Climate Change

Floor Speech

CLIMATE CHANGE -- (Senate - December 14, 2009)

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I wish to start by referring briefly to the remarks made earlier by the Senator from Alaska. She indicated earlier on the floor that she is going to be offering a motion of disapproval for a set of
regulations that are not final yet but have been announced by the EPA that they are coming forward with, the so-called endangerment finding. I wish to indicate that I intend to support her on that resolution.

I cosponsored the amendment she tried offering earlier this year to one of the appropriations bills that would have prevented the EPA from moving forward with the endangerment finding for a year, which would have allowed Congress an opportunity to examine this issue and perhaps approach it with a legislative solution as opposed to having the EPA move forward in a way even they acknowledge they don't have statutory authority to do.

I might say that the end result of what is being proposed at EPA--if they are successful--is they will implement a cap-and-trade program, only it will be a cap without the trade.

The reason they are moving forward, in my view, is because there isn't the political will in the Congress to pass a punishing cap-and-trade proposal this year. The House of Representatives passed it narrowly this year. There are a number of Members of the House who I think would like to have that vote over again. I know there aren't the votes in the Senate because many Senators on both sides realize the impact it would have on the economy--the number of jobs that would be lost in our economy and how it would punish certain parts of our country with crushing energy costs, at a time when we don't need to pile costs on small businesses and consumers who are trying to come out of a recession.

This is a wrongheaded move by the EPA. It is something they should not be acting on independently. This should be resolved by the Congress of the United States. Honestly, if the EPA moves forward, there are a number of industries in South Dakota that will be impacted and a number of businesses in my State. If the litigation is successful--and, inevitably, there will be lots of lawsuits filed--and if the 25,000-ton number is reduced to the 250-ton number that is used as a threshhold in the Clean Air Act, there will be literally millions of entities that will be covered--hospitals, churches, farmers, ranchers, and small businesses.

In South Dakota, we have a lot of farmers and ranchers who make their living in small businesses that would be adversely impacted were these regulations to be enacted and then move forward with regulating and putting the caps in place. If the litigation is successful, we know what will be subsequent to that.

I say that as a lead-in to talk about impacts on small businesses. There are so many things happening right now in Washington that have an adverse and detrimental impact on the ability of small businesses to create jobs. I have heard the President talk about creating jobs--that is his No. 1 priority--and we need to give incentives to small businesses to create jobs. I have heard my colleagues on the other side talk about how important job creation is. Yet everything coming out of Washington, whether it is in the form of heavyhanded regulation, such as this endangerment finding coming out of EPA, or in the form of a cap-and-trade proposal or whether it is this massive expansion of the Federal Government--the $2.5 trillion expansion to create a new health care entitlement--all these things are raising clouds over the small business sector of our economy, which creates about 70 percent of the jobs.

We are essentially telling small businesses that you may end up with these massive new energy taxes or with this employer mandate that will cost you up to $750 per employee if you don't offer the right kind of insurance; you are going to be faced with all these taxes imposed on health insurers and prescription drugs and medical device manufacturers that will be passed on to you.

Then we are saying go out and create jobs, in light of all this policy and uncertainty in Washington, all these proposals to tax and spend and borrow more money by the Federal Government. You cannot blame small businesses for acting with a little bit of hesitancy when it comes to making major capital investments and when it comes to hiring new people.

Those are the very things we want small businesses to do. We want to encourage that type of behavior. We want to encourage that kind of investment. We want to encourage job creation. Unemployment is at 10 percent. We have lost 3.3 million jobs since the beginning of the year. Who will put people back to work? It will be the small businesses in our economy. In South Dakota, they are about 96 percent of the game, when it comes to employment in South Dakota. Here we are debating a health care reform bill which, in addition to spending $2.5 trillion to create this new health care entitlement, raises taxes on small businesses, cuts Medicare, and at the end day, according to the experts--the CBO and the Chief Actuary at the CMS, which is the so-called referee in all this, who tells us what these things will cost and their impact--they have all said premiums will either stay the same or go up. So the best small business can hope for under this is the status quo.

