[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 30 (Friday, February 13, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2288-S2313]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT OF 2009--CONFERENCE REPORT
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now
proceed to the conference report to accompany H.R. 1, the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act, with the time until 5:30 for debate,
with the time divided as follows: the majority controlling 30 minutes
and the remaining time under the control of the Republican leader or
his designee; that a budget point of order be in order and if raised
against the conference report, then a motion to waive the applicable
point of order be considered made; that at 5:30 p.m. the Senate then
vote on the motion to waive the point of order; further, that the vote
on the waiver of the point of order count as a vote on adoption of the
conference report, with a 60-vote threshold; that no further points of
order be in order during the pendency of the conference report; and
that upon adoption of the conference report, the motion to reconsider
be laid on the table, with no further intervening action.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I wish to publicly express my appreciation
for the thoughtful time certainty on this by the Republicans. As they
know, we
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have a couple issues on our side, one is a death and one is the health
of one of our Members. They have been very thoughtful and understanding
of our situation. For that I will always be grateful.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I would like to propound a unanimous
consent request for speakers on our side.
I ask unanimous consent that the following Republican speakers be
recognized for up to 7 minutes each: Chambliss, Graham, Ensign,
Alexander, Shelby, Hatch, McCain, Sessions, and that Senator Coburn be
recognized for up to 30 minutes.
Mr. ENSIGN. Reserving the right to object, is it in that order----
Mr. McCONNELL. No.
Mr. ENSIGN: Or is it just total time?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The clerk will report the conference report.
The bill clerk read as follows:
The committee of conference on the disagreeing votes of the
two Houses on the amendment of the Senate to the bill (H.R.
1) making supplemental appropriations for job preservation
and creation, infrastructure investment, energy efficiency
and science, assistance to the unemployed, and State and
local fiscal stabilization, for the fiscal year ending
September 30, 2009, and for other purposes, having met, after
full and free conference, have agreed to recommend and do
recommend to their respective Houses this report, signed by a
majority of the conferees.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will proceed to the consideration
of the conference report.
(The conference report is printed in the House proceedings at pages
H1307 through H1516 of the Record of February 12, 2009.)
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time on the conference report?
The Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask that I be recognized for 7 minutes
and be informed when I have used 6 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.
Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, this debate is coming to an end, and it
never really started. We are bringing a conclusion to a process that
will spend $1.1 trillion over the next 10 years, and there has never
been a thoughtful discussion between the parties to figure out how we
can get there from here.
The Republican alternative was $440 billion, I believe. It had tax
cuts. It had spending on unemployment benefits extension, food stamp
extension. It had a $35 billion, $45 billion amount of spending for
infrastructure, shovel-ready jobs. It was an alternative that also had
a trigger that said that once the economy got back on its feet and we
had two quarters of positive GDP growth, any unspent funds would be
frozen, and we would look at trying to get back to a balanced budget
situation. In other words, it had a slowdown provision. There is
nothing in this bill that is going to slow down spending.
The compromise that has been reached--$440 billion was the Republican
alternative--we are going to settle on a bill of about $787 billion-
plus that received no Republican votes in the House. I think they lost
seven or eight Democrats in the House. Apparently, they are going to
pick up three Republicans in the Senate.
I would argue that if the shoe were on the other foot, if Republicans
were in charge and we lost more Republicans than we picked up
Democrats, that would be a lead story. So the idea that this is
bipartisan does not meet any realistic test of bipartisanship, and that
is a loss. Mr. President, $1.1 trillion unfocused over 10 years, in
terms of job creation, is a huge loss to the next generation of
Americans who are going to pay this bill.
We had a chance to start over early on in this administration. The
attitude that started this process in the House, ``We won, we write the
bill,'' never changed. It came to the Senate. We spent 1 hour 40
minutes marking up this bill. We have had a handful of Republican
amendments accepted. I am not saying our version is the right way
completely. I am saying the difference between $440 billion and $787
billion and $819 billion, the House version, is not $787 billion.
There has never been a real effort to try to find common ground. The
percentage of this bill that is tax cuts is 27 percent of $787 billion;
27 percent of the amount is for tax relief. A $400 rebate check is a
great part of the tax provision. Last year, we gave people $500 tax
rebates. That did not stimulate the economy. The $400 will not.
What stimulates the economy is cutting taxes for consumers as well as
business. As Senator Thune from South Dakota said about 75 percent of
the jobs in America are created by small business. If your goal is to
stimulate the economy and create new jobs, one test of this bill would
be how much did you do for small business.
Less than $3 billion in the entire package is directed to small
business. I would argue that if 75 percent of the jobs come from the
small business sector and only $3 billion of the money is allocated for
small business relief, we missed this thing by a country mile.
This bill started out of the House as a ``We won, we write the bill''
spending package that never had a focus on job creation. There are so
many things in this bill unrelated to creating a job in the next 18
months that it is, in my opinion, a failure as a stimulus package.
Of the $580 billion of this bill that is appropriated--about 53
percent of it is appropriated--only 11 percent of that money hits the
economy in the first year. Fifty-three percent of the appropriated
funds are not spent until after 2 years from now.
So the goal I had working with our Democratic colleagues and the
White House was to try to create as many jobs as possible by
stimulating the economy through a combination of tax cuts and spending
that would create jobs in the near term and, yes, help people who have
lost a job. We have failed miserably in that endeavor, in my opinion.
We have run up the cost of this bill, and every dollar that is wasted
in the stimulus package that does not create a job is one less dollar
to jump-start housing and banking.
To my colleagues, you all know this one fact. We will never get out
of this economic mess until we deal with the banking problem and the
housing problem. We have wasted a lot of money in this bill that could
have gone to banking and housing. There will be a request in the
future, mark my words. The TARP funds left to deal with banking and
housing of $315 billion are not nearly enough to deal with the toxic
assets that cripple the ability to lend, not nearly enough, in my
opinion, to deal with the foreclosures that are coming in waves in this
country.
The stimulus package is important, but it was, in my opinion, the
least-effective measure to jump-start the economy. We put all the money
in the thing that works the least, and we designed it in a fashion
where it will work hardly at all. This is a blown opportunity to come
together in a bipartisan fashion to deal with banking and housing. We
put all our resources upfront in a stimulus package that has very
little to do with creating jobs and a lot to do with growing
Government.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 6 minutes.
Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, we have created more Government, new
Government than we created jobs. We lost the spirit of bipartisanship
we were yearning for. It is going to be hard for us to come back to the
American people after this monstrosity of a bill is understood in the
next couple weeks and ask for more money in housing and banking.
I am disappointed in the process. I am disappointed in the final
substance of the bill. We spent $1 trillion in about 2 weeks, with very
little discussion.
Finally, America wants this Congress and this new administration to
be smart and work together. We are not being smart, and we sure as heck
haven't worked together.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I claim the 7 minutes that is part of the
unanimous consent agreement.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.
Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, the scope of this legislation is enormous
and endangers our country's future economic health.
Currently, the U.S. debt burden is huge, but it is going to rise to
54 percent of the economy in just the next 2 years. That is before we
take into account this omnibus spending bill that
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is still to come before the Congress, another round of TARP, and
approximately $1 trillion that we have in the bill before us today.
When we add the Children's Health Insurance Program that was passed,
TARP, a supplemental, the omnibus bill, we will add an additional $2
trillion to our national debt. That means higher taxes for our
children, our grandchildren, and actually just in a few years for
almost all Americans.
We have been borrowing against future generations. Keep in mind that
we have a $60 trillion debt out there in Social Security, Medicare,
Medicaid, and other entitlement programs. That money has to be paid
someday.
We have to ask ourselves: What will the credit markets around the
world think? What will they think about the idea of the United States
being actually solvent? The previous administration, as we heard from
the other side, spent money like crazy. I am not going to defend them.
I was one of the people fighting against a lot of that spending.
The spending that is before us today is unprecedented. Unfortunately,
in the so-called stimulus bill, only about 25 percent of the bill is in
true tax relief. A lot of it is disguised as tax relief, but it is just
spending. Not all tax relief is equal when it comes to stimulating the
economy. Unfortunately, some of the tax relief in this bill that was
actually good was stripped out of the bill.
Today, as a percentage of GDP, Government spending last year was
around 21 percent. This year, it is going to be close to 30 percent.
The historical average over the last 40 years is around 20.6 percent.
If we continue to add and add, in not too many years, it is heading
toward 40 percent. This amounts to the Europeanization of the United
States. Why is this? The government takes up a large percentage of the
budgets of Europe's economies. These are more socialist-type economies,
and that is the percentage of their gross domestic product they spend
on government.
Let's consider the cost of this bill. If we count everything that is
going to expire in the stimulus and say it is not going to expire over
the next 10 years, the true cost of this bill is somewhere around $3
trillion. We have to ask ourselves: When was the last time a Federal
program was cut or was discontinued? That does not happen around here.
Once we put something in place, it seems to be in place forever.
The assumptions in the bill that the spending put in place is
actually going to go away in 2 years seems a little ridiculous to me.
That is why we actually should be honest about the true cost of this
bill.
According to CBO, all the stimulus spending will do little to help
our long-term economic growth. It will help some in the short term but
not in the long term. We have to think about not just short term. Too
many companies in America were thinking short term. We have to think
long term as well for our, once again, children and grandchildren.
We did not even receive this 1,100-page bill until 11 p.m. last
night. Thanks to all my staff, and the Republican Policy Committee
staff. They spent most of the night and today going through this bill.
There is no way everybody is going to know everything that is in this
bill because of the difficulty of trying to go through an 1,100-page
bill in less than 24 hours.
We need to look at history. Japan, in the 1990s, gave us valuable
lessons about not what to do. They spent $6.3 trillion. Unfortunately,
they spent it building a lot of bridges to nowhere, roads to nowhere.
We heard we need a lot of infrastructure spending in this country. If
this bill had only answered that call. This bill has very little to do
with infrastructure. Only a small percentage of this bill actually
deals with infrastructure. That is unfortunate. Japan also failed to
address the underlying problems in their banking system. Japan created
zombie banks. These are banks that should have failed but were not
allowed to. Japan also suffered from a bad course of monetary policy.
While the parallels may not be exactly the same between Japan and the
U.S., we may be headed in the same direction. That is why a lot of us
are afraid that this stimulus bill before us today is actually not
going to cure our economic woes.
The housing industry is what brought this whole economy down. We
understand that. The American people in my State of Nevada know it was
the housing crisis that brought the economy down. So if we don't fix
housing, how are we going to fix the economy? The underlying problem
with the patient here is the housing problem.
I had an amendment that actually would have gone a long way toward
fixing housing. My amendment had three components. The first was that
Americans would have been able to get a much lower interest rate--
somewhere between 4 to 4.5 percent. About 40 million American
households would have qualified for it. It would have given the average
American household about $450 per month more for their budget. This was
permanent, though, it wasn't just a one-time check. This was a 30-year
fixed interest rate. That actually would have helped stimulate the
economy.
The second part of the amendment was that we took a provision from
Senator Isakson.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. ENSIGN. The second part of the amendment would have given a
$15,000 tax credit to buy homes. That would have helped to stimulate
the housing market. Unfortunately, in this bill, that was dramatically
cut down. And the third part was to help those houses underwater.
This spending bill that is before us could have been made so much
better if we had sat down in a bipartisan fashion--not as Republicans,
not as Democrats, but as Americans. I hope we learn from the way this
bill was done that it is not the way we need to fix some of the major
problems the country will face in the future. I hope we can actually
sit down in a bipartisan fashion.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, may I be informed when 6 minutes of my
7 minutes has expired?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair will notify the Senator.
Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Chair.
Mr. President, here is what we know of the so-called stimulus bill.
This bill will give American workers $8 a week in their paychecks in
exchange for passing along a $1 trillion debt to our grandchildren. The
entire New Deal, in today's dollars, cost only half of what this bill
costs.
We know that if we were to spend $1 million a day, every day since
Jesus Christ was born, we would still spend less money than the cost of
this bill.
We know that if you were to add the cost of this bill to the national
debt that we already have, it would cost each American household more
than $100,000 to pay off our country's debt.
We know that in the bill there is $50 million that could be used to
save red-bellied harvest mice in the San Francisco area, something that
Speaker Pelosi has supported.
We know that in the bill there is $8 billion for a levitating train
from Disneyland to Las Vegas that the majority leader is very
interested in.
We also know that people are hurting. That we need to do something to
help the economy. And that something includes a real stimulus bill. But
we know this is not the right approach.
Mostly, this is spending, not stimulus. Most of the spending in the
bill does not come soon enough to help create jobs quickly. Most of the
tax cuts in the bill--such as the $8 per week for working families--are
welcome but not stimulative.
We know this is a lot of money. An example of how much money is that
it took us until about 1980, from the beginning of our Republic, to
accumulate a debt that equals the amount of this bill. Or to look at it
another way: The entire annual Federal budget in the early 1980s was
about the amount we are spending in this bill.
We know this is not temporary. Even though stimulus bills, as defined
by Speaker Pelosi, are to be timely, temporary, and targeted, this is
not. We know that because of the mandatory spending it adds to the
long-term budget. We know that because the Senate rejected Senator
McCain's amendment which said that after two consecutive quarters of
economic growth above 2 percent, the new spending would stop. So this
bill is not temporary.
We know we are bailing out States with much more money than they
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need. In my State of Tennessee, it had a $900 million dollar shortfall.
That is a lot of money for our State. But our legislature and Governor
are handling that, with some pain. Yet we are giving Tennessee almost
$4 billion, as if we had the money to spend.
We know we are not seriously thinking about how much spending is too
much spending in Washington, and how much debt is too much debt. We
know that we establish policies in this bill--huge policies in
education, energy, and health--in 2 weeks, without careful
consideration that deserve enormous consideration.
I used to be Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education. Its
budget today is about $68 billion. We are adding $40 billion a year to
that Department for the next 2 years. Does that mean we are completely
satisfied with what is happening in kindergarten through the 12th
grade? If we are to add $40 billion a year, should we not be asking
what can we do differently to reward outstanding teachers, to add
charter schools, to offer parents more choices for afterschool programs
for their children? Surely, we can have a debate about education, or
energy, or health care if we are going to spend that much new money.
We know there has been a lack of bipartisanship. The refrain seems to
be: We won the election; we'll write the bill. That was not the tone of
the election. That was not what we looked forward to on the Republican
side of the aisle.
We know what we should have done instead. We know we shouldn't have
spent the whole piggy bank on a spending bill that doesn't include much
stimulus. We know that we should have reserved as many of those scarce
dollars as we could to focus on fixing housing first and making sure
that we don't underestimate the difficulty we have in getting toxic
assets out of the financial institutions in this country so they can
start lending again and on Main Street we can start doing business
again. We know those are the things we should have done instead.
This bill doesn't pass muster with truth in labeling. It claims not
to have earmarks, although that levitating train from Las Vegas to
Disneyland looks a lot like an earmark.
We know that the two provisions in the bill that seemed to do the
most to help were cut by the conference report in substantial ways. I
am speaking of Senator Isakson's $15,000 tax credit for home buyers who
would buy homes in the next year, which was gutted. And Senator
Mikulski's and Senator Brownback's effort to give encouragement to
automobile and truck buyers all over America to revive the automobile
industry.
We know that if we are to add $87 billion over 2 years to Medicaid
for the States that we may be making the program so rich that we will
never be able to decide what to do about it when we have our national
health care debate. We are preempting that discussion without very much
debate.
I know what bipartisanship is. I have participated in it. When I was
Governor of Tennessee, I worked with a Democratic legislature. We
became the first State to pay teachers more for teaching well. I said
what I thought we ought to do and the Democratic speaker said what he
thought we ought to do. We sat down together.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has spoken for 6 minutes.
Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Chair.
We took some of Speaker McWherter's ideas and some of my ideas. We
came to a conclusion and we together announced the result.
President Bush and the Congress did the same thing with No Child Left
Behind when President Bush working with Senator Kennedy and
Representative Miller. Senator Bingaman and Senator Domenici gave us a
good example with the energy bill. Seventy of us cosponsored the
America Competes Act. And the Gang of 14 helped keep the Senate
functioning and produced good Supreme Court nominees.
I am disappointed that we have not risen to the occasion. This bill
should have been easy to do in a bipartisan way. I hope that this is
not a symbol of what is to come with more difficult pieces of
legislation, like health care, climate change, and entitlements.
I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, during the last 18 months, our economy has
been crippled by an unprecedented financial crisis. What began simply
as rising defaults on subprime mortgages has rapidly evolved into the
greatest economic storm since the Great Depression.
Shackled by mounting losses on mortgage-backed securities and falling
home prices, our banking system has retracted from normal lending.
Starved of financing, our economy is rapidly deteriorating, while
millions of Americans face unemployment.
Unfortunately, we have watched two succeeding administrations--the
Bush administration and now, I fear, the Obama administration--propose
plans to revitalize our economy that have failed to live up to
expectations.
We are now told that the solution to the current crisis lies in this
stimulus bill before the Senate. Proponents claim that this bill will
jump-start the economy and reinvigorate private commercial activity. I
disagree.
This bill has been poorly conceived and hastily crafted. First, the
immediate impact of this bill is far too small. According to the
Congressional Budget Office, only 12 percent of the discretionary
spending in this bill takes place in the year 2009. Secondly, this bill
is not targeted to maximize its impact. It simply funds, I believe, a
wish list of government programs rather than focusing on creating jobs
and bolstering the incomes of all Americans.
Finally, I fear that the supporters of this bill have been resting
far too heavily on their Keynesian ideological crutch rather than
devising good policy here.
We are told that Professor Keynes said that government spending was
the key to restoring long-term economic growth. We need to remember
that Professor Keynes' views evolved a great deal over time. He was
continually changing his opinions when confronted with new facts and
circumstances. His famed ``general theory'' of employment, interest,
and money was borne of his concern that the old policy prescriptions
were not working.
Because his thinking was always changing, Keynes was often criticized
for being inconsistent. He famously replied:
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?
I believe we need a solution that fits the facts and circumstances of
our times, just as Keynes sought to provide a solution to address those
of the United Kingdom at one time.
Our solution, I believe, needs to focus on restoring our banking
system. Unless our banking system is nurtured back to health, our
economy will remain crippled, and much of what is in this stimulus
bill, I believe, will have been wasted.
It is worth remembering that the first thing Franklin Roosevelt did
upon becoming President of the United States was address the Nation's
banking crisis, long before he embarked on the New Deal spending
programs. Another example I believe we should keep in mind is the
experience of Japan during their so-called lost decade. You will recall
that during the 1990s, the Japanese experienced a banking crisis as
well. Rather than deal with their zombie banks, Japanese policymakers
enacted numerous stimulus bills. And despite those spending sprees, the
Japanese economy continued to stagnate as they increased Japan's debt-
to-GDP ratio from 60 percent to a staggering 180 percent today.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
a list of economists, including several Nobel Prize winners.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Burton Abrams, Univ. of Delaware; Douglas Adie, Ohio
University; Ryan Amacher, Univ. of Texas at Arlington; J.J.
Arias, Georgia College & State University; Howard Baetjer,
Jr., Towson University; Stacie Beck, Univ. of Delaware; Don
Bellante, Univ. of South Florida; James Bennett, George Mason
University; Bruce Benson, Florida State University; Sanjai
Bhagat, Univ. of Colorado at Boulder; Mark Bils, Univ. of
Rochester; Alberto Bisin, New York University; Walter Block,
Loyola University New Orleans; Cecil Bohanon, Ball State
University; Michele Boldrin, Washington University in St.
Louis; Donald Booth, Chapman
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University; Michael Bordo, Rutgers University; Samuel
Bostaph, Univ. of Dallas; Scott Bradford, Brigham Young
University; Genevieve Briand, Eastern Washington University.
