[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3701-3706]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




       THE ECONOMIC STIMULUS AND A NEW PARADIGM FOR ALL AMERICANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I rise today to talk about 
the economic stimulus but also to advance the idea of a new paradigm 
for all Americans in terms of public-private cooperation in advancing 
economic opportunities for all Americans.
  It is difficult when you listen to my esteemed colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle whose arguments seem to rehash the past as the 
American people at this hour find themselves fearful, in some contexts 
desperate, as our economy has taken an unprecedented turn for the 
worse. Yet the arguments of rehashed tax cuts and tax breaks for too 
few Americans and for too few businesses have brought us to this very 
unique moment in American history.
  The President of the United States, President Barack Obama, 
essentially has said to us that the arguments that we have heard have 
taken us down this road over and over and over again. Yet we are 
looking at unprecedented layoffs. We are looking at plants closing on 
workers without notice. We are looking at the 401(k)s of the American 
people essentially diminishing right before their eyes. We have seen 
Members of Congress in the last years whose homes as Members of 
Congress have gone into foreclosure. Each of us has heard from our 
constituents who have lost their jobs and who have experienced the kind 
of unprecedented economic desperation that has brought us to this 
unique moment in American history, an unprecedented moment.
  At least according to A.P., a few moments ago, the Senate leader 
announced that we now have a stimulus deal.
  ``Moving with lightning speed, key lawmakers announced agreement 
Wednesday on a $789 billion economic stimulus measure, designed to 
create millions of jobs in a Nation reeling from recession.'' 
Conservative economists, liberal economists, almost everyone agrees 
that the government at this hour cannot stand idly by and do nothing. 
We must do something. ``The middle ground we have reached,'' the leader 
says, ``creates more jobs than the original Senate bill and costs less 
than the original House bill.''
  The bill includes help for victims of the recession in the form of 
unemployment benefits and food stamps and health coverage and more as 
well as billions for States that face the prospects of making deep cuts 
in their other programs.
  Who here does not represent a State that is not experiencing 
unprecedented economic disaster?
  No Democrat and no Republican in this body can sit idly by and play 
politics as usual--blame the other side, not work in a bipartisan way 
to bring about the kind of growth and jobs that are necessary.
  While I come to this floor to talk tonight about innovative public-
private partnerships, which I fundamentally believe are and represent 
the new paradigm, I cannot help during this Democratic hour to at least 
rebut some of what I have heard tonight in the context of the 20th 
bicentennial of our 16th President. Either we are a government of, for 
and by the people or we are not.
  During this hour of economic desperation, the American people are not 
turning to their governors; they are not turning to their city council 
persons; they are not turning to their mayors; they are not turning to 
any of the major industries in this country that are laying off 
workers. They are turning to some entity, to some flag, to some church, 
to some god, to some sense of higher being, to something that calls us 
as a Nation to turn beyond that which we do on a daily basis and just 
see ourselves and see our country. Maybe we, together, can work our way 
out of this profound crisis.
  Before the American Civil War, our 16th President lived in an 
environment where the States, themselves, asserted themselves and where 
the United States Government was, at best, fledgling in terms of its 
national responsibility because, before the American Civil War, it 
never had to assert itself. Yet, through Abraham Lincoln, ``the United 
States are a government'' became ``the United States is a government'' 
because the idea of saving the Union took on national cause whether you 
were for slavery or against slavery, whether you were in the northern 
States, the border States or the southern States or whether you were 
following the movement of popular sovereignty into the western States, 
making arguments, as you have heard from some of my colleagues, about 
their property and their liberty.
  But the real question that confronted the Nation at that hour was 
whether or not we were going to be one Nation under God that was 
indivisible. Questions of what to do with the slaves, questions of what 
to do with women's rights and the suffragettes who would later 
culminate in the 19th amendment would be left for other generations to 
resolve. But one thing is for sure: The question of ending slavery and 
the question of stopping and providing women with equality was 
something that required one Nation to accomplish, not 50 different 
States, not the private sector and different industries but the 
leadership of an executive--the President.
  So, in the Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln took what was a 
celebration, if you will, after the American Civil War--July 4, our 
Independence Day--and he redefined it in Gettysburg by saying that the 
men who paid the ultimate sacrifice in Gettysburg and in Vicksburg have 
paid a sacrifice higher than our ability to add or detract. He 
essentially relegates it to the future to make the judgment about what 
kind of a Nation we would become, not that I would become, not the 
people of Virginia, not the people of Georgia, not the people of 
Illinois, not the people of California. What kind of a Nation we will 
become.
  In my own lifetime and at 43 years old, all of us felt that 
tremendous sense of angst when our Nation was attacked on September the 
11th. For a moment, we stopped being Democrats; we stopped being 
Republicans; we stopped being black and white. We were attacked. We 
were attacked and we wanted to respond. We looked to our national 
government to protect us. We did something extraordinary for a moment. 
We became Americans.

