Unemployment Insurance Extension Act of 2010

Mr. President, I rise to speak on behalf of nearly 1 million people who have lost their jobs, who have now also lost their unemployment insurance benefits because of the extensive obstacles and objections that have been put forward in the Senate to extending this important program. I wish I could say this was the first time that had happened. It seems that every time we come to the floor in the middle of these very difficult economic times, even though things are getting better, every time we come to the floor on behalf of people who are out of work, who want to work, who have worked their entire lives but at this point can't find a job, all we get are objections and delays and weeks and weeks and weeks of people sitting on pins and needles, holding their breath, trying to figure out what is going on: Will they have the ability to pay the rent, the mortgage, put food on the table, be able to care for their kids while they are looking for work. Here we are, right back in that very same position.

Right now we have over 15 million people who are on unemployment benefits. That doesn't count those who are working part-time jobs or have fallen off of the system completely because they haven't been able to find a job and have been out of work longer than the insurance benefits will allow. We have 15 million people looking for work, and we are told there are about 3.1 million jobs available. That means there are five people looking for every one job opening. This is not a situation of people not wanting to work. In the State of Michigan, we know how to work. We work hard. We make things. We grow things. We work hard. Yet through no fault of their own, people find themselves in a situation where we have seen an economic tsunami go through our country, lasting in Michigan longer than any other place across the country. And even as we climb our way out--and it is getting better; we have turned the corner; the economic recovery provisions we have put in place we

know are beginning to make a difference--we still are in a situation, even as we are moving and turning the corner, where there are five people out of work for every one job opening. That is real life for too many people I represent.

We have had legislation in front of us. We have been spending weeks now on a jobs bill, a bill to create jobs, to invest in innovation, to help small businesses, to help manufacturers get the capital they need, but to also, in that bill, help people who don't have a job while they are waiting for all this to take effect, for all of this to work, people who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, who find themselves in a situation where they are desperate and depending on us to understand what is happening to too many working families, middle- class families, people who never in their wildest dreams thought they would find themselves in this situation but here they are. They want to know that we get it, that we understand what is happening in their lives and that we are not going to play politics or use people who are out of work somehow as pawns in a political chess game that is going on here in the Senate.

The normal unemployment insurance benefits only last for 26 weeks, but thanks to the recovery act, we have been able to bridge the gap for millions of Americans by extending it. That is very important. But we are at a point now where the recovery has not fully been actualized. People are still in a situation where they need to have help on a temporary basis while they are looking for work.

Since this recession started in 2007, there are now 8 million fewer jobs in America, too many of those in manufacturing. I could spend hours talking about fair trade and what we need to do to make sure markets are open abroad for our products to be sold so we are exporting our products, not our jobs, and how we can have a fair trade policy. I am pleased that in the recovery act we have focused on making things again in America, battery manufacturing facilities and the advanced manufacturing tax credit, both of which I was pleased to be a part of leading to create jobs.

We are creating jobs. But it takes time to turn this around. We find ourselves in a situation where nearly 1 million people who have lost their jobs are going to lose their unemployment benefits because of what has been going on here. They don't have time to wait and hold their breath as we continue to work to turn this economy around. These are families trying to make ends meet. They are applying for jobs every day. They are putting in applications. I get e-mail after e-mail--and I will share some this evening--from people who are trying to find work, putting in applications, going back to school. We have all said to them: Maybe you need to go back to school. They have gone back to school to get retraining, but they have to keep a roof over their heads while they are doing that. They have to keep food on the table, keep the electricity on for their families while they are doing that. That is what unemployment benefits allow them to do.

The last time Congress cut off emergency unemployment insurance benefits was after the terrible recession in 1985, when the employment rate was 7.3 percent. Today, 33 States and the District of Columbia now have unemployment that is higher than 7.3 percent. These are red States, blue States, Republicans who are out of work, Democrats who are out of work. It doesn't matter what party one is; if they lose their job, it is an emergency for the family. They expect the Senate to understand that and to act. In 16 of those States, unemployment is still higher than 10 percent. Many States haven't seen this many people out of work since the Great Depression.

When we look at the States where there are more than 1 in 10 people who have lost jobs through no fault of their own, we see a picture that is, in fact, America. I know one of those great States is the State of my colleague who is from Rhode Island. He has come to the floor on numerous occasions to speak about the people of Rhode Island, just as I have come on numerous occasions to speak about the people in the great State of Michigan. I am pleased the Senator from Rhode Island is here.

I yield the Senator up to 10 minutes to speak at this time.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Whitehouse very much for his passion, his leadership.

Just to emphasize what the Senator was talking about on the floor in terms of where we have come from, I remember being in the House of Representatives in 1997, I believe, when we voted to balance the budget for the first time in 30 years under President Clinton. It was tough. We had to make tough decisions, but we did that, and we were on a trajectory so that by the year 2000--when I was elected to the Senate in 2001 and came into the Budget Committee--the big debate was what to do with the biggest surplus in the history of the country. We saw that big surplus, during the 8 years of President Bush, go red with red ink, down, down, down, down, so much so that when President Obama came in, the job loss was at about 750,000 jobs a month. We were losing 750,000 jobs a month. So we went to work and we focused on people in the middle class, on innovation and investing in businesses and creating opportunities and so on, and these numbers now, on jobs per month, have gone from a negative now up to a positive.

The challenge is--we are not done yet--do not stop what we have been doing. This jobs bill on the floor is to get us to a point where those numbers keep going up and up and up, so everybody who wants to work can work. We have turned this around in terms of job loss. The numbers are going up. But it is not enough. We are not there yet, and too many people are caught in the middle. In fact, even though the numbers are better and we are moving in the right direction, we still have five people out of work for every one job opening.

In a moment, I am going to ask for unanimous consent. I will let my colleagues on the other side of the aisle know that I will do that in about 5 minutes, to give them a heads-up. But in the meantime, I want to read a few letters and then turn things over to another colleague from Oregon who cares passionately about this.

I want to share with you what have been literally thousands of e- mails and phone calls we have been getting from people in Michigan. I go home every weekend, and I am constantly talking to people who find themselves in very tough situations--people who have never been out of a job before in their lives, never, and now they are in their fifties and trying to figure out what they are going to do, and they find themselves in a situation where they are having to depend upon unemployment benefits, which is the last thing they have ever wanted.

Judith from Taylor:

Both my husband and I have been unemployed for over a year

now. We have been trying desperately to find work and haven't

even gotten call backs for jobs we have applied for. It has

been frightening and discouraging but we keep trying.

Because of our situation, we have been forced to sell our

home and we will be closing this month, at a considerable

loss!

That is the other piece of this. It is not just about a job. The next thing is you lose your house, and then the ripple effect goes from there.

The bank we have our equity with has refused to settle and

has told us they reserve the right to come after us for the

balance. We will be having to break into our retirement funds

again with penalty. On top of all this, our youngest son,

Nathaniel, is a combat medic with the 101st Airborne and

will be one of the 30,000 that are being deployed to

Afghanistan. Needless to say, my husband and I are on

overload!! Please help the unemployed workers in Michigan

by extending the emergency funds. PLEASE don't leave so

many people literally out in the cold.

That is what is happening. That is what is happening right now by these efforts to block, to say no. We have come to the floor multiple times on individual bills to extend unemployment, plus the two times now we have voted to stop filibusters on the jobs bill. All we get from the other side is no, no, no. As my friend from Rhode Island said, when we get to the estate tax, it will be yes, yes, yes. And it will not matter where the funds come from, if they add to the deficit--oh, no, not for the few hundred people in our country who are the wealthiest.

