Continuing Appropriations Act, and Health Extenders Act of

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, the past 2 weeks have provided a kind of microcosm of the Democrat Party since the 2016 election--a combination of unhinged partisanship and a radical shift to the far left.

In the past 2 weeks, we have seen Democrats call for not one but two impeachments--Justice Kavanaugh's and the President's--and introduce another socialist-inspired, government-run approach to healthcare, this time on the issue of prescription drugs.

First, there were the calls to impeach Justice Kavanaugh based on yet another vague rumor. It quickly became glaringly obvious that there was no substance to the rumor. The alleged victim apparently has zero memory of the alleged behavior, but that didn't give Democrats any pause. It was right on to the next rushed impeachment proposal.

On Tuesday, the Speaker of the House announced that she was opening an impeachment inquiry into the President. Never mind that the President had declared he would make public the transcript of the phone call in question. Apparently, she couldn't take the time to wait. After all, as the leader pointed out on the floor this week, Democrats have been looking to impeach the President since the moment he was elected.

For Democrats, impeachment is not something to be gravely considered as an answer to serious crimes; it is a political weapon they hope to use to fix the fact that they didn't get their way in the last Presidential election. Democrats' calls for impeachment have come so thick and fast over the past couple of years, it would be difficult to trust them to conduct an impeachment investigation if there ever were a serious reason to consider one. They have made it absolutely clear that they have no objectivity at all.

In addition to poisonous partisanship, the other thing that has characterized the Democratic Party since the 2016 election is a rapid swing to the extreme left. Last week, Speaker Pelosi introduced the latest addition to the socialist agenda Democrats have been laying out over the past year--a prescription drug bill that abandons the free market and competition that have enabled the United States to lead the way in drug innovation and lifesaving cures for Americans.

There is no question that many Americans face high prescription drug costs, and there is no question that we can and should implement measures to drive down these costs. For months, the Senate Finance Committee, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and the Senate Judiciary Committee have been working on this issue. The same is true in the House.

There are multiple bipartisan ideas both houses of Congress could act on, but Speaker Pelosi's bill is not the answer to the problem of high drug costs. The Speaker's bill would force drug companies to either accept government price controls or face up to a 95-percent tax on the sale of their drugs. That is right, 95 percent. This is not a good- faith effort to come to the table to talk about solutions for lowering drug prices and out-of-pocket costs for Americans.

Right now, America is a leader in prescription drug innovation and the development of new treatments. The Speaker's bill would threaten all of that. Under her bill, research into new treatments and cures would decrease.

Yes, we need to address high drug prices, but discouraging the innovation that has improved the lives of so many Americans is not the way to go about it. The Speaker's proposal for government-run prescription drug prices would do exactly what Democrats' larger socialist healthcare fantasy would do, and that is to hurt Americans' healthcare.

It would add limited healthcare innovation to the many negatives Americans would experience under so-called Medicare for All--negatives such as reduced access to care, limited treatment options, long wait times, and big tax bills for ordinary Americans.

Of course, Democrats like to talk about forcing the wealthy to pay for Medicare for All and their other pie-in-the-sky proposals. The junior Senator from Vermont recently introduced a wealth tax he wants to use to pay for some of his special socialist programs. His proposal would ostensibly raise $4.35 trillion over 10 years. Here is the problem. Let's suppose he put all that money toward paying for his government-run takeover of healthcare, Medicare for All. At a conservative estimate, Medicare for All would cost $32 trillion over 10 years--$32 trillion. The Senator from Vermont's wealth tax wouldn't even cover 15 percent of that cost. Who is going to pay the other 85 percent? And that is supposing his wealth tax actually raises the money he says it will.

European countries have repealed their wealth taxes right and left because they were ineffective. While I am sure the Senator from Vermont would be happy to levy additional taxes on the wealthy, the truth is, there simply aren't enough wealthy people in the United States to pay for all of the Democrats' socialist proposals. Ultimately, the burden for paying for these proposals would fall heavily on the middle class.

There is no question that divided government can make things challenging, but it can also be the occasion for real, bipartisan action. Senate Republicans would love to work with Democrats on solutions to problems like the cost of healthcare. Unfortunately, Democrats have chosen to spend most of their time on partisan messaging and on proposing socialist fantasies that would hurt the very people they are supposed to help. I don't have a lot of confidence they will change anytime soon, but I hope they will. There is a lot we could still get done if Democrats are willing to come to the table and work with Republicans on solutions that will meet the challenges faced by the American people.

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