[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 8822-8824]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              THE ECONOMY

  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I appreciate my colleague's remarks 
about the agricultural community. I am certainly hearing that, and one 
of the very real factors in our inability to create jobs in America is 
the surging regulations that burden the private sector including the 
agricultural community. Mr. Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal 
Reserve, was asked about that yesterday. He said no study had been done 
about it, talking about the banking regulation primarily. We need to do 
more about that and face the reality that that is so. Last week's 
economic numbers were not good. They were very troubling. We saw an 
increase in unemployment. We saw a decline in consumer confidence. We 
saw a decline in manufacturing in the Midwest--a key area of our 
country for manufacturing. A number of factors were noted during that 
period which were not good. I guess it is part of an accelerated 
decline in the stock market, which is down 5 percent, maybe 6 percent, 
after 5 consecutive weeks of decline, and the Senate has gone 770 days 
without passing a budget. It is a fundamental responsibility of this 
body, required by statute, that we pass a budget. The date is April 
15--and April 1 to commence hearings in the Senate--and we have not met 
that responsibility. In fact, we haven't even had a markup in the 
Budget Committee to commence considering a budget. Our Democratic 
leader, Senator Reid, the majority leader in the Senate, has stated it 
would be foolish to pass a budget. By that he means politically foolish 
for the Democrats because they are enjoying trying to attack the House 
Members who passed a responsible, long-term budget that changes the 
debt trajectory of America. Instead of trying to do the same thing, 
they just attack the House budget and produce nothing of their own.
  The American people are rightly worried about our debt. They are 
worried about our economy. They are worried about overregulation. They 
are worried about the lack of jobs.
  This week, Austan Goolsbee, the senior economic adviser to the 
President, announced he would be resigning his post this summer. His 
departure is just the latest in a trend of top economic advisers 
abandoning the administration over the course of the 2-plus years since 
the passage of the failed $820 billion stimulus package, every penny of 
which was borrowed. The idea was to send out money and somehow 
artificially create a stronger economy. It failed, and many predicted 
it would fail.
  The President's first Director of the Office of Management and 
Budget, Peter Orszag, left in July of last year. Christina Romer, the 
President's first Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, left last 
September. Larry Summers, the former president of Harvard, former 
Director of the National Economic Council for the President, left last 
December after less than 2 years.
  As a result of the failed stimulus and other debt we have accrued, we 
are in much deeper debt, but Americans know it has not made them better 
off. In fact, increased debt has further eroded the economic confidence 
that is necessary for a spirited recovery and has made our situation 
worse. Many say we have to borrow money to spend it and that is how we 
get the economy on a sound footing. Thoughtful economists and others 
have said that this not so. I believe history has proven them to be 
correct; that borrowing to spend does not make us better off.

[[Page 8823]]

  The last deficit before the President took office was $450 billion--
far too high. The year before that, the deficit was $162 billion. This 
year, the deficit will be $1.5 trillion, the third consecutive 
trillion-dollar deficit. Yet the President and some on his economic 
team have promised that their spending program would keep unemployment 
from rising above 8 percent, but more than 2 years later unemployment 
now stands at 9.1 percent, after having increased again last week.
  The economic numbers released Friday show this to be the most 
disappointing economic recovery in 70 years. Only 54,000 jobs were 
created in May, marking the worst jobs report in 8 months. The 
President asserts he is responsible for adding 2 million jobs since he 
took office. But the percentage of our working age population that is 
employed--and we have had an increase in the working age population--
has declined to 58.4 percent. We have to go back to October of 1983 to 
find such a low number.
  Nearly half the unemployed--45.1 percent--are now classified as long-
term unemployed, meaning they have been unemployed for 27 weeks or 
more. While the official unemployment rate increased from 9 percent to 
9.1 percent, adding those who are underemployed--meaning those who 
can't find full-time work or those who are so discouraged by the job 
market they have given up trying to find work--would boost the 
unemployment rate to 16.1 percent.
  But perhaps most alarming of all, as pointed out in the June 4 lead 
editorial by Alan Abelson in Barrons, is that actual private sector 
employment today is now 2 percent below where it stood 10 years ago. 
Two percent fewer people are working today than were working 10 years 
ago.
  Citing Philippa Dunne and Doug Henwood of the Liscio Report, Mr. 
Abelson notes:

       Job losses over a 10-year period is unprecedented since the 
     advent of something resembling reliable tallies began in 
     1890. So far, they point out somewhat grimly--

  He is talking about Mr. Dunne and Mr. Henwood--

     we've regained just 1.8 million jobs lost in the Great 
     Recession and its aftermath, or about one in five.