When somebody is out of work, that is something different. When somebody is out of work, we have a set of rules that say: No, this is not an emergency. We have always said it is an emergency, with emergency funding. This is not an emergency? Well, I tell you what, when 15 million people are out of work, I would consider that an emergency. That is as much of an emergency as a flood, a hurricane, anything else we have seen in this country. Tens of millions of people out of work is an economic emergency and deserves emergency status here in this body.

Let me share one other story before asking unanimous consent. Michele from Suttons Bay:

I am a 50-year-old journeyman carpentry foreman who was

laid off by a small construction company in December 2008

after 10-plus years with them. I have been looking for a

full-time job ever since. I went through the state's

retraining program last summer and am now a BPI certified

energy efficiency auditor. But I can't afford to buy the

equipment to start my own business. And no companies are

hiring energy efficiency auditors right now. I have been

looking for any kind of work that allows us to pay the

mortgage and our other very basic bills.

My wife has a full-time job in retail. We have two sons--

one is 16, and the other is 12. We have been surviving with

the aid of my unemployment [insurance]. I have already gone

through the state unemployment benefits, and I am now in the

second period of [the] federal . . . program.

Please don't forget about us.

Well, that is what this is about this evening. That is what the legislation is about that we are focused on. That is what all of our efforts are focused on--jobs, creating good-paying jobs, partnering with business, manufacturers, small businesses, creating the atmosphere for private sector jobs, and remembering the people who, through no fault of their own, cannot find work today.

Unanimous Consent Request--S. 3520

So, Mr. President, on behalf of the close to 1 million people right now who have lost their jobs and are now losing their unemployment benefits, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 3520, the Unemployment Extension Act of 2010; that the bill be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, before I yield to my friend from Oregon, let me say the question before us is whether we take dollars from a jobs bill, from a Recovery Act, where we are creating jobs right now, which is what has been proposed over and over--that we basically take it out of one pocket and put it in the other. We want to make sure we are creating jobs and allowing the recovery--or what has been called the stimulus--to be able to work to do that, and it is beginning to do that. So taking dollars out of that pocket, which is what has been proposed by the other side of the aisle in order to be able to address unemployment benefits, doesn't make sense.

I would state one more time: We have always viewed the extension of unemployment benefits in times of economic hardship to be an emergency, just like any other emergency in this country. Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are refusing to acknowledge that this is an emergency. It is an emergency. When over 15 million people are out of work, it is an emergency, and we should do as we have done under every Republican and every Democratic President. We have called it an emergency. We should continue to call it an emergency, and we should allow those benefits to continue.

I now yield 5 minutes to my colleague from Oregon.

Mr. President, I wish to again thank my friend from Oregon who consistently has come to the Senate floor to fight for jobs and to fight for people who are looking for work. I thank him very much for sharing those stories.

I now wish to turn to Senator Bernie Sanders who has been another champion in this fight.

Mr. President, I thank my friend from Vermont for his passion. I now yield 5 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Rhode Island, Mr. Reed, who is a true leader on this issue. He has been coming to the floor and standing up for working men and women. It is a pleasure always to work with him on this issue.

Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the senior Senator from New York, and I thank him for his passionate leadership on behalf of our country.

Mr. President, I thank my friend from New York for those very stirring words about the families he talked with. I think all of us can relate to that, as he was talking about someone from New York each day going to a different city and State to look for work.

I go back home every weekend. I go home Fridays and come back on Mondays. I am very frequently now on a plane with somebody who is coming to work in DC--or to look for work--from Michigan. Every week they are going back and forth. People are willing to get on planes to find jobs and to work. People are getting on planes now from Michigan and going across the country. I have talked to people who go from one end of the country to another on an airplane because they want to work. People want to work.

The idea that somehow we should treat this economic recession differently than any other recession in the history of our country-- different than any other Republican President or any other Democratic President, any other Republican Congress or any other Democratic Congress, by somehow saying we are not going to categorize it as an emergency--which it is--to make that change, which is what we are talking about here on our side with our colleagues--to make that change, to allow that to happen would be to say to these individuals that we do not understand what is happening in their lives.

I want to take the final couple of moments of my time, before yielding to colleagues, to read a couple more letters. One is from Susan from Grand Rapids, who writes:

My husband has been out of work since September of 2009.

His benefits will expire

soon. He has worked all his life, since he was 13 and he had

a paper route. He is a veteran. We are 60 years old now. He

applies for jobs every [single] day. He has a Bachelor of

Science Degree and has worked for the past 20 years in the

construction industry. He has had one interview. One. Out of

hundreds of jobs he has applied for, not just in Michigan but

all over the [country]. Please help us by extending the

Federal unemployment benefit. I am frightened that we will

lose our house. Sixty year old people should not have to be

frightened of becoming homeless [in this country]. This is

something you can do right now for hundreds of thousands of

desperate people. Not a fix for future but helping the people

that are struggling right now.

That is what this is about. Tonight, we can fix this by getting unanimous consent to do what every other White House and Congress has done--to declare that this is an emergency and fund this as an emergency, as we have done year after year after year in this country, given what is happening to millions of people in this country.

We care about the deficit. Some of us have voted to eliminate the deficit, as we voted for balanced budgets and put ourselves into a situation of economic prosperity under the Clinton administration, before it was wiped out in the last administration with deficit spending. But in caring about deficits, it is important to emphasize that we will never get out of deficit with over 15 million people out of work or 20 million or whatever the real number is. We will never get out of deficit with that many people not working and contributing. We will never get out of deficit, which is why we focus on jobs.

We have a jobs bill in front of us. So far not one Republican colleague--not one--has voted with us on this jobs bill to create jobs, to invest to create capital for manufacturers and small businesses, to invest in innovation and, yes, to help those who are currently without a job through no fault of their own. So far not one Republican colleague has been willing to join with us.

We are desperately concerned about the almost 1 million Americans who lost their jobs and now are losing their unemployment benefits. We are simply saying it is time to extend those benefits and to understand what is happening to people all over this country who have worked hard and played by the rules and find themselves in a situation where the world is just tumbling down around them--just tumbling down around them--no matter how hard they are looking and trying to find work.

Claudia from Commerce Township:

I worked hard all my life and this is the first time I have

ever had to accept unemployment benefits to help me get by.

Believe me, I do not want to be in this situation . . . I

would like nothing more than to be working again. I was laid

off in January of 2009 from a company that lost multiple

contracts with the automotive manufacturers and fell on hard

times.

A lot of folks in Michigan are in this story.

I have a great deal of experience in my field of expertise

(Human Resources) and I hold a bachelor's degree. I have been

looking for a job for the past year. At times, I have been

encouraged by success in assessment testing and interviews

I've completed, but I always seem to lose out in the end. I

have taken classes to brush up on my job search skills and

believe I do well with my resume and in interviews. I even

enrolled and paid for a course to assist me in getting an HR

certification to make me more marketable. However, I am 56,

and the fact is that in this economy--

If I may have 30 more seconds to complete the sentence.

She said:

I am 56 . . . and employers are opting for the person with

a master's degree--or frankly, someone younger . . . I am a

hard worker, intelligent, efficient, trustworthy, honest,

dependable and upbeat.

Mr. President, these are the folks we are talking about and for whom we are fighting this evening.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object.

I certainly understand the concern about this particular program. This is something I support, and it is, in fact, in the broader jobs bill we have. Hopefully, within the next 2 days, we will get another vote to complete this along with unemployment benefits.

