[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 103 (Wednesday, July 11, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4835-S4884]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SMALL BUSINESS JOBS AND TAX RELIEF ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED
Mr. REID. Madam President, what is the matter now before the Senate?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The motion to proceed to S. 2237.
Schedule
Mr. REID. Madam President, the next hour will be equally divided
between the two leaders or their designees. The Republicans will
control the first half, the majority will control the final half.
We are hopeful we will be able to agree to the motion to proceed to
S. 2237, the Small Business Jobs and Tax Relief Act, today.
Measure Placed on the Calendar--S. 3369
Mr. REID. Madam President, I am told that S. 3369 is at the desk and
due for a second reading.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the bill by
title for the second time.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 3369) to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act
of 1971 to provide for additional disclosure requirements for
corporations, labor organizations, super PACs, and other
entities, and for other purposes.
Mr. REID. I object to any further proceedings with respect to this
bill at this time.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard. The bill will
be placed on the calendar.
Tax Cuts
Mr. REID. Madam President, over the last few years Americans who are
very wealthy have taken home a greater share of the Nation's income
since the 1920s. That is 90 years. A larger percentage of what is out
there the rich are getting. The rich are getting richer and the poor
are being squeezed, as are the middle class. The rich are doing well.
But while the bank accounts of a few fortunate Americans have grown,
their tax bills have not. The wealthiest Americans now pay the lowest
tax rates in more than 50 years.
While this generous Tax Code has been good for their bottom lines, it
hasn't been good for America's bottom line. Hundreds of billions of
dollars in tax cuts--some say more than $1 trillion--have been handed
out disproportionately to the rich by the previous administration,
fueling skyrocketing deficits and a growing national debt.
Democrats and Republicans alike agree that we have to reduce the
deficit and rein in the debt. Unfortunately, the same Republicans who
say we have to get our fiscal house in order also claim millionaires
and billionaires cannot afford to contribute even a tiny bit more and
share the effort that is before this country.
These same Republicans say multimillionaires such as Mitt Romney need
lower taxes--even lower than the only tax return we have been able to
see of Governor Romney, which showed his rate at 16 percent. We don't
know what is in the other tax returns he should have made public. Tax
returns were made public by his father, who started it, and everyone
who has run for President since then has followed him. George Romney
set an example that his son should follow. We want to know what is in
those tax returns he refuses to show the American public. Did he pay
any taxes?
Well, I suggest to everybody that Mitt Romney doesn't need another
tax
[[Page S4836]]
break. In fact, he has so much money that he doesn't even know where it
is all located--Switzerland, Cayman Islands, Bermuda? No wonder he
doesn't want America to see his tax returns.
Mitt Romney is doing fine, and so are the other millionaires and
billionaires. It is the middle class I am worried about, not the very
wealthy.
We all know times have been tough the last few years for ordinary
Americans who are struggling to keep a roof over their head and food on
the table. That is the literal truth. The last thing they can afford
now is a tax increase. That is why Democrats want to keep taxes low for
98 percent of Americans, including almost 98 percent of small
businesses--everyone making less than $250,000 a year. But while
Democrats are focused on how we can help 98 percent of Americans,
Republicans are focused on how they can help Mitt Romney and the rest
of the top 2 percent. They are willing to hold tax cuts for everyone
hostage to protect tax breaks for that top 2 percent.
Democrats don't agree the top 2 percent of wage earners can't afford
to pay the same tax rate they paid when Bill Clinton was President.
Remember, that was when the budget was balanced and we were paying down
the debt. Some claimed they were paying down the debt too quickly. The
years of the Bush administration took care of that, when the $7
trillion surplus over 10 years was wiped out.
Still we are willing to debate that with our Republican colleagues,
and we are willing to discuss it reasonably. But we don't believe
middle-class families should wait and wonder, watch and worry whether
their taxes are about to go up while Congress has that conversation. We
should not wait until the last second to act.
Here is what one major newspaper wrote yesterday about the need to
act:
The majority of Americans, and the broader economy, should
not be held hostage again to another debate over the merits
of tax cuts for the wealthy. . . . There will never be
consensus for solving our nation's budget problems without
first ending the lavish tax breaks at the top.
I call on my Republican colleagues to help us give 98 percent of
American families the certainty and the security they need, and to do
it now, right away. I call on them to help us pass a tax cut that will
benefit the middle class without bankrupting our Nation.
It is time we faced facts. If we are serious about reducing the
deficit, we cannot keep handing out more tax breaks to the richest of
the rich. We will have to make difficult decisions about where to cut
and invest to keep our Nation strong.
But whether we keep taxes low for middle-class families should not be
one of the difficult decisions we make. I haven't heard one person--
Democrat, Republican, or Independent--say we should raise taxes on
middle-class families. This is an area where we can easily find common
ground. So what is stopping us from doing what is right and doing it
now? I hope it won't be more Republican hostage-taking on behalf of the
top 2 percent.
Recognition of the Minority Leader
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader is
recognized.
Raising Taxes
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, earlier this week President Obama
reiterated his desire to raise taxes on small businesses earning over
$250,000 a year. I and all of my Republican colleagues oppose this tax
hike for the same reason the President himself opposed it 2 years ago--
because raising taxes would only make a bad economy worse.
But here it comes again--sort of like a bad penny--the liberal
crusade for more government, regardless of the circumstances, the
impact it would have on working Americans or the broader economy.
On Monday the President issued the following reckless ultimatum: Let
me raise taxes on about 1 million business owners, and I promise I
won't raise taxes on everybody else.
In the face of 41 straight months of unemployment above 8 percent,
the President is begging Congress to let him raise taxes on the very
businesses the American people are counting on to create jobs.
It is the exact opposite, of course, of what is needed. For some
reason, he thinks a tax hike is his ticket to reelection. He says it is
fair.
Well, I don't think most Americans think it is particularly fair for
a government that doesn't do a thing to live within its means to take
more money away from those who have worked and sacrificed to earn it,
only to waste it on some solar company or on one more government
program we can't afford.
We have seen this movie too many times in the past. Frankly, we don't
have the luxury to waste any more time arguing about a question that is
already settled for most people. The problem here isn't that the
government taxes too little but that it spends too much.
What the American people need right now isn't a lecture on fairness;
they would like to have some certainty. That is why today I am going to
call on the Senate to provide just that. I have already called for a 1-
year extension of all the current income tax rates.
Today I will go further by asking consent that we set up two votes in
the Senate: one on the President's proposal to raise taxes on nearly 1
million business owners in the middle of the worst economic recovery in
modern times, and another that would extend current income tax rates
for 1 year and task the Finance Committee to produce a bill that would
enact fundamental, progrowth tax reform.
It has been over a quarter century since we last did comprehensive
tax reform. We all agree, on a bipartisan basis, that we need to do it
again.
The Senate should make itself clear which policy it supports, and
this is our chance to do it.
On Monday, the President said if the Senate passes this tax hike on
small businesses, he would sign it right away. That is what he said 2
days ago, on Monday. I can't see why our friends on the other side
would not want to give him the chance.
With that, I ask unanimous consent that at 2 p.m. today the motion to
proceed to S. 2237 be adopted, and that the first two amendments in
order to the bill be the Hatch-McConnell amendment No. 2491, which
would provide for the extension of current rates while we work on tax
reform, and a Reid or designee amendment to enact the President's
proposal, which, as I have said, would impose job-killing tax hikes on
nearly 1 million businessowners.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
Mr. REID. Madam President, reserving the right to object, we have
been here before. We try to legislate here, and the program of the
Republicans in the Senate has been to divert, deny, and obstruct.
I asked the Chair when we started what we were doing here, and we are
on a small business jobs bill. It is extremely important legislation.
It would give small businesses across America--small businesses with
less than 500 employees--and that is where most jobs are created--a 10-
percent tax credit for hiring more people, and it would also give them
the ability, this year, to purchase equipment and write that off. It
would be great for the economy.
We are told by outside experts that it would create about a million
jobs. What we have before us is something that the Republicans in the
House have sent us. It is their version of this. It is the ``help Paris
Hilton'' legislation. It would give people like her a tax break for
doing nothing--$46 billion of the American people's money to help Paris
Hilton and others. It would give people a tax break for doing nothing--
nothing. And for my friend the Republican leader to talk about small
businesses being hurt with the proposal of the President--that is not
true. As I said in my opening statement, 98 percent of the American
people would have the benefit of that tax benefit, and 97\1/2\ percent
of small businesses would benefit.
So we are in the situation where my friend talks about the fact that
we have not had enough job creation, and I acknowledge that. Certainly
that is true, and the President acknowledges that. But you see, we have
kind of a hole to pull ourselves out of. During the prior 8 years, 8
million-plus jobs were lost, and we have filled that hole more than
halfway, with 4\1/2\ million new jobs being created. We have had 28
months of private sector job growth--28 months in a row. So we are
making progress, but we have a long way to go.
Madam President, I object.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
[[Page S4837]]
The Republican leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. Let me simplify this for everybody. On Monday the
President asked that we have the vote I have just offered to the
majority. We have a clear contrast here. We have 41 straight months of
unemployment over 8 percent. If this is a recovery, it is the most
tepid recovery in modern times. The President's solution to that is to
raise taxes on about 1 million small business owners, representing
about 53 percent of small business income and up to 25 percent of the
workforce.
We are on a different bill that my friend the majority leader is
talking about, that I understand would be slipped by the House in any
event. Clearly, what we are doing this week is having a political
discussion, not seriously legislating. So my recommendation is that we
give the President what he asked for. He wants to have a vote on
raising taxes on individuals making over $250,000 a year, which, of
course, includes almost 1 million small businesses that pay taxes as
individuals, not as corporations--they are either S corps or LLCs--the
most successful small businesses in America, in fact. That is a vote we
welcome. It is a vote the President is asking for, and it is a vote I
just asked for.
Senator Hatch, our leader on the Finance Committee, here on the floor
right behind me today, has advocated that we extend the current tax
rates for 1 year--the same thing the President, I would say to my
friend from Utah, wanted to do 2 years ago, at that time arguing it
would be bad for the economy not to do that. And the growth then was
actually better than it is now. We think we ought to vote on that. It
would give Senator Hatch and Senator Baucus and the people on the
Finance Committee a year to work us through comprehensive tax reform.
Again, it has been a quarter of a century since we have done that.
Why not have those votes today? That is what my consent agreement is
about. I am a little surprised we are not willing to give the President
what he asked for, which is a vote on a clear distinction for the
American people so they can understand how the two sides look at this
important issue. It could not be more clear.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
Mr. REID. Madam President, the American people are seeing again--
again and again and again--the scores of times during the last 18
months that we have engaged in a filibuster. As I said earlier, it is a
way to divert attention from what we are doing today--to obstruct. As
is indicated in the Oxford English Dictionary, a filibuster is an act
which obstructs progress in a legislative assembly; to practice
obstruction. That is what is going on today.
Now, why shouldn't we pass this bill that is before the body today?
It would create 1 million jobs and give small businesses--not Paris
Hilton but small businesses--across America today a tax credit for
hiring more people and allow them to write off what they purchase,
which would create more jobs.
So we have here a big Las Vegas neon sign flashing on and off saying:
Grover Norquist has won again.
To the people out there watching who might be wondering who Grover
Norquist is, remember, he is this guy who goes to the Republicans and
asks if they would be kind enough to sign a pledge for him that does
what he wants them to do and not what the American people want, which
is that they will not tax the rich at all, not even a tiny bit. He
says: Sign this pledge, will you? Of course they all sign. But the
American people--Democrats, Independents, and Republicans--agree that
the richest of the rich should pay a little bit more.
But we are now involved in a filibuster to divert attention away from
an important piece of legislation. Let's pass this legislation. We will
have this tax debate. We will be happy to do that, but let's get this
done first. As most people know, I appreciate my friend the Republican
leader. I know he has a job to do. But let's get away from this pledge,
and let's start legislating and not have to break filibusters on
virtually everything we do.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I think we have witnessed here a new
definition of a filibuster. My good friend the majority leader, I
gather, is accusing me of filibustering when I am trying to get a
vote--not one but two votes--on what he says he is for, what the
President says he is for, and a vote on what Republicans are for. So we
have here a brandnew definition of a filibuster. Even when you are
trying to get votes and they are objected to by the other side, somehow
that is a filibuster.
Now, my good friend talks about what would help small businesses. I
think we ought to ask them would they prefer the underlying bill, which
the majority leader has called up and we have voted to proceed to, or
would they prefer not to have their taxes go up at the end of the year?
Talk about a no-brainer. I don't think there is any question what small
businesses would rather have.
But we are certainly not filibustering. We enjoy discussing our
differences of opinion on the tax issue. There couldn't be anything
more important to the American people if we are going to get this
economy going again. And certainly trying to set up two votes--No. 1 on
what the President is asking for and No. 2 on what Republicans think is
a better alternative--could not, in my view, be the definition of a
filibuster.
So Senator Hatch is here--and obviously the majority leader can speak
again if he wishes--and he is going to address the matter as well, but
I wish to thank him again for his conspicuous leadership on the Finance
Committee. We are looking to him to work us through this comprehensive
tax reform matter again next year. It is going to be extremely
important for the country, and I thank him for his good work.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
Mr. REID. Madam President, when I came here this morning--I repeat
for the third time--I asked what the business was before this body. It
is the small business jobs bill. Of course, there has been a direct
attack on that legislation by saying: Let's do something else. Let's
not do this right now. Let's do something else.
I understand the definition of a filibuster. I understand it very
clearly--from the Dutch, a ``free booter,'' one of a class of piratical
adventurers who pillaged the Spanish colonies in the West Indies during
the 17th century; one who engages in unauthorized and irregular warfare
against a foreign state. They go on to say, in the United States, to
obstruct progress in a legislative assembly; to practice
obstructionism.
Yes, they are trying to, as the ``free booters'' here, steal
legislation and move to something else. They will do anything they can,
as my friend the Republican leader said at the beginning of this
Congress, to divert attention from the fact that President Obama should
be reelected.
Madam President, I will end this debate soon. There will be other
times to do this. But if Governor Romney came before this body to be a
Cabinet officer, he couldn't get approved. He won't show anybody his
income tax returns. So if he doesn't qualify to be a Cabinet officer,
how could he qualify to be President? So let's debate the issues before
us. We will get to the tax issues, and that way we will be able to talk
in more detail about Governor Romney's taxes. But right now, before
this body is the small business jobs bill.
Reservation of Leader Time
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
leadership time is reserved.
Order of Business
Under the previous order, the following hour will be equally divided
and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the
Republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the
final half.
The Senator from Utah.
Tax Cuts
Mr. HATCH. Madam President, this is really an amazing moment, as far
as I can see. Sometimes, for those watching on C-SPAN, the Senate, with
its unique rulings, can seem like a pretty arcane place. The impact of
unanimous consent requests is not something ordinary folks talk about,
so let me put this in plain English.
The Senate's Republican leader has just made a remarkable offer to
our friends on the other side, the Democrats. We hear all the time from
the left that Republicans refuse to do anything in the Senate, which
certainly is
[[Page S4838]]
mind-boggling. Remember this episode the next time you hear that. My
friend and colleague, the Senator from Kentucky and the Republican
leader, Mitch McConnell, presented this body with an opportunity to
take a stand, to take a vote--two votes, as a matter of fact--to show
the American people our cards on the most important issue facing this
country: the coming fiscal cliff. In exchange for a vote on the
amendment I introduced to extend all of the 2001 and 2003 tax relief
for 1 year, the Republican leader agreed to a vote on the President's
counteroffer that would increase taxes on families and small
businesses. You heard that right. The Republican leader offered a vote
on President Obama's plan to raise taxes, and the Democratic leader
rejected this offer. That is mind-boggling to me. Senate Democratic
leadership turned down an opportunity to vote on President Obama's tax
increase bill--the bill he insists is the only acceptable way to
address the fiscal cliff.
After today, all of the President's surrogates, if they are honest,
will have to rewrite their talking points about the do-nothing
Republicans in the Senate. Senate Democratic leadership is effectively
filibustering--and that is the real use of the term--President Obama's
tax increase bill. Did everyone out there hear that? They are
filibustering their own bill by not agreeing to equivalent votes here.
So what does that tell us? Here is what it tells us. It tells us that
the President's tax increase plan is not just an economic disaster, it
is a political loser, and they know it. It tells us that in spite of
all the big talk from the President's Chicago reelection campaign about
evil Republicans who want to extend all of the 2001 and 2003 tax
relief, vulnerable Members of the Senate's Democratic conference do not
want to be anywhere near the President's tax increase alternative. To
borrow from the film ``Top Gun,'' the President's campaign is writing
checks that Senate Democrats can't cash or, as we westerners like to
say, the President is all hat and no cattle. He is tipping his tax
increase Stetson, but he doesn't have enough of a herd in the Senate to
follow him.
Keep in mind that the Democratic leadership is not just filibustering
the President's tax increase proposal, that leadership is also
filibustering my tax relief proposal as well. And I suspect they are
filibustering this amendment because they are afraid it would pass.
Forty Democrats in this Chamber supported the extension of the 2001 and
2003 tax relief in 2010--40 Democrats--and they would probably do so
again if they had a chance, so the Democratic leadership has decided to
deny them that chance.
The President is asking for compromise. Well, he is looking at it. As
the ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, I have deep
reservations about temporary tax policies. Temporary tax policy does
not provide the certainty to small businesses and families that is
necessary for long-term planning and investment. If a small business
does not know what its tax bill is going to be next year, it is not
going to be doing any hiring. We all understand that. So it is not
surprising to me, with next year's tax rates up in the air, that we
just saw the worst quarter of hiring in over 2 years.
But in the interest of preventing a tax increase that would further
hamper the economy, I am willing to set aside the virtue of permanency
for the time being.
My amendment would just extend the 2001 and 2003 tax relief for 1
year, and during that year we would work on doing what is right with
regard to tax reform.
The amendment I have filed with my friend, the Republican leader, is
in itself a compromise, but we have offered a further compromise. Fair
is fair. We have our proposal: We want to keep taxes low for all
Americans, particularly with our economy on the ropes. And the
President has his proposal: He wants to raise taxes on small
businesses, even as the prospects for economic growth and job creation
look increasingly bleak.
So let's have these votes. Let's get it on the record. Our
constituents sent us here to make hard choices. It is time to put our
money where our mouth is.
If the President and his party think it is morally reprehensible to
extend all of the 2001 and 2003 tax relief, then they should vote
against it. If they think raising taxes is the way to go, then vote for
the President's plan.
I wish I could say I was shocked, but this is just par for the
course. We have been watching this now for a couple of years.
I know the hand-wringing Washington pundits like to blame Republicans
for the lack of progress on the fiscal cliff, but this episode should
show, once and for all, what a fiction that is. Republicans are ready
to act. We are ready to vote. We can vote on my amendment to extend tax
relief to all Americans and on the President's proposal to deny that
tax relief to small businesses. We can do what our constituents sent us
here to do--we can vote and let the better plan win. But the Democratic
leadership, fearful of the embarrassing reality that their own
conference has serious reservations about the President's tax-hiking
agenda, is now filibustering their own bill, and they are now
filibustering President Obama's signature tax policy.
Those who continue to talk about the President's reelection prospects
in glowing terms need to reevaluate that fairly. President Obama thinks
the ticket to his reelection runs through tax hike valley. He is going
to succeed where Walter Mondale failed.
President Obama's signature economic policy is a promise to raise
taxes on job creators when we are facing the 40th straight month of
unemployment in excess of 8 percent. We don't need a sophisticated poll
to figure out how popular this policy is in swing States or with
Independents. Just look at what happened this morning. Republicans
offered a vote on the President's plan, and Democrats balked at the
opportunity.
Democrats are filibustering President Obama's signature domestic
policy--a bill to increase taxes--and they are doing so because many
members of their own conference know that a vote for these tax
increases would sink them back home. They know that.
This is a pathetic spectacle made even more so by the fact that time
is running short, the fiscal cliff is approaching, and families and
businesses need to know what their tax rates will be next year. To
date, the Senate's Democratic leadership has done absolutely nothing to
provide that certainty. It is disgraceful what we are witnessing this
morning. We need to put politics aside and have these votes.
I would renew the Republican leader's unanimous request and ask that
we immediately proceed to debate and votes on my amendment to extend
tax relief to all Americans and on the President's tax increase plan.
President Obama seems to think he has a winning issue. It might be good
for him, but delaying resolution of these tax rates is putting partisan
goals ahead of the common good. The American people deserve better than
this.
What is mind-boggling to me is for our leader to tie up the
parliamentary tree so no real amendments can be voted on. And we offer
him a vote on the President's proposal and he accuses us of
filibustering when he refuses to allow that vote? Before that we would
like to have a vote on our proposal for the 2001 and 2003 tax relief
that we know needs to be effectuated. Then what really boggled my mind
is when the leader talked in terms of the Republicans are
filibustering? Give me a break.