George Brower, Moravian College; James Buchanan, Nobel
laureate; Richard Burdekin, Claremont McKenna College; Henry
Butler, Northwestern University; William Butos, Trinity
College; Peter Calcagno, College of Charleston; Bryan Caplan,
George Mason University; Art Carden, Rhodes College; James
Cardon, Brigham Young University; Dustin Chambers, Salisbury
University; Emily Chamlee-Wright, Beloit College; V.V. Chari,
Univ. of Minnesota; Barry Chiswick, Univ. of Illinois at
Chicago; Lawrence Cima, John Carroll University; J.R. Clark,
Univ. of Tennessee at Chattanooga; Gian Luca Clementi, New
York University; R. Morris Coats, Nicholls State University;
John Cochran, Metropolitan State College; John Cochrane,
Univ. of Chicago; John Cogan, Hoover Institution, Stanford
University.
John Coleman, Duke University; Boyd Collier, Tarleton State
University; Robert Collinge, Univ. of Texas at San Antonio;
Lee Coppock, Univ. of Virginia; Mario Crucini, Vanderbilt
University; Christopher Culp, Univ. of Chicago; Kirby
Cundiff, Northeastern State University; Antony Davies,
Duquesne University; John Dawson, Appalachian State
University; Clarence Deitsch, Ball State University; Arthur
Diamond, Jr., Univ. of Nebraska at Omaha; John Dobra, Univ.
of Nevada, Reno; James Dorn, Towson University; Christopher
Douglas, Univ. of Michigan, Flint; Floyd Duncan, Virginia
Military Institute; Francis Egan, Trinity College; John
Egger, Towson University; Kenneth Elzinga, Univ. of Virginia;
Paul Evans, Ohio State University; Eugene Fama, Univ. of
Chicago.
W. Ken Farr, Georgia College & State University; Hartmut
Fischer, Univ. of San Francisco; Fred Foldvary, Santa Clara
University; Murray Frank, Univ. of Minnesota; Peter Frank,
Wingate University; Timothy Fuerst, Bowling Green State
University; B. Delworth Gardner, Brigham Young University;
John Garen, Univ. of Kentucky; Rick Geddes, Cornell
University; Aaron Gellman, Northwestern University; William
Gerdes, Clarke College; Michael Gibbs, Univ. of Chicago;
Stephan Gohmann, Univ. of Louisville; Rodolfo Gonzalez, San
Jose State University; Richard Gordon, Penn State University;
Peter Gordon, Univ. of Southern California; Ernie Goss,
Creighton University; Paul Gregory, Univ. of Houston; Earl
Grinols, Baylor University; Daniel Gropper, Auburn
University.
R.W. Hafer, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville;
Arthur Hall, Univ. of Kansas; Steve Hanke, Johns Hopkins;
Stephen Happel, Arizona State University; Frank Hefner,
College of Charleston; Ronald Heiner, George Mason
University; David Henderson, Hoover Institution, Stanford
University; Robert Herren, North Dakota State University;
Gailen Hite, Columbia University; Steven Horwitz, St.
Lawrence University; John Howe, Univ. of Missouri, Columbia;
Jeffrey Hummel, San Jose State University; Bruce Hutchinson,
Univ. of Tennessee at Chattanooga; Brian Jacobsen, Wisconsin
Lutheran College; Jason Johnston, Univ. of Pennsylvania;
Boyan Jovanovic, New York University; Jonathan Karpoff, Univ.
of Washington; Barry Keating, Univ. of Notre Dame; Naveen
Khanna, Michigan State University; Nicholas Kiefer, Cornell
University.
Daniel Klein, George Mason University; Paul Koch, Univ. of
Kansas; Narayana Kocherlakota, Univ. of Minnesota; Marek
Kolar, Delta College; Roger Koppl, Fairleigh Dickinson
University; Kishore Kulkarni, Metropolitan State College of
Denver; Deepak Lal, UCLA; George Langelett, South Dakota
State University; James Larriviere, Spring Hill College;
Robert Lawson, Auburn University; John Levendis, Loyola
University New Orleans; David Levine, Washington University
in St. Louis; Peter Lewin, Univ. of Texas at Dallas; Dean
Lillard, Cornell University; Zheng Liu, Emory University;
Alan Lockard, Binghampton University; Edward Lopez, San Jose
State University; John Lunn, Hope College; Glenn MacDonald,
Washington University in St. Louis; Michael Marlow,
California Polytechnic State University.
Deryl Martin, Tennessee Tech University; Dale Matcheck,
Northwood University; Deirdre McCloskey, Univ. of Illinois,
Chicago; John McDermott, Univ. of South Carolina; Joseph
McGarrity, Univ. of Central Arkansas; Roger Meiners, Univ. of
Texas at Arlington; Allan Meltzer, Carnegie Mellon
University; John Merrifield, Univ. of Texas at San Antonio;
James Miller III, George Mason University; Jeffrey Miron,
Harvard University; Thomas Moeller, Texas Christian
University; John Moorhouse, Wake Forest University; Andrea
Moro, Vanderbilt University; Andrew Morriss, Univ. of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Michael Munger, Duke
University; Kevin Murphy, Univ. of Southern California;
Richard Muth, Emory University; Charles Nelson, Univ. of
Washington; Seth Norton, Wheaton College; Lee Ohanian, Univ.
of California, Los Angeles.
Lydia Ortega, San Jose State University; Evan Osborne,
Wright State University; Randall Parker, East Carolina
University; Donald Parsons, George Washington University; Sam
Peltzman, Univ. of Chicago; Mark Perry, Univ. of Michigan,
Flint; Christopher Phelan, Univ. of Minnesota; Gordon
Phillips, Univ. of Maryland; Michael Pippenger, Univ. of
Alaska, Fairbanks; Tomasz Piskorski, Columbia University;
Brennan Platt, Brigham Young University; Joseph Pomykala,
Towson University; William Poole, Univ. of Delaware; Barry
Poulson, Univ. of Colorado at Boulder; Benjamin Powell,
Suffolk University; Edward Prescott, Nobel laureate; Gary
Quinlivan, Saint Vincent College; Reza Ramazani, Saint
Michael's College; Adriano Rampini, Duke University; Eric
Rasmusen, Indiana University.
Mario Rizzo, New York University; Richard Roll, Univ. of
California, Los Angeles; Robert Rossana, Wayne State
University; James Roumasset, Univ. of Hawaii at Manoa; John
Rowe, Univ. of South Florida; Charles Rowley, George Mason
University; Juan Rubio-Ramirez, Duke University; Roy Ruffin,
Univ. of Houston; Kevin Salyer, Univ. of California, Davis;
Pavel Savor, Univ. of Pennsylvania; Ronald Schmidt, Univ. of
Rochester; Carlos Seiglie, Rutgers University; William
Shughart II, Univ. of Mississippi; Charles Skipton, Univ. of
Tampa; James Smith, Western Carolina University; Vernon
Smith, Nobel laureate; Lawrence Southwick, Jr., Univ. at
Buffalo; Dean Stansel, Florida Gulf Coast University; Houston
Stokes, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago; Brian Strow, Western
Kentucky University; Shirley Svorny, California State
University, Northridge.
John Tatom, Indiana State University; Wade Thomas, State
University of New York at Oneonta; Henry Thompson, Auburn
University; Alex Tokarev, The King's College; Edward Tower,
Duke University; Leo Troy, Rutgers University; David Tuerck,
Suffolk University; Charlotte Twight, Boise State University;
Kamal Upadhyaya, Univ. of New Haven; Charles Upton, Kent
State University; T. Norman Van Cott, Ball State University;
Richard Vedder, Ohio University; Richard Wagner, George Mason
University; Douglas M. Walker, College of Charleston; Douglas
O. Walker, Regent University; Christopher Westley,
Jacksonville State University; Lawrence White, Univ. of
Missouri at St. Louis; Walter Williams, George Mason
University; Doug Wills, Univ. of Washington Tacoma; Dennis
Wilson, Western Kentucky University; Gary Wolfram, Hillsdale
College; Huizhong Zhou, Western Michigan University.
Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, all these economists agree that government
spending is not the way to improve economic performance.
Over the past year, I have repeatedly called for an extensive
examination of the origins of this economic crisis and of the potential
solutions. So far, the majority has refused. In the absence of any
analysis or detailed information, they have chosen time and again to
solve the crisis by throwing money at it. I believe this is laying the
groundwork for a much greater economic catastrophe.
It took until 1982 for our publicly held debt to cross the $1
trillion mark. In the 27 short years since, we have amassed a debt 10
times that amount. Now we are about to vote on a measure that will, in
a single year, add to the national debt what it took nearly 200 years
to accumulate.
I fear this is a day we will come to regret, not only because I
believe the stimulus bill will not work but because it will mark the
day when our generation decided we were not capable of enduring the
consequences of our own actions, and therefore future generations must
shoulder the burden we could not find the courage to bear ourselves.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise this afternoon to talk about the
economic recovery package, a package that will create jobs, put money
in the pockets of the middle class, and strengthen our investment--
three extremely worthy and necessary goals. It is a package that will
turn our economy around--and Lord knows we need it.
Let me say, I have heard much talk from the other side claiming they
are against this package because it increases the budget deficit and
the national debt too much. For instance, I heard my good friend from
Arizona this morning talking about generational theft. There is one
surprising thing: When we talked about $1 trillion for the war in Iraq,
all told, we never heard about generational theft. When President Bush
talked about $2 trillion of tax cuts, mainly for the wealthy, did we
ever hear the words ``generational theft''? Did we ever hear we should
not do tax cuts for the wealthy or fund the war in Iraq because it was
generational
[[Page S2293]]
theft? Because it would increase the deficit? No, we didn't. I am not
commenting on whether those two actions were worthy, but we certainly
did not hear any qualms from the other side.
The GOP was a borrow-and-spend party for each of the 8 years
President Bush was in office. They doubled the national debt in 8 years
and by some estimates added $30 trillion to future liabilities over 8
years. Our friends on the other side of the aisle simply have no
credibility when it comes to the issues of deficits and debt because,
until 3 months ago, they didn't give a hoot about it. Only now, when
there are Government programs for education and health care and
transportation, do we hear about Government debt. But we never hear
about it when it comes to funding wars overseas, like Iraq, or when it
comes to tax cuts for the wealthy--that is perfectly OK. Where were our
colleagues on the other side of the aisle for the last 8 years as the
debt skyrocketed, as generational theft occurred? Where was my good
friend from Arizona, who talked about this earlier today when I was on
the floor?
Mr. COBURN. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. SCHUMER. I will only yield, since I have only 5 minutes, on the
Senator's time.
Mr. COBURN. I will be happy to yield myself the time. The Senator
paints with an awfully broad brush. I have been in this Senate for 4
years. He knows very well that I voted against most appropriations
bills. I talked about the debt in almost every speech I have given. So
I hope we would talk about individuals rather than a group because it
is not necessarily representative of all on my side.
Mr. SCHUMER. Reclaiming my time, I think my colleague from Oklahoma
makes a fair point. There have been occasional Members, such as the
Senator from Oklahoma, the Senator from Ohio, the Senator from Maine,
Ms. Snowe, who have talked repeatedly about increasing the debt. But by
and large, the speakers we have heard this morning and this afternoon
and the votes we have seen from the other side of the aisle, both under
George Bush and now--we didn't hear much talk about generational debt.
Mr. SANDERS. Will my colleague yield?
Mr. SCHUMER. I am happy to yield on my colleague's time since I only
have 3 minute left.
Mr. SANDERS. Sure. Does my friend recall that for many years under
President Bush, the Republican leadership told us how imperative it was
to repeal the estate tax, which would cost this Nation $1 trillion over
a 10-year period? Mr. President, $1 trillion--and who were the
beneficiaries of that tax break? The top three-tenths of 1 percent.
We are spending $800 billion, including tax breaks for the middle
class, rebuilding this country. What does my friend think about $1
trillion for the top three-tenths of 1 percent as opposed to putting
money into the middle-class and working families?
Mr. SCHUMER. I thank my friend from Vermont, and, reclaiming my time,
he is exactly right. Let's look at it this way: Does anyone really
believe that if a Republican President had helped construct a stimulus
package with $800 billion of tax cuts, that we would hear talk about
generational debt and that we would hear talk about not voting for the
bill because it increased the national debt? Obviously not.
Despite the claims to the contrary, the issue that most--not all--
Republicans have with this package is not that it is too big. Oh, no;
that is a Trojan horse. The issue is plain and simple that they did not
like investments--they do not like the Government to spend money on
education and schools, they don't like the Federal Government to spend
money on helping people with their health care, they don't like the
Government to spend money on transportation, helping rebuild our roads
and bridges, or spending money on changing our energy policy so we are
not dependent on foreign oil. Oh, no. It is OK to spend money on the
military--something I usually support--it is OK to spend money on tax
cuts for the very wealthy but not to help the middle class with health
care and education and transportation.
That is why we took the majority. That is why we will stay in the
majority, because the average middle-class person knows. They do not
want a profligate government. They do not want a government that wastes
money--absolutely not. But I think they want a government that is there
for them and makes their lives a little better. They know that all the
hue and cry of generational theft and increasing the national debt is
only coming because this stimulus package helps the middle class with
smart Government programs on education and health care and
transportation. It is that simple.
My colleagues, this package is very much needed. Without it, we could
end up in a Great Depression, as the deflationary spiral goes down. To
talk just ``no,'' as so many on the other side do, is reminiscent of
Herbert Hoover. Back in 1930, there was a recession about the level of
this one, and Herbert Hoover said, ``Do nothing.'' The recession became
a depression.
God forbid that happens now. President Obama is struggling mightily
to prevent it from happening. He should have broad support from both
sides of the aisle because, simply, this package is a mixture of
spending and tax cuts--I think it is 56-44; because this package has
accepted major amendments from the Republican side, the largest of all
from the Senator from Iowa--a reduction in the alternative minimum tax,
something I have long supported. So this is a balanced package.
The horror the other side shows when the Government will get itself
involved to help the middle class results in only getting three
Republican votes. What more do my colleagues want us to do? Do they
want a package just of tax cuts only, no help for health care, no help
for education, no help for transportation? Do they want a package that
is aimed and skewed at the wealthiest among us who are those who least
need the help? We have let them offer amendments. We have accepted a
good number of those amendments. Yet we have three votes.
We want to be bipartisan, and we understand that each side mistrusts
the other. But I say to my friends, we have reached out, we have
accepted suggestions, we have put many tax cuts in this proposal that
might not get a majority support on our side alone in an effort to
reach out even though we think there are better ways to stimulate the
economy.
When we meet you halfway, don't give us the back of your hand and say
it is not bipartisan. Don't say: It has to be all our way or 90 percent
our way before we will vote with you. Don't let the hard-right base of
this Republican Party keep a stranglehold on you and prevent us from
marching forward together, because the country needs better. The
country needs more. The country does need bipartisanship, but more
important even than bipartisanship, as very important as that is, it
needs help. It needs help to get this economy out of the mess, to
create and preserve 3 to 4 million jobs, to put money in the pockets of
the middle class, and to rebuild an infrastructure that is aging and
will hurt our economy long after, God willing, this recession is over.
To my colleagues, please, on the next bill--it is too late for this
one--rethink the attitude. We are trying. You have had amendments and
amendments. A good number have been accepted. Republican input, albeit
from three, has been large in this package. Join us. We want you to. We
are not going to insist on a bill that is 100 percent spending just as
you should not insist on a bill that is 100 percent tax cuts. We are
not going to insist on a bill that only invests in the things we care
about. We will meet you part of the way. But don't give us the back of
your hand because we have made real efforts and we know the arguments
about debt and generational theft ring hollow because you didn't make
those arguments once in the last 8 years when the deficit ballooned--a
few did--when the deficit ballooned because of spending on the Iraq war
and spending on tax cuts, largely for the highest income people in
America.
I hope we pass this package. It is not perfect. I would draw it
differently. My colleague from Vermont would draw it differently than I
would. But it is a lot better than sitting here arguing and doing
nothing. The country is in tough shape. We have had the most difficult
economic time since the Great Depression. It requires concerted and
smart action that President Obama has outlined. Please join us and help
us move
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this country away from the difficult times we are now in.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah is recognized.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, as I understand it, I have 7 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I enjoyed listening to my colleague from
New York, as I always do. I was very interested in Senator Schumer
saying that they have met us halfway. The first two bills out of this
administration have been the C.H.I.P. bill--that was completely put
together by Democrats without any input at all from Republicans and
especially from people like me who wrote the original CHIP bill. The
second bill was a stimulus package that was put together with no real
impetus and no real help from the Republicans or any of us from this
side. If you watched the process, it was basically we were told: Take
it or leave it. When it finally passed by a narrow vote on this floor,
by really 1, it immediately went into a conference where basically
Republican ideas were not really considered. We were left out of
negotiating this bill.
I cannot help but paraphrase one of the leaders of the White House
who said: We Democrats love crises. Why? Because then we can pass
legislation we would never otherwise get through the Congress of the
United States or through the elected representatives of the people in
the two bodies in the Congress.
I am outraged by the amount of government expansion that is contained
in this bill. The Majority Democrats have seized this opportunity to
put all kinds of programs in here that are not stimulus, some of which
may be very valid in the regular appropriations process, but many of
which are not stimulus, and are eating funds that should be going to
help pull us out of these difficult times. The legislation clearly
states that the funds appropriated in this bill should be for emergency
uses, yet there is plenty in this legislation that is not imminent.
I have to say that when my friend from New York, Senator Schumer,
talks about tax relief they put in this bill, it is not true tax
relief. When you start calling it a ``Make Work Pay'' tax credit, where
they give refundable tax credits to people who do not pay income taxes,
that is not a tax cut. It is not even tax relief. It is a cost to
everybody else who works and pays income taxes, and it is not going to
produce any jobs.
Now, I am not against helping those who do not pay income taxes. I am
not against helping people who are out of work. But, let's call it what
it is--spending. And let us not put this in a stimulus bill, which is
supposed to be effective immediately. Those provisions will not be
effective for 2 or 3 years from now.
I have been in the Congress 33 years this year. There has not been
one day in my 33 years in the Senate where the fiscal conservatives
point of view has been in the majority, not one day. We have won some
battles because of great Presidential leadership or just plain gutsy
leadership by the conservative Republicans, fiscal conservative
Republicans. But, the Congress has been run by the more liberal left
Democrats and a few Republicans who will side with them on these
issues. This has created too much spending.
One of the Senators on the floor yesterday said, how can we take
advice from people who ran us into bankruptcy over the last 8 years?
Well, Congress has exceeded the President's budget 20 times in the
past 28 years. And it has always been because of the liberal left along
with a few liberal Republicans to make a majority in the Senate.
Since President Reagan, Congress has exceeded the President's budget
every year except the years when President Clinton was in the White
House. Now, why did we match President Clinton's budget when he was in
the White House? It was the first time you had a Republican Congress,
and a President who agreed to a lower budget.
Today, the government spending as a percentage of gross domestic
product is moving towards 40 percent. That is government spending as a
percentage of GDP that is more in line with Europe. 40 to 50 percent
spending of GDP is where Europe is. We are going through the
``Europeanization'' of the United States of America.
We have always had to give in to the left, because they have always
been too many liberal people and a few Republicans who support liberal
spending. This has led to threats to our principles of freedom, self-
reliance, and market-driven prosperity.
An example is how our government is taking over the financial sector.
Why are managers and shareholders of failed financial institutions not
first in line to bear the consequences of their mistaken actions? Why
are we not following the principles of a free market society?
