[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 2348-2355]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      THE AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT OF 2009--Resumed

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont is recognized.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, we are on the economic stimulus package. We 
are going to start on that early in the morning, 10 o'clock. The first 
amendment we are going to offer, I have already told the Republican 
leader, is going to be an amendment offered by Senators Murray, 
Feinstein, and others dealing with infrastructure.
  We look forward to the next amendment. If the Republicans are ready, 
then they should be ready to offer their amendment. We will try to move 
through the process as quickly and as fairly as we can.
  This is an extremely important piece of legislation. The problems we 
have economically in the country today are not the problems of 
Democrats or Republicans, they are problems that American people have. 
We together have to try to work through this bill. I hope we can have 
cooperation. There are many things that people have different 
responsibilities for. We have had a longstanding partial-day conference 
we are going to have, but we are going to have opportunities during the 
time we are there listening to Secretary Chu and Secretary Salazar and 
others to offer amendments here.
  There will be a significant number of votes. We hope if the 
amendments are offered tomorrow and Wednesday, we will have a number of 
votes all day tomorrow. Starting about 3 o'clock Wednesday afternoon we 
can do the amendments that have been offered that day. So we have lots 
of work to do, and it is important we do it as quickly, I repeat, and 
as fairly as we can.
  I ask unanimous consent the following be recognized for the time 
specified: Udall of New Mexico, 15 minutes; Brownback, 10 minutes; 
Casey, 15 minutes; Snowe, 20 minutes, Kaufman, 15 minutes. This request 
is for these Senators to speak this evening.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. President, as I rise to give this maiden 
speech in our Chamber, we all know we are living in very difficult 
times. Our current economic crisis has only accelerated problems that 
have been growing for years. America's manufacturing sector was 
declining before this crisis, and when this crisis has passed, we will 
still need a blueprint for creating high-paying jobs and growing the 
middle class.
  Meanwhile, our energy policies pose a threat to the economic, 
environmental, and national security of our Nation and the world. I 
believe these two problems, our economic stagnation and our energy 
irresponsibility, demand a common solution. We must put Americans

[[Page 2349]]

to work building the energy economy of the future, and we must do so 
now.
  I often say our energy policies have produced a perfect storm, a 
combination of three extraordinary challenges that collectively 
threaten our future. First, America's dependence on fossil fuels 
threatens our economy. As natural gas provides a growing share of 
America's electricity, the price of gas has more than tripled since 
1995, and growing demand promises to make matters worse.
  Second, America's energy policies threaten our security. America has 
3 percent of the world's natural gas reserves, but we consume 25 
percent of the world's supply. That increasingly means sending American 
dollars to Russia and Iran, two countries that sit on more than 43 
percent of the world's gas reserves and two countries that have shown 
their willingness to use energy as an instrument of coercion.
  Finally, humans have managed to overwhelm the Earth's carbon cycle. 
The balance that sustained life on Earth for millennia has been 
radically altered. In New Mexico, this means fewer farms and more 
forest fires, more thirst and less water, the end of a unique and 
treasured way of life.
  Some people say the world's demand for fossil fuels has not yet begun 
to outstrip supply, or that the climate is not changing back that 
quickly. I look at it this way. We are driving toward the cliff. I do 
not want to spend a lot of time arguing about how far off the cliff is. 
I want to stop accelerating.
  So what do we do? In the short term, we need to do it all. We need to 
drill responsibly for domestic energy, we should promote conservation, 
and nuclear power has to be part of the mix.
  But we also need reforms to prepare us for the future. When I was in 
the other body, I fought for and we passed a renewable electricity 
standard, an RES. This plan would demand that large utilities generate 
a portion of their energy from renewable sources and conservation. 
Thanks in large part to my colleague who is on the floor today, the 
senior Senator from New Mexico, Mr. Bingaman, the Senate has passed 
this proposal three times. Similar policies have succeeded at the State 
level. In fact, 28 States have renewable standards, including my home 
State of New Mexico. But a national RES has never become the law of the 
land. It is time for Congress to make it so.
  There are many reasons to support this plan. To start, it is good for 
consumers. With a 20-percent standard, utility customers could save 
$31.8 billion. It will strengthen rural communities and provide new 
income for farmers and ranchers. This plan will make America safer. The 
billions of dollars it would generate are dollars that will stay in 
America and cannot be used to hold our foreign policy hostage. But most 
importantly, a national renewable standard will create hundreds of 
thousands of high-paying jobs, jobs that cannot be outsourced. Study 
after study shows that shifting capital to renewable energy increases 
job creation.
  Not only will this plan stimulate job creation today, it will put us 
on a path toward dominance in the industries of the future. These 
benefits will come from the actions of private businesses making the 
RES a distinctly American solution to a global problem. That is why it 
will succeed. As one writer has put it, the only thing stronger than 
Mother Nature is ``father profit.''
  Because it works with the private sector, an RES is more than a 
government program. It is an appeal to the spirit of innovation. I know 
we have enough of that innovative spirit to tackle any challenge we 
face. I see it in the people of New Mexico. I see it in the scientists 
chasing new ideas, in entrepreneurs betting their time and capital on 
the hope of a better world, in engineers searching blueprint sketches 
for the submerged outline of a revolution. My constituents are eager to 
tackle the problems that face our country. I know yours are too. But 
these citizens have been poorly served by their Government. Just last 
month, a renewable energy company from my State was forced to lay off 
most of its workforce. After investing in a new technology, the company 
could not afford to begin manufacturing. As a result, the progress of 
their innovations has been delayed, and the dreams of their workers 
have been deferred.
  It did not have to be this way. Countries that have done more to 
shape their energy markets have created driving green energy 
industries. With a population roughly a quarter as large as America's, 
Germany has twice as many workers developing wind energy technologies. 
Spain has almost 5 times as many workers in the solar thermal industry 
as America, and China has more than 300 times.
  Today our markets do not accurately price the social cost of burning 
fossil fuels. As a result, the private sector is effectively being told 
to send American dollars overseas, to ignore the coming decline in 
fossil fuel supplies, and to radically alter the world's climate. It is 
a credit to America's energy companies that so many of them have 
invested in alternative fuels and conservation. But individual acts of 
responsibility cannot compensate for a market that encourages 
irresponsibility. If we are going to make the changes we need, 
conservation cannot be an act of personal virtue, and renewable fuels 
cannot be luxury alternatives. An RES would structure the marketplace 
so those decisions that are best for the American people are also the 
best for the bottom line. This approach will make the market a powerful 
force for progress because Government cannot tackle this problem alone.
  New Mexico contains two of America's preeminent national labs. We 
know these public institutions have an incredible innovative capacity, 
but we also know Government needs private sector partners to achieve 
its goals. From 1970 to 1996, Los Alamos National Lab, the institution 
that harnessed the power of the atom and launched America's national 
lab system, developed a technique for cleanly and efficiently using the 
Earth's heat to generate energy. Estimates indicated that the technique 
could eventually power the Earth for hundreds of years. But without 
market incentives to encourage continued development, progress 
stagnated.
  Only recently have American businesses rediscovered the geothermal 
technologies this country pioneered. Because our markets do not 
appropriately value renewable energy, we lost more than a decade while 
the world raced ahead. America cannot afford to let another country 
become the world's green energy leader. Someday soon, green energy will 
no longer be an alternative; it will be the standard. The CEO of GE 
Energy recently testified before Congress that wind and solar energy 
are likely to be among the largest sources of new manufacturing jobs 
worldwide during the 21st century. The question is whether these jobs 
will be in America. That is what I want, and that is what we need to 
do.
  America has always succeeded by being one step ahead. We mass 
produced the car, and American manufacturing built the middle class. We 
sparked the IT revolution, and our high-tech industry fueled American 
prosperity for years. Today being one step ahead means developing the 
green energy economy of the future before anybody else does. The 
challenge is huge but so is the payoff if we succeed--a stronger 
economy, a more secure future, and a chance to reclaim the mantle of 
world leadership by the force of our example and the unmatched capacity 
of our people. It is clear these are difficult times. I devoted this 
speech to a proposal I believe will allow us to meet these difficulties 
head on and to emerge a safer, stronger, more prosperous Nation. I 
believe the American people are ready for change, and they are ready 
for the change this plan represents. It is up to us to rise to the 
challenge.
  Should we do so--and I am confident we will--we will remember today 
as a time when America again turned a global threat into a national 
opportunity. We will remember the day when our Government set free the 
power of American industry to tackle one of the world's toughest 
problems, and we will celebrate the time when American businesses and 
American workers rose and together rebuilt a newer world, a clean 
energy world.

