eternal spirit the giver of every good and perfect gift we are sent full people seeking salvation we are lost people meaningful life revealed to us the steps of today use the members of this body to fulfill your purposes quickened their hearts and purify their minds broaden their concerns and strengthen their commitments show them duties season of challenge to a deeper experience with you then send them from your presence to be your instruments of good in our world we pray in the name of him who is our hope for years to come  washington d c january twenty ninth two thousand and eight to the senate and the provisions of rule one paragraph three of the same rule of the senate i hereby appoint honorable john tester a senator from the state of montana to perform the duties of the chair sam robert present for tempering majority leader yes we're going to have morning business for one hour when the two leaders finish whatever statements they make might make as to what we do after that is can take a conversation with the republican  leader and we'll do that when we finish our statements here we have a number of things that are pending faisel legislation indian health and we have another matter that i want to complete an energy that we have an agreement how to finish that and world move to one of those more than likely today mr president the finance committee on a bipartisan  basis have worked up what they feel is something that they're going to bring before the full committee tomorrow and that will take place we will we will we would we will get their take on the stimulus package tomorrow we've all seen the press today there everyone knows the senate's going to put their mark on the stimulus package we feel that what will be done will be very stimulative to the economy and includes as i understand it some twenty million seniors who are left off either but as taken place in the house there will be unemployment benefits a number of states are in really difficult shape in that regard mr president and they have some other things dealing with business package which i am told the advocates of you for business like very much what's in the senate package but we'll work through this and try to get something done very quickly so that we can and if if there are changes made that we can do a very quick conference and get it to the president that's important issue mr president however i want everyone especially my republican colleagues and especially the people the white house to listen to what i'm going to say mr president facing if we don't do something on it today will expire it will be out of business house is going out of session tonight so unless we get to them the thirty day extension that we have tried to move forward on five or six times unless we have an extension of eighteen months a year two weeks whatever the republicans think is appropriate if they think nothing is appropriate then the full brunt of this law expiring is on their shoulders because it is virtually legislatively impossible to get anything done today remember house has already done what they're going to do and if we took what the intelligence committee passed which is likely not going to happen we'd have to have a conference with the house they're going out of session tonight they're out of town on wednesday and thursday and friday so unless we do something today the bill is not going to be and acted and the legislation that we passed last august will expire now mispresent the orders that are still that are that are have been sought and accomplished during the time since last august will still be in effect and of course there will be an opportunity mr president under the old feisal law to work on  intercepting telephone conversations between people that are trying to do bad things we think it should be in a constitutional framework and we believe that that is what the tell just committee and the j done but i again say without getting into the details unless we do something day unless someone can explain to me how we can pass something here in a matter of a few hours how we can have a conference with the house and matter few hours and then bring those to conference reports to the house the senate in a few hours i say that that's legislatively impossible so i'm saying again to my republican colleagues agree to some extension of time or the burden of this legislation not passing is on your shoulders as we have had no attempt to legislate we have not had the opportunity off to offer amendments let alone vote on our goal mr president provide the intelligence community with all the legal tools it needs of protecting the privacy of law abiding americans and so i would hope that in the next hour or so we can work something out before the house leaves town and i've also heard it suggested that some help little or no harm would be done if they law were allowed to be expired well that's simply incorrect the ability to go after new targets would be eliminated with the expiration of this bill in three days so here we are with three days to go and i gather from listening to my good friend on the other side the very real possibility that there is at least some willingness on the part of some on the other side of just let the law expire contrary to what some are saying the expiration of this important any terrorist tool has serious consequences that is if we don't get this job done the notion that somehow doesn't make any difference is certainly not true let me say again wanted expires intelligence officials will no longer be able to gather intelligence on new new foreign terrorist targets terrorists are not going to stop planning new attacks just because we stop monitoring their activities our enemies are watching mr president they know our intelligence capabilities will be degraded wants to protect america act that's the rockefeller bond bipartisan proposal that came out of the committee thirteen to two and senate republicans stand ready to finish that good work that the committee did and the administration began we've proposed a list of several m m m m much to our colleagues on the other side that could receive votes i know those discussions are ongoing and hopefully we can begin to have some votes but we do not have the time to rebuild amendment by amendment a judiciary committee version that a bipartisan majority the senate is already defeated and it wouldn't become law even if we passed now republicans are ready to provide a short term extension of the protect america act to keep the senate focused on the importance of this critical terror biting tool but after ten months of waiting we do not need and the country cannot afford another month delay now we await the response of our democratic colleagues to our amendment proposal and those discussions that i indicated to go on forward and we look forward to finishing the job in a way that allows our intelligence professionals to keep us safe majority leader we understand the implication of the legislation that is now in effect and will expire thursday we understand that we understand that there are new targets that our intelligence officials may want to go after we understand that but mr president i repeat using the words of my friend the republican leader once it expires if it expires it is on the shoulders of the white house and the republicans in the senate we have tempted to work through this and we have been willing to extend this law for an extended period of time we have been willing to extend the law for a limited period of time this present what not what this all boils down to i think what we should do is extend the law for a long period of time because the only issue there are other issues of course  but the main issue is whether that we retroactive immunity for the phone companies that's what it all boils down to whether there's going to be retroactive immunity for the phone please some of us don't think that's appropriate others feel it's appropriate so why don't we extend this law for an extended period of time that way the new targets could be sought if in fact they're out there and we all believe there are some it's necessary to be done and then set up a republican leader talked about that came from the intelligence committee that's in that bill that's in that's in there bill that came out what the house has done doesn't have it in there so why don't we have a debate on that issue and just extend the law extend the law will extend  until there's a new president and we're fine we're happy to do that so we get off this as we can't do the new targets why don't we just extend it for an extended period time and then all our side will agree to try to work out something a legislator willing so that we can have a real nice debate on retroactive immunity simple as that be happy like to ask the senator if he could recap for me to votes that i think are significant there was a vote taken as to whether or not the judiciary committee version of this would be accepted cloture vote was taken five mistaken and it was defeated not mistaken that was last week and if i'm not mistaken as well yesterday when senator mcconnell offered a cloture motion to promote his point of view there were only forty eight votes in support of it out of sixty that were necessary for from our side of the aisle forty four from the republican side it seems to me that we need to put our heads together and work this out and extending this law so there is no damage or hazard to our country is a reasonable to do this we now have reached a point where amendments may be considered voted on and then we'll be in a spot where we can pass a version in the senate said that the conference and work out our differences but i can't understand how the president and the republican leader can come to the floor and blame us for the expiration of the law if we are offering an extension of the law and they keep refusing it and my friend the distinguished senator from illinois i personally have been to the floor and offered on many occasions to extend the time we c all see the train wreck coming and we believed that it was necessary to extend this law i don't know i say very positively to my friend from illinois and everyone that can hear me i don't know if we can work anything out on these amendments i don't know we have on the title one aspect of it there's one senator has six amendments i'm sure he's always been original personally could he would not have to offer that many he's always been very good about time agreements but there's there's ten or twelve amendments that title one and then there's three that we have with title two dealing with some form of immunity but i repeat to my friend democrats believe the program should continue and we're willing to say ok let it let it continue as it is now in effect now a lot of people don't like that we're saying go ahead and let it continue certainly there could be  significant majority of the senators democrats republicans and support that and the issue is immunity i reversed the question asked my friend from illinois should we have a nice debate here on immunity and find out how the congress feels about what the president feels as important as how this country's work for all the here so extend this do it until we have a new president democrat or republican man or woman whoever it might be in the white house and in the meantime has a decision made as to whether there should be retroactive immunity be happy if i let my friend answer this question then i will would say to the is the senator or majority leader that it appears now that the senate has to work its will when the judiciary committee proposal was suggested it did not pass when the senator from kentucky offered his cloture motion for his side it didn't even have a majority vote forty eight votes in support of it let alone the sixty that were required i don't think that we can expect to impose our will on this body the senate has to work its will and we could have considered a lot of amendments in the time that we've lost so far in in the time that we lost in debate and i would say that the majority leader how can we be held responsible for this l expiring if it's the republicans who oppose extending the law and you have offered repeatedly to let them extend the law and they have said no they don't my friend stand up for any period of time we i think it should be each day that goes by think should be a for a longer period time extended because if anyone and any be happy i just want to have my friend from north dakota and his question if anyone thinks that we're going to come to an immediate agreement all these amendments i don't i we've complicated issue and it is certainly an important issue and it seems to me that it takes two sides to compromise and one of the things i'm curious about as i sat here and listen to this the senator from kentucky the minority leader said we are ready to move forward quote unquote he said disappointed in the delays quote unquote well it is not the case however that last week when the cloture update it was filed by the center for duckie at that point they decided to block everything else and stop anything from happening until this week i mean it seems to me that the delay has occurred because the other side has blocked the ability to offer amendments and had we offered amendments we'd probably be done with that at this point but i would say that there isn't anyone in the united states senate that i'm aware of no one that doesn't believe we ought to extend this spy is a one note no one is and that isn't but is that the case that the reason for the delay and the reason that we have not will forward is that on many occasions voiced his opinion what's wrong with the with our the way we got this passed in august and he's been very strong in his comments about how this law could be improved good friend the majority leader you indicated that the that the principle issue that we're sparring over is the question of retroactive immunity from litigation or communications companies who cooperate and protecting related to that issue and that package was rejected to my friend there are also other minutes we talk about title one we talk about there there's a number of members and i think we could reduce those that we have on that side to maybe and they don't be short time limits we could have those and they would all also make sure the record reflects that we believe they should be maturity majority  occurs between the majority leader myself the managers of the memmott and to sum it up this is the kind of legislative fingerpointing that turns the public all but it is the way in which we go forward we had discussions yesterday about voting on the very issues that the majority leader just and akkad are the key issues related to this bill hopefully during the course of the day we'll be able to come together have the votes on the key amendments and move forward the president of course i not