the morning the senate will come to order the opening prayer will be offered by our guest chaplain who hails from the great northeast boston massachusetts but is now from plantation florida  state of florida rabbi cheryl jacobs of the jewish feeling god what do i desire for my country how do i vision the land i love let it be a land where knowledge is free where the mind is without fear and men and women hold their heads high words come out from the depths of truth where leaders have the courage and the permission to lead america and have faith in our land in our leaders and in themselves let it be a land where we live free of fear a land safe for our children and for the generations that have yet to be where our nation has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls where the brave men and women that fight for our country are revered and honored for the heroes that they are and let it be a land where tireless striving stretches its arms toward perfection and where there are limitless opportunities for all people in to we join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to our flag the clerk will read a communication to the senate washington d c february seventh two thousand and eight to the senate under the provisions of rule one paragraph three of the standing rules of the senate i hereby appoint the honorable sheldon whitehouse a senator from the state of rhode island to perform the duties of the on the stimulus package i've had a number of conversations with your republican leader this morning i have away for we don't have a way forward yet and we're going to see if we can continue working so that we have a way forward  we are having some discussions and he's indisposed for an hour and he gets back we'll meet again but also under should know that we have to finish feis of this week hope we can finish it today if not we'll finish it tomorrow have to finish it this week as the stimulus package would be good if we could finish it today we may not be able to procedurally we may have to wait until tomorrow or maybe even maybe even tuesday but we're working on that as i said mr president i have a way forward but we don't have a way for and i'm trying to see if we can have a situation where it's a we rather than i of that works out well as i indicated last night we had a good bipartisan vote on this would have been better if we'd had one more bipartisan vote but it still was something i think we should all feel good about we're working together trying to move this country forward the economy is in real trouble now as indicated in today's press that now this has worried about inflation in addition to that  have other countries who are worried about inflation european countries and it's really a time of trouble and that's why i miss him his package we have to continue to work together soon come up with florida and i was honored to have her today as our guest chaplain i was at a banking hearing and just couldn't quite make it on time but i know that she does an amazing amount of work mr later in the broward county area helping people in need in all walks of life never looking to who they are always there to help and so i'm tremendously honored to have her here today and we're pleased that you were able to honor us with your prayer and we thank you for coming thank you was first period of morning business for one hour very seldom come to the floor last week i came to the floor to talk a little bit about the stimulus package that is before us now know that last night we had a vote that blocked the senate finance package i know that  probably sometime during the course of this day or very soon will be voting on the house version of this stimulus package and i have to say that i realize i'm a voice in the wellness actually even more effect on our economy this is a roughly one hundred fifty billion dollar package most of this package is oriented towards sprinkling if you will checks around our country and i know there are many people in our country in need i know that there's been attempts to add various groups that quote have been left out to this package and i really feel for people around our country that are in tremendous economic distress but i have to say that to me and this is just one opinion i have tremendous respect for this body and the various opinions that exist in this body this past that the in my humble opinion one of the most irresponsible things that we have done since i've been in the senate i think about all the debate that we've had here for instance regarding your mars regarding the wasteful spending that can sometimes take place over congressional earmarks and i know the public has been focused on that particular item now for over a year as that issue is men debated on this floor and as people have tried to just sort of weed out if  wasteful earmarks in one fell swoop today or tomorrow we are going to be taking one hundred and fifty billion dollars that's with a b and from the standpoint of having economist and i know that i haven't read every economist speak to the virtues of this daniels package mr president i think you know that the president just put forth a budget that shows a four hundred  billion dollars budget deficit this next year and i know that all of us know that that's not even close to the real number because afghanistan and iraq is not funded is not funded by that budget fully and so we're talking about in this next year and out man a half a trillion dollar budget deficit money that none of us will ever of course pay for you and i will not have anything to do with ever paying this back our children and their grandchildren will pay this back and as i mentioned last week on the floor this one hundred fifty billion becomes in a generation twenty years three hundred twenty two billion dollars so we have assets are borrowing this money and i think all of us know that much of this money will be lent to us from countries like china and other places and i think most of us know that between the fiscal policy that we're talking about today and the monetary policy this been followed recently by the fed that the u s dollar is devalued the companies that we have here in our country and assets are becoming greater bargains for people in other countries and as you know there's been tremendous investment by other countries in buying up our companies here in our country many of the products that people will spend this money on if they spend it on things other than electricity bills and those kinds of things will be products that are actually made in other countries i think all of us came in mr president i know you're new to this body as i am i know that we came in here recognizing the tremendous fiscal recklessness that has occurred as it relates to our country's fiscal and financial matters and i think all of us came here warning to rectify that and i just find it truly hard to believe that there is such a rush in this congress to go out and take a hundred and fifty billion dollars and sprinkle it around america as if we feel like that's going to do something to stimulate our economy i know that much of this and i again i'm not saying by any measure this relates to every senator but i know much of this is politically motivated to make sure that people here in our