[[Page 2350]]

  I also wish to thank today a number of my colleagues and friends: My 
cousin, Mark Udall, from the great State of Colorado; Senator Bingaman, 
whom I mentioned, who has been a leader on these renewable technologies 
and has gotten this proposal that I talked about today through the 
Senate three times. I see Jeanne Shaheen, who is also in my class; Jeff 
Merkley, Debbie Stabenow, Sherrod Brown, Bob Casey, many Members who 
are here. I am grateful.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under a previous order, the Senator from 
Kansas is recognized for 10 minutes.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. I welcome my colleague from New Mexico, Senator Udall, 
a great name in U.S. politics. I am sure he will do a great job in this 
body, and I appreciate his comments talking about green expansion and 
what we can do to create jobs and opportunities. We certainly need to 
do that, and I welcome him.
  I rise to speak on the stimulus bill in front of us. Our economy is 
certainly in great difficulty. The American people are suffering. Look 
at the numbers. They don't tell what is in people's hearts or what is 
happening to their pocketbooks, but it does paint a bleak picture. Real 
gross domestic product declined 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter this 
past year. Consumer spending, which is nearly 70 percent of the 
economy, was down 3.5 percent. We had weak consumer spending, weak 
exports, weak investment. That translates into a bad job market. I 
don't think anybody questions but that we are in difficult economic 
times.
  For the past 12 months, the economy has lost nearly 2.6 million 
payroll jobs. From Friday's forecast, the estimates ahead are looking 
at another 500,000-plus jobs lost during the month of January. Ouch. 
That is bad. It is hard. It is difficult. The economy is in very 
difficult shape, and people are suffering.
  I wish to see President Obama succeed in helping to move the economy 
forward. I wish to see Congress be a constructive part of the process. 
I believe we can do both. If we could slow down a little bit and work 
together, we could come up with an economic stimulus package that could 
get 80 votes out of this body. Unfortunately, the bill in front of us 
is neither prudent nor responsible. I don't think it is going to get us 
out of the hole we are in. It just digs the hole deeper. There is an 
old saying that if you are in a hole, stop digging. Unfortunately, the 
bill we are considering resembles too much the one that passed the 
House of Representatives, ignores that advice, and supplies bigger 
shovels to dig the hole deeper and faster. That is not the way we 
should go.
  My hope and prayer for this week is that we will work as a body; if 
we can't work as a body and work together to fashion something on a 
bipartisan basis that actually stimulates the economy, that we simply 
send this back to the committee to start over again. I am on the 
Appropriations Committee. We got the bill on our side 24 hours ahead of 
voting on it in committee. The committee held no hearings on this bill 
whatsoever. We voted within 1 hour 40 minutes to appropriate and spend 
$350 billion, basically creating another fiscal year between 2009 and 
2010 and then pouring a wad of money into a number of different 
segments without rhyme or reason for how it would stimulate the 
economy. That is what gets everybody so upset about this bill. It is 
spending a lot of money, and it is not going to stimulate the economy.
  This notion about what we want to do is just get a lot of money out 
the door or maybe use a crisis to spend money in places that people 
wanted to do for some time may be more of what is at stake. The White 
House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, stated:

       You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. What I mean 
     by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you 
     could not do before.

