[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 160 (Friday, October 30, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10953-S10956]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              THE ECONOMY

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, there is a lot going on in public policy 
in Washington, DC. However, today is Friday and the Senate is not 
voting, so there is not much happening on the Senate floor. But there 
remains a lot of work to do between now and the end of this year to try 
to put this country back on track and fix a number of things that are 
wrong.
  If the coming weeks are like recent weeks, we will have very little 
cooperation in this Chamber, which is regrettable. You would think if 
ever there is a time for cooperation, it is when the country is in a 
very deep economic hole. This country saw, a year ago, its economy fall 
off a cliff. Unbelievable unemployment: Over 7.5 million Americans have 
lost their jobs, lost their homes, lost hope. This has been the deepest 
economic recession since the Great Depression in the 1930s.
  I understand everybody can take and look at this and see things 
differently. Our colleague Senator Byrd used to tell about the 
caterpillar that would climb up on a clump of grass and look around and 
say: I see the world. And then a squirrel would alight on the same 
identical spot and say, after gazing around: I see the world. And an 
eagle, flying over the identical spot, taking a look, would say: I see 
the world. They all were in the same spot but all had a very different 
view--the caterpillar, the squirrel, and the eagle. Senator Byrd's 
point was, you can have a different view depending on exactly how you 
see things, and I understand that.
  I have great respect for my colleagues who have different views. I 
would only say this: that when the country is in trouble, it seems to 
me there ought not to be two teams. There ought to be one team; that 
is, our team working to try to figure out: How do we get out of this? 
How do we restart the economic engine, get America moving again, and 
put people back to work again?
  There is no social program in this Congress that we work on or that 
we create, no social program that is as important as a good job that 
pays well. That is what allows everyone to be able to make a living and 
take care of their families, and so on. So the question for us is, What 
is the agenda? We are where we find ourselves. So what is the agenda 
from here forward?
  The President has described the agenda of saying that, obviously, the 
economy is very important, health care is very important, and energy 
and climate change are also very important. That represents the agenda. 
My colleague Senator Reid, the majority leader, is trying to move 
legislation that includes other things, including the appropriations 
bills that we are required to move. We have not gotten a bit of 
cooperation on anything, not even the noncontroversial issues do we get 
cooperation on. In each case, we are required to file cloture, wait 2 
days for it to ripen, then have a vote, and then wait 30 hours 
postcloture while they object to anything else happening on the floor. 
So we are in a situation where there is no cooperation on anything, 
which I think is pretty remarkable and pretty disappointing. The 
majority leader is trying very hard in those circumstances to still 
move things and get things done.
  My own view of the priorities is pretty simple. I think health care 
is important, and I think energy and climate change are important. In 
my judgment, both rank behind the issue of the economy and trying to 
restart the economic engine and putting people back to work. I think 
that is the most important priority for the Congress and the country. 
It makes everything else possible, and without it very little is 
possible. You cannot have millions of people out of work without 
understanding it is a priority to find a way to expand the economy and 
put them back on payroll. Last month, 263,000 Americans lost their 
jobs. Think of each case of someone coming home from work saying to 
their spouse or to a loved one or to a family member: I have lost my 
job today. No, it is not because I am a bad worker. It is not because I 
did not do a good job. I had sterling references and sterling 
performance appraisals. They just decided my job was going to be gone.
  Yesterday, by the way--after last month, 263,000 people coming home 
to say: I have lost my job; and that adds up now to 7.5 million 
Americans who are unemployed--yesterday, we discovered that the economy 
grew by 3.5 percent in the third quarter. Well, that is good news. But 
it is news that is tempered with the understanding that we do not have 
just one economy, we have a couple of economies. We have an economy in 
which some are doing very well, with very high incomes, very large 
bonuses, and significant profits, mostly on Wall Street. I will 
talk about that in a moment. And then others are still struggling to 
figure out: Where can I find a job? How on Earth can I get back on a 
payroll to begin to provide for myself and my family?

