Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce S. 1944, the RED Tape Act of 2015.

The letters R-E-D stand for Regulations Endanger Democracy. They do, and they are. This bill will help cut burdensome regulations--regulations that I think everybody agrees have been strangling our economy, regulations that many of my colleagues and I and economists around the country and around the world believe are at the heart of why we can't grow the great American economy.

Let me spend a few minutes on the economy, what the regulations are doing, and why I believe this bill is so important and why we are working hard to get bipartisan support for it.

There is a debate going on in this country and on the Senate floor: Are we in decline? Is America in decline? Are our best days behind us? Is China going to own the 21st century the way we did the last century?

Now, I am an optimist. I don't think we are in decline. We don't need to be in decline. Here is the reason why. We don't hear about it much, but when we look and compare the United States to other countries, we have so many comparative advantages. We still have so many comparative advantages.

Imagine the United States is in a global poker game with all the other major nations of the world around the table. We don't hear this much, but relative to other countries, we look at our hand and we hold aces. As a matter of fact, we hold most of the aces. Let me give a few examples.

The high-tech sector. Whether it is Silicon Valley, Massachusetts, places throughout the entire country, we still have the most vibrant, innovative high-tech sector of anyplace in the world, the ability to commercialize ideas with private equity and financing. If you have a good idea, an entrepreneurial idea in America, you can commercialize that, you can take that to market more quickly, more efficiently than any other place in the world.

Our agriculture sector for decades has been probably the most efficient agriculture sector in the world, feeding the world, literally.

Universities. Look at America's universities relative to any other place, any other country. I had the great honor--my oldest daughter of my three teenaged daughters graduated from high school last year. My wife and I took her to a number of universities she was looking at across the country. We have States--Massachusetts, California--that probably have better top research universities just in those States than other countries have in their entire country. In my State of Alaska, we have great universities. It is a huge advantage.

Energy. Once again through American innovation, we are the world's energy superpower again, the way we used to be, producing more oil, more gas, more renewables than any other country in the world. It is a huge advantage.

Fisheries. We are one of the top countries in the world in terms of the harvest of fisheries, and my State of Alaska is the superpower of American seafood. We harvest more than 50 percent of all seafood in America--a huge advantage for our country.

The military. I don't have to say much more about the military. We have the best, most professional military in the world, probably in the history of the world, unrivaled by any other nation, not even close.

Then even issues like--we talk a lot about immigration and how our system is broken and how the border needs to be secured. Absolutely. But we are still the country of the world that other people of the world want to come to. They want to come here.

I recently attended a naturalization ceremony in Juneau, AK. If you want to take pride in our country, if you want to see something great, go to a naturalization ceremony. See people who have been thinking about becoming an American for most of their lives finally achieving that goal. It will bring tears to your eyes. It brought tears to my eyes.

Then, of course, in terms of comparative advantages, there is our form of government, our Framers, our Constitution--the longest standing constitutional democracy in the world. It certainly is not perfect, but again, relative to other countries, it is a huge advantage.

So, as I mentioned, we have all the aces. In that big global game of poker, we have a great hand. As President Reagan said a couple decades ago, we are ``the greatest, freest, strongest nation on earth.'' And I believe we still are.

But, of course, like all countries, we have challenges. Here is the biggest challenge, I believe: If we have all the aces, if we have all these comparative advantages, why can't we grow our economy anymore? Why can't we create opportunities for young college graduates?

Our gross domestic product shrunk the first quarter of this year for the third time in the last 9 years. That hasn't happened in more than 60 years. From 2011 through 2014, our gross domestic product only grew at a little bit below 2 percent.

The comparative advantage, the growth rate that made our country great from 1790 to 2014--U.S. real GDP growth in real dollars--averaged an annual rate of 3.7 percent--almost 4 percent GDP growth. That is the average for our country's history. That is real, robust American growth. That is what made us great. The Obama administration's average is 1.36 percent per year.

Just last week--and I know this is an issue that you and I have talked a lot about--it was revealed that we now have officially the worst economic recovery in 70 years.

An article in the Wall Street Journal says that new GDP revisions show the worst recovery in 70 years and it was even weaker than we thought. This is a huge problem. We can no longer grow our economy. When that happens, we hurt the most vulnerable in society. But what is even more frustrating than that is when you come to Washington, it seems that nobody actually seems to care about this topic anymore or that we are going to dumb down our expectations.

It was pretty amazing. Some economists cheered. Our growth rate that was announced last quarter was a little bit over 2 percent GDP growth, and they cheered it. But, again, the issue doesn't even seem to be something that people here are focused on.

Let me give you an example. The first quarter of this year, the U.S. economy--the greatest economy in the world--went back into recession. We shrunk. That is a big deal. That should frighten people. Did the White House say anything? Did the Secretary of the Treasury come out and say: Oh, my gosh, we are back in a recession; here is what we are going to do to grow this economy because we know growth is the key to almost everything.

