[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 9890-9892]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            ECONOMIC GROWTH

  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I have been on the floor quite a bit in 
the past several months talking about a topic I think the vast majority 
of Americans want us to focus on, and that is the economy. That is, in 
my opinion, something we don't do enough here, and certainly the 
current administration doesn't do enough. They never even seem to want 
to talk about the economy, and they do not because the news isn't good. 
When they do try to talk about the economy, they typically try to spin 
the facts and the bad news into good news. For the most part, as has 
become abundantly clear, when they do this, the media tries to 
repackage it, put a bow on it, and then the administration sells it 
back to the American public. Everything is going great, they tell us, 
or to use the language of the President's speechwriter and one of his 
chief spin doctors, in a recent New York Times magazine piece, he 
stated:

       We created an echo chamber. . . . They--

  The media--

     were saying things that validated what we had given them to 
     say.

  So to put that in simple terms: We tell them our spin, they print it, 
and that is good.
  Well, with regard to the economy, I don't think many in America are 
buying it. And I am glad our Presidential candidates are finally 
starting to talk about this issue--economic growth for middle-class 
families. Secretary Clinton recently gave a speech on the economy where 
she mostly lambasted her opponent. She said that under Mr. Trump, the 
U.S. economy would be a disaster. Well, no disrespect to the former 
Secretary of State and former Senator, but in case Mrs. Clinton didn't 
notice, the economy already is a disaster right now, and we need to fix 
it.
  I want to talk about that a little bit because it is something you 
never hear about from the media, from the administration, even from 
this body enough, to be honest, and yet Americans are feeling it all 
across the country. Under this administration, we have now had the 
worst economic recovery since the Great Depression. The executive 
branch may have a reverberating echo chamber, but the American people 
know what is going on when it comes to the economy, and it is not a 
pretty picture.
  Let me provide some examples of the Obama administration's anemic 
economy and what it has done to the thing we all believe in--we all 
believe in--and that is the American dream.
  First, let's talk about our country's gross domestic product. As you 
know, the GDP of the United States is really a marker for our country's 
health. It is basically a marker of American progress. It is a marker 
of the American dream. And with regard to the health of the economy, 
right now it is not healthy. We have a sick economy.
  Last quarter, this economy grew at only 0.8 percent GDP growth. It 
essentially didn't grow. To put that in perspective, if you look at one 
of the things that have made our Nation great, it is that year after 
year, decade after decade, Democratic or Republican administration, we 
have always typically grown at traditional levels of American GDP 
growth--3 percent, 3.5 percent, 4 percent GDP growth, 5 percent, 6 
percent in some eras.
  Looking at this chart, which I have brought to the floor many times, 
it looks at the Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, 
and Clinton administrations. Obviously, there are ups and downs. There 
was some really strong growth--Kennedy, Johnson, Reagan, Clinton; 4 
percent, 4.5 percent, 5 percent GDP growth. But this red line right 
here, this 3 percent, that is at least the number we need to hit, that 
everybody thinks we should be hitting. For most administrations, it has 
been way above that. In the 8 years now with President Obama, it never 
hit once--not once. Never hit 3 percent GDP growth.
  That is not what we were promised by this administration when they 
put forward their policies, many of which, in the early years of this 
administration, were supported by the Congress.

[[Page 9891]]

