Date: 1982-12-20
Speaker: ROBERT C. BYRD (democrat)
Chamber: S

Mr. President. In the face of the deepest and severest recession since the days of the Great Depression. this Congress is about to adjourn without having enacted any jobs program into law. Because of the Presidents unyielding opposition. the conferees have been forced to drop any jobs program from the continuing resolution conference report. even though more than 12 million Americans are joblessthe largest number since 1933. Senate Democrats worked hard to develop a jobs program which could earn bipartisan support. We worked hard to craft a jobs program that targets help where it is needed most. that takes careful note of the lesson:r we have learned from past Job creation efforts. that is fiscally responsible. and that distributes the burden of paying for this additional spending in the fairest way. We do not claim that our program is a panacea. on the contrary. it is only a first step in the effort to turn this economy around and put Americas jobless citizens back to work. I regret very much that it is a step which the President Is evidently not prepared to take. What is the Presidents alternative? What is it that he believes we should do to offer Americas jobless hope for the future? We do not pretend to have a corner on wisdom. we know that ours is not the only answer. We are ready to listen to other approaches. to meet the President halfway. But we have heard. no suggestions from the President or his advisers. no alternate approach to adding the 12 million Americans who find themselves without jobs in this Christmas season. We understand that the provisions that were in this bill. in and of themselves. were not going to resolve the unemployment problems. but it was certainly a step. a major step. in the right direction. It was a step that would give hope. It was a step that indicated that Congress recognizes the problem. and that Congress is willing to do something about the problem. But with the Presidents threats to veto a continuing resolution containing the jobs program. I think such a threat was a sledgehammer held over the heads of the conferees and in order to keep this Government from .coming to a halta screeching halt. very soonthey had to do the best they could do under the circumstances. So. they dropped the provision. under that pressure. The simple factis that we cannot afford any longer to "stay the course". We must get Americas economy off its back and moving again. Perhaps the most important provision of the continuing resolution is the one which expresses the sense of the Congress that monetary Policy should continue to concentrate on achieving a level of interest rates that will help us climb out of this recordsetting recession. Mr. President. this economy is not going to straighten itself out unless interest rates come down and the investors of this country. and the business community of this country have some confidence that real. positive interest rates are going to come down and are going to stay down. within a reasonable range of inflation. There may be no more crucial part of this legislation than this sense of the Congress. for it tells the Federal Reserve Board that Congress wants interest rates at affordable levels. * Since the Presidents veto threat forced the SenateHouse Conference Committee to drop the modest job packages approved by each body. the resolution of Congress in favor of reasonable interest rates and responsible monetary policy offers the only hope for the unemployed in this bleak Christmas season. I am sure that the Federal Reserve Board will pay careful attention to this resolution when setting its monetary policy targets for the coming year. and I hope our colleagues on the Banking Committees will use the monetary policy oversight hearings next February to assure compliance with this resolution. Mr. President. I compliment Mr. HATFIELD. the chairman of the Senate conferees. and I want to complimi it and do compliment Mr. PROXMIRE. the rankifig member. for the work that he a.d in chairing the Senate conferees. I think the conferees worked long and they worked hard. I am very disappointed in the dropping of the jobs provision and I think that that can only be laid at the door of the White House. At the White House. according to news reports I read. the President was intent on vetoing any continuing resolution that carried a jobs provision. I may be misstating the news reports. but that is the impression I had and now have. Certainly. that Damocles sword was hanging over the heads of the conferees. and the conferees were forced to act responsibly. Certainly. the Senate conferees. for the most part. wanted to retain the jobs provision and I assume that many House conferees wanted to do the same. But they were also faced with the freight train that was coming down the track. the fact that the Government was coming to a halt and checks were not going to go out. that social security recipients. veterans. military personnel. and others. would not get their checks and so on. et cetera. et cetera. and many Government agencies would grind to a halt. The conferees were faced with that gituation. Mr. President. I am sorry that the President insisted on a date in the continuing resolution that expired last Friday at midnight. This whole thing could have been avoided. this whole postelection lameduck session could have been avoided if there had been an expiration date of. say. next March 1. Congress would have been out of session and could have come back in January and we could have dealt with this continuing resolution in a situation that was not a pressurized and emotional situation such as the one in which we find ourselves now. with time already having run out and with the Government being piut in the position of having to be brought to a halt.