                              {time}  1800

  There are these moments in American history where we look beyond our 
individual selves and we make the judgment that we have to do something 
for ourselves or our people for our future. And the American people 
find themselves economically at that hour.
  So we have a stimulus deal. Roosevelt said, ``During these troubling 
economic times that we have nothing to fear but fear itself.'' But 
that's what we've been hearing from the other side. I've even heard it 
from some Democrats--just fear; fear--when we should be turning to each 
other and not on each other to work and provide the American people 
with some hope, a way out of our predicament.
  The American people at this hour don't need to hear the Democratic 
proposal, the Republican proposal. They need to hear an American 
proposal that suggests that we are coming together as one people to 
solve an American problem. That was the best of Abraham Lincoln--not 
that he was our Nation's first Republican President fighting many 
southern Democrats in a great war, in a great battle--but our President 
rose above the circumstances of the hour to ensure that you and I would 
have a very different future.
  So we heard the past. For the last hour we've heard the past. We've 
heard a recycling of the same old ideas.
  President Obama has hinted at a new future. That new future suggests 
a new paradigm economically. Recently, he said that he wants to limit 
executive compensation, which I believe many Members of this body 
applaud if we are

[[Page 3702]]

giving taxpayer funds to the private sector so that they might help 
shore up the economy and financially troubled institutions. Certainly 
people shouldn't be buying Leer jets and jet planes and taking 
excursions and vacations with taxpayer funds.
  There's the hint of a public-private partnership and greater 
responsibility during this desperate hour for the American people.
  I want to talk for a few moments about public-private partnerships as 
a stimulus plan, a recovery plan for all Americans.
  We were once a manufacturing-based economy. We moved from a 
manufacturing-based economy with trade deals and with other 
opportunities that took place in the global economy to a more service-
based economy. During the Clinton administration, a new economy 
emerged: the information-based economy. However short-lived, it gave 
birth to the Internet, the high tech companies with computers, and has 
automated our system to the point that computers do the jobs now that 
people used to do.
  From a company's perspective, computers obviously don't need health 
care and don't need benefits. But from a government of, for, and by the 
people, the responsibility for health care, for decent housing, for a 
higher quality of life must fall on a caring government. Not everyone 
can make the transition from a manufacturing-based economy to a 
service-based economy based upon education level and skill as quickly.
  My mother. Love momma to death, but momma is not as proficient on 
computers as my children are. My children are better able to transition 
from the last economy to the new economy much faster than the last 
generation.
  But most jobs in America, while they may not be in manufacturing and 
because of the education levels associated with the information-based 
economy, are in the service-based economy, the services that we 
provide. The hardworking men and women of the United States Postal 
Service, of UPS, of Federal Express, of the Hyatt Hotel, and the Hilton 
Hotel, and the Fairmont Hotel. The service-based economy employs more 
Americans than any single aspect of the Nation's economy.
  Whatever it is that stimulates the service-based economy by 
definition is good for the Nation and can stimulate job creation for 
more and more Americans. I support the stimulus bill. We've got to do 
something, and we have to do something right now.
  What few Members of Congress will tell you is that behind this 
trillion dollar bill is probably another trillion dollar bill. And 
given the depth and nature of the crisis, maybe even another trillion 
dollar bill. And it is my sincere hope that out of the idea of 
repairing our economy and restructuring our economy, a new partnership 
will emerge between the public sector and the private sector in unique 
public-private partnerships to accomplish and finish public works 
projects.
  Before I came to the floor, I went to Wikipedia and I pulled up 
``public-private partnership.'' And it describes, specifically, a 
``government service or private business venture which is funded and 
operated through a partnership of government and one or more private 
sector companies.''
  In some types of public-private partnerships, the government uses tax 
revenue to provide capital for investment, with operations run jointly 
by the private sector or under contract. In other types, capital 
investment is made by the private sector on the strength of a contract 
with government to provide agreed-upon services.
  Government contributions to a public-private partnership may also be 
