[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 54 (Monday, April 16, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2314-S2315]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       SURFACE TRANSPORTATION ACT

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I will be closing the Senate very 
shortly, but before I do I want to say a few words about a topic that 
came up today. Obviously, I was pleased that a majority of the Senate, 
indeed a bipartisan majority of the Senate, has just voted to eliminate 
an unfortunate gimmick in the Tax Code that allows people who make 
north of a quarter of a billion dollars a year to pay lower tax rates 
than a Providence, RI truckdriver pays if he is single. I think that is 
pretty hard to justify, frankly. I think a lot of Americans spent last 
week preparing their taxes and having heard from Warren Buffett who 1 
year paid an 11-percent all-in Federal tax rate, a rate obviously 
higher than his secretary paid, something Mr. Buffett himself has 
complained about, there is a pretty wide sense that the American Tax 
Code serves special interests and people who have phenomenal amounts of 
wealth much better than it serves regular middle-class taxpayers.
  That is particularly true if you avoid doing what my Republican 
colleagues have done, which is focus on the most progressive part of 
the Tax Code, the income tax part, and ignore the most regressive part 
of the Tax Code which hits the working families the hardest, which is 
payroll taxes. Almost everything they will say about the American Tax 
Code conveniently omits the taxes that most Americans pay--more 
Americans pay than the income tax, frankly.
  But we had a good discussion on that subject. I think because it was 
so difficult for so many of my colleagues to come out in favor of an 
upside-down tax situation in which somebody making a quarter of a 
billion dollars pays a lower rate than somebody making $100,000 or 
$90,000, other topics were brought up. We kind of had a march through 
all the topics one could think of. One of them, very central to all of 
us here in the Senate today, is jobs, and it was pointed out that the 
tax fairness bill is not a jobs bill. Of course it would be if you took 
the $47 billion to $162 billion in revenue it creates and put it toward 
infrastructure. Then it would create literally hundreds of thousands of 
jobs. But because it does not define where the revenue is going to go I 
cannot say it is a jobs bill. It is a tax fairness bill. That was its 
intention.
  But we do have a jobs bill here in Congress. We have a very 
significant jobs bill. We have a highway transportation bill. The 
Presiding Officer serves with me on the Environment and Public Works 
Committee and knows how hard we worked to get that bill through the 
Environment and Public Works Committee. It is exactly the kind of bill 
that people from outside of Washington, looking in at Washington, want 
to see us do. You had a chairman on the Environment and Public Works 
Committee, Barbara Boxer of California, and a ranking member on the 
Environment and Public Works Committee, Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma, who 
are from about as polar opposite political points of view as they could 
be, but they found a way to come together on this bill. They worked 
with all of us on the committee. As a result the bill passed out of the 
Environment and Public Works Committee unanimously, every Republican 
and every Democrat.
  Then it came to the floor, and there are complaints from time to time 
around here that stuff gets jammed on the floor and there is not enough 
of an open amendment process. There were 5 weeks of debate and 
amendment of this bill on the Senate floor. I think 41 amendments were 
added to the bill, either by vote or by agreement during the course of 
that--Republican amendments, Democratic amendments. When the dust 
settled on the whole process and everybody had their say and everybody 
had their votes and all the amendments that could be considered were 
considered, we voted on it and 75 Senators either voted for it or were 
out of town and have said that they would have voted for it had they 
been here. So you had an effective vote of 75, I think, to 22. By our 
standard here that is a colossal bipartisan landslide.
  The bill itself was supported by everybody from the U.S. Chamber of 
Commerce--which is probably the most active Republican lobbying and 
political organization in the country--to environmental groups, to the 
labor unions. This is a bill that everybody supports. From a jobs point 
of view it is 2.9 million jobs. It is 9,000 jobs in my home State of 
Rhode Island. This is a big deal.
  The bill was sent over to the other side of the Capitol and there it 
sits. The Speaker will not take it up. What I hear is because he does 
not want to count on Democratic votes. To somebody who wants a job or 
who wants a cousin or a sister to have a job--to be out working, 
rebuilding roads, rebuilding bridges, rebuilding highways, rebuilding 
our national infrastructure--it is pretty hard to explain why you would 
walk away from a bill that creates 3 million jobs, a bill that is 
bipartisan, that went through a full process in the Senate, when they 
have no bill whatsoever of their own, and do so because they do not 
want to use Democratic votes. That is sort of the ultimate Washington 
insider reason for not doing something important for the country.
  When we talk about jobs in the Senate, until we get action in the 
House that creates a real bill, I don't think we should be getting any 
lectures about jobs from our Republican colleagues. I am told that the 
House is passing another extension. As the Presiding Officer knows, 
these extensions cost a ton in the way of jobs. It has been estimated 
by our Director of Transportation that it would be a thousand jobs lost 
in Rhode Island from the extension we have already agreed to through 
the end of June. If we pass that through the end of September, there 
goes the entire building season. That is going to hurt.
  I spent time in Rhode Island when we were home over the recess period 
with the Director of Transportation, who is a very able Director. He 
has worked under Republican and now Independent Governors. He describes 
that they have a list this long of projects that they

[[Page S2315]]

want to get done this summer, in the building season, but if they do 
not know until July what the funding is going to be, he said, I have to 
drop a lot of those projects off the bottom. When I do that, that is a 
lot of jobs. It is unnecessary. We could be passing this bipartisan 
Senate bill through the House very quickly. Democrats would vote for 
it. Many Republicans would vote for it. All those jobs would be able to 
start up right away. If we extend it further into September, that makes 
it even worse. So it is urgent that we not continue down a path of 
delay and delay of the bill.
  It is not only me saying this. The folks at Standard & Poor's have 
come out with a report that is entitled ``Increasingly Unpredictable 
Federal Funding Could Stall U.S. Transportation Infrastructure 
Projects.'' They point out that:

       As the construction season begins in the northern half of 
     the country, this continuing uncertainty in funding could 
     force states to delay projects rather than risk funding 
     changes or political gridlock come July.

