Jim DeMint

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of the Senator from Illinois, and I think it helps to set up some of my comments as well. We are talking about a bill on DC voting rights that has a lot to do with our Constitution. I have an amendment to that that also has a lot to do with our Constitution; that is, the right of free speech and the right of freedom of the press, what we will call the Broadcasters Freedom Act. The interesting point about the talk of my previous colleague is, he was talking about the urge to be mayor here in the Senate. It is interesting, after we just passed this massive stimulus bill, where we were telling not only mayors but every Governor in the country what they had to do and how they need to spend their money, to control everything from education to health care. We cannot resist the urge to be Governors and mayors and, in fact, we cannot resist the urge to substitute our opinions of what should happen to our whole constitutional form of Government. It is interesting to hear about the guns amendment and the opinions there. I respect the Senator's opinion about the gun laws, what they should be. But the fact is, that what we do here is not about our opinion, it is about our oath of office, of protecting and defending the Constitution. The Constitution does not give me a right to decide who is going to bear arms. I mean it is a basic constitutional right. It does not give us the right to use our own opinions and good intentions on every piece of legislation. One of the reasons as a country we are so much in debt--and this is attributed to both parties--is we have moved away from any constitutional mooring of limited Government to the point now where it is whoever's opinion can prevail is what passes. An appeal to the Constitution is almost irrelevant. There is no way you can interpret the Constitution to say the Federal District of Columbia is going to have Congressmen and Senators. Now, I respect an opinion of anyone who says it should not be that way, that people who pay taxes should have Congressmen and Senators. But the fact is, our oath of office is to defend the Constitution, not to employ our own opinions, to do what we think is right, to get money for our States. That is a pretty simple judgment to make in this case, if we can count, if we can look at the language of the Constitution and see something so obvious. Now, sure, we do not like it, we do not like the way it has turned out. There are 600,000 people living here and a lot of people with very good intentions say they should have the same rights as States. But that is our opinion, it is not the Constitution. What worries me about a lot of our rights that are given in the Constitution, particularly our Bill of Rights, not only the right to bear arms, which people's opinion is being substituted for the Constitution, but the same thing has happened with the right of free speech, the freedom of the press in our country, which has been so instrumental to maintaining freedom and the ability of the American people to be vigilant over their Government, finding out what is going on here. Back in 1949, the Federal Government implemented what was called the fairness doctrine over concerns that with the relatively few number of radio stations across the country, a diversity of opinion would not be heard. Substituting our own good opinion for that of the Constitution, there are some in Washington who decided we needed to referee what was said on radio. If one political opinion was expressed, the fairness doctrine required that they have an opposite opinion also expressed. The whole idea was to create a diversity of points of view. The fact is, as with many things we do here, it had exactly the opposite effect of what was intended. It put a chilling effect on political speech because what radio station would want to deal with the liability of expressing an opinion if someone else was going to come in and say they had to have somebody else express a different opinion? It violates the right of free speech and, in the process, actually puts a chilling effect on the development of political points of view in radio. In 1987, it had become obvious what this was doing. Thousands of radio stations were developing all over the country. The Reagan administration overturned this so-called fairness doctrine, which was really a radio censorship act. With that act gone, we have seen the development of radio talk shows all over the country. One can tune in anywhere and get all kinds of diversity of opinion. Frankly, it has become very annoying to a lot of Congressmen and Senators. There is nothing worse than going home and trying to tell people one thing, and they actually find out that is not the truth. Increasingly, that has been happening with bills we are passing, when folks back home find out through talk radio those guys didn't even read that bill. The front cover of that bill says it is not amnesty, but the bill says it is. The President says there are no earmarks, but open it up and there are thousands of earmarks in the bill. The President says he is expanding our energy supplies, but then look and see that they actually have a drilling moratorium that we didn't know about. Talk radio has become very annoying to politicians who don't want Americans to know the truth. So increasingly a number of people in Congress are looking back to that fairness doctrine and thinking we need to bring it back. We need to censor radio talk shows. We need to create that liability, that risk. Every time someone freely expresses an opinion, that station needs to know that they are liable to make sure another opinion is expressed. Who is going to decide what should be expressed? The Governors and the Mayor in Washington? In fact, what we are finding out is so many people on the other side can't resist the urge to be Founding Fathers. They want to change the Constitution and change what it means and ignore it. But freedom of speech is so important. The fact is, people in this Senate who swore an oath to the Constitution are actually advocating bringing back radio censorship and certainly will eventually apply it to the blogosphere and the Web. They will not stop with radio talk shows. We need to act to make sure this oppression, this tyranny is not reimposed on the American people. It is not just important to protect what radio talk show hosts can say. What we are really trying to protect is what millions of Americans are free to listen to: different opinions, facts, information about where to find more complete information about what is going on. The primary reason more and more Americans are standing up and are outraged about what is going on here is because they are finally finding out the truth about what we are doing, how much money we are spending, how much we are borrowing, the porkbarrel earmarks we are sending all over the country, basically changing the mission of the Federal Government from one that stands for the national interest and constitutional government to one that is essentially trying to run local governments and State governments and to rearrange the Constitution. The Federal