Orrin Hatch: “I wish to change the subject because I think it is important before we leave this Congress that I say a few words. We…”

“I wish to change the subject because I think it is important before we leave this Congress that I say a few words. We have all seen the news reports suggesting our friends on the other side of the aisle want desperately to turn the focus of the national debate back to the economy. I am glad to do so, but let it be a full and fair debate. I hope we can talk about the recession we have been through, the recovery that is now under way, what we have already done to grow the economy and, most importantly, what we Members of the Senate from both political parties propose to do about the economy in the future. Let us start by considering the shocks that have hit the economy since the last year of the Clinton Presidency. In the summer and fall of 2000, the dot-com bubble burst and high-tech spending fell precipitously, triggering a slowdown that was worsened by the horrendous terrorist attacks that shook our entire economy last year on September 11 and afterwards. Then about a year ago this week, we began discovering a few large companies have been massively deceiving their investors, deepening the malaise. Finally, to top off all this bad news, oil prices have hovered around the danger level of $30 a barrel because of war clouds in the Middle East.”