[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 16 (Thursday, February 3, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S538-S540]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            VOTE EXPLANATION

  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I was unable to vote today because of a 
family emergency. I want to be clear that if I were present in the 
Chamber, I would have voted in favor of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse's 
amendment No. 8 to provide penalties for pointing laser pointers at 
airplanes. Instances of this dangerous practice doubled last year, and 
I believe we need to take the strong actions necessary to protect our 
flight crews and the flying public from dangers such as this.
  I also would have voted in support of the motion to table Senator 
Rand Paul's amendment No. 19 to prohibit any funds made available by 
the FAA Reauthorization Act to be used to administer or enforce wage-
rate requirements with respect to any project or program funded under 
the bill. I will continue to work with my colleagues on both sides of 
the aisle to protect American workers, especially in these tough 
economic times.

[[Page S539]]

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President. I am in strong support of Senator 
Levin's effort to repeal the enhanced tax form 1099 reporting 
requirements enacted in the Patient Protection and Affordable Health 
Care Act. Since passage of the bill, I have heard from hundreds of 
Rhode Island small business owners about the paperwork and record-
keeping costs of complying with the new 1099 standards. The provision, 
which was intended to cut down on fraud and generate revenue, has 
simply proven too burdensome on small businesses. I support the repeal 
of the new 1099 provision and am pleased to have voted in favor of the 
Levin amendment which would do so.
  While I support the Levin approach to repealing the 1099 provision, I 
cannot lend my support to Senator Stabenow's amendment which would pay 
for the repeal by rescinding $44 billion in appropriated funds. The 
rescission could endanger priorities for Rhode Island like funds 
appropriated for water infrastructure, housing assistance, and to help 
Rhode Island recover from the historic floods of March 2010. Senator 
Reed and I fought hard to bring Federal help to Rhode Islanders 
struggling to rebuild after the worst flood in 200 years, and I simply 
am not willing jeopardize that relief.
  Once again, I fully support the repeal of the enhanced 1099 reporting 
requirements, and I hope we can pass a measure to do that without 
endangering funding for critical programs like flood recovery.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I support Senator McConnell's effort to 
fully repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Act. I opposed the 
final passage of this new law because it was the product of a seriously 
flawed process that was rushed on a host of artificial timelines 
resulting in fundamentally defective policy that did not resolve the 
issue of affordability of health care in Maine and across the country. 
In addition, the preponderance of the beneficial reforms and subsidies 
do not kick in until 2014, so between now and then most Mainers will 
continue to experience what they know all too well--a continuation of 
premiums that have skyrocketed by 426 percent over the past decade and 
diminishing competition and plan choices in our markets.
  Regrettably, what the Democratic majority rushed through the Senate 
floor last Congress was a 2,740-page bill, which we were forced to 
complete by Christmas day after a mere 21 days on the floor. As the 
result of this massive bill, we have a bloated and overextended new law 
that dramatically augments the reach of the Federal Government in 
health care. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the new health 
reform law mandates 41 separate rulemakings, at least 100 additional 
regulatory guidance documents, and 129 reports. In addition, the new 
law is paid for with a job-killing $210 billion increase in Medicare 
taxes on businesses and an estimated $500 billion overall increase in 
taxes at this time of economic peril.
  I happen to believe the details matter of what we do here in 
Congress. And I also believe the American people would agree. It is not 
irrational for them to expect that we actually know what is in this 
bill, how it will work, and whether we can reasonably expect it to be 
effective and bring down costs for the American people. And there is 
mounting evidence that it will not, as a recent study projects an 8.8-
percent premium increase for employer-sponsored coverage in 2011--up 
from 6.9 percent in 2010 and 6 percent in 2009--and out-of-pocket 
premium costs for employees will rise 12.4 percent next year.
  During consideration of the health reform bill, I had serious 
concerns about affordability--and whether an affordable coverage option 
would be available to all Americans in the private insurance market. 
That is why I requested an analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional 
Budget Office, CBO, back in December 2009, with a State-specific 
analysis of premium affordability, but regrettably a complete analysis 
was never provided.
  So I support efforts to fully repeal of the health care reform law. 
And because the majority has endorsed once again their misguided health 
law by defeating today's full repeal vote, I will also support targeted 
efforts to repeal other provisions--starting with the onerous 1099 
mandate that we have just repealed that would have required millions of 
businesses to send billions of new information reporting forms to the 
IRS and other businesses. I want to commend Senator Johanns for his 
recognition of this onerous burden and his tireless efforts to repeal 
it. Since last summer he has done a yeoman's job of leading on this 
issue.
  If this amendment was not adopted here in the Senate, every business 
in America, starting in 2012, must report to the IRS on business 
purchases that exceed a threshold of only $600 per vendor or supplier--
for purchases of supplies and equipment and also services ranging from 
cell phone coverage to window washing to utilities.
  This new mandate was imposed in the health reform law, yet it had 
absolutely nothing to do with health insurance reform. What it does is 
make the Federal Government a more intrusive and burdensome presence in 
every aspect of American business--which is the very last thing 
American business needs during these tumultuous economic times. What 
small firms are clamoring for is certainty and relief from these 
extreme regulatory nuisances. They need the Federal Government to help 
foster an entrepreneurial environment under which they can do what they 
do best--create new jobs--and not saddle them with an incessant and 
unnecessary paperwork burden such as this new 1099 filing requirement.
  Missing from the amendment we just passed is the fact that rental 
real estate would still be subject to this 1099 reporting requirement. 
Rental real estate was added to this paperwork morass as part of the 
Small Business Jobs Act last year at a time when the 1099 reporting 
quagmire was already known. Yet, remarkably, the majority forged ahead 
regardless and inexplicably expanded rather fixing this problem. For 
those parts of the country that have tourism as an economic foundation, 
rental real estate is a major factor, and for Maine, for which the 
State motto is ``Vacationland'' this is a major problem--and it is 
something we need to repeal this year.
  We also need to strike the employer mandate from the bill, which is 
something of critical importance to me as ranking member of the Senate 
Small Business Committee. Under the new law, starting in 2014, firms 
with more than 50 workers would have to pay $2,000 per employee with 
just the first 30 employees exempted. And if that is not enough, part-
time workers will be counted in determining if the mandate would apply. 
That means countless more middle-sized firms such as restaurants and 
retailers would be subject to the mandate, which will raise $52 billion 
in revenue.
  Mr. President, exactly how is this going to help our Nation's 
greatest job generators--our small businesses--to lead us out of this 
recession, especially since we are also now going to hit them with 
increased Medicare taxes? And that is another tax increase we must 
repeal. That is right--starting in 2013, the new law includes $87 
billion in Medicare taxes that disproportionally harm small businesses 
because they apply to the income those businesses would normally 
reinvest. Plain and simple, this 0.9 percentage point increase in 
Medicare HI payroll taxes, coupled with a 3.8-percent Medicare tax that 
is unprecedented because it will imposing a payroll tax on investment 
income, will result in a grand total of $210 billion in new Medicare 
taxes--a job killer as it essentially takes away capital from the very 
small business owners who are the most likely to employ between 20 and 
250 employees.
  Furthermore, I am deeply troubled by the manner in which the Medicare 
tax increases in this bill are to be utilized. According to CBO--and 
these are their exact words--``To describe the full amount of HI trust 
fund savings as both improving the government's ability to pay future 
Medicare benefits and financing new spending outside of Medicare would 
essentially double count a large share of those savings and thus 
overstate the improvement in the government's fiscal position.''
  Speaking of double counting, we need to repeal the so-called CLASS 
Act. Now, while proponents point to estimates that this provision would 
raise $72 billion over the first 10 years, that savings only occurs as 
a result of a fiscal shell game of using funds promised to 
beneficiaries later to lower the deficit today. As CBO says, ``The 
program

