The Stimulus Bill

Floor Speech

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, my colleague and friend Senator Coburn of Oklahoma spoke at length about our Nation's deficit. I share his concern about the impact of debt on future generations. It is an interesting moment in time when many of my friends from that side of the aisle are raising the issue of deficits and debt. We are in one of the most serious economic crises of our time--maybe the most serious since the Great Depression. This President, recently inaugurated, 2 weeks ago, inherited the worst economic situation since Franklin Roosevelt in the Great Depression in 1933. He inherited a debt that was unimaginable 8 years ago when the previous President began his administration. When President Bush came to office, our national debt was in the range of $5 trillion. When he left office, he doubled that national debt to more than $10 trillion--in an 8-year period of time. The accumulated debt of the United States of America, from its inception to that moment, was $5 trillion; in 8 years President Bush doubled the national debt.

Many people believe it is going to continue to grow because of some of the decisions he made. One was to wage a war and not pay for it, adding almost $1 trillion to our national debt in the process. Many other decisions, such as cutting taxes at a time when our country couldn't afford it, and it turned out to be foolhardy and with little positive impact on our economy, President Obama inherited that. Now he is faced with not only that debt, which my colleague from Oklahoma has aptly described, but also an economic crisis that cannot be ignored.

We were told a week ago that the gross domestic product of the United States of America had declined precipitously for the first time in 25 years. It is an indication that our sense of economic decline has been borne out by the numbers and statistics. We see it in every State with increased unemployment. So President Obama is faced with a terrible situation: the largest deficit and debt in the history of the United States, left by the previous President, and the worst economic crisis in 75 years.

Well, my colleague who spoke is a medical doctor. He knows the first thing you have to do in the most serious trauma cases is to try to stabilize the patient, and that is what President Obama is trying to do, stabilize the economy. Every economist--virtually every one--liberal and conservative, agrees that you cannot stabilizes the economy by cutting spending. You have to do the opposite. You have to encourage economic activity, economic growth, business, jobs. Those are the things that have to be done, and the Government must spend money, even if it is in debt. Failing to do that will cause our economy to decline even further, and more suffering will be borne by the families and businesses across America.

So when the Senator from Oklahoma comes to the floor and says this is the wrong time to spend money, I have to tell him that there is no recourse but to try to get this economy moving forward by creating good-paying jobs in America, investing in our future, making sure we are moving toward energy independence, trying to prepare our educational resources for the 21st century by modernizing labs and libraries and classrooms, trying to bring the kind of changes to health care where technology will make health care more affordable and safer for patients across America. These are investments that will not only help us through the current recession but will pay off for decades to come.

We are clearly spending this money in a deficit situation because we have no choice. Across the Rotunda in the House of Representatives, when President Obama's recovery and reinvestment bill came forward, not a single Republican Representative would vote for it. That is unfortunate. The President reached out to them personally and asked them to join him in a bipartisan effort, both political parties cooperating and working together. Sadly, it didn't occur.

I hope that is not the case in the Senate. I trust that some Republican Senators will come forward and realize that we are making a good-faith effort to accommodate any reasonable change they want to make to the program. If they want to reduce spending in some areas, we are open to it. If they have ideas that are better than ours, we are open to them as well. I tried to make that clear. I think my colleagues on this side and the White House have tried to make that clear.

At the end of the day, we are going to have to face reality. We will be spending money now to try to stop this economic tailspin. Once we get the economy stabilized and start investing toward growth again so people have peace of mind about their jobs and businesses, savings, and the future, then we can address responsibly, as we must, the deficit and debt situation. I look forward to working with the Senator from Oklahoma when that day arrives. Right now, we have to stabilize the patient.

I say to my friend, Dr. Coburn, join us in this important effort, and then we can join hands together and try to find the way through the fiscal problems we are currently facing.

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