[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 198 (Wednesday, December 11, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S6976]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Economic Growth

  Mr. President, you don't hear much about the fact that household 
incomes have increased more than $5,000 a family in the 3 years since 
President Trump was elected. It went up a total of $1,000 in the 16 
years through the Bush and Obama administrations. That should be the 
banner, the headline, and sadly, we are mired in other discussions that 
I will address here in a moment.
  I believe in the long run that, if we are going to change the 
dynamic, we will need more disruption in an institution that, in the 
year I have been here, I have been surprised how many people come here 
actually wanting more, not realizing that when you are running 
trillion-dollar deficits, that is a bad business partner. That is a 
business partner that I would hedge my bets and maybe find other ways 
to pay the way in the long run. Sadly, I don't think we are going to 
fix that component until we probably have a crisis or two, and then we 
solve it in that fashion.
  So the budget which is, in my opinion, in the long run what we need 
to do here, if we want to be helpful to the American public, it has got 
to straighten itself out. Whether that will happen, I do not know.