Secure Federal File Sharing Act

Mr. President, to set the stage a little for today, to give Senators an opportunity to know the lay of the land, yesterday the Senate put in quite a long day, as we all know. By my count, we considered 28 amendments, we conducted 8 rollcall votes, and we accepted a number of amendments by voice vote.

I want to highlight one amendment adopted, the Isakson-Lieberman amendment, which provides Federal income tax credit for home purchases. This amendment addresses one of the central points that Senators on the other side of the aisle have been raising, namely that we need to address the housing market.

I might say, Senators on both sides of the aisle are concerned about the degree to which we are addressing the housing market. We adopted the Isakson-Lieberman amendment that does just that, and I am proud we accepted their idea.

I want to clear up the record on the Cornyn amendment. Yesterday I raised a pay-go point of order against the Cornyn amendment. After the Senate failed to waive the budget provisions, the Chair ruled the amendment violated the budget.

The budget rules require both the Presiding Officer and myself to rely on the Budget Committee to determine whether an amendment violates the budget. Budget Committee staff advised my staff and the Parliamentarian that there was a pay-go point of order against the Cornyn amendment. But in reality the amendment did not violate the pay- go rules.

I apologize to the Senator from Texas for raising that point of order. But as the vote to waive the budget was 37 in favor, 60 opposed, raising the point of order did not change the result and I hope my statement now will clear up the record.

Looking forward, we expect another busy day today. I expect we will process a number of amendments. We may have rollcall votes throughout the day. We may well work late into the evening. But I have good reason to hope we might finish this bill this evening, and that is a goal toward which we are working.

For the information of Senators, 14 amendments are now pending. Those amendments are: the underlying Finance-Appropriations Committee substitute amendment, No. 98; the Murray amendment No. 110; the Feingold amendment No. 140, regarding earmarks--I might add, the Murray amendment No. 110 is with respect to infrastructure--again, the Feingold amendment No. 140 is with respect to earmarks; Thune amendment 197, that is a House Republican alternative; Dorgan amendment No. 200, runaway plants; Ensign amendment No. 353, substitute housing; Dodd amendment No. 354, executive pay; Barrasso amendment No. 326, environmental laws; DeMint amendment No. 189, religious freedom; Boxer amendment No. 363, environmental laws; Harkin amendment No. 338, auto trade-in; Dodd amendment No. 145, foreclosure mitigation; McCaskill amendment No. 125, CEO pay; McCaskill amendment No. 236, as modified--I think that is with respect to the inspector general.

That is it so far. This morning we expect to hear from Senator McCain on his substitute amendment. Thereafter, we expect to hear from Senators Ensign, Wyden, and Cantwell about amendments they intend to offer. Once again, I ask Senators to let the managers know about amendments they intend to offer. The more we know, the more quickly and expeditiously we can proceed. A little notice helps a lot here.

We had a great day yesterday. I expect another one today. Mind you, we must move quickly because the recession is so deep. Americans are depending on Congress to act. Let's act, let's get the job done. Other problems that are very important can be pushed off to later dates, but today let's get this bill passed and in conference with the House so the President can sign it and people can get some relief.

Senator, offer your amendment.

Mr. President, in an effort to get some order and move things along, I would like to lock in the order of speakers, continuing our practice of alternating back and forth. I ask unanimous consent that the next speakers recognized be the following Senators in the following order: Senator Kyl, Senator Sanders, Senator Thune, Senator Baucus, then Senator Graham--actually, Senator Grassley.

Mr. President, I will withdraw the request, and we will work that out while Senator Kyl is speaking.

Mr. President, I feel constrained to object because there was an understanding, an agreement, that the Ensign amendment would be the amendment that would come up after the McCain amendment.

I say to the Senator, let me work this out with you privately. I will find a way to accommodate the Senator.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following speakers be recognized in the following order, honoring our time- honored tradition of going back and forth: first, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Inouye; second, Senator Graham; third, myself; fourth, Senator Alexander; fifth, Senator Schumer; next is Senator Coburn; next is Senator Cantwell; next is Senator Inhofe; followed by a Democratic Senator; followed by Senator Hutchison from Texas.

Mr. President, first I want to correct--I know it is a very minor mistake the Senator made--the markup of the Finance Committee took over 11\1/2\ hours, not 1\1/2\ hours, as the Senator represented.

But, frankly, the main question is, how do we get people back to work?

How do we get our economy moving? That is the question.

There are lots of ideas. A lot of people have spent a lot of time working, trying to find the best solutions--a lot of economists, a lot of experts. It is true we are in, probably, the deepest recession this country has faced since the Great Depression. That is true. It is also true the economy is much different now than it was back in the 1930s. That is also true. The banking system is different. We now have an international dimension. It is greater today than was the case back in the Great Depression. So, therefore, it is true to some degree we are kind of learning as we are doing. Nobody has all the answers--nobody does. Most of us working on this recognize that. All of us are doing the best we can, on both sides of the aisle. We are trying to figure this out and do the best we can with the resources we have and with the Government we have.

Different people, of course, have different estimates. Let me tell you what the basic estimates are from the people I have talked to. They say there is about a $1 trillion gap between the potential American economy and the actual economy--about a $1 trillion gap. The real question is, how do we fill in that gap? What do we do to make sure the real economy matches up to the potential economy?

There are three basic components, most people agree: One is to do what we can to unfreeze the credit markets. Banks are not loaning. It is an issue that has been discussed at length in the last many months. The question is, what do we do to unfreeze the credit markets in this country so banks start to loan money, start to loan money to creditworthy borrowers? That is one challenge, and that is the reason for all these programs, such as TARP.

We can debate whether they are perfect. They are probably not perfect. But that is a part of the solution, do what we can to get banks to unfreeze the credit markets.

Another component is housing. What do we do about all these houses where the mortgage is much greater than the actual market value of the house? The common term, it is called ``underwater.'' Estimates are between one in four, maybe one in five American houses is underwater. What do we do to help address housing? We are working on that.

There are many features in this bill that address housing. For example, the $15,000 tax credit offered by the Senator from Georgia, Mr. Isakson, and the Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Lieberman, adopted by the Senate--that is going to help. It is a $15,000 tax credit for the purchase of a home. There are many other housing provisions enacted by the Banking Committee. Some are in this bill. Others are in other bills. Of course we have to go further.

The third component is consumer demand. What can we do in this country to help people feel a little better about things so they can start spending--people can start spending some money? First, they have to have money, and that gets to jobs. We also want to encourage people to spend money so the economy starts to loosen up, and that also creates jobs. That is the problem to which the bill is addressed. That is the third component, which is basically on the demand side, to help people spend money.

How do we do that? One way is to get measures passed to create jobs. It is bridges, it is roads and infrastructure, and so forth.

Without being too simplistic, what has happened in this country in the last several years is, we have become way over leveraged. Banks have borrowed way too much. Hedge funds, private equity funds have borrowed way too much--leveraged maybe 30, 40 times. American credit card debt has gone up. Individuals have become overleveraged. Businesses have become overleveraged. When you borrow much more than your assets, clearly when times start to constrict a little, it is a huge problem to pay off your loans, to pay off your debt, especially when you are leveraged in an amount that is 40 times your assets. That is really a problem.

That is what has happened in this country. So in a certain sense, while the private sector is deleveraging, the public sector is starting to leverage to fill the gap, to keep things going. That is the reason for the borrowing.

We are all concerned about how far this is going to go, how much debt it will be. Will we be able to pay off the debt? Is it going to work or is it not going to work? The answer to that is, first, we have to spend to make things happen. I do believe, frankly, it is better to spend more than less because if we spend more, there is a psychology, in addition to an actual multiplier dollar effect, that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and we are going to find a solution--compared with being tepid, being timid, just putting our toe in the water a little bit. I think that is not a good idea.

So the $800 billion--this bill is close to $900 billion right now. Some suggest maybe $800 billion is where we should end up. I think that would be fine. But will this help create jobs, this $800 billion? That is the basic question. And how do we fill the $1 trillion gap between the potential economy and the real economy? Most people I think, and most economists who are reputable, I think, will say that if we do nothing, that $1 trillion gap will double to about $2 trillion. These are rightwing economists, leftwing economists--there is a basic agreement among almost all economists that we have to spend some money to get things back on track again.

I have a summary of a letter from the Congressional Budget Office-- released yesterday--trying to determine the effects of this bill on jobs. What is the effect of the bill we are considering on gross domestic product? Let me just give you some highlights. This is a letter from the Congressional Budget Office. It is a nonpartisan organization.

Let me say, a lot of economists have their incomes paid for by people on one side of an issue or the other. That is one reason things get slanted sometimes. But this is the Congressional Budget Office. They don't make a lot of money, but these guys and women are very good, and they are public servants. They want to do this job. What do they say?

They say between now and the fourth quarter of 2010, the number of jobs created under the underlying bill, plus the number of jobs saved, is in a range between 1.3 to 3.9; basically between 1.3 million to 4 million jobs created and saved between now and the fourth quarter of 2010. That is CBO's best estimate. Granted, there is a range. We don't have a precise number, but it is a range.

The amendment offered by the Senator from Arizona cuts that in half. So let's cut it in half; the resulting range is 0.6 million jobs to about 2 million jobs, roughly. That is not close to beginning to fill the $1 to $2 trillion gap between the real economy and the potential economy.

CBO also says that under the Senate bill, GDP would increase by 1.2 percent to 3.6 percent by the end of 2010. The unemployment rate will decline between 0.7 percentage points and 2.1 percentage points. Let's take a midpoint. That is roughly a 1.5-percentage point reduction in the unemployment rate. The midpoint for the increase in GDP is about 2.4 percent. And the midpoint for the number of jobs created or saved is about 2.6 million. It is 2.6 million jobs created or saved under this bill.

Let me just read a sentence from the letter. The letter says:

For all of the categories [of spending or taxes] that would

be affected by the Senate legislation, resulting budgetary

changes are estimated to raise output in the short run,

albeit by different amounts.

That gets to my next point. Different dollars spent differently have different effects. They all are stimulative, some more stimulative than others. The letter goes on to say:

. . . direct purchases of goods and services [by Uncle Sam]

tend to have large effects on GDP.

The letter then lists the numerical stimulative effect of each category of new spending and tax cuts. For purchases of goods and services by the Federal Government, the multiplier effect is between $1 and $2.50. The midpoint is $1.75. For transfers to State and local government used for infrastructure, the effect is about the same: between $1.00 and $2.50. For transfers to State and local governments for programs other than infrastructure, it is less, from 70 cents to $1.90 on the dollar.

