Small Business Additional Temporary Extension Act of 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I am glad I was on the floor to hear the distinguished Senator from Wyoming's comments about the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which is Washington, DC, gobbledegook, which translates into a rationing board which is going to limit seniors' access to care, as he so ably described. I appreciate him talking about that. It is a topic I will raise in a moment as part of my remarks. But I wish to express my appreciation to him for his remarks.

My larger concern is about our budget, the Federal budget. As one of our colleagues across the aisle told the media this week, he said he looks forward to voting on the Republican budget. That may seem a little odd because this is the Senate and, actually, the Senate does not have a budget. The Budget Committee on which I serve has not met to consider a proposal by the chairman of the Budget Committee and we have not had a chance to offer amendments to vote on it and then for it to come to the Senate floor so we would have a Senate budget to vote on.

Of course, what he was talking about is, he is looking forward to voting on the House budget. But I would say the Senate has not considered a budget for 750-plus days. No family, no business, no one in America, certainly no State can operate in this sort of fiscally irresponsible manner, only the Federal Government.

Now where are we? We are spending 43 cents out of every $1 in borrowed money--borrowed from our kids and grandkids. The fact is, a newborn baby, born into this world today, inherits $46,000 in debt because we have not had the courage to meet this challenge as we must.

My colleague also said that is going to be one of the defining issues of 2012, which, by the way, is an election year. I guess what he means is, this is going to be an election issue. I think he is right but not for the reasons he suggested.

First, I wish to refresh everyone's memory. It was just in December of last year that the President's own bipartisan fiscal debt commission gave us a report, and truly a blueprint, for what I think would be a responsible start to dealing with this debt crisis we find ourselves confronted with.

That report--again a bipartisan report--proposed $4 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years. The report said: Federal health care spending represents our single largest fiscal challenge over the long run. As the baby boomers--people such as me and the Presiding Officer--retire and get older, health care costs will grow faster than the economy. Federal health care spending threatens to balloon.

As if on cue, the Medicare trustees issued a report just this last month with even a starker warning. Medicare's trust fund will be insolvent in 2024--about 13 years from now--and the gap between the promises Medicare has made to seniors and its funding--or ability to fund or pay for those services--is about $24 trillion. That is the so-called unfunded liability of Medicare.

Those estimates are, according to the Chief Actuary, an optimistic scenario, although it is hard to be optimistic about a $24 trillion unfunded liability. But we also know there have been other ominous warnings both here at home and around the world. The International Monetary Fund, in a working paper last month, noted our potential debt crisis.

The S&P rating agency downgraded its outlook for American debt--in other words, our ability to repay those bills--from stable to negative. PIMCO, the world's largest bondholder, no longer is purchasing American bonds, choosing to purchase other types of investment. That ought to be a warning to us.

If we needed any reminder, even the Chinese Communist Party has given an earful to visiting Senators about our debt, of which they happen to own about $1 trillion. But they are worried about the value of their own investment and, hence, as Admiral Mullen said, we ought to realize that because of that situation, debt is the single largest national security issue facing America today.

Despite these ominous warnings and even reports from the President's own fiscal commission and a bipartisan one at that, the majority--Senator Reid--our friends across the aisle, simply are not taking the fiscal situation seriously. In fact, the majority leader was quoted recently saying: It would be foolish, foolish for the leadership of the other party that controls the agenda on the floor and in committees, it would be foolish for them to propose a budget.

The White House has shown twice this year so far that it is not truly serious about fiscal discipline. In February, the President proposed a budget that completely ignored his own deficit commission. It had $8.7 trillion in new spending, $1.6 trillion in new taxes, and an additional $13 trillion in debt.

At the time the President released his proposed budget, there were a number of my colleagues who were very impressed by it. Some called it responsible, others credible, others said it was a balanced approach, a good blueprint, a step forward, a careful evaluation, a solid starting point, and many other compliments as well. President Obama was so pleased with his budget proposal that he called it ``our Sputnik moment.'' But, of course, we know his Sputnik failed to launch. None of my colleagues who heaped praise on the President's proposal were willing to pass a budget resolution or even take up one and have it be considered and voted on.