Communications Commission could actually reimplement this radio censorship idea without Congress. That is why my amendment I will offer tomorrow, the Broadcasters Freedom Act, will prohibit the Federal Communications Commission from bringing back any part of the radio censorship they called at one time the fairness doctrine. Some here will say it is not germane to this debate on DC voting rights. But DC voting rights are about the Constitution and whether we will follow it. If we don't respect the Constitution on one issue, why should we respect it on another? The fact that people at the FCC and here in Congress are talking about bringing it back means it is germane to this discussion. It is germane to everything we do here, the right to freedom of speech. The freedom of the press is so foundational to our form of government, our way of life, it is germane to everything we do here. This amendment is so important to what we do because if we can't get the American people informed and engaged and activated and get them to stand and express their outrage, this Government, this Congress, is going to continue to violate the Constitution at every turn; to substitute their opinion, whether it be the first amendment or second amendment, any time their opinion is different from the Constitution. Their belief and the prevailing belief here in Congress is, if you can pass something, then it is legal. It doesn't matter if it violates the Constitution. What will matter is if the American people know what we are doing. They are going to stand up. They will e-mail. They will call. They will express their outrage to these people who are taking our constitutional rights every day. They are going to hear from the people back home, and they will back down or they will be brought home at the next election. That is why radio freedom, freedom of the press, talk radio, bloggers, cable TV, all these alternative media that are going around, the New York Times and the other liberal press, and taking the truth and the facts to the American people is something we have to protect with our lives in Congress. The broadcasters freedom amendment that will be offered tomorrow is critically important to what we do. I urge all of my colleagues, don't buy these lame arguments that it is not germane to this constitutional debate. Don't buy the argument that it is not relevant because no one is bringing it up. We have seen what people can sneak into bills that we don't get a chance to read. We need to make it a law that the FCC or this Congress cannot implement any aspect of the fairness doctrine. That is what this amendment is about. I urge colleagues to take the Constitution seriously, take this amendment seriously. Vote for it and show the American people that we will stand for their constitutional rights. I yield the floor.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, this is a bittersweet day for a lot of us, I know a lot of Americans. A lot of Americans have called in expressing their opinions, sent thousands of e-mails and letters. If my colleagues' offices are anything like mine, mine have been 80 to 90 percent against this bill. Folks are saying: Slow down. Let's see what is in it. We know about unintended consequences. Let's not spend all this money unless we know what we are doing. Folks have expressed concern that we seem, as politicians for the last 2 years, to have been talking down the economy--holding press conferences in the very worst areas of our country and saying this is what is happening everywhere, and every day saying it is going to get worse, it is going to get worse. What businessman would expand his business, or what businesswoman would go out and invest her life savings to start a new business if what they were hearing from Washington every day is: It is terrible; it is going to get worse. I am afraid we have done our part in creating a bad economy. Clearly, there is a difference in philosophy, and I have to respect what the President and the Democratic majority have said: They won the election, they get to do it their way now. But I think some of us believe--and if you look at history, there are a lot of facts behind us--that when the economy slows down and there is a need to get more money in the economy, the fastest and quickest way to do it is to stop taking so much out in taxes. Some say on the other side: Well, tax cuts are an old idea. But tax cuts are related to individual freedom, people making their own decisions about how money is invested; leaving profits in the hands of thousands of small businesses so they can use that money to hire people and grow their businesses. Because that is where all the jobs are created. Government doesn't create jobs. It may hire someone, but they have to take that money to pay that person from the private sector, from businesses that are actually creating the wealth. We have talked about so much data in this very short debate. People have talked about the Great Depression. It is pretty clear that we tried getting out of the Great Depression for about 10 years by spending and adding new government programs, and it didn't work. In the 1960s, though, the economy grew after President Kennedy cut taxes. Our economy sagged again during the big spending days of Lyndon Johnson. In the 1970s, we tried to get out of a recession, or grow our economy, with heavy spending and new government programs and huge deficits and ended up in recession again. The 1980s were the boom years, when Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and others around the world realized that freedom does work. Free markets do create prosperity. We have seen countries, such as the Soviet Union, change from their old centralized government approach to some free market principles and grow out of a lot of their problems. We have talked about Japan during this debate. They had a lost decade. They kept their taxes the highest in the world and they tried to spend their way out of a recession. It didn't work. They lost a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of opportunity. There is a big difference in philosophy that we should debate. But why the rush? I think the consternation I hear from the American people now more than anything else is, if this is the biggest spending bill in history, why are we trying to rush it through? Why does it have to be on the President's desk Monday morning? Why are we going to vote on a bill that not one of us have finished reading at this point? We just have had it today in any kind of searchable format on the Internet. Yet we are going to vote on it before we leave today. It seems we are afraid there might be some good news coming out of the economy in different sectors and the panic could subside long enough that maybe Congress doesn't feel we have to do something, even if we do not know what it is. It seems we are rushing such an incredible spending bill. I talked to one of my sons last night and said: You might get $400, spread out in $17 increments. The bad news is you will probably end up owing $10,000 or more because of this one bill. He didn't seem to think it was that good a deal. I know the other side won and that makes