going to sign a lengthy extension he's not going to sign a thirty day extension so any hope that we will extend existing law without dealing with a retroactive labadee issue is a waste of energy and time th so we're going to focus on this bill hopefully find a way to go forward and let the senate work its will and if the house of representatives use to leave tonight i found out a hollyer sponsible act right before the expiration of this very very important law there isn't anything more important we're doing right now with the possible exception of trying to figure out a way to go forward this stimulate our economy and and prevent an extensive slowdown of our economy than getting the homeland protected and we know that a key ingredient and securing that protection is getting this a fossil all right and getting it passed on to not some kind of short term extension here the terrorists  to take a vacation a few weeks from now or six months from now or next year they're going to be around for a while we need to get this right we need to do it now and today is a good day to get started you flo if this law is so good and we're able to in the words of the republican leader get new targets why don't we just extend the law i don't understand why we're not doing that i tell everyone again mr president it is legislatively impossible to do anything as it relates to this legislation as far as passing today get everybody to agree to that all one hundred senators and then the house have to agree to what we do or we have to agree to what they do or work out some compromise in conference that can't be done tonight and so this is our last day we have to legislate and if we don't legislate they we're going to move off to someone or something else and just a few minutes because if i said there's no agreement on that no agreement to extend it so i think that's unfortunate but having said it so many times already done kind of tired of myself saying it here today if it unlocks miers democrats have no blame whatsoever spread and let me just wrap it up at least for myself by saying th will be staying on this bill we will not be leaving this bill second this bill is a bipartisan compromise that came out of the intelligence committee thirteen to two this is the rockefeller bond bipartisan bill supported by the president of the united states i mean that is the senate at its best a bipartisan bill the president is willing to sign our effort here is to get it to him for his signature he awaits our action hill is not a bipartisan bill the bill that came out of the intelligence committee is bipartisan but i understand mr president was concurrently referred to the intelligence committee and judiciary committee they both have jurisdiction over these baeza legislation so you can't pick and choose what the president wants we have a situation here that the in to the judiciary committee is entitled to be heard that's what they're asking to be heard they're entitled that they demand that it's appropriate with the republican leader controlling the first half and the majority leader controlling the final half hour as a senator from florida but i want to talk about the issue we've been discussing here this morning the issue of this very important intelligence surveillance issue but i want to talk about it not in the sense of who gets to be blind or something happens or doesn't happen because i really believe that in something of this magnitude the american people are pretty tired of the blame game  well we could have done this but then if you didn't do that then we blame you and if this happens then you get to blame us i think time for blame casting is well past the fact is that the laws that grant the government the authority to use the resources that we have in order to stay informed of what our enemies are seeking to do to us are outdated need to be modernized and need to be put up today with our current technology we're fighting a modern war against a modern enemy the tools that we have to fight that are out of date one of the only ways we're able to catch and expose terrorist plots before they don't fold is citizens but after two years of public debate on the broad issues of fison after reviewing the current legislation i believe those concerns are on warranted this issue transcends the stance of either political party or any partisan interest those who oppose are sincere in their concern they just happened to be wrong needless hurdles to be created for our government in this and in the in the obtaining and utilizing  will intelligence to keep america safe so i want seus address this issue head on and come together and send the president a bill that the president can and will sign you know the president spoke about this last night in his state of the union message he wants to get this matter resolved he wants a bill to his desk so we can move forward we all would to our military and intelligence community to rely on congress to equip them with the tools they need to protect our citizens and carry out their duties effectively throughout our nation's history americans have always been concerned about the proper balance between security and freedom those who are generally concerned about the power of government to trample on the rights of free citizens our right to insist on maintaining the individual civil liberties granted to us by the constitution especially during a time of crisis that will we're not considering is precisely concerned with maintaining and keeping a proper balance in those protections this is a bipartisan bill that was reported out of the intelligence committee by a vote of thirteen to two it is a modern update designed to keep our technological age and to effectively implement the goals of the original faisel law that were passed in one nine hundred seventy eight this bill is the product of careful consideration from members of both sides of the aisle in the intelligence committee those that are best informed about these matters who have the most knowledge about the means the methods by which we gather intelligence those members recognize the need to modernize the way in which our intelligence agencies collection share information vital to terrorist communication whether these criminal communications via cell phone e mail or in person this bill allows for the american intelligence services to be able to timely develop intelligence without having to wait for a court order in other words if a terrorist informed at every step of the process this bill also has a provision to put those who have assisted us and the intelligence community in gathering information that was absolutely vital to our national security fortunately we have had the full cooperation of a number of telecommunications companies in providing our intelligence officials with access to obtain information from foreign terrorists the fact is that as we look at this issue and  majority leader says that this is the big sticking point so let me talk about that specifically does retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies allow bad actors to get off the hook who is it that we're giving immunity to and why should it be retroactive well this has been already noted a number of times but i think it bears repeating retroactive immunity is necessary not only to protect companies that collaborated in good faith at the request of our president during the time of the most serious domestic crisis our country has ever faced and it was done to ensure that our nation's secrets regarding intelligence methods remain classified or not disclosed in public through the civil court process so in other words it isn't just about providing immunity to those who helped at the time that was needed and went ahead and did it but it's also to ensure that as we go forward we're not going to have an o j simpson type trial where television cameras blaring with the information be undisclosed we know that things don't keep we know that our enemies are capable of getting the information because they'll be in the new york times the fact of the matter is that we want to keep our methods and our sources secret and confidential and this is a very important part of this immunity idea if you want to kind of be only for the executive branch we have a constitutional system of checks and balances and leaving aside the president's authority under article two we are exercising congress oversight in passing twenty two forty eight and we along with the pfizer court are certainly going to be able to pay close attention to how we collect intelligence going forward as far as letting bad actors off the hook is concerned as twenty two forty eight provides retroactive immunity from civil litigation if a series of conditions are met yes this was provided in connection with intelligence activity authorized by the president between september eleventh two thousand and one and january seventeenth two thousand and seven and was designed to detect or prevent terrorist attack against the united states was wrong with that the assistance was also to be provided in response to a written request from a directive from the attorney general or other intelligence community had indicated that the activity had been authorized by the president and determined to be legal to me it's a good idea to give these folks the kind of immunity that would allow them to continue to cooperate they would out there would say to them the next time there's a vital the emergency where their cooperation is needed we didn't stick you with the bill we didn't allow the courts to go wild we protected you because you protected america to me that seems only fair and only right express and i hope that we can get through the partisan morass that always seems to untangle us here i hope that we can find a way that we can pull together on something of this magnitude and importance which is about the national security of our country it is about the intelligence needs of our intelligence community and that we can come together in a timely the floor president senator from tennessee the president would win the chair kind of let me know and i've used eight minutes you've noticed thank you very much mr mr president last night the president spoke to the nation in his state of the union address is one of great traditions of american government one most interesting parts of the spectator sport is to watch and see who stands up on which issues when the president talks or who's sitting by whom well watched across our country and it's a sign of respect to the presidency as an institution that it is so the president was in a good mood it was his eighth such address he was reflective but he was decisive he looked ahead he talked about the issues facing our country he did his job and he challenged us to do ours the president devote a good deal of time to the progress of the war in iraq and we devote a good deal of time today to making sure that we have a strong system of intelligence to protect ourselves from terrorists so i would like to comment on what the president talked about at home because a great deal of what president bush said last night was that as important as our role is in the world as important as the long term fight against terrorism is that we have work to do a home at home and we need to roll up our sleeves and get busy this is a presidential year many of the pundits are saying some politicians even well the congress will get nothing done we republicans believe that there's no excuse for taking a year off but there's no excuse for taking a year off given the number of serious issues facing our country and let me mention a few that the president discussed last night to begin with the american colony the president acknowledged to the strong as our economy is fifty two quarters of growing jobs it's taken a downward turn and we need to take appropriate action to help it continue to produce more jobs that means steps that are temporary targeted and that grow the economy and not the government that president has agreed with the speaker of the house and the republican leader of the house on a simple package that is aimed to do just that rebates for individuals almost most of whom pay taxes and incentives to small businesses to create new jobs it's a simple i mr prentice speaking as one senator i don't believe we can afford to let this economic growth package a package which should pass the house today we should let it become a christmas tree in the senate for everyone's favorite idea for spending taxpayer dollars i have some ideas i think every member of the senate has some ideas but maybe we should recognize that the american people would like to see is act and act promptly and act decisively someone has said well the senate wishes to speak on the issue and i know very well that none of us are guilty usually of having an unexpressed thought we love to speak but one way for us to speak is to say to the house of representatives madam speaker and to the house itself we agree with you we think your package is simple temporary targeted and a good idea and to the president mr president each of us might have written the package a little differently but we agree with you and we're ready to pass it before the end of next week i would like to write it differently but i like the idea that it goes mostly to taxpayers there's family friendly that it gives incentive to small business that it temporarily helps with housing i believe mr president it is important for our government particularly at this moment to send a strong message that we will take the action appropriate to keep the economy strong and that we are capable of functioning as a government and work in bipartisan ways to deal with real issues the american people are tired of petty politics they're tired of play pin politics on the senate floor they don't believe they elected us to stick our fingers in the eyes of the democrats or the democrats to stick their fingers in our eyes we have a good example of our leadership working together with the president and as one senator my recommendation is that we support what the president and the house of representatives have done are about to do the president said we should get this work to get to work this year to make sure that every american can have access to health care insurance at our republican conference last week that was the first item  on our agenda and i believe it's fair for me to say that virtually every single republican senator believes that every american should be insured and is ready to go to work this year to help make that possible the president talked about his plan which he talked about last year to redo our tax code so that dollars would be available to american families to buy a least a basic health care policy that they would lose when they change jobs we've had a number of senators on this side senator burr senator kohl corker senator coburn for example senator bennet who's authored a bill