[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
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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
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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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