Given the fact that we are still in a situation where we have almost 1 million people whose unemployment benefits are running out and that is not included in this request, I have to object.

Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, my colleague's proposal takes money out of job creation to pay for helping people who are out of work. One of the provisions in his proposal would take $37.5 billion away from creating jobs in order to create help for the unemployed and then create more people who are unemployed. So I regret to say I will have to object to this request.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I first commend my friend from Utah for speaking about small business. This is something that we share a very strong passion regarding. In fact, we are operating right now under some small business reforms that have already been passed this year and a 5-year net loss operating carryback--not the 10 years my friend has talked about, but we have begun that with 5 years.

The section 179 expensing was passed in the jobs bill, which is very important. I am hopeful we will be able to join together on a bipartisan basis when our leaders bring to the floor a small business bill that will exempt capital gains for small business, increase the availability of loans, and that we might work together on the other provisions that my friend has suggested from his bill.

At this point, I will object but look forward to working with him on these very important measures.

Mr. President, I have a unanimous consent request but I will wait until a Member from the other side is here to make it. As a predicate to that, I will make a statement on my reason for doing so.

As the majority continues to struggle in an attempt to pass another massive deficit spending bill through Congress, biodiesel plants in Iowa and throughout the country continue to lay off workers because the Democratically controlled Congress has not extended the biodiesel tax credit. This is a simple and noncontroversial tax extension that will likely reinstate 20,000 jobs nationwide and about 2,000 jobs in my State of Iowa all by itself. These jobs have fallen victim to a tactic used by the Democratic leadership to hold this popular and noncontroversial tax provision hostage to out-of-control deficit spending in Washington.

This past February, I worked out a bipartisan deal with Chairman Baucus to extend the expired tax provision, including the biodiesel tax credit. However, the Senate Democratic leadership decided to put partisanship ahead of job security for thousands of workers in the biodiesel industry. I am here again to try to put thousands of workers back to work, American workers, in the process of producing a clean and renewable fuel. We already stripped out and passed the so-called doctor fix from the larger extenders bill last week. We should do the same with the biodiesel tax credit right now.

Also there is a difference between the biodiesel tax credit and the other tax provisions in the tax extenders bill. The failure to extend the biodiesel tax credit before it expires has ground the industry to a halt, because biodiesel is now more expensive than gasoline and gas stations know they can't sell it. So, of course, naturally, they don't buy it. Therefore, biodiesel producers have stopped producing it because they have nobody to sell it to. While the other tax provisions are important, they are not as time sensitive as biodiesel, because they are not transactional tax incentives like the biodiesel tax credit but instead are based on the taxable year.

I am going to reserve my unanimous consent request until the Senator from Michigan returns. I will go to other remarks I want to make at this point.

I see the Senator has returned so I will make my unanimous consent request at this point.

Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 4853

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 4853, that all after the enacting clause be stricken and the text of S. 3440, to extend the biodiesel fuel tax credit, be inserted; that the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table.

Mr. President, I have a further unanimous consent request. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 4853; that all after the enacting clause be stricken and that an amendment at the desk, which is the text of S. 3421, be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, may I ask how much time remains?

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, this morning we saw yet another replay of a dialog between some of my friends on the other side and some on my side of the aisle. It kind of goes like this. Republicans make a proposal to make a pending Democratic leadership proposal such as the extenders bill deficit neutral. The Democratic leadership marshals the votes and defeats the deficit-neutral proposal on a largely party-line basis. After the vote, debate ensues. My friends on the other side define the proposal that they defeat in an incorrect way. They define it as a proposal to carry out the policy of a fiscally responsible manner as opposition to the underlying policy in the proposal. Republicans counter that the Republican deficit-neutral proposal carries most, if not all, of the policy contained in the Democratic leadership's proposal.

When the smoke clears, the true differences between the two sides' approaches become very clear. My friends on the other side want to add to the deficit to carry out the underlying initiative--be it an extension of unemployment benefits or a lot of other things in the bill. On this side, we want deficit neutrality at a minimum by rolling back future bloated spending. The Democratic leadership wants to keep in place the future bloated spending. Tax increases are OK, if they are offset. Bring on hundreds of billions of dollars of tax increase, whether they hit individuals, small businesses, or what have you. As an example, the latest tax is due to hit next week. Next Tuesday, July 1, users of tanning bed services will face a new 10-percent tanning bed excise tax. God help us if someone proposes to make the government even a little bit leaner. That proposal will be met with a brick wall of resistance, even if it is a proposal to roll back future unobligated, unallocated stimulus spending, which stimulus spending has not accomplished what it was intended to accomplish, keeping unemployment under 8 percent.

The upshot is this: For my friends in the Democratic leadership, keeping the spending spigot all the way open trumps deficit reduction. Keep the spending going, in other words. Worry about our deficit sometime down the road. Let our grandchildren worry about it.

On the Republican side, we want to trim the spending and save some taxpayers money by managing priorities. That is a worthwhile debate. It is an intellectually honest debate. It is the kind of debate that can inform fiscal policy judgments. But my friends in the Democratic leadership are not content to have the debate on that basis. Instead, we have seen a pattern where they want to change the subject. Instead of focusing on the present and the future, my friends on the other side want to revisit the past. In veering away from current choices and future fiscal consequences, my friends on the other side take the discussion in a whole different direction. My friends on the other side claim they cannot deal with these problems in a fiscally responsible manner because of Republicans. Republicans only left them with fiscal problems.

People watching C-SPAN witnessed this back and forth last Thursday, and around lunchtime the Senate voted on Senator Thune's alternative to the Democratic leadership's extender bill. The Thune amendment took the exact opposite approach to the Democratic leadership's substitute. It cut taxes by $26 billion by extending current law. It cut spending by over $100 billion and reduced the deficit by $68 billion. Those are not this Senator's numbers. They come from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the last version of the Democratic leadership's extender substitute would have increased direct spending by about $105 billion through the year 2020, and raised revenues by about $50

billion over that period, resulting in a net deficit increase of about $55 billion. As an aside, last Friday Chairman Baucus and I prevailed on the leadership to clear the deficit-neutral bill that extended the so-called Medicare doctor fix. That action will cut those numbers a little bit.

On the larger bill, however, the contrast could not be clearer. The Republican Conference, along with one member of the Democratic caucus, voted to change the bottom line fiscal effects of the Democratic leadership's extender substitute. If Senator Thune had prevailed, his amendment would have reduced the deficit by $13 billion more than the amount the Democratic leadership's extender substitute would have added to the deficit. The Thune amendment reached this better fiscal result by simple common sense of restraining Federal spending. All but one Member of the Democratic caucus then in attendance, 57 Senators, voted against the Thune amendment. One of the Senators who voted for the Thune amendment came to the Senate floor to highlight the differences between the Democratic caucus and the Republican Conference in the approach to this extenders bill.

A Member of the Democratic leadership also made some comments on the current fiscal problems. Instead of focusing on the question of whether to offset the policy or not, that Member decided to change the subject. As we saw this morning, that Member of the Democratic leadership wanted to go back several years and talk about fiscal history.

This morning, like last week, there was a lot of revision or perhaps editing of the recent budget history. I expect more of it from some on the other side.

The President signaled as much in an interview with George Stephanopoulos a few months ago. I agree with the President that there is a lot of revisionism in the debate.

The revisionist history basically boils down to two conclusions: One, that all of the ``good'' fiscal history of the 1990s was derived from a partisan tax increase bill of 1993; and, two, that all of the ``bad'' fiscal history of this decade to date is attributable to the bipartisan tax relief plans.

