American Recovery And Reinvestment Act Of 2009
Floor Speech
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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I support the amendment that has just been described by the Senator from Vermont prohibiting banks which get TARP funds from hiring H-1B guest workers for this year. I support the amendment because these companies should be hiring American workers during these tough economic times, particularly when there are so many qualified Americans on the streets looking for jobs. The American taxpayers who will be footing the bill on the stimulus money would agree with me. Banks that are getting taxpayer funds need to hire qualified Americans first before hiring foreign guest workers.
Many banks participate in the H-1B visa program. Over 6 years, the banking industry has requested visas for over 21,000 foreign guest workers. The purpose of the H-1B visa program is to assist companies in their employment needs where there is not a sufficient American workforce to meet their technology and expertise requirements.
I am very OK with an H-1B program if American companies cannot find enough qualified Americans to do certain jobs that need that particular expertise. Then we need to help those companies with those resources. However, H-1B and other worker visa programs were never intended to replace qualified American workers. We do not want to put Americans at a disadvantage. And now that many qualified, hard-working American bank workers are unemployed, banks that want to hire workers will not have a hard time finding what they need from the American workforce.
I am concerned companies going through layoffs that currently employ H-1B workers will be retaining those guest workers rather than similarly qualified American employees. We hear announcements every day about companies cutting large numbers of jobs. Yet many of these companies continue to advocate for H-1B visas and apply for them.
I am pretty sure these work visa programs were never intended to allow companies going through layoffs to retain foreign guest workers rather than similarly qualified American workers. I think in implementing layoff plans, companies should ensure that American workers have priority in keeping their jobs over foreign guest workers on visa programs. I recently sent a letter to Microsoft asking a series of questions about the makeup of their layoff plan and encouraging the company to ensure that Americans are given priority in job retention.
Our immigration policy is not intended to harm the American workforce. I firmly believe companies going through layoffs that employ H-1B visas have a moral obligation to protect American workers by putting them first during these difficult economic times. So I plan on looking into this issue further and exploring whether legislation is necessary there.
Again, I support the amendment Senator Sanders and I have put in. The bottom line is, employers should recruit qualified American workers first before hiring foreign guest workers. If banks are going to be getting TARP money from the American taxpayers, then they should be hiring American workers. I want to emphasize, once again, I am not against the H-1B program. I think when we do not have workers in this country, we need to keep it going, but it is how it operates. That is also why Senator----
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for one moment?
Mr. GRASSLEY. After one sentence. That is why I also support Senator Durbin and I working together on a reform of the H-1B program.
Mr. President, I will yield the floor for a question or whatever the Senator might want.
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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, while we are debating this trillion dollar bill, we need to keep our eye on the ball. We have a preliminary study that I have referred to a couple times in previous debates by the Congressional Budget Office, which shows that jobs created by the economic stimulus legislation being debated in the Senate would cost the taxpayers between $100,000 and $300,000 apiece.
These numbers should be contrasted to those under the January baseline of the Congressional Budget Office, in which there is no stimulus, that shows that the gross domestic product per worker is about $100,000. In other words, without the bill, the new analysis indicates that the cost of each stimulus job to be as much as three times more than jobs created without the stimulus bill.
There has been a lot of talk about getting the most ``bang for the buck,'' but there is no talk about actually making sure it happens so that Americans get the help they need. Before Congress spends another trillion dollars, we ought to make sure we are getting our money's worth. I will reiterate a caution that I gave the other day. Before this bill passes the Senate, we ought to have the full analysis of the Congressional Budget Office that they said would take a few days to get done. We need to know what these jobs are going to cost so we get our money's worth. We are the caretakers of the taxpayers' dollars--tossing money at a program, when you figure that our gross domestic product would produce about $100,000 per worker--and we have in this bill these jobs costing up to $300,000 apiece.
I yield the floor.
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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, my friend from Montana referred to the CBO analysis of this bill. He rightly pointed to some proposals in the bill that will have some stimulative effect. The Chairman also talked about CBO's analysis of years 1 through 3--all relevant data. But we need to know what happens in years 4, 5, and years 6 through 10. I have asked that question because there is a reasonable fear that the spending might have a negative effect on the economy from years 4, 5 and so forth.
The spending might ``crowd out'' investment and that crowding out could adversely affect economic growth later.
It is kind of like the difference between a carbohydrate diet and a protein diet. Under this bill, there is a lot of carbohydrate-spending. The spending is like eating a sugary doughnut. It tastes good going down, but shortly thereafter the effect wears off and you are hungry again. In this case, we have a spending surge, but we might face the effects of too much spending with crowdout.
On our side, we would prefer a protein-type of stimulus. We want investment nourishment up front. Like protein, the economic body will become stronger after the investment stimulus is digested.
Now, I am not saying there shouldn't be any spending stimulus. What we need is a balanced stimulative diet. This bill's stimulus diet is too carb-oriented. It needs more protein investment stimulus.
I am afraid the detailed CBO analysis of years 4, 5 and 6 through 10 may confirm that this bill will show that we pay the price for a stimulus package that is too far tilted towards spending.
On the AMT patch point made by Senator DURBIN, I agree the AMT patch is not in the McCain admendment. As one who pushed for it in the Finance Committee, I agree the patch would be a good addition.
Senator MCCAIN would be glad to add the AMT patch. But I would ask my friends in the Democratic leadership a question. If the patch were added, would they support the bill?
They were supporters of the House bill and the Chairman's mark. Both documents did not contain the AMT patch. If we add the patch here, will they support Senator McCain's amendment?
If Senator McCain's amendment passes, I will seek to add the AMT patch in conference so that 24 million American families do not get hit with this stealth tax.
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