with senator wyden which has significant bipartisan support we're all ready to go to work this year mr president we believe we should start this year to help make sure every american is insured runaway federal spending the president talked about controlling entitle sending this is an issue that is beginning to get the country's attention and it should have the country's attention it certainly has mine what do we mean by entitlement spending we mean that forty percent of the budget is social security medicare and medicaid and it goes up automatically every year over the next ten years the growth of social security is predicted to be about six percent according to the congressional budget office medicare about seven point two percent medicaid about eight percent entitlement spending and interest on the debt is sixty percent of every dollar we spend here another twenty percent is defense the war and other necessary actions to defend ourselves and nineteen percent is everything else everything else mr president was flat last year the congressional budget office says that the everything else that's parks and roads and many of the things that that americans believe the government ought to be doing that's going to go up at about two percent over the next ten years according to the congressional budget office on offense goes up about three percent and in title meant spending goes up seven or eight percent senator gregg and senator byron have pointed out to us they're the heads of our budget committee that we're pretty soon going to be faced with an absolutely impossible situation that will require massive cuts in benefits massive tax increases and that the net worth even of this great country won't be able to apply and that every year we wait we risk another problem the president said do something about it challenged us to do it and senators gregg and senators bond have a proposal to do that mr president we should act on it this year that's not all there is to holding down spending the president mentioned earmarks there are too many air marks they're not as transparent as they ought to be that is a smaller part of the budget it is our constitutional responsibility to to deal with with with earmark but we should do that ourselves we should that this year we could pass a two year budget plan such as senator domenici and senator lieberman and senator feingold of various fines have proposed senator sessions senator isaacson that would permit us to give oversight to repeal rules and regulations every other year so there are three ways to get a handle on federal spending senator hutchison senator bingaman have been leaders as well as many others here on keeping good jobs from going overseas we passed the america competes act last year the president challenged us to fund it this year he's right about that and finally mr president president bush last night mentioned something that's close to my heart he called it the pell grants for kids  remember being in a visit with him a couple of years ago and he said to me we have to do something about inner city children who can't afford to go to good schools why do we have a pell grant for kids i said mr president i just had a hearing on that idea last month he looked at me and said i thought it was my idea i said mr president it is your idea any idea that the president has is his idea but he had it before anyone suggested it to him the idea is very simple we take this brilliant idea that congress has invented over the last fifty years of giving money directly to college students which they can spend it any institution of education of their choice public private nonprofit catholic jewish university of tennessee notre dame national lotto diesel college as long as it's accredited they can go there and it especially helps those with less money and let's try that with the poorest children sixteen years ago when i was education secretary the first president bush proposed a g i bill for kids much the same idea it was the largest provision in his budget have billions dollars that year to give poor kids access to some of the same educational opportunities that others had i have proposed in a pell grant for kids version that we give every child five hundred dollars every child in the middle and low income children that sixty percent of them all five hundred dollars for afterschool programs or other or or or other programs of the president has has has advanced the idea so mr president president bush has painted a strong agenda for america this year he has said let's give a boost to the economy let's begin to give every american health insurance that's control entitlement spending let's fund programs to keep good jobs here and let's give poor children an opportunity to go to more of the better schools is challenge us to go to work where ready to go to work we're ready to get results which means working across the aisle in a bipartisan way i thank the president mr president see when i came to washington about five years ago a colleague of mine said welcome to washington d c it's about a square miles of logic free environment where perception is reality that i always chuckled when he would say that and i've repeated it myself a few times to audiences back home in texas because i think it done fortunately has a grain of truth to it and one reason why  people chuckle at that and maybe inside grown a little bit when washington is described that way is because we send out such contradictory messages at the same time at the same time that the speaker of the house of representatives and the republican leader congressman boehner and the president united states have come together and said we have the come up with a bipartisan package to stimulate our economy to make sure if it's possible that we have void a recession putting many americans out of work and hurting them in an economic and personal way now that was a very welcome message that i heard and that the public heard and i think it it was a hopeful one i for one hope that it would signal some kind of new period of cooperation in light of the fact that frankly what we had been doing was not working very well as evidenced by one of the historic lows in congressional approval ratings as a result of the dysfunction in the united states  and congress last year by that i mean you'll recall that we didn't pass but one of the twelve appropriations bills on a timely basis by the end of the fiscal year last year so we had to everything into a big omnibus appropriations some said ominous appropriation bill and i think that's an apt description that is chock full of so many earmarks and things that people had and an adequate time to scrutinize much less to debate and shine the sunlight of public scrutiny on that i would hope that we would learn from the dysfunction of last year and we would look to the example of bipartisan cooperation as evidenced by the house of representatives and the white house on the economic stimulus course it wasn't limited just to appropriations last year we saw  basically of a standstill after thirty six votes on iraq on non binding resolutions calling for unilateral withdrawal finally we passed at the very end of last year a seventy five billion dollar emergency appropriation so that our troops in afghanistan in iraq would get the support that we owe them as a moral obligation as a sign of our commitment to supporting the troops and protecting our national security interests but it took us a long time and a lot of hot air to finally get there and then of course there was the alternative minimum tax which true to form people said well you know let's tax the rich originally it was designed to tax one hundred and fifty five tax payers last year affected six million people and if we hadn't acted which we finally did at the very end of last year would have affected twenty three million middle class taxpayers thank goodness we were finally able to get the work done that was our responsibility but not frankly in good form last year so it's with some hope that we would find ourselves the learning from that experience last year and the low approval ratings that that they brought my hope was that this early sign of a bipartisan cooperation on the economic stimulus package would sort of a start a new trend but unfortunately found on on a matter that really is fundamental to our responsibility i think our first responsibility to keep america and americans safe we find ourselves falling back into old bad habits again of just function what i mean by that is the foreign intelligence surveillance act is vital to our national security it's vital that we continue to be able to listen to foreign terrorists who are communicating with each other plotting and planning future terrorist attacks on the our homeland and on our troops in iraq and afghanistan and around the world but rather than pass a legislation that would address that we passed a patch in all october for six months that expired in december so we passed another one month extension and now we find ourselves with our backs up against the wall with this protect america act extension expiring february the first and i was discouraged to hear the majority leader this morning say it was impossible to pass a reauthorization of the foreign intelligence surveillance act but rather what he suggested is we need another patch for a month or a short period of time without addressing the primary issues that need to be voted on that the senator from florida senator martinez talked about the civil liability immunity for the telecoms who may have cooperated with the united states government at the highest levels based on a request from the president of the united states the commander in chief during a time of war and the certification by the attorney general that what they were being asked to do was legal and in fact necessary for us to protect ourselves against another attack like we suffered here in washington and in new york on september the eleventh two thousand and one and we know that if this law expires without us addressing all aspects of the foreign intelligence surveillance act our intelligence officials w ill be literally blind and deaf to the important intelligence that will allow us to detect and deter future attacks against american citizens in fact the director of national intelligence last summer told us that we were missing about two thirds of the communications between foreign terrorists that were necessary to protect our country and that's why we passed the protect america act so why in the world we would get locked down in the same sort of bickering and partisan divide rather than come together to solve this in a bipartisan fashion is frankly escapes me as was pointed out earlier this very same legislation passed by the intelligence committee by a vote of thirteen to two that's a bipartisan super majority sponsored by the chairman the democrat senator rockefeller and the vice chairman senator bond a republican so with that kind of bipartisan support for a product that the depict director of national intelligence and the leadership of our defense community tell us that they need in order to continue to protect america against attacks why is it impossible for us to pass this legislation well i don't know of any other explanation than just downright stubbornness and frankly it's the cut represents again the sort of reminder of the bad habits of the past that i had hoped that we would learn from and change because frankly if the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome what is happening on  is insane because we're resorting to the same old bad habits and not reaching out and solving this problem which is very real and very urgent let me just say a word about the economy i mentioned the economic stimulus package that was negotiated between the democrat speaker of the house and the republican leader and the president of the united states representative the secretary paulson and  find myself in agreement with the remarks being made by senator alexander the senator from tennessee earlier while there parts of that agreement that i frankly don't like all that much given the nature of the legislative process i think it represents a compromise which now looking at some of the proposals coming out of the senate to add on additional costly programs to grow the size of government and which in air invariably will either raise taxes or  send the iou down to our children and grandchildren to pay by way of expanding the deficit i'm beginning to think that the bipartisan package out of the house of representatives represents a better alternative than i've seen so far discussed here in the senate the last thing we should be doing is using this national challenge to our economy a great risk of seeing the people put out of work and seeing them suffer economically the last thing we ought to be doing is taking chances on growing the size of government earth raising taxes or passing the debt on down to our children by growing the size of government and expanding the size of this package in order to satisfy an individual or group of senators desired to add pet projects on to that stimulus package so i hope that we will act in a bipartisan fashion to support the the house negotiated legislation  bipartisan package just like the intelligence committee product is a bipartisan package just like we acted at the end of last year after a lot of dilly dallying and a lot of delay to finally pass and in a bipartisan way legislation that appropriated emergency funding for our troops that protected middle class taxpayers for a tax that they were never intended to pay in the first place the alternative minimum tax and the other business that we finally did after so many months of delay and at the end of last year so my hope is mr president that we will not punish those who cooperate with the united states government in a time of war to help  us listen into the conversations of foreign terrorists by refusing to pass this important piece of legislation because it sends the wrong message that if you don't cooperate that you can basically make blind and deaf to our enemies and that is a danger to all of us this present t senator from north dakota mr president i have listened with great interest this morning it's been fascinating for me to see a party block access to make progress here in the congress and then several days later come and complain th progress has been made that is a byzantine approach to legislate and i do agree however that we don't want bad habits to exist here i've often said however even though i'm honored to serve in this place i've called this place one hundred bad habits which would include myself of course it's hard to get things done in this place but i'm not suggesting one side or the other side is all wrong i'm reminded of a he drinks because she scolds he thinks she scolds because he drinks she thinks neither will admit what's really