We have asked for two major votes: one on the President's own
proposal and the other on my proposal to extend those tax cuts for 1
more year, during which time both sides should come together, work
together, compromise together, and come up with a new reformed Tax Code
that doesn't continue to eat us alive.
I am absolutely amazed by what happened this morning.
With that, I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Indiana.
Mr. COATS. Madam President, I came down to the floor early to line up
in the queue to talk about taxes and the proposal that has just been
discussed.
I sat here in amazement as the Senator from Utah has just expressed,
and as the minority leader expressed the redefinition of
``filibuster.'' It was a tortured effort on the part of the majority
leader to try to redefine it in a way that had just the opposite effect
of what a filibuster really is.
[[Page S4839]]
I wish the majority leader had been at our caucus luncheon yesterday
when we debated whether we would vote against the cloture motion to
proceed on this bill. The consent of our caucus was, no; we welcome a
debate on taxes. We welcome the opportunity to move forward and discuss
our two visions of how we need to revive this economy.
So let's not use parliamentary tricks or a parliamentary procedure to
avoid that debate and to avoid a vote on the President's proposal. We
realized there was the opportunity for the majority leader to use
parliamentary tricks and procedures in order to deny us the opportunity
to offer our own version of what we thought we should do with our Tax
Code and provisions, particularly as it reflects this particular tax on
small business, but we welcome the opportunity to come and debate that
and work through it and, hopefully, make an offer that is acceptable.
So the minority leader came down here this morning and turned to the
majority leader and said: We are going to give you your vote. We are
not going to use parliamentary procedures to prevent you from having an
opportunity to vote on your proposal, the President's proposal.
By some tortured way of opposing this, the majority leader
essentially said: There you go again. Republicans are filibustering. I
think we all just sat here with our mouths agape saying: Have we missed
something? We are offering to give you your vote.
Now, it is clear this center aisle--not completely--divides us in
terms of how we think we should go forward in dealing with this very
sick and anemic economy. There is probably pretty close to a consensus
that tax reform needs to be an essential part of what we need to do.
In a bipartisan way, Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, and
Dan Coats, a Republican from Indiana, have been working for 1\1/2\
years now on something that was started with Senator Gregg, who is now
retired from distinguished service in the Senate but worked with
Senator Wyden for 2 years in putting a package together, a
comprehensive tax reform package. It is the only plan out there that
has been written, scored, and is available for debate and available to
the tax-writing committees to use as a basis--or foundation or parts of
it or all of it or whatever--in forming their own version to bring
forward. But there is a bipartisan consensus that we ought to move
forward on comprehensive tax reform.
Senator Hatch, our Republican leader in the Finance Committee--which
is the committee responsible for writing that bill--has said piecemeal
is not the way to go. Anybody who has analyzed our current situation
understands that comprehensive tax reform is the best solution. But
even Senator Hatch agreed, in this instance, given the situation we now
face, he would accept going forward with a short-term proposal that
would give us 1 year to put together a comprehensive tax reform
package. The last one occurred in 1986, so long past time we overhaul
the Tax Code. With all the credits and subsidies and additions and
addendums to the current Tax Code, it is complex beyond anybody's
ability to fully understand. And it isn't fair. It favors some at the
expense of the many. In many cases, there are special credits and tax
breaks that go to a single industry. So we need much more fairness
across the board, and that is what Senator Wyden and I attempt to do in
our proposal.
The word ``fairness'' is thrown around here as a condemnation on the
Republican Party's ability to achieve bipartisan consent, but if we
want to talk about fairness, let's talk about what just happened here.
It was imminently fair for the minority leader to offer the Democrats a
vote on the President's proposal. All we asked in return was an
opportunity to present, debate and vote on our proposal.
What is amazing is that the Democratic Party controls the Senate.
They have the votes to pass the President's proposal. So in the end, if
they voted in unison with the President, their proposal wins. If we
vote and we come up short, we lose.
Obviously, there must be a reason they don't want that vote. They
don't want an alternative presented to them because they must fear they
would lose votes on their side of the aisle for the President's
proposal, and we would gain votes from them on our side. It has
happened in the past, and apparently that is the decision they made.
But this torturous explanation of how this could be a Republican
filibuster--if they can spin this one at the White House and at the
press conference today, or if they can spin this through the press,
they are not listening or understanding what is actually going on here.
What is going on here is a decided attempt by the majority leader to
protect his party from having to take a vote for or against. If the
American people want anything out of this body, and if they are
disgusted with anything that comes out of this body, it is when people
go home and say: Well, we didn't have a real vote on that. There was a
procedural this or that and it got stopped here or modified there or
the others tied up the legislative tree.
What in the world does that mean to most people outside of this body?
They used some procedural way to avoid a real vote.
They want our yes to be yes and our no to be no, and we are offering
to the Democratic leader that opportunity. Let your yes be yes and your
no be no on the specific bill before us, and then go home and explain
to your people why you voted yes or why you voted no. Then they can
decide in this democratic process whether they want to send you back or
send somebody else back for you.
The American people aren't getting that kind of clarity right now,
and it is no wonder they are disgusted with Congress. It is 10:00 in
the morning when we are talking about this. If they get a fair
treatment in the press over what happened this morning, they will fully
easily grasp and understand that what was proposed by the Republicans
was nothing but fairness, and what was proposed by the other party was
nothing but unfairness.
What could be more fair than giving each side, in a divided vision of
how we should go forward, their opportunity to debate what they believe
in and to call a vote for it? Particularly from the party that has the
votes to win and the party that has the votes not to win, why not have
the vote? What have you got to lose? Unless you think you are going to
lose your own people or not want to put them on the line for having a
yes or a no recorded clearly before the American people.
I have diverted from what I was going to say this morning. I was just
so amazed by what took place down here I could not help but comment on
it.
We will see how this all gets spun out by the White House. We will
see what is the next diversionary tactic they use to stop us from
talking about the No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3 issue facing this country;
that is, this anemic economy. Eighty thousand jobs? Only eighty
thousand jobs created in June. People say we are on the right track?
That doesn't even replace the number of people who are retiring, let
alone add new jobs. How many college graduates this spring are living
in the basement of their parents' home? That has happened now for more
than 3 years. There are millions, 12.7 million people who woke this
morning with no job to go to. There are many more who woke to go to
jobs far below their abilities or training. So 80,000 jobs, let's put
this in perspective. It is far below what we need just to break even,
just to give anybody a new shot and a new chance.
We have had 3\1/2\ years of the policies of this administration which
have not improved the situation and, in fact, some have said are making
it worse. We all know we have come through a tough time. We all know
just sticking the blame against one side or the other is not the
solution. The solution is to find how to put sensible policies in place
that will get this economy moving again. One of those policies is
comprehensive tax reform.
Once again, I bring up the Wyden-Coats bill. It has been out there.
It is written. It is scored. It is available to take up right now if
that were the case, but because the tax-writing committees have the
jurisdictional right to have a say and because it is a complex process,
they would like some time to put it together.
The proposal of Senator Hatch, eminently fair, is to basically say
let's not put a bandaid on the Tax Code now with something that is not
going to make much difference at all and, in fact, we believe, will
negatively impact small businesses around the country.
[[Page S4840]]
I had a small business group in my office yesterday basically saying
the President only talks about the middle class. That is whom I hire,
they say. That is who is working in our business. If they put a tax on
me, the owner of the business, actually it is a tax on the business--
the passthroughs, the noncorporations that exist here where, from a tax
basis, everything flows through to that individual taxpayer. They say I
am the guy who owns the business. I am the guy who makes the decision
on hiring. I am the guy who has to put the health care plan together. I
am the guy who hires the people and pays the people. If government
taxes me more, I do not have the same flexibility to hire, expand or
buy equipment or expand my factory or hire more people.
Yes, the White House can go out and spin it like I am a rich guy, but
because I have chosen a certain way in order to form my business--not
as a corporation--I am taxed in an entirely different way than
corporations. But if you go out and say we are giving the middle class
a break--and we are hurting the people who employ the middle class and
you are raising their taxes--you are hurting the middle-class people.
The very people the President says he is trying to protect, he is
hurting by raising this tax. The President himself said in his campaign
and throughout his Presidency: The worst thing you can do is raise any
taxes during a time of economic distress.
I do not care if you are Paul Krugman or if you are the most
conservative economic analyst out there, there is a widespread
consensus that the last thing you do is raise taxes at a time of a
stagnant economy, a recessionary economy. It is the last thing you do.
Dan Coats just said that, respected economists on the left and right
said that, and even the President of the United States said that as a
candidate and throughout his Presidency. In 2010, the President said
the last thing we should do is raise any taxes. Now he has turned
around to say let's tax up to 1 million small businesses because
obviously they can spin that and play that in what sounds like a
politically opportune way.
It is a direct contradiction coming out of the mouth of the
President, out of the mouths of others. It is simply an election year
political class division ploy to divert from the miserable record under
this administration, in terms of dealing with this economy. Frankly, if
they know--we can hardly conclude anything, but they just do not know
what they are doing. But even if they know what they are doing, their
policies have not worked.
Whether it is Republicans or Democrats, if they have done something
for 3\1/2\ years and it has not worked, isn't it time to look at a
different set of policies? That is what we wanted to debate, but the
majority leader is not allowing us to debate. In some excruciatingly,
twisted way, he is saying Republicans are trying to prevent us from
going forward. It boggles the mind.
I will stop with that and yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Stolen Valor Act of 2011
Mr. BROWN of Massachusetts. Madam President, I have enjoyed the
previous speaker. It was very interesting.
I wish to shift gears and talk about S. 1728, the Stolen Valor Act of
2011. As many know, the Supreme Court recently struck down the Stolen
Valor Act of 2011 by saying that lying about military awards, records,
and service is protected by our first amendment rights. The Court has
ruled. But let's be clear, it is wrong and cowardly for people to make
fraudulent statements in order to receive distinctions they have not
earned. Let me say that again. It is wrong and cowardly for people to
make fraudulent statements in order to receive distinctions they have
not earned.
As a 32-year member of the Army National Guard still serving, I feel
very strongly about this issue, and I believe we need a Federal law to
punish those who seek to benefit from making false claims and steal the
true valor of our heroic men and women in uniform. My bipartisan,
bicameral Stolen Valor Act of 2011 reminds me of the bill we worked on,
the insider trading bill. We have an opportunity once again to send a
powerful message to the American people that in the middle of the
gridlock we can work together on something that makes complete sense.
It addresses the Supreme Court's change by making a key change in order
to protect first amendment rights. It would punish individuals who
deliberately lie about their military service, their records or honors,
with the intention of obtaining anything of value.
The key term is ``of value.'' One actually gets something of value as
a result of their misrepresentations. Again, the new Stolen Valor Act
makes it a Federal crime to lie about military service in order to
profit or benefit, and that is the key distinction.
Yesterday, Congressman Joe Heck of Nevada and I--he is the lead
sponsor in the House version of the bill, I in the Senate--held a press
conference to start a fresh campaign to pass the new Stolen Valor Act.
We had wonderful results. Within a few hours of that press conference,
we gained 27 new cosponsors in the Senate, making a total of 29. I
encourage the Presiding Officer and others on her side of the aisle to
get involved in this very real effort to help our heroes who have
served legitimately. Congressman Heck also has 67 bipartisan cosponsors
in the House.
Also, yesterday, the Pentagon announced they will take a major step
to deter con artists by establishing a searchable database of military
awards and medals to confirm, in fact, that the person with whom one is
dealing or speaking with is, in fact, deserving of the medals and
honors they received.
It is clear this cause has momentum and the Supreme Court decision
has given many a sense of urgency and clarity. In fact, today I wrote
President Obama to ask for his public endorsement of the bill, very
similar to the day he was walking up the aisle after the State of the
Union and I said: Mr. President, I have a bill on Harry Reid's desk on
insider trading. Let's get it out. He said: I will; I will get it out.
He can do the same here. He can give his public endorsement of this
very important bill, and I am hopeful the Commander in Chief will lend
his endorsement to this cause, to show leadership on this issue and
give his blessing so we can actually get to work on legislation that
will truly pass, I venture 99 to 0, in this Chamber. His voice would
join several military organizations that endorsed the Stolen Valor Act
of 2011: the Military Officers Association of America, the Association
of the U.S. Army, Military Order of the Purple Heart, and the Iraq and
Afghanistan Veterans of America.
As bipartisan support of this effort grows, I ask my Senate
colleagues who have not cosponsored the Stolen Valor Act of 2011 to get
on board. It is time. It is time to send a very powerful message to the
men and women who have served with dignity and honor that we respect
that service and we are tired of the frauds who are out there
perpetrating fraud and wearing medals and receiving honors to which
they are not entitled.
If we choose to come together and pass this legislation, we can
respond immediately to the Supreme Court's ruling with the urgency this
issue deserves. It is very similar to how Senator McCaskill and I, in
the middle of the gridlock a couple years ago, passed the Arlington
Cemetery bill. We can do it with this legislation as well and send a
message to the American people that we can work together and that
unified message will protect the valor of our heroic veterans and
servicemembers who defend our freedom and serve our country with the
greatest of honor.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Texas.
Mrs. HUTCHISON. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be
allowed to speak for up to 10 minutes.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mrs. HUTCHISON. Madam President, I applaud the Senator from
Massachusetts for introducing the bill. He is trying to make a
constitutional way so those who have done the service for our country
and earned the medals are assured that those medals mean something and
cannot be in any way misrepresented without a consequence. I thank the
Senator from Massachusetts.
Tax Policy
I rise to talk about this week's issue, which is taxes on our
Nation's small
[[Page S4841]]
businesses. Small businesses are the economic engine of America. It is
not big business. Jobs are created by small businesses that grow and
become medium-size businesses. They are responsible for driving most of
the job growth in this country. Fifty-five percent of private sector
jobs are created by small business. Punishing them with new taxes in a
time of economic stagnation is incomprehensible. It is
incomprehensible.
This tax that is suggested by the President on those who make
$200,000 to $250,000 or more will affect small business, make no
mistake about it. I have been a small businessperson, and I know if
someone is paying all the expenses they are paying, if they are taxed
as an individual in their small business, they are not going to be able
to hire new people--not with what is looming next year in increased
taxes. Even the talk of it is part of the reason we have the stagnation
we do.
Seventy-five percent of the small businesses in our country pay taxes
at an individual rate. They are organized as flowthrough businesses:
Partnerships, S corporations, LLCs, and sole proprietorships. Fifty-
three percent of all flowthrough business income will be subject to the
top two individual income tax rate increases subject to take place in
2013. Even our talking about tax increases is on the minds of our small
businessespeople. It makes them very nervous.
We have an already uncertain environment. Hiring is stalled. We have
been strangling growth in our country and the hope of recovery is not
there. The first round of taxes in the health care law the President's
party and the President passed will kick in, in 2013. I do not want to
have to go back to the small business owners whom I have just visited
with last week all over my State and say: Yes, it is true. You are
going to have the taxes involved in the health care plan that will take
effect in 2013 and your taxes are going up because you are going into a
higher bracket, and if the President has his way, the rates are going
to increase too. That is not the message anyone in this body should
want to take back to their home States and I do not want to go back to
the hard-working employees and customers and tell them the same thing
because it will not be just small business owners caught in the net of
higher taxes, every American is going to see their taxes increase if
they are paying taxes today.
We have a cliff. Everyone around here is talking about the fiscal
cliff. It happens on December 31 of this year. Taxes will automatically
go up on January 1. Everybody will go into a higher bracket. We will
lose the marriage penalty relief we have had. We are going to see tax
increases on the middle class, and it is going to be steep.
Approximately 31 million Americans will be hit for the first time with
the alternative minimum tax. Most people know the alternative minimum
tax was enacted in 1969 to target a few hundred millionaires in America
to try to ensure that those millionaires paid a tax. Well, guess who
qualifies next year if we don't do something. A single person making
$33,750 and a married couple earning $45,000 will be considered as not
paying their fair share of taxes. That is outrageous for this Congress
to let that happen. We must work with the President to ensure that
those steep tax increases do not take effect.
The tax increases, the astronomical debt we face, and the persistent
high unemployment rate have come together to create a perfect recovery-
killing storm. And if this weren't enough to send our economy into
permanent hiding, we now have the dubious honor of having the highest
corporate tax rate in the world at 35 percent. We used to be second,
but Japan had the good sense to lower its rate earlier this year, so
now it is America that holds that dubious honor.
This is not a recipe for growth. Is it any wonder that we have a
recurring over 8 percent unemployment rate in this country? If we don't
do something before the end of this year, those who are employed are
going to pay more taxes next year, and for those who are not employed,
it is going to be harder to find a job. So what is the answer? The
answer, as we all know, is for this Congress and the President to do
something before the election.
Now, Senator Reid has introduced a tax bill. It is a bill that will
provide two temporary tax credits, but a 1-year temporary tax credit is
really not enough. Many of us voted in support of the motion to proceed
to this bill because we would like something to start with, and I hope
the majority leader is going to allow amendments because there are many
amendments for us to try to cobble together a bill that will really
make a difference in our economy. So it is a start, and I am going to
give the leader credit for that.
A real long-term solution is what business is looking for. If we have
a 1-year tax credit, we are going to get a 1-year plan, and a 1-year
plan is not going to encourage people to be hired. It is not going to
encourage employers when they see a 1-year plan and know that Congress
is going to do what it has done so often; that is, get to the last of
the year and then cobble something together that will perhaps last a
year. Maybe it will be the same or maybe it won't. That is not the way
business works. They have to plan. They have to know what they are
going to have in the next 5 years in expenses so they know what they
can produce and what they can charge. That is the private sector.
We should be focusing on the underlying issue. It should be tax
relief and tax reform. We can alleviate the employers' conundrum and
get them to start hiring if they know what to expect, and a 1-year fix
will not do it. We need long-term tax reform, we need to address the
looming debt, and we know it. We know what the fiscal cliff is.
I would like to read a letter I received in answer to a
congratulatory note I wrote to the former football coach at Texas A&M,
R.C. Slocum, who is one of the finest men I have ever met. He is
exactly what America is. He was just inducted into the College Football
Hall of Fame, and I congratulated him sincerely because he is the kind
of person we want coaching our young men in football.
Well, he wrote me back, and I am going to read an excerpt from his
letter. He does the niceties of thanking me for writing him, and then
he says:
I am really concerned that the America that you and I grew
up in is being attacked from within. Although I grew up in a
poor family, I was taught that I was privileged because I was
born in America, the land of opportunity. We did not begrudge
the ``rich'' but was encouraged that through hard work and
education, some day we could be one of them. Thankfully, I
was not taught that it was someone else's fault that we were
poor or that government would, or should, come bail us out.
We worked our own way out and felt the great feeling of
accomplishment that goes with it. In my career as a coach, I
encouraged my players to try the formula I was given. It
still works and I am so proud of the young men that have
dramatically changed their lives, and with it the course of
their families' lives.
That is what America is, and that is what we ought to be working to
achieve.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Colorado.
Order of Procedure
Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Madam President, I am here on the Senate floor
to highlight our country's clean energy future.
Mrs. BOXER. Would the Senator yield for a unanimous consent regarding
time?
Mr. UDALL of Colorado. I would be happy to yield.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator
Udall proceed for 6 minutes, that I proceed for 12 minutes, and that
Senator Manchin proceed for 12 minutes.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Colorado.
Production Tax Credit
Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Madam President, I am here on the floor, as I
have been for a succession of morning speeches, to talk about the
importance of extending the tax credit for wind power. If you look in
every corner of our great country, the production tax credit has
resulted in good-paying jobs for Americans--jobs, I might add, that
can't be exported overseas.
I have taken a tour of the country. This morning I wish to highlight
the beautiful State of South Carolina.
South Carolina is one of the few States that do not have installed
onshore wind power, but that has not stopped South Carolina from
attracting literally dozens of manufacturers
[[Page S4842]]
that support 1,000 good-paying wind energy jobs across the State.
As we look at this chart of the State of South Carolina, we can see
that the green circles acknowledge the manufacturing facilities that
built components for wind turbines. Nearly every component in a wind
turbine is built in South Carolina.
I wish to highlight Greenville, up here in the northwestern part of
South Carolina. GE has a facility there, and they have designed the
1.5-megawatt wind turbine that is a hallmark of GE. That facility
supports more than a dozen suppliers and hundreds of jobs across the
State.
One of the most exciting ventures outside of manufacturing that is
going on in South Carolina is the massive investment that has been made
in innovation. In 2009 Clemson University won a $45 million grant from
the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the Department of Energy
for the construction of a brandnew facility that will be the largest
wind turbine testing facility in the world. In that facility, they will
test cutting-edge drivetrain technologies for the next generation of
wind turbines.