I hear my colleagues on the other side coming down here, day after day, making statements, saying this is going to be good for small businesses, and this will help small businesses deal with the high cost of health care.

The problem with all their arguments is one thing: They are completely and utterly divorced from reality. You cannot look at this health care reform proposal and come away from it and say this is a good thing for small businesses, when small businesses are saying this will drive up their cost of doing business, it will raise health care costs, and these taxes you are going to hit us with will make it harder to create jobs.

Why do we proceed in the face of this and then deny what all these small businesses are saying, what the experts are saying, and what increasingly the American people are saying, which is that this is a bad idea. So why don't you reconsider this and start over again and do some things that will actually lower health care costs. That is what small businesses are saying.

We have people down here saying this is good for small business. What are small businesses saying--and large businesses, for that matter. The NFIB represents small businesses all over the country. They said:

This bill will not deliver the widely promised help to the small business community.

They say:

It will destroy job creation opportunities for employees, create a reality that is worse than the status quo for small businesses. It is the wrong reform at the wrong time, and it will increase health care costs and the cost of doing business.

That is the National Federation of Independent Businesses, as I said.

How about large businesses? The Chamber of Commerce expressed their disappointment with the Senate health care bill and has weighed in with strong opposition against it. That includes the National Association of Wholesaler Distributors, the Small Business Entrepreneurship Council, the Association of Builders and Contractors, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Independent Electrical Contractors, and the International Franchise Association. The list goes on and on. The Small Business Coalition for Affordable Health Care--50 organizations around the country that are members of the group--including many that have members in South Dakota, not the least of which is the American Farm Bureau Federation. That represents farmers and ranchers who are still businesspeople out there trying to make ends meet. They said this:

Our small businesses and self-employed entrepreneurs have been clear about what they need and want: lower costs, more choices, and greater competition for private interests.

They say:

These reforms fall short of long-term, meaningful relief for small business. Any potential savings from these reforms are more than outweighed by the new tax, new mandates, and expensive, new government programs included in this bill.

That is what small businesses across the country are saying. The reason they are saying that is because, as I mentioned, not only are they hit with these taxes every year, there is a tax on health plans that will amount to $60 billion over 10 years, which will be passed on to small businesses. There is a new payroll tax, Medicare tax, which incidentally, for the first time ever, instead of going to Medicare, will be used to create a new entitlement program. That will hit about one-third of small businesses in this country, we are told.

As I said earlier, they have the employer mandate, which is going to hit a whole lot of small businesses--another $28 billion that will hit small businesses across this country. So you have all these new taxes heaped upon our small business sector. The small businesses are saying: What do we get out of this? What is this going to do to affect our health care costs?

I will show you. This chart represents what the CBO has said health care costs would do if this bill is enacted. The blue line represents the cost of essentially, if you will, doing nothing. In other words, the blue line represents what will happen if Congress does nothing, the year over year increases we are already seeing. It represents the status quo. We have heard people from the other side say we have to do better than the status quo. The President and the Vice President say that and our Democratic colleagues say that. You cannot accept the status quo and then attack Republicans for being in favor of status quo. The blue line represents the status quo. The blue line is what will happen year over year, in terms of increases in health insurance premiums that small businesses and individuals will deal with.

It doesn't matter where you get your insurance--the small business group market or the large business employer group market or the individual market. If you get it in the individual market, your rates will be 10 to 13 percent higher. I ask unanimous consent to extend my remarks for another 5 minutes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. THUNE. It doesn't matter which market you get your insurance in, except if you are in the individual market, you will pay much higher insurance premiums than the status quo, which is locking in double the rate of inflation premiums for the foreseeable future.