For transfers to persons who are receiving unemployment benefits the return on a dollar is higher. Transfers to

people who are unemployed are most likely to be spent, not saved. The return on a dollar is between 80 cents and $2.20.

For Making Work Pay--that tax cut is a key feature of this bill--the multiplier effect is between 50 cents and $1.70 on the dollar. The midpoint of the return on the dollar is $1.10

I might say, the effect for the 1-year patch to the AMT, the return on a dollar is between 10 cents and 50 cents. There is not a lot of multiplier effect for the AMT. And for the loss carryback business provisions, the multiplier effect is between zero and 40 cents.

Basically, what CBO is saying is what a lot of us intuitively believe: a dollar spent on roads and bridges and infrastructure will have a pretty high effect. Dollars transferred to low-income people, such as dollars for unemployment benefits, also have a very large effect.

Why do I say all this? I say this in part because I think it is helpful for us to know what the Congressional Budget Office believes. There are so many opinions here in Washington, it is just up to us to separate the wheat from the chaff, to listen to the music as well as the words, to try to read between the lines, to try to figure out what is really going on, and I think the Congressional Budget Office's estimates are a pretty good indicator.

We are concerned about the long-term debt--clearly, we are. There is not a Senator here who is not concerned about the long-term budget effects of what we do. We don't know exactly what the long-term effects are going to be, but we are concerned about them.

The President is going to have a fiscal summit on this very issue. He is inviting a good number of people; it will probably last 3 or 4 or 5 weeks. It is obviously a concern to the President, and it is obviously a concern to all of us.

Let's also remember the President is going to submit a budget sometime this month. It is going to be a blueprint for the President's programs and plans. Clearly, he is going to have to be thinking about the long-term debt too. Obviously, I think it will be very important for us to see what the President's budget is, and then to work with the Budget Committees, in this body and in the other body, to put together a blueprint and to try to get a handle on long-term debt.

This amendment offered by the Senator from Arizona, Mr. McCain, tries to get at this long-run debt problem by setting up two entitlement commissions. One is to address Social Security and the other is to address Medicare and Medicaid. I think on the surface that is interesting, but let's look at the facts. These entitlement commissions could make recommendations which Congress could amend but on which debate could be limited. The limit on debate greatly concerns me.

And let's look at the basic entitlements people talk about. What are they?

One is Social Security. Back in 1983, I think it was, the Social Security trust fund was about to go belly up. It was going kaput. I think there were enough funds in the Trust Fund that when added to new taxes coming in, full benefits could be paid for only 6 months. There was that little in the Social Security trust fund. The idea of a commission was raised. President Reagan called it together, it had both Republicans and Democrats on it. At the end, they agreed to do about the only thing they could do, and that was to cut benefits and raise taxes. That was put together based on a handshake between Tip O'Neill and Jim Baker.

There was a famous telephone conversation--hey, Mr. Speaker, if you agree to lower benefits, we will agree to raise taxes. We will greet each other, shake hands on it, and neither will attack each other. That was the deal. They didn't attack each other. That is what happened: benefits were cut a little and taxes were raised a little. Again, there was the gun at the head of everybody, especially seniors, because Social Security was about to go belly up in 6 months.

What is the situation today? Is the Social Security Trust Fund in dire jeopardy? No.

The Social Security trust fund is solvent, all of the actuaries say, to the year--I do not know the exact date--2041, 2042, something like that. So I wonder. Sure, we should start early on things. But there are only two ways to make the Trust Fund solvent beyond 2041, to say 2090 or 2100, and that is by cutting benefits and raising taxes.

Now, when times are tough--we are in a recession right now--I do not know how wise it is to talk about raising taxes and cutting benefits for a problem that is not real, not now. Maybe in a couple of 3 years when the economy is doing better, then we could tackle the Social Security trust fund. I do not think it is wise to have an entitlements commission tackling Social Security at this point.

What is the bigger problem? Medicare. That is the big problem. The Medicare trust fund is not going to last much longer, 6, 8, 9, 10 years, something like that. And what is causing such a problem? We have such a problem because health care costs in this country are rising at such a rapid rate, close to two times the rate of inflation. And, as you know, we spend about twice as much per capita in health care in America than do people in other countries.

So does an entitlements commission cutting Medicare make a lot of sense? Well, on the surface, yes. The costs have gone up, so the commission would cut Medicare. But the only way to cut Medicare is to cut benefits. I do not know if that is wise because health care costs are already such a problem for seniors and others today. Similarly, I don't know if it is wise to do a myriad of other things to the Medicare program that one might be able to do.

My point is, an entitlement commission is not qualified to address health care reform. Health care reform is an incredibly important, incredibly complicated matter. If we get health care reform on track, that is, legislation to start to reform our health care system, that will include getting significant reductions in cost. That is the way to address Medicare. Health care reform includes coverage of 46 million Americans who do not have health insurance, it includes health care delivery reform, it includes a lot of reimbursement reform. There are lots and lots of ways we should embark upon to address health care reform.

In fact, I asked the President yesterday about his agenda. After, this bill before us, we will probably get involved in some financial regulatory reform. The health care reform is one of his top priorities. He wants it done this year. And it has to be done this year, because part of economic recovery is health reform.

Look how much in costs this health system is adding to the problems of individuals in our economy, because their costs are going up. And there are costs to companies that have to lay off people, not hiring people, to some degree because of health care costs, and certainly not increasing health benefits for employees. There also are costs to budgets for the States, localities, and the Federal Government.

I suggest it is not wise, the provision in the McCain amendment, to set up a Medicare commission but, rather to tackle head-on health care reform. I do believe the President is going to announce a health care summit in the not too distant future as a way to get this going. Senator Daschle is all lined up and keyed up to get health care reform going. He wrote a book on it. I know the administration is dedicated to making sure that health care reform does not slip, that it is very much front and center.

Another provision I want to touch upon in the McCain amendment which I think Senators should know about, because it has a real effect, is this provision: essentially, the McCain amendment lowers the tax in the 10- and 15-percent brackets. So as a consequence of this McCain amendment, were it to be enacted, then people who pay income taxes today would pay less in incomes taxes. All Americans would--all Americans who pay income taxes, that is. Americans who pay income taxes would not necessarily in all brackets pay less because of the way our system is set up. Well, that sounds good. But what is of concern here?

The concern here is about 49 million Americans who would get no reduction in their taxes, none. Who are they? Well, they are people who do not pay income taxes, who tend to be low-income people. The underlying bill before us reduces taxes for those people who

work. It is payroll tax related. If you work, under the underlying bill, you are going to get a reduction in your taxes, your income taxes. You will get a check basically, if you do not pay income taxes. And if you work, you get a reduction in your income taxes.

There are 49 million Americans who will not receive a tax break under the McCain amendment but who do receive a tax break in the underlying bill. And those 49 million Americans are lower income people basically, because they are not earning enough to pay income taxes. They pay payroll taxes, because they are working, but they do not pay income taxes.

I do not think that is fair. CBO and others point out lower income people, middle-income people who get a rebate or break will spend the money to stimulate the economy. Again, we are trying to address the demand side here in this bill, getting people to spend the money.

Credit markets are one issue; housing is another issue. But this bill basically addresses the demand side. I think we do not want to shift dollars away from those 49 million people over to the higher income people as is accomplished in this amendment.

The underlying bill has what is called an alternative minimum tax patch; that is, your alternative minimum taxes will not increase in 2009 compared with what they may have been earlier. Basically it is a deflationary factor so you do not pay more.

The underlying McCain amendment does not have that. In the McCain amendment, millions of people are going to end up paying more taxes because he does not have the so-called AMT patch or fix in it.

My main point is this bill, according to economists, will help. We are, down the road, going to find ways--in the President's budget, fiscal summit, et cetera--to address the long-term debt questions. So we can only do things one step at a time. We cannot solve all of the world's problems in one bill. But we can take one bite of the elephant here, a pretty good bite, a good bite of the elephant here, that is going to help stimulate demand and help create jobs as we work our way through the economic recovery.

Madam President, the Senator from New York was called away. I ask unanimous consent that after Senator Alexander speaks, the next Senator to speak will be Senator Cantwell.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hagan.) Without objection, it is so ordered.

The Senator from Tennessee is recognized.

Mr. President, I was distracted. Is the Senator making a request?

I object.

I might say there is already an order. It is all worked out, but I appreciate the Senator's statement. My understanding is that was the case. That was already agreed to.

That is correct.

Mr. President, I deeply appreciate the demeanor and the manner and the cooperation of the Senator from Arizona. He has an amendment he believes in strongly. Many Senators have spoken on behalf of his amendment; many have spoken in opposition to his amendment.

But he has been very helpful in trying to work out a manner and a way and a time agreement where we can deal very expeditiously and fairly with the Senator from Arizona. My intent is to get a vote on the McCain amendment as soon as we possibly can. The Senator said there are a couple more speakers on his side who wish to speak. I imagine there are a couple on this side too.

I cannot tell the Senator we will definitely have a vote as soon as those four speakers speak. It is my intention to have that vote. I do not know if I can arrange that at this point yet. But plan B would be a series of amendments beginning a little later in the day--not much later, approximately 3:30. And the amendment offered by the Senator from Arizona will be the first amendment. His amendment would come up first. Then votes on other amendments would come up later.

My first preference is to vote earlier. If we cannot do that, then the whole package begins at 3:30 with the Senator first.

Mr. President, I do not see the Democratic Senator. She is not here to speak. I will go down the list. I think the Senator from Mississippi should be recognized.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Leahy.) Under the previous order, the Senator from Mississippi is recognized.

If Senators wish to speak, they can come to me and we will set up an order. The Senator from Nevada is next, then Senator Kohl, then Senator Chambliss, then Senator Dodd. We are down that far already. Hopefully, we can get an agreement to start voting very quickly.

There is no time.

Frankly, Mr. President, I think the next speaker should be you.

You are on. The Senator from Georgia.

That will be fine.

I yield 6 minutes to the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, the Senator from Hawaii.

Madam President, I yield to the Senator from Michigan.

Madam President, it goes without saying we are now living in extraordinary times. This country has not seen a recession as bad as this--there are many people who have lost their jobs, as we have seen-- since the Great Depression. Extraordinary times require extraordinary actions.

