.
It is important to note that Republicans are not in charge of the
Congress. Democrats have a majority in both the House and Senate and
have had for the last year and a half. I submit if Republicans were in
charge today, we would be using this time on the Senate floor to be
working on the people's business--at least the two items I mentioned
before--rather than taking time out to have a debate about partisan
political matters.
But as long as we are talking about change that the Democrats would
bring, I suggest we have no better place to turn to, to see exactly
what that would be, than what the Democrats did do when they were in
charge this year. It is the one piece of legislation they have
succeeded in passing. It is a budget.
What does the Democratic budget show us about what they would do if
they were in charge for another 2 years? The first thing that is
notable about this budget is it calls for the largest tax increase in
the history of the world; in the entire history of this country.
American families and the economy cannot afford this kind of change.
The last thing you want to do in time of economic downturn is to raise
taxes. Yet that is exactly what the Democratic budget would do.
Every single taxpayer would face a tax increase in a little more than
2 years, unless Congress acted to affirmatively stop it. It would hit
116 million American households. This is not just a tax on the rich;
every single American household. The child tax credit would be cut from
$1,000 to $500 per child. The marriage penalty would be reimposed, so
that many married couples would again pay higher taxes than they would
have they had remained single.
When Republicans were in charge, we created a 10-percent lower tax
bracket to help those with lower incomes, reducing it from 15 percent
down to 10 percent. That would be repealed. The bottom rate would once
again go up to 15 percent, a 50-percent increase for our lowest income
taxpayers. Every tax bracket above the 15-percent bracket would also be
raised.
A family of four with $50,000 in income would pay $2,300 more in
taxes, according to the Senate Budget Committee. That is a lot of money
if you are trying to save for your family or if you are worried about
gas prices.
The investment taxes we have in this country--it used to be, years
ago, that was mostly for people who made more money. Now we know that
American families saving for the future--seniors living on retirement
incomes, people who have pension plans, the teachers' pension, whoever
it might be--all would see dramatic tax hikes under the Democratic
budget because these proposals hit investors, and over half of
Americans are now investors. The capital gains rate would increase by a
third, a 33-percent increase in the rate, and the dividends rate would
jump an unbelievable 164 percent under the majority's plan.
Let's talk about seniors who report dividend income. That is where a
lot of their income comes from. Nationwide,
[[Page S5732]]
according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, 67.6 percent of seniors
reporting dividend income had adjusted gross incomes of less than
$50,000. These are not rich people--people who make less than $50,000.
That is who gets hit. How about capital gains? Same source--40.5
percent of all seniors reporting capital gains had adjusted gross
incomes of $50,000 or less. We are not hitting the rich. We are hitting
folks with incomes of less than $50,000 a year.
How about the engine of the economy, the small businesses, the
entities that create almost all of the new jobs in our country, half of
which are women owned? More than 75 percent of all filers in the top
tax bracket report small business income. So you increase that tax
bracket and you are increasing the taxes on small businesses. You are
not increasing the taxes on corporations. Small businesses would have a
higher tax rate than corporations. It would go from 35 percent to 39.6
percent. Is that change we want in America? I think not.
Raising taxes on small businesses will hurt their ability to grow and
create good-paying jobs. They create 70 percent of all new jobs in
America and it would make it impossible for them to provide health
insurance and other benefits to their employees.
Let's look to Senator Obama's tax plan. A look at his Web site
reveals some interesting things. First, he has no plans to prevent
these tax increases I talked about from going into effect. His proposal
is to give a $500 tax credit per worker. So rather than preventing
these increases in taxes I talked about, he would promise a $500 tax
credit--up to $1,000 per family--only if you had an income of less than
$75,000.
We believe the first order of business ought to be to prevent this
massive tax increase called for in the Democratic budget. Senator Obama
would allow this $2,000 per family tax hike to go into place and in
exchange would give each worker $500. Obviously, the Government picks
up the other $1,500 and the reason is because of the spending that
Senator Obama and the Democratic majority would engage in. The budget I
talked about before, interestingly enough, has almost to the dollar an
increase in spending equaling the increase in taxes, so you know
precisely what the plans are here if Democrats have another 2 years in
power. I think most Americans would prefer the $2,000 in tax savings
under the Republican proposal to the $500 tax credit under Senator
Obama's proposal. Again, change that I do not think the American public
would benefit from.