  Unfortunately, what I think is in this package is too much of that 
idea, that we have a crisis, let's use this crisis to put a lot of 
money into different places that we wanted to all along to get it out 
the door and get it passed. You can do it that way, but that doesn't 
stimulate the economy. That stimulates the Government and Government 
spending and expands the Government to the point that some economists 
are looking at the Federal Government becoming 30 percent of the 
economy, where normally we run at about 20 percent of the economy. You 
are looking at doing that on a permanent basis. We cannot afford that. 
We particularly cannot afford that, given the first wave of the baby 
boomers who retire in large measure by 2012. Three years from now, you 
start hitting that big pool of retirees getting Medicare and Social 
Security instead of paying into it. At the same time, you have 
ratcheted up your size of Government under this crisis mode to the 
point that you could get a mammoth sized Federal Government that cannot 
be sustained on the backs of taxpayers, under the idea of you don't 
want to waste a good crisis, you want to use it to spend in areas that 
you wish you could have all along.
  What these packages deliver, unfortunately, is an increasing amount 
of debt and a plethora of big Government spending increases 
masquerading as a fiscal stimulus. It is a grab bag of different 
spending programs with the hope that it would somehow chase the 
recession away. Instead, it adds to the debt. This bill will cost 
American taxpayers close to $900 billion. That is on top of an already 
projected deficit of $1.2 trillion.
  It is also interesting that when President Clinton came into office, 
he put forward an economic stimulus package that was defeated as being 
too big and too costly and that one was priced at $16 billion. We are 
looking at $900 billion. That was $16 billion. It was too much and too 
expensive. It added to the debt too much at a time that we had a 
difficult economy as well.
  Here, it appears, billions of dollars are being spent on all kinds of 
programs that should be addressed in the normal appropriations process. 
We have a process, and we can use that, but now we are putting in 
money, and people have heard this litany: $400 million for the 
prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, $6 billion for clean water 
revolving funds, $6 billion to convert Federal buildings to ``green 
buildings,'' $1 billion for the 2010 census, $400 million to replace 
the Social Security Administration's National Computer Center. Now, all 
this may be fine--$600 million for new vehicles for the Government, $50 
million for the National Endowment for the Arts--all of it may be fine, 
but that is not a stimulus package. That is a spending package. That is 
an appropriations bill that should go through in the normal process.
  Economists and members of the President's economic team have stressed 
the need for funds to be targeted, timely, and temporary. However, over 
$250 billion of the spending in this bill is for income-transfer 
payments that will put the Federal Government on the hook for long-term 
spending as far as the eye can see--and just when the baby boomers 
start to retire in 2012 in large numbers. That is not wise.
  We will also hear some rhetoric about how spending is a more 
effective means of stimulating the economy than tax reductions. I do 
not agree with that. I do not believe that. I do not think economic 
theory nor the practice of what we have seen in the past supports it.
  Research by the President's own Chairman of the Council of Economic 
Advisors suggests $3 of economic activity per $1 reduction in taxes. 
The economy needs some gas in the tank, not sugar. We should focus on 
creating an environment and incentives for businesses and individuals 
to invest and create real jobs, not illusory jobs created by a big 
Government handout that will not be permanent in a competitive global 
economy and will load too much burden on future generations by debt and 
taxes. We should provide real and permanent tax reduction accompanied 
by truly timely, targeted, and temporary spending. I could support an 
expansion for roads and bridges because we need the roads and bridges. 
That is not what is in this grab bag.
  I would like to list another example of a tax cut that we could do 
that could put as much and would probably put as

[[Page 2351]]