country think that we're doing something even if it's wrong i know this is an election year and in some ways t some constituent groups this might build political favor i certainly have not had private conversations with every senator here and so that should go noted but i'll have to tell you in private in private i have not found one senator not one that believes that what we're getting ready to do is going to really do anything to stimulate this economy again economist around the country our mentioning the fact that this will have little or no effect i know recently a well respected person that i know that i won't quote on the flow floor said look this is an awful lot of money it probably won't do any harm i think about what one hundred and fifty billion dollars one hundred fifty billion dollars would the invested in a way that actually created jobs over the long haul whether it was in research whether it was in promotion of energy security maybe doing something to solve some of the health issues that we have in our country certainly there are other ways for us to spend one hundred and fifty billion dollars i've listened to some of the debate on the floor that go on for four days if you will over spending one billion dollars whether over spending ten billion dollars maybe at a university or something like that and i realize that again in the very near future this body without any real debate is getting ready to spend one hundred fifty billion dollars that we will never pay back i'll close with this mr president and i said this the last time i was here there are children all over america today in classrooms we have some that got up this morning that are here in front of us pages i get up at five in the morning and go to class at six they come here every day and and work with us and they're looking to their parents their teachers their coaches their sunday school teachers to help teach them life principles and to help make decisions that hopefully will call their lives to be more whole and more full and hopefully from time to time they look to those of us here in washington to do the same our elected officials i have to tell you that i hope and i say this with all due respect to the members in this body who have a different opinion this is soley my opinion and i have deep respect for the other ninety nine members of this buy but from my own personal advantage point i hold that they're not looking at us this week and i don't think there are many members in this body that believe that this one hundred fifty billion dollars that they and their children will pay back is really being spent in a meaningful way and i think many members of this body realize that this is a political election year stunt if you will to make it look like we're addressing a problem when in athens in my home bill opinion we're not  hope it sometime in a bipartisan way mr president that all of us can work together and really address the fundamental problems this gally that our country has to deal with i know there's a that's going to be debated on the floor hopefully in the near future the conrad gregg bill to hopefully get us together to focus on social security and medicare again i want to say that we haven't even begun to see the stresses that those programs are going to create for our country and yet in this next fiscal year we're looking at a half a trillion half a trillion dollars in just one year annual budget deficit we have been physically reckless as a country and as i say back in my home state the chickens are going to come home to roost and i am tremendously discouraged that we in this body are getting ready to spend one hundred fifty big dollars the way that we are and i asked the young pages and that is the young people across our country and the young people coming after them to pay the tab on that so that in this election year we can act like all across america we can act like that we've actually done something to solve a problem when i think there are many in this body that know that that is not what we're doing obviously i think it's been made clear i'm going to vote against the house package the senate package and any other package that focuses on sprinkling money around america in a way that we now is not going to affect our economy in any meaningful way most brides and i thank you for this time as you know it's a tremendous pleasure for me to be able to soar with the on the planet and at this time i do look morning business thank you mr president mr president i want to talk about the stimulus package and i'm going to talk about our economy and i'm going to talk about the united states senate mr president i'm very frustrated with the united states senate we spent a week or just maneuvering and twisting in some one over parliamentary procedure our processes are slowing us down and meeting the day to day needs of the american people and the long range needs of our country our country is at risk we are fighting a global war against terrorism our dollar is worth a box of kleenex we need an economic stimulus and an economic recovery package and we're fooling around here when motions to proceed and cultures and backwards and forwards and so on the american people wonder what are we doing there the way that was always said always be able to express their view well that should happen but it was not to bottle up progress it was not the strength of the opportunity to get our economy back on track it was not to tie the hands  tie the united states senate up that we couldn't have two hundred fifty thousand vets twenty million soon twenty million seniors citizens and actually get money in the pocketbook of people so we could start getting our economy back on the track of what it is everyone agrees we need to jumpstart our economy everyone agrees we need to do it now everybody but the other side of the aisle that is adding warnitz fans and sitting on its  parliamentary procedure and sitting on you know what i think it's time they get up and i call out to the people want our phones get them off of this and get this economy going we know that we are being very hard last month we lost seventeen thousand jobs in the service sector that was supposed to be job loss proof families all over the country are losing their homes to the sub prime crisis and the price of food gas and health care is going up way voted last night on a parliamentary procedure that would have moved this legislation on the economic stimulus forward it lost it lost by one vote but did it won a majority you know under the rules of the united states senate you need sixty votes to win a majority or you need sixty three votes to win a majority i thought the majority used to be the majority and now we find that one vote one vote is standing in the way of moving the economic stimulus package well i say to america you watch cable t v you watch the chattering class you read the newspapers you know where that one vote guys you see those empty chairs one vote lies they're flooded with phone calls for our internet what are facts so that we can get moving last night what we had was a plan to move the economy forward it was a well thought out plan tax rebates to help families and we also in included not only that two hundred fifty thousand disabled veterans and twenty