Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act Of 2009

Floor Speech

SERVICE MEMBERS HOME OWNERSHIP TAX ACT OF 2009 -- (Senate - December 21, 2009)

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, as my colleagues on this side of the aisle, I voted against the Reid health care bill last night because it cuts $470 billion from Medicare to create a brand-new entitlement program that will cost approximately $2.5 trillion over the next 10 years--a price we cannot afford. It increases premiums for American families who currently have health insurance and who are struggling to make ends meet during tough economic times. It increases taxes on small businesses and individuals, which is a terrible idea, particularly at a time when our economy is struggling and our job creators are struggling to be able to keep people on their payroll and possibly expand their payroll and hire people back and bring down the unemployment rate.

I want to talk about the way this bill came to pass--at least the cloture vote this morning at 1 a.m.--and I want to talk about the process. I recall when Senator Obama was running for President, he talked about wanting to change politics as usual in Washington, DC. But I have to tell you, the majority and this administration have, in many ways, confirmed people's worst suspicions about Washington politics as usual. They have taken it to a new level--and not a higher level; it is a lower level.

As a matter of fact, the bartering for votes for cloture, the special sweetheart deals with drug industries, with Senators, in order to get the 60 votes last night, does nothing more than confirm the worst fears and cynicism the American people have about the way Washington works.

We know this bill is a direct result of many special deals with special interest groups and their lobbyists. We heard the President say when he campaigned that he wanted to have a transparent process; that this would take place in front of C-SPAN and at a roundtable so people could see who was making arguments on behalf of the drug companies and the insurance companies. But that rhetoric conflicts with the reality, where the drug companies and the insurance companies and others were negotiating behind closed doors for sweetheart deals that ultimately ended up getting 60 votes.

So it turned out it was the Obama administration that cynically said one thing during the campaign and then, when it came to actually passing legislation, did completely the opposite. This is tragic, in my view, Mr. President. The American people want to believe in their government. They want to believe their elected leaders are trying to do their best on behalf of the American people. But this process confirms their worst suspicions. No wonder public opinion of Congress is in the toilet.

Rather than listening to the American people, the creators of this bill started cutting deals with special interests first and cut those deals early. The White House struck a deal with the pharmaceutical industry, as you know, which produced in part, as the New York Times reported, about $150 million in television advertising supporting this bill. This deal got 24 Democrats when we were debating the issue of drug reimportation to switch their votes from their previous position against drug reimportation earlier this month.

Notwithstanding all the rhetoric about insurance companies, basically this is a sweetheart deal with insurance companies because insurance companies will get $476 billion of your tax dollars and my tax dollars to pay for the subsidies and the insurance provided in this bill.

The hospital industry cut a special deal that provided them an exemption from the payment advisory board. Then there were groups such as AARP that purport to serve seniors as a public interest but, as we know, primarily pocket money as a result of the sale of insurance policies--insurance policies that are going to be necessary because of cuts in Medicare Advantage for 11 million seniors, just to name one example.

This bill was the result of backroom deals with specific Senators, persuading them to vote for cloture, which has caused some people on the blogs and the Internet to call it ``Cash for Cloture.'' In order to get 60 votes for cloture, we know one of the first examples of that was the so-called ``Louisiana purchase.'' Charles Krauthammer said it well:

Well, after watching Louisiana get $100 million in what some have called ``The Louisiana Purchase,'' she ought to ask for $500 million at least. And that's because Obama said he would end business as usual in Washington. So it's a new kind of business as usual.

In other words, I guess the price has gone up. But as one business leader in Louisiana points out, notwithstanding the special sweetheart deal for the State of Louisiana directing $300 million to the State, the Medicare expansion alone will result in the taxpayers and the people of Louisiana being a net loser.

