[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Page 17297]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             DOMESTIC NEEDS

  Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I want to thank publicly the majority 
leader, Tom Daschle. Yesterday, Leader Daschle took to the floor and 
talked about something that, frankly, is just not talked about by this 
administration, and that is the very sad state of our economy. Somebody 
needs to focus on that because, while we must devote much of our time 
to the war against terrorism, while we must devote much of our time to 
figuring out the best way to meet the threat that Iraq poses in terms 
of her weapons of mass destruction and the frightening prospect of 
those weapons being used, while we address those issues, I think we 
know very well that an administration must also pay attention to 
domestic needs, to the job needs, the educational needs, the health 
care needs. We must do both things in a great nation like this.
  So as the Democratic leader made his statement yesterday, it is 
stunning to see that, in some categories, this economy under this 
administration is the worst we have seen in more than 50 years. It is 
very serious. We must address it. We must have a plan to address it. We 
must look back at the success of the Clinton administration and other 
administrations, Democratic and Republican, which had good economic 
records. We are seeing record stock market losses because there is a 
loss of confidence. There is a decrease in earnings and there are 
massive layoffs. We have seen a maiming or loss in private sector 
jobs--the worst in 50 years--and the weakest economic growth in 50 
years.
  Madam President, I hope this Senate will take care of the two most 
important things we could do: Foreign policy concerns and also domestic 
concerns, with a prime focus on this economy and turning it around and 
giving Americans the kind of confidence they had in the 1990s. That was 
a good time for America.

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