Floor Statements

Mr. President, could I ask a question of Senator Specter? Do we have time?

Mr. President, I have a very simple question. If in fact this amendment is agreed to, and let us assume the next step is that the board grants it--although you were saying that is optional, let us assume it is granted--do the other airlines have a chance of losing money as far as that fund is concerned now or in the future because of this incident?

I should have said other than they will retain a competitor.

If you have to extend the program in terms of the payoff, does that mean it takes care of itself and that United Airlines money put into that plan takes care of that, not the other airlines? The other airlines don't pay for it in any way?

Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that three hearings have been scheduled before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources to consider the President's proposed FY 2004 budget.

The Committee will hear testimony from the following:

1. The Department of the Interior on Tuesday, February 11, 2003, beginning at 10 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C.

2. The Forest Service on Thursday, February 13, 2003, beginning at 10 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C.

3. The Department of Energy on Tuesday, February 25, 2003, beginning at 10 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C.

For further information on these hearings, please call Jennifer Owen, Staff Assistant at (202) 224-5305.

That is what I came down for.

About 7 minutes.

Madam President, I note that we have a little time before we are hopefully going to move on to the appropriations bills. I am very hopeful that the appropriations leaders, under the leadership of our new leader and Senator Daschle, will come forward with an approach that will permit us to wind up the business from last year that we have not finished yet.

That brings to mind the business of the year we are in, which we should be working on but cannot because we have not finished last year's work. So that is why we are doing it now.

The President of the United States is going to speak to the American people a few nights from now, and what most Presidents do, and the Cabinet members who work for the President, is sometime before the State of the Union they start talking to the American people about the principal problems that our Nation has and they throw out the ideas they are considering.

Consistent with that, everyone knows the American economy is, at best, a growth economy without new jobs or an American economy that has not come out of a recession. It looks as though it is the former rather than the latter, because if our method of measuring things is correct, we are growing. That is, the gross domestic product is getting a little bigger every month and in a year it will be significantly bigger.

Let us start by defining how big is the gross domestic product. The sum total of all actions that are worth anything in America, that is the gross domestic product: $10 trillion. We cannot even understand how big $10 trillion is. Later in the year, we will compare it with other countries'. I surmise it probably is big enough so that it is bigger than all of Europe's. We could probably add in China, South America, and a couple of more countries, and it is probably still bigger than that.

For about 10 years, the economy not only was growing but it was adding jobs. As that happened, it miraculously started producing substantially more revenue than we had predicted.

Nobody has come to the floor nor have I heard anybody nationally tell us why it produced so much more revenue than we anticipated. Revenue is a substitute word for taxes, tax receipts. We did not know why, but it produced billions of dollars in taxes that we did not expect. So that is why we got a balanced budget ahead of schedule; tax revenue came in about $60 billion more than we expected. So we got a balanced budget 3 years before we predicted, for which we all took credit. President Clinton took credit. Budget Committee Chairman Domenici took credit. Everybody took credit. I was chairman of the Budget Committee and we got four balanced budgets. Most of it came because we held expenditures down rather reasonably--not as much as we should have, but the revenues came in rather soundly on the high side.

Then what happened was the economy went through one of the smallest recessions in modern times. By that I mean, how many months did the economy stay in the red in terms of the growth in domestic product? How long was it shrinking instead of growing? If it shrinks for very long, people go out of work, companies do not sell their product. In other words, things that create wealth are not happening when it is shrinking.

So it was shrinking, but only for a short period of time, and then the measurement of the growth started going up. As a matter of fact, right now we are told that the economy is growing at about 3.5 or 4 percent. But people in this economy are not being hired, so unemployment is not going down, it is going up slightly.

For those who say how bad it is, obviously it is terrible when any American is out of work, but 6.1 or 6.2 percent unemployment is seen as high unemployment only in the last 12 or 15 years. Prior to that, 6, 6.5, 7 percent was pretty good in the American economy. We have grown to expect better of it, but certainly it is not in a state of depression. People in this economy are not being hired because something is happening internally that is different. It may be the huge drop in the stock market has something to do with it.

We cannot say that for certain. People do not want to believe that. Powerful thinkers say it really is not, but I think probably it does have something to do with it.

In addition, investment by businesses produces wealth, so they can hire more people. What do I mean? A filling station owner buys another filling station and invests $350,000, and he hires 12 full-time people. That is an increase. To get there, he had to put money in it. Money is not being invested in new actions that cause people to be employed.