Now, South Carolina has doubled down on that support of wind
innovation. The university donors and other partners have joined
Clemson and have come up with another $53 million to supplement the $45
million that came through the Recovery Act. That is $98 million that
will be an investment in South Carolina's economy and in our wind
energy future.
So not only will there be good-paying jobs created at this wind
turbine drivetrain testing facility, but this facility will be a global
leader in developing wind turbines capable of 3 to 10 times as much
power as wind turbines today. I was under the impression that wind
turbine technology had matured and that we had wrung out every electron
possible. I have been told we can increase the yields by 3 to 10 times
through this kind of research. This facility will focus on onshore and
offshore wind turbines. So this is crucial research.
We know in Colorado that the presence of top-notch research and
development institutions attracts incredibly talented individuals and
often results in the creation of new companies that commercialize the
new and innovative technologies developed in these R&D facilities. I
know that in the Presiding Officer's State, that is a formula for
success. When we make the investments such as South Carolina, Colorado,
and New York are making, we draw top-notch resources that are able to
exploit in a responsible way natural resources.
The grant I mentioned combined with the research dollars that have
come from the private sector represent an enormous opportunity for
South Carolina and for our country in turn. We already see millions of
dollars that have been attracted into South Carolina from global
investors because they see the potential of what is going to happen at
Clemson.
The point I want to make is that if we don't extend the wind tax
credit, the PTC, then these wind manufacturers may not have the
wherewithal, frankly, to team up with Clemson, to commercialize the new
technologies that will be developed in South Carolina, and then the
jobs that follow won't be created. That just doesn't make sense. South
Carolina and Clemson are going to be global leaders in the development
of these new technologies.
The question is, Where will these new turbines be built? I know, for
one, that the Chinese would be happy to step in and take away our
manufacturing jobs. But if we get our act together and extend the PTC,
then these wind turbines will be built here in America. They will be
built in South Carolina, they will be built in Colorado, and they will
be built in Pennsylvania. They will be built all over our country in
literally every corner. But if we let the PTC expire, we risk shipping
this industry and our good-paying jobs overseas.
Coloradans keep telling me--and I know in the Presiding Officer's
home State as well--that there is no reason to outsource these jobs.
There is no reason to outsource energy production, and there is no
reason to handicap a growing industry that has helped make us and our
country more energy independent. Let's pass the extension of the PTC
today. Let's create jobs today. Let's build this clean energy economy.
Let's pursue an all-of-the-above strategy. Let's do it here in the
United States, and let's do it now.
Madam President, thank you for your attention and your interest.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, was there any time remaining for Senator
Udall?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. He used 6 minutes.
Tax Policy
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I rise to talk a little bit about health
care and what it would mean if the Republicans get their way and take
away so many benefits for millions of people. But before I do, I would
like to respond to Senator Hutchison's remarks on taxes.
President Obama has called on us to pass a tax cut for 98 percent of
the American people. That would not be for millionaires, but for the
middle class. It is not for billionaires, but for the middle class--98
percent. He said anyone earning up to $250,000 will get a tax break. As
a matter of fact, he said all income under $250,000 will get a tax cut.
Only income over $250,000 would go back to the tax rates of Bill
Clinton. Let me remind everyone that in those years we had 23 million
new jobs created and a balanced budget, and we never had more
millionaires created in one period of time as we did then because it
was a fair tax system.
President Obama has asked us to give a tax break to everyone on the
first $250,000 of their income and after that go back to the rates
under Bill Clinton. That includes 97 percent of small business owners.
When we hear the Republicans get up and say: Democrats want to hurt
small businesses, Democrats want to hurt the job creators, our position
is that 97 percent of small business owners agree with the President--
they should get a tax break. If you earn over that $250,000, which is a
few percent, pay the fair share that we paid during the fabulous
economic growth period when Bill Clinton was the President.
Why do we feel it is important that we say 98 percent and not 100
percent of taxpayers? Because we have a deficit issue. We have a debt
problem. We want to get back to the days of balanced budgets, and we
will get there, if everyone pays their fair share.
So let's be clear. All of those tears being shed on the other side
are being shed for people such as Donald Trump. Isn't it unfortunate
that a man such as Donald Trump, who was able to catch the dream to the
ultimate--and all right, we want that for everyone--has to pay just a
little bit more? At a time when people are taking their money out of
this country and putting it in Swiss bank accounts and Bermuda accounts
and accounts in the Cayman Islands, it is time for everyone to have a
little patriotism here. We have to have the greatest country in this
world, and that means the strongest military in the world; that means
the best roads and bridges in the world; that means a strong education
system. We want to wipe out cancer, AIDS, and Alzheimer's. That means a
strong medical research system. We need everyone in America to do their
part.
My dad was a CPA. We were very middle class--lower middle class, I
would say. I started working in little jobs when I was 16, 17, and I
got mad. I hate to age myself, but the minimum wage was quite low then.
It was in the cents. It was around 75 cents an hour or something. I
remember saying, Why do I have to pay anything to the government? I
don't want to pay anything. My father would say to me, You kiss the
ground you walk on because you live in America, and we have to have
things in this country to make us great. And don't you ever forget
that, and don't you complain about it. He also said, You make sure it
is spent right and you make sure you have a voice in it. But this
country needs to be strong. So to have millionaires and billionaires
take their money out of America and hide it in accounts in other
countries is not something I would be proud of. We should invest our
funds here and everyone should pay their fair share.
Health Care
Here is the deal. The Republicans have said if they take over all of
the branches of government, which is their
[[Page S4843]]
goal, on day one they are going to repeal ObamaCare. They are going to
repeal our health care law. It reminds me of this: If I were to say to
the Presiding Officer, meet me on the corner at 6 o'clock tonight and I
am going to punch you in the nose, hit you over the head, and leave you
there, she might rethink meeting me. She might say, you know, Barbara,
that is not something to look forward to. Well, let me say this to the
millions of Americans who are already receiving the benefits of
ObamaCare, which I will describe: You are about to be hit over the head
and punched in the nose, if the Republicans take over Washington, DC.
That is their goal, to take over the Senate, take over the Presidency,
and keep the majority in the House.
Let me tell my colleagues why I say this. Here are the benefits that
are in jeopardy--not in jeopardy from repeal; they will be repealed:
Free preventive services which have already begun: Cancer screenings
and immunizations for those people who have private insurance. Fifty-
four million people are going to be punched in the nose and hit in the
head, if the Republicans take over and they repeal health care--on day
one. They are trying to do it today over in the House for the 31st
time.
Prescription drug discounts for seniors who are in the doughnut hole.
Fifty-two million seniors have already saved $3.7 billion. They are
going to be hit in the head and punched in the nose on day one--not
even day two--of a Republican takeover.
Free preventive services for seniors. We have 32.5 million Medicare
patients who get free screenings now--32.5 million. That is almost as
many people as live in California who will be hit in the head and
punched in the nose on day one--not on day two or three, but right
away.
Protection against lifetime dollar limits. Right now, people think
they have a good health care insurance plan. If a person gets, God
forbid, something such as cancer and they have it checked out and find
out the limit is $\1/2\ million, maybe $1 million, maybe even $2
million limit--they don't know how fast that limit comes and then they
are out of insurance. So now 105 million Americans who had limits on
their policies no longer have limits. Well, if the Republicans take
over, punch in the nose, hit in the head, they are finished; they are
out.
Young adults who can now stay on their parents' plan up to age 26--
6.6 million young adults--are out of luck on the first day of a
Republican takeover.
Let's go to the next chart. Limits on the amount of premiums health
insurance companies can spend on administrative costs. Right now, 12
million Americans-plus are going to receive a total of $1 billion in
rebates because, under ObamaCare, the insurance companies have to spend
the money on patients--80 percent--not on their own perks, not on their
bonuses, and people are going to get checks in the mail. So I say to
these 12.7 million Americans: I hope you are listening, because on day
one, no more rebates.
Tax credits to help small businesses purchase health insurance. We
hear about how the Democrats don't care about small business. How about
this: The 360,000 small businesses who insure 2 million workers have
gotten tax credits, right now--right now. We see the crocodile tears
over there, yet they want to repeal a tax break that is helping 360,000
small businesses.
If a child is born with a preexisting condition, let's say some heart
defect, and that child can't get insurance. Today they can. Guess what.
Seventeen million children benefit from this protection right now.
Seventeen million of the most vulnerable people now have protection
because of ObamaCare. But if the Republicans take over, these little
babies are out--out of luck--and their parents will probably have to go
on welfare. Great. Meet you on the corner, be there, vote for me, and I
will punch you in the nose and hit you in the head. That is what is
going on.
Funding for new community health care centers and expansions. Already
3 million patients have been helped by this. The fact is we have seen
funds go to these community health care centers in our communities, so
whether a person has insurance or not, they can drop in to a health
care center. It is particularly important in rural areas where they
have very little access.
I just talked about what happens already. Now, in 2014, we set up the
health insurance exchanges so there is competition and people can get
cheaper insurance. The preexisting condition benefit will then apply to
everybody, so if you have a preexisting condition and you are an adult,
you can still get health care.
Women will get protection. Women have had to pay twice as much as a
man for insurance. That is discrimination. That will be banned starting
in 2014.
There will be protection against arbitrary annual limits on the
health care benefits people can get. Sometimes people have the ability
to get health care coverage, but it is capped every year. No more
artificial caps.
Finally, we will say that health insurance plans have to cover
essential benefits such as maternity care. Many plans will not cover
maternity care. That is over.
So then people say, Well, how is this reform paid for? The
Republicans say taxes will go up, deficits will go up. The CBO has told
us that this is actually a reducer of the deficit by tens of billions
of dollars. As a matter of fact, it reduces the deficit by $127 billion
over the next 10 years. How is it that ObamaCare saves money? It is
because we invest in prevention. Everyone within the sound of my voice
knows that if a woman gets an annual mammogram and it indicates a very
tiny start of a breast tumor and the patient gets that tumor out at an
early stage, they have avoided the worst consequences and it is way
cheaper than waiting until the end when a patient needs radiation,
chemotherapy, all of this tough medicine that is also expensive.
I ask unanimous consent for 1 more minute.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mrs. BOXER. How else do we pay for this? We cut out waste and fraud
in Medicare. We say to the health care industry: You make a lot more
money and you have to pay a little more, and they will.
Then there are the free riders who say, I will never get sick, and if
I do I will get free health care at the emergency room. We finally say
to them, as they did in Massachusetts: Those days are over. If you can
afford it, you need to get a basic policy. By the way, it is a tiny
percentage of people. It is 1.4 million people. I think it is less than
1 percent of the people who will have to get insurance because the rest
of us are paying $1,000 a year to cover these people. So no more free
rides. We all work together.
I will close with this. Watch out in this election who you vote for.
If somebody tells you they are going to repeal health care, that means
all of these benefits go out the window. All of this deficit cutting
goes out the window. The Supreme Court said it is constitutional, and
it is.
I want to make this point: Don't vote for people who will punch you
in the nose, hit you in the head, and walk away from you. I think the
choice is between those who will lift people up and make life better
for people and their families and those who would go back to a system
that was so harmful for our families.
Thank you very much, Madam President. I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from West Virginia.
Power Outages
Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, I rise this morning to address a
situation that is very hard for me to believe, and I am sure for many
of my colleagues, and maybe the Presiding Officer as well. It makes no
sense to the people of our great State of West Virginia.
For nearly 2 weeks, hundreds of thousands of West Virginians have
been deprived of basic necessities such as water and electricity
because of massive storms--not just West Virginia but up and down the
east coast. At the peak of the outage, FEMA estimates that 688,000 West
Virginians didn't have power. That is a third of our State. One-third
of our State was completely knocked out. Hundreds of thousands of
people had to throw away all of the food in their refrigerators and
freezers because of the lack of electricity.
Our National Guard and first responders did a superb job of keeping
[[Page S4844]]
people safe. But this country learned just how vulnerable and
inadequate our infrastructure is and how much we have come to depend on
it. Up and down the east coast, our electrical grid was crippled by
this storm because there is no backup plan--none whatsoever--that could
keep the vital necessities of life running during these horrific
storms.
The fact is we have to invest in our Nation's infrastructure. We all
talk about it but still very little is being done. Power outages cost
this country between $79 billion and $164 billion every year. That is
because on top of powering our hospitals, our nursing homes, and our
schools, reliable energy underpins our economy and keeps Americans at
work.
I know there are other needs around the world, but seeing firsthand
how vulnerable our system is, I was so surprised--and the Presiding
Officer might be also--and disappointed to hear yesterday that the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers is making a massive investment in power
infrastructure in another country by awarding a $94 million contract to
provide--listen--reliable power in Afghanistan. So I thought: How will
I explain this back home? We are providing reliable power to the
Afghans when nearly 200,000 West Virginians spent an entire week
without electricity, lost all of their food, and suffered through
nearly 100-degree heat during this period of time, when our country is
losing tens and hundreds of billions of dollars because of power
outages all over the east coast? As of 6 p.m. yesterday--this is more
than 12 days after the storm--we still have over 30,000 people without
electricity.
I cannot count the number of times I have come to the floor of this
Senate Chamber to say it is time to start rebuilding America and not
Afghanistan. But in all my time in the Senate, I have not seen a
starker example of misplaced priorities. It is wrong to invest in
reliable power for the Afghan people when tens of thousands of not just
West Virginians but Americans all over this country have been without
power for nearly 2 weeks because our infrastructure is so vulnerable.
In fact, in our State, too many people still don't have reliable
water. When the power goes out, the water systems can't purify the
water. In McDowell County in our southern coalfields, FEMA expects it
will be another 2 to 3 weeks before our water service is restored to
the customers in the Northfork public service district. Let me repeat
that. They will go another 2 to 3 weeks without water, a basic
necessity of life. That will be a full month after the storm without
one of life's basic necessities.
Something is truly out of balance. It has been almost 2 weeks since a
storm of unprecedented strength hit our State. How can I look the
people of my great State of West Virginia in the eye when our
infrastructure is so poor that they do not have reliable power or water
but still tell them we are investing in transmission lines to provide
reliable power to Afghanistan? It just does not make sense.
According to the Congressional Research Service, the American
taxpayers have already spent more than $9 billion--$9 billion--on
infrastructure projects in Afghanistan, including the costs of
reconstruction assistance, diplomatic security, and activities by non-
Department of Defense agencies. This is in addition to the $551 billion
we have spent on military operations. And that does not even begin to
address Iraq, where we have spent at least $5 billion on electrical
systems and $61 billion total on infrastructure projects, according to
the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.
Still, when we take a closer look at the project that was announced
yesterday, the facts are even more disturbing. The Army Times reported
that the Corps' awarding of $93.6 million to improve electrical
transmission from the Kajaki Dam power station throughout the Helmand
Province of Afghanistan includes burying transmission lines--burying
transmission lines which we do not even do in America--and providing
backup generators--which we do not have, which is why we have lost our
water systems and our food.
But believe it or not, the people of the United States already paid
to build the Kajaki Dam powerhouse in the 1970s. I am going to quote
from this article from the Army Times.
Because the entire electrical system has largely been
neglected--
Neglected--
due to decades of war, Afghan and U.S. agencies are
partnering to increase power generation and distribution to
solve the severe lack of electricity in the region.
Trust me, in West Virginia we can understand the severe lack of
power.
This facility was not maintained in the 1970s. It was not maintained
in the 1980s. It was not maintained in the 1990s. It is still not being
maintained. What makes us think it is going to be maintained now that
we are spending millions and millions of dollars?
This is only one small piece of an even more costly contract to bring
electricity to southern Afghanistan. The $93.6 million contract is the
first of six integrated components collectively called the Kandahar
Helmand Power Project, a USAID initiative to expand the electrical
distribution system of two provinces in southern Afghanistan, with a
combined estimated population of 1.7 million. That is short of the
population of my home State of West Virginia. We are about 1.8 million.
It is one thing to help another country with loans--which I am all
for--that will help them get back on their feet so they can repay their
debts, but it is another thing entirely to pour billions of taxpayer
dollars into another country for a decade with no chance of any
repayment to this country and to the taxpayers of the United States of
America. Something is wrong with that.
I cannot say it enough: If you build a bridge in West Virginia, we
will not blow it up. If you help us build a school, we will not burn it
down. We are very appreciative. We appreciate the help of all American
taxpayers because we are part of this great country. If you help us
invest in a more reliable electricity system, we will use that power to
make this country stronger, to power this Nation's economy, and to
provide good-paying jobs all over this country.
Not only that, the scope of the problem with electricity
infrastructure in West Virginia is tremendous. According to the
National Energy Technology Laboratory, power outages in West Virginia
take four times longer to fix than the national average. We have been
blessed with so much beauty, but we have kind of a challenging
topography, if you will, and it makes it much more difficult.
If we modernize our grid to make it more flexible and reliable, we
can make a return on investment of up to $6 for every $1 we invest,
according to studies from both the Electric Power Research Institute
and the National Energy Technology Laboratory. Instead of investing
that money in Afghanistan, doesn't it just make sense to invest it here
at home? And we will start right in West Virginia if you like.
Madam President, I would feel the same if this was in your State, if
it was in any other State in the country. This might have been a ``once
in a lifetime'' storm, one where millions of people lost power no
matter how well we prepared, but the fact that tens of thousands of
West Virginians are still without power and water is a sign that we
must do better as a country.
This could have happened to any State--whether it is a storm, an
earthquake, tornado, fire, flood, or a hurricane--and I hope that my
colleagues in the Senate would share my feelings. We cannot help others
if we do not make and keep ourselves strong. We are beginning to
neglect our very real needs at home.
As West Virginians, I am proud to say we are a strong people. We are
able to pick ourselves up faster than most, and we go to the aid of our
friends and neighbors who need it most--even though we are in need
ourselves. But when you go to a filling station and the sign says
``cash only,'' and then you find out that the banks are closed because
all the power is down, and the ATM is out--we are changing and
transforming our whole monetary system, but there is no backup plan--
what do you do? We have a problem. We truly have a problem. But I know
we can fix it because we are Americans.
That is why it is time to rebuild America and our infrastructure, not
Afghanistan or other places of the world. Let's make ourselves strong
again so we can help people.
[[Page S4845]]
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. BEGICH. Madam President, first, before I make my comments--I want
to talk about the Small Business Jobs and Tax Relief Act--I want to say
to my friend from West Virginia, I know they are struggling under
incredible issues--even before the storm that occurred. I know he has
efforts he is doing to build infrastructure, and his statements are
right on the mark.
In western Alaska, 40 percent of the communities do not even have
water infrastructure. It is not a question of rebuilding it; they do
not have it. So I recognize the Senator and his great work for West
Virginia, making it a better place. His points are well thought out and
right to the mark about what we need to do to rebuild this country. A
good part of all that is it is about American jobs, American workers
building those water and sewer lines and putting those transmission
lines back up--whether they be above or below the ground.
So, again, I commend the Senator for his work in West Virginia.
Madam President, I have come down to talk about the Small Business
Jobs and Tax Relief Act. I come from the small business world. I know
people come down to the Senate floor on the other side of the aisle and
talk about being from the small business world. I always like to look
and see what that really means. It is always amazing to me.
When someone is from the small business world, here is what it is
really about: It is not about working for some corporation, having a
nice title, not really worrying about making it from day to day or
worrying about a payroll. At the end of the day, if the business is not
good, they do not get a check. That is how it works in the small
business world.
So when I hear people come down and talk about small business, it
surprises me, to be very frank, the lack of understanding, the lack of
knowledge they have about the small business world. I have been in it
from the age of 14. My wife has grown a business from serving and
selling smoked salmon on the street corner to now, having a couple
retail stores and doing very well. But she has struggled just like
everyone else. She has had to deal with the bureaucracy. She has had to
figure out how to raise the capital, put retirement money on the table,
maximize her credit cards--do everything possible to take her dream and
make it a reality, just as I have done for all my years in the small
business world.
So I come here not just as a Senator from Alaska, representing
Alaskans and small businesses, but also as someone who has lived it,
worked it, and understands it. We have a chance--and I appreciate the
80-to-14 vote to let us proceed to this bill, which is the Small
Business Jobs and Tax Relief Act. This is an important bill. It has two
components that seem simple in a lot of ways but have great impact.
First, I want to mention the idea that you can get a tax credit for
hiring people. Some say, well, small businesses will not use a tax rate
just to hire people. I, maybe, agree to a certain extent on that, but
why is this important? If you are a small businessperson and you are
going to increase your payroll--maybe you are giving raises or bonuses,
and so forth, or you are going to hire part-time or full-time people,
if you hire those people--and just a clear example is if your payroll
is $200,000, and your payroll goes up by $20,000 to $220,000, you will
get a tax break of 10 percent, which is $2,000.
What will that small business do with that $2,000? In a big business
that just gets lost in some pile. Maybe it goes to some corporate
salary. But here is what a small businessperson will do with it. They
will get that $2,000, and they might now go recarpet their lease-hold
improvement or their rental space they are using for their small
business.