million seniors at the same time we extended unemployment insurance for an extra thirteen weeks because people bloss their job it's now taking a longer time to find the job and we help small business while last night we democrats voted to stand up for those disabled vets for those senior citizens for those people who've lost their jobs to make sure that they would have the opportunity to be able to benefit from the stimulus and as they benefit from the stimulus because they have such mardis modest incomes the money that they get will go right into the economy it won't go into paying the bar bill for somebody who has a fifty ohm and a hand that it will go into the economy now this bill helps to one hundred fifty thousand disabled vets they say they didn't qualify because they didn't have earned income my god my god  i have a veterans advisory board i meet with a disabled vet some of them belong to the purple heart association some come in wheelchairs some come with canes and so on every time you've won if you worn the uniform you've worn it you've earned it now we want to have twenty million seniors who are graphed out because they said those social security benefits aren't earned income well you pay your social security based on your wages i think that's earned income every day there are people who are out there working every day or who have worked every day they spent their whole lives building our economy building our nation and they're ready to do it again all they need right now is to qualify what they should be qualified with they should be entitled to work now people say well there she goes again barbara has a master's degree in social work well you bet i do and that social work took me into the neighborhoods and families of our constituents and as a senator i often try to think that way why everybody here likes to talk about the macroeconomic can take to hang out with the rich and the famous who want to be even more richer and more famous i worry about the macaroni and cheese issues and the macaroni and cheese issues say you know we have to focus on what's dot com tells you where you get the most stimulus for what technique you use to do this stimulus and what are they tell us give it to the people who need it the most give exten unemployment benefits and then extend other benefits like heating insurance i mean heating the likely which helps people with their energy costs now forty one republicans block this bill they called it a christmas tree they said it was voted with pet projects while yes disabled vets are our pet project with me i stand guilty disabled doctrines are a pet project with me clean up the mess that walter reed cleanup the compensation system include them in the stimulus package you bet and also i resent that disabled veterans are not ornaments  they are heroes and they are the backbone of our country so one stands between the american people and some help during these tough times i want to thank the eight republicans who voted with us last night to move the bill forward so we could vote on amendments up and down we need one more center to join us for senator who will stand up for the people for families for seniors who did warriors and one more i'm tempted to say we're fourth art the stimulus package because there's no reason there shouldn't be action here now i have some very serious reservations about this whole act effort on the stimulus package i believe very strongly that we need some sort of stimulus to this economy that the economy is beginning to slow fairly dramatically but that the president framework of the stimulus packages as they were agreed to in the house and certainly the senate finance committee package it has very distinct flaws but that doesn't mean we shouldn't bring the packages up and vote on them and last night we voted on the finance package and it didn't pass and it didn't pass because it added forty four billion dollars of additional money to an agreement which had already been reached between speaker pelosi republican leader boehner and the administration a bipartisan agreement which was reached at with the tacit approval of the leadership of the senate as i understand it although i wasn't i'm intimately involved in negotiations my understanding is that the way this proceeded was that the senate basically distinct compromises compromises which basically reflected a classic political process where you basically put on the table your ideas the other side puts on the table their ideas and then you work to the middle and come up with a concept that both sides can at least be comfy with even if they don't accept all the details of and this package as we all know is one hundred fifty billion dollars package the majority of which is a rebate to people who pay taxes of six hundred twelve hundred dollars in the balance of which is an incentive especially to small businesses to go out and invest and as a result create hopefully more jobs and a more efficient economy when it got to the senate for reasons which i still don't understand the senate decided they wanted to assert some prerogative here even though the senate leadership instead let the let the house leadership and the ministration do the basic negotiation and we got a package on the finance committee which took a one hundred fifty billion and increased by forty four billion dollars and a lot of that package was basically baggage being thrown on the train because the train is leaving the station and had virtually nothing had absolutely nothing to do is stimulating the economy over the short run there were a tax benefits for the coal industry there are tax benefits for the wind industry there are a whole variety of things that had nothing at all to do simulations they simply were the fact that certain groups around here had enough influence to be able to put their baggage on this train what we have to remember is that every dollar of this being spent on the stimulus package is being borrowed from our children and our children's children because we don't have a surplus now we don't have money to rebate i mean the rebates the wrong term this is basically borrowed money being paid by money being borrowed from our children being paid to us people who are working today or people who have paid taxes today under the house package and then on the senate package it's another forty four billion dollars of money being barred from our children our children's children to be sent out the door today for the purposes of different interest groups who have put their points forward well the majority leader said we take the senate package or we take no package which makes no sense at all i mean the house package was a bipartisan negotiated package which had the speaker of the house nobody can accuse of being a conservative by the way she comes from san francisco and i don't think she's a conservative speaker of the house and the majority leader and the republican leader of the house mr boehner who nobody can if you are being a liberal comes from someplace in ohio forgotten and the president package or democrats saying this is the package it was an agreement so when it came over here yes there might have been adjustments that need to be made to about it had forty four billion dollars to it and then say take that