The red line on the chart represents the spending under this bill. This is what the CBO says will happen. You will see the cost curve bent up, not down. You are going to have more money coming out of our economy to pay for health care than you do today. That is what small businesses are reacting to. That is why they are coming out strongly and adamantly opposed to this legislation. It bends the cost curve up, increases the cost of health care, rather than bending it down. We heard the same thing come out of the Actuary of the CMS just last week.

Again, the experts are saying--the referees, the people who don't have a political agenda--repeatedly, that this will increase the cost of health care. This will drive health insurance premiums higher.

The other point I wish to make, because after I have shown you how health care costs will go up under this legislation, the other amazing thing about it--this is, again, one of those phony accounting techniques or gimmicks that Washington uses, the same old business in Washington, the Washington smoke and mirrors, the ways of disguising what this really costs: In order to bring this thing in at about $1 trillion, which is what the majority wanted to do, they had to use budget gimmicks.

The Senator from New Hampshire knows all about this because he has followed this closely as chairman of the Budget Committee for many years. He can attest to the fact that one of the things they will do is start the tax increases immediately. So on January 1 of next year--which is now 18 short days away--all these businesses across the country are going to see their taxes go up--in 18 days. But the amazing thing about it is, many benefits don't get paid out for another 1,479 days. So they front-load all the tax increases; the tax increases will be passed on immediately. By 2013, every American family will be paying--starting next year--$600 a year. So every American family will feel the brunt of the additional costs for taxes and the premium increases that will follow from those.

The remarkable thing about it is, they structured a bill that would punish small businesses and people who will pay these taxes on January 1 of 2010--18 days away. They don't pay out benefits for another 1,479 days. What does that do? In the 10-year window they use to measure what this will cost, it dramatically understates the cost of the legislation. So we are faced with not a $1 trillion bill but a $2.5 trillion bill, when it is fully implemented and when all the budgetary gimmicks and phony accounting is actually taken into consideration. This is a bad deal for small businesses. That is why all the small business organizations have come out opposed to it.

You cannot get up, day after day, and defy reality, logic, reason, and facts. That is what those who are trying to push this huge government expansion and huge takeover of health care in this country are trying to have the people believe. They are dead wrong.

I believe the American people are tuning in to that, which is why, increasingly, in public opinion polls, they are turning a thumbs down on this by majorities of over 60 percent.

I see the Senator from New Hampshire. I appreciate him indulging me for an extra few minutes.

I yield the floor.

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Mr. THUNE. Madam President, will the Senator from Minnesota yield for a question?

Mr. FRANKEN. Absolutely.

Mr. THUNE. Did the Senator understand that what I was pointing out on the chart--the point I was making--was that the tax increases start 18 days from now, and the benefits--the spending benefits under the bill, which are the premium tax credits and the exchanges that are designed to provide the benefits delivered under this bill--don't start until 2014. Did the Senator miss that?

Mr. FRANKEN. Does the Senator understand that spending benefits start right away?

Mr. THUNE. If the Senator missed that point, I can get the chart out.

Mr. FRANKEN. I asked a question. I yielded to you for a question. I am asking you a question. Does the Senator----

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota may only yield for a question, and the Senator from Minnesota has the floor.

Mr. FRANKEN. Has to what?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Has the floor.

Mr. FRANKEN. I have the floor. The Senator from South Dakota said: Did I realize he was talking about the spending doesn't start for 1,800 days on health care--that the benefits don't start. Well, here is one: $5 billion in immediate Federal support starts immediately for a new program to provide affordable coverage to uninsured Americans with a preexisting condition.

I don't know about anyone else in this body----

Mr. THUNE. Will the Senator yield for an additional question?

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Mr. THUNE. I appreciate the Senator from Arizona yielding and the discussion of all our colleagues on the Senate floor this evening, pointing out how flawed this process is and that it is being conducted behind closed doors in contradiction of all the promises and commitments that were made that this would become a transparent and open process. I think the Senator from Arizona has been great at holding the other side accountable when it comes to all these pronouncements about how this was going to be an open, transparent process, and that is just not the case. There is something going on right now that we are not privy to, and I think at some point they are going to throw something, as the Senator from Arizona said, at the wall, hoping that the latest thing will stick.

