[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 147 (Tuesday, September 16, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8809-S8810]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              THE ECONOMY

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, on the morning of October 30, 1929, 
President Herbert Hoover awoke the day after the biggest one-day stock 
market crash in American history, surveyed the state of the U.S. 
economy and declared:

       The fundamental business of the country, that is production 
     and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous 
     basis.

  In the coming weeks and months after that, President Hoover remained 
in an economic bubble, unaware of the extreme suffering of ordinary 
Americans--even declaring that anyone who questioned the state of the 
economy was a ``fool.''
  For Herbert Hoover, I guess ignorance was bliss. It wasn't until the 
American people replaced this out-of-touch Republican President with a 
Democrat, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, that our Nation's economic 
recovery began. Yesterday, nearly 80 years after the Hoover 
administration took America with blissful ignorance into a depression, 
the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 504 points--the biggest one-
day decline since trading opened after the attacks of 9/11.
  With one major investment bank headed for bankruptcy, and another 
sold at a bargain-basement price, and one of the world's largest 
insurance companies teetering, investors rushed to sell their shares, 
and not only in America but all over the world.
  With our financial markets reeling, the American people are wondering 
whether they will lose their jobs, whether they will be able to pay 
their child's next tuition bill, and whether their pension and 
retirement savings will be safe, or even whether their bank will 
survive.
  There is no reason to think we are headed into an economic 
depression. I believe there is no reason to panic. Yet one Senator--
John McCain--woke up yesterday morning, surveyed the state of the U.S. 
economy, summoned the ghost of his fellow Republican Herbert Hoover, 
and declared:

       The fundamentals of our economy are strong.

  For whom are the fundamentals of our economy strong? Certainly not 
the 606,000 American people who have lost their jobs this year. 
Certainly it is not strong for the commuters and truckers who are 
sending more and more of their hard-earned dollars overseas to pay for 
fuel. Certainly our economy is not strong for those struggling to make 
one paycheck last until the next, with record home heating prices 
looming in the coming winter months, and the price of oil teetering 
around $4 for a gallon of gasoline. It is not strong for the cities and 
towns that have been forced to cut back on police, schools, and 
firefighters because their tax base is shrinking. Certainly it is not 
strong for the millions of families who have or may soon lose their 
homes, or the tens of millions who are seeing their home equity 
plummet.
  No matter what George Bush, John McCain, or the ghost of Herbert 
Hoover may think, this economy is not strong, and the American people 
deserve better.
  This is not a time for panic, but it is a time to look back on the 
past 8 years of the Bush-Hoover-McCain economics and figure out what 
brought us to this point so we don't repeat the same mistakes.
  The tragic truth is this disaster was avoidable. In its palpable 
disdain for

[[Page S8810]]

