[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18622-18629]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       REVISIONIST FISCAL HISTORY

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, since yesterday, we have witnessed in 
this Chamber the resumption of a set of tired and worn out taking 
points that the Democratic side drags out whenever they are forced to 
finally get around to discussing tax policy.
  Well, once again beating the same dead horse, the other side has 
attempted to go back in time again and talk about fiscal history. 
Earlier this week, there has been a lot of revision or perhaps editing 
of recent budget history. I expect more of it in the future days.
  The revisionist history basically boils down to two conclusions. 
First, that all of the ``good'' fiscal history of the 1990s was derived 
from a partisan tax increase bill in 1993, and, two, that all the bad 
fiscal history of this decade to date is attributable to bipartisan tax 
relief plans.
  Not surprisingly, nearly all of the revisionists who spoke generally 
oppose tax relief and support spending increases. The same crew 
generally supports spending increases and opposes spending cuts.
  For this debate, it is important to be aware of some key facts. The 
stimulus bill passed by the Senate, with interest included, increased 
the deficit by over $1 trillion. The stimulus bill was a heavy stew of 
spending increases and refundable tax credits seasoned with small 
pieces of tax relief.
  The bill passed by the Senate had new temporary spending that, if 
made permanent, will burden future budget deficits by over $2.5 
trillion. Now, that is not this Senate Republican speaking; it is the 
official congressional scorekeeper, the Congressional Budget Office. In 
fact, the deficit effects of the stimulus bill passed within a short 
time after the Democrats assumed full control of the Federal Government 
roughly exceeded the deficit impact of 8 years of bipartisan tax 
relief. You can see that very clearly right here.
  The tax relief over here, and the stimulus bill here--all of this 
occurred in an environment where the automatic economic stabilizers, 
thankfully, kicked in to help the most unfortunate in America with 
unemployment insurance, increased amounts of food stamps, and other 
benefits.
  That antirecessionary spending, together with lower tax receipts and 
the bailout activities, set a fiscal table of a deficit of $1.4 
trillion. That was the highest deficit as a percentage of the economy 
in post-World War II history. You can see that right here.
  From the perspective of those on the Republican side, this debate 
seems to be a strategy to divert, through a twisted blame game, from 
the facts before us. How is the history a history of revision? I would 
like to take each conclusion one by one.
  The first conclusion is that all of the good fiscal history was 
derived from the 1993 tax increases. To test that assertion, all you 
have to do is take a look at data from the Clinton administration. The 
much ballyhooed 1993 partisan tax increase accounts for 13 percent of 
the deficit reduction in the 1990s, 13 percent. That 13-percent figure 
was calculated by the Clinton administration Office of Management and 
Budget.
  The biggest source of deficit reduction, 35 percent, came from a 
reduction in defense spending. Of course, that fiscal benefit 
originated from President Reagan's stare-down of the Communist regime 
in Russia. The same folks on that side who opposed President Reagan's 
defense build-up somehow seem to take credit for the fiscal benefit of 
the peace dividend.
  The next biggest source of the deficit reduction, 32 percent, came 
from other revenue. Basically this was the fiscal benefit from the pro-
growth policies such as the bipartisan capital gains tax cuts of 1997 
and the free trade agreements that President Clinton, with Republican 
votes, got passed.
  The savings from the policies I pointed out translated to interest 
savings. Interest savings account for 15 percent of the deficit 
reduction. Now, for all of the chest thumping about the 1990s, the 
chest thumpers who pushed for big social spending, did not bring much 
to the deficit reduction tables in the 1990s. Their contribution was 
this, 5 percent.
  What is more, the fiscal revision historians in this body tend to 
forget who the players were. They are correct that there was a 
Democratic President in the White House, but they conveniently forget 
that Republicans controlled the Congress for the period where the 
deficit came down and eventually turned into a surplus.
  They tend to forget they fought the principle of a balanced budget 
that was the centerpiece of Republican fiscal policy.
  Remember, the government shutdowns of late 1995? Remember what that 
was all about? It was about a plan to balance the budget.
  We are consistently reminded of the political price paid by the other 
side for the record tax increases they put into law in 1993. 
Republicans played a political price for forcing the balanced budget 
issue in 1996. But as we found out in 1997, President Clinton agreed. 
Recall as well all through the 1990s what the year-end battles were 
about.
  On one side, congressional Democrats and the Clinton administration 
pushed for more spending. On the other side, congressional Republicans 
were pushing for tax relief. In the end, both sides compromised. That 
is the real fiscal history of the 1990s.
  Now, let's turn to the other conclusion of the revision by fiscal 
historians. That conclusion is that in this decade all fiscal problems 
are attributable to the widespread tax relief enacted in the years 
2001, 2003, 2004, and 2006.
  In 2001, President Bush came into office. He inherited an economy 
that was careening downhill. Investments started to go flat in 2000. 
The tech-fueled stock market bubble was bursting. After that came the 
economic shocks of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Add in the corporate 
scandals to that economic