  Even as that was happening, I was on an airplane last week, and I sat 
next to a man, and I said: Where are you headed?
  He said: Well, I am going to Thailand and Singapore and China.
  I said: What are you going to do there?
  He said: My company buys products from suppliers and we are trying to 
move our network of suppliers to Singapore and Thailand and China so we 
can dramatically reduce the cost of products we buy.
  I said: But that is moving those American jobs overseas, isn't it?
  He said: Yeah. It is not something I like to do. It is something I 
think our company has to do. We decided we have to buy cheaper 
products, so we are going to look for the China price.
  He was going to be gone 2 weeks. I assume by now he has been in 
Thailand and Singapore and China, arranging to have those who are now 
employed in this country have their jobs be shipped to another country 
where they pay a fraction of the wages. Maybe those workers don't know 
it yet. I assume they do not. But they probably will in a few weeks. 
That is part of the story, as well of what is happening in this 
economy.
  As I said, I think health care is very important. It is 17 percent of 
this economy. I think it is important for us to try to figure out: What 
do you do about health care? How can you put the brakes on 
circumstances where health care--which, by the way, is not just some 
option, some luxury, but a necessity for most Americans--how can you 
put the brakes on a health care system that says to most American 
families, when they open the mail and find the bill by the insurance 
company: Oh, by the way, the coverage you have is now going to cost 10 
percent more or 12 percent more or 18 percent more--year after year 
after year--and people say: Well, I can't afford that. I can't afford 
that coverage. How do you put the brakes on those kinds of cost 
increases? How do you expand coverage so more people can afford health 
care coverage?
  There are a lot of priorities. But I have been at odds with the 
President and others, believing that the first priority--by far, the 
first priority--and the first exclusive priority ought to be to find a 
way to restart this economic engine. We have to get that done. I am not 
saying health care should not be done. I am saying, in my judgment, the 
ability to restart this economic engine and put people back on payrolls 
trumps everything else.
  I want to talk about the issue of two economies because some people 
will say: Well, that has already started. I give the President credit. 
The fact is, he has proposed a series of things that have pumped some 
life into this economy. Without it, we probably would not see the kind 
of opportunities that are going to come from the bottoming out of the 
economy and then the beginning to rebuild opportunity. I give the 
President credit for that. But we have a long way to go.
  We have two economies. One economy is doing very well, and one not so 
well. Let me describe the one that is not doing so well in the words of 
Will Rogers. Will Rogers, a long time ago, said:

       The unemployed here ain't eating regular, but we'll get 
     around to them as soon as everybody else gets fixed up OK.


[[Page S10954]]


  It sounds just like Will Rogers, doesn't it: The unemployed ain't 
eating so well, but we'll get around to them as soon as everybody else 
gets fixed up OK.
  The question is, What about all those folks who ``ain't eating so 
well'' in Will Rogers' description?
  Let me describe why, in my judgment, the economy is, by far, the most 
urgent priority. As shown on this chart, here is the rise in 
unemployment and underemployment from 2007 to 2009. We all know it. It 
has gone up, up, and up. And behind those statistics are unbelievable 
stories of pain. Not everybody is experiencing this.
  Here is a September 11, 2009, Steven Pearlstein column in the 
Washington Post:

       It's been a year since the onset of a financial crisis that 
     wiped out $15 trillion of wealth from the balance sheet of 
     American households, and more than two years since serious 
     cracks in the financial system became apparent. Yet while the 
     system has been stabilized and the worst of the crisis has 
     passed, little has been done to keep another meltdown from 
     happening.

  Business as usual on Wall Street.

       ``A Year After Lehman, Wall Street's Acting Like Wall 
     Street Again.'' That is the title of an article in the 
     Washington Post, dated September 8, 2009.
       It's been 12 months since Lehman Brothers failed, setting 
     off a chain reaction that came horrifyingly close to 
     destroying the world's financial system. . . .
       Even though some once-iconic names have vanished and others 
     are shadows of their former selves, Wall Street hasn't 
     changed all that much. It still operates on the principle of 
     taking care of itself first, really big and important 
     customers second, everyone else last.

