[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Pages 24577-24580]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                           ECONOMIC STIMULUS

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, now before the Senate is the farm bill. The 
farm bill will do a number of things. First of all, it will stimulate 
the economy. The need to stimulate the economy is something we need to 
do right away.
  Before getting into the intricacies of the farm bill, I refer to a 
couple of pieces of mail I have received. Unfortunately, we don't get 
mail the way we used to, but I have some e-mails here.

       Dear Senator Reid: We wish to thank you for the 
     Thanksgiving meal we received from you via the Culinary Union 
     here in Las Vegas.

  During Thanksgiving break, I helped pass out some turkeys and other 
little boxes until we ran out. People were donating them. They thought 
they would have enough. They weren't even close to having enough meals. 
But this is a letter, an e-mail, that says:

       My husband has worked here for 29 years plus and is out of 
     work. Never have we not had money for the holiday. We would 
     not have had the turkey dinner if wasn't for you. We have 
     even enjoyed leftovers. We just want you to know how we 
     appreciate it. Thank you very much. The Heller's.

  Here is another one:

       I was recently changed to part time at the corporation 
     where I work. This was done to reduce my hours and eliminate 
     my health insurance. The result is I am earning one half of 
     my prior income and I am paying $600 per month for COBRA. I 
     need temporary help in maintaining my health insurance 
     through COBRA. I understand there is legislation regarding a 
     tax credit for people relying on COBRA. Your endorsement of 
     this proposal would be of great help to me and my family. 
     Thank you for your support. Sharon Sharp.

  These are two examples of things we need to do in addition to the 
farm bill to stimulate this economy. No. 1, do something about 
unemployment compensation so people who, for example, have gone from 
welfare to work and don't qualify for unemployment benefits can get 
some unemployment benefits. If you want to stimulate the economy, give 
money to then people who are most likely to spend it. Then, of course, 
this letter from Sharon Sharp, who talks about the importance of doing 
something about COBRA.
  Two of the fundamental precepts of our economic recovery plan, our 
stimulus, should be to do something about unemployment benefits and to 
do something about COBRA. I hope we will do both.
  I was a little bit confused yesterday as Vice President Cheney blamed 
the majority leader for the Senate's failure to pass an economic 
stimulus package. He even went so far as to call Senator Daschle an 
obstructionist. I know

[[Page 24578]]