  So the policies we are following are not working. We have to get this 
economy moving. We added only 54,000 jobs, a net decline in percentage 
in terms of employment. We have to get jobs created, and 54,000 is way 
below what we need to have to stay level. About 180,000 a month need to 
be added.
  I would suggest that it is no wonder the President's top economic 
team is leaving the administration.
  But rather than recognizing the need to change course, the President 
doubled down with the budget he submitted to Congress. He told the 
American people his budget would ``not add to the debt'' and that it 
would allow us to ``live within our means.'' But the Congressional 
Budget Office analyzed that budget and found otherwise--dramatically. 
In fact, CBO said that the budget the President submitted to this 
Congress in February would double our debt over the next 10 years.
  Meanwhile, economists are warning that if we don't change our debt 
trajectory--and soon--our debt could stifle the very economic recovery 
that is already moving far too slowly.
  This is the important point, and it goes right to the heart of the 
argument that we have to artificially stimulate this economy by 
borrowing money from our children so we can spend it today and that 
this is going to make us more healthy. A study by Carmen Reinhart and 
Ken Rogoff titled ``Growth in a Time of Debt'' in American Economy 
Review (2010) shows that economic growth is 1 percent lower, on 
average, in countries with gross debt above 90 percent of GDP--90 
percent of their economy. It is 1 percent lower. If we want growth, we 
have to look at how big our debt is. If it gets over 90 percent of GDP, 
then we show an average of a 1-percent reduction in growth.
  When asked about this study while testifying before the Budget 
Committee earlier this year, Treasury Secretary Geithner called the 
Reinhart and Rogoff study excellent, adding that ``in some ways . . . 
it understates the risks.'' In other words, it creates greater risks of 
economic and financial spasm that could put us back into a recession. 
Stephen Roach, chairman at Morgan Stanley and lecturer at Yale, was 
recently asked on CNBC--yesterday, I believe--about what is happening 
with the economy, why we see the disappointing results. This is what 
Mr. Roach, a professional economist and player in the world financial 
markets, said:

       I come down on it as Ken Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart do, in 
     their analysis of post-crisis economies. This is the way it 
     is. When you have such a massive buildup of debt pre-crisis, 
     when you hammer the consumers the way we did in this crisis, 
     the economy is going to sputter.

  America's debt stands now at 95 percent of GDP. It is set to exceed 
the entire economy by the end of this year, and the President's own 
Treasury Secretary and widely respected economists are saying this 
could have a negative impact on the economy and jobs. It could cause a 
1-percent decrease in economic growth, according to Rogoff and 
Reinhart.
  According to the Council of Economic Advisers, a 1-percent decrease 
in growth could cost about 1 million jobs--not 54,000 but 1 million. If 
we had less debt, we would be seeing more than the anemic 1.8-percent 
growth in the first quarter as we come out of this recession. We would 
have probably had 2.8 percent growth, if this study, which Mr. Geithner 
considers to be excellent, is accurate. Certainly, debt pulls down 
economic growth. Common sense tells us so. Numerous experts agree this 
debt is dangerous. It threatens our fragile economic recovery. Growth 
is what we need for jobs and it brings in more tax revenue and helps us 
balance our budget.
  But in response to the debt threat, what do we see? We got a budget 
from the President that would double the Nation's Federal debt in 10 
years. When that budget was released it received immense criticism, so 
the President gave us a speech that suggested some changes. He called 
it a framework. Members of the Budget Committee wrote to the President 
and said: Well, put this in budget language. Send us a new budget then. 
If you are changing, if people didn't like your first one, let's see 
this one in detail. But they refused to do that. Recently, we voted on 
the President's budget in this Senate. It was brought up and voted on. 
Not one Senator, Republican or Democratic, voted for that budget. It 
was utterly rejected.
  Meanwhile, our Democratic leadership in the Senate, which has the 
power to call the committee hearings that would commence a budget 
markup and eventually pass a budget, hasn't offered a budget this year. 
Indeed, they haven't passed a budget in the last 770 days. At least one 
was brought out of committee last year but never brought up by Senator 
Reid on the floor to be voted on, so we didn't have a budget last year. 
This year, they didn't even bring the budget to committee to be marked 
up. The majority leader said it would be foolish for us to have a 
budget. It would be foolish to have a budget in a time of the largest 
deficit the Nation has ever incurred, which will occur this year--
approximately $1.5 trillion in deficits. We bring in $2.2 trillion, and 
we are spending $3.7 trillion this year. Forty cents of every $1 we 
spend is borrowed, and we don't even have a budget. What do we do? The 
majority leader calls up the House budget, a responsible, historic 
alteration of the unacceptable debt path we are on, putting us on the 
right path.
  You can argue about some of the things that are in it, fine. But it 
courageously and honestly changed the trajectory of America's debt path 
and was widely praised in that regard. The majority leader brought it 
up so he could vote it down and attack it, producing nothing on his 
own. So I brought up the President's budget. It got zero votes.
  The failure of this body to produce a spending plan to tackle our 
Nation's debt only creates more uncertainty in the economy. Doubt and 
fear are driving away jobs, stifling growth and investment. That is a 
fact.
  For nearly 3 years, the White House has been seduced by the vision of