[[Page 18623]]

environment, and it is true that in the fiscal year 2001, as it came to 
a close, the projected surpluses turned to a deficit.
  But it is wrong to attribute the entire deficit occurring during this 
period to the bipartisan tax relief. Because, according to the CBO, the 
bipartisan tax relief is responsible for only 25 percent of the deficit 
change, while 44 percent is attributable to higher spending and 31 
percent to economic and technical changes.
  In just the right time, the 2001 tax relief plan kicked in. As the 
tax relief hits its full force in 2003, the deficits grew smaller. This 
pattern continued for 4 more years through 2007. If my comments were 
meant to be partisan shots, I could say this favorable fiscal path from 
2003 to 2007 was the only period, aside from 6 months in 2001, where 
Republicans controlled the White House and the Congress.
  But unlike the fiscal history revisionists, I am not trying to make a 
partisan point; I am just trying to point out a few fiscal facts. There 
is also data that compares the tax receipts for 4 years after the much 
ballyhooed 1993 tax increase and the 4-year period after the 2003 tax 
cuts.
  I have a chart here that will track those trends. In 1993, the 
Clinton tax increases, the blue line, brought in more revenue as 
compared to the 2003 tax cuts. That trend reversed as both policies 
moved along in years. Over the first few years, the extra revenue went 
up over time relative to the flat line of the 1993 tax increases.
  So let's get the fiscal history right. The pro-growth tax and trade 
policies of the 1990s, along with the peace dividend, had a lot more to 
do with the deficit reduction in the 1990s than the 1993 tax increases.
  In this decade, deficits went down after the tax relief plans were 
put in full effect. No economist I am aware of would link the technical 
bursting of the housing bubble with the bipartisan tax relief plans of 
2001 and 2003. Likewise, I know of no economic research that concludes 
that the bipartisan tax relief of 2001 and 2003 caused the financial 
meltdown of September and October 2008.
  I have another chart that shows what the President inherited from the 
Democratic Congress and a Republican President. As I said, from the 
period 2003 through 2007, after the bipartisan tax relief program was 
in full effect, the general pattern was this: revenues went up, 
deficits went down.
  One major point that needs to be said right here is to state where 
the government gets the money it spends. Basically I am asking, from 
where do taxes come? I would have thought this would have been 
perfectly obvious to most people, but I may have been wrong. Taxes come 
from taxpayers. I say this because we have heard tax relief for certain 
individuals referred to as the word ``bonus.'' A search of the 
Congressional Record for the Senate on December 1, 2010, shows that the 
word ``bonus'' was said nearly 50 times, the implication being that by 
extending tax relief for all Americans we are giving some people a 
bonus that other people are paying for.
  Let me try to simplify this for my colleagues who are having trouble 
understanding. There is no proposal to cut taxes for anyone before this 
body. The question is, Instead, are we going to allow taxes to go up or 
are we going to prevent a tax increase? If we prevent taxes for 
everyone from going up, we are letting taxpayers keep more of their own 
money that they have earned and worked hard for. No one is proposing a 
bonus or a gift to anyone. The question is, Do we want taxpayers to 
have more or less of their own money?
  My colleagues on the other side have been especially incensed by what 
they consistently refer to as ``tax cuts for the rich'' and seem to 
believe tax relief for everyone is responsible for our disastrous 
budget situation. However, I think nearly everyone serving in the 
Chamber and certainly the President and House and Senate leadership 
support extending around 80 percent of that tax relief. If those on the 
other side are serious in their pleas that taxes must be increased in 
the name of fiscal responsibility, how can they claim 80 percent of the 
tax relief is absolutely necessary and that 20 percent of the tax 
relief is absolutely wrong? This chart, drawn up from Congressional 
Budget Office data, should give more insight into the two groups the 
other side is talking about. The orange line measures the effective tax 
rate paid by the top 5 percent of taxpayers. By the way, this is where 
the small business owners' tax hit occurs. This group represents those 
tax-paying families with incomes over $250,000. Under the Democratic 
leadership's preferred tax policy, this line will go back up to where 
it was in the year 2000. Republicans would prefer to prevent this tax 
increase, and we have shown it falls primarily on the backs of small 
business.
  The main point this chart shows, though, is that tax relief 
undertaken during the last administration benefited all taxpayers, and 
characterizing it as tax cuts for the rich is simply not accurate. Of 
course, I wish to put our country on a path to fiscal responsibility, 
but I do not believe higher taxes will lead us to that path. Rather, we 
need to carefully examine how we spend the money we already collect.
  This debate is about one fundamental question. Who does the money 
you, the taxpayer, have worked hard to get belong to? Does it belong to 
the citizens who earn it or does it belong to the government? Is 
whatever the taxpayer is left with an allowance, with the balance to be 
spent by a government that knows best? I think most people would answer 
my last two questions with a strong resounding no. As we continue to 
discuss pressing tax matters in Congress, we need to keep these 
fundamental and simple truths in mind. We need to stop taxes from 
increasing for all Americans. It is fundamental, after all the years I 
have served in the Senate, that increasing taxes $1 does not go to the 
bottom line and bring the deficit down.
  Through three or four different occasions during the years I have 
served in the Senate, we have had propositions, some of them even 
bipartisan, that we increase taxes by $1 and somehow we will decrease 
expenditures by $3 and, in the process, we are all going to win and the 
deficit is going to go down. But what we forget is how the mechanics of 
legislative bodies work. You increase taxes for a long period of time, 
but each year expenditures are reviewed, and somehow that 3-for-1 rule 
does not seem to hold on the expenditure side. They don't go down. They 
creep up, creep up, and creep up. So in the final analysis, it is kind 
of averaged out that for every $1 we bring in in increased taxes, it is 
a license to spend $1.15.
  Some studies would say it is even much higher than that and not just 
one proposition like that but several propositions like that. That is 
how it has ended up. I don't like to increase taxes, but if there was 
ever a time I could increase taxes and knew that went to the bottom 
line and brought the deficit down $1, it might be a proposition I could 
buy into. But the practice of legislative bodies, particularly the 
Congress of the United States, increasing taxes $1 is a license to 
spend more. It is a ratchet effect. I am very suspicious of those 
propositions. I think my colleagues see that raising taxes has not done 
anything to bring the budget deficit down.
  I ask our colleagues, in these last few weeks of this Congress, to 
keep those historical facts in mind so we don't get hoodwinked into 
doing things that don't end up reducing the deficit. Even at a time 
when it sounds like it will reduce the deficit and makes sense, the 
common sense we ought to remind each other of is it doesn't work.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Manchin). The Senator from New York.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise to speak on the upcoming 
amendments and debate we will have on the tax issue. Let me say a few 
things. First, we are in a very tough economic situation. We have a 
large number of unemployed people, and even people who have been 
employed over the last decade, for the middle class, their incomes have 
not gone up. Their buying power has not gone up. This is the first 
decade that middle-class incomes have not increased.

