FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the Senate floor today because, on Monday, President Obama introduced his new budget. What we saw in that budget is, for the most part, more of the same--more spending, more taxes, more borrowing. We see this budget from a President who doesn't seem to understand the gravity of the Nation's fiscal crisis.
When we start digging down into the budget the President proposed and look into the Internal Revenue Service component of that budget, what we see is the Internal Revenue Service is starting to focus in and audit ObamaCare. There is a glaring difference in the budget this year from previous years because of the President's new health spending law. The IRS now has unprecedented power over health care in America.
In fact, when we take a look at this budget, and specifically the Internal Revenue Service's fiscal year 2012 budget request, over 250 times the Affordable Care Act--known in the budget as the ACA but known by people all across the country as ObamaCare--is mentioned. Over 250 times.
To me, the goal of the health care law has been to let people all across this country get the care they need from the doctors they want at a price they can afford.
As a member of my party, looking at our economy, looking at the deficit, looking at the incredible debt, what I think we need to do is make it cheaper and easier to create private sector jobs in this country. That is the way we get the economy going again. But when I read this budget, and specifically IRS requests, it seems to me it is making it harder and more expensive to create private sector jobs in our country.
The people of this country are not taxed too little. The problem is that the government spends too much. When I take a look at this budget, that is exactly what I see being rejected by this administration because it seems this administration is more interested in taxing, in raising taxes, rather than cutting spending.
When you take a look at what the IRS says in the budget, it says:
The implementation of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 presents a major challenge to the Internal Revenue Service.
This is the IRS talking about the law that was crammed down the throats of the American people in the middle of the night, written behind closed doors. We are all familiar with it. Now it is presenting a major challenge to the Internal Revenue Service.
The Internal Revenue Service goes on to say:
This law represents the largest set of tax law changes in more than 20 years, with more than 40 provisions that amend the tax laws.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that the budget gives the IRS the ability to hire 5,000 new workers. After taking a close look at the IRS's plans, we know they will have to hire over 1,000 new IRS bureaucrats, Washington bureaucrats, to implement ObamaCare measures. What are some of those that we are now going to have IRS agents coming and looking into? One is the tanning tax, the component that promotes compliance with the new excise tax on tanning facilities. The IRS is requesting another $1.5 million and requesting 81 more full-time equivalents to go ahead and implement this tanning tax. For oversight--they call it ``strengthen oversight of exempt hospitals.'' These are tax-exempt hospitals, hospitals that do not pay taxes, but to do an oversight of these hospitals, they want another $9.9 million and another 84 full-time employees. For the new health coverage information reporting, they want $34 million and 100 full-time employees. For something I call ObamaCare 101--assisting taxpayers in understanding the new provisions--the IRS is requesting $22.2 million and hiring another 150 full-time equivalents. And then, of course, for the call centers, IRS call centers--so if someone has a question, they can call and ask a question--they want another $15 million because of the complexity of this new health care law that is going to be difficult for people to understand.
The American people and small business owners--and those are the job creators of this country--want the IRS to make their lives easier, not tougher, not audit their health care choices and health care decisions. But adding hundreds of new jobs and millions of new dollars to the IRS is not going to make health care better. It is not going to make care more available for anyone.
I am going to continue to come to the floor with a doctor's second opinion to fight to repeal and replace this health care law and to do it with patient-centered reforms that help the private sector, not the IRS, create more jobs.
This morning, we had a little event called Wyoming Wednesdays where people from Wyoming who are here come together in Senator Enzi's office, and we have coffee and doughnuts and visit.
One of the people here from Wyoming said: I saw a sign that was worrisome.
I said: What is the sign?
He said that this location where they are putting in offices used to be a parking lot. When you are replacing a parking lot with more offices for more Washington bureaucrats, that is not a good sign for the rest of America.
Here we have the IRS saying they are dealing with a major challenge because of the health care law. It represents the largest tax law change in more than 20 years. More than 40 provisions are being amended in the tax law to go after things. They want this kind of money to implement the tax changes with regard to the indoor tanning services--81 new full-time equivalents--and they say what is involved in this. The IRS says there are as many as 25,000 businesses that provide indoor tanning services they are now going to tax, including about 10,000 businesses that offer tanning services along with other services such as spas, health clubs, and beauty salons.
We are here in the Senate, in Congress, with 9 percent unemployment in this country, with people looking for work, and more government jobs are being created, and these people are creating government jobs to make it harder on small businesses. It gets right to the crux of it right here because the IRS even says these entities, all these tanning entities, typically do not have experience filing Federal excise tax returns. So what is the government going to do? Come in, make them file claims and forms they do not have experience with. It is going to be costly; it is going to take time; it is going to increase taxes. That is not a way to create new jobs.
