[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 50 (Thursday, April 7, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2225-S2228]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              JOB CREATION

  Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I would like to speak this afternoon about 
an issue that I believe is of paramount importance to our efforts to 
restore America's economic vitality and to control our debt and our 
deficit. I would like to talk about jobs.
  I wish to begin, however, by telling you a little bit about my home 
State of North Dakota. That is because today, while much of the Nation 
is greatly challenged by recession and joblessness, North Dakota is 
strong--arguably the strongest we have been at any time in our history. 
The reason is jobs.
  Last week, we learned that North Dakota--at 3.7 percent--once again 
has the lowest unemployment rate in the Nation, a distinction we have 
held since June of 2008. Nationally, the picture is much different. As 
I speak, nearly 14 million Americans are still out of work, and the 
rate of unemployment is hovering at nearly 9 percent, where it has been 
for many months. Another 8 million Americans are underemployed, working 
part-time because their hours have been cut or they haven't been able 
to find a full-time job. Sadly, 1 million more have stopped looking.
  Make no mistake, America has a budget problem because of too much 
spending but also because America has a jobs problem. I ask you: How do 
we generate revenues to help balance our budget, pay down debt, and 
provide the essential services people need without raising taxes? Jobs. 
How do we empower people to access affordable health insurance and 
quality health care without intrusive government programs? Again, jobs. 
How do we help secure Social Security and Medicare for our seniors and 
future generations? Jobs.
  If we put 10 million of those 14 million unemployed workers back on 
the job, at the average national wage of about $45,000, it would 
generate more than $50 billion in additional revenues

[[Page S2226]]

for the Social Security trust fund and an additional $13 billion for 
Medicare every year. Obviously, that would make a huge difference for 
both those programs.
  Clearly, to fully address our current economic predicament, we need 
to create jobs and lots of them. Those jobs will be created by the 
private sector--not by government, by the private sector. But to help 
our entrepreneurs and businesses create them, we must build the best 
business climate possible.
  Ten years ago, in North Dakota, we set a course to do that. Beginning 
in 2001, when I first took office as Governor of North Dakota, we made 
conscious policy decisions that would, over time, grow and diversify 
our economy and create thousands of jobs for our citizens. First, we 
set out to build the best business climate possible, forging a legal, 
tax, and regulatory climate that would attract investment and stimulate 
innovation.
  Second, we developed a roadmap for success--an economic development 
strategic plan that targeted industries where North Dakota holds 
natural advantages owing to our resources and our people.
  As part of our larger strategy, we also developed a comprehensive 
energy policy, called Empower North Dakota, which worked aggressively 
to develop all of our State's natural resources and energy resources, 
both traditional and renewable. We even established a North Dakota 
Trade Office, a public sector-private sector partnership that helps 
market North Dakota products and services around the world to bring new 
dollars into our State.
  As a result of these efforts, between 2000 and 2009, North Dakota's 
economy grew at an annual average GDP growth rate of 6.4 percent, so 
that by the end of the decade we had grown by 75 percent. That compares 
to a national growth rate over the same time period of 41 percent.
  All that work to cultivate overseas markets worked too. Our exports 
of farm machinery, aircraft parts, biotech products, and other North 
Dakota goods grew by more than 300 percent in 10 years. That compares 
to a national growth rate of just over 60 percent. As a result, we 
balanced our budget year in and year out. Today, we have no general 
obligation debt, we have a substantial surplus, and strong reserves to 
secure our economic future.
  Furthermore, to get there, we not only held the line on taxes, but we 
reduced them. We reduced property tax and we reduced income tax. Over 
the decade, we generated nearly 15 percent growth in total employment, 
encompassing almost every sector of our economy and every region of our 
State. At the same time, we boosted per capita income from 84 percent 
of the national average in 2000, well below the national average, and 
today we are above the national average--at 103 percent--in per capita 
income. We have moved up from 37th among all the States to 17th in 
terms of our ranking among the 50 States.
  The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, the New York Times, USA Today, the 
Economist, Forbes, Money magazine, even the London Times, all have 
written about North Dakota's progress. Joel Kotkin, in a recent Wall 
Street Journal piece, called North Dakota's approach ``sensible 
thinking'' about the economy. Last year, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce 
ranked North Dakota as No. 1 among all 50 States as the Nation's top 
overall economic growth performer and job creator and not for the year 
but for the decade.
  The things we did in North Dakota are not unique to our State. The 
principles we used are based on common sense and a belief that the 
American economy is the engine that drives the car. We can create jobs 
and lift our Nation out of the financial quandary we are in if we have 
the will to act and if we focus tirelessly on the kinds of things that 
create jobs and opportunity for our people.
  To do that, I would like to propose a three-part strategy to get 
America working again. First, we need to create a legal tax and 
regulatory climate that gets business investment off the sidelines and 
gets people back to work. Second, we need to rein in spending and 
control our debt and deficit. Third, we need a comprehensive, progrowth 
energy policy to fuel our economy, reduce our dependence on foreign 
energy, and create good jobs for American workers.
  Let's go through each of these very straightforward recommendations, 
starting with the need to create a strong business climate for America 
with the kind of legal tax and regulatory certainty that investors need 
to create jobs. That means passing legislation that will eliminate or 
modify unwarranted or misguided regulations that are impeding business 
investment and stifling innovation in our country.
  That effort is already underway in the Senate. Senator Pat Roberts of 
Kansas has offered a bill called the Regulatory Responsibility for Our 
Economy Act, which I am proud to be a cosponsor of. This bill will give 
the force of law to a Presidential Executive order issued earlier this 
year that proposes to review ``rules that may be outmoded, ineffective, 
insufficient, or excessively burdensome, and to modify, streamline, 
expand or repeal them,'' in some cases.
  If passed, our bill will make sure we will take a clear-eyed look at 
the rules and help restore regulatory certainty to the markets.
  When we talk about unwarranted laws and regulations, however, we 
don't need to look too far into the past; we need only look to recently 
enacted laws that impede job creation and sap economic vitality.
  Last year's Federal health care bill, for example, included a 1099 
reporting provision that introduced a new level of bureaucracy and 
expense for America's nearly 28 million small businesses--the very 
engines of job creation in this country. Small businesses have created 
64 percent of all the new jobs in this country over the past 15 years, 
and they account for more than 97 percent of all employers.
  If we expect them to create jobs and get our economic engine going 
again, we need to reduce their regulatory burden, not bury them under 
burdensome new mandates such as the 1099 reform. That is why I and a 
bipartisan group of Senators, led by Mike Johanns, signed on to a bill 
that just this week eliminated this onerous provision in last year's 
health care law and sent it off to the President for signature. I wish 
to commend my good friend, Senator Johanns, for his leadership and his 
hard work on this important issue.