Not surprisingly, nearly all of the revisionists who spoke generally oppose tax relief and--do you know what--support tax increases. The same crew generally supports spending increases and opposes spending cuts.

In the debate so far, many on this side have pointed out some key undeniable facts. The stimulus bill passed by the Senate, with interest included, increases the deficit by over $1 trillion. The stimulus bill was a heavy stew of spending increases and refundable tax credits, seasoned with small pieces of tax relief.

The bill passed by the Senate had new temporary spending that, if made permanent, will burden future budget deficits by over $2.5 trillion. That is not Senate Republicans adding that up. It is the official congressional scorekeeper, the Congressional Budget Office, nonpartisan as they are. In fact, the deficit effects of the stimulus bill passed a year ago March--passed within a short time after the Democrats assumed full control of the Federal Government--roughly exceeded the deficit impact of the 8 years of bipartisan tax relief.

All of this occurred in an environment where the automatic economic stabilizers, thankfully, kicked in to help the most unfortunate in America with unemployment insurance, food stamps, and other benefits.

That antirecessionary spending, together with lower tax receipts, and the TARP activities, has set a fiscal table of a deficit of $1.4 trillion for the fiscal year that ended several months ago. That is the highest deficit, as a percentage of the economy, in post-World War II history.

It is not a pretty fiscal picture, and it is going to get a lot uglier with the budget put forward by the President this year. It is the same result under the budget crafted last year by the Democratic leadership.

So for the folks who see this bill as an opportunity to ``recover'' America with government taking a larger share of the economy over the long term, I say congratulations. America has been recovered with a vast expansion of government and the American People have a lot of red ink to look forward to.

Members who voted for the budget and the fiscal policy envisioned in it put us on the path to a bigger role for the government. But supporters of that fiscal policy need to own up to the fiscal course they are charting.

That is where the revisionist history comes from. From the perspective of those on our side, it seems to be a strategy to divert, through a twisted blame game, from the facts before us. How is the history revised? Let's take each conclusion one by one.

The first conclusion is that all of the ``good'' fiscal history was derived from the 1993 tax increase. To test that assertion, all you have to do is take a look at data from the Clinton administration.

The much-ballyhooed 1993 partisan tax increase accounts for 13 percent of the deficit reduction in the 1990s--13 percent. That 13 percent figure was calculated by the Clinton administration's Office of Management and Budget.

The biggest source of deficit reduction, 35 percent, came from a reduction in defense spending. Of course, that fiscal benefit originated from President Reagan's stare-down of the Communist regime in Russia. The same folks on that side who opposed President Reagan's defense buildup take credit for the fiscal benefit of the ``peace dividend.''

The next biggest source of deficit reduction, 32 percent, came from other revenue.

Basically, this was the fiscal benefit from pro-growth policies, like the bipartisan capital gains tax cut in 1997, and the freetrade agreements President Clinton, with Republican votes, established.

The savings from the policies I have pointed out translated to interest savings. Interest savings account for 15 percent of the deficit reduction.

Now, for all the chest-thumping about the 1990s, the chest-thumpers, who push for big social spending, didn't bring much to the deficit reduction table in the 1990s. Their contribution was 5 percent.

What is more, the fiscal revisionist historians in this body tend to forget who the players were. They are correct that there was a Democratic President in the White House. But they conveniently forget that Republicans controlled the Congress for the period where the deficit came down and turned to surplus.

They tend to forget they fought the principle of a balanced budget that was the centerpiece of Republican fiscal policy.

Remember the government shutdown of late 1995, my friends on the Democratic side? Remember what that was about? It was about a plan to balance the budget. We are constantly reminded of the political price paid by the other side for the record tax increase they put in the law in 1993. Republicans paid a political price for forcing the balanced budget issue in 1996. But, in 1997, President Clinton agreed. Recall as well all through the 1990s what the year-end battles were about.

On one side, congressional Democrats and the Clinton administration pushed for more spending. On the other side, congressional Republicans were pushing for tax relief.

In the end, both sides compromised. That is the real fiscal history of the 1990s.

Let's turn to the other conclusion of the revisionist fiscal historians. That conclusion is that, in this decade, all fiscal problems are attributable to the widespread tax relief enacted in 2001, 2003, 2004, and 2006.

In 2001, President Bush came into office. He inherited an economy that was careening downhill. Investment started to go flat in 2000. The tech-fueled stock market bubble was bursting. After that came the economic shocks of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Add in the corporate scandals to that economic environment.

And it is true, as fiscal year 2001 came to close, the projected surplus turned to a deficit. But it is wrong to attribute the entire deficit occurring during this period to the bipartisan tax relief. According to CBO, the bipartisan tax relief is responsible for only 25 percent of the deficit change, while 44 percent is attributable to higher spending, and 31 percent is attributable to economic and technical changes.

At just the right time, the 2001 tax relief plan started to kick in. As the

tax relief hit its full force in 2003, the deficits grew smaller. This pattern continued up through 2007.

If my comments were meant to be partisan shots, I could say this favorable fiscal path from 2003 to 2007 was the only period, aside from 6 months in 2001, where Republicans controlled the White House and the Congress. But, unlike the fiscal history revisionists, I am not trying to make any partisan points, I am just trying to get to the fiscal facts.

There is also data that compares the tax receipts for 4 years after the much-ballyhooed 1993 tax increase and the 4-year period after the 2003 tax cuts. I have a chart that tracks those trends.

In 1993, the Clinton tax increase brought in more revenue as compared to the 2003 tax cut. That trend reversed as both policies moved along.

Over the first few years, the extra revenue went up over time relative to the flat line of the 1993 tax increase.

So, let's get the fiscal history right.

The progrowth tax and trade policies of the 1990s, along with the ``peace dividend,'' had a lot more to do with the deficit reduction in the 1990s than the 1993 tax increase. In this decade, deficits went down after the tax relief plans were put in full effect.

No economist I am aware of would link the bursting of the housing bubble with the bipartisan tax relief plans of 2001 and 2003.

Likewise, I know of no economic research that concludes that the bipartisan tax relief of 2001 and 2003 caused the financial meltdown of September and October 2008. I have a chart that shows what the President inherited from a Democratic Congress and a Republican President.

As I said, from the period of 2003 through 2007, after the bipartisan tax relief program was in full effect, the general pattern was this: revenues went up and deficits went down.

That is the past. We need to make sure we understand it. But what is most important is the future. People in our States send us here to deal with future policy. They don't send us here to flog one another, like partisan cartoon cut-out characters, over past policies. They don't send us here to endlessly point fingers of blame.

The substitute before us takes us in the direction of more deficits and debt. The Thune amendment, which was rejected by most of the Democratic Caucus, would have put us on a path in the opposite fiscal direction. My friends on the other side fool no one if they pretend that the fiscal choices made by the Democratic leadership and the President over the last year have nothing to do with this rapidly rising debt.

President Obama rightly focused us on the future with his eloquence during the campaign. I would like to paraphrase a quote from the President's nomination acceptance speech: We need a President who can face the threats of the future, not grasping at the ideas of the past.

President Obama was right.

We need a President, and, I would add, Congressmen and Senators who can face the threats of the future. Grasping at ideas of the past or playing the partisan blame game will not deal with the threats to our fiscal future.

It is not too late to correct the excesses of the stimulus bill or the bloated appropriations bills that will come. The Senate missed an opportunity with a partisan rejection of Senator Thune's alternative.

We took a small, bipartisan step last Friday. The Senate unanimously approved a paid-for Medicare doc fix bill, led by my friend, Chairman Baucus. That was the way we need to go.

