[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 95 (Wednesday, June 29, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4171-S4173]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              BOLD VISIONS

  Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, we have reached a point of maximum 
danger--maximum danger--in our fragile economic recovery. We are mired 
with the most protracted period of joblessness since the Great 
Depression. Businesses are reluctant to invest and hire for the simple 
reason there is not sufficient demand for goods and services, largely 
because--why--so many people are unemployed, 20 million. People are 
mired in debt. Even those who are working are insecure about their 
employment. So for most Americans in the middle class and lower income, 
this is still a deep recession.
  I have come to the floor repeatedly in recent weeks to warn against 
the folly--the folly--of Washington's current obsession with making 
immediate Draconian cuts to the Federal budget, something that by its 
very nature will drain demand, reduce growth, and destroy jobs.
  The Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Ben Bernanke, warned just last 
week:

       In light of the weakness of the recovery, it would be best 
     not to have a sudden and sharp fiscal consolidation in the 
     very near term. It would be a negative for growth.

  Here in the Washington bubble, many--especially those on the opposite 
side of the aisle--have persuaded themselves that the biggest issue is 
the budget deficit. But outside the beltway, outside Washington, 
Americans are most concerned with a far more urgent deficit: the jobs 
deficit.
  I am also concerned about a third deficit that I think we have: a 
deficit of vision. I am disturbed by our failure to confront the 
current economic crisis with the boldness and the vision that earlier 
generations of Americans summoned in times of national challenge.
  Our Republican friends reject the very possibility that the Federal 
Government can act to spur economic growth, boost competitiveness, and 
create good middle-class jobs. That is their ideological position, and 
they are sticking to it, even in the face of contrary facts. It is 
based on a profound misreading or perhaps nonreading of American 
history.
  As Americans, we pride ourselves on our robust free enterprise 
system. But there are some things--big national undertakings--that the 
private sector simply is not capable of doing. At critical junctures, 
going back to the beginning of our Republic, the Federal Government has 
stepped to the plate. We have acted decisively to spur economic growth, 
foster innovation, and create jobs.
  So let's go back. Let's do a little analysis of our history.
  The Founding Fathers are very much in vogue these days, so let's go 
back to that time. Let's go back to Alexander Hamilton, a hero of the 
Revolutionary War, our first Treasury Secretary. In 1791 Hamilton 
presented the Congress the landmark report on manufacturers, a set of 
policies designed to strengthen our new economy.
  His plan was adopted by Congress. It included tariffs to raise 
revenue and to protect our domestic manufacturing base. Hamilton's plan 
was a historic success. It was echoed several decades later by 
Congressman Henry Clay's famous ``American System.'' In the burst of 
nationalism following the War of 1812, Clay advocated for major new 
Federal investments in infrastructure. Of course, at that time he did 
not call it infrastructure, he called it internal improvements.
  Clay led the Congress in raising new revenues to finance subsidies 
for roads, canals, bridges, and projects designed to expand commerce 
and knit the Nation together. One of those internal improvements was 
the Cumberland Road, our first truly national road. It began in 
Maryland and stretched over the Alleghenies more than 600 miles to 
Illinois. It was Henry Clay of Kentucky and other westerners who pushed 
to extend the road from Wheeling, WV, to Columbus, OH.
  But, again, go back and read your history. Clay was bitterly opposed 
by those who said the Federal Government could not afford to build the 
roads and canals and had no business doing so. It sounds familiar to 
what I am hearing on the other side of the aisle today. History shows 
that the naysayers were wrong on all counts.
  The Cumberland Road opened the West to settlers and commerce and 
development. Of course, the most visionary 19th century advocate of 
Federal investments to spur economic growth was a Republican, the first 
Republican President, Abraham Lincoln.
  Despite the disruption of the Civil War, Lincoln insisted on moving 
the Nation forward through bold Federal investments and initiatives. In 
1862 he signed the Pacific Railway Act, authorizing huge Federal land 
grants to finance construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, one of 
the great technological feats of the 19th century. To produce the rails 
in America rather than shipping them in from England, he enacted a 
steep tariff on foreign steel in order to jump-start the American steel 
industry.
  Lincoln did much more. He created the Department of Agriculture to do 
more research, distributed free land to

