Senate Proceeding on Feb 13th, 2009 :: 0:00:00 to 0:20:00
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Rear Adm. Barry Black: c-span2. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. god of power and might, wisdom and justice, through you,

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Speech By: Rear Adm. Barry Black

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Rear Adm. Barry Black: authority is rightly administered, laws are and judgment is decreed. today assist our senators with your spirit of counsel and fortitude. may they always seek the ways of

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Rear Adm. Barry Black: righousness, justice, and truth as you empower them to lead with honesty and integrity. lord, make them so faithful to their calling of public service that americans may lead tranquil and quiet lives in all godliness

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Rear Adm. Barry Black: and reverence. give them wisdom to make decisions that will and prosper our land.

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Harry Reid: we pray in the redeemer's amen. the join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united s and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and

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Speech By: Harry Reid

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Harry Reid: justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington, d.c, february 13, 2009. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable mark warner, a senator from the commonwealth of virginia, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: robert c. byrd, president

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Harry Reid: pro tempore. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: following remarks of leaders, if there be any, there will be a period of morning business. senators will be allowed to speak for up to ten minutes each. that time will be controlled equally until 5:00 p.m. the two leaders can fix who

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Harry Reid: their designees will be. mr. president, we expect to be in a position sometime today to vote on adoption of the conference report to now, our cloakroom alert to all senators -- any

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Mitch McConnell: senators who want to come and speak on this, they should at least alert they need some time to do that. we have an order in effect ten minutes each. if someone wants to talk longer, fine. we have no problem with that at all. but we do need some idea as to how many people wish to speak on this lislation. there have been a number of speeches given during t

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Speech By: Mitch McConnell

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Mitch McConnell: few days about it. but if some want to amplify or add to thoseemarks, that would be fine. i've been in close touch with the republican leader during the last 24 hours, and we're going to do our best to try to come up with a time today. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the minority leader. mr. mcconnell: let me just second the remarks of the majority leader.

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Mitch McConnell: we have a number of members, not surprisingly, on an issue of this magnitude, that would least to speak. senator mccain is already here, and we'll be doing that dung the day and get a sense of how many speakers we have. and after that, i think we should be able to come to an agreement on a time certain for the vote. mr. reid: mr. president? mr. president? the presiding officer:

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Mitch McConnell: mr. reid: i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

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Speech By: John McCain
Bill: H.R. 1: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

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John McCain: quorum call: the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: consent that further proceedings suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mccain: mr. president, while the leaders are on the floor, i would like to mention i hope that we will continue to observe the one side speaking and then the other side that we've been going through in the last few day i think that a lot of people

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John McCain: have been able to voice their views on this very important issue before the senate, and i would also, again, reiterate that if my colleagues who would like to speak on this would call the cloakroom and to

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John McCain: also indicate how long they plan to speak, would be helpful in

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John McCain: helping us arriv a vote i note -- the presiding officer: would the senator suspend? under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order, the senate will proceed to a period of transaction of morning business until 5:00 p.m. with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each and the time equally divided between the two leaders

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John McCain: or their designees. mr. mccain: mr. president, i object to the ten-minute time restraint. this is a very difficult issue. we're talking aut hundreds of billions of dollars of stimulus.

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John McCain: i would hope that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would understand that more ten minutes may be required for

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Richard Durbin: some statements. mr. durbin: would the senator yield? this is a very important matter, complex, and we are not limit the senator from arizona. we would like to have rough parity in terms of the time that's given to both sides of the aisle to explain this matter. but we're not going to limit or even try to limit under standing rules any speech by the

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Speech By: Richard Durbin

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John McCain: other side. mr. mccain: i thank my friend.

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John McCain: i hope that the clerk would- i would ask that the clerk keep track of the timing on both sides as both sides talk so we can try to make sure that there is parity on timing throughout the day. obviously it will be dictated by a number of speakers that want speak on either side. but we should try to preserve

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John McCain: parity throughout the day. i thank the senator from illinois. mr. president? mr. durbin: senator mccain, i'm sorry to interrupt you again, but consent to thatffect, that we will divide the tim mr. mccain: i would agree with the senator from illinois, but i think it's pretty clear there's going to be more speakers on

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John McCain: this side than that side. i'd like to have our leader, republican leader, agree to that before i mr. durbin: i'm informed by the senate staff that already part of the agreement. mr. mccain: thank you. i thank the senator from illinois. mr. president, today the senate

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John McCain: will pass a 89 billion, .1 trillion with interest added in, and cost of these appropriations bills, count in the interest. it's the so-called stimulus bill, and it's under the guise of a bipartisan compromise.

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John McCain: let me reiterate, what i've so often stated during the past two weeks, the nation needs a stimulus bill. the nation expects the congress and president to act in a truly bipartisan manner to address this crisis. but, unfortunately, this measure is not bipartisan.

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John McCain: it contains much that is not stimulative, and is nothing short -- nothing short -- of generation times of great challenge, history tells us that our nation will work collectively to remedy the problems we face. working on this measure ther was that opportunity. republicans offered a good-faith alternative to the measure

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John McCain: that's before us. our alternative provided the american taxpayers with a stimulus bill devoid of pork-barrel projects, excessive spending and programs that fail to create jobs. our bill wasn't to simply advocate policies w otherwise pass. our bill in fact was a real

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John McCain: stimulus prosal. instead, partisan legislation was pushed sadly, when we could be unifying to assist hurting americans, we've exacerbated our differences and burdened our children and grandchildren with a have never been seen before. mr. president, before i go to

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John McCain: much further here, because the bill is 1,071 pages. we got it last night. i believe at that was the first moment that a copy was made available. it wasn't numbered correctly.