true he's a drunk and she's a shrew i understand that both sides bear responsibility for difficulty from time to time but let me say this on this issue of pfizer it's strange credibility for a party that says you may not move we will block you we insist that we get sixty votes on everest every amendment every member has to have sixty votes otherwise we filibuster i mean if that's the case we can we don't make progress progress and i don't think you can say well we're going to object to progress and then we'll complain that this isn't made i mean that makes no sense to me i don't know of anybody in this chamber that doesn't want the fight is a thing to be extended and resolves let's do that let's get it done let's have a little cooperation but cooperation takes two parties and it's long past the time to do that said we've had a lot of bad habits in this chamber but  retain a question of course would let me ask that my time be extended however for the minute or so the senator would wish to inquire without objection so order mr president i just asked my good friend that he doesn't agree that the intelligence committee bills have to pass with sixty votes the protect america act i believe passed with sixty votes the leader said in december it made sense to have al and sixty vote margin zand i would it would he not expect that the senate intelligence committee bill which i support will have to get sixty votes and if so does not make sense to have sixty votes to pass all amendments mispresent certainly does not make sense in fact exactly the opposite that's nonsense to bring a bill to the floor and say look regular order would be bring up amendments if a majority of the senators agree with them amendments are approved but we don't like regular order let's decide that every amendment that shall be brought up shall have to have sixty votes why because if not they will filibuster every member and then complain nothing is getting done i mean that no it does not make sense i would say to my friends now i didn't come to talk about that but let me just talk for a moment about this issue of the economy you know in the this is a discussion about starting the engine or getting the engine working on this ship of state so that we move the country forward it's about jobs and expanding opportunities for the american people because when the economy contracts people run into trouble they're the ones that get laid off the folks that or working in plants and working at the bottom working for minimum wage they're the ones that lose ground during an economic contraction well it used to be you know on the old automobiles when you started an engineer had to crank it and then we went from a crank to a starter so you just push a button or turn a key well some people think our economy is like that and is is as simple as that it is not of course our economy is a lot about people's confidence if they are confident in the future they do the things that represent that confidence they make that purchase they buy a washer and dryer they need it they buy the car they take a trip in doing so because they're confident about the future they expand the economy if they lack confidence in the future then they do exactly the opposite they defer the purchase of that piece of equipment for their home they defer the purchase of the car they defer the trip and the economy contracts it's just that simple we have a problem with this economy for a lot of reasons i've described some of them on the floor of the senate recently but the federal reserve board recognizing that problem for the very bold action three quarters of a percent interest rate cuts likely will do more in the next couple of days and the impression is that we should do something called a stimulus package that is stimulus with respect to fiscal policy i don't object to that in fact i think we probably have to do that because a whole lot of what's going on in the market these days is about psychology i've indicated before that i've called the field of economic psychology pumped up by helium and that's a pretty adequate description of what some people think is science what it is not it's it's a circumstance in which we know we know very little about the way this economy works we do have more stabilizers in the economy that we did decades ago so we've been able to even out a bit some of the the recessions and the downturns and and all of that has been helpful but if we do a stimulus package now during a time of some difficulty we may be in a recession no one knows we probably won't know that until we see it in the rearview mirror but if we do a stimulus pack kitchen fiscal policy i think that's a reasonable thing to do i don't think it's going to have a significant impact on the economy suggesting one percent of our g d p as a stimulus it's not going to have a dramatic impact but psychologically i think we must do a stimulus let me just say that i do think  that what the finance committee chairman is talking about makes a lot of sense if you can do a stimulus package and you going to provide some kind of a rebate make sure that you include senior citizens many of whom are working and screws me living with lower incomes are the ones that are going to spend it they're the ones that are going to contribute to additional purchasing power in the economy so you should not leave out the millions tens of millions of senior citizens if you're going to do a stimulus package i support including senior citizens in that stimulus package you know the president and a couple of my colleagues just said today well you can't change it the house did it the president wants it you can't change it it always you know they come here and they always suggest this is like a loose thread on a cheap sweater it pulled ahead the threat of the arms fall off that's not the case at all the house did its version of a stimulus package we should do ours we have some better ideas but we ought to get it done quickly and we ought to resolve it with the house and senate the president extending unemployment benefits and something we always do in an economic downturn and we should do it again in my judgment but let me say this a stimulus package that is brought to the floor of the senate that does not have a cap on who's going to get the rebates makes no sense at all and there's talk about that that will get a stimulus package and have no cap on the rebate we're going to send bill gates a five hundred dollar check to see if we can maybe stimulate the economy a little bit that that makes no sense you have to have a cap on this that this ought to go to middle income and lower income workers they're the ones who will spend it and the ones who will be able to give a jumpstart to this economy to the extent that the the stimulus package it actually does that but as i said cite logically i think we have a responsibility and fiscal policy to do something in this general direction now let me say this senator from connecticut just came to the floor and he has been working on something that i'm very interested in that is infrastructure investment if we just do a short term stimulus o percent of the economy and that's all we're not going to give this economy the kind of boost or give the investment to this country that it needs we need a second step in the second step ought to be the big step and we ought to take a look at what's going on in the infrastructure in this country my colleague has a bill that dodd haykel bill that i think makes a lot of sense we had a meeting on that on friday a rather lengthy meeting with a lot of people here's a situation infrastructure that's about jobs that's job creating when you invest in infrastructure you create jobs and you create a better country fly into bob graham air base and then get in a vehicle and drive to kabul and take a look at the road and ask yourself about infrastructure in a country like afghanistan if i had to close the  gap and then drive in a car to a cali off in honduras and take a look at the road and ask yourself about infrastructure investment or go to haiti and land at port au prince and travel across the island or shock mail and just consider for a moment what infrastructure means to a country the fact is you fly over nicaragua and look down you don't see many roads because they don't have much of an infrastructure and then fly from any of those countries back to our country and come into an airport and get in a vehicle and drive down the road and then think about infrastructure and what we have built over a long period of time that makes us proud of this country and allows this country to expand and grow and create opportunity and then take a look at what's happened recently this country stopped investing in infrastructure in any significant way and our infrastructure is crumbling in desperate disrepair big bridges fall down highways are crumbling the fact is we have rules that are and shameful conditions in this country water programs that are desperately needed for water treatment that are wanting for funds do it now one of the reasons we have trouble is when the federal government buys this highlight plan for me at my office we have a supply of highlight pens this is expensed only but it takes accounting understands you expense something on day one right like a highlight pen but the fact is when we build a two hundred million dollar piece of highway or invest in a five hundred million dollar airport we expense that as well no other enterprise that i'm aware of in this country none will do what the federal government does and say when you spend on infrastructure something that will last fifty and a hundred years for this country you have to expense in the first stage we need a capital budget we need a a an infrastructure investment bank we need a whole series of things that represents a second step to in the longer term invest in and expand opportunities in this country through infrastructure investment it's about jobs it's about having pride in your country it's about investing in your country the kinds of things that  economic progress so i just don't want people to come out here and say yeah let's do this stimulus and boy that affects things this is put a little patch on something here is not going to fix things it's something we should do but if we don't do something much bolder do something with much greater consequence in the longer term that invests in this country's future we will have missed a very substantial opportunity in the new york times this morning there is a an op bob herbert that that says it all he talks about the catastrophe in new orleans he talks about the bridge collapse in minneapolis the underground steam pipe in midtown manhattan that blows up the manhole cover blowout of the streets here in washington d c it talks about south carolina where there's a long stretch of grievously neglected rural schools it's been dubbed the corridor of shame you know i've been in those kinds of schools i've been in schools where kids were going to school in parts of the building that were condemned that were one hundred years old where sewer gas was coming up back through some of the rooms and they could no longer use those rooms we've all seen those things this country has to do better and we can do better if we can put together the kind of infrastructure investment bank and in the capital budget in the things that we believe are important to advance this country's interest by building this country you know it's interesting one final point we are told this morning the president's going to ask for another seventy billion dollars for iraq and afghanistan that's on top of the one hundred ninety six billion dollars he asked for last year in this fiscal year that we're in now one hundred ninety six billion dollars that's sixteen billion dollars a month four billion dollars a week another seventy he wants that will take us to over seven hundred billion dollars over two thirds of a trillion dollars i asked the question isn't it time we started investing some in home the time we started taking care of things here at home the sky's the limit for those kinds of investments my colleagues this morning we're talking about fiscal responsibility not one penny of that has been paid for because the president has insisted that we send soldiers to war and we spend this money and charge it to future generations will fight the war and come back and inherit this debt that's not fiscally responsible either i'm not suggesting there's a priority here at home for investing in this country expanding opportunity in this country and taking care of things that have been too long the collected and so i just wanted to say that in the context of this discussion we will have about the stimulus program it's important but what's much much much more important is ourselves to have a longer view of investing in this country and expanding opportunity in this country by making this kind of place we're proud of you know that the folks that came before us did that they had some some real vision build interstate highways coast to coast that wouldn't happen under some of the philosophy that exists in this chamber these days this would a boy what a boon to this country to connect america with interstate highways and so i do we can do his statement this morning i'm going to follow on a very similar remarks and i have been good friends for a long time to work together on a lot of issues over the years and i just want to underscore what he said this morning about the importance of the stimulus package and the importance of a lot of time with people in the investment community about ways in which we can track private capital so i i appreciate immensely senator dorgan posting a meeting last friday that bought a lot of these people together and our plan here i say to him to talk with our leader the democratic leader as well as i hope santa mcconnell republican leader this ought to be an issue if we can bring the chamber of commerce and organized labor together around a bill this is a vehicle i think that ought it serve the attention of this body i know there's a growing interest in the house as well about it for all the reasons senator dorgan has mentioned the economic implications are huge the necessity grows by the hour but even goes beyond economic terms because the symbolism of a nation building in working and talking about here is that i mentioned that even during the civil war mr president president lincoln insisted that they work on the capitol very building which we're in here this morning will continue was important despite there were obvious demands to provide the resources to prevail in the in the great conflict between north and south that the country see that this project to build a national capital representing the entire country would go forward obviously there were jobs that were important that and that  construction but more important in the jobs it was