The economy has been stronger than the Democrats have been portraying
it during those Republican years and during the Bush years, in
particular. Democrats keep blaming the current economic decline on the
failed economic policies of the past 8 years. But the economy grew each
year over the past 8 years. We have only seen a decline in GDP over the
past 6 months under which both Houses being controlled by Democrats. Do
not miss the point. Over all of these years, we have had a liberal
control of spending in the Congress, and you cannot blame President
George W. Bush for that. He could have vetoed more, I have got to admit
that, but the spending came from the left.
We are headed toward Government spending being 40 to 50 percent of
our gross domestic product. And since the bailouts started last year,
we have only added nearly $2 trillion to our national debt. That did
not happen when Republicans were in control of the Congress. The
financial rescue package with $700 billion and more for AIG and other
banks, we are beginning to wonder when the spending will end.
I was amazed that in the last election, the Democrats, who had voted
for the financial rescue legislation, went out and chewed up a few
Republicans who also voted for that legislation. Even though most of
the Democrats voted for it, they chewed Republicans up for voting for
it and defeated them at the polls--talk about hypocrisy.
We have seen very little success for our money, but even worse, we
have used it to save management and shareholders of big banks, even as
homeowners were forced into default and Main Street businesses faced
bankruptcy. Now we have a stimulus package of $787 billion.
While there is bipartisan concern over the economy, this is a
partisan plan. This stimulus bill will explode the size of Government.
Why? Because the more you explode it, the more you get people dependent
upon the almighty Federal Government. The liberals who have been
running us into bankruptcy over all of these years will put us even
more into debt.
I think conservatives need to be more alert. If these provisions are
made permanent, and there will be a massive attempt to make these
permanent, the expansion of Government is going to be enormous. I do
not know what you call it other than socialism.
Do not get me wrong. I am for a stimulus bill that would work, that
would help homeowners, that would strengthen research and development,
that would cut corporate and small business tax rates so that they can
employ more people, that would move farther and farther toward creating
jobs. That would be effective.
However, this bill does not do that. I hope our colleagues will vote
against it. We have to stand up on something, and this is a bill we
should stand up on.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. I wish to be recognized for a unanimous consent
request. I understood under the current unanimous consent we are going
back and forth. I would ask that Senator Sanders be recognized up to 5
minutes, then Senator Coburn be recognized for up to 30 minutes, and
then I be recognized for up to 7 minutes, and if a Democrat comes in
and wants to speak between Senator Coburn and myself that they be
allowed to do so.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Vermont is recognized.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, my sense of history is a little bit
different than my good friend from Utah. I was under the recollection
that George W.
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Bush was President for the last 8 years. My recollection was that the
Republicans controlled the House and the Senate for 6 of those 8 years.
My recollection is that during the last 8 years, 6 million Americans
slipped out of the middle class and went into poverty. My recollection
is that median family income for middle-class working families declined
by over $2,000. My recollection is that, yes, the wealthiest people in
the country did very well under President Bush but that ordinary people
struggled to keep their heads above water.
The bill we are addressing this evening is not perfect. I would have
written it differently. I suspect everyone here would have written it
differently. But what it does do is that in the midst of the greatest
economic crisis this country has faced since the Great Depression, what
we do is begin to address the unmet needs of the American people and we
begin marching forward to create the millions of jobs this country
desperately needs.
Most importantly, we begin the process of moving America in a very
different direction so that, in fact, this country does not fall into a
great depression from which it would take us years and years and
tremendous human suffering to dig our way out.
What this legislation does is says that after years of neglect, let
us create millions of good-paying jobs by rebuilding our crumbling
infrastructure. In the State of Vermont, our bridges need work, our
roads need work, our water systems need work. That is true all over
this country.
Let us put people to work rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure.
That is what this legislation does. For decades now, people have been
saying what a terrible shame it is, how silly it is that we import
every single year hundreds of billions of dollars of oil from foreign
countries. How silly it is. Well, finally we are beginning to address
that absurdity. We are saying now and we are investing in energy
efficiency, we are investing in wind, solar, geothermal, biomass,
sustainable energy.
Let's end the talk of moving us into a new energy direction. Let's
invest in those areas so that America, in fact, can become energy
independent. My Republican friends over the years have said what we
need to do is give tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country.
In fact, right now, today, despite the fact that we have the most
unequal distribution of wealth and income of any country, the
Republican leadership today says, let's repeal the estate tax.
Do you know that if we did as the Republicans wanted and repealed the
estate tax completely, we would provide $1 trillion in tax breaks to
the wealthiest three-tenths of 1 percent, millionaires and billionaires
all? Not one person in the middle class would gain one nickel from that
effort. It is one trillion dollars for the three-tenths of 1 percent.
Then they come to the floor of the Senate and they say, what a
terrible thing, you are investing $800 billion rebuilding America,
creating 3.5 million jobs, giving millions of middle-class and working-
class Americans tax breaks. What a bad idea that is. You should do not
that. We should not invest $800 billion rebuilding America. We should
give $1 trillion to the top three-tenths of 1 percent. That is the
contrast in terms of how they want to go and how many of us want to go.
What this bill does is not only begin the process of rebuilding our
infrastructure, not only begin the process of moving us away from
fossil fuel and foreign oil, what we also understand is that middle-
class families cannot afford to send their kids to college. So we are
putting a significant sum of money in and expanding the Pell grant
program.
This bill understands that in these hard economic times, when
millions of our fellow Americans have lost their jobs, hunger in
America is a real problem. So we are putting money in for food stamps.
We are putting money into energy, homeless shelters so that those among
us, those least able among us, are protected.
Working-class and middle-class families cannot afford childcare. We
are putting billions into helping them get the childcare they need, the
Head Start they need, and creating jobs in that area as well.
This is an 800-page bill. It is not perfect. Everyone knows that. But
this bill begins the process----
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. SANDERS. Of moving the country in the right direction. It should
be supported.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
Mr. COBURN. I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Nebraska be
recognized next.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. NELSON of Nebraska. Mr. President, I thank my friend from
Oklahoma for the courtesy of extending 5 minutes of his time on the
front end of his time, so I will not be going between Senator Coburn
and Senator Chambliss.
Our Nation's economy is in trouble. Over the course of America's
history our economy has been in trouble before but rarely this much.
Job losses in my State of Nebraska and across the Nation are climbing,
and the recession that began some 13 months ago is accelerating.
Of the 3.6 million who have lost their jobs, nearly half received a
pink slip in the last 3 months. Everyone in Congress knows we need to
act, and to act soon, to try to stop our economy's downward slide, and
to ease the increasing hardship felt by millions of American families,
business owners, workers, students, and seniors.
The time is now to begin turning this recession toward recovery.
Congress cannot wait another 3 or 6 months to see if economic
conditions worsen. By then it could be too late and we could be in a
depression which it could take years to overcome. Now is the time to
provide the tools the American people will use, with creativity and
drive, to rebuild the economy and return us to prosperity.
The $789 billion economic recovery plan before us providing jobs
creation and tax cuts for millions of Americans has the best chance to
do that, I believe. It is timely. This plan is a vast improvement over
the first proposal considered several weeks ago.
In the Senate, we faced a reality that any economic recovery plan
would require at least 60 votes to overrule a filibuster attempt and
win passage. So I and a number of colleagues came together to work
across the political aisle with a shared goal: Scrub as much pork,
nonstimulative spending, and fat as possible from the bill to focus it
sharply on saving and creating millions of jobs. The group I dubbed the
``jobs squad'' included my friend Senator Susan Collins of Maine and
five other Republicans and some 15 Senators in my own party. I thank
each of them for their contributions to making the bill better and for
helping Congress respond to a national economy in crisis.
This legislation before us is also targeted. There has been a lot of
criticism of the final bill before us, and I agree it is not perfect.
One criticism I have heard is that it will leave just $13 to $15 in
people's pockets per week. To many hard-working Americans, that is
somewhere between $700 and $800 a year, money they can use to pay
electric or gas bills, buy food or medicine, provide clothes for their
children, take a bit of the stress out of their lives.
Let's look back a moment to recent history. In 2003, under the
previous administration, Congress approved a major tax cut bill that
included $20 billion in economic stimulus for States. Senator Collins
and I coauthored the provision to help States cope with the loss of
State revenues tied to the tax cuts. The $20 billion in State aid was a
one-time boost designed to end when it would likely no longer be
needed. Eighteen months after the tax cut bill passed, the aid to the
States ceased. We have safeguards in the current economic recovery bill
that will shut off spending in a similar timeframe. And 78 percent of
the spending in this bill will be completed by the fall of 2010,
overcoming the old wives' tale that this money will only be spent at
the end of the legislation.
This legislation clearly is temporary. As I said, it is not perfect,
but it has the support of such major organizations as the National
Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and, in my
State, the Omaha Chamber of Commerce, and others. Members of these
groups will be able to use money from this legislation quickly to hire
new workers, tackle infrastructure needs nationwide, expand
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their businesses, and begin to get our economy moving again. The bill
will have a major impact on States across the Nation as well. For
example, my State of Nebraska stands to receive a total of $1 billion
from the recovery plan. Nebraska's K-12 school districts will receive
about $236 million to prevent cutbacks, teacher layoffs, to modernize
schools, and for other purposes. For State flexibility money, Nebraska
will receive about $52 million to help rebuild vital educational and
other State infrastructure. It can also be used to help State
government provide services and avoid layoffs of critical employees
such as State troopers and public safety officers. Nebraska is
estimated to receive another $310 million in additional Medicaid
assistance, preserving needed health coverage for low-income Nebraskans
who will feel the economic downturn more than many others.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 5 minutes.
Mr. NELSON of Nebraska. I thank the Senator from Oklahoma for the
time. I thank the Chair.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I have been sitting here for about an
hour. I have to think the American people are pretty sick of what they
have been hearing. We heard the Senator from New York talk about how
bad the Republicans were. We heard the Senator from Utah talk in Hobson
fashion. It doesn't come anywhere close to solving the problem. I think
we ought to have a discussion about how we got here. How do we find
ourselves in the mess we are in? I think we can look at history.
There was a great historian named Alexander Tytler. He looked at the
ancient Greeks and looked at what happened to them as they fell. He
said this about republics. He said: All republics fail. They fail as
soon as the people figure out they can vote themselves money from the
public treasury.
There is no question we are in hard times. There is no question we
need to do a stimulus package. There is no question the Federal
Government has the power to make a big difference in a lot of people's
lives who are hurting right now. I don't think it would be fair to say
that there is anybody in this Chamber who doesn't want to try to
accomplish that. The difference is, how do you do it? In doing so, what
kind of problems do you create?
The way we got here is abandoning this little booklet. If you read
article I, section 8 of the Constitution and then read what the
Founders had to say about article I, section 8, it is called the
enumerated powers. They were very clear in the role of the Federal
Government. We are in trouble today, this Nation is in trouble today--
not something we can't get out of, we can; not something that the
American spirit won't overcome--because we let the politicians abandon
the very clear rules and wisdom that was given to us by a unique,
almost ordained group of individuals over 200 years ago who saw a
vision and said: How do we keep this?
When we abandon this book, as we have and as we did, and we get into
trouble, it is important to recognize what we did wrong, if we are
going to try to fix it.
The other thing I am tired of hearing about--and I think the American
people are too--this isn't a Bush, Clinton, or Obama thing. This is a
Congress thing. No President can spend money without us allowing it to
happen. I almost laughed when I heard the claims on the Senate floor
from both sides about the trouble we are in and how we got there and
deficits and the Senator from Vermont and his claim of a trillion
dollars.
I think the CBO cost on that was $60 billion on estate taxes. But the
idea that we would put a blame on anybody other than ourselves, the
truth of that is, go look at the votes on appropriations bills for the
last 8 years. It is nearly 100 percent on one side and almost 95
percent on this side of people voting to spend money we didn't have for
things we didn't need.
It is important the American people, as they see us trying to work
through a process, No. 1, reject any partisanship they will hear. When
somebody starts being partisan, turn the TV off because what it means
is, they don't have anything substantive to talk about if they are
pointing their finger at somebody else.
The second question we ought to ask is, is what we are doing going to
fix the problem? Here is the problem. The problem goes back to this. We
set up two agencies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to socialize the risk
for homeownership, a total violation of what is in this book. It is a
total violation. Then we said: Maybe we can help people a little more,
so let's go to subprime mortgages and let's bonus the people who work
at the GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The more subprime mortgages
they take, the more money they make.
If I remember, one former leader of Fannie Mae made $140 million
because we bought mortgages he knew people weren't going to be able to
pay for, but the incentive was there, in a quasi government-owned
agency, to do something that is outside of the enumerated powers of the
Constitution.
So as we abandon principles, the best way for us to solve the
problems in front of us is to go back and look at the principles.
The other concern is, do we have the potential to make things worse?
Nobody has talked about that today. Does what we are doing have a
potential downside? You can't talk to one economist who doesn't say
yes. As a matter of fact, by CBO's own score, 10 years from now this
will either have zero effect or anywhere from a minus 2 to a plus
three-tenths effect on the economy. The reason for that is we are going
to borrow so much money, as we do in this bill, we are going to crowd
out private investment. The Government is going to have all the money,
and people will not be able to borrow money to invest in new ideas
which create opportunity, which create jobs, which create increased
standards of living.
So going back, how did we get here and what is the real problem for
us to create a stimulus bill right now, before we have a way to solve
the housing and mortgage crisis--because the bank problem wouldn't be
there if the mortgage and housing crisis wasn't there, for us to fix
those first before we do this and for us to have a plan to do that--as
a physician, one of the things I notice is, if somebody comes into the
emergency room with chest pain, it is one of three or four things.
Either they have an esophageal spasm or their esophagus is irritated or
they have terrible reflux where the fluid from the stomach acid is
burning the esophagus or they are having angina, heart pain, due to
lack of blood supply. If you treat the symptoms, you can make that
angina go away, but they still have a vascular abnormality around the
heart that could kill them.
My worry with this bill is that we are treating symptoms. We are not
treating the disease. We are arguing, partisan arguing: Was this a
bipartisan bill, wasn't it a bipartisan bill; you did this over the
last 8 years, you did this. We need the country thinking forward, not
backward. The guide for that has to be the Constitution, which every
Member of this body is sworn to uphold but violates daily. We are in
this trouble because the Congress put us in this trouble. The blame
lies solely here.
Let me talk about the bill for a minute. This is the bill. I won't
pick it up and wave it around for fear I would be called into account
of using theatrics. But do the American people realize nobody who is
going to vote on this bill has read it? There is $727 million worth of
spending on every page of this bill. That is what it averages out. So
not counting interest, we have a less than $800 billion bill that had
30 amendments in the Senate before it went to conference. We hear they
are accepted. Some of them were accepted. We voted on one unanimously,
and it got thrown out in conference, just a simple little thing like
maybe we ought to make sure that contracting is competitively bid. Now
the language reads we ought to try to do that, but we will not make
sure that happens.
I brought along with me, thanks to somebody down in the Senate gift
shop, this little green item. It is called a thimble. In Oklahoma, we
have a statement for that kind of thinking. It is called ``there is not
any more commonsense than what can fit in a thimble.'' So when we take
out something that is agreed to unanimously in the Senate to mandate
competitive bidding so even if
[[Page S2297]]
we are wasting money, we waste it efficiently, you have to wonder what
is going on.
Let me tell you what is going on. This is a massive bill. Supposedly,
it doesn't have any earmarks, which is laughable, if you have been
around here any period of time.
The conference did clean it up so you can't truly find out where the
earmarking is. You could find it out a little bit before it went to
conference. Now you can't pinpoint it all. But we are going to move
from earmarking to a concept called ``phone marking.'' It is a new
concept. It is more powerful than earmarking. Phone marking is this:
This bill gets signed, $500 billion of it is going to be disbursed
through the agencies. Guess what is the first thing that is going to
happen after President Obama signs this bill. Members of Congress and
Senators are going to be on the phone saying: I want this money spent
here and here and here, and if you don't, in your appropriations next
year, you are going to suffer.
That is exactly what will happen with the money in this bill.
Everybody who works inside Washington knows exactly that will be what
happens.
We have heard talk about the earmarks. I won't try to repeat some of
the things that are in this bill. But I will talk about one. We have a
private company that was developed. It has spent several million
dollars developing a railroad from California to Las Vegas.
Do you know what this bill does? It wipes them out. They invested
private capital to develop a railway. In excess of $10 million has
already been invested in that, and with the wisp of one earmark, we are
going to bankrupt people who invested their life savings to try to do
something good because the Government is now going to do it through an
earmark and going to try to accomplish something that has only been
done in one country and not effectively. It costs $100 million a mile
to build a maglev train, and we are not going to see any of that money
spent for 4 or 5 years because the technology is not here.
That aside, there also was an amendment that truly would have done
something to fix the real problem: housing--the Isakson amendment, with
a $15,000 tax credit, if you are buying a primary residence, whether it
is a foreclosed home or a new one. It would have done something
magnificent in terms of lessening the crisis in housing.
What did we do? Out. It had an overwhelming vote in the Senate, but
it is out. How do you explain that? What is going on here? What is
going on here is the initiation of what Alexander Tytler talked about:
the failure of a republic. And it is about short-term politically,
expedient thinking to the benefit of politicians, instead of what is
the best right thing we can do for our country.
The very claim that Senator McCain did not offer a substantive bill
that would have significantly increased the number of jobs created, at
a significantly lower cost, as scored by CBO and as scored by outside
economists, is a spurious claim.
Another thing that got added into the bill is the most dangerous
precedent for health care in this country we have ever seen. We are
now, with this bill, embracing Great Britain's health care system. What
we are saying is that we are going to allow the Government in the
future to decide what care you will get. It is called comparative
effectiveness, and it is going to be based on cost, not clinical
outcomes. We are going to abandon the knowledge of physicians, the
experience they have with their patients, the 8 to 12 years of
additional training they have and the lives that have been dedicated to
improving the health of their patients. We are going to abandon that to
a bureaucracy where the Government says: We know best.
We are going to do that because we cannot afford Medicare in the
future, and we are going to say, just like England says, if you only
get 1 more year of life, then the most we can spend on you is $49,000.
If you are 75 years of age and you are a Medicare patient and you fall
and break your hip, we are sorry, we are not going to do it because it
is not cost-effective.
The first leg of you losing a doctor-patient relationship and the
freedom to have health care decisions made by you and your caregiver is
buried within this bill and will kill health care in America as far as
its quality. You will get access--you will get to wait just like Canada
and England do--but you will kill the quality and will kill medical
innovation in this country. This country leads the world. Mr.
President, 7 out of every 10 major breakthroughs in medicine occur in
this country. And the reason? It does not mean we have a good system
now. It needs to be improved.
Here is the theory as I have observed it in the 10 years I have been
in Congress: Never do what is best when you can do what is safe. That
is how it operates in Washington and throughout the Federal agencies.
They are risk averse, just like the politicians are risk averse to
challenging priorities in this bill, that we ought to have priorities
to spend the money for what would get the most jobs, the most economic
benefit.
I had an amendment that was adopted. It had 73 or 74 votes. It got
watered down and divided in conference because a lot of special
interest groups said: Oh, no. You can't do that. So what did we do?
They are not a priority as far as what we should be doing right now. As
a matter of fact, 80 percent of--most of the groups that were
complaining about it get their funds from private sources. The best way
to get them funded back up is getting private sources moving again in
terms of the economy. But what did we do? We chose the politically
expedient path. Again, it was not often thought of--political
expediency--by the people who created this country who risked their
lives and their fortunes to make sure we have the freedom we have
today. But yet we are abandoning that.
It comes back to: What is our heritage as a nation? What is the
heritage we as a nation have been brought forward with? I will tell you
what I think it is. I think the heritage we have is that one generation
was willing to make hard choices and hard sacrifices so the generation
that followed would have greater opportunity--greater opportunity--a
higher standard of living, more freedom, more liberty.