Not a word--in fact, what is starting to happen is--and it is a very, very dangerous trend in Washington--we are just going to dumb down our expectations. Yes, traditional levels of U.S. economic growth are almost 4 percent since the founding of our Nation. But guess what we are going to call it now. We are going to call 2 percent growth--which is all we can achieve, it seems--the new normal. We are not going to try to get back to 4 percent, the traditional levels. Democrats and Republicans have done that for decades, centuries. We are going to say: No, America, you need to be satisfied with the new normal--2 percent GDP growth.

Terms such as the ``new normal,'' ``secular stagnation''--some are even talking that this is our destiny as a nation. I don't like that term--``new normal.'' It is a surrender. It is a surrender of American greatness. It is a surrender of our future, and it is a surrender of our kids' future.

If we stay at these levels of growth--1.5 percent, 2 percent of GDP growth; the Obama administration growth levels--the challenges that we face are huge debt, infrastructure, funding the military, funding social programs, and even the cohesion of our great American country. All of these challenges will be much, much harder to address.

I believe one of the most important things we can do in this body, which we are not doing enough of, is to focus on this issue. Why are we not growing the American economy anymore? We have to get back to these robust levels of growth--Democratic, Republican levels. We have to get back to traditional levels of growth.

We can do better. Our history is better. This is the greatest economy in the world, and we need to unleash it. What is the problem? How do we do this? How do we get back to these levels of growth? If we are holding all the aces, what is holding us back?

I believe a huge part of the problem of what is holding us back is actually this town, the Federal Government, and the agencies here that are stifling economic growth with redtape from the alphabet soup of agencies--the IRS, the EPA, and the BLM--that are constantly promulgating new regulations. As opposed to being partners in opportunity, our Federal Government wants to regulate everything, all aspects of our economy.

Regulations across the country, from Alaska to Maine, are hurting businesses, are hurting the economy, and are hurting our citizens, especially the most vulnerable. Again, this is not a partisan issue. Almost all of us on both sides of the aisle agree that we need to cut redtape. Even President Obama's own Small Business Administration puts the number--the annual cost of regulations that grow every year--at $1.7 trillion per year. It is almost $1.8 trillion per year. If that were the economy, that would be one of the largest economies in the world. That is a staggering number, and they are growing. Regulatory costs amount to an average of almost $15,000 per household. It is around 29 percent of an average family budget of $51,000. People are noticing, not only in this country but globally.

On Friday, the Financial Times had an article: ``The land of free markets, tied down by red tape.''

Every nation needs a unifying idea. Americans love to see themselves as champions of free markets and entrepreneurial zeal.

That halo is coming off America because of regulations. What should we do? I believe we need to freeze the growth of regulations. That is what my bill, the RED Tape Act of 2015, does.

The cumulative Federal rules since 1976 is what we do here. We grow them like some irresistible force of nature. But it doesn't have to be that way. Unfortunately, my State has been ground zero for many overburdensome regulations--bridges, roads, and mines that take years simply to permit, not to build.

In rural Alaska, we are letting trash pile up because they don't make small, portable incinerators that comply with EPA regulations. Because of Federal roadless rules in southeast Alaska, we can't even build new alternative energy plants for energy-starved citizens of my State. Nationally, bridges are crumbling and can't get built because of overly burdensome regulations.

Let me provide one more example that you are aware of, Mr. President. Banks are failing. Because of regulations and a bad economy, over 1,300 small community banks have disappeared since 2010, and only two new banks in the United States have been chartered in the last 5 years. Even during the Great Depression we had on average 19 new banks a year. In the last 5 years, we have had two. As the article said, ``the entrepreneurial halo is starting to slip, too, since increasing quantities of red tape are making life harder for start-ups.''

Let me be clear. Regulations are not all bad. Many of them keep us safe from harm. But the mountains and stacks of regulations over the decades undermine our future.

What my bill would do is very simple. It is using a simple one-in, one-out method. New regulations that cause financial or administrative burdens on businesses for the people of the United States would need to be offset by repealing existing regulations. You issue a new reg and you repeal an old reg. If an agency doesn't want to do this, the cost of living adjustments for the agency personnel will be withheld until the agency abides by this law. It is very simple.

What we need to do is stop this growth of regulations on the American people and on our economy. This bill will help keep the regulatory system under control. It will help cut the redtape that binds us. It will bind the regulatory system instead, and it will help bring back the shine of that entrepreneurial halo in great American spirit that we all yearn for.

Finally, it will make sure that the aces we have in our hand--the comparative advantages that we have over every other country in the world--are used to benefit our country, grow our economy, and create a brighter future for our children.

I ask my colleagues to support this bill.

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