Congressional Budget for the U.S. Government for Fiscal Year 2004

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I might consume. For the benefit of the people who are waiting to speak, I don't think I will take long on this subject.

I rise because I want to urge my colleagues to vote against the Dorgan amendment when the vote comes up tomorrow. I don't see anything wrong with the issue of Medicare being discussed because it is one of two or three of the most important issues this Congress will deal with. So it is very appropriate to have Medicare very much at the top of the agenda. It is very appropriate to have prescription drugs for seniors, as a part of strengthening and improving Medicare, be very high on the agenda. And it is very high on the agenda.

It is just a question, as it relates to the Dorgan amendment, of whether or not crafting a Medicare prescription drug program ought to be an issue on the budget, or whether you ought to let the will of Congress work and do that through the Senate Finance Committee.

We know Medicare is going to be a very important issue this year, not only because it has been very much an issue in the last election, but because the Senate majority leader has a long-time interest in Medicare and prescription drugs. He told me, as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, that he would like to have the Senate Finance Committee put it very high on its agenda and have legislation prepared early for this summer's debate.

The Senate Finance Committee is going to meet that deadline. I hope Senator Frist will be able to keep his own calendar and bring it up at that particular time. What we are talking about on this issue is whether or not the $400 billion for prescription drugs in the budget resolution is enough and whether or not an extension beyond that $400 billion is needed at this particular time.

I am here to say it is not needed at this particular time for two reasons. One, I think I can show that $400 billion is an ample amount of money to present to the Senate a good prescription drug program; and two, taking money away from tax relief for working men and women, which this amendment does, to spend on Medicare is the wrong thing to do for the long-term benefit of Medicare. Because as the trustees of the Medicare and Social Security Program pointed out in their annual report, you see Medicare in a little worse situation this year than last year because there is less payroll tax coming in because the economy is not doing quite as well as it should be. If we want to preserve the long-term viability of the Medicare trust fund, obviously, the best thing we can do is create jobs. That is what the growth package, the jobs package, that we are going to be working on this spring—tax reduction for working men and women—is all about—the creation of jobs, to have the economy grow, so more payroll taxes will be coming into the Medicare fund.

Let me explain to my colleagues why we should vote this amendment down. I start with the premise that it is long past time for Congress to strengthen and improve the Medicare Program, and the No. 1 way in which we can improve and strengthen Medicare is the enactment of a prescription drug benefit for our Nation's seniors.

We all know that adding prescription drug coverage to the Medicare Program is an expensive endeavor. Given the rapidly rising costs of Medicare and the present challenge we have just to meet our current obligations in the program, adding prescription drug coverage must be done carefully and responsibly. You don't do it by just pulling a figure out of the air, reducing the tax relief package, and putting it over here in the Medicare trust fund.

As I have said, the Medicare trustees reported last year that the program already faces substantial challenges in the not-too-distant future. The Medicare trust fund will begin to run cash deficits in 2013 that grow larger and larger until the fund is bankrupt in the year 2026.

While we are working on adding a drug benefit to Medicare, prescription drug spending has grown an average of almost 15 percent annually from 1995 to the year 2000. And the Congressional Budget Office predicts that Medicare beneficiaries will spend about $1.8 trillion on prescription drugs over the 10-year budget window.

Now, is the $400 billion in the budget resolution before us enough to spend on improving Medicare and adding a prescription drug benefit? Well, first of all, we have to recognize that Congress has come a long way in how much it has allocated to a Medicare drug benefit. For example, in fiscal year 2001, the budget resolution had $40 billion over 5 years for a drug benefit. This budget, as I have said, proposes $400 billion over 10 years and is yet $100 billion more than we had in the last budget resolution, which was for fiscal year 2002, and had $300 billion for prescription drugs over the 10 years.

I say to people on the other side of the aisle that we had a lot of support in arguing for a $300 billion budget figure for prescription drugs in that fiscal year 2002 budget. Many of my friends on the other side of the aisle spoke in favor of that proposal on the Senate floor. These Senators believed then that $300 billion would provide a good drug benefit for seniors and be affordable for taxpayers. Now we are proposing $400 billion for Medicare and for a drug benefit. This amount is certainly adequate for developing a good Medicare drug benefit for our Nation's seniors.

I urge my colleagues to support the $400 billion in funding for Medicare and vote against amendments such as the Dorgan amendment to dramatically increase the cost of that drug benefit.

I ask those very same Senators on the other side of the aisle who may want to support their colleague that if they thought 2 years ago $300 billion was a good figure and they helped us get that passed, then they would think that $400 billion is adequate as we start down this road, a road that is going to lead us to the successful passage of a drug benefit program for seniors.

As for a comparable prescription drug benefit, one of the directions that the Dorgan amendment would give the Committee on Finance—a requirement that traditional Medicare and whatever enhancement of Medicare we develop for seniors which would give them the right to choose between more than one benefit plan would have comparable prescription drug benefits—I want my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to know I will work with other members of the Finance Committee to make sure Medicare beneficiaries in traditional Medicare have a good prescription drug benefit, as well as those who may choose to go to a new, enhanced plan.

This amendment wants to tie the hands of the members of the Senate Finance Committee. The budget bill is not the place to craft a Medicare prescription drug benefit. That is the jurisdiction of the Senate Finance Committee. The committee will have its opportunity to function under my chairmanship, at the direction of Senator Frist, our majority leader, who said he did not want to make the mistake of last year when then-majority leader Senator Daschle brought the issue right to the floor, bypassing the committee.

We can in this body develop bipartisanship not on the floor of the Senate but in the committees of the Senate. That is no more true than in the Senate Finance Committee which has such a reputation for bipartisanship.

I urge my colleagues to defeat this amendment and let the Finance Committee do its work.