It is true no one knows exactly the precise prescription, how to get the economy back going again. But this underlying bill is certainly the best efforts of some of the brightest people to try to find that solution. Economists all say--all say--we need to do something like this to get us going.

With the gap between the real economy and the potential economy always about $1 trillion, if we do not pass this legislation, we will probably lose another $1 trillion. The underlying bill is much better than the alternative. The alternative is basically: Don't do it. If we do not do it, gosh, the jobs lost--what you see now, as bad as it is, is just going to pale in comparison to what otherwise is going to happen.

So I urge us to stick with the underlying bill, not adopt a substitute which has not been thought through, not aired, but, rather, let's stick with the program we think is going to work.

Madam President, I raise a point of order that the pending amendment violates section 306 of the Congressional Budget Act.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Dorgan amendment be temporarily set aside so the next vote will be on the Feingold-McCain amendment and Dorgan will be following that amendment.

Mr. President, I yield the remaining time to the Senator from Hawaii.

Mr. President, I understand all time has expired.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Amendment No. 200

I believe under the previous order the Dorgan amendment recurs.

Mr. President, the Senator is correct. We accept this amendment.

Mr. President, I have no opposition to the amendment and again recommend its adoption.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Amendment No. 189

Mr. President, I rise in support of the McCain amendment. Before I speak a little bit to the amendment itself, I want to remind my colleagues why this debate is so important and why the McCain amendment is so important to this debate.

Again, we are talking about a $1 trillion bill--$800 billion, up now into $900 billion. When you add in interest, it is $1.2 trillion and change. It seems as if every amendment that has been offered--we have had a lot of Republican amendments that have attempted to cut out some of the wasteful spending, eliminate some of what I think is probably most egregious about the bill, none of which has been accepted, ironically. Ironically, the only amendments that have been accepted so far have not decreased the size of the bill. They have added to the size of the bill. This bill has gotten bigger.

I remind my colleagues--and I think it is important for the American people to tune in because we throw numbers around here in Washington in an abstract way: millions, billions, trillions of dollars--exactly what the dimensions are of what we are talking about.

A trillion dollars: If you took one-hundred-dollar bills and lined them end to end, you could literally go around the Equator almost 39 times; 969,000 miles of one-hundred-dollar bills lined end to end, going around the entire Earth right at the Equator almost 39 times. That is what we are talking about when we talk about the dimensions of $1 trillion. I might also add that if we look at where this is coming from, we are borrowing. Let's be honest with the American people. We are borrowing this money from future generations. A lot has been said on the floor about who is going to get hurt if we don't do this, and I agree there are a lot of people hurting. Unemployment is high. Frankly, let's think about the people who are going to be hurting the most, and that is the next generation of Americans who are going to inherit this enormous debt we are passing on to them.

To put it into perspective, between the Revolutionary War and Jimmy Carter's Presidency, the United States of America borrowed $800 billion. From the entire time of the Revolutionary War to the Carter Presidency, there was $800 billion worth of borrowing. We are borrowing more than $800 billion for this one piece of legislation, not to mention what comes next. We know we have a $1 trillion catchall spending bill coming at us which is the first time that the discretionary appropriations bill is going to exceed $1 trillion. We know we are going to have a request for additional moneys coming from Secretary Geithner to stabilize the financial markets to the tune of several hundred billion dollars. We know there is going to be a supplemental spending bill request for the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ironically, according to CBO, the bill that was passed previously on SCHIP actually leads to $41 billion of deficit spending.

So all this spending we are doing, all this borrowing we are doing is being passed on to the next generation, and they are the people who are going to feel the brunt and the impact and hurt the most if we don't do the responsible thing here today.

I think it is important that this particular amendment Senator McCain has put forward and a number of us are cosponsoring be heard and fair consideration be given because I think there are several things about it that differentiate and distinguish it from the bill we are debating, the Democratic proposal that is on the floor.

One of the most important distinctions--and Senator McCain already mentioned it--is it comes in at less than half the cost: $421 billion. So we are talking about borrowing over $800 billion--all the time from the Revolutionary War to the Carter Presidency is the equivalent of what we are doing here--versus a much smaller approach and, in my view, much more fiscally responsible approach and, frankly, much more targeted. Because the criteria that has been laid out at the beginning of this debate for what makes sense in terms of a stimulus is it should be targeted, temporary, and timely. What we have before us is none of the above. It is slow, it is unfocused, and it is unending. Mr. President, $140 billion of this bill is going to be very difficult to shut off because it adds to the baseline as a lot of mandatory spending is included.

I wish to also show my colleagues what the President's chief economic adviser, Larry Summers, said. He said this in the Financial Times on January 6 of this year: ``Poorly provided fiscal stimulus can have worse side effects than the disease that is to be cured.''

Now, we have all talked about what is in this bill, and all the spending in it, including the $600 million for cars for Federal employees, the money that goes into the seven-point-whatever-billion- dollars it is here that goes into Federal buildings--all good things. Senator McCain talked about smoking cessation. That is something we all support and believe in. But that ought to be handled in regular order. Those are not stimulus. Those are things that do nothing to contribute in the short term to creating jobs and helping get our economy back on track. In fact, the CBO said that 12 percent of the total amount in the bill we have before us would be spent in this year--2009--and less than half in 2009 and 2010, so much of what we are talking about is going to be pushed off into the future when it is not going to do anything to stimulate the economy.

It does create some jobs--most of them are jobs here in Washington, DC--at great cost. For example, there are some jobs created at the State Department. The average cost per job created at the State Department according to this is over $1 million. On average, you take $900 billion and you divide it by about 3 million jobs, which is the estimate of what this would create, and we are talking about $300,000 per job.

Now, I might add that the average annual salary in my State of South Dakota is under $30,000. Imagine how difficult it is to explain to my constituents that we are going to borrow $1 trillion from their children and grandchildren to create jobs at a cost of $300,000 per job. That is an awfully difficult sell, particularly when they look at how a lot of this money is spent. We have some requests from mayors and city officials around the country, and these are all good things. I am not downplaying at all the importance of many of these projects, but there are requests here for 42 swimming pools, water slides, golf courses, all sorts of things that you can't argue we ought to be borrowing $1 trillion from our children and grandchildren to fund and to support. So it is important we have something we can be for and that does, in fact, create jobs; that does, in fact, add to the economic recovery, and that is fiscally responsible.

I wish to point out, as Senator McCain mentioned in his opening remarks, some of the things that are in his bill. It is appropriately focused on housing because we believe--and I think rightly so--that housing got us into this recession and housing is going to lead us out of this recession. It is focused on getting dollars into the hands of the American taxpayers. The debate about whether you want to have government spend the money or the American people spend the money is a very simple one. I happen to believe if you allow the American people to spend the money, you get a much better return. When we get money back into the hands of Americans, they will help grow the economy. Two- thirds of our gross domestic product is in the form of consumer spending. You provide incentives for small businesses which create two- thirds or three-fourths of the jobs in our economy and that helps get the economy back on track. That is in this bill.

Reducing marginal income tax rates from 15 down to 10, 10 down to 5, cutting the payroll tax in half for a year for employees gets money back into the hands of the American people so they can go out and help stimulate the economy and create jobs.

It also, as was noted earlier, makes some changes with regard to the underlying bill where defense is concerned. We have some very serious needs. Senator McCain mentioned this in his remarks and he talked about the defense spending in his bill. There is some, frankly, defense money in the Democratic proposal--about $10 billion--mostly for military construction projects, but there is no money for reset. We have serious needs out there. Senator McCain's amendment adds $7 billion for reset, to repair military equipment and replace direct battle losses, including $6.5 billion for the Army, $600 million for the Marines, $62 million for the Navy, and $83 million for the Air Force, which adds money for direct repair of military infrastructure and facilities. These are things that need to be done and can be done quickly that will put money to good use, that do create jobs and serve an important national purpose.

Now, the other thing his bill does is it puts money in for infrastructure. Infrastructure arguably is something that does create jobs out there, if they are shovel-ready projects that you can actually get going quickly. I think that is a good use in a reasonable way, not adding all kinds of projects that you are not going to do for many years to come. But if you are getting money out there that actually can help fund projects that can get done in the short term, that is a good thing.

Unfortunately, much of the money in the Democratic proposal, as I said earlier, isn't going to get spent out for years. I offered an amendment last night not to fund new programs, assuming it was going to take new programs a long time to get implemented and up and running. That amendment was defeated. The point of all this is to

do things that in the short term create jobs. So there is $45 billion in the McCain proposal for infrastructure.

The other thing I will say, which I think is critical--critical--in this debate, because I said earlier that if we don't put some restraints or some safeguards in here, this is going to get--the spending is going to go on forever. Senator McCain's proposal includes a hard trigger so that when we recognize two consecutive quarters of economic growth, positive GDP, this funding terminates. It is a fiscally responsible approach. He offered a freestanding amendment last night that received 44 votes. I haven't seen any evidence in this Chamber yet that anybody here is serious about adding any measure of fiscal responsibility or sanity to spending $1 trillion of our children's and grandchildren's money.

I think it is important that this amendment get a vote. I urge my colleagues on both sides to support this amendment, to try and do something that is fiscally responsible, that reduces the overall size of this, that addresses substantively the things in the bill--the shortcomings in the Democratic proposal--and do some things that actually will help stimulate the economy and create jobs. Senator McCain's proposal represents a much better direction in which to head. It costs a lot less, it does a lot more, so I hope my colleagues will be able to support it.

One of my colleagues on the Democratic side got up a little earlier and said, Well, if it costs a little bit of money this year to do this or that, there isn't anything in this bill that costs a little bit of money. Everything in this bill costs a lot of money, and the people who are going to get hurt the most are the next generation who are going to be handed the bill.

I hope my colleagues will, in fact, support the McCain amendment, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I guess my understanding is--and it wasn't locked in, in the form of a unanimous consent request--that we were going to ping-pong back and forth with speakers. I have an amendment I wish to speak to, if that is okay with the Senator from Illinois.

Mr. President, I rise to speak today in support of my substitute amendment, which is No. 197. This amendment has been modeled after the substitute amendment that was offered by the Republicans in the House of Representatives.

I think the big question we have to ask, and the question before the House is, if we are serious about doing something for this economy to recover and to create jobs, what is the best and most effective way to do that? We have in front of us a proposal that emphasizes more heavily government spending and doing it through government programs. What I have chosen to offer to my colleagues here in the Senate is an opportunity to vote on something that does it in a different way. It allows the American people to spend the money that we use to infuse the economy with dollars that hopefully will grow the economy and create jobs.

