[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 557-559]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       PASSING A STIMULUS PACKAGE

  Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, I regret to state to my colleagues it 
is pretty obvious the Democratic majority leader does not want to pass 
a stimulus package. We needed to amend the package. We have a lot of 
amendments that were pending and we have not had a vote all day. We had 
amendments this morning on which we were willing to vote, amendments 
this afternoon on which we were willing to vote. That was how we would 
work our way through and have a bill that would pass and go to 
conference.
  Obviously, for some reason, the majority leader decided, no, he would 
file cloture, have cloture on his underlying proposal, which many 
Members believe falls far short of providing any stimulus. It provides 
a lot of spending. The majority leader's underlying proposal has 
spending for rebate, $14 billion for people who did not pay taxes. They 
certainly did not pay any income tax or they would have gotten a tax 
cut last year. They may have paid payroll taxes, but likely they are 
available for an earned-income tax credit, and in many cases three or 
four times the payroll tax they paid. So basically, $14 billion in 
welfare reform payments that many were trying to call a tax cut or 
rebate, but it was not a rebate.
  There is another $5 billion for an entitlement program for States, 
supposedly to help pay for health care costs, but it was in the form of 
an entitlement. So it would not be $5 billion for 1 year, although it 
was sunsetted in 1 year, but in all likelihood will be continued 
indefinitely and probably cost more like $50 or $60 billion over 10 
years.
  He had unemployment compensation extension at about $8 billion. And I 
notice our colleagues on the Democratic side said: That is not good 
enough. We need to expand that and have that apply to temporary 
workers.
  The Federal Government has never paid unemployment compensation for 
temporary workers. Some people, perhaps, want to take advantage of the 
fact there is a recession, so just expand Federal entitlements. That 
was going to cost about $16 billion.
  Then the majority leader introduced the only stimulus piece, 
accelerated depreciation. That was 30 percent. Most people said for a 
year. We found out the commitment had to be made by September 10 of 
this year. That is not 12 months; that is more like 8 months from now.
  So the stimulative side of his proposal is very small. The spending 
side