[[Page 18624]]

  Second, the economy, if we look at statistics from 2000 to 2010, even 
with the recession, has done pretty well. But almost all the income and 
all the wealth has agglomerated to the top 1 percent and top 10 
percent. That means the people at the highest end did very well, while 
everybody else did not. I have nothing against them. In fact, I think 
they are great. They are part of the American dream. To say they have 
gotten most of the wealth, some of my colleagues bring up the false 
issue of class warfare. It is not class warfare. It is a fact we have 
to deal with, just like saying middle-class incomes have not gone up 
enough. That is not class warfare either. Those are just facts.
  Then there is the third issue; that when we began the decade in 2001 
there was a surplus of $300 billion left by Bill Clinton. Now, of 
course, we have a huge deficit. We did when Barack Obama took office, 
and because of the stimulus it is greater. But the No. 1 reason was the 
tax cuts, mainly agglomerated to the wealthy, passed by President 
George Bush and a Senate and House led by Republicans.
  Issue 4, when the tax rates were higher--Bill Clinton had raised 
them--we all know job growth in the 1990s far exceeded job growth in 
this decade.
  So put all that together, and it makes a pretty strong point that the 
middle class needs relief, No. 1; that the country must overcome the 
deficit problems we face, No. 2; and No. 3, that the highest income 
people are doing great.
  So what would be the proper solution to that when we have a tax bill 
coming before us? It is pretty logical. It is pretty obvious. We should 
actually make sure the middle class keeps their taxes low. They are the 
ones whose incomes have suffered. They are the ones who spend it when 
they get a check because they don't have much money. They are the ones 
who need the relief both for themselves and in their personal and 
family situations and for the economy. But to give huge amounts of tax 
breaks to the very wealthy doesn't make any sense. Why? Because, first, 
they are doing great. God bless them; second, because they don't spend 
it. They are not going to go out to the supermarket or the department 
store Christmas shopping because they know they are getting a little 
bit of a tax break; they have plenty of money. And third, because even 
most of them would probably admit they did fine when the rate was a 
little higher on them. It is not going to affect their business and 
spending decisions very much, if at all.
  The logical solution is to give the middle class the tax break and 
say to the upper income: Your money should go to deficit reduction. 
That is what we will vote on in the next few days on the floor. Some 
would prefer that the level be 250, that the tax cuts should go to all 
those below 250. I know my colleague from Iowa feels that way. He will 
speak after me. I have been willing to have the rates go up to 1 
million. I think having a rate for the very highest income people, 
which we always used to have, restoring that makes a great deal of 
sense because that is where the wealth is agglomerating. It is no 
longer people in the top 10 percent who do the best. It is people in 
the top 1 percent who do the best, far and away. On that vote, we will 
see where people stand.
  Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle like to make it seem as 
if a tax cut for someone making $50,000 is the same as a tax cut for 
someone making $5 million. They say: Tax cuts for everybody. Don't 
raise taxes on anybody. But it is not the truth. What we are here to do 
is actually pull away the veil. It seems the No. 1 motivation of too 
many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle is to give a tax 
break to the wealthiest among us, which may make political sense. I 
don't know. It may for them. It sure doesn't make economic sense. It 
doesn't make fairness sense. It doesn't make sense from the point of 
view of getting the economy going.
  I want the American public, over the next few days, as we debate 
taxes, to listen. Ask yourself: Do you think someone making $10 million 
should get a huge tax break? Do you think Warren Buffett or Bill Gates 
should get a tax break that is more than the income of thousands and 
thousands and thousands of middle-class people? If you believe no, tell 
your Senator.
  Do you believe the deficit is a serious problem and giving $300 
billion to $400 billion to people who make over $1 million instead of 
putting that money into the deficit makes sense? If you do not, call 
your Senator and tell him no. Do you think it is at all fair to say 
that to extend unemployment benefits for hard-working people who are 
looking every day for jobs, that that has to be paid for but tax breaks 
to the wealthiest among us do not have to be? If you think that does 
not make any sense, tell your Senator, tell him or her no.
  I know we have a very powerful media group on the hard right, and 
they are going to try to get on the radio and get on the television and 
convince the average middle-class person that Democrats want to take 
away their tax cut and Republicans want to give it to them. But nothing 
could be further from the truth. We have been the ones focused on the 
middle class, and they have been the ones focused on the wealthy.
  We are not willing to hold middle-class tax cuts hostage until there 
is a tax cut for the wealthiest among us. It is time for some clarity. 
If all my colleagues on the other side of the aisle vote for a tax 
break for those whose annual income is above $1 million, unpaid for, I 
do not want to hear about deficit reduction when it comes to programs 
for transportation or education or health or the military from them 
ever again.
  They may believe lowering taxes on everybody is a good thing. That is 
an ideology I do not agree with at this point in time. But they cannot 
claim deficit reduction is a goal when they will increase the deficit 
by hundreds of billions of dollars without it being paid for to give 
tax breaks to the very few wealthy families here in America.
  As for the argument that those tax breaks are important to create 
jobs, no economist believes that. We are talking about the personal 
income tax rate, not the corporate rate. We are talking about people 
who, when they had a higher rate, did very well. We are talking about 
job growth in the last decade among the slowest we have had in a very 
long time under those low tax rates, whether they were times of 
economic growth or economic decline. There is virtually no good 
argument to give huge tax breaks to the very wealthy at a time when our 
deficit is as large as it is. There is a very good argument to give 
those same tax breaks, on a percentage basis, of course, to the middle 
class.
  So to the American people, please watch the floor tonight, tomorrow, 
over the next several days. Figure out who is on your side. Figure out 
who is being fiscally responsible. Figure out who wants to help the 
average middle-class person and at the same time get a hold on our 
deficit.
  Again, I repeat, I respect and salute those who have made a lot of 
money on their own and are very wealthy. God bless them. They are part 
of the American dream. But the American dream does not say that at a 
time of need, at a time when deficits are severe, that because you have 
made all that money you should get a more huge tax break than everybody 
else.
  So this debate is going to be an interesting one. I think it is going 
to set the tone for what we do over the next 2 years. Believe me, we 
will be talking about the millionaires' tax break--who voted for it and 
who voted against it--not just today and not just tomorrow but over the 
next 2 years. It is a very important issue and one we cannot let rest 
for the good of the middle class, for the good of deficit reduction, 
for the good of the country.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I listened with great attention to the 
speech just given by my friend from New York. Senator Schumer is right 
on target when he is talking about: Whom are we fighting for? What are 
we in the Senate for? What are we here to do? Whom are we fighting for?
  I have often said the one thing about the very wealthy in our 
country, they