Our Nation has lost millions of jobs over the last several months. Families are hurting and businesses are struggling to survive. As our Nation weathers this turbulent economic time, we do have this decision to make: Should the Congress take hundreds of billions of tax dollars and invest them in an expanded Federal Government or, on the other hand, should Congress return tax dollars directly into the economy in the form of tax relief, which will create jobs and economic opportunity?

The response the Democratic majority has put in front of us is to put more money into Federal agencies, to renovate Federal buildings, and buy new cars for Federal employees. I believe we ought to follow a different path and let the people of this country keep more of their hard-earned dollars and let them decide how best to spend, save, invest, and to turn this economy around.

People know better how to spend their money than unelected bureaucrats here in Washington, DC. And tax relief, not government spending--reductions in taxes for the American people--will create jobs and get us out of this recession. This is what President Kennedy knew, this is what President Reagan knew, this is what I believe the American public, with their lackluster response to the $1 trillion spending program in front of us, knows as well.

This substitute amendment does several things. It shifts, as I said, the focus from government spending to meaningful tax relief in four ways: First, it provides tax relief for individuals and families; second, tax relief for small businesses--the job creators in our economy; thirdly, it provides housing assistance; and, finally, it provides temporary assistance to those who are dealing with the current recession.

Now, first, the bill provides meaningful tax relief for working taxpaying families. Under the ``Making Work Pay Credit,'' the tax provision in the bill--the majority bill--7 million households are going to receive a check from the government that is larger than both their payroll tax and their income tax liability. In other words, rather than a one-time credit, what my amendment would do is reduce the lowest two marginal income tax rates for years 2009 and 2010. Essentially, the 10-percent rate would go down to 5 percent and the 5 percent rate will go down to 10 percent. This is a real tax reduction and will benefit all income taxpayers in this country.

In total, there are 100 million taxpayers who would receive, on average, tax relief of $1,250 per filer each year. Married couples could receive up to $3,400 in lower taxes each year.

Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of our gross domestic product. As consumer spending declined for a record 6 months in 2008, it is no surprise that our economy contracted over the same period of time. If we want to spur consumer spending, we should not implement single shot policies like a one-time credit, and we certainly should not pour hundreds of billions of dollars into Government programs. Instead, the best way to stimulate consumer spending is an immediate meaningful reduction of marginal income tax rates.

With respect to small businesses, the second part of this bill focuses on small business tax relief. Small businesses, as I said, create up to 80 percent of all new jobs and represent 99 percent of the 27 million businesses in the United States. If we want to create new jobs, we should start with helping small business, not expanding Federal bureaucracies. This amendment expands small business bonus depreciation and expensing to encourage investment in this current year, which is when we need it the most. The amendment expands the net operating loss carryback period, permitting businesses to carry back their operating loss deductions for 5 years rather than 2.

Several of these provisions, granted, are included in the underlying bill. This amendment, however, provides an additional $47 billion of small business tax relief. My amendment includes a new provision that would allow small businesses to deduct 20 percent of their business income. This provision significantly reduces the tax burden on small businesses which would allow them to continue to hire and retain hard- working Americans. This provision would also allow small businesses to maximize their earnings and increase in value, which will also give them better access to credit markets and another critical component to a recovery.

Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and, unbelievably, only 2 percent of the total in this bill, the underlying bill, the majority bill, is dedicated to tax relief for small businesses. The lack of small business incentives in this bill, in my judgment, is a serious flaw, and my amendment seeks to improve it substantially.

I also understand people are hurting on account of the economic downturn. Across America we have hard-working men and women who are being layed off because of no fault of their own. Today they are sitting at the kitchen table wondering how to make ends meet.

Earlier this year, Congress acted to extend unemployment insurance to provide a safety net for those who are in need. My amendment would extend the expanded unemployment insurance provisions through the end of this year. Additionally, the amendment would eliminate the income tax on unemployment insurance. This is an automatic increase in the real benefit of unemployment insurance to those who derive it. It never made sense to me that individuals would pay taxes to the Government to fund unemployment insurance and, once they are unemployed, receive the benefits and then have to pay taxes on the benefit as well. This amendment would correct that. It would also make health care more affordable for the self-employed and other families without employer- provided health insurance because, for the first time, this amendment would provide an above-the-line deduction for health insurance costs.

Finally, with respect to the housing market, this amendment addresses our housing market prices. The housing market is what led us into this recession. In fixing the housing market, we will help lead us out. My amendment would extend the $7,500 home buyer tax credit through December 31, 2009, while expanding the benefit to all primary residences. This amendment would eliminate the complicated recapture rules which currently require home buyers to pay the Government back if they claim this credit. In the end, this provision would help stimulate the faltering housing market and encourage responsible home ownership.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, there are some real issues associated with the decision we make about whether to stimulate the economy with Federal spending, with Government spending or with tax relief. I wish to read for you a couple things the CBO has said:

Reductions in Federal taxes [would] have most of their

effects . . . in 2009 and 2010.

That is the very period we are targeting to provide the greatest economic stimulus and hope of job creation.

They also stated: ``Purchases of goods and services, either directly or in the form of grants to States and local government, would take years to complete.''

They go on, it will be ``difficult to properly manage and oversee a rapid expansion of existing programs.''

Finally, they say: ``[M]any of the larger projects initiated would take up to 5 to 7 years to complete.''

If we want to approach this problem with a solution that delivers assistance quickly, that is quick hitting, that gets money into the economy quickly, that creates jobs quickly, the way to go about doing that is not to have the Government spend the money, to have it come out of Washington, send our money to Washington, have the Government take more money out of the economy, and then decide how to spend it here. It is to get money into the hands of hard-working Americans and small businesses, where the real power for job creation exists.

Interestingly enough, this legislation, the amendment I offer, was run through an analysis that was used--it is a methodology that was developed by the President's chair of the Counsel of Economic Advisers. Her name is Dr. Christina Romer and Dr. Jared Bernstein, the adviser to the Vice President. This was a methodology they used back in 2007, that considers the multiplier effect of various policy decisions and fiscal decisions that are made by the Congress. What they suggested in that analysis is, if you reduce taxes on the American public, you get a 2.2 multiplier in terms of GDP. My amendment reduces taxes as a percentage of our gross domestic product by 2.8 percent. If you take that by their multiplier 2.2, you get 6.1 percent in GDP growth as a result of cutting taxes.

If you go on further, they suggest that for every 1 percent increase in GDP, you get three-quarters of a percentage change in jobs. So if you take the 6.1-percent growth in GDP and multiply it by .75 you get a 4.6-percent increase in the number of jobs. You take the full size of our workforce today, about 133,876,000 employees, and you plug in that 4.6-percent increase and you get a job growth increase--a job increase over the course of the next 2 years, as a result of making these changes in tax policy, of almost a 6.2-percent increase in jobs.

The proposal we have before us suggests they could get up to another 3 million jobs, perhaps, from this. But I suggest, if we can create double that amount, 6 million jobs, as a result of reducing taxes, it is a much better solution for our country to get our economy back on track and is also done at a lot less cost. The overall cost, according to CBO, of my amendment, is about $440 billion, compared to the $900 billion it will cost for the proposal the Democratic majority has in front of us; twice the jobs at half the cost. That sounds like a solution that makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense to the American people, who understand clearly you do not send your money to Washington and hope the Government can spend it to create jobs. The way to create jobs is to get money back in the hands of the American people, back in the hands of small businesses. That is what will lead us to that growth in gross domestic product, the expanding economy and the job creation associated with that. Twice the jobs for half the cost. I hope my colleagues will support this amendment. It is a much better approach to dealing with what is a very serious economic crisis for this country. I think the American people believe that. I hope my colleagues in the Senate will support it as well.

Let me say, the cosponsors on this amendment are Senators Kyl, DeMint, Johanns, and Hatch. I yield the floor.

If the Senator has an urgent matter, I will be happy to yield.

For 30 seconds.

Mr. President, I ask the pending amendments be set aside and ask consideration of an amendment that I have at the desk.

I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, the amendment I have is a product of a lot of work from a number of Senators on this side of the aisle. I especially thank Senator Martinez of Florida, a great leader on this issue, along with Senator Thune, Senator Graham, and many other Senators who have been involved in this discussion. This is an alternative we believe would truly create jobs and stimulate our economy. The total cost is around $421 billion.

I wish, before I describe the amendment--and I know others of my colleagues want to discuss this amendment--I wish to point out it is very clear that public opinion in this country is swinging against the proposal that is now before the Senate and was passed by the other body. They are opposed because they see now in the Senate a $995 billion package which could reach more than $1.2 trillion. Many Americans, certainly now a majority, do not see it as a way to create jobs and to stimulate our economy. They see it loaded down with unnecessary spending programs. They see it, very correctly, with policy changes which deserve extended debate and voting on their own, such as ``Buy American'' provisions, Davis-Bacon, giving Federal workers new whistleblower protections. Some of these policy changes may be laudable, others are not, at least in my view, but all of them deserve debate and discussion rather than being placed in a piece of legislation that is intended to stimulate our economy and create jobs.

I think it is time that we also understand how we got where we are. I have been around this body long enough to recognize that we are now entering the final phase of consideration of this package. Whether it be today or over the weekend or early next week, this bill will be disposed of one way or another by the Senate. So how did we get to where we are today, with a $995 billion package, at least, or $1.2 trillion, or perhaps more than that, with a bill that probably would create, in the view of the administration--and I do not agree with it-- 3 million jobs, which would mean that each job that is created by it costs the taxpayers $275,000. I do not think many Americans believe that each job created should cost $275,000 of their hard-earned tax dollars.

In fact, the response my office is getting borders on significant anger when we talk about many of the funding programs that are in the stimulus bill. I will go through several of them later on, but $400 million for STD prevention; $40 million to make park services more energy efficient; $75 million for smoking cessation. It is hard to argue that, even though these provisions, many of them, may be worthwhile, they actually create jobs. So we have strayed badly from our original intent of creating a situation in America to reverse the terrible decline and economic ditch in which we find the American economy, to the point we have had spending programs and policy provisions which have nothing to do with stimulating the economy and creating jobs. It may be Government--let me put it this way. It may be legislative activity, possibly, at its worst.

