Imposing a Minimum Effective Tax Rate for High-Income Taxpayers--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Well, I would say to my colleague from Arizona, he always has a way with words when it comes to describing the strange meanderings of the process here in Washington, but it is.

Unfortunately, all those groups that had access to the process in the end all got sort of kowtowed into going along with it and now they are all being hit with this huge tax bill, because everybody is getting taxed to pay for this. All of it is being passed on, I might add, to businesses in this country, driving up their costs.

But the one thing everyone here this morning has mentioned is who didn't have a seat at the table, and that is the States. Think about the States and what this means for them. Of course, in the first 3 years, the Federal Government said it was going to pay 100 percent of the new population to be covered under Medicaid. But if you look at what happens after that, the States then are starting to have to share or bear more of the burden and be forced to pay at least another $118 billion, according to one congressional report, through the year 2023, which crowds out priorities such as education, law enforcement, and all the things we expect our States to do.

So the States get all these mandates shoved down their throats, making it more difficult for them to bear the responsibilities they have to the people in their individual States because the Federal Government has not only said they are going to have to pay for this, but they have also become very prescriptive about what they can and cannot do. So States are no longer going to have--and frankly, even in the past, haven't had--a lot of flexibility when it comes to setting eligibility standards and determining who can and cannot be covered by Medicaid in their individual States. They just get the costs shoved down their throats, with very little input into how to implement this program, so much so that Governors all over the country are reacting to this, and that is why we have 26 Governors who are part of the litigation that is going on right now at the Supreme Court to challenge the mandate on Medicaid, which will be heard today by the Court.

But listen to what some of the Governors around the country have said--and these are Democratic Governors. This is the Democratic Governor of Kentucky:

I have no idea how we're going to pay for it.

And, of course, he is referring to these new mandates, regulations.

The former Governor of Tennessee said:

I can't think of a worse time for this bill to be coming. Nobody is going to put their State in bankruptcy or their education system in the tank for it.

The Governor of Montana said:

I'm going to have to double my patient load and run the risk of bankrupting Montana.

Those are Democratic Governors reacting to this new mandate that is being shoved down their throat because of

the changes that were made to Medicaid in the health care bill. So I think the States, unfortunately, did not have a seat at the table. If they did, they certainly didn't get their voices heard because they are going to be forced now, and people, individuals in these States, to come up with the billions and billions of additional dollars to pay to finance the new mandates in the legislation.

I want to make one other point, because there has been a lot said here on the floor of the Senate, and by people in general in Congress, about the importance of focusing like a laser on jobs and the economy. Frankly, I think there are some things that actually have been done around here. Last week, we finally passed a jobs bill, a private sector jobs bill, that would create jobs, and hopefully make it easier for our small businesses to access capital to grow their businesses and create jobs. But the health care bill, clearly, is going to have the opposite effect.

Interestingly enough, when it passed, there were lots of statements made at the time about how many jobs it was going to create. In fact, if you go back, the former Speaker of the House said it would create 4 million jobs--400,000 jobs almost immediately. That was former Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Interestingly enough, that contradicts what the Congressional Budget Office Director said. He testified the new law would actually reduce employment over the next decade by 800,000 jobs. And analysts at UBS stated the law is ``arguably the biggest impediment to hiring, particularly hiring of less skilled workers.''

So what we are seeing again is a promise made about creating jobs and the very opposite is what we are going to see.

There was a Gallup poll recently that found 48 percent of small businesses in this country are not hiring because of the potential cost of health insurance under the health care law; 46 percent are not hiring because of concerns over other government regulations. But if you look at the impact this legislation is having on hiring in America today, what we are hearing from the people who hire--the job creators out there and the small businesses--this is a huge impediment to hiring.

The device manufacturer Stryker announced they are shedding 5 percent of their workforce over concerns about the impending 2.3 percent medical device tax which was included in the health care law. There is another employer here, somebody who owns a restaurant chain, who stated bluntly, ``This law will cost my company more than we make.''

Another employer in this country said this: ``The new health care law has wrecked our plans to grow our business and create jobs.''

That is exactly the thing many of us predicted would happen, notwithstanding the assertions made by the proponents of this legislation--that it was going to create jobs. We see the very opposite happening. We see our small businesses pulling back, not hiring, not growing their businesses because of the concerns about the costs and the penalties that would be imposed and the taxes that are included in the health care law.

I know my colleague from Wyoming represents a lot of small businesses, as I do. South Dakota and Wyoming are similar in terms of the size of the States and the way people make their living. We have a lot of small businesses and entrepreneurs, and we look to them to grow the economy in our States. Obviously, it becomes much more difficult when you continue to drive and shove these mandates, these requirements, down the throats of our small businesses, these new taxes they are going to have to bear. And the list of new taxes that are going to imposed under this is pretty amazing. It adds up to--and this is just over the cost of the first decade--$552 billion; when it is fully implemented, $1 trillion of tax increases, all of which get passed on in the form of higher costs of health insurance and other costs around the economy.

My point is simply that if we are sincere in being focused on creating jobs in this country, perhaps the biggest impediment, the biggest barrier to that now is the ObamaCare law that is currently being heard by the Supreme Court.

I guess I would ask my colleague from Wyoming to comment on his view with regard to some of these promises that were made regarding this legislation and how actually the bill is now playing out, as we get to know more about it. That is what the former Speaker of the House also said: We have to get this bill passed to find out what is in it. The American people are finding out what is in it and are becoming increasingly convinced this was the wrong direction to go. I assume that is a view shared by the majority of people in Wyoming.

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