the symbolism the nation at work so i'm looking forward to the opportunity to take this idea of a major infrastructure proposal and hopefully attracting some broad based attention to it ron wyden i might point out as well more again as a proposal as well we're hoping to bring them together here a little different perspective but one that i think could be added to our proposal but for as i want to talk about the stimulus package and economic issues and other fires th bill is going to come up again i have some strong feelings as my colleagues know about the retroactive immunity that bill but i was on last evening i sat and listened to the stay the you now been to a lot of them over the years that the presiding officer and i walked in to gather last one over the last three decades and the last evening and ever some great ones that others less than great last evening what surprised me put aside whether you like the rhetoric or not here we are in a nation where by everyone's estimation we're either in a recession we're about to enter one we have economic data that indicates this country's in deeper trouble economically that we've been in in years and it was any hardly any reference to it whatsoever other than a paragraph it's all about a stimulus package so the elephant in the room if you don't mind using that animal analogy the elephant in the room in the state of the union the state and that's the state of the union was of course the state of the union said top shape economically we're in desperate shape in many ways what was beyond ironic is that we have a president out in states talking about the condition of our union and here is a major major problem it's the subject of headlines every day across the nation and hardly any reference to it at all here we were gathered last evening to talk about where we are what we need to do in the coming days and hardly a passing reference to the conditions in our country and so the president called this a period of economic uncertainty i think was the words he use and while i agree that we're in a certainly an uncertain period to put it mildly what we know with some certainty is that the current economic situation is more than merely a slowdown or downturn it's even more than a mere recession or near recession instead i think it's a crisis of confidence among consumers and investors consumers are fearful of borrowing and spending investors are fearful of lending financial transactions with generate new businesses and new jobs are shrinking in number and size by the out in this  country the incoming economic data data shows how serious is the problems present is yesterday just yesterday the commerce department reported that the sale of new homes fell again in december reaching a twelve year low in housing starts retail sales were down unemployment was up significantly in december credit card delinquencies around the rides as consumers find themselves increasingly unable to tap the equity in their homes to help pay down credit card other bills and lastly inflation increased by four point one percent last year the largest increase in seventeen years a period of relative what he called again a period of uncertainty economic uncertainty here you have record numbers and statistics about the difficulty our nation is in economically and we hardly heard any mention of it at all this increase in prices obviously inflation is driven mainly by the rising cost of energy at one hundred dollars a barrel hardly a reference to that last evening one hundred dollars a barrel and i don't recall a word being spoken except about energy independence and to try and get their food and health care costs have gone up as well industrial production is falling and we've been hemorrhaging jobs in the manufacturing sector our economy is still in facing more than uncertainty mr president is facing significant challenges to our nation's future economic growth and prosperity the most important step we can take right now is of course to act to restore consumer investor confidence i mentioned unlike past recessions and slowdowns the epicenter of this economic crisis is the housing crisis and the at the center of the housing crisis is the foreclosure crisis that's what this is fundamentally and principal housing starts at the lowest levels in a quarter of a century twenty seven years home prices declined last year nationwide by six percent and expected to decline again this year that would be the first time since the great depression that you've had two consecutive years with home prices that have dropped twice and in two years in a row the first time since that oppression and the president calls this a period of economic uncertainty this crisis are lending practices that no sensible bank whatever engages the reckless careless and sometimes unscrupulous actors in the mortgage lending industry essentially allowed loans to be made that they knew hardworking law abiding b would never ever ever be able to repay when the fully indexed price kicked in and engage in practice is a veteran served in the bush administration did absolutely nothing to effectively stop as a result foreclosures are a record level the value of people to homes is declining and the tax base for state local government to shrinking again almost daily a year ago was the president here the first housing hearing in the congress on the subject of predatory lending i talk then about the possib more than two million americans will lose their homes as a result of such lending practices i know there are those who scoff when i mention the number of two million almost a year ago but no one is stopping now mr president today foreclosure rates persist at record levels estimates are that foreclosures will continue to climb for most of this year differently and then begin to rise again when new resets kick in the catalyst of the current economic crisis is i said a moment ago the housing crisis and the face of the housing crisis is the foreclosure cris therefore in my view any short term stimulus package should include measures that will address the causes and symptoms of the foreclosure crisis head on as well as trying to provide some immediate relief for those who are feeling this the most so i wanted to  the outset that i'm very supportive of the work done by speaker pelosi in the house and the members over there over done this along with john boehner the republican leader have done to formulate outlines of a stimulus package that the administration can  support senator baucus my good friend from montana the chairman of the finance committee senator harkin and others as some strong views senator kennedy have expressed important views regarding unemployment insurance food stamps low income energy assistance and the like and wait  need all of those things but they bring up a good point and that is historically you want to make sure that resource going to get in the hands of people who are really feeling the pinch for people who have the choice is still there maybe less than the desired impact by providing a tax break for people in that care and that category where it's critically important for those at the lower income levels that are already feeling tremendously strapped that they get some help so i am confident that when the senate works its will there be some additions to the stimulus package i think the unemployment area certainly in the possibly and as well in low income energy assistance and possibly in some food stamp areas i don't want to overload that and i realize it's important we act quickly or the value of a stimulus package gets lost even if it doesn't include all of the things i'd like to see in it it's important we move expeditiously on the value of the timing of it i think could could be could be lost honest altogether so it's important we consider some of the suggestions that are being made and a temporary  s course all of this is temporary so i look forward to working with with our colleagues here to try and add some additions to the stimulus package but hopefully we can do it a timely fashion so the civically how with this back to housing mr present because this is an area where again if we're just dealing with people's problems and not the problem that caused the problems then i think we're missing a point here and i want to pick up on some of these that byron dorgan talked about a minute ago but let me add that i was pleased to note that where and there were elements in the proposed house package that addressed the housing market issues and namely a temporary increase in the conforming loan limits for gnc and also for f h a programs and i think we ought to be talking about jumbo loans in this area one of the concerns is to present quickie here and if you want to get liquidity into this market then you've got to have loan limits here that reach up into areas that can truly make a difference even if for only twelve months so my hope is the administration over this will work we'll set those loan limits to really create the desired impact here that we're trying to and proving that is liquidity in the housing market increasing these loan limits will help restore confidence obviously and liquidity into the housing market and where interest rates have skyrocketed for non conforming loans due to the current problems these will allow millions of middle class americans who live in areas of the country with the value of an average of an average house is far above the existing conforming loan limits to participate and reap the benefits from having a conforming loan so i would ur senator schumer of new york was very very helpful in getting that legislation adopted here on the floor with the kind of overwhelming numbers i mentioned a moment ago and so i remain dedicated to making this happen i've spoken with a chairman barney frank in the house as late as last evening we had breakfast together week ago talked about how we can get this bill done as part of the stimulus package these are good needed steps but we must try to go further and this is where senator dorgan remarks come in because i think if we limit our activity here just to a short term stimulus package and assume that's going to geve the desired result then i think we're missing the point and why you've had almost some negative reaction to the short term program it's got to be followed on whether you call it a second or third tra effort here but we need to follow on the short term effort with some longer term decisions and proposals here that can go a long way to restoring that sense of confidence and optimism the on the short term injection of confidence that's needed here we're going to see our economy improve and the the opportunities improve in this in this century so the work of the present congress to write our nation's economic ship will not end with the enactment of a sim of this package on the contrary it will barely begin other important measures that we can and should take to address the problems in the housing market and i want to just briefly address two of them if i can as president and the short term we need to increase funding for the committee development block grant program this is the cd b g program  t a very successful program all across the country for the last number of years and it can do an awful lot to assist in foreclosure mitigation in my view it's tried and true we should use it to direct i would suggest some ten billion dollars t local governments to remove renovate says we renovate and resell the foreclosed and abandoned homes that are decimating many communities the mayor bridgeport connecticut was to present was in my office last week as a newly elected mayor last fall told me that the city of bridgeport which is a city of a little less than a hundred thousand people is looking at six thousand foreclosed homes in that city six thousand in a city that side and needless to say that even for those homes that are current and in no danger of foreclosure the value of every other home in that city will be adversely affected the downturn even if it's a thousand of huge number i magine of it six times that here in one city in my state which is the most affluent state many ways in the country on a per capita income basis it here is one city and i don't know the numbers in hartford and waterbury in other cities or smaller cities but six thousand foreclosures in one city and these are not speculator homes this is not lost vegas or florida or arizona these are single family homes here that people are living here and the idea that six thousand people and families and city would be adversely affected ought to cause all of us great pause and what can we do creatively and imagine lead to help out the c b d program has been been very useful over the years and providing mayors and county supervisors and others across the country some help in this area i think would be a smart short term short term for closing abandoned homes are devastating again i'm preaching to the choir we all know this to communities around the country they lead to a cycle of disinvestment crime neighborhoods all of the commensurate problems that emerge with abandoned properties hardly need to be articulated again this morning we all understand it values property tax bases all of these things suffer thereby leading to these service cuts and fare than this investment so c d g help money could really provide i think some very valuable resource again we're talking here ten billion dollars it's not insignificant i know that but if we think about the potential good that it could do i think could be worthwhile let me mention another idea here that is again is i want to thank the american enterprise institute and one of the group that wrote an op ed piece on this idea as well it's an idea that comes out of a conservative in and liberal or moderate liberal to moderate think tanks about what to do about foreclosed properties where you have people living in their homes and this is a need for a temporary apparatus to mitigate foreclosures and i'm working with a proposal to create what this called a homeownership preservation corporation which was tried actually in the one nine hundred thirty s and worked rather well under similar circumstances and very basically this proposal would allow for the purchase of very distressed mortgages either in default or about to go in default single family homes people living in again at the speculator inventory we're talking about here and what you've got already going on is there are people out actually buying up some of this stuff in the hopes that they'll restore it and sell it at some point down the road the homeownership prevention corporation idea what allow us an effective form of cooperation with do this by the discounted rates  the lender gets a haircut but still has someone paying you get a fixed rate deals with the homeowners isn't it under terms they can afford to stay in it so you don't have your neighborhoods