Recession

Floor Speech

RECESSION -- (Senate - January 25, 2008)

Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I commend our colleague from North Dakota for highlighting some of the challenges we face economically. He did it in a very compelling way, as he always does. We are grateful for his leadership on these issues.

I stood before the Senate a couple of days ago and talked about the fact that we have a war in Iraq that we cannot forget about. In fact, if you listen to some of the news, you would think there are only one or two issues we have to worry about, but the war continues to be a central issue for the American people. We also have to be very concerned, as Senator Dorgan and others have reminded us, about the economy.

I was asked recently by a reporter--a couple of different reporters, actually--who said to me very simply--or asked me, I should say, very simply the question: Are we in recession? I answered them without blinking, without even stopping to think, because I know it is the truth, and the answer is yes, we are in a recession. I don't care about, nor do I need to wait, for some academic dissertation or some economist to tell us what is the textbook definition of a recession. We are in a recession. We have to do something about it. I think it is as plain as could be.

So what do we do about this recession? How do we respond to it? Thank goodness, there is a lot of bipartisanship on this issue, both parties coming together to try to do something about it. But I think we have to describe for people in Washington what this means for real people. I will talk about it in the context of Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania families, by way of highlighting this issue. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record two pages I am going to be referring to from the Joint Economic Committee, Pennsylvania Economic Snapshot, dated January 23, 2008.

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Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I want you to know I will not read these two pages, but I want to highlight a couple of data points in this summary--two pages, four or five highlights.

First, delinquencies, mortgage delinquencies, are up from the third quarter of 2005 to the third quarter of 2007, up by some 40,000 mortgages, just in Pennsylvania. Then, stretching back over a couple of years, we look at gas prices. From January of 2001 forward, up 86 percent, gas prices in Pennsylvania; home heating costs, in 1 year--1 year--up 18.9 percent; health insurance for families. If you look at it over a 5-year period, 2000 to 2005, health care premiums for families are up 45.8 percent. And one more: Childcare costs per month for two children, which is the case for a lot of families, childcare costs per month for two children is averaging $1,273.

That is just in one State and a couple of highlights. We could go on and on, but I won't.

There are the economic realities for Pennsylvania families, and we could add more to that list. So when a reporter or anyone else asks me, Are we in a recession, my answer is, You bet we are. A lot of families in Pennsylvania and across the country think we have been in a recession, or their families have been in a kind of recession for years now--not just since the holidays, not just in the last year, but for many years. So I think the data is compelling and overwhelming and irrefutable.

But let's think about it even more broadly. In terms of health care, Families USA did a report this past November--again, just in Pennsylvania--and they have done it for a lot of States, but Pennsylvania was the first one they announced. I will read one sentence from a long report, one sentence from this report by Families USA on the issue of health care. I think one sentence tells the story. During this same period that they referred to earlier in the report, meaning 2000 to 2007, during that 7-year period:

The average worker's share of annual family premiums rose from $1,656 to $3,281, an increase of more than 98 percent.

What they are saying in that one sentence is that in the State of Pennsylvania, over that 7-year period of time, the workers' share of annual family premiums went up 98 percent--98 percent in one State, the workers' share on health care. I don't even need to refer to the rest of the report. That tells the story.

So that is all the information. That is all the data. But what do we do with it? We saw in the news today and yesterday that there has been an agreement of sorts that has been brought about on the economy, and I think we should all be encouraged by the fact that the President and the Congress are working together on a stimulus package. But what does that mean, and what are the elements of it? I won't go into all of it, but I think one thing we have to be guided by--and we have heard over and over again this sound bite in Washington, but we should say it again. These are not my words. We have all quoted these, but they summarize it pretty well: Whatever stimulus package we have in place for the American people has to be timely, has to be temporary, and has to be targeted. Another way to say that is we have to put in place policies for the stimulus that we know will work.

I want to refer to a chart here that tells that story pretty well. We have seen this chart before, but it bears repeating. Other Members of the Senate have used it. The targeted stimulus proposals, the ones that deliver far more bang for the buck. It is very simple: What do you get for a buck in stimulus expenditure?

We know this from the data. This isn't some Democratic operative; this is what Mark Zandi from economy.com put forth: food stamps, spend a dollar and get $1.73 back; unemployment, spend a dollar in stimulus, get $1.64 back. States are in a fiscal mess. We won't go into that, but if you spend a dollar, you get $1.36 back in return. Then it goes down from pay, with payroll tax rebates and temporary income tax. We know that expending tax cuts for the wealthy, which is on the table right now, doesn't work. We know what works.

We have to make sure, in my judgment, that if we put together a bipartisan stimulus package--and we still have to work on this in the Senate--that we invest in strategies that will work, not what we would like to do or hope to do or not what one side or the other believes is a good idea. We have to invest in strategies that work: Food stamps, not just because it helps individual Americans and their families, but we know by investing in that strategy, they will spend the money quickly. We need people to spend money very rapidly to dig us out of the hole we are in. Food stamps, unemployment benefits, and aid to the States--we have to provide investments in strategies that will work.

Another thing we have to do is make sure that when we are dealing with the housing crisis, we spend dollars and have strategies that lead to help in the short run. I was one of three Senators who put in the budget $180 million for counseling. It is not some far-reaching plan to deal with the subprime crisis; it is dollars right now. In fact, the dollars for counseling would get dollars into the hands of nonprofit groups in the country to help families out of this next month, so to speak. Those dollars--$180 million--will begin being spent in March. That will work. Those counselors are experts. They are certified, and they know how to work with families. We have to invest in that.

I will conclude with this thought. If you walked through the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, I don't think many people would be scratching their heads and wondering whether that was a category 5 hurricane or a category 4. It didn't matter; it was devastating. I don't think we ought to wonder whether an economist tells us we are in a recession. We are in a recession.

We know something about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. When all of the reporting was done, when that horrific nightmare engulfed so many families, who were washed out of their homes and their hopes and dreams were gone, I think we learned a lot from what didn't happen before the hurricane.

We know as Americans that devastation doesn't always come with the awful swiftness of a hurricane. Sometimes it happens much more gradually, over time, when you don't make the right decision and prioritize and when you don't make the right investments. We are not doing that right now. We are not making the investments we should make in children in the dawn of their lives. We are not making an investment in fiscal responsibility to the extent we should. We are not investing in our infrastructure. Maybe all of those decisions can lead to a kind of slower moving Katrina or slower moving hurricane, which is an economic hurricane, or a devastating hurricane that dashes the hopes and dreams of children and their families.

So when we make a decision about what will be in the stimulus package to help people in the short run, we also have to get to work on a long-term strategy for economic growth, investing in our children, and making sure families can grow. I am concerned about how we are doing that or not doing it in Washington. We should learn from the horrific nightmare that was Hurricane Katrina. We should learn from, frankly, information such as this that tells us what will work in the short run to get us out of this mess and stimulate the economy and get dollars in the hands of Americans who will spend the dollars, which will jump-start or jolt our economy. I think we can come together and do that. I don't think what we have seen so far gets us to that point.

I am grateful for the opportunity to talk about these issues. I know they are central not just to Pennsylvania and our families but in States such as Minnesota and other States across this country. We have a lot more work to do to get the stimulus package right to help our economy.

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