much as $545 billion into the U.S. economy--$545 billion. This is from 
an article written by Alan Sinai last week. It is something we have 
done in the past, where we have lowered the taxes on repatriation of 
foreign-earned dollars. The last time we did that, we reduced the 
corporate tax rate of 5.25 percent for 1 year. We brought back into the 
United States nearly $360 billion of money.
  That is money that is earned by companies such as Hill's pet food in 
Topeka, KS, which has pet food plants in Europe and Asia. They make 
money there, but they cannot bring it home because they are subject to 
this 5.25 corporate tax rate. So they leave it there. But for a 1-year 
time period, you could take that down to 1 percent, or a low number, 
and they will say: I am going to bring it home. Then it puts gas in the 
tank and not sugar in the tank. That is a tax cut that will help us. 
This is capital our economy needs and needs badly. I cannot see a 
single rational reason why we would not take action to encourage 
American companies to bring capital home.
  Let me close by saying there are a number of worthwhile spending 
programs that need to be addressed but not under the guise of fiscal 
stimulus. We do need to address infrastructure issues, and I could 
support a substantial amount of infrastructure spending, but the lag 
time on these is difficult and it is long. On the other hand, there is 
defense spending that could take place even now and the pipeline is not 
as long and, importantly, that is money we are already scheduled to 
spend. It simply would be advancing the timetable, not expanding the 
amount.
  My point is, as I started off, if we would spend a little more time 
here and in committee and work together, we could get 80 votes for this 
bill. If this bill is forced through this week and we end up with the 
size of Government of 30 percent of GDP, then this will be mostly on a 
partisan-line vote. That is not the way we should start. It is not the 
way we should go.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
Pennsylvania is recognized for 15 minutes.
  Mr. CASEY. Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, I rise tonight to speak as well on the challenge we 
have ahead of us with regard to the legislation we are debating this 
week. We will be considering a lot of amendments to that legislation; 
that is, the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
  I want to speak, first of all, in a broad way about the challenge 
ahead of us. I sent a letter toward the end of last year to both our 
majority leader Senator Reid, as well as to Senator McConnell, 
outlining priorities, as I saw them, from the vantage point of 
Pennsylvania's challenges as well as the country's.
  I used a phrase that we have heard often, the last word of which 
might be a little different than we have heard. We have heard summaries 
of this strategy where the priorities of any kind of recovery bill 
should be focused on being timely, targeted, and transformative. I 
believe all three are essential: Timely, meaning we cannot sit on this 
for too long; we have to act. I think that is essential; targeted, in 
the sense we cannot have broad spending. We have to make sure we target 
the dollars to strategies that work; transformative, in the sense that 
as we are making investments in infrastructure or in people to get them 
through the recession, and also to generate spending, we also have a 
chance to be transformative, to change our economy for the better and 
to transform people's lives.
  In Pennsylvania--and it is true of virtually any State in the 
country; we just saw the data that unemployment went up in every single 
State in the month of December, and I know the Presiding Officer 
understands this from his work as a Governor and now as a Senator--in a 
State like ours in Pennsylvania--whether it is the Commonwealth of 
Pennsylvania or the Commonwealth of Virginia--we are seeing challenges 
all around. We have had record job loss. Even foreclosure rates, which 
have been a lot lower than the rest of the country, are now spiking up. 
Families have been hit with a kind of economic trauma we have not seen 
in more than a generation. The same is true of businesses. Their bottom 
lines have been decimated by the downturn in this economy, principally 
because businesses and families have not had access to credit to borrow 
money for a small business or to borrow money for student loans or for 
the purchase of an automobile or something that a family wants to spend 
money on but cannot do it without credit.
  So we know the trauma that has been visited upon the American people. 
We also know that just as that has been happening, there has also been 
a real crisis of confidence, some of this emanating from the way the 
Troubled Asset Relief Program, the so-called TARP, was implemented by 
the Treasury Department in the prior administration.
  One of the obligations we have in the Senate in this debate, but even 
beyond this debate, is to do everything we can to restore that 
confidence. You could express it as confidence, you could express it as 
trust. However you describe it, a good bit of that--too much of that--
was lost in the last couple months. As people were feeling the trauma 
of this economy on their own lives or on their own families or on their 
own communities, there was also a loss of trust and confidence in what 
the Federal Government did or did not do and what the Federal 
Government can do going forward. So as we consider this legislation, 
this is not just about a program and dollars and whether the strategy 
will work. This will be a test of the Senate, a test of the Congress 
and the administration, in terms of our ability to restore some of that 
confidence and literally to restore trust in our Government.
  One of the ways we can begin to repair that relationship between the 
American people and the Congress, between the people who pay the taxes 
and the Government that spends those dollars, is to work on a couple of 
areas of oversight. It is not the whole answer, but it goes a long way 
to helping. So I have two amendments I will be offering this week on 
oversight.
  The first amendment will allow for a comprehensive assessment through 
the creation of a joint select committee on economic recovery 
oversight. This oversight committee will be made up of Members of the 
House and the Senate and will be required to submit reports to every 
Member of the House and the Senate but, more importantly, to the 
American people every 3 months. The reports will focus on, first, the 
success of this act in creating jobs and the details behind that; and, 
no. 2, any instances of waste, fraud, and abuse in programs funded by 
this act.
  Membership on the panel will break down as follows: 10 Members of the 
Senate, including the chairmen and ranking members of the Committees on 
Finance and Appropriations, 4 Members appointed from the majority party 
by the majority leader of the Senate, and 2 Members from the minority 
party appointed by the minority party itself; secondly, 10 Members of 
the House, including the chairmen and ranking members of the Committee 
on Ways and Means and the Committee on Appropriations; and it goes on 
from there in the same way as the Senate.
  While I recognize the administration has pushed for and the bill 
before us includes a new Recovery Act Accountability and Transparency 
Board, I want to make sure the legislative branch is in a position to 
carry out our oversight responsibilities. Congress has not always done 
a good job on that, and we have to ensure that a good job is done in 
this instance for this kind of oversight.
  The second amendment I have would direct the Government 
Accountability Office, known by the acronym GAO, to compile reports of 
the Offices of the Inspectors General in each of the Federal 
Departments or agencies that expend or obligate funds under the 
Recovery Act. The GAO would in turn submit reports to Congress that 
would contain the following: No. 1, a summary of oversight activities 
of the Offices of Inspectors General relating to expenditure of 
recovery funds; and, No. 2, an

[[Page 2352]]

