[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Pages 24766-24768]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                         OUR COUNTRY'S ECONOMY

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I want to speak for a few minutes today 
about the issue of this country's economy. I was reminded the other 
day, in one of the discussions with respect to the contest for the 
Presidency this year, that some say: Really, nothing has happened with 
respect to the last 8 years and this administration. It got me to 
thinking of where we have been and what we are experiencing in this 
country today.
  As I have indicated previously, I believe we are blessed in this 
country. We have the strongest economy in the world and the longest 
economic expansion in this country's history. And this is not all 
accidental. Some say that had nothing to do with Government, it had to 
do with the American people. The American people were working very hard 
in the 1950s and the 1980s, and during other periods. However, you also 
need a set of sensible Government policies that reduce the Federal 
indebtedness, stimulate investment and do the other things that are 
necessary to allow this economic engine to run and to work right. So 
this is not an accident.
  Let me describe where we are. At the moment, we are 115 months into 
the longest economic expansion on record. That is something all of us 
should feel very good about.
  Let me describe what happened to us back in the 1980s. In the early 
1980s especially, we began a significant amount of red ink, deficit 
after deficit after deficit, and it kept getting worse and worse.
  As you can see from this chart, the deficits went up to $290 billion 
in the Federal budget in 1992. Then, in 1993, Congress made some hard 
decisions. This President, a new President, proposed a controversial 
new economic plan. Some did not like it. Some still do not like it. It 
passed the Senate by one vote and passed the House by one vote. This 
new economic plan provided a different direction. The deficits got 
smaller and smaller, and then we began to see surpluses, and more 
surpluses, and more.
  Is this a turnaround? Yes, I think so. Is it accidental? No. It 
happened, as you can see indicated on this chart, when a new President 
proposed a bold economic plan and, by one vote in the House and the 
Senate, we embraced a new direction and a new approach. You can see by 
this chart what the result has been. We went from the largest deficits 
in history to the largest surpluses in this country's history.
  Jobs created. The Government does not create jobs. But jobs are 
created in a timeframe in which the Government, with a set of policies, 
provides for economic opportunity in the expansion of the economy. 
Under the Reagan administration, in 8 years, 16 million jobs were 
created; the Bush administration, 4 years, 2.5 million jobs; under this 
administration, in 8 years, 22 million new jobs. It is a wonderful 
record, with an economy that is working better than anyone ever could 
have anticipated.
  The unemployment rate. This economy is full of good news for our 
country. You can see what has happened to the unemployment rate, 
beginning in 1992 and 1993, when this Congress set this country on a 
different course to an economy of reduced deficits, with more robust 
growth. Unemployment has gone down, down, way down. That is good 
economic news for America's families.
  The inflation rate is down. As we can see, we have had a low 
inflation rate that has been stable throughout the 1990s.
  The lowest poverty rate in two decades. You can see from this chart 
what happened when this economy began to kick into fifth gear and we 
began to see lower deficits and more economic growth. We saw lower 
unemployment, and now we see lower poverty rates.
  Some say: That is just an accident; isn't it? No, it is not just an 
accident. This Congress, by one vote, embraced a new plan offered by a 
new President in 1993. It was very controversial, and it worked. The 
evidence is all around us.
  We had people on the floor of the Senate who said: Pass this plan, 
and it will bankrupt our country. Pass this plan, and our country will 
experience a recession. Pass this plan, and there will be people 
unemployed in the streets.
  They were wrong. Where we were headed was a very difficult 
circumstance for our country: Bigger and bigger deficits; slow, anemic 
economic growth. We changed the plan. The Clinton-Gore proposal in 1993 
was passed by

[[Page 24767]]