forty four billion dollars addition or leave it that makes no sense at all in the context of reaching some agreement quickly and moving it out the door in fact senator mcconnell i think had the best idea he said let's take the house package and add three things to it three things that there seems to be consensus on around here one was to make sure the seniors got a rebate so they could also participate in a stimulus initiative to is to make sure that disabled veterans got a rebate so that they could participate and three to correct a technical error in the bill relative to immigrate arguing for the stimulus package but we know that if a stimulus of this nature which is pure candy and economics where you take money and you throw it at the at the economy without any sort of discretion on how the money's going to be used in order to produce long term productive that forces in the economy which is just simply saying to consumers here's some money go out and spend it hopefully that'll raise the economy we know under classic candy in approaches which is what this simmers package is that is the essence of that is to get  out the door get those dollars into the consumers hands quickly so every day every week of delay only aggravates the relative effectiveness of the stimulus exercise we also know that because of the way jill revenue service is structured that the earliest the earliest they're going to be able to get these rebate checks out the door if we were to act today this week would probably be even a middleman more likely that they're going to get out in june and according to the six hundred dollars or twelve hundred all rebates on the house bill will not be felt probably till the late third quarter of this year that's the fast track third quarter this year is going to bring i hope it will bring some some  turnaround in the economy and certainly with monetary policy being changed in this country where you're seeing significant reductions in the interest rates by the fed it's very likely that we will see some uptick in our economy as we had in the third fourth quarter this year and i certainly hope that will occur  housing industry which is created this problem as a result of having a housing bubble will have begun to work its way through but in any event we know that to delay this further so that we push the stimulus events such as giving people six hundred dollars to go out and spend into further and further into the year potentially into the christmas season or into next year that's not going to address the underlying problem which is the next two to three quarters should look like they're going to be extremely so t potentially strike nearly soft relative to economic activity so action should be taken now and what has been suggested here to accomplish the action as a very reasonable suggestion is take the house package which was negotiated between the speaker of the house republican leader in the house and secretary paulson add to it the two or three things which there's consensus on over here which is the payment to seniors payment th trims and correcting the illegal immigration language and pass it and then move forward and that's if you accept this concept that we should do this sort of kennedy in stimulus event that's what we should do now i must as a matter of disclosure say that i have serious reservations about not only the i think the senate taxes is terribly responsible because that's forty four billion dollars to the agreed to bipartisan agreement but i also have problems with the underlying package because for me i believe we do need to stimulate the economy by i think we need to focus the dollars on the problem and the problem is the credit lockdown it's occurring generally in the economy but that is specifically being driven by the housing market problems we know that for the last few years there has been an expansion in lending in the housing arena which was not supported by the underlying collateral or by the ability of people who were getting these loans to pay those loans under the terms of those loans these were called subprime loans and what happened was that people were attracted into buying a house which had been built on speculation and there tracked in a rate of an interest rate on the mortgage on that house which was very low with the understanding that two or three years later that mor would jump fairly considerably well unfortunately in many instances what happened here was we built a lot of housing stock that couldn't be purchased or if it was purchased was being purchased at cost which were below its real value of production and on top of that we were saying to people who really didn't have the incomes necessary to support the higher interest rate which is going to hit them into a three years t wo or three years being now you take the long a worry about that later well the later is today and it's called in the bubble is bursting people are putting out being put under extreme stress because many people who bought these homes cannot afford the up the increase in their in what's known as their arms they're just a lower rate mortgage and it's severe in part of this country is extremely severe in florida and arizona and california and what's happening is you see a classic bubble where as the housing market starts to contract less generally starts to contract is what happens is lenders who have these housing loans on their books or have sold these housing loans and not can't figure out how to get out of their contracts these lenders are now trying to figure out how to get there their books in order to rebuild their capital and restructure themselves and as a result good loans in other areas that are being repaid are starting to be killed and new money new lending is being kill and as a result the entire economy starts to lock up because it's very hard to get loans for anything but especially in the housing area especially in the distressed areas and the people who had these loans who live in these homes are finding themselves on the pressure of foreclosure and in many instances these people are hardworking americans who can pay a reasonable rate on their mortgage but because of the adjustment is not reasonable is very high on these arm agreements they're simply not able to meet the obligations of the mortgage so we should be focusing our efforts on that part of the economy now i congratulate the secretary treasury because he's tried to do that both through job owning the lending community and by setting up the hope advantages the hope proposal new hope falls well which has put a big chunk of money out there over one hundred billion dollars the purpose of which is to help people restructure those loans so that people who can make their payments under the original loan agreement or something near to the illegitimate agreement because they have good jobs and they can make their interest payments aren't forced out of their homes as a result of the jump in their in their in their mortgage rates and progress is being made there over three hundred seventy thousand people have been helped that's the good news but the problem is so large that's not necessarily going to be able to stabilize the market and free up the lending lending machines here in america and so additional things