The Veterans Benefits Enhancement Act

Floor Speech

THE VETERANS BENEFITS ENHANCEMENT ACT -- (Senate - September 18, 2008)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. BROWN. Yes.

Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator for his comments. This whole concept, the underlying philosophy that you will hear from President Bush and Senator McCain with his support, is the notion of the ownership society which, to put it in shorthand, means: Just remember, we are all in this alone. They believe when it comes to at least the issue of Social Security, it would be preferable to divert money from current benefits and to put it in the stock market. That was the notion supported by John McCain and President Bush which the American people rejected. It is my understanding as well that Senator McCain has taken this ownership society idea to the notion of health insurance too, that they would penalize employers that provide health insurance and give people a tax break to go out into the market and go shopping for their own health insurance policies.

I ask the Senator if he has any reaction to the notion of individuals and families shopping for health insurance, not as part of some pool where they work but on an individual family basis.

Mr. BROWN. The first thing Senator McCain would do is tax those health care policies that tens of millions of Americans have. In my State there are an awful lot of still pretty good health care policies, health care coverage, often negotiated by unions, often extended voluntarily by employers. Senator McCain wants to tax the worth of those policies. So if you have a policy worth $6,000 for your family, then that would be taxed under the McCain plan. He turns around then and gives some tax breaks in their place. But the net effect simply means it isn't going to work.

It goes to the heart of our philosophy as a people, the values we hold. The values that we hold, in my view, are about communities. We really are in this together. Our country works best when we are cooperating, working together. We pulled together after September 11. We pulled together during World War II. When we pull together and work together, things work for everybody so much better.

Senator McCain is taking up where George Bush and DICK CHENEY left off. They think it is every man and woman for himself or herself: privatization of Social Security, messing with employer-based health benefits as they are, without replacing them with anything that makes any sense. The ``you are on your own'' attitude makes no sense for the American people. The more people know about this, the more upset they are going to be.

Mr. DURBIN. I don't know if the Senator, when he was a Member of the House, ever served with Phil Gramm, who is from Texas. I did. Then Senator Gramm came over and represented the State of Texas in the Senate. For the longest time, Senator Phil Gramm was the economic adviser to John McCain, not just on a campaign basis but on a personal basis. They shared a lot of thinking together. It was Phil Gramm's inspiration that moved us to this moment now where we have a lack of oversight, a lack of accountability when it comes to basic investments and credit institutions. The Gramm-McCain view of the world was government should step aside and get out of the way for the magic of capitalism and the magic of the free market. There is no question that the entrepreneurial spirit is a major part of the success of America, but time and again in history we have seen that if there is not a government entity involved in oversight, demanding accountability, many times the forces in the market go to extremes.

What we have seen in the last 2 weeks are the extremes of the Phil Gramm-John McCain approach to regulation. In fact, Senator McCain prided himself by saying he was one of the leading deregulators in the Senate. In the last couple days, as companies have been crashing and taxpayers have been picking up the bills, he now says he favors regulation. I ask the Senator, isn't this part of the same mindset, privatizing Social Security, privatizing health care, and basically removing the government from market operations that can ultimately damage investors, savers, retirees, and the taxpayers?

Mr. BROWN. There is no question. Earlier we were talking about Phil Gramm, who says we are in the middle of a recession and Americans should quit whining; Phil Gramm, whose income is many times what it was in the Senate, and we are paid very generously in this body. John McCain has followed the policies of the Bush-Cheney administration, but he gets his advice, if he ever strays, from Phil Gramm. Phil Gramm was his mentor on his economic views.

If you remember John McCain said several times in the last couple years, I don't know much about economics. He may or may not. Apparently, he doesn't know much. But what he does know comes from this very corporate, very privatized way of thinking that Phil Gramm has taught him. He has carried that into the campaign as Phil Gramm continues to advise him on economic matters. Just because John McCain is saying some things today that you and I agree with about going after Wall Street and that I want regulation, his whole history is deregulation, fighting for deregulation, doing Wall Street's bidding, doing the oil industry's bidding, doing the health insurance companies' bidding.

Mr. DURBIN. I would ask the Senator from Ohio, is it fair to say when it comes to regulation that Senator McCain was against it before he was for it?

Mr. BROWN. I think he was against it before he was for it. He was for the head of SEC, Chris Cox, and now he is against him. Maybe tomorrow he will want Secretary Paulson fired. I don't know. He has been for a lot of things before he has been against them, unfortunately. I thank the Senator from Illinois.

I yield the floor.

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