[[Page S4172]]

farmers, and used government agents to promote new farm machinery and 
agricultural techniques. As a proud graduate of Iowa State University, 
I know Lincoln also dramatically increased higher education by creating 
the land-grant college system.
  Taken together, these initiatives during Lincoln's Presidency--I 
remind you, he was doing all of this during the Civil War--had a 
transformative effect on the U.S. economy. We created new industries, 
expanded opportunity, and created millions of new jobs. He did this 
despite the fact that the Federal Government was deeply in debt and 
running huge deficits. Imagine that. Abraham Lincoln.
  These Republicans always go to their Lincoln Day dinners. Why do they 
not start talking about what Abraham Lincoln did to spur economic 
growth and create jobs in our country at a time when our Federal 
Government was in a deficit? It is almost humorous to imagine how the 
Republicans of today would have reacted to Lincoln's agenda. They would 
have attacked him, I am sure, as reckless and irresponsible. They would 
whine that we are broke; we cannot afford to invest in the future. I am 
sure the tea party contingent in the Republican Party would have 
demanded that Lincoln be expelled from the Republican Party.
  Moving into the 20th century, time and again the Federal Government 
has acted with boldness and vision to accomplish big things that were 
simply beyond the capacity of the private sector. During the Presidency 
of Franklin Roosevelt, with the private sector paralyzed by the Great 
Depression, the Federal Government responded with an astonishing array 
of initiatives to restart the economy, restore opportunity, and create 
jobs.
  The list is far too long, but I would mention rural electrification, 
the Civilian Conservation Corps and what they did to plant trees and 
greenways all over America, the Tennessee Valley Authority, which 
brought opportunity and power to the deeply impoverished Appalachia, 
Hoover Dam, Grand Coulee Dam, bringing power and water across the 
Southwest and the Northwest.
  Millions of unemployed Americans, including my father--if you come 
over to my office, I will show you my dad's WPA card, Works Progress 
Administration. He got a job with dignity, thanks to the Works Progress 
Administration. They built thousands of infrastructure around our 
country: roads and dams and schools, bridges, many of which we are 
still using today eight decades later.
  I would point out one project my father worked on: Lake Ahquabi State 
Park in Iowa, which my father worked on with other WPA people to help 
build. We are still using it today.
  By the end of the Second World War, wartime investments by the 
Federal Government had created an industrial colossus. FDR and Truman 
were followed then by a Republican President, Dwight Eisenhower. What 
did he do? Did he pull the plug on all of this? Well, let's look at 
history.
  Eisenhower, a proud Republican, was determined to move America 
forward. He championed, at a time when the Federal deficits continued 
into the 1950s from World War II--because the national debt grew so big 
during World War II, we were still in debt during the 1950s. What did 
Eisenhower do? Did he say we have to retrench; we cannot do anything? 
No. He championed one of the greatest public works projects in American 
history, the construction of the Interstate Highway System.
  The National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956 ensured 
dedicated Federal funding to build a network today that encompasses 
over 46,000 miles of highways. A 1996 study of the system concluded:

       The interstate highway system is an engine that has driven 
     40 years of unprecedented prosperity and positioned the 
     United States to remain the world's preeminent power into the 
     21st century.

  Well, you know what. I will bet the tea party contingent of today's 
Republican Party would probably have tried to run Dwight Eisenhower out 
of the Republican Party.
  In more recent times, the Federal Government has funded and 
spearheaded scientific discovery and innovation that has had a profound 
impact on our economy and created millions of high-value jobs.
  Now, I know my time is limited. I want to mention a couple. It was 
the Federal Government--specifically the Defense Advanced Research 
Projects Agency, called DARPA--that created the Internet. No, I am 
sorry, my young friends, it was not Google; and it was not Microsoft, 
although Bill Gates built a great empire. It was the Federal Government 
that created the Internet, making possible everything we get from e-
mail to social networking. Need I mention tweeting and the World Wide 
Web? This has revolutionized the way we do business, not only here but 
around the globe, and has created untold millions of jobs. It was not a 
private company; it was the Federal Government amassing the money that 
people pay in taxes to create the Internet.
  Federal researchers at this same agency also created the global 
positioning satellite system, GPS. When you get in your car, you need 
to know where to go. You follow all of that. You think Garmin invented 
that? No. But the Garmin company and all of the rest of them--I should 
not single one out; there are a lot of competitors out there--are 
making the instruments. They are hiring people. The private sector is 
doing what it should do. But it was the Federal Government that created 
the global positioning satellite. It was taxpayers' dollars that put 
those 24 satellites in orbit and still keep them operating today.
  Researchers at NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space 
Administration, have made dozens of technological breakthroughs over 
the years, everything from microchips to CAT scanner technology. Of 
course, in a discussion of the Federal Government's role in stimulating 
the economy, we have to mention the staggering achievements of the 
National Institutes of Health. More than 80 Nobel Prizes have been 
awarded for NIH-supported research.