should be done for example from georgia has suggested that we have a one time very focused credit given to people tax credit given to people who buy one of these homes which is in the in y within the next year and that the home has been produced during this period of of excess production and allow that to incentivize people to go back in the market and start to get this market going again and that's wh we need to do and there are other ideas the expansion of the f h a is an idea which is i don't quite understand why we haven't seen that bill come back to the senate it's in conference and it's critical that we get it done should be done soon including increasing the lending limits on freddie macin fannie mae that's a dangerous step unless it's coupled with reforms necessary to make sure freddie macin fannie may have the underlying capitals of support an expansion but it's certainly something that should be considered and so there are negatives it could be focused much more in a targeted way on the problem and would actually do something to correct the problem and win in the long run and in the short run from my viewpoint would have a much better effect on the economy in addition if we're going to try to stimulate through classic kensi an activity well i'm not too excited about that but we ought to put it on the productive side of the economy so we actually create a more efficient economy is more productive enough for therefore capable of producing more jobs as we move out in the future our problem may be that we don't have enough jobs as we move out of the future the way you get around that is you create an attitude in the marketplace so that people are willing to go out invest take risks be entrepreneurs and create more jobs and they're ways to do that than just giving people six hundred dollars to go out and spend arbitrarily which they may spend on a product that's not even manufactured in the united states in which case of course there's been no stimulus to our economy if somebody buys a t v made in china with a six hundred dollars that's that has virtually no stimulus effect on our economy because those dollars end up in china it is important that we understand that all this money comes from our children that we don't have a surplus to fund this stimulus package and therefore when we do stimulate we need to do it in a much more in my opinion much more focused way which is going to strengthen our economy and it's going to dress the underlying problem of the credit lockup dealing with which has been fed by the housing bubble and so i would hope we would take that approach but obviously we're not going to take that approach and there's a majority around here to give you a majority that's going to support a stimulus package maze and so be it but if we're going to do it let's do it in a way which causes the least harm in the way to do that is to get it out the door quickly have it be a package which essentially left the house and not have the senate throw another forty four billion dollars of which we have to borrow from our children on top of that and so those are my concerns this president receives courtesy of the chair and  extended until twelve thirty p m with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each and further i ask consent the senate stand in recess twelve thirty two one fifteen p this president  you this president our our nation needs to take a critical step to move our economy forward now we had a chance last night to make that happen at a chance here in the senate to make that happen we had a chance to pass a package that would provide relief to more americans that would put rebates in the hands of more taxpayers that would give checks to more than twenty million seniors that were not in the house bill that would have taken the opportunity to put money in the hands of two hundred and fifty thousand disabled veterans in our country to extend unemployment benefits for those who are looking to find work but cannot find work in this economy and who are on the verge of finding themselves without unemployment compensation benefits and to provide important relief for businesses that are suffering and help those most in need with the cost of heating their homes this winter but our rip up many not all but enough to stop that process many of our republican colleagues bucked that opportunity they say they want deliver relief as quickly as possible but when they had the chance to provide that relief to the most americans far more than the house bill they said no so mr president you know i i listen to our colleagues here and i say to myself what what is it what that that says to so many in our country it says to seniors fixed incomes have been increasing demands in their fuel caught in their heating costs for those who still home own their homes or for those who pay utility bills for rising prescription costs for so many for so many different elements of their lives and they often have fixed incomes they've worked a lifetime and find themselves now with these challenges they cannot they cannot meet the challenges economically why do they those twenty million not deserve to be part of a stimulus package especially when they will put that money right back into our condo me extremely quickly which is the whole purpose of stimulus in the first place but if we can have stimulus that also helps a broad section of our universe those who have worked hard played by the rules helped build families and communities and now find themselves struggling why would we do that by when we take care of disabled veterans and have them be part of helping to meet their challenges they serve their nation with honor and dignity and now find themselves challenge why wouldn't we have them be part of a solution that also helps to stimulate the economy so all this talk about quickness it's also quickness and the ability to make this happen in a way that will have the real impact we want in our economy but a real impact also in the lives of americans who are struggling far too many americans have already suffered at the hands of an economy that is sliding backwards many have seen their homes taken away from them on the brink of foreclosures far too many have been in search of work or have been waiting in vain for their pay checks to increase and for those who have not yet felt the effects of an economy that is sputtering they fear and worry wondering when they will feel the squeeze and that worries understand the signs are less than good last friday we learned that seventeen thousand jobs were lost in january alone the first monthly loss of jobs and more than four years growth slowed to a near halt at the end of last year coming in under under one percent and we saw the biggest increase in unemployment rates since just a temporal level we all overwhelmingly agree on the need to take action to stimulate our economy and fast it's wonderful to have come to that type of consensus on the need what we need is a genuine spirit of bipartisanship here in the senate to bring us forward to that conclusion we had that opportunity yesterday now certainly what the house did  is a very solid small start it would largely achieve what we would hope to see in a stimulus plan but with as many first attempts there are clearly some very