[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 19 (Monday, February 6, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S332-S333]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              THE ECONOMY

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a new 
employment report last week for the month of January with some good 
news: more jobs created in the private sector than had been projected 
and unemployment dropped to 8.3 percent. President Obama has been 
taking a victory lap and touted the jobs report as a sign that his 
economic policies are working. But it reminds me of the two fleas on 
the back of the chariot in Stephen Leacock's famous fable. They look 
behind them and say: My, what a fine cloud of dust we've kicked up.
  It could be in the 2\1/2\ years since the great recession technically 
ended and the 3 years since the passage of the stimulus bill that the 
President promised would keep unemployment below 8 percent, that 
whatever recovery we have had is not necessarily the result of the 
President's policies. Why has unemployment remained above 8 percent for 
the last 35 months? Why are there more unemployed today than when 
President Obama took office? Is it more likely that some people are 
finding work in spite of and not because of President Obama's policies?
  Today I would like to speak about that for a few minutes and try to 
put these numbers into perspective. The obvious point, of course, is 
that we still have a long way to go before anyone can claim that we 
have an economic success story.
  Let's start with the recovery itself. The fact is, this has been the 
weakest recovery since the Great Depression. Consider this comparison: 
31 months after the recession ended in June of 2009, payroll employment 
has increased by only 1.5 percent. During the Reagan Presidency 31 
months after the end of the 1981-1982 recession, payroll employment had 
increased by 9.8 percent. So 1.5 under President Obama, 9.8 percent 
comparable timeframe with President Reagan.
  At a comparable point in time during the Reagan recovery, payroll 
employment was 6.2 million jobs or 6.8 percent higher than the 
prerecession level. In contrast, today we have about 5 million fewer 
jobs since peak employment of 2007--not more but fewer--and more than 
1.1 million jobs have been lost since President Obama took office.
  How can that be? It takes a certain number of jobs just to keep up 
with the new entrants into the labor market. In fact, economists 
believe we need on average about 130,000 to 150,000 jobs per month just 
to hold even. So even though we have created more jobs--and the 
President's supporters say we have been creating now more jobs for the 
last 23 months. That is fine, but if it does not keep up with the 
number we need just to keep up with new entrants into the workforce; 
namely, 130,000 to 150,000, we are not making progress. In fact, we are 
regressing. If this recovery we are currently experiencing had 
duplicated the path of recovery from the 1981-1982 recession, there 
would be 14.9 million more payroll jobs than we have today--in other 
words, almost 15 million more jobs. That is a better measure of the 
success--or lack of it--in coming out of this recession.

  Now, to make matters worse, much of the recent decline in the 
unemployment rate can be attributed to a decline in labor force 
participation--in other words, people who are still looking for work. 
Labor force participation dropped to 63.7 percent in January, meaning 
that many have simply stopped looking for jobs. This is the lowest 
labor force participation rate in nearly three decades. Labor force 
participation stood at 66 percent at the beginning of the recent 
recession. If the rate had remained at the prerecession level, the 
unemployment rate today would be approximately 11.4 percent. In other 
words, 3 percentage points more than it is today is accounted for by 
the fact that that many people have simply stopped looking for work. 
According to many economists, this is a better measure of the true 
employment situation in the country.
  A commentator on one of the news shows that I heard yesterday gave 
this analogy: If we heard that fewer elderly people in America were 
sick, at least initially we would think that was really good news. But 
if the reason there were fewer sick people is that more of them had 
died, we wouldn't think that was a cause for celebration. And that is 
the problem here--too many people have just decided it is not possible 
for them to get a job and they are going to stop looking.
  Finally, there is the underemployment and long-term unemployed 
situation. The plight of the folks who have been unemployed for a long 
period of time or those who are underemployed--they have a job but 
could be getting something that pays more--has really not changed. 
These are the Americans who want good jobs. In the latest report, the 
number of those who have been unemployed for 27 weeks or more has 
hardly changed at 5.52 million people, accounting for almost 43 percent 
of the unemployed population. Those are the folks who are really 
hurting. The underemployment rate, which includes part-time workers who 
would like to have full-time work and those who want to work but have 
given up looking, has remained largely unchanged, dropping to 15.1 
percent from 15.2 percent.
  I say all of this not to pile on President Obama and certainly not to 
denigrate the fact that we finally have a little bit of good news 
coming out of the economic picture but, rather, to make the point that 
the employment numbers from 1 month--last month--hardly tell the whole 
story. We have to have better progrowth policies if we are really going 
to have a stronger economy, if we are going to create more jobs and, 
over the long term, improve the employment opportunities for all 
Americans who want work.
  It was very disappointing for the President to have rejected the 
Keystone Pipeline. That is a project which would have created as many 
as 343,000 private sector jobs, according to the Congressional Research 
Service, and all of that without having cost the taxpayers a dime.
  We also need to consider how the policies of the last 3 years, which 
include the exploding debt and the massive new taxes and regulations 
that are contained in ObamaCare and the so-called financial reform 
bill, have put a drag on the economy. It has increased uncertainty for 
job creators, and it has actually weakened the economic recovery. If 
President Obama wants to continue any jobs momentum, I believe he ought 
to reconsider his position on the tax hikes coming at the end of this 
year. They are automatic. If we don't do anything, taxes will go up on 
everyone next January 1st, the largest tax increase in the history of 
our country, over $3.5 trillion. Will businesses want to expand and 
hire new workers in the face of a tax increase that size over the next 
10 years? Will they want to create

[[Page S333]]

jobs if they are faced with an avalanche of new regulations? Will they 
be able to invest in growth if the government keeps crowding out 
private investment with massive borrowing and spending?
  The bottom line is that there is a recipe for turning the economy 
around in a very strong way and providing the jobs people are going to 
need in order to get the work they can do and need in order to support 
their families. What the President has done has impeded and slowed down 
that growth. Of course, one can argue that he didn't create the 
problem, he inherited the problem, but that his policies have made it 
worse, not better; that we would have a stronger recovery had we not 
wasted that money on the stimulus program and had we not passed some of 
the highly regulatory and depressing legislation such as ObamaCare.
  With the opportunity before us to support progrowth policies, I am 
convinced the private sector of this country is strong enough to 
rebound. We are beginning to see that in these employment numbers. If 
we work with businesses, understanding that they create the jobs, not 
the government--all we can do is to provide the best foundation for job 
creation--if we do that, then this eventually can be a strong economic 
recovery, and then we really will have something to brag about. It is 
my hope that in the remaining months of this year, before politics 
completely consumes Washington, DC, Republicans and Democrats, the 
House and the Senate, can work together with the President to create 
that kind of climate in which all Americans who want to can find 
economic opportunity and work.
  I note the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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