American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009--Continued

Floor Speech

AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT OF 2009--Continued -- (Senate - February 06, 2009)

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Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, I am pleased to join my colleagues, Senator Nelson, Senator Specter, and Senator Lieberman, in offering a bipartisan compromise on the stimulus proposal that is before us. This proposal is the culmination of much deliberation and debate by so many of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I realize some of my Republican colleagues who were involved in the deliberations ultimately have decided not to support the compromise, but their debate, their ideas helped inform the compromise we are presenting tonight.

Our country faces a grave economic crisis, and the American people want us to work together. They do not want to see us dividing along partisan lines on the most serious crisis facing our country. That is why so many of us have worked night and day to try to come up with a stimulus package that would be a considerable improvement over the House-passed bill and would help boost our economy and create and preserve jobs.

I could not vote for the House-passed bill. Laden with unnecessary expenditures, it was a Christmas tree upon which every Member, virtually, had hung his or her favorite project. It was bloated, expensive, and ineffective. This compromise greatly improves the bill. It will help our economy recover from a dangerous recession. It will help Americans throughout this country who are struggling because they have lost their jobs.

Every day we hear more reports of massive job losses. Just today we learned our country lost nearly 600,000 jobs in January alone. The unemployment rate exceeds 7 percent, its highest level in more than 16 years. Unemployment in my home State of Maine is now 7 percent--again, a 16-year high. Just today in Maine we learned that another paper mill has been forced to lay off 140 people for at least a month because they do not have enough orders to keep the workers on the job. These are not just cold statistics. These are not just jobs. These are hard-working American people who need our help, who deserve a stimulus package that is targeted, effective, and bipartisan. That is why I have worked so hard with a bipartisan group of my colleagues to come up with a responsible plan that will jump-start our economy and help improve the lives of hard-working people.

This debate is not about Republicans or about Democrats. It is not about our new President winning or losing. It is about helping the American people. Surely we ought to be able to come together to advance that goal.

I have maintained since the beginning of this debate that in order to be effective, the money included in this package has to be able to be spent quickly to put more dollars into the taxpayers' pockets, and it has to be targeted and directed to projects that will really help. That is what we have done.

As my colleague from Nebraska has pointed out, we have reduced over $110 billion in unnecessary spending from this bill. We have cut that away. Is it perfect? No. Every compromise reflects choices that are necessary to bring people together. But this bill is an enormous improvement over the House bill. It cuts away many projects that are worthwhile projects but which do not belong in a stimulus package because they have nothing to do with turning our economy around and creating and saving jobs.

There has been a lot of talk from outside groups about our slashing the spending in this bill. We took a targeted approach. We did cut spending, even for programs we all support because they belong in the regular appropriations process. They are good programs, but they are not programs that will stimulate the economy.

So we focused on the following programs:

We included $45.5 billion for infrastructure projects--roads and bridges that are needed throughout our country that are ready to go, that will put people to work, and that will leave lasting assets in communities across this country. We helped to fund some water and sewer projects that are the
results of unfunded Federal mandates which are needed to improve public health but impose a real burden on struggling communities and States.

We included $4.4 billion to improve our electric transmission through a smart grid that will help us to transmit alternative sources of energy.

We included $87 billion in targeted temporary increases in the Federal Medicaid matching rate. This will help our States avoid deep cutbacks in health care coverage for some of our most vulnerable citizens.

We included $6 billion for special education. If you talk to schools throughout this country and you ask them how you can most help them, they will say: Start fulfilling the Federal promise to help fund special education for children with special needs. It is a promise we made back in the 1970s that we have never kept. We put in funding for special education. That will help communities across this country, and it will help retain teaching jobs as well.

We also included nearly $4 billion in Pell grants to help our neediest students go to college.

We have included funding for a 1-year fix in the alternative minimum tax, which unfairly imposes an increased tax on middle-income families. There are tax incentives for small businesses, the true job creators in this country. They will be helped by this bill. There is tax relief for low-income and middle-income families. That is so important, to help those families who are truly struggling right now, and it will help boost consumer demand as well.

We took a careful, thoughtful, comprehensive approach. We got rid of funding for such projects as $870 million for pandemic flu preparedness. That is something that may be needed but doesn't belong in a stimulus package. We made a number of cuts like that, difficult cuts but important, so that we could keep to the purpose of this package.

This has been an extremely difficult deliberation, but I believe we have an obligation to start solving the problems facing this country. The American people do not want to see partisan gridlock. They do not want to see us divided and fighting. They want to see us working together to solve the most important crisis facing our country. That is what we have done. That is why we have presented this compromise.

Again, I thank not only my colleagues, Senator Nelson, Senator Specter, and Senator Lieberman--all of whom have worked so hard--but others whose input and insights were invaluable in crafting this package.

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