significant faults the house plan would get us all most but not quite where we should be mr president and this was our chance and hopefully we will revisit our chance to get it right we aren't talking about adding a load of new provisions we're talking about making sensible changes to make sure that we will have the most benefit for those most in need and at the same time because we are helping the most benefit for those who are most in need we are helping achieve the goal that we want stimulating the economy in a way that we will either avoid a recession although certainly wall street is telling us they're convinced there is a recession or at least narrow the time in the scope and the impact of that recession now the value of any plan we consider should be based on one simple benchmark the number of people we can reach and how effectively we can put needed dollars into our economy based on that clearly has a better plan the economic stimulus package we have before us is a plan that the senate and the country can get behind it will get money into the hands of people who have basic needs to cover people who will spend it immediately that's the first of all the stimulus our plan puts rebates in the hands of twenty million seniors mr president may not have been intentional but the fact is the house plan leaves out millions of seniors a set before who are low income whose primary source of income is social security or in my home state of new jersey more than one million seniors are eligible for a rebate under the senate plan under the house bill they wouldn't receive a d and if we think there is no economic link to including seniors the factis seniors spend much more of their income than any other age group people over the age of sixty five are responsible full of full fourteen per cent of all consumer spending the bottom line is a true stimulus package would help those who spend the most and are most in need the senate plan does just that a senate plan also reaches another group that is excluded from the house bill disabled veterans there are plan we insure that a quarter million disabled veterans who would not otherwise receive a rebate will get a check when those veterans went to war they never forgot who unemployment benefits and it isn't just common sense because it helps those who are suffering most that is course thomases but it also gets the best bang for the buck in economic terms for every dollar that we invest in extending unemployment benefits we generate a dollar sixty for an economic activity and despite broad consensus and by the way mr president we also do it in such a way this universe is known they're out there they're facing an immediate challenge they will have their resources in their hands much quicker than formulating a rebate check so that's another reason timeliness times and despite broad consensus is such a stimulus plan must include additional benefits for those who have been out of work for an extended period of time such benefits are absent from the house bill there is no question unemployed workers are facing tough times long term unemployment is far higher than usual and nearly twice what it was when we were facing our last recession in the year two thousand and one in new jersey more than sixty six thousand workers will be exhausting their unemployment benefits by june of this year joining more than a million workers nationwide facing long term unemployment last week almost seventy thousand new workers filed for unemployment benefits the highest level since hurricane katrina the need to address the economic hardships facing unemployed workers is real we have seen in the past that unemployment benefits help stimulate the economy in times of economic hardship and they should be part of this plan this time around the senate plan also includes important extensions of tax credits for energy efficiency in the production of alternative energy including solar energy credits like these help consumers purchase new appliances and greener sources of energy for their homes we also extend the solar energy credit which helps drive the purchase of solar panels in new jersey which is second only to california the number of solar installations that has an enormous impact provision could say more than thousand jobs at a time that we see increasing job losses and do something to help stimulate the economy by the purchase of these products immediately so save jobs purchase products make the investments and at the same time stop stem the tide i should say of the movement towards greater unemployed that we see in the country finally our plan provides needed relief to industries who are hurting and may have to lay off employees in the coming months i'm pleased this package  into account the unique challenges facing the housing industry right now we all know this is a sector of our economy that is under incredible strains right now the senate plan would ensure that they're able to spread out their losses so hopefully we can stop some of the bleeding in the housing sector and in the process prevent thousands from losing their jobs as a president the stimulus package we have before us isn't perfect some of us would have liked to have included to increase medicaid payments to states which would provide a needed boost to states struggling to provide health care but the fact is if we only passed the house version we would be falling far short all of what i've talked about twenty million seniors a quarter million disabled veterans the essence of how the provisions on the housing component were included the whole question of the universe of the unemployed seeking to get a job not being able to finding it and not having the resources to sustain themselves and their families all of that would not be in the plan all of that would not be in the plan we can do this and of course that's in addition to the rebates for both single people and married couples and married couples who have children that are already a part of our package as well building upon the house proposals so let's pass a package that has the widest possible impact let's pass a package that doesn't leave out twenty million sen but take care of a quarter million disabled veterans and the provides rebates to as many americans as possible that's acting wisely and it can be done quickly we just need our colleagues to join with us in the sense of urgency that exists and to say to those twenty million seniors those quarter of a million veterans the millions who are unemployed we stand with you as fellow americans in this time of need and turning our economy around for all of us that was the choice we had yesterday i hope we will have that choice again i hope the hearts of some will be soft and in this process and that they will cast a vote to move in a much different direction senator from rhode island is recognized as president today i want to speak for some moments about health care and recognize the extraordinary work that four members of this body have done to promote an integrated health information technology infrastructure in this country senators kennedy and n z on the h e l p committee senator hillary clinton senator hatch along with their talented staffs have balanced a tremendous number of interests to put forward a very promising