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John McCain: at 11:00 p.m., we received notification it had just become available on the house web site. now compare the process that we have been through with the web site that is from the campaign. the web site of the obama

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John McCain: campaign stated -- and i will quote here in a second -- that the web site -- i quote -- "mr. president -- this is a quote from the obama web site -- quote -- "in the practice of writing legislation behind

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John McCain: cled doors, as president barack obama will restore the american people's trust in their government by making government more open and transparent. obama will work to reform congressional rules to require all legislative sessions, including committee markups and conference committees, to be conducted in

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John McCain: mr. president, what happened in the last few days, laws and sausages, is certainly a long way from the obama web site which said that "reform congressional rules to require all legislative sessions, including committee markups and conference committees, to be

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John McCain: conducted in public." all day yesterday the media reported, made different about the process that was going on, which, by the way, there was no republican leadership anywhere in the vicinity. so, i recognize that this will

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John McCain: be greeted as a victory for the administration and the democrats today. and i recognize that, and it is a victory. but kind of victory. i think that words which will haunt us for a lon period of time were uttered by the speaker of the house.

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John McCain: quote -- "we won. we write the bill. we write the bill." mr. president, i think on both sides of there was a commitment not to use those words -- "we won. we wrote the bill." that commitment was to sit down together in a bipartisan fashion

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John McCain: and work together to come up with solutions to the enormous domestic and foreign policy and national security challenges we faced. and i understand who won. i think i understand it about as well as anybody in this body.

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John McCain: but -- and i also often said elections have consequences. this is one of the consequences of my side of the aisle losing. but it wasn't the promise that was made to the american people. now, i understand that on the other side of the aisle, and many in the media will say, well, republicansre recalcitrant.

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John McCain: republicans are trying to block it. republicans don't want anything. we had a provision. we had a proposal of over 20 billion. we had a proposal that got votes for a trigger that once our economy begins to recover

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John McCain: and is in recovery, that this spending stops. one thing milton freedman said, among many others, that i've always appreciated, he said there is nhing so permanent as a temporary government program. mr. president, there's also nothing more permanent than a temporary government spending program.

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John McCain: so i think we had an opportunity here and, hopefully there will be opportunities in the future, to sit down, republican and democrat, together, and at the beginning, not at if you're not in on takeoff, then you're certainly not going to be in on the landing.

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John McCain: and this bill took off with the speaker of the house saying, we won, we write the bill. and that was repeated on several occasions by the president of the united states. now, i want to say again, mr. president, my side of the for eight years did not include

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John McCain: the other side of the aisle. we were guilty. we were guilty of not observing the -- the rights and privileges of the minority party. and i rationalize it.

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John McCain: but i do believe that one -- some members did work in a bipartisan fashion and the times are different. the times are different. the american people spoke. so yesterday, not the republican leadership, not the majority of

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John McCain: my colleagues, sat by while the bill was finally written. and that's why final legislation here will have three votes probably out of all t republicans in the united states house of representatives and united states senate.

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John McCain: it may pick up a couple in the house. but to call this bipartisan is clearly a -- an inaccurate and false description of the legislation that will pass some time this evening. so we passed up an opportunity. i hope we will in future, since there will be tarp 3, somewhere

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John McCain: -- some some estimates, trillion. no one knows. the secretary of the tasury testified yesterday before the united states senate said he had no idea. he could give us no clue as to how much the next tarp is going to be. but i hope that would then present us with another opportunity to work together

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John McCain: from the beginning not at the end. again, i -- this side of the aisle is not blameless on partisanship but this was an opportunity for all of us to join together. "u.s.a. today" stated in an editorial -- quote -- "it seems

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John McCain: more like partisan positioning than a sincere effort to reach a compromise with the white house at a time of severe economic distress." i can't speak for all of my colleagues, but i speak for the majority of them. that's a false statement. that's a false statement. nothing could be further frer the truth. every senator here wants a

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John McCain: reasonable, workable stimulus bill that will help turn our economy around and put people to work. that's why 40 republican senators voted for alternative that sought to fix our housing crisis. and, rember, it was housing first and it is housing that is going to restore our economy. the stimulus package has not a

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John McCain: lot of it to start with and comes out of the -- quote --

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John McCain: "conference" with less. invest in our nation's infrastructure and restrained money back immediately in the hands of all americans through a payroll tax holiday, allow businesses to coop more of their profits to hire new employees, invest in capital or expand their businesses, finally begin

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John McCain: focusing our attention on entitlement reform halt to the spending once our economy turns around. and the total cost of the alternative proposal half the cost of report. there is a couple of cautionary tales. one was a study by john taylor of stanford and hoover institution that showed that the

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John McCain: last time we gave americans a paycheck, and that's the -- one of the big starts of this stimulus package, checks of 00 to 00, it had no effect on the economy. i think it's also a cautionary tale as to what the japanese did over the last decade and i'm afraid that some of this