[[Page 18625]]

are pretty good at taking care of themselves. Obviously, they would not 
be rich if they were not. But what about the people who do not have 
much? Who is fighting for them? This is what I wish to spend some time 
talking about; that is, the unemployed in this country.
  Last week we went home for Thanksgiving. I hope everyone had a good 
time with their families. Now we are looking at the upcoming holidays 
with anticipation, as we do every year, to be with our families, go out 
and buy some presents and exchange presents--kids, grandkids, a festive 
time.
  But what about all those people who are out of work and have no 
money, who right now are being cut off from the only lifeline they 
have, unemployment insurance benefits--losing them day after day 
because they ended 2 days ago. By the time Christmas rolls around, 
somewhere close to 2 million Americans not only will be out of a job 
but will have no source of income whatsoever, facing another winter 
season celebrating the holidays with nothing.
  I had a newspaper headline I showed the other day that said: ``Luxury 
spending is back in fashion''--about how much money was being spent on 
jewels and fancy wristwatches and high-end types of things. Then, right 
under, in small print, it said: However, for millions of Americans they 
are not shopping anywhere because they are out of work.
  The two faces of America--is that what we want this country to be, a 
few who can spend on lavish, jewel-encrusted watches, buying $2,500 
cashmere scarves, as I just read about the other day, and everybody 
else sort of getting in the soup line? We are a better country than 
that.
  That is what I wanted to talk about: reauthorizing the emergency 
unemployment insurance program. But I, first of all, listened to my 
friend and colleague from Iowa, Senator Grassley, talk about taxes. I 
did not hear the whole speech, but I heard him say raising taxes never 
reduces the deficit or reduces the debt. I do not know which he said--
either the debt or the deficit.
  Well, I hate to disagree with my friend, but in 1993, when we enacted 
the Clinton economic proposal, it included increasing taxes in 1993. 
Oh, I remember the Senator from Texas, Mr. Phil Gramm, an economist, 
got up and said: Oh, this is going to cause a depression. This will be 
the worst thing that ever happened to this country. We are going to rue 
the day we ever did this. Well, we passed it. Of course, it did not get 
one Republican vote, and we did raise some taxes in 1993.
  What happened, then, for the next 7, 8 years? We had unprecedented 
growth in this country. Quite frankly, we did balance the budget by 
2000. Not only did we balance it, we had a surplus, and we had a 
surplus going into 2001. That is when George Bush came to the 
Presidency and said: Oh, we have this big surplus. Alan Greenspan was 
warning us we had too much of a surplus and it might not be wise to pay 
down the debt. We were on course to pay down the national debt. Then 
the Bush administration pushed through some tax cuts, for which they 
said: Oh, we are just going to do it temporarily, you see, just until 
2010. We will keep them until 2010, and then we will have to revisit it 
or we will go back to what we had before in 2001.
  They made that deal. I did not vote for it. I did not think we should 
cut taxes that time. I thought we should pay off the national debt. 
That would have strengthened our economy more than anything. But, no, 
the Bush administration, the Republicans who controlled the House and 
the Senate, said they wanted to cut the taxes. Most of the taxes that 
were cut, as my friend from New York said, were for the very wealthy.
  What happened? Did we have a lot of job growth? Not a bit. Not a bit. 
Not only did we not get job growth, the deficit skyrocketed. So I do 
not want to hear any exhortations from that side of the aisle about how 
raising taxes has never reduced the deficit or the debt. We did under 
Bill Clinton. The proof is there. We had a surplus. But they wanted the 
tax breaks to give to the wealthy.
  Lastly, my friend from New York talked about being held hostage. 
There has been a lot of talk about middle-income Americans getting a 
tax break. But I ask--and I keep asking--who are middle-income 
Americans? Who are they? Well, I keep hearing it is those earning 
$250,000 a year or below. Mr. President, $250,000 a year? My friends, 
if you are making $250,000 a year, you are in the top 5 percent of the 
income earners in America. That is right. If you make $250,000 a year, 
95 percent of the American people make less than you do. So is that 
middle class? I do not think so.
  To me, in the middle class are people who are making $30,000, 
$40,000, $50,000, $60,000, $70,000, $80,000, $90,000 a year. That is 
the broad middle class of America. A lot of people in America are 
living on $40,000 a year. It might be hard for some people to think 
about that, but that is true. They do not take fancy trips. They do not 
have fancy cars. They do not go to fancy restaurants. They do not wear 
suits and ties every day. But they are working, and a lot of them are 
working at jobs that are important to our society.
  They may be nurses aides. They may be taking care of our elderly in a 
nursing home or in assisted living. They may be our childcare workers 
taking care of our children. They could be working in fast food places. 
They are making $35,000, $40,000, $50,000 a year, and that is it. That 
is the middle class of America. What are we doing for them? What are we 
doing for that middle class?
  So every time I hear about that $250,000 is the middle class, I am 
thinking: Wait a second. You are talking about the top 5 percent in 
America. If you want to talk about the broad middle class, you have to 
start talking about people making less than $100,000 a year. What are 
we doing for them?
  Well, it seems to me, if we are going to have some tax breaks and 
stuff, we have to think about this group. In that group--in that 
group--of the broad middle class is the army of the unemployed. That is 
where the unemployed are. The unemployed are not on Wall Street. They 
got their bailouts. They are getting million-dollar bonuses this year, 
and my friends on the Republican side want to extend the tax breaks so 
not only do they get their million-dollar bonuses, they will not have 
to pay their fair share of taxes on them either, not to mention, for 
some of them, the way they are getting their money, they are being 
charged at the least possible tax rate--not as regular income but as 
capital gains. But I am not going to get into that right now.
  So what are the Republicans doing? They are saying we cannot extend 
the unemployment benefits for the millions of Americans who are 
unemployed until and unless we have tax breaks for the wealthiest 
Americans. For those making over $250,000, $500,000, over $1 million--
they do not care; no matter what, no matter who you are, how much money 
you make--we have to give them tax breaks or we cannot extend 
unemployment benefits to the unemployed. You want to talk about 
hostages? The Republicans in this Congress are holding hostage the 
unemployed workers in America because they want to get the tax breaks 
for the wealthiest. That is what is happening here. I don't know that 
many of the American people know about that. Oh, they see us debate 
this stuff and back and forth about who is going to get these tax 
breaks, but right now unemployment benefits have run out. We have asked 
I think three or four times, if I am not mistaken, on the Senate floor 
for unanimous consent to extend the unemployment benefits, and the 
Republicans have objected every single time. Why?
  They wrote a letter. Yesterday, the Republican leader had a letter 
signed by every single Republican in the Senate that said they will not 
allow any bill to pass the Senate unless and until we pass a bill 
giving tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans. It almost begs 
credulity. You wonder, is this real? Do they really mean that? Well, 
they signed their names to it. That means we can't extend unemployment 
benefits until we give in, until we give in to