first step in our long journey toward reforming our ailing health care system i commend their tremendous effort in drafting the wired act i look forward to working to see strong health information technology legislation passed in the senate in the house and signed into law by the president adoption of health information technology is a vital part of saving lives and lowering costs in our health care system the rand corporation estimates in its most conservative estimation that a national interoperable system could save eighty one billion dollars per year and as senator kennedy enzi clinton and hatch are so aware america's health care information infrastructure is decades behind where it should be we are losing billions and billions of dollars i sound like carl sagan billions and billions of stars billions and billions of dollars to waste inefficiency and poor quality care as a result of that failure and ultimately and most tragically lives are lost to preventable medical errors because health care providers don't have adequate decision support for their determinations on medical treatment medication and so forth i am an enthusiastic supporter of health i t as one mechanism for fixing our broken health care system in fact one of the first bills i introduced as a u s senator with the national health information technology and privacy advancement act in which i proposed a national not for profit entity with presidential appointments subject to advice and cons senate possessing rulemaking power to set national standards under the ministry procedures act and with the ability to set licensing and access fees to raise capital for necessary investments outside the federal budget process i still believe that is the best and most effective kind of authority but i also recognize that there are many good ideas out there but time is short we cannot just snap our fingers and b n and i t enabled health care environment development testing build out adoption will all take time and we don't have much time a tsunami of health care cost i sweeping down on us inevitably as baby boomers age and cost increase the comptroller general of the united states has warned us of what he called unprecedented stormy ahead that threaten to swamp the ship of state and he testified that we've never seen anything like what we're headed into never in our history our present federal health care liability if nothing changes is thirty four trillion dollars that's a thirty four twelve zeros behind it and it comprises the bulk of the fifty three trillion dollars in federal liabilities we are presently obliged to pay in coming year now now is the time to get started in humane ways to avert this fiscal crisis and health i t as a baseline platform necessary to even try to respond humanely to the looming crisis unfortunately and moving toward our ultimate objective we must realize that health i t adoption alone will not stop the tidal wave of health care costs that i think we all know our health care system is broken more ways than one just look at the signs of its failure number of uninsured americans is climbing and will soon hit fifty million despite the best doctors the best nurses the best equipment and procedures and the best medical education in the world as many as one hundred thousand americans are killed every year by unnecessary and avoidable medical errors life expectancy obesity rates and infant mortality rates are a cause for national embarrassment compared to other industrialized nations the annual cost of the system exceeds two trillion dollars and as expected soon to double we spend more of our country's g d p on health care than any other industrialized country sixteen percent double the average of the european union more american families are bankrupted by health care costs than any other cause there's more health care than steel and ford cars there's more health care than coffee beans and starbucks coffee hospitals are broke doctors are furious paperwork is choking the system this thing is crying out for reform i believe that comprehensive restructuring of our health care system must rapidly address three critical issues as i've already said the first is the development of a national interoperable secure health information technology infrastructure but there are two other equally important issues one the american health care system must invest properly in quality and prevention promising areas where better care actually lowers cost and to the way we pay for all this the way we pay for health care sends perverse price signals that drive market behavior away from the public interest the drive behavior away from what we want so these are the three critical issues at the core of the health care crisis in this country inadequate health information technology inadequate attention to quality and prevention and a perverse price signal system let us look first at how improved quality of care can lower cost that intersection where improved quality of care and lower cost intersect should be our national holy grail in health care and the keystone project for michigan shows how effective this can be it went into a significant number of michigan i see use not all of them but a significant number to improve quality and reduce things like line infections and respiratory complications between march two thousand and four and june two thousand and five the project saved one thousand five hundred seventy eight lives in just that year and two months it saved eighty one thousand plus patient days that otherwise would have been spent in the hospital saving over one hundred fifty six million dollars it's a win win the rhode island quality institute in my state took this model statewide with every hospital participating we're already seeing the number of hospital acquired infections declining and the costs declining as well and the same principle can be applied to prevention as well as a quality improvement local efforts around the country like the rhode island quality institute like washington state's puget sound health care alliance like utah's health information network are leading the way on this we need as a nation to get behind these state and local efforts as many members of this chamber all know any good business needs to do research and development  d and these local efforts are the r and d on which we can base reform of our broken health care system all across america in local communities where people know and trust each other the reforms of our system are being dreamed negotiated tested and implemented we need to nourish this effort and i think my fifteen bipartisan sponsors for supporting a small grant program i propose to do just there waiting to be tapped think of michigan fifteen months just one state not even all of the intensive care units hundred fifty six million dollars saved a report out of pennsylvania just showed that they spent over two billion dollars a year on hospital acquired infections why is quality reform not happening everywhere well primarily because the economics of health care punish you if you try for example a group of hospitals in utah began following guidelines of the american thoracic society for treating community acquired pneumonia significant complications fell from fifteen point three to eleven point