May 1, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 71 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session
All in Senate sectionPrev25 of 83Next
Nomination of Stephen Moore (Executive Calendar); Congressional Record Vol. 165, No. 71
(Senate - May 01, 2019)
Text available as:
Formatting necessary for an accurate reading of this text may be shown by tags (e.g., <DELETED> or <BOLD>) or may be missing from this TXT display. For complete and accurate display of this text, see the PDF.
[Pages S2543-S2544] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] Nomination of Stephen Moore Mr. President, this weekend, the President's pick for the Federal Reserve, Stephen Moore, said that we should focus a little less on all of his offensive and outlandish articles, the comments he made about women in print and on the air, the comments he made about places like Cincinnati and Cleveland, the attacks he has made on middle America, on working families. He said: Forget about all that. Let's talk about my economic record. Well, Mr. Moore should be careful what he wishes for. His economic record is dangerous. It is out of touch. It is a big part of the reason we have suffered so many of the economic problems we have had in the last decade. Even conservative economists have criticized him. He has claimed over and over again that the country is experiencing deflation. In other words, he thinks prices are falling. I don't know where he gets these ideas. I don't have any constituents who complain to me about prices falling--about deflation--but Mr. Moore seems to see things that aren't really there. Tell someone who is paying college tuition, whether it is at Sinclair Community College or whether it is at Ohio State or Kent State University, that the prices are going down. Tell it to someone with diabetes trying to afford insulin. Tell somebody in Columbus, OH, who is trying to pay the rent that prices are falling. It is absurd. He makes economic statements like that with so little basis in fact. He has been a conspiracy theorist. He thinks government statistics on the economy can't be trusted. Maybe that is where he got the idea that the cost of living is going down. He wants to return to the gold standard. He said on CNBC this morning that instead of talking about equal pay for women, the problem actually has been the steady decline in male earnings. I don't disagree the problem has been stagnant [[Page S2544]] wages for men, but I also can't believe he would say the problem is not women's wages when we know that--I have spent a lot of time on this floor talking about the dignity of work. I understand that so many Americans have seen corporate profits go up; we have seen executive compensation explode upward; we have seen workers working harder and being more productive; and we have seen wages remain flat. The issue is that wages are flat, in large part, because this body and this President have followed the advice of Stephen Moore and continued to cut taxes on rich people, underinvest in infrastructure, underinvest in working families, underinvest in public health, and underinvest in public education. So to put it on women and say that the problem has actually been the steady decline in male earnings--we shouldn't even be talking about women's wages--just makes no sense. He doesn't seem to understand that, fundamentally, as challenged as so many working families are with stagnant wages and with lack of opportunity, if you are a woman in this country, if you are someone of color, the challenges are even greater. He should know that. Every economic statistic shows that. Sentient human beings walking down the street and listening should know that. But for some reason, this man who wants to be a Governor on the Federal Reserve thinks otherwise. He wants the entire country--and this is probably even more serious. He wants the entire country to look like Kansas. He was the mastermind--or one of the masterminds--behind Governor Brownback's move in Kansas to basically eliminate tax liability for a whole group of mostly prosperous people, to cut taxes overall on the rich, and then go after public education and cut public education. It was so extreme that once it was enacted in a very Republican State by a Republican Governor, it was the Republicans in the legislature who unenacted it. They repealed most of the things he did and overrode this far-right Republican Governor's veto, again, based on what Mr. Moore had suggested. While almost all of the 50 States were gaining jobs, once- prosperous Kansas lost jobs during this time. He wants that disastrous economic model to go nationwide, and we know he is not alone. It is the same philosophy that so many in this town say we should do--tax cuts for the rich and not for working families. It is this view that if you cut taxes on the rich, the money will trickle down and everybody will have a better standard of living. We tried that with President Reagan, and it didn't work. We tried that with President Bush, and it didn't work. If you remember in the 8 years of the Bush economy, a few hundred thousand in a country of 300-plus million, there was no net job growth to speak of in the Bush 8 years. Then the Trump tax bill cut taxes on the rich, and maybe it will trickle down, and we will have more jobs and more wages and all that. It just never works. It works for the rich. They get huge tax cuts. Bill Clinton, on the other hand--during his 8 years, in which they increased taxes on upper income people, we saw a 20 million net job increase. For some reason, Stephen Moore and his corporate crowd don't understand what happens when you cut taxes for the rich. You don't grow the economy by giving more money to the superwealthy, who will invest it in Swiss bank accounts. You focus on the middle class, and you give the tax breaks to the middle class like our earned-income tax credit bill. If you focus tax breaks on the middle class, you will grow the economy because you are putting money in the pocket of somebody making $20- or $30- or $50- or $100,000 a year. They are going to spend it. They are not going to put it in a Swiss bank account. When you give tax cuts to some of the people in the Trump Cabinet, they are going to put more in Swiss bank accounts. They are not going to spend it. They are not going to invest it. They are not going to make any difference in our economy. So I ask my colleagues to vote no on Stephen Moore not only because there is so much about him and what he has done and what he has written, but mostly for what he would advocate as a member of the Federal Reserve. If you love your country, you will fight for the people who make it work, and you respect and honor work. There is nothing about Mr. Moore's record that would suggest he would do that. We need someone on the Federal Reserve who actually understands that. I suggest the absence of a quorum. The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll. The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered. The Senator from Iowa.
All in Senate sectionPrev25 of 83Next