[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 155 (Monday, October 17, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6566-S6569]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        JOBS THROUGH GROWTH ACT

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to discuss the 
Jobs Through Growth Act that was recently introduced by most of my 
Republican colleagues on this side of the aisle. I wish to highlight 
the hard work done by my colleagues Senators Paul and Portman in 
putting this bill together.
  This bill is a commonsense alternative to the plan being championed 
by President Obama and Majority Leader Reid. The differences between 
our plan and theirs are that we want to create jobs through growth and 
they want to create jobs through government spending. We believe 
business creates jobs in America.
  It is clear from the President's stimulus 2 that he believes 
government creates jobs, so there is a fundamental difference between 
our proposal and theirs. What they have proposed is another stimulus. 
We tried that. We saw the movie before. It did not work. It added to 
our debt and deficit. We lost jobs.
  My colleagues and I are putting forth a plan to create jobs through 
sound policies. Most economists will tell you that economic growth is a 
fundamental part of long-term sustainable job creation, and that is 
what the plan does. It contains key components--spending reforms, 
including a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, to give job 
creators the certainty that Washington will not continue to grow 
unchecked.
  Almost all of us understand from experience over the years that 
unless the United States of America, our government, is required--as 
every State and every town and every county and every city in America 
is required--to have a balanced budget, we will continue the mass 
deficits that mortgage our children and our grandchildren's futures.
  Republican and Democratic Presidents alike over the years have asked 
for enhanced rescission authority--what we used to call the line-item 
veto--that would give the President of the United States the ability to 
eliminate unnecessary, wasteful, earmarked, porkbarrel spending 
provisions without having to veto the entire bill.
  We believe these two measures can bring about a fiscal discipline in 
this Congress and in this Nation that has been sadly lacking for a long 
time and has given us the massive debts and deficits--a deficit of 
nearly $50,000 for every man, woman, and child in America today.
  We need tax reform. Is there anyone in America who doesn't believe 
that the Tax Code, which is this high, doesn't need to be reformed? Our 
proposal is simple: Cut the corporate tax rate from 35 to 25; create 3 
categories of tax rates in America, and close the loopholes, eliminate 
the subsidies, and let's give Americans a Tax Code they can trust and 
believe in--even understand.
  Let's bring home the $1.4 trillion in foreign earnings that are 
trapped overseas in countries where U.S.-based multinational companies 
do business. Why won't they bring the money home? It is because they 
have to tax it at 35 percent. It is not that complicated.
  Last week, Senator Hagan and I introduced a bill that would provide 
incentives for that money to come home on the proviso that they create 
jobs in America and invest in America. According to a recent study done 
by the chamber of commerce, the repatriation of this $1.4 trillion in 
corporate earnings currently trapped overseas can result in increasing 
the gross domestic product by roughly $360 billion and would create as 
many as 2.9 million new U.S. jobs.
  I must say, recently from the other side there was a study that 
showed this money would have no effect. How in the world could you 
possibly believe that if you brought $1.4 trillion back home to America 
it would have no effect? I think it probably shows you can have a study 
that shows there was indeed a landing of aliens in a city in New Mexico 
a long time ago.
  Reforming the regulatory process costs taxpayers nothing, but it does 
more for creating jobs than any stimulus program possibly could. There 
is nothing more constraining to job growth than the adversarial 
relationship between business and government. Talk to any 
businessperson, small or large, and they will tell you why they are 
sitting on large sums of money and not creating jobs and not investing. 
It is because they don't know which regulation is coming down next that 
they are going to have to comply with.
  Please, I ask my colleagues and my friends, go ask the business 
people and they will tell you that. They will tell you that the fear 
and specter of additional regulations has an incredibly

[[Page S6567]]

negative affect on their desire to invest and hire. Lifting the 
prohibitions on offshore energy exploration will immediately create 
jobs, drive investment, and reduce our Nation's dependence on foreign 
sources of oil.
  According to the American Energy Alliance, which is a pro-exploratory 
group, admittedly, permanently lifting the offshore moratoria would 
result in 1.2 million new U.S. jobs.
  Of course, we need to give the President the fast track authority to 
negotiate trade agreements. I point out that the President is now on 
his ``listening tour,'' at taxpayers' expense. He was taking credit for 
the passage of these three free-trade agreements for Panama, Colombia, 
and South Korea. It only took nearly 3 years.
  As far as our bill is concerned, we have a statement from the U.S. 
Chamber of Commerce:

       Yesterday, a group of Senators, including John McCain, Rob 
     Portman and Rand Paul, introduced the ``Jobs Through Growth 
     Act.'' This legislation marks a departure from a ``government 
     knows best'' approach and instead empowers the private sector 
     to rescue our economy. As the Chamber outlined in its Six-
     Point Jobs Plan, alleviating regulatory burdens, tax 
     uncertainty, and restoring confidence to invest and grow jobs 
     is the best way to get the country back on track. This bill 
     is a step in the right direction and includes a number of the 
     same broad ideas for creation as the Chamber's plan.

  It goes on to say that ``comprehensive tax reform is critical to job 
creation.'' They believe that reforming the regulatory process is 
necessary for businesses to begin hiring again, and they also argue for 
the expanded drilling offshore.
  You will hear from various liberal think tanks that we don't create 
jobs, that this is not a good thing to do, et cetera. But the fact is 
the chamber of commerce, which I think well knows about job creation, 
should be paid attention to.
  A piece was written in the National Review Online by Douglas Holtz-
Eakin, a noted economist and former head of the OMB. In the interest of 
full disclosure, he was an adviser of mine. He wrote the following:

       Senate Republicans have just introduced the ``Real Jobs 
     Plan.'' As I've long argued, an effective jobs ``plan'' is a 
     commitment to a sustained environment for long-term growth. 
     The President's failed proposals have repeatedly proven that 
     ``temporary and targeted'' stimulus is insufficient. 
     Moreover, his latest effort displays more interest in 
     politics than growth.
       Senators McCain, Paul, and Portman have proposed a plan 
     that effectively targets job creation at a time when we 
     desperately need it by incentivizing growth and repealing the 
     job-killing Affordable Care Act and Dodd-Frank law. There is 
     a lot here to like.
       Still, inevitably, there will be a war of numbers in which 
     progressives trot out numbers from Keynesian business cycle 
     models to argue that the strategy won't work. To anticipate 
     the debate, here are some highlights of the Real Jobs Plan 
     and some estimates of the jobs impact:
       1. Lower the corporate rate tax to 25 percent, resulting in 
     an additional 581,000 jobs per year, on average.
       2. Reduce the tax on foreign earnings brought back to the 
     U.S., resulting in 2.9 million jobs.
       3. Repeal Dodd-Frank, estimated to cost the U.S. 4.6 
     million jobs by 2015.

  On the so-called Dodd-Frank act, the whole purpose of the Dodd-Frank 
act was to make sure that no institution in America would ever be too 
big to fail. My friends, tell me that these institutions aren't too big 
to fail. We know they have gotten bigger, and we know they are too big 
to fail. If we went through a similar crisis, we know, because of their 
size, we would again be forced to use taxpayer dollars to bail them 
out. The fact is that the Dodd-Frank bill has been a complete failure, 
as many of us predicted. One of the reasons is because it didn't 
address the phasing out of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It was the 
housing crisis that started this collapse, and until the day the 
housing market stabilizes, we will not begin to emerge from this 
horrible economic situation America finds itself in today.

       4. Repeal the ACA, estimated to cost the U.S. economy at 
     least 800,000 jobs.
       5. Lift the offshore drilling moratoria, resulting in 1.2 
     million U.S. jobs.
       6. Prohibit the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases, 
     estimated to cost the economy 1.4 million jobs by 2014.

  And, of course, giving the President trade preference authority.
  Finally, I will point this out in the Wall Street Journal Political 
Diary, October 14, 2011: Finally, a GOP Growth Plan.