But I do want to make an observation with regard to the discussion held earlier today because a Member from the other side--the Senator from Minnesota--had indicated that he thought this chart was somehow inaccurate or misleading, and I want to point out again, Madam President, that the chart is very accurate. In fact, the taxes in the bill begin 18 days from now, on January 1 of next year. January 1, 2010, is when the taxes in this bill begin.

In fact, almost $72 billion of taxes will have been collected before the benefits that start to kick in will be paid out--the premium subsidies that are going to support the exchanges, that are supposedly going to help those who don't have insurance get access to it. That is 1,479 days from now.

The Senator from Minnesota got up and said, and I quote: We are entitled to our own opinions; we are not entitled to our own facts. The fact is, benefits kick in on day one. The large majority of benefits kick in on day one, and we shouldn't be standing up here with charts that say the exact opposite.

Well, Madam President, it is not me saying this; it is the Congressional Budget Office. The Congressional Budget Office has said that 99 percent of the coverage spending in this bill doesn't kick in until January 1, 2014--1,479 days from now.

Now, I ask my colleagues, and most Americans around this country: Do you think it is fair to construct a bill that in order to understate its total cost starts raising taxes in 18 days, but doesn't start delivering 99 percent of the coverage benefits until 1,479 days from now?

If the other side wants to have an argument about whether 99 percent of the coverage benefits kick in in the year 2014 or 100 percent, I am happy to have that argument. The point is simply this: Taxes start 18 days from now--tax increases--so that $72 billion in taxes will have been imposed upon the American people, and the benefits 1,479 days from now.

So, Madam President, I want to make that point and refute the argument that was made by the Senator from Minnesota that a large majority of benefits kick in on day one. Ninety-nine percent of the benefits don't kick in until later.

Incidentally, I have an amendment on which I hope we will get a chance to vote that delays the taxes until such time as the benefits begin. We think it is only fair to the American people that we synchronize the tax increases with the benefits. Many of us don't support the tax increases in the first place, which is why we will be supporting the Crapo amendment to recommit the tax increases back to the committee to get rid of them. But if you are going to have tax increases and start raising revenue immediately, you ought to start paying out the benefits today, or at least delay the tax increases so the benefits and the tax increases are synchronized. That, to me, is a fair way to conduct and do public policy for the American people.

The reason it was done this way, let's be honest about it--and the newspapers have made it pretty clear in some of their statements--for instance, the Washington Post states:

The measure's effective date was also pushed back to the year 2014. That projection represents the biggest cost savings of any legislation to come before the House or Senate this year.

The measure's effective date was also pushed back. They keep pushing the date back to understate the cost. The reason they want to start collecting revenue right away and not start spending until later is because they know if they start the spending early on, they are going to start inflating significantly the cost, and the goal was to try to keep it under $1 trillion. We all know now, and they have acknowledged, the 10-year, fully implemented cost of this isn't $1 trillion, it is $2.5 trillion.

The American people deserve to know the facts. That is the fully implemented cost. The only reason they can say in the 10 years it comes in at $1 trillion or thereabouts is because the tax increases started January 1, 2010, and the benefits--99 percent of the benefits--don't start kicking in until January 1, 2014.

So I thank the Senator from Arizona for giving me the opportunity to clarify that. It is important we make this debate about the facts. I have tried to do that when I speak, and I am happy to have the opportunity to restate the facts as they exist and as they have been presented to us by the experts--by the Congressional Budget Office and by the CMS Actuary, both of whom have concluded the same thing when it comes to the benefits and the impact this will have on premiums in the country. I think that is probably the most devastating blow to the argument the other side has made in support of this bill--when the CMS Actuary came out last week and said this is actually going to increase the cost of health care in this country by $234 billion over the next 10 years.

