FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. President, I wish to add to the comments made by my colleague from Wyoming, who in his former life was a physician, and so he understands this issue probably better than any of us here in the Chamber. I think he very eloquently pointed out why this amendment we are hopefully going to be voting on, which will repeal the health care law, is so important.

Obviously, there is a big debate that has been raging in the country over the past year about this legislation as it was being considered here in the Congress, and I think the one thing that is clear about the public's view of this is that they think it was a bad idea. And that hasn't changed. That was true a year ago, that was true 6 months ago, and that is still true today.

I think the administration had tried to argue they had merely done a poor job of communicating to the American people how great this health care reform idea was. But that excuse misses the point entirely. The American people are not clueless. They know a bad idea when they see one, and they understand that the Democratic health care plan was a bad idea. So despite the administration's full court PR press in trying to reverse the public opinion, the health spending law remains unpopular in the polls.

In fact, as was quoted by my colleague from Wyoming, there was a poll that came out today where 58 percent of likely voters in a recent Rasmussen poll favor repeal. In fact, if you drill down a little further into that survey, it says 47 percent strongly favor repeal, 38 percent oppose repeal, and 29 percent strongly oppose repeal. But you have a decisive majority in this country--58 percent of the population--saying they wish to see this repealed, and nearly half are strongly committed to that position.

So notwithstanding efforts by the administration to reverse the public's view, the American people still get it. I think the administration had hoped this would get behind them, that people would, once they were educated about the benefits, come to a different conclusion, but I think they see clearly now that hasn't happened. That hasn't been the case.

This whole health care law has failed the test of being something the American people think is important and something they want to see done. I don't doubt for a minute they want to see the issue of health care addressed in this country--health care reform. Unfortunately, this particular proposal didn't do anything to reform health care. It expanded health care dramatically and expanded the cost most people are going to bear when it comes to paying for their health insurance premiums. So it failed the test of public support of the people in this country who have been following this debate very carefully, because it affects them in a very personal and profound way. Health care is something every American understands. It is something they get, and it is regrettable we passed it. I think the American people have turned a thumbs down on it, and that should speak to the importance of this amendment and our trying to go back and do this the right way.

The other test it failed--which everybody here talks about, and there is a great deal of lip service and a great deal of rhetoric paid to it--is the issue of jobs. Honestly, I think if there was a message coming out of November's election it was this: The American people want us focused on three things. They want us focused on jobs, they want us focused on spending, and they want us focused on the debt.

On the issue of jobs, this also fails the test. Why? Because it raises taxes so dramatically. If you look at the tax increases in the bill--$569 billion in taxes on virtually every sector of the American economy. For instance, the measure penalizes employers for hiring more workers by raising the Medicare payroll tax by $210 billion, levying new taxes on many small businesses that will serve as the engine of economic growth and job creation.

If we want to get this economy recovering again and creating jobs, the one thing you don't want to do is to impose new mandates, new burdens, new taxes, new regulations on the economic engine, the job creators in America today, and that is our small businesses. So if we are serious about the issue of jobs, this certainly didn't do anything to create jobs.

I think the American people made it plain, and it is clear, they want us focused on jobs. They want us exclusively focused on getting this economy back on track, creating jobs and getting the American people back to work. So it failed on that test.

How about on the test of spending? I think the American people understand that very basic sort of adage--if you want to call it that--which says when you are in a hole, you don't keep digging. What we have done is we have dramatically expanded the size of government at a time when we are running year-over-year trillion-dollar deficits. So what did this do? When it is fully implemented, it will increase spending by $2.6 trillion. That is the 10-year score between 2014 and 2023. That is a massive expansion--the most dramatic expansion we have seen in government, literally, since the 1960s.

So this doesn't do anything to address the issue that the American people spoke loudly about, and that is getting Washington spending under control.

