The Economy
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I have been listening to criticism from the other side of the aisle about our plan to improve American families' economic security and the long-term strength in our economy.
And I have to wonder, why do Republicans never worry about deficits when they are passing trillion-dollar tax cuts that shower nearly all of the benefits on millionaires and wealthy corporations?
Why do Republicans only rediscover a concern about the debt when they are asked to support policies to help middle-class, working families, low-income individuals--people struggling to get into the middle class?
Or when someone proposes a long-term solution to make America's economy resilient and more prosperous for everyone, they are opposed to that. That is ``big spending.''
Republican welfare for the rich has always been a bad investment. Forty years of trickle-down economics has given America the greatest income inequality since the Gilded Age in our history and the largest national debt in our history. Republicans' devotion to trickle-down tax cuts has given us a shrinking middle class, a hollowed-out industrial base, and crumbling infrastructure. It has made a small sliver of America lavishly wealthy and left the rest behind.
The Republican economic agenda has left the majority of Americans asking: How are we supposed to pay for childcare, our kids' college education, medical bills, or for the skilled nurses that mom and dad are going to need? Will we ever be able to retire?
Trickle-down economics doesn't have answers for those real-life questions, but our Republican colleagues keep doubling down on them.
I predict, without fear of contradiction, now that we have a Democratic President, someone on the Republican side of the aisle will come around again with a balanced budget constitutional amendment. It happens without fail. Republicans always turn to that whenever there is a Democratic President, even though the debt that President inherited was historic.
But when their trickle-down tax cuts add trillions to the national debt, are they really worried?
They never say a word about deficit and debt until they are in the minority.
Donald Trump proposed more than a trillion dollars in tax cuts, with most of the benefits going to wealthy corporations and individuals.
Did the Republicans complain about the national debt then? No.
Did they insist that such an expensive gift must have bipartisan support? No.
They passed their trickle-down tax cut through reconciliation without a single Democratic vote.
Donald Trump promised that his tax cut would be ``rocket fuel for the economy.''
That may be a rare Trump boast that turned out to be true, although not exactly the way he meant it. We now have a handful of billionaires who have decided to launch their own personal space programs. They are so wealthy they are racing each other into space while regular working people worry about rent, childcare, and getting on here on Earth.
The Trump tax cut gave the wealthiest Americans a fat windfall. According to Americans for Tax Fairness, the Nation's 651 billionaires saw their net worth spike by more than $1 trillion during the first 9 months of the pandemic while the rest of America worried about how to pay the bills with a smaller paycheck or no paycheck at all.
After Donald Trump signed his tax bill, surrounded by quite a few of my Republican colleagues in the Senate, he headed to a Christmas Eve dinner at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, and like Santa Claus, he announced to the wealthy members at his own private club at Mar-a-Lago: ``You all just got richer.'' That was the real effect of the Trump tax cuts--the real intent.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2018 that Trump tax cuts will add $1.9 trillion to the national debt over 11 years. Where is the Republican outcry over that? The notion of $3 trillion to help working families pay less for the essentials of life, to cut their taxes, and give them an opportunity to be in an economy creating jobs really pales in comparison to the $1.9 trillion of tax cuts to the wealthy.
Economists at the London School of Economics analyzed the effects of trickle-down tax cuts over 50 years, 1965 to 2015. They found that trickle-down tax cuts consistently benefit the wealthy but had no meaningful effect on employment or economic growth, and they led inevitably to wider economic inequality.
The authors of the study were asked why some politicians still continue to push for these tax cuts for wealthy people. They pointed to one reason: the power of wealthy individuals and corporations to set policy agendas through their lobbying and campaign contributions.
You know what is going on, the fabulously wealthy people, who are contributing to politicians and causes that support their lifestyle, but they don't want us to know.
Is that why no Republican Senator supports President Biden's Build Back Better plan to help American families and our economy, because billionaires have more lobbyists and deeper pockets than struggling kids and families?
Two renowned economists from Princeton University--Alan Blinder, former Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve, and Mark Watson--looked at the major economic indicators of America's economy for every President back to Franklin Roosevelt.
They found by almost any major indicator--gross domestic product, employment, incomes, productivity, even stock prices--America's economy has grown significantly faster under Democratic Presidents than Republican. On jobs, since 1933, the six Presidents who presided over the fastest job growth have all been Democrats--the four Presidents with the slowest job growth, Republicans.