[[Page 18626]]

the Republicans and give tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans. What a 
deal. What a deal--holding people who are at the end of their ropes--
the most vulnerable in our society--holding them hostage for their Wall 
Street friends.
  I have heard this said by some on the other side: Well, unemployment 
benefits make people lazy. If you give them unemployment benefits, they 
won't look for work.
  Well, let me talk for a minute about what the labor market looks like 
right now, and we will see if these people are really lazy. Right now, 
there are 15 million people who want a job and can't find one but 9 
million people forced to work part time because they can't get a full-
time job. There are a number of other people who have looked for a job, 
and they have given up. They have been out of work for 2 years. As the 
Presiding Officer knows, after 99 weeks, you don't get any unemployment 
benefits whatsoever, and a lot of people have been out of work for over 
99 weeks. They have nothing. That means our unemployment rate is not 
around 9 percent; it is actually about 17 to 18 percent. And these 
unemployed workers are looking for work.
  What people have to understand is that before you can get 
unemployment benefits, you have to be actively looking for work. It is 
a requirement in order to get it. But what is happening out there? 
Workers can't find jobs because there aren't any. There is one job for 
every five workers. Well, it says here: 14.8 million workers 
unemployed. That is not really true. It is actually about 26 million. 
That is 14.8 million unemployed, but when you include those who have 
given up because they have gone beyond 99 weeks, when you take into 
account those who work part time because they were working full time 
but now they can only get a part-time job, it adds up to almost 26 
million.
  Let's just take the Bureau of Labor Statistics as they are: 14.8 
million workers, 2.9 million jobs, 1 for about every 5. Actually, it is 
fewer than that. If you really look at the overall picture, it is 
really more like 1 in 8 to 1 in 10. So, in other words, for about every 
8 to 10 workers, there is 1 job out there someplace. So most workers 
will lose on this kind of game of musical chairs. When you run around 
and the music stops, one person gets a job and six or seven people 
don't have one. So I challenge my Republican friends: How can six or 
seven or eight people find a job when there is only one available? That 
is why we have so many people facing long-term unemployment.
  Over 6 million people have been out of work for more than half a 
year. I saw a lot of them who were here in Washington yesterday. Four 
in 10 workers, what we call the long-term unemployed, have been 
unemployed and looking for a job for at least 6 months. This is higher 
than during any previous recession.
  There are extensions going back to 1950. In terms of the share of the 
total unemployed--you can see the graph here--in terms of who has been 
unemployed for more than 6 months--and as we can see, as we go from the 
1950s to here, look at where this line now goes in 2010: more than we 
have ever had going clear back to the 1950s. Long-term unemployed, 
higher than any previous recession. It is the highest in 60 years. They 
are being held hostage by the Republicans.
  Long-term unemployment is especially common among older workers over 
aged 50. These are people who have worked all their lives, they have 
saved for retirement, they have lost their jobs, and they are having a 
very difficult time finding new work. A year, year and a half, 2 
years--I have met people out of work for well over 2 years. Again, they 
can't find work because it is not there, through no fault of their own.
  So, as I said, our economy needs at least 11 million jobs--at least. 
To say that people who are unemployed are lazy and shouldn't get 
benefits--if you say that, you are obviously out of touch. You are out 
of touch with the real world and what is happening out there and the 
difficult circumstances that face our hard-working American families.
  I get a lot of letters--and I am sure the occupant of the chair does 
too from his home State--from people who are just at their wit's end, 
and they just tear your heart out.
  A 50-year-old woman from Altoona has been unemployed since November 
2009, a year and a month. She wrote me: ``I can't even get a job at 
McDonald's right now, and believe me, I have tried everywhere.'' 
Unemployment insurance is helping her get by, but she is worried about 
running out of benefits, which just happened 2 days ago. I got this 
letter before 2 days ago. Her unemployment benefits are out.
  An unemployed schoolteacher from Estherville wrote me. She said:

       I have not felt so humiliated in 20 years. I have been a 
     productive and hard-working woman since I was 13, but now I 
     feel insignificant.

  She wrote me that this summer. This month, she wrote me again. She 
said:

       I have tried to find employment in other States, all over 
     Iowa, in every form of employment you can imagine: 
     convenience stores, fast food, factories. I am a high school 
     math teacher with three college degrees and I can't find a 
     job. If it weren't for unemployment, I would be on food 
     stamps.

  But without unemployment insurance, she doesn't know what she is 
going to do. She just lost hers a couple of days ago too.
  These are just two examples, but there are millions. In this holiday 
season, from now until the new year, 2 million people will be cut off 
if we don't continue these programs. In Iowa, my home State, more than 
10,000 people will be cut off from their benefits during this holiday 
season. And if we don't do anything, we will face 6 million by April 
left without any source of income, hanging by a thread. Their savings 
are exhausted. Their unemployment benefits are the thin lifeline 
keeping them afloat.
  Congress has never cut back emergency unemployment benefits when the 
unemployment rate was as high as it is now, and this is no time to 
start. Here it is again. Going back to 1959, when we had high rates of 
unemployment, every single time, Congress passed emergency funding to 
keep unemployment benefits going--that is, until now.
  Republicans have said, oh, they will extend it, but they want to pay 
for it. It is about $56 billion to extend it for 1 year. They have to 
pay for it, and how they want to pay for it is to take money out of the 
Recovery Act. There is still some unexpended money there that is going 
out for things such as roads and bridges and infrastructure projects 
that put people to work. So they want to take money from that, which is 
giving people some jobs and helping build our infrastructure, to put 
into unemployment benefits, when, going back to 1959, through 
Republican and Democratic administrations, we have always said this is 
an emergency, and that is the way we fund it.
  Well, the Republicans say, we have a huge deficit. We can't do that 
anymore. Then why are they so intent on passing a tax cut bill, 
extending a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans and they don't pay for 
it? They put it on the deficit--not for $56 billion but for $700 
billion. Oh, they are willing to do that. They are willing to do that 
for the wealthiest but not for people at the end of their rope, the 
unemployed.
  So I guess we have entered a new era in this country. We don't help 
the unemployed: we just help the wealthy. That is all we do. That is 
why we are here, I guess. Look at that. We ought to be ashamed of 
ourselves. I ask, have my Republican friends lost all sense of 
fairness? Have my Republican friends on the other side of the aisle 
lost all sense of justice? Have they lost all sense of what is right 
and what is wrong? Where is the moral outrage? Where is the moral 
outrage that we are going to let people stand in the soup lines for 
Christmas but we are going to give tax breaks to the wealthiest? We are 
going to give million-dollar bonuses to the people on Wall Street who, 
by the way, caused a lot of these problems, and we won't even make them 
pay their fair share of taxes. Where is the outrage? Well, I will tell 
you. It is out there. The American people are seeing this. They are 
saying: Wait a minute, Congress wants to pass this big tax break and 
they won't help the unemployed? They get it. They get it.

[[Page 18627]]

