Designating Certain Land As Components Of The Nroceedational Wilderness Preservation System - Motion To P

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Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I wish to take a few minutes this evening to respond to some of the comments that we have been hearing from colleagues on the other side of the aisle expressing great concern about the spending of a recovery package for America, as we are talking about today.

I find it quite extraordinary when I hear colleagues talking about objecting to spending Federal dollars right now--Federal dollars that would add to the deficit--given where we have come from in the last 8 years. I find it quite extraordinary.

I remember back when I was in the House of Representatives, serving with the distinguished Presiding Officer, when in 1997 we took some very tough votes and did a lot of hard work under President Clinton. Actually, we balanced the budget for the first time in 30 years. That put us on a course to eliminate the deficit, to strengthen the country, to create the right kinds of priorities for the American people.

As a result of that action, in 2001, when I came into the Senate as a new member of the Budget Committee, we were debating what to do with the biggest surplus in American history, $5.7 trillion. How should we address the largest surplus we had seen in the Federal budget. At the time, the Democrats on the committee proposed that we divide that surplus into three parts: one, for tax cuts geared to the middle class; two, for investments to create jobs, invest in education, and future opportunities; and three, to help strengthen Social Security. That was rejected. Instead, as we all know now, a very large supply-side tax cut, trickle-down economics, was passed. My constituents, in January 2009, are still waiting for it to trickle down to their pockets. But that was put in place, which began a process that has now led us to the highest deficits in the history of the country in just 8 years. That was coupled with a war that was not paid for, over $10 billion a month, and certainly the most important thing has been the loss of life. Then we saw just at the end of the year an effort to provide $700 billion in what has been dubbed the bailout of Wall Street--to date, I suggest, not very effective and
at times outrageous in terms of what has happened with that money.

So it is not that the Federal Government has to spend money, it is not that colleagues on the other side of the aisle have not supported spending. They supported spending for 8 years. The question is, What are we going to spend it on and for whom? Many Americans have seen their standard of living go down, their jobs go away, their houses go away, their opportunities go away, while some have done very well under a particular kind of spending over the last 8 years. What I suggest is this is not about whether we spend or invest or use Federal dollars; it is about our values and priorities. In whom are we going to invest? Where are we going to spend the dollars? I have had so many people in Michigan say to me, with all the debates going on: Where is my bailout? I am sure you heard that, Mr. President: Where is my bailout? Small business owners: Where is my bailout? Individuals. I suggest what we are debating is the American people bailout, the investment in America.

The people of this country have resoundingly rejected the policies of the last 8 years that have gotten us to where we are today. That is what elections are about. People have said very loudly: We don't want the same policies; we don't want the same people espousing the same policies going forward as we have seen in the last 8 years.

Where have those policies over the last 8 years gotten us? Over the last 8 years, we have not seen a commitment to manufacturing in this country. Some people say that is only a narrow special interest for a certain number of States in the country. I suggest it is a foundation of the middle class in this country. The fact that we have lost 4.1 million manufacturing jobs due to the policies of the last 8 years--750,000 of those jobs just last year--that totally relates to where we are in terms of jobs in this country, what is happening in this country, and what is happening to middle-class people. The economic activity in the manufacturing sector has fallen to its lowest level in 60 years. That absolutely equates to the challenges we are currently having in this economy.

In 2008, 2.6 million jobs just in general were lost, the worst year since 1945--8 years of policies put forward by the current administration and supported by many people who have been on the floor since we came back into session arguing we should not do something different; we should not try a different kind of investment policy; we should not focus on jobs in America, the middle class, and so on; we should keep doing it the way we have been doing it. That is basically what we are hearing on the floor, the same kinds of things that have gotten us to these numbers--1 million jobs lost last month. Last month, 1 million Americans. As of December, 11.1 million people were unemployed. And we wonder why they cannot pay their mortgages and their homes are going into foreclosure. The jobless rate is the highest in 16 years, and we know it is not going to get better quickly. We know at least the first half of this year--possibly the entire year--is going to be very tough. We know that. But common sense would say that we do not embrace the same policies that have gotten us to this point if we want to get out of the hole.

It is exciting that next week we are going to swear in a wonderful new President who has policies, working with us, working with all of us together, that will stop digging the hole and begin to bring us out of the hole, even though we know it is a deep hole, and he has certainly stressed that, wisely, with the American people. We are going to begin to come out of this hole.

Over and over again in the last week, we have been hearing colleagues objecting to a change in economic policy and proposing the same old thing. The same old thing has put us in a situation where the U.S. median home price fell 13 percent in the last year, which is the fastest pace since the 1930s. That is what the kinds of policies we are hearing on the other side of the aisle have achieved.

Mr. President, 3,100 foreclosures happen every day. Today, as we have been in session, 3,100 families have seen their homes foreclosed upon. Tomorrow, there will be another 3,100 families; the next day, 3,100 families. That is what the policies--action and inaction--of the last 8 years have done. One in ten homeowners with a mortgage is either in foreclosure or delinquent on payments.