How about the capital gains tax increase that Senator Obama proposes?
I talked about capital gains before. It affects seniors. It affects
people with incomes of less than $50,000 a year. He says he might allow
that rate to go back up to 28 percent and--increasingly he said this--
even if it were proven that it would not collect $1 more in revenue for
the Federal Government. He said, instead, he would do it--this was
during the April ABC debate--for fairness. But I am asking here, is it
fair to punish investment? Our tax system treats capital gains at a
lower rate because they have already been taxed once before. They have
been taxed when the business earned the money and they are taxed again
when the investor in that business has an asset and has to pay the
taxes on it. This lower rate mitigates that taxation. That is fair.
What is not fair would be to take that rate up to 28 percent. That is
not change that would help the American people.
I think most Americans understand that to help business we need to
help those who invest in business. That is what helps the economy grow.
That is what creates jobs. It is what increases our standard of living.
Then there is one other proposal that Senator Obama proposes, perhaps
as a result of the negative reaction to the increase in capital gains
even if it produces less revenue. He says he ``would propose to
eliminate all capital gains taxes on startup businesses to encourage
innovation and job creation,'' according to his Web site. That I can
agree with. But if the policy is good for startup businesses to
encourage innovation and job creation, why wouldn't it be good for all
of the other small businesses too? My wife had a small business. She is
not just starting one up; she used to have one. She wouldn't be able to
take advantage of that, but somebody just starting one would? What is
the fairness in that? If it is good enough for those who are starting
up, it ought to be good enough for those who can create more jobs and
improve our economy.
Finally, he has a proposal on the payroll tax to increase taxes,
which money would presumably go into the Social Security trust fund to
be spent by the Congress, since there is no way to protect the money in
a lockbox. We tried that before. So since Social Security taxes are not
needed today, not all of them, to pay for Social Security benefits, the
difference between what we collect and what we have to pay out to
seniors is simply spent by Congress. This would be another tax
increase, not for seniors in retirement, but for Congress to spend. It
would increase on all incomes above $250,000. It is capped right now at
$102,000 in income. The reason is because Social Security taxes are
capped relative to the level of benefits. Benefits are also capped. If
you ever break that tie, then you are going to have a welfare program
rather than the Social Security program. That would not be change that
is good for America.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I too want to talk about change, as have
our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, in presenting their
checklist for change. I do not think there is anybody--certainly not
myself included--who believes that what is happening here in
Washington, DC, inside these hallowed chambers is something we want to
continue in terms of the status quo. We do need change. But as others
have said before me, we need the right kind of change. That is what I
wish to address here briefly.
First, let me remind my colleagues and those who may be watching
about where we are in terms of being stuck on important issues that are
important to the people of this country; where Congress, under the
current leadership, has simply squandered the opportunities we have, on
a bipartisan basis, to work together to try to address these pressing
issues.
First, it has now been 124 days since the terrorist surveillance
system, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, has
basically been unable to track and listen in on foreign terrorists
because Congress has failed to pass reauthorization of the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act.
It has been 575 days since our manufacturers and small businesses and
our farmers have been disadvantaged by the failure to take up and pass
a free trade agreement with Colombia.
My State of Texas sells about $2.3 billion worth of goods and produce
to Colombia each year, but because Congress refuses to act on this
free-trade agreement, my farmers and manufacturers and small businesses
have to pay a tariff. That is an added penalty, basically, on their
products in Colombia that is not imposed on Colombian goods when they
are sold here in the United States.
This free-trade agreement is good for my State and for the United
States because it creates markets for our goods and our produce, which
creates jobs here at home. But for 575 days now, we have seen no action
on that important agreement.
There have been 720 days that some judicial nominations have been
waiting for a vote. I want to come back to that--720 days since some of
these nominations have been pending. As astonishing as it may sound,
now when gasoline prices are well over $4 a gallon, when the price of
oil is up around $135 a barrel, it has been 786 days since Speaker
Pelosi--when she was running for the House of Representatives and
running basically for Speaker, she promised a commonsense plan to bring
down the price of gasoline at the pump. We are still waiting for that
plan. We have not seen it yet. I believe this is the kind of change
people across this country would love to see. They would love to see us
come together to try to solve these problems. But instead of that, they
see us stuck in a rut, engaging in political posturing rather than
solving the problems that confront our Nation.