What does that mean? That $2,000 now goes to the carpet layer and the
carpet seller. What will they do with it? They will put it into the
next part of the economy. It just keeps moving much quicker and faster
in the economy. As a matter of fact, every $1 we see out there has a
multiplier effect that is pretty significant for small business.
So the one piece is giving tax credits for small businesses to
increase their payrolls. It may be for increased salaries or for
increased employment. Either way you are putting more money into the
working people of this economy and, therefore, they are putting it back
into the economy.
The second piece of the act is the depreciation. If you are not a
small businessperson, you do not really pay a lot of attention to this.
But the way the IRS Code works is if you invest in new equipment,
carpeting, sheet rock, lighting, whatever, the IRS has these schedules
to deappreciate this over many years.
Here is how it works: First, we have the tax credit for payroll, and
now we have a second piece of this bill, which is accelerated or bonus
depreciation, which means if you are thinking of an idea--I will tell
you, a small business I just visited in Alaska called Lime Solar, by
Chet Dyson and Jessie Moe--these are two young men who are starting a
small business to sell solar products for homes and businesses, but
they got a lease-hold space. They rented a space. It had no sheet rock,
no lighting. They are responsible for paying for all of that.
So they invested, they cleaned it up, sheet-rocked it, fixed it all
up, put equipment in. All that expense now--if this bill passes--can be
written off in the first year instead of depreciating it over multiple
years.
Why is that important? Let's assume they spent $100,000 renovating
their facility and they are in a 25-percent tax bracket. They will save
in the first year $25,000--like that--instead of spreading that over
the next 10 or 15 years. Why is that important? That $25,000 they save
in taxes or depreciation they will be able to reinvest, reinvest into
their business as they struggle to figure out how to build their
markets.
Another friend of mine, Jack Lewis, opened his second restaurant
recently, Firetap. Restaurants are not a cheap business. I have been in
that business. I would not wish it on anybody. It is a tough business.
Margins are thin. But, again, he invested, he built it, built it all
out of scratch. Now he can, again, under this bonus depreciation
schedule depreciate it, write it off in the first year. That is a huge
benefit for these small businesses.
When I look at another small company called SteamDot Coffee--it is a
small coffee company. Jonathan White owns it. They brew their own
coffee, have their own coffee, and they also package it and manufacture
it for resale. That takes a lot of equipment. Now they get to write
that off in the first year.
What this bill does is simple, but yet it has a huge impact. As a
matter of fact, under the depreciation it is estimated that for every
$1 we give in the tax benefit, there is a $9 benefit to the GDP, a 1-
to-9 ratio. Any businessperson would love that deal. That is a great
deal.
So this bill, I hope--our colleagues have shown by 80 to 14 this is a
great bipartisan effort. I hope we now move to the next stage. Maybe we
will have some amendments and work through it. But lets do it for the
small business community of this country, for the State I live in, and
for every State.
I say to the Acting President pro tempore, the State of New York is
piled with small businesses. When you go through New York City, every
inch of the street has a small businessperson. That is what drives this
economy. That is what makes this economy happen. That is where we need
to put our investment.
I will end on this note: I know we will have some pro forma votes, as
I call them, show-and-tell. We will vote on this 20-percent tax rate
deduction that is being proposed by the House. It sounds good, but
there is no guarantee that is going to go back into the economy. As a
matter of fact, if you are a hedge funder, you will get that break. If
you are an attorney, you will get that break. If you are a small
businessperson, you will get that break. But there is no guarantee that
money goes back into the economy. So if we are going to give these tax
incentives, let's make sure it is helping the economy and building jobs
and building a future for us.
So, Madam President, I just wanted to come down and speak on this
bill and encourage my colleagues to support the Small Business Jobs and
Tax
[[Page S4846]]
Relief Act, not only through the pro forma vote we had yesterday to
move forward on it but also to really pass it.
We have done a great job the last few months passing a lot of
legislation out of this body. Let's continue that effort and help our
economy grow.
Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Order of Procedure
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator
Blumenthal and I be recognized for the next 20 or so minutes to speak
on the issue of cybersecurity.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Cybersecurity
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I rise to speak about cybersecurity,
but specifically about the cyber threat to our Nation's critical
infrastructure. By critical infrastructure I mean the power grid that
supplies electricity to our homes that keeps us warm in the winter and
cool in the summer. I mean the financial services' processing systems
that connect our ATMs to our accounts and move money around in our
complex financial system. I mean the communications networks by which
we talk and e-mail and text and message one another.
The men and women we have charged with our Nation's defense and we
have confirmed in these roles in the Senate have repeatedly and
consistently warned us about the danger of cyber attacks on this
critical infrastructure. It provides power and light and heat, tracks
and records financial transactions, allows communication and data
transfer, keeps airlines safe in the air, controls our dams, and
enables our commerce. The consequences of failure in these areas could
be catastrophic. We must pay heed to these warnings about America's
critical infrastructure as we consider cybersecurity legislation.
The administration has described this cyber threat in no uncertain
terms. The Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, has
stated:
[I]t's clear from all that we've said [that] we all
recognize we need to do something. . . . We all recognize
this as a profound threat to this country, to its future, to
its economy, to its very being.
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has warned:
The next Pearl Harbor we confront could very well be a
cyber attack.
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has compared this
threat to the September 11 attacks.
Prior to 9/11, there were all kinds of information out
there that a catastrophic attack was looming. . . . The
information on a cyberattack is at that same frequency and
intensity and is bubbling at the same level, and we should
not wait for an attack in order to do something.
Attorney General Holder stressed the urgency of responding to this
threat in a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. He said:
This a problem that we must address, our nation is
otherwise at risk and to ignore this problem, to think it is
going to go away runs headlong into all of the intelligence
we have gathered, the facts we have been able to accrue which
show that the problem is getting worse instead of getting
better. There are more countries that are becoming more adept
at the use of these tools, there are groups that are becoming
more adept at the use of these tools, and the harm that they
want to do to the United States and to our infrastructure
through these means is extremely real.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey has warned that
``a cyber attack could stop society in its tracks.''
NSA Director and U.S. Cyber Commander GEN Keith Alexander, a four-
star general, has stated:
We see this as something absolutely vital to the future of
our country. Cybersecurity for government and critical
infrastructure is key to the security of this Nation.
A recent report from the Department of Homeland Security found that
companies which operate critical infrastructure have reported a sharp
rise in cybersecurity incidents over the past 3 years. Companies
reported 198 cyber incidents in 2011, up from 41 incidents in 2010, and
just 9 in 2009. This may reflect that the private sector is just now
beginning to catch on. It is unfortunate but true that the private
sector cannot be counted on to respond to this growing challenge on its
own.
As Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter has explained, and I
quote again:
There is a market failure at work here. . . . Companies
just aren't willing to admit vulnerability to themselves, or
publicly to shareholders, in such a way as to support the
necessary investments or lead their peers down a certain path
of investment and all that would follow.
These were administration warnings, but the concerns are bipartisan.
A wide range of national security experts from previous Republican
administrations have echoed this alarm. Former Director of National
Intelligence and NSA Director ADM Mike McConnell has said, and I quote:
The United States is fighting a cyber-war today, and we are
losing. It's that simple.
He explained:
As the most wired nation on Earth, we offer the most
targets of significance, yet our cyber defenses are woefully
lacking. . . . The stakes are enormous. To the extent that
the sprawling U.S. economy inhabits a common physical space,
it is in our communications networks. If an enemy disrupted
our financial and accounting transactions, our equities and
bond markets or our retail commerce--or created confusion
about the legitimacy of those transactions--chaos would
result. Our power grids, air and ground transportation,
telecommunications and water filtration systems are in
jeopardy as well.
That ends the quote from Admiral McConnell.
Admiral McConnell also made a comparison to threats from the past.
The cyber-war mirrors the nuclear challenge in terms of the
potential economic and psychological effects. . . . We
prevailed in the Cold War through strong leadership, clear
policies, solid alliances and close integration of our
diplomatic, economic, and military efforts. We backed all of
this up with robust investments--security never comes cheap.
It worked, because we had to make it work. Let's do the same
with cybersecurity. The time to start was yesterday.
Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz has also echoed the
administration's warning that a cyber attack has the potential of
causing devastation on the scale of another September 11. He stated:
I hope we do not have to wait for the cyber-equivalent of
9/11 before people realize that we are vulnerable.
Former Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Homeland
Security Stewart Baker has compared the threat to the catastrophic
effects of Hurricane Katrina.
We must begin now to protect our critical infrastructure
from attack. And so far, we have done little. We are all
living in a digital New Orleans. No one really wants to spend
the money reinforcing the levees. But the alternative is
worse. . . . And it is bearing down on us at speed.
Former NSA Director and CIA Director Michael Hayden has said:
We have entered into a new phase of conflict in which we
use a cyberweapon to create physical destruction, and in this
case, physical destruction in someone else's critical
infrastructure.
Former Republican officials have also noted the cybersecurity gap in
the private sector due to this market failure. Former Secretary of
Homeland Security Chertoff said:
The marketplace is likely to fail in allocating the correct
amount of investment to manage risk across the breadth of the
network on which our society relies.
The following examples are emblematic of the market failure that both
Democratic and Republican national security officials have identified
in this cybersecurity area for critical infrastructure.
When the FBI-led National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force
informs an American corporation that it has been hacked, 9 times out of
10 that American corporation had no idea.
Kevin Mandia of the leading security firm Mandiant has said, and I
quote:
In over 90 [percent] of the cases we have responded to,
Government notification was required to alert the company
that a security breach was underway. In our last 50
incidents, 48 of the victim companies learned they were
breached from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the
Department of Defense, or some other third party.
In operation Aurora, the cyber attack which targeted numerous
companies, most prominently Google, only 3 out of the approximately 300
companies
[[Page S4847]]
attacked were aware that they had been attacked before they were
contacted by the government.
We cannot count on the private sector to defend itself against a
threat about which it is so unaware. An advanced persistent intrusion
of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's systems also went undetected until
the chamber received help from the government. The Wall Street Journal
reported that a group of hackers in China breached the computer
defenses of the U.S. Chamber, gained access to everything stored in its
systems, including information about its 3 million members, and
remained on the network for at least 6 months and possibly more than a
year. The chamber only learned of the break-in, according to the
article, when the FBI told the group that servers in China were
stealing its information. The special expertise of our national
security agencies is a consistent theme through these examples. As
former Assistant Attorney General, OLC Director, and Harvard Law School
Professor Jack Goldsmith has explained:
The government is the only institution with the resources
and the incentives to ensure that the [critical
infrastructure] on which we all depend is secure, and we must
find a way for it to meet its responsibilities.
By the way, that was Goldsmith at the Department of Justice in the
Bush administration. This is a Republican appointee speaking. These
warnings have been repeatedly communicated to us in the Senate. We
cannot plead ignorance of them.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter to
Senate Majority Leader Reid and Minority Leader McConnell dated January
19, 2012.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
January 19, 2012.
Hon. Harry Reid,
Majority Leader, U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Hon. Mitch McConnell,
Minority Leader, U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Majority Leader Reid and Minority Leader McConnell, We
write to urge the Senate to take up, debate, and pass
legislation to strengthen our nation's cybersecurity.
As former executive branch officials who shared the
responsibility for our nation's security, we are deeply
concerned by the severity and sophistication of the cyber
threats facing our nation. These threats demand a response.
Congress must act to ensure that appropriate tools,
authorities, and resources are available to the executive
branch agencies, as well as private sector entities, that are
responsible for our nation's cybersecurity. The Senate is
well-prepared to take up legislation in this important
national security field, and to do so in a bipartisan manner
in the best traditions of the Senate.
Every week brings new reports of cyber intrusions into
American companies or government agencies, new disclosures of
the breach of Americans' private information, or new
revelations of incidents of cyber disruption or sabotage. The
present cyber risk is shocking and unacceptable. Control
system vulnerabilities threaten power plants and the critical
infrastructure they support, from dams to hospitals. Reported
intrusions into defense contractors and military systems
reveal the direct national security cost of cyber attacks.
Evaluations of the Night Dragon and Aurora attacks reveal the
vulnerability of our most advanced and essential industries
to sophisticated hackers. The recent report by the Office of
the National Counterintelligence Executive makes clear that
foreign states are waging sustained campaigns to gather
American intellectual property--the core assets of our
innovation economy--through cyber-enabled espionage. The
growing threat of terrorist organizations acquiring cyber
capabilities and using them against American interests opens
another battlefront in cyberspace. And every day, Americans'
identities are compromised by international criminals who
have built online marketplaces for buying and selling
Americans' bank account numbers and passwords.
This constant barrage of cyber assaults has inflicted
severe damage to our national and economic security, as well
as to the privacy of individual citizens. The threat is only
going to get worse. Inaction is not an acceptable option.
Senate committees of jurisdiction have done important,
bipartisan work developing legislation to strengthen our
nation's cybersecurity. The Administration likewise has
weighed in with a set of legislative proposals. The stage
thus is set for the Senate to take up cybersecurity
legislation. We believe that it can and should undertake this
work in keeping with its best, bipartisan traditions,
addressing this pressing national security need with the
seriousness that it deserves.
We urge the Senate to do so in short order: the rewards of
increased security for our country, particularly our private
sector critical infrastructure, will be rapid and profound.
Sincerely,
Michael Chertoff.
William J. Lynn III.
J. Michael McConnell.
Richard Clarke.
Dr. William J. Perry.
Paul Wolfowitz.
Jamie Gorelick.
Gen. (ret.) James Cartwright, USMC.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. This explains that the threat is only going to get
worse; inaction is not an acceptable option. This letter was signed by
former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, former Deputy
Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, former Director of National
Intelligence and NSA Director ADM Mike McConnell, former Vice Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General James Cartwright, former Defense
Secretary Dr. Willian Perry, former Deputy Attorney General Jamie
Gorelick, former Deputy Secretary of Defense William J. Lynn, III, and
former Special Advisor to the President for Cyber Security, Richard
Clarke.
I also have a letter written to Majority Leader Reid and Minority
Leader McConnell, dated June 6, 2012, which I ask unanimous consent to
have printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
June 6, 2012.
Dear Senators Reid and McConnell, We write to urge you to
bring cyber security legislation to the floor as soon as
possible. Given the time left in this legislative session and
the upcoming election this fall, we are concerned that the
window of opportunity to pass legislation that is in our view
critically necessary to protect our national and economic
security is quickly disappearing.
We have spoken a number of times in recent months on the
cyber threat--that it is imminent, and that it represents one
of the most serious challenges to our national security since
the onset of the nuclear age sixty years ago. It appears that
this message has been received by many in Congress--and yet
we still await conclusive legislative action.
We support the areas that have been addressed so far, most
recently in the House: the importance of strengthening the
security of the federal government's computer networks,
investing in cyber research and development, and fostering
information sharing about cyber threats and vulnerabilities
across government agencies and with the private sector. We
urge the Senate to now keep the ball moving forward in these
areas by bringing legislation to the floor as soon as
possible.
In addition, we also feel that protection of our critical
infrastructure is essential in order to effectively protect
our national and economic security from the growing cyber
threat. Infrastructure that controls our electricity, water
and sewer, nuclear plants, communications backbone, energy
pipelines and financial networks must be required to meet
appropriate cyber security standards. Where market forces and
existing regulations have failed to drive appropriate
security, we believe that our government must do what it can
to ensure the protection of our critical infrastructure.
Performance standards in some cases will be necessary--these
standards should be technology neutral, and risk and outcome
based. We do not believe that this requires the imposition of
detailed security regimes in every instance, but some
standards must be minimally required or promoted through the
offer of positive incentives such as liability protection and
availability of clearances.
Various drafts of legislation have attempted to address
this important area--the Lieberman/Collins bill having
received the most traction until recently. We will not
advocate one approach over another--however, we do feel
strongly that critical infrastructure protection needs to be
addressed in any cyber security legislation. The risk is
simply too great considering the reality of our
interconnected and interdependent world, and the impact that
can result from the failure of even one part of the network
across a wide range of physical, economic and social systems.
Finally, we have commented previously about the important
role that the National Security Agency (NSA) can and does
play in the protection of our country against cyber threats.
A piece of malware sent from Asia to the United States could
take as little as 30 milliseconds to traverse such distance.
Preventing and defending against such attacks requires the
ability to respond to them in real-time. NSA is the only
agency dedicated to breaking the codes and understanding the
capabilities and intentions of potential enemies, even before
they hit ``send.'' Any legislation passed by Congress should
allow the public and private sectors to harness the
capabilities of the NSA to protect our critical
infrastructure from malicious actors.
We carry the burden of knowing that 9/11 might have been
averted with the intelligence that existed at the time. We do
not want to be in the same position again when `cyber 9/11'
hits--it is not a question of `whether' this will happen; it
is a question of `when.'
[[Page S4848]]
Therefore we urge you to bring cyber security legislation
to the floor as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
Hon. Michael Chertoff,
Hon. J. Mike McConnell,
Hon. Paul Wolfowitz,
Gen. Michael Hayden,
Gen. James Cartwright (RET),
Hon. William Lynn III.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Secretary Chertoff, Admiral McConnell, Deputy
Secretary Wolfowitz, General Hayden, and General Cartwright urged us
to:
. . . bring cyber security legislation to the floor as soon
as possible. Given the time left in this legislative session
and upcoming election this fall, we are concerned that the
window of opportunity to pass legislation that is in our view
critically necessary to protect our national and economic
security is quickly disappearing.
They specifically focused on the threat to critical infrastructure,
stating that ``protection of our critical infrastructure is essential
in order to effectively protect our national and economic security from
the growing cyber threat.''
We must not ignore this chorus of warnings issued by those who are
the most informed and most alert about the danger to our critical
infrastructure. We must pass cybersecurity legislation, and we must
ensure that the cybersecurity legislation we pass addresses our
Nation's critical infrastructure. No bill that fails to address
critical infrastructure can be said to have done the job of protecting
our country.
Our Nation will be vulnerable if critical infrastructure companies
fail to meet basic security standards, as they do right now.
Legislation must include a mechanism to end this continuing
vulnerability. If operators object to a particular approach to
cybersecurity for our critical infrastructure on the basis that it is
too burdensome or too unwieldy, they will find many Members of the
Senate on both sides--myself and Senator Blumenthal included--who are
ready and eager to work with them. But if the purpose of the exercise
is to come to an end point in which the operators of our critical
infrastructure do not have to reach adequate levels of cybersecurity,
then we need to move on and we need to vote and go beyond that.
The question of how we get to cybersecurity is one we should engage
in the Senate. The question of whether we protect our privately held
critical infrastructure in a responsible way is one we should not allow
to deter us from getting this job done to protect our national and
economic security.
Whatever the ultimate solution, we simply must find a way to improve
the cybersecurity of our critical infrastructure.
I yield the floor to Senator Blumenthal, who has been engaged in
efforts with me to try to find a way through to a bipartisan bill that
will protect our critical infrastructure. He has expertise in this area
as a superbly trained lawyer, a multiply elected Attorney General of
his home State, a former marine dedicated to our national security, and
as a person who brings the highest level of legal talent to this
discussion, having argued, I think, five separate cases before the U.S.
Supreme Court. He has been an enormous asset, and I appreciate his
participation.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Rhode
Island, my distinguished colleague, for those very generous remarks.
Actually, I had four arguments in the Supreme Court. The rest was
similarly exaggerated as to my qualifications. But I thank the Senator
from Rhode Island. Most importantly, I thank him for his extraordinary
work on this issue and for his leadership and vision as well as his
courage.
I wish to emphasize a number of the points he made so powerfully in
his remarks earlier. First and most significantly, the United States is
under cyber attack. The question is, How do we respond? It is our
national interests that are at stake.
Every day this Nation suffers attempted intrusions, attempted
interference, and attempted theft of our intellectual property as a
result of the ongoing attacks we need to stop, deter, and answer.
National security is indistinguishable from cybersecurity. In fact,
cybersecurity is a matter of national security and not only so far as
our defense capabilities; our actual weapons systems are potentially
under attack and interference, but also, as my colleague from Rhode
Island said so well, because our critical infrastructure is every day
at risk--our facilities in transportation, our financial systems, our
utilities that power our great cities and our rural areas and our
intellectual property, which is so valuable and which every day is at
risk and, in fact, is taken from us wrongfully, at great cost to our
Nation.
The number and sophistication of cyber attacks has increased
dramatically over the past 5 years. All the warnings--bipartisan
warnings--say those attacks will continue and will be mounted with
increasing intensity. In fact, experts say that with enough time,
motivation, and funding, a determined adversary can penetrate nearly
any system that is accessible directly from the Internet.