it bittersweet, in a way, because I feel like a lot of us have been standing for what the American people are calling and telling us about. We know if we let the people who are earning it and hiring people keep the money, we would stimulate our economy. There are other things we can do, other than tax cuts as well. As to energy, at a time when we know that by opening our own energy reserves, drilling for our own oil and natural gas, we could stop the flow of American dollars overseas and create lots of jobs here, this very week this new administration delayed the planning of opening our own reserves by another 6 months. What are we waiting for, gas prices to go up to $3 or $4? Why delay something that could help the economy? If we only allowed States to take the money we are already spending for education and allow students to take that to any school of their choice, it would attract literally billions of dollars--probably hundreds of billions of dollars of private sector investment in education to create all kinds of new choices for students that might actually prepare them to compete in the global economy. But what we are doing is more Government spending with the old Government model, and it is not going to create new jobs. Even in health care, there is something in this bill that will help subsidize people's health care with COBRA when they lose their jobs. But we will not allow that same subsidy to apply if the same person wants to apply a less expensive policy of their own choosing that they can keep more than just a few months. We will support something that is Government, but we will not help people live free and make their own choices. Certainly, it is bittersweet. But the news is not all bad today. I think the American people have resigned themselves to the fact that they are going to lose this battle, but they have gotten more informed and more engaged and outraged. I think they have seen if they call, if they e-mail, if they stand and express their opinions, they have a chance to turn around this move by our Government toward a more socialistic style of economy and culture to one that is more like the freedom Americans have always known and loved. Freedom is not an ideology; it works. When we let people take advantage of opportunities and direct their own spending and start their own businesses, that creates jobs. We cannot do that artificially, by taking money from one person and giving it to another, which we are doing a trillion times in the bill we are talking about. I think Americans are watching what is going on today. They are going to wonder why we voted on a bill that is not even on our desk, that we have not read yet, that they have not been able to search--as the President promised during his campaign, that he would not sign any bill unless it had been on the Internet for at least 5 days so the American people could know what we are doing here. We promised in these Chambers that we would not bring a bill to the floor unless it was on the Internet for people to see before we voted on it. We are breaking all those promises with this bill today. The American people may have lost this one, but they have raised their voices and they have seen what is going on a little bit better than they have seen it before. I think they are going to win the final battle against this big Government approach to every problem that comes up, against this idea that every time there is a problem out across America, that we throw up our hands and say we have to do something, even if it is wrong, even if we had not read it, even if it is $1 trillion; we have to do something so the people back home will think we are doing something. Wasting this kind of money and putting this kind of debt burden on the next generation is inexcusable and intolerable and the American people are starting to figure it out. They may lose this vote today, but the American people will win that final battle for freedom when they continue the fight they have started this week. I yield the floor.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. DeMINT. May I correct a mischaracterization?

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, are we considering the DeMint amendment?

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, for 2 or 3 weeks now, we have been told time and time again by colleagues and the President that we need to move our country forward, set aside our differences, our ideology, remember what unites us, and come together. But the people who are writing our legislation today have not gotten that same message. I will talk about it in just a moment. This morning, I had the pleasure of sitting with a number of my House and Senate colleagues, along with about 3,000 other people from all over the world, people of faith, and heard President Barack Obama address the National Prayer Breakfast. The President said many great things, but one of them was this: The particular faith that motivates each of us can promote a greater good for all of us . . . I don't expect divisions to disappear overnight . . . but I do believe that if we can talk to one another openly and honestly, then perhaps all rifts will start to mend and new partnerships will begin to emerge. We heard President Obama, as well as the former Prime Minister of Great Britain, Tony Blair, say faith gave us tools to solve problems that could not be solved without faith. This is a beautiful message, and I think we all know it is true. Then we come here and find a provision in this massive spending bill that would make sure that students could never talk openly and honestly about their faith. The fact is, any university or college that takes any of the money in this bill to renovate an auditorium, a dorm, or student center could not hold a National Prayer Breakfast there any longer because of what is written in this bill. This bill provides funds to modernize, renovate, repair facilities on college and university campuses, both private and public. But there is a phrase in there, a couple of lines that says the facilities that accept these funds cannot be ``used for sectarian instruction, religious worship, or a school or department of divinity; or in which a substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission.'' Keep in mind that a prayer has been called by our courts to be religious worship. What this means is students cannot meet together in their dorms, if that dorm has been repaired with this Federal money, and have a prayer group or a Bible study. They cannot get together in their student centers. They cannot have a commencement service where a speaker talks about their personal faith. What this means to universities is legal risk, threats of lawsuits from the ACLU if they allow any religious activity on a campus that has taken any of this money. It is not just the particular facilities. This money can be used for electrical wiring, plumbing, and sewer systems that affect every building on campus. This language has been written by very smart lawyers to do what they try to do, and that is intimidate the free speech of traditional freedom-loving Americans. My amendment would just simply strike this