Economic Stimulus

Floor Speech

Mr. President, I come to the floor this afternoon to talk about the economic stimulus package.

In the last several years, millions of Americans have seen their primary source of wealth--their homes--plummet in value. As many as 2 million mortgage holders may lose their homes in this subprime crisis we are seeing. Investors around the world are now very concerned about the state of our economy. In my home State of Washington and across the country, people are very worried. We see Americans losing their jobs, we see them struggling to make ends meet, to buy groceries, to pay their power bills, even to afford health insurance. With our markets in decline, we have the opportunity now to give this economy a jump-start and help prevent a full-fledged recession.

Experts are telling us that taking action now to stimulate the economy by giving millions of taxpayers a rebate could help increase production and lift employment. Businesses--especially American manufacturers--need people to buy their products, and Americans need money to spend on those. I believe a quick stimulus bill that gives Americans some of their tax money back could make a real difference. But we also have to ensure that whatever action we take, it is temporary and targeted to where it can do the most good, and I am optimistic we can do that.

I wish to thank our House colleagues for coming to a quick agreement with the President on an economic stimulus package. Their proposal was a very good start, and I wish to thank Chairman Baucus and Ranking Member Grassley for getting to work immediately on a Senate plan. I hope we can all agree to get a bill to the President by February 15 and get this economy moving again.

In the last few days, I have talked with several economists who have appeared before our Budget Committee. They have shared their analysis of what Congress can do to prevent our economy from a full recession, and I think the legislation that was passed by the Senate Finance Committee largely meets their recommendations.

The Finance Committee bill would give middle and lower income Americans a $500 rebate check. It ensures that seniors who receive Social Security will get that rebate and, importantly, it extends the rebate to ensure that our disabled veterans who would not have qualified under the legislation at this point would get that rebate as well. I think this is particularly important. It restores the income cap so the rebates will go to the people who need it the most.

Any bill we pass has to ensure the rebates are targeted at seniors and working families. They are the backbone of our economy. They are the ones who need the money most, and they are the most likely to spend it. So you can be sure I will continue to fight any proposal that changes those provisions.

But I wish to add a few words to underscore the importance of including seniors in this bill. More than 20 million seniors depend on Social Security for their income, and they spend 92 percent of it--a greater proportionate share than all other adults--and seniors are among those who are hurt the worst during an economic downturn because of increasing health care costs. As our Finance Committee Chairman pointed out, seniors have worked hard all their lives, they pay taxes all their lives, and many of them still pay sales, property, and, of course, other taxes. So leaving seniors out of any stimulus bill would overlook their importance to our economy. It would make our stimulus bill much less effective and, most importantly, it would be enormously unfair.

I am encouraged by the progress we have made so far. I think a temporary, targeted stimulus is the shot in the arm our country needs. I have been pleased to see the President has been willing to work with us in Congress. I also believe there is a great deal more we can and should do that will help millions of struggling families and turn our economy around over the longer term. I know many of my colleagues agree. So I hope the President continues to see the value of working with us on longer term investments that will pay off for years to come.

One of those investments that I have high hopes will get us back to restoring our economy is a summer jobs program for teenagers. The unemployment rate for teenagers has jumped in the last year. For all teens, it is 17 percent, up from 13 percent in December of 2006. Among African Americans who are ages 16 to 19, it is almost 35 percent as of last month. Thirty-five percent unemployment for African-American youth between the ages of 16 and 19.

A summer jobs program would have a number of immediate and long-term benefits. We all know teenagers are likely to quickly spend any money they earn, so of course it would provide an immediate economic stimulus. But it also would work to begin to create a new generation of workers. Research shows teens who get work experience earn more over their lifetime.

Last November, I held a field hearing of my HELP Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety at South Seattle Community College. We focused on the need to create a number of pathways, multiple pathways to career success for our young workers. We had representatives from the private sector, organized labor, and they all talked about the need for a new generation of skilled workers, while students said they were not getting enough information about career opportunities and options. I heard about the real need for green-collar workers and the dire need for skilled trade workers who drive our country's economic engines. Quite frankly, attracting these young people to our labor force is something I believe is vital to our economic future in this Nation.

But the summer jobs program I have been talking about has another benefit for our communities. Teens with jobs are less likely to commit crimes or join gangs. A columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote a story that caught my eye a few weeks back. It was about a 17-year-old boy who had been killed in what police believe was a gang-related shooting. The columnist, Robert Jamieson, interviewed some of the boy's friends for the piece he wrote. One friend said the boy had applied for nearly a dozen jobs, but couldn't get anyone to call him back, so he turned to other means. Tragically, we lost him in a gang-related shooting.

