[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 20]
[Senate]
[Pages 27913-27914]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                           ECONOMIC STIMULUS

  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the distinguished Senator from West Virginia. I 
thank him for his fidelity to his faith and for his fidelity to this 
Senate and the courtesies and rules that need to be followed to make 
sure we live up to the high ideals on which this institution was 
founded. He, more than anyone I know, has taught us the history, and 
the importance, of what we are about. His courtesy to me, a first-term 
Senator, is typical of his many courtesies.
  I simply say how deeply disappointed I have been that we will be 
leaving this body before Christmas without having passed a stimulus 
package. Experts have said a good stimulus package, $75 to $100 
billion, would preserve 300,000 jobs in this country. That is a lot of 
jobs. Those people, if they are working, will be happier. Those 
families will be happier. The homes will be happier. They will pay 
taxes. They will pay State and local sales taxes and other taxes. They 
will pay Federal taxes. It will help us run our government.
  But if they lose their jobs, there will be a sadness and an unease in 
their homes, a difficulty that otherwise would not take place, and the 
government itself, State, local and Federal, will lose revenue.

[[Page 27914]]

  It is a big deal if we can affect the economy. I do not think there 
is any doubt. I have been convinced for a long time in the projections 
that we could achieve a 1-percent or a half-percent increase in the 
gross domestic product by passing the stimulus package. That is 
important. I believe we should pass a bill.
  No less than 2 weeks ago I became deeply concerned that we might 
actually leave this body without a bill being passed. At first I did 
not think that was possible. We brought up a bill and disagreed, the 
House had passed a bill, and some here didn't like it but negotiators 
were working together. The Finance Committee chairman and ranking 
member, the majority leader, the Democratic leader and the Republican 
leader, they were all working and talking and surely a bill would pass, 
I thought. They would work out their differences.
  Frankly, I never believed exactly what was in that bill, if it met a 
few simple principles, would make a lot of difference. Probably, 
another $100 billion, another $75 billion into the economy we would 
have made an impact. There was no doubt in my mind if a middle-income 
family would have gotten a 2-percent reduction in the amount of money 
withheld from their taxes they would have more money and they would 
spend it.
  Because of my concern, I offered my own bill. As a matter of fact, we 
were here one night until midnight. I sat around with some colleagues 
and refined my ideas and four of us introduced a stimulus package. It 
was simple. It did not have a lot of complexity to it. Frankly, I did 
not think anybody could find anything wrong with any of it or would 
object to a bit of it. I said: We offered this bill; let's just vote on 
that.
  It had a number of provisions in it that I thought were worthwhile. 
My favorite contribution, what I believe in and would like to see 
accomplished and really needs to be accomplished as part of this 
package, or it may be more difficult to pass, is the advanced payment 
of the earned-income tax credit.
  The Presiding Officer understands these finance issues a lot better 
than I, but I can understand a little bit about low-income working 
Americans. They are at a point with the earned-income tax credit where 
the Federal Government gives them a tax credit. It is $31 billion a 
year. It amounts to, for an average family with one child, a $2,000-
per-year tax credit. They can get it when they work or on their tax 
refund a year after they work. Since the earned-income tax credit was 
designed to encourage work, there has been a strong feeling it ought to 
go on the wage that they earn.
  What has happened, however, is that we have never accomplished that. 
Only 5 percent of the workers take advantage of the opportunity to get 
their earned-income tax credit on their paycheck. If it were given to 
them 100 percent, that would be a $1-an-hour pay raise with no 
deductions from it. But we have never been able to figure out how to do 
it.
  They finally passed, a day or so ago, an amendment that would allow 
that to happen, but only 5 percent take advantage of it; 95 percent get 
their credit the next year.
  So it is good public policy, in my view, that they get their credit 
early. I believe in this time of stimulus, if we would make a 
conversion and pump in $15 billion or $20 billion extra on low-income 
people's paychecks, many of whom may be out of work for a while, get 
another job, lose work and find another job, they would have more money 
to take care of their families with and it would not cost the budget of 
the country, the Treasury of the country, any money in the long run. It 
would shift about $15 billion or more into this fiscal year but that 
money would be from the next fiscal year, and we would have $15 billion 
left to spend next year. It is good public policy and a superb stimulus 
that moves money forward and saves money next year.
  We would have put in another item. We proposed reducing the median 
income tax rate from 27 percent to 25 percent. It was planned to be 
done anyway.
  We extended the unemployment benefits, as most of the proposals have, 
for an additional 13 weeks. We provided insurance and health benefits. 
We provided a $5 billion fund for national emergency grants for States 
to help people who have been displaced or lost their job. And we 
advanced the plans for 1 year for the child tax credit. This child tax 
credit is a plan that would infuse about $6 billion or $8 billion into 
the economy for families with children.
  Those were some of the provisions we put in that plan. It could have 
passed. I don't believe anybody would have been upset about it. It had 
no business provisions in it that would upset anybody. It did have some 
depreciation advancement.
  I say we ought to have done something. That bill, other bills, the 
bill that almost reached conclusion, the bipartisan approach that 
passed the House last night, was sent over here, and we did not get a 
vote. So I am very disappointed.
  I believe the leadership of this Senate made a mistake. We were not 
even allowed to vote on it or debate it. Everybody said we needed a 
stimulus package, but we never even got to bring the bill up for a 
vote. We had a number of Democratic Senators and certainly a large 
number of Democratic House Members who supported this bipartisan bill, 
and we could have passed it, but we did not and it is a great 
disappointment to me.
  I was pleased the Senator from Alaska discussed the energy bill that 
did not pass this time, under the very same factors. I was in Mobile 
Monday of this week. On two different occasions a real estate person 
and a very fine doctor came to me and said: Jeff, I think you have to 
do something about the energy situation. We are too dependent on Middle 
Eastern oil. They have the ability to disrupt our economy and to affect 
our foreign policy and damage us in ways that we ought to defend 
against. You need to do something to reduce our dependence on middle 
eastern oil. That is something I believe in very strongly.
  The bill the Senator from Alaska, Mr. Murkowski, has so eloquently 
argued for has conservation, reduced use of energy, as well as 
increased production. Both of those steps together will help reduce our 
dependence on foreign oil. It will help reduce the amount of American 
wealth that goes out of our country to purchase this substance that it 
would be better if we could purchase at home and keep that wealth at 
home.
  I believe we have had a number of opportunities to do better. I 
wanted a farm bill passed desperately. The President has made clear 
that we do not have a fight over money on the farm bill. We are 
prepared to honor the $75 billion set-aside in our budget over 10 years 
for farm programs. But there are some problems and serious 
disagreements about some of the policy that was in that bill.
  We could not get debate on it. Every amendment was rejected virtually 
on a party line vote, so we ended up not passing an Agriculture bill. 
We will have to come back and work on that because we need an 
Agriculture bill. We do not need to go into the summer without an 
Agriculture bill. So I am sure we will be back on that early next year. 
But it could have been done this time.
  So I will just say there were some great things accomplished this 
year: the education bill, a bipartisan effort that passed. The tax 
reduction was a historic empowerment of individual working Americans, a 
victory for the individual against the State and the power the State 
has to extract what they earn from them and spend as the State wishes. 
But it would empower them to utilize the wealth they have earned in the 
way they choose. If we had not done that, I am confident our economy 
would be struggling even more today.
  I see the distinguished Senator from West Virginia is ready to speak, 
and I am interested in hearing his remarks. I thank the Chair. I thank 
the Senator from West Virginia for his time. I wanted to express these 
remarks before we recessed today.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.




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