[[Page S540]]

would pay out far less in benefits than it would receive in premiums 
over the 10-year budget window,'' raising $70 billion in premiums that 
will fund benefits outside the window. As a result, CBO further 
concluded that ``in the decade following 2029, the CLASS program would 
begin to increase the deficit.'' Again, this is exactly the wrong 
direction for America.
  We also need to repeal the administration's ``grandfathering'' 
regulations. Not even a year after the administration promised that if 
you like the coverage you have, you can keep it, we find out that 
buried in 121 pages of regulations, which resulted from just 2 pages of 
legislative text, I might add that, no, that is not exactly true--far 
from it. In fact, the administration itself projects that up to 69 
percent of all businesses and 80 percent of small businesses will not 
be able to retain the coverage they currently provide and will be 
forced to offer more costly coverage as opposed to hiring new workers 
and growing their businesses. So we must repeal these regulations this 
year.
  Finally, I also strongly oppose the individual mandate in the new 
law, which would require, starting in 2014, Americans to have maintain 
insurance coverage or be subject to a financial penalty that would 
ultimately be the greater of $695 per uninsured individual or 2.5 
percent of income. How can the Federal Government require its citizens 
to purchase health coverage without first guaranteeing that an 
affordable coverage option will be available to all Americans in the 
private insurance market?
  Numerous court challenges are underway questioning the 
constitutionality of the individual mandate. Last November, I joined 
with Republican Leader McConnell with 30 other GOP Senators to file a 
friend-of-the-court brief in the lawsuit in a Florida Federal court 
brought by the National Federation of Independent Business and now 26 
States, including Maine, and I am pleased that just this week, the 
Florida judge agreed with us and struck down not just the individual 
mandate but the entire bill.
  In its ruling, the court held that the ``individual mandate is 
outside Congress' Commerce Clause power'' and that it is not 
constitutional. The court concluded that the new law has ``450 separate 
pieces, but one essential piece (the individual mandate) is defective 
and must be removed. It cannot function as originally designed.'' In 
the courts view, and I agree, ``that the individual mandate and the 
remaining provisions are inextricably bound together in purpose and 
must stand or fall as a single unit.''
  So moving forward, with serious questions about the constitutionality 
and workability of this new law, a top priority this Congress must be 
to repeal the health reform bill and replace it with workable 
alternatives that would result in more competitive health insurance 
markets. That is why, first and foremost, we must expedite allowing 
individuals and small businesses to purchase health insurance across 
State lines, which, as I have long said, would interject unfettered 
competition and new coverage options into stagnant insurance markets 
like those in Maine, where we have just two carriers offering coverage 
in the individual insurance market. That is why in the Senate, I long 
championed association health plan, AHP, legislation--and developed 
regional compact proposals--that would have allowed small business and 
the self-employed to band together, across State lines, to secure 
quality coverage made affordable through administrative cost savings 
and greater bargaining power.
  We must also develop a plan for affordability by maintaining certain 
widely agreed upon elements of reform, such as outlawing unconscionable 
insurance industry practices, banning preexisting condition 
limitations, and allowing parents to keep children on plans until age 
26.

                          ____________________