So President Obama tried again in another big speech in April, when he was finally brought, unwillingly, to the debate on our budget and on our debt crisis. In that speech at Georgetown in April, he called for higher taxes as well as automatic tax increases that would kick in if certain conditions were met. He called for deeper cuts in defense spending. He invented a new 12-year budget window to disguise the large deficits that would otherwise appear if it were the traditional 10-year budget window.

Then the President, I think beneath the dignity of his office, verbally abused the very people who had the courage to propose an alternative. Then, of course, we have heard the attacks he started, which have continued, the false attacks that Republicans want to ``end Medicare as we know it.'' Well, I will say Republicans do not want to end Medicare as we know it. That is an intentional falsehood. That is a lie. Republicans do not want to end Medicare as we know it. We are simply trying to inject some cold, hard reality, as observed by the President's own debt commission, by the Medicare trustees, and everyone else who has taken a responsible look at the problem.

What is that reality? Well, the reality is that Medicare as we know it will end unless we do something to fix it and to save it. My colleagues want to talk about ending Medicare as we know it. They have short memories because it was these very same colleagues who took $ 1/2 trillion out of Medicare to fund ObamaCare. They injected the rationing commission that my colleague from Wyoming just got through talking about and which I will mention again in a moment.

Many seniors found out, as a result of the health care bill that passed only along a party-line vote--only Democratic votes in the Senate--that many seniors have already lost their access to Medicare Advantage.

Other retirees are seeing that their former employers have canceled their health care plans and found themselves dropped into the Medicare system. It has never been explained to me how we can possibly cut $ 1/2 trillion out of Medicare which, as I said earlier, already has $24 trillion in unfunded liabilities. So we are exacerbating--we are making those liabilities worse, not better--to fund a new entitlement program.

I would ask: Who has changed Medicare? Who has made it impossible for us to continue, under the present course, to keep that promise to our seniors? Why is it so important that we work together to try to come up with a solution to fix it? Just when we think the debate could not stoop any lower and people could not act any more irresponsibly, we are confronted with political ads already about Republicans rolling a senior off a cliff in a wheelchair.

I know the American people are smart enough to figure that out. They realize this is just an attack ad, and they are smart enough to look at the substance. But what we need is a real debate and a discussion and try to work together to try to solve our problems, not just sort of ``gotcha'' politics, the sort of thing people have come to loathe about Congress and Washington, DC--not people working together to solve problems but people playing ``gotcha'' and focusing only on the next election, not on the next generation.

My colleague from Wyoming talked about the Independent Payment Advisory Board, and I realize that is a mouthful. But it is bureaucratese, Washington speak, for an unelected, unaccountable group of bureaucrats--15 of them--appointed who will actually have the job of cutting payments to doctors and hospitals, which will have the practical impact of limiting seniors' access to Medicare benefits.

What good is providing coverage to our seniors if they can't find a doctor or hospital to treat them?

Well, this is good old-fashioned--I should say bad old-fashioned--price controls, and they don't work. We have seen that already in Medicare. In my State of Texas alone, about a third of the doctors already limit their new Medicare patients, according to the Texas Medical Association. So if you live in the rural parts of the State, it is hard to find a doctor. We know the price controls of this rationing board will make this trend worse and accelerate it, leading to longer wait times and harder-to-access treatment.

If the board forces our seniors to wait longer for the life-saving treatments they need, does that change Medicare as we know it? Well, it surely changes Medicare as people have come to expect it and deserve it. Yet the President has done nothing but double down on this rationing board. You heard in the speech he made in April--the one I referred to a moment ago--at Georgetown. He said we are going to extract, in the first 10 years another $ 1/2 trillion in savings from Medicare, and in the second 10 years, another $1 trillion--$1.5 trillion sucked out of Medicare. I have to ask, what do you think that is going to do to people's access to a doctor and a hospital?