What we have to do is take this giant economy, $10 trillion, and give it a kick by putting some more money into it. That will make these transactions start moving again. Anyone who comes to the Senate saying, let's have a tiny package, the President's package of $600 billion over 10 years is too much; so, what do you want? Say, $100 billion. Of that, how much goes into the economy to be spent? Well, $60 billion. And you think $60 billion will kick the economy so it will grow $10 trillion with $60 billion? The economy will not even know it happened. $60 billion is a mouse. The economy does not need a mouse giving it a kick. The economy needs an elephant and a donkey and some cars to run into it, give it a real kick. It has to have real money, not little tiny boxes of raisins.

One time someone wanted to start the economy up, some president wanted to give everyone a bit of money and it was so small that one Senator said, don't bother with it. The Internal Revenue can just get up on top of buildings and drop $50 bills and people will pick them up. Sure, they will spend them. That is the real way to stimulate the economy. Of course, we did not do that.

I am talking about how much. The President's numbers of $660 to $700 billion over 10 years is said by Senators on that side to be way too much. Way too much for what? The deficit will get too big. Would you like the economy to stay like it is, in a state of neutrality where it is not generating any revenue? If that is the case and you want to get into balance, you have to cut everything 10 or 15 percent. America last reduced its budget in a recessionary period when Hoover was president. That is now known as Hooverism. Or Hoover economics. Great man. Solid economist. Great geologist. A great idea. Except when the economy is not going, you do not cut the budget, you spend on the budget or you cut taxes.

We will be spending, do not worry, because we are in a war. But you have to put tax cuts in place so the Government puts money in the hands of people; money they would not otherwise get. If they are already going to get it, you do not give it to them because that money is already in the economy. So you give them money they are not going to otherwise get. Cut their taxes, change the marriage tax penalty so they keep more money, reduce the brackets so you are in a lower bracket

and you keep more money from withholding, and if you are a businessman you do not spend so much.

I urge Senators, particularly on our side of the aisle, if they want to express their concerns about certain items in the President's tax package, so be it. But clearly we ought to keep our minds open to the size of the package needed. Republicans should not come out of this Congress on the side of being cautious about stimulating the economy. We should come out of this session saying, if people want to be cautious, let it be them. If the economy does not get better, they did it. We should forget that and go with a big package that is apt to give the economy a real kick. Nobody knows the exact numbers. Nobody knows if $600 billion, with $150 billion in the first year, is right or too much. But clearly we ought to not be so cautious that we do not do enough. If that is the case, the tax cut will be wasted, the deficit will not change, and we will need more stimulus the next year.

I say to those who want the economy not only to grow but to create jobs, keep your powder dry on the size of the stimulus. It ought to be big, not little. It ought to get into the hands of the maximum number of people as early as possible. If there is some way to generate interest, real, genuine interest, in investing on the part of the public, do it.

For instance, perhaps people could depreciate equipment they bought. Buy a car, depreciate it in 3 years. Let consumers depreciate in one year, they might buy a car every year. That is a bottom line entry. This is in the President's package. One of them is in; accelerated depreciation.

I suggest on our side if we want to get the President's package, and if Democrats want to stimulate the economy, to produce jobs, we should work with the President and with the Budget Committee. The new Budget Chairman is Don Nickles. I did that for 17 years and now I will try something else. But, I will help him do that, like a lot of other people.

That blueprint picture ought to end up reflecting people in the Senate who are concerned about jobs for people. So much talk about rich versus poor. If you are not for help with jobs, I don't know who you are for. If you are for a packaging that does nothing to create new jobs, who are you for? We want to be for a package, and I hope everyone does, that creates jobs and maximizes opportunity to create activity within this gross domestic product, that will, through new motion, create investment and jobs.

I yield the floor.

I ask unanimous consent the period for morning business be extended until 3:30, with the time equally divided and Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes.

Parliamentary inquiry: Are we in morning business?

Are we allowed 10 minutes?

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about a situation that is evolving with reference to who is going to run the Senate and who are going to be chairmen of committees and how are we going to pay our staffs. I don't think the American people understand this debate, so we ought to explain it quite a few times.

The election occurred. There has been a lot of talk in the country about what happened. The conclusion was: Republicans won the Senate.