There are more bipartisan fiscally responsible efforts underway. Senator McCaskill's and Senator Sessions' amendment, which calls for a timeout on the exponentially rising levels of appropriations spending, is a good start. The President called on the Democratic leadership to do something similar.

That is what the American people want and need. There is a way to reach a real bipartisan compromise. It is right in front of the Democratic leadership. Efforts to change the subject and blame Republican Congresses of many years ago won't answer the questions about what needs to be done now.

Efforts to blame every fiscal problem on a Republican President who retired a year and a half ago is no answer. It is a strategy that avoids responsibility for the trillions of new spending that the Democratic leadership and this President have muscled through with large majorities. It is time to match the power with responsibility. The American People expect no less.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I offered an amendment a week ago during the debate on the extenders legislation that is still on the floor of the Senate that would have paid for all the things the Senator from Michigan would like to see paid for, and we have things we need to do, such as unemployment insurance, an extension of that. We need to deal with the issue of these expiring tax provisions.

What we would do is simply say we start paying for things around here. So I offered an amendment that would do that. It was defeated here in the Senate. But at 8:15, I intend to come back here and offer that again as an alternative because I think probably everybody in the Senate agrees we need to address the concern of people who are unemployed in this economy, but we should do it in a way that is fiscally responsible. That is what my amendment will do. So, Mr. President, I object.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 4853; that all after the enacting clause be stricken and the text of the Thune amendment 4376 be inserted; that the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I would like to speak to the amendment I just proffered to the other side which was objected to.

I think there is a consensus in the Senate that we need to fix some of these problems we are facing, one of which is the expiration of unemployment insurance for people who are unemployed. There are a lot of tax provisions that are expiring that need to be extended, things such as the research and development tax credit, which is critical to innovation and competitiveness in this country, and a whole range of other tax credits which affect a broad range of our economy.

Also, I believe it is important that we provide some certainty to people who depend upon Federal policy, and one of those groups would be the physicians in this country who rely upon

Medicare reimbursements for much of their survival because they treat so many Medicare patients. Much of the patient base for many of the physicians in my area of the country, where we have a high elderly population, is Medicare. Obviously, physicians have been facing--up until last week--a 21-percent cut. That was addressed for 6 months, so we have fixed that. We have dealt with it for 6 months. Obviously, that is an issue that will come up again. What my amendment would have done was to solve that issue not just for the next 6 months but to the end of the year 2012. So physicians in this country would have gotten an additional 2 years of relief, so to speak, with regard to their reimbursement.

So I would suggest that inasmuch as these are all things we agree need to be done, the real basic disagreement here revolves around how do we do that.

What the other side has put forward is a series of proposals, starting with the first one, that had $70 billion in tax increases and almost $80 billion added to the Federal debt. The last proposal that was put forward by the Democratic majority had $50 billion in tax increases and $55 billion added to the Federal debt. We hope that this week we are going to see that slim down even further, and I would suggest we are making progress in the right direction. But I think it is still fair to say these things need to be paid for.

As many of my colleagues have pointed out, we have $13 trillion in debt that we owe. That includes debt that is owed between governmental agencies--we call that intergovernmental debt--as well as debt held by the public. If you can find it, the debt held just by the public is about $8.6 trillion. But remember, we are talking about trillions and trillions of dollars.

As my colleague from Tennessee just pointed out, it took 43 Presidents 232 years to get to $5.8 trillion. The amount of debt we compiled and accumulated between 1776 and 2008--232 years of American history--was $5.8 trillion. Now, under this President's budget, we will equal that amount in the next 5 years and double it in 10. In other words, we will double the Federal debt today in 5 years and triple it in 10. That is an astounding number. If you think about all of American history up until the year 2008--232 years and 43 Presidents to get to $5.8 trillion--we are going to double that amount in 5 years and triple it in 10. Staggering.

Under this new administration, we have already racked up enormous amounts of new debt because we added $1 trillion to the debt to pay for a stimulus bill which has not shown any evidence of job creation other than jobs that have been created here in Washington, DC, at the Federal Government level. I think you could argue that Washington's economy has benefited because we have created some government jobs, most of which are temporary census jobs. But if you look at the overall job statistics, we have lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 million jobs since the passage of the stimulus bill.

We passed health care expansion, which was sold as health care reform but, frankly, does little to reform health care and certainly doesn't do anything consequential to reduce health care costs. I think most Americans now realize, as insurance premiums continue to go up and as the Actuary and the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Tax Committee all attest to the fact, we are going to see the cost curve bend up, not down, as a result of the passage of health care reform. This is a $2\1/2\ trillion expansion over a 10-year period, when it is fully implemented.

That is a massive new entitlement program on top of the entitlement programs that are already bearing down on us and leading us toward a situation where, in a very few years if we don't take some serious steps, this country is going to be bankrupt. We are going to be belly- up. It is as simple as that. You cannot continue to sustain trillion- dollar deficits year after year after year, which is what we are facing for the foreseeable and long-term future, and expect that we are not going to completely drive this country into the ditch.

So the amendment I offer pays for things. It says: Let's change the way we do things around here. Let's quit handing the bill to our children and grandchildren. Let's quit putting it on the credit card and saying to the next generation: You pay this.

There is certainly nothing wrong with the things the other side is trying to accomplish. As I said, I think there is consensus about addressing these serious needs in our economy right now. But the difference of opinion exists here about, how do you do that? We are simply saying: Let's pay for things. Let's start doing something different here in Washington. Let's do what the American family has to do, what the American small businesses have to do. Let's pay for things, for crying out loud. That is what my amendment would do. It would say: Here are some ways we can shave some savings and we can cut spending here in Washington, DC, and do all these things we think we ought to do without adding to the debt and without raising taxes in the process.

A few months back, here in the Senate, we passed legislation which was labeled as historic and passed to great fanfare. It was called pay- go legislation, and it created pay-go rules that suggested that from now on we are going to start paying for things. What has happened since the passage of pay-go? The Senate has approved, if you count the not- paid-for portions of the bill that is on the floor right now--of course, that hasn't been approved yet, but assuming it were--nearly $200 billion of new debt. From the time we said we are going to start paying for things, which was a few short months ago, we have waived the very rules that were going to put us on a path to fiscal responsibility and fiscal discipline, declared everything an emergency, and added almost $200 billion to the Federal debt.

So here we are today debating yet again another measure that will add more to the Federal debt, that will impose taxes on small businesses in our economy at a time when they are trying to get some momentum to help churn us out of this recession, get us back to where we are creating jobs and to a period of economic growth. All we are doing is piling new taxes on them--taxes on investment, taxes on small businesses, and taxes, of course, with the recent passage of the health care bill, literally on everybody because all those tax increases are going to get passed on to the American consumer.

So where are we? Here is where we are. There are a number of things that can be done that would do what the other side wants to do--to pay for the extension of unemployment benefits. One of those things would be that we could save the necessary amount of money to pay for this now.

The cost of extending unemployment benefits in the Democratic proposal, by the way, is $33 billion. That is a substantial amount of money, but there are many ways in which that could be paid for, all of which were included in my amendment last week, but let me suggest a couple of discrete parts of that amendment that might be stripped out and used to pay just for the unemployment insurance.

We can pay for the extension of the unemployment benefits by returning unspent stimulus funds, which would save $34.5 billion. So the $33 billion in unemployment benefits that need to be extended to people who have lost jobs in the recession could be paid for by returning unspent stimulus funds to the tune of $34.5 billion. So there would be enough to pay for the unemployment benefits and some left over.

