MIDDLE CLASS HEALTH BENEFITS TAX REPEAL ACT OF 2019--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, let me just make clear what happened over the course of the last couple of days, because I heard many of my colleagues come down to the floor today and claim that this is a bipartisan bill that is on the floor of the U.S. Senate today, which would strike a lot of Americans as curious because the votes are not bipartisan, so how could that be? How could it be a bipartisan process, as has been claimed by my Republican colleagues, yet there is not bipartisan agreement?

Well, let's start from the beginning. Instead of deciding to write this legislation from the beginning, with Republicans and Democrats in the room, the leader decided to write the bill initially, bringing together a consensus of Republican Senators and then bringing Democrats to the table. And there was a period of time--for about 24 hours--in which Democrats were in the room, and we were making progress, and that was a great 24 hours. And then, on Saturday night, all of a sudden, Democrats were let out of the room. And on Sunday morning, lobbyists on K Street sent a draft of legislation to chiefs of staff here that Democrats had no part in writing. So you can't call it a bipartisan piece of legislation if Democrats weren't involved in the beginning, and then they were let out of the room at the end.

We appreciate having some input in the middle, but we clearly ended up with a product that doesn't have bipartisan buy-in, and much of that is because of the process that led us here.

The decision could have been made to include both parties at the table from the very beginning because, guess what. We do have differences of opinion. We do have different ways of looking at this crisis.

And our objections, our policy objections--I mean, spare me the righteous indignation about Democrats trying to settle outside political scores in the context of this legislation. Let me tell you what I care about.

What I care about is making sure that if we are going to spend $2 trillion, we spend it wisely. And if you spend $2 trillion, and you don't stop the virus, then you haven't done anything meaningful in the long run because this is, first, a public health crisis that is causing an economic crisis.

So, yes, one of the things that is an open issue in negotiations right now is whether we are putting in enough money for healthcare providers, nursing homes, hospitals, States, and municipalities to give them the resources to stop this virus in its tracks. We don't believe that this bill, today, has enough resources in it for States, municipalities, hospitals, nursing homes, and healthcare providers to stop the virus.

We don't think that this Congress is serious enough about the crisis in the medical supply chain today, in which our States and our hospitals and our healthcare providers are engaged in a ``Lord of the Flies'' environment, where they are trying to bid against each other for scarce medical supplies. We think this bill shortchanges the people who are actually going to stop this virus in its tracks.

So, yes, we don't think it is wise to rush to spend $2 trillion if the bill doesn't stop the public health epidemic. That is a policy disagreement we have. It is a policy disagreement we have. And had Democrats been in the room with Republicans at the beginning, middle, and end, we wouldn't be here today.

As many Republicans who want can come down to the floor and say that it is one party who is responsible for this impasse, but had Democrats not been ushered out of the negotiations on Saturday night, had Democrats been there from the beginning, we likely wouldn't be here.

Second, yes, we do have policy disagreements over how we spend the enormous amount of money that is going to end up in the hands of corporations. And for those of us who were here in 2008, for those of us who voted for that bailout bill, we have regrets and reservations about how that went down because much of that money ended up in the pockets of CEOs and shareholders.

Now, I get it. We want to get the money out fast, and you are not going to be able to account for every single dollar, but what we are talking about here, which is applying very minimal conditions for job retention to literally hundreds of billions of dollars of my taxpayer money, is not wise policy.

If we don't have assurances that the billions of dollars that we are going to hand to big companies is used to preserve jobs, then I am going to tell you that my constituents don't want to spend that money unless they know that it is going to hold on to jobs, and we have policy disagreements about that right now.

I take my Republican friends at their word that they believe that the restrictions in the bill are good enough. We don't think they are. We don't think they are. And so we think we should work together throughout the day to get this right, to make sure that every dollar is there that is necessary to stop this virus, to stop looking at it as an economic crisis first and a public health crisis second, and that we should make sure that there are real requirements on this $2 trillion to make sure that it doesn't end up in the hands of people who don't need it; that it ends up protecting jobs--not just in the hope of protecting jobs but the actual result is protecting jobs.

These are policy disagreements we have, but they are disagreements that we are still fighting over today because of the process--because of the process.

So you are angry, and we are angry. We are angry for being shut out at the beginning, and we are angry for being shut out at the end. Our Republican colleagues knew they couldn't pass anything without 60 votes. They knew, as they were developing this legislation, that they needed to get bipartisan buy-in. And yet there was a limited opportunity for us to have input here, and now we are engaged in a series of votes that are forgone conclusions until we get on the same page.

And we can because, from what I understand--and I admit, I am not one of the negotiators in the room, but from what I understand, these are not unbridgeable differences. These are not unbridgeable differences. We can figure out a way to put tighter controls on the funding that is going to companies and corporations. Let's just make sure that if we are going to spend $2 trillion, we spend it right and make sure we aren't shortchanging our States and our hospitals.

There are provisions in the first draft of this bill that would limit which kind of providers get Medicaid dollars and which will not. Our belief is that that language actually leaves a whole bunch of healthcare providers out in the cold.

Now, some have said that was intentional. That was because Republicans didn't want Medicaid dollars to go to abortion providers. That sounds like politics to me, but that is just something I read in the paper. I don't know that that is true.

What I do know is that, whether or not that decision was about politics--the politics of reproductive healthcare--it still is just not good policy to leave a whole bunch of healthcare providers outside when it comes to the additional Medicaid money that is absolutely necessary to make sure we have what it takes to stand up defenses against this virus. That is a policy difference.

I could sit here making accusations that Republicans are bringing outside political issues into this process, like Senator Barrasso made accusations about Democrats, but aside from that question, it just still is not good policy to limit the number of healthcare providers who can get this additional Medicaid money when everybody is in this together, when we know that every single healthcare institution, by the end of this week, is going to be dealing with patients who have positive tests for COVID-19.

These are policy differences but policy differences that didn't have to be outstanding today had the process, run by the majority party, been different and been more inclusive.

I agree that back home my constituents do not care about who takes credit for this and who drafts it. They want a bill done. They want assurances that money is on the way.

I think we have agreement on big pieces of this. I may not love the small business provision of this bill. I put a different concept on the table that I think is better than the one my Democratic and Republican colleagues have come up with. But do you know what? On that front, I will not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

I think we have made tremendous progress on employment compensation insurance. There are big titles of this bill that I think are in good places. We should be working out the details of those outstanding issues right now rather than spending all of our time on the floor casting broadsides against each other.

I understand my Republican colleagues are complimenting themselves on how many of them are down here on the floor blaming Democrats. You are right. There are not as many Democrats here levying the same charges against Republicans, but it would be better if we were all spending time trying to work out these final differences because we can get there. We can get there.

I think we can get there by the end of the day if Republicans are committed to making sure that we attack the virus first, that we don't shortchange the public health response, and that we make sure our taxpayers don't end up subsidizing the profits and pocketbooks of people who don't need any more help from this government.

Thank you.

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