The Economy

Floor Speech

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I listened to the comments made by the Republican leader about how he believed President Obama is trying to change the topic and not talk about the economy and, rather, talk about ethical standards in the U.S. Congress. I have to say this is an issue that resonates with me personally because, as I mentioned earlier, I have been honored to have been brought up in public service by two outstanding individuals, former U.S. Senators Paul Simon and, before him, Paul Douglas. Both of these men had integrity as a hallmark. Even as people in Illinois disagreed from time to time with their positions on issues, they never questioned their honesty. That is my background, my training, and I have tried to continue in that tradition.

I accepted the standard, which was first initiated by Senator Paul Douglas and carried on by Senator Paul Simon, of making a complete income and asset disclosure every single year. I think if I look back now, I can trace it back to my earliest campaign, certainly back to my time in the office of the Lieutenant Governor. Almost every year I made that disclosure. There was some embarrassment in the early years, because my wife and I were broke and we showed a negative net worth because of student loans. We suffered some chiding and embarrassment over that. Over the years, even my wife got to where she didn't pay much attention on April 15 when I released all this information.

What we are considering on the floor is a tough issue. It is this: When you earn something as a Congressman or Senator, what should you do to take care that you don't capitalize on that, that you don't turn that into part of a personal decision that might enrich you? It is a legitimate issue, and I support the legislation that is on the floor, though I think it will be challenging to implement.

We should never capitalize on insider information, private information given to us in our public capacity, to enrich ourselves, period, no questions asked. What we have before us now is an opportunity to call for more timely disclosure of those transactions that Members of Congress--in this case Senators--engage in that might or could have some relationship to information they learned in their official capacity.

I quickly add that this is a challenge because, honestly, in our work in the Senate we are exposed to a spectrum of information on virtually every topic. People sit and talk to us, those in an official capacity and also unofficially, about the future of the European Community, what will happen there, and if the European economy goes down or up, what impact will it have on the United States. We learn these things in meetings; we think about them as we vote on measures on the floor. Obviously, they are being discussed widely in the public realm as well. So drawing those lines in a careful, responsible way is going to be a challenge for us.

But disclosure is still the best antidote to the misuse of this public information. I don't think it is wrong for the President to challenge us or for the Republican leader to challenge the executive branch at the same level. That is fair. You know I am friendly to the President. I am a member of his party and was a personal friend to him before he was elected, and I still am today. He should accept the challenge from the Senator from Kentucky to look at the standards within the executive branch to see if they meet at least the minimum standards set by this legislation. We should look at it, as well, in terms of our responsibilities as Senators.

I take exception to the comments made by the Republican leader when it comes to the state of the economy and the role of the executive. The Senator from Kentucky said there has been change in the national debt, since the President was elected, by an increase of 4 percent. I am sure that is close to true if not true in detail. But look at the circumstances. When President Clinton left office and turned the keys over to President George W. Bush, the national debt was $5 trillion, and the next year's budget would have been the third in a row in surplus by $120 billion--not a bad welcome gift from the outgoing President, William Jefferson Clinton.

Now fast forward 8 years as President Bush left office and handed the keys to President Obama--quite a different world. Instead of a national debt of $5 trillion, 8 years later, it was $11 trillion, more than double under President George W. Bush, a fiscal conservative by his own self-description. Look at what he left for President Obama in his first budget, in the first year: a $1.2 trillion deficit. Not a surplus, but a deficit 10 times as large as the surplus left by President Clinton. That is what President Obama inherited.

He said in the State of the Union Address that we had lost 3 million jobs in the 6 months preceding his being sworn in and another 3 million before his stimulus bill was passed and implemented. Six million jobs were gone; 750,000 people lost their jobs the month President Obama was sworn into office.

Now Senator McConnell comes to the floor and says that is President Obama's fault. I don't think that is a fair characterization. I think the President would accept responsibility not only for his time in office but for the decisions he has made. But to saddle him with the legacy of the previous President and his economic policies is fundamentally unfair.

The Senator from Kentucky says, don't forget, it was on President Obama's watch that a rating agency downgraded the credit rating of the United States. True. If you read the downgrade, it is not about the state of the economy, it was about the state of politics in Washington. We were downgraded by Standard & Poor's because they believed that we were incapable, as a divided government, to make important decisions for this Nation.

How did they reach that conclusion? Perhaps it was because of this divided government, with the tea party dominance in the House of Representatives, that led us into a position in 2011 where we faced two government shutdowns and one shutdown of the economy in the same year. This weakened economy, suffering from recession, still had to worry about whether the fights between the House and the Senate would lead to even more economic peril. That is why we were downgraded. Don't blame the President for that. We can blame ourselves--at least partially--for the downgrade. Let me say that too.

We know there is uncertainty about the future. People are waiting for certainty when it comes to the value of real estate, the future of jobs, and business. I understand that. But things are moving in the right direction. Last week, we learned that our economy grew at a rate of 2.8 percent in the last 3 months of 2011--the strongest quarter of the year--and it shows that the chances of double-dip recession are receding.

In 2011, the unemployment rate fell from 9 to 8.5. The private sector added more jobs in 2011 than in any year since 2005. The American manufacturing sector was growing for the first time since the late 1990s.

The Republicans don't want to credit this President as they should. There are 3 million new private sector jobs. The weakness in our unemployment figures reflects the loss of public sector jobs. Federal, State, and local employment has gone down as the revenues of government have decreased.

But this recovery is still fragile. Those who come to the floor, as many have, and argue for austerity and budget deficit concentration aren't wrong, but their timing is wrong. This is the moment when we need to strengthen this economy and move it forward. I was on the Bowles-Simpson commission. Understand that their deficit reduction did not begin until the first of 2013. We wanted to create enough time in that commission for the economy to recover and come out of this recession.

Those who argue that we should abandon that now would sink us even more deeply into a recession instead of on the road to recovery. We need to continue to act, to find that which will strengthen our economy--investment in education and training for our workers, investment in research, whether it is at the National Institutes of Health or other agencies of government, so that we can move forward with innovation and create jobs in areas such as green and clean energy.

Third is the development of our infrastructure. It is indefensible that Congress has been unable to pass a highway bill, an infrastructure bill to rebuild America. The trip I took to China last year was a stark reminder that China is determined to lead the world in the 21st century. They are building in China an infrastructure to do it, while we nurse one that has been falling apart for decades.

Can't Republicans and Democrats agree even in a Presidential election year that we need a solid infrastructure bill that will rebuild America and create good-paying jobs right here in America? It is time for us to have a balanced plan and to work together to achieve it.

The President is not trying to avoid the topic. He addressed it in his State of the Union Address. It is up to the Congress to follow.

I yield the floor.

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