Senate Proceeding on Feb 13th, 2009 :: 5:47:50 to 5:54:55
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5:47:36 to 5:47:57( Edit History Discussion )

Lamar Alexander: mr. alexander: mr. president, could i be informed when since minutes have e minutes? the presiding officer: the chair will notify the senator of the. mr. alexander: i thank the chair. mr. president, here's what we know of the bill. the bill will give american workers a week in their paychecks in exchange for passing along trillion debt

5:47:50 to 5:54:55( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Lamar Alexander
Bill: H.R. 1: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

5:47:58 to 5:48:19( Edit History Discussion )

Lamar Alexander: to our grandchildren. the entire new deal in today's dollars cos only half of what this bill we know that more than, if we were to save million a day every day since jesus christ born you would still have less money than the cost of this bill. we know that if you were to add

5:48:20 to 5:48:42( Edit History Discussion )

Lamar Alexander: the cost of this bill to the national debt that we already have it would cost each american household more than 00,000 to pay off our country's debt. we know that in the bill there's 0 million to save red bellied mice in san francisco, something speaker pelosi has supported.

5:48:43 to 5:49:04( Edit History Discussion )

Lamar Alexander: we know in the bill there's billion for a live stating from -- for a levitatingrain from disney to las vegas. we also know that people are hurting. that we need to do something to help the economy. that something stimulus bill but we know this is not the right approach.

5:49:05 to 5:49:25( Edit History Discussion )

Lamar Alexander: mostly, this is spending, not stimulus. most of the spending in the bill does not come soon enough to help quickly. most of the tax cuts in the bill -- i mention the per paheck, a week, for working families -- most of the tax cuts

5:49:26 to 5:49:47( Edit History Discussion )

Lamar Alexander: are welcome but not stimulative. we know this is a lot of money. another example of that is it took us until about 1980 from the beginning of our republic to build up a cumulative debt that equals the amount or to look at it anotheray, the entire federal budget in the

5:49:48 to 5:50:08( Edit History Discussion )

Lamar Alexander: early 1980's was about the amount that we are spending in this bill. we know this is not temporary. even though stimulus bill as defined by speaker pelosi are to be tely, temporary and targeted, this is in the because of the mandatory spending adding to the budget. and the senate rejected senator

5:50:09 to 5:50:30( Edit History Discussion )

Lamar Alexander: mccain's amendment that said after two consecutive quarters of economic growth before 2% the new spending would stop. so it's not temporary. we know that we're bailing out states with much more money than they need. my state of tennessee had 00 million or 00 million shortfall a lot of money for our

5:50:31 to 5:50:52( Edit History Discussion )

Lamar Alexander: state but our governor and legislature are managing that with pain and we are giving tennessee billion. not just as if we had the money. we know that we're not seriously thinking about how much spending is too much spending in washington and how much debt is too much debt. we know that we establish

5:50:53 to 5:51:14( Edit History Discussion )

Lamar Alexander: policies in this bill, huge policies. in just two careful consideration, in education, energy and health, they deserve enormous consideration. i used to be secretary of the united states department of education. the budget today i and we are adding 0 million a year to that department for two years.

5:51:15 to 5:51:35( Edit History Discussion )

Lamar Alexander: does that mean we're completely satisfied with what is happening in kindegartennen through the 12th? should we not ask what to do differently to create charter schools? to give parents more after school programs for their children. surely we could have a debate about education or energy or health car to we're going to

5:51:36 to 5:51:56( Edit History Discussion )

Lamar Alexander: spend that much new money. we know there has been a lack of bipartisanship. the refrain seems to be "we won the election, we'll write the bill," but that was not the tone of the election. that was forward to on the republican side of the aisle. we know what we should have done instead. we know we shouldn't have spent the whole piggy b

5:51:57 to 5:52:17( Edit History Discussion )

Lamar Alexander: spending bill that accident include much stimulus. that we should have reserved as many of those scarce dollars as we could to focus on fixing housing first and making sure that we don't underestimate the difficulty we have in getting the toxic assets out of the financial institutions in this country so they can start

5:52:18 to 5:52:38( Edit History Discussion )

Lamar Alexander: lending again so on main street we can start doing business again. we know those are the things we should have done instead. this bill doesn't pass muster with truth in labeling. claims not to have earmarks from disney to las vegas looks

5:52:39 to 5:53:00( Edit History Discussion )

Lamar Alexander: like an earmark. we know that the two provisions in the bill that seemed to do the most to help were cut by the conference report in substantial ways. that was senator isakson's 5,000 tax credit for home buyers who would buy homes in the next two years. that was gutted. and senator mikulski and senator

5:53:01 to 5:53:22( Edit History Discussion )

Lamar Alexander: brownback's effort to give encouragement to automobile and truck buyers to revive the automobile industry. we know, mr. president, that if we are to add 7 billion over two years to

5:53:23 to 5:53:45( Edit History Discussion )

Lamar Alexander: program in each state that we may be making the program so rich that we'll never be able to decide what to do about it when we have debate. are preempting that discussion without very much debate. mr. president, i know what bipartisanship is. i participated in it. when i was governor of tennessee

5:53:46 to 5:54:06( Edit History Discussion )

Lamar Alexander: i worked with the democratic legislature. we became the first state to pay teachers more are for teaching well. i said what i thought we ought to do and the democratic speaker said what he thought we ought to do and we sat down the presiding officer: the senator has specificken for six minutes. mr. alexander: -- the senat has specificken for six minutes.

5:54:07 to 5:54:27( Edit History Discussion )

Lamar Alexander: we came to a conclusion and together announced the result. president bush and the congress did the same thing with no child left behind. president bush working with senator representative miller. and another good example was energy. 70 of us cosponsored what we

5:54:28 to 5:54:49( Edit History Discussion )

Lamar Alexander: need do with america "competes" act and gang o senate functioning and produced good supreme court nominees. so, mr. president i'm disappointed that we have not risen to the occasion. i hope that in the future that on major pieces of legislation -- this bill, which should have been easy to do in a bipartisan way -- is not a

5:54:50 to 5:54:55( Edit History Discussion )

Lamar Alexander: symbol of what's to come with more difficult pieces of legislation: health care,