Unemployment Compensation Extension Act Of 2009--Motion To Proceed
Floor Speech
UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION EXTENSION ACT OF 2009--MOTION TO PROCEED -- (Senate - October 28, 2009)
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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I want to speak to the bill before the Senate right now and also to an amendment I would like to have voted on as a part of the underlying legislation. But I do want to also react to some of the remarks made by my colleague from Vermont.
When it comes to some of the legislation some are trying to jam through the Congress this year, we believe it is OK to say no to some things. We think it is OK to say no, for example, to 1,500-page bills written behind closed doors, in secret. We think it is OK to say no to higher health care premiums for our constituents in our home States and most Americans in this country who currently have health insurance. It is OK to say no to trillion-dollar spending bills that don't do anything to create jobs. We think it is OK to say no to higher taxes for small businesses and working families who are going to get hit by many of the proposals in front of the Congress, including the health care bill which, according to the Congressional Budget Office, more than half the tax burden is going to fall on families making under $100,000 a year.
We think it is OK to say no to energy taxes that will kill jobs and wreck the economy. We think it is OK to say no to a $2 trillion expansion of the Federal Government in Washington to create a new health care entitlement that will be financed with higher taxes, Medicare cuts, and borrowing from future generations. We think it is OK to say no to a $ 1/2 trillion in Medicare cuts that are going to impact senior citizens across this country. It is also OK to say no to the extension of what has become a TARP slush fund, what has become a political slush fund that is now being used for lots of things for which it was not intended.
I do not apologize for saying no to bad policies that are going to wreck the economy, cost Americans jobs, and put more and more of our future generations at risk because we are saddling them with a burden of debt that they will be carrying forever into the future. I think it is OK for people in this Chamber to stand up to bad policies and to say no.
I am going to continue to defend the right of my colleagues in the Senate, whether I agree with them or not. A lot of my colleagues on the other side, they have things they want to do. Some of them I do not agree with. That is why we have the Senate. It is to come here and resolve our differences and try to reach common ground if that is possible. But if there are bad things being proposed, I don't think there is anything wrong with saying no--to higher taxes, higher health care premiums, more borrowing, and more debt we are putting on future generations. I don't particularly have a problem with that.
I do think it is important, however, that we act on legislation that will create jobs, that will provide a better, stronger economic future for people in this country, and that will address the needs of the people who are hurting because of this economic down turn. The legislation we have before us will do just that, and I voted to proceed to that legislation last night so we could have this debate, so we could get on this bill, so we could provide an additional 14 weeks of assistance to people who need unemployment benefits because of what is happening in our economy and this country.
I do not think we will find a lot of disagreement that we need to take those steps that are necessary. I will say the amendment offered by the Senator from Nebraska, Mr. Johanns, is a germane, legitimate amendment that ought to be voted on. All he is saying is, if we are going to do this, we ought to figure out a way to pay for it that doesn't lead to higher taxes on small businesses.
I think that is a fair vote to have. It is totally related to the underlying bill. But the underlying bill that would provide and extend unemployment insurance benefits to people in this country who are suffering as a result of the economic down turn, we are not objecting to that. Nobody here is. In fact, we could finish that in the next hour or two if the majority would agree to allow a couple of amendments to be voted on.
Having said that, I do have an amendment on which I think it is important to get a vote, and the reason it is important to get a vote on it now is because we are not going to get many opportunities. The TARP program expires at the end of this year. If Congress doesn't take steps to end it, the Treasury Department can extend it. The reason that is important is because the TARP program has gotten far afield from anything it was designed to do. It was designed to stabilize the economy last year at a very difficult time. So we voted to extend $700 billion in this authority for the Federal Reserve to go out, to buy some of these troubled assets in various financial firms. They decided to take equity positions.
I think it is a very different use of the funds than what many of us intended when we voted for it, but that having been said, it was done to stabilize the financial system in the country. That was a year ago. I think it is fair to say it is not an emergency anymore. In fact, many of the TARP funds that have been extended are now being extended to other types of industries. We have seen the auto industry, to the tune of about $80 billion, come in and get TARP assistance. We have seen insurance companies get TARP assistance. We have even seen TARP assistance made available to help modified home mortgages in this country to the tune of $50 billion, on which the Congressional Budget Office says we will never see any return.
The TARP has become--I hate to call it a political slush fund. I hate to refer to it that way, but at a minimum it has become a revolving fund that can
now be used by the Treasury for all kinds of purposes. In fact, I think from statements that have been made by the Treasury Secretary, the indications are they expect to reuse a lot of those funds even after they are paid back by some of the institutions that have gotten assistance.
So we have the $700 billion TARP authority out there. With payments that have been paid back, there is now over $300 billion that is unused. This is about $213 billion that was never used. And with payments that have now come back from some of the institutions that received assistance, there is a little over $300 billion of unobligated funds in the TARP account. Why is that significant? It is significant because if we do not use those funds for some other purpose than for which they were intended, those funds will be to retire the Federal debt. To me, that is probably as good a use of funds as we could possibly find right now.
We had a deficit last year of $1.4 trillion. We are looking at trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see. If the predictions of the Congressional Budget Office are accurate, in the next 5 years we will double the Federal debt. In the next 10 years we will triple the Federal debt to the point where every American, every household in this country is going to owe $188,000 of debt.
So as a young couple gets married and starts out in their life together, they are going to get a wedding gift from the Federal Government, a big fat IOU for $188,000. The best thing we can do in addition to extending unemployment benefits to people who have lost their jobs and whose coverage is running out is to try to get this debt under control so we are not passing on this enormous liability to future generations.