language and affect no other parts of the bill. The National Prayer Breakfast could not be held in a building renovated with funds from this bill. The Campus Crusade, a fellowship of Christian athletes, Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, Catholic and Jewish student groups who are meeting on campuses all over the country today could no longer meet in buildings that use funds from the bill we are talking about today. Classes on world religions or religious history, academic studies of religious texts could be banned by facilities that are renovated by this bill. What about a group of teachers or professors who want to start a meeting with a prayer? What about chaplains on campus? What about private Bible study in a student's dorm room? What about a campus that wants to bring a Billy Graham or Rick Warren to speak? Would they be barred from campus? Would the college be sued by the ACLU? What if one of us, a Member of Congress, went to speak at a college graduation and shared a little bit about the faith in our life, would that college be sued? The people who wrote this bill want to create risk and liability and put a chilling effect on religious freedom in our country. The most important thing for us to consider is what is this nonsense doing in this bill in the first place? The courts have decided this issue. Religious groups have the same freedom as nonreligious groups. This has nothing to do with the economy and even less to do with stimulus. Keep in mind, this bill did not write itself. Someone around here thinks it is a good idea to discriminate against people of faith, to deny them educational opportunities and access to public facilities. Someone is so hostile to religion that they are willing to stand in the schoolhouse door, like the infamous George Wallace, to deny people of faith from entering any campus building renovated by this bill. This cannot stand. It is in hard times that our society most needs faith. It provides the light that no darkness can overcome. This provision is an attempt to extinguish that light from college campuses, from the lives of our youth. In the words of the President today: Faith . . . can promote a greater good for all of us. Our varied beliefs can bring us together to . . . rebuild what is broken [and] to lift those who have fallen on hard times. Our culture cannot survive without faith, and our Nation cannot survive without freedom. This provision is an assault against both. It is un-American, and it is unconstitutional, intolerant, and it is intolerable. It must be struck from the underlying bill. I urge my colleagues to support my very simple amendment, a few lines that just strike this provision that has already been decided by the courts that has no place in this bill. I urge my colleagues to support it. I reserve the remainder of my time. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. DeMINT. I yield all of it then.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I encourage all my colleagues to listen for a moment. This is a very simple amendment that strikes some language that should not be in this massive spending bill. It is language that discriminates against religious freedom on college campuses. Right now in the bill, any college campus that uses these funds to renovate a student center, a dorm, an auditorium, cannot allow prayer, any religious activity, or worship. This is not language that should be in this bill. This is an issue that has been decided by the courts. Arbitrary language is going to create doubt and risk and liability which will put a chilling effect on religious freedom on campuses. The only thing most of us need to know is that the ACLU opposes this amendment. Any freedom-loving American should know they should vote for this amendment if it is opposed by the ACLU.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I wish to speak on my amendment that protects religious freedom on college campuses. I start by asking unanimous consent to add Senator Mike Enzi of Wyoming and Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky as cosponsors of amendment No. 189.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. I revise my request, Mr. President, to fit that request.

Mr. DeMINT. Madam President, how long do I have?

Mr. DeMINT. Thank you, Mr. President. Amendment No. 168 Mr. President, I would like to speak for a few minutes about Amendment No. 168. It is the DeMint amendment we are calling the American Option to the spending plan that has been proposed by the majority. This is a complete substitute for the spending plan. We call it the American Option because it helps to develop a free market American economy by leaving money in the hands of people and businesses rather than taking it and then having the Government direct where the money goes. So it basically puts our faith in the American people, in our free market economic system, instead of political decisions here in Washington. Americans are very concerned about the direction of our country. In fact, I have never seen people more anxious about where we are. They are worried about the economy but even more worried about the reckless spending and Government intrusion into our culture and into our free markets. Our economy is in trouble. That is obvious. The national unemployment rate is now over 7 percent and climbing. Stock markets have plunged, jeopardizing the retirement security of millions of seniors. Nearly a million homes were repossessed last year, and in the last week, thousands of Americans have lost their jobs at some of our Nation's strongest companies, including Home Depot, Microsoft, Caterpillar, and Boeing. In the midst of these difficult and uncertain times, Americans understandably voted for change. Frustrated with runaway spending, Wall Street bailouts, and soaring energy prices, they voted for President Obama who, as a candidate, promised to lower taxes, cut spending, increase domestic energy, and create millions of new jobs. I like President Obama very much. We were elected to the Senate together, and we have worked together on several common goals. I truly believe he wants to do what is best for our country, but our economy needs more than slogans and empty promises. As I have said before, I believe the stimulus bill that is being championed by President Obama and the Democratic majority is the worst piece of economic legislation Congress has considered in 100 years. Not since the passage in 1909 of the 16th amendment which cleared the way for Federal income tax has the United States seriously entertained a policy so comprehensively hostile to economic freedom, nor so arrogantly indifferent to economic reality. The bill, if it were a country, would have the 15th largest economy in the world--right in between Australia and Mexico and greater than the gross domestic product of Saudi Arabia and Iran put together. The American people will be forced to borrow 100 percent of the unprecedented $1.2 trillion pricetag when you include interest. The stimulus bill will cost well over $1 billion for every page it is printed on and $400,000 for every job it hopes to create or save. Proponents argue that we are