What have we done? We are going in reverse. What we have been doing
for the last 10 to 15 years in this country, what we have been saying
is we will take it now. Kids, you lump it. As an example of that, if
you look at 2008, the Federal Government spent $25,000 per household of
your money. A good portion of it--a third of it--was borrowed. But we
spent $25,000 as a Federal government per household. With this bill, we
are going to spend $38,000 per family--just with this one bill. And we
are hurrying it up. We have to get it done right now because there are
CODELs, trips, and junkets waiting for Members to go on, including the
Speaker of the House.
So we have a bill that nobody has read, that has some real questions
about whether it is going to be stimulative, that has taken out good
financial controls such as competitive bidding, taken out listing
priorities, and we are going to vote on it tonight, with nobody ever
having read it. That is about as bad as the partisan bickering we have
heard.
Does it serve us well to hurry and do something when we do not know
what we are doing? Now, there are some staff members who know some of
what is in here. But there is not one person who knows the full extent.
Mark my words, within a month, we will be back in here passing a bill
to do all the corrections to this bill that we do not have right and
correct at this time. That is how sloppy we do our work. So it is not
only sloppy in terms of our effort, it is sloppy in terms of our
theory.
I would also add we are going to move from $2,000 per family in
interest costs to $4,817 per family this next year. Now, in my State,
the average family income is below what the Federal Government is going
to spend with this bill. In my State, average family income is under
$36,000. Yet we are going to spend $38,000 this next year per family in
this country, and we are going to justify we had to do it to get us out
of trouble. And we are going to do it because we did not fix the real
problem, we are treating the symptoms. We are all going to feel good,
and we are all going to take the invite of the Senator from New York to
come on over and join us.
The fact is, my oath as a Senator should disallow me from ever voting
for this bill. Anybody who votes for
[[Page S2298]]
this bill will be violating their oath to this Constitution. America
demands something be done. They are right. We need to do something.
Should we do it sloppily? Should we do it without focus? Should we do
it without temperance? And should we do it in a timely manner to make
sure we are not treating the symptoms as reflux or esophageal spasm,
but we actually go in and take the clot or the plaque out of the artery
that surrounds the heart? Isn't that what we should be doing? Shouldn't
we be fixing the real problem?
While we are at it, we ought to be fixing us because we are the
cocommitters of the real problem. Shouldn't we all be thinking long-
term rather than short-term political benefit? Shouldn't we be
realizing what is expected of us?
I would hope Americans tonight, if they have children, will go and
look into the eyes of their children. There is something you see in
children in this country that is very different than when you look in
the eyes of some starving African child or some Third World country
child. What you see, when you look into those beautiful brown, blue,
green or hazel eyes, is hope.
I think about my four grandkids and the one who is on the way. When I
look in their eyes, I see hope. Then contrast that with the pictures
you have seen of the despair and look of no hope of the kids around the
world who have not had the opportunity of this country. What we are
doing is we are stealing some of that hope tonight from our children.
If you do not have a young child but you have one who has grown up,
think back to that picture you have on the wall and look into those
eyes and say: Do you want to steal that hope? Because that is what we
are doing. We are limiting their liberty economically. We are limiting
their freedom to be the best and brightest and have the greatest
potential that any society has ever offered their youngest citizens.
That is what we are doing with this bill.
I will close with this and reserve the remainder of my time. There
was a President we had who made a statement that was fairly popular,
but it has great application right now. He said: Freedom is a precious
thing. It is a precious thing. It is never guaranteed. It is not ours
by inheritance. It has to be fought for and maintained and won by every
generation.
As we embrace this bill, we are selling out the heritage of our
country. We are denying the hope and joy in those young eyes and we are
limiting the freedom our children will enjoy. We can do better. We must
do better for this country. Our country needs statesmen who will
sacrifice themselves for the best interests of the country rather than
the best interests of their party or the best interests of their
political career.
Freedom is precious. We are going to take a bit of it away tonight.
It is going to go away, and you will see a little decrease in the
glimmer of those children as they contemplate and we contemplate their
future.
Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Udall of Colorado). Who yields time?
The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I think I have 7 minutes under the
consent. Will you let me know when I have a minute remaining, please.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair will notify the Senator.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I rise to speak in opposition to this
bill, and I do so somewhat reluctantly because I do not think there is
an individual who is a Member of this Senate who does not agree that
something needs to be done.
We are in a financial crisis in this country today. We are in not
just a financial industry crisis but every household has their own
financial crisis they are looking at. We have folks out of work. We
have folks who are looking at their homes being foreclosed, some of
whom are even still working. We have real issues that need to be dealt
with. The question becomes: How do we solve this problem? How do we, as
policymakers, act in a responsible way to address this crisis?
There are three real issues that need to be addressed, in my opinion.
First of all, the issue that got us into the crisis mode we are in is
the housing industry. The housing industry crisis started years and
years ago. I could go all the way back to the Carter administration and
talk about bills that were passed by this body that started the ball
rolling. It steamrolled in subsequent administrations and came to a
head last summer and last fall, when we saw foreclosures reach an
alltime high, and they have gotten higher ever since. We saw the
financial sector of our economy collapse. But that does not do us any
good to talk about that.
We have to deal with the cards we have in our hand today, and we have
to look forward. But let us make no mistake about it, if we do not fix
the housing crisis this country is in, all the hundreds of billions of
dollars and trillions of dollars we have obligated and are about to
obligate are not going to be spent in the correct manner because we
have to fix the housing market. We have too many households in America
that are upside down. Upside down means the home they have now is worth
less than what they owe on it. Those particular households all across
America are struggling right now with the decision of whether they are
going to continue to make their house payment or whether they are going
to just let the foreclosure proceed so they don't have to make a
payment on a house that is worth significantly less than what it was
when they bought it.
There was a provision we debated on the floor of this body last week
called the Isakson amendment. My colleague from Georgia introduced that
amendment which would have allowed a $15,000 tax credit to anyone who
buys a home in the next 12 months. That $15,000 tax credit would have
gone a long way towards incentivizing individuals to buy homes and take
these houses that have been foreclosed on out of the inventory of the
financial institutions across this country and allowed our developers
to get back to work. It would have taken those developers now in their
own partially developed--or in some instances totally developed--
subdivisions and given them the opportunity to get back into the
marketplace with credit being freed up and continue to develop those
subdivisions and build houses and put carpenters back to work and
plumbers back to work and folks who lay carpet back to work. That is
the kind of stimulus that needs to be done to get the housing industry
back on track.
Unfortunately, during the conference that took place over the last
several days, starting, I think, at midnight the other night, from what
I hear, and concluding maybe at midnight the next night, that provision
was taken out.
So with this bill, as we see it on the Senate floor today, the
Isakson amendment has been so watered down that it is meaningless. It
is not going to be an incentive on the part of anyone to buy a home.
Now, we don't have one single provision in this bill that is going to
be voted on, on the floor of the Senate tonight, that is going to
really stimulate and invigorate the housing sector of our economy.
Secondly, there was another amendment I thought was a pretty good
amendment. I didn't know about it until we got the bill on the Senate
floor, but it was a Democratic amendment by Senator Mikulski from
Maryland. Her amendment basically said: Look, you are not going to
stimulate the automobile industry by writing checks to Detroit. The way
you stimulate the automobile industry is to put people in the showrooms
around America. I am trying to buy a car right now, and I was
particularly interested in what she had to say because what her
amendment did was to allow an individual who bought a car and financed
that car to deduct the interest paid on that loan at the end of the
year off of their income taxes. Pretty good idea. For somebody who is
in the market for an automobile, that may have been the final thing
that put them over the top. Unfortunately, that particular amendment,
too, has been so watered down that it is meaningless. It is not going
to do one thing to incentivize or stimulate an individual to go out and
buy a car today.
The next issue that needed to be addressed is job security and job
creation. Are there provisions in this bill that seek to create jobs?
You bet there are. Out of $789 billion, I would hope some of those
billions of dollars would do that. Certainly, with respect to part of
[[Page S2299]]
that money that is going to infrastructure projects, to build roads, to
build highways, to do waterworks projects, there are going to be jobs
created by that, and I have an appreciation for that fact. However, the
fact is, it falls way short when it comes to looking at the percentage
of spending that is allocated in this bill to infrastructure projects.
It is minuscule--minuscule--compared to the total amount of $789
billion that has been allocated, and when you add the interest, the
$1.2 trillion that we are going to obligate tonight if this bill does,
in fact, pass.
There is a way we could have addressed job stabilization and job
creation. In the McCain amendment that was on the Senate floor, there
was a provision in that amendment that said we can incentivize the
small business community--which is the heart and soul of the job
creation sector of our economy--we can incentivize that small business
community to grow their business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Do I not have a minute left?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. I am sorry, I thought you were going to let me know
when I had 1 minute left.
I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I ask
unanimous consent for 1 additional minute to Senator Inouye of Hawaii.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, the fact is, that amendment should have
passed. It didn't pass. That would have gone a long way toward
stabilizing and creating jobs in this market.
The third part of this is that we need to be compassionate. We need
to extend unemployment benefits. That is an appropriate part of
spending but, again, minuscule compared to what is being spent here.
This total amount of $789 billion which translates into $1.2 trillion
has to be paid back. The Lord has blessed my wife and I with four
grandchildren, two of whom we have had for about 10 and 12 years, and
two of whom were just born about 60 hours ago. It is those
grandchildren of mine and the children and grandchildren of everybody
in this Senate and all across America who bear the responsibility of
paying this money back. When we spend money, we are obligated to spend
it judiciously and responsibly. This expenditure of $1.2 trillion is
not going to stimulate this economy, and this bill ought to be
defeated.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
SOCIOECONOMIC PROCUREMENT PROGRAMS
Ms. MURKOWSKI. It is my understanding that the language in section
1610 that reads ``is otherwise authorized by statute to be entered into
without regard to the above referenced statutes'' is intended to ensure
that existing Federal procurement laws applicable to programs that
allow for set-asides and direct-award procurements for service-disabled
veteran-owned businesses, minority-owned businesses, tribal
enterprises, women-owned businesses, HUB Zone qualified businesses and
other entities covered through SBA programs, as well as, for example,
the Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act Program, remain fully applicable to
contracts initiated under this Act, is that correct?
Mr. INOUYE. The Senator is correct. Nothing in this act overturns or
changes the existing procurement laws for the SBA or similar programs
or the Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act. Since approximately 80 percent of the
jobs in the United States are created by small businesses and since one
of the main purposes of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of
2009 is to get people back to work as soon as possible, the intent of
this stimulus package is that small businesses, including those
participating in SBA programs, will be able to participate in spending
programs contained in the bill so long as the contracts are awarded
following existing Federal law for competitive and direct award
procurements.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. I thank the Senator for this clarification.
SMALL FREIGHT RAILROAD PROJECTS
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I seek recognition to clarify a provision
in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It is my view that our
national transportation policy should promote a balance between the
highway and rail freight shipment modes. In promoting this concept of
modal balance, I have particular interest in the well-being of the 500
short lines and regional railroads of America. I am advised that these
railroads operate 50,000 miles of line, nearly 20 percent of the entire
system. They connect communities and entire rural regions of the
country to the mainline rail network. These carriers provide essential
economic and environmental benefits primarily in rural regions of the
country, including those in my State.
Pennsylvania has 54 small railroads that operate over 3,000 miles of
line. It is estimated that if these railroads are abandoned,
Pennsylvania highway users would sustain additional pavement damage of
$87 million annually. This alone, in addition to the documented
environmental and congestion relief benefits of freight rail, is a
notable public benefit to highway users. In 2007, Congress enacted
Public Law 110-140, the Energy Act of 2007, and chapter 223 created a
new program of capital grants to class II and III railroads to preserve
this essential service. I believe that this provides an authorization
and public interest justification for funding small rail projects with
stimulus appropriations.
There are two programs within the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act that are of particular applicability. They are both adopted from
the Senate version of the bill. First, the Senate bill included a $5.5
billion discretionary program that could be used for highway, transit,
as well as freight and passenger rail projects. The conference report
funds this at $1.5 billion. There is a threshold that the projects must
be between $20 million and $500 million. I am informed that this is too
high a threshold for most short line rail projects. Fortunately, the
conference report stipulates that the Secretary may waive the
requirement for smaller cities and regions. It is my understanding that
these investments may include short-line railroad projects that meet
public benefit tests such as those stipulated in the Energy Act of 2007
and provide a benefit to highway users. Second, the conference report
includes $27.5 billion for highways and surface transportation
infrastructure. The conference report explicitly states that grants may
be for passenger and freight rail transportation projects. The
flexibility criteria states that a project must be eligible under
Section 133 of title 23 601(a)(8) which reads in part ``for a public
freight rail facility or a private facility providing public benefit
for highway users.'' My understanding is that short line rail projects
that ``provide a benefit to highway users'' are be eligible for this
funding.
I would ask the distinguished chair of the Transportation, Housing
and Urban Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee
if I am correct in my understanding that the Secretary may waive the
$20 million minimum requirement under the discretionary grant program
and that short line and other freight rail projects that provide a
benefit to highway users are eligible under the $27.5 billion highway
infrastructure investment.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, yes, the Senator from Pennsylvania's
understanding is correct. The conference report does give the Secretary
of Transportation authority to waive the minimum grant size under the
discretionary grant program for the purpose of funding significant
projects in smaller cities, regions or States. Additionally, funds
provided for investment in highway infrastructure maybe be used for
passenger and freight rail transportation and port infrastructure
projects.
Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Chairman.
economically distressed communities
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I rise to engage my colleague, the chair
of the Environment and Public Works Committee, in a colloquy. The
Reinvestment Act we are passing today provides a unique opportunity for
some of our most economically distressed communities to connect to our
Nation's transportation network. We have ``shovel ready'' projects that
are in need of funds. As the chair knows,
[[Page S2300]]
these Federal funds have enormous potential to help complete work on
projects and help bring jobs and economic development to our
communities. I ask my colleague, in helping to draft this legislation,
is it her intention to ensure that projects already under development
in distressed communities receive full consideration under the law?
Mrs. BOXER. Projects in economically distressed communities are a
high priority in this legislation and those projects should be
addressed on an expeditious basis under applicable Federal
requirements.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, our Nation is in a serious recession. The
American recovery and reinvestment conference report that we now have
before us will help create or maintain 3.5 million jobs.
The question before my colleagues is this: Will we act together to
reinvigorate our economy, turn the tide on this recession, and create
those 3.5 million jobs, or will we say no?
When we cast our vote today, we are not choosing between the bill we
personally would have written and the bill before us. The choice before
us today is between the bill we have before us and doing nothing. And
we simply cannot afford to do nothing.
The recession is the most pressing threat to our national security.
I have spoken often on the floor over the past several weeks about
the alarming job losses that continue to escalate each day. That alone
should be enough to convince my fellow Senators we must act.
Yesterday, we heard a new argument for action. President Obama's top
intelligence advisor, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair,
told us yesterday that the deteriorating global economy is now the
greatest threat to America's national security--a security threat more
grave even than terrorism.
He said:
Roughly a quarter of the countries in the world have
already experienced low-level instability such as government
changes because of the current slowdown.
Director Blair said that the most immediate fallout from the
worldwide economic decline for the United States will be ``allies and
friends not being able to fully meet their defense and humanitarian
obligations.''
We have a bill before us that is ready to be sent to the President's
desk. What could any of us be waiting for? The global economy will only
recover if the largest economy in the world--ours--begins to recover.
That is what this bill is designed to do.
The bill provides a long list of critical investments. The powerful
investments in America contained in this package are too numerous to
list, but here are a few highlights:
On infrastructure, the conference report includes a critical $8
billion investment for our intercity passenger rail system. This
funding will take us a long way toward the goal of transforming our
national transportation system, including rail service for many people
in my home State of Illinois who want to ride the trains today but
simply can't find a seat on our overcrowded trains.
The conference report invests $4.7 billion in extending broadband
access to underserved areas, so that all American families and
businesses can benefit from the technology of the 21st century. These
investments will create good-paying jobs here in America. And all
Americans will benefit from stronger transportation and
telecommunication systems in this country.
In the area of tax cuts, 95 percent of all working families in
America will receive a tax cut of up to $800. Mr. President, 26 million
families will be shielded from paying additional alternative minimum
tax payments for 2009. Small businesses will benefit from new tax
provisions related to expensing, net operating loss carrybacks, and
capital gains. These tax cuts will help American families keep food on
the table and will help many small businesses stay in business and
weather the storm of this economic downturn.
On education, Pell Grants will be increased by up to $500 per student
so that more students can stay in school even as the finances of their
families deteriorate. Illinois students will receive over $650 million
from this national investment in their future.
A new American Opportunity Tax Credit will provide eligible students
with up to $2,500 to help with tuition and expenses. Over 150,000
students in Illinois will benefit.
Some argue that we shouldn't be investing in education because it
isn't ``stimulative.'' I disagree. What is the impact on the economy if
students all over the country have to drop out of school because their
families can no longer afford the cost of higher education? How does
that help turn around our economy and sustain our economic strength
over time? An investment in those students pays off now, and it pays
off again later, as they emerge from school better prepared to
participate in a renewed economy.
On health care, out-of-work Americans trying desperately to maintain
the health care coverage they received from their former employer will
receive help from the Government with their COBRA payments. The
Government will pay 65 percent of COBRA premiums for up to 9 months
while these individuals look for work.
States will receive more Medicaid funds to help low-income children
and their families keep their Medicaid coverage. My home State of
Illinois, for example, will receive $2.9 billion over 2 years.
It is critical that families receive this modest but vital help as
they try to stay afloat and desperately look for new jobs. Providing
insurance against the costs of health emergencies is a fundamental way
to help struggling families, and it produces an immediate, stimulative
effect as the fund flows.
Voting no is the real generational theft. Now, some of my colleagues
on the other side of the aisle have claimed that this bill amounts to
``generational theft.'' My answer is this: We are stealing from our
children's future if we fail to act today. If we don't act, we are
stealing from millions of children the one thing that is more important
than anything else: hope.
We are trying to save or create 3.5 million jobs with this bill.
Those jobs aren't just numbers on a page; they represent real lives--
real fathers and mothers who either can or cannot make ends meet for
their little ones.
Are we not stealing hope from our children if we tell millions of
parents that they have to go home to their kids and explain that there
is no more money coming in to put food on the table?
Are we not stealing hope from millions of children if we take away
the security of being able to sleep in their own bedrooms each night,
if we stand aside as they are thrown out on the street when the banks
come to take away the keys to their homes?
Are we not stealing hope from our children if there is not enough
money to allow them to go to college because all of the money that
might have been saved needs to be used now to keep the family from
going bankrupt?
This bill commits generational theft?
We have been told by economists across the political spectrum that
today's economic malaise is greater than anything we have experienced
since the Great Depression. We have been warned of the potential for a
decade of more lost growth.
What is the cost to our children, if they inherit an economy from us
that is stuck in reverse or neutral for years and years? If we have a
way out of this crisis and we fail to act, isn't that the real
generational theft?
Voting no today steals hope from our children. Voting no today steals
economic growth from our children. Voting no today steals a more secure
future from millions of children.
That is the theft we commit today if we fail to send this recovery
bill to the President's desk.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I would like to speak on concerns I have
with the Medicaid and welfare provisions in the conference agreement we
will be voting on shortly.
This bill would provide an $87 billion slush fund for the States.
As I have said on the Senate floor numerous times during this debate,
States don't need $87 billion for their Medicaid Programs.
The Congressional Budget Office analyzed an amendment I wrote to
target funds just for enrollment-driven increases in Medicaid spending.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office gave us the answer for how
much it would cost to provide federal funding for the additional
Medicaid enrollment
[[Page S2301]]
caused by the economic downturn. And that cost is not $87 billion; it
is 1.8 billion.