  I can't believe Congress is doing this. I can't believe my friends on 
the other side of the aisle are so hard-hearted that they would hold 
hostage--that they would not let us move a bill to extend the 
unemployment benefits until we pass their bill to extend the tax breaks 
to the wealthiest Americans. Where is our sense of moral outrage at 
this?
  Just one other thing. Unemployment benefits that we give out to 
people is not money that is thrown down a rathole. Quite frankly, one 
of the best economic stimuli we have is unemployment benefits, believe 
it or not. Why is that? Well, because people who get unemployment 
benefits--and right now, in my State it averages about $300 a week. 
That is about a national average. It is right about there. It is about 
$300 a week. That is about $15,000 a year. That is lower than the 
poverty wage, by the way. If you think unemployment benefits are some 
big deal, it is lower than the poverty wage. So when they get that 
money, what do they do? They go out and they buy groceries. They buy 
some clothes for the kids. They buy the necessities of life. And that 
money acts as a multiplier to our economy.
  This is Mark Zandi, Moody's economy.com, about how the GDP increase 
is generated by $1 of stimulus going to these various things. Food 
stamps is the best. For every dollar we put into food stamps, we get an 
increase in GDP of $1.74, again because people spend that money to buy 
food, most of which is grown, produced, processed, packaged, shipped, 
and bought in America. Unemployment benefits are right next to food 
stamps--$1.61 increase in GDP for every dollar we put out, again for 
the same reason. People using unemployment benefits are not using them 
to buy a Mercedes. They are not using the benefits to buy a new, high-
definition, 3D flat screen TV made in Japan. They are not using the 
benefits to buy a gold-encrusted, diamond-studded Rolex watch made in 
Switzerland. They are using these benefits to buy the necessities of 
life, most of which are made here in America. Extending the Bush tax 
cuts--for every dollar we put in, we get back 32 cents in GDP growth.
  That is what the Republicans want. Why, when trying to stimulate the 
economy, would we put $1 into something that returns us only 32 cents, 
when we can put $1 in and get back $1.61? How about infrastructure 
investments. We get back $1.57 for every $1. It is very close to 
unemployment benefits. Yet Republicans want to take money out of this 
and put it here. Why don't we take money out of here--the tax cuts--and 
put it here? That is a better deal for our economy. It creates jobs, 
and we get an increase in economic activity in our country.
  As I said earlier, here it is. The average UI benefit is about 
$15,600 and the poverty level is $21,756 for a family of four. It is a 
powerful benefit that provides food, clothes, housing, utilities--all 
of the things needed just to keep life going. That is what these 
unemployment benefits are spent on.
  With the holidays coming, our economy needs the money and people need 
the benefits. Cutting off that revenue would be counterproductive for 
jobs. It is counterproductive for the people who need these benefits. 
It makes no sense economically to cut off unemployment benefits. But 
more importantly, it makes no sense morally. There is such a thing as 
right and wrong. There is such a thing as fair and unfair and just and 
unjust. It is not just, it is not fair, and it is not right that, 
through no fault of their own, we are saying to these people, the 
unemployed in America, the millions--whether it is 14.9 million or 
closer to 26 million or anywhere in between--it is just not right to 
say: Well, maybe we will extend your unemployment benefits after we 
extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest in our society. That is 
totally irresponsible. But that is where we find ourselves.
  I say to the President of the United States: Mr. President, you made 
a lot of promises when you were campaigning in my State of Iowa, and 
one of the most important you made was that you were going to hold the 
line--and you said this time and time again--at $250,000. You would 
extend the tax breaks to middle-income people below $250,000. You ought 
to hold to that, Mr. President. You ought to hold to that.
  We will see if the Republicans want to shut down the government. Do 
they want to shut the government down? That is what they are saying. We 
are going to have to have a resolution on the Senate floor--because it 
will run out--to keep the government going. They are saying they will 
not pass that unless and until we extend the Bush tax cuts for the 
wealthy.
  I dare the Republicans to shut the government down just because they 
want to give tax breaks to the wealthy. I say if that is what they want 
to do, let the American people see the extent to which the Republicans 
will go in order to help their wealthy friends.
  Mr. President, hold to your guns, hold to your guns on $250,000 and 
below. Don't give in. Don't give up. The American people are behind you 
on this one, Mr. President. Tell them you want unemployment benefits 
extended, you want middle-class tax breaks extended, and we want to 
fund the government. We don't want to go into default. We want that 
first. Don't give up, Mr. President. The American people will be behind 
you, and this Congress will be behind you too.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, today the House passed legislation 
that would extend the tax cuts for those middle-class taxpayers who 
make under $200,000 a year. That is a good thing, and I support that. 
But why on Earth would we extend the tax cuts for a certain segment of 
the population and not extend the tax cuts for everyone? Why would we 
do that? Who are the job creators in our country? What is the problem 
our country has right now? It is jobs. We have an unemployment rate 
that is hovering around 10 percent. So what should we be doing in 
Congress to try to alleviate that situation? We should be doing 
everything in our power to create jobs in the private sector. The 
private sector is where jobs will be a created, where it will be 
something that will support a family.
  Of course, we are going to support tax cuts for everyone in this 
country because we are in an economic recession. The idea of increasing 
taxes on the people who would create jobs is something that could only 
come out of Washington. All of us have been home for the last few 
weeks. Last week was Thanksgiving, and we were in grocery stores 
talking to our constituents. Time and time again I heard people in the 
real world, people who are creating jobs, saying: Why don't you all 
address the issues of this country? Don't you know what is happening?
  Well, do you know something? They have a point. They have a point 
because, of course, many of us have been saying this for a long time. 
But here we are in December, the last month of the year. The IRS can't 
even print the tax forms because they don't know what the tax rates are 
going to be because Congress left in September and didn't finish its 
job. Now here we are in December and we are going to have a train 
wreck.
  That is why those on our side signed a letter saying that we are not 
going to address any issue until we settle the tax issue and the issue 
of funding government. After that, there are many things that could be 
on the agenda. But those are two things that are essential. So knowing 
the way things work around here, and knowing that we could end up 
talking for 2 more weeks before we do anything, we are going to set the 
priority to say that it is tax cuts and it is funding the government, 
and if we can do other things, fine, but if we can't, then we go home.
  I think the START Treaty is very important, and we are all looking at 
that. But we have to make sure the small businesspeople of our country 
know what to expect. And if they can hire people on even in this 
holiday season, it will make a difference.
  President Reagan and President Kennedy and President Bush 43 all did 
something that had the same effect on our revenue in this country; they 
cut taxes and revenue increased. Cutting

[[Page 18628]]