That is the President's framework. It is not a budget. It is not the numbers we are accustomed to considering and voting on, but that is his proposal. If the President's proposal to cut $1.5 trillion out of Medicare in the next 2 decades doesn't change Medicare as we know it, then I don't know what does.

We know the House of Representatives has labored mightily to produce a budget--the so-called Ryan plan. Many colleagues on the other side relish the fact that they have stood back and waited for House Republicans to act responsibly to try to wrestle with these problems and confront them, to tell the truth to the American people about the problem, and then they tried their dead level best to meet those challenges and deal with them like responsible adults. What did they get? A kick in the teeth--attack ads on TV.

Well, this will allow us, under the House proposal, to fix Medicare and to save it. Right now, it is on the road to bankruptcy and oblivion and, for the reasons I have observed, and others, it will not work. There are some on our side of the aisle who may have some problems with the details of the proposed House budget. But the responsible answer to that is, let's take up and pass a budget in the Senate and give Senators on the Budget Committee an opportunity to offer amendments that would improve it, if they can, and then bring it to the Senate floor and do what we get paid for--take on these hard problems, confront them, debate them, and then make the best decisions we can on behalf of the people we work for in our States and across the country.

I think some elements of the House budget have an awful lot of appeal. In fact, we have seen, based on the experience with Medicare Part D, the prescription drug plan we passed earlier in the last decade, by injecting some market forces and competition and transparency, we can bring down prices and increase the quality of services. In fact, the Medicare prescription drug plan has come in 46 percent below what it was originally expected to cost. That is an example we can learn from and can begin to implement in trying to bring down costs and yet not ration access to care.

Indeed, the premium support model is advocated by many Democrats and Republicans and is similar to how the Federal Government provides health insurance for Federal employees, including Members of Congress. If it is good enough for Congress, why isn't it good enough to consider for American seniors? Do Republicans want to ``change Medicare as we know it''? We want to save it, we want to fix it, and we want it to be there as a promise that we can keep, as opposed to one we cannot keep, because it is on a path to bankruptcy and oblivion.

Our friends across the aisle say: No, trust us, we are from the government, we will fix it. The way they want to do it is with Draconian cuts to doctors and hospitals that will limit people's access to health care. We believe the transparency and choice and competition that has worked in Medicare Advantage and the prescription drug program can work here as well. If people disagree with me, I respect their right to do that. But why aren't we having a responsible debate on the floor and voting on a budget, as opposed to the irresponsible rhetoric, attack ads, and the campaign already begun for 2012? I am talking about from the White House to the Congress.

I think some of my colleagues firmly believe in their heart of hearts--they have been listening to political consultants, and they say the way to win the next election is to scare the living daylights out of our seniors. I think that is irresponsible. People should resist the temptation to do that to win an election and keep their job. Indeed, I find myself in agreement with some of the comments made by President Obama himself last summer. He said:

We're not going to be able to do anything about any of these entitlements if what we do is characterized--whatever proposals are put out there--as the other party is being irresponsible; the other party is trying to hurt our seniors; or the other party is doing X, Y, Z.

I agree with that, but that is not what we are hearing across the aisle and on the airwaves of America. That was the President's message in 2010. It obviously has changed since 2012, since he began his own personal attack on the only responsible budget proposal that has been made in April.

Unfortunately, I think it is a prematurely begun election campaign for 2012. It is an abdication of our responsibility to engage in this sort of ``gotcha'' politics, without trying to take on and confront the problem. I don't think it is responsible to try to scare seniors for political points. But also I don't think Republicans should allow ourselves to be merely punching bags and let the other side negatively characterize our motives or the seriousness of the problem our country faces.

What we need is to resist the temptation to engage in this sort of gamesmanship and to try to do our dead level best to fulfill our oath and do our job as representatives of the American people. I think they would welcome that. But all we have seen so far is the attacks and the ``gotcha'' politics, which I think will do nothing but earn their contempt, and deservedly so. We can do better and we need to try.

I yield the floor.

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