facing a once-in-a-lifetime economic crisis and only an immediate and overwhelming stimulus bill can ignite the economy, create jobs, and spur growth. That may very well be true, but the spending bill before us today is just that: a spending bill, not an economic stimulus bill. The Democratic bill takes money--it actually borrows money--and decides where it should go. It does virtually nothing to stimulate the economy while it wastes billions of taxpayer dollars. It is a hodgepodge of long-supported pet projects that should be considered in the normal budget process but not an economic stimulus bill. Using the troubled economy as their motive, Democrats have opened the floodgates for all sorts of outrageous wasteful spending. Here are just a few of the examples from the Senate substitute: $400 million for researching sexually transmitted diseases. They are telling us now that they took that out, but then we find they left the money in there, which could be used for the same purposes once we pass the bill. There is $200 million for bike and pedestrian trails and off-road vehicle routes; $200 million to force the military to buy electric cars; $34 million to renovate the Department of Commerce headquarters; $75 million for a program to end smoking, which, if successful, will bankrupt the children's health program Democrats just passed last week. Of the more than $800 billion in the bill that is being sold as infrastructure investment, only $30 billion will actually go to build highways, about $40 billion for upgrades in our telecommunications and electricity infrastructure, and about $20 billion in business tax cuts. These are the only three components of the bill that might arguably stimulate the economy and create jobs and, even then, only temporarily. Altogether, only 11 percent of this so-called ``American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009'' will have anything to do with either recovery or reinvestment. And rest assured, the elevated spending levels in this bill will never recede. The tax side of the bill is not much better. We can think of it this way: If nearly every Democrat in Congress supports a tax cut, it is probably not a tax cut. Indeed, the text of the Democratic plan reveals that $212 billion of smoke-and-mirror gimmicks--temporary cuts and rebates exactly like those that failed to stimulate the economy last year. Half of the tax changes in this bill are for people who don't even pay taxes, and all of them are temporary, which will undermine their impact. This bill is not an economic stimulus bill at all, but really a political stimulus--a stimulus to grow Government in Washington. Any doubters of the bare-knuckled partisanship at the heart of the Democrats' trillion-dollar catastrophe will do well to ask a simple question: Who benefits from this legislation? Who, indeed? Alternative energy companies, public employee unions, teachers unions, university faculty and administrators, welfare recipients, ACORN-style community organizers, politicians who spend the money, Federal bureaucrats who allocate it, and the limousine liberal lawyers and lobbyists who will influence every dime behind the scenes. In other words, this bill is a massive transfer of wealth not from the rich to the poor, but from middle-class families and small businesses to favored Democratic constituencies who are not the poor and middle class we promised to help. This bill is not a stimulus; it is a mugging. It is a fraud. Conservatives who fear proponents of this bill want to inch our economy closer to a European style of socialism are kidding themselves. The proponents of this bill want to strap a big rocket on the back of our economy and launch it all the way to Brussels. This massive spending bill is fatally flawed. It will not rescue our economy; it will strangle it. That is why this bill must be stopped dead in its tracks. It cannot be fixed by tweaking it here or tweaking it there. It must be scrapped entirely so the leadership in Congress will be forced to consider real alternatives. Fortunately, there is another way, a better way, a way that will actually stimulate the economy, spur investment, and create jobs, a way that will permanently and immediately save billions of dollars in the private sector and in the hands of Americans who buy goods, provide services, start businesses, and hire employees. We call it the American Option because it relies on the American people to generate jobs and growth, not the Federal Government. The plan I am offering is not new or clever. It is only 11 pages long. It comes with no bells or whistles, no smoke and mirrors, but it will work, and it is based on proven American principles of freedom, equality, and opportunity. The plan--developed by scholars J.D. Foster and William Beach at the Heritage Foundation--is the best anyone has proposed since the recession first took hold. The idea is simple. First, make the temporary tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 that are currently set to expire in 2011 permanent. Make our current rates permanent. This would create the certainty for citizens and businesses they need to plan their spending and to grow their businesses. The short-term, temporary tax relief of the sort envisioned by the Democratic plan does not stimulate economic growth; it is temporary and it creates economic uncertainty. It is the difference between a $1,000 gift one month, which you might put away or use to pay off some credit card, and a $1,000-a-month raise which might get you thinking about buying a house, a new car, or taking a summer vacation or starting a new business. To encourage people to take risks and create new jobs, we must make tax relief for families and small businesses permanent. Recessions are caused by uncertainty that keeps investors on the sidelines. Permanent low taxes allow for plans and decisions to be made with an eye toward the future. With the 2011 tax bomb diffused, part 2 of our plan will cut income tax rates across the board. The top marginal rate--the one paid by most of the small businesses that create new jobs--will fall from 35 percent to 25 percent. It simplifies the code to include only two other brackets: 15 and 10. These marginal rate reductions would be permanent and give the private sector maximum predictability as it decides how to best spend its recovered income. This is a matter of fairness. No American family should be forced to pay the Federal Government more than 25 percent of the fruits of their labor. Just as we cut taxes for families and small businesses, we need to cut them for corporations as well, from 35 to 25 percent, and we shouldn't be afraid to say so. Our corporate tax rate is one of the highest in the world, driving investment and jobs overseas. Lowering this key rate will unlock trillions of dollars to be invested in America instead of abroad. Rather than giving large companies loopholes and targeted tax benefits which only encourage them to spend money on lobbyists who secure such goodies, Congress should get out of the business of picking winners and losers in the market and simply cut everyone's taxes and let's let the best companies win. This