  That is an article by Allan Sloan.
  Two economies: The folks who are still losing jobs; and then:

       Bailout helps fuel a new era of Wall Street wealth. Many of 
     the steps policymakers took last year to stabilize the 
     financial system, reducing interest rates to near zero, 
     bolstering big banks with taxpayer money has helped set the 
     stage for this new era of Wall Street wealth.

  To continue this discussion, the New York Times, Graham Bowley:

       Even as the economy continues to struggle, much of Wall 
     Street is minting money and looking forward to hefty bonuses.

  Los Angeles Times, September 14:

       The Financial Meltdown: Crisis has not altered Wall Street.
       Bellwether firms led by Goldman Sachs Group are churning 
     out mouth-watering profits. Risk-taking and aggressive 
     securities trading are mounting a comeback. And 
     compensation--the lifeblood of Wall Street--is pushing back 
     toward pre-crisis levels.
       Certainly the greed on Wall Street has not changed and will 
     never change, said Richard Bove, an analyst at Rochdale 
     Securities.

  The key part is ``risk-taking and aggressive securities trading are 
mounting a comeback''--the very things that put this economy in the 
ditch.
  Why do I go through all of this? I do it for this reason. The Federal 
Reserve Board had a strategy. They committed trillions of dollars in 
taxpayer funds to try to prevent the economy from falling into an 
abyss. I am not here to criticize them for that. They did what they 
believed they had to do in order to provide some foundation for this 
economy
  Now, Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Fed, testifying before the 
Congress, a joint House-Senate hearing said:

       Transparency is a big issue.

  Transparency is a big issue for the Fed.
  So the Federal Reserve Board decided for the first time in its 
history to allow direct lending to investment banks. The Federal 
Reserve said investment banks could get direct loans, and they did. Now 
we see--for example, two companies that got TARP funds--troubled asset 
relief program funds--and undoubtedly went to the Fed for loans and 
now, by the way, are paying, I think, a total of about 50 people an 
average of $18 million each in bonuses.
  Let me say that again: Companies that got TARP funds very likely went 
to the Fed, to the Fed window, to get direct loans and are now paying 
about 50 people an average of $18 million apiece.
  So when one of them comes home and the spouse says: Honey, how much 
money are we making? The spouse says: $1\1/2\ million a month--$1\1/2\ 
million a month. Pretty unbelievable, isn't it? Anybody here make that, 
do you think? I don't think so. They are making $1\1/2\ million a 
month. These are the companies that got themselves in deep trouble, 
needed a bailout by the American people, and needed direct lending by 
the Federal Reserve Board.
  So now the question is, Should we have a right to see who the Fed 
gave money to? Well, some folks took the Federal Reserve Board to 
court, and here is the Bloomberg Report:

       The Fed last year began extending credit directly to 
     companies that aren't banks for the first time since it was 
     created in 1913 and it has refused to divulge details about 
     the companies participating in those 10 lending programs.

  All right. Some folks took them to court:

       Court orders Fed to disclose emergency bank loans.

  The point is, the American people were at risk. The American people, 
through the Congress, created the Federal Reserve Board. The Chairman 
of the Federal Reserve Board said transparency is a big issue. All 
right. Be transparent. Tell us, where did you put the money? Who got 
the money? How much? At what rates? What were the concessional rates?
  The court says:

       The Federal Reserve must for the first time identify the 
     companies in its emergency lending programs after losing a 
     Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The judge said the 
     central bank improperly withheld agency records.