in kind, i.e., transferring existing assets to the private sector; 
i.e., leasing them land for the purposes of putting a business on top 
of the land to create jobs, to grow the business, and to grow the 
economy.
  In some ways, and particularly in urban areas, public-private 
partnerships manifest themselves in the forms of tax incrementally 
financed districts, or TIFS. They manifest themselves in the form of 
enterprise zones to attract businesses that have moved to other areas 
to open up shop in high unemployment, high density areas.
  And in some other cases, the government may support the project by 
providing revenue subsidies, including tax breaks or providing 
guaranteed annual revenues for a fixed period.
  The idea of a public-private partnership is part of a new paradigm. 
Public-private partnerships are not the same as private-private 
partnerships, that is, a quasi-government entity allowing the private 
sector to run and operate without any public accountability. Private-
private partnerships or quasi-private partnerships do not work and are 
ripe with corruption, waste, fraud, and abuse.
  I wish that the TARP funds that we voted on in the last session of 
the Congress had taken the idea of a public-private partnership 
approach before President Obama had become elected President. The 
responsibility for limiting executive compensation should not have been 
an afterthought. It should have been in the original bill. Public 
accountability for taxpayer funds: It's fair, it's right, it's 
accountable.
  Typically, however, when Congress moves big economic stimulus bills 
and emergency supplemental bills, more often than not, some of the best 
ideas are afterthoughts. And so, before Congress spends the next 
trillion dollars after we vote on this trillion dollars, I want to put 
a marker in the next bill that public-private partnerships, public 
oversight that encourages private spending to help create jobs and grow 
the economy for most Americans, is something that all Americans ought 
to support.
  For the 14 years that I've had the privilege of serving in the United 
States Congress, I have been working on such a project, and I want to 
discuss and share with you in some details the nature of that project. 
I believe that the goals of this project are consistent with the goals 
of the stimulus.
  Long before I decided to run for Congress, the head of the Federal 
Aviation Administration, I believe under President George Herbert 
Walker Bush, said that we needed to build 10 new airports the size of 
O'Hare Airport in the City of Chicago to handle today's congestion 
problem.
  Some of you may argue, ``Congressman Jackson, what do airports have 
to do with stimulating the economy?''
  Airports are like the heart of the service-based economy. It's like 
the central organ that pumps blood to every artery in the body. You 
show me an airport and I will show you several hotels: the Hyatt, the 
Hilton, the Fairmont. You show me an airport and I will show you Hertz 
that buys fleets of cars, and Avis, and Dollar, and Enterprise.
  You show me an airport, and I will show you convention centers. 
They're never that far from airports. You show me a convention center 
and I will show you conventions: visitors, shows, and hardware shows, 
and auto shows, and trade shows. You show me an airport and I will show 
you Boeing; I will show you Airbus; I will show you Lockheed Martin, 
and Gulf Stream, and Jet Star, and Leer.
  You show me an airport and I will show you roads and highways and 
interstates and intermodal transportation. You show me an airport and I 
will show you metro; I will show you bus service, limo service, CTA, 
Pace.
  You show me an airport and I will show you tens of thousands of jobs 
tied to the service-based economy. Even when airports close at night to 
customer service, they're still open for cargo service, and so Fed Ex 
packages move all throughout the night, UPS and DHL packages move in 
the third shift, 24-hours delivery. You show me an airport and I will 
show you an economic engine that keeps on giving.
  So during the George Herbert Walker Bush administration, President 
Bush, the First, the director of the FAA said that we needed to create 
10 new airports the size of O'Hare, O'Hare Airport in the City of 
Chicago responsible for creating nearly 286,000 jobs conservatively; 10 
new airports the size of O'Hare Airport, 286,000 jobs times 10, 2.8 
million jobs. Nearly 3 million jobs associated with expanding and 
building 10 new airports.
  How many airports have we built in the United States since George 
Herbert

[[Page 3703]]

Walker Bush's administration said that we needed to build ten new 
airports? Not one because Congress is a slow-moving institution.
  All of us have our interests in expanding existing facilities and 
tweaking a few runways here and there and lengthening a few runways 
here and there in existing facilities. But the problem is even though 
aviation capacity is growing nationally at our existing facilities, 
they're all constrained, meaning that aviation traffic has to be moved 
to new airports in new air space.