The remaining $75 billion in this bill goes to helping States fill in
their deficits. Giving States almost eight times what they need for
enrollment-driven Medicaid does not meet the definition of targeted in
my book.
Now, we will hear that this $87 billion Medicaid slush fund for
States is necessary to avoid tax increases at the State and local
level. We will also hear that vital State services will be cut unless
the Federal Government cuts this big blank check to the States. But
when asked to tie the taxpayer dollars to guarantees that the States
will not raise taxes or cut services, we have been turned back by
Members on the other side.
I heard some folks on the other side of the aisle claim the formula
for distributing the funds better targets relief to the States that
need it most by using unemployment rates in the formula.
Using unemployment makes sense to target--there is nothing wrong with
that. But it doesn't work if you then funnel the money for the States
through Medicaid.
Let me explain. Every State has a different sized Medicaid program--
some States have bigger Medicaid Programs and some have smaller ones.
By using Medicaid to distribute the 87 billion, the formula in the
bill necessarily biases the funds towards States with large Medicaid
Programs, like California, Illinois, Massachusetts and New York.
Now we'll hear that those States need more because they have larger
Medicaid Programs. But remember it only takes $10.8 billion to pay for
enrollment-driven Medicaid spending increases.
So States like California, Illinois, Massachusetts and New York get
favored treatment and everyone else gets short-changed.
Simply put, this way of targeting misses the target. The formula in
this bill clearly fails the targeting test of the three Ts.
This bill also undermines key principles of welfare reform. While it
makes sense to provide a safety net for families that have lost their
jobs, this bill moves welfare policy in the wrong direction.
The historic Welfare Reform law signed by President Clinton already
has a built-in mechanism to help states during an economic downturn.
That law provides welfare contingency funds for States in economic
need.
But rather than make the existing contingency fund more accessible to
States, this bill creates a new fund that includes policies that are
not consistent with the principles of meaningful welfare reform.
For the first times since the abolishment of the aid to families with
dependent children program, this new fund gives States financial
incentives for expanding their welfare caseloads. Rather than encourage
States to reduce their welfare rolls, this provision rewards States for
enrolling families on welfare.
This bill also relieves States of the responsibility to engage able-
bodied adults on welfare in work training, work experience programs or
education.
It makes no sense to promote policies that encourage States to expand
their welfare rolls while loosening requirements on States to provide
work training, work experience programs or education. At this critical
time, these job training activities are even more important than ever.
These changes will not stimulate the economy nor will they lead to
productive jobs. In fact, these policies could trap families in deep
and persistent poverty.
Mr. President, that is clearly not what we should be doing in this
bill and it is another reason why I am unable to support the
legislation.
Mr. President, I am back again to speak about some provisions that
are buried deep within this stimulus bill that was put together behind
closed doors without input from the minority. I know this was done
behind closed doors because I was a conferee to the negotiations and I
wasn't even in the room.
Now, I have always been a strong advocate of opening up Government,
making it more transparent, making it more accountable, and shedding
some sunlight on how the Government works for the people. So, in that
vain, I am here today to shed some light on provisions hidden away in
the conference report that will actually hurt transparency and
accountability of taxpayer dollars.
Inspectors general are the front line against fraud, waste, and abuse
of taxpayer dollars at Federal agencies. They are independent from the
Federal agencies they oversee and are independent from Congress. They
are the watchdogs that are responsible for sifting through all the
budgets and expenditures by conducting audits, performing program
evaluations, investigating allegations of wrongdoing, and working
closely with whistleblowers to uncover the truth. Inspectors general
point out problems that need to be fixed and save taxpayers billions of
dollars a year. They are integral to any effort to stamp out waste and
deter fraud and abuse. So, I was pleased to see that they weren't
forgotten in the bill and were given some more resources to oversee the
billions in new spending. However, tucked away in this bill is a
provision that threatens to micromanage these independent watchdogs in
a manner that is contrary to not only the spirit and intent of the
Inspectors General Act of 1978, but the 31 years of results these
dedicated fraud fighters have worked to achieve.
I will point my colleagues to division A, page 465 of the conference
report. There, section 1527 is, ironically titled, ``Independence of
Inspectors General.'' Great title, something you would think you would
like to support. If you keep reading, it states that ``nothing in this
subtitle shall affect the independent authority of an inspector general
to determine whether to conduct an audit or investigation of covered
funds.'' Again, a nice statement that reinforces the fact that we want
inspectors general to be independent, but, unfortunately, the provision
doesn't stop there.
If you read a little further you will find that the bill gives a new
entity, the ``Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board'' the
authority to, request ``that an inspector general conduct or refrain
from conducting an audit or investigation.'' It goes on further to say
that if an IG objects to being told what to do and acts independently--
as we expect them to--he or she must submit a report to that board, the
agency they oversee, and to Congress within 30 days.
Now, I don't know about everyone else around here, but that sounds to
me like a lot of redtape for an independent watchdog to go about doing
their job. In fact, it is fitting that the acronym for this board is
RAT, because that is what I smell here.
But, most importantly, this provision strikes right at the heart of
any inspectors' general independence. It appears to me that the
majority that crafted this bill, isn't all that interested in
transparency and accountability. Let me say it loud and clear: I don't
like this one bit and from the chatter I hear, the IGs don't like it
either--especially if it involves a criminal investigation.
Now, some of my colleagues will say this isn't too burdensome and
that it will help coordinate the work of inspectors general. Others say
that the new board will contain IGs who will have input so it won't
stifle investigations. Both of these arguments lack merit when you peel
the onion back.
Any new limitation on the independence of inspectors general is
dangerous. Here, even though an inspector general is allowed to buck
the new board and continue an investigation they are told not to do, he
or she must then put together a report for that board, the agency that
is being investigated, and Congress, all within 30 days. This will take
resources away from investigating and auditing fraud, and turn a truly
independent IG into a report writer.
As to the argument about the make-up of the new board, it is true
that inspectors general will make up the bulk of the board. However, it
will be chaired by either: the Deputy Director of the Office of
Management and Budget, a Presidential appointee confirmed by the
Senate, or any other individual subject to Senate confirmation. So,
based upon this model, you could have a situation where the President
appoints a sitting Cabinet Secretary to oversee the board that oversees
the inspectors general that oversee the agency run by the Secretary in
charge of
[[Page S2302]]
the board. I don't want to even try to imagine the scenario where the
head of the board is a private sector corporate figurehead of a company
that has a financial conflict stemming from the fact that the company
receives stimulus money. The system this bill creates is not only
unworkable; it is loaded with potential for conflicts of interest that
are simply mind blowing.
I also question the need for yet another board full of Government
officials. Why do we need yet another Government entity? The inspectors
general have worked cooperatively for years via the President's Council
for Integrity and Efficiency, PCIE, and the Executive Councils for
Integrity and Efficiency, ECIE, which are made up of inspectors
general. These entities were recently rolled into the Council of the
Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, CIGIE, by the Inspector
General Reform Act of 2008. This new board created by the stimulus bill
will simply duplicate already existing efforts in addition to hindering
the independence of inspectors general.
We have repeatedly recognized the need for independent IGs and we
unanimously passed the Inspector General Reform Act of 2008 that was
signed into law by President Bush last October. That law was passed
because Congress and the IGs recognized that changes were needed to
strengthen the independence of inspectors general. It included simple,
straightforward reforms such as ensuring each inspector general had
access to independent legal advice free and clear of agency influence.
It seems to me we all agreed independence was needed for IGs so long as
it occurred when there was a Republican President. I hate to think that
there is some conspiracy here, but when we have all backed the
independence of IGs in the past, you have to question the change of
direction buried deep within this bill.
This is a dangerous provision that will hamper oversight, restrict
transparency, and damage the independence of inspectors general. It
works against the pledge of transparency and accountability that
President Obama has advocated for and puts another layer of bureaucracy
between taxpayers and the truth about how the hundreds of billions of
dollars are spent.
Mr. President, I would like to talk about an immigration provision
that was included in the final conference report, as well as a couple
that were not.
First, the good news. I was pleased to hear that the conference
report retained the Sanders-Grassley amendment to ensure businesses
that receive TARP funds go through a very rigorous hiring process
before employing new H-1B visa holders. Hiring American workers for
limited available jobs should be a top priority for businesses taking
taxpayer money through the TARP program. With the unemployment rate at
7.2 percent, there is no need for companies to hire foreign workers
through the H-1B program--particularly in the banking industry.
According to an AP article, the banking industry requested more than
21,800 visas for foreign guest workers over the last 6 years. At least
100,000 workers were laid off in the banking industry in the past few
months. Now that many qualified American bank employees are unemployed,
banks who want to hire workers shouldn't have a hard time finding what
they need from an American workforce.
The Sanders-Grassley language requires that a company receiving TARP
funds and applying for workers under the H-1B process must operate as
an ``H-1B dependent company.'' This means they will still be able to
hire H-1B visa holders, but must comply with the H-1B dependent
employer rules which include attesting to actively recruiting American
workers; not displacing American workers with H-1B visa holders; and
not replacing laid off American workers with foreign workers. This
restriction would last for 2 years.
So this amendment would ensure that TARP recipients comply with
strict hiring standards in order not to displace qualified American
workers. The bottom line is that if banks are going to be getting TARP
money--American taxpayer money then they need to be hiring American
workers. While I support the H-1B program, it needs to be used in the
way it was intended and not to replace qualified American workers. This
amendment helps to ensure that taxpayer money going to assist companies
get back on their feet also helps American workers keep and/or get
jobs.
Now, the bad news. I am extremely disappointed that the final bill
doesn't include some very important E-verify provisions. The House
passed stimulus bill included language to extend the E-verify program,
a program that allows employers to verify the social security numbers
and legal status of newly hired employees. The E-verify process has
been an extremely successful program for employers. In addition, the
House passed stimulus bill included language that would have made it
mandatory for companies receiving TARP funds to use the E-verify system
when hiring new employees. These two provisions passed the House with
broad bipartisan support.
Here on the Senate side, my friend Senator Sessions filed several
amendments to extend E-verify and require TARP recipients to use E-
verify. I fully supported those amendments. Unfortunately, the good
Senator from Alabama was blocked from offering his amendments to the
Senate bill--even though, if given the chance, I am sure that his
amendments would have passed with the same overwhelming vote as the
House amendments.
I was ready to support the House E-verify provisions in conference.
As we all know, Republican conferees were shut out from any negotiation
of this conference report. But we were extremely hopeful that the
provisions were going to be retained, because of strong bipartisan
support on both sides of Capitol Hill.
So I was really surprised to hear that House leadership stripped E-
verify completely from the conference report. Many people supported
these provisions and understood their importance. These E-verify
provisions would have helped stimulate the economy by preserving jobs
for a legal workforce, so it is outrageous that they were not included
in the final conference agreement. The American taxpayer is spending
nearly a trillion dollars to spur the economy. It's not much to ask
that the companies receiving hard earned taxpayer dollars actually make
sure they are employing legal workers. The exclusion of both the E-
verify reauthorization and the requirement that companies getting TARP
money have to use the E-verify program is truly a colossal failure on
the part of our congressional leadership to stimulate the economy and
ensure that jobs go to legal workers.
The fight is not over. I am a strong believer in the E-verify
program. I will continue to work with my colleagues to make sure that
this important program is reauthorized and utilized by as many
employers as possible.
Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, section 405 of division A of this
conference report involves an amendment to section 1304 of the Energy
Independence and Security Act of 2007, which is under the jurisdiction
of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, of which I am the
chair. It is a provision that deals with the standards and protocols
that will be used in Smart Grid demonstration projects. With respect to
these demonstration projects, the conference report states that the
Secretary of Energy ``shall require as a condition of receiving funding
under this subsection that demonstration projects utilize open
protocols and standards (including Internet-based protocols and
standards) if available and appropriate.'' This is a clarification of
language originally passed by the House of Representatives on the
subject. It makes clear that all protocols and standards used by Smart
Grid demonstration projects must be open. Some of those open protocols
and standards may involve sending information over the Internet. Others
may use other means of data transfer. The parenthetical inclusion of
Internet-based protocols and standards under the requirement for open
standards means nothing more than that to the extent that an open
standard uses the Internet, it is still an open standard, but (1) the
universe of open standards and protocols is not considered to be
limited to only those which use the Internet, and (2) the mere use of
the Internet would not cause a standard to meet the criterion of being
open if it were not otherwise an open standard. There is no intent in
this language to discriminate for or against any given
[[Page S2303]]
open protocol or standard, or to promote any one technology solution
over another, so long as they are available and considered to be
appropriate by the Secretary of Energy. The Senate expects the
Secretary to conduct the process of making awards under this authority
in a way that ensures there is no discrimination for or against any
open protocol and standard that is otherwise available and appropriate.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, the Senate tonight will send to the
President the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. I think this
legislation is a first step not only in turning the economy around in
the short term, but also in laying the groundwork for rebuilding and
growing it over the near and longterm. But we need to do much more.
I think it is important to lay down a marker right now that our job
on rebuilding this economy is not finished. We must continue to focus
on making the right kind of investments, ones that help us realize our
maximum economic potential and ones that update our economic engines
for the 21st century and beyond. To do this, we must make a commitment
to invest in our capacity to innovate and in our capability to
commercialize new technologies and discoveries.
I have worked with many of my colleagues, especially Chairman Baucus
and Senator Hatch, on bolstering the incentives that support our
country's research capabilities.
For example, I have long been a supporter of making the R&D tax
credit permanent. I continue to believe that we have done ourselves a
tragic disservice by failing to provide long-term predictability to the
very businesses that are driving economic growth and are at the
frontline of every innovation and discovery that moves us forward as a
society.
We all know that if the high-wage jobs of the future are going to be
created in the United States we have to make the necessary investments
in intellectual infrastructure to keep American business competitive in
the global economy.
Investing in America's intellectual infrastructure is key to economic
growth and instrumental in spurring entrepreneurial innovation and job
creation. It is just as important as our commitment to physical
infrastructure.
Yet, thousands of companies employing U.S. workers in cutting-edge,
research-oriented industries such as biotechnology, high technology,
and clean technology are suffering from the same fate that has affected
our U.S. manufacturing companies. Without credit markets properly
functioning and with little to no investment from the equity markets or
venture capital, this next generation of job creators will shrink and
become less competitive in the global economy if we do not take action.
Economic analysis tells us that because R&D doesn't produce fast cash
it is often a target when times are rough and companies need to reduce
costs. It is in our collective interest as a country to help companies
take a different path during this economic downturn and find ways to
help innovative companies sustain and increase their R&D spending now
so they are better positioned to succeed when economic conditions turn
around.
I will ask to have printed in the Record a letter from 11 technology-
oriented, R&D-dependent trade associations such as the Biotechnology
Industry Organization, BIO, the Advanced Medical Technology
Association, AdvaMed, and others--that represent companies employing
hundreds of thousands of U.S. workers reliant on our commitment to
intellectual infrastructure.
This letter was recently sent to all members of the Senate Finance
Committee and outlines an approach that would allow small businesses to
accelerate their use of accumulated net operating losses, NOLs, if they
invest in U.S.-based research and development.
Expanding incentives to encourage more R&D activity in the United
States will be essential to the American innovators who are developing
the technologies of the future.
We must commit to considering new and thoughtful legislative
approaches like this one that can truly move us forward in creating the
high-quality, high-paying jobs of this century, and I look forward to
working with my colleagues on these issues.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the letter to which I
referred be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
January 15, 2009.
Hon. Max Baucus,
Chairman, Senate Finance Committee, Washington, DC.
Hon. Charles B. Rangel,
Chairman, House Ways and Means Committee, Washington, DC.
Hon. Charles E. Grassley,
Ranking Member, Senate Finance Committee, Washington, DC.
Hon. Dave Camp,
Ranking Member, House Ways and Means Committee Washington,
DC.
Dear Chairman Baucus, Ranking Member Grassley, Chairman
Rangel, and Ranking Member Camp: The thousands of companies
represented by our organizations, and the U.S. workers they
employ, are key drivers of the innovation that enables
America to compete in today's global marketplace. As such, we
respectfully request Congress take action in the upcoming
economic recovery package to invest in America's intellectual
infrastructure to support and create the high-quality, high-
paying jobs of the 21st century.
Specifically, we ask that you support efforts to spur U.S.-
based research and development (R&D) during the economic
downturn by allowing small businesses to elect a one-time
accelerated use, at a discount, of a portion of their
accumulated net operating losses (NOLs) in exchange for
giving up the future tax benefits associated with those
losses. This proposal, if enacted, will help America's
cutting-edge companies weather a difficult storm at a time
when the U.S. capital markets are largely frozen to many of
our nation's most innovative businesses. Further, this
proposal will help to ensure that U.S.-based R&D by smaller
firms does not drastically decline or disappear as America's
capital markets recover from the current financial crisis.
Failure by Congress to move quickly to enact this temporary
proposal could result in a sharp decline in R&D on cutting-
edge technologies (many of which are in fields where the U.S.
is currently the global leader) and additional job losses.
Investing in America's intellectual infrastructure is key
to economic growth and instrumental in spurring
entrepreneurial innovation and job creation. Innovative,
research-intensive industries enhance America's living
standards while creating high-quality, high-paying jobs.
American innovation is increasingly challenged by more
rigorous global competition and the future of the American
economy depends on critical investments today to lay the
groundwork for the breakthroughs of tomorrow. Without
investment in these fields, the U.S. will find it more
difficult to compete in a 21st century global economy.
We respectfully urge you to invest in America's
intellectual infrastructure by including a proposal to
accelerate the utilization of NOLs in the upcoming economic
recovery and reinvestment legislation. We thank you for your
consideration of this request and we look forward to working
with you to get our economy moving again in a way that
protects and creates the high-paying jobs associated with
America's innovation economy.
Sincerely,
James C. Greenwood, President and CEO. Biotechnology
Industry Organization; Stephen J. Ubl, President and
CEO, Advanced Medical Technology Association; Mark G.
Heesen, President, National Venture Capital
Association; Mark B. Leahey, President and CEO, Medical
Device Manufacturers Association; Jonathan Zuck,
President, Association for Competitive Technology.
Marianne Hudson, Executive Director, Angel Capital
Association; Patricia Glaza, Executive Director and
CEO, Clean Technology and Sustainable Industries
Organization; Sean Murdock, Executive Director,
NanoBusiness Alliance; Zack Lynch, Executive Director,
Neurotechnology Industry Organization; Bretton
Alexander, President, Personal Spaceflight Federation;
F. Mark Modzelewski, Founder and President, Water
Innovations Alliance.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today, the Congress considers critical
legislation to renew America's promise of prosperity and security for
all of its citizens. I am pleased that the greatly needed relief
provided in the American Recovery And Reinvestment Act includes an
investment in health information technology that takes meaningful steps
to protect the privacy of all Americans.
I have long held the view that American innovation can--and should--
play a vital role in revitalizing our economy and in improving our
Nation's health care system. That is why I have worked so hard with the
lead sponsors of this bill to makes sure that privacy was addressed at
the outset, as our Nation moves towards a national health information
technology system.
I commend the lead sponsors of this legislation in the House and
Senate, Majority Leader Reid, and Speaker
[[Page S2304]]
Pelosi for making sure that the economic recovery package includes
meaningful privacy safeguards for electronic health records. I also
commend the many stakeholders, including, the Center for Democracy &
Technology, the Vermont Information Technology Leaders, Inc., Consumers
Union, the American Civil Liberties Union and Microsoft, that have
advocated tirelessly for meaningful health IT privacy protections in
this legislation.
