[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 17638-17640]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               AGREE ACT

  Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, we are going to start today by talking 
about job creation in America. I wish to turn it over to Senator Coons 
to begin this conversation about a very important piece of legislation 
we filed jointly yesterday.
  Mr. COONS. I thank the Senator.
  Senator Rubio and I have come to floor today to talk about our shared 
experiences. In my home State of Delaware, over the 1 year I have been 
a Senator--and over the years before that, I served in county 
government--I have heard from hundreds, even thousands, of families and 
individuals looking for work, deeply hurt and challenged by the ongoing 
slow economic recovery. Folks have come to us asking for opportunities 
for assistance, for promise and hope.
  In reality, I think what is causing some real concern in this 
country, in my State and most likely in yours, Madam President, and 
most likely in Senator Rubio's as well, is a broadly shared concern 
that we here in the Capitol, we in Congress, are not capable of getting 
past the partisan politics and making real progress in tackling the 
job-creating challenges before us.
  Let me, if I could, quote from a couple of letters I have received 
from Delawareans in the last few months. Lawrence from Milford wrote my 
office: Congress needs to stop the political arguing and take positive 
action to make America and our economy strong again.
  Janet from Wilmington wrote: I am the owner of a very small business. 
I have been in business 29 years and I have never seen it as tough as 
it is today.
  Joseph in Smyrna summed it all up in a letter he wrote: Our economy 
needs jobs now.
  Delaware is a great place to grow a business, to raise a family, to 
achieve success. But we have the toughest economy we have seen in 
generations. The folks we represent expect us to act, and they expect 
us to find ways to work together and to get past the partisan divide 
that has made it so difficult for us to make progress.
  I ask the Senator what sorts of things has he heard from his 
constituents in Florida, and how has that motivated the Senator to act?
  Mr. RUBIO. Let me point out a couple of things before we begin; that 
is there are a lot of issues in this process we are not going to agree 
on. There is an ideological divide about a lot of major issues--the 
role of government,

[[Page 17639]]