                              {time}  1815

  Mr. Speaker, 2.8 million new jobs associated with the service-based 
economy, if the Congress of the United States can find a way to enter 
into public-private partnership, if State governments can find a way to 
enter into public-private partnerships, that is, taking the best of 
public oversight with private ingenuity and capital, buying land, 
leasing it to the private sector like a TIFF or enterprise zone, 
allowing airport developers to put an airport on existing land and 
begin the process of generating jobs, this is the stimulus.
  Airports generate economic activity in communities that desperately 
need them. Building airports is consistent and compatible with the 
goals of the President in this stimulus. It's stimulative by creating 
jobs and developing infrastructure and expanding aviation capacity.
  In Chicago, a third airport as a unique public-private partnership 
would be the biggest job generator in the region for my congressional 
district. In some of the communities in my congressional district--I've 
been here for 14 years--there were 60 people for every one job when I 
got to Congress. Today, in some of those communities, there are still 
60 people for every one job.
  Why? Because Wal-Mart is not the answer. Another drugstore is not the 
answer. Another liquor store is not the answer. Incremental, small 
businesses, sure, we welcome small businesses, but we need some big 
businesses on the south side of Chicago. We need growth. We need 
development. If we have growth and development, our crime rate will go 
down. People can afford their homes because they will be working, and 
they can pay taxes and they can pay their mortgages. And because 
they're paying their taxes, their schools can subsequently flourish.
  But it's one thing in a stimulus bill to be fighting for unemployment 
compensation--I'm for that. It's one thing in a stimulus bill to be 
fighting for more health care for those who lose their jobs and are 
uninsured--I'm for that. I'm for all of the programs that make sense in 
the stimulus bill, but we need a jobs bill.
  And so the infrastructure components of the stimulus bill are most 
attractive to me, the infrastructure components, the permanent, lasting 
components so that decent men and women in this country can get up 
every morning and do exactly what we do, go to work. The American 
people want to work. They don't want a handout.
  They're looking to this Congress not to be Democrat and Republican 
and bickering back and forth. They're looking for us to come up with a 
solution to a real problem, not with hints of the past, pre-Civil War 
arguments about the Federal Government shouldn't be involved in the 
lives of the American people. We didn't have a problem with them being 
involved after 9/11. We didn't have a problem with them being involved 
after the Great Depression.
  There are these moments in the history of our Nation when we look to 
our Nation and the source of our strength, our faith in each other, our 
faith and belief in country, our faith and belief in who we are that we 
can somehow rise above our petty differences. That's what I experienced 
and witnessed over the course of the last 2 years in the Presidential 
cycle, in the election of the 44th President.
  So with that said, Mr. Speaker, I want to talk with you about public-
private partnerships and the approach to creating 286,000 jobs, with 
the hopes, Mr. Speaker, that you're listening to me today and that 
other Members in their offices are listening to me today, with the 
hopes that my constituents can hear me and the American people can hear 
us as we wrestle with issues that matter to them, not partisan 
bickering and division, but issues that matter to them, real solutions 
to real problems.
  So the first thing I want to talk about is the public side of a 
partnership, and Mr. Speaker, the example that I have is the example 
that I've been working on for 14 years, and so I'll need my charts.
  The late Congressman Henry Hyde and I, distinguished gentleman from 
Illinois who is now deceased, but I must say up until the moment that 
he expired Henry Hyde was probably the closest Member of Congress that 
I was with and to in the Congress of the United States. The late Henry 
Hyde took me all around the world and showed me how the institution of 
Congress works. I miss my good friend Henry.
  Henry was kind enough to recognize that the south side of Chicago and 
the south suburbs had a profound economic problem: too few jobs, too 
many people who wanted to work, too few people interested in trying to 
provide them with a real solution to a real problem. It was Henry Hyde 
who helped me understand that the manufacturing economy had 
fundamentally shifted in our country to other parts of the world.
  I knew it because United States Steel, which used to employ 22,000 
people in my congressional district at its South Works facility, had 
closed, and those 22,000 people, while they lived next door to the 
plant, suddenly woke up without employment opportunities, without 
health care. And while Gary Works still produces high quality steel, 
there was nothing quite like the economic impact on the south side of 
Chicago when United States Steel closed. Henry Hyde understood that.
  I asked Henry what was the key to his congressional district. I have 
60 people in some of my communities, 60 people for every one job. In 
his congressional district, three jobs for every one person. Did Henry 
come to me and tell me my constituents needed more tax breaks? No. Did 
Henry make the occasional argument--and he did--that somehow welfare 
was bad and wrong? Yeah, he made the argument.
  But most importantly, beyond the partisan bickering, which dominated 
the politics of the 1980s and the 1990s, Henry Hyde said the key to 
what's taking place in the northwest suburbs is the service-based 
economy.
  Sixty years ago, there was no O'Hare airport in the northwest 
suburbs. In fact, those of you who travel through O'Hare, your baggage 
tag says ORD. It doesn't say O'Hare airport. It says ORD because it was 
called Orchard Field in DuPage County, not even in Chicago. It's just a 
big, old field outside of the metropolitan area.
  He said, When the goose laid the golden egg, when O'Hare was built, 
it brought with it unprecedented economic growth. We extended the 
Kennedy Expressway all the way to O'Hare. We extended the CTA all the 
way to O'Hare. The mayor of the City of Chicago is advancing the O'Hare 
modernization program. He wants billions of dollars in future bills in 
this Congress to throw them at O'Hare. And United has expanded its 
terminal, and American expanded its terminal, and we built a Hilton and 
Hyatt and a Fairmont and a Doubletree and a Sofitel and the Rosemont 
Horizon. And communities that never existed before began popping up 
around the economic engine, but the goal was always to get to the jewel 
of the region, the City of Chicago.
  The only way to get to Chicago is through O'Hare airport and through 
Midway airport. Midway's most profound problem is that its runways are 
too short for a 747 to ever land there. So O'Hare airport remains the 
crown jewel of our area.
  Henry Hyde said, Jesse, O'Hare airport has reached operational 
capacity, but out in your area where they need jobs, if we can expand 
aviation capacity to your area, you get to lay a golden egg on the 
south side of Chicago, Hyatt and Hilton and Fairmont. And we can hardly 
some days catch a taxi on the south side of Chicago, but if we build an 
airport, guess what taxicab