Now I will go back in time to the day that the distinguished Senator from Vermont formally decided to leave this side of the aisle and become independent and was ready to vote with that side of the aisle, giving them a 1-vote majority. Before that day was up, the gavels were handed to the Democrats to run the committees. So as I had been chairman of the Budget Committee, I was no more. And Kent Conrad, who had not been chairman, was chairman. So if any meetings were called or hearings held, the agenda was prepared by him, not me.

Now we win an election, we come into session, we convene the Senate, and guess what: Democrats maintain they are still entitled to run the committees. I believe this borders on nonsense, but to the Democrats it must mean something. Perhaps they think they win elections by delaying what we do, by not letting us do work. Last time, they did that, we got nothing done, and they lost. Maybe we should do nothing and stay in this stalemate. Maybe we will win and they will lose again. But we don't think that way. We think we ought to get on with the business that is not yet done from last year.

Remember, we were not running things last year. I am not casting aspersions, but they ran the Senate and we got nothing done. As a matter of fact, we had 11 appropriations bills that we will be debating perhaps for weeks that were last year's appropriations bills. They are not finished. The year started out when that gavel was switched from Domenici to Conrad and he became chairman. The Democrats never produced a budget resolution last year either.

Again, some people do not want Senators from this side of the aisle to lay blame on anyone, but a budget resolution was not passed and it is supposed to be. The answer that was given was: We do not have the votes; or: It is too hard. I passed a lot of them. We did not have the votes, and they were too hard, and yet I got them done because that was my job.

I am not saying every Senator who is chairman of the Budget Committee should produce a budget. I am saying it should have been done last year. And then we probably would have completed our appropriations bills. We probably would have gotten the appropriations bills done. Now we do not have them, 11 of them, and the other side of the aisle is waiting for something to happen other than the election, which we won, to give us the gavel so we can start to work at the Senate. Frankly, I know people are probably saying: You can't be telling us the truth. This can't be the case.

It is the case. It is the case. I am chairman of the Energy Committee now. I have been told if I want to call a meeting, I am not chairman. But I am chairman. Certainly the Democrat is not chairman. They say they are, I guess, because we have not passed a resolution saying how we are going to pay the committees. Frankly, that is another issue, how much do we allot to the Democrats and how much to the Republicans to run these committees. Frankly, I didn't think, having a brand new majority leader, the first thing that would be given to him to solve is this issue. I thought we would see him down here helping us get the appropriations bills finished and get on with what we think we were asked to do by the American people in the last election.

I think they were unhappy, at least enough to swing the election, because the other side of the aisle delayed incessantly the passage of the homeland security bill--incessantly. In fact, I should have asked how many days that bill was delayed on the floor and in committee because certain Senators on that side of the aisle did not like it the way it was. That is their prerogative. They wanted to delay it. That is their prerogative. They succeeded in delaying it. But we succeeded, with the help of a Democrat Senator who suggested to his own people: Is there a higher calling than the security of our country, even if it is a special interest bill? Ask the Senator from that side of the aisle. That spread like wildfire. That is why a couple of Senators on that side of the aisle lost: Delay, delay, special interests on the homeland bill. We barely got it finished. But we didn't get appropriations finished.

Do you know what that means? If the American people understood what that means, more telegrams and whatever they send to us would be here on the laps of the Senators than you could ever imagine. It means literally we have not funded education, roads, all of the bills on HUD, on defense, on nuclear bombs, nuclear programs--defense we have done; all the others we have not. We have not passed the annual appropriations bills. They are operating at last year's funding levels. What they got was for 1 year. We said we didn't get our work done so just operate the same way you did last year. That is why some money is not being spent on education, because it has not been appropriated. They have not been allocated the new moneys. Up and down the appropriations bills, that is the mess we are in. And we sit here and argue about how many dollars are we going to give to the staff on the Democrat side of the Energy Committee and how much to the staff of the Republicans on the Energy Committee? I cite that because I happen to chair that committee.

All I know, fellow Senators, is that in all of modern history, whichever party was ahead--by one vote or 10 votes or 12 votes or two votes--that is, however many more Senators elected on their side, they got two-thirds of the money for staff. And the side that had a minority--whether it was a three-vote minority, a six-vote minority, a 10-vote minority, which we were in sometimes--we were in an 18-vote minority sometimes--the minority got one-third, the majority got two- thirds.

