[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 48 (Thursday, March 19, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3383-S3385]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            IT'S THE ECONOMY

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, we have an impressive new President of 
the United States. He has proven without a shadow of a doubt that he is 
capable of doing many things at once.

[[Page S3384]]

  I was privileged to go to one of the summits he had. That one was on 
health care. He had another one on entitlements. He has been to a wind 
turbine factory. He was in California yesterday. He has overruled some 
of President Bush's environmental decisions. And yesterday he did what 
many Americans are doing: he picked his bracket in the NCAA basketball 
tournament, and he picked North Carolina, which predictably caused 
their rival, the coach of Duke, Coach ``K,'' to say the following:

       Somebody said we're not in President Obama's final four, 
     and as much as I respect what he is doing, really, the 
     economy is something that he should focus on, probably more 
     than the brackets.

  That was our U.S. Olympic coach yesterday. There is some truth to 
that. The President is very impressive and is capable of doing many 
things at once. But, we don't need a lot of things done at once right 
now. We have one big issue--it's the economy, Mr. President.
  While all of us have our role to play in this--Senators, 
businesspeople, all of us across the country--there is only one person 
who can do what the President of the United States can do. He is the 
agenda setter. He is the mobilizer. If the President of the United 
States focuses on one single big issue and throws everything he has 
into it for as long as he can, he will wear everybody else out and he 
will solve the problem, if it can be solved. I am confident in this 
country the problem can be solved.
  He has been there for 4\1/2\ months now. We still have a big economic 
problem. It was going on before he came in, correct. Some people say 
Americans don't pay attention to history, but I am not so sure about 
that. In October of 1952, General Eisenhower was running for President 
and said: I shall go to Korea. He was elected. The Korean war was a big 
problem then.
  On November 29, he went to Korea, and said he would concentrate his 
attention on the job of ending the Korean war until it is honorably 
ended. There were a lot of other things going on in 1952 and 1953 that 
needed to be solved. But President Eisenhower focused on the Korean 
war, ended it, and the country was grateful.
  It is time for President Obama to focus on fixing the banks and 
getting the economy moving again. He can do that. The country needs for 
him to do that, and the country would be grateful if he did.
  There are other issues, but we only have one President; we have one 
big issue. Mr. President, it's the economy. That is where the focus 
needs to be.
  We are currently debating the President's budget, and we have some 
differences of opinion. As the Senator from Wyoming said, we believe on 
the Republican side it spends too much, it taxes too much, and it 
borrows too much. It is a blueprint for a different kind of country. It 
is an honest blueprint, in my opinion. It is a 10-year picture of where 
America would go under the President's proposed budget. It will bring 
much more Government, add much more debt, and it will be turning over 
to our children a country that they will have a hard time affording and 
in which they will have fewer choices. It is not the kind of country I 
want to see.
  The new higher tax rates would raise taxes by $1.4 trillion over 10 
years. It is the largest tax increase in history.
  Going back to history a little bit, we can learn lessons from 
history. President Hoover in 1932, as we were entering a recession, 
raised taxes. He raised taxes on the wealthy people. The top tax rate 
rose from 25 percent to 63 percent. What were the effects of the 1932 
tax increase? Tax revenue decreased, the Federal deficit increased, and 
the Great Depression continued for a number of years. The middle of a 
deep recession is no time to be raising taxes on anyone. I know the 
President is saying: Well, this only goes into effect later. But 
everybody makes plans today based on what happens tomorrow. We also 
know that if they say we are only going to tax the rich people, we have 
heard that said before. In 1969, everybody became concerned because 
there were 155 people in America who didn't pay any taxes. So we had 
what was called the millionaire's tax to catch them. We put in a new 
tax rate 40 years ago. If Congress had not acted, that tax rate that 
was set to capture 155 people who didn't pay taxes 40 years ago would 
have captured 28 million Americans this year.

  In this country, you rise. You make more money and you rise into the 
higher tax rates. So if you put a high tax rate to capture 155 people, 
what we find 40 years later is that you capture 28 million Americans 
who are paying higher taxes, and many of those individuals are making 
incomes of $60,000, $70,000, and $80,000 a year.
  President Kennedy and President Reagan both lowered taxes when they 
became President and were in economic slowdowns. When President Reagan 
came in, we had a serious economic slowdown. I was Governor of 
Tennessee at the time, and unemployment was higher then than it is 
today. Inflation was a lot more then than it is today. Interest rates 
were terrifically high then. President Kennedy and President Reagan 
decided to lower taxes during the economic slowdowns. President Obama 
is proposing the largest tax increase in history, and the tax 
especially goes on the engine that creates the most new jobs.
  In America, all businesses are important for creating jobs. In my 
home State, we have Federal Express. It employs almost 300,000 people 
around the world. On the Republican side of things, we would like to 
have immediate expensing of all the big airplanes Federal Express buys, 
or the software Microsoft buys--which is not based in my State. Because 
if these companies can deduct those expenses in the first year, they 
will make more money, they will hire more people, and Tennessee will do 
better. Jobs are what we are talking about. But most of the new 
businesses come from small businesses.
  Secretary Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, says this tax they want 
to impose only affects the rich people, and only 2 or 3 percent of the 
small businesses are affected. Well, I checked into that a little bit. 
If you work for a company with 20 or more employees--up to 500 
employees is a small business--chances are 50-50 that you are working 
for somebody whose taxes are going to be raised by this proposed tax 
increase in the President's budget. If those taxes go up in the half of 
the small businesses that create most of the new jobs, then there is no 
money to buy new equipment, there is no money to hire a new person, 
there is no money to raise salaries, there is no money to pay health 
care benefits and there might not be enough money to pay employees and 
jobs may be at risk. Raising taxes on owners of small businesses in the 
middle of a recession is not the way to create new jobs.
  Then there is the national sales tax on electric bills and energy. 
Clean air and climate change is an important issue with me, especially 
clean air. I live at the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains, where we 
have unhealthy air that's polluted with nitrogen, sulfur, and other 
pollutants. I have introduced legislation to have higher clean air 
standards. I have also, every Congress since I have been here, 
introduced legislation to have caps on carbon that comes out of the 
coal-fired powerplants. Not caps on the whole economy, just the 
powerplants, which produce about 40 percent of the carbon. Some other 
Senators would like to have what is called a cap-and-trade tax on the 
entire American economy.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 9 minutes.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Chair very much.
  Mr. President, the recession is no time to impose a $600-plus billion 
tax on everybody's electric bill. This is not the time to do that, if 
the time is ever right to do that. MIT suggests a bill such as the one 
the President has proposed would cost each American family $3,100 a 
year. In the middle of a recession, that is not a good idea.
  In conclusion, I think Coach K's advice to our impressive new 
President is good advice. We know he can have summits, make trips, and 
deal with a lot of different things. He has smart people dealing with 
him. But we have a tough economic problem, and it is the economy, Mr. 
President. We need the President to focus on the economy and 
concentrate on it, until the banks are fixed and the credit is flowing. 
We need a budget that doesn't spend so much, tax so much, and raise 
debt so much. Otherwise, we will deliver a country to our children and 
grandchildren that they can't afford.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

[[Page S3385]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Gillibrand). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up 
to 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak after 
Senator Cornyn.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there an objection to the request as 
modified?
  Mr. CORNYN. No.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Texas is recognized.

                          ____________________