[[Page 3704]]

drivers like to do. When they see you standing out on the corner here 
in Washington or anywhere in America with a suitcase, you can 
immediately get a taxicab because the cab driver assumes you're going 
to some local airport. It's the best fare even for a cab driver. The 
trip to the airport is the golden jewel of a hack.
  So we began the process. I said, Chairman Hyde, the Federal 
Government doesn't build airports. State governments build airports. 
However, State governments build airports with the assumption that the 
States have in their budgets the financial wherewithal to actually 
build an airport. There's no State in the Union that's in a position to 
build a new airport. But George H.W. Bush, the former President, said 
we needed 10 new airports the size of O'Hare 20 years ago, and we 
haven't built one, and with each airport, about 286,000 jobs or 2.8 
million jobs.
  Every time I say that we need to build a new airport in this 
Congress, someone from the other side says, oh, here comes a Jackson 
earmark. A Jackson earmark? 286,000 jobs, a Jackson earmark? Oh, you 
can't put that in the bill, that's earmarking. You haven't worked out 
the local politics yet. The local politics? The State of Illinois lost 
1,200 jobs a day in December, 36,000 jobs in the month of December 
alone. And I want an earmark? And someone comes down to the floor 
arguing about, why are you putting in an earmark? I didn't get elected 
to Congress to hear rhetoric about earmarks. 286,000 jobs at stake with 
just building one airport.
  So the public side of the partnership has to be structured under 
State law. The Abraham Lincoln National Airport Commission--how 
appropriate--we hope to start construction on the 200th birthday of our 
16th President.
  ALNAC, Abraham Lincoln National Airport Commission, is a local 
airport authority that was formed through an intergovernmental 
agreement between its constituent members comprised of 32 Illinois 
municipalities located within the Chicago region. The Abraham Lincoln 
National Airport Commission publicly solicited private entities to 
build and finance a commercial airport--there it is, public 
municipalities, 32 of them, solicited through a bidding process private 
developers to build an airport--at the site approved by the FAA in 
their Record of Decision on the Tier 1 Environmental Impact Statement. 
After evaluation of proposals submitted in response to their 
solicitation, the Abraham Lincoln National Airport Commission selected 
the joint venture of SNC-Lavalin America and LCOR as their private 
development partners.
  So now we have the public side, the 32 municipalities, the government 
oversight, making sure that the facility is consistent with the 
public's intent, and we also have private capital. Notice what I have 
said so far. I've not asked for a Federal dollar. I've not asked for a 
State dollar, yet. Public-private partnership.
  ALNAC's private partners then submitted a comprehensive airport 
alternative concept to IDOT--the Illinois Department of 
Transportation--in 2004, 2004. Of course, everyone knows that our 
government and the State of Illinois, the Illinois Department of 
Transportation in 2004, just like many of us are now realizing in very 
public ways, has not been a functioning government. But in 2004, we 
submitted the paperwork for the public-private partnership.
  Due to their financing proposal, ALNAC believes that their 
alternative offers the best flexibility to provide for optimum land 
utilization, maximized cost efficiencies, and create better long-term 
planning for their private capital and investors, as well as airports, 
commercial stakeholders, and tenants. This is a really important part 
of public-private partnerships.
  If we're going to have a public-private partnership, there is some 
give and there is some take. The private sector is not just in this for 
the public good, and the public sector is not just in this to restrain 
the private sector. The private sector must be able to make a profit 
out of a public-private partnership.

