American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
Floor Speech
AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT OF 2009 -- (Senate - February 09, 2009)
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Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, I rise today to speak on behalf of the bipartisan compromise amendment Senator Ben Nelson and I have filed, on which we will be voting very soon. Before I get to the specifics of our amendment, let me address more generally the challenge, indeed the crisis, we are facing as a nation.
Over the course of the past year and a half, and particularly during the last 6 months, we have witnessed the collapse of the housing market, the unraveling of our Nation's financial institutions, and the evaporation of trillions of dollars of what had been invested in the stock market and in people's retirement accounts. As a result, millions of Americans are worried about whether they now have enough money to retire, how they will make ends meet if they are already retired, or how they will help pay for their children's education.
I have heard from far too many Mainers who have had to delay their retirement plans because they no longer have the nest eggs for which they have worked so hard.
The crisis that started on Wall Street has become a crisis on Main Street in every community in America. The deeply disturbing economic report released last Friday underscores the magnitude of the challenge we are facing. Nearly 600,000 Americans lost their jobs in the month of January, bringing to 2.5 million the number lost since the end of summer. The Nation's unemployment rate is the highest it has been in more than 16 years.
In my home State of Maine, job losses totaled 3,400 in December and the unemployment rate has reached 7 percent. It seems every day brings another report of a business laying off hundreds or even thousands of workers.
Friday we learned that Katahdin Paper, in East Millinocket, ME, is being forced to lay off 140 workers for at least a month because the business simply does not have enough orders to keep these workers on the job. These are people who have worked hard their entire lives to take care of their families and now they fear for their future.
I know everyone in this body recognizes the difficult straits we are navigating as a nation. Finding a consensus on how to address our economic crisis is extremely difficult. There are some who believe no action is better than the action that has been proposed. I could not disagree more. The future of our economy depends on immediate action that is targeted and effective and the American people rightly expect that this action will be bipartisan; that we will come together to address the most serious economic crisis in generations. That is why I joined with my good friend, Senator Ben Nelson, and a group of Senators from both sides of the aisle, including the Presiding Officer, to help craft a bipartisan compromise to achieve these critical goals.
I want to recognize that, regardless of how many Republicans vote for this package today, several were involved in the deliberations in which we participated. Their insights and input were invaluable in crafting the compromise package we are offering tonight. Our efforts to reach a compromise would not have been possible without this hard work, this dedication, this commitment by our colleagues on both sides of the aisle.
Here is what our amendment would do. First, we will provide more than $200 billion in aid to the States. I stress that because I have heard some commentators say there is no money in here, that it has been slashed, that it has been cut, that there is nothing left for the States. Madam President, $200 billion is included in this compromise. Approximately $87 billion of this amount will flow through a temporary increase in the Federal share of the Medicaid Program. I know that as a former Governor, the Presiding Officer is well aware that for most States health care costs are the No. 1 item in their budget. If it is not health care, it is education.
The loss of jobs often means the loss of health insurance and it is well established that the number of persons relying on Medicaid increases in a poor economy. Moreover, this increased demand for services occurs at precisely the time that State budgets are under the most pressure. Our proposal, therefore, includes $87 billion in assistance to States through a targeted, temporary increase in the Federal Medicaid matching rate. Maine will receive an additional $490 million in Federal Medicaid funds through this provision alone.
I want to recognize and salute the work of my colleague from Maine, Senator Snowe, who worked very hard in the Finance Committee with her colleagues to shape this portion of the aid. And I also want to note the hard work of my good friend Arlen Specter, whose efforts were so essential to the construction of this compromise.
Putting money in the hands of States is a commonsense way to stimulate economic growth. Leading economists have found that targeted aid to States will generate increased economic activity of $1.36 for every $1 spent. Moreover, this temporary increase will help States avoid cutting back on health care coverage and services at the very time that the number of families needing help is increasing.
Some of my colleagues are opposed to this provision because they say it will never be temporary, that once we increase the Federal matching rate it will become a permanent entitlement. We have only to look at history to know that is not true. In 2003, Senators Nelson, Rockefeller, and I negotiated a similar temporary increase that proved effective in staving off drastic cuts in Medicaid and we need to provide similar assistance again. I would note it was 18 months that we did that for, so I believe we can do this in a temporary, targeted way.
