Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2014 -- Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I wish to say briefly to our friend Senator Chiesa how much we appreciate his remarks here today. I am reminded of what the author of Ecclesiastes points out: ``Time and chances happen to us all.'' While he may not be with us a long time here in the Senate, I have every confidence, given his tremendous track record of public service and the confidence Governor Christie has had in him to make this appointment, that we will be hearing more great things about Senator Chiesa in the future.

THE ECONOMY

Madam President, President Obama is scheduled to give a major speech on the economy tomorrow. Unfortunately, according to press reports, his new ideas for bolstering job creation bear a remarkable resemblance to his old ideas--ideas that have given us the weakest economic recovery and the longest period of high unemployment since the Great Depression. The President will probably quite effectively talk about ``winning the future'' and helping America's youth compete in the global economy. But speeches are more than just words; they have to be about policies. Unfortunately, on that count, notwithstanding the fact that President Obama is a marvelous speech maker, his policies have resulted, as I said, in a weak economic recovery, a less prosperous America, and more debt and burden for our young people looking for a way out.

The problem is that President Obama, not his speeches but his actual policies have done tremendous damage to the economic prospects of the same people he purports to be championing. Indeed, this Obama economy has threatened to create a lost generation of younger Americans who are drowning in debt and are unable to find good full-time jobs.

First, on the issue of debt, since President Obama took office, the Federal Government has accumulated more than $6.1 trillion in new debt. Let me repeat that. Since President Obama took office, the Federal Government has accumulated more than $6.1 trillion in new debt. I doubt anyone within the sound of my voice can actually conceptualize how much money that really is, but under the President's latest budget proposal, that debt would grow even higher--by another $8.2 trillion--over the next decade. The gross debt is now larger than our entire economy, which is why every American child enters the world owing $53,000. We might as well call them ``generation debt.''

Unemployment, as I mentioned earlier, remains intractable. The unemployment rate among young adults age 18 to 29 is 12.7 percent. For the general population it is 7.6 percent, but for those 18 to 29 it is 12.7 percent. That figure rises to 16.1 percent when we include 1.7 million young adults who have simply given up finding a job. Of course, these are real live human beings, not just statistics, but the statistics are bad enough.

Then there is the lack of good full-time jobs. Last year the Associated Press reported that half of all recent college graduates are either jobless or employed in positions that don't fully use their skills and knowledge. A separate study in 2012 found that only 4 out of every 10 recent college graduates are doing a job that actually requires a 4-year degree. It has been estimated that 41 percent of all underemployed Americans are below the age of 31. And as we have learned, because of the ObamaCare employer mandate, many full-time jobs are being reduced to part-time jobs, especially in the hotel, restaurant, and retail industries.

In a new survey, 74 percent of small businesses said they are going to reduce hiring, reduce worker hours, or replace full-time employees with part-time employees. In other words, it is not just the slowly growing economy, it is actually the policies of this administration which are making it significantly harder for younger Americans to find decent employment.

Then, of course, there is the unkept promise of ObamaCare. The President extravagantly promised: If you like what you have, you can keep it. For a family of four, your premiums are going to be reduced by $2,500 on average.

Well, we found out that for millions of Americans, if they like the coverage they have, they cannot keep it and will lose it, and that instead of a $2,500 reduction in premiums, an average family of four will see an increase of $2,400.

Once it is fully implemented, younger people will be especially burdened. They will pay much higher health insurance premiums than they are today. Indeed, a recent survey of large health care insurers found that premium costs for young and healthy Americans in the individual and small group market will ``increase by an average of 169 percent.'' According to the Wall Street Journal, ``Healthy consumers could see insurance rates double or even triple when they look for individual coverage'' under ObamaCare.

It is not hard to understand why. Under ObamaCare's provisions you can wait until you actually get sick before your buy insurance under a concept known as ``guaranteed issue,'' which then hardly resembles insurance as any of us think about it. And then because of the so-called age banding phenomenon, where premiums for older people cannot be any more than three times what they are for younger people, what is going to happen is younger people are going to have to pay higher premiums to subsidize the higher cost of caring for people when they get older.

Then there is the triple whammy, perhaps, of higher education costs, some of which we are trying to address here with bipartisan student loan reform. But under President Obama, the average cost of tuition and fees at a 4-year public college or university has increased 27 percent. Again, we have been talking about: How do we deal with the interest rates on that debt? But the fact is the principal has gone up 27 percent in the last 5 years.

For that matter, it is estimated that 4 out of every 10 Americans who graduated from college in 2009, 2010, or 2011 have not been able to pay off any of their student debt. As a longtime Silicon Valley businessman recently noted: The millennials are the ``most educated'' generation in American history, but they are also the ``most indebted.''

Is there any wonder that only one out of every five recent college graduates says their generation will be more successful than the one that came before them?

My parents were part of the so-called ``greatest generation''--Tom Brokaw coined that title--the World War II generation, people who risked everything they had and sacrificed all they had in order to ensure my brother and my sister and I would have a better life and have more opportunities. Unfortunately, as a result of the failed policies we have seen over the last 5 years, recent college graduates actually believe they are going to have less opportunity and less prosperity than generations that came before them.

There is no reason why that has to be the case. There is no good reason why the Obama economy has to become the new normal--not in a country as hard working, entrepreneurial, and innovative as the United States of America.