how do we get the economy growing again, and what government can do 
about it. The people of America recognize that. They recognize that 
issues of that magnitude ultimately are solved at the ballot box. You 
elect people. People run for office on their competing visions of 
government's role, and you decide those elections. We are going to have 
one in November of 2012.
  But what do we do over the next 12 months? Do we stand around and do 
nothing and continue to bring up pieces of legislation from both sides 
of the aisle that we know are going to fail, just to make political 
points, or do we actually begin to act? There are a lot of reasons why 
I think we need to act.
  I want to share with you an e-mail I received from Stephanie, who 
lives in Vero Beach. It breaks your heart. I think it is very typical 
of the ones Senator Coons probably has gotten, and I bet you all of the 
other Members of this institution have gotten.
  She writes: I am not sure who to turn to with this question. I am a 
true Floridian. I was born and raised in Florida. As you know, the 
unemployment rate is horrible and I had to file for unemployment 
benefits for the first time ever. And I was just informed that I 
exhausted my benefits. Where do I turn for help? There are no jobs 
available. I have searched for a job daily and get excuses such as: You 
don't have enough experience, or you are overqualified, or I am 
suggested to go back to school. How am I going to go back to school if 
I have no money to pay for school or have no job and no money to pay my 
bills.
  It goes on to outline other problems. But at the end it says: Many 
people like myself have nowhere to turn. Hopefully you can help me or 
at least suggest what I can do. Thank you for your time.
  There is the voice of real desperation, of real people in the real 
world who want to work, have always worked, and cannot find a job. This 
is the No. 1 issue in America. There are a lot of issues floating 
around here and they are important issues. But this is the No. 1 issue 
in America of everyday, hard-working people who cannot find a job.
  Can government create jobs for them? In government. But, by and 
large, there are things government can do to help create an environment 
for job creation. So what we have done is we have sat down and we have 
analyzed what things we have agreed on. There are things that are the 
President's plan, that are also in the Republicans' plan that the House 
has passed, that our colleagues have filed. What we came up with is 
this piece of legislation that Senator Coons is going to describe in a 
moment.
  It is literally sitting down. It is a collection of bills we have 
agreed on. What people want to know is, I understand you are going to 
have arguments about the things you disagree on, but why are you 
arguing about the things you agree on?
  Maybe this is a good segue for Senator Coons to start describing some 
of the measures that are in this bill, the things we agree on, the 
things we can act on and do right now to help people such as Stephanie 
and people in your home State and people in every one of the States in 
this country who are struggling to find a job and are looking for some 
ray of hope that this process here in Washington has an understanding 
about what they are going through and are actually willing to do 
something about.
  Mr. COONS. We together yesterday announced the introduction of the 
AGREE Act, the American Growth Recovery Entrepreneurship and 
Empowerment Act, which conveniently spells out ``agree.'' The core 
principle, as Senator Rubio described, was for a real Republican and a 
real Democrat to look through all of the different ideas that have been 
put out there, in the President's jobs bill, by the President's Council 
on Jobs and Competitiveness, by Members of the Senate and the House 
from both parties, that we could come to agreement on, and to put them 
into a bill packaged to assemble all of these ideas and to put them out 
and hopefully we will pick up cosponsors, hope it will pick up steam, 
and hope we can demonstrate to the American people, to the families 
Senator Rubio and I have heard from in letters and e-mails and tweets, 
who have expressed real concern.
  The basic big-picture proposals in this bill are, first, extending 
tax relief for small businesses. There are three different provisions 
that have already been in law but that would be extended by this bill: 
for capital gains exclusions for 5-year investments in qualified small 
businesses, for accelerated depreciation, and for increased expensing, 
all of which would help small businesses invest in growth; encouraging 
cutting-edge research and innovation by making permanent the R&D tax 
credit, and by adding something to it that I think has real potential, 
an added incentive for companies that invent something here to 
manufacture it here; another, commonsense regulatory relief for fast-
growing businesses that seek to go public; another, an idea originally 
championed by Senator Casey, providing incentives through the Tax Code 
for veterans to become franchise owners and entrepreneurs; reducing 
some immigration barriers that prevent highly skilled workers who 
studied here from staying here; and now the last point, protecting 
American businesses from intellectual property theft, strengthening our 
ability to prevent counterfeit goods from coming into American markets 
by fixing a small but real barrier to effective border protection 
against counterfeiting.
  All of these provisions are provisions that have already enjoyed 
bipartisan support in other settings. We have simply assembled them 
together, put them into a commonsense package, and want to move them 
forward.
  I ask Senator Rubio, what sort of response has our action gotten so 
far from people in Florida, around the country, who might have 
contacted the Senator about this initiative?
  Mr. RUBIO. It has been a very positive response, and I will tell you 
why, for a couple of reasons. No. 1 is, every time people open a 
newspaper or turn on the television, what they get from Washington is 
bad news. A week ago, in a speech I gave, I said it resembles 
professional wrestling to them. It seems as though there are people 
from the Republican side and Democratic side who go on TV and scream at 
each other about what is happening. People watch it. And they get it, 
that there are differences between us. But is there anything--don't we 
all live in the same country? Are we not seeing the same economic 
conditions? What are the things we can work together on? Why are we not 
hearing that?
  Let me tell you the impact in the real world of all of that bad news. 
The impact is that people get scared. So imagine for a moment, you are 
a job creator. You have got some money to invest this year. You have to 
decide, do I leave it in the bank or do I take this money and use it to 
grow my business?
  Well, the safe thing to do is to leave it in the bank. But what job 
creators and entrepreneurs want to do is to create new jobs. They want 
to grow their businesses. Who does not want to grow their business? Who 
does not want to add customers? Now you have to make a decision. Is now 
the right time to grow my business or the wrong time?
  One of the things people look at is the political climate. Are the 
people in charge of government--in Washington especially? That is the 
one that gets the most attention. How are they working? Are they 
getting things done? Is it positive or negative things that are 
happening?
  As much as the measures here are meaningful--and we are not claiming 
this solves all our economic problems, but they are meaningful--if you 
are a small business looking to invest next year in buying capital 
investment for your business, there is an incentive to extend the tax 
credits to help you do that. More importantly, they will be able to 
open the newspaper and read that Republicans and Democrats came 
together and passed a piece of legislation on which they agreed.
  I don't think you can underestimate or, quite frankly, really measure 
the kind of psychological impact that could have on job creators--to 
actually have some optimism that the future