Vice President Cheney is very busy. Maybe he hasn't had the chance to 
see what goes on in this body.
  The fact is, Senator Daschle has not obstructed anything. It appears 
to me the Republicans are protesting too much. They are saying Senator 
Daschle is obstructing this. Why? It is because under this unique 
situation that has developed here, we are not going through the 
ordinary process. We are not going through the ordinary process where 
you would take a bill to the Finance Committee and report a bill out of 
the Finance Committee.
  That is not what we are doing because we received some suggestions 
that maybe the committee process is not the right way to go. Senator 
Daschle agreed: OK, how do you want to do it then? Speaker Hastert sent 
him a written proposal. Senator Daschle said: I accept it. He sent it 
back. That wasn't quite what they meant to say. They sent something 
else back. Senator Daschle agreed to accept that as well.
  The agreement is that, among other things, two Democrats from the 
Senate will join with our counterparts, Republican counterparts here in 
the Senate and in the House. Senator Daschle selected the chairman of 
the Finance Committee, Senator Baucus, and Senator Jay Rockefeller, a 
senior member of the Finance Committee, to represent the Democratic 
Senators. He told us in our conference when we met last Tuesday: Look, 
I trust these men implicitly. They will do the best they can, and they 
will report back to us when they have an agreement.
  Now, it has been suggested that he has called for a two-thirds 
ratification. Well, he did call for a two-thirds ratification, but he 
said that Democratic Senators would have to agree with what Senators 
Baucus and Rockefeller negotiated. That certainly doesn't sound 
unreasonable to me. I hope that whatever the Republicans come back 
with, they will want their conference to agree on it also. Or are we 
going to resort to a situation where whatever the President wants, we 
just blindly accept it?
  I don't think that is the way the Constitution was established. I 
think this little document--the Constitution--sets up three separate 
but equal branches of Government, and I think we have should have some 
say on what is produced. Senator Daschle is doing his job. We not only 
have Vice President Cheney blaming Senator Daschle for obstructing an 
economic stimulus package, but the minority leader in the Senate also 
stated he would rather have no bill than a bad bill. I think he speaks 
for a lot of us here. But, he went on to say that if we can't get a 
bill done this week, we should put it off until next year. I don't 
think that the American people want us to put off their work until next 
year. I think we should work hard to get it done this year . . . this 
week.
  I think we should keep in mind the document off of which we are 
working. The legislation pending at the desk is a bill passed by the 
House of Representatives. It is a bill that is really interesting, to 
say the least. In fact, it's not an economic stimulus bill, it's a tax 
bill, because most of the proposals passed by the House and favored by 
the Administration are approximately 90 percent in tax cuts, many of 
them, retroactive. Senate Democrats favor tax relief--including 
corporate tax relief--that would encourage American businesses to 
invest more or accelerate certain purchases. However, we shouldn't be 
pushing permanent, retroactive tax cuts while at the same time American 
workers who have lost their jobs that their tax relief belongs on the 
back burner. Case in point: Permanent and retroactive repeal of the 
corporate alternative minimum tax. That is a primary component of the 
House bill. This isn't something we are making up, this is in the House 
bill. How can anybody in good conscience tell a hard-working American 
such as Sharon Sharp and the Heller family from Nevada--people who lost 
their jobs--that we don't have enough money to extend unemployment 
benefits for a few weeks, but we have enough money to give IBM a $1.4 
billion tax refund? These are taxes they have already paid, going back 