evaluation of the effectiveness of this act. So you have the GAO, an 
independent entity, reviewing what has been happening under this 
legislation.
  The aim of these GAO reports would be to assess which provisions of 
the act have been effective at creating jobs. The whole intent of this 
legislation is to create jobs. We better make sure that happens. The 
reports would be submitted no later than 120 days from enactment of the 
act, with followup reports submitted at 180 days after enactment as 
well as 240 days, again, after enactment.
  Both of these amendments are focused on oversight. That is the 
language we use to make sure the bill and to make sure the Government 
is doing its job to carry out the purposes of this recovery and 
reinvestment act.
  But we have to do more than that. This effort with the two amendments 
is a way to very specifically begin to rebuild the confidence the 
American people must have in what the Congress does and to recover and 
reinvigorate some of that trust we should have in our Government, 
especially at this time. No piece of legislation can do that on its 
own. No Senator or Member of the House can do that on his or her own. 
But we have to try collectively to do all we can to rebuild confidence 
because if we do not have that kind of confidence going forward for the 
effectiveness of this legislation, then we cannot expect the American 
people to support this legislation and the programs infused with 
capital by this legislation over a long period of time. So we have much 
work to do to strengthen oversight, and by doing that to begin to 
increase the confidence the American people have in our Government and 
in this legislation.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Under the previous order, the Senator from Maine is recognized for 20 
minutes.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I rise today, at this most consequential of 
times, and as a member of the Senate Committee on Finance, to speak to 
the issue of the economic stimulus we have begun to consider here in 
the U.S. Senate.
  We are deliberating on this legislation because the gravity of our 
economic circumstances is the most dire we have witnessed since the 
Great Depression, and in just three months, this recession will 
officially become the longest and quite possibly the deepest since the 
1930s. We lost 2.6 million jobs last year, the most since 1945. The 
U.S. Department of Labor has reported the number of Americans receiving 
unemployment benefits has reached 4.8 million, an all-time high since 
record-keeping began in 1967--and that doesn't include the nearly 1.7 
million getting benefits through an extension last summer.
  Mark Zandi--chief economist for Moody's Economy.com, who has advised 
both Senator McCain and President Obama--has stated, ``without 
stimulus, unemployment will rise well into the double digits by this 
time next year.'' And then we learned last Friday that the economy 
shrank at its fastest pace in nearly 27 years in the fourth quarter of 
2008. Our gross national product dropped at a 3.8-percent annual rate, 
worst since 1982.
  So, indisputably, the grave nature of the current landscape dictates 
the urgency of passing a substantial and comprehensive economic 
stimulus package. I want to support a stimulus package. But I cannot 
support just any package. This Chamber cannot support just any package.
  We have a responsibility--an obligation--to apply a rigorous standard 
to determine whether this approach will help extricate our Nation from 
this crisis.
  And yet, even the best economic minds are not in agreement or accord 
on what is the optimal stimulus to pursue--and what it would achieve. 
Business Week, in its January 28 issue, asks ``how much does boosting 
government spending or cutting taxes help the private sector? Can 
massive fiscal stimulus . . . create jobs and increase economic 
output?''
  David Leonhardt, economics columnist for The New York Times, 
stipulated in an article on January 29, 2009, that such a ``bill should 
help the economy in both the near term and the long term. But the 
government doesn't go out and spend about $800 billion every day. The 
details matter.'' He is absolutely right--the details do matter--and 
that is why this amendment process is so fundamental. Current CBO 
Director Douglas Elmendorf testified before the House Budget Committee 
on January 27, 2009, and said, ``stimulative policies, if well 
designed, could hasten the economy's recovery and reduce the overall 
loss of output during the recession.'' That is precisely the test of 
how effective a fiscal stimulus is--does it help bring us out of 
recession?
  In that light, we must not confuse stimulus with omnibus. For those 
who say we cannot burden this bill with provisions that are not within 
the strictures of economic stimulus, I couldn't agree more. And to do 
otherwise would only compromise the credibility of any package that may 
ultimately be enacted.
  This is a multidimensional crisis that requires a multidimensional 
approach, and it is critical we get this right. Already Congress passed 
the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which as we all know has had its own 
significant problems. Already the Federal Reserve has essentially 
exhausted its options to improve the economy through monetary policy, 
having reduced interest rates to zero--something else that hasn't 
happened since the 1930s--and lent more than $1 trillion to stabilize 
the financial and credit markets. So as I said during the mark-up of 
the Senate Finance Committee's portion of this package, we ought to 
remember that for us, in crafting fiscal policy to meet this historic 
challenge, there are no ``do-overs.'' We only have so many arrows in 
our fiscal quiver.
  And so this debate shouldn't be about how much we label as ``tax 
relief'' and how much we label as ``spending.'' We must not retreat 
into our ideological corners or comfort zones. Rather, it should be 
about the merits of the individual measures in this legislation and 
whether the totality of the package can--in the timely, temporary, and 
targeted fashion we have employed on stimulus measures in the past--
deliver job creation and assistance to people in need--who also will 
spend funds quickly, further bolstering economic recovery. We must ask, 
does this package fit the times--because in the words of an editorial 
in the Lewiston Sun-Journal in my home State of Maine: ``right now, 
there's a country, an economy and a basic way of life that needs 
rescuing. Most of all, though, the country needs a program that works . 
. .''
  I ask unanimous consent the entire editorial be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                   Senators, Bring Sense to Stimulus

       In economic stimulus, numbers have ceased to matter. The 
     current package before Congress is $819 billion, but it could 
     be a quadrillion, for all it matters. What's been proposed is 
     stimulus at any cost, because continued lagging of American 
     economic output is a failure beyond comfortable calculation.
       Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins are center stage this 
     debate, by virtue of their center-right leanings. Their 
     lobbies are filled with lobbyists and their ears are filled 
     with pleas, suggestions and threats, perhaps, of what their 
     vote on the stimulus means, either way.
       Stakes are high. So are the costs. But Maine's senators 
     must ignore both of those, we think, in favor of the simplest 
     approach, to evaluating the merits of the stimulus: Prove to 
     us it is going to work, they should say, and soon. 
     Shortcomings or delays need not apply.
       Praise and damnation for the stimulus from the right and 
     left are both steeped in truth. The country does need 
     targeted programs to strengthen safety nets, help states stem 
     red ink and put people to work through infrastructure and 
     other investments,
       But it doesn't need a wish list, the rush to fulfill an 
     ideological agenda that's been stewing for eight years under 
     the former administration. There's time for that later.

[[Page 2353]]

     Right now, there's a country, an economy and a basic way of 
     life that needs rescuing.
       Most of all, though, the country needs a program that 
     works. Fast. This is where Snowe and Collins can hold sway, 
     by bringing common sense to the stimulus legislation through 
     the application of basic, pragmatic principles.
       The country has already spent in haste. The 2007 stimulus 
     cut checks to every American, which felt great, but flopped. 
     The 2008 rescue for banks on their eves of destruction is 
     looking like the money was thrown into a gaping maw, never to 
     be seen again.
       That Congress is now pressuring banks to lend their bailout 
     funds, instead of hoarding them, is testimony to the 
     contradictory nature of that bailout/rescue/stimulus. The 
     $700 billion was meant to stabilize the economy, not those 
     institutions that acted so recklessly to destroy it.
       So here we are, as Americans, burned twice by major 
     spending packages that haven't spurred the desired effect--
     staunching our economic bleeding and injecting fiscal 
     penicillin to kill the diseases spreading through our 
     markets. Two strikes. We can't afford a third.
       President Barack Obama has presented the most thoughtful 
     package to date. There's little question that expertise and 
     intellect replaced emotion and paranoia as the sentiments 
     driving its creation. The questions that remain are basic: 
     Does it work, and how soon?
       These are what Senators Collins and Snowe should have 
     answered to their satisfaction before deciding which way to 
     vote. The numbers and stakes are high, obviously.
       What matters is that this stimulus package makes sense, and 
     that it works. Quickly.