Remember the stimulus package? Remember the Affordable Care Act? These 
were all things that were going to stimulate the economy. As a matter 
of fact, we were told--and these were numbers from the Obama 
administration--that by 2010, we would see 3 percent GDP growth, and 
that by 2011 to 2014, we would be at 4.1 percent GDP growth. That would 
have been good. Four percent is strong. That is what they told us. That 
is what they predicted with their policies. We never came close, and 
now they do not talk about that. You never hear the President talk 
about 3 percent, 4 percent. He sure did a lot early on. But their 
policies drove us in the other direction.
  Now even the Federal Reserve, noting that we don't even hit 2 percent 
GDP growth any more, is essentially saying these numbers are not going 
to improve. They predicted just a couple of weeks ago that maybe we 
will hit 2 percent in the next 2 to 3 years--stagnant growth, 
surrendering the American dream. Yet nobody is talking about this.
  This is the biggest issue facing our country. As Michael Boskin, a 
very well respected Stanford economics professor, stated recently, 
``Mr. Obama will likely go down as having the worst economic growth 
record of any president since the trough of the Great Depression in 
1933.'' That is right here. These are his numbers, by the way, right 
here.
  So that is one thing, GDP growth. Let's talk about jobs. The American 
people are feeling what is happening with regard to jobs. Yes, the 
President likes to tout an unemployment rate that is going down. While 
that is true, the main reason the unemployment rate is going down is 
because the labor force participation rate is crashing. So most of the 
unemployment rate declines the President likes to talk about, his 
administration likes to talk about, have occurred because people have 
stopped looking for work. They have quit. They are done. They are so 
discouraged, they have just quit.
  Let me give an example. Last month, in May, the jobs report sounded 
like a pretty good jobs report. Unemployment went from 5.1 percent down 
to 4.7 percent. That normally sounds good. But what really happened? 
Only 38,000 jobs were created and almost 700,000 Americans quit looking 
for work. They just quit. They were that frustrated. That is how we 
have this unemployment rate going down, not because of strong growth or 
a strong economy but because the American worker--the greatest 
workforce in the world, which built this amazing country--is now 
saying: I have had enough. I am so discouraged, I am just going to stop 
looking for a job. And that sends the unemployment rate down.
  As I mentioned, year after year, the labor force participation rate 
has gone down dramatically and--I know this is kind of an economic 
term--a little wonky. I think it is really a measure of the optimism or 
the hope of the American worker. I like to call it the American worker 
hope index, and if you look at where it is right now, we haven't had a 
hope index this low since the malaise of the Carter years. As a matter 
of fact, the hope index we have right now under President Obama--just 
look at that--is cratering. It is the same as it was in 1978.
  So, Mr. President, that is the job situation. That is what is 
happening with the hope of American workers, but also, just looking at 
the straight numbers, in the last 7 years Americans have become poorer. 
Under the President--under his administration--real median household 
income has gone down by 2.3 percent, from $54,920 to $53,600. That 
doesn't seem like a lot, this number, but for decades the trend and 
this number, of course, have always been up--always. So the fact that 
it is going in the wrong direction is a very bad sign. Essentially, 
Americans and their families have become poorer.
  The same with home ownership. Look at this number. One of the biggest 
indicators of the American dream is home ownership. Again, the number 
is going in the wrong direction. Household income and home ownership 
are down, causing Americans to increasingly have to rely on government 
assistance. We are a proud people. This is not what most Americans want 
to be doing. Yet, when we look at the number of Americans on food 
stamps, it has almost increased by 40 percent--40 percent--from 33 
million Americans to nearly 46 million. These are people who want to 
work. These are people who want jobs to care for their families. Yet 
that number is soaring.
  Finally, I want to talk briefly about the Nation's fiscal outlook. If 
we want to talk about a number that is soaring, look at this number: 
The national debt of the United States--literally, one of the most 
important issues facing our Nation--has essentially doubled since the 
President took office. The national debt was $10 trillion. Today it has 
exploded to over $19 trillion. No other President in the history of the 
United States has racked up so much debt and done so much damage to the 
balance sheet of our Nation. Let me give one example.
  Our debt now is so high, for the first time in U.S. history, our AAA 
credit rating--the full faith and credit of the United States. We have 
always had it, ever since there has been a rating, for 70 years. It was 
downgraded. A lot of people forget that. It was downgraded.
  I look at these hard-working pages and this debt issue. If we don't 
get control of it, if the Congress doesn't get control of it, if the 
administration doesn't, it is going to be on their backs, our young 
people, and that is simply--simply--not fair.
  I would like to summarize. The number of people giving up looking for 
work in our country has increased dramatically by the millions; wages 
for jobs have been stagnant; household incomes--families, essentially--
have become poorer; economic growth is at alltime lows, at least in the 
last 70 years; the dream of buying a house is slipping away; and the 
national debt has exploded. This is the economy of this administration.
  What is still interesting is 7\1/2\ years after they took office--
with their policies, where they promised a 4-percent GDP growth, strong 
job growth--they are still looking in the rearview mirror, and when 
they are shown some of these numbers, they point fingers at the people 
who came before them, after nearly two terms in office. Well, this is 
the President's economy. He owns it. He should take responsibility for 
it, and he should start talking about it and instituting policies that 
start to change this, but we don't hear him or his administration do 
that. We don't hear them tout their record. They start to focus on this 
echo chamber. Fortunately, others in the public eye are more 
forthcoming. We are starting to talk about it more on the Senate floor. 
I wish my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would come out and 
talk about it a little bit.
  Certainly, as I mentioned, former Senator Clinton was talking about 
it, and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, has been talking 
about the economy. To be honest, President Clinton has actually put his 
finger on what is happening. He stated:

       Millions and millions and millions and millions of people 
     look at that pretty picture of [the America economy] Obama 
     [has] painted and they cannot find themselves in it to save 
     their lives.

  Former President Clinton also recently said this:

       The problem is, 80 percent of the American people are still 
     living on what they were living on the day before the [2008 
     financial] crash. And about half the American people, after 
     you adjust for inflation, are living on what they were living 
     on the last day I was president 15 years ago.

  That is what the matter is. That is former President Clinton. Even 
Secretary Clinton has apparently decided it is prudent to step out of 
the echo chamber of the administration she used to work for and confirm 
to the American people what is happening because when you leave 
Washington, DC, you see it, you hear it.
  In an interview with the Washington Post on Tuesday, she talked about 
how our current economy has failed many in this country. She even 
stated:

       What people are feeling is that the economy failed them, 
     their government failed them. You don't have to go just to 
     coal country to see that. You can go to a lot of parts of 
     America, where people had good, decent jobs that provided a 
     good middle class life for them and their kids. That was the 
     American Dream. That's how we used to define it.


[[Page 9892]]


  That is a former Secretary of State, former Senator, who is putting 
her finger on what is actually happening.
  We need to rekindle the American dream. We need to rekindle 
traditional levels of American growth. Our economy is sick. The 
American worker can't find the great jobs that have sustained him and 
her in the past. What this body needs to do is focus more on these 
issues. Certainly, what the Obama administration needs to do is level 
with the American people about these challenges because besides 
protecting the Nation's national security, the No. 1 thing we can be 
doing here is focusing on policies that drive economic growth, that 
drive true hope, and job creation. That is what we need to be doing 
more of in the U.S. Senate.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan). The Senator from the great 
State of Alaska.

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