[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 3435-3438]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            STIMULUS PACKAGE

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I want to speak for a moment about our hope 
that in the so-called stimulus package that will be the subject of a 
conference committee between the Members of the Senate and the House of 
Representatives, significant changes can be made, changes that will 
permit more people to support this package than only those who have 
supported it in the past.
  I want to begin by identifying the two key areas that most 
Republicans have concerns with in this package and begin by noting that 
it is not a choice between doing nothing on the one hand and doing only 
this bill on the other hand. I think it has been presented by some as a 
false choice.
  The President, for example, last night said: Now, there are those who 
would do nothing about this crisis. I don't know of anybody who wants 
to do nothing. Certainly, all of my Republican colleagues have voted 
for doing lots of things. This past week there were many amendments 
about doing

[[Page 3436]]

various things to address this problem, and Republicans voted for a lot 
of them and Democrats voted for a lot of others. So it is not the case 
that there are those who want to do nothing. That presents a false 
choice. The fact is, there are those who want to do this particular 
bill, and there are those who would do things somewhat differently 
because they have legitimate and strong differences about what the 
effect of this bill will be. That is why I hope there could be changes 
made in the conference committee when the bill is to some extent 
rewritten.
  There are two key things that Republicans, as I said, have focused on 
that we would like to change. The first is, we believe the bill spends 
far too much money; second, that it doesn't do enough good, that is to 
say it doesn't do enough to stimulate the economy--to create jobs, for 
example.
  On the spending too much money part, we have seen that the so-called 
deal that was struck in the Senate now, according to the majority 
leader just a few moments ago, is up to $840 billion. CBO scored it at 
a little under $839 billion. That is substantially above the House-
passed bill.
  The question is, Is the cost of this bill going to increase even more 
when the bill goes to conference committee, and is all of that spending 
necessary? The President had spoken about stripping the earmarks from 
the bill. Frankly, I had thought, because earmarks can be somewhat 
embarrassing and we can achieve the objectives without having 
individual earmarks by individual Congressmen in the bill--the 
President had been rightly critical of that process as well--I had 
thought they would be stripped out by now.
  It turns out there are pages of specific earmarks still in the 
legislation. These are the kinds of things I hope the conference 
committee would strike. Let me just highlight a few.
  Some of these earmarks could well create jobs. But I submit, if one 
Senator or one Congressman gets to have the special project in his 
State slipped into this bill, that maybe each of us could identify 
something in our own State that we were pretty sure would create jobs 
and we could put it in the bill. That is the problem with earmarks. All 
Senators are equal except some are more equal than others when it comes 
to slipping things in bills. So it could well be that some of the 
earmarks are job creators, but shouldn't they go through the regular 
process where these projects are vetted by the Appropriations 
Committee? They set the priorities, some make it through, some do not 
make it through, but at least they all fall within the budgeted amount.
  Since all of the spending in this bill is emergency spending; that is 
to say, it is not paid for in tax revenues or offset by spending 
reductions, it is all borrowed money. I think we need to be careful 
about how the money is spent.
  Others of the earmarks are dubious in terms of job creation. These 
are projects that may well be worthwhile, but it is hard to imagine 
they would create very many jobs, and it seems to me they clearly fall 
into the category of bills that should be considered in the regular 
appropriations process.
  Having run for election now several times and having looked at polls 
and tried to understand what my constituents think and what most 
Americans think, I have reached some conclusions. Americans do not mind 
paying their fair share of taxes. They don't like it; they like to have 
their taxes cut, but they are willing to pay what they think is 
necessary to support Government. And they believe a certain amount of 