one vote in both the House and the Senate. We changed direction. And we 
see unemployment down, inflation down, poverty rates down, and more.
  And now, as a result of economic growth and better opportunity, the 
federal income tax burden on middle-income taxpayers has decreased, as 
well as the percent of income paid in Federal income taxes.
  With respect to the burden of Federal income taxes on middle-income 
workers, those with average income of $39,000 in 1999, the Federal 
income tax burden has actually decreased during this same period.
  Federal spending as a percentage of the gross domestic product in 
this country is down. That is not an accident either. That relates how 
much we spend to what our economy is in terms of its total value of 
goods and services produced. Federal spending is lower as a percent of 
GDP.
  Let's review the U.S. economy, since we passed the bill in 1993, that 
a new President, a new Vice President proposed that we pass to change 
direction. We were headed in the wrong direction. We saw deficit after 
deficit. It was getting larger.
  Let me show the chart again, because I think it is important --
deficit after deficit, getting larger each year. Here is where we were. 
As you can see, a $290 billion Federal deficit in that 1 year, growing 
by leaps and bounds. We changed direction. The deficits got smaller and 
smaller and turned into surpluses. That is not an accident. That is a 
function of good public policy.
  In 1992, we had the highest dollar deficit in history. Today, we have 
the largest dollar surplus in our Federal budget history. Economic 
growth, 2.8 percent annually in the 12 years before 1993, since 3.9 
percent annually; job growth, 1989 to 1992, one of the worst 4-year 
periods in history, 2.5 million new jobs; in the 8 years since, 22 
million new jobs. The unemployment rate average, 7 percent from 1981 to 
1992; 4.1 percent in the last 8 years, the lowest in 30 years. Home 
ownership fell between 1982 and 1992. Now it is the highest in history. 
Median family income fell from 1988 to 1992. Now it has increased by 
$5,000 since 1993. Welfare rolls increased 22 percent from 1982 to 
1992; decreased by 53 percent between 1993 and 2000. The Dow Jones was 
at 3,300, and now it is over 10,000.
  That is the consequence of having an economic plan that works. When 
people say, well, not much has changed, a lot has changed. In 1992, 
this country was headed in the wrong direction. Now it is headed in the 
right direction. In 1992, we had an anemic economy that was producing 
higher deficits, slower growth, more unemployment. Now we have an 
economy that is producing budget surpluses, lower unemployment, lower 
inflation, and the longest economic expansion in this country's 
history.
  When I hear discussions on the campaign trail about where we have 
been and where we are, they need to be rooted in some basis of fact. 
You would have had to have been on another planet not to understand 
that the last 8 years have been truly significant.
  I am not saying that one side or the other should claim credit for 
everything. I am saying this because I was here and I know it. This 
country was headed in the wrong direction, with fiscal policies that 
said you can have a very big tax cut, you can double defense spending, 
and somehow everything will turn out all right. It didn't. It turned 
out with huge, growing, abiding deficits every year that sucked the 
strength out of this country's economy. It meant people didn't have 
jobs when they wanted jobs. It meant businesses couldn't expand when 
they wanted to expand. It meant our Federal budget deficit was swollen 
with red ink.
  It wasn't working. It was a plan that didn't work. David Stockman 
told us in his book, shortly after helping concoct the plan in early 
1981, that it wouldn't work. It didn't work. It put this country in a 
deficit ditch, a deep hole.
  We had a new plan, a different plan. No, it wasn't the same old 
trickle down where you pour something in at the top and hope everybody 
down at the bottom gets damp somehow. It was a plan that percolates up, 
saying that this country's economic engine works best when everybody 
has a little something to work with, when everyone has confidence in 
the future.
  Our economy rests on a mattress of confidence of a sort. If people 
are confident about the future, they do things that manifest that 
confidence. They buy a car, a house, do the kinds of things that 
manifest confidence in the future. If they are not confident in their 
future, they do exactly the opposite and the economy contracts.
  No one has ever repealed the business cycle nor will they. We have 
economic expansions and contractions. But economic expansions occur 
when people are confident, and they are sustained when people are 
confident.
  Right here, in 1993, this new President, President Clinton, and Vice 
President Gore said: We have a different plan. We are going to change 
directions. We don't want to be in the same deficit ditch we have been 
in all these years. It is going to be tough. It is going to be 
controversial, but we want you to be with us to make these changes. 
Enough of us were. As I indicated, by one vote in the Senate and one 
vote in the House, we changed direction.
  The American people had an assessment that was different than the 
assessment they had in the past. They became confident that Congress 
finally was going to do something to tackle these deficits, not just 
talk about them but tackle them, to get this country's fiscal policy 
back under some amount of control.
  People's confidence increased. The result was that our economy began 
to rebound. It produced more economic growth than anyone thought 
possible. It produced lower unemployment than virtually anyone thought 
possible, and we have economic strength and opportunity across the 
entire country as a result of it.
  Some areas have been left behind; I understand that. My point is, 
even as we work on those remaining areas, this country has done very 
well. It is not an accident. I get a little fatigued hearing people say 
nothing has happened in the last 8 years.
  What has happened is this administration, the Clinton-Gore 
administration, inherited a weak, anemic economy, and we turned it 
around. Was it easy? No. We paid a price for the votes we cast to do 
it. It wasn't easy. It wasn't the best political choice. It wasn't the 
most popular choice. But it was the required choice to say what is 
happening in this country isn't right and we need to change it.
  Changing it has meant that virtually everything in this country has 
improved. Welfare rolls are down, home ownership is up, unemployment 
down, inflation down. Almost every indices of economic health in this 
country shows strong, sustained improvement. That is not some 
historical accident. It is not. It is a function of a Congress, a 
President, and Vice President teaming up to make tough choices, to say 
we are moving in the wrong direction and, with as much strength and 
courage as it takes, we are going to turn that steering wheel and move 
the country back in the right direction.
  When people said, we blame you for the votes you cast in 1993, even 
back then, just after the vote, I said: You can't blame me. I demand 
that you give me credit for that vote. As unpopular as it might be, it 
was the right thing for this country to do. I am proud to have 
participated in it. I feel exactly the same way today. Do not dare to 
blame me for that vote. I voted to change direction because this 
country was headed in the wrong direction.
  This country is now headed in the right direction. We have a lot of 
challenges ahead of us and a lot to do. One of my great worries is that 
those people who now say, oh, by the way, we are going to have 10 years 
of surpluses, don't understand the lessons of history. We don't have 10 
years of surpluses. We have economic uncertainty ahead, unless we 
maintain a fiscal policy that makes sense. A trillion and a half 
dollars in tax cuts before even the surplus exists will put us right 
back into the same deficit ditch we had been in for so long back in the 
1980s and early 1990s.

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  We dare not squander this opportunity. We need a fiscal policy that 
makes sense, one on which we can rely, one that says to the American 
people, our first priority is not to give tax cuts with money we don't 
have. Our first priority, when we have better economic times and have a 
budget surplus, is to use part of that surplus to pay down the Federal 
debt. If during tough times you run up the Federal debt, as we did, 
during good times you ought to have the common sense to pay down part 
of that Federal debt, as we should.
  This is the story. This is where we have been, and this is where we 
are. I worry very much that the kind of proposals offered by some here 
and by Governor Bush running for President--about $1.5 trillion in new 
tax cuts, most of which will go to those who need it least--will put us 
right back into the same deficit we have been in too long. We have 
worked too hard to squander our economic strength now.

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