Stimulus Package Report

Floor Speech

STIMULUS PACKAGE REPORT -- (Senate - February 13, 2009)

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, the moment of truth is almost here, the time when we will all have to cast our votes. I submit this is a sad day for our country, for the American taxpayer, and it is a sad day for future generations, who will be left paying for this trillion dollar spending bill.

The American people are hurting and they are demanding action. Unfortunately, Congress has failed the American people and lost an incredible opportunity to empower small business owners, fix our housing crisis, and turn our economy around. So many things could have been done with this legislation that could have meaningfully led to job creation and economic stimulus.

In the few short hours that the final bill has been available, it is clear that the Democratic leadership has turned a deaf ear to the American taxpayer.

The final spending bill still includes spending on wasteful Government projects that have outraged taxpayers across the country. The final bill includes: tax benefits for golf carts, electric motorcycles, and ATVs; $300 million for Federal employee company cars; $1 billion for ACORN-eligible block grants; $50 million for arts endowment; $165 million for fish hatcheries; $1 billion for the census.

Instead of mouse habitats, electric golf carts, and fish barriers, Congress should have focused on serious proposals to address the housing crisis and create jobs through small business tax relief.

There were a number of opportunities. I view this as the question of what could have been. A number of amendments that were offered last week would have addressed this crisis with respect to housing and job creation and getting the economy back on a path to a recovery. Senators McCain and Martinez and other Republican Senators offered an alternative proposal that would have cut wasteful Government spending and focused on targeted investments and tax relief.

This proposal was a well thought out and fiscally responsible proposal. It included a commonsense provision that would have cut off new spending after two consecutive quarters of economic growth greater than 2 percent of inflation-adjusted GDP.

The alternative plan would have invested about $45 billion in transportation infrastructure, $17 billion in defense facilities and resetting our combat forces. This targeted spending would have rehabilitated our military facilities and equipment while creating jobs over the next 9 months--important tax relief that would have put money back into the hands of average middle-income families in this country and incentives for small businesses to create jobs, hire employees, and purchase equipment.

What is unbelievable and, in my view, a major flaw in the Democratic stimulus bill is this simple fact: The bill we will be voting on spends $6 billion on Federal buildings and only $3 billion on small business tax relief. Small businesses create most of the jobs in our economy--three-quarters to 80 percent of the jobs in this country. We ought to be figuring how can we get that economic engine going again so small businesses are making those investments. As I said before, this bill contains $6 billion for Federal buildings and only $3 billion for small business tax relief--a small, minuscule amount. One-third of 1 percent of the final stimulus bill is going to small business tax relief.

In terms of the way the bill breaks down, 27 percent of the entire almost trillion dollar bill is in tax relief in some form, or tax provisions. Many would argue that it was meaningful tax relief. There are a lot of better ways to deliver tax relief. The rest is in the area of spending. Forty-seven percent of that spending doesn't occur in 2009 or 2010. Only 11.3 percent will be spent in 2009, which means one thing--there is a lot of spending in the bill that cannot be characterized as stimulus. In other words, it is spending that will go on and on for years to come. What is remarkable about it--the late President Ronald Reagan once said that the closest thing to immortality on this planet is a Government program.

There is a letter out from the CBO in response to a question posed by a House Member regarding some spending in the bill: What would happen to the 20 most popular Government programs that are funded in this bill if, in fact, at the end of the 2 years the funding doesn't terminate? In other words, a lot of this spending will go on and on over time. What CBO found was the total cost of the bill, if those programs are expended--bear in mind that these are popular items on which it will be difficult to turn off the spigot. If the spending continues past that 2-year window, the cost of this explodes to $3.27 trillion. The interest alone is $744 billion. So it will be $3.27 trillion for much of the spending in this bill if it continues beyond the 2-year window.

As I said, according to CBO, only 47 percent of the spending part of the bill gets spent in 2009 and 2010. There are so many better ways this could have been done. We offered amendments last week. I mentioned the McCain amendment. I offered an alternative focused on tax relief for middle-income families and small businesses, which, according to the methodology developed by the President's own economist, Christina Romer, would have created twice as many jobs at half the cost--6.2 million jobs--and the cost of this amendment voted down last week was about $440 billion or, in rough terms, half of what we are looking at in the bill we are voting on today.

The last amendment I offered last week, toward the end of the debate, would have taken the total amount. I don't agree that we ought to spend this amount of money. I think it is stealing from future generations. If we are going to do it, the question is, should Washington spend it or should the American people? I took the total amount and divided it by every tax filer in the country--182 million people who file a tax return in this country--and we could have given a rebate of $5,403 to a single filer and to a couple filing jointly, $10,486--if we take the total amount of the bill and divide it among the taxpayers in this country. I would be willing to bet that the American people would much rather have that check than have money going to Washington, DC, to spend on these new programs, many of which will create obligations and liabilities for generations to come.

I think we have missed a golden opportunity here. I think we have created a whole new realm of spending that will go on for some time into the future. It is not fair to our children and grandchildren. The Federal Government needs to learn to live within its means. I can tell you as somebody who comes from the prairies, when the prairie pioneers settled South Dakota and places such as that, they understood a basic principle or ethic, which was that they were going to have to sacrifice so their children and grandchildren and future generations could have a better life.

What we have done with this bill is turn that very ethic entirely on its head. What we are asking future generations to do is sacrifice by handing them a trillion dollar debt so that we here and now can have a better life, and we cannot live up to the obligations we have to pay our bills on time.

It is a sad day; it is unfortunate. This could have been much different. There could have been more input from our side. It is a bill heavy on spending, not only temporary but spending that will continue to go on for some time into the future and create obligations down the road. If this is correct and the CBO response in this letter is accurate, if these programs continue to be funded and don't terminate at the end of the 2-year period, there will be $3.27 trillion in liabilities that we are creating today by voting for this legislation. It is not fair to our children and grandchildren and to the future generations who will bear the cost of the fact that we cannot live within our means and cannot come up with a way to fund an economic recovery plan that creates jobs and helps stimulate the economy and gets this recovery underway in a fashion that is fiscally responsible.

I regret that I will be voting no on this bill. I urge my colleagues in the Senate to do the same.

I yield the remainder of my time.

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