Senate Proceeding on Feb 13th, 2009 :: 4:53:00 to 5:03:40
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4:52:42 to 4:53:02( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: where the american economy began to turn around and work its way out of the great recession of 2008 and 2009. i thank the chair, and i yield the presiding officer: senator -- the chair recognizes the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, the administration and many of my

4:53:00 to 5:03:40( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: John Cornyn
Bill: H.R. 1: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

4:53:03 to 4:53:24( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: colleagues have argued that we cannot rely upon the same strategies that got us into this mess to get us out of it, and i wholeheartedly agree. i'm voting against this stimulus bill because i believe it replicates a failed strategy. some of my colleagues have claimed that a nay vote on this

4:53:25 to 4:53:46( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: bill means that we're for doing nothing, and i want to correct that misimpression. that's just not true. we all understand the economy is in crisis. this week the president of the federal reserve bank in dallas that said my state, which had been doing well relatively to rest of the country from the job growth and an economic

4:53:47 to 4:53:53( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: standpoint, is now official until recession which confirmed what small businesses have been

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telling me for weeks. in a crisis. some of us disagree about what we ought to do in order to get out of this crisis. a stimulus bill i believe would have been a good idea if it had been focused on the right priorities and that, i believe, was president obama's original vision. the administration said it

4:54:16 to 4:54:36( Edit History Discussion )

wanted a bill that was timely, targeted and temporary when it came to the spending that's contained in it. i dare say that if this bill had reflected president obama's priorities, that it might well then have received the 80 votes receive if it had truly been the

4:54:37 to 4:54:57( Edit History Discussion )

product of bipartisan collaboration and cooperation. but it wasn't. the fact of it is, we never saw the bill that the president said he wanted. we saw instead that speaker pelosi and democrats in the house essentially wrote the bill themselves and really redefined the word "stimulus" to mean nearly anything that they wanted

4:54:58 to 4:55:20( Edit History Discussion )

in a bill which they knew they could pass because they knew this was not adequate time to scrutinize the spending and projects so they knew this was a moving vehicle and they took every opportunity to load it up with a lot of things that certainly are no tarted, timely, or temporary.

4:55:21 to 4:55:45( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: and in, vision that president obama had said he envisioned for the bill and that is bill will receive very little support on this side of the aisle. in fact, out of 535 members of congress if there are more than three on this side of the aisle that will support this bill because it was essentially written by the

4:55:46 to 4:56:07( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: leadership in the house leadership in the senate and without republican contributions. indeed, every amendment that was offered, with only rare exception, was rejected upon party-line votes, both in the finance committee, on which i serve, and here on the floor. that, mr. president, is not bipartisan. if, in fact, this bill had been produced by a bipartin

4:56:08 to 4:56:15( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: process, i have eve every dwhaikdz it could well receive -- conviction that it could well receive an overwhelming both sides of the aisle in this body.

4:56:16 to 4:56:37( Edit History Discussion )

but this was a failed opportunity, i believe. many of the programs in this bill are, in fact, wasteful and unnecessary. these are earmarks in all but name only. golf carts, art projects, company cars and new buildings for federal employees? and these are only some of the

4:56:38 to 4:56:59( Edit History Discussion )

spending plans that we kno that are contained in this 1,100-page bill, which, as the senator from kansas pointed out, we didn't get a copy of until roughly midnight last night. and, no, without enough time for senators to actually read every line, to disu discuss it and deliberate on it to make sure

4:57:00 to 4:57:21( Edit History Discussion )

that we understand what is in it and we're not just simply wasting taxpayer money. the fact is, we will not have even had 24 hours to look at the conference report before being required to vote on it later day. a report negotiated in secret, behind closed doors and which it seemed to be -- which seemed to be briefed to reporters and

4:57:22 to 4:57:44( Edit History Discussion )

leaked to the press before many members of congress actually got a chance to look at it. but we're told, d't worry, trust us. the people of my state, mr. president, of texas are promised many benefits under this bill, at least 0 billion of direct spending and aid to our state, according to the

4:57:45 to 4:58:05( Edit History Discussion )

democratic policy committee. 0 billion. well, that's one reason some of my constituents are saying, senator cornyn, we -- we want some of that, even if we understand your point which in order to get it, my state's share of the cost of this bill will roughly include 0 billion, including interest.