The privacy protections in this legislation are essential to a
successful national health IT system. Without adequate safeguards to
protect health privacy, many Americans would simply not seek the
medical treatment that they need for fear that their sensitive health
information will be disclosed without their consent. Likewise, health
care providers who perceive the privacy risks associated with health IT
systems as inconsistent with their professional obligations would avoid
participating in a national health IT system.
The economic recovery package includes several of my recommendations
to better protect Americans' health information privacy. First, the
provisions give each and every American the right to access his or her
own electronic health records, and the right to timely notice of data
breaches involving their health information. The recovery package also
imposes critical restrictions on the sale of sensitive health data and
on the use of Americans' health data for marketing purposes. Lastly,
the legislation makes sure that the Secretary of the Department of
Health and Human Services receives input from individuals with specific
expertise in health information privacy and security, as the Secretary
develops a national health information technology system.
These and many other privacy safeguards in the bill will help tackle
the difficult, but essential task of ensuring meaningful health
information privacy for all Americans. But, we can--and should--do
more. There is much more to be done to ensure that Americans have
greater control over their own electronic health records. Another
critical issue is the use of new technologies to better secure
sensitive health records, so that data breaches involving health and
other sensitive personal data do not occur in the first place.
Yesterday, we celebrated the bicentennial of the birth of our
Nation's 16th President--Abraham Lincoln--who once remarked that ``you
cannot escape the responsibility for tomorrow by evading it today.'' We
all have a responsibility to ensure quality health care that is both
efficient and respectful of all Americans' privacy rights. I am pleased
that the Congress acted to address the issue of health information
privacy at the outset of the ambitious effort to fully digitize
America's health records during the next 5 years. During the months and
years ahead, Congress must build upon this early privacy success with
more work on health information privacy on behalf of all Americans.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the American people are counting on us to
act to stabilize and revitalize the economy, and passage of the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is an essential part of that
effort. I am encouraged by how promptly the Senate and House have been
able to reach a compromise on this critical legislation. I support
final passage because it will create jobs and make investments to
bolster our economy in both the short and long-term.
The Nation is in a deep recession and the situation is particularly
dire in Michigan where the unemployment rate is the highest in the
country. The Bush policy, still supported apparently by all but three
Republicans, was a failure. It provided repeated tax cuts to the
wealthy with the hope that some of it would trickle down to help those
who really need it.
The legislation before us will provide tax breaks to our working
families. It will provide a tax cut to 3.9 million Michigan workers,
and allow over 120,000 Michigan families to benefit from a tax credit
to make college more affordable. This legislation will also create or
save 3.5 million jobs over the next 2 years, including jobs in health
care, clean energy and construction. It will also strengthen the social
safety net by increasing unemployment insurance benefits by $100 a
month for over 1 million Michigan workers.
That is why it is so important that we take aggressive action now.
Job creation must be our No. 1 priority as we work to turn the
economy around, and jobs are the focus of this conference report.
Shovel-ready infrastructure projects are the most immediate way to
create jobs and get the economy moving quickly. The recovery plan
includes $48 billion in funding for ready-to-go road, bridge, rail and
other projects to immediately and directly create jobs. This
legislation is expected to provide Michigan with approximately $1
billion dollars in highway and transit formula funds, allowing for
significant repairs to roads and bridges and purchases of buses for our
public transit authorities. There is additional funding which will
hopefully result in investments in the Midwest High-Speed Rail
corridor, and improvements to Amtrak that can help bring commuter rail
to Michigan.
I am hopeful the Army Corps will direct a significant portion of the
$4 billion toward the Great Lakes to address the backlog of ready-to-go
projects and maintain this vital maritime highway of the Midwest.
I am also hopeful that the EPA will direct a portion of its funds for
cleaning up contaminated sediment under the Great Lakes Legacy Program.
One report concluded that there is a 2\1/2\ to 1 ratio of return on a
Federal investment on restoring the Great Lakes.
The recovery package also contains $6 billion in funding for water
infrastructure. These projects immediately create jobs and play a
critical role in protecting public health, improving the environment,
and creating a sustainable and strong economic climate in which
commerce can thrive. Specifically, Michigan is slated to receive more
than $150 million to address wastewater projects, and $70 million to
upgrade water mains, leaking pipes, and water treatment plants. These
job-creating water infrastructure projects will address current needs
in Michigan, while investing in upgrades that will prepare us for years
to come. In addition, this legislation contains $200 million for
environmental infrastructure that the Army Corps would manage. In
Michigan, this funding could be used to address combined sewer
overflows, which dump harmful pollutants into the Great Lakes.
Additionally, the conference committee legislation contains $750
million for the National Park Service, NPS. The NPS has a significant
backlog of deferred maintenance projects that can be started within the
next 18 months which will create jobs and help restore and enhance our
national treasures. Michigan's four National Park units and the North
Country National Scenic Trail have significant funding needs, and a
number of projects have been delayed for years. I am hopeful that the
NPS will direct a sizable portion of the $750 million included in the
package to address the significant needs of Michigan's parks and
trails.
I am pleased that the $100 million for brownfields competitive grants
can be awarded for both cleanup and site assessment projects. I asked
the conferees to expand the flexibility for these grants so that more
Michigan communities could benefit from this funding, and I am pleased
that the final bill contains this broader language.
The funding in the conference report will create jobs by making smart
investments in technology and modernization efforts that will continue
to pay dividends by helping us compete in the global economy. I am
especially pleased the bill includes $2 billion in grants to encourage
companies to invest in the development and production of advanced
batteries and battery systems, which will fuel the energy-efficient
vehicles of the future and make it more likely they will be produced in
U.S. factories. In so doing, the conferees have adopted the Senate
approach of focusing exclusively on grant funding rather than loan
guarantees, which I believe will go much further in providing American
manufacturers the resources and support they need to manufacture these
batteries in U.S. facilities. This funding is critical because battery
manufacturers and other manufacturers are deciding now where to locate
their production facilities, and we cannot afford to lose those
facilities and the associated jobs to other countries that are willing
to offer greater financial incentives than we are.
I am also pleased that the conference report includes significant
measures to
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expand the American market for advanced technology vehicles. It will
make these vehicles more affordable for consumers by increasing the
availability of consumer tax credits for plug-in hybrid vehicles.
Instead of making the tax credit available only for a total of 250,000
vehicles as is in current law, the conference report will make these
tax credits available to consumers who purchase the first 200,000 plug-
in hybrid vehicles sold by each manufacturer. Taking this important
step will help America get to the goal set forth by President Obama of
putting 1 million plug-in hybrid vehicles on the road by 2015. I am
pleased that the conference report also includes some funding for
Federal agencies to aggressively lease alternative energy vehicles--
such as hybrid vehicles--to support a wide variety of agency missions.
Government leasing of these vehicles will help stimulate production of
these vehicles. We cannot just preach about the need to produce these
vehicles. We must lead the way in purchasing them, even though their
up-front cost is greater.
The conference report also makes a clarification in the Tax Code to
prevent an unintended tax consequence that would have hurt auto
companies and others receiving TARP funds. This clarification will
limit section 382 of the Tax Code in instances where a change in
corporate control is the result of restructuring required by the
Government pursuant to a TARP agreement. This maintains the clear
intent of 382 while preventing unintended results that would have hurt
these companies at the very time the Government is stepping in to help.
This legislation also helps those who have lost their jobs by
including important measures that will help States modernize their
current unemployment insurance programs and includes administrative
dollars and funds to incentivize States to do this. For my home State
of Michigan this means they will receive more than $90 million straight
away. This plan will also provide a further extension of unemployment
benefits which will help the more than 400,000 unemployed workers in
Michigan who are unable to find a job in these hard economic times and
the, on average, 13,000 individuals whose unemployment benefit will
expire this month alone. Additionally, it will provide an additional
$100 per month in unemployment benefits, pumping money directly into
depressed economic areas and exempts the first $2,400 unemployment
benefits from income tax, meaning more of these funds can go to
recipients and help grow the economy.
The bill provides funding for important job training in new and
expanding fields, as well as funding to enhance and expand education
initiatives aimed at ensuring that our next generation of Americans is
able to meet the challenges of a global economy. Specifically, it
includes $53.6 billion for the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund,
including $40.6 billion to local school districts using existing
funding formulas, which can be used for preventing cutbacks, teacher
layoffs, or other purposes; $5 billion to States as bonus grants for
meeting key performance measures in education; and $8.8 billion to
States for high-priority needs such as public safety and other critical
services, which may include modernization, renovation and repairs of
public school facilities and institutions of higher education
facilities.
The bill includes $3.95 billion for job training including State
formula grants for adult, dislocated worker, and youth programs,
including $1.2 billion to create up to 1 million summer jobs for youth.
The training and employment needs of workers will also be met through
dislocated worker national emergency grants, new competitive grants for
worker training in high growth and emergency industry sectors, with
priority consideration to training for ``green'' jobs, including
preparing workers for activities supported by other economic recovery
funds, such as retrofitting of buildings, green construction, and the
production of renewable electric power.
It includes $13 billion for title 1 to help close the achievement gap
and enable disadvantaged students to reach their potential; $12.2
billion for special education/IDEA to improve educational outcomes for
disabled children. This level of funding will increase the Federal
share of special education services to its highest level since the
inception of the program. Finally, the bill provides $15.6 billion to
increase the maximum Pell grant by $500, which will help 7 million
students pursue postsecondary education. Further, the bill includes
$2.1 billion for the Head Start and Early Head Start to allow
additional children to participate in this proven program, which
provides development, educational, health, nutritional, social and
other activities that prepare children to succeed in school.
The tax provisions in this legislation will create a refundable tax
credit of $400 for working individuals and $800 for working families,
covering 95 percent of working families. Taxpayers can receive this
benefit through a reduction in the amount of tax that is withheld from
their paychecks, or through claiming the credit on their tax returns.
This will mean direct and immediate relief for nearly 4 million
Michigan workers and their families. The legislation also expands the
child tax credit and the earned-income tax credit to ensure that more
low-income families get the full benefit. There is also a new,
partially refundable $2,500 tax credit that will help make 4 years of
college more affordable for an estimated 121,000 families in Michigan.
For many struggling families, these targeted tax cuts will help them
make ends meet in these tough times. Putting extra money in families'
pockets will offer an immediate boost to the economy.
Together, the provisions in this bill offer significant hope for our
Nation's economic future. Still, a comprehensive economic recovery
effort is balanced on a three-legged stool consisting of creating jobs,
unfreezing credit markets, and addressing the housing crisis, including
reduction in the flood of foreclosures.
As the housing crisis worsens, I will continue to urge Treasury to
move quickly to implement a loan modification program to help prevent
avoidable foreclosures. While much still remains to be done with
respect to ending the crisis in our financial sector, the financial
stability outline put forth by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner this
week outlined some new approaches so that recipients of the so-called
TARP funds will cooperate with mortgage foreclosure mitigation programs
and provide reports of how the Federal loans are used and will expand
their lending. This is a positive step in the right direction toward
resuming the flow of credit, but Congress must continue to exercise
stringent oversight of the TARP program and we must work to reform our
financial system to restore commonsense regulation of this industry.
This legislation represents a significant and essential step in
stabilizing our economy. The infrastructure projects will create
Michigan jobs, the tax provisions will help Michigan families and the
investments in technology and modernization will pay dividends for
years to come. While there are major challenges before us that we must
address in order to end this recession, passage of the Economic
Recovery and Reinvestment Act will give us some urgently needed
momentum.
Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I support the conference report for H.R. 1,
the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This vital legislation will
create jobs, ensure that States can continue to provide essential
health and social services, improve education, and assist veterans.
This legislation will create jobs by encouraging innovation for the
development of clean energy and strengthening our Nation's
infrastructure. Additionally, the legislation includes funding for the
Economic Development Administration to create additional economic
opportunities.
Our States are confronted with declining revenue while citizens have
increasing health care and social service needs. This bill will provide
funding to States so that they can continue to provide health care
coverage and essential social services that will help our constituents
in this great time of need. States must be good stewards of these
resources and utilize them for their intended purposes. This recovery
bill will also provide relief to workers and families hardest hit by
the economic recession.
In order to ensure that we have a well-educated workforce both now
and in the future, I am pleased to support
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the provisions included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
designed to increase and support educational opportunities for our
country's children as well as provide much needed resources and
infrastructure improvements for educators nationwide. The establishment
of a State Fiscal Stabilization Fund will help schools suffering during
this difficult economic time to retain teachers and continue programs
vital to helping students achieve their academic potential. I also
applaud the inclusion of $100 million for impact aid. Due to the
significant military presence in Hawaii, these funds are vitally
important to Hawaii's public schools.
I have been working, along with other members of the Veterans'
Affairs Committee, to advocate for the needs of veterans in the context
of this recovery and reinvestment bill and am pleased that the
conference report includes funding that will benefit VA and the
veterans it serves.
Although I wanted the final agreement to include more of the Senate's
shovel-ready projects to improve health care and other services
veterans receive from VA, I am grateful the conference report includes
more than a billion dollars in immediate funding that will create jobs
while improving services for veterans.
The conference report also includes $50 million to make key
improvements to Veterans Benefit Administration IT systems and $150
million to provide a temporary increase in claims processing staff.
In addition, there is $50 million included in the conference report
that is intended for VA's National Cemetery Administration. This
funding will be used to provide much needed cemetery infrastructure
support and repair and investment in VA's National Shrine Initiative. I
believe the funding will help meet our obligation to provide final
resting places for veterans and honor their service.
As helpful as this infusion of funding will be, more resources are
needed. I remind all of my colleagues that these funds only begin to
address existing, unmet needs. When it is time to begin work on the new
budget, we must provide a robust VA appropriation to meet the new
fiscal year's costs.
I am glad that the conference report retains a provision to make sure
that certain veterans facing financial hardship in this time of
uncertainty receive an economic recovery payment. I will continue to
work with my colleagues to secure additional resources for VA.
I commend my colleague, Senator Inouye, for his ongoing advocacy on
behalf of the Filipino veterans of World War II. This conference report
contains an authorization for a lump sum payment for funds that were
appropriated last session for these veterans.
I look forward to having the conference report signed into law
quickly so that we can begin our economic recovery and assist our
citizens in need.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to offer my support for
the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
Our economy is in dire straits. And urgent action is required to get
the economy moving and reverse the alarming trend of job loss that is
currently plaguing our cities.
This Nation is in the grip of the most serious recession in more than
seven decades. American families are increasingly facing tough choices
as economic indicators tumble across the board.
Bad news has fallen like a row of dominoes. Our current economic
situation is a result of many different problems, all developing at the
same time. The major factors: The collapse of the subprime housing
market sent shockwaves through the financial sector of the American
economy. This was the direct result of a scheme in which poorly
underwritten loans promoted by unregulated mortgage brokers and lenders
were sliced, diced, securitized and spread all over, with severe
consequences that are global in scope. Unregulated markets schemes like
this were a fertile breeding ground for greed and fraud. The Enron
scandal of the late 1990s was a smaller-scale precursor, costing
taxpayers billions of dollars and ending in the collapse of the energy
giant, as well as the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in Enron
investments held by more than 50 mutual funds and insurance companies.
Enormous State deficits have deepened with the combined effects of
rampant foreclosures and plummeting property values which have
significantly cut into revenues. And local governments, trying to
maximize returns for taxpayers with investments in firms like Lehman
Brothers, have lost their money. They are looking to the State for
help, and the State is looking to the Federal Government for help.
The financial sector is currently held aloft by a lifeline from the
federal government. Main Street is also looking to Washington to
provide an injection of financial stability.
There are many different vectors of this economic crisis. But there
is only one sure solution. And that is the infusion of large amounts of
capital into the marketplace from the only place with the capacity to
do so, which is the Federal Government.
It is time to give the American people some good news for a change.
It is estimated that the bill could help sustain and create up to 3.5
million jobs over the next 2 years--with 396,000 in California alone.
The bill before us is far from perfect. But we need to give the
President the flexibility and resources he needs to create jobs and
revive our ailing economy.
This bill will not meet every need, and some difficult choices have
been made in order to move it forward with the 60 votes it needed to
secure passage in the Senate.
But faced with a choice of taking action to confront this crisis, or
simply dithering away as families lose their jobs, their homes and
their hope, I think the choice is clear: We must support this economic
recovery package.
President Obama inherited an unprecedented fiscal mess when he took
office last month: National debt: $10.7 trillion; this year's budget
deficit: $1.2 trillion, projected; GDP: Fell by 3.8 percent last
quarter 4th quarter 2008, the worst showing in 26 years; unemployment
is skyrocketing: 7.6 percent nationwide. Since the recession started in
December 2007, 3.6 million jobs have been lost. More than 598,000 jobs
were lost in January. Economists say 3 million more could be lost by
the end of this year.
In California we have a 9.3 percent unemployment rate, Dec. 2008.
There are at least 1.7 million unemployed workers in California. We
have the fourth highest foreclosure rate in the Nation. There were
837,665 foreclosures filed in 2008 up 110 percent from 2007. State
budget deficit has reached $42 billion. This has real and serious
implications.
The Governor has had to halt public infrastructure projects. Public
employees are being furloughed and local governments are planning to
slash the critical services upon which taxpayers depend.
The bill before us will not solve every problem, but it will provide
funding for critical investments that will create jobs and get our
economy moving again.
First, transportation: $29 billion for highways and bridges.
California's share by formula will be at least $2.6 billion; $8.4
billion for public transit--i.e., subway, bus, and light rail projects.
California's share by formula will be $1 billion; $1.3 billion for
Airport capital improvements, funding allocated by competition; and
$9.3 billion for intercity passenger rail, including $8 billion
targeted at building high speed rail funding allocated by competition.
In total, the bill provides roughly $50 billion for transportation.
These projects will not only modernize the corridors used to transport
passengers and goods that move across America, they are also a critical
part of the jobs creation goal of this package.
Experts estimate that between 27,000 to 37,000 jobs are created for
every $1 billion invested in transportation projects. So an estimated
1.5 million jobs could be generated by transportation projects funded
in this bill.
Second, water. We have a huge water infrastructure problem in this
country. The Government Accountability Office and EPA report that the
nation faces a $300-500 billion water and wastewater funding gap over
the next 20 years. That is why it is so important that this bill
includes a substantial investment in water infrastructure:
Army Corps of Engineers: $4.6 billion for construction, maintenance,
etc.,
[[Page S2307]]
that will create 37,000 direct jobs and 102,000 indirect jobs; clean
water and drinking water state revolving Funds: $6 billion. California
would receive $444 million; Bureau of Reclamation: $1 billion,
including $126 million for title XVI Water Recycling and Reuse
Projects.
The U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates
that for each additional job created in the water and sewer industries,
3.68 jobs are created in all industries.
So, investing in these projects will help create millions of jobs
here at home, and better protect human health and the environment. This
is a vital investment.
Third, housing.
It is widely recognized that the roots of this economic recession
were in the bursting of the housing bubble. Last year, there were more
than 830,000 foreclosures filed in California alone, an increase of
more than 100 percent over 2007.
So it is important that the bill makes a major commitment to
stabilizing the housing market--and to helping hardworking Americans
avoid the devastating loss of their homes through foreclosure.
The bill provides a public housing capital fund of $4 billion to help
local public housing agencies address a $32 billion backlog in capital
needs. California's share by formula will be $118.5 million; home
investment: $2.25 billion for State and local governments to acquire,
construct, and rehab affordable housing.
It is critical that Congress do whatever we can to help restore and
foster the American dream of home ownership--and this bill is part of
that effort.
Fourth, the bill also boosts funding for our Nation's health care and
education systems and provides increases for other safety nets,
including:
$87 billion for Medicaid. California will receive an estimated $10
billion; $13 billion for title I education; $12.2 billion for special
education; $2.1 billion for Head Start and Early Head Start; $20
billion for additional food stamps benefits; and an additional $100 per
month in unemployment insurance benefits.