I wish to talk briefly about the third item on my list, and that is
about judges.
For some reason, the Democratic majority has refused to follow
through on
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a promise made to our side to set hearings and confirm judges to the
Federal bench. The fact is, there does appear to be a distinct
difference in the philosophy of the people nominated to serve on the
Federal bench between the two political parties. I believe our side
believes judges should not be roving activists imposing or substituting
their views for what is good for us but, rather, judges should have the
very important role, the unique role of interpreting what the law is
and enforcing and applying the law as written.
Judges, of course, are not elected, by and large, certainly not to
the Federal bench. They are not representatives of the people, they are
representatives of the law, and they serve a very important function.
But when judges decide to take the law onto themselves and impose their
own will rather than to enforce the will of the elected representatives
of the people, they become lawless as a result.
Of course, we have seen recent examples of this, whether it be in
California, where the California Supreme Court after some 200 years has
decided now that the Constitution enshrines a right to same sex
marriage, against the overwhelming views of the people of that State--I
guess they will have another chance to vote on that in a proposition
that will come before the people of that State.
We have seen it most recently by the U.S. Supreme Court in a decision
where they afforded foreign terrorists precisely the same rights as an
American citizen would have even though we are at war with a determined
enemy that celebrates the murder of innocent civilians, as they did on
September 11, to pursue their own goals. And to have judges, including
the five Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, say that for the first
time in the history of our Republic, foreign terrorists have the same
constitutional rights to the writ of habeas corpus in civilian courts
is not only a dramatic change in the law--and it does represent change,
but it is not the right kind of change.
We need to make sure social policies are made by the elected
representatives of the people where we can debate these policies right
here in front of the people on TV and in front of those folks who come
to the gallery, but then once we make those decisions, once we have
those votes, that they are honored and respected by the unelected
judges.
The fact is, Senator Obama, the Senator from Illinois who is running
for President of the United States, says he want judges who would put
their heart and convictions above the letter of the law. That sounds
pretty good at first blush, but the fact is, if each judge is going to
decide what their heart tells them or what their personal convictions
tell them as opposed to what the law is, including what the
Constitution of the United States says, that is not law at all. That is
sort of an impressionistic way of deciding how to impose your views,
because you happen to be a Federal judge, on the people of this great
country.
We know there has been an effort to drag feet in terms of confirming
judicial nominees, presuming, I guess, that the election will provide
another opportunity for our Democratic colleagues to then see a
Democratic President nominate judges to the Federal bench, at which
time they would expect us to forget the foot-dragging and obstruction
we have experienced when we have had a Republican in the White House,
and somehow they believe that would not be reciprocated. I hope we will
rise above the temptation to reciprocate the kind of treatment this
President has received if a Democratic candidate was elected President
of the United States. But it is the same sort of tit-for-tat
retaliatory mindset that has gotten us into this quagmire we need to
get out of, and my hope would be that our friends on the other side of
the aisle would rethink this issue and sort of get out of this rut.
My constituents back in the State of Texas tell me they are pretty
disgusted with what they see happening in the Congress. Thirteen
percent, according to the latest Rasmussen poll I saw, said they gave
Congress an ``excellent'' or ``good'' rating. The vast majority of the
American people look to Washington and they do not see a Congress that
is being responsive to their needs and their wishes. They don't see us
trying to solve problems. They don't see us having hearings on judicial
nominees, asking those nominees questions about the qualifications and
experience and then having a vote on the Senate floor. That is the kind
of change we need as we address these issues that are important to the
American people. I would hope that if our colleagues on the other side
of the aisle are really desirous of change, they would work with us to
help change this broken, dysfunctional Senate.
When the majority leader calls up a bill and he denies an opportunity
for the minority to offer amendments or to have full and fair debate,
as he did last week on the climate change bill, what he called one of
the most important issues facing the planet today, it does not speak of
a seriousness of attitude in terms of trying to solve problems but,
rather, speaks more to an attitude of gamesmanship and political point
scoring that, frankly, is beneath the honor and dignity of this
institution and of our responsibilities to our constituents.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah is recognized.
____________________