4:58:06 to 4:58:27( Edit History Discussion )

0 billion for 0 billion in debt? that doesn't strike me as a great bargain. now, i'm not an accountant and i'm not sure that the democratic policy committee's numbers are accurate -- i just can't vouch for them -- but accumulating 0 billion in debt to receive about 0 billion in benefits doesn't

4:58:28 to 4:58:48( Edit History Discussion )

strike me as a good deal, and i suspect the deal isn't much better for anyf our other states. the math doesn't work on a national scale either. ev quote -- "creator preserve -- create or preserve up to 4 million jobs, that means we're paying about up to 00,000 per

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job. 00,000. which is more than fe times the median household income in the country. now? , if we're going to do this, why don't we just give the money directly to the people through lower taxes, letting them keep more of what they earned? they would create and preserve far more jobs than the

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government is going to be able to do and we wo process of picking political winners and losers in the process. but now the tax relief in this bill was even -- is even weaker te ea than it was before, averaging only about 00 a week before it

4:59:33 to 4:59:53( Edit History Discussion )

counts, hardly stimulative. the simple truth is government is inefficient at creating jobs, and this morninghe "wall street journal" explained some of the reasons why. many federal agencies, like the department of energy, simply don't have the capacity to spend all of this money as quickly as congress is appropriating it

4:59:54 to 5:00:15( Edit History Discussion )

through this bill. i expect the same is true through many state and local governments, but the fact of the matter is, we in congress have simply not taken the time to find out. instead we're determined to turn up the water pressure across all levels of government without thinking about which pipes will burst and whether they can handle the nobody knows what will happen

5:00:16 to 5:00:37( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: once this bill is actually implemented. i appreciate the distinguished senator from connecticut saying he and the ranking member on the homeland secur go are going to do extensive oversight. but i would suggest the time to do our due diligence is before passing the legislation, before spending the not after it's already spent

5:00:38 to 5:00:58( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: when government doesn't have the capacity to deal with it. and then there's this: the congressional budget office estimates that this so-called imulus bill will actually reduce growth of the gross domestic product over the next ten years. because as the c.b.o. says, it will actually, because of such

5:00:59 to 5:01:19( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: enormous, direct government spending, it will actually crowd out private investment in the economy and actually hurt the economy rather than help the economy as its proponents have promised. now, that means many millions of our children will have fewer opportunities as they enter the workforce, even as they inherit

5:01:20 to 5:01:22( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: more and more public debt than

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any generation in the tragedy of this trillion bill is that it ignores hard-earned lessons. we cannot spend our way to prosperity. during the bush administration, during the last eight years, we spent a lot of money. we strengthened our homeland defenses. we delivered a pscription drug

5:01:44 to 5:02:04( Edit History Discussion )

benefit under medicare. and we increased federal support for educaon. yet, all of that additional spending, on the war on terror, in homeland defense, prescription drugs, and education, did not protect us from a recession. and in last year's sphrup, we sent out -- stimulus package, we

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sent out rebate checks. that was about a year ago where we sent out cash to taxpayers ostensibly as a rebate which really represented a retkreubgs retkreubgs -- redistribution of money from people who did pay income taxes to people who don't. it had virtually zero effect in terms of stimulus.

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now we're going to do it all over again, this time under the guise of refundabl again, sending money to people who don't pay people who do pay income taxes in a vast redistribution of wealth and replicating the failed example of the stimulus

5:02:48 to 5:03:08( Edit History Discussion )

package we passed a year ago. i understand these are unprecedented economic times. i understand even the smartest people in the world have a hard time really knowing what we should do. but shouldn't we at least prevent repeating mistakes that we know don't work? i don't think it takes a rocket

5:03:09 to 5:03:30( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: science, scientist or a -- the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. cornyn: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent for one remaing minute. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cornyn: mr. president, it's not as if my colleagues are just complaining on the bill on the floor. we offered a constructive alternative to fix housing first, that got us into this mess and which i believe if we

5:03:31 to 5:03:40( Edit History Discussion )

John Cornyn: had listened to some constructive suggestions on this side would help lead us out of it. we also know that letting people keep more of what they earn