Government spending is necessary. They all understand why Government 
needs to spend money on certain things.
  What drives them crazy is wasteful Washington spending, when their 
hard-earned money comes back and they think we do not spend it right. 
By the way, they have an idea that a lot of what we do ends up being 
wasted, maybe even more than what we actually do, but because of their 
concerns about that I would think we would be especially careful in a 
bill that spends over $1 trillion to be careful we don't waste money.
  The Congressional Budget Office has said it is very difficult to 
spend the kind of money we are talking about in the relatively short 
timeframe we are talking about without wasting a lot of it. It is a 
phenomenon we are all well aware of here. When you try to spend a lot 
of money in a short period of time, you are going to waste money. Our 
constituents instinctively appreciate that. So it seems to people that 
in order for this legislation to have credibility, we can at least 
start by excising those matters that may be good projects in and of 
themselves, may actually in some cases create jobs, but are clearly 
earmarks or special interest projects that should go through the 
regular appropriations process.
  I don't mean to pick on anybody or anything in particular, but let me 
just mention a few of these. There is a $2 billion earmark for a 
powerplant in Mattoon, IL. If this is actually the building of a 
powerplant, depending on how soon it could be built, that might create 
jobs. If it is a typical powerplant, it is going to be a long time in 
construction, so it is probably not really stimulative right now. But 
that is an earmark.
  There is $200 million in the bill for workplace safety in the 
Department of Agriculture facilities. I have not been told how that is 
going to create jobs.
  There is $200 million for public computer centers at community 
colleges and libraries. It sounds like a good idea. I just don't 
understand how it is going to create a lot of jobs.
  We have been critical of this all along. The transition to digital 
television has taken longer than anticipated so the Government has come 
up with the bright idea that we will spend $650 million in giving 
people coupons so they can transition from their existing television 
set to DTV. Maybe that is a good deal. I would rather that one go 
through the appropriations process. I am not sure I would vote for 
that, but that is not a job creator.
  Here is one I like, $10 million to fight Mexican gunrunners. I don't 
know who is doing the fighting. Maybe we would have to hire them and 
create some jobs. It doesn't belong in a stimulus bill. There is $10 
million for urban canals. It may be a good idea. Who knows? And $198 
million to design and furnish the DHS headquarters--quite possibly they 
need to spruce up the headquarters at DHS. Maybe some jobs would be 
created in the process, but we are not told in this bill. This is a 
very specific earmarked item. There is $500 million for State and local 
fire offices, and I can tell you, and I know the Presiding Officer 
would agree, everybody would like to have money to build a fire 
station. There is always another fire station to be built, especially 
in my State where we have a lot of growth.
  That is something normally we would pay for ourselves, and I am not 
sure why someone in Vermont should pay for a fire station in Arizona. 
In any event it doesn't belong in this bill, it seems to me.
  In terms of job creation, I find it interesting that we are going to 
spend $160 million for volunteers--these are not people who are paid, 
these are volunteers--at the Corporation for National and Community 
Service. As I said, there are many more we could talk about, and I do 
not mean to pick anybody out and pick on anyone.
  The bottom line is when you are spending $1 trillion and you are 
bound to waste a lot of it--at least that part which has been 
identified as earmarks, you ought to be able to get that out, at least. 
That is something that can be accomplished in this conference 
committee.
  I also noted it is not just a matter of the amount of money and the 
fact that a lot of it is wasted, but the fact that we believe it will 
not be efficient and effective at creating jobs. Why is that? Here is a 
good statistic to keep in mind. We all know if the object is to create 
jobs, we might want to start with those entities that create most of 
the jobs in the country. Small businesses in the United States of 
America create about 80 percent of the jobs. So you would think that 
naturally there would be a lot of money in this stimulus package to 
help small businesses create jobs.

