Tsunami Warning, Education, and Research Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, one of the things I have been focused on--and I know many of my colleagues have been as well, such as the Presiding Officer--in the last couple of years in the Senate is coming to the Senate floor and speaking about this issue, certainly one of the most important issues we can be focused on in the Congress, and that is the economy and the economic growth for the United States.

What we have here, shown by this chart, is really a lost decade of economic growth that we have had in America over the last 10 years--a lost decade. This chart reflects the gross domestic product, or GDP growth, in the United States over the last several decades. GDP is essentially really a measure of the health of the economy, the health of the opportunity that we have in this country. By any measure, over the last 10 years we have had a sick economy.

So if we look here at the 3-percent GDP growth, this is OK growth. It is not considered that great. The average rate of growth for the United States over the last 200 years--what really has made our country great--has been about 3.9 percent, almost 4 percent. Three percent is not great. It is certainly below average. But we have a President-- President Obama--and an administration that is going to be the first President ever to never in 1 year, even once, hit 3 percent GDP growth ever.

Let me cite a couple of recent numbers. In the fourth quarter of 2015, we grew at 0.9 percent of GDP and did not even hit 1 percent. In the first quarter of 2016, it was 0.8 percent of GDP. In the second quarter of 2016, it was 1.1 percent GDP growth. It is true that the third quarter numbers came out estimated just a little above 3 percent for the quarter, but the year will be way off of even 3 percent.
Again, traditional levels of American growth are close to 4 percent.

So each quarter, when these numbers have come out--these dismal, anemic economic growth numbers--what I have tried to do is come to the Senate floor, talk about the issue, and then ask the question: Where is the Secretary of the Treasury? Where is the President of the United States? What is the plan? Is this really what we expect for Americans? We can't even hit 3 percent GDP growth.

Look at every other administration, including Kennedy, Johnson, Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan--holy cow--6 percent, 5.5 percent; Bill Clinton, 4.5, 5 percent; even George Bush, well above 3 percent. Not once in 8 years--the lost decade of economic growth under President Obama. That is with low energy prices, and that is with super-low interest rates.

So when we ask what the plan is, what the administration is doing to grow the economy, they come back and say: Well, listen, the new normal is about 2 percent, 1.5 percent GDP growth. They don't say we are going to grow the economy. They just dumb down American expectations. Go google the term ``new normal.'' Everybody uses it now in Washington.

Essentially, they are saying that 1.5, 2 percent GDP growth is the best we can do.
I have a lot of respect for my colleague from Oregon, but if you want to talk about an Ebenezer Scrooge strategy--growing the U.S. economy at 1.5 percent and not even trying to grow at traditional levels of
American growth--that is the ultimate Ebenezer Scrooge strategy because the entire country, especially middle class families, are hurt by it.

So this answer that, no, we can't even hit 3 percent, that the new normal is 1.5, 2 percent, that is an answer that we get from the Obama administration. The Secretary of the Treasury never comes out and tells us how we are going to get back to traditional levels of growth. That is an answer that consigns millions of Americans to lives where they no longer believe in economic opportunity, no longer believe in strong wages and in terms of growth for our wages, and no longer believe in a future in which their kids are going to do better than they did.

We talk a lot about stats, which are important to understand. So let me give my colleagues some of the numbers behind them. In the last 8 years, we have now had, in terms of people working in the workforce, the lowest labor-force participation rate since 1978. What does that mean? Again, that is a health issue of our economy. It means that millions of Americans have just quit looking for work. Can we imagine being that discouraged because the economy is not growing and so you just quit looking?

The percentage of Americans below the poverty line has grown by almost 4 percent over this period, where we see no growth. Real medium household income during this period sank by almost $2,000. Food stamp participation in this period--again, 8 years--has soared by almost 40 percent. The percentage of Americans who own homes, which is one of the ultimate markers of the American dream, is the lowest it has been since 1965. So we were talking about Ebenezer Scrooge. My colleague was just talking about him. Those are Ebenezer Scrooge numbers, and those are Americans who are hurting because we can't grow the economy.