                              {time}  1830

  And so the appropriate balance between public accountability and the 
goals of the private sector, its investors, and its stakeholders is a 
unique balance that has to be struck in any public-private partnership.
  Our proposal is analyzed and compared to all other alternatives in 
ALNAC's report, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation, 
addressing the ultimate airport concepts, along with the inaugural 
airfield passenger terminal facilities and landside access concepts.
  In short, the Illinois Department of Transportation determined that 
the Abraham Lincoln National Airport Commission had the Nation's first 
public-private partnership for building commercial aviation in the 
United States. A perfect model.
  So, where do the jobs come from? Well, for nearly a decade now the 
State of Illinois has been acquiring land for this inaugural airport, 
albeit at a snail's pace. The public-private partnership is simply a 
business between the public sector and the private sector on the State 
land, like a TIFF or an enterprise loan.
  Let's say, for example, you want to attract Wal-Mart to the south 
side of Chicago or you want to attract Costco to the south side of 
Chicago. The city of Chicago, the city of San Francisco, the city of 
Atlanta offers land in an area and says, Hey, if you put 300 jobs right 
here, we will give you tax incentives, we will give you tax rebates for 
however long, whatever the terms of the agreement are. And, as a result 
of that, 300 Illinoisans, 300 Americans, are somehow working because of 
the public-private partnership. Well, we are the same thing.
  The State of Illinois has been purchasing land for an airport. But 
they cannot afford to build an airport. And the Federal Government does 
not build airports. So somehow a balance must be struck between the 
goals of the public to relieve national aviation, and the private 
sector, who has got the money. And the private sector needs to be able 
to get their profit out of the project.
  What do we get out of the project? Well, remember, I said some 
communities have 60 people for every 1 job. An airport with one runway 
and five gates in this market, on State land, creates 15,000 new jobs. 
One runway, five gates, 15,000 jobs paid for by the private sector, 
with public oversight.
  Why public oversight? Well, you just don't launch planes into the 
air. They have to have air traffic controllers, they have be integrated 
into the national aviation system. So the national aviation system is 
part of the process. The FAA is part of the process.
  You have to have cooperation between the Federal Government. No tired 
arguments about Federal Government. You have to have the FAA in order 
to fly a plane. You have to have State governments. This land is owned 
by the State of Illinois. But the State of Illinois leases land all the 
time. But one runway, five gates, in a unique public-private 
partnership, creates 15,000 jobs.
  Well, Congressman, how do 15,000 people get into a terminal with only 
five gates? Fifteen thousand people don't get into a terminal with only 
five gates. Fifteen thousand people come in the form of pilots, flight 
attendants, engineers, gate workers, maintenance workers, TSA, Hertz, 
Avis, Enterprise, Dollar, Hyatt, Hilton, Fairmont, Radisson, Double 
Tree, the Zanzibar Hotel on Stony Island Avenue. Taxicabs, convention-
goers, visitors, hardware shows, auto shows, trade shows. It comes in 
the form of people coming and going from the Nation's aviation system. 
That's one runway and five gates.
  Within 10 years, the plan then progresses from a small terminal with 
five gates to, very quickly and very inexpensively, 13 terminals, 13 
gates. A $400 million investment goes from five gates--one, two, three, 
four, five--to 13 gates very quickly. And every time the airport 
expands, if five gates equals 15,000 jobs, well, how many jobs do we 
think the next five gates equal? That's right. A 10-gate airport is 
30,000 jobs. Still paid for by the private sector.
  So now we have gone from 5 gates to 15 gates--phase one of the 
airport--at