We are offering today an alternative at less than half the cost that we think creates jobs and stimulates the economy. I remind my colleagues, despite the rhetoric about bipartisanship, this bill originated in the House of Representatives, as is constitutionally appropriate. There was no Republican input whatsoever. It passed the other body on a strict party-line basis with the loss of 11 Democrats and came over to this body, where in both the Appropriations and the Finance Committees, almost every Republican amendment was rejected on party lines.

I appreciate very much that the President of the United States came over to address Republican Members of the Senate and Republican Members of the House. The tenor of his remarks I think was excellent. But the fact is, we did not sit down and seriously negotiate between Republican and Democrat. I have been involved in many bipartisan efforts in this body, for many years, that have achieved legislative result. The way you achieve it is not to come over and talk to a body. The answer is to sit down and seriously negotiate and come up with compromises which result in legislation which is good for the country.

That has not happened in this process. Again, the American people are figuring it out. I am confident, because of the way this process has taken place, that gap, which is now 43-37, the majority of the American people opposing this package, will grow.

A majority of the American people still believe we have to stimulate the economy and create jobs. I agree with them. But to spend $1.2 trillion on it, and have no provision for when the economy recovers to put us back on the path of fiscal sanity and stability--as the amendment that I had last night was rejected; we got 44 vote--does not provide the American people with confidence that spending will stop at some time.

One thing they have learned is that spending programs that are initially supposed to be temporary become permanent. They become permanent. That is a historical fact.

So we have initiated nearly $1 trillion--many in new spending, some hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending--with no provision, once the economy has recovered--and the economy will recover in America--this is no path to balancing the budget. Instead, we laid a $700 billion debt on future generations of America in the form of TARP, we are laying $1.2 trillion additional in the form of this bill, and another half a trillion dollars in the omnibus appropriations bill, and then we are told there will be a necessity for another TARP, which could be as much as $1 trillion, because of our declining economy. Yet there has been no provision whatsoever, once the economy recovers, to put us back on a path to balancing the budget and reducing and perhaps eliminating--hopefully eliminating--this debt we have laid on future generations of Americans.

I used to come down to the floor here, and have over the years, and argue against provisions in appropriations bills--which, by the way, has led to corruption. I notice there is another individual staffer who is being charged today, or yesterday, for inappropriate behavior with Mr. Abramoff.

There used to be hundreds of thousands and sometimes thousands. Now, they are in the millions and billions, tens of millions and billions. My how we have grown.

Do we need $1 billion for national security at the Nuclear Security Administration Weapons Activities to create jobs? We may need $1 billion for National Nuclear Security Administration Weapons Activity, but to say it will create jobs and will stimulate the economy is a slender reed.

There is nobody who appreciates more than this person the contribution that Filipino war veterans made to winning the Second World War. We are going to give millions of dollars to those who live in the Philippines. Do not label that as job stimulation.

Smoking cessation is something that we all support. How does $75 million for smoking cessation create jobs within the next years that would justify expenditures of $75 million?

This body, in the name of increasing health care for children, raised taxes by some $61 billion, I guess it is, on tobacco use. So we now hope people will use tobacco in order to pay for insurance for children. But the fact is, $75 million for smoking cessation should be an issue that is brought up separately and on its own. And the list goes on and on and on.

Our proposal--I am grateful for the participation of so many Senators--would allocate approximately $275 billion in tax cuts. It would eliminate the 3.1 percent payroll tax for all employees for 1 year and use general revenues to pay for the Social Security obligation.

It would allocate $60 billion to lower the 10-percent tax bracket to 5 percent for 1 year. It would lower the 15-percent tax bracket to 10 percent for 1 year. It would lower corporate tax brackets from 35 percent to 25 percent for 1 year.

We alarmed the world with the ``Buy American'' provisions which are included in this bill. The reaction has been incredible, and the fact is, jobs flee America for a number of reasons. But one of them is we have the highest business taxes of any nation in the world. We used to have among the lowest.

So if we really want to create jobs in America and attract capital and investment for the United States of America, we need to lower the corporate tax bracket. We need to have accelerated depreciation for capital investments for small businesses. We need to assist Americans in need, there is no doubt about that. There are Americans who are wounded and are hurting today. It is not their fault.

We need to extend the unemployment insurance benefits. That is a $38 billion pricetag. We need to extend food stamps. We need to extend unemployment insurance benefits, make them tax free. That is a $10 billion pricetag. And, of course, we need to provide workers with training and employment. That is a $50 billion cost.

We need to keep families in their homes. We needed, and we did adopt last night, the $15,000 tax credit. But we also need to fund the increase in the fee that servicers receive from continuing a mortgage and avoiding foreclosure. We need to have GSE and FHA conforming loan limits. That is $32 billion. We also, by the way, need to do more in the housing area.

You know, it is interesting in all of these spending proposals we have, there is not one penny for defense, not one penny. Obviously, we are going to have to reset our military. We need to replace the aging equipment that has been used so heavily in Iraq and will be needed in Afghanistan.

We need to improve and repair and modernize the barracks, the facilities and infrastructure that directly support the readiness and training of the Armed Forces. We do not have that in the now $995 billion package that is before us. Obviously, we need to spend money on military construction projects which will create jobs immediately. Those people who say that is not the case, I can provide for the record adequate information that many of our military construction projects could begin more quickly than those that are not on our military bases because of environmental and other concerns.

We need to spend $45 billion on transportation infrastructure. There are grants to States to build and repair roads and bridges, including $10 billion for discretionary transportation grants, and $1 billion for roads on Federal lands. Public transit, obviously, we need to fund, and airport infrastructure improvements are necessary, along with small business loans. That is about $63 billion in our proposal.

Finally, the American people believe, and I think correctly, spending is out of control in our Nation's Capital. We continue to spend and spend and spend. We not only have accumulated over a $10 trillion deficit, this will add another $1 trillion or more. I mentioned the TARP of $700 billion, all of which is being paid for--we are printing money in order to fund it.

At some point we are going to have to get our budget balanced or our children and our grandchildren are going to pay the bill. I recommend that this body hear as much as possible from David Walker, former head of the Government Accountability Office, in the Congress of the United States. He paints a stark picture. In my view, it is also time that we establish entitlement commissions: one for Social Security and one for Medicare-Medicaid and make recommendations so we can act on what is a multi-trillion-dollar deficit in Social Security and over a $40 trillion debt on Medicare and Medicaid.

Unless we address these long-term entitlement issues, there is no way we are going to be able to prevent the majority of Americans' taxes from being devoted to those two programs. So we need to establish those commissions and we need to put them to work and we need to put them to work right away.

Now, I am told there is general agreement. Why not do it now? Why not do it now? We also need better accountability, better transparency, better oversight, and better results. Among many disappointments we have over TARP, one was that we were told the Congress and the American people would have oversight and transparency, and they would know exactly how that initial $350 billion was being spent.

The American people and Members of Congress have been bitterly disappointed as TARP shifted from one priority to another. Funds went to the automotive industry, which none of us had anticipated when we voted for and approved it. We need more transparency and accountability and oversight of how this, probably the biggest single emergency spending package in the history of this country, is being spent.

I notice I have other Members here who wish to speak on this issue. I hope we can pass this alternative, some $421 billion, to what has now surged to over $1 trillion. It probably may not pass for the reasons of numbers, but if we do not sit down and negotiate and come up with a package that is more than a $50- or $60- or $80 billion reduction, when we are talking about $1.2 trillion, the American people will not be well served.

They will not be well served by requiring Davis-Bacon, they will not be well served by requiring ``Buy American,'' they will not be well served by spending their hard-earned dollars on unnecessary programs that even though in the eyes of some may have virtue, have no or very little association with job creation and relief for Americans who are struggling to stay in their homes and either keep their jobs or go out and find a new one.

I believe the United States of America will recover from the economic crisis. I have a fundamental faith, belief, that American workers are the most productive, the most innovative, and the best in the world. But they need some help right now. What they need is the right kind of help.

I urge my colleagues, when you see the money that is being spent in the name of job creation and stimulus that is laying a debt burden on our children and our grandchildren, we need to have serious consideration of this kind of spending because it is not fair, not only to this generation of Americans but to future generations as well.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield?

Mr. President, I was incorrect in that statement. I was only speaking about the reset. We need a lot more. I would like to acknowledge that I was incorrect in that statement.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, with all due respect to the Senator from Vermont, we should stay on this amendment and have the speakers on this amendment, then move to the Sanders amendment. The pending business is my amendment before the Senate.

I am sorry, but I will object. We are on this amendment, and the regular order of the Senate is this amendment at this time.

For the information of the Senator from Vermont, we have a number of speakers over here, so I am not prepared to enter into a time agreement on the debate on this amendment at this time.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

Is the Senator aware of my strong support for the compensation that our great Filipino allies in World War II rendered to this Nation and to the country?

And is it also clear that there are many wrongs that need to be righted through funding, including our own veterans, including hospitals, including medical care, including PTSD?

So does the Senator believe that compensation for that which is not under the label of stimulus to our economy and restoring our economy or creating jobs is not what is needed to be addressed in this bill?

So could I finally ask the Senator, is there any question of anybody's patriotism or love of country or the outstanding and magnificent service rendered in World War II by our brave Filipino allies?

I thank the Senator for answering my questions.

If the Senator will yield, did the Senator see the AP News release this morning at 11:30 that the chairwoman of the congressional oversight panel for the bailout funds told the Senate Banking Committee that the Treasury, in 2008, paid $254 billion and received assets worth about $176 billion? I think everybody knows we passed TARP in a big hurry, just as this legislation has not gone through the hearings and the normal process. So, apparently, according to the chairperson of the congressional oversight panel for bailout funds, in 2008, our Treasury paid $254 billion and received assets worth $176 billion. It seems to me that is about $80 billion that the taxpayers lost.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to engage in a colloquy with the Senator from Montana for a brief period of time to talk about the disposition of this amendment.

Mr. President, I would say to my friend from Montana, we have two additional speakers on this side. If others desire to speak on the amendment, I ask them to come down or notify us right away.

Then I understand there are amendments--there is a tentative proposal to have votes at 3:30. So other Members should come down and talk about their amendments that are pending.

I would like for my colleagues to conclude the debate, since we have been on it since 9:30 this morning. I understand the vote may be set for this and other amendments at 3:30. But unless there is someone who wants to speak on this amendment, the Senator from Mississippi and the Senator from Utah, Mr. Hatch, are the only ones additionally who want to speak on it.

