[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Page 13249]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              THE ECONOMY

  Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I certainly appreciate the courtesy of the 
Senator from Utah. I will be very brief. I will actually be propitious 
in many ways. I am here at a time when the Senator from Virginia is the 
Presiding Officer.
  Last night there was a focus on a short-term stimulus. I wish to 
thank the Senator from Virginia and the Senator from Georgia who have 
led efforts over the course of the last many months to focus on trying 
to deal with our longer term issues. I think there are many of us in 
this body, as well as in the House of Representatives, who believe the 
best way for us to deal with our short-term economic situation is to 
deal with the long-term structural issues that are affecting our 
country so much.
  So I am here today to express hope and to say I feel a tremendous 
consensus building. I know the Presiding Officer and I were in a 
meeting earlier this week where I think there was demonstrated a lot of 
consensus by Republicans and Democrats in the Senate toward using this 
supercommittee and encouraging the supercommittee. There was tremendous 
optimism expressed about what this supercommittee is getting ready to 
do. But we wish to encourage them to look at a number of deficit 
reduction ideas which may be twice or even more than the original 
charge and, secondarily, to encourage them to use this tremendous 
opportunity for tax reform, much like was laid out in many of the 
Bowles-Simpson concepts, and to have Medicare entitlement reform as 
part of that; and, thirdly--and this is me speaking individually, 
although I think there is consensus building around this too--to do 
something longer term as it relates to infrastructure, such as having a 
6-year highway bill. I feel that momentum building in the House. I 
think it exists in the Senate.
  The reason I am on the Senate floor today is to say one thing. We 
have a tremendous opportunity to deal with our long-term issues which 
will immediately affect our economy now and stimulate it, if we will do 
that. I hope what we will not do is become sidetracked on issues that 
are more around the edges, more around the fringe, issues that are 
short-term in nature. The Presiding Officer, who has created jobs in 
his lifetime, and I have done the same thing in my lifetime, and I 
understand it is important to create a long-term environment where 
people have confidence that we have actually dealt with this country's 
problems. There is nothing--nothing--that could be more stimulative in 
the short term than for people to see that this body and the body 
across the way on the other side of the Capitol have dealt with these 
issues in an appropriate way.
  I am encouraging us to stay focused, to stay focused on the 
supercommittee, to continue to encourage them to do even more than what 
is their charge. I think there is a lot of consensus around that, and I 
am thankful to be a part of that encouragement.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor and thank again the 
senior Senator from Utah for his tremendous courtesy and certainly his 
leadership on so many of these issues. I thank the Senator very much.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I thank my colleague. He is one of the more 
prescient people in this body, and we all care a great deal for him. I 
appreciate his leadership in this great body.

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