[[Page 3705]]

very little cost to the private sector. Phase two of the airport. While 
this part of the airport is under construction, you then build phase 
two of the airport. And then you build phase three of the airport. And 
then you build phase four of the airport. All using modular 
construction paid for by the private sector, with the finances of the 
airport reinvested in the airport; reinvested in the business, because 
that is what it is; reinvested in the landside development of the 
airport; while paying the State back for the land that it acquired from 
the beginning of the project.
  So the taxpayer gets their money back associated from their initial 
investment in the land, the airport gets built, hotels, and tax bases 
expand, and schools are funded and people who work pay for their own 
health care or any other form of health care they choose to because 
they have a job.
  I'm voting for the stimulus bill. But I'd like to see an airport 
built on this House floor that builds 10 of these monsters right here. 
Ten of them. And I am sure 2.8 million jobs will be created. This is 
just the initial terminal.
  So, remember, our airport was phase one. We then built phase two. We 
accomplished additional capacity by just extending the terminal with a 
very modest expansion and very cheap expansion to 13 gates. And then we 
build phase four, we build phase five, and once this side of the 
airport is operational, then we come back to the other side of the 
airport, without any disruption in service, and we turn this very 
modest gate into a much more consistent and pronounced enterprise.
  So, the initial long-range phasing of the airport, an airport of this 
magnitude, about 85,000 jobs to a local economy. In the service-based 
economy. No, this is not manufacturing, although there are still steel 
implications and glass implications for building airport terminals and 
concrete and asphalt associated with building airports. So there is 
some manufacturing impact associated with building airports.
  No, this is not a computer-generated information-based economy, where 
people write software programs and participate in online chats and 
engagements of information, although there will be WiFi at the airport.
  But airports are central to the service-based economy. The service-
based economy. Different than the manufacturing-based economy and very 
different than the information-based economy. And very different, quite 
frankly--and I know some members of my staff are going to be a little 
upset about this--very different than some of the approaches even in 
this bill that I am supporting.
  Yes, this bill has gone from a stimulus bill that was supposed to be 
stimulating the economy, and this is truly stimulative construction, to 
a--watch this now--recovery bill. The economy is so bad, we are now in 
recovery. And we still need even more stimulation.
  But we are moving now from the language of stimulation to recovery 
because the problem is profound. But if we can find private developers 
anywhere in this country who are willing to put up their own money 
under public oversight to build public works projects, that is the 
point. That really is the point. Because the private sector, many of 
these corporations, do have the money, and are willing to put it up, if 
the State, if the Federal Government is willing to cooperate so that we 
can create jobs, move beyond the local politics.
  I began this presentation, Mr. Speaker, by saying that there are 
unique moments in American politics, in American life, in American 
history, where we no longer look to the States; to the locals; to the 
old, tired arguments--tax breaks and Big Government and socialism--to 
doing something for all Americans.
  Lincoln did it in Gettysburg and during the Civil War to save the 
Union. Roosevelt did it when he appealed to something greater in each 
of us to save our Nation and our economic system. President Bush did it 
after September 11th, albeit some of us had problems with the 
direction. But we did rally behind our President and behind the flag 
because of our sense of insecurity associated with those profound 
events of September 11th.
  I'm suggesting to you, Mr. Speaker, that we can rally behind our 
President. But we ought to rally behind a new paradigm that makes a 
difference for all Americans. So, 85,000 jobs associated with this 
facility, paid for by the private sector, under public-private 
partnerships. Future stimulus bills ought to encourage them.
  Mr. Speaker, it's not just about the traveling public. Serious 
airport design and planning includes the possibility of cargo, because 
there are tens of thousands of jobs associated with cargo. Handling 
mail, handling packages. The global economy. Moving goods and services 
throughout the world. Making it more efficient. Every time we add a 
cargo plane carrying cargo to our Nation's aviation capacity, it 
constrains commercial aviation. Every time we add a new commercial 
flight, it means one less cargo plane that can fly unless, of course, 
we are expanding and building new airports.
  I'm particularly proud that this concept is conceived of by the 
private sector at no cost or risk to the taxpayers because the private 
business model pays the State and the Federal Government back for its 
investment in building the project. There are no airports in the 
country to do that. They are like sinkholes. They serve a valuable 
purpose, but they don't pay back the taxpayer for the public works 
projects.
  Well, this is the example that I like to talk about. Airports. But 
this could be a port. Any port in America could be built under a 
public-private partnership model. Job growth in this country in almost 
any sector of the economy can be built under a public-private 
partnership model. Not a private-private partnership model, but a 
public-private partnership model.