I would encourage my colleagues who want to speak on other amendments to come to the floor because there will apparently very likely be a vote on at 3:30.

Mr. President, can we propound the unanimous consent request? It has not been cleared.

If the Senator will yield to me for one comment. We are still working on a UC for setting up votes, and for the benefit of my colleagues, we think it is roughly sometime shortly after 4 p.m., but we haven't completed the unanimous consent agreement as yet. But for the information of colleagues, we are working on a series of 13 votes at least.

Thanks.

I will speak for a couple of minutes about what the Senator from Montana talked about, the Congressional Budget Office report today. Basically, it says that this present legislation before us, the stimulus package, would increase employment at that point in time by 1.3 million to 3.9 million jobs. I did the math on that, and 1.3 million jobs by the end of 2010 comes to $680,769 per job. If the most optimistic estimate of 3.9 million new jobs created between now and the last quarter of 2010, it is only $226,923 per job.

Interesting comments by the Congressional Budget Office, which says on page 5:

In principle, the legislation's long-run impact on output

also would depend on whether it permanently changed

incentives to work or save. However, according to CBO's

estimates, the legislation would not have any significant

permanent effects on these incentives.

They go on to say:

CBO estimates that by 2019 the Senate legislation would

reduce GDP by 0.1 percent to 0.3 percent on net.

That is easy to understand because we will be paying interest on a huge debt of multitrillions of dollars as a result of this legislation.

As the CBO says:

To the extent that people hold their wealth as government

bonds rather than in a form that can be used to finance

private investment, the increased debt would tend to reduce

the stock of productive capital. In economic parlance, the

debt would crowd out private investment.

Again, what we are doing is mortgaging our children's and our grandchildren's futures.

The President today said:

They [talking about those of us who support my amendment]

are rooted in the idea that tax cuts alone can solve all of

our problems.

They are rooted in the idea that tax cuts alone can solve our problems. I urge someone to tell the President of the United States that we have $421 billion of tax cuts and spending in this proposal, and spending that is meaningful and creates jobs, not loaded down with porkbarrel projects and certainly not one that approaches over $1 trillion on future generations of Americans.

We ought to change Washington. We ought to change the way we are conducting this legislation, especially in partisan, nonconsultative fashion. If the leadership can peal off two or three Republicans, that is an accomplishment they will make, but it is not bipartisanship.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, the stimulus package would be a disaster for our children and our grandchildren. According to CBO, it would create 1.3 million to 3.9 million jobs between now and the end of the year 2010. That is a huge expenditure. It has fundamental policy changes, and it is the biggest spending bill probably in the history of this country.

We have legislation which creates jobs, which cuts taxes and spends on infrastructure, more on Defense and the reset, and I believe that is the best for this country.

Madam President, we all know we have to stimulate this economy and create jobs. The question is how you do it: profligacy versus, I believe, a mature and responsible approach to reversing and saving our economy.

I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.

Madam President, I move to waive the applicable portion of the Budget Act and ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, at the center of our Nation's current financial crisis are our Nation's automakers and our homeowners. These are our two areas that we cannot afford to ignore, if we are to have any hope of an economic recovery.

I would like to focus on our automakers. Some economists have remarked that as our automakers go, so goes our Nation. Other economists have complained that the auto industry has been too slow to modernize and too slow to prepare for the future.

We all know that 97 percent of our vehicles run on gasoline and diesel. But what you don't hear often enough is that American automakers are actually poised to lead the world into the next era of vehicle technology. They are prepared to produce flexible, affordable, attractive, and long-range vehicles that run on an alternative fuel that is much cheaper, much cleaner, more abundant, and completely domestic. That alternative fuel is electricity from our electric grid. Other than natural gas, there is no other alternative fuel that comes close to having so many of these qualities.

Last Congress, Senator Cantwell and I came together to introduce the Freedom Act, and with the assistance of Chairman Baucus and Senator Grassley, the committee's Republican ranking member, we were able to get major provisions of that bill passed into law, including tax credits for consumers who purchase the plug-in electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles.

I was the author of the CLEAR ACT, which promoted hybrid and alternative vehicles and which passed in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. It was pretty clear at the time that the Japanese automakers had the jump on this technology. However, I was pleased to see that it didn't take too long for our American automakers to respond and to produce very good and very efficient hybrid electric vehicles.

The next step of using electrons off the grid is a more revolutionary shift, because it will have a more dramatic impact on our Nation's dependency on oil.

Many of my colleagues may not be aware that American automakers and American technology companies are poised to lead the world in plug-in electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. In the next 2 years, General Motors will be offering two new plug-in vehicles for commercial sale. These will be vehicles developed and manufactured right here in America. American lithium ion battery makers lead the world in technological advances, and are also ready to set up major manufacturing operations here on our shores. American companies also lead the world in electric motor technologies, ultra-capacitors, and other important electronic controller technologies.

Senator Cantwell and I are offering an amendment that would ensure that this manufacturing stays here at home. In most cases, these American companies are prepared to begin manufacturing immediately. So this amendment is timely and goes to the heart and soul of the stimulus bill we are now considering.

I personally do not believe our auto industry will survive on old ideas and past technologies. What could be more important in this stimulus bill than to assist the auto industry as it attempts to lead the world in a new era of vehicle technologies. I am very grateful to Senator Cantwell, and Chairman Baucus and Senator Grassley for making this proposal a priority.

Mr. President, I appreciate the remarks of the distinguished Senator from Michigan.

I rise in support of the substitute offered by the distinguished Senator from Arizona. As usual, John McCain does not mince any words. He says what he believes, and in this particular case, what he is trying to do is make this bill better and also to make it bipartisan so it would have an overwhelming vote, including mine. But I cannot help but express concern about the misguided direction we are headed toward in stimulating our economy if we go with the bill the majority has come up with, even as amended.

Our new President recently told the Washington Post:

The tone I set is that we bring as much intellectual

firepower to a problem, that people act respectfully towards

each other, that disagreements are fully aired, and that we

make decisions based on facts and evidence as opposed to

ideology, that people will adapt to that culture and we'll be

able to move together effectively as a team.

Now, I make decisions based on ``facts and evidence as opposed to ideology.'' That is what our President said.

To me, that means we must do what is necessary and what will be effective, and I could not agree more with President Obama's statement. Unfortunately, in this bill, my friends on the other side of the aisle have not followed the President's leadership and at a time when such leadership is critical.

There is no doubt we are in a serious recession. There is widespread agreement that quick action is necessary to stop our economy's downward spiral. The facts are conclusive and Democrats and Republicans all agree economic conditions are severe. Both commonly accepted definitions of ``recession'' have clearly been met, and we

have seen a constant decline for all economic indicators.

Our current economic condition: GDP has declined at 3.8 percent, unemployment at 7.2 percent. Manufacturing is at a 28-year low. We had the worst January in over a quarter of a century. These are very important indicators. I could go on, but we are here today to look toward the future, to look toward recovery and reinvestment.

Moreover, I am not here to cast blame as to how we got here. Both sides are guilty of making poor decisions on shaping our economy. But today is critical. We need, as the President has stated, to put aside our ideological differences, focus on our economic condition, and make decisions based on what the facts and the evidence indicate will be effective.

We cannot afford to waste more American taxpayer dollars. We cannot afford to advance political dogma at the expense of doing what is right. We cannot afford to make a trillion-dollar mistake.

If we are going to spend billions to stimulate the economy, we had better get it right. The central question is whether this enormous spending-and-tax bill would be effective, or will be effective, in turning around the economy, preventing further layoffs, and creating new jobs. If it will do what is needed, it is worth the money, and we must pass it immediately.

While both sides of the aisle agree about what we want to achieve, we disagree about the means and how to achieve them. Despite popular Democratic belief, Republicans are not trying to block the stimulus package. We are trying to improve it, and the distinguished Senator from Arizona has some great ideas and has improved it considerably. While Senate Republicans have tried to offer our ideas to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, we have largely been excluded from helping formulate this bill.

The February 2 Los Angeles Times editorial, titled ``The Nation Needs Jobs, Not a Political Agenda,'' correctly points out this stimulus package--the largest stimulus since World War II--could and should have been crafted to garner extensive Republican support.

Instead, the stimulus is a hodgepodge of liberal-targeted spending projects with a few decent ideas thrown in to try to appease Republicans. The majority of the bill is aimed at promoting mostly public-sector jobs for short-term projects, such as building roads and infrastructure.

A large fraction of the proposed stimulus package is devoted to infrastructure projects that would spend out very slowly, not with the speed needed to put the economy on the path to recovery in 2009 and 2010. While some of these public jobs are necessary, we also must provide incentives for private sector jobs. Furthermore, the stimulus needs to take effect immediately and not continue to provide a stimulus once the economy has turned around.

While President Obama has said he believes Government spending provides the most ``bang for the buck'' and that there is ``near unanimity'' among economists that Government spending will help restore jobs in the short term, I must respectfully disagree. I believe, as do many economists, that our problems cut much deeper than what temporary Government spending will be able to cure.

Harvard economics professor Martin Feldstein, president emeritus of the National Bureau of Economic Research, wrote in a recent Washington Post article:

The fiscal package now before Congress needs to be

thoroughly revised. In its current form, it does too little

to raise national spending and employment.

Gregory Mankiw, another Harvard economics professor and the former chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors, notes in a New York Times op-ed that each dollar of Government spending increases the gross domestic product by only $1.40, while a dollar of tax cuts-- or tax relief, I would prefer to say--raises the gross domestic product by about $3.

This is based on a study conducted by Christina and David Romer, then economists at the University of California, Berkeley. Christina Romer will now serve as the chair of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers. President Obama, there is not ``near unanimity'' among economists that Government spending delivers the most ``bang for the buck''--indeed, not even among your own top economic advisers.

Democrats have stressed they believe we need solutions that are temporary, targeted, and timely. Beyond spending for expanding Government projects, there is serious wasteful spending in this bill. The current bill provides up to $500 for individuals and up to $1,000 for families in the so-called Make Work Pay tax credit, which would encourage work at the margin only for people who produce and earn less than $8,100 per year.