Next, our amendment provides $41.6 billion for education programs. That is right, more than $41 billion in new funding for education programs. It includes $13.5 billion in funding through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA, what is known to most of us as special education, education for children with special needs. This new funding will help fulfill a promise that the Federal Government made back in the 1970s, when it first passed IDEA. At that time, the Federal Government promised to pay 40 percent of the national average per-pupil expenditure for every child in special education and we have never come close. This is the granddaddy of unfunded Federal mandates. This money will help relieve the burden on school districts. Every school district throughout the United States will benefit from this increase in special education funding. That, in turn, will help communities retain support staff and teachers in the classroom because, after all, they cannot cut back on funding for special education because that is a Federal mandate. What happens is they are forced to cut back elsewhere. This will help a great deal with teacher and support staff retention and it helps relieve the pressure of this unfunded mandate.
Other education funding includes $10.4 billion in title I funding. This is funding that goes to school districts with high percentages of economically disadvantaged students.
Another education portion of this bill provides $13.9 billion for Pell grants so that the maximum Pell grant will increase by $281 for the 2009 school year, and by $400 for the 2010 school year. I worked at a college prior to my election to the Senate and I know how critical Pell grants are for our low-income families.
That is not all. The $200 billion in aid to States also includes $39 billion for a new State stabilization fund, to help States and local governments with other key priorities.
Let me now talk about another part of this bill that I think is absolutely critical and which fortunately enjoys widespread support. Every State in the Nation has a backlog of needed infrastructure projects that are ready to go--the engineering is done, the design is completed, they are truly shovel ready. We are providing nearly $52 billion in funding to restore our Nation's crumbling infrastructure. Of that amount, $45.5 billion is directed to a wide variety of transportation projects and that is expected to produce $5.70 of economic benefits for every $1 spent--a tremendous rate of return. For every $1 billion invested in transportation infrastructure, up to 35,000 jobs can be created, so this is a real job generator. Under our amendment, the State of Maine could receive more than $170 million in transportation infrastructure funding, and that will result in nearly 6,000 jobs for Mainers.
This part of our amendment also provides $6.4 billion for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund and the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund. Again, these are more examples of unfunded Federal mandates where we can help relieve pressure on States and communities while creating good jobs.
There have been many discussions about what should not be included in this bill. There are a number of worthwhile projects and programs that were funded by the House bill and by the bills as reported by the Senate committees--programs I have always supported that are near and dear to my
heart. But the fundamental, critical goal of this bill is to provide a jolt to our economy to get it back on track.
So some of these programs, while they are worthy of an increase in funding, simply do not belong in an economic stimulus bill. This is the test we applied: Will it help get our economy on track? Will it create jobs? Will it save jobs? Will it put tax relief in the pockets of consumers? These are the proper criteria.
It is the regular appropriations process that is the appropriate vehicle for considering funding for many of these programs that, while worthwhile, do not boost our economy. So our amendment eliminates $5.8 billion for health prevention and wellness programs. I support these programs. I am a strong supporter of them. But it simply does not make sense to fund smoking cessation programs as part of an economic stimulus package. It does not make sense to include $870 million for pandemic flu preparedness, again an issue that I care deeply about because of my role on the Homeland Security Committee.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to proceed for 2 additional minutes.
Mr. BAUCUS. I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Maine.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. I thank the chairman.
Madam President, we also struck--I am chagrined to say to the senior Senator from New Hampshire--$34 million to renovate the Department of Commerce building.
Now, again, undoubtedly there needs to be renovations, but that simply does not meet the threshold for inclusion in this bill. I support many of these projects, but the stimulus bill should not be a vehicle for either my pet projects or anyone else's.
In closing my remarks, I want to emphasize that a substantial amount of the funding in our amendment, more than $365 billion, will be used to reduce the tax burden on Americans at a time when this relief is so critical. We provide also important assistance for those who are struggling the most, for those who need an extension of unemployment compensation and an increase in the refundable child tax credit and an increase in the earned-income tax credit.
We provide direct assistance to seniors, disabled veterans, and SSI recipients. And very importantly, the amendment contains three provisions that are especially critical to small business--the job generators of our economy.
These include an extension of the bonus depreciation and small business expensing provisions we passed last year, plus a provision allowing businesses to carryback net operating losses for five years, instead of the current two years. Taken together, these provisions will give the American business community nearly $23 billion in much needed tax relief. I commend the Finance Committee for its leadership in crafting these provisions.
All in all, I am proud of the bipartisan work we have done during the last 10 days. As with any major legislation, this bill is not perfect. But it can go a long way toward creating jobs and addressing the dire economic crisis facing our Nation.
Our amendment is bipartisan, targeted, and effective. I urge my colleagues to support it.
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Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, I want to point out to my colleagues, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has issued a letter strongly urging a ``yes'' vote on cloture on the Nelson-Collins amendment.
I am going to put a copy of that letter on my colleagues' desk. But I do ask unanimous consent this letter be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
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