So, Madam President, I am happy to yield. I see a number of our colleagues on the Senate floor, and the leader is here as well, and I would certainly yield time to the leader.

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Mr. THUNE. Would the Senator from Arizona yield? I see a number of our colleagues and the leader.

I would simply add that this idea of expanding Medicare, which just emerged last week, was a bad one, and one even I think a lot of the Democratic Senators have come out in opposition to, which is why we are now back to the drawing board. But this relentless effort to try to tweak this bill around the edges, to somehow get that 60th vote, doesn't do anything to change the fundamental features of the bill, which the leader and the Senator from Arizona have been talking about, and that is the tax increases and spending.

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Mr. CORKER. I think the fact is the two parties certainly have differences. We are seeing that by the huge amount of spending that is taking place right now. But the fact is, when we come together around bills, we do things that can stand the test of time.

When we do that, it is not about political victory, it is about us airing our differences and seeing those places where we have common ground. I have watched each of you in your deliberations on the floor. I know very early on we talked about the fact that if we could just focus on the 80 percent we agree upon, we could pass a piece of legislation that would stand the test of time. Maybe it wouldn't solve every problem in the world, maybe it wouldn't go from end zone to end zone, but maybe if we went 50 yards down the field, it was 50 yards of solid gain for the American people, something that would stand the test of time, then we could come back and maybe get another piece of it as we moved along.

I know almost everyone in this room has been a part of discussions to increase access, increase competitiveness, to drive down cost, to increase choices. This may be historic, if it passes. I actually still believe there is a chance that some of our friends on the other side of the aisle will realize that this is historic. But what is historic about it is this: If we pass this bill or if the Senate passes this bill, we will have missed a historic opportunity to work together and do something that will stand the test of time. All the energy would have been expended on a bill that does not pass the commonsense test, where the basic fundamentals are flawed.

This issue will not come up again for a long time. I know how the calendar on the floor is. I certainly know about the patience of the American people. But the history part of this, we will have missed a historic opportunity to do something that will be good for the American people. That is the part, I guess, that bothers me the most.

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, the Senator has been the mayor of a good-sized city, a small businessperson, actually probably bigger than a small businessperson. But if you were running a business and you were in an environment such as we are in today, a tough economy, trying to figure out ways to cut back on your costs and figure out a way to sell a little bit more of whatever it is you are making or doing, and somebody comes to you and says: We are going to reform health care and we want to do something that will get health care costs down and yet what they are selling is going to raise your taxes and, according to the referees--the Actuary at the Center for Medicare Services is sort of a referee in all this; they don't have a political objective; they simply want to get the facts out. Of course, that is the role that is played traditionally in Congress by the CBO, both of which now say--the CBO says it is going to increase health care spending by $160 billion over the first 10 years and the CMS Actuary is now saying it will increase health care costs by $234 billion over the first 10 years. You also have now the CMS Actuary saying it could close 20 percent of the hospitals, that 17 million people who get their insurance through their employers are going to lose it, that the Medicare cuts are not sustainable on a permanent basis in this legislation, and that a lot of these tax increases are being passed on in the form of higher premiums which will mainly be borne by people trying to provide insurance. If you are sitting there as a businessperson--and you have been there--and you are looking at that balance sheet and that income statement and somebody is trying to sell you on an idea about health care reform that has the features I mentioned, how do you react to something such as that? I see what small business organizations are saying, but the Senator has been there. Tell me how you view it.

