WASHINGTON, DC – Mr. President, I begin my remarks this morning by addressing the points made at the close of Senator Corker’s remarks. The Senator talked about the need to look at some of our long-term budget problems – Social Security, Medicare, and even our tax structure. There are areas where we can see that the Tax Code is not as simple or straightforward as we want it to be, where we know there are imbalances in the Medicare program, and where we need to address how we are going to pay for future generations who will be retiring.

These are tough and long-term important problems with which we need to deal. Senator Corker mentioned bipartisan legislation that I have cosponsored by Senators Gregg of New Hampshire and Kent Conrad of North Dakota to create a bipartisan commission that will look hard at these issues. The result will not just be another report. Instead, it will actually prepare legislative recommendations that will be brought to Congress to get an up-or-down vote.

Sometimes that kind of approach is the best way of dealing with what appear to be intractable problems because such a structure can generate consensus and in some ways force Congress to take action, even if the short-term political issues might discourage action.

I hope that this approach will be adopted. I hope it is an approach that will make an impact because, as I have spoken on the Senate floor and at home in New Hampshire, these are long-term issues that have to be addressed. It takes leadership, but it also takes consensus.

The one point we also have consensus on in the country right now, and certainly in New Hampshire, is that we have witnesses a weaker economy over the last 6 to 12 months. In New Hampshire, just as in any other part of the country, that is felt first by families, by working families who see the slower growth, families who feel the pinch of higher energy prices, families who see credit tightening and are struggling to deal with that slowdown.

We are the strongest country in the world, the strongest economy in the world, but that does not make us immune from the economic cycle. When we see an economic slowdown, we understand we cannot necessarily turn the economy around instantly, but we need to take action. We need to lay the groundwork for near-term economic growth and the groundwork for long-term economic growth. That is what we need to focus on as we debate an economic growth package in the Senate.

We have begun to act with a housing modernization bill, commonly referred to as FHA modernization, that will help States and homeowners modify their mortgages, stay in their homes, deal with the slowdown in real estate prices and the reduced impact of the credit crisis on home ownership. We passed that bill in the Senate last month. The House has also passed its version. This is an area where we need to act quickly to resolve the differences between the two versions and send it to the President for signature.

The issue of timeliness is going to come back on us again and again as we debate this economic package because the one thing we understand and know about any economic package is that if it is going to have an impact, it needs to be done in a timely way. It should focus on the near term. It should include provisions we believe will have an immediate impact on investment and growth, and it should be temporary.

We know that we have to deal with long-term problems about which the Senator from Tennessee spoke, but we also understand the impact that the slowdown is having. We can put together a package that meets the following criteria: focuses on the next 12 months, encourages investment and economic growth, and is done in a timely way.

What should the main provisions of an economic growth package be? It should put money into the pockets of families and do it through a tax rebate. People pay taxes. At the end of the day, every dollar of revenue that is collected by the Federal Government ultimately started with an individual, a family, a worker, whether it is excise taxes on gasoline or income taxes. Even the taxes we levy on businesses ultimately are passed through to consumers in the products and services those corporations sell. As I said, people pay taxes. It is not a mistake to allow a family to keep a little bit more of what they earn, to give them a rebate over the next 12 months to help deal with those energy prices, help deal with their mortgage payments or help invest them in items that will make for a better quality of life for them and their children. This needs to be part of this growth package.

Business investment also needs to be part of this growth package. In New Hampshire, that means small businesses. They are the ones that provide jobs, cover their employees with health care, and are responsible for most of the investment in New Hampshire and across the country. I think one of the most important provisions that is being discussed in this growth package is a way to encourage those small businesses across the country to make new investments in their plant, improve productivity, make investments in their employees, and create new jobs. Jobs are not created in Washington; they are created across the country. Businesses large and small put up capital, take a risk, hire that worker, and train that new worker. That is where the difference is made. This package needs to include very real and meaningful incentives for those businesses to spend, build, create new jobs, and improve productivity.

If we are going to have any impact, though, we cannot stand in Washington and debate. We need to act in a timely way. This cannot be done over a 4- month, 5-month or 6-month protracted debate. If it takes that long, it will be too late to have any impact.

Congress does not often act in a timely way. We know that; we understand that. The key to getting something done soon is to work in a bipartisan way. That means compromise. That means everyone will not have everything in the package they might like to have. We cannot have 535 Members of Congress all writing their own economic growth package. We do have the basis for a bipartisan agreement in legislation that has passed the other body by a very strong bipartisan vote, with Democrats and Republicans supporting the two core principles I talked about: tax relief for families and individuals and encouraging business investment for small businesses and larger firms that are creating jobs every day.

A bipartisan approach has to be {the} way this issue is addressed in the Senate. We all understand the rules of the Senate. We all understand the rules of the Senate allow unlimited debate and unlimited amendments. This is one case where we need to exercise a little bit of discipline, where we need to exercise a little bit of common sense. We cannot have every Senator offering three, four or five different provisions to this legislation. The bill would collapse under the weight. By delaying passage and implementation, we make it much more difficult for anything we do to have a positive impact.

I hope, as this debate mover forward, we work to keep this growth package in line with the bipartisan agreement that has been established, the framework that has been put together.

Such a process does not mean we will not have an opportunity to debate the package or even make some modifications. If we go astray, if we let our own egos and personal needs drive this debate, we will not get this legislation done, and the American people will look to the institution of Congress yet again and be frustrated at its inability to act in a bipartisan way, at our inability to act in a timely way, and our inability to take the steps necessary to make a difference in our economy.

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