six percent in patient mortality a nice way of saying fewer people died fell from seven point two to five point three percent and the resulting cost savings exceeded half a million bucks per year sounds like another success story but the net operating income of the facilities participating dropped by over two hundred thousand dollars a year because the treatment that resulted in the healthier patients was reimbursed at twelve thousand dollars per case less in rhode island we saw the same thing when we started the i c u i talked to the i c u reform i talked to the hospital association and they estimated a four hundred thousand dollar cost per intensive care unit but as much as eight million dollars in savings a twenty to one payback i said why not go for this they said you don't understand all the savings go to the insurers for us this is four hundred thousand dollars cash out of our pockets and potentially eight million dollars out of our top line in revenues naming a business that will sensibly invest four hundred thousand dollars out of its cash lose eight million dollars in revenues with reimbursement instead of like those it is no wonder reform is such an uphill struggle we are at such a primitive stage in developing cost saving quality measures and the economy is the economics work against us so we have to tackle this now an idea that will get us started i have in my improved medical incentive act where i propose that state medical societies and specialty groups be allowed to present best practices to their local state health departments if they do in the health department term and that this is a best practice that will save money and save lives than to consequences follow c m s would be obliged to create a pricing defra differential favoring those best practices and private insurers would be forbidden to deny claims for services consistent with the approved best practices and if people want to object fine go to the hearing let's do this on a regular fashion the determination of what gets paid for and health care system right now is made in back rooms of the claims denial shops of insurance companies in scattered fashion largely without oversight or review and laboring under heavy conflict of interest if we move that determination towards proper formal hearings we can expand statewide best practices in a way that the economics will support our health care problem is serious it is vast and it is looming health care i t is a crucial instrument in the health care reform to box but it is not an end in itself to fully realize its benefits it must be coupled with a focus on quality improvement and a realignment of payment incentives these three elements must move forward together and let me emphasize in conclusion as energetically as i can but time is now time is wasting now the need is urgent it may not feel like it but solving this problem with system reforms like this will take several years if we don't start now when the fiscal tsunami hits we will be left with only fiscal solutions to the problem immediate ones but unpleasant ones massive tax hikes or massive benefit cuts if we are standing here if i am standing here five or ten years from now having that tragic choice in front of me well shame on us if in our folly in our improvidence we were too intellectually lazy  foresight to have taken the steps now that could have averted that sickening choice and mr president as you know we are seeing the beginnings of this debate now the bush administration has squandered its opportunity for meaningful health information technology reform has squandered its opportunity for meaningful quality reform has squandered its opportunity for meaningful reimbursement design reform and now in the two thousand and budget the president just presented he's proposing deep cuts in medicare we have to get ahead of this problem this is a wake up call the time is now and i look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to get this important work done with the president i thank you hundred seventy fifth anniversary of diplomatic relations between the united states in thailand and the eightieth birthday anniversary of his majesty king to mobile to lead days of thailand and also to express our recognition of the success of the recent parliamentary election in that country i'm very pleased to be joined by senator biden and senator lugar the chairman and ranking member of the senate foreign relations committee together with senators warner dodd haig will boxer and murkowski as co sponsors of this resolution next month will mark one hundred seventy five years of a special friendship between the united states in thailand which began with the signing of the treaty of amity and commerce in eight hundred thirty three during the administration of president andrew jackson making thailand our first three ally in asia throughout the years thailand has often been a close friend and strategic partner of the united states and has proven to be a dependable key ally in southeast a helpful to the united states interests in that region sharing our values of freedom and liberty thailand has partnered with the united states in fighting numerous military engagements throughout our history including its current support in the global war on terror twenty zero three president bush declared thailand a major non nato ally a designation which represents a close and extensive relationship between our two countries the united states has enjoyed a dynamic vast and varied cooperation a partnership with thailand has not only strengthened our bilateral relations but in many ways has benefited the region as a whole for more than a quarter century thailand has been the host country of cobra  united states annual multinational military training exercise to promote regional stability and security cooperation is another case in point the united states and thailand's joint relief operations in the wake of the tragic twenty zero four tsunami promoted the overall capacity of the international humanitarian forces that were providing relief setting a model for effective humanitarian operations in that region mr president madam president i have visited thailand many times over the past twenty five years and have many friends in that country i had the privilege of visiting thailand last year for the first time as a sitting senator and was very pleased to see so much cooperation still existing with the united states particularly among our military i was also gratified during our meetings to see that so many time military leaders and government leaders had been educated and trained in the united states leading to their lasting sense of friendship and goodwill between our two countries and toward our mutual interests  another important point as was promised at the time of the political coup which occurred in twenty zero six i'm very pleased to be able to remind and reassure my colleagues that thailand held up a democratic free and fair parliamentary elections in december of last year marking a successful return to full fledged democracy so i congratulate the new thai government i look forward to the continuation of a long tradition of friendship and close cooperation between thailand in the united states and i urge a quick passage of this resolution which i