The United States today is vulnerable. To take the Pearl Harbor
analysis that our Secretary of Defense has drawn so well, we have our
``ships'' sitting unprotected today, as they were at the time of the
Pearl Harbor attack. Our ships today are not just our vessels in the
sea but our institutions sitting in this country and around the world,
our critical infrastructure, which is equally vulnerable to
sophisticated and unsophisticated hackers.
In fact, the threat ranges from the hackers in developing countries--
unsophisticated hackers--to foreign agents who want to steal our
Nation's secrets, to terrorists who seek ways to disrupt that critical
infrastructure.
It is not a matter simply of convenience. We are not talking about
temporary dislocations, such as the loss of electricity that the
Capital area suffered recently or that our States in New England
suffered as a result of the recent storms last fall; we are talking
about permanent, severe, lasting disruptions and dislocations of our
financial and power systems that may be caused by this interference.
One international group, for example, accessed a financial company's
internal computer network and stole millions of dollars in just 24
hours.
Another such criminal group accessed online commercial bank accounts
and spread malicious computer viruses that cost our financial
institutions nearly $70 million.
One company that was recently a victim of intrusion determined it
lost 10 years' worth of research and development--valued at $1
billion--virtually overnight. These losses are not just for the
shareholders of these companies, they are to all of us who live in the
United States because the losses, in many instances, are losses of
information to defense companies that produce our weapons, losses of
property that has been developed at great cost to them and to our
taxpayers. We should all be concerned about such losses.
As Shawn Henry, the Executive Assistant Director of the FBI, has
said: ``The cyber threat is an existential one, meaning that a major
cyber attack could potentially wipe out whole companies.''
Those threats to our critical infrastructure, as we have heard so
powerfully from my colleague from Rhode Island, are widespread and
spreading.
Industrial control systems, which help control our pipelines,
railroads, water treatment facilities, and powerplants, are at an
elevated risk of cyber exploitation today--not at some point in the
future but today. The FBI warns that a successful cyber attack against
an electrical grid ``could cause serious damage to parts of our cities,
and ultimately even kill people.''
The Department of Homeland Security said that last year they had
received nearly 200 reports of suspected cyber incidents, more than 4
times the number of incidents reported in 2010.
In one such incident, more than 100 computers at a nuclear energy
firm were infected with a virus that could have been used to take
complete control of that company's system.
These reports, these warnings, go on.
In summary, the Director of the FBI said it best: ``We are losing
data, we are losing money, we are losing ideas, and we are losing
innovation. ``
Those threats are existential to our Nation, and we must address them
now--not simply as a luxury, not as a possibility but as a need now.
[[Page S4849]]
I thank the Senator from Rhode Island, as well as my distinguished
fellow Senator from Connecticut, Joseph Lieberman, and others on the
other side, such as Senators McCain, Collins, Graham, and Chambliss, as
well as other colleagues on this side, for their leadership in this
area. They have started this effort with great dedication.
There has been substantial work done already. No one here has ignored
this threat. We must move forward for the sake of our Nation's
security. Our cybersecurity must be addressed as soon as possible.
Cybersecurity is not an issue we can wait to address until we see the
results of failure. The consequences of a debilitating attack would be
catastrophic to our Nation. I hope we can continue to fill the
consensus, which the Senator from Rhode Island has been working to do,
with other colleagues, so we can come together, as he said--not whether
but how--and do it in a bipartisan way. This issue has elicited, very
commendably and impressively, colleagues from both sides who have been
working on this issue with dedication and diligence. I hope the body as
a whole will match the vigor that is appropriate.
Again, I thank the Senator from Rhode Island. Part of our challenge
will be to elicit better agency coordination. If the Senator from Rhode
Island wishes to comment further, I hope perhaps he can respond to the
question of how soon we should come together and work on this issue. Is
it a problem we can delay until the next session or should we try to
address it during the coming months of this session before we close?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I am delighted to respond to the
Senator in two ways. First, as the Senator so well pointed out, this is
not a future threat or a prospective threat that we need to prepare
ourselves against; this is an ongoing, current threat. There is a
campaign of attacks into our national security infrastructure, into our
intellectual property, and into our critical infrastructure, such as
the power grids and the communications networks we count on in our
daily lives for what we consider the American standard of living here
at home. So time is not our friend.
As one of the individuals I quoted said--I think Admiral McConnell--
the day to get this done was yesterday. So the sooner the better. We do
need to form a consensus in this body, enough to move through the
parliamentary obstacles that exist in this body, which allows us to go
forward and will allow us to go forward in a way that does something
serious about forcing the operators of our critical infrastructure to
put in adequate cybersecurity protections. If they have to do it
because they have incentives to do it, that is one way of getting
there. If they have to do it because there are regulations that demand
it, that is another way of getting there. There are different ways of
getting there. And as the Senator from Connecticut and I have
discussed--and we are actually working together on this--we are open to
different ways to get there, but it should be agreed amongst us in the
Senate that getting there, getting to the point where America's
critical infrastructure is protected from cyber attack as reasonably
well as we can should be the nonnegotiable goal. Anything short of that
should be seen as failure.
There is another thing I wanted to add. The Senator was very generous
in his remarks and credentialing of a great number of Senators who have
been working very hard. I would also like to single out Senator Coons,
who has been very helpful in our efforts.
I will stay on our side of the aisle at this point and add in
particular Senator Mikulski. Barbara Mikulski serves on the
Intelligence Committee. She is keenly aware of the cyber threat. She
has taken deep dives into this issue in her role as a cardinal on the
Appropriations Committee. She does the appropriations for many of the
national security agencies and law enforcement agencies that are deeply
involved in this. So when she speaks, she speaks with real authority
and she speaks with real impact. Her participation in this effort is
extraordinarily helpful, in addition to the efforts of the many
Senators whom my colleague singled out as well.
With that, I yield the floor. I see the Senator from Louisiana is
here, and I thank the Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I thank the Senator and the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken). The Senator from Louisiana.
Prescription Drug Policy
Mr. VITTER, Mr. President, I come to the Senate floor to talk about a
priority of mine that has been the case since I first came to the
Senate; that is, reimportation--changing Federal law appropriately to
allow Americans to buy safe, cheaper prescription drugs from Canada and
other countries.
We all know prescription drug prices are sky-high in the United
States. They are sky-high by any metric, by any measure, but certainly
in this down economy and certainly for folks like our seniors who are
on a fixed income. They are particularly sky-high when you compare
those drug prices to the prices of exactly the same drugs in other
countries, including other Western industrialized countries, such as
Canada immediately to our north.
For this reason, from the very beginning of my work in the Senate, I
have laid out a number of solutions that I believe would make the
situation a lot better, including generics reform, which I am working
on in a bipartisan way with other Members of the Senate. One of those
proposed solutions has been reimportation. Again, that would mean
changing Federal law, as I think we absolutely need to do, to allow
American seniors and all Americans to buy safe, cheaper prescription
drugs from other countries such as Canada.
Let me emphasize that I am talking about exactly the same
prescription drugs as we can buy here at much higher prices, and I am
only talking about FDA-approved drugs. I am talking about drugs coming
from the same sources, manufacturing sites, either in this country that
go to Canada and other countries or sometimes from third-party
countries, with the drugs coming to both Canada and the United States.
When I first came to the Senate, we were on the verge of passing that
legislation. I worked in a bipartisan way with a large group of
Senators, including Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, who was one
of the leaders of the issue at the time; John McCain on our Republican
side; and many others, including Olympia Snowe, who were also involved
in this issue.
One of those strong vocal supporters of reimportation was then-
Senator Barack Obama. He took a very clear position as a U.S. Senator
being strongly in support of reimportation. He voted for the full-
fledged reimportation bill in 2007, and as he became a Presidential
candidate, that strong, clear support continued during his Presidential
campaign. Then-candidate Obama clearly stated once again his strong,
crystal-clear support for reimportation. In fact, Presidential
candidate Obama used very feisty language about reimportation. He
claimed he would fight Big Pharma--the big pharmaceutical companies--
stating, ``We'll take them on, hold them accountable for the prices
they charge'' and ``[drug] companies are exploiting Americans by
dramatically overcharging U.S. consumers.''
Unfortunately, after then-candidate Obama was elected President, some
things changed, and the biggest change was the ObamaCare proposal and
all of the backroom deals, bartering, and deal-making that led to its
passage through Congress. I had concerns at the time. In fact, I spoke
very clearly about my concerns here on the Senate floor that there were
some backroom deals going on, essentially trading reimportation--the
White House pledging to oppose reimportation, clearly against what the
President ran on and how he voted here in the Senate, if Big Pharma
would join the effort to pass ObamaCare into law.
More recently, in the last few months, e-mails and other evidence
have surfaced that clearly confirm that is exactly what went on. In
fact, the House Energy and Commerce Committee has had an investigation
into this issue, and it has revealed and made very clear the closed-
door negotiations about ObamaCare that essentially struck a deal
between Big Pharma and the White House, the White House saying: You
support ObamaCare, you help us pass it, you
[[Page S4850]]
produce advertising dollars to do that, and we will deep-six--kill
forever--reimportation.
As I said, this House investigation has laid out a clear pattern of
e-mails and other communications that tell the story very clearly.
PhRMA e-mails, for instance, say:
Rahm will make it clear that PhRMA needs a direct line of
communication, separate and apart from any other coalition.
Of course, Rahm is then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
On June 10, 2009, PhRMA lobbyists met with White House officials, and
coming out of that meeting, they said they had discussed the details
``and the expected financial gain from health reform.''
The same House investigation has revealed meetings between top
administration officials and other special interest groups, including
meetings at the DSCC--Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee--to
coordinate political operations. PhRMA lobbyists attended these
meetings to learn about White House messaging and ``how our effort can
be consistent with that.''
Then the final big deal was struck, and the big deal, as revealed
clearly by this evidence and these e-mails, was very clear: PhRMA--the
big pharmaceutical companies--would support ObamaCare not just in word
but in deed, including putting up $70 million to help fund an
advertising campaign in support of the passage of ObamaCare. That $70
million from the biggest pharmaceutical companies went to two 501(c)(4)
groups--Healthy Economy Now and Americans for Stable Quality Care.
These groups were formed specifically to advertise and promote the
passage of ObamaCare. The former group was actually created after a
meeting discussing the need for these efforts at the DSCC, a Democratic
campaign arm. In addition, Big Pharma--the biggest pharmaceutical
companies--offered $80 billion in payment reductions and other parts of
health care financing in order to again secure their top priority:
killing, in their mind, hopefully forever, reimportation.
In June President Obama's top White House health care adviser, Nancy-
Ann DeParle, wrote to PhRMA that the Obama administration had ``made
[the] decision, based on how constructive you guys have been, to oppose
importation.'' Later, after that, PhRMA lobbyist e-mails confirm the
deal and specifically highlight a conversation a PhRMA lobbyist had
with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina. The PhRMA lobbyist
wrote:
Confidential. [White House] is working on some very
explicit language on importation to kill it in health care
reform.
In August 2009 PhRMA's top lobbyist at the time, Billy Tauzin, made
it crystal clear as well when he said:
We were assured . . . you will have a rock-solid deal.
The tragedy of all this is they apparently did have a rock-solid deal
because if we look at Senate votes after that backroom deal which
helped pass ObamaCare, there were multiple individual Senators who
flipped their votes and made good on the White House rock-solid deal to
kill reimportation--that opportunity for all Americans, particularly
seniors, to be able to buy safe, cheaper prescription drugs from Canada
and elsewhere.
Let's look at votes on the broad reimportation bill which was led by
then-Senator Byron Dorgan. I was a cosponsor, and so were many other
Senators who had been involved in this issue, such as John McCain,
Olympia Snowe, and many others. In 2007 the Senate actually passed that
measure 63 to 28, although after that it was essentially scuttled by a
poison pill that was added to the bill. But the vote on the base
measure was 63 to 28, with 47 Senate Democrats voting yes, including
then-Senator Barack Obama.
Now let's flash-forward to 2009, after the ObamaCare backroom deal,
and it is a whole different planet, a whole different landscape. The
Senate defeated the same measure 51 to 48. There was a 60-vote
threshold, with 38 Senate Democrats voting yes--a far smaller number--
and 23 Senate Democrats switching their votes from 2007. It was exactly
the same measure, but 23 Senate Democrats flip-flopped, switched their
votes in light of the White House ObamaCare deal.
We can see a similar flip-flop with regard to votes on my Vitter
amendment, which was a more narrowly tailored measure regarding
reimportation. In 2009 the Senate passed that Vitter amendment 55 to
36, with, again, 45 Senate Democrats voting yes on that more focused
and narrowly tailored reimportation amendment. But in 2011, after the
deal, it was a completely different story. The Senate rejected the same
amendment 45 to 55, with only 29 Senate Democrats voting yes--again, 14
Senate Democrats having switched their votes, doing a complete flip-
flop from 2009.
So I believe the facts are in. Investigations, e-mails, and other
crystal-clear evidence, including those votes and vote switches, make
it very clear there was a backroom deal worth billions of dollars to
Big Pharma and worth a lot politically to the Obama White House. That
deal, as evidenced by these communications and quotes and e-mails, was
very clear.
Big Pharma said: We will help you pass ObamaCare. We will give you
$70 million in advertising money. We will help lower costs so you can
brag that ObamaCare is, through some smoke and mirrors accounting,
actually saving money when it is not. And, in exchange, you kill
reimportation, which would lower prices on us and hurt our profit
margin. And the White House said: Absolutely, we agree.
Senator Obama was full bore for reimportation. Candidate Obama
campaigned on the issue and was very strong and vocal about it.
President Obama cut the backroom deal and killed it. Those of us who
are still fighting for lower prescription drug costs here in the Senate
are, quite frankly, still reeling from the setback and still trying to
deal with it. But I believe we ultimately will deal with it and will
recover from this major setback when the American people fully realize
what went on--the corrupt, I would say, backroom deal that was cut
between the White House and Big Pharma, and how seniors and other
Americans are paying the price.
ObamaCare passed, and prescription drug prices continue to be sky
high. They continue to hurt tens of millions of Americans, particularly
those on a fixed income such as seniors. And we continue to need a
solution to that very real problem. That is why I will continue to
fight. I will continue to fight for any measure that makes sense to
lower prescription drug prices, generics reform, streamlining at FDA,
and, yes, reimportation, to level the playing field, to get a world
price on the drugs we use and not force a much higher price on
Americans than virtually anyone else pays around the world.
America's seniors need that relief. I wish the Obama White House
understood that and acted upon that. I wish President Obama would keep
his word that he made as a Senator and as a Presidential candidate. But
I will continue to keep my word on the issue and to build that support
for strong, effective reimportation legislation.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
Honoring Raoul Wallenberg
Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, I rise today on a matter that has
become very close to my heart; and that is, honoring Raoul Wallenberg
with the Nation's highest civilian award, the Congressional Gold Medal
of Honor. I urge my colleagues to support conferring this honor on Mr.
Wallenberg, and I am grateful that we already have 71 of my colleagues
from every part of the political spectrum supporting our efforts.
During World War II, Raoul Wallenberg chose to leave his life of ease
in Sweden for a diplomatic assignment in Hungary, which was then an
ally in Nazi Germany. His assignment was the result of a recruitment
effort by the United States War Refugee Board and the Office of
Strategic Services to try to save the remaining Hungarian Jews from the
Holocaust.
In his effort, Mr. Wallenberg succeeded beyond anyone's expectations.
He provided Swedish passports for thousands of Jews, which literally
made the difference between life and death. Mr. Wallenberg rented 32
buildings in Budapest, raised a Swedish flag, and declared them
protected with diplomatic immunity. Within these buildings, he housed,
protected, and saved almost 10,000 precious lives.
[[Page S4851]]
Mr. Wallenberg's bravery and his will to act are shining examples to
us all. According to eyewitnesses, Mr. Wallenberg once climbed onto the
roof of a train with Jews departing for Auschwitz, handing them
protective passes through the doors. Amid threats from the guards, he
then marched dozens of those with passes to safety in a diplomatic
convoy. As the Nazi front was collapsing and Adolf Eichmann moved to
kill all the remaining Jews in Budapest, it was Mr. Wallenberg who
helped thwart that plan by threatening Hungarian leaders with the
promise of hanging for war crimes if they carried out the plot.
Sadly, and selflessly, Mr. Wallenberg was later taken prisoner when
the Soviet Army liberated Budapest from the Nazis, and it is presumed
that he died in a Moscow prison.
This hero's willingness to risk his own life for others exemplifies
his outstanding spirit, his dedication to humanity, and the
responsibility for all of us to speak out against atrocities. His
enduring legacy lives on in the countless descendants of those he
saved, the lives of New Yorkers such as Peter Rebenwurzel, a New York
City resident whose late father helped Jews in the Budapest ghetto, and
whose father-in-law only survived because of Mr. Wallenberg's heroic
efforts.
I wish also to take this moment to recognize Andrew Stevens, who was
an active member of the Jewish underground during the Holocaust who
worked bravely alongside Mr. Wallenberg to save Jewish lives.
As we move to award Raoul Wallenberg with this Congressional Medal of
Honor upon the centennial of his birth, we pay tribute to an
extraordinary man whose life should serve as a shining example of
leadership and courage for all future generations to come.
Mr. President, I wish also to address the second issue of something
we have been debating on the floor all morning, and that is the issue
of jobs and what this Congress is doing to help our small businesses
grow.
I rise in support of the Landrieu-Snowe amendment and the underlying
bill. These two proposals will address what every American expects us
to take on; that is, coming together to create jobs, help our economy
grow, and focus squarely on creating opportunities for our middle class
to thrive. All across my home State of New York, too many middle-class
families are continuing to struggle in this very tough economy.
Of course, the government doesn't create any jobs. Businesses create
jobs and ideas, and people create jobs, especially small businesses.
Small businesses have been responsible for at least 60 percent of all
new jobs that have been created, and small businesses can give us the
spark we actually need to create a growing economy and a thriving
middle class.
I have spent months going all across New York State having
roundtables with businesses, and I have particularly hosted roundtables
focused on women-owned businesses. I have been to restaurants, I have
been to bookstores, I have been to recyclers, I have been to
incubators, I have been to home stores, all businesses created by women
all across New York State.
Women-owned businesses are among the fastest growing sector within
the small business economy. More than 10 million businesses are owned
by women, employing more than 13 million people and generating nearly
$2 trillion worth of sales in 2008 alone. Even though women-owned
businesses start their businesses with about eight times less capital
than their male counterparts, in the decade from 1997 to 2007, women-
owned businesses added roughly \1/2\ million jobs to our economy. That
is the kind of growth we need right now. That is the kind of spark that
could actually make a difference. And we could do our part right here
in Congress this week. It is time to end all the political posturing.
It is time to come together around commonsense core ideas, such as
giving these businesses the tax breaks they need to grow.
We shouldn't wait another day to eliminate capital gains on
investments in these small businesses. We should extend the tax breaks
for businesses that allow them to invest in new property, plants, or
equipment and take those deductions upfront. We should give them
incentives to hire those new employees. It is our responsibility as
lawmakers to do this kind of work together, in a bipartisan way, one
that can set aside the political gamesmanship.
I know, just as women-owned small businesses are ready to lead us to
lasting economic strength and growing economy, the women of the Senate
are there to support them. Democrats and Republican women have come
together around this bill in a bipartisan way to urge our colleagues to
support it.
These tax provisions provide relief to the self-employed, to small
businesses in their capital investments, and encourage new investment.
They work hand in hand with other tax credits that encourage new hires
and wage increases. The combination of these things will harness their
full potential for our American businesses to grow.
We know these proposals are effective. They helped boost private
sector job creation over the past 2 years. But we all know there is so
much more we have to do, and we can start by renewing these commonsense
steps to unlock the power of our small businesses.
These aren't Democratic ideas; they are not Republican ideas; they
are just good ideas. They are good, commonsense ideas that can make a
difference. We should be able to come together to do this for the
American people to create a growing economy again.
Mr. President, I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, yesterday the Senate voted by a wide margin
to proceed to Leader Reid's Small Business Jobs and Tax Relief Act.
Everyone in this Chamber claims to support both small businesses and
tax relief, and Republicans know the best way to do that is to stop the
$4.5 trillion tax hike that looms over the economy, and it is crippling
job creators.
Fortunately, there is an easy way to solve the problem: Vote on and
pass amendment No. 2491, introduced by Senators Hatch and McConnell and
cosponsored by myself and several colleagues.
The amendment is simple. It prevents the looming expiration of the
2001 and 2003 tax relief for 1 year, and lays out specific conditions
for progrowth tax reform in the coming months. It is similar to the
approach the House will take later this month.
In other words, the Hatch-McConnell amendment stops income tax rates
from rising. It stops capital gains and dividends rates from rising. It
stops the job-killing death tax from rising and the related exemption
from falling. And it prevents the alternative minimum tax from
engulfing millions more middle-income Americans.