       Senators John McCain and Rand Paul [and Rob Portman] have 
     drafted an economic growth blueprint that they hope to be the 
     rallying cry of all congressional Republicans.
       The White House and congressional Democrats hope to use the 
     Senate rejection of Obama jobs plan this week as a campaign 
     issue against ``do nothing Republicans.'' Senate Democrats 
     have crowed that ``Republicans have no jobs plan of their 
     own,'' but that's not true any longer. Senators John McCain 
     of Arizona and Rand Paul of Kentucky [and Rob Portman] have 
     drafted a comprehensive economic growth blueprint that they 
     hope will be the rallying cry of all congressional 
     Republicans in the weeks ahead. We obtained a copy of the 
     draft document which includes tax cuts, a balanced budget 
     amendment, ObamaCare repeal, and a regulatory freeze. . . .
       The plan, which would cut corporate tax rates to 25 from 35 
     is partially paid for by offering a reduced 5 percent tax on 
     repatriated capital. . . .
       The plan won't get close to the 60 votes necessary in the 
     Senate. But it does establish a polar star for Republicans to 
     head toward. Republicans got a nice lift for the plan when a 
     Chamber of Commerce poll asked 1,300 business owners across 
     the country whether they support the GOP plan of ``permanent 
     tax cuts and less regulation,'' or the Democratic plan of 
     temporary payroll tax cuts and public work spending. More 
     than eight of 10 said they favor the Republican approach.

  As they say, let the games begin. Today, the President of the United 
States, in his visit to areas of the country that have a lot to do, in 
the view of many, with the upcoming electoral calendar, attacked our 
plan and attacked it rather vociferously. In fact, I was somewhat taken 
aback, since the President and his spokesperson had billed his trip as 
a taxpayer-paid visit. In his remarks, the President was very strongly 
condemning of the plan that we have put forward. In fact, remember, my 
colleagues and friends, the President made these remarks on a taxpayer 
paid-for, riding-in-a-Canadian-bus visit for the next 3 days. This is 
what, on his listening tour, the President said:

       Now it turns out that the Republicans have a plan, too. I 
     want to be fair. They call--they put forward this plan last 
     week. They called it the real American Jobs Act, the real 
     one. That's what they called it, just in case you were 
     wondering. So let's take a look at what the Republican 
     American Jobs Act looks like. Turns out that the Republican 
     plan boils down to a few basic ideas. They want to gut 
     regulations. They want to let Wall Street do whatever it 
     wants. They want to drill more, and they want to repeal 
     health care reform. That's their jobs plan.

  Et cetera, et cetera. So on the taxpayer-paid dime, the President is 
now traveling and attacking the Republican plan--obviously, I think, 
unfairly.
  By the way, there is an article dated October 16 by Richard Wolfe in 
USA Today:

       President Obama will kick off a three-day bus trip through 
     small towns in politically competitive North Carolina and 
     Virginia Monday. But White House officials insist the trip is 
     about jobs, not votes. So much so, in fact, they convened a 
     conference call to reiterate that point several times, 
     pointing out that the trip is fully on the taxpayers' dime, 
     not the Republicans reelection campaign.

  So the President has taken to the road, and he spent a number of 
minutes attacking our plan. I understand that. I think he has, 
certainly in a political venue, the right and privilege to do that. I 
think the question might be, though, is that appropriate on the 
taxpayers' dime, since it is clearly campaigning. I must say again, I 
have never seen an uglier bus than the Canadian one. He is traveling 
around on a Canadian bus touting American jobs.
  One of the reasons Americans and I and my colleagues are a bit 
skeptical is because we have seen this movie before. We saw this movie 
before, and it feels a bit like something we have heard before. In 
fact, let me read a few quotes. We all know the failure of the last 
stimulus bill. We all know the President and his economic advisers 
said, if we passed the last stimulus bill, unemployment would be at a 
maximum of 8 percent, and it is obviously, we all know, now stuck at 
over 9. They said it would create millions of jobs, but we all know it 
didn't. They said it would stimulate our economy, and we know it 
hasn't. So let me read a couple quotes. This one was February 10, 2009, 
from President Obama:

       It's a plan that will save or create up to four million 
     jobs over the next two years . . . and the jobs of 
     firefighters, teachers, nurses, and police officers that 
     would otherwise be eliminated if we don't provide states with 
     some relief.


[[Page S6568]]


  This is from President Obama during the middle of 2009:

       We've created and saved, as you said, Joe, at least 150,000 
     jobs.

  This is a quote from Vice President Biden, where he said in ``18 
months'' stimulus will ``create 3.5 million jobs . . . literally drop-
kicks us out of this recession.''