  But that is not the only feature of last year's health care bill that 
is undermining our business climate, driving up health care costs, and 
limiting choice for consumers. Punitive lawsuits and defensive medicine 
are inflating the cost of health care for American consumers by as much 
as $100 billion every year. Yet the health care bill that is now being 
implemented across our country doesn't reduce these costs. We need tort 
reform that will help make health care more available and reduce costs.
  Similarly, we need to expand competition among health insurance 
companies. More competition will give consumers more choice and expand 
the pool of the insured, thus creating further downward pressure on the 
cost of premiums. Just as important, by reducing health care costs and 
the regulatory burden on American businesses, we can help them reduce 
costs and do what they do best--create jobs.
  Competition works to our advantage not only in markets at home but in 
global markets as well. Another way to strengthen our economy and get 
job creation going again is by promoting more international trade. 
Smart trade agreements can restore America's competitive edge, create 
more income for American citizens, more opportunities for American 
entrepreneurs, and more foreign dollars to help balance our trade 
deficit and our budget.
  They can also help us turn around our trade imbalances with countries 
such as China, South Korea, and the European Union. We have 
multibillion dollar trade deficits with all of them--$23 billion with 
China in January alone.
  We can start the process of turning these deficits around by 
ratifying impending trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and 
Panama that have been languishing for 3 years.
  Our trade imbalance with South Korea alone last year was $10 billion, 
but the agreement awaiting approval right now could create up to 
250,000 American jobs. On the other hand, if we fail to act, we stand 
to lose 380,000 jobs to the European Union and Canada, which have 
already completed