  Well, the problem is, the order was then appealed and a judge stayed 
the order. So at this point, we don't know the answer. So I and 9 of my 
colleagues wrote a letter to the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board 
to say: You know what. The American people deserve to understand, who 
did you give money to? What were the rates? What were the terms? We 
deserve to know that.
  We sent a long letter to him. We got a letter back from the Chairman 
of the Federal Reserve Board, and he says: I don't intend to do that. 
That would compromise some firms. Oh, really? It will compromise 
companies if they tell us who they gave loans to for the first time in 
the history of the Federal Reserve Board? How about compromising the 
right of the American people and the right of the Congress to 
understand what they did.
  The reason it is important is this: Are 50 people getting $18 million 
each, $1\1/2\ million a month, because they got concessional loans at 
the Fed? Is that how they are given these funds? Is that why? I don't 
know. Is it taxpayers' money? I don't know. We have a right to know, in 
my judgment. I think it is an outrage that we and the American people 
are having to demand from the Federal Reserve Board to turn over 
information when the Chairman of the Fed himself said transparency is 
important.
  So here we are every day reading about these unbelievable bonuses on 
Wall Street, every day reading about it, and in many cases from 
companies that steered this country into a ditch with credit default 
swaps, subprime loans, you name it, securitizing everything with 
unbelievable wagering, and trading derivatives for their own 
proprietary accounts in FDIC-insured banks.
  I wrote about that 15 years ago. The cover story of the Washington 
Monthly magazine was my cover story, and it was titled ``Very Risky 
Business.'' Derivatives were only $16 trillion then in the United 
States. But I said then, 15 years ago: You can't allow FDIC-insured 
banks to trade on their own accounts for derivatives. You might just as 
well put a Keno table in the lobby of the bank. If you want to gamble, 
go to Las Vegas, I wrote.
  It is not a surprise that we saw this unbelievable, spectacular crash 
that hurt a lot of people but now appears not to have hurt those who 
engineered it in the first place because they are making record 
profits.
  My point is pretty simple. It is that we have a right to know, and 
the Federal Reserve Board has a responsibility to tell us, what the 
facts are. The American people are plenty upset and have a reason to be 
upset about the two economies they see, one in which people are doing 
very well, making $1\1/2\ million a month in bonuses, and then others 
in which people are continuing to be told: Your job is gone. We are 
sorry. This economy isn't working quite right, so your job is gone.
  Well, in my judgment, our first and most important responsibility, 
all of us, is to try to get this economic engine restarted and running 
well. This

[[Page S10955]]

President is trying very hard. My colleague, the majority leader, is 
doing everything he can. We need some cooperation to help make that 
happen. But I hope all of us are committed to understanding that we are 
on one team, and that team ought to have an identical goal; that is, to 
begin to restore our economic health, and even as we do that, to do 
financial reform that will make sure this can't happen again.
  That is also coming in a while and is pretty controversial. I have 
some significant differences with some who are writing these things. I 
think the issue of too big to fail ought to be gone and done. We ought 
not have institutions that are too big to fail. If they are too big to 
fail, that is no-fault capitalism, and I am not in favor of no-fault 
capitalism.
  I wish to mention that I have just talked about the two economies and 
what I think is the priority. I have had great angst. I have talked to 
a lot of folks who are probably tired of hearing from me to say: You 
know what. Health care is important, yes; but it doesn't rank No. 1 
with me. Getting this engine started ranks No. 1 with me. Getting 
people back on payrolls, putting people back to work, getting jobs 
created, finding out how do you--especially with small- and medium-
sized businesses who, by the way, can't get loans. Too many of them 
today are failing because they can't get credit anyplace.
  The biggest economic institutions are out there buying and selling 
and trading and effectively gambling on their own proprietary accounts 
while not enough money is going out with respect to lending to small- 
and medium-sized businesses. Isn't it interesting that the Federal 
Reserve Board was a big old sponge to say: Come to us; we will now do 
direct lending to the biggest financial firms. How about opening that 
window to small businesses and medium businesses so they can go 
directly to the Fed? They will not do that. I suppose you can't do 
that. But why not? If you are doing it for the biggest, how about doing 
it for the folks on Main Street who are struggling, trying to get 
through this recession. That is what I mean by two economies.