Tragically, too many of our young people face the same choice between joining a gang or sticking with a discouraging job search. That story, I believe, illustrates why a jobs program for young people is one of the most important investments we can make in all our futures.

I wish to work with my colleagues on a bipartisan basis to provide the opportunities and the resources to ensure that this generation of workers and the next have the skills employers need so we can compete in the global economy.

I also believe we can create jobs and stimulate the economy by making desperately needed investments in our infrastructure, including our roads, bridges, levees, and mass transit systems across this country. Investing in our infrastructure would create jobs and increase spending on construction materials that would immediately infuse millions of dollars into our economy. Do you know that for every billion dollars of Federal spending on highways and transit, we create a whopping 47,500 jobs. That is putting people to work. Those investments would pay off in the long term as well by helping ensure that our roads and bridges and mass transit systems are safe and they are strong.

Finally, we have to do more to address the housing crisis itself that has spread across this country. While the economy may be headed toward recession, the housing market is in a depression. According to the New York Times, the number of homes set for foreclosure is higher than at any time since the Great Depression. We are seeing communities in this country where people are literally abandoning their homes because they cannot afford their mortgages, and they cannot find a willing buyer. In this country, home ownership has always been a sign of prosperity, but now, for millions of Americans, it has become a trap. With each and every foreclosure, the foundation of every one of our communities weakens as well.

There were warning signs more than a year ago that this crisis could affect the entire Nation, but President Bush took a hands-off approach and ignored the problem. Regulators failed to take aggressive action. Now economists tell us the worst is yet to come.

Our economic strength depends on Americans having a safe and stable place to live and raise their families. Our economy will not be stable again until this housing crisis is corrected. We have to take action to help prevent more drastic problems, and we have to ensure that this situation can't happen again. Families facing foreclosure must be able to get mortgage counseling or help in refinancing their mortgages.

The Finance Committee bill includes as well critical tax relief which I support for businesses that were directly impacted by the home building industry, which has, as we all know, now come to a standstill. We must reform the lending system to prevent more families from losing their homes. I think we should have two main goals.

First of all, we need to modernize the FHA to enable the Federal Government to offer an alternative to nontraditional loans we have seen explode in the past several years. Secondly, we need to ensure that Government lenders can replace some of the worst subprime loans with sound, traditional mortgages. I believe those investments will have a positive ripple effect on the economy for years to come. I guarantee I will be back on this floor many times over the next several months pushing this Congress to take action.

The current economic trouble we face is a direct result of this administration's failure to plan for the future and lead us in the right direction. Similar to any family who prepares to balance its checkbook, we have to take stock of our finances and get our books back in order. American families understand how to live within their means. When they sit down and work out their yearly budget, they consider all their costs, decide how to invest in savings, and balance their checkbooks. The Bush administration inherited a budget surplus, but they squandered it with policies paid for by borrowing funds from future generations of Americans.

By waging a war in Iraq and failing to be honest about the true costs of that war, President Bush has racked up a mountain of debt with no strategy whatsoever to pay it back. Instead of looking out for the needs of everyday Americans, he allowed his friends on Wall Street to take massive paychecks, while allowing predatory lenders to work unregulated. At the same time, the Bush administration has failed to invest in our roads, bridges, in health care, in education, in energy independence, and in our safety here at home. These are things that help our citizens get to work, stay healthy and safe, and these are things that keep our economy stable over the long term. The longer we go without addressing our crumbling highways, our skyrocketing health care costs or our dependence on foreign oil, the higher the costs will be when we have no choice and limited options to fix those problems. We saw that with Katrina. We saw it with the Minnesota bridge collapse.

Every family knows ignoring the need to spend wisely on things you depend on and failing to live within your means is a recipe for serious trouble down the road. So while the economic stimulus we are working on will do a lot of good in the short term, we have to insist that we deal with the real causes of our economic problems. It is time to take a lesson from American families: balance the budget, be honest about the true costs of this war, and think seriously about how we move forward. It is time to insist the Federal regulators who are supposed to watch out for economic trouble actually do their jobs.

It is time to stop ignoring our needs right here at home. President Bush has shown a willingness to work with Congress on this economic stimulus package. I hope he continues to see the value in working with us on the longer term policies that our economy and American families badly need.

I yield the floor.

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