We also know in order to get 60 votes, the majority leader had to cut a deal with a Senator from Nebraska--the senior Senator from Nebraska--in order to get the vote for cloture. It has been widely reported that the meeting with the senior Senator from Nebraska took place for 13 hours behind closed doors, after which they negotiated some language which, purportedly, no longer allowed the use of tax dollars to pay for abortions. But according to the Conference of Catholic Bishops and other pro-life groups, the language is completely ineffectual and it restores or actually produces taxpayer-paid-for abortions for the first time in three decades.

What else did the senior Senator from Nebraska get? Well, the State of Nebraska purportedly got a free ride from Washington's new unfunded Medicare mandates on the States. But, of course, we know every other State ends up paying for that sweetheart deal the senior Senator got for Nebraska. What do Nebraskans think about it? Well, ask the Governor--Governor Dave Heineman--who said yesterday he had nothing to do with that bill, and called the overall bill bad news for Nebraska and bad news for Americans. Governor Heineman said Nebraskans did not ask for a special deal, only a fair deal.

We also know that in order to get 60 votes, the majority leader had to cut a special deal for Vermont. One Senator from Vermont threatened to vote against the bill, but then, lo and behold, the managers' package included $600 million benefiting only that one State. The Senator who threatened to vote no decided to vote yes after that special deal was concluded.

The New York Times lists several other sweetheart deals that produced this monstrous piece of legislation. The intended beneficiaries, though, in many instances, were identified in a vague and sort of cryptic way, such as: Individuals exposed to environmental health hazards recognized as a public health emergency in a declaration issued by the Federal Government on June 17. Well, there is only one State that would qualify for that, notwithstanding this sort of vague description designed to hide the ball and obscure what was actually happening through another sweetheart deal as part of this bill.

Another item in the package would increase Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals in any States where at least 50 percent of the counties are ``frontier counties,'' defined as those having a population density of less than six people per square mile.

Then we know there was another $100 million sweetheart deal for an unnamed health care facility affiliated with an academic health center at a public research university in a State where there is only one public medical and dental school. The Associated Press reports that the State that qualifies for that special deal is the State of Connecticut, where the senior Senator currently is in a tough reelection fight.

When asked about these special deals in the managers' amendment, the response of Mr. Axelrod--the architect of the campaign strategy for this administration to bring change to Washington--was pretty telling. He said: That is the way it has been; that is the way it will always be.

Well, maybe in Chicago, but not in my State, and not in the heartland and the vast expansion of this great country where the American people want us to come and represent our constituents and vote for what is right in terms of policy, not what kind of sweetheart deals we can eke out at the expense of the rest of the American people.

The very thing that is happening with this health care bill demonstrates why Washington takeovers are such a terrible idea because instead of health care decisions being made between patients and doctors, health care decisions are overcome through a political process where elected officials choose winners and losers.

Politics has become a dirty word outside the beltway, and certainly we can understand why. This process has only reconfirmed in the minds of many people that what we are doing here is not the people's business but protecting special interests and special sweetheart deals. Rather than making decisions about what is best for the American people, this deal has been driven by deals with special interest groups and lobbyists. Rather than listen to constituents, individual Senators have decided that their votes should be traded for tax dollars and other sweetheart benefits that go to their States. No doubt about it, this bill takes the power from individual Americans to make their own health care decisions and transfers that to Washington, DC, and this new low level of politics as usual.

According to one recent poll that was reported today, Rasmussen, for one State I will not mention by name, found only 30 percent of the respondents to this poll favor this health care bill and 64 percent are opposed. The Senators from those States voted for the bill where only 30 percent of their constituents reportedly support the bill. That is not the only example.

You can only ask yourself why in the world would Senators vote for a bill when two-thirds of their constituents are opposed to it. Who must they be listening to? Are they listening to the people whom they represent and who sent them here to Washington to represent them or are they listening to the special interests or have they decided somehow that they have become miraculously smarter than their constituents and they know what is better for their constituents than what their constituents know themselves?

This debate is not over. There is still a chance to vote against this bill. As Senator McConnell said last night, any single Senator on the other side of the aisle can stop this bill or every one who votes for it will own it.

I yield the floor.

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