It is an amendment that would protect our economy more than any debt-
financed stimulus bill or other kind of short-term tax credit that the
Obama administration could dream up. It is an amendment that, given the
history of bipartisan support for tax relief in this Chamber, should
pass the Chamber today.
To be clear, stopping these tax hikes for 1 year is not a perfect
solution. My preference is to continue the current rates as we move
toward comprehensive tax reform for both individuals and corporations.
But let's be clear about what the other options are.
First, we could let the top two marginal tax brackets increase from
33 and 35 percent to 36 and 39.6 percent respectively. That is what
President Obama and Leader Reid wish to do.
That strategy means that almost 1 million business owners will be hit
with a massive tax increase on New Year's Day. And that is according to
the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. That strategy means 53
percent of business income will be subjected to a tax hike in order to
fund the historic levels of spending from the current administration.
The strategy guarantees more jobs will be lost, that unemployment will
stay high, and that economic growth will remain sub par.
Let me repeat that. Over half--53 percent--of all business income
would be subjected to this tax increase.
If we do nothing, the current code expires and Americans will see
over $4.5
[[Page S4852]]
trillion taken from the private sector over the next decade. This will
help push us into a recession next year, according to the Congressional
Budget Office. For any Member of this Chamber who cares about job
creation and economic recovery, these two options should be
unacceptable. They certainly were for President Obama in 2010. Less
than 2 years ago, when President Obama signed legislation into law
preventing taxes from going up on any American, he noted that tax
hikes, and I am quoting here, ``would have been a blow to our economy
just as we are climbing out of a devastating recession.''
Evidently, 40 Senate Democrats agreed with the President since they
too voted to stop taxes from increasing in 2010. What is the difference
now? Our economy is in worse shape, growing now at less than 2 percent.
At that time it was 3 percent. So there is even more reason not to
raise taxes now than there was in 2010 when the President thought it
was a bad idea.
I want to echo the sentiments of Senator McConnell this morning. Even
though the President's plan is bad for the economy, we should vote on
it and we should vote on the Hatch amendment today. Let's show the
American people where we stand. A unanimous consent agreement to do
just that was blocked this morning by the majority leader even though
President Obama said the following 2 days ago:
So my message to Congress is this: Pass a bill. I will sign
it tomorrow. Pass it next week; I'll sign it next week. Pass
it next--well, you get the idea.
We should follow President Obama's suggestion. We should vote on
these proposals. Let's vote on his proposal. Let's vote on Senator
Hatch's proposal. Senator Hatch's proposal will stop taxes from going
up on any American. The other one will burden nearly 1 million business
owners with job-killing higher taxes. I think Americans deserve to know
where their elected officials stand on these critical issues.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the quorum call
be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, I ask to speak on an amendment I have sent
to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Amendments are not in order at this time, but
it can be submitted.
Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, I ask to speak on the bill I send to the
desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The measure will be appropriately referred.
Mr. WEBB. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank the Parliamentarian for
that clarification.
(The remarks of Mr. Webb pertaining to the introduction of S. 3372
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills
and Joint Resolutions.'')
Mr. WEBB. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Udall of New Mexico). Without objection,
it is so ordered.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, what is the current parliamentary
situation?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is postcloture on the motion to
proceed to S. 2237.
Mr. LEAHY. I thank the distinguished Presiding Officer, the Senator
from New Mexico.
Vermont National Guard
Mr. President, let me begin by noting that this morning, while
watching ``The Today Show,'' I saw a piece about the Vermont National
Guard. We have called them the Green Mountain Boys from the time of
Ethan Allen. It was fascinating to watch Savannah Guthrie, who is one
of the anchors of the morning program ``The Today Show.'' Her brother
is a colonel with the Vermont National Guard who flies F-16s. She got
to ride on the plane with her brother, which I thought was remarkable.
I had the opportunity to fly with them before. For those of us who are
usually confined to flying on airlines, this is a little bit different,
both in takeoff, visibility, and maneuvers. I have never been on a
commercial airplane where I was pulled anywhere from 5 to 9 Gs, as that
flight was.
I was glad to see not only Colonel Guthrie recognized, but also all
the men and women of the Vermont National Guard. This is a group who,
in the hours after 9/11--the tragedies of 9/11--immediately took to the
air and guarded the skies over New York City.
I recall when our adjutant general called me to tell me that the
Green Mountain Boys were protecting New York City around the clock.
I asked her: Where are you basing them from?
She said: Vermont.
I said: Well, how long does it take you to get to New York City?
She told me: With the after burners, a matter of minutes.
I have never been quite able to make that flight on a commuter plane
from Burlington, VT, to New York City. But they can be refueled in
midair.
Everybody, whether on vacation or not, showed up at the Vermont
National Guard--our mechanics, flight administrators, and pilots, of
course. They kept those planes going around the clock for weeks. They
did not miss a single day of their mission, or a single minute of their
mission--even with all the calibration of weapons and radar and
everything else. It was a remarkable scene.
I am glad to see them recognized this morning, and as a Vermonter, I
am extraordinarily proud of our Vermont National Guard, both our Army
Guard and our Air Guard. They do all the people of our State proud.
Mr. President, I wish to speak on another matter, and I ask as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, small businesses and working families
throughout Vermont and around the country are facing incredibly
challenging times. These problems are especially acute in my State,
where we rely so heavily on small businesses to create jobs for our
citizens and to make Vermont the desirable place to live and to visit
that it is.
The Federal Government has rightly recognized the important role
small businesses play in our economy. From SBA loans, to USDA Rural
Development grants, to small business set-asides on government
contracts, a variety of targeted Federal programs join with small
businesses to help them grow and prosper.
This Congress has enacted several job-creating steps. Just last year,
I was able to lead the effort here in the Senate to enact a major
overhaul of our Nation's outdated patent laws. The Leahy-Smith America
Invents Act is going to create jobs, but also, and very importantly, it
is going to help unleash more American innovation, and it does not add
a penny to our deficit. In fact, last year Vermont was awarded more
patents per capita than any State in the Union. Of course, those
patents mean more jobs for Vermonters.
And 2 weeks ago we made further progress by passing a transportation
funding bill that will make vital investments in our Nation's roads,
bridges, and transit systems, and a student loan bill that will lower
the costs of college borrowing for thousands of students and their
families.
I might say, these student loans are extremely important. I remember
the one I had when I was in law school--a 10-year loan. Two things
happened the year of that last payment, that 10th payment on my student
loan from law school: first, the satisfaction my wife, Marcelle, and I
had in paying off the loan, and second, it was that same year I was
sworn into the U.S. Senate. I wonder if I would have been here had we
not had the money to pay for school.
But I think we can and must do more to help our struggling small
businesses and working families.
That is why I strongly support the bill before us today that will
provide small businesses with tax incentives to begin hiring again. The
bill is a multipronged strategy for spurring job creation. First, it
would create a tax credit for businesses to hire new workers or
increase wages for their current
[[Page S4853]]
workers. In other words, instead of saying that we just give a tax
break to extraordinarily wealthy people and somehow jobs will be
created, we say: Let's see the jobs. Show me the jobs. Show me the
jobs. If you have a tax credit for businesses that hire new workers or
increase wages for their current workers, then that is a good use of
our Tax Code. Second, it would allow businesses to immediately write
off all of the major purchases they make this year. That is a tangible
incentive for new investments and new hires, right away.
I do not support this bill just because the President supports it, or
the Democratic leader supports it, or most of the Members of my side of
the aisle support it. They all do stand behind this effort, and I am
grateful for that. I support this bill because I have heard from small
business owners in Vermont, Democratic and Republican alike, who tell
me they would make capital improvements and put people to work
immediately if this bill were signed into law. And I suspect the same
would be true in virtually every other State in this country.
On the shores of Lake Champlain, in the northern border town of
Highgate, VT, sits one of America's most genuine and beautiful family
resorts: the Tyler Place Family Resort. Year after year, families flock
to the resort to spend time with their families, swimming and boating
and enjoying a summer campfire. It is the kind of place that draws the
same families year after year, where multigenerational families take
time to enjoy each other's company as well as the great food and the
magnificent views. It is easy to forget, especially when you are
sitting there watching the sunset over the beautiful, great big Lake
Champlain, that it is one of the millions of small businesses that keep
America's economy moving forward and Americans at work.
Last year I heard from the owners of the resort, including Pixley
Tyler Hill, a dogged advocate for Vermont, for Vermont's tourism
industry, and for Lake Champlain, about their interest in seeing an
extension of the bonus depreciation provision that expired in December.
Her brother Ted Tyler summed it up by saying:
These changes in the tax law make all the difference in the
world in decisions whether to spend money, and thereby
stimulate the economy and increase employment in the process.
For example, consider a resort deciding whether to add tennis
courts, put in a new sewer system, upgrade roads or do major
landscaping work--say, at an anticipated cost of $300,000.
Absent bonus depreciation the company will have paid $300,000
but it can only deduct $20,000 that year as an expense for
tax purposes. True enough that over the next 14 years, the
business can continue to write off $20,000. But how many
small businesses can afford to wait that long to recoup the
$280,000 they no longer have?
Pixley and Ted had me sold the minute they explained that this tax
incentive was the difference between making new investments and hiring
someone, and sitting on their hands waiting for things to change.
Extending this provision alone is reason enough to pass the bill.
This bill is full of a million other reasons why we should be working
with all the determination we can muster and promptly pass it. Pass it
now when the economy needs it. It is a good, solid reason for each of
the jobs it would create for working families and businesses all over
America.
I urge all Senators to work without delay on this important
legislation. Businesses in each of our 50 States are waiting for us to
lend another helping hand to the economic recovery act.
Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act
Mr. President, it has been nearly 3 months since the Senate passed
the bipartisan Leahy-Crapo Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act--
3 months. We are no closer to enacting this bill into law than we were
in April when 68 Senators, Republican and Democratic Senators alike,
voted for this critical legislation to protect women from domestic and
sexual abuse.
I am concerned that politics threatens to get in the way of passing
this critical legislation this year. Protecting every victim of
domestic and sexual violence should be above politics. Members of
Congress in both Chambers, set aside the political rhetoric. Act
swiftly to reauthorize this landmark legislation and save countless
lives.
Time is running out. There are only a few weeks left in this session
before election-year politics take over and Congress comes to a
standstill. There are critical improvements in the Leahy-Crapo
reauthorization bill that will not take effect unless Congress acts. We
cannot simply say: Well, if we do not enact it, maybe we can do it next
year or the year after. There are a lot of major programs that can only
be enacted in this bill, not in appropriations, not any other way.
Sexual assault programs will not receive the added support they need
unless we pass our bill into law. The legislation's emphasis on
increasing housing protection for victims and preventing homicides
connected to domestic and sexual violence will not have an opportunity
to help vulnerable victims across the country. Important improvements
in campus safety and prevention programs for teens will not occur.
Immigrant victims, Native women, and LGBT victims will continue to
remain without the services and protection they need and deserve.
The legislation is too important to wait. I hear from victims and the
professionals who work on their behalf. They say they need the
improvements made by the Leahy-Crapo bill and they need them today.
The legislation is particularly important during difficult economic
times because the economic pressures facing many Americans can pose
additional hurdles in leaving abusive relationships. Active community
networks are needed to provide support to victims in these
circumstances, yet budget cuts result in fewer available services, such
as emergency shelters, transitional housing, and counseling.
Late last month, I had the opportunity to speak at the VAWA National
Days of Action rally, where survivors and professionals in the field--
those who have dedicated their lives to helping victims all over the
country--gathered together to send Congress a message. They told me
they are very frustrated by the lack of progress in passing VAWA, and
rightfully so, because they and the victims they serve are the ones who
are affected by Congress's inaction. They were so inspired when this
body came together and 68 of us voted to pass it. Now they ask when are
we going to finish.
Their message to Congress was loud and clear: Do your job. Pass VAWA
now. Supporting the work of these tireless advocates, and the victims
they help, should be our priority.
Victims should not be forced to wait any longer. They will not
benefit from the improvements we made in the Senate bill unless both
Houses of Congress vote to pass this legislation. The problems facing
victims of domestic and sexual violence are too serious for Congress to
delay. Domestic and sexual violence knows no political party. Its
victims are Republican and Democratic, rich and poor, young and old. As
I said so many times, a victim is a victim is a victim. Helping these
victims, all of these victims, should be our goal.
I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Climate Change
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, we were here two winters ago, in
February, when Washington was hit by a snowstorm that achieved the
nickname Snowmageddon. The city and, in fact, much of the mid-Atlantic
was buried under feet of snow. It was the biggest snowstorm in 90 years
for this area. People in Washington were struggling to get to work and
school, and people went without power for days.
This being Washington, some of our colleagues in the Senate seized on
that opportunity to mock climate change and to suggest these winter
snowstorms were inconsistent with the projections of what would happen
from global warming and climate change. As an initial matter, that is a
false comparison from the very get-go all by
[[Page S4854]]
itself. Climate science models have predicted consistently that as
polar icecaps and glaciers melt and more water enters the system, we
can expect heavier precipitation events. One of the ways it has been
described is that if you have a pot on the stove and you have the heat
under it and it is simmering, when you turn up the heat, you get more
activity in the pot. You add energy to a dynamic system like a pot of
boiling water, and it creates more energy in the dynamic environment.
In the same way, the extra energy coming in because of climate
change, our carbon pollution in the atmosphere, is energizing our
atmosphere and our weather, and we are getting weather extremes as a
result.
There was an article in Science Daily, headlined ``Arctic Ice Melt Is
Setting Stage for Severe Winters.'' It says this:
The dramatic melt-off of Arctic sea ice due to climate
change is hitting closer to home than millions of Americans
might think.
That's because melting Arctic sea ice can trigger a domino
effect leading to increased odds of severe winter weather
outbreaks in the Northern Hemisphere's middle latitudes--
think the ``Snowmageddon'' storm that hamstrung Washington,
DC, during February 2010.
I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record at
the end of my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. That shows the original challenge to climate change
theory, based on the incident of Snowmageddon, was like so much that is
said to challenge climate change--phony, outright wrong, a
misunderstanding of how it works, and misrepresenting what it shows.
Scientists have recently published an article in
Oceanography that demonstrates that link between climate
change and severe winter weather in the northern Hemisphere's
middle latitudes. I think that can be debunked as a phony
claim against the facts of climate change that are
surrounding us. Look around at what is happening now. We are
seeing extreme weather on the other side.
Last week, Eugene Robinson wrote a Washington Post column that was
entitled ``Feeling the Heat.'' He wrote:
Still don't believe in climate change? Then you're either
deep in denial or delirious from the heat.
He points out that the evidence is mounting in irresistible and
ultimately irrefutable ways. To quote from his article:
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says
the past winter was the fourth-warmest on record in the
United States. To top that, Spring--which meteorologists
define as the months of March, April and May--was the warmest
since recordkeeping began in 1895.
Again, this spring--March, April, and May--was the warmest since
recordkeeping began in 1895.
He continues:
If you don't believe me or the scientists, ask a farmer
whose planting seasons have gone awry.
The Bloomberg news recently wrote a story entitled ``U.S. Corn
Growers Farming in Hell as Midwest Heat Spreads.'' The story reported
that corn crops are in the worst condition since 1988 and that 53
percent of the Midwest is experiencing moderate to extreme drought
conditions.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record, at the
conclusion of my remarks, the Bloomberg article I have just referenced.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 2.)
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. It is not just the agricultural sector that is
getting clobbered by the drought and the heat. As the Presiding
Officer, Senator Udall of New Mexico, knows all too well, and to quote
from a New York Times story:
Explosive wildfires have burned across much of the west in
recent weeks. In southwestern New Mexico, the largest
wildfire in state history has burned nearly 300,000 acres.
Of course, New Mexico is the Presiding Officer's home State, but the
article also describes other fires on the loose in Colorado and Utah.
The High Park Fire, which has been burning for weeks near
Fort Collins and is one of the largest and most destructive
blazes in the state's history . . .
The article also mentions that Colorado had more than half a dozen
fires burning and said conditions have not been this bad in a decade.
So we are seeing exactly the kind of extreme weather conditions the
climate scientists, whom the deniers have always mocked and made fun
of, actually predicted. They predicted this would happen, and it is, in
fact, happening.
It is clear we can't take a particular storm and say this storm, this
fire, this drought was the product of climate change. The example
people use to describe what is going on is that it is akin to loading
dice. The more someone loads the dice, the more the numbers they have
loaded the dice to show up will show up. So we will get more weather
events. Even if we don't load the dice, we are sometimes going to get
double sixes. We can't show every double six is because the dice were
loaded, but when we see more and more double sixes showing up--more
than history would suggest or more than the odds would suggest--then
something is going on. That is what we have done by loading our
atmosphere with carbon pollution. We have loaded the dice for these
extreme weather events, and now we are reaping that bitter harvest from
the pollution we have thrown up there.
Unfortunately, the bitter harvest in this city is that we continue to
listen to propaganda and nonsense from the polluters designed
specifically to create enough doubt to prevent us from taking action
about something that is creating these immense consequences for
foresters and firefighters in the West, for corn farmers in the
Midwest, and for anybody who has to experience extraordinary weather
events like ``snowmageddon,'' so-called, here in Washington. These
things are beginning to have an effect as real life begins to model
what the climate scientists predicted.
NOAA's Chief Jane Lubchenco spoke before an audience in Australia,
which is experiencing very similar conditions, and said these extreme
weather events are convincing many Americans that climate change is a
reality. We are seeing that more and more.
Yale, George Mason University, and the Knowledge Networks did some
polling on this subject, and 69 percent of the respondents said they
agreed that ``global warming is affecting the weather in the United
States'' versus 30 percent who said they disagreed. So better than 2 to
1 the American people are ready for us to do something about this. They
know there is a connection and they expect us to take responsible
action.
Gallup polls are reflecting a rebound in the public's concern about
climate change from 51 percent in 2011 up to 55 percent in March of
this year. Before the recession, it was all the way up to 66 percent,
until the economic issues pushed it aside.
The contention the polluting industries and their mouthpieces here in
Washington make--that the jury is still out on climate change caused by
carbon pollution--is simply false. The jury is not still out. The
verdict is in, the verdict is clear, and we should start doing
something about it.
When I come to the Senate floor to give these talks, I often quote a
letter from back in October 2009 that was signed by virtually every
major scientific organization in the country--the American Chemical
Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological
Society, the American Society of Agronomy, the Botanical Society of
America, the Soil Science Society of American, the American Statistical
Association, and I could go on and on. The point is not to name all the
multiple responsible and respected scientific organizations that signed
the letter but to read what it was they said. If we think about it, as
I read it, think about how cautious scientists ordinarily are in the
language they use. Here is what they said:
Observations throughout the world make it clear--
Clear--
that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific
research demonstrates--
Not suggests, demonstrates--
that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are--
Not maybe, are--
the primary driver. These conclusions are based on multiple
independent lines of evidence, and contrary assertions are
inconsistent with an objective assessment of the vast body of
peer-reviewed science.
That is a very ``sciencey'' way of saying something that is pretty
harsh, which is that all these contrary assertions about climate change
simply cannot be reconciled with an objective assessment of the facts,
of the vast body
[[Page S4855]]
of peer-reviewed research. If it can't be reconciled with an objective
assessment, what kind of assessment is it getting? What it is getting,
I submit, is a phony assessment, a political, propaganda-driven
assessment, and an assessment with the purpose of creating enough doubt
to slow down political action, to preserve the status quo, and to allow
pollution to continue to pour out of these smokestacks.
I speak very specifically about smokestacks because Rhode Island is a
downwind State, and so much of the coal pollution that gets piped up
into the atmosphere through Midwestern smoke stacks ends up landing in
my State. It lands in the form of ozone, in particular. There are days
in a Rhode Island summer that look clear, look beautiful, and someone
can be driving by sparkling Narragansett Bay in the morning on their
way to work when off goes the radio and the radio jock, in giving the
news announcements of the day, says: Today is a bad air day in Rhode
Island. Infants should stay indoors. The elderly should stay indoors.
People with breathing difficulties should stay indoors.
This is an otherwise beautiful day. Yet children, seniors, and people
with breathing difficulties should stay indoors? Yes, because
corporations, pumping carbon pollution and other forms of pollution out
of their Midwestern smokestacks, will not clean up their act. So they
get to hold Rhode Islanders, on a clear summer day, captive indoors
because they will not clean it up? That is wrong. It is just plain
wrong.
I am going to continue to come to the floor on a regular basis to
keep pointing this out. For some reason, this has become the issue in
Washington that dare not be mentioned. Enough of that. It is time we
started to mention it. It is time we started to force this issue, and
it is time we started to do something about it because any other form
of activity faced with these facts would be wildly irresponsible.
Let me give the example I have used before. You are a parent. You
have responsibility for the welfare and well-being of your child. Your
child is showing symptoms. You don't know quite what is wrong, but you
take her to the doctor and the doctor says: Something is wrong here.