deteriorating and if it works as well as it could work i think then you actually have a program that has little or no cost to it and what you've done is stabilize these neighborhoods allow people to stay in these and these properties and everyone while suffering to some degree here also allows is to preserve people's ability to remain in these neighborhoods remain in their homes they said this was done in the great depression very successfully back a number of years ago at little or no cost to the government under this concept no one gets bailed out everyone shares in the pain of the housing bust but at the same time a market based mechanism is that can restore confidence to lenders and investors and give innocent homeowners a chance to save their homes in the longer term unless it is the last one i want to make we need to end predatory lending practices and i've been it is the bill in the fall that will crack down on these practices again i have the ideas that our colleagues will bring to this debate i don't claim that we've captured all of the wisdom in this area but clearly we want to send a message that some of these practices cannot go on any longer and my hope is out we'll get some strong support again across together this proposal of an infrastructure bank again the estimates are treating a half dollars just to get our infrastructure up to current levels of performance it is declining and deteriorating literally as we speak here  and it's changing its definition and that's just the physical infrastructure the human infrastructure the f a a system here it is in deep need of modernization and build up here or we're going to face some tragedies if we don't understand how important that pieces but there are a wide variety of issues that need to be addressed with infrastructure and again throughout history i think we've all understood the value economically to our country bob he reads article this morning very generously talks about the incredible economic expansion that occurred as a result of it the rural electrification programs that brought electrification to rural areas of the country made a huge difference for people and certainly we want to see that done as well so we invite our colleagues to look at these ideas on how we can expand our infrastructure needs it really is an issue that demands the attention of this of this body so i offer that idea as well in conclusion is to present the package that the president house leaders have laid out i think is a good one i think it can be expanded on addresses some of the critical areas more needs to be done and if we don't follow up the stimulus package with some of these other ideas that i think we'll miss missed a significant significant not only an opportunity but i think it important moment in our history here to restore that confidence and optimism that people are looking for mr president i apologize and i thank the indulgence of the chair and others here i would ask unanimous consent theri for morning business be extended for thirty minutes with a time equally divided the right direction and without objection so ordered mr president senator from georgia i think spread and i rise in morning business for a second to discuss a trip i made about two weeks ago to iraq it was as i have every year since i've been a  member united states senate of visit to iraq to visit firsthand with georgia troops on duty georgia troops there standing guard for america but also to interact with the iraqi government the kurds the sunni the shia and rank and file iraqi people to measure the progress of our effort in iraq but more importantly the progress of the iraqi the iraqis themselves and mr president i am delighted to be able to come and give a very and by and hopefully  plain recitation of the remarkable changes that have taken place in that country now we all know that a year ago in this body we had serious debate over the fate of our effort in iraq there were calls for us to withdraw there were declarations that we had lost there were other challenges that were brought forward but finally difficultly the commitment by the president to commit to an increase of troops in the surge and followed the any insurgency plan of general petraeus and put general petraeus in charge finally became a reality and about mid year on the ground in iraq the deployment was complete and they began exercising the plan let me try and give you an idea of what iraq today is like compared to iraq one year ago when i landed at the baghdad airport for the first time i drove back our armored vehicle into downtown baghdad every year back there before we had to fly an apache helicopters in avoidance techniques because of the ground fire and the danger wrapped in baghdad in the green zone and spent the night every trip before to iraq they took us out to quite city and to a sheraton hotel when darkness fell in baghdad because it was so dark twice during the course of the visit we got outside of the green zone and a chevy suburban is in one case into an m r i and the other case and went out on to excursions and i'd like to talk about those two excursions for a second the first was an m rap and i have to pause here and pay great tribute to senator but about eighteen months ago senator biden led the charge in this body for us to fund the m raps to try and do away with the tragic loss of life that was  was on the ground and on the roads in iraq and in baghdad general there's no question in this body that the most strident voice in favor of that funding in that commitment was the senator from delaware today the soldiers of the united states of america and of iraq and of our coalition partners rod in the new m wrapped the goals which are remarkable general petraeus told me in the dinner that i had with him in the first bob is where i there was not a single scratch of an american serviceman now i know we could go we lost our first serviceman enter nam rat but that servicemen was the gunner who was above the turret at the time he was hit it has a one hundred percent record on those inside in terms of transporting those troops and it's a marvelous piece of equipment and it's a great testimony to this body republican and democrat alike to rise to the occasion to see to it when our men and women are threatened if there is a technique if there is a technology if there is engineering sufficient to bring about a new product we'll do it and will fund it we did it on the m raf and today our soldiers are safer and our efforts stronger and i rode one of those in wraps to neighborhood known as gaza rich gaza riya was a neighborhood that was completely destroyed two and a half years ago i went to a market that had about twenty shops of which about half were open and travel with a squad headed by lieutenant colonel who was making micro grants and micro loans and measuring the progress of previous loans that have been made to iraqis who are reopening their stores senator cornin senator coleman and myself stood in a bakery and ate iraqi type of flatbread and drank tea and a market that had been totally destroyed and unoccupied for two and a half years we went to an auto repair shop where two brothers had reopened the shop and were getting  do repairs and had bought a generator provide them with a rival continuous electricity these are micro loans made by the united states of america to iraqi people to reinvest in the cells reinvigorate their enterprise reinvigorate their employment it dangerous sure we had on a bulletproof vest we had on helmets and we travelled in m wraps but heretofore you could have never gone on the ground in downtown baghdad like we did on the strip and twice we ran into local iraqis want riya with no intention of ever returning but now because of its relative security they returned the second trip was made by chevy suburban not by armored tank or not by emira and left the green zone went through baghdad to the government building where we met with sunni shia and kurdish leaders and for the first time in my annual trips back there the talk was substantive and the inference on the part of the leadership war that things were getting ready to happen and as all of us know on the bath of occasion and reconciliation things have started to happen and as the president acknowledged in his speech last night they will be having conventionally in terms of sharing of the oil revenues and eventually  my point in bringing this story to the senate and telling it firsthand is the progress the president described last night is real it is tangible things are changing in iraq and they're changing for the better for the iraqis and for us we have brought back two groups and as the president said we'll bring back five more without replacing them this year are true to level will be going down we're going from a combat confrontation to an oversight conference oversight role in terms of helping  logistics to the iraqis and have the iraqis responded think about this mr president remember about six months ago when the prime minister of great britain said they're pulling the british troops out of basra the american press wrought about wrote about another f one of our partners leaving what we going to do nobody's read about basra sent them because you know what happened all of the brits who left were replaced by iraqis not by americans not bacco alyson forces have you read about damage or problems  no you haven't because the army's performed magnificently the iraqi army today we read of reports in mosul and we born the tragedy of the loss of five u s soldiers but in that late big attack going on against one of the last stronghold qaeda the spear of that of that attack the point of that attack is all iraqi soldiers and i had the privilege to meet with iraqi generals who that for the first time see themselves energized see themselves fully capable of assuming the role that we've taken for so long for us to move oversight and to for them to move to the point of the spear the practical matter is this whatever mistakes may have been made in the past whatever differences we may have had the young men and women the united states of america have performed magnificent general petraeus has lived up to every single promise of hope that we had for him and then in the name in the memory of those tragic loss of life in iraq georgia soldiers like diego wren kahn lieutenant noah harris sergeant mike stokely and the other hundred nine it seems the sacrifice they've made has not been in vain and we are on the doorstep hopefully of building and helping to have created a democracy that will last and endure in the middle east and hopefully will be the first step of many to accomplish the hope of peace freedom and liberty that we in this country so often take for granted but the rest of the world cherishes so the president was right last night in his state of the union we've made great progress there's work left to be done but there is a light at the end of the tunnel and it's not a locomotive it's the light of hope for liberty or peace and freedom because of the sacrifice and then durrance of the fine young men and women united objection mr president last night i listened intently to president bush's state of the union speech frankly i had a hard time understanding what country the president was talking about and what reality he was talking about certainly if the state of the union refers to what is happening to the shrinking middle class of this country and how we as a people are doing the president had almost nothing to say that rang true in fact last night's speech just reminds many of us how paul removed from the reality of oig narry life this president is and how little he and his administration know about what is going on in the lives of millions and millions of people in cities and towns across this country in my view the president's speech was lacking not just for what he said or perhaps more importantly for what he didn't say somehow president bush forgot to mention some of the results of his failed economic policies and how they have impacted the lives of ordinary people so let me take a moment therefore to review the record that's a president last night refused to talk about mr president since george w bush took office in two thousand and one nearly five million americans have slipped out of the middle class and into poverty these are mostly low income working people whose wages have not kept up with inflation these are people all across the country that are trying to make it on six dollars seven dollars an hour without any health insurance desperately trying to keep their families above water these all by the way parents and kids in pennsylvania and in vermont one out walking to emergency food banks because they simply don't have the income to buy the food that they need in the united states of america in two thousand and eight and it might have been a sign of decency on the part of the president to at least recognize that reality which is impacting so many of our people and the reality that hunger in america is actually going up the president george w bush has been in office median household income but working age americans has declined by almost twenty five hundred dollars that's a lot of money and overall median household income has gone down by nearly one thousand dollars this is the shrinking middle class and maybe as people are working longer hours for low wages maybe as people who work in fifty or sixty hours a week trying to bring in enough money for their families to pay the bills maybe the president might have said a few words to them that he understands the reality that they are experiencing maybe he might have said to the young people of our country that he is concerned that if we don't turn around our economy for the first time in the modern history of this country their generation will have a lower standard of living than their parents baby just a few words to those young people that they know that he know what is going on in their lives but i did hear that i did hear that all the president since george w bush has been in office eight point six million americans have lost their health insurance and we are now off the forty seven million americans without any health insurance whatsoever meanwhile health insurance premiums have increased during bush's tenure by seven the a percent huge increase in the cost of health care now last night while the president gave us his usual rhetoric about all of the virtues of free market health care somehow forgot to tell us why we spend almost twice as much per capita on health care as any other nation and why we are the only major country on earth without a national health care program guaranteeing health care for all people and the president didn't even tell us why he vetoed legislation that would expand health insurance to millions of children just the usual rhetoric about free market health care which is failing us every single day as