Here in Washington, many policymakers seem to have forgotten the recipe, the ``secret sauce,'' if you will, for long sustainable economic growth. I would invite them to visit my State of Texas, which has been luring job creators from all across the Nation. And, lo and behold, you find that when people have opportunity and jobs, they tend to vote with their feet, which is one reason why, after the last census, we had four new congressional seats created in Texas, because people had literally shifted from parts of the country where they could not find jobs to places such as Texas where they could.

Here is an interesting comparison, as shown on this chart.

In 2010, the Texas economy grew 71 percent faster than the national economy--71 percent. In 2011, it grew 125 percent faster, and last year it grew 92 percent faster. These numbers reflect more than just happenstance. They reflect the difference between the policies that are embraced here in Washington, DC, and the policies embraced in my State.

For example, here in Washington, over the last 4 years, President Obama's policies have actually made it harder for businesses to create jobs because of taxes, because of regulation, because of things such as the cost of ObamaCare.

In Texas, by comparison, we have worked very hard to make it easier. Indeed, if you want more of something, it seems to me you would make it easier to create, not harder, which is why Chief Executive magazine has named Texas the Best State for Business 8 years in a row.

Here in Washington, President Obama's policies have seen an increase in taxes by $1.7 trillion and increased our national debt by $6.1 trillion, as I mentioned earlier.

In Texas, we have no State income tax, and we recently turned a $5 billion deficit into a projected $8.8 billion surplus, thanks to the leadership of our Governor and the members of the State legislature.

Here in Washington, President Obama has presided over the weakest economic recovery and the longest period of high unemployment since the Great Depression.

In Texas, the total number of jobs has grown by nearly 32 percent since 1995, while the total number of jobs nationwide has grown by 12 percent--32 percent versus 12 percent.

Here in Washington, President Obama's policies have actually hampered one of our greatest natural resources--energy production on Federal lands, to be specific.

In my State public policies have consistently encouraged energy development, and total statewide oil production has increased by 94 percent between September 2008 and September 2012. I say that at the same time we are the No. 1 producer of electricity from wind energy. We believe in truly an ``all of the above'' approach.

But Texans are unapologetic about our desire to create high-paying jobs in the oil and gas sector and produce the energy needed to power our State and the Nation. All you have to do is look at the phenomenon occurring in the Eagle Ford shale in Central to South Texas and the Permian Basin in West Texas.

Indeed, the Eagle Ford shale produced 358 barrels of oil per day in 2008. Last year, it produced more than 352,000 barrels of oil a day. Over that same period, the number of Eagle Ford drilling permits increased from 26 to more than 4,100.

At a time when we see the Middle East continuing its trend of being a dangerous place, why in the world wouldn't we want to develop more of our natural resources here at home and create jobs at the same time to relieve our dependency on imported oil and gas from dangerous parts of the world?

In the Midland area, which is part of the Permian Basin, high school graduates can earn $75,000 a year as a starting job driving a truck. Many students aspire to all sorts of other jobs, and they are trained for it. But the point is energy production, taking advantage of the innovation and the technological changes in oil and gas production, can create jobs and opportunities and help wean us from imported energy.

Here in Washington, unfortunately, the administration is still clinging to the misguided policies that are preventing the United States from reaching its full domestic energy potential.

Consider these numbers: Between 2007 and 2012, total U.S. natural gas production increased by 20 percent, total U.S. oil production went up by 22 percent. However, oil production on Federal lands--that is subject to the control of the Federal Government--actually went down 4 percent, while natural gas production on Federal lands dropped by 33 percent.

How do you reconcile the disparity? Well, the oil and gas and natural gas production occurred on private lands, owned by private parties, not the Federal Government. So the Federal Government's record is actually quite dismal in comparison.

So the message to President Obama--as he pivots once again to the economy--the message could not be more obvious: If the President really does care about ``winning the future'' and helping the millennial generation compete in a globalized world, he should abandon the policies that have saddled younger Americans with so much debt and made it so difficult for them to find good jobs. In short, it is time to replace the Obama model with the Texas model.

This chart makes the comparison I mentioned earlier. Economic growth in 2010--after the 2008 fiscal meltdown, we saw the national economy growing only at 2.4 percent, the Texas economy at 4.1 percent. We need to get the national economy growing closer to 4 percent in order to create the jobs that are necessary to give young people an opportunity to work and provide for their families and to build for their future.

In 2011, we saw, actually, the national economy slow down at 1.6 percent growth. Indeed, the Texas economy slowed down a little more, albeit at 3.6 percent growth.

Then, in 2012--just last year--while we still saw the national economy bouncing along at the bottom with only 2.5-percent economic growth, the Texas economy was growing at 4.8 percent.

I know my friends from other parts of the country might discount my remarks here today and say: Well, this is just a Senator from a State who is proud of the accomplishments of his State and the people who have made it possible. They would be right. I am. But this is also about what Louis Brandeis once called the laboratories of democracy.

That is one reason why it is so important not to just have a national government but a Federal government with national responsibilities in those areas that the States and individuals cannot otherwise take care of themselves, and reserving, as the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution points out, all other power not delegated to the Federal Government to the States and to individuals. That is what protects our freedom, and that is what creates these laboratories of democracy so Texas, so Illinois, so Washington State--any other State; Wisconsin--can try these policies and see what works and what does not, what creates the prosperity and opportunity for their people. And, hopefully, just hopefully, we in Washington, DC--those of us who happen to work here as part of our job--will embrace those policies and those success stories and make them possible for the rest of the country as well.

I yield the floor.

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