  Bear in mind too that unless basic research in biomedical sciences is 
funded by the Federal Government, most of it simply will not get done. 
Why? Because it is basic research. It is basic. It may not lead to 
something. A lot of it leads to dead ends. But the basic research is 
done. The applied research is built on that. The private sector then 
comes in, adapts it for drugs and interventions, and we spur the 
economy and we make people healthier.
  The economic impact of NIH has been profound. Take one example, the 
Human Genome Project, mapping and sequencing the entire human gene. The 
Federal Government invested $3.8 billion in mapping and sequencing the 
human gene. Just last month, the Battelle Memorial Institute issued a 
report on the economic impact of the genomic revolution launched by 
this project.
  Battelle estimates that as of 2010 the return on investment of the 
project, $3.8 billion; the return on investment total, $796 billion. 
The project has created an estimated 310,000 jobs and $244 billion in 
personal income. In 2010 alone, just 1 year, the project generated $67 
billion in economic output.
  The Federal Government, folks; the Federal Government did that. So in 
light of these statistics and the historical records I have just cited 
to the founding of our Republic, it is absurd to claim that the Federal 
Government cannot play a positive and even a profound role in boosting 
the economy, in spurring innovation, in creating jobs, and improving 
the standard of living of our people.
  Republicans protest that Federal investments and innovation and 
research are about the government picking winners and losers. I hear 
that all the time. The truth is, initiatives such as the Human Genome 
Project are not about picking winners and losers. That is making all of 
us winners.
  It is about the Federal Government stepping to the plate to undertake 
big, important national projects that the private sector is simply not 
equipped to do. At times of crisis such as during the Great Depression, 
and in the aftermath of the financial meltdown of 2008, the Federal 
Government has acted boldly to rescue the economy when the private 
sector was flat on its back and unable to function normally.
  The Recovery Act passed by Congress soon after President Obama took 
office has manifestly succeeded in jump-starting economic activity. 
Listening to all of my Republican friends, they say the Recovery Act 
failed. It failed. It failed. Well, according to the Congressional 
Budget Office, through the

[[Page S4173]]

end of 2010 the Recovery Act raised the real inflation-adjusted gross 
domestic product by as much as 3.5 percent and increased the number of 
employed Americans by as many as 3.3 million. But today the shot in the 
arm provided by the Recovery Act is winding down.
  Quite frankly, we did not put enough in the Recovery Act to stretch 
it out for a longer period of time. The economy is still struggling. 
Our Democratic majority in this body has brought to the floor a series 
of job-creating bills, but Republicans have filibustered and killed 
every single one.
  So I repeat. Yes, we face a large budget deficit. Yes, we have to 
address it in the intermediate and long term. In the immediate term we 
need to confront the jobs deficit. But we also face a deficit of a 
positive vision--a positive vision. We have failed to meet the 
challenges of our day with the boldness and the vision that our 
predecessors summoned in times past.
  How much time do I have remaining?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Ten minutes remains for the 
Democratic side collectively.
  Mr. HARKIN. I will just take about 3 more minutes.
  Many Republicans are demanding that we permanently hobble the Federal 
Government, just as our predecessors did not want to build the roads 
and the highways and the canals in the past.
  My friend from Utah had a chart that said ``broke or balanced.'' They 
claim our Nation is poor and broke. That is not true. That is not true. 
That negative, defeatist viewpoint is dead wrong. We remain the 
wealthiest Nation on Earth, with the highest per capita income of any 
major country on the face of the globe. But we have to act decisively, 
with the power of the Federal Government to boost the economy, foster 
innovation, and create good middle-class jobs. That is the most 
important thing.

  Lastly, balanced budget? Let's just do what we did under the Clinton 
years, in which we had 4 years of balanced budgets and left the biggest 
surplus in our Nation's history. But the Republicans will not do that 
because they have a defeatist attitude. We need a more bold vision than 
what the Republicans bring forward to the American people.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 
10 minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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