Max Baucus: “I wish to set the record straight on a few points that speakers on the other side of the aisle have made. I think it…”

“I wish to set the record straight on a few points that speakers on the other side of the aisle have made. I think it would be totally unfair if they go unchallenged and the record is not set straight. The Senator from Oklahoma said the bill before us is the biggest spending bill ever. That is not true. It is true this is a big bill, and that is because the economy is in such dire shape and because we are in a recession. That is a big problem. It needs to be faced. This is a big bill, and I would suggest the appropriate response to a big problem is a big bill. An inappropriate response would be not a big bill to a very big problem. I might say that this is a big problem also because economists project that the economy is likely to suffer $2 trillion to $3 trillion less growth because of this recession than would have occurred with full employment. Again, that is $2 trillion to $3 trillion of less growth because of the recession than would have occurred with full employment. We have a lot of lost jobs, as we know. We need to do something pretty significant about that. The size of the bill is an appropriate level to try to replace some of the activity this recession is robbing from our economy. The second point is this is not the largest bill that Congress has ever considered. That assertion, made by a Senator on the floor not long ago, was inaccurate; it is not true.”