Arguably, as I said before, I think they care deeply about the issue of health care and getting health care costs under control. As I will get to in a minute, this does little, if anything, to address health care costs. But it certainly increases Federal spending and increases the role and the size of government at a time when most Americans are saying we want the government reined in. We want less government. We want the government to start living within its means. Instead, we have increased and expanded the size of government dramatically.

How about the issue of debt? A lot has been made by our colleagues on the other side that if we were to repeal this, it is going to add to the deficit. Let's go back to the reason why they can make that argument. The reason they can make that argument is because of all the gimmicks, all the phony accounting that was included when this bill was passed in the first place.

We have all referenced and talked about the double counting of Medicare savings, to the tune of about $400 billion, new payroll taxes, savings that are supposed to be achieved by reductions in Medicare spending double counted, counted both as a ``paid for,'' an offset to pay for the new health care entitlement program, and as a credit to the Medicare trust fund. You cannot double count. You cannot score these things in a way that dips into the same revenues twice. That was one of the great ironies of this legislation, when it was being debated here, that issue did not become more fully discussed, the way this thing was accounted for and the way in which the trust funds were credited with saving or extending the lifespan of Medicare at the same time the same dollars were being used to pay for this new health care entitlement. You cannot spend the same money twice and that is exactly what happened.

The American people get that. I cannot feature any other place in America where you could get away with what happened here during the health care debate. So you had the $400 billion--$398 billion, to be exact--that was double counted on Medicare. You also had $29 billion in Social Security revenues that was double counted as well. The Social Security trust fund was credited with $29 billion at the same time the revenue that was coming in from higher Social Security payroll taxes because some changes that were made in the legislation were counted to pay for the new health care entitlement. So you had Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes that were double counted, that were essentially scored twice, to credit the Social Security trust fund and the Medicare trust fund, at the same time they were being used to finance the new health care entitlement.

Add in the $70 billion that was listed as revenues to pay for this from yet another new entitlement program called the CLASS Act, which is a long-term care entitlement program. As was described by my colleague from Wyoming, even the Senate Budget Committee chairman, the Senator from North Dakota, described the CLASS Act as a Ponzi scheme of the highest order, something Bernie Madoff would be proud of. Yet $70 billion was scored as being a revenue raiser to pay for the new health care entitlement program, knowing that full well, at some point in the future, the people who paid premiums into this new program were going to demand some sort of payment when it came time to stake a claim against that, against that trust fund, those benefits were going to have to be paid out. So in the outyears it dramatically expands and explodes the deficit, even though in the near term it was counted as revenue that was used to shield the true cost of the health care bill.

If you add in the cost of implementation, which turned out to be $115 billion, something that was not discussed nor included in the debate nor was it included in the initial CBO score, you have about a $208 billion cost to do the doctors fix, to take care of the physician fee issue, which will be coming to us, which was left out of this bill to understate the true cost of this bill to put it into balance, my point simply is, by any objective measure, if you look at the games that were played, the gimmicks that were used, the phony accounting that was used to claim that somehow this was going to be a positive impact on the deficit, it does not pass the smell test. No rational American would look at this and say this makes any sense at all.

In fact, if you add up everything I just said, if you take all these accounting gimmicks, all the phony accounting that was used, and you offset that against what is claimed as a budget savings, you actually get not a $143 billion savings, you get about a $700 billion deficit. That is what we would be looking at over the 10 years.

Remember also that you have the 6 years of spending in this bill in the first 10-year window, which is what the CBO used to score this, and about 10 years of revenues. So the tax increases start right away, the revenues are counted immediately, but the spending doesn't come until later. You front-load the revenue, you back-end load the spending in that decade and try to claim that somehow this thing balances out. Again, the American people see through this. They get it, which is why they have taken the position they have on the health care bill in the first place. On the test of debt, on the test of how does this impact the deficit, how does this impact America's long-term fiscal standing, this bill is a failure.