We need to change that. The Obama administration has not been focused on this issue. We never hear the Secretary of the Treasury come out--or even the President--and talk about how we get back to traditional levels of American growth, like every Republican and Democratic President has done for decades. They don't talk about it. They haven't been focused on it. But I think on November 8, we saw that the American people are very focused on this issue. Millions and millions of Americans rejected the idea that, because of these growth rates, they had to give up on the American dream and a strong U.S. economy and good jobs. They did not want to give up on it. We do not want to give up on that.

In essence, Americans saw that the idea of the new normal--which is this, peddled by the Obama administration--is a surrender, and they didn't want to surrender. We shouldn't surrender. We need to grow this economy.

So what now? Well, I find it very encouraging that the President- elect and his team, including his nominee for the Secretary of the Treasury, have been talking very regularly about this issue. We need to grow the economy--not at new normal rates of 1.5 percent or 2 percent but at 3, 3.5, or 4 percent GDP growth. That is what we need to do. We in this body need to help them do that because that is what the American people want. In fact, with the exception of having a strong military and keeping this country safe in terms of national defense, growing our economy, creating economic opportunity for all Americans is certainly one of the most important things we can do in the Senate. But we need a partner in the executive branch. We need a partner in the executive branch that is actually focused on the issue, that actually cares about these numbers, and we haven't had it in 8 years. So where do we start?

I think we need to start on this issue of the overregulation of our economy. Again, the incoming administration has talked a lot about this issue. When we ask people outside of Washington what is keeping our economy down, they refer to this. This chart is a chart of the cumulative number of Federal rules that have come out of this town onto American businesses, small businesses, and working-class families. That is what we see--pure growth, pure growth.

President Obama has enacted more than 600 new major regulations, totaling close to $800 billion or $2,300 per American. What is really interesting is that, despite the fact that the American people on November 8 said they want to grow the economy and they don't want to see this continue, this administration is putting its pedal to the metal on trying to see how many more regulations they can issue and promulgate to crush our economy and opportunity.

My State has been ground zero for a lot of these regulations. We are a resource development State in Alaska. The President just last week came out with a new regulation that said: I know that the vast majority of Alaskans want to responsibly develop their resources, but I am going to take the entire Outer Continental Shelf off the table for Alaska.

Sorry, Alaska. Sorry, workers. Sorry, American energy independence. I am taking it all off the table. That was a regulation the President put on the table and issued last week that is going to hurt our economy, that is going to hurt American energy independence, that is going to hurt jobs, that is going to hurt our national security, and he did it anyway. There are no leases in my State because the President, in Executive order, issued that. That is not what the American people voted for on November 8.

So several Senators, led by Senator Gardner, are going to be sending the President a letter very soon saying: Mr. President, the American people have spoken. The American people are tired of this. You are on your way out. Please, respect the results of the election and quit issuing these regulations that are stifling economic growth and crushing middle-class families. I hope he will abide by that. I hope he listens to us. I hope he listens to the American people. But, somehow, I think we are going to see even more of these in the next month or so.

I wish to conclude by noting something that I think most Americans understand intuitively. When it comes to our Nation and the comparative advantages that we have over other countries--and I am talking about the major countries in the world, whether it is China or Russia or the EU or Brazil or Japan--we have so many incredible comparative advantages relative to anyone. We have energy. We have great entrepreneurs. We have world class universities. We have agriculture and fisheries that literally feed the world. We have some of the brightest young people, like our pages here. We have a military that is the most professional and lethal in the world, by far. We have alliances all over the world where countries want to be close to the United States. Our adversaries and potential adversaries, such as China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, have very few, if any, allies.

We have so many advantages, and yet the majority of Americans think we are heading in the wrong direction. I believe they think that because we can't grow the economy. So what we need to do is for all of us to work closely with the new administration, and I would encourage all of my colleagues here in the Senate to focus back on this issue. We need to return to traditional levels of American economic growth, and we can do it with the right policies.

I yield the floor.

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