Stopping Improper Payments to Deceased People Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield?
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Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I want to associate myself with the eloquent remarks of Senator Carper.
I don't need to remind everyone that we have $25 trillion worth of taxpayer debt--not our debt, taxpayer debt. It is more than $25 trillion. If we add in the mandatory spending--the Medicare, the Medicaid, Social Security--it is over $100 trillion, which is the entire net worth of the American people. For the most prosperous country in all of human history, it is just barely over $100 trillion.
As Senator Carper said, my constituents ask all the time: Why don't you do something about it? Why don't you just set priorities?
Now, we have had a lot of wasteful spending--all of us in the U.S. Congress--going back years. I don't need to remind everyone of some of the wasteful spending, but this is why people are so cynical.
In the past, this Congress, not this particular Congress, spent $370,000 to study whether mothers love dogs as much as their kids. In the past, the U.S. Congress spent $700,000 to restore a Buddhist temple in Vietnam. In the past, not this Congress but a past Congress spent $400,000, which it gave to a major university--I kid you not--to study the oddity of the duck penis. Yet we just set a record. We just sent $1.4 billion to 1.1 million people in America who are deceased when we owe $25 trillion, and we know they are deceased.
Senator Carper's bill, which he has been working on for 7 years, and my bill, which I have been working on with him for the last 3\1/2\ years, will stop this. It is not a heavy lift.
I am not criticizing the Treasury Department. It did a great job of sending out about $270 billion to 161 million people through the CARES Act, and I thank it for that, but do you know the problem? The problem is it sent $1.4 billion to 1.1 million dead people. Why did that happen?
Here is why: We have what is called the Death Master File. If you die in America, your State or others in your State send to the Social Security Administration the fact that you are dead. The Social Security Administration makes a list that is called the Death Master File. It is not a perfect list, but it is fairly accurate and can be better. The problem is, the Social Security Administration has taken the position for years that it can only share the Death Master File with a few other agencies.
It has said: We don't have the authority to share it with other agencies, only with a couple of agencies.
Guess which one agency it couldn't share the death file with--the Department of the Treasury. That is why we wasted $1.4 billion.
It is a very simple fix, and Senator Carper has worked on it for 7 years. Here is what our bill will do. It is really quite simple.
First of all, it tells the Social Security Administration to share the death records with everybody in the Federal Government who writes checks so we don't send dead people money. Duh.
It will allow Federal agencies access to each other's databases. Imagine that. They would talk to each other.
It would direct agencies to use this information to curb improper payments, and it would direct the Social Security Administration to do a better job.
Now, how simple is that? How simple is that? We are spending, right now, $800 million a year. That is on top of the $1.4 billion that we just wasted--took and threw it in the dirt. We threw it in the dirt. Like clockwork, every year we send $800 million to dead people. It has all been in the papers, and it is a very easy fix, and that is what Senator Carper's and my bill does.
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Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I would now like to yield to Senator Carper. I think I have the floor.
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Mr. KENNEDY. I would like to yield to Senator Carper, who I believe will have a motion with respect to our bill, which I call the Stop Paying Dead People Act.
I believe I still have the floor.
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Mr. KENNEDY. I would like to yield, if he wishes the time, to Senator Carper to make a motion. If he is not prepared to make a motion, I am.
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Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I want to respond to that because the Senator from Oregon knows how much I admire him. But my understanding, after talking with his chief of staff--and as I said, Senator Carper has been working on this for 7 years. I have been working on it for 3\1/2\ years.
We hotlined this bill, I think, last Thursday. Well, actually, I take that back. We had a couple of objections, and we worked them all out.
Then we got down here today at 3:25 to start, and we found out that Senator Wyden had an objection, so we tried to reach Senator Wyden. We couldn't. We talked to his chief of staff. I was listening to the call. He said that Senator Wyden wasn't available. He didn't know when he would be available. We tried to do it tomorrow, but we weren't sure. That is why we--Senator Carper and I--proceeded.
I am more than willing to sit down and work with Senator Wyden. He knows that. We are working on a number of other bills together. But I want to reiterate the urgency of this. The American people are laughing at us. They are laughing at us. We sent out 1.1 million checks. Do you know what the check said? ``John Doe, deceased.'' It said: ``John Doe, deceased.'' The time has come to do something about it.
Now, something just passed. I am going to ask for a ruling from the Chair to find out what passed.
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Mr. KENNEDY. Was that Senator Paul's bill?
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Mr. KENNEDY. Combined with Senator Carper's bill and my bill?
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Mr. KENNEDY. So if I might ask, does that mean that both bills together have passed?
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Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, excuse me. My understanding is that Senator Paul's bill and the Carper-Kennedy bill were merged together, so we had two bills.
Is my understanding correct?
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Mr. KENNEDY. I believe the Record will reflect that is correct, that Senator Paul--I am not asking you to comment on the accuracy of what I am about to say, but I believe the Record will reflect that Senator Paul's bill was merged with the Carper-Kennedy bill and that those bills have passed as one bill.
Now, having said that, if Senator Wyden or anybody else would like to sit down with Senator Carper and me and make some improvements to the bill, I am more than happy to do this and to do that.
I will not speak for my good friend and mentor Senator Carper, but I know he would share in my feelings, and I would extend that courtesy to Senator Wyden and to any other Senator who would like to make some changes.
Let me reiterate again: This is a serious problem. We hotlined this bill on Thursday. We have worked out many difficult issues, and we found out that there was another Senator who couldn't be available--he said, 5 minutes ago--and that is why we proceeded. But I am willing to unproceed to work with Ron or anybody else who wants to improve this bill. But improving this bill, for me, doesn't mean--I have only been here 3 or 4 years, but I have learned--I have learned the hard way-- that sometimes negotiations can last years.
Do you know what? I have said it before: Doing nothing is hard. You never know when you are finished, and we need to do something on this.
I am embarrassed to go home. I feel like putting on a bag in the airplane when I get out so that my constituents will not see me. We sent out $1.4 billion of taxpayer money to 1.1 million dead people, and all we had to do was pass a simple bill that says to people at Social Security: Share your death file with the rest of your colleagues. What is controversial about that?
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Mr. KENNEDY. Certainly.
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Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield?
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Mr. KENNEDY. Senator, do I understand correctly that one of Senator Wyden's problems or issues is the cost?
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Mr. KENNEDY. Well, will the Senator yield for 30 seconds?
Then I would suggest, Senator Carper, through the Presiding Officer, that we sit down with Senator Wyden and try to address these very legitimate concerns.
For the moment, I happen to be chairman of the Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee in Appropriations, and it may be that we can address those concerns there, and I would be more than happy to.
But I am equally happy to report to the American people that the U.S. Senate finally did something to stop paying dead people hard-earned taxpayer money, and I want to give most of the credit to Senator Carper because he is a patient man. He has been working on this for 7 years. He is a more patient man than I am
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