Studies show that in the past, these rebate checks do not stimulate the economy. For instance, studies of the 1975 rebate--and earlier tax changes--suggested that only 12 percent to 24 percent of the rebate was consumed in the quarter it was received. Moreover, it is estimated that only 15 percent of last year's rebate checks was put back into the economy. Based on these estimates, of the $142 billion that would be allocated through the ``Making Work Pay'' tax credit--through that tax credit--the average of only $24 billion would find its way back into our economy. That is after an expenditure of $142 billion.

Now, this is what it says: The Democrats' Stimulus Plan. Make Work Pay tax credit. Make Work Pay--the cost is $145 billion. Only $24 billion will be put back into the economy. These are important estimates.

Well, is this the most effective way to spend taxpayer money? The Make Work Pay credit is a refundable credit. Anyone who works would be eligible to receive up to $500, even if that person never paid income taxes. There are other refundable credits in this bill as well, including a provision increasing the refundable portion of the child tax credit.

But the bill also creates a new category of tax credit bonds called ``Build America Bonds,'' in which a State or a local government could elect to receive a direct payment from the Federal Government equal to the subsidy that would otherwise have been delivered through the tax credit. Whom are we kidding? This is nothing more than an innovative way of delivering more spending through the Tax Code. The majority wants to claim these are tax cuts, but these are not tax cuts. This is spending. I ask my colleagues: What is wrong with using the appropriations process for spending? Some of these projects may fit the appropriations process well, but they do not fit in a stimulus bill such as this and especially one where the American taxpayers are called upon to spend so much.

Beyond these so-called ``tax cuts,'' we see even more spending for State and local governments. Until recently, my friends on the other side of the aisle have promoted their ideology to the extent that House Speaker Pelosi suggested that contraception will stimulate the economy because it is a cost-saving measure for the State and Federal governments. Even though this measure has been taken out, the bill includes plenty of other Government-expanding and ideology-promoting projects. State aid will only fund temporary projects that would need to be funded later down the road. Conversely, spending in the private sector would create permanent jobs that would give people more to spend and would lead to even more permanent job creation.

Look, it is not just Republicans sounding the alarm over this bill. Even the very liberal San Francisco Chronicle has characterized the bill as a wasteful grab bag of spending. For example, this bill could make available billions of taxpayer dollars to leftwing groups, such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, commonly known as ACORN. The plan further establishes 32 Government programs at a cost of well over $136 billion.

There is a difference between permanent tax cuts and short-term stimulative spending. If we base this bill on measures we know will work, it should include a proper balance of both permanent tax cuts and short-term spending. Instead, this bill is tilted toward government spending either through appropriations or tax expenditures. Less than 3 percent of this bill contains business tax relief. How do we expect to create jobs in the private sector when you spend that little on the people who can create the jobs?

I wish to turn my attention to the health care provisions contained in this package. As I have said before, health care reform is not a Republican or Democratic issue; it is an American issue. When we are dealing with 17 percent of our economy--and that is what the health care economy is--it is imperative that we address solutions in an open and honest, bipartisan process. Although the congressional Democrats and the administration have given a great deal of lip service to bringing change and bipartisanship to Washington, let us all remember that actions speak louder than words.

I am mostly disappointed the Democrats have decided to use the stimulus legislation to address health care reform in a partisan and piecemeal fashion. Health information technology is a perfect example. It is an area of consensus that should have been part of the comprehensive and bipartisan health care reform dialog.

Last Congress, Senator Mike Enzi and I worked very closely with Senators Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton on the Wired For Health Care Technology Act which resulted in a bipartisan bill that was unanimously approved and reported by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, or HELP, Committee. While the stimulus package before the Senate contains provisions on health information technology--that is health IT--it does not resemble that bipartisan bill we introduced and passed unanimously out of the committee last Congress. The most important difference is that these provisions do not represent a bipartisan agreement because Members on both sides of the aisle were not involved in the discussions.

Secondly, the stimulus bill undermines the work of former Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt and the Bush administration by federalizing the National eHealth Collaborative. While I believe the Federal Government should play a role in this area, it should not take over such an initiative. The intent of our legislation, and the intent of Secretary Leavitt, was to encourage a partnership between the private sector and the Federal Government to improve the quality and efficiency of health care. The stimulus legislation dissolves this public-private partnership.

Finally, the stimulus bill provides $1.1 billion for clinical comparative effectiveness, including a $400 million slush fund to be used by the Secretary at his discretion. Once again, this is a topic of bipartisan interest and concern that should have been discussed in the context of comprehensive reform.

We have not even discussed the overall cost of this bill. When interest is included, the almost $900 billion Senate version reaches close to $1.3 trillion. That is enough to give every man, woman, and child in America $4,000, or every person in my home State of Utah $480,000. Indeed, $1.2 trillion is more than the cost of the New Deal and the Iraq war combined in today's dollars. The interest alone would be costlier than the Louisiana Purchase or going to the Moon adjusted for inflation--in fact, four times the cost adjusted for inflation and time--than the Louisiana Purchase.

The bill is estimated to cost $1.3 trillion with interest. The congressional budget authority has estimated that the stimulus bill will produce between 600,000 and 1.9 million new jobs by 2011. That means it would cost anywhere from $700,000 to $2.1 million to create one job. That is absurd.

To make this bill economically stimulative, we must make decisions that will be effective. Our economy began this downturn when our housing market collapsed. No stimulus will work unless we address the root of the problem. Some of my Republican colleagues are proposing to add the Fix Housing First Act which would refinance and lower fixed rate, 30-year mortgages for primary residences and provide a $15,000 tax credit for all homebuyers. I support this idea because it would encourage people to buy houses and would help homebuilders, and it would put a lot of people to work. In addition, we have offered a proposal to permanently lower the corporate income tax rate which again would give the corporations in this country the ability to hire a lot more people, expand their businesses, and do what should be done. We need to enact tax relief that will help save and create jobs now.

I believe one way to truly stimulate the economy is by making the research tax credit permanent. If we lifted the quota on H2B people-- these are generally highly educated people, educated in our country, who are forced out of our country to go home and compete with us, where otherwise they would stay here and help us be more competitive than we are. For too long, companies have been waiting on a short-term basis to see whether this vital tax credit will be extended for yet another year or two. When 80 percent of the research credit is based on salaries and wages, I doubt that anyone in this Chamber could honestly say that making the research tax credit permanent would not provide a great deal of bang for the buck.

We should also look at middle-class tax relief by lowering the 15- percent bracket to 10 percent and the 10-percent bracket to 5 percent, increasing the capital loss deduction and lowering the capital gains rate to encourage investment which would lead to job creation. I think I have the right to say these things because I was one of the original supply siders in the Reagan administration. Not only did we have the arguments that if we reduced taxes, we will have less revenues, not only did that turn around, but we had many more revenues that were planned or contemplated because we did reduce those taxes.

The fact that 11 Democrats and every Republican voted against this bill in the House is evidence that bipartisanship did not prevail. The reason it did not prevail is that there was too much spending in the legislation and not enough incentives to spur job growth and economic development. For this stimulus package to be effective, it should incorporate ideas from both sides of the aisle. We should be focusing on incentives that are permanent and broad, not temporary and targeted. We owe this not only to taxpayers today, but also to future generations of taxpayers who will be saddled with this trillion dollar spending bill--$1.3 trillion. In short, we owe it to every American to craft a bipartisan stimulus package that will rouse the economy instead of coming up with a partisan bill that produces little and provokes American anger.

Again, as I said at the beginning of my remarks, I wish to thank the distinguished Senator from Arizona for the work he has done in trying to come up with a reasonable compromise on this approach that will create many more jobs at much less cost, and for his willingness to stand on this floor and the guts he has to be able to take on all of us as colleagues in the Senate to try and do what is right.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Madam President, this morning a number of us went to the National Prayer Breakfast--I saw the Senator from North Carolina there--which is always a wonderful event. It was especially a good event today because our new President was there for the first time. I think we would agree that he got a tremendous reception. We prayed for him, we cheered him. We recognize he has become President at a difficult time in our Nation's history. And we want him to succeed. Because if he succeeds, our country succeeds, which is why this debate on this bill is so disappointing. This is the first big proposal by the new administration.

One New York Times columnist said, it is the first test. And what is this about? We all know what is it about, the economy is in tough shape. Many people have lost their jobs. Homes are being repossessed. IRA accounts are lower. People are worried.

So we are hoping that in this first test we--the President and the Congress--will get an A-plus, flying colors. What are we seeking to do? We are seeking to get the economy moving again. Is that not right? Is that not what this is about? Is that not what a stimulus bill is?

We have got a bad economy. We have housing foreclosures. Whatever action we take, we want to get the economy moving again. And we want to keep in mind while we are doing this that we have a big debt in this country. I do not mean just the Federal Government has a debt, because it is a Government debt owed by the people of this country.

USA Today the other day did an estimate that showed each of our American families has a share of about $500,000 of that debt and future obligations based on promises the government has already made. So the Alexander family has got a $500,000 share of that debt and future obligations. The Grassley family does. The Hagan family does. The Baucus family does. We each have that. So we have to keep that in mind.

What shall we do? The Senator from Montana said, everyone seems to agree, we need to spend some money. And the proposal that has come toward us certainly does meet that test. It would spend $900 billion. And if you add the interest to that over 10 years, which is the way we usually think about things, that is $1.2 or $1.3 trillion.

How much money is this we are talking about spending? Well, the former chairman of the Budget Committee, the Senator from New Mexico, Mr. Domenici, called me yesterday. He has been doing some figuring, and he figured it took from the beginning of the Republic when George Washington was the President until the early 1980s for the United States of America to pile up a cumulative debt of $850 billion.

What we are proposing to do is to spend in this one bill, by the end of this week or next week, as much money as the debt this country piled up between George Washington's Presidency and Ronald Reagan's Presidency. That is a lot of money. According to the newspaper Politico, it is more than we have spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is more money than we have spent, in today's dollars, going to the Moon. It is more money than the Government spent on the New Deal in today's dollars. It is almost as much money as NASA has spent in its entire existence. We are proposing to spend that in this one bill, nearly $1 trillion.

The Senator from Montana said, well, we are all concerned about the debt. I wonder if we are if the first thing we are going to do is borrow $1 trillion. This is not money we have in the drawer here. It is not over here in the Senate cloakroom. It is out in the future somewhere. We are going to borrow half of it from the Chinese and other people around the world, and then somebody--us, our children, and our grandchildren--is going to have to pay it back.