to 1988. Any tax you have paid since AMT was passed, they want to give 
it back.
  If that doesn't give you a little bit of an alert, let's look at the 
list. I will give you some of the companies on the list, and I think 
it's fair to comment that there is a heavy presence of the oil and 
energy sector who will get a ton of money back if we accept the House 
bill that we are accused of obstructing: Ford would get $1 billion; 
General Motors would get $832 million returned to them; General 
Electric, $671 million; TXU, $608 million. A foreign company--some of 
these others are foreign--DaimlerChrysler gets a $600 million refund; 
Chevron, $572 million; Enron--Enron, who has done a few things such as 
really damaging people's pensions--some people had invested so heavily 
in some of these pension fund moneys in Enron stock, which dropped from 
$98 to 34 cents a share. Enron would get $254 million; Phillips 
Petroleum, $241 million; IMC Global, $155 million. Also, it is 
interesting to note that United Airlines and American Airlines, for 
which we just appropriated $15 billion a few weeks ago, would get about 
$600 million; CMS Energy, $136 million.
  Maybe we are doing a pretty good job of slowing things up. This is 
the document from which we are working. It would be a shame if we 
passed this bill. I can't imagine why in the world we would want to 
pass this piece of legislation.
  I think it is important that we get a stimulus package. What will 
stimulate the economy more, money going to General Electric or any of 
the companies on this list, or money going to people who have recently 
been unemployed? Who is going to spend that money? The unemployed 
people are. They have no other money; they have to spend it to buy 
groceries, clothing and, perhaps, a turkey for Christmas. As Sharon 
Sharp says, she wants to keep her health insurance. Unemployment 
benefits to people who will spend the money would stimulate the 
economy.
  So rather than giving all these corporations a retroactive tax 
break--remember, this was first enacted because of the widespread 
problem of the large, highly profitable corporations which used to 
thrive on the loopholes and didn't pay a penny of corporate taxes. We 
just said: If you pay no taxes, there is going to be a minimum that you 
have to pay. That is all we asked in the past. Now we are going to say: 
Sorry, you don't have to pay any of those taxes. In fact, those of you 
who did pay, we are going to give it back to you.
  Permanent repeal of the corporate alternative minimum tax might be 
even more expensive than just refunding past tax payments. The AMT 
reduces the incentive of corporations to find tax loopholes and take as 
many deductions as possible and to pay at least a minimum tax. Without 
this, we return to the days when corporations went to extreme measures 
to find tax loopholes and not pay taxes at all.
  If it were up to the House and this administration, we would have 
enough money for more than $7 billion of retroactive corporate tax 
breaks, but not any money to help American workers who have lost their 
jobs. It is precisely these people--middle-income Americans--who are 
most likely to spend additional money because they would stimulate the 
economy. They have to; they have no other money. That is what we are 
trying to do--enact an economic stimulus package that would stimulate 
the economy.
  So I say to my friend, with whom I served in the House of 
Representatives, the President of the Senate, the Vice President of the 
United States, he should get a better briefing as to what is going on 
before he makes statements that Senator Daschle is an obstructionist. 
Senator Daschle is doing the American public a service by standing in 
the way of what they have done in the House of Representatives. It is 
blatantly unfair to call him an obstructionist, especially when the 
representatives he appointed to this group of negotiators who are 
trying to come up with a stimulus package--Senators Baucus and 
Rockefeller--were prepared to attend a meeting that was scheduled for 
Friday afternoon to continue the negotiations on this package and the 
chairman of the group, the