[[Page 8824]]

growth through artificial means, including trillions in fiscal stimulus 
spending and so-called investments. Indeed, in a time of dramatic 
fiscal irresponsibility, the budget the President submitted to us 
called for a 10-percent increase in the Department of Education, a 10-
percent increase in the Department of Energy, a 10.5-percent increase 
in the State Department, and a 60-percent increase in rail and 
transportation spending. We do not have the money.
  That budget reflected utter confusion and a detachment from reality.
  Are our cities, are our counties, are our States increasing spending 
by 10.5 percent? Aren't most of them actually reducing spending? That 
is reality. That is what is happening in the rest of the world. The 
British reduced some of their spending recently--far more than we have. 
Some people there did not like it, and they complained that it was too 
difficult and too tough. But the International Monetary Fund, in a 
recent report, said: Stand to your guns. Get your debt under control. 
In the long run, the International Monetary Fund said, this is the way 
to build a strong economy, and we have been going in the other 
direction.
  The Keynesian siren call to spend did not lead us to prosperity. We 
have restored only one-fifth of the jobs lost in the recession. As a 
percentage of our population fewer are working today than during the 
so-called worst period of this recession, and we are experiencing the 
weakest recovery in modern history. Unemployment is back up again, and 
the housing market is back down. Bad housing numbers came in last week 
also.
  Our fast-rising debt and our unwillingness to adopt a credible budget 
plan--and we can do that--is shattering economic confidence and 
jeopardizing our future. But our Democratic leadership in this Senate 
refuses to put forward a budget plan to confront the debt that they 
have themselves increased so greatly.
  We are told the President has not involved himself personally in 
discussions over the debt limit. That has been turned over to the Vice 
President. One report says he no longer receives daily economic 
briefings. What signals do these actions send to our out-of-work 
Americans, to struggling industries and businesses, and the anxious 
financial markets throughout the world?
  Instead of stonewalling a budget, the Senate should be working 
together, Republicans and Democrats, to produce a budget that puts us 
on a sound path and makes our economy as robust and as dynamic as 
possible. That is so basic. Blocking a budget under these economic 
circumstances is simply unthinkable. There is no quick fix, no 
accounting gimmick, no political trick that will solve these problems. 
We have a potentially healthy, growing economy. Our American businesses 
have never been leaner or more efficient, as the Dallas Federal Reserve 
Governor, Mr. Fisher, said the other day on one of these interview 
programs. We have never had a more efficient, competitive business 
environment in America.
  But in the long run--and that is what we must focus on--sound 
principles, common sense, spending restraint, less regulation, and more 
commitment to the free markets will, if allowed, lift us out of this 
malaise in which we find ourselves. To put America back to work, the 
Senate needs to get back to work.
  I thank the Acting President pro tempore and yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. TESTER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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