[[Page 3437]]

  Right? No, actually, not right. Eight-tenths of 1 percent of the--it 
is a tax title of the bill that can actually go to small businesses to 
help them hire people, help them buy equipment and so on which would 
require them to hire more people--eight-tenths of 1 percent is 
dedicated to small businesses. So the very group of people who are the 
quickest at creating jobs--big businesses are still laying people off 
when small businesses, one by one around the country, are starting to 
hire people. Small businesses cumulatively account for a far greater 
percentage of employment than our big businesses do.
  If you look at the businesses with under 500 employees, you find that 
obviously those, the small businesses--and most of them have less than 
200 employees--as I say, those are the businesses that could really 
create the jobs in this country. Republicans had an idea, a plan to 
reduce their tax rate just by 7 percentage points, similar to the way 
we did it for manufacturing corporations a few years ago. We believed 
that would help them hire more people. You would think that for the 
group that hires 80 percent of the workers, we could find a way to 
provide a little bit more help to in the legislation. Sadly, that is 
not the case.
  If you take all businesses combined, less than 3 percent of the 
funding in the legislation provides some kind of tax deduction or 
credit or benefit which would enable them, then, to hire more people.
  In terms of the legislation to create jobs, we do not think it is 
approaching the subject in the right way. One of my colleagues said $1 
trillion is a terrible thing to waste. That is kind of catchy, but he 
went on to make an important point.
  I think of this because this morning on television I heard several 
people saying: Sure, this is a gamble. No one knows for sure whether it 
is going to work. Newscasters obviously asked proponents, can you 
guarantee this is going to work. No, nobody can guarantee it is going 
to work, and I don't hold anybody to that standard. Proponents don't 
have to guarantee this is going to work. But if we were spending $2 or 
$300 million, I would say: If it is a gamble and you think you can roll 
the dice and this might work, take a shot. But we are talking about 
over $1 trillion of borrowed money. When you are gambling that much, 
you cannot afford to be wrong.
  Let's assume that it is only half wrong. The effect of a $500 billion 
mistake is horrendous on the economy in the medium and longer term. 
CBO, in scoring the legislation, actually says there will be a short-
term stimulus. But they also say in the long-term, talking 10 years, 
there will be a reduction in gross domestic product of between 1 and 
1.3 percent because of the crowdout effect of investment. There is so 
much Federal Government money being absorbed into the borrowing market, 
as a result of putting a trillion dollars in borrowed money out there, 
that it crowds out private investment. That will have a negative impact 
on GDP. We know in advance the amount of money we are talking about 
will have a detrimental effect on GDP. If we are wrong about the 
positive benefits of the legislation, it could have a very detrimental 
effect.
  That is not even to discuss the impact on the value of the dollar and 
the value of U.S. debt that other countries have in the past been 
willing to buy but in the future may well not be willing to buy. In 
that event, this becomes a much more expensive proposition for the 
taxpayer. It is for my children and my grandchildren and all the rest 
of the younger generation who will have to suffer the consequences of 
that borrowing, either through a lower standard of living, a lower GDP 
or increased taxes or inflation that robs everybody of what they earn 
and is particularly tough on people who are retired and have relied on 
savings for their livelihood.
  The impacts of being wrong could be significant. It isn't the case 
that just because we spend money, it is a good thing, that just because 
we spend money, jobs will be created. Some will, no question. Some will 
be saved. But is it the most efficient and effective way to do it when 
you are talking about this much money? We should not be willing to just 
throw the dice and hope that we don't make a mistake.
  I urge my colleagues, those who will be participating in the 
conference committee, to recall the words of one of the people who was 
involved in the compromise legislation, who criticized the House bill 
as a Christmas tree upon which every Member had virtually his or her 
favorite project. It was bloated, expensive, and ineffective. Those 
were her words. She is correct. That was the House bill at $827 
billion. The Senate bill is now $839 billion, more than the House bill. 
The earmarks are still in there. The inefficiencies are still there. 
The wasteful spending is still there. At some point if this bill is 
going to be improved, all of that has to come out.
  I challenge those who will be in the conference committee: Be brave, 
be courageous. Don't feel you have to stick with what passed the House 
or Senate. Consider what the President said originally with respect to 
how this legislation should be created and be willing to improve on it. 
You will not only do something the American people will very much 
appreciate, you will be doing something good for the country and 
certainly for future generations. I urge my colleagues to consider 
strongly the Republican suggestions. Because at the end of the day, it 
is not a choice between doing nothing and only this bill. A billion 
dollars a page is spent in this bill. Surely, there are ways to improve 
it. For anyone who says this is a choice between those who want to do 
nothing and those who support this legislation, no, that is not true. 
It is a choice between those of us who want to do this intelligently 
and those who have a challenge in front of them as to whether they want 
to improve the bill.
  I hope they will join some of us in trying to see to it that this 
legislation is less expensive, less wasteful, more efficient, and will 
actually stimulate the economy.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KAUFMAN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KAUFMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to add my voice to those who 
feel the urgency of our economic crisis.
  I don't need to repeat all of the arguments that have been made this 
week and last. All Senators can see with their own eyes that this is 
the greatest economic challenge we have faced since the Depression.
  But we have the advantage of history. History shows us that in times 
of crisis, government must act decisively.
  Where Herbert Hoover didn't, jobs and livelihoods crumbled. Where 
Franklin Roosevelt did, American families got a new chance at the 
security and dignity of work.
  Now, once more, we must act.
  This economic crisis is enormously complicated, and no economist can 
truthfully claim to know the full measure of our challenges. But, in a 
sense, it is simple.
  Consumer spending makes up two-thirds of our economy.
  With falling home prices, plummeting retirement accounts, and 
vanishing jobs, American consumers have less and less to spend. As the 
consumer economy shrinks, workers are laid off and savings accounts 
dwindle, causing those consumers to spend even less.
  Consumers have stopped spending, banks have stopped lending, 
businesses are laying off workers. The private sector is shrinking.
  Only the Federal Government can fill the gap. Only the Federal 
Government has the ability to put enough money back into the economy to 
turn our economy around. Only the Federal Government is big enough.
  This is no excuse for wasteful and careless spending, and that is why 
I have pushed for more accountability in how we spend this money.
  I supported increasing funding for our inspectors general and 
conducting a review of how well they are doing their job.