Mr. CORKER. I met with a businessman in Tennessee on one of my more recent trips. They have an annual payroll of $4.2 million--their health care costs are $4.2 million a year for their employees. They file their tax return as a sub S company. The income from the company actually ends up being attributed to the partners. So when they file an income tax return, they don't take the money out of the company. They leave the money in to invest and make sure it is productive and they have jobs for other people. But that income is attributed to them. So he was showing me what this bill did to them. First, their percentage of health care costs is 12 percent of their payroll. He is way above the minimums this bill has said you have to be. I think it is 7 percent or something such as that. By the time he looked at the taxes that were going to be assessed to them because they filed--in other words, it was, again, their individual income, even though the money stayed in the company itself. What he was saying is: This means not only will we not hire any additional employees, we are not going to do that. But in addition, we are going to seriously look at dropping our health care plan and paying the penalties that come with this bill. I do fear, one of the things people do when they see that the government--a lot of companies in this country do things because they think it is the right thing to do. But a lot of companies, when they see government sort of mandating what they have to do or if they don't do that, there is an option for them to opt out and pay a penalty, when they feel like the government is being intrusive, sometimes they decide: Look, I am not going to do this anymore.

What I would say, to answer the Senator's question is: No. 1, you end up depressing people's wages when you have these huge increases. Because at the end of the day, you have to have a profit to operate. You encourage people who are trying to do the right thing. You tax people at a level that, because of the way our taxation system works, takes money out of the company which, again, is used for productive good and to hire employees. At the very time when we are trying to create jobs--and I know you have been out here a great deal talking about the fact that we need to create jobs--we have legislation. This legislation that is before us is a job killer. The uncertainty of American companies about health care and then the fiscal issues and then this whole notion of cap and trade is, in fact, what resoundingly people across the country are saying is keeping them from hiring people.

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Mr. BARRASSO. I would like to ask my colleague, we are talking about a job-killing bill, and we are not talking about a couple of jobs. The National Federation of Independent Business estimates that mandating that employers provide health care will cost 1.7 million jobs over the next 4 years, between now and 2013. We are not talking about a couple jobs, 1.6 million jobs when our unemployment rate is already 10 percent. When I look at this as a job-killing bill, bad for our economy at a time when the No. 1 issue I hear about at home are jobs and the economy, that is another fundamental reason to take a look at a bill that at its core is fatally flawed and say: Don't do that right now. Our economy can't afford it. The jobless rate, we cannot afford to see that number get worse.

Mr. CORKER. It is amazing the Senator brings that up. If he remembers, during the General Motors and Chrysler debate, which I know Americans equally paid attention to, there was this discussion about the fact--advocates for government funding talked about the fact that they had to compete against companies in other countries that may not provide health benefits. If you remember this whole discussion began around the fact that we wanted to lower costs, lower health care costs so our economy would be more productive. I think all of us said that is exactly what we need to do. So here we end up with a 2,074-page bill that does exactly the opposite. How we got here, it is kind of like you couldn't make this up--that a year ago here we were, as a matter of fact almost this exact time, having another historic vote around the whole issue of what might happen with these automotive companies and the big driving issue being, we can't be competitive because we have costs that they don't and all of us saying: Health care costs do make our country less competitive. So here we have a bill that is going to take us in exactly the opposite direction.

This is why so many people have lost, rightfully so, faith in our ability to solve problems.

Mr. THUNE. The Senator has made a payroll. He knows what this is like, how hard these decisions are when it comes to making decisions about whether you are going to hire somebody and to try and squeeze those costs down so you can buy a new piece of equipment. I think all small businesses are dealing with that. The Senator from Wyoming mentioned the National Federation of Independent Business which, of course, is a very business-oriented organization that represents a lot of small businesses across the country, indicating the employer mandate would cost about 1.6 million jobs so the job issue is so absolutely pertinent to this debate. That is why NFIB and the Chamber of Commerce and every business organization I think I know of in this country, including organizations such as the American Farm Bureau organization, which represents a lot of farmers and ranchers in my State, those are the organizations that speak for these various small businesses. They have all weighed in, and they weighed in heavily, in no uncertain terms, that this sets us back. This does not move us forward. You talked about getting that cost curve down. Every analysis that has been done, including by the referees--the Congressional Budget Office, the Actuary at CMS--all come back with the same conclusion.