taxes is what increases and spurs the economy, and it works every time. 
So now we are talking about deciding who is going to get their tax cuts 
and who isn't.
  We should be saying clearly and simply to the American people--and 
especially the small businesspeople who are waiting to see what their 
budgets are going to be next year--we are not going to raise taxes on 
anybody because we want you to hire; we want you to give jobs to the 
people of this country. If we can extend unemployment for those who 
have been out of work and can't find something, and they are really 
trying, and we can do it in a responsible way and pay for it, 
hopefully--I believe if we cut taxes, that will spur the economy and 
pay for it.
  Tomorrow, apparently, in the Senate we are going to get the House 
bill that passed today that cuts taxes for some but not all. So what 
will happen if we do what the House has suggested? Households will 
lose, on average, $20,000 in total disposable personal income between 
2011 and 2020. Total individual income taxes will increase by $37 
million between 2011 and 2020. Jobs will be lost and small businesses 
are not going to hire. I can tell you that anecdotally because I have 
been talking to the small business owners in my State. I was a small 
business owner, and I know what it takes to increase employment.
  Without action by us, the death tax will return with a vengeance. A 
lot of people think: Oh, a death tax, that is just going to affect the 
heirs of rich people. I think we have to remember that estates over $1 
million will be taxed at the 55-percent rate. So many small businesses 
in this country are either farms or ranches, where the valuation at 
death on the property is going to be so much higher than the 
productivity on that land, and the heirs are going to be faced with 
selling the property to pay the taxes, which means it will no longer 
have any capacity for hiring people or productivity.
  The same is true for small manufacturing companies. I was a small 
manufacturer. I can tell you my equipment was worth a whole lot more 
than the productivity of that equipment. You can pay for it over time, 
so you own the equipment. But then if you die and your heirs have to 
pay a huge estate tax on the value of equipment, then they are going to 
have to sell the equipment and, therefore, you have lost the business.
  The statistics in this country of family businesses that are passed 
to the second generation and the third generation are abysmal. It is 
about 50 percent that goes to the second generation. To the third 
generation, it is 20 to 30 percent. Who does that hurt? Of course, it 
hurts the families. It also hurts the employees of those family-owned 
businesses. They are the ones who will be put out of work. So the 
estate tax going to 55 percent over $1 million is not good public 
policy. It would be outrageous for us to leave this year and go into 
that kind of estate tax, which is confiscatory.
  I have to tell you, I think it walks away from the American dream. 
The American dream is that you can start from nothing in this country 
and you can build something and you can give the fruits of your labor 
to your children. That is the American dream. That is what people come 
here and work for 7 days a week in restaurants, to try to build 
something to give to their children. Who are we to take that away? That 
is the American dream. But it will be gone at the end of this year if 
we don't address that issue in Congress.
  Capital gains and dividends: How many of our seniors are living on 
capital gains and dividends? I guarantee you, anybody who has a bank 
account knows you are not earning anything from that. You are not 
earning from cash because the interest rates are so low that many of 
our seniors are struggling. If they have a nest egg of stocks that is 
paying some dividends, then that is what many of them are living on. So 
we are going to raise the tax on dividends from 15 percent to 20 
percent at a time when so many seniors are struggling. That is what is 
going to happen if we don't address the tax cuts by the end of this 
year.
  The marriage penalty: That is my bill. I introduced relief from the 
marriage penalty. Why should two people working get married and go into 
a higher tax bracket in this country? We addressed that issue. For most 
people, we have eliminated the marriage penalty, but not at the end of 
this year, if we don't act, the marriage penalty comes back. So a 
policeman and a schoolteacher who marry are going to have to pay about 
$1,400 more in taxes just because they want to get married--a 
schoolteacher and a policeman. It is an absolute fact. Is that what we 
want in this country?
  Small business owners pay at the individual rates--a subchapter S 
small business. Many small businesses are created to be able to pay at 
the individual tax rate. Over 50 percent of the small businesses in our 
country pay at the individual tax rate. So now we are going to say 
individuals' tax rates are going to go up if they make over $250,000, 
which is many of the small businesses in our country, so they are going 
to be paying at the higher rate. These are the things that are going to 
happen if we don't act.
  The House passed legislation that is going to be devastating for the 
people who are unemployed in this country. How could we even think of 
doing something so drastic? I hope tomorrow when the Senate takes up 
the House bill that we send it back to the House and say: This is not 
going to go.
  I will say to the President of the United States: I thought, Mr. 
President, that you said you were open to working on extending the 
taxes for everyone, and yet here we are, with the leadership of the 
House who just talked to the President this week, and we have the same 
thing they have been talking about for all these months--no give, 
nothing has changed.
  So here we are, it is December, and the people of America expect the 
leaders of Congress to address the issues that are on people's minds. 
We are 3 weeks from Christmas, we are 4 weeks from the end of the year. 
How could we leave without taking responsible action to let everyone in 
this country who is paying taxes know how to plan for--I would hope for 
2 or 3 or 4 or 5 years?
  Lastly, Mr. President, I want to say the one thing that seems to be 
missing in the Halls of Congress is the importance--to a family, but 
also to a small business especially that is thinking of expanding and 
hiring people--of stability and predictability. You can't say we are 
going to extend the tax cuts for 1 year or 2 years and do the right 
thing for the economy of our country. We ought to do it permanently, to 
be honest. But if you are not going to do it permanently, at least do 
it for 5 years, or, at a minimum, 2 or 3 years.
  It is not going to cost the government to give these tax cuts. We are 
keeping it the way it is now. We are trying to spur jobs being created 
in our country. So when people talk about this is going to cost the 
government X billion dollars to let people keep the money they have 
earned, they are going right over the heads of the American people.
  So predictability is the most important thing we can do for small 
businesses so they can plan, so they can say we are going to expand our 
product line, we are going to expand our service area. These are the 
things they can do if they know what their tax commitments are going to 
be, and if they know what their health care costs are going to be. That 
is what is freezing the economy right now because people don't know 
what to expect.
  So I hope the President is listening. I hope the leadership of the 
Senate is listening. Most certainly, I hope the House of 
Representatives will come to the table and see we can do better than 
this, and we ought to do it before we leave this week or next week so 
people know what to expect; so small businesses can sit down at the end 
of the year and plan their businesses and create jobs in this country. 
That is the Christmas present people would like. They want jobs. They 
want to work to support their families. They do not want to live on 
unemployment. They do not want to live on food stamps. That is not a 
life. It is not a future. It is not hope. That is what they want--a 
future and hope for their families.

[[Page 18629]]

  So I hope, myself, that we, the leaders of America, will give the 
American people what they deserve and what clearly is in the long-term 
best interests of their families.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LeMIEUX. 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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