She needs treatment. Treatment is not going to be easy, it will not be
cheap, but she needs it. You think: OK. That is bad news. I tell you
what, I am going to be a responsible parent and I am going to go get a
second opinion. So you go and get a second opinion and that doctor says
the exact same thing: Your daughter is sick. She needs treatment. So
you ask a couple more doctors who are friends. You get a third and
fourth opinion.
Let's say you are the most determined parent in the world and you go
out and you get 99 second opinions. You contact 100 doctors about your
daughter's condition, and 97 of them, 97 of those doctors say your
daughter is sick and she needs to be taken care of and she needs this
treatment. At that point you say: There is still doubt. There are these
three other doctors who aren't so sure about this, so I am not going to
do it. That is not something a responsible parent would do. I suspect
in some circumstances that would be so irresponsible that it might land
you in the child and family services office of your local government.
That is exactly what we are being asked to do about climate change--
to ignore the 97 percent of peer-reviewed climate scientists who
understand this is real, this is man-made, and the consequences are
going to be ferocious for us because there is a 3-percent doubt. It
gets even worse because so many of the scientists involved in the 3
percent are scientists for hire who have economic ties to the polluting
industries. Some of them even go back to previous fights, such as those
over whether cigarette smoking is good for you or whether lead paint is
safe for children. These are scientists who have made a career of
manufacturing doubt on behalf of the cigarette and tobacco industry, on
behalf of the lead paint industry, and now on behalf of the big carbon
polluters. In a nutshell, they are phonies, and we are being asked to
believe them.
I see the Senator from Florida is here, and I think my time at this
point has probably expired. I appreciate the time to come before this
body and share these views again. I will close by pointing out if there
is one place we truly need to worry about climate change and about the
effects of our carbon pollution, it is not just in our atmosphere, it
is not just in the climate or in the weather, it is in the oceans. The
oceans are undergoing historic changes as a result of the amount of
carbon in our atmosphere. We are acidifying our oceans at a rate that
is unprecedented. We are now out of a bandwidth that has lasted for
8,000 centuries--8,000 centuries. Our entire species has developed
within a safe bandwidth of atmospheric carbon and of ocean acidity that
we have now, for the first time, stepped out of and a long way out of.
If we do not take this issue on in a responsible way, we are going to
bear an even more bitter harvest.
Exhibit 1
[From the ScienceDaily, June 6, 2012]
Arctic Ice Melt Is Setting Stage for Severe Winters
(By Anne Ju)
The dramatic melt-off of Arctic sea ice due to climate
change is hitting closer to home than millions of Americans
might think.
That's because melting Arctic sea ice can trigger a domino
effect leading to increased odds of severe winter weather
outbreaks in the Northern Hemisphere's middle latitudes--
think the ``Snowmageddon'' storm that hamstrung Washington,
D.C., during February 2010.
Cornell's Charles H. Greene, professor of earth and
atmospheric sciences, and Bruce C. Monger, senior research
associate in the same department, detail this phenomenon in a
paper published in the June issue of the journal
Oceanography.
``Everyone thinks of Arctic climate change as this remote
phenomenon that has little effect on our everyday lives,''
Greene said. ``But what goes on in the Arctic remotely forces
our weather patterns here.''
A warmer Earth increases the melting of sea ice during
summer, exposing darker ocean water to incoming sunlight.
This causes increased absorption of solar radiation and
excess summertime heating of the ocean--further accelerating
the ice melt. The excess heat is released to the atmosphere,
especially during the autumn, decreasing the temperature and
atmospheric pressure gradients between the Arctic and middle
latitudes.
A diminished latitudinal pressure gradient is associated
with a weakening of the winds associated with the polar
vortex and jet stream. Since the polar vortex normally
retains the cold Arctic air masses up above the Arctic
Circle, its weakening allows the cold air to invade lower
latitudes.
The recent observations present a new twist to the Arctic
Oscillation--a natural pattern of climate variability in the
Northern Hemisphere. Before humans began warming the planet,
the Arctic's climate system naturally oscillated between
conditions favorable and those unfavorable for invasions of
cold Arctic air.
``What's happening now is that we are changing the climate
system, especially in the Arctic, and that's increasing the
odds for the negative AO conditions that favor cold air
invasions and severe winter weather outbreaks,'' Greene said.
``It's something to think about given our recent history.''
This past winter, an extended cold snap descended on
central and Eastern Europe in mid-January, with temperatures
approaching minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit and snowdrifts
reaching rooftops. And there were the record snowstorms fresh
in the memories of residents from several eastern U.S.
cities, such as Washington, New York and Philadelphia, as
well as many other parts of the Eastern Seaboard during the
previous two years.
Greene and Monger did note that their paper is being
published just after one of the warmest winters in the
eastern U.S. on record.
``It's a great demonstration of the complexities of our
climate system and how they influence our regional weather
patterns,'' Greene said.
In any particular region, many factors can have an
influence, including the El Nino/La Nina cycle. This winter,
La Nina in the Pacific shifted undulations in the jet stream
so that while many parts of the Northern Hemisphere were hit
by the severe winter weather patterns expected during a bout
of negative AO conditions, much of the eastern United States
basked in the warm tropical air that swung north with the jet
stream.
``It turns out that while the eastern U.S. missed out on
the cold and snow this winter, and experienced record-
breaking warmth during March, many other parts of the
Northern Hemisphere were not so fortunate,'' Greene said.
Europe and Alaska experienced record-breaking winter
storms, and the global average temperature during March 2012
was cooler than any other March since 1999.
``A lot of times people say, `Wait a second, which is it
going to be--more snow or more warming?' Well, it depends on
a lot of factors, and I guess this was a really good winter
demonstrating that,'' Greene said. ``What we can expect,
however, is the Arctic wildcard stacking the deck in favor of
more severe winter outbreaks in the future.''
[[Page S4856]]
____
Exhibit 2
[From Bloomberg, July 9, 2012]
U.S. Corn Growers Farming in Hell as Midwest Heat Spreads
(By Jeff Wilson)
The worst U.S. drought since Ronald Reagan was president is
withering the world's largest corn crop, and the speed of the
damage may spur the government to make a record cut in its
July estimate for domestic inventories.
Tumbling yields will combine with the greatest-ever global
demand to leave U.S. stockpiles on Sept. 1, 2013, at 1.216
billion bushels (30.89 million metric tons), according to the
average of 31 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. That's
35 percent below the U.S. Department of Agriculture's June 12
forecast, implying the biggest reduction since at least 1973.
The USDA updates its harvest and inventory estimates July 11.
Crops on July 1 were in the worst condition since 1988, and
a Midwest heat wave last week set or tied 1,067 temperature
records, government data show. Prices surged 37 percent in
three weeks, and Rabobank International said June 28 that
corn may rise 9.9 percent more by December to near a record
$8 a bushel. The gain is threatening to boost food costs the
United Nations says fell 15 percent from a record in February
2011 and feed prices for meat producers including Smithfield
Foods Inc. (SFD)
``The drought is much worse than last year and approaching
the 1988 disaster,'' said John Cory, the chief executive
officer of Rochester, Indiana-based grain processor Prairie
Mills Products LLC. ``There are crops that won't make it. The
dairy and livestock industries are going to get hit very
hard. People are just beginning to realize the depth of the
problem.''
Top Commodities
Corn rallied 18 percent in the month through July 6 on the
Chicago Board of Trade to $6.93, trailing only wheat among 24
commodities tracked by the Standard & Poor's GSCI Spot Index,
which rose 2 percent. The MSCI All-Country World Index of
equities advanced 4 percent, and the dollar gained 1.3
percent against a basket of six currencies in the period.
Treasuries returned 0.5 percent, a Bank of America Corp.
index shows. Corn for December delivery in Chicago extended
the rally today, jumping 5.3 percent to settle at $7.30.
About 53 percent of the Midwest, where farmers harvested 60
percent of last year's U.S. crop, had moderate to extreme
drought conditions as of July 3, the highest since the
government-funded U.S. Drought Monitor in Lincoln, Nebraska,
began tracking the data in 2000. In the seven days ended July
6, temperatures in the region averaged as much as 15 degrees
Fahrenheit above normal. Soil moisture in Illinois, Indiana,
Ohio, Missouri and Kentucky is so low that it ranks in the
10th percentile among all other years since 1895.
Fields are parched just as corn plants began to pollinate,
a critical period for determining kernel development and
final yields. About 48 percent of the crop in the U.S., the
world's largest grower and exporter, was in good or excellent
condition as of July 1, the lowest for that date since 1988
and down from 77 percent on May 18, government data show.
Yield Losses
The USDA may cut its production forecast by 8.5 percent,
the biggest July reduction since a drought in 1988 led the
government to cut its estimate by 29 percent, a separate
Bloomberg survey of 14 analysts showed. Farmers probably will
collect 13.534 billion bushels, compared with the USDA's June
forecast for a record 14.79 billion, based on the average of
estimates in the survey.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said July 2 that yields will reach
153.5 bushels an acre, below the USDA estimate for an all-
time high of 166.
``Corn yields were falling five bushels a day during the
past week'' in the driest parts of the Midwest, said Fred
Below, a plant biologist at the University of Illinois in
Urbana. ``You couldn't choreograph worse weather conditions
for pollination. It's like farming in hell.''
Record Crop
Even with the drought, U.S. production in 2012 is expected
to rise 9.5 percent from last year to a record after farmers
sowed the most acres since 1937, the survey showed. Higher
output would help boost inventories before next year's
harvest, up from what analysts said will be a 16-year low on
Sept. 1 of 837 million bushels.
Futures fell 2.2 percent on July 6, the most in two weeks,
after the USDA reported a 90 percent drop in export sales in
the week ended June 28. U.S. refiners curbed output of corn-
based ethanol last week to the lowest since September as
gasoline demand weakened, government data show.
Corn's rally also may stall if Europe's widening debt
crisis and a faltering global economy erode record demand for
the grain. The International Monetary Fund will reduce its
estimate for growth this year because of weakness in
investment, employment and manufacturing in Europe, the U.S.,
Brazil, India and China, Managing Director Christine Lagarde
said July 6.
``The shrinking global economy is the elephant in the room
that no one wants to discuss as long as U.S. crops are under
siege,'' said Dale Durcholz, the senior market analyst for
Bloomington, Illinois-based AgriVisor LLC. ``Corn demand at
$5 is much more robust than when it costs $7.''
Changing Expectations
Corn tumbled into a bear market in September and kept
dropping as farmers planted more crops. Robert Manly, the
chief financial officer at Smithfield Foods, the largest U.S.
pork producer, told analysts on a June 14 conference call
that hog-raising costs would ``begin to decline starting in
the fall.'' Corn has surged 41 percent since then, reaching a
nine-month high today.
U.S. corn production may drop to 11 billion bushels, the
smallest crop in seven years, because the hot, dry weather
killed the pollen and rains now may be too late to reverse
the damage, according to Cory, the Indiana mill owner and a
former investment banker. Prices may reach $9 before demand
slows, he said.
World corn use rose to a record every year since 1997 as
the expanding economy boosted incomes and the consumption of
meat and dairy products from animals raised on the grain. The
USDA projected last month a 6.4 percent increase in global
demand to 923.39 million tons in the year that starts Sept.
1, the biggest gain in six years. More U.S. output went to
ethanol production than livestock feed in 2011 for the first
time ever.
Vulnerable Period
While the U.S. harvest is about two months away, the
drought reached plants at the most vulnerable period in their
growing cycle, said Nick Higgins, a London-based analyst at
Rabobank, predicting a 13.488 billion-bushel harvest.
Based on current soil moisture and June temperatures, the
drought is probably the worst since 1988, said Joel Widenor,
a vice president at the Commodity Weather Group in Bethesda,
Maryland. The private forecaster said July 5 that corn output
this year will be 13.52 billion bushels, and that hot, dry
weather in the next two weeks may reduce yields further.
The drought may spark a rebound in global food prices this
month through October, halting a slide that sent costs in
June to the lowest level in 21 months, Abdolreza Abbassian,
an economist in Rome at the United Nations' Food &
Agriculture Organization, said July 5.
Base Ingredient
``Corn is key because of its widespread use as a base
ingredient in so many foods and for its use in feed for
livestock,'' said Stanley Crouch, who helps oversee $2
billion of assets as chief investment officer at New York-
based Aegis Capital Corp. ``We are at the tipping point.''
In May, retail prices of boneless hams, ground beef and
cheese in the U.S. were close to all-time highs set earlier
this year, while chicken breast jumped more than 12 percent
during the first five months of the year, government data
show.
``When people look at rising prices for hamburger, butter,
eggs and other protein sources from higher corn costs, that's
when more money ends up in the food basket,'' said
Minneapolis-based Michael Swanson, a senior agricultural
economist at Wells Fargo & Co., the biggest U.S. farm lender.
``We were hoping for a break, and we aren't going to get
it.''
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cardin). The Senator from South Dakota.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, are we in morning business?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. We are in postcloture time.
Health Care
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, when Congress began debating health care in
2009, the goal was to lower the cost of care and give Americans the
care they need from a doctor they choose.
Americans were promised that if they liked the insurance they had and
the doctor they had, they would be able to keep the plan and to
continue to see the doctor they liked. Americans were promised that the
negotiations would be transparent and televised on C-SPAN. Americans
were promised the bill wouldn't add a dime to the deficit, and that it
would lower the cost of care. Americans were promised their premiums
would go down by $2,500. Americans were promised this President would
not raise taxes on families with incomes below $250,000.
Instead, Congress passed a massive governmental takeover of the
health care industry. In the last 2 years, we have seen that Americans
can't keep the insurance they had, continue to see the doctor they
like, and are paying more for health care now than they would have if
this administration had not pushed through the massive 2,700-page bill.
The law adds billions to the deficit. And at the end of the day,
Americans will find they are left holding a bag full of empty, broken
promises.
Today I want to focus on the broken promises of taxes. The President
pledged not to raise taxes on individuals making less than $200,000 and
families making less than $250,000 per year.
[[Page S4857]]
Yet the new individual mandate tax--which the Supreme Court affirmed as
a tax increase--will raise $54 billion in new taxes, largely on middle-
income Americans between 2015 and 2022.
In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, 77 percent of
those projected to pay the tax in 2016 will be those earning less than
$120,000 per year. Americans earning less than $120,000 clearly meet
the President's definition as middle income.
The Congressional Budget Office projections confirm that at least
three out of every four Americans subjected to the new individual
mandate tax will be the same middle-income taxpayers President Obama
promised would not see their taxes raised by one dime.
In fact, when asked by George Stephanopoulos of ``ABC News'' in
September of 2009 if the President rejected the notion that the
individual mandate was a tax, the President stated, ``I absolutely
reject that notion.'' The President wasn't equivocal and he didn't
leave any room for interpretation.
So let's be clear. This President and the Democratic leaders here in
Congress sold ObamaCare as if it did not contain significant new tax
increases on the middle class. Yet what they now know what they were
selling was an incredible bait and switch. They were in fact enacting
$54 billion in new individual mandate taxes primarily on the middle
class by calling it something else.
I would note that this tax increase is larger than the ``Buffett
rule'' tax increase the President has spent much of the year promoting.
The Supreme Court ruled that the individual mandate is not
constitutional under either the Commerce Clause or the Necessary and
Proper Clause of the Constitution. So there are only two options:
Either the individual mandate is a tax--and it happens to be a tax that
falls hardest on the middle class--or it is unconstitutional.
It is estimated that average tax on an American subject to this new
tax increase will be about $1,100 per year. And after paying this tax,
these Americans still won't have health insurance.
We should not forget that the national health insurance tax is not
the only tax increase in ObamaCare affecting individuals. Starting next
year, individuals will be able to save less money, taxfree, in Flexible
Spending Accounts to pay for their own healthcare expenses. Currently,
there is no statutory limit on FSA contributions, though many FSAs set
their own limits. Starting next year, ObamaCare will cap the amount
Americans can save in a Flexible Savings Account at only $2,500 per
year, and ObamaCare will limit tax deductions for those with the
largest health care needs by reducing the medical expense deduction
from expenses above 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income to expenses
above 10 percent of adjusted gross income. So at the very time
ObamaCare is driving up health care costs, it is also making it more
difficult for American families to pay for their own healthcare needs.
These tax increases don't even take into account the new 3.8-percent
tax increase on investment income or the almost 1-percent Medicare
surtax that will be imposed on higher income Americans starting in
2013, making it more expensive for small business owners to hire new
workers or otherwise invest in our economy.
These taxes on individuals are in addition to the ObamaCare taxes on
businesses, such as the new medical device tax or the tanning tax. We
know these taxes on businesses will ultimately be passed through to
consumers of health care, driving health care prices even higher.
In fact, of the $552 billion in new taxes included in ObamaCare,
according to the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Congressional
Budget Office, the Joint Economic Committee has estimated that roughly
$250 billion is tax increases that will hit the middle class either
directly or through the health care products they consume.
In addition to this new national health insurance tax of $1,100 a
year and other increases in ObamaCare, Americans will see that health
care costs will continue to rise.
Despite the President's promise that his health care plan would
reduce insurance premiums, premiums have increased by over $2,200 since
Obama took office, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. And
according to the President's own Actuary at the Centers for Medicare
and Medicaid Services in a report from this month on national health
expenditure projections, premiums under the new health care law will
rise faster than if we had done nothing at all. I want to quote from
that report.
In 2014, growth in private health insurance premiums is
expected to accelerate to 7.9 percent, or 4.1 percentage
points higher than in the absence of health reform.
Think about what is actually being said here. The cost of health
insurance would have gone up a lot less per year had we done nothing
than what we did with this bill, which is to increase those
expenditures for health care by about 7.9 percent.
Americans are going to be stuck paying higher costs for health
insurance medical devices due to the tax on these sectors that this
bill imposes.
Americans know firsthand that we are going to continue to struggle
with an economy that is not performing well. The unemployment rate
remains above 8 percent for 41 consecutive months. On the immediate
horizon the American people stare down an enormous tax increase, from a
health reform law they didn't want and still don't want.
Americans are also seeing this law has impacted our economy.
According to a recent poll, 48 percent of businesses that are not
currently hiring list the potential cost of health care regulations as
a reason for not seeking new employees. And according to the
Congressional Budget Office, ObamaCare will mean 800,000 fewer jobs
over the next decade. The last 3 years have made it very clear that
ObamaCare is making our economy worse by driving up costs and
discouraging job creation.
Moving forward, Congress needs to start by repealing ObamaCare. We
need to repeal ObamaCare and enact commonsense, step-by-step reforms
that protect Americans' access from the care they need, from the doctor
they choose, at a lower cost.
Republicans will not repeat the Democrats' mistakes. We will not rush
to pass a massive bill the American people don't support. We need to do
this the right way: No backroom deals or 2,700-page bills that no one
has read.
This President owes it to Americans to admit his broken promises, and
to work with Republicans to put in place real health care reforms that
will actually help lower health insurance costs for individuals and
families and ensure that Americans can get the care they need when they
need it.
The taxes I have mentioned in the health care law are going to add up
to a massive tax increase on average ordinary Americans. All the
analyses that have been done by the Joint Committee on Taxation, the
Congressional Budget Office, and the Joint Economic Committee come to
that very same conclusion.
This is a tax that is going to hit middle-class Americans,
notwithstanding the President's promise that he wouldn't raise taxes on
those making less than $200,000 a year. Seventy-five percent of that
tax burden from that individual mandate tax--which is $54 billion--will
hit those making less than $120,000 per year.
So the whole idea of promises made and promises broken I think is the
narrative that has attached itself to this health care reform law. I
submit that the Congress and the President need to work together to
repeal this law and to work in a constructive way to put in place
commonsense, step-by-step reforms that actually will drive the cost of
health care down for Americans, because that is the one thing that
Americans, as they look at the health care economy today, want to see.
They want to know their costs are going to go down rather than up, and
they continue to see these increases in premiums year over year and
that continues to affect our economy.
The mandates that are imposed upon employers in this health care law
as well are going to lead to fewer jobs. That is the outcome of this
health care law. It is higher costs for Americans, and it is going to
mean fewer jobs for American workers.
Coupled with that, we have seen as recently as yesterday the
President saying he now wants to raise taxes on those small businesses
in our country.
[[Page S4858]]
The tax he has proposed on those making more than $250,000 a year,
interestingly enough, hits 940,000 small business owners. Fifty-three
percent of the passthrough income would face higher taxes as a result
of the proposal he made yesterday. The people who run those businesses
employ 25 percent of the American workforce. So we are talking about
huge new burdens on our economy at a time when we absolutely cannot
afford it: 41 consecutive months of 8-percent or higher unemployment;
23 million Americans either unemployed or underemployed; 5.4 million
Americans who have been unemployed for a long period of time; and the
weakest recovery literally since the end of World War II. Those are the
economic circumstances we find ourselves in today, and now we have
proposals coming out of the White House, in addition to the burdens
imposed by ObamaCare, that would lead to higher taxes on the very
people we look to to get us out of this economic circumstance, and that
is our small businesses and entrepreneurs, all of whom are going to be
faced with higher taxes because of the President's proposals.