The Senator from Alabama also probably has a lot of small businesses in his State, members of the National Federation of Independent Business, the Chamber of Commerce, the Association of Wholesale Distributors, the National Association of Manufacturers, lots of these organizations that have weighed in. It seems to me they have looked at this carefully, and they have come to the same conclusion. I would be interested in what the Senator from Alabama might be hearing from the small businesses he represents, with regard to the impact this would have on jobs.

Mr. SESSIONS. I say to Senator Thune, I think you have made the point about the cost curve. And I say to Senator Corker, you hit it right on the head. There is a need for us to work together to help reduce the cost of health care and not hurt its quality at the same time. This bill does not do that. I say to Senator Corker, what businesses tell me is that when you make it more expensive to hire a worker, that makes you less able to hire more workers. If this bill, in effect, is driving up the cost of health care--not to mention the new taxes that are out there--as an economic principle, it does mean we are jeopardizing jobs. Would you agree?

Mr. CORKER. Look, I do not think that could be debated in a real way. There is no question when you add these mandates, you add the taxes, you actually drive up one of the major costs around hiring an employee in a firm. Then you add all the government intrusion. There is just the whole hassle factor of having to meet all the obligations that are laid out in this type of legislation. All those things just cause people to not want to hire folks.

The thing is, it actually affects the most responsible companies most. The way this bill is written, if you are one of those companies that has not been providing health benefits, you can just pay a penalty, just pay a penalty and not cover them. But this bill actually does not just stymie job creation, it punishes the companies that are the most responsible smaller companies in our country.

So, again, you all said it over and over again: The core of this bill, regardless of all the accouterments--and maybe we get three votes if we do this and lose one vote. I am sure there is some scribe in there that is confused with all the vote counting that has been taking place over the last few weeks. But the fact is, regardless of all these accouterments, the core of this bill is detrimental to our country.

I certainly appreciate serving with all Senators, and I know all of us would love to see appropriate health care reform. I hope we are going to have the opportunity, after this bill is hopefully defeated, to be able to do that.

I thank everyone for the time and patience.

Mr. THUNE. I think we have to wrap up. But I just want to make one point in closing and say to the Senator from Tennessee, the Senator from Wyoming--the leader is here from Kentucky--that the citizens in my State of South Dakota, and I think most citizens, would expect that if we are going to reform health care, we do something about their cost, which clearly that point has been made very clear, repeatedly, here--that all the studies say that does not happen.

The other thing I will mention is, I cannot imagine any of our constituents would say that if you are going to implement public policy, you should raise taxes in 3 weeks and not start the benefits until 4 or 5 years later. It just seems to me the average American out there has to be saying: OK, that is like me going to the bank and taking out a mortgage, but I can't move into the house for another 4 or 5 years, and in the meantime I will be making payments.

Mr. CORKER. I would say to the Senator, if I could, his point is so good. So many businesses in my State are saying: I wish I could go to my local banker and use 6 years' worth of cost and 10 years' worth of revenues to get a loan. They are saying: We can't do that back home. I think it is that very thing the Senator pointed out so eloquently, it is that very thing, again, that builds the huge amount of distrust. They know it does not work. They know it does not pass the commonsense test in South Dakota and Tennessee. I think they continue to again wonder: You can't make this kind of stuff up. Certainly, you can't do it back home.

I thank the Senator.

Mr. THUNE. I thank my colleagues from Tennessee, Wyoming, Alabama, Kentucky, and Arizona, all who have been here.

In closing, I will quote the Associated Press:

In part to reduce costs, the legislation would delay until Jan. 1, 2014, creation of so-called insurance exchanges in which individuals and small businesses could shop for affordable coverage.

All done to disguise the bill's real cost of this, which it is being acknowledged now widely by the Democrats as well. This is not a $1 trillion bill; this is a $2.5 trillion bill. It is a job killer. It cuts Medicare, raises taxes, and raises premiums for most of the American people.

I yield back our time.

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