Finally, Energy.
This legislation makes a serious down payment towards our permanent
shift away from fossil fuels and towards a more sustainable energy
system.
The bill invests in efficiency, providing $5 billion to weatherize
the homes of low income individuals through the Weatherization
Assistance Program.
It also establishes a tax credit for 30 percent of the cost to
homeowners that weatherize their own homes, and provides cities with
$3.2 billion in block grants to assist them with building codes,
efficiency improvements to their own facilities, and renewable energy
projects.
These efforts will help us realize the goal of weatherizing millions
of homes.
It invests in a ``smart grid,'' putting $4.5 billion into an effort
to improve electricity delivery through technology.
The legislation will allow WAPA to build new powerlines, to deliver
renewable electricity to California consumers who would otherwise
continue to depend on coal power.
And finally, this legislation establishes a grant program at DOE and
expands a loan guarantee program.
These two steps will help capital intensive wind, solar, geothermal,
and cellulosic biofuels projects move forward even at a time when
financing capital projects has become all but impossible.
Bottom line: these are all investments that will either provide an
immediate benefit to local economies by adding jobs or will help shore
up the safety net for Americans who have been hit by the crisis.
This is a very welcome sum of investment in States that are facing
grim scenarios today.
One headline in the Monterey Herald recently asked whether the
``Golden State is rusting.''
But the truth is, California is not alone in suffering these
consequences. Every State in the Union is feeling the painful effects
of this downturn, and every State needs this injection of investment at
this critical time.
President Obama has stated clearly that this economic recovery
package is the tool he needs to get our economy back on track and move
this country forward.
The millions of people who are losing their jobs and their homes have
no use for partisan bickering. Re-enacting Washington's usual
ideological battles won't stop any companies from downsizing, free up
any credit for businesses in need, or put food on the table of a family
in need.
Candidly, I would have written a very different bill than the one
before us. And there are some aspects of this bill that I would still
like to change--I would have liked to see more job-creating
infrastructure projects and fewer costly tax cuts.
But despite the imperfections in this bill, I believe we must
recognize the enormous task at hand by providing the president with the
resources he needs to get the job done.
This bill is a major part of that effort, and it should be approved.
Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I rise on this occasion to speak on the
economic stimulus conference report that is before this chamber--at a
time when we face the longest and deepest recession since World War II,
and a moment of economic peril not seen since the days of the Great
Depression almost 80 years ago.
There has been a great deal of healthy and vigorous debate about this
stimulus package--here in the Congress and certainly throughout
America--and rightfully so, given the magnitude of the legislation we
have deliberated upon over the past few weeks. And let me say, I well
recognize this process got off to a less than stellar start.
And yet, especially given that people look to the Senate to temper
the passions of politics--to provide an institutional check that
ensures all voices are heard and considered--should we have allowed
that inauspicious beginning to establish a permanent detour from
ultimately passing an economic stimulus package that economists from
across the political spectrum have said is urgently required?
I believe the answer to that question is no. And in that light, I
extend my gratitude to Majority Leader Reid for bringing us together in
forging the much improved package we consider today. I thank Chairman
Baucus and Ranking Member Grassley of the Senate Committee on Finance,
Chairman Inouye and Ranking Member Cochran of the Senate Committee on
Appropriations, as well as Senators Collins, Specter, Nelson, and
Lieberman for their yeoman leadership in yielding this consensus-based
solution. I also thank those who argued against this package--because,
frankly, I agreed with a number of their arguments, and ultimately the
concerns expressed have helped to improve this final product.
Indeed, we lost 3.6 million jobs since the onset of the recession,
the most since 1945. The Department of Labor has reported the number of
people receiving unemployment benefits has reached 4.8 million, an all-
time high since record keeping began in 1967--and that doesn't include
the nearly 1.7 million getting benefits through an extension last
summer. At the end of January, we learned that the economy shrank at
its fastest pace in nearly 27 years in the fourth quarter of 2008. Our
gross national product dropped at a 3.8 percent annual rate, worst
since 1982.
And with more than 11 million jobless Americans today, inaction has,
frankly, never been a viable option. In fact, economist Mark Zandi of
Moody's Economy.com--who advised both Presidential candidates McCain
and Obama, I might add--projects an even higher unemployment rate of a
remarkable 11.1 percent--should we fail to pass a vigorous economic
stimulus package. That is 11.1 percent--and that is unacceptable. We
cannot stand on the sidelines.
That is why I have said from the outset--as I stated on the Senate
floor at the beginning of last week--that I wanted to support a
stimulus package. But at the same time as I also said, I could not
support just any package. The fact is, we are confronting a
multidimensional crisis that requires a multidimensional approach, and
we can ill afford to get it wrong.
Our approach must be successful, as it must also go hand-in-hand with
monetary policy to ensure that vital credit--that is the lifeblood of
our economy--is flowing to American individuals and businesses.
[[Page S2308]]
Already Congress passed a rescue plan for financial institutions, but
the lending expected to free up our credit markets has yet to take
effect. Already, the Treasury Department has issued a second component
to the rescue plan, which I might add is regrettably long on
aspirations and short on details. And already the Federal Reserve has
essentially exhausted its options to improve the economy through
monetary policy, having reduced interest rates to zero--something else
that hasn't happened since the 1930s--and lent more than $1 trillion to
stabilize the financial and credit markets. So, as I said during the
mark-up in the Senate Finance Committee, we ought to remember that for
us, in crafting fiscal policy to meet this historic challenge, there
are no ``do-overs.''
That is why I have said repeatedly that this isn't about how much we
label as ``tax relief' and how much we label as ``spending.'' Rather,
in the final analysis, it's been about the merits of the individual
measures in this legislation, and whether the totality of a package can
deliver job creation and assistance to those who have been displaced--
because both elements are essential to turning the economic tide and
aligning our nation for a more prosperous future. In short, the
challenge has been to fashion a measure that meets the ``what works''
test.
Critical to that test is whether a stimulus measure is timely,
targeted, temporary, and achieves the critical equilibrium of creating
jobs and assisting those displaced by this economic crisis through no
fault of their own. There has been widespread agreement, even from the
harshest critics of this bill, that economic stimulus must meet this
standard. That is exactly what a Washington Post editorial called for
when it advocated a focused stimulus as the most viable approach. And
after a week of intense, bicameral negotiations and compromises, this
economic stimulus package--while not what everyone may have wanted--
while not everything I would have wanted--meets that threshold.
It has not been easy arriving at this point. At the beginning of
deliberations on the floor and throughout the amendment process, I was
deeply concerned this bill more closely resembled omnibus legislation
rather than emergency stimulus legislation. Indeed, as the Senate
considered and adopted amendments on the floor, this package had
actually ballooned to $920 billion. Let me repeat that--$920 billion.
Let's look at the House-passed bill. The House bill was voted out at
$819 billion. And then the Senate bill ultimately passed at $838
billion. But now, with our efforts over the past week, this package has
emerged as a $787.2 billion conference report that is not only more
narrowly tailored toward stimulus, but actually has a lower overall
cost than either the House-passed bill at $819 billion or the Senate-
passed bill at $838 billion. And that is no insignificant achievement.
At the same time, the package isn't only right--it is right sized. As
the President has stated, we will lose $2 trillion in consumer demand
this year and next--demand, I might add, that must be ``backfilled'' in
our economy with a substantial investment in both tax relief and
targeted, effective expenditures that will create jobs. The fact is,
given the monumental level of this recession, we can't just be throwing
pebbles in the pond. Rather, we require the ripple effect of a
boulder--while at the same time ensuring that this is not an open-ended
passport to spending in perpetuity.
I know that there are those who criticize the top-line number on this
package. And given this legislation is deficit-financed, the cost and
the stimulative affect of each of the elements of this bill should be
of concern to all of us. I said on the floor at the beginning of this
process that we cannot overload this bill with items that are not
within the strictures of stimulus. We must ensure that programs that
may well be worthwhile policy but not economic stimulus are not
considered in this package, and instead are vetted through the budget
and regular legislative process. We cannot, under the auspices of
stimulus legislation--open the door to permanent spending that exceeds
the life and purpose of what is before us today.
But in terms of the actual size of the package, let's consider for a
moment the economic stimulus packages passed in 2001 and in 2003--and
compare the cost of those measures with the cost of this package, and
the economic conditions at those times, with the far worse economic
conditions of now.
In June 2001, when the economy was in recession as well, we responded
with a $1.35 trillion package. In the quarter when that bill passed,
the economy grew by 1.2 percent, and unemployment was at 4.5 percent.
In 2003, we passed a bill that was essentially a trillion dollar
package masquerading as a $350 billion bill. During the spring of 2003,
when that bill passed, the economy grew by 3.5 percent and unemployment
was at 6.1 percent.
Fast forward to today with this $787 billion package on the floor.
The economy shrank at an annual rate of 0.5 percent in the third
quarter of 2008, and 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008. The
unemployment rate is currently at 7.6 percent. Furthermore, over the
past 13 months alone, as I mentioned earlier, the economy has lost 3.6
million jobs. By comparison, we lost a total of 2.7 million total jobs
in the 2001 recession. The bottom line is this package is not by any
means out-sized for the times--it is right-sized.
When we began our deliberations in the Senate, the spending in the
Senate package reached $366 billion. Fortunately, through our
bipartisan efforts, we were able to trim that spending by an additional
$55 billion in nonstimulative items. Today, this package contains a
total of $286.5 billion in tax provisions, $311 billion in
discretionary spending appropriations, and $192.4 billion in
nondiscretionary spending items more narrowly focused on job creation
and assistance to those displaced.
On the spending side of the ledger, we demonstrated our commitment to
job creation by investing in infrastructure. For example, the
compromise accelerated the timeline for spending out 50 percent of the
money for roads and bridges from 180 days to 120 days--with the
remaining 50 percent required to be obligated within one year--to
further frontload the stimulative effect. Right now, the U.S.
Conference of Mayors has a list of nearly 19,000 shovel-ready projects
nationally, totaling almost $150 billion. Moreover, the Federal Highway
Administration projects that for every one billion dollars spent,
28,500 jobs are created, and with the 7.5 billion contained in this
Conference Report for highways alone. That is 783,750 jobs just for
roads and bridges.
We included $40 billion for enhancing unemployment insurance as CBO
said last year that the cost-effectiveness of such a policy for
stimulative effect is ``large''. . . the length of time for impact is
``short''. . . and recently, Moody's Economy.com estimated that every
dollar spent on unemployment benefits generates $1.63 in near term GDP.
I thank Chairman Baucus for including in this conference report my
provision to exclude the first $2,400 of unemployment benefits from
taxation, to further maximize the provision's stimulative impact. And
as increasing food stamps is also among the most immediate and
effective stimulative steps we can take--we provided $19.9 billion to
do just that.
I am also particularly pleased, as ranking member of the Small
Business Committee, that we included such critical job-creation funding
as $730 million for the Small Business Administration's lending
programs. This spending is targeted toward increasing access to capital
and lowering the cost of capital for our Nation's small businesses that
have created fully two-thirds of America's net new jobs, that created
or retained 770,000 jobs in FY 2008 alone, and will unquestionably be
at the forefront of leading us out of this crisis. The bill contains
many of Chair Landrieu's and my priorities, such as ones to slash fees
for SBA borrowers and reduce them for lenders; increase funding for the
microloan program; and a new program targeted toward small businesses
struggling to make loan payments.
Additionally, on the spending side we provided vital Medicaid
assistance to the states--and I have heard the arguments against it.
But does anyone seriously believe that with 45 states currently
experiencing a shortfall and a projected, combined budgetary gap of
$350 billion over the next 2 years won't have a profound impact on our
national economy, as States grapple with raising taxes or slashing
spending to balance their budgets?
[[Page S2309]]
We also included $28 billion for adoption of Heath Information
Technology by health care providers. This would not only actually
result in an eventual $10 billion in savings, but also improvements in
care and costs, while creating an additional 40,000 jobs that will
endure. As we grapple with the gravity of our economic circumstances,
doesn't it make sense to simultaneously create transformational, well-
paying jobs that, rather than looking to the past, will endure and
ensure that America is competitive in the global economy of the 21st
century?
As I mentioned earlier, this package also contains more than $286
billion in tax relief--with many provisions I was proud to ensure were
included as a member of the Senate Finance Committee--that will
directly result in job creation and retention, and bolster our economy.
The President's signature making work pay tax credit, which the
President agreed to trim in this conference report, will provide
additional money in every paycheck to more than 95 percent of working
families in the United States, which Mark Zandi has said will be
``particularly effective, as the benefit will go to lower income
households . . . that are much more likely to spend any tax benefit
they receive.''
I am pleased to have helped retain in this legislation relief from
the alternative minimum tax as it will not only boost the value of the
making work pay credit but will also ensure that around 30 million
Americans won't be ensnared by this onerous levy. We increase
eligibility for the extraordinarily successful refundable portion of
the child tax credit that I originally spearheaded to reach low-income
families earning between $3,000 and $9,667 a year. I have heard the
arguments before against refundability, but this program reaches people
who may not earn enough to have federal tax liability but who work and
contribute local taxes and payroll taxes and will, therefore, get
additional money into the pockets of those most likely to spend it.
When it comes to tax relief and America's greatest job generators,
our Nation's 27.2 million small businesses, this package contains
provisions I authored to help them sustain operations and employees.
This includes enhanced section 179 expensing for 2009, allowing small
businesses throughout the Nation to invest up to $250,000 in plant and
equipment that they can deduct immediately, instead of depreciate over
a period of 5, 7, or more years.
The conference report also contains a provision to extend to 5 years
the carryback period of net operating losses for small businesses with
up to $15 million in gross receipts which will help small businesses
sustain operations with a cash infusion during these trying times. This
modification was the result of a last-minute negotiation, and I very
much appreciate the personal efforts of Chairman Baucus.
This agreed-upon measure makes a welcomed, commonsense change to
reduce to 90 percent the requirement that small business owners prepay
110 percent of their previous year's tax liability. The purpose of
quarterly prepayments is to ensure that the Government gets every penny
owed. Because of the recession and the credit crunch, the overpayment
of quarterly income taxes by America's small business owners is
unnecessary, because few businesses are experiencing 10 percent growth,
and harmful because it drains vital cash flow away from an ongoing
business.
The conference report also retains a provision I joined Senators
Lincoln and Hatch in spearheading to lessen the impact of the built-in
gains tax on small businesses. This change is absolutely essential at a
time in which our Nation's credit markets remain frozen and small
businesses are struggling to meet their financing requirements. This
provision will benefit up to 900 small businesses in my home state of
Maine and hundreds of thousands across the country.
We must not neglect our Nation's distressed and rural communities.
This conference report rightly recognizes that imperative by including
an additional $1.5 billion in each 2008 and 2009 allocation authority
for the new markets tax credit. And my understanding is that the
Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, which administers
the incentive, can allocate the augmented 2008 credit authority within
90 days, which will create 11,000 permanent jobs and 35,000
construction jobs.
This agreement also contains tax credits for renewable energy that I
have long fought for that will create more than 89,000 jobs. Frankly,
if we had not dithered last year and opted to pass the extension of the
renewable tax credits at the beginning of 2008, we would have already
been on the road to creating 100,000 new jobs. I know in my home State,
there are a number of wind farm projects, for example, that could be
ready to move forward right now.
I am also pleased that the stimulus bill contains a provision I
helped to draft that will allow base communities across the Nation that
have been significantly affected by a closure or realignment to qualify
for vital recovery zone economic development bonds.
Finally, I am pleased this bill includes a provision I wrote to
expand the definition of ``manufacturing'' as it pertains to the small-
issue Industrial Development bond, or IDB, program to include the
creation of ``intangible'' property. For example, this would allow the
bonds to be used to benefit companies that manufacture software and
biotechnology products by helping them get the financing necessary to
assist their operations in innovating and create new jobs. Knowledge-
based businesses have been at the forefront of this innovation that has
bolstered the economy over the long-term. For example, science parks
have helped lead the technological revolution and have created more
than 300,000 high-paying science and technology jobs, along with
another 450,000 indirect jobs for a total of 750,000 jobs.
There will be those who say the cost of this package is too much, and
others will say it is too little. Some will say it should have higher
levels of tax relief, others that we should focus almost entirely on
spending. There are 535 Members between the House and the Senate who
all have their own legitimately held beliefs about this legislation.
There are millions of Americans with their own, differing views,
questions, concerns, and expectations.
At the end of the day, I must return to my own evaluation--again,
shared by so many across the political spectrum--that inaction is not
an option and, frankly, time is of the essence. I also return to my
standard for evaluating a stimulus: Is it sufficiently focused on
creating jobs and assisting those who have been displaced. In that
light, this package deserves to be passed now and signed into law. It
is supported by organizations such as the National Association of
Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Institute of
Building Sciences, because they also believe it will create jobs. On
balance, this is the right approach at the right time that offers us
the best course for economic recovery and, therefore, I will be
supporting this conference report.
sales tax
Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I rise for the purpose of entering into a
colloquy with the senior senator from Montana regarding the car
purchase tax credit introduced by Sen. Mikulski and included in this
conference report.
Mr. Chairman, my home State of Delaware does not have a State sales
tax, which this provision addresses. However, a ``document fee'' of
3.75 percent is collected when a new vehicle is sold in Delaware. This
fee is the equivalent of a State sales tax, although it is not called
that term.
Alaska, Montana, Hawaii, Oregon and New Hampshire lack State sales
taxes. Instead, these States levy fees and/or taxes or allow local
governments to levy fees or taxes on new vehicles. For example, in your
home State of Montana, there is a county option tax on vehicles. In New
Hampshire, towns and cities can collect fees on motor vehicles. Hawaii
levies a four-percent excise tax on goods, which includes automobiles.
This tax is passed along to Hawaiian new car purchasers.
As the purpose of the Mikulski amendment is to encourage Americans to
purchase new automobiles, is it the chairman's understanding that it is
the intent of Congress that the document fee in Delaware is the
functional equivalent of a State sales tax?
Mr. BAUCUS. The Senator is correct. In fact, IRS currently counts
vehicle registration fees based on a vehicle's value as a personal
property tax, which
[[Page S2310]]
is deductible. This is true even if the State calls the fee a
``registration fee'' or a ``vehicle use fee.'' In Montana, new
passenger vehicles are subject to a $217 fee, as well as a county
option tax-based on the value of the vehicle. The same standard should
apply to Section 1008.
Mr. CARPER. I thank the Senator. Additionally, in lieu of paying
States sales taxes or in the case of Delaware, a document fee, is it
the intent of Congress that the motor vehicle registration fees on new
vehicles collected by State or local governments in Alaska, New
Hampshire, Oregon, Hawaii and Montana qualify for a deduction as
defined under section 1008?
Mr. BAUCUS. Yes, that is correct.
Mr. CARPER. I thank the Senator and yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader is recognized.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I wish to proceed on my leader time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky is recognized.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, across the country Americans are
struggling with a very bad economy. Every day we hear more
heartbreaking stories about foreclosures and lost jobs. The situation
is serious. It appears to be getting worse. It was in the midst of this
scenario that our new President took office. As did all of us, the
President wanted to do all he could to help the economy. So he asked
Congress to put together a stimulus bill aimed at preventing as much
future damage as possible.
From the very start, Republicans supported the idea of a stimulus.
All of us, Democrat and Republican, thought it was important and
necessary. The question was, what kind of stimulus? What would it look
like? What would it cost? Who would it help? Where would it go? Most
importantly, would it work?
These are important questions, particularly when the economists tell
us that a bad stimulus is worse than no stimulus at all. As the
President's top economist, Larry Summers has written:
Poorly provided fiscal stimulus can have worse side effects
than the disease that is to be cured.
