Small Businesses

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WICKER. Well, there is no question about it. I appreciate my two friends coming down and helping with this colloquy today.

There are two companies I want to talk about in a moment, but let me say at the outset that we all want to create jobs for Americans, there is no question about it. The President came into office wanting to create jobs. The problem is, he has not let history be a guide.

If we go ahead with this second stimulus bill, we will be following the same failed programs that not only have not created jobs for Americans, but, as a matter of fact, the policies have made things worse for Americans and for job creation. The President's proposal and the proposal the majority leader just embraced is a ``spend now, pay later'' approach. It is one that has been proven not to work. Three years after we tried this at the beginning of the President's term, we have not put more Americans back to work.

This should be a glaring reminder of the failures of the first stimulus package and the probability and likelihood that this second stimulus package would be met with the same result. What we have seen since the first stimulus is that the Federal debt has skyrocketed, there are nearly 2 million fewer jobs, and the economic growth is limping along at a meager 1 percent. So many other countries have a higher GDP growth than that. It is tragic that our country has not kept up. The unemployment rate has hovered at 9 percent for 30 months in a row. If you add in those who have given up looking for work or settled for part-time work, that number skyrockets from around 9 percent unemployment, which is an unspeakable number, to some 16 percent. In fact, some 6 million people have been without a job for more than 6 months.

We know the President's policies are not working. We have seen very slow movement and, frankly, in many instances, that movement has been backward. The big-government approach of spend now and pay later has simply been a wet blanket for America's job creators.

The fact is there are some things on which we can agree. In this time of divided government, we must approach the idea of job creation in a bipartisan manner. The House of Representatives is controlled by Republicans. This body is controlled by Democrats. The executive branch, including the regulatory regime in this country, is strictly controlled by the Democratic Party. So we need to work together in a step-by-step approach.

A comprehensive package of ``pass this bill, pass this bill immediately without amendments'' has been rejected by both Democrats and Republicans in this city, and we now need to embark on a step-by-step approach, and we can be quick about it. One example was yesterday. When we finally got around to it, the House of Representatives passed the trade bills, once the President sent them to us. That was done yesterday afternoon. By 7 or 8 last evening, the Senate passed all of these trade agreements on a huge bipartisan basis. So this is a step in the right direction. There are other things we can do. But I wish to commend the President for finally sending the trade bills to the Congress and for getting that done and opening the new markets. So that is a step.

The Senator from Georgia mentioned some companies and some potential job creators in his State. My friend from Wyoming asked me to talk about examples in Mississippi.

Actually, my wife Gail and I had an opportunity to participate in a christening of some boats in Gulfport, MS, just the day before yesterday.

This was at the construction area of Trinity Yachts. I know what the initial reaction is: Why should we be concerned with yachts? I tell you why we should be concerned with yachts. Because we employ thousands upon thousands of Americans building those yachts.

I will never own a yacht. I don't aspire to even travel on a yacht. But I am glad there are a bunch of people around the world who want to buy them, because we employ a thousand people at Trinity Yachts, and we want to increase that.

As a matter of fact, what we helped christen the day before yesterday was not a yacht at all, it was two tugboats. Trinity Yacht makes tugboats, and they will be helping bring liquefied natural gas into the port of Pascagoula. So this shipyard built the tugs, Signet Maritime bought the tugs, and they will be creating jobs in Gulfport, and will be creating jobs at the Port of Pascagoula, and they want to create a lot more jobs.

I was told by the management and ownership of Trinity Yachts that business is a little soft in the shipyard. But if the President would simply go back to what we used to have in terms of oil and gas permitting, if we would lift this de facto ban on oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico and get back to the business we had year before last, then business could be great guns at Trinity Yachts.

We are not talking about yachts being constructed by Trinity, we are talking about oil and gas drilling platforms. The quicker permits and drilling projects in the Gulf of Mexico could bring about more than 200,000 new jobs in the next year. That is a job creator proposal that is simple. All we need to do is enforce the law that is currently on the books and get back to permitting so we can get back to producing our own energy.

The oil and natural gas sector is responsible for 9 million jobs, according to the Congressional Research Service, and we have in America the largest recoverable stores of natural gas, oil, and coal on Earth. So if you want to know another Republican proposal--which is a bipartisan proposal when you get down to it, because our gulf coast delegation consists of Republicans and Democrats--then here is a concrete proposal: Let's get back to producing our own energy resources in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere in the United States. Nine million jobs, and it could be more.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WICKER. The point is, they are a bunch of average, hard-working Mississippians, average, hard-working Americans, who are glad to come to work each day, working hard to build these boats, and we ought to encourage them.

I don't know the corporate structure of that particular job creator, but I know the larger point is that many of the job creators do pay taxes at the individual level. We know from research that four out of five of the taxpayers who would pay the higher taxes being proposed by the President are business owners--the very people we are hoping will create jobs, and create them soon for Americans.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WICKER. Well, just to say this, and I will take a minute to say it and then I will thank my friend from Georgia for taking the lead on this colloquy.

We also need to show job creators that we are actually serious about fixing our fiscal house. You know, we have had the Gang of 6, we have had the Simpson-Bowles Commission, we have had Dr. Coburn and Senator Lieberman with a proposal, and we have had Alice Rivlin's proposal--an expert on budgetary matters. We know the solutions that are out there, and they are hard to do politically. They would subject us all to intense political criticism and a firestorm. But if we do it on a bipartisan basis for the good of this country now, for the good of not only job creators today and people out there who are dying to come back to work but also for future generations, then we can do the right thing.

I will simply say this: I call on the President of the United States to give us some leadership on working together on a bipartisan basis to make these tough decisions. If we do it together, as Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill did in the 1980s, we can make the case to the American people that sometimes you have to do hard things, but we do things on a bipartisan basis to create jobs and to make a better future for future generations. It will not be done unless the Chief Executive of the United States of America comes forward and signals a willingness to hold hands with us and do the right thing for the future.

I desperately hope in these final months of 2011 we can get that signal sent to the committee of 12, and that we can work together to make major, significant structural changes that will save our fiscal future.

I thank my colleague.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source