[[Page 17640]]

will be better, that tomorrow may be better than today. That, as much 
as anything else, is critical. All of us in public service, 
particularly those of us who serve in this institution--the Senate is a 
big deal. People pay attention to what we say here, to the good stuff 
and the bad stuff. They pay attention to what we do here and to what we 
fail to do here. I think it is important for all of us to recognize 
that our actions have consequences and the way we speak and comport 
ourselves in these debates. I think we need to recognize that some of 
the rhetoric and noise that has been made over the last 6 months to a 
year has hurt job creation because it has created negativity around the 
economics of this country.
  We have an opportunity, with the passage of legislation such as this, 
to send a message on the things on which we agree; we can get things 
done. That is the impression I have gotten from people, which is a 
little bit of a surprise, but it is a sense of optimism that before 
this year is out, we will be able to pass legislation that is 
meaningful and bipartisan. Is that the same reaction the Senator from 
Delaware has gotten?
  Mr. COONS. That is right. I have gotten immediate response from 
Twitter, e-mail, et cetera, in my office account. I got a tweet from 
Jason, who wrote:

       Kudos . . . for introducing jobs-creating legislation. Good 
     to see detailed plans rather than partisan bickering.

  Another tweet said this:

       If AGREE is a jobs act that can get passed, I, an American 
     that cares about the unemployed, say ``thanks.''

  Mary June from Delaware City wrote:

       I think it is great to see a bipartisan approach to solving 
     the jobs crisis in the United States. Thank you for getting 
     past party lines and coming together to provide commonsense 
     solutions.

  Maria from Middletown wrote:

       I think it is time for both parties to come together as you 
     and Senator Rubio have to bring our country back to where we 
     have people working again and families striving to achieve 
     the American dream. The same dream that I had when I was 
     growing up. The dream I thought my sons and granddaughter 
     were going to live. The business as usual in Washington has 
     to stop, and through this bill you will both prove to your 
     fellow Senators that if you all work together, anything is 
     possible.

  To be clear, as Senator Rubio said, there are real differences, real 
things that divide the parties. There is time ahead before the election 
to resolve those fundamental differences in values, approach, and 
priorities. But, while we can, we should come together with commonsense 
proposals that demonstrate to the American people that we can take 
ideas, Republican and Democrat, House and Senate, put them in a package 
and pass them on to the President, because 12 months is too long to 
wait.
  As we all wait for the outcome of the supercommittee this week, I 
know confidence is one of the major issues we have concerns about--
confidence in the marketplace, the confidence to take risks and invest, 
and the confidence to grow. In my view, this bill, this initiative 
shows that both parties can and do have confidence in American 
inventors, American investors, our veterans, and America's 
entrepreneurs.
  I am grateful for a chance to work on this. I ask the Senator, what 
is the next step and where do we go from here?
  Mr. RUBIO. The next step is to get as many people in this Chamber and 
in the House to sign on to this legislation and to get this done. We 
are open to suggestions about how to improve it. Maybe there are some 
things that should be in there. Maybe there are questions involving 
particular measures. We are open to suggestions. We need to get the 
ball rolling. Our time is about to run out.
  I want to recognize that one of the ways to lose credibility is to 
exaggerate. The differences between our parties about the role of 
government, about the Tax Code, and about the debt situation are real. 
We will debate those. To my friends on the right and left--both sides--
we have real differences, and this is the place to deal with it. We are 
blessed to live in a republic where we can debate our points of view as 
to the role of government. We do agree on certain issues, and we should 
work on that.
  Today is an open invitation to our colleagues to join us, look at 
this bill, analyze it, and see if there is something you would like to 
add or maybe that we left out that should be in there. The more the 
merrier. To those who think there are things that maybe should be 
changed or improved in this bill, we are open to that as well. We want 
to get this done and deliver something to the American people as soon 
as possible that shows that here in Washington, DC, we can agree. I 
believe that would be a positive first step in the right direction.
  Our time has expired.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Madam President, what is the parliamentary status 
now?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senate is still in morning 
business. The Republicans control 6 minutes 25 seconds.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, we will yield back the Republican 
time so that we can move ahead and report the bill.

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