  Ms. SNOWE. Moreover, we must calibrate even more carefully the 
imperative for speed against the ironclad necessity of getting this 
legislation right--given this bill in its current form would add nearly 
$900 billion to our national debt--and that is before any interest 
payments--on top of the $10.6 trillion debt that exists. And that 
means, we cannot open the door to permanent spending that exceeds the 
life and purpose of what is before us today.
  In fact, Alice Rivlin, former Director of the Office of Management 
and Budget in the Clinton administration, offered the following fiscal 
reality-check in her testimony before the House Budget Committee last 
week, ``because we're doing this outside the budget process, it means 
no one has to talk about what the long-term effects of any of this 
might be.'' Well, let us talk about the long term effects here and now.
  As my colleagues are well aware, CBO has projected a staggering $3.1 
trillion budget deficit over the next 10 years, and that's before we 
pass this bill that will add $900 billion to that total. And as we all 
know, CBO assumes that any additional funding levels added for Federal 
spending will be added to the budget baseline and extended in 
perpetuity with an inflation adjustment. In other words, this bill may 
exist entirely outside the normal budget process, but it will now be in 
CBO's baseline--meaning any future reductions will be considered by 
some to be ``cuts.''
  Therefore, we must ensure that programs that may well be great policy 
but not economic stimulus are not considered in this package and 
instead are vetted through the regular budget and legislative process. 
And that spending authorized in this bill ends when its emergency, 
stimulative function ends--with any continuation again only considered 
in the future through the normal process. As the Concord Coalition 
among others has called for, we must have an exit strategy to ensure 
that we don't create unintended consequences down the road that will 
cause additional economic hardship and harm.
  On that note, I believe that we deserve from the proponents of this 
bill a breakdown in each of the different titles of this legislation 
such as what are the job-creation expectations for each, or how 
precisely will they assist those displaced by the current recession and 
will that assistance itself also bolster our economy in the near term? 
Further, I am working on an amendment that will require the new 
Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board created in this 
legislation to include, in its quarterly reports, a specific listing of 
the numbers of jobs being created by each title in this act. But most 
critically, the amendment will direct the Board to recommend for 
rescission the unobligated balances of any program in the Act that are 
not currently creating--or cannot be reasonably expected to create--
jobs or help those displaced by the current recession. These provisions 
will hopefully shine a spotlight on the efficacy of the new law in 
creating badly needed jobs.
  Again, the bottom line question for us must not be exclusively 
whether a particular proposal in this package is a good idea. The 
bottom line question is, as I conveyed to Vice President Biden in a 
conversation between us recently, will this package work in terms of 
jump-starting the economy?
  Columnist Robert Samuelson spoke directly to that challenge when he 
wrote in The Washington Post today, ``...the immediate need is for the 
stimulus package to stimulate--now. It needs to be frontloaded.'' I do 
think it is positive that the legislation contains some measures to 
move money out quickly and effectively, such as shortening the normal 
deadline for Federal agencies to commit funds, and setting deadlines on 
Federal awarding of formula grants, among others, so States, 
communities, or agencies are not sitting on the money. They will be 
required to expend it within a given period of time in order to impact 
the economy.
  In addition, as we heard last year from CBO, extending unemployment 
benefits is a preeminent stimulus tool, as it concluded its cost-
effectiveness is ``large'' . . . the length of time for impact is 
``short'' . . . and the uncertainty about the policy's effects is 
``small.'' Now we have Moody's Economy.com estimating that every dollar 
spent on unemployment benefits generates $1.63 in near term GDP. So I 
am pleased the finance package I supported in committee included about 
$39 billion to extend unemployment insurance. And I thank the Finance 
Committee Chair Baucus for including my measure to exclude the first 
$2,400 of unemployment benefits from taxation, to further maximize the 
provision's stimulative effect.
  On the tax side, the Finance package also includes a payroll tax 
credit, known as the making work pay tax credit for more than 95 
percent of working families in the United States--which Mark Zandi has 
said will be ``particularly effective, as the benefit will go to lower 
income households...that are much more likely to spend any tax benefit 
they receive.''
  I am also pleased that Senator Grassley was able to insert an 
absolutely vital provision to middle-income taxpayers in America that 
addresses the alternative minimum tax, which is an egregious and 
onerous tax on so many millions of taxpayers across this country, and, 
if left applied, would make the tax credit of $500 and $1,000 less 
effective. I am very pleased that was included to add another $70 
billion worth of tax relief to middle-income America.
  The finance portion also includes increasing eligibility for the 
refundable portion of the child tax credit that Senator Lincoln and I 
have advocated and championed over the years. We have included this 
child tax credit going back to 2001 in the Economic Growth and Tax 
Relief Reconciliation Act. This incentive would reach low-income 
families earning between $6,000 and $12,667 a year.
  I have heard arguments before about refundability, and people will 
say we should not provide funding to those families who don't have a 
Federal income tax liability. I would point out that although these 
people may not earn enough to have a Federal income tax liability, they 
do work and contribute to local taxes and payroll taxes and, the 
refundable child credit will get additional money into the pockets of 
those most likely to spend it.
  After all, I don't think that anybody would deny that low-income 
families earning between $6,000 and $12,667 on an annual basis should 
have some benefits under this legislation. I don't think anybody can 
deny that they will not be spending that money and that it will not be 
stimulative in the final analysis. I do believe they deserve to be part 
of this stimulus plan.
  I also believe that preserving and creating jobs over the short term 
that will also endure for the long term are not

