Stimulus Package Report
Floor Speech
STIMULUS PACKAGE REPORT -- (Senate - February 13, 2009)
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, as Members can see from the debate we have had today and throughout the past couple weeks, almost everyone in this Senate and in the House of Representatives agrees on the need for Congress to be working with our new President on a stimulus plan to jump-start the economy.
We have people in our home States who are hurting. There were 600,000 jobs lost last month across our country. These facts underscore the need for something to be done to strengthen our economy. So we are all in agreement on that basic premise.
There is a great deal of good will out there in the country for our new President. I commend President Obama for making the economy his main focus. I also commend him for publicly stating Democrats do not have a monopoly on good ideas. The President said: Republicans have good ideas also. And he wanted to include them in his stimulus plan.
That is not what happened when House Democrats met behind closed doors several days ago to write this bill. It is not what has happened throughout the process.
Republicans responded to the President's call. We came forward. We came to this floor. We talked to our constituents back home. We stood before every television camera that would film us. We talked with every journalist we could find. We have discussed our ideas with the American people.
We presented ideas that I believe could have turned this economy around. Our ideas focused, first, on getting the housing market out of the gutter. The housing problem is what got us where we currently are, and it should be where we begin in turning our economy around.
Also, we proposed real tax relief for America's working people and for those people who create over half the jobs in this country, our Nation's small businesses.
Additionally, our plan called for targeted infrastructure investments with clear economic development purposes, in addition to putting an emphasis on legitimate Government priorities, such as early investment in military equipment and facilities, items we know will be funded in the future but would create increased jobs quickly if we focused on them now.
Just as importantly, the Republican idea I supported would have stimulated our economy at half the cost of the plan we are considering today, and that is not just my opinion, that is the opinion of a lot of very well-considered Democrats in this town.
Three days ago, the Senate cast one of the most expensive votes in the history of the United States of America. That $835 billion bill, which actually costs $1.2 trillion-plus when we add the cost of interest, has been given, at best, a small haircut. The bill before us is being presented to the American people today at a cost of $789 billion, still in the neighborhood of $1.1 trillion to $1.2 trillion, when one adds the cost of debt service.
In order to reach the current number, this so-called compromise cut much of the tax relief geared toward job creation and stimulating the housing market in order to keep in place spending for slow, unending, and nonjob-creating government programs. As the Washington Post reported yesterday morning, this final product ``claims many coauthors, including house liberals who saw a rare opportunity to secure new social spending.'' And take advantage of that opportunity they did indeed.
It now appears the majority leadership in the House and Senate have taken a bad bill and made it worse. Two popular items, one Republican and one Democratic, added to the Senate bill on the floor have been dropped from the final version and replaced with weaker alternatives that are less likely to work to stimulate home sales and automobile sales.
The first is the Isakson amendment, which was so widely agreed upon in this Chamber that it was approved by a voice vote. It went right to the housing problem. It would have provided a $15,000 tax credit to all home buyers, a concept which has worked in the past. Yet the final conference report before us reverts back to the House-passed proposal, providing much less money--an $8,000 credit--and limiting the provision to first-time home buyers. We need to encourage home buying by every American who is creditworthy, and this provision doesn't get the job done.
The Mikulski amendment, offered by our Democratic colleague from Maryland, also had wide bipartisan support. It passed this Chamber by a vote of 71 to 26. It has been dropped in favor of a weakened alternative. The plan now allows new car buyers to deduct from their Federal taxes the sales tax they paid on a new car. But the Mikulski provision that would have also allowed them to deduct interest on their car loans was stripped. The Mikulski amendment would have helped struggling U.S. automakers and auto dealers get buyers in the showrooms, it would have helped move cars off their lots, and helped protect the endangered automobile industry jobs. Like the Isakson amendment, it was unfortunately removed from this final package.
So while the conferees tinkered around the edges--making the bill worse in some ways--we stand here today debating a bill that will add over $1 trillion to the national credit card. I have said it before in this debate, and I will say it one more time: A trillion dollars is a terrible thing to waste. But that is exactly what this bill does. This bill is full of bad decisions that will take Americans decades to pay for.
Much has been made during this debate--by me and by many of my colleagues--about how much $1 trillion is, and I think we have established well that this is a staggering amount of money. Again, this is the most expensive piece of legislation ever passed in the history of our Republic.
Last September, Congress approved the $700 billion Wall Street bailout.
That came on top of approximately $200-plus billion earlier in the year in the form of rebate checks. I think the American people have the right to ask: of that $200 billion and then the $700 billion--and that is almost $1 trillion right there, and certainly more than $1 trillion when you add the debt service, as I have already pointed out--what did we get? What did the taxpayers, the American public, get for that unbelievable expenditure of taxpayer funds last year? A worsened economy is what we have gotten. We certainly didn't get the economic boost that was promised.
In an editorial yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, it was noted that the Congressional Budget Office estimates the 2009 deficit will reach 8.3 percent of the economy--a number that does not include the stimulus or the TARP bailout funds. We know that after this is enacted--and it does appear that the proponents of this conference report have the votes to move it to the President's desk--another very expensive financial package will be forthcoming from the administration in a matter of days. So what does this mean for people across America? Each household now owes more than $100,000 to pay for the debt we already have, not including the additional debt that is coming.
Senators need to ask themselves, when is enough enough? When will we begin making hard choices?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 10 minutes.
Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to consume about 30 seconds more.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. WICKER. We need to ask ourselves in the Senate: When is enough enough? When will we begin making hard choices between what will truly work to stimulate this economy and what we wish to have but which will not work to get the job done?
Americans expect us to get this right and to take the time necessary to make sure we get this right. This bill fails to hit that mark. I will vote no because we simply cannot afford again to make a mistake of this magnitude.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source