the president during his remarks last night somehow president bush the glad to have meant didn't that three million work is since he has been in office have lost they have pensions the promises that were made to them for their retirement years at about half of american workers in the private set sector have no pension coverage what so if i did he have much from the president about that what i did here is present president's rhetoric about social security quote unquote reform which as you know are simply code words for the privatization of social security and mr president a time when i was seniors are facing more and more insecurity and they have seen for a very long time privatizing social security is the last thing that this country needs the president last night president bush once again pushed for more on vetted free trade agreements despite the fact that since he has been in office the annual trade deficit has more than doubled and over three million manufacturing jobs good paying jobs in this country have been lost it astounds me that despite the horrendous record of these on bedded trade agreements nafta kept the permanent normal trade relations we have a president who says look we have failed year after year we have lost millions of good paying jobs our trade deficit  and you know what the answer is we need more of this failed trade policy in my own small state of vermont never one of the great manufacturing states in this country we have lost since bush has been president ten thousand manufacturing jobs mr president twenty five percent of the total one out of was manufacturing jobs and president bush we need more outsourcing we need corporations to  american workers out of the street so they could run to china pay people the fifty cents an hour and bring their products back into this country the president last night president bush did mention it's a word about gas prices going up but he did forgot to tell us that says he has been president the price of gas at the pump and home heating oil have more than doubled he also for whatever reason forgot to tell us that year after year while americans are paying outrageous prices for oil and gas that the oil companies are enjoying record breaking profits i didn't hear mention anything about that mr president not one word a couple of years ago for example exxon mobil which has enjoyed huge profits while americans are paying three fifteen for a gallon of gas at the pump exxon mobil gave a three hundred ninety eight million dollar retirement package for its form three hundred ninety eight million dollars for retirement package for the former head of exxon mobil and how people are paying three fifteen for a gallon of gas president got to talk about that also last night i found it interesting the president bush that collect discuss that for the first time since the great depression the personal savings rate in this country is below zero this means that because of the dire economic conditions facing so many of our people we as a people are actually spending more money than we are learning in fact today millions of americans are buying their groceries with credit cards they don't have the cash to buy the food that they need the going in debt to buy groceries and all friends of the credit card industry and then charging them twenty five or thirty percent interest rates grocery that they are buying on credit for some reason last night in his state of the union address the president also neglected to mention that home foreclosures are the highest on record turning the american dream of homeownership into an american nightmare for millions of our fellow mr president the reason that i am raising these issues is because if we as the senate if we as a government do not talk and discuss the reality of life in this country for the vast majority of the people if we really do not understand what is going on in the cities and towns across i want a show then it will be virtually impossible for us to formulate the public policies that we need to transform our economy so that it begins to work well for all of the people and not just the wealthiest people on top and also m president we do not do this enough it is important to take a look at what's going on in our country compared to what is going on in many other industrialized nations very often i hear people coming to the floor of the senate always the wealthiest nation in the world with the greatest nation in the world for all of these things let's look at some of the facts as they apply to the lives of ordinary people is the president what country in the industrialized world has b highest rate of childhood poverty where one out of five children although we go bobbie is it france germany the u k no it is the united states of america one out of five children in this country live in poverty and shock of all shocks we end up having the highest rate of being cost aeration putting people behind bars of any other country on earth and if you think there is not a correlation between the two factors i would strongly disagree with you really the united states of america today has the highest infant looks holiday rate of any major country on earth the highest overall poverty rate the law just gap between the richest and the rich in the pool and we are the only country introduced by our colleague senator jim inhofe of oklahoma as twenty five fifty one entitled the nuclear waste policy amendments act of two thousand and eight the reason i do this is multiple in the issue all nuclear energy today and the management of the waste that flows from not only current nuclear reactors operating in our energy portfolio but of course the growth of generating capability through nuclear reaction as it relates to all that's going on out there from the creation of the ener policy act of two thousand and five the thirty plus reactors that are still that are on the drawing boards today the opportunity to see new reactors built in our country to supplement and and build our energy base  and the issue of how we handle the waste as most senators know yucca mountain a permanent geological deep geologic repository in the state of nevada has become increasingly controversy over the years waste i strongly support the mountain and believe we need a deep geologic repository whether it's for the current waste that is in storage at most of our reactors or whether it is for the refined ways that would come from a reprocessing steam stream so for a few moments today i thought i would share with fellow senators a legacy that most don't realize that i find extremely important in this overall debate of a nuclear renaissance and congress getting real and honest about handle how we handle away stream instead of the political football that some would like it to  be and therefore create the uncertainty that results from that in my home state of idaho i have a national laboratory the state of idaho those one of our nation's premier energy laboratories known as purpose of a national reactor testing site where reactors would be built and tested before they went into commercial use or in this at this time and place mostly military use and for national security purposes so a site that was started in one nine hundred forty nine actually saw by nine hundred fifty one the lighting of the first light bulb ever lit in america by nuclear reaction in site today is a national historic site that reactor is now a museum it was so dedicated by president lyndon johnson and many people come to see the first reactor ever built to light the first let by nuclear reaction in this country since that time fifty two test reactors have been built on side at the idaho national laboratory i don't know is also there for a home of something else but legacy nuclear reactors three hundred metric tons of spent nuclear materials and four thousand metric tons of high level waste are stored at this national laboratory now most of this waste was generated from defense and from our navy's nuclear program in fact one of the most successful programs ever in the history of the world has been our naval vessels powered by nuclear reaction and all of the waste from those reactors over the years has been stored at idaho and idaho was the premier training location for our men and women in the nuclear navy to come and learn how to manage and operate nuclear reactors in our nuclear navy we also have waste from west valley new york and other locations because idaho has been the recipient of that waste but i must say as a result of that the federal government signed an agreement with idaho some years ago that all of that waste would go to yucca mountain by twenty thirty five or to a deep geologic repository other than the state of idaho where it is now stored in dry storage and in wet storage there is no other disposal disposable option for our navy's high level waste because of the configuration all the waste all of those reactor  fuel rods they cannot be reprocessed and so they unlike the commercial reactor spent fuel rods have to go into a permanent home and permanent ways i don't know south carolina the state of washington are that we recognize there truly is a need for some geologic storage of our types of waste especially the kind of waste our military waste in many instances that are stored in the carolinas south carolina the state of washington and my home state of idaho now as i've said in my opening comments since we passed the energy policy act of two thousand and five and we began to streamline the process to bring a new design construction concept on line and grant guarantees for the construction of nuclear reactors for commercial electrical production there's been what many call a renaissance as it relates to the possibility of pouring concrete to actually build new reactors certainly the debate of climate change the emission of greenhouse gases has caused us to recognize the need for what we call base loading of our electrical system with large units of production that are non emitting and of course at this time technology says the only one that's really out there in that high capacity way would be a nuclear reactor and that is also clearly what has fed the growth the desire to develop a licensing process that's underway the design concepts the attempt to locate new reactors at current  sites and facilities but something happened in my state of idaho this past week that tells me and should tell the world that there is still a great deal of uncertainty out there as it relates to siting a nuclear reactor and part of that uncertainty is the unwillingness of this congress to get on with the issue of siting a deep theological repository getting the licensing process over with dealing with reprocessing and truly bringing our arms around the issue of the waste stream man america a large utility in the midwest that has recently acquired utilities in idaho and adjoining states or or at least utilities that feed part of idaho's electricity made the decision that they would attempt to build a nuclear reactor in my state of idaho they looked all over the country decided that idaho was the prefer of a location based and their needs and the need to load their service area and because they thought that the climate was appropriate and i doubt they studied it they spent millions of dollars looking at that possibility they determined this past week that they would not move forward why because even under the most favorable conditions in possibly the most favorable state lay found that the uncertainty and the expense was still too great who's made america well it's an asset hathaway it's an asset of warren buffett probably one of the deepest pockets in the world and yet they and baird studies with due diligence determined that they would not move forward after millions of dollars was spent and it was all based on cost and uncertainty and part of that uncertainly rests right here in the united states senate and with a congress that will not in a clear clean decisive way say we're going to deal with the issue of the waste stream as the rest of the component pieces that we put together to build a true nuclear renaissance in this country and i think it's critical that we move forward this legislation as twenty five fifty one speaks to that it speaks to that long term importance i co sponsored legislation this past year that senator domenici and i introduced that dealt with the kinds of issues that are dealt with an s twenty five fifty one these two bills the domenici craig bill and now the inhofe craig and others bill would allow yucca mountain to open on  a predictable time line replacing as i've said the uncertainty and it protects the citizens of idle and south carolina and thirty other states that are currently storing nuclear  nuclear rip energy nuclear power clearly remains our best and brightest options in the near term as it relates to a sustainable non abetting source of energy for our country and clearly this congress should not and to date has not stood in the way of building that renaissance from the policies passed in two thousand and five to the guarantees that we're offering to the new licensing process that the nuclear regulatory commission is now in the final stages of developing the only piece left undone is the issue of waste stream and it's critically important that we deal with it if we don't if we put a blight on the potential growth of nuclear energy here's what can happen from ninety five to two thousand and six nuclear power helped us avoid more than eight million metric tons of comet carbon dioxide into the atmosphere many states have said have started to say no to coal and yes to nuclear power or other forms of clean energy but other than nuclear power they are limited and clearly we shouldn't be saying no our economy our growth future jobs for this country the vitality of our economic leadership in the world is tied to available energy abundant energy and reasonably cost energy and we know today the one source of energy that answers all of those charges is nuclear yucca mountain remains a key piece of all of that picture that's why has introduced the legislation why i'm co sponsor of it and i certainly encourage all of my colleagues to look through clear glasses at this issue because we've got to deal with the waste stream a responsible fashion we need to do so in a way that is acceptable to the industry and acceptable to the american people the efforts that have been put forth from day one in the examination of the geology  development of the car tunnel at yucca mountain all of those stages are there for the public to see the licensing process is now underway which is the next step let's don't just arbitrarily and politically step into the middle of it and mess it up and i must tell you that the frustration that i've had just listening to presidential candidates out on the road if you want the endorsement of a single state you're against y that single