plan will make businesses compete for consumers, not Congressmen and Senators. To further simplify and improve the code, our plan would also permanently repeal the alternative minimum tax, permanently maintain the capital gains and dividend taxes at 15 percent, permanently kill the death tax for estates under $5 million, and cut the tax rate to 15 percent; permanently extend the $1,000-per-child tax credit, permanently repeal the marriage penalty, and permanently limit itemized deductions to home mortgage interest and charitable contributions. The Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis' widely respected economic forecasting model projects this plan would result in nearly 500,000 more jobs this year, almost 3 million new jobs by 2011, 7.5 million new jobs by 2013, and a total of nearly 18 million jobs over the next decade. That is an average of nearly 2 million jobs every year. Instead of taking $1 trillion out of the economy so politicians can spread it around to special interests, the American Option will keep a trillion more dollars in the hands of American families and businesses. Instead of growing Government where waste and corruption run rampant, we grow the private sector where innovation flourishes. Instead of giving the power and control of our economy to politicians and bureaucrats, we give Americans and small businesses the freedom to spend and invest their own money. The positive effects of letting more money stay in the private economy immediately and permanently will quickly become apparent. Beyond the job creation, I know we are all also interested in seeing our housing and real estate markets, as well as the automobile sector, emerge from the doldrums. Within 5 years, the American Option would produce $175 billion in residential investment and $362 billion in nonresidential investment. That is more than a half trillion dollars left to private citizens with the motivation to care for their families, invest in a new business, or expand their current productive activities. The auto industry will also experience a dramatic increase in sales activity. Between 2009 and 2011, total sales of new cars and light trucks would rise $24.5 billion more than they would otherwise. Again, allowing private citizens and businesses to use their own capital instead of sending it off to Washington benefits all sectors of the economy. The evidence in support of this legislation is not theoretical but historical, unlike the Keynesian arguments behind the Democratic spending and debt plan. In 1964 John F. Kennedy's tax reductions led to 9 million private sector jobs in 5 years. Ronald Reagan's 1981 tax cuts led to 7 million in the same timeframe. Five years on, the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts led to the creation of 4 million and 6 million jobs, respectively. Every time the United States has cut marginal tax rates, millions of jobs have been created--jobs that lifted the unemployment into the workplace, the working poor into the middle class, and the middle class into long-term economic security. Similar stories can be told of Great Britain's rescue under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. More recently, Israel's economic reforms under their Finance Minister changed their whole economic platform. President Obama's own chief economist has shown that tax cuts do truly stimulate economic activity to the tune of $3 of increased output for every dollar of tax relief. On the other hand, the world's greatest experiments in spending our way out of a recession have three textbook examples. The first is Franklin Roosevelt's response to the Great Depression. The New Deal began in 1933 with unemployment around 25 percent and effectively ended with the establishments of F.D.R.'s ``war economy'' in 1940 with unemployment still hovering around 20 percent. The second example is from the 1970s when huge deficits in the United States neither spurred economic growth nor curtailed inflation. The third example is Japan, their so-called Lost Decade, in which the Japanese Government tried in vain for 10 years to spend its way out of a national real estate and investment collapse. Every discredited idea from these three monuments to economic mismanagement can be found in the fine print of the Democrats' $1 trillion socialist experiment we are considering this week: massive spending, skyrocketing deficits, inevitable tax increases, and the disastrous unintended consequences of hurried and arbitrary meddling in our economy. Finally, there is another issue I want to address. I have recently heard some of my colleagues say that this recession is the fault of the free market, that President Obama has inherited the problems of a conservative ideology. Mr. President, the charge is flatly, demonstrably false. In fact, it is incredible that anyone would say it. Let me be clear: conservatism has nothing to apologize for. It was not conservatism that foisted Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac onto the national credit market. It was not conservatism that that shook-down the Nation's banking system with the Community Reinvestment Act. It was not conservatism that asked for, lied about, and then wasted $350 billion for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Nor did conservatism sign on to the second tranche of the TARP funds now in the hands of our esteemed new Treasury Secretary. It was not conservatism that used taxpayer funds to bail out the perpetrators of the Wall Street meltdown. It wasn't conservatism that led our financial industry to make these reckless loans, and it certainly wasn't conservatism that made that industry ask for the taxpayers to foot the bill for their idiocy. It wasn't conservatism that bailed out an auto industry bankrupted by its inability to manage costs and strangled by the tentacles of unionism. Every problem now plaguing our economy can be directly traced to some Government policy that was passed over the vehement objections and warnings of principled conservatives. The same scenario is playing out with this spending bill, but the result is not preordained. The Democrat plan will fail, it will hurt our economy, it will kill jobs, it will lengthen and deepen the recession, and it will delay any hope of recovery. But it is not enough to merely stop this, the wrong bill--we must pass the right one. It is not simply a viable alternative--it is the American option to rescue our economy from an inexorable slide toward European social- democracy. With a troubled economy, mounting national debt, and an entitlement crisis ready to explode, conservatives must offer bold and proven solutions to secure America's future. We cannot simply derail the ``liberal express''; we must show our fellow countrymen a better path. There is nothing wrong with our economy that a free people cannot solve. All we need is the freedom to take back from Washington control of our economic destiny. The policy approach I have outlined can work, and if implemented, will work. How do I know? Because liberating people to pursue their own happiness and fortune is the only thing that ever does. I thank the Chair, and yield the floor.