  That is exactly what Director Lewis told me, that simply the 
uncertainty will move jobs off the list that can be done in this 
construction season. The report continues that `` . . . the political 
gridlock in Washington, DC''--i.e. the Speaker being unwilling to call 
up a bipartisan, 75 to 22, Senate bill with Democratic and Republican 
amendments, everybody supporting it, unwilling to call that up because 
he doesn't want to have to rely on Democratic votes, that is political 
gridlock for sure--``and the doubts surrounding federal funding are 
making it difficult for issuers throughout the infrastructure sector to 
define long-term plans for funding necessary capital projects.''
  Then this report goes on to say:

       Once a long-term authorization is approved, we believe it 
     will provide an impetus for transportation agencies to 
     reconsider high priority projects that have been shelved 
     because of lack of funds, but if the authorization is 
     extended by even more continuing resolutions, such high 
     priority projects will remain in limbo.

  Jobs are at stake. It is a multimillion-jobs bill. It is sitting over 
there, not because of any problem they have with the bill per se. They 
don't have a bill of their own. They don't have anything they prefer. I 
hear they are going to send over another extension to September--
arguably, if I hear correctly, with some politically very contentious 
issues attached, which makes it even more difficult. Remember, this was 
a bipartisan bill here on the Senate side. That is where we are stuck.

  So I wished to take the time this evening to urge my colleagues on 
the Republican side of the aisle to use whatever powers they have of 
conversation or persuasion to get the House to call up the bill. If we 
have to get this bill over, the alternative is, if it is only another 
extension, that is going to cost--I don't know--another 1,000 jobs in 
Rhode Island. We need to make sure we have a bill that will take us to 
conference and that we get to conference as quickly as possible. Once 
we are in conference, we need to pass a real authorization that avoids 
these problems as quickly as possible. The American people expect no 
less.
  It is not rocket science to pass a transportation bill. Congress has 
been doing this since the days when President Eisenhower established 
the Federal highway program. If we cannot get this done, what does that 
say about our prospects of doing something complicated, such as 
cybersecurity or other issues we will have to face? This should be a 
slam dunk, particularly with a bipartisan bill that everybody supports 
that came through the Senate after such a clear, transparent, rigorous, 
and open process. I will end my remarks there.


                         Arts Advocacy Day 2012

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, at a recent HELP Committee hearing on 
education and the economy, representatives of the business community 
told us that it is not enough for our education system to produce 
graduates who can read, write, and do math. Employers need workers who 
can apply creativity, collaboration, and communication in their jobs to 
solve problems, produce ideas and make connections. These are the keys 
to innovation and success in the knowledge economy of the 21st century. 
Indeed, they are essential if we are to move our economy forward, 
create jobs, and ensure our national security. But I ask you, How can 
we produce graduates who are creative and collaborative if we don't 
value the arts in our society and teach it in our schools?
  Today is Arts Advocacy Day. Advocates for the arts have come to 
Washington to remind their elected officials about the importance of 
Federal investments in the arts. Why investment at the Federal level? 
Because arts are essential to the fabric of our society. Arts education 
teaches critical skills--not just creativity, but also a rigorous and 
practical application of other skills. The arts make us think. The arts 
improve our quality of life. The arts provide an outlet for personal 
and political expression. Collectively, our arts express who we are as 
a nation. This very building, the United States Capitol, an enduring 
symbol of freedom and democracy, is an especially powerful example. 
Federal funds built this building. Federal funds also support vital 
programs such as the Iowa Arts Council Big Yellow School Bus grants, to 
pay the costs of busing students to museums or live orchestra concerts. 
For many students, this is the only opportunity they have to experience 
the arts.
  It is imperative that we continue to promote a society where all 
citizens are exposed to the arts and where all students--no matter 
their socioeconomic background, community, family, or ability--have 
equitable access to a high-quality, public, well-rounded education that 
includes the arts.
  Unfortunately, recent data from the Department of Education show that 
inequities persist. Schools serving the poorest students are less 
likely to offer instruction in the arts. For example, availability of 
music instruction in secondary schools on average has remained at about 
90 percent for the last 10 years. Meanwhile, it has actually decreased, 
from 100 percent to 81 percent for schools with the highest poverty 
concentration--a 19 percentage point decrease.
  We all want our kids to succeed in school, and to be inspired in 
school. Many students find the motivation to learn through 
participation in the visual arts, drama, band, orchestra, choir, or 
dance. Every child should have the opportunity to do something that 
inspires and excites them, that teaches them creativity, collaboration, 
and communication, no matter their socio-economic status, their 
neighborhood, their local tax base. Research has shown that arts 
education improves not only children's creativity, but also their 
ability to learn and be productive in school, as well as their self-
confidence and social skills.
  Christine Dunn, a music teacher at Harlan Community Elementary School 
in Harlan, IA, wrote me a letter urging me to continue my support for 
the arts. She told me that without the arts, ``our students may never 
be able to see, understand or express feelings, thoughts and ideas 
fully. I try to imagine a world without the arts and it looks very 
bleak. The arts give us creativity and the freedom to be ourselves.''
  Today on the occasion of Arts Advocacy Day, I would like to recognize 
the outstanding advocacy of Iowans like Ms. Dunn, Barry Griswell, and 
Suku Radia--and the wonderful contributions that Iowans have made to 
the arts throughout our nation's history.

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