Transportation, Housing And Urban Development, And Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010--Conference Report

Floor Speech

TRANSPORTATION, HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2010--CONFERENCE REPORT -- (Senate - December 10, 2009)

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I would love to interject a question to the distinguished Senator from Michigan.

We are in a situation in which the other side is repeatedly coming to the Senate floor to ask us to delay, to stop, to slow down, to start over. I am curious, as somebody who has watched this debate very closely, what the Senator from Michigan thinks about where we would be if we acceded to that wish? Bearing in mind that one of the sort of ideological firebrands who seems to be leading a measure of the debate on the other side has indicated this is not about health care and people; this is about giving President Obama a Waterloo; this is about creating a political defeat for the President of the United States on their side; it has nothing to do with health care; it is entirely about creating a defeat for this new President; when, in the face of all the obstruction the distinguished Senator from Michigan described so eloquently, this recordbreaking, ``unprecedented in the history of the Senate'' obstruction we are seeing, the person whom I think right now seems to characterize the leadership of the radicalized rightwing and is running the Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh, is telling the other side they have not been obstructive enough.

So if we were to go back, start all over, and reach out our hands again to our friends on the Republican side, is there any reason to believe that we would not be just as rebuffed going forward as we have been in the long arduous process of negotiation and hearing and public meeting and all of the work that has taken us to this point right now?

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Rhode Island for the question and for his advocacy and understanding of how we bring down costs and what we should be doing in so many areas for families and for businesses in the country.

I will just say that we have, first of all, attempted to get something done for years. In the last couple of years, reaching out to Republicans in an unprecedented way, our distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee, as everyone knows, went to unparalleled lengths in reaching out and spending months and months putting together a work group of three Democrats and three Republicans to work in good faith to get something done.

We have accepted Republican ideas. I know on the HELP Committee there were many amendments accepted from Republican colleagues. We have continued to reach out and look for ways to work together.

But what we are seeing is a lack of desire to work together and more than just a lack of desire, as the Senator indicated, but simply to attempt to embarrass the President of the United States, to stop him from being successful, and to stop us politically, when the reality is very serious. This is not about a President. We have had 100 years of Presidents trying to do this. This is not a particular Senate. We have had Senates for years that have been trying to do this. This is about when are we going to get beyond all this? When are we going to actually get beyond this and focus on the reality of what is going on in people's lives, what is going on in every small business that is trying to figure out how to pay the bills and hold it together or every manufacturer in my great State that is trying to figure out how they are going to hold it together. At one point, the American people will have every right to say to us: When are you guys going to get beyond this stuff?

The good news is, we have a President who has said now is when we are going to put it behind us and the Senate has said now is the time and we will work in good faith with anyone who wants to work with us. But we will not wait, which is what we are being asked to do--wait until another time, when 45,000 more people will have died next year, when another 5,000 people a day will have lost their homes to foreclosure.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. If we were to wait, does the Senator think there is any likelihood people on the other side would suddenly want to cooperate with President Obama and not hand him a defeat? If Rush Limbaugh would say: OK, Republicans in the Senate, go ahead, work with the Democrats now; don't just be the party of obstruction and delay but try to work cooperatively for the American people, does the Senator think there is any likelihood of that happening?

Ms. STABENOW. I would like to think there would be a likelihood of that happening, but I can't imagine it. Frankly, and I think unfortunately, they view it in their self-interest, whether it is a business decision, as a radio host, or whether it is a decision of the other party. I appreciate the fact that it is hard to lose elections. We have all been in those situations. I appreciate the fact that folks don't want to be in the minority. Most of us have been in that situation. So I appreciate that. But I think all of us were hoping this year, with two wars, with the deficit we have, with the challenge on health care, with the need to create jobs, and with the financial crisis we are in, that somehow it would be different for a while.

I would ask my colleague if he had the same sense of hope coming in; that this year maybe there would be a moratorium on the partisanship; that we could actually come together in the interest of the country and solve problems before going back to the elections. I would ask my friend if he was as surprised as I was that there was not only no stopping after the election but that the same folks who led things during the election are leading them right here on the floor.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I share the disappointment of the Senator from Michigan; that the promise and the outreached hands have been rejected and rebuffed; that this place has become so bitterly partisan. This is my first time in the Senate with a Democratic President, and I have been surprised at the tone of the debate, at the lack of truth of a great many of the arguments, of the very apparent motivation.

I have spoken to members of our caucus who I think are probably viewed as some of the most moderate when it comes to seeking bipartisanship, who are calm and respected Members of the Senate and who have been here a long time, and I have asked them how this compares to their long years of experience in the Senate. One of them said he has literally never seen anything like it in all the years he has been in the Senate. He has never seen anything like it. They are always on message, he said, but I have never seen them so off truth.

I think it is regrettable, but if your mission is to destroy a strong and important piece of legislation, not because it is bad legislation but because you can't stand having this new President win a political victory, are you going to go out and disclose that is your motivation? No, you are going to come up with a bunch of other cockamamie arguments to paper that over. You will talk about death panels and you will go through all the nonsense we have seen and it is regrettable.

Ms. STABENOW. If I might interject with my friend, I have been handed a note that says, in fact, there have been over 150 amendments offered by Republicans, and so our attempts have been ongoing to reach out.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I think those were the Republican amendments that were accepted into the HELP Committee bill. In fact, I think there were 161, if I remember correctly from my time sitting on the committee. We took Republican amendment after Republican amendment after Republican amendment trying to reach out to them.

Ms. STABENOW. So we have over 300 pages of the bill which contain Republican amendments, and that is fine. There is no ownership in the sense of who has the better ideas. In fact, what I find interesting is the insurance exchange we have in the bill for small businesses--which is at the heart of coverage of small businesses and individuals--has been offered by Republicans and Democrats. I believe distinguished former Senator Bob Dole offered some form of an exchange back during the debate when President Clinton was in office.

So we are not trying to claim a corner on ideas. There are many ideas that have been available and talked about for years. It is a matter of having the will, the commitment to actually do the hard work people expect us to do in order to get this done. I think that is what is so important about this time, when the average family is finding themselves unraveling, with not knowing if their job is going to continue to be available or if there will be a cut in wages. They are paying more out of pocket for everything under the Sun and then worrying if the employer is thinking: Well, you can have your job or your health insurance because the employer can't keep both going.

The fact is, we have lost so many middle-class jobs--and I will spend another time talking about the loss of manufacturing jobs in this country. We have lost a lot of our middle class in terms of good-paying jobs. So people are now saying: Wait a minute, just being the party of no, that is not going to be enough. That is not good enough--just saying no for political reasons. That is not enough. We want to know what you are going to say yes to. We want to know how you are going to work together. We want to know how are you going to actually solve a problem.

When someone such as Joe, from Rockford, MI, says he served in the Marines for 4 years and their motto is: ``We take care of our own,'' my question is: When are we going to come together and take care of our own Americans? I don't mean literally taking care of every person but creating opportunity for people, creating the climate for people to have a job, to have health insurance, to send the kids to college, to be able to afford to keep their lights on, and to be able to know that their country is on their side. That is what this is about. They do not want us to wait more, they want us to move quickly--move quickly on health care and jobs and all the other issues that are so important to their families.

So I thank my friend from Rhode Island for joining me, because there is a sense of urgency that people have, and we need to have that sense of urgency to get things done--to work together and to get things done. Frankly, one of the things our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have successfully done is united our caucus in its determination to not let this kind of stalling and objections and tactics, which are slowing things down, stop us from actually solving a huge problem that has gone too long unsolved for the American people.

I thank the Chair.

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