Mr. DeMINT. Madam President, what this bill does is probably one of the most important things we need to do in this economic debate, and it is stop the planned tax increases that are going to happen in 2011 for every American. The large score that is being thrown around here assumes we are going to let those taxes go up, but we are not. This is a misrepresentation of the cost of this bill. This bill stops the current tax increases that are planned in 2011, keeps the current tax rate the same. The only change it makes is it lowers the top marginal rate from 35 to 25 percent for businesses, for investors, and for individual Americans. We call it the American option because it leaves money in the hands of the American people and businesses, rather than bringing it to Washington and distributing it our way. I encourage everyone to stop the planned tax increases with the American option.

Mr. DeMINT. Thank you, Mr. President. I would like to speak for a few moments on a couple of amendments. But before I do, I ask unanimous consent that following my talk that Senator Saxby Chambliss be allowed to speak.

Mr. DeMINT. Madam President, I move to waive the applicable portion of the budget.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. DeMINT. Madam President, in deference to my colleague from Oklahoma, I won't speak on the amendment at this point, but I will briefly state its purpose. The purpose of this amendment is to help American taxpayers pay for their children's health care to the same degree we are forcing them to help pay for the health care of noncitizen children in this underlying bill. Specifically, it would provide all eligible American families with an above-the-line Federal income tax deduction for each child comparable to the average Federal share of the benefit provided to any noncitizen child under the SCHIP legislation. I will speak more about the bill following Senator Coburn's introduction of his amendment, but for now I yield the floor.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I would like to make some comments about DeMint amendment No. 85. This is an amendment that I believe is very important to American families, taxpayers. Here in Washington, there seems to always be enough money to help those who cannot take care of themselves. Most of the time, that is a good thing because we certainly want to have those safety nets for those families, particularly families who need health care for their children. The difficulty is that those families who are working and are struggling and are being independent often have to pay the price for that. I have personal family experience that drives this whole issue home. As we consider the expansion of the children's health bill to expand it to folks with higher incomes, I realize that affects my own family. My oldest son is married with a child, expecting another. He is back in graduate school, doing some part-time work, struggling to make ends meet and pay for his own health insurance. As they expect their second child, with that high-deductible policy, they are paying for most of their health care themselves. As he heard about the debate on this issue as well as some of the other bailout issues, he mentioned to me--he said: Dad, it is hard in my situation to make enough money to pay for our own health care. I want to be independent, but I realize the tax dollars I do pay are paying for the benefits of others who are often making more than I am. He has friends in school who are on welfare and food stamps and Medicaid, taking everything they can from the Government. But most Americans, most middle-class Americans and even those who fall below middle class, are struggling today to make ends meet on their own and not be dependent on the Government. The amendment I have introduced tries to achieve some level of fairness to those American taxpayers who are working and trying to make ends meet. My son could qualify for SCHIP, this children's health program. Certainly while he is in school he is below 200 percent of poverty. But right now he pays for his own health care. We even charge him taxes on the amount he has to spend for his own health care. Then his regular taxes have to go to help all his friends who are living off the Government dole. If we are going to help families with children, we ought to be fair about it. This bill we are considering expands the children's health plan. The current law in America certainly covers American citizens, but the Federal money is not allowed to be used for noncitizens. That is basically part of our immigration deal. When folks come here and they are sponsored, the agreement is that for 5 years they take care of themselves and they are not a burden on the American taxpayer. But the bill we are debating today changes that law. It gives benefits, health care, to noncitizens at the expense of middle-class working Americans. I do not want to take that away. That is not what this bill is about, my amendment. I am not changing anything this bill already offers. But what this amendment does is it gives every American family with children, qualifying children under the children's health plan we are debating, an above-the-line deduction of up to $1,500. And what it is, it gives American citizens the same benefit we are giving non- Americans, noncitizens, in this underlying bill. We do not ask the Government to pay for their health care. We say, as a matter of fairness, we are not going to make them pay income taxes on what they have to spend on health care for their children. That is what this is about, a deduction for the cost of health care for children. We phase this out as income goes up. If a family qualifies for the AMT, they cannot get this deduction. So this is about middle-class Americans, people who are actually out there today trying to make it on their own without Government help, paying for their own health care. We are not going to charge them taxes on the cost of their health care with this amendment. Specifically, the DeMint amendment, a taxpayer fairness amendment, would allow American families, citizens and legal immigrant families, the ability to receive a tax deduction of up to $1,500 for each child to cover health care-related costs. This deduction, per child, is comparable to the average Federal share of the benefit provided to any child under this SCHIP bill, the underlying child health care bill. But no family who is already claiming SCHIP or Medicaid or any Federal