[[Page S2227]]

their own trade agreements with those countries.
  With bipartisan support for these agreements, there is no reason for 
further delay. We need to act.
  Empowering American businesses and entrepreneurs to do business 
around the world is just common sense, and that common sense is 
precisely what we need to apply to all our Nation's challenges. I can 
give you a good example in my home State of North Dakota. Right now, we 
are facing serious flooding in the Red River Valley, and for some time 
we have been working to fight chronic annual flooding in the Red River 
Valley, which includes the city of Fargo, one of our region's most 
dynamic economic engines.
  Part of government's role in creating private investment and economic 
development is securing and protecting infrastructure so businesses can 
thrive. In the case of Fargo and the Valley, the Federal Emergency 
Management Agency--FEMA--has found it necessary to buy out houses in 
that area because it is more cost effective than protecting them year 
in and year out.
  When the Agency buys out a property, however, it has a hard-and-fast 
rule prohibiting building structures on that property--even flood 
mitigation structures--to prevent development that might require future 
protection from flooding. It is a reasonable ban in some, maybe in 
many, cases but certainly not in all.
  As a consequence of the rule, every year the Federal Government helps 
to pay to build temporary levees to protect homes along the Red River, 
and every year we are compelled to tear those levees down again after 
the flood, at great expense to the government and, ultimately, of 
course, great expense to the taxpayer. Everyone knows that permanent 
dikes would clearly be more cost effective and save money for the 
local, State, and Federal Government. Residents know it, FEMA knows it, 
local officials know it. But under current law, there is nothing they 
can do about it.
  That is why I will be introducing legislation called the FEMA Common 
Sense and Cost-Effectiveness Act of 2011, to give the Agency the 
flexibility it needs to make commonsense decisions in these cases. 
Building those levees once and leaving them in place will provide 
better flood protection for people and for property, better fiscal 
stewardship, and save taxpayer dollars.
  That is important. Because good fiscal stewardship is now a matter of 
pressing, decisive consequence for America's future. That is why the 
second thing we need to do, of no less importance than building a good 
business climate, is to reduce spending.
  We need to control spending by the Federal Government. Here, the 
numbers speak more clearly than words. Revenues this year are projected 
to be--revenues, now--$2.2 trillion. At the same time, current spending 
by the Federal Government is more than $3.7 trillion, leaving a deficit 
of $1.5 to $1.6 trillion.

  To meet that shortfall, we are borrowing 40 cents of every single 
dollar we spend, and our debt is growing at the rate of $4 billion a 
day. Every dollar used to service the national debt is a dollar that 
will not be used to build America's infrastructure, that will not be 
used to keep Social Security solvent, that will not be used to reduce 
taxes on American businesses so they can create jobs and raise the 
standard of living for American workers. That is why I and 63 other 
Senators--32 Republicans and 32 Democrats--sent a letter to President 
Barack Obama earlier this month urging him to show leadership in those 
efforts to achieve comprehensive deficit reduction.
  It is also why I and 46 other U.S. Senators announced last week that 
we were cosponsoring a bill to create a balanced budget amendment to 
the U.S. Constitution. I thank our leader, Senator McConnell, for 
leading that effort. Nearly all States have been bound for years by a 
constitutional provision to keep spending within their means. This 
amendment requires that the Federal Government do no less. It would cap 
spending and balance our budget, but it also allows an appropriate 
exception for times of war. At the same time, it provides a 
transitional pathway to implement the law and protect programs such as 
Social Security and Medicare for our seniors and future generations of 
Americans.
  To put this into perspective, the cost of serving America's debt over 
the next 10 years under the President's proposed budget--$992 billion--
is more than the entire Social Security deficit for the decade, which 
is about $600 billion. In fact, fixing our debt and deficit involves 
not only setting priorities and cutting discretionary spending, which 
we are already working hard to do and we need to work hard to do, but 
also addressing the three entitlement programs: Social Security, 
Medicare, and Medicaid, which account for more than 60 percent of 
Federal spending. We need to undertake a bipartisan effort to reform 
these important programs in a way that safeguards our seniors and other 
vulnerable individuals now while protecting the solvency of these 
programs for generations to come. We need our President to engage with 
us in this process. We can do it, we must do it, and we need to start 
now.
  My third recommendation is that we begin the process of building a 
comprehensive energy policy for the Nation, an ``empower America'' 
plan, if you will, that promotes the development of all of our Nation's 
vast energy resources, both traditional and renewable. Creating a 
comprehensive energy policy is especially important because our entire 
country--our entire economy and consequently job growth--depends on 
affordable and abundant energy.
  A few weeks ago, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce released a study 
identifying 351 stalled energy projects nationwide that are costing the 
American economy $1.1 trillion in lost economic impact and, more 
importantly, nearly 2 million jobs annually. By impeding our energy 
industry, we are impeding one of the most potent areas of prospective 
job growth. Yet Congress has not passed a comprehensive energy policy 
in our country in years, and frankly I don't know that we can wait any 
longer for that single sweeping master plan that will do it all at 
once. We need to build it as expeditiously as we can.
  In North Dakota, we built Empower North Dakota over a decade, piece 
by piece, and saw firsthand the power of energy development to boost 
our economy. By embracing Empower North Dakota, our State alone has 
realized $12 billion in new energy-related investments since 2005. With 
the right kind of energy policy, imagine what the impact would be for 
our Nation.
  To expedite the process of building that energy policy on a national 
level, I am working with Leader McConnell and the entire Republican 
Conference to create the kind of legal and regulatory climate our 
country needs to jump-start America's energy sector and create jobs. 
For example, this week, I, along with other Senators, cosponsored an 
amendment introduced by Senator McConnell to the small business 
authorization bill. Based on legislation offered earlier this month by 
Senator Inhofe, which I and others cosponsored, this legislation sought 
to curb the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gas and encourage 
domestic energy development. A permanent measure such as this is needed 
to provide the certainty businesses need to make billion-dollar 
investments in new energy projects and, more importantly, create the 
good-paying jobs a robust energy sector can provide our country. Our 
measure won 50 votes yesterday but failed to gain the 60 necessary for 
passage.
  We need to continue to work with our colleagues across the aisle to 
pass this legislation or legislation like it because impeding the 
energy industry is not a Republican problem or a Democratic problem, it 
is an American problem. It is a challenge we need to step up to and 
solve. That is why, in a similar bipartisan effort, I am working with 
Senator Joe Manchin to support the EPA Fair Play Act to create more 
certainty and more energy investment for our country.
  I have also asked the Energy Information Administration to conduct a 
focused analysis of regulations that could be impeding the development 
and growth of the Nation's domestic energy production in an effort to 
find more ways to create rules of the road that will encourage energy 
companies to invest billions and to build our energy future in America. 
Increased domestic energy production is a three-fer. We not only 
promote economic vitality, but we reduce our dependence on foreign 
sources of energy and we create jobs.

