Senate Agenda

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, sometimes we selectively like certain testimony and dislike other testimony around here. My friend from Alabama is so proud of Mr. Zandi. I think it is important we put on the record what else Mr. Zandi said.

Mr. Zandi said if we had not passed the stimulus, we would have a depression. Now I hear the other side saying there was nothing worse than the stimulus. Mr. Zandi said if we had not done the stimulus, we would have a depression.

Now, I think Mr. Zandi would also say, if he were here right now, that the least stimulative tax cut we could do is a personal tax rate at the very highest bracket. Do you know what he would say is the most stimulative thing we could do to the economy right now? Unemployment benefits. And what are we fighting over? They are blocking the most stimulating thing we can do for the economy to do the least stimulating thing for the economy for the millionaires and billionaires.

Let's go over that again to make sure we understand this. The same economist my Republican friend is hanging his hat on has said, time and time again, the only thing that stood between this country and a depression was passing the stimulus. Now my colleagues want to use that same economist to justify holding up unemployment benefits, holding up the START Treaty, national security, and holding up any other business of the Senate, judicial nominations, work that needs to be done, to protect the millionaires and billionaires.

We do not need to argue about whether tax cuts are good. I think we have shown that. The proof is in the pudding.

All my Republican friends know we have passed tax cut after tax cut. We have passed tax cuts for almost everybody in America. We passed tax cuts through payroll taxes. We passed middle-class tax cuts. We passed tax cuts for small businesses, which they were busy opposing. That is rich. They opposed the tax cut for small businesses, and now they want to go to the mat for the millionaires.

People need to understand what they are saying. The reason the economists say do not raise taxes in a down economy is because we want money to go into the economy in a recession. We are trying to get money to circulate. We are trying to get investment. We are trying to get people to buy things. So that is why we look at spending on an emergency basis like a stimulus. And we look at tax policy and figure out what is the most stimulative thing we can do with the Tax Code to help this economy. That is why we focused on the middle class and small businesses. And they are stuck with those millionaires.

Now, I am very blessed; my husband's first job out of college was in a steel mill. I worked my way through college as a waitress. My husband has been very successful in business. When I talk to him--and he is an economist, very bright--when I talk to him about the various things we can do to stimulate investment--he has invested in many businesses through the years, created thousands and thousands of jobs--when I ask him is a 3-percent differential in your tax rate going to make a difference in your investment decisions next year, he kind of laughs. It may make a difference in terms of how much money he has to invest in one thing or another, but this is not the engine of our economy--a 3-percent difference in the tax rate for people who make millions of dollars. What does make a difference is a tax cut for the rest of America.

Here is where their argument falls apart even further. How many times have we heard our friends on the other side of the aisle talk about the deficit? Here is the dirty little secret. They do not want to extend taxes temporarily because we have a down economy. They want to do it permanently. They want to go borrow trillions of dollars from China to make sure we keep this tax break there for the millionaires permanently. They are not focused on the next year. T[Page: S8333]hey are not focused on the next 2 years. They want to blow the lid off this deficit and not pay for a dime of it by extending them permanently.

So he can say: Well, we don't raise taxes in a down economy. Then they ought to immediately acknowledge that this should only be a 2-year extension. But they will not even acknowledge that at this point. We agree on permanent tax relief for the middle class. Book it, Danno. We agree on that. Let's get that done: permanent tax relief for the middle class. All of us agree on that.

I, frankly, think it is time we start looking at the deficit, take the least stimulative money that we spend, which is this extra money for millionaires, and put that against the deficit. We will never get this deficit solved if anybody thinks we can do it on discretionary spending.

I have worked hard on discretionary spending. Senator Sessions and I have sponsored an amendment and put it before the Senate time after time trying to get our colleagues to accept a cap on spending. We have not been able to get it across the finish line. I am confident we will in the coming months, and we will put a cap on spending. That is part of the equation: take a hard look at entitlements, figure out if we really need to be buying prescription drugs for millionaires with tax dollars when we are in debt. I do not know. I do not think that makes a lot of sense. That is part of the entitlement program I think we should take a look at, as to how many rich people we are buying prescription drugs for. Then, finally, we need to look at tax policy.

If we can't bring the tax rate for millionaires--not talking about a corporate tax rate, not talking capital gains, not talking about dividends, I am talking about the permanent tax rate--if we can't bring it back to the 1990s--find me a millionaire that didn't do well in the 1990s. I would like to meet one. Man, it was tall cotton in the 1990s for wealthy people in this country and, by the way, it hasn't been bad for the last 10 years. We haven't seen a lot of job creation after this tax cut. We created 22 million jobs in the Clinton years with the tax rate we want to go to for the millionaires, and they created 1 million after this tax cut was created--22 million versus 1 million. Really? We want to blow the lid off a deficit for that kind of job creation? No, we don't.

I wish to clarify one thing. Senator Kyl didn't yield for a question. I didn't ever say there was a threatening on START in the letter written by the Republicans. I said Senator Kyl today--and let me read the quote.

If taxes all can't be resolved and voted on and completed, and spending for the government for the next 10 months completed by next Monday, I don't know how there is enough time to complete START.

Keep in mind, we have had 16 hearings on START; close to 1,000 congressional inquiries. It is hard to find somebody who understands the threat who doesn't support START. They are saying: Well, the verification doesn't go far enough. We have no verification now.

So Senator Kyl is the one who is saying that if we don't get everything done by Monday, they are done on the START treaty. I think I can speak for my colleagues on this side of the aisle. We are not done. We are not ready to go home. We want to stay here until we make sure we cut taxes for the middle class and continue that tax cut for the middle class. We want to stay here until we get that START treaty done, and we want to stay here and make sure we get an agreement to continue to fund the government. We will stay here, and I think most of us are willing to stay here weekends, all night, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the day after Christmas. I think we will stay here as long as it takes to complete this work.

So the sooner we find out the compromises they are willing to make, the better. Will they hold the middle class hostage, are they holding unemployment benefits hostage, and now will they hold the START treaty hostage for tax cuts for millionaires, the least stimulative tax break we can give? I hope not. For the sake of our economy, the future of this country, our grandchildren, deficit reduction, and national security, I hope not.

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