These questions naturally lead to another: How do we measure whether
a stimulus will work? Well, according to Summers, it is a fairly simple
three-point test. First, in order to be effective, a fiscal stimulus
must be timely; second, it must be targeted; and, third, it must be
clearly and credibly temporary. So using the standard outlined by the
President's own top economist, Republicans have asked: Is this bill
timely? Is it targeted? Is it temporary?
The answer, I have regretfully concluded, is a resounding no. This
bill fails on all three points. This means, in my view, that
congressional Democrats have put together a stimulus that by Democrats'
own standards is likely to fail. Yet, with interest, this bill is
expected to cost taxpayers $1.1 trillion.
So the question now is, what can the taxpayers expect for their
money? Well, at a time when millions are struggling to hold on to their
homes and jobs, Democrats in the name of stimulus want taxpayers to
cover the cost of golf carts, electric motorcycles, and ATVs; $300
million for new government cars; $1 billion for ACORN-eligible block
grants; $50 million for out-of-work artists; $165 million to maintain
and build fish hatcheries--$165 million for fish hatcheries; $1 billion
for the Census. I defy anyone to explain to me how $1 billion for the
Census will stimulate the U.S. economy.
So a stimulus bill that was supposed to be timely, targeted, and
temporary is none of the above. This means Congress is about to approve
a stimulus that is unlikely to have much stimulative effect.
That is why an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office actually
predicted a potential sustained economic decline--decline--as a direct
result of this bill. That is why I can't support it.
This is one of the most expensive pieces of legislation Congress has
ever approved. Including interest, as I have said, it is expected to
cost $1.1 trillion. To put that figure in perspective, consider this:
If you spent $1 million a day every day since Jesus was born, you still
wouldn't have spent $1 trillion. This is an extraordinary sum of money.
It deserves an extraordinary level of scrutiny.
Yet even based on the ordinary standards of evaluation, it easily
fails the test. Even if the bill were timely, targeted, and temporary,
we would still have to look at the pricetag in the context of all the
other spending we are all soon going to be asked to consider. The
American people need to remember this stimulus is just one piece of the
Democrats' overall spending plan.
Soon we will be asked to consider $50 billion for housing and
unspecified hundreds of billions of dollars--possibly even another
trillion--for troubled banks. We will also soon be voting on a $400
billion Omnibus appropriations bill that will bring the total
discretionary spending for this fiscal year to $1 trillion for the
first time in American history.
This isn't Monopoly money. It is real. It adds up. It has to be paid
back by our children and their children, and the American people still
don't have the facts about the total cost.
We need to tell the American people the whole story. If Americans
can't be assured these programs they are paying for will work, they
should at least be told what they are going to cost.
Even the Democrats admit this bill is a $1 trillion risk. Today--this
very day--the Democratic majority leader of the House asked his members
to pray: ``Pray that this bill works.'' Why? Because, as he said, he is
not sure that it will. I can't take that big of a risk on this big of a
commitment of the American people's money.
I know everyone believes their efforts will help strengthen the
economy and create jobs. No one should doubt that. Everyone is trying
to do the right thing. My concern is not the motivation behind these
efforts but the wisdom--the wisdom--of these efforts.
This bill has been roundly criticized for being loaded with wasteful
spending and hundreds of billions of dollars in permanent--permanent--
Government expansion. Our plan would have reduced monthly mortgage
payments and made it easier to buy a home. Workers would have been able
to keep more of what they earn. It is also about half the cost of the
Democratic plan.
Every Member of Congress, Republican and Democrat, wants the economy
to recover. The question is, which plan would work? In my view, it is
highly unlikely this one will. I can't take that big of a risk with
other people's money. I will vote against it, and I urge my colleagues
to do the same.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii is recognized.
Mr. INOUYE. Mr. President, the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act, I believe, is a good bill. It is not perfect. It may have
imperfections, but I believe it deserves our support.
Many compromises were made, and the final compromises that we made in
conference were very difficult. There is no doubt those of us on this
side of the aisle had to make some very difficult decisions and some
painful cuts to programs that I personally believe would have been of
great benefit to the American people. But in the end, I remain
convinced we have gained far more than we have lost, and this bill is
essential in beginning the task of turning our economy around.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will create more than 3.5
million jobs. This is nothing to sniff at. It will provide tax cuts for
working families, aid to our States, and will allow us to invest in our
future by rebuilding our roads, schools, and mass transit systems.
As chairman of the Appropriations Committee, I know that the $311
billion in appropriated funds that are contained in this bill will make
a difference as we confront the economic crisis. For example, the funds
will prevent layoffs of State employees, will allow for increased
funding for education, health care initiatives, improved energy
efficiency, and many other vital investments.
With this large influx of Federal funding now headed to our States,
including my home State of Hawaii, it is essential that each State has
a plan of action in place to ensure that these resources are invested
quickly and responsibly, and in the right places. In Hawaii, for
example, we have established working groups of State and local
officials and community leaders to identify priorities that will have
the most effective and timely economic impact in local communities
throughout the State.
Before concluding my remarks, I want to take a moment to thank the
[[Page S2311]]
Members and staff of the Appropriations Committee for all of their
dedication and hard work in taking this bill from conception to
completed legislation in a matter of a few months. On our committee, we
have 12 subcommittees, each of which was involved in this bill. It is
the subcommittees, the chairmen and ranking members who, along with
their subcommittee clerks and staff, are the people who have carried
the load on this bill. I believe that the Senate owes them its
gratitude.
At this time, I wish to inform the Senate that division A of the
conference report on H.R. 1 does not contain any congressionally
directed spending items as defined in rule XLIV of the Standing Rules
of the Senate.
There is no quick fix or easy answer to this grave economic crisis,
but I am confident this plan will begin to put America on the road to
recovery.
I believe the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is the
right medicine for what ails our economy. It will not fix our problems
overnight, but it will begin the process. We face some tough times in
the coming year, but this legislation will have an impact. It will help
millions of Americans, directly and indirectly and, most importantly,
it will give America confidence that we can overcome this crisis.
I thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama is recognized.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized
for 2 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I want to say something at the
conclusion of the debate. I have spoken a number of times and have had
my say, but this is not a normal bill. This is the largest expenditure
in the history of this Republic, or of any nation in the history of the
world. Some have said--and we heard this from the Administration--that
they want to remake the economy. A press person asked me today: What do
you think happened to bipartisanship?
I said, well, I don't know if I can hold hands and walk down the road
to socialism. I don't want to walk down the road together to say our
heritage of limited Government and lower taxes and individual freedom
and responsibility ought to be altered.
What I am concerned about, at my deepest level, is that this step, as
huge as it is, is only one of many that we are going to see. We had the
Wall Street bailout of $700 billion. We hear there may be another $500
billion coming on housing and that kind of thing, because there's not
much housing benefit in this.
This endangers our heritage. It is not a little bitty matter. I am
proud of my colleagues who have said no. I believe it is the right vote
and I hope and pray that yet it might fail.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
The Senator from Arizona is recognized.
Mr. McCAIN. How much time remains on both sides?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The proponents of the legislation have 3\1/2\
minutes, and the opponents have 8\1/2\ minutes.
Mr. McCAIN. What is the disposition of the Senator from Illinois?
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I believe we have 3 minutes and a few
seconds and I will use that time.
Mr. McCAIN. Would the Senator wish to go now or wait for me?
Mr. DURBIN. I defer to the Senator from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN. I thank the Senator.
Mr. President, we are, obviously, about to vote affirmatively on the
legislation before us. I want to say that I think the debate has been
good and respectful. I congratulate the Members on the other side of
the aisle and the President for their success in achieving the
timetable that they laid out for the passage of this legislation.
I point out that the allegation that this is a bipartisan piece of
legislation is simply not accurate. A total of three Republican Members
in the entire Congress will be voting for this bill--only three. That
is not a bipartisan approach, by any measure.
I think there are some hard facts we should not ignore as we address
and dispose of this issue and move on to others. I remind my colleagues
that the current national debt is $10.7 trillion. The 2009 projected
deficit is another $1.2 trillion. The cost of this legislation before
us is $1.124 trillion; that is, $789 billion plus interest. The
expected omnibus spending bill, which will be coming shortly, is
roughly $400 billion. The expected supplemental request for Afghanistan
and Iraq will be an additional $80 billion. We will be addressing
appropriations bills for 2010 that will be over a trillion dollars. We
are already spending $700 billion on TARP I and II. And estimates,
according to the media, are that TARP III will be somewhere around $1.5
trillion.
We are on a spending spree of unprecedented and historic proportions.
We are committing what some of us have called generational theft
because we are laying this debt on our children and our grandchildren.
My colleagues--and the Senator from Illinois who has been here
constantly and has argued his side effectively--will point out that
Republicans did the same thing. I agree, and Republicans were punished
in the last election for doing so.
What grieves me the most about this process we have been through is
that it started out with a phrase by the Speaker of the House that ``we
won, we wrote the bill.'' I think I understand the lesson. That is the
process that it has been through, without Republican involvement and
without Republican negotiations, which I think are necessary to achieve
the consensus that is necessary when we are addressing an issue of this
magnitude.
This has not been a bipartisan effort. The other side will emerge
victorious in a few minutes, but we have to face additional challenges.
I mentioned TARP III--$1.5 trillion--and the expected war supplemental
request. There are all of these new challenges--not to mention national
security challenges and policy challenges.
I think I understand the message from the 2008 election. I think I
understand it very well. That message is that the American people don't
want business as usual. They do want us to sit down together. We want
to be in on the takeoff, so that we can be in on the landing. We want
to work together with the other side.
This is not the example that I think the American people want us to
exercise as we address the enormous challenges. We need a stimulus
package, we need to address the war in Afghanistan, and we need to
provide for the much-needed services to Americans as revenues decline
with a bad economy.
I end my remarks and yield back the balance of my time by saying
again: Congratulations to those who will succeed in passing this
legislation. The next time--and it will be soon, because I understand
there will be an omnibus appropriations bill, TARP III and others--let
us sit down and negotiate and work together. When we come out with a
solution and legislation, we can tell the American people that we
learned the lesson but, most importantly, we will reflect their wishes
that we have worked together to address some of the most difficult
challenges of anyone's lifetime.
I yield back the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois is recognized.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I have listened to the critics of this
legislation. What would they have us do? They would have us do nothing.
What they offer is one-half of this bill, in the hopes that that might
do it. We tried that. I say to the critics of the bill that we tried
their tax cuts last year under President Bush, and they didn't work. We
tried their TARP under President Bush, and it didn't work as well as we
had hoped.
Now we are asking for a chance. This President, President Obama,
inherited the worst economic crisis in 75 years. He is showing
leadership, and he came with a solution and offered it to the
Republicans and said sit down with us, work with us together. Only
three Republicans out of all those elected on Capitol Hill would do so.
This President made direct overtures to bring in Republicans, to try to
find a solution to these problems, and they refused to do so. Many of
the same Republicans--not the Senator from Arizona--who have spoken
earlier supported amendments to this, adding to the cost of this
package $70 billion in the Finance
[[Page S2312]]
Committee, up to $30 billion on the floor; and after their amendments
were adopted, they said, of course, we cannot vote for the bill because
it costs too much--after they added some $100 billion in costs to the
bill.
They cannot have it both ways. They cannot ask us, as Democrats, to
stand with President Bush when he tried to solve it and then walk out
the door when we face this crisis under President Obama. We have
invited the Republicans to join us, and three stepped forward. I salute
them for their courage in doing so. I hope more will do that in the
future.
A lot of the arguments are about the impact on the next generation.
Consider the impact on the next generation of Americans if their
parents lose a job. Consider the impact on kids in the next generation
if their home is foreclosed upon. Consider the impact on the next
generation if they are forced out of college because their parents
cannot pay the bills. In this bill, we address each of those issues,
providing tax relief to working families, creating up to 4 million
jobs, giving people a chance to stay in their homes and trying to help
them pay for a college education. Yes, we have our eye on the next
generation.
What we are doing in the bill is trying to give a lifeline to our
economy for those who are suffering in Arizona, Illinois, Colorado, and
all across this country. This is a serious effort to find a solution.
We have tried to work together. It is a transparent approach with full
accountability, and we will do our best to pass it and turn this
economy around and give America the new day it deserves.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. (Mrs. Hagan). All time has expired.
Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, in keeping with the previous unanimous
consent agreement, I believe this point of order and final passage are
both combined in one vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, pursuant to section 294(a) of the 2008
budget resolution, S. Con. Res. 21, of the 110th Congress, I raise a
point of order against the emergency designation in section 5(a) of the
conference report.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, a motion to waive
the applicable point of order is considered made.
The question is agreeing to the motion.
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr.
Kennedy) was absent.
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 60, nays 38, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote Nos. 63, 64 Leg.]
YEAS--60
Akaka
Baucus
Bayh
Begich
Bennet
Bingaman
Boxer
Brown
Burris
Byrd
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Collins
Conrad
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Feingold
Feinstein
Gillibrand
Hagan
Harkin
Inouye
Johnson
Kaufman
Kerry
Klobuchar
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Nelson (NE)
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Sanders
Schumer
Shaheen
Snowe
Specter
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Warner
Webb
Whitehouse
Wyden
NAYS--38
Alexander
Barrasso
Bennett
Bond
Brownback
Bunning
Burr
Chambliss
Coburn
Cochran
Corker
Cornyn
Crapo
DeMint
Ensign
Enzi
Graham
Grassley
Gregg
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Isakson
Johanns
Kyl
Lugar
Martinez
McCain
McConnell
Murkowski
Risch
Roberts
Sessions
Shelby
Thune
Vitter
Voinovich
Wicker
NOT VOTING--1
Kennedy
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Durbin.) On this vote, the yeas are 60,
the nays are 38. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn
having voted in the affirmative, the motion to waive section
204(a)(5)(A) of S. Con. Res. 21 regarding emergency legislation is
agreed to. As a result, the point of order falls.
Pursuant to the previous order which imposed a 60-vote threshold for
the adoption of this conference report, this vote also constitutes the
vote on the adoption of the conference report.
Pursuant to that order, the conference report to accompany H.R. 1 is
agreed to, and the motion to reconsider that vote is considered made
and laid upon the table.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. GRASSLEY, Mr. President, yesterday I spoke about how the trade
adjustment assistance provisions in the conference report represent the
one shining example of bipartisanship in this mammoth legislation. It's
unfortunate that the overall conference report wasn't the product of a
similarly bipartisan process, but that missed opportunity should not
detract from the tremendous bipartisan effort that my colleagues and
our staffs undertook to bring about this significant achievement in
reforming and reauthorizing our trade adjustment assistance programs. I
want to take a moment to note for the record my appreciation to those
who have worked so hard to produce this good compromise legislation on
trade adjustment assistance.
I will begin by thanking my colleagues on the House Ways and Means
Committee, Chairman Rangel and Ranking Member Camp. Our bicameral
negotiations over the last 6 weeks have been intensive, and at times
difficult but always professional and constructive. Chairman Rangel was
ably advised by Tim Reif and Viji Rangaswami, his respective staff
director and deputy staff director on the trade subcommittee, as well
as Alex Perkins, international trade counsel to the chairman, and
Indivar Dutta-Gupta, adviser to the chairman on the professional staff
of the subcommittee on income security and family support. Congressman
Camp was ably advised by his chief trade counsel, Angela Ellard, as
well as David Thomas, international trade counsel to the ranking
member.
Of course I must thank my partner on the Finance Committee, Chairman
Baucus, with whom I have been actively overseeing the operation of our
trade adjustment assistance programs since the last time we implemented
reforms in 2002. We have been negotiating over this legislation since
April of last year, so this is the culmination of a lot of effort by
our two staffs. My thanks begin with his staff director, Russ Sullivan,
and extend to Demetrios Marantis, his chief international trade
counsel, and the rest of his trade team, particularly Hun Quach, Ayesha
Khanna, and Darci Vetter, as well as Amber Cottle, Chelsea Thomas, and
Janis Lazda. I would also like to thank Liz Fowler and Neleen Eisinger
from his health staff, and Anya Landau French, formerly of his trade
staff.
On my staff I want to thank first my staff director on the Finance
Committee, Kolan Davis, and my deputy staff director and chief tax
counsel, Mark Prater, for their wise counsel in managing the
legislative processes that have led to today's achievement. I also want
to thank my chief international trade counsel, Stephen Schaefer, who
has spearheaded my oversight of trade adjustment assistance since 2003
and led my negotiating effort these many months, as well as David Ross,
my international trade counsel, who played an integral role in the
negotiations that produced today's compromise. In addition, I want to
thank David Johanson, my international trade counsel and agricultural
trade specialist, for his role in negotiating a reform of the trade
adjustment assistance for farmers program, and Claudia Bridgeford
Poteet, my international trade policy advisor, for her advice and
support. Additional members of my staff that merit special recognition
include Mark Hayes, my chief health counsel, and Andrew McKechnie, also
on my health staff, as well as Kristin Bass and Colette Desmarais,
formerly of my health staff. I also want to thank Chris Condeluci, my
tax and benefits
[[Page S2313]]
counsel, as well as Lacee Oliver, an intern on my Finance Committee
staff, and John Kalitka, a former detail to my Finance Committee trade
staff from the Department of Commerce, for their work on trade
adjustment assistance.
Our work has been supported by the substantial efforts of dedicated
professionals at the Department of Labor, and my appreciation there
begins with Erin Fitzgerald in the Division of Trade Adjustment
Assistance, as well as Mark Morin and Lois Zuckerman in the Office of
the Solicitor, and Erica Cantor, the administrator of the Office of
National Response. I also want to thank Mason Bishop, Blake Hanlon, and
Geoffrey Burr, formerly of the Department of Labor, as well as Justin
McCarthy and John Bailey, formerly on the White House staff of the
previous administration.
I mentioned that Chairman Baucus and I have been engaged in joint
oversight of the trade adjustment assistance programs since 2002, and
our oversight has included requesting a series of reports from the
Government Accountability Office to examine various aspects of the
operation of these programs. Among current and former personnel at the
Government Accountability Office who merit special recognition for
their hard work are Sigurd Nilsen, Dianne Blank, Lorin Obler, and Wayne
Sylvia.
Finally, I want to acknowledge the tremendous effort of our House and
Senate legislative counsels to deliver timely drafts and constructive
critiques of proposed legislative provisions. On the House side I want
to thank Sandra Strokoff and Mark Synnes, and here in the Senate I want
to thank our experts on customs and international trade law, Polly
Craighill and Margaret Roth-Warren.
As you can see, today's achievement is the result of the dedication,
hard work, and commitment of many individuals. It is the culmination of
years of effort, and I am confident that the result will serve to
benefit American workers in Iowa and across the United States for years
to come.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, although I voted against the motion to
waive the Congressional Budget Act on the conference report to
accompany H.R. 1, the so-called stimulus bill, and on the adoption of
the conference report to H.R. 1, I must acknowledge the courtesies and
thoughtful leadership of the Appropriations Committee by the
distinguished Senator from Hawaii, Mr. Inouye.
He carried out his responsibilities as chairman of our committee in a
fair minded way that reflected credit on the Senate.
This legislation was written by our committee, but in many respects
it reflected the attitude and interests of the other body. The bill in
my opinion creates too many new programs and policies that will have a
major impact on the Federal budget for years to come.
Our Nation faces an economic emergency, but a health information
program is not an emergency and should not have been included in this
bill. Upgrading the elective grid is not an emergency and neither is
improving our Nation's scientific capacity, but they should have been
considered in the President's budget request and through a deliberative
congressional process.
There are many things like this that should not have been included in
this bill.
The process has been anything but deliberative.
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