So what standards should we use if we are going to borrow some money to get the economy started, money that we are going to have to pay back, a lot of money? Well, the Speaker of the House, Ms. Pelosi, gave us a standard for what a real stimulus package is. Last year, when we saw the beginnings of this downturn and we acted in a bipartisan way to swiftly try to spend some money to be of some help, she said: It must be timely, targeted, and temporary.

This is timely. But it is not targeted. It is not temporary, which is what I wish to talk about. Last night we had a chance to help make it more targeted and more temporary. Senator McCain offered an amendment to the Senate that said, we are for a stimulus package. We believe it ought to be targeted, for example, on housing and letting people keep more of their own money, and on plans and programs that will create jobs in the first year. That would be what we are for in terms of stimulus.

But he said, let me make one other suggestion, and he offered an amendment to us which would say this: When the economy recovers, the stimulus spending stops. That was the McCain amendment. When the economy recovers, the stimulus spending stops. Because if what we are doing here is borrowing money from every American family and spending it with a hope that it helps the economy get going this year, once the economy gets going, has not the rationale disappeared for spending that money?

We spend a lot of other money around here. We know that we have annual appropriations bills. We have got banks in trouble. We have got housing in trouble. So the McCain amendment said: After two quarters of a 2-percent increase in the gross domestic product, the money that we have borrowed to spend to get the economy going again stops.

That got 44 votes. So this body has already decided that this is not a temporary stimulus bill.

It is ongoing. So let no one think the trillion dollars proposed to be spent is temporary. Let no one think it is about stimulus. I guess every time you spend a government dollar, there is a little bit of stimulus, I suppose. But I asked

my staff working on appropriations to go over the $900 billion. Here is what they found. They said there is approximately $135 billion of spending that will directly create jobs, including building construction, road construction, locks and dams, environmental cleanup, and national cemetery repair. And only $53 billion of the $135 billion is spent in the next 18 months. If this is a bill about creating jobs this year, if that is the reason we are taking this extravagant debt and adding more to it than we spent in the entire New Deal in today's dollars, that is not very targeted. The bill is neither temporary nor targeted.

What is our responsibility on the Republican side to deal with this? Our responsibility is to offer a better idea.

Our President has said--and we agree--that one way we need to change Washington is that we need to work across the aisle to get results on big issues, results that work. That is why I am in government. I did that when I was a Republican Governor in Tennessee with a Democratic legislature. I believe I have a good record of bipartisan cooperation in the Senate, whether it is President Bush or President Obama. I worked with Senator Lieberman and now with Senator Barrasso and Senator Pryor to create a bipartisan breakfast every Tuesday morning. The Senator from North Carolina came to the breakfast the last 2 weeks. We have talked about the debt and how the entitlement programs--Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid--are creating a crisis in that debt. Social Security is a part of the problem. Medicaid and Medicare is a bigger part. Almost 70 percent of all the money we spend in the Federal Government within about 7 or 8 years will go to Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. That leaves only 30 percent for everything else. It also suggests that by the year 2015, we will be spending 100 percent of our annual gross domestic product; it would take that much money to pay off our debt.

Let me remind colleagues that the United States produces year in and year out about 25 or 28 percent of all the money in the world. So we are headed toward a situation where, in a few years, it would take 25 percent to 28 percent of all the money produced in the world in 1 year to pay off the national debt of the United States.

In a budget hearing the other day with Senators Conrad and Gregg, we asked the witnesses: What is the problem? How much debt can you have? They said: That is kind of general, but 40 percent is where the United States is, 40 percent of GDP. All of this we are talking about in the next few weeks may take us up to 60 percent. That is getting close to trouble. Eighty percent is trouble, and 100 percent is a big problem.

Unlike the 1960s or the 1970s, when we owed our debt to ourselves, when it was much smaller, now we owe half of it to people around the world who may or may not want to continue buying our debt.

Our debt has to be in our minds when we think about borrowing money. We need to apply the Pelosi principle to the stimulus. Temporary? No, it is not. Yesterday, 44 votes said yes. The rest said no, we would like for it to go on a long time. Targeted? No, it is not. Only $135 billion out of $900 billion is aimed toward creating jobs. Only $53 billion of that is spent in the next 18 months.

So what can we do to improve this? On our side, we have a number of proposals to do that. The pending amendment of Senator McCain is one. The amendment by Senator Ensign, which will be voted on today, is another. The amendment by Senator Isakson that was agreed to yesterday is the third.

Here is basically what we think we should be doing with this borrowed money: No. 1, we would fix housing first. We would reorient the stimulus bill away from spending money indefinitely, mostly on programs that do not create jobs in the first year, and spend it instead to restart housing because housing is what got us into this problem. Housing will help get us out of the problem. We have some specific ideas about doing that.

Second, we would let the American people keep more of the money they have. That is stimulative. Letting them keep it permanently is the most stimulative thing we could do. Senator McCain proposes reducing the payroll tax and reducing the lowest level of income tax rates. Those are for working people, people who make less--not more--money.

The third thing we would do is cut the size of the bill and focus it on those projects that create jobs now.

When we say fix housing first, we mean, to begin with, the $15,000 housing credit. If you want to buy a house during the year 2009, you get a $15,000 tax credit. That is real money. You can put it in your pocket this year, if you buy a house.

The second thing we would propose is the Ensign amendment, which would lower mortgage interest rates for all creditworthy Americans. Forty million Americans could take advantage of a rate that would be between 4 and 4.5 percent. We would put a cap on it, so it would not cost taxpayers more than about $300 billion, but most economists with whom we have talked say it is more like $30 billion.

What would be the value of a lower interest rate backed by the Treasury? It would mean, all across the country, instant jobs. People could borrow money. They would have incentive to do so because the average savings of someone who refinanced their home and got a 4- to 4.5-percent interest rate would be approximately $400 a month for 30 years, over the 30-year term of the rate. That is like a permanent tax cut. That money would be in their pockets. It could be spent. It would help stabilize the value of that home. That would help stabilize the value of homes on that block. That would put to work builders and contractors and plumbers and brokers and bankers. That would give banks origination fees so they could have income. And having income, they might have enough money and confidence to start lending. Then this economy could keep moving at a relatively small cost. That is what we mean by fixing housing first.

Senator McCain and Senator Graham have in their proposals legislation to help those individuals whose homes are being foreclosed.

If we could sit down in a bipartisan way and agree that we want to follow the Pelosi principle and make this temporary and targeted and that we should start by fixing housing first, I believe we could agree across the aisle to deal with housing and create instant jobs. We might have less debate about tax cuts, although the President has suggested that we reduce some middle-income taxes. We have suggested the same.

The third thing would be, as Alice Rivlin, former Budget Director for a Democratic President, said: We really ought to have two bills. One would be a bill for long-term investments, many of which I fought for for years in terms of American competitiveness. They are good for the country but don't take effect right away. The other bill, which we need to move on quickly, would be those programs, such as road construction, building construction, locks and dams, and national park maintenance, that would create jobs today. Then we could come to the American people and say: Mr. and Mrs. America, you have a big debt, $500,000 per family, but we, across party lines, have looked at the situation. We need a stimulus. Perhaps it should be $400 billion or $500 billion at the start. But we will not start with how much we are going to spend; we are going to start with what can we do that would work.

Fix housing first, lower interest rate mortgages, a $15,000 tax credit for home buyers, help for those in foreclosures. Next, keep more of your own money in your pockets. That is the payroll tax and cutting rates. Finally, we might spend $100 billion or $150 billion by accelerating Government programs we will have to do anyway and get those jobs coming this year. That would be a responsible, bipartisan way to go about this.

This bill, as it is presently headed toward passage, is a colossal mistake. It is not temporary. It is not targeted. It is not primarily creating jobs. It is not a stimulus bill. It is mostly a spending bill. It is not money we have; it is money we are borrowing. It is a huge amount of money, more money in today's dollars than the Government spent on the New Deal, on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, on the war in Vietnam, almost as much as we have spent on NASA over its life, a huge amount of borrowed money not targeted. Although it is timely, we are rushing it through.

I am disappointed. I had expected better. I have heard the President say he wants to work on entitlements. We take him at his word. We have had two straight Tuesday morning breakfasts where we have sat around the table and said: This is going to be hard to do. We trust the President to get in here with us, and we will figure this out. But this is a bill written in the House. It looks as if they just got down in the drawer, and every spending program they could think of for the last 40 years that didn't pass, they stuck it in. It might be good 20 years from now. It might be good tomorrow. But it is in there.

We won the election. We will write the bill. ``We won the election, we write the bill'' may technically work on a few pieces of legislation. But it will not help move our country forward. It will not be the basis for a successful Presidency. We won the election. We write the bill. This is easy, spending a trillion dollars. The majority just says: Hey, we have some money to spend. Let's grab all the programs we can think of and off we go. But what is coming is really hard.

Next week, the Secretary of the Treasury is likely to tell us we need several hundred billion to deal with toxic assets in banks. I am one of six Republican Senators who voted to give the new President the second amount of $350 billion so he could have that in his pocket to deal with this crisis. But it doesn't increase my appetite to help with the next $400 or $500 billion if we are going to start out by wasting nearly a trillion on programs not needed to fix the economy today.

And probably, since we are not dealing with housing in any significant way in this bill, the new administration may say: We decided we need to get housing going again. I think I would be inclined to say: Mr. Democratic Leader, Mr. President, that is what we said last week. But you said we had to pass a bill in a week. Why didn't we wait a week and see what the Treasury Secretary had to say about banking credits or about housing?

Then the next week we have $900 billion on an appropriations bill. And then, as Senator Baucus has said--and he is exactly right--health care is coming down the pike. I can't figure out a way that the health care bill, even the one I cosponsored with Senators Wyden and Bennett, is not going to cost us a lot more.

So why don't we put this all on the table and work across party lines? Technically, you don't have to do it. Technically, President Bush didn't have to have congressional approval to wage a war in Iraq. But he found and our Nation found that he would have a much more successful Presidency and we would have probably had a much easier war if we could have found some way to work together.

I am disappointed with this, beginning on a stimulus bill that does not meet the Pelosi principle of timely, targeted, and temporary. It is a colossal mistake in the way it is headed. We should fix housing first. Let people keep more of their own money. Strip out the spending programs that don't create jobs now. Deal with them separately, and get in the habit of accepting each other's best ideas on dealing with the biggest problems. We stand ready to do that.

We admire the new President and the tone he has set. We want him to succeed. This bill will not help our country succeed unless it is drastically amended this week.

I yield the floor.