state was nevada this is a national issue it is not a local issue this is federal land properly handled properly researched and it can be properly developed in a safe way for all americans and for our future that's what this legislation speaks to i'm pleased to be a co sponsor with senator inhofe he introduced a didn't timely fashion and clearly with in the course of this year it's something that needs to be debated and something that we need to deal with this administration has moved forward as quickly and responsibly as they could in the licensing process is certainly something that needs to be completed in the overall effort of the renaissance of nuclear power in our country and that form of generation as a important option in our mix of energy sources for this nation for now and into the future pre and which has been agreed to between the president and speaker of the house and say a few things about it first i congratulate the speaker the majority leader of nothing short of the republican leader in the house paulson for sitting down and trying to reach a bipartisan understanding as to how we move forward and what is obviously a very tentative economic time we know that as a nation we are confronting some very serious issues most of them brought on by a boom in the credit markets relative to lending for housing construction a bubble a boom and as happens with a classic bubble and this is a classic bubble burst one in other words the underlying security in the people responsible for paying back the debt cannot do that because money has been lent to people who are not in a position to repay their loans and the security under that that  has not been able to be maintained to reinstate the value of that debt when that happens that not only affects the loans the immediate loans that are impacted by that but it leads to a further contraction in the marketplace i've been through this a number of times in my experience and it always seems to happen the same way with loans which turned out to be not well made being called and they're then followed by  the people who lent the money and the capital markets having to contract in order to basically build back up their capital position so people who have actually good loans find that they can't get credit extended further and it feeds on itself and you start to see a slowdown that appears to be the type of issue which we may be confronting as a nation we know we have a huge sub prime problem and it's a very big we know that that may lead to further contraction treaded and we're already seeing that we know that on ironically in this market what happened was that a lot of those loans were syndicated out and then they were put in synthetic instruments and they were actually multiplied as to their impact you end up with an inverted pyramid where you've got one little loan down here which doesn't have adequate capital and which can't be paid back and you've got a big parent pyramid of ways that that loan has been chopped up moved around and basically ripped resold so you have you have actually exaggerated the size and so this is a big issue big issue for us and nation the question is how do we address it well first off i congratulate the fed because the fed has stepped up our state stepped up earlier but they have stepped up started to reduce rates and as a result that should create more liquidity in the market the second is what is the fiscal policy and that's where the president's proposal working with speaker the house and the republican leader has come forward it is called a stimulus package the purpose of which in an economic slowdown is to pursue classic economic policy which is that you stimulate demand during a time of economic slowdown in order to raise the economy generally that's been sort of a black letter rule of how you work try to abate the impact of an economic slowdown you stimulate demand the question is well work question is what's been put on the table does it make sense and will it work first remember that the last time we did this with what's known as tax rebates which really aren't actually days because most people are going to get these tax rebates don't actually pay taxes it's actually just an income transfer the last time we did this we were coming off a period of surplus the only time a surplus really in the last thirty years that we've had is that as a federal government we've had three years of surplus and so we actually felt we had cash in the till so to say the rebate with or to pay out now we don't have a server in fact we have a deficit it's not a huge deficit but it's still a deficit has been coming down over the last few years which is the good news but it does mean that any stimulus package that we pursue here is going to be a debt that in other words we're going to have to borrow the money to pay it out to people through this tax rebate or basic payment process so we end up paying it well our children are going to pay the cost of the stimulus package and it's going to be because it is debt a compound and that in other words if the package is represented a to be one hundred fifty billion dollars in cost over its lifetime which is supposedly confined to this year that debt if you have to borrow to pay a hundred fifty billion dollars will have interest earned on it so after ten years that becomes a two hundred billion dollar bet because it won't be paid back over ten years and our children and our children's children have to bear the burden of that so basically we're saying to our children who haven't even started earning money yet we're going to give you two hundred billion dollars bill with the stimulus package we're going to put in place over the next six months and so if we're going to do something like that which is fairly significant we've got to make sure the stimulus package works that actually does stimulate the economy that actually does retard to the slowing the forces which are slowing down the economy and hopefully now the proposals which we have on the table came from the house break into two basic approaches first is a pure consumption approach where you basically give people a middle and low incomes in this country i think it's eighty thousand dollars an individual income or seventy five thousand or one hundred thousand dollars in joint income a tax rebate from six hundred twelve hundred dollars that's just a payment it's structured in a way that some people who don't pay taxes will actually get the paper the theory is that they will take that money and they will go and spend the money and as a result the economy will see see a boost there are two problems with this theory however that we need to address first under the present structure of our internal revenue service the c d o which is a fair  late june at the earliest and see the dollars further testified that the actual economic impact of people spending this money these rebates these payments will probably not occur until the late third quarter early fourth quarter of this year s because of the limitations within the i r s this rebate probably won't impact those quarters so that should be a concern to us the money may not end up coming into people's hands to be able to be used taxpayers or non taxpayers hands to be able to be used in the timeframe when it's going to be most needed and in fact towards the third quarter of this year and into the fourth quarter of this year it is again the testimony of the c d o director cuts that the fed has put in place the three quarter percent prime target is going to cause the economy to react to that cut in a positive way hopefully and that will occur in the third and fourth quarter mostly so you could actually end up with two events on top of each other which are stimulus at a time when we no longer need stimulus and that ironically could actually be an inflation driving event so we need to be concerned about that not necessarily will happen that way but it's a concern the second problem which this proposal has of just taking a large amount of cash and putting it on the table for people is that again it may not stimulate our economy in other words if somebody goes out with their six hundred they buy a television made in china or they buy an i pod made in vietnam i don't know if that's where i pods of me or if they buy some other a washing machine made somewhere else if the product isn't actually physically produced here then basically you're not stimulating our economy or stimulate the economy where the product is produced and the assumption is that most of these dollars will be spent on consumption consumable items or will be used to pay down credit cards which has no stimulus affected all theoretically if it's spent on consumable ideas and for example as a peril or it's consumable goods which are made manufactured overseas then the similar then to the united states is extremely limited only at the margin and again this was testified to by the director of o and be so c b l i'm sorry not only so this is these are two concerns with the idea of just infusing money into the package the second part of the package says well we're going to do an inventory of basically a business incentive event we're going to allow people to expense as versus depreciate over a number of years capital purchases we're going to allow people bonus depreciation both of those are probably good tax policies from the standpoint of strengthening our economy over the long run because they make the economy more efficient they mean that some small business person will be able to go out and buy a machine which makes their business be more efficient as a result of being more efficient makes the american economy stronger so yes that's good policy but it will have very little stimulus effect very little stimulus effect on the underlying economy so the concern is that the house package may not have the stimulus that it claims to have and may end up being a dead event which our children have to repay what really concerns me even more though is what's being talked about here in the senate because we're talking about taking the house package and significantly bidding it up here in the senate and that really bothers me i mean the house package bothers me to begin with but the bit up here in the senate is a mistake we're talking about basically expanding the rebate to everybody now that will have absolutely no stimulus effect in my view i mean to say that high income individuals or people have incomes over join incomes over one hundred thousand dollars you get a stimulus if you get a five hundred dollars payment first off they probably don't need it and secondly they certainly don't need if you're to borrow from their children and certainly if they get it they're probably going to just save it which is great in the long run but has no immediate stimulus event secondly they there is a proposal to include an extension of unemployment compensation benefits unemployment insurance well that would make sense if we were in a recession or event but right now the national unemployment rate is about five point one five point two percent which is deemed full employment i mean anything between five and five percent is historically a full employment situation now there are pockets of communities around this country who have higher unemployment no question about it but to just put out a nationwide extension of unemployment insurance for an additional year which is what was being talked about here or for additional six months which is being talked about isn't that basically creates an incentive in what is a full employment economy for people not to be productive to not go out and find jobs is just the opposite it's intuitively obvious that that is a perverse and impact on what you want in the area of human reaction which is to go and find a job if the jobs are available and jobs are five percent economy are available so any unemployment extension should be tied to a trigger and that trigger should be set at what has been the historical levels of what is deemed to be a recessionary or significant slowdown which is around six percent so that you don't extend unemployment insurance unless you hit that level of unemployment and you can also make it regional if one region has six percent unemployment then you give them the extended unemployment insurance if one region doesn't have six percent unemployment then you don't get an extended unemployment insurance so it's a reasonable and fair approach we're also talking about on our side of the aisle adding food stamps adding f map adding why he adding infrastructure adding state and local taxes dr billy all this has been thrown up by other members on our side of the aisle state local aid making it a grab bag of everybody's idea about who they want to take care of and where they want to attract political supporter or say something that supports a group of people who they think are important to their constituen and that makes no sense at all first it's going to slow this package dramatically to do that second you're not going to improve stimulus activities around here by doing that so i would hope we wouldn't proceed that way you know i have a lot of problem with the initial package i do congratulate the white house i do congratulate speaker pelosi and and congressman boehner from putting together a package for recognizing the need to have big reservations as to whether it's the most useful package from the standpoint of stimulus but it appears in light of what the senate is now talking about to be the high water mark around here and maybe we should just take the house package and pass that knowledge the fact that we've done something now the biggest impact of this event is very obvious it's psychological it's a big price to pay for psychological event hundred fifty billion dollars which adds up to two hundred billion dollars over ten years to our children but that is the big bad big impact that the american people and the world can see the congress and the president can work together to address what we see is a economic slowdown even though what we're proposing probably won't have the effects that we hope it will have in the short term but we should not aggravate this problem by significantly increasing the lack of focus of the package by throwing in all these other ideas by expanding the rebate to high income individuals by extending unemployment insurance in areas where there's basically full employment literally the house back becomes a high watermark i thought i'd never say that but that's that's the way it looks like right now from the senate activity so i just want to make those points but i think we have to have an open discussion what's going on around here and we also have to have expedited activity and i don't want to slow it down but i do want to make the points that if we start throwing all this stuff on recess under the previous order the senate stands in recess until two fifteen p