I would argue if we allow this situation to go unabated, if we continue to borrow money at the rate we are borrowing it today, and we continue racking up debt at the rate we are today, it is going to create all kinds of economic consequences down the road in the form of, perhaps, higher interest rates; we could see inflation pick up down the road. Nobody sees that in the near term, but in the long term, when we start having to print money to monetize our debt, and we are paying back our debt with cheaper dollars, the people who are buying our debt are going to start saying: Wait a minute. I want a better return on my investment.
So the interest rates start to pick up, and that could have some very disastrous consequences for our economy when it comes to homeowners and small business owners and people who are trying to get student loans. There are all kinds of consequences from this incredible binge of borrowing that we are on as a country.
I think the best we can do if we have got unobligated funds in the TARP authority right now is use those funds to pay down that Federal debt. That is what my amendment does. I am coauthoring it with the Senator from Utah, Mr. Bennett. But we believe we ought to end the TARP authority this year when it is set to expire. If Congress is not heard on this, then the Treasury has the authority to extend it.
I wish to at least have Congress heard. Congress, after all, created the TARP fund. It seems to me that if it is going to be extended, Congress ought to have a vote on that. As I said, that extension or that expiration date is looming. It is December, the end of December of this year. So if Congress is going to be heard, that is going to have to happen in the very near future.
So I wish to see a vote by the Senate on whether we believe that TARP ought to be extended, ought to continue to be used for all of these other ancillary purposes I mentioned that are unrelated to the underlying purpose for TARP when it was created a year ago, and whether we are going to say we think it is a priority that we start paying down this gargantuan Federal debt that is growing by the day, and the interest payments are growing with it.
I wish to see, on this opportunity, this legislation that is moving through here, a vote on whether we can extend TARP. My amendment is one page. In fact, it is only four lines long. It is very simple. It is here for everyone to take a look at. It will not take very long to figure out what it does. I cannot imagine why the majority would not want to have a vote on whether we are going to allow a $700 billion authority of the Federal Government to continue to use these funds, why Congress would not want to be heard when, in fact, it was the Congress that created this program in the first place.
My amendment is very simple. All it says is when TARP expires at the end of the year, it ends. That does not mean that the Treasury does not have the authority to wind down some of the assets in some of the places where it has already invested those TARP dollars. Not at all. All it simply says is the moneys that are not expended out of that account will be used to pay down the Federal debt and no additional moneys will be extended to other programs or other uses.
Some people might say: Well, what if we have another emergency? If we have another emergency, Congress can act again. That is what we do. We are the legislative branch of the government. We have the power of the purse. There is not any reason to think that if for some reason it became clear that a TARP-like authority was necessary down the road that the Congress would not take the necessary steps to address that emergency.
But in the meantime, we have a $700 billion out there which, as people are making payments back in, are now going back out. We have got about $300 billion right now of head room in that fund. It seems to me we ought to take that $300 billion and apply it to paying down the Federal debt, so that future generations of Americans are not having their future mortgaged because we have not been able to live within our means.
It is a one-page amendment, four lines long. The bill that I am told is being written on health care, which is 1,500 pages, the last version of it that I heard or saw--we have not seen the current version of it. But that 1,500-page bill is being written behind closed doors.
This, on the other hand, is one page, four lines long--a very simple, straightforward amendment. It would not take us probably but a half an hour to debate it and vote on it. If the majority does not want to have a vote on this amendment, I am not sure why, because it would seem to me that the Senate would want to weigh in on one of the most important issues of the day, and that is whether we are going to take some of these unexpended funds and use them, apply them to paying down the Federal debt.
With regard to the debate before us on unemployment insurance, it needs to be extended. There is no debate about that. In fact, I think there will be a big bipartisan vote when it happens.
But why wouldn't we, in the interest of having a vote, a fair debate and a vote on amendments, allow amendments such as this which, as I said, because of the expiration date being December 31, it is unlikely, in my view, that Congress is going to get an opportunity, if we do not vote on this now, to vote on whether a $700 billion expenditure of taxpayer dollars is going to be extended. And, if in fact, it has served its purpose--and it has not--then why would we not use that unexpended authority, that unobligated balance to pay down the Federal debt which, I would argue, I think most Americans would agree is one of the most difficult and protracted problems that is going to face the country going forward.
I guess I would simply say that this, in my view, is related to the debate we are having. Because the debate we are having is about the economy. It is about people who have been displaced and who have lost jobs and extending assistance to them, which they need and which we are all supportive of doing.
But if you are talking about things we can do to bring greater stability to the American economy, to provide a better and a brighter and more secure future for future generations, and to try and get this economy back on track, I think it would be a great message to send to the American people that the TARP, which was created for a specific purpose for a specific time, has accomplished that purpose. We do not believe it ought to become a slush fund for other activities. The unexpended balances in that fund ought to be used to pay down the Federal debt and to provide a better and a brighter future for the taxpayers of tomorrow, unencumbered by a huge mountain of debt that is going to be passed down to them if we are not able to get our fiscal house in order.
I hope the majority will come around to the view that let's have a vote, let's have a 30-minute or hour debate on a couple of these amendments. Let's pass this bill and be done with it. But it seems to me, at least, for some reason--I am not sure what that is--the majority does not want to have a vote on what I think is a very consequential issue of our time, and a very consequential issue for the future of this country.
I yield the floor.
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