                           Health Care Reform

  Now, because we are on health care--we are going to have health care 
on the floor of the Senate very soon--I wish to make a couple of 
comments about it and then complete my statement. This is about 
priorities. Yes, health care is a priority. It doesn't rank above the 
economy for me but, nonetheless, it is coming to the floor.
  The President said: I campaigned on it. It is important. We need to 
address health care.
  I don't disagree. The question is, Are we going to sit around and 
just decide whatever happens, happens on health care? That seems to be 
the policy of a good number of my colleagues on the other side, to just 
say no to everything. If that is the case, what do we do when the next 
10 percent increase in your insurance bill or the next 12 percent 
increase drives that business out of business because they can't afford 
to pay it or says to that family: Here is the bill, and I know you 
can't afford to pay it, so tough luck. You are without health 
insurance.
  I met a woman a while back that 10 years ago had $600,000 in the 
bank, she told me. She owned a home, she had a job, and she had health 
insurance. She had pretty decent equity in her home. It is 10 years 
later. She is a quadriplegic, she has had unbelievable expenses with a 
health condition that has continued to deteriorate in a dramatic way. 
She needs an unbelievable amount of care. It is all gone. Her job, the 
$600,000 saved for retirement, the equity in her home, it is all gone.
  By the way, yes; she was insured. But insurance policies in most 
cases have a cap, and most people don't know that, a lifetime cap. That 
means a good many people are one serious illness away from bankruptcy. 
So what do we do? Do we say to that woman: You know what. That is just 
tough luck. You live in this country and those are the rules. Or do you 
pass some legislation that maybe changes the rules a bit?
  I have been trying now for I think 3 years to eliminate lifetime caps 
on insurance policies. The impact of it is very small nationally but 
can be critical individually to someone who is hit with a devastating 
disease. Nearly one-half of the bankruptcies in this country are a 
result of health care costs. Think of that. We are one of the few 
countries left to say: If you get sick, if something awful happens to 
you or a member of your family, you might well have to file for 
bankruptcy. Tough luck. It doesn't happen in many other countries.
  Well, the question for me at the end of the day on health care--and I 
am one of those who hasn't signed up to anything. We have had five 
committees, I think, work on it. I have not been part of a Gang of Six. 
I have not been part of the Finance Committee or the HELP Committee, so 
I am a gang of one. Probably, we are going to have maybe 60 or 70 gangs 
of one who have never had a chance to offer suggestions or amendments 
on health care. To me, at the end of the day, if whatever is done on 
the floor of the Senate doesn't effectively and really--I am talking 
about really--find a way to put the brakes on health care costs, we 
will have wasted a lot of time and not passed legislation because that 
is not something I am particularly interested in supporting.
  If we are not going to put the brakes on these dramatic cost 
increases, this is, in my judgment, a wasted exercise. We have to try 
to see if we can control costs and expand coverage. Even as we do that, 
there are some other things that are important to me. None of these 
pieces of legislation deal with the issue of prescription drugs. One of 
the fastest rising costs of health care is the cost of prescription 
drugs. I have often used this description which describes it better 
than I can, and I will ask unanimous consent to show these bottles I 
have in my desk.
  This is Lipitor. It is made in Ireland. In Ireland they make Lipitor, 
the best-selling cholesterol medicine, I think, in this country, to 
control cholesterol. The same pill, put in the same bottle, made in the 
same plant, FDA-approved, by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the 
difference is the price. They put it in this bottle and ship it to 
Canada, and you pay $1.83 per capsule. In this bottle, to the U.S. 
consumer, it is $4.40 per capsule. The difference? No difference, 20 
milligrams of Lipitor, the difference is price.
  We get to pay the highest price in the world. It is not just the 
United States or Canada; it is Italy, Germany, France, you name it. We 
get to pay the highest price in the world for brand-name drugs. And it 
is just not fair. It is just not fair.
  I intend to offer an amendment with my colleagues that tries to 
provide some fair pricing on prescription drugs. That will be important 
to me. The question of whether that is part of this will be important 
to me.
  I know there is a tremendous push-back by the pharmaceutical 
industry. Let me be quick to say, I admire the pharmaceutical industry. 
They have produced lifesaving prescription drugs. They actually spend 
slightly more money on advertising and promotion than they do on 
research and development, which I think is rather strange. I have said 
many times that when you are brushing your teeth in the morning with 
the radio on or television on and you hear an ad that says: You know 
what you should do today? You should go ask your doctor whether the 
purple pill is right for you.
  Every day they do that. It almost makes you feel like you want to 
find a doctor and say: Should I be taking the purple pill? Maybe you 
need Flomax or whatever. They advertise every single day and spend more 
money on marketing, promotion, and advertising than on research and 
development. A substantial amount of the research and development comes 
from the National Institutes of Health and then it is distributed to 
companies around the country that produce the medicine. Prescription 
drug prices have to be a part of this. I intend to offer the amendment 
with my colleague.
  The reimbursement issues with respect to the smaller States, with the 
highest quality have received the lowest historical reimbursement 
dating back to when Medicare started. That is fundamentally wrong and 
has to change. There are a series of things that I think will need to 
be done on the floor of the Senate to address some of the issues with 
this legislation.
  Finally, I will conclude by saying another part of this agenda that 
is being discussed is climate change. Some say