all things relating to government, the Bush-Cheney administration 
willfully neglected the Government's most important function, which is 
to safeguard the American people from harm--not only physical harm but 
economic harm.
  In their simplistic philosophy of ``big business equals good, 
government equals bad,'' the administration and the Republican Congress 
failed to conduct oversight, and let the financial sector go wild.
  Without anyone regulating their actions, market excess destroyed the 
financial prudence that allowed a firm such as Lehman Brothers to 
prosper for 158 years.
  Vast fortunes were made virtually overnight, and now vast fortunes 
have been literally lost overnight. Yesterday, we heard that Hewlett-
Packard laid off 25,000 people. There is some talk that Lehman 
Brothers--somebody may buy them, so instead of losing 25,000 jobs, they 
will only lose 15,000 jobs. I hope that is the case for those 10,000.
  The unfortunate irony is that the Bush administration's zeal to favor 
big business has crippled it and left the American people to pay the 
price. President Bush did nothing to stop this disaster, and now he 
will leave the mess to the next President.
  Now our Nation must decide who is better suited to end the Bush-
Hoover economics and return sanity and security to our economy.
  Senator McCain says the economy is not his strong suit. That is an 
understatement. That is what he said about himself. So John McCain went 
searching for an economic adviser who could bolster his weakness. Who 
did he choose? Phil Gramm. I served with Phil Gramm in the Senate--the 
same Phil Gramm who was responsible for deregulation in the financial 
services industry that paved the way for much of this crisis to occur. 
I like Phil Gramm, but I don't like his economics.
  A respected economist at the University of Texas, James K. Galver, 
said that Gramm was: ``the most aggressive advocate of every predatory 
and rapacious element that the financial sector has'' and that ``he's 
sorcerer's apprentice of instability and disaster in the financial 
system.''
  It was Phil Gramm who pushed legislation through a Republican Senate 
that allowed firms such as Enron to avoid regulation and destroy the 
life savings of its employees, and it was Phil Gramm's legislation that 
now has Wall Street traders to bid up the price of oil, leaving us to 
pay the bill.
  Warren Buffett called the results of Gramm's legislation ``financial 
weapons of mass destruction.'' That is what Warren Buffet said.
  And now the architect and leading cheerleader for every mistake and 
neglect that created the Bush-Cheney financial nightmare is whispering 
into the ear of John McCain, who says he doesn't know much about the 
economy. I repeat, that is an understatement.
  Whether you call it Hoover economics, Bush economics, or McCain 
economics, it is not a recipe for change; it is a recipe for more of 
the same.
  For all of the college students worried about finding a job, the 
working families who don't know how they will pay their bills--talking 
about families and jobs, a man is coming to visit me from Las Vegas. He 
has two sons who are so brilliant. One of them, a few years ago, was 
the only person in Nevada to be admitted to Harvard. He had a perfect 
score in his SAT. He can't find a job. He is a graduate, with honors, 
from one of our elite ivy league schools and he cannot find a job. His 
dad is coming to talk to me to see if I can help him. His other boy is 
still in college and, of course, worried, as I have indicated, about 
finding a job. Working families don't know how they will pay their 
bills, and the fixed-income seniors are trying to figure out how to pay 
for medicine. We have to do better.
  We cannot afford another Republican President who will follow his 
party's ghosts down the path of recession, depression, and more 
suffering. We desperately need a President who understands that working 
people, not industry titans, are the backbone of our country and 
economy.
  We need a President who will cut taxes for working people and senior 
citizens, end the windfall profits of oil companies, and put that money 
back into the pockets of those who are paying record prices at the 
pump, and put millions of Americans back to work by investing in jobs 
on Main Street, not Wall Street.
  In November, we can elect a President who will break from the past 
and invest in the future, a person of change. But until then, the 
Senate should pass our tax extenders. We need to do that. If we want to 
jump-start the economy, let's pass the tax extenders for renewable 
energy. In the State of Montana, the State of the Presiding Officer, 
renewable energy is a job creator. On August 18 and 19, I had an energy 
summit in Las Vegas. We had Democrats, Republicans, academics, and 
people from the industry. I talked to the Governor from Colorado and 
asked him how his State is doing. He said they are not being hit as 
hard as others because they are creating thousands of jobs with 
renewable energy projects. That is what the future holds for us. We 
need to pass the energy tax extenders. I hope we can work something out 
with the Republicans to pass other tax extenders for more than 1 year. 
We have to get away from the 1-year deal. Let's do them for 2 years so 
that people in the private sector can look at Congress as a friend. I 
hope we can do that.
  I also think we have to take a look at a stimulus package that funds 
infrastructure projects, creates jobs, prevents cuts in desperately 
needed State services, invests in renewable energy, expanded 
unemployment benefits for victims of this administration's economy, and 
helps working people and senior citizens afford the costs of energy.
  I think the House of Representatives will pass the stimulus bill in 
the coming days. I hope that today they pass the Energy bill. As I 
indicated to the distinguished Republican leader, we are going to 
finish this Defense authorization as soon as we can. I hope to get 
cloture on it this afternoon.
  I hope the unanimous-consent request Senator Levin will offer around 
11 o'clock--whenever we finish morning business--will be accepted. When 
we finish that, I think there is an agreement between the Republican 
leader and me that we are going to go to the tax extenders, renewable 
first. We have to have a vote on AMT. We are going to vote on the other 
tax extenders. That will be helpful. It sets a great pattern for what 
we need to do here. I hope the House follows suit and takes care of 
that business.
  We are going to now have a period for morning business, with Senators 
allowed to speak for up to 10 minutes each, as soon as the Republican 
leader finishes his statement, if he has one. The Republicans will 
control the first 30 minutes, and the majority will control the second 
30 minutes.
  Following morning business, the Senate will resume consideration of 
S. 3001, the national defense authorization bill. The managers are 
working through filed amendments to the bill. Senators should be on 
notice that the chairman has shared a proposed unanimous consent 
agreement with Republicans and will ask for consent prior to the caucus 
recess. If we are unable to reach agreement, at 3 p.m. the Senate will 
proceed to a cloture vote on the bill, with the final 30 minutes 
equally divided and controlled by the two leaders, with the majority 
leader controlling the final 15 minutes. Senators have until 12 noon to 
file second-degree amendments to the Defense bill.
  I will finally say that under the regular procedure, we would have a 
cloture vote an hour after we come into session. But I had a 
conversation with the Republican leader last evening, and we felt it 
would be best to wait until after our caucus so people understood how 
important this Defense authorization bill is and how Senator Warner and 
Senator Levin have tried hard to work through all these amendments. 
Hopefully, we can get cloture invoked and work on the amendments that 
are available postcloture and finish this bill, say, 9:30 tomorrow 
morning, something like that. I hope that can be the case.

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