It could also be paid for through a 5-percent cut to the 2010 appropriations and an expansion of the affordability exemption to the individual mandate in the health care reform law, which together would save $33.5 billion. So that would give the $33 billion that would be necessary to pay for the extension of unemployment benefits.

Alternatively, it could be paid for with the rescission of other unspent Federal funds, which would pay for it by saving $56 billion. So you could take care of the unemployment benefits, you would have $33 billion that is necessary to pay for that and $23 billion left over, hopefully to be put toward the Federal debt, which would be the best thing we could do for our children and grandchildren.

Finally, it could also be paid for with the inclusion in this bill of medical malpractice reform, which was also included in my amendment last week. That would save about $50 billion. So you would have $50 billion to pay for

the $33 billion in unemployment benefits and have $17 billion left over to put toward the Federal debt, which again would be the best thing we could do for our children and grandchildren.

So all these arguments that are made by my Democratic colleagues that these things are Draconian just aren't true. These are commonsense things that would give us the necessary resources to take care of the problem that is in front of us today but do it in a way that doesn't add billions and billions of dollars to the Federal debt, exacerbating what is already a very serious circumstance facing our children and grandchildren, which the Senator from Tennessee did a very good job of outlining. If you are a child under 18 in America today, the amount of debt you own is about $85,000. By the year 2017, that is going to be $196,000. So if you are a young person in America today who is under the age of 18, your share of the Federal debt is $85,000. Ten years from now, that will be $196,000--in fact, less than 10 years from now; in the year 2017.

I think all that leaves us with a very clear choice when it comes to how we solve problems here in Congress, here in the Senate, and how we deal with the immediate question before us this evening: How do we extend unemployment benefits to those who have lost jobs in the recession?

The other side has come forward with a proposal, again with billions and billions and billions of dollars that are not paid for, and that does go on the debt and that does get passed on to our children and grandchildren.

What we are offering are some commonsense ways, which means the Congress and the Federal Government may have to live on a little bit less. They are things that would require the Federal Government to go on a diet, if you will, in the same way the American people are having to go on a diet. The American people are being asked, because of this tough economy, to make hard choices with regard to their family budgets, with regard to their individual and personal lifestyles, with regard to their businesses. Everybody in this country is having to make decisions about cutting back a little bit. We could address this issue by just asking the Federal Government to take a little bit of a haircut, put the Federal Government on a little bit of a diet. We can achieve the savings necessary to pay for the proposal that is before us.

Again, as I said, $33 billion fixes the unemployment benefit issue, and I have just named four ways that could be paid for, with money left over that could be put toward the Federal debts. That is what this is about. That is what the discussion here is. This is very straightforward.

My colleagues on the other side have come up here this evening and will continue to offer unanimous consent requests to go ahead and do this but not pay for it, and people on our side are getting up and saying: Wait a minute. No, I object, and here is why. And the reason is because we believe in a very straightforward way that we ought to start doing what I think the American people expect of us, and that is for us to live within our means in the same way they do.

Unfortunately, regrettably, today, that is not what is happening here in the Congress. Year over year over year, we continue to spend and spend and spend and borrow and borrow and borrow like there is no tomorrow. Well, the chickens are going to come home to roost. Someday, the bills have to be paid. People where I come from in South Dakota understand that. There is no free lunch. When you borrow money, it has to be paid back. You can't spend money you don't have.

Those are all things that are happening here in Washington, DC today. We are spending money we don't have and we are borrowing money we don't have any idea about how we are going to pay it back. All we are simply doing is giving it to the next generation so they will have a bill facing them and a future that will shackle them with debt that they will be dealing with for their lifetimes and probably the lives of their children and grandchildren as well.

By way of illustration, because I think it is important to put things into perspective--sometimes I think it is very difficult to come to grips with what is $1 billion, what is $1 million, what is $1 trillion. I tried to break that down, to put it in perspective for myself so I can understand a little better what we are talking about. The numbers, the number of zeros on the end of that number, can be almost mind boggling to the average person in this country. Most of us are not used to dealing with numbers that are in that ballpark of $1 trillion.

What a trillion seconds is--if you took a trillion seconds, what would that translate into, by way of illustration and example--a trillion seconds, if you broke that down into years, would be almost 31,000 years; 31,746 years is what a trillion second is. If you take $1 trillion and you make a second a dollar and try to put it into terms I think the average American can understand, a trillion seconds represents 31,746 years.

Since most of us here are probably not going to live much more than 80 years--hopefully if we are lucky, we will live beyond that. Most of us here are going to live under 100 years. When you talk about a trillion seconds, which in the last--we have seen about 15 seconds pass here, and you add that up to a trillion, that is 31,746 years. Think about what $1 trillion represents, how much that is, the scale, the dimension we are talking about and what we are doing to future generations of Americans if we do not start taking the steps that are necessary to pay the bills around here.

This amendment I offered and that was objected to by the other side would have done that. It would have fixed the physician fee issue, not just until November of this year but for another 2 years beyond that, to the end of the year 2012. It would have addressed the issue of the expiring tax provisions which we are all concerned about. It is an important tax policy that needs to be extended that has expired and needs to be addressed. Also, as I said earlier, there is of course the issue before us this evening of unemployment benefits which, at a cost of $33 billion, could easily be offset by any of a number of things I suggested this evening.

I see my colleague from Utah has arrived on the floor. I know he too has an amendment he wishes to offer that I think makes a lot of sense. When it comes to creating jobs, he is someone with a small business background and understands what job creation is about and I understand he will have a request he will make of our colleagues on the other side as well, so at this point I yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from South Dakota for the comments he has made and appreciate the time he put into this effort.

We are talking about jobs. That is the issue. The House bill, H.R. 4853, has to do with taxes that would supposedly increase the number of jobs. In that atmosphere, I wish to revisit the Main Street Revitalization Act of 2010 which I offered some time ago, which has to do with small business and tax activities with respect to small businesses.

Let me remind the Senate that small businesses are the economic engine of our economy. Historically, small businesses have been responsible for all of the net new job creation in the United States. At times when large businesses downsize, small businesses grow. Many times, small businesses are created by people who have lost their jobs with the large business and, in an effort to find someplace to find work, they create businesses of their own. I have had that experience. I have lost my job and said, somewhat facetiously but with more accuracy, I had to start my own business because nobody else would hire me. Many of the businesses I started or was involved with failed, but enough of them succeeded that we were able to create jobs, not only for me but for all of the other people who were involved with me.

When I was the CEO of a business that started out with four--I was the fifth employee hired--we took it ultimately to the New York Stock Exchange and hired 4,000 people. This was a demonstration of what could happen with small businesses. With that business I was able to overcome all of the financial losses that occurred in the businesses I started that didn't work.

As I pointed out before, we did that during what the New York Times has called the decade of greed, because that was the period when Ronald Reagan was President and the top marginal tax

rate was 28 percent. I understand the impact of a tax rate at 28 percent because we financed that business with internally generated funds. Yes, we had a line at the bank but we didn't sell stock--because I am not sure anybody would have bought it. We got to keep 72 cents out of every dollar we earned during the decade of greed. That is what allowed us to go from 4 jobs to 4,000 jobs over about that 10-year period.

Today the top marginal rate, when you add the additions that have been made with respect to the Medicare taxes, is over 40 percent, a very significant increase from the 28 percent we had during the time the New York Times was so scandalized by the fact that small businesses were not taxed enough. I can tell you they are not only taxed enough now, they are taxed too much. This recession has hit small businesses particularly hard.