[[Page 2354]]

mutually exclusive goals. To the contrary. As ranking member of the 
Small Business Committee, I am very pleased the Finance Committee 
package included tax provisions to assist small businesses to sustain 
operations and employees. In particular, we extend small business 
expensing to $250,000 to promote investment. After all, small 
businesses are going to be the lifeline to job creation, as they have 
been in the past. In fact, small businesses create two-thirds of all 
net new jobs in America. They will be the lifeblood of this economic 
recovery. It is important to extend the expensing provision of 
$250,000, as well as provide a 5-year net operating loss carryback to 
firms, giving them an immediate tax refund they can use to sustain 
operations and hire new employees, among other priorities.
  But above all--and I underscore this point--those receiving Federal 
money under the rescue plan under TARP will not have access or be 
allowed to take advantage of these additional taxpayer resources.
  In addition, we must neither neglect nor forget our Nation's 
distressed and rural communities. Our bill recognizes that imperative 
by including an additional $1.5 billion in 2008 and 2009 allocation 
authority for the New Markets Tax Credit. I am told that the community 
development financial institutions fund, which administers the 
incentive, can allocate this 2008 credit authority within 60 days, 
which will create 11,000 permanent jobs and 35,000 construction jobs.
  Since the only thing we don't want to be temporary in this package is 
the jobs it creates, this legislation will place Americans on the 
vanguard of the jobs of the future with the extension of the renewable 
energy tax credit to promote green technology, which will be absolutely 
crucial as nations compete to emerge from this global economic 
downturn. In fact, if we had not dithered last year and opted to pass 
the extension of the renewable tax credits at the beginning of 2008, we 
would have already been on the road to creating 100,000 new jobs.
  I have heard a lot of arguments against renewable energy tax credits, 
saying they are not stimulative. We are in the midst of a global 
downturn, and every country on Earth is going to be competing for jobs 
in the 21st century. Determining what is the best path to creating 
those jobs and investments in green technology is on the forefront of 
job creation. I want to be sure this country is in the vanguard when it 
comes to creating jobs of the future.
  Certainly making investments in renewable energy sources is going to 
be so critical and so essential to job creation and to competing with 
other nations as they attempt to emerge as well from this global 
downturn.
  In fact, these renewable tax credits will create more than 89,000 
more jobs by giving certainty to companies that can start now on 
projects and count on these important incentives to take risks and 
grow. In fact, there are a number of projects in my own State of Maine 
that have been postponed and placed on hold because they cannot receive 
the benefits from the tax credits or financial institutions have 
suspended their loans and their lending opportunities. That has 
prevented these companies from moving forward on projects that they 
have wanted to pursue over the last few months. These are major 
projects that will create thousands of jobs in my State, and the same 
is true in so many States across the country. That is why this 
investment in renewables is going to be essential to job creation.
  Considering the entirety of the stimulus package, both tax and 
spending, and its ability to have an immediate impact, CBO has now 
reported that of the current $884 billion size of the bill, $694 
billion, or 78 percent, spends out in 2009 and 2010. That is a 
significant portion of this stimulus plan. Yet on the purely 
appropriations side, the spendout over the next 2 years is only 49 
percent, and I believe we can and must do better.
  Furthermore, I must say that there are allocations that simply do not 
belong in the stimulus package. Do we need to include $575 million for 
renovation and research at the National Institute of Standards and 
Technology in this legislation? Or $2 billion for advanced battery 
manufacturing? Or $135 million for the management of lands and 
resources?
  Again, there are many more examples in this legislation that 
certainly should be identified as ones that should go through the 
normal budgetary process.
  There are other provisions that are unequivocally worthy of strong 
support. But again, we have to identify them as to whether this is the 
appropriate vehicle for their consideration, and I would say not.
  I am hopeful in the final analysis that we can further address this 
pivotal matter of nonstimulative provisions through the amendment 
process over the coming days. As the New York Times columnist David 
Brooks recently wrote, the package, as currently constituted, ``is part 
temporary and part permanent, part timely and part untimely, part 
targeted and part untargeted.'' And he also deftly pointed out, 
``leadership involves prioritizing.'' I think we will have to work in 
the days ahead on both sides of the political aisle to offer amendments 
to bring accountability to this process, to bring both sides together, 
and to develop the kind of consensus that is going to restore the 
integrity and confidence in the package we ultimately pass.
  Mr. President, finally, as ranking member of the Senate Committee on 
Small Business, I am pleased that the Senate Appropriations Committee 
also included multiple small business lending provisions that I think 
are critical to the overall objective of this legislation which, of 
course, is to create jobs.
  Let me also address one provision that I think is critical and that 
has been part of the finance package--and that is expanding the 
Medicaid Program to assist States all across this country. I have heard 
that many have suggested that somehow this is not stimulative, and that 
it is not appropriate to include additional funding for Medicaid 
assistance to the States.
  There are 45 States that are facing significant budget shortfalls 
with a combined budgetary gap of $350 billion. Are we suggesting it 
would not have a profound impact on our national economy if all 45 
States, which are going to have to make some drastic decisions under 
any circumstances, had to make even more difficult choices if we did 
not provide the $87 billion that is included in the Finance Committee 
package to assist them?
  In fact, I think it is going to be critically important that we do so 
because otherwise they will have to raise taxes and cut spending 
dramatically, which obviously will have a tremendous and consequential 
impact on the state of the economy, leading to more job losses and a 
more severe downturn.
  As we know, States are required by their constitutions to balance 
their budgets. So, obviously, they will have to resort to raising taxes 
or reducing spending. I think we have an obligation to be a strong 
Federal partner and provide assistance when it comes to Medicaid 
because, after all, not only are States having difficulty with their 
existing caseloads and increases in cost, but they are also facing a 
burgeoning caseload due to job losses. In fact, for every 1 percent 
increase in unemployment, an additional 1 million Americans will 
qualify for Medicaid or the children's health insurance program under 
the current enrollment criteria.
  All that said, I also think we should impose some conditions on the 
States. First, they should not be able to expand their current 
benefits. They should maintain their existing benefits coverage. 
Second, we should require prompt payment, so that states cannot sit on 
payments, but rather within a timely fashion of 30 days have to 
reimburse providers for care because delays in payments to providers 
ultimately threaten their operations, limit their ability to make 
investments to take care of their patients, or put them at risk of 
ultimately having to cut back substantially, which will have a 
tremendous impact on the overall economy.
  Time is of the essence and so is the obligation to get this right to 
the best of our ability. Hopefully, we can achieve a bipartisan bill, 
one that is