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was very big. I thought, well, I don't like starting with that. I would 
have preferred starting with the bipartisan bill on which Senator 
Breaux and Senator Collins and Senator Snowe and Senator Grassley and 
others worked. That was a bill that most, if you count both sides, 
thought there was a majority vote for. That should be underlying, but 
we did not get that.
  So we thought: We will amend the majority leader's proposal and 
improve it and come up with a bill worthy of passing to conference. We 
had several amendments. Some amendments that were adopted made the bill 
better. Some on our side would actually have stimulus impact. We had an 
expensing amendment that Senator Bond and Senator Hutchinson and 
Senator Collins passed. That would allow small business to expense 
immediately items up to $40,000. Right now the level is $24,000. That 
would have created jobs. That was a positive amendment.
  Senator Gordon Smith had an amendment dealing with accelerated 
depreciation, 30 percent for 3 years. The point of order was made and 
it was not successful. He came back with one that was 2 years at 30 
percent. That passed and would have created jobs.
  We had an amendment by Senator Kyl to make the death tax repeal that 
we passed last year permanent. That would have been positive. You say: 
How could that make a difference? It makes a difference because there 
are farms and ranches in Missouri, Oklahoma, and all across the country 
that would not have to be broken up to pay the death tax. Maybe some 
small businesses would decide not to be so small because they could 
agree and know they could grow without the Federal Government getting 
half of it. A lot of businesses almost suffocate. Owners know if they 
grow the business any more, the Government will get so much, so why 
grow it? Why work and expand and build and create more jobs if Uncle 
Sam will come in and get half?
  So if we passed the death tax repeal proposed by the Senator from 
Arizona, it would have had a positive stimulative impact on the 
economy.
  Unfortunately, our colleagues on the Democratic side do not want to 
vote on that amendment. They wanted to have other amendments. They 
wanted amendments to increase agricultural emergency spending. Senator 
Baucus had that amendment. We defeated that amendment sometime last 
week. It was offered again. Senator Kyl offered a second-degree 
amendment in addition to that to provide death tax repeal, permanent 
repeal. To me, that would have been positive for agriculture.
  Unfortunately, our colleagues on the Democratic side did not want to 
vote on that amendment. They have not allowed a vote on the amendment. 
In other words, they are saying: We will vote on what we think is 
stimulative, but we don't want you to vote on your amendments. We will 
vote on spending increases.
  They had an amendment to increase the Medicaid Federal share. I don't 
know what is stimulative about that, but it certainly increases Federal 
Government costs. Medicaid is a Federal-State program, presumably the 
idea of 50/50. But in many cases the Federal ratio is 70 percent, not 
50 percent, and this amendment would increase the Federal ratio by 
another 3 percent and cost $10 billion for a couple years and in all 
likelihood be extended indefinitely. It would have cost $50 billion or 
$60 billion. That was an amendment by our colleagues on the Democratic 
side: Increase the Federal share on Medicaid, and instead of 70 
percent, make it 73 percent; or 60 percent, make it 63 percent. The 
State would pay the balance.
  Then they had an amendment to increase unemployment compensation, 
including temporary workers, and make that an entitlement. Maybe my 
daughter, who works part-time while she is a college student, if she 
changes jobs, could draw unemployment compensation. She might be 
appreciative, but that is an enormously expensive amendment. Every 
State has determined unemployment eligibility. Now we will say: States, 
you do or we will do it for you. And decide to do temporary workers. 
Some States do temporary workers; most States do not. Most States do 
not for a reason. But, no, we will do that.
  I look at the amendments of our colleagues on the Democratic side, 
and I don't see anything stimulative. I see a lot of spending--
agriculture, Medicaid, unemployment compensation, extend and expand 
entitlement programs, and do nothing to stimulate the economy, do 
nothing that would help create jobs.
  On the other hand, on the Republican side we have more amendments 
that we want to offer to stimulate the economy. I mentioned Senator 
Kyl's amendment. Senator Domenici has an amendment calling for a 
payroll tax holiday. Some Democrats say they like it. They are 
cosponsors of it. Guess what. We are not going to get a vote on it. The 
amendment offered by Senator Domenici might be a substitute for the 
entire package, it may well have a majority vote, but we are not going 
to get a vote on it. Why? Because cloture was filed. If we invoke 
cloture, this amendment falls.
  There is an amendment Senator Allard has making R&D tax credits 
permanent to encourage investment in research and development. We are 
not going to get a vote on it.
  There is a bipartisan package on which many Senators have worked. I 
mentioned earlier that Senator Breaux and Senator Collins and Senator 
Snowe and Senator Grassley--several Senators worked on it, Democrats 
and Republicans. We are not going to get a vote on it, even though we 
had a majority vote in December, probably still have a majority vote 
for it, the President said he would sign it, it would become law, could 
become law this week if we pass the bill the House passed.
  The House has actually passed a couple of stimulus packages. Let's 
pass the last one and let it become law.
  No, some people do not want to pass that one either. So we are not 
even going to get a vote on it.
  I think it is very disappointing, to use a word my colleague from 
South Dakota uses on occasion, to see that cloture was being called up 
so early. I can just see the plan. We will have a cloture vote on the 
Daschle underlying bill. It will not pass. It should not pass. I 
certainly hope it does not pass because I do not think the underlying 
bill is worth passing. And I do not think all these amendments I 
mentioned which would have a stimulative impact on our economy should 
be closed out. I do not think this side of the aisle should be 
foreclosed from offering amendments.
  We did not object to having an amendment on the emergency agriculture 
bill of Senator Baucus--emergency spending. It was not really relevant 
to the underlying bill, but we did it. We made a point of order. They 
can make a point of order on Senator Kyl's amendment.
  I would much prefer to have an up-or-down vote but no, ``We don't 
want to vote on his amendment, we don't want to vote on Senator 
Domenici's amendment; we don't want a vote on the bipartisan stimulus 
package. No, we are going to file cloture and pull the whole bill down. 
If we don't get cloture, we are still going to pull the bill down. 
We'll give a cloture vote on the bipartisan substitute''--because we 
filed cloture on it just so we can get a vote. The idea being, we will 
vote on cloture twice, and if we don't get cloture, we will just pull 
the bill down.
  I hope that is not the case.
  I think our economy needs a little shot in the arm. It is not in 
great shape. We have a lot of people who are still hurting, and if we 
could craft a positive stimulus bill that would create jobs, we would 
do something positive for America.
  I think what we have instead, we have the majority leader and 
unfortunately most Democrats--we will find out tomorrow--who are going 
to say we want to have our own little package. We want to have it our 
way. We can't consider other amendments. We will have it our way or we 
will pull the bill down.
  Tomorrow, when we vote on this--and I expect we will be voting on it 
at maybe 10:30 or 11:30 tomorrow--I urge our colleagues to vote no on 
the cloture vote and let us consider these amendments.

[[Page 559]]

  We are more than willing on this side to have a limitation on 
amendments. For anybody on the other side of the aisle to say 
Republicans are filibustering this bill is totally false. People are 
entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own 
facts. We are willing to consider these amendments. We are willing to 
enter into time limits on these amendments. We are willing to pass this 
bill tomorrow night--tomorrow night. We are willing to finish this 
package. Let's just allow our colleagues to have votes on their 
amendments that they believe would stimulate the economy, and we will 
vote on amendments, as our Democrat friends have offered, to spend more 
money.
  Let's vote on both. Let's vote on these amendments. Let's see how the 
votes come out and let's pass a bill. Let's pass a bill that would help 
the economy. Let's pass a bill that would create jobs. I hope we will.
  I urge my colleagues to vote no on the cloture vote. Let's allow 
these amendments to have their fair day in the Senate. People worked 
hard on these amendments. They may well do some good.
  I looked at several of these that were offered on the Republican 
side, some of which--several of which have Democrat cosponsors--that I 
think could help the economy. So I would love for our colleagues to get 
a chance to vote on these amendments.
  We will be very cooperative working with the majority leader and 
others on the Democrat side to limit amendments, to try to see if we 
cannot get a stimulus bill that would actually help the economy.
  I yield the floor.

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