They want 10 million more dollars to strengthen oversight on tax-exempt hospitals. These are tax-exempt hospitals. Why are the American taxpayers being asked to pay another $10 million to hire 84 full-time equivalents to deal with tax-exempt hospitals? Because, according to the law that was crammed down the throats of the American people, the IRS is now required to review at least every 3 years the benefit activities of tax-exempt hospital organizations, which number about 5,100 in this country. They actually say in the budget request by the IRS, as part of the President's budget that was submitted on Monday:
These are new requirements for tax-exempt hospitals which include a majority of hospitals in the United States.
We are going to increase taxpayer dollars going for more IRS auditors and make it harder and more burdensome on the tax-exempt hospitals in terms of paperwork and what they need to do.
It goes on and on. That is why the American people are fed up with what is happening in Washington.
Let's talk a little bit about the CLASS Act because there is a whole component of the budget wanting 30 staff members added to the health department office overseeing implementation of what is called the CLASS Act. That stands for community living assistance services and supports.
The President's own debt commission--remember, the President appointed this commission about a year ago to say: Let's look into the debt. People thought that was a bold move, a bipartisan move, a lot of people coming together to take a look at this debt. For a year, the President said: We have a debt commission looking into this, so he did not deal with the debt. Now that the debt commission came out with its report in December, the President has mostly ignored it. Yet the debt commission--it was bipartisan, chaired by Erskine Bowles, a former Chief of Staff of the White House for Bill Clinton, and Al Simpson, a former Senator from my State of Wyoming--came out, took a look at the health care law, and specifically honed in on this CLASS Act.
One of the Members of this Senate, a colleague on the opposite side of the aisle, someone who voted for the health care law, called it a Ponzi scheme that Bernie Madoff would be proud of.
The President's budget commission, the bipartisan budget commission, looked at it, and they have significant concerns about the sustainability of the program and called for the program to either be repealed or reformed because it is not sustainable. They have raised concerns. People on both sides of the aisle have raised concerns. Yet the Secretary of Health and Human Services has, in her budget, money for
30 additional staff members added to the health department offices. Why? To go over the details of this act that people say ought to be repealed because, as it says, the details of the CLASS Act--they want to spend $93.5 million informing and educating people about the CLASS Act. I can tell them right now it is unsustainable, it is irresponsible, and it is something that should be repealed. Yet the Department of Health and Human Services wants to spend over $93 million of taxpayer money to inform and educate the public about this component of the health care law that people on both sides of the aisle think needs to go away.
Finally, as someone who believes this health care law is bad for patients, bad for providers--the nurses and doctors who take care of those patients--and bad for the taxpayers--what we saw in the President's budget that came out Monday, coming out for next year, is it is asking for over 1,000 new IRS agents to go ahead and implement the various components and responsibilities that have been put on their heads by this health care law. This is only the beginning. The entire health care law does not really come fully into play until 2014. That is when Americans are going to have more IRS agents, more money being spent looking into their own personal lives, looking into what kind of insurance they have.
Is it acceptable to the government? Is it government approved? That is why Senator Graham and I have introduced legislation called the State Health Care Choice Act, to let States decide. Let States decide if Washington ought to be telling the people in their States that they must buy, that every individual must buy government-approved insurance. Let the States make that decision. Let the States opt out if they would like. Let the States decide if all the businesses in their States must provide government-approved insurance to their workers. Let the States decide as to Medicaid, a program for low-income Americans which is being expanded significantly by cramming 16 million more Americans into Medicaid. Governors all across the country in a bipartisan way are saying: Our States cannot afford this.
A New York Times story shows Jerry Brown from California and Andrew Cuomo from New York complaining about the mandates Medicaid is putting on their States, the additional burdens in terms of taxes and the mandates and what it is going to do to the people of the State who are trying to educate their kids and the cost and the pressure on education dollars because they are getting shifted to Medicaid, the cost of dollars shifted away from public safety, from firefighters, police officers, other public safety officers. As to this health care law, I think people at the State level ought to decide that, no, we don't want this to apply to us.
That is why I come today, again as a physician who practiced medicine in Wyoming for a quarter of a century, took care of thousands and thousands of patients and families, trying to help people get better, all in a way that now I think is being taken in the wrong direction by this health care law, and why I think we want to continue to look for ways to make sure people get the care they want from the doctors they need at a price they can afford. The health care law that was passed by this body fails in all of those respects, and now we see, with the President's budget, a request for money for another thousand IRS agents, not to help people get better, not to help people get the care they need from a doctor they want at a cost they can afford--no, not at all--but to audit the health care of the American people.
I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source