This year we are one vote ahead. It seems to me the rule has been that the party that is in the majority gets two-thirds, the other one- third. I don't think the rule said: but only if you are ahead by five votes, if you have five more Senators. What if it were two? Would that be enough to apply the rule? It has been six, it has been eight. But now it is one, but one doesn't work? It's not a majority?

Because when we were even--remember, we were even at one time. We thought we should be running the Senate because the Vice President gave us an extra vote. It didn't work out that way. We had to concede. And we split the money 50-50, or at least we said we will not force a reduction.

To me, the dollars involved in that are important, but clearly not as important as doing the public's business. They are not as important as recognizing they lost and we won, and we ought to be in control. We ought to be chairmen. Clearly, our leader is the majority leader. He is not the ``maybe majority leader''. If you call a meeting to have a serious hearing tomorrow or the next day, whoever the Republican on that committee who has been designated by the Republicans as chairman, is chairman.

Why we sit here and let the appropriations for all of our Government languish while we argue this issue is beyond this Senator. I truly believe the Democrats are not going to win by this

tactic. I urge them to get this resolved. The American people do not want them delaying this. They want us getting on with work together. They don't want us bickering. But how can you not have an argument when the facts are what I have just said? Apparently, unless they get the same amount of money as we had agreed upon when we were not in the majority, they believe they are not going to let us run the business of the Senate.

I think it can be worked out. It should be two-thirds/one-third, just as it was through all of history, but at least we ought to work it out some way--60-40? Some way, so we can get on with our work. One hundred Senators, many new ones, are here ready to get on with their work. How surprised they must be, the new ones, ready to go to work and here we are, arguing about who is entitled to the gavel. I don't know if all those new Senators thought that was what their work was about, but here we are.

I ask for 1 additional minute.

That's right.

We were asking for a few minutes because the Senator was not here. He was going to use some time.

Mr. President, today, I would like to recognize the exemplary and faithful service that Dan L. Crippen has provided to his country and to the U.S. Congress. January 3, 2003, was Dr. Crippen's last day as the Director of the Congressional Budget Office.

In the four years that he has held that position, he has led CBO with dedication and integrity. As a respected and thoughtful steward of the agency, he has provided the Members of Congress with impartial analyses of a wide array of budgetary and economic issues and thereby provided a sound basis for Congressional decisions, and he has aided the American public's understanding of these issues through his clear and forthright statements.

Some of his particular accomplishments as Director include fostering the development of long-term modeling and a long-range perspective in the agency's analyses, bolstering research support, building a stronger and more diverse workforce, securing access to previously unavailable data, and modernizing many support processes and much of the work space.

Dan Crippen received a bachelor of arts degree from South Dakota in 1974, a master of arts from Ohio State in 1976, and a doctor of philosophy degree in public finance from Ohio State in 1981. He then set out on a remarkable career that has included positions of great responsibility in both the public and private sectors. From 1981 to 1985, he served in the United States Senate as Chief Counsel and Economic Policy Adviser to the Senate majority leader, working on major tax and budget bills as well as other legislation. From 1985 to 1987, he was Executive Director of Merrill Lynch International Advisory Council.

He then returned to public service, this time at the White House, as Deputy Assistant to the President from 1987 to 1988 and Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs from 1988 to 1989, in which capacity he served as the President's adviser on domestic policy issues, including the preparation and presentation of the federal budget.

In 1989, he became Senior Vice President of the consulting firm Duberstein Group, and in 1996, he became Principal in the consulting firm Washington Counsel.

From there, he was tapped again for Congressional service and became the fifth director of the Congressional Budget Office, where he advanced its already strong reputation for objective and insightful analysis. For that reason and many others, he has earned the respect, admiration, and affection of his colleagues at CBO and, once again, the gratitude of the U.S. Congress.

So on the occasion of Dan Crippen's departure from CBO, I want to salute his accomplishments and contributions thus far in his career and to say that I look forward to his continued success as he takes on new responsibilities in the next phase of his career.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I will not object, while the Senators who had expressed their concerns may be correct, I believe we should commend those who have worked so hard to get this bill here, and our majority leader for bringing it up today because, while we wait to do some more, if more is needed, we will leave all of the unemployed without any new benefits. That is the issue. To do it today is to do it the way it is proposed. To debate it, or send it back to committee for refinement, means none of them will get benefits--not only those who have run out of benefits, but there will be no extension and no money.

I believe it is good that we comment, but it is better that we proceed and get the bill done.

Several Senators addressed the Chair.