       This is a monumental project, but I think it's doable. But 
     I just think we got to stay on top (inaudible) and we got to 
     stay on top of that on a weekly basis. Because this is about 
     getting this out and spent in 18 months to create 3.5 million 
     jobs and do--to set--tee this up so the rest of the good work 
     that's being done here literally drop-kicks us out of this 
     recession and we begin to grow again and begin to employ 
     people again.

  Those were the remarks of the Vice President at a Recover Plan 
Implementation Meeting held on February 25, 2009.
  My alltime favorite quote is from August 24, 2009, from Vice 
President Biden:

       In my wildest dreams, I never thought it would work this 
     well.

  Let me repeat that:

       In my wildest dreams, I never thought it would work this 
     well.

  In my wildest dreams, I hope the American people will understand what 
we are doing with the President's plan and that we will be voting on 
pieces that probably even a simple majority of the Senate wouldn't have 
voted for. It is the same thing they tried in 2009 and 2010 and was 
steadfastly rejected by the American people in the overwhelming vote 
that took place last November.
  What I hope is that once the President gets off the campaign trail, 
we will sit down and come to an agreement in some areas. All of us 
agree that simplification of the Tax Code is something the American 
people want and deserve. All of us know we should try to do what we can 
to bring home that $1.4 trillion which is now parked overseas. All of 
us agree that offshore drilling is something we need to accelerate as 
quickly as possible and do it safely. All of us should agree that 
middle-income and lower income Americans are the ones who need help the 
most.
  While I am here, I would like to point out that one of the key 
elements we spent a lot of time on last year--many hours I spent on the 
floor of this Senate--was trying to combat the program that is now 
known as ObamaCare or health reform. We find out now that one of the 
key elements of this health care reform--which I will politely call 
health care reform--was a program called the CLASS Act.
  The CLASS Act was to provide long-term care for senior Americans, 
which is certainly a worthwhile goal. Thanks to a Member of the Senate, 
who is no longer here, Senator Gregg, a provision was put in that said 
the reality of the CLASS Act programs had to match the promises as a 
matter of law. In other words, Health and Human Services had to provide 
an actuarial analysis of insurer solvency throughout the 75-year cost 
of the program. In other words, the Health and Human Services 
Department was bound by the amendment put through on the floor by 
Senator Gregg--the former Senator from New Hampshire. So after flailing 
around for 19 months, the Secretary of Health and Human Services 
announced it would shutter a voluntary long-term care insurance program 
that was included in the health care law and throw the issue back to 
Congress.
  It is unfortunate we did not have that same provision in the rest of 
the bill; otherwise, the whole thing probably would have been junked by 
now. But because of that amendment, the administration has been forced 
to junk the CLASS Act. Let me quote from the Wall Street Journal, which 
reads:

       At a minimum the GOP could begin by repealing the Class 
     program altogether, since its legal authority is still 
     intact. ``One should never leave a partly loaded gun on the 
     table even if most of the chambers are empty or just has 
     blanks,'' writes the American Enterprise Institute's Tom 
     Miller. He also suggests attaching a few of the more 
     destructive provisions and forcing Democrats to defend them, 
     such as Mr. Orszag's Independent Payment Advisory Board of 15 
     political appointees who have brought unaccountable powers to 
     control health care markets and health care.
       Our suggestion is for a Gregg-like amendment that applies 
     to the entire health law and not simply Class. If reality 
     can't match the rhetoric that accompanied the bill--about 
     fiscal responsibility, bending the cost curve, keeping your 
     health care if you like your health care and all the other 
     false promises--then, legally, it should be repealed like 
     Class. Call it a truth-in-advertising clause. ObamaCare would 
     collapse in a heartbeat.