[[Page 24579]]

chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in the House of 
Representatives, Mr. Thomas, goes to California to attend a fundraiser. 
Chairman Baucus and Senator Rockefeller thought they had a meeting 
scheduled, then it was abruptly canceled because the Chairman of the 
Ways and Means Committee wanted to leave town. Madam President, they 
know how to spin this well because they have the bully pulpit. They 
spin things pretty well. The minority leader gets on television and 
says: Why is Tom Daschle doing this? They have the Vice President get 
on TV and say he is an obstructionist. This is to cover up for the fact 
that their lead negotiator, Chairman Thomas, is in California doing a 
fundraiser when he should be in Washington working. I think they are 
protesting too much. I don't think they want a stimulus package. So 
they are trying to point all their poison arrows at Senator Daschle, 
saying he is the reason why we don't have an economic stimulus bill. He 
is not the reason.
  Last month, Senator Baucus, chairman of the Finance Committee, marked 
up an economic stimulus package and reported it to the floor, where 
Senator Daschle immediately called it up for consideration. What 
happened? The Republicans killed it. Without any amendment process, it 
was simply killed--no negotiation, no discussion of the amendments.
  What makes it even more frustrating, while their excuse for killing 
the economic stimulus package was that it violated the Budget Act--
their own proposal violated the Budget Act. Had we really been trying 
to kill the stimulus package, we would have raised a budget point of 
order against their proposal. But in an effort to keep it before the 
Senate so that we could debate the substance and contents of an 
economic stimulus, we decided not to raise a point of order. How can 
they brand Senator Daschle an obstructionist? They are the 
obstructionists. I repeat, they are protesting too much.
  For example, the former chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator 
Domenici, came to me a few weeks ago with a proposal I think should 
have the most serious of discussion. He said: Let's not have 
withholding taxes collected from the employee or the employer for a 
month; a proposal that would cost approximately $38 billion. That money 
would shoot back into the economy like an injection of penicillin. It 
would be so good for the economy. But no, we were not given a chance to 
consider that either.
  I hope people understand this is a game that is being played. There 
are no negotiations going on. Our friends on the other side of the 
aisle won't talk to us. The person supposedly leading the negotiations 
for the Republicans headed off for California.
  I hope Chairman Harkin gets into the meat of this discussion on the 
farm bill and that we do not lose sight of the fact that not only are 
these farm programs great for the country, because we all eat food and 
America is the farm basket of the world, but they stimulate the 
economy.
  The provisions in this bill--I have worked with the chairman of the 
committee--are going to be good for the economy. I heard the Republican 
leader on television over the weekend say: Why do we need a farm bill? 
I hope the chairman of the committee will describe in detail today why 
we need a farm bill. We really do need a farm bill. It is important we 
move forward.
  I want to reiterate my point about the meetings that were canceled 
over the weekend. In the spirit of an agreement reached by the Senate, 
the House, and the administration, Baucus, Rockefeller, Grassley, 
Thomas, Armey, and Rangel were supposed to meet on Friday. As I said, 
without the courtesy of even a simple phone call, the chairman of the 
Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Thomas, took off for California. Even 
Senator Grassley, representing the Republicans, expressed dismay that 
the negotiations had been rudely interrupted and canceled.
  Madam President, with people refusing to meet and negotiate, I'd say 
that it is pretty clear who is obstructing.
  Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. REID. I will be happy to yield to my friend, the chairman of the 
Agriculture Committee.
  Mr. HARKIN. I thank the assistant majority leader for yielding, and I 
thank him for responding to some of the statements that were made over 
the weekend.
  I did not watch any of the Sunday morning shows, but I read the 
papers this morning. I saw that Vice President Cheney had referred to 
our majority leader, Senator Daschle, as an obstructionist, obstructing 
the stimulus bill. I am delighted the Senator from Nevada has clearly 
pointed out that no one on this side is obstructing anything. We have 
been more than willing to work with the other side on a number of 
items, but it almost seems to this Senator that their definition of 
obstructionism is ``our way or the highway.'' If we do not do it all 
how the President or how the Vice President wants or how the 
Republicans want, then we are obstructionists.
  We ought to work together across party lines, get bipartisan 
agreements, and move ahead. It is not this side that has been 
obstructing anything. We have wanted to move ahead with legislation.
  Take the farm bill--and I will have more to say about it this 
afternoon. We have been trying to get some time agreements. A request 
was proposed by our staff earlier that we have a time agreement and 
that all first-degree amendments at least be laid down by tomorrow 
afternoon. It was objected to on the Republican side, not on this side.
  Everyone knew the farm bill was going to be up. It was laid down last 
week. Yet they are objecting to having some meaningful debate. No one 
wants to cut off amendments, but at least we can have some amendments 
laid down, have time agreements, and debate them.
  Second, on the stimulus package, I think the Senator from Nevada is 
right. I think they are protesting too much on the other side. I smell 
a little bit of a rat someplace because I have been hearing from my 
Governor in Iowa, and I have heard from other people and other 
Governors from around the United States about what bad shape their 
economies are in right now and how their legislatures will be meeting 
in January.
  Their budget situations look very dire. They are cutting expenses; 
they are cutting education; they are cutting other programs around the 
States. They have looked at the proposed Republican stimulus bill with 
all of the tax cuts, and they have now begun to figure out what that is 
going to mean in the States and how the State budgets are going to be 
impacted by these proposed tax cuts the Republicans have proposed in 
the stimulus package.
  A lot of States are saying: Don't give us so much of this ``help'' 
because the tax cuts you are putting in there are going to help a lot 
of the large corporations, a lot of the wealthiest in our country, but 
at the same time it is going to take money out of our States at a time 
during the recession when our States can ill afford it.
  There is some feedback. Of course, our friends on the other side of 
the aisle are a little bit in a bind. They promised their big-wig 
supporters--the big companies and the big corporations--all these tax 
cuts they were going to get for them, and even though they want to 
deliver, they cannot because they are going to hurt a lot of the 
Republican Governors and Democratic Governors, too, in the State 
budgets. Maybe our friends are caught in a little bit of a bind, 
promising too much to the large corporations and the wealthy of this 
country, and then finding out what the impact is going to be on our 
States.
  What they have come up with is not a stimulus package. It is simply a 
tax relief package for the biggest and wealthiest in our country. That 
is not stimulus at all.
  If they want to sit down, negotiate, talk about it, and work out 
agreements, that is the spirit of this place and that is what we ought 
to be doing. To say it is their way or no way, and we say we want to 
work it out, and they say we are being obstructionist--the American 
people understand that. They understand we are not being 
obstructionists.

