[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 125 (Tuesday, September 8, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9108-S9109]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          TRAVEL PROMOTION ACT

  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, if you were like me, you probably held a 
number of townhalls. I know a number of our colleagues over the 
holidays did. I saw a number of them on television and saw the many 
thousands of Americans who came to townhalls, as they did to mine, who 
were very concerned about the direction of our country.
  Frankly, in South Carolina, I had several thousand people come to 
different townhall meetings, all with a very similar point of view. 
They thought this government had gotten too big, was spending too much 
money, or taxing too much and taking over too much of our economy.
  A lot of people were very concerned, not just about health care. I 
cannot agree with the Senator. There are many things we need to do, but 
the last thing we should do is have this government take it over. There 
are many things we can do to make sure people get more insured. But the 
people who came to my townhalls and across the country in many other 
townhalls were not just concerned about one issue. They looked back 
over the last year, over a Republican and Democratic President, to see 
two failed stimulus bills, two bailouts--which many believe were 
unconstitutional--the proposed takeover of the energy and health care 
industries, and the actual takeover of banks and insurance companies 
and carmakers.
  People are fed up. The Federal Government is simply too big. The 
debts we are looking at now for ourselves and our children and our 
grandchildren are truly unsustainable. People do not know where the 
money is coming from. They wonder what we are thinking about.
  The amazing thing is, after what we saw over the break, the genuine 
outrage and concern by the American people, the very first item of 
business we are going to vote on in this Senate today after the August 
break is to vote to start another government program, to spend $400 
million, to increase taxes, to get the Federal Government involved in 
another private sector business.
  What did we learn over our summer vacation? If we vote to pass this 
bill, we obviously learned very little. What I am talking about is the 
Travel Promotion Act. Many of you here in the gallery and around the 
country think I am probably making this up; that after what we saw 
across America we would actually have the nerve to bring up a bill that 
forms a new government-sponsored enterprise, a la Fannie Mae and 
Freddie Mac, and it is going to be a government-sponsored enterprise 
that promotes travel and tourism in America. I guess we can call it 
Fannie Travel.
  Well, now, let me tell you a little bit about the idea because the 
idea is that travel and tourism in America is a very important 
industry, which it is. It is the No. 1 industry in South Carolina. It 
is actually one of the most prosperous. That is the main reason we do 
not want the Federal Government to get involved.
  But the idea is, that we are going to charge a $10 fee for everyone 
who comes to visit America in order to pay for this advertising program 
that will promote America to people all over the world. All these fees 
would be pooled, and they would be matched by some of the major tourism 
industries such as Disney, and we would have a government-sponsored 
enterprise that is promoting tourism.
  But they are saying it will not cost Americans anything because this 
is a tax on foreigners coming to this country. But I have a letter in 
my office from the European Union and other allies of this country that 
says this is violating the agreements we have with them, and if we do 
this they are going to add a similar fee to Americans visiting their 
country. We are going to start a war with some of our friends. It will 
ultimately end up costing Americans money. It will create another 
government entity.
  Folks, it is not a crisis. This is not one of those emergencies that 
we have to do ``this week.'' Why, when we have all of this debt, would 
we create another program with another tax that this Federal Government 
is going to run? Maybe it is Fannie Travel, maybe it is Cash for 
Tourism, but, folks, the problem with tourism in America is not that 
people do not know we are here. The problem is we have one of the most 
notoriously unfriendly customs and immigration services in the world. 
We also are one of the most difficult countries to get a visa for.
  I have a major international employer back in my home State who 
regularly needs to bring people from other parts of the world to train 
American workers. But they cannot get visas, so they send American 
workers to other countries to get the training they need because it is 
so much trouble to get the visas to get them here.
  Major industries have trade shows outside of this country because 
they cannot get the visas for customers coming in looking at our 
products. The problem is not that people do not know we are here, it is 
that the government involvement that is already involved with tourism 
and travel in our country is not doing a good job.
  When you have problems with the quality of your product, the last 
thing you do is raise your prices and increase advertising, which is 
what we are talking about doing with this bill. The first thing we need 
to do is make sure we have the most friendly and efficient customs 
system in the world and that people who want to come to our country can 
get a visa and a very quick background check so that we know the people 
who are coming here are safe.
  But we are not going to solve those problems with hundreds of 
millions of dollars of advertising from a new government agency that is 
run by major corporate sponsors in our country. Tourism is too 
important to turn over to the government.
  A lot of people around the country are concerned, as they look at 
what we are spending and the level of debt we are creating, that we are 
ignoring the constitutional principles we swore an oath to, and they 
are going to ask us when we vote on this bill: Where in the 
Constitution of the United States do we find the authority to run 
travel promotion?
  Major tourism companies such as Disney are not having trouble. In 
fact, I think Disney reported a $4 billion profit from last year, and 
they bought Marvel Comics for $4 billion. Certainly, our economy has 
put a strain on tourism, but the Federal Government is the last entity 
that needs to try to bail them out. We don't have any money. We are 
going to have to borrow money or tax someone to create this new 
government program.
  This is a debate that gets back to what does the Constitution allow 
us to do? One can't read the Constitution without seeing some very 
severe limits on what is expected of the Federal Government. Certainly, 
the bailout and cash for clunkers and this new travel and tourism 
agency they are starting has nothing to do with our constitutional 
functions.
  We have over $11 trillion in debt already. We are projecting to 
almost double that over the next 10 years with

[[Page S9109]]

what we already have on the books. With Social Security and Medicare 
alone, the unfunded liability out many years is like $100 trillion. We 
have no idea where we are going to get all this money. How can we even 
discuss starting a new government entity when the ones we have started 
are at the heart of our economic problems. One can't understand our 
economy without seeing that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac played a key 
role in bringing the worldwide economy to its knees. We don't have to 
look back but 1 month to see what the last government program we 
created in cash for clunkers did. It was going to be a $1 billion, 6-
month promotion to sell a lot of cars. We were out of money in 1 week, 
and we voted to pass another $2 billion. A couple weeks later, they 
canceled the program. We can't run the travel and promotion industry 
from Washington, DC.
  I have to draw a very difficult conclusion. Any of my fellow Senators 
who vote for this either don't understand the severity of our economic 
and fiscal problems or they don't care. They certainly didn't hear the 
millions of Americans speaking over the August break and telling us 
they want us to get back to the business of a constitutional form of 
government and stop trying to win votes by bringing home the bacon--
wasteful spending, earmarks, and new government programs, all the 
false, empty promises based on government solutions.
  I encourage colleagues, let us get the rest of the year started off 
in a reasonable way. Let's talk about how to fix health care. Let's 
talk about how to create jobs. For heaven's sake, let's not create a 
new government program as the first vote we take in the Senate.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.

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