[[Page 3438]]

  I have worked to make State spending more accountable and to restore 
reason to compensation for executives whose companies the taxpayers 
have kept afloat.
  The American people have a right to know where all this money is 
going, and we in the Congress have a duty to do all we can to crack 
down on fraud and abuse.
  I also remind my colleagues that we need to act quickly.
  The longer we delay, the more families lose their livelihoods, their 
health care, their sense of security. The longer we wait, the deeper 
this hole gets, and the harder it will be to get out of it.
  As the President so eloquently reminded us last night, job losses are 
accelerating. In the last year, we have lost 3.6 million jobs--and half 
of those were in the last 3 months. In January, we lost 20,000 a day.
  The longer we wait, the worse things will get. The longer we wait, 
the more it will take to turn our economy around. We can't afford to 
wait any longer.
  I support the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, because I 
believe we need to act soon. It will create 4 million jobs, and that is 
what this package should be about: jobs, jobs, jobs.
  I believe that this is a good bill, but I wish to offer a couple of 
thoughts about how we could make it better.
  As we go forward on conference negotiations with the House, I urge my 
colleagues to restore the education and State stabilization funding 
that was removed from the bill.
  Because of the collapsing economy, my State of Delaware is facing a 
budget shortfall of $600 million, 20 percent of the State budget. The 
new Governor, Jack Markell, is staring at tremendous budget cuts if we 
do not act, when fully a third of the State budget goes to education.
  That is why I hope my colleagues will find a way to restore the 
education funding and State stabilization funding that was removed. I 
hope they will help Governor Markell and the 49 other Governors. Both 
the education funding and the State stabilization funding affect the 
ability of states to keep teachers in the classroom and to repair, 
renovate, and construct schools. These school construction projects not 
only create--and save--jobs, but are also good long-term investments 
for our children and grandchildren.
  For too long, I have heard stories of children in crumbling schools, 
with outdated textbooks and outdated computers, if they have any. To 
give our children a fair chance, to compete with the rest of the world, 
to keep America's economic future bright, we must make a downpayment 
now.
  And in education, we have a downpayment that can create jobs now. In 
my State of Delaware alone, $68 million of shovel-ready school 
construction projects are awaiting our help.
  I will close, Mr. President, with this thought. Our children, if they 
could speak with one voice, want only what all Americans want: a fair 
shot, a fighting chance, an equal opportunity.
  The people I talk to in Delaware just want a chance. They are willing 
to work hard, and they have. They are willing to play by the rules, and 
they have. They want to save for tomorrow. In return, all they ask is a 
job they can rely on, a home for their families, and a government that 
will help them out when they need a hand.
  The Senate bill focuses on keeping and restoring jobs. It will begin 
the task of slowing and reversing our economic troubles, and I hope we 
can get a final bill to the President soon.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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