Pension plans, if you are fortunate enough to have had a job, worked hard all your life, and put money into a pension--maybe you did not take a pay raise in order to make sure you had that pension--have suffered their steepest 1-year drop in 20 years.

The average pension fund now is holding assets that would cover only about 75 percent of what had been promised to workers.

I could go on and on with the numbers, and you know them as well. The good news is the American people have looked around at what has happened, the trickle-down economic policies of the last 8 years--the idea that we can't afford to invest in education for the future or health care or focus on jobs for the future--they have looked at those policies and said, no more, no more, We have had enough.

So that brings us to this point, and we will have the opportunity in the next few weeks to bring forward an economic recovery plan that focuses in a very different way. If we are going to do tax cuts, we want tax cuts for middle-class families and those working hard to get into the middle class to benefit from those and that is the policy we will see coming forward.

We are going to see policies that will create jobs rebuilding America. I have heard colleagues on the other side of the aisle saying: Oh, my gosh, they want to not only talk about roads and bridges and water and sewer systems, but they want to talk about broadband--the idea of connecting rural communities and small businesses to the Internet so they can sell around the world, just like big business does. Oh, my goodness, you mean they want everybody to have access to the Internet, not just some people? Yes, that is true. We believe the new highway, the information highway, that power needs to be available to every child, to every small business, to every farmer at the end of the road. Just as we built the electricity systems, the telephone systems of the past, we need to make sure we are building for the future in America so everyone has access to these new technologies to have opportunity for jobs and income and education.

I am also very involved in making sure we can computerize our health care system so we can cut costs from unnecessary paperwork; that we can also provide the very best quality of health care in every hospital, large and small, whether you live in a small rural area or an urban hospital is where you would go or a suburban hospital.

We need to focus on jobs rebuilding America and reinvesting not only in the upfront construction jobs but in what that will mean to the assets that will be there afterwards, which is very much a part of this recovery plan. We know we want to see alternative energy jobs, and certainly I am very involved in the whole effort to create green jobs. I am very proud that last year in the budget resolution we included my green-collar jobs initiative, which now our new President-elect and his team are working to fund as a part of what we need to do to create the new battery technology. This is not just the research but to build the batteries here in the United States; and not only to have wind energy but to build the wind turbines here and create the jobs; and not only to have the solar power but to build the solar units or the solar panels, to have the equipment, to have the storage from the batteries all done here. That is a part of our vision for a recovery package for the future.

Because I have been working so closely with advanced manufacturing in the auto industry, I know an interesting statistic is that if everyone had an electric car today--and we would certainly like that to happen from an environmental standpoint--we would blow up the electrical grid in this country, poof. We would be in deep trouble. So part of what we need to have happen is to upgrade so we have a better electric system to be able to handle those new vehicles. We need to create a new kind of infrastructure so that when you pull up in your vehicle, which would get 40 miles per--what shall I say? It is not 40 miles per gallon because it is not a gallon. It is 40 miles on the road to a charge. Wouldn't it be great to be able to pull up and charge it in a parking lot or at a parking meter as you went into the store?

There are so many ways we need to build and rebuild America for this new technological world we are in, this new green alternative energy world we are in. That is our hope: Jobs, rebuilding America, and building for the future. We not only can achieve very important goals of energy independence and tackling in a real and meaningful way the serious issue of global warming, but we can create jobs in America, good-paying jobs in America. That is what this recovery plan does, and I am very excited to work with the incoming administration and to see their vision and their commitment to working with us.

There are so many pieces of this that will be addressed. I will mention one other, and that is when I talked earlier about the numbers regarding unemployment and housing and pensions and what is happening to people, we have seen now close to a decade--8 years--of neglect, of not paying attention to those who have been hurt by the policies that have been in place. So it is very important that we, in fact, recognize that we have more people out of work than there are currently available jobs--people who have worked all their lives, people who want to work, who recognize the dignity of work but in the short run need some help. Part of this package needs to address this as well, whether it is unemployment insurance, whether it is food assistance, whether it is help with health care during a transition or whether it is addressing those who have lost their jobs because of trade. Those priorities represent the best of America and who we are, our real values and priorities as Americans, understanding that we are in a global economy and that transition, at best, even if everything was going well, even if every policy was going well, has created pain and suffering for those caught in the middle.

Unfortunately, because of a series of policies, whether it is not enforcing our trade laws fairly, whether it is not addressing health care or seeing the cutbacks in education, and so on, too many people have been hurt and need some help. Too many people have been hurt in the last 8 years. So a very important part of this recovery plan as well is to make sure those families know we see them, we hear them; that, as Americans, we care about them and want to make sure they have the temporary assistance they need while we are creating these jobs in the new economy.

There is a lot of work to do, as we all know, and I would conclude by saying that while we may not know how long it will take for us to move out of this deep hole we have been placed in, in terms of job loss and deficits, and so on, here is what we do know: The same thing has been tried for 8 years and things have only gotten worse every year. So those who would argue that we should have more of the same I think find themselves in a difficult position because the American people want change. They have voted for change, and they expect us to change the values and the priorities of this country so that we are, in fact, investing in our people and in a strong America again.

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

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