One of the problems dealing with the challenge of creating a small business as you try to get capital is not just the higher tax rate but a lack of certainty in the capital marketplace. Unfortunately, this lack of certainty has been exacerbated by some of the activities of this administration.

My bill, the Main Street Revitalization Act, tries to address these issues and make a circumstance where a business can have a degree of certainty with respect to their tax position and an opportunity to grow the business in an atmosphere that will move a little closer to that atmosphere with which I was so familiar during the Reagan years. There are three targeted tax breaks in my bill that I wish to talk about in detail.

The first one provides a 10-year net operating loss carryback provision for qualifying businesses whose average gross incomes are $5 million or less. One of the things you learn when you start a small business is that the only thing slightly better, but still bad, for a small business is earning a profit. The worst thing, of course, is a loss. But as soon as you earn a profit the tax man shows up and says ``I want mine.'' I want my 28 percent, if you are in the Reagan years. I want my 42 percent now in the Obama years.

But I haven't got the cash, you say, if you are running a small business. I can't pay the taxes. That money I have shown on a profit and loss statement is tied up in inventory and accounts receivable.

No, says the tax man, I want it now and I want it in cash.

If you have a net operating loss carryback, you can say let me go back and take those years in which we were not earning a profit and apply them, average them in with this time when we have started to earn a profit and thereby avoid paying that tax at this crucial time when I need the cash to grow the business. That is the first thing. We provide a 10-year net operating loss carryback provision for qualifying businesses. It is only, as I say, for businesses with average gross income less than $5 million--genuinely a small business.

No. 2, the bill expands the definition of section 179 expensing to include structural changes to the physical property and it makes the current $250,000 deduction limit permanent. Again, you are starting the business. You have earned some money. You have had to put that money into a physical improvement on your property. But the tax man says I want it in cash. You can't do it, you can't make the business grow without investing it in your property. We expand the definition of this expensing so that you get a tax advantage there.

No. 3, there is, under current law, a startup cost deduction of $5,000. That is fine but it is not enough in today's world to make a difference for a business to survive. My bill would increase the current startup cost deduction from $5,000 to $20,000. This would encourage entrepreneurs to invest now rather than wait for the economy to improve. This says we will exempt this amount up to $20,000. It will produce a significant increase in the number of small businesses.

Nationally there are 5 million to 6 million small businesses that would qualify and benefit from this bill. In Utah we have done the examination. It would be about 70,000 small businesses. If the 70,000 small businesses that would benefit from this would each hire one additional person, that is 70,000 more jobs in the State of Utah. If they were to hire two additional persons, that would be 140,000 new jobs, which is more than the national increase in hiring that occurred last month. It is not a big deal, one employee per business, if we adopt this bill. It would be a very big deal for the impact on the economy as a whole.

Because it is for only businesses with revenues of $5 million or less, we can be sure this is not going to be something that big business is going to take advantage of. We can be sure that all of the concern about bailout of large corporations--it does not apply; my bill would not make any impact at all on that end of the economy.

I have a small business owner in Utah who wrote me a letter with respect to all of his challenges. Let me share with you some of the points he made in his letter that I think apply. He said:

I own a small business here in Utah . . . that had employed

20 people and now I am down to 4 people, as I cannot get

financing.

I have put close to $2 million into technology development

and we are ready to launch, but we have run out of funds and

can't find investor groups . . . willing to take a risk.

I would hire 25 to 30 new people if I could receive the

funding that I need to launch my product. Banks won't lend,

people are holding onto cash . . . and I don't want to

violate the SEC rules so raising funds is difficult.

I had hoped the government would have made Stimulus funds

easier to receive by those businesses that could make a

difference in the lives of so many looking for employment.

I have a lot of potential business . . . but may need to

shut the business down and layoff the rest of the workers,

due to lack of funding.

I believe the tax provisions that are in my bill would make it possible, or easier at least, for this particular small businessman to find the funding he needs and to hire those additional people he talks about. His business plan is sound but his financial circumstance is very difficult.

What this letter tells me, and my own observation elsewhere, is that the stimulus that was supposed to save our economy has not gotten down to small business one bit. This is exactly why I opposed the stimulus bill in the first place. Most of it has been spent in public arenas and has not hit the small business world. The Main Street Revitalization Act will help enable this company to quickly and efficiently access the capital they need to keep the business running, create new jobs, and eventually help them grow and expand.

Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 4853

With that background in mind, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 4853, that all after the enacting clause be stricken and the text of S. 3083 be inserted; that the bill as amended be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Michigan for her spirit of cooperation. I am sorry she is required to object. I must confess, I am not particularly surprised. But I appreciate the opportunity to have this discussion and deal with this challenge. If I may close my presentation with, once again, making a comparison between what happened in the 1980s when we created the business that I described and what we are dealing with now.

I remember, in a business prior to the one I just talked about that I was running, during the Carter administration, I went to the bank begging--that is the operative word--begging for a loan, without which we could not meet payroll. I was overjoyed when the banker finally agreed to give us a loan at 21 percent interest.

That was the circumstance through which we were living in those times. We talk about the Great Depression of the 1930s. I remember, very vividly, the great inflation of the 1970s--21 percent interest so that I could meet payroll. That business, to use Abraham Lincoln's words for his store in New Salem, IL, winked out. We did repay the bank loan, but we could not keep the doors open. It was just a few years later that we started the other business during the Reagan administration when the tax circumstances had been changed dramatically.

The Reagan administration inherited the results of the great inflation from the Carter administration, much as the Obama administration has inherited the results of the great housing bubble from the days of the Bush administration. I will not make any attempt to put blame on a partisan basis, but those were the time lines. It was the Carter administration that was there during the time of great inflation; it was the Bush administration that was there when the housing bubble burst. So each President had a dilemma thrust upon it.

Ronald Reagan approached his economic challenge with tax cuts, and it produced the kind of job creation and ultimate economic growth that we are talking about. Reagan was very unpopular in the election that followed his election for President, and his party lost a considerable number of seats in that period. But 2 years later, the economy was roaring forward on such a strong basis, as a result of the Reagan tax cuts, that he was reelected in a landslide.

President Obama chose a different economic theory from that which Ronald Reagan embraced. President Obama followed the advice of the Keynesians and instead of trying to have tax policy that would stimulate the economy, he went to a spending policy to stimulate the economy.

The political pundits are saying President Obama will see losses in November the same way President Reagan did in the off-term election following his Presidential inauguration. My fear is that we will not see the recovery following that because of the Keynesian economics embraced by President Obama. My fear is this recovery will continue to be sluggish, and the unemployment rate will stay very close to double digits.

There are a lot of people who dismissed Ronald Reagan as something of an uneducated, almost simple-minded individual. I would point out Ronald Reagan was the only President we have ever had whose college degree, from his days in Illinois, was in classical economics, pre- Keynesian economics, back in the days when a college degree from any kind of college was something of a rarity. He brought that concept of classical economics into the Presidency and saw a reversal and an end of the great inflation and set off a period of great prosperity for a long time and is considered one of the pivotal Presidents of the last century.

I disagree with the economic policies of this President. I hope I am wrong and that the recession we are now in ends with the same kind of success story that Ronald Reagan had. But I am afraid I am right and we will see this recession drag on for a longer period of time.

With that little bit of nostalgia, I thank the Senators for their indulgence.

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I have listened very carefully to my good friend from Michigan. It is puzzling to me to hear her say what she said because she voted against the amendment by Senator Thune last week which would have extended the expiring unemployment provisions until November and not added a penny to the debt. I want to say more about that in a minute.