                              {time}  1845

  Where does this airport go? Well, how about this: Because the private 
sector has an interest in profitability, they also have little 
tolerance for graft or corruption. They don't do political fund-
raisers. They reinvest in their project for their stockholders and for 
their investors. They're in it to turn a profit.
  You enter into a public-private partnership with the full knowledge 
that the private sector investor wants to make a profit out of the 
project. So when the private sector develops and plans an airport of 
this magnitude, they start with the entire land use scope as part of 
the project. They start with the big vision first, what the airport 
could become. An airport of this magnitude in the exact same space, 
286,000 jobs, Mr. Speaker. There it is. That's what 286,000 jobs looks 
like. That's what it looks like. Nothing else that we've discussed on 
this House floor comes close to that. Not a tax incentive, not a tax 
break, not stopgap measures to help us recover. And we do need to 
recover, helping the poor, the disenfranchised and those who have been 
locked out. We do need to help those Americans who are suffering. But 
many of those Americans who are suffering also want full-time work. We 
need infrastructure projects like this that uses the private sector's 
money that pays the Federal taxpayer and the State taxpayer their money 
back in a unique public-private partnership.
  So, airports usually designed by States start with big plans like 
this and they never find the money to build an airport of this 
magnitude. So what the private sector does, as I prepare to close, Mr. 
Speaker, they start with complete land use, what it could look like, 
how we get to the 286,000 jobs. And then they do just the opposite of 
what we do in government.
  I really like this part. They start with the big use plan, they then 
scale it back to 1X, they then scale it back to various phases because 
they can't build the whole thing at one time, phase 1, phase 2, and 
phase 3. They only build what they need. And they work it all the way 
back to the smallest, least expensive facility that creates the most 
jobs that allows them to operate their business--one runway with five 
gates. And this one runway and five gates, that same one runway and 
that same five gates is right here, and this is the same runway. When 
it becomes a

[[Page 3706]]

four-runway airport, they've wasted nothing. When it becomes a six-
runway airport, they've wasted nothing. They've taken the big plan and 
they've scaled it all the way back down to the smallest common 
denominator and they're in a position to go to their investors and say, 
okay, we have public support in the partnership, we have private 
capital, only $400 million. That's what it costs to build one runway 
and five gates, $400 million. They're ready to pay for it. They're 
ready to put up their own money. And as their business begins to 
expand, they then move from one runway and five gates to 13 gates while 
they're working on phase 2. And then they work on phase 3. And they're 
constantly reinvesting their profit.
  Not coming to Mr. Oberstar's committee or going over to the Senate 
looking for another earmark, more taxpayer funds, hustling around 
Capitol Hill, going to receptions, trying to get the Congressmen's 
attention. No more of that. Enough of that. The new model shouldn't 
have them coming up here every year hustling a transportation bill. The 
new model ought to free them to do what they do with public oversight 
and expedited interaction from the FAA. Not the old rigmarole. If we 
want a new Washington, set them free to build the economy. Set them 
free to grow. Let them do what they do, accountable for their money and 
their oversight within the rules of local public accountability. Break 
up the routine where, can I get an earmark this year? Can I get another 
earmark this year? I've got a worthy project. One more worthy project. 
And then when we support the worthy projects, we then get criticized 
for doing what we've been elected to do.
  Mr. Speaker, the new model for all Americans, the new paradigm, is a 
paradigm of public and private partnership that creates a new era of 
accountability. We don't have to look back to the old America where we 
don't turn to our government for help. Sure our government can play a 
role. It can establish a new paradigm of participation for all 
Americans.
  And so, Mr. Speaker, it is my sincere hope that my colleagues who are 
in their offices, who want to advance the idea of public-private 
partnerships, that they will look closely at the arguments that we made 
in the Congressional Record, look at our approach and our processes 
that we followed at the local level with complete transparency, so that 
we can grow an economy for all Americans that all Americans can be 
proud of.
  I want to enter one more thing into the Record, Mr. Speaker, just 
before I yield back the balance of my time. I was reading in a local 
newspaper here that in the month of December, our Nation's busiest 
airport experienced the worst delays ever.
  ``Chicago's air travelers endured the worst delays in the Nation 
during December, as foul weather offset any benefit that airlines might 
have gained from a steep drop in flights at the city's major airports, 
new data show. O'Hare International Airport, the gem of our city and 
the gem of our region, reported the worst performance for on-time 
departures among major U.S. airports for December and calendar year 
2008, even after the November opening of a new runway that is designed 
to help reduce the problem in the first place.''
  Because it's not just a function of new runways at existing airports, 
it's about new runways in a new airspace. God has only given us so much 
space above this building. He's only given us so much space above 
airports. And so there's only so many circles they can drive around or 
fly around an airport. You have to build new airports in new space. But 
by building them in new space, it means that we change the habitual 
traffic patterns of people who normally go one way to go to the 
airport, they now have options to go both ways. And by doing that, Mr. 
Speaker, we create balanced economic growth for all Americans and all 
Americans can begin to participate in the bounty that is America.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I thank the leadership for allowing me this 
opportunity, and I thank the Speaker for his indulgence.

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