  I hope we will begin to debate whether the CLASS Act--which now the 
Health and Human Services Secretary has announced is undoable--should 
be repealed from the law itself and whether there are other provisions 
such as that which Senator Gregg, in his foresight, was able to force 
into the bill at the time of its passage.
  By the way, a little more on the CLASS Act. One of the major reasons 
why it was included was to distort the numbers as to how much money 
would or would not be saved in the passage of health care reform. 
Because, clearly, for the first early years--since people would be 
contributing rather than taking out funds because of retirement age--it 
would appear to have a significant cost savings impact. Now we will be 
talking about the real cost impact of the health care reform bill.
  I hope in the weeks ahead we can engage in vigorous debate on how we 
can move this country forward. There are clearly philosophical 
differences between the two sides, but I hope there are areas where we 
can find common ground.
  The housing crisis is still with us in America. I noticed an article 
over the weekend in the New York Times that Fannie Mae saw fit to send 
a huge number of people to some convention in Chicago on the taxpayers' 
dime. Fannie and Freddie are still responsible for about 90 percent of 
the mortgages in America--a corrupt institution. Yet Americans, 
including those in my State of Arizona, are still badly hurting.
  I hope we can address the issues that affect this Nation. I hope we 
can sit down together and work out at least some agreements--such as 
reform of the Tax Code and others--but, at the same time, we need to, 
at some point, address the housing issue in America. Until we do--until 
we get housing costs stabilized in America--I greatly fear--and I see 
my colleague from Florida whose State has also been very badly hurt by 
this housing crisis--until we fix the fundamental problems, I fear we 
will continue to experience very difficult economic times for our 
citizens.
  I note the presence of my colleague--the great astronaut and fine 
Senator--so I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I could spend my whole time 
talking about the housing crisis--as the Senator from Arizona has so 
appropriately commented--that has hit his State and mine and many 
others. I happen to agree it is going to be hard for us to recover 
economically until we can start to work off this huge inventory of 
houses out there and the dire economic straits it has put the owners of 
those houses in.
  It is a truth in America that so often our family assets are in our 
home. When that home goes away--because you can't sell it or its value 
has plummeted and the bank is coming after you and you can't get loans 
for your small business--then people are going to be hurt. That is what 
is happening to our people right now.
  Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator yield for a question? I know he has 
another subject he wants to address, but would he yield for a question?
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Of course.
  Mr. McCAIN. Isn't one of the fundamental problems in the housing 
crisis, in the Senator's State and my State and particularly 
California, Nevada, and others that were the crest of the wave, that we 
should have made--and still should be making--an effort to give people 
a mortgage they can afford to make the payments on rather than throwing 
them out of their home or have the home empty?
  Maricopa County, AZ, has the largest number of vacant homes of any 
county in America. I will bet in that top 10 list are counties in the 
State of Florida.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Indeed, one of the areas hardest hit in the 
entire country is southwest Florida, in and around Fort Myers. I note 
the Senator's comments are very accurate. We need to find a way for 
people to stay in their homes, afford their payments, and see what that 
does not only for the individual homeowner but what it does

[[Page S6569]]

for the neighborhood. It keeps people in the homes. The weeds don't 
start growing. The values of the rest of the homes in the neighborhood 
don't plummet because the house is now vacant and perhaps ransacked. 
There is kind of a spiral downward when people are forced out.
  So we need a program that would come in and make the mortgage as 
affordable as the homeowner can work out. Yet we find, in many cases, 
the banks don't want to do that or there is not a governmental 
incentive for the banks or the homeowner to do that. We have missed out 
on that.
  Several years ago, when this crisis started, I implored the Secretary 
of the Treasury to look at exactly what was happening, and they came up 
with a program whereby they were going to give some cushion of 5 
percent of a mortgage that was underwater.
  In the Senator's State and my State, if a home is just 5 percent 
underwater, you are rather fortunate because a home today 20, 25, and 
30 percent underneath the value of the first mortgage is not uncommon. 
That is the problem we have not addressed.
  There have been some other good things. There are now programs coming 
out on small business, in trying to get money into small business. Even 
though some of the banks did not want to take the Federal money, even 
though it went to their capital, we are starting to see some signs of 
life there. We are starting to see some signs of life, I am told by the 
Florida Association of Realtors, that sales are occurring all over the 
State, not just certain parts of the State, such as Miami. There is a 
huge influx of Brazilian investors coming in and absorbing the condo 
market. But it is not just Miami, it is the entire State that sales are 
occurring.
  They are, of course, sales at rock-bottom prices, but they are 
beginning to occur. We need to accelerate and give assistance to this 
rejuvenation of the real estate market. Until the housing market 
recovers, we are not going to have an economic recovery out of this 
recession.
  Mr. McCAIN. I thank the Senator.

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