[[Page S2228]]

  The reality is that we can do all of these and more. We can provide a 
commonsense legal and regulatory environment, a favorable business 
climate for our industries. We can build a comprehensive energy policy 
that leverages all of our vast energy resources together with good 
environmental stewardship. We can reduce spending, and we can live 
within our means. We can pay down our debt and leave our children a 
strong financial legacy instead of a large debt. These are all things 
we can do and we must do for our Nation. We need to work together, my 
fellow Senators, to do just that, for the strength and financial well-
being of our country today and for the benefit of future Americans for 
generations to come. The future is truly in our hands.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hagan). The minority leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I congratulate the junior Senator 
from North Dakota for his initial speech here in the Senate and say to 
all of our colleagues that it should be no surprise that he was sent 
here by the people of North Dakota by an overwhelming margin. During 
his 10 years as Governor, the State enjoyed extraordinary success. At a 
time when many States were struggling financially, North Dakota had 
bulging surpluses and low unemployment, almost entirely as a result of 
the outstanding job then-Governor Hoeven did in representing the people 
of North Dakota. So, as I say, it is no surprise that they sent him to 
join us here in the Senate by an overwhelmingly large majority, and I 
congratulate him on behalf of all of our colleagues on his initial 
speech.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, I, too, rise in congratulating the 
Senator from North Dakota on his maiden speech. I have known then-
Governor Hoeven for quite some time. His wife and my wife have been 
very good friends.
  What you heard is basically a background of the success he has had in 
the leadership of his great State. What you don't know is his ability 
to reach across the aisle in a bipartisan manner.
  I can only say that John is a dear friend, and John is the type of 
personality we need in this body to mend this partisan gridlock in 
which we find ourselves. I cannot tell you how pleased I am to still be 
a colleague of his, and I look forward to many years of success working 
together, reaching out, finding the problems we have, addressing the 
problems, and then, like a good Governor, taking them on and making 
some good decisions, as he has done so well in North Dakota.
  So, my good friend, it is so good to have you here. Congratulations.
  Mr. HOEVEN. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. TESTER. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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