[[Page 2355]]

going to achieve the legitimate objectives of job creation, of stimulus 
and assisting those who have been displaced as a result of the downturn 
in this economy. These goals are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I 
think they are ones that could easily be accomplished as we go through 
this process, if we all agree in the final analysis that we need to 
move forward with a package that will meet the times and to accommodate 
the enormity of the challenge we are facing in this country today.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Merkley). The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. KAUFMAN. Mr. President, I am fortunate to have heard the remarks 
of the Senator from Maine. They are excellent, and I find so much of it 
I agree with.
  I am a brand new Senator, but I have been around the Senate for 36 
years. I think in those 36 years, this is truly one of the historic 
moments in all the years I have been following the Senate. We are about 
to embark on a task that will test this institution, as we begin the 
debate on the response to the profound economic crisis we face.
  Last Monday, as my first full week as a U.S. Senator began, thousands 
of American workers lost their jobs. In a single day, tens of thousands 
of families lost their breadwinners, men and women lost the dignity 
that comes with work, and States and cities across the country lost the 
productive labor and the tax revenues those workers have provided.
  This was just a single bad day. But over the last couple years, the 
news from our economy has been increasingly disturbing. American 
payrolls shrank by over 2.5 million jobs last year, including 524,000 
in December alone, touching every corner of this country. The 
accelerating pace of unemployment tells us there is more bad news to 
come. Along with laid-off workers, we have unused productivity 
capacity. Thirty percent of our manufacturing strength is idle.
  It is no wonder that Americans are cautious about spending. But their 
caution, as we know, is reinforcing the slowdown.
  With that decline in consumer spending, our retailers are shutting 
their doors, laying off sales staff and management. With declining 
sales, manufacturers are laying off workers and shutting down assembly 
lines. Responses that are perfectly rational for individuals making 
their own decisions only add to our problems, making us all worse off.
  Our jobs, our savings, our homes, our credit--all are under siege. 
Left alone, we know things will only get worse. We have to break that 
vicious cycle.
  I remind my colleagues of these troubling trends because as bad as 
things are, they can get worse. Because we have failed to revive 
employment, consumer spending--the key to today's economy--and consumer 
confidence--the key to tomorrow's economy--remain in a slump. Because 
we failed to restore stability in home prices, foreclosures continue to 
spread. Because we have failed so far to clean up our banking system, 
lending and borrowing are drying up.
  That is the real urgency behind the task of building an effective 
economic recovery plan because if we fail to act, we can be sure that 
we will lose more jobs, lose more homes, and reduce the value of our 
economy.
  Because so much has gone wrong, our recovery plan must tackle many 
different problems at the same time. Because so much of our economic 
value has been lost, the scale of our response must be equal to that 
challenge. Because of the risk of further decline, our response must be 
rapid.
  That is why the Senate is beginning debate today on a historic 
economic recovery investment program for America. We must do something 
dramatic to turn our economy around. At the same time, the American 
people will rightly judge whether we have used this moment wisely, 
whether we have invested these hundreds of billions of dollars of their 
hard-earned dollars in ways that will improve their lives.
  Job creation and job preservation must be our goal. Jobs, jobs, jobs. 
Every job lost is another blow to our economy, losing productive work, 
spending power, and the revenue that supports the education, health 
care, roads, water, police, and fire protection provided by our State 
and local governments. Every job lost is truly a human tragedy, for the 
man and woman who loses the dignity of work, and the families thrown 
into turmoil.
  One important way to create jobs is make more investments that will 
make our economy more productive--clearly, roads, bridges, clean water. 
A smart power grid, as we discussed with former Vice President Al Gore 
last week in the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, could become to 
our economy what the railroads were in the 19th century, what the 
highways were to postwar America, and what the Internet has meant to 
our digital age. And as we discussed last week in the Judiciary 
Committee, we can revolutionize health care records and at the same 
time save billions of dollars while digitizing paper records, making 
sure we have appropriate privacy safeguards. We can improve health 
care, save money, help protect our patients, and create jobs. We will 
need to install new computers, routers, and software and educate and 
train the people with the skills to make the system work.
  Listen, as jobs are created, consumers will be able to spend, 
homeowners will be able to keep up with their mortgages, families will 
be able to keep their kids in college. That is what economic recovery 
means, and that is what we have to do.
  Finally, just as important as the jobs we create will be jobs 
preserved by keeping State and local governments able to provide the 
schools, the health care, the police and fire protection that we cannot 
do without. They will need teachers, nurses, firemen, policemen, and 
health inspectors on the job. Just today our congressional delegation 
from Delaware met with the Governor of Delaware. This crisis, just in 
Delaware alone, has slashed our revenue projections by $.5 billion in 
just 6 months. We face a $600 million deficit, which will require 
shutting down services and laying off workers. This will add to the 
economic slowdown and reduce the services on which our citizens depend.
  Support directly to State and local governments will get out to where 
it is needed. We know that because we know those governments are now 
forced to cut back in the face of declining economic activity and 
revenues. They need the money and they will use it. We have to get it 
to them.
  This crisis has knocked a big hole in our economy, and it is 
essential we fill it quickly. Because of the size and speed of this 
task, we must also have extraordinary oversight and transparency to 
assure Americans that we are doing this right and that we are doing it 
openly. We must have additional resources and people dedicated to the 
sole purpose of auditing and investigating economic recovery spending. 
We must have transparency. We must make public all of the grants, 
contracts, and the oversight activities themselves. This is a historic 
undertaking, and we must have a historic level of transparency and 
oversight.
  During my years of experience with the Senate, I have developed a 
deep respect for this very unique institution. I have seen it tested in 
war and peace, in good times and bad. The debate on our economic 
recovery plan this week is precisely the task for which this body, the 
Senate, was created. This is a moment that will test this institution. 
We must deliberate, we must debate, we must decide. There are no easy 
choices this week. There will be no easy votes. But I am convinced the 
Senate will meet this test, just as I am convinced our country will 
meet the test of these extraordinary times.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

                          ____________________