[[Page 24580]]

  Talk about obstructionism, try this one on for size. We are now 
engaged in a conference with the House on the reauthorization of the 
elementary and secondary education bill. For years, people on both 
sides of the aisle--I will not point to one side or the other--people 
on both sides of the aisle have been saying we need to meet our Federal 
commitment to special education.
  The agreement the Federal Government made 26 years ago was that the 
Federal Government would pick up at least 40 percent of the average per 
pupil cost of educating kids with disabilities. Twenty-six years ago, 
the Federal Government said that. Today our commitment is at about 15 
percent. This is the single biggest issue in every school district in 
America--the funding for special education.
  The Senate adopted an amendment offered by me and by Senator Hagel 
from Nebraska that would put us on the pathway of fully funding special 
education over 6 years by taking it off the appropriations side and 
putting it on the mandatory side. We are now in conference 
negotiations.
  The National Governors' Association, headed by a Republican Governor 
from Michigan, signed a letter, supported by every Governor in the 
United States, saying they supported the Senate's position of full 
funding special education.
  The National School Boards Association, the National PTA, the 
National Education Association, the National Conference of State 
Legislatures--38 State legislatures have already passed resolutions 
supporting this full funding. The only reason we do not have 50 is 
because some of them were not meeting this year after we adopted it. 
Wait until January. All the legislatures are saying it is time the 
Federal Government stepped up and did its part in special education.
  Here is the catch: The White House, the administration, has said no, 
they will not agree with the Senate position on funding for special 
education.
  So we had our vote on it. The House voted against it. We voted for 
it. Okay. What is to be done then? Usually in a conference, 
negotiations are started and compromise is attempted.
  So we offered to the House a compromise, and the House said forget 
it, they are not going to compromise. They do not want to fund special 
education one more nickel than what they have done in the bill. It is 
not coming from the House side. It is coming down from the other end of 
Pennsylvania Avenue. It is coming from the White House. It is the White 
House that is stonewalling.
  So talk about obstructionism, that is obstructionism when the White 
House refuses to negotiate or reach any kind of compromise with the 
Senate on full funding for special education. So I think before the 
Vice President and others start throwing around words about 
obstructionism, they ought to pick up the mirror and look at 
themselves, especially when it comes to funding for special education.
  So I thank the Senator from Nevada for pointing out the fact we have 
not been obstructing anything on this side, and for pointing out this 
so-called stimulus package is nothing more than the old ``trickle 
down.'' If those at the top are given to it, some of it may trickle 
down on the rest of us. We have tried that before and it has never 
worked; it will not work this time either.
  Yes, we do need to do something about unemployment compensation. The 
biggest stimulus we could have right now is getting health care for our 
children and health care for people who do not have health care 
coverage right now. That is the biggest stimulus we could give to our 
economy and help people at the same time.
  I am going to wrap up my statement, and then I am going to talk about 
the farm bill, another stimulus.
  We are in dire straits. Rural America is hurting. We need a farm 
bill. When farmers know a bill is coming, they are borrowing money; 
they are buying new equipment; they are doing the things that stimulate 
the kind of growth and the kind of manufacturing we need in this 
country. So I sure hope we will not hear any more of this blame game, 
trying to blame someone for being obstructionist when all we are trying 
to do is work in a bipartisan fashion, as we should be doing, to reach 
the best decisions for the American people. So when they say 
``obstructionism,'' they say it is our way or the highway. To me, that 
is obstructionism.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Boxer). The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Parliamentary inquiry: Am I entitled to speak for a 
given time or must I seek consent of the Senate?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is on the farm bill, and the 
Senator may speak as long as he wishes on the farm bill.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I ask unanimous consent that I speak for only 9 minutes 
instead of as long as I wish, but that it not be on the farm bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The 
Senator is recognized for 9 minutes.

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