Donald Trump campaigned, promising to be the ``greatest jobs President God ever created.'' There were 3 million fewer jobs when he left office than at the beginning of his term. He is the first President since Herbert Hoover to lose jobs on his watch.
The Democrats are once again cleaning up the Republican mess. With the help of the American Rescue Plan, which not a single Republican Senator or Congressman supported, America's economy has added 4 million jobs during the first 6 months of Joe Biden's Presidency. That is the fastest growth for the start of any President ever in American history.
Here is another fact from the National Bureau of Economic Research. Between 1953 and 2020, America's economy was in a recession for 23 percent of the time that the Republicans held the White House, compared to just 4 percent of the time that a Democrat sat in the Oval Office.
For the past 40 years, Republican Presidents have run up larger deficits than Democrats. Let me say that again. In the past 40 years, Republican Presidents have run up larger deficits than Democratic Presidents.
Donald Trump promised to get rid of the national debt in 8 years through trade policy. Instead, his trade policies were a costly disaster, and the national debt skyrocketed by more than $7 trillion during his tenure.
A ProPublica-Washington Post analysis found that growth in annual deficit under Donald Trump is the third-biggest increase relative to the size of the economy of any U.S. President, with his tax cuts being the major culprit.
I could go on citing facts and figures. Democrats look at human priorities like quality childcare, medical research, renewable energy, and climate resilience, investments that grow the economy and raise wages and living standards for everyone.
We should have no apologies as Democrats for the programs that we support, particularly when it comes to climate change. That is a fact of life, sadly, in America, and we see the results reported every night on the news. Whether it is fires or extraordinary weather events, they are happening with increased frequency. It seems that Republicans ignore that reality. We cannot afford as a nation to do that any longer.
History shows that our approaches work in responding to many of these challenges. Our solutions produce stronger, more sustainable economic growth that benefits everyone. Stronger economic growth allows us to pay down our debt rather than continuing to add to it with more tax cuts for the top 1 percent.
Republicans can refuse to support our plan to Build Back Better; that is their choice. But please spare us lectures about fiscal responsibility. There is nothing responsible about repeating the same trillion-dollar mistake over and over and making small businesses and working families pay for it.
I always thought the Laffer curve, which is the inspiration to the Republicans for trickle-down economics, was the most appropriately named economic device in history--it is a ``laugher''--and we see over and over again why that is. Giving tax breaks to the wealthy might make for a happy Christmas at Mar-a-Lago but not for the rest of the country.
The real test is not whether we put votes on the board--and that is the bottom line in the Senate--but whether the center will hold, whether or not we have a strong enough center in the Senate dedicated to responsible investment and infrastructure and can overcome the forces outside.
Former President Trump has been making all these speeches about how bad it is to have an infrastructure program. Well, I would just like to remind the former President: He had no infrastructure program. Talked big. Delivered nothing. Now, we have a chance under President Biden to have one that is bipartisan in nature and truly will help this economy and this country over the long run.
In addition, I believe that we have to move further--and we certainly will with the budget resolution--in investing in America. The notion of having childcare--quality childcare--available and affordable to families is something that, unless you are a grandparent or a parent and know the reality, you may overlook and shouldn't. It is a critical factor in family welfare and good outcomes for children.
In addition, 2 extra years of education beyond the 12th grade, provided by our quality community colleges across America, is the ticket for better jobs and better training and better workers in the 21st century.
As we stand here, our major challenge, I suppose--our nemesis, foe-- is China. Some of us can remember something called ping-pong diplomacy, which occurred roughly when I came out of college. That was opening up what we called ``Red China'' then to the world and giving them an opportunity to compete and to be part of the world conversation, and it happened dramatically.
I remember visiting China several times and the first time, watching them in their Mao jackets on their bicycles, taking their kids to school. What I found in later visits was a really developed economy. The Chinese have a plan. They are mercantilists first, and they are marketing around the world successfully--successfully--because they have a plan. We don't have a plan, not until this President arrived.
President Joe Biden has started this plan by saying: First, we invest in our people and make certain that their lives are easier and successful. I support him completely in that effort. I hope many will. It should be bipartisan. If we have sympathy for the wealthiest in our country, I beg my Republican friends: Have some sympathy for the middle-income families, who are struggling every day to get by.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source