[[Page S10956]]

that we have take up climate change right now, because Copenhagen is 
coming up. We have to address climate change. My view is we passed an 
energy bill 6 months ago, in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources 
Committee that does exactly what you would do to address climate 
change. Including maximizing renewable energy and building the 
transmission to move the energy from places where it is produced to the 
load centers. The bill passed by the Senate Energy Committee also 
includes increasing building efficiency, which is the lowest hanging 
fruit. This legislation also includes a renewable electricity standard, 
which will be the first time in the history of this country that we 
will say that 15 percent of all electricity must come from renewable 
sources. I want that to be increased to 20 percent. The Senate Energy 
Committee's bill, in my judgment, should be brought to the floor ahead 
of climate change. You should take care of the policy changes that move 
you in the right direction first, and then bring climate change to the 
floor of the Senate and deal with the timetables.
  Many of my colleagues feel that is an inappropriate approach. I think 
it is exactly what we should do. In my judgment, I don't think we are 
going to do climate change on the floor between now and the end of the 
year. If we don't get to climate change this year, nor bring the Senate 
Energy Committee bill to the floor, it means that we turned the corner 
this year without considering climate change legislation or the Senate 
Energy Committee's bill. That doesn't make sense to me. I will speak to 
that later. My colleagues are waiting to speak, so I will speak about 
that later.
  I think, in the context of what is important, and how we should 
proceed, for me, with respect to energy and climate change. It is not 
that I oppose climate change legislation, although I do oppose the 
``trade'' portion of cap and trade. I have no intention of creating a 
$1 trillion securities trading market on Wall Street, to have them 
trade on Monday and Tuesday with investment speculators, so we can find 
out the cost of our electricity on Thursday and Friday. I have very 
little confidence in the creation of a market to trade carbon 
securities. I believe there are other ways to do it.
  It is not that I am opposed to climate change legislation, if it is 
structured properly. I think something is happening to our climate. We 
ought to take no-regret steps to address climate change. Senator 
Bingaman and I along with others have written an energy bill that ought 
to come before climate change legislation, that will advance our 
country's interests in addressing the policies needed to do to deal 
with climate change.
  I will speak about energy at another time at greater length. Those 
represent some of my thoughts about the agenda. Again, on health care, 
I think a lot of people will come to the floor on health care, with a 
very open notion about wanting to vote on a lot of amendments. At the 
end of the day, saying: Is this something that advances our country's 
interests or doesn't it? I have not made that judgment at this point on 
health care. I will be a part of the people who make amendments. Then I 
will make a judgment. I will measure it two ways: Does this put the 
brakes on health care costs and is it paid for? Second, does it extend 
coverage to those folks who don't have coverage because they cannot 
afford it? If we do that, we will have done something good for the 
country. If not, there will be great difficulty in passing it on the 
floor of the Senate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware is recognized.

                          ____________________