health plan would be able to use this deduction. This deduction is for Americans with that spirit of independence who, regardless of how little they are making, want to pay their own way. And let's not penalize them for it. Let's not tax what they have to pay for health care and then give it free to someone else. Let's not make them pay taxes to help pay for someone else's health care and still leave them out in the cold. This is a matter of basic fairness. I encourage my colleagues, Republican and Democrat, if the whole point of this legislation is to help struggling families with children make sure they have health care for their children, let's be fair to American citizens and at least give them an equal benefit that we are giving to noncitizens. Let's not make middle-class working Americans pay for health care for noncitizens while we are basically taxing the struggling American worker who is trying to pay for it on their own. I think a vote on this amendment will be coming up relatively shortly. Again, I encourage all of my colleagues to vote for the DeMint taxpayer fairness amendment. I reserve the remainder of my time, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I would like to make a few comments about my amendment, No. 85. Senator Baucus commented about it after I brought it up. There are a few matters I would like to clear up. The Senator mentioned this is not a tax bill, his children's health bill. Yet it is a tax bill. There is a large tax increase on cigarettes to pay for this bill, so it is very much dealing with taxes. He also said this is not the place to deal with families with children who have insurance through their employers or may be paying for their own insurance. This is a time to deal with Americans with children who cannot pay for health care. The underlying bill itself increases the criteria all the way up to twice the poverty level or more. It is dealing with many families with substantial incomes. It is giving benefits to some families who are not paying for their own insurance at the expense of those who are struggling to pay for their own health insurance. My amendment is very appropriate to the underlying bill. It is about children's health care, and it is about being fair to American citizens. The bill we are considering today gives generous benefits to children who are not citizens of the United States. They are here and my amendment does not change those benefits. But we should be fair and give equal benefits to American families, workers, taxpayers, who are paying for their own insurance. My colleague, Senator Baucus, mentioned many of these families are getting insurance through their employers. But just about all of them, if not all of them, have to pay a part of that expense themselves, which is very difficult. They cannot deduct that money. We need to make sure this bill is fair. My amendment makes the bill fair to every family with children. It gives them an above-the-line deduction for up to $1,500 of their expenses, and that is up to the amount we give to noncitizens in this children's health bill. This is fair to Americans, and it is time we start being fair to Americans. We cannot take money continuously from the middle class to do our good deeds all over the country and then leave middle-class Americans emptyhanded. If they are going to work and struggle to pay for their own health insurance, the very least we can do is not tax the money they spend to pay for their own health care. Why do we penalize people who are trying to live themselves without government money? Most Americans are doing everything they can to get by without government support. Let's stop penalizing them. Let's stop asking them to pay for all of our good deeds and good intentions. This is a simple amendment that gives a deduction for people who are paying for their own health insurance, a deduction that is equal to what we are giving to noncitizens in this underlying bill. Again, I encourage my colleagues to think twice, think about Americans, our own middle-class workers. Give them a fair shot. Vote for this amendment. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DeMINT. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up DeMint amendment No. 85.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Thank you, Mr. President. Obviously, I am disappointed in the process. It is important we let our colleagues know what amendments will be offered so we can begin to discuss them; and many times we have the opportunity to work these things out, improve them before debate. Unfortunately, many times in the past we have seen where the majority pushes the bringing up of these amendments to the very end and then says we do not have time to debate them. I hope that will not occur this time. I have three good amendments. The one I just brought up I will not speak on at this point but will mention the subject of that amendment. It is a cost-sharing arrangement with the States that for all recipients of SCHIP over 200 percent of poverty the States are required to ask for some small cost-sharing with people who use this insurance. It is important that we look at this as a program that, hopefully, will move people from a Government-sponsored plan to eventually a private plan, with our goal being every American is eventually insured with a policy they can own and afford and keep. So this would work with the States to require a small cost-sharing arrangement with the beneficiaries who are 200 percent of poverty or more, and it would not be more than 5 percent of income, and States can charge as little as they would like. But the whole point is to begin to encourage personal responsibility and to let people know this is not a permanent giveaway but something they need to participate in. I look forward to discussing this amendment in more detail along with my other amendments sometime in the future. But right now, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DeMINT. Yes.

Mr. DeMINT. Thank you, Mr. President. I do not intend to speak on them, so we would not use any time. I think it is important we have amendments pending so our colleagues will have ample time to review them. I would ask the Senator to reconsider. Again, I am not going to speak on them. I only want them pending so we can distribute them and people can begin to see what is in them.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. And the quorum call will be applied against that time; is that correct?