What we are arguing about, what the debate is about is we want to extend unemployment insurance. We want to make sure the State and local tax deductions continue. We want to make sure tuition deduction and the various disaster relief credits and the research and development tax credits all stay in place. But we want to make sure it is done without adding to a Federal debt that we believe is out of control.

Unanimous Consent Request--S. 3347

Mr. President, before I speak about that issue, I wish to make a request which I hope is a request to which my colleagues could all agree. It is a bipartisan request on behalf of myself, Senator Nelson of Nebraska, and Senator Vitter of Louisiana to extend the Flood Insurance Program in Tennessee.

The largest natural disaster since President Obama took office is the flood of 2010 in Tennessee and a very severe flood in Rhode Island too.

On June 1, the Flood Insurance Program expired. This request I am about to make would permit that to be reinstated so small businesspeople could get flood insurance and get their loans. I will speak more about it in just a minute.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 372, S. 3347, a bill that extends the National Flood Insurance Program through December 31, 2010; that the bill be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I am deeply disappointed. What I have done is ask to extend the Flood Insurance Program so that Tennesseans who are recovering from the worst natural disaster since President Obama took office could qualify for flood insurance so they could get their loans so they could operate their businesses again.

This does not add a penny to the debt. The money is there; the authority to do it is not. If you are in Rhode Island, if you are in Tennessee, if you are in New Orleans, if you are in any other place where you are waiting for flood insurance, you should know that Republicans just asked to extend the Flood Insurance Program so you could buy insurance, and Democrats just objected.

That is a very simple request. It does not add a penny to the debt. It is deeply disturbing to me this cannot be done in a simple way.

Tennesseans have not been looting and complaining despite the fact the flood of 2010, as I said, was the largest natural disaster since President Obama took office. Nashville alone had $2 billion of damage, maybe more than that. There were 45 counties the President eventually declared disaster areas. He declared other counties as disaster areas because of agricultural crops that were washed out. Thousands of homes in Nashville alone--people lost everything in their basements. That means their heating and cooling and all of that equipment. But in many places, in Bellevue, in Nashville, in Millington outside of Memphis, in Clarksville, TN, they lost much more than that. Twenty-nine people lost their lives in this flood--29 people. This was a huge natural disaster.

The President did not ask for extra funds for Tennessee. No one is complaining about that either. FEMA has done a good job with what it has done, but what good does it do for FEMA to be on the site and available, for small business loans to be available, and for flood insurance money to be available, and for Congress to object to a unanimous consent request to allow new policies to be written?

I am deeply disappointed. Let me address a couple of other things I heard said on the floor of the Senate tonight.

I heard some talk about jobs. From our point of view, the American people are concerned about jobs, debt, and terror. That is why the ferment in the country. That is why the people think the country is headed in the wrong direction. Jobs, debt, and terror. We have 10- percent unemployment. If we continue to grow at the rate we grew in the first quarter, we will be at 10-percent unemployment in the last quarter of this year. Jobs, debt, and terror.

Why do we have fewer jobs? Why do we have 10-percent unemployment? The distinguished Senator from Michigan talks about Republican actions, but I am thinking about what the Democrats have been doing the last year and a half. Every step they seem to take talks about jobs but causes us to have fewer jobs. For example, take the health care law which was passed in this Chamber by a purely partisan vote. The health care law taxes job creators and investors. That means fewer jobs.

The financial regulation bill that is being debated today, passing in a partisan way, puts higher tax rates on small business owners. Higher tax rates on small business owners means fewer jobs.

The debt is going up. That is the real argument we are having. We reached $13 trillion. There are various ways to describe what has happened, but one way to describe it is this: All the Presidents from George Washington to George W. Bush ran up a debt of about $5.8 trillion. President Obama, in his two terms--if he has two terms--is going to double that debt all by himself. That is what his budgets say. Doubling the debt in 5 years and nearly tripling the debt in 10 years means less credit, higher interest rates, less capital, and fewer jobs.

The financial regulation bill I just discussed--one can watch it being dealt with during the day on television. If one listens carefully to what is being said, it amounts to a Washington takeover of Main Street credit; another big Washington agency telling banks and credit unions, automobile retailers, and dentists what to do about credit.

What is the inevitable result? They are going to shrink away from providing that credit. It is going to be harder to get a loan, harder to get credit, so this financial regulation bill, which was supposed to be tough on Wall Street, is going to be hard on Main Street because it means fewer jobs.

When it comes to jobs, the difference between our friends on the other side and the Republicans on this side is that we are focused on creating an environment for growing private sector jobs. They are focused on creating more government jobs. About the only place the job creation plans and stimulus plans they have enacted are working are in Washington, DC, where incomes are up and jobs are up. But not in the small towns of Tennessee and not in the small towns across this country, people are out of work. They are out of work because of higher taxes, higher debt, higher spending, too many Washington takeovers, too much focus on more government jobs, and not enough focus on an environment in which to create more private sector jobs.

I mentioned a little earlier there was talk earlier about the unemployment provisions we want to be extended. Senator Thune will be here in a few minutes to talk about his amendment he offered last week on June 17.

Let's be very clear. The Thune amendment, which every Republican voted for and attracted a Democratic vote but Democrats voted it down, would have extended the expiring employment provisions until November. It would have extended for 1 year dozens of tax provisions. It would have extended the State and local tax deduction, the tuition deduction, the various disaster relief credits, the flood insurance provision that was just objected to. It would increase the payment the government makes to doctors for treating Medicare patients.

The American Medical Association said a little earlier this week that 30 percent of doctors, family physicians, will not see new Medicare patients. This would have taken care of that.

I see the Senator from South Dakota on the Senate floor, and I am sure he will speak more to that when he has the opportunity.

In my concluding remarks, let me say one word about debt and spending. Our policies, the policies of this Congress and this government, are shortchanging our children. The Democrats' runaway spending and debt is a serious crisis ruining the future of our children. That is why we do not want to pass even an unemployment compensation bill that adds to the debt. We want to pass it, but we want to make sure it does not add to the debt.

Why do I say it piles up a debt on our children? In January of 2009-- if you divide the national debt across each child under 18, in January of 2009 each child's debt was $85,000. By June of 2010, it was $114,000. By January of 2017, it will be $196,000. Because of budgets-- and these are the budgets proposed by a Democratic President--during the next 7 years, each child's share of the national debt will more than double, going from $85,000 to $196,000.

Here is another way to think about it. All the Presidents combined from George Washington to George W. Bush took 232 years to build up a $5.8 trillion debt. President Obama's budgets will double that debt in 5 years and triple it in 10. What that means is all 43 Presidents combined, from George Washington to George Bush, ran up a $5.8 trillion debt in 232 years. In 8 years, President Obama will add twice that much to the national debt, tripling the debt.

We on this side of the aisle and a growing number of Democrats, I am sure, and I know across this country a growing number of Americans are saying this national debt is a serious crisis. So we are grateful to the Senator from South Dakota and to others who recognize the real needs of this country, whether it is unemployment compensation, whether it is flood insurance, or whether it is important for doctors to be properly paid, reimbursed for dealing with Medicare payments. We can afford that in this country, but we need to pay for it. We need to do it without adding to the debt.

So I am deeply disappointed that Democratic Senators have objected tonight to providing flood insurance to Nashvillians and other Tennesseans who need it. The money is here; the authority is not. It could have been given tonight. We could have passed it. Tennesseans aren't looting or complaining; they are helping each other and cleaning up. This is an unfortunate slap in the face to Americans who are helping themselves get out of trouble, and I regret that it happened.

I yield the floor.