One other point I would like to make--I wanted to come back to it earlier--I think a lot of Americans were hoping that when Congress took on this issue of health care, it actually would be with an eye toward reducing the cost of health care insurance premiums for most Americans. What we are seeing is the contrary. Actually, what we predicted would happen is coming true. Many of us who were involved in that debate said, at the time, this was going to lead to higher health care costs for most Americans, and it is actually true. Actually, the CBO said the same thing. They said the individual health insurance premiums would increase by about $2,100 per family as a result of the new law and that some consumers would face total premium increases of more than 20 percent. Those are things we are seeing come to fruition now. A lot of people are seeing their health insurance premiums go up. That is a fact. It is a reality. It is a complete contradiction of what was promised when this bill was being debated.

You have not only higher taxes on small businesses that are costing us jobs, that are destroying jobs, you have this massive expansion of spending, you have the debt and the deficit which, in the outyears, are going to explode because of all these accounting gimmicks, and then when all is said and done, you still have not done anything that lowers health care costs for most Americans. I believe, for most Americans, that is what they wanted to see come out of the health care debate in the Congress. They wanted to see reforms passed that put downward pressure on health care costs to them and their families rather than increase it. In fact, what we have seen is the opposite. It has not decreased cost; it has increased costs. I think we are going to continue to see costs go up because as these tax increases kick in, a lot of businesses around the country obviously are going to pass these costs on to the American consumer. So it fails the test of doing anything to lower costs for most Americans.

Finally, it is also now failing the legality test, as we are seeing these courts coming out and determining that this whole exercise was unconstitutional. That triggers a whole other debate in this country, a debate that I think we are going to watch probably for a while, but I hope, as this moves through the courts, it does engage the American public about what is the role of the government and how intrusive should it be and what kind of mandates can it impose on the American people. There was a very well-reasoned decision that came out of the Florida court yesterday which says this legislation is unconstitutional. Again, that makes the argument that many of us were making as this was being debated last year.

The bottom line is, we are in a position to do something about it. This is not the end. This should not be the end of the debate. We should look at this as an opportunity. If the amendment that was offered by the Senator from Kentucky, Mr. McConnell, actually were to pass and we were to repeal this, we could start over. We could go about this

in a way that actually does reform health care in this country in a way that lowers costs rather than raises costs for most Americans. I think that would be a welcome thing for the American people.

The other side is going to argue we do not need to do this. We do not need to repeal this. We just need to ``repair'' it. We can make these little modifications to it. But the fundamental fact is, this was a mistake in the first place and we should acknowledge it. I think, again, the fact that it passed last year on a total party-line vote, a total partisan vote--there was not a single Republican in the Senate who voted for this. Usually, when you are doing big, bold things, when you look historically in the country, it is done in a bipartisan way. It is done in a way that incorporates the best thoughts, best ideas, best inputs from both sides, and you generally get a bipartisan vote in support of something such as that. This was passed on a party-line vote. It is now facing a challenge--and I think a very direct challenge--in the courts, which is going to play out in the course of the next several months. But we in the Senate could do something by repealing this law and starting over and going about this the right way. That is not to say for a moment there are not issues that need to be addressed with regard to health care in this country. Many of them have been touched upon by speakers who have come down here before me. But there is a better way to do it. There is a way to do this that does not dramatically expand, increase the size of our Federal Government, that does not add and explode the debt in the outyears, that does not raise taxes on our small businesses when we are asking them to create jobs, that actually does lower the cost of health care insurance for most people in this country rather than increasing it and is done in a way consistent with what our Framers intended, in terms of the basic parameters that are allowed by our Constitution.

I hope the McConnell amendment will be voted on. I think it is important for all of us, obviously, to be on record. But I hope my colleagues on the other side may reconsider the position they took when this was voted last year and conclude with many of us that this was a failure and that starting over is the very best solution for the American people, if we are serious about giving them a health care system in this country that is affordable, that delivers the high quality they expect, and enables them to have the maximum amount of choice and decisionmaking authority when it comes to something that is so personal and so important to them; that is, their health.

I yield the remainder of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source