We can do better for the American people. We can get this economy
growing again with commonsense health care reforms, commonsense tax
reforms, regulatory reforms that lower the cost and the burden of doing
business in this country, a comprehensive energy policy that will make
sure we are developing our own energy sources in this country, and
getting Federal spending under control.
We need a smaller Federal Government and a bigger, more robust
private economy. You cannot do that by continually piling more taxes
and more regulations and more mandates and more requirements on the
very people who create jobs. The American people deserve better and we
can do better.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida is recognized.
Order of Procedure
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, as a courtesy to Senator
Inhofe, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Inhofe be recognized after
my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the
conclusion of the remarks by the Senator from Florida the Senator from
Wyoming be recognized, and then I be recognized after the Senator from
Wyoming for up to 35 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Veterans Unemployment
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, on the battlefield there is a
code among the military that you don't leave anybody behind. That
principle ought to apply to our returning veterans as well. It is
essential for us to care for our veterans when they get home and show
them the same respect and loyalty they showed us during their service.
This economic downturn has been especially tough for many of our
veterans as they come back from Iraq and Afghanistan. The unemployment
rate among veterans returning from those two countries was 9.5 percent
in June. While this is clearly an improvement from last year, and an
improvement in the entire economy over the last couple of years, it is
still more than a point higher than the national average. For our
youngest veterans, it is even worse--29 percent in 2011.
Our servicemembers have already done the toughest jobs out there.
They are highly trained and extremely skilled. We ought to give them as
many opportunities as possible to succeed when they get home. That
means when veterans come back from war, they shouldn't have to do
battle with bureaucrats.
I wanted to make a commonsense suggestion, so I filed a bill--which
recently passed both the House and the Senate--to remove some of those
bureaucratic obstacles in our veterans' way and to make it easier for
them to get occupational and professional licenses when they get
home. The Veteran Skills to Jobs Act is a bipartisan bill cosponsored
by 17 Senators and supported by veterans organizations such as the
American Legion. I ask unanimous consent that the American Legion's
commentary on this legislation be printed in the Record.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. NELSON of Florida. The bill directs Federal agencies to recognize
relevant military training when certifying veterans for Federal
occupational licenses. It is common sense. If veterans have skills
learned in the military, they ought to be able to utilize those skills,
that training, without having to go through duplicate training when
they get into a specialized civilian job. If the military training is
found to be comparable to the civilian requirements, the veteran would
be deemed qualified for that occupation.
These are the licenses people need in order to get jobs in the
civilian sector.
I want to give an example. Let's say an Air Force or Navy aircraft
mechanic gets out of the service. That veteran may want to use those
skills learned in the military to work in the commercial airline
business. To do so, that veteran must be certified as an aircraft
mechanic technician, certified by the Federal Aviation Administration.
This requires an airframes and powerplant license from the FAA.
Although the veteran has trained to do this, this highly skilled
occupation for our military, what we are seeing all too often is common
sense goes out the window, and that veteran may have to go through
redundant and expensive training to get that airframes and powerplant
license. Of course, that does not make sense.
This is not just a Federal issue. Many States are starting to
recognize military training when certifying veterans for State
licenses, such as nurses and truckdrivers. I am pleased that the
Federal Government will now move in this direction as well. We have
already passed it unanimously in the Senate; likewise, they have passed
it in the House. Both bills are down in the other's respective
Chambers. We need to go ahead and pass this legislation. Today I will
move for final passage of the bill, and I know of no objection since we
got it out of the Senate unanimously.
One of the greatest honors I have in my job is getting to meet and
thank our veterans and current members of our military and all of our
national security apparatus. It is up to us to stand by these folks.
Passing legislation to help employ veterans, such as the Veteran Skills
to Jobs Act, is one way we can thank them.
Exhibit 1
The American Legion,
Office of the National Commander,
Washington, DC, March 30, 2012.
Hon. Bill Nelson,
U.S. Senate, Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Nelson: On behalf of the 2.4 million members
of The American Legion, I would like to express support for
S. 2239, the Veteran Skills to Jobs Act of 2012, which
provides for Federal certification of veterans who have been
qualified for licensure through relevant military training.
With an anemic economy and a downsizing military, it is
essential veterans be given the ability to quickly find
civilian employment upon separation from the military.
Without these types of opportunities, separating military
personnel could add to the unemployment problem currently
faced by millions of Americans. Federal certification and
licensure of veterans who have received relevant training
will assist in this process of ensuring that veterans are
able to smoothly and quickly transition between military and
civilian employment. Matching qualified veterans with Federal
licenses which require their expertise is good for veterans,
good for the economy and good for the country.
Again, The American Legion fully supports enacting S. 2239
and applauds your leadership in addressing this critical
issue facing our nation's veterans and their families.
Sincerely,
Fang A. Wong,
National Commander.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
A Second Opinion
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today, as I do week
after week, ever since the President's health care law has been passed,
to offer a doctor's second opinion about this health care law, which I
believe is bad for patients, bad for providers--the nurses and doctors
who take care of those patients--and terrible for taxpayers.
We saw the Supreme Court issue its historic decision on the
President's health care law. The Court confirmed that the individual
mandate in the President's health care law is a tax. The President said
it was not a tax. I
[[Page S4859]]
will just say the Supreme Court confirmed that it is in fact a tax. The
decision makes it clear that the Internal Revenue Service, the IRS,
will now play an unprecedented role in America's health care system.
That is not something American citizens have asked for or want, but
it is something many American citizens fear. Recently, the Associated
Press highlighted this concern in an article titled, ``Tax Man Cometh
to Police You on Health Care.''
``Tax Man Cometh to Police You on Health Care.''
The article points out that the health care law contains the largest
set of tax changes in more than 20 years. To be specific, according to
the Congressional Budget Office, there are at least 18 separate taxes
contained in the health care law. These taxes are expected to cost
taxpayers more than $500 billion over the next 10 years.
The Associated Press points out that the IRS is expected to spend
over $880 million just to implement the law from 2010 to 2013, and to
do this they are going to hire more than 2,700 new government workers.
This could be just the tip of the iceberg. According to a report issued
by the House Ways and Means Committee, the Internal Revenue Service may
need as many as 16,500 additional bureaucrats to enforce the
President's health care law--now the President's health care tax.
One of these taxes the agents are going to be enforcing is something
called the individual mandate. This is the part of the law that forces
every American to have health insurance. If they do not have it, the
law forces them to purchase health insurance--and not just any health
insurance. No, no, not at all. They need to purchase government-
approved health insurance. This is not necessarily something this
family thinks is right for them and their needs and their insurance and
their family. No, that is not good enough. They have to purchase
government-approved insurance, and the IRS is going to check on them to
make sure they do.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, 77 percent of those
forced to pay the tax will be people making less than $120,000 a year.
President Obama repeatedly promised he would not raise taxes on the
middle class. Specifically, he promised that no family making less than
$250,000 a year would see any form of tax increase.
Let me just quote. The President of the United States said:
I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making
less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase .
. .
The President went on to say ``not your income tax.'' He said ``not
your payroll tax.'' He said ``not your capital gains tax.'' He finished
it by saying ``not any of your taxes.''
But when the President's lawyers went before the Supreme Court, they
did just the opposite. They argued that this mandate was indeed a tax.
The Solicitor General even stated that the Court had an obligation to
construe the mandate as a tax. He said it could be upheld on that
basis.
As it turns out, a majority of the Supreme Court agreed that the
mandate was constitutional, but only because it is a tax. In short, the
Supreme Court confirmed that the President has broken his promise to
middle-class families; and it is the promise that he made to not raise
taxes. In fact, the President's individual mandate tax will produce
more tax revenue for the government than the so-called Buffett rule
that this administration has been supporting.
While supporters of the health care law may support using the IRS to
scare people into getting health insurance, most Americans do not think
this is the right policy for our country. Back when Congress was
debating this health care law, the American people were looking for
reform, health care reform that would actually lower the cost of care,
not raise their taxes. They wanted a law that helped train more doctors
and more nurses to take care of them, not more tax collectors to look
into their life and their records. The last thing they want is the IRS
breathing down their necks and banging down their doors. But that is
what the American people have gotten through the President's health
care law, and that is what they are stuck with unless Congress and the
White House repeal and replace this flawed and failed law.
As a physician with 25 years of experience taking care of families
all around Wyoming, I believe there is a better way. We can implement
commonsense reforms in a step-by-step way that allows people to
purchase insurance across State lines, reform medical liability laws,
and strengthen State high-risk pools. These simple changes will help
lower the cost of care without forcing millions of Americans to live in
the fear of the Internal Revenue Service.
That is why I am going to continue to come to the Senate floor and
call on Congress to repeal the President's health care law. It is time
for Americans to get what they were looking for in the beginning but do
not get as a result of the President's health care law. What they are
looking for is the care they need from the doctor that they choose at a
lower cost.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
Global Warming Hysteria
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have to say that I enjoy these second
opinions when they come from such a well-known doctor who knows what he
is talking about. Quite often we in this body are forced to kind of
assume we are experts in every area. It is nice to have a few who
really are. I think I don't say it very often, but I actually learn
something when I hear him talk.
Anyway, that is not why I am here today. I hope to help provide some
sense and balance and accuracy which is clearly lacking in the
mainstream media trying to drum up support for the global warming
hysteria again.
I have to say it is like we are back to the good-old days. We talked
about this for 10 years. There are different people coming up with
legislation, the cap-and-trade legislation. They found out, of course,
that the American people realized it was a gigantic tax and there were
no benefits, so it kind of went by the wayside. But there is a new
thing happening, and it was interesting because just last Friday one of
the Obama appointees to the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Association
said to the Associated Press:
The wildfires and hot temperatures over the past few weeks
will likely convince Americans that global warming is real.
In other words, they are now trying to tie them together. They have
never tried to do this before because that is one of the few things
that all experts agree on: that one isolated case doesn't make a case
for major changes in the weather. This is kind of a dangerous game to
play because what are they going to say when winter comes and it is
going to get cold? As soon as it gets cold I can tell you what they are
going to say. They are not going to use global warming; they are going
to use climate change.
As the season changes, the terminology changes, and they will start
saying just because the temperatures are freezing doesn't mean the
planet is not overheating--if you follow through the double negatives.
My good friend from Rhode Island commented on the famous igloo. This
was pretty prominent two summers ago. Let me tell you the story of
where we got to the igloo. As most people know, because I brag about it
all the time, I have 20 kids and grandkids.
This happens to be one family. You cannot see them as well. It is six
of the most beautiful people we have ever seen. It happens to be my
daughter and her husband and their family of four kids.
Anyway this would have been in February 2010. Some of us remember how
cold it was during that time. It happens that one of my kids--the only
one who is adopted is a little girl, an orphan from Ethiopia, whom we
found and nursed back to health. My daughter Molly, who had nothing but
boys, adopted this little girl.
Put her picture up there. She is a pretty little girl. She has become
kind of a hero.
Every February I sponsor something called the African dinner where
about 400 of our friends from Africa come over, and we are establishing
close, intimate relations with them. It happens that 12 years ago, we
found the little girl who is pictured on the poster. She is now a 12-
year-old little girl. She reads at college level. She is smart and she
is the main speaker every time we have this dinner.
In February 2010, little Zegita Marie was up here and she brought her
whole
[[Page S4860]]
family and made her speech. It was a beautiful thing. Afterwards, as
they were getting ready to take the plane back home, the blizzards
came, and all of the airports in the area shut down. There was no way
they could get back. So what do you do with a family of six when you
are snowbound and there is nothing but snow and ice on the ground? You
make an igloo. So they did.
That is a real igloo. It sleeps four people. I know that; I was in
it. It was right by the Library of Congress. The sign on the top said:
Al Gore's new home. Actually, I think it may have said: Honk if you
want global warming--or something like that. Anyway, everyone was
having a good time.
Some of my liberal friends were so upset. One of them was Keith
Olbermann. Keith Olbermann, who was with MSNBC, designated my daughter
Molly's family of six as the worst family in America. Now, there is her
husband who is very prominent in Fayetteville, AR. My daughter Molly is
a professor at the university. She was designated as Outstanding
Professor of the Year this year. She will be marching out during the
homecoming on November 3 to accept that award. It is quite an
outstanding family, and the kids are all straight-A students and all of
that wonderful stuff.
So that is the famous igloo. It has been a long time since we had a
chance to talk about it. There we have Molly, James, Jase, Luke, Jonah,
and Marie enjoying that. Believe it or not, that is the worst family in
America.
Well, just after the igloo story broke, a reporter by the name of
Dana Milbank warned the alarmists. Keep in mind the terminology we use.
Those people who think the world is coming to an end because
catastrophic global warming is coming is all due to manmade gases, so
we need to shut down America. Those are the alarmists.
The skeptics are people like me, those who look at it and say science
has been stripped out by the United Nations for an ulterior motive.
Dana Milbank has been very much on the other side of the issue and
warned the alarmists to stop using weather to justify global warming
because then what do they do when the weather doesn't cooperate with
their predictions of the melting planet.
He wrote:
In Washington's blizzards, the greens were hoist by their
own petard.
He said:
If the Washington snows persuade the greens to put away the
slides of polar bears and pine beetles and to keep the focus
on national security and jobs, it will have been worth the
shoveling.
But not everyone got that memo. In July 2010, the hot summer that
followed the intense blizzards when my family put up the igloo, Jon
Karl of ABC News asked me to do an interview outside in the heat. It
was obviously an ambush. People who know me well know I enjoy ambushes,
so I went out there in the heat. They got ready with the cameras
rolling, and they had a pan with an egg on it. They were going to fry
it, but it didn't fry. Nice try, but it didn't work.
I am sure some here may have noticed that somebody else tried this
last weekend. Last weekend I happened to be in the Farnborough Airshow,
which I go to every year. While I was at the airshow, I got a call from
home telling me that they have kind of resurrected the igloo, and they
were talking about that. They were planning a great big event on The
Mall, and in the event they were going to take the thing, called
``Hoax''--let me go back to 2003.
In 2003 when I realized and I started hearing from a lot of the real
scientists that it was a hoax, I made the comment that the notion of
catastrophic global warming is due to manmade anthropogenic
CO2 and manmade gases. It is the greatest hoax ever
perpetrated on the American people. So that is where ``Hoax'' came
from.
So they had a great big thing made of ice. Apparently, it was the
size of a car. It said ``Hoax'' with a question mark. They were going
to put it out there and it was going to melt and they were going to
make a big issue out of it.
The problem is nobody showed. So what did they do? They felt they
couldn't do this if there were no cameras, so they called it off. They
used the excuse that there had been a storm, and they thought this
might be offensive to people who lost electricity in the storm. Anyway,
that thing went under too.
So in addition to the recent activity from my alarmist friends, the
hot weather has also brought some of my favorite global warming
reporters out of hiding, and they have been all too eager to link
today's weather events to manmade greenhouse gases. Of course, many of
the most outspoken global warming alarmists and scientists have been
happy to play along. The important point is that no one, not even the
most committed alarmist, can claim that any percentage of the warm
weather is due to manmade greenhouse gases. I will go into more detail
in just a minute.
This is an inconvenient truth that global warming reporters have kept
out of their headlines, and in some cases their stories as well.
Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press is a good guy. He is on the
other side of this issue, but he is one of these guys I still like. He
is one of the most prominent global warming reporters. He came out last
week with another scary headline proclaiming: ``This US summer is what
global warming looks like.''
Some quotes and stories appeared in Reuters, The Hill, and Politico.
Yesterday morning Time magazine ran a piece by Bryan Walsh with the
headline, ``Now Do You Believe in Global Warming?'' I was happy to see
that Mr. Walsh began his article in Time magazine with a picture of my
family in their igloo. He concluded his piece with:
We're living in an igloo in the summertime, and the ice
melting all around us.
It is kind of interesting that they try to talk about global warming,
but all of a sudden they changed it to cooling.
This was in the New York Times. They said:
This summer has been conspicuously different in New York
City, not one 99-degree day in Central Park. Not a single day
that the temperature even approached 90. For just the second
time in 140 years of record keeping, the temperatures failed
to reach 90 in either June or July.
The daily average last month was at or below normal every
day but two. The temperature broke 80 on 16 days in New York.
So it goes on to say that the problem they are having is it is
unusually cool. But that didn't inure to the benefit of the alarmists,
so that wasn't used.
So it is time to take a trip down Memory Lane. Don't forget that Time
is the same publication that told us in 1974 that we should be very
concerned about the coming ice age.
There it is. Every magazine had it. Newsweek had the same thing. All
the other magazines said another ice age is coming, and we are all
going to die.
Since there is time to do this, I will mention one thing which is not
in my notes. Think about how many times this has happened. Let's look
at the last 100 years. We will start with 1895. From 1895 to 1925, we
went through a 30-year period that was a cooling period. Everyone back
then was saying another ice age is coming, and we are all going to die.
From 1925 to 1945, for that 20-year period, we went through a warming
period. That is when they coined the phrase ``global warming.'' That
was way back in the 1930s. From 1945 to 1975 we went into a cooling
period. Again, we talked about how an ice age is coming. After that, we
went into a warming period that went up to the turn of the century. Now
it is actually going down into a cooling period again, but that was
actually a chart.
I guess what I am saying is every 20 or 30 years, we go through this.
We go through the same hysteria, and everyone goes crazy and says the
world is coming to an end. The interesting thing about this is that the
time in world history when we had the greatest surge of CO2
was right after World War II. That was in 1945, and that precipitated
not a warming period with all of that CO2, but a cooling
period that endured for 30 years. Those were the headlines in the
paper.
Now 30 years later, during the height of the global warming movement,
they changed their tune. The image that is sealed in everyone's mind is
the Time magazine cover, which we have: ``Be Worried, Be Very
Worried.'' There is the last polar bear standing on the last cube of
ice. Everything is melting, and we are all going to die. Again, that is
Time magazine.
If I were on the board of directors of Time magazine, I would
probably do
[[Page S4861]]
the same thing. It is a competitive business, and they have to sell
magazines. The truth is when we ask the alarmists directly, they will
specifically link the recent weather events to human activity. How do
we know this? We recently came across a reported conference held by a
group called Climate Communication. This is a very liberal group. As
their Web site confirmed, this call was held to spoonfeed talking
points to reporters on how to link the heat over the past few weeks to
manmade global warming.
To his credit, AP reporter Seth Borenstein asked the most important
question of the call. He asked: What percentage of the recent warm
weather can be attributed to manmade gases? I want to be completely
accurate, so I would like to quote in full Borenstein's question as
well as the answers he got from Dr. Michael Oppenheimer and Dr. Steven
Running, two of the foremost global warming alarmist scientists. This
is what Seth Borenstein said:
Let me try to put you more on the spot, Mike and Steve: I
know there's attribution--you haven't done attribution
studies, but if you ballparked it right now and had to put a
percentage number on this, on the percent that the heat wave,
the percentage of blame you can put on anthropogenic climate
change, on this current heat wave, and on the fires, what
percentage would the two of you use?
Dr. Oppenheimer, who is a scientist, said:
Come on, I'm not going to answer that. Yes, I will answer
it, and my answer is: I won't do it. You know, we have to do
things carefully, because if you don't, we are going to end
up with bogus information out there. People will start
disbelieving because you'll be more wrong, more often. This
is not the kind of thing I want to do off the top of my head.
Nor do I think it can be done, you know, convincingly without
really taking--doing careful analysis, so I'll pass on this
one and see if Steve has a different view.
Well, Dr. Steve Running said:
Well, I already got way too hypothetical on my last answer.
Yeah, it's . . . probably really dangerous for us to just lob
out a number.
Well, this goes on and on and on. I have all of this down. It is
actually all in the record at this point, so it is redundant. He keeps
trying to get them to say there is a percentage of chance that this
warm weather is due to global warming.
Now, we have to stop for a minute because we have seen that Seth
Borenstein was asking the inconvenient question. One of the moderators
tried to step in and tell the AP reporter that his question was a bad
one.
Let me quote that one again, Susan Hossel, moderator for the event,
said:
Seth, most of the scientists I talk to say it is a
contributing factor and that's what we can say and that it's
really not even really a well-posed question to ask for a
percentage, because it just--what you're asking really is for
a model to determine the chances of this happening without
climate change or with climate change and models are not very
good.
So we see how he responded. He said:
I understand, I've been covering this for 20 years, I
understand. I don't need a lecture, thank you very much. What
I'm asking for is--
And he went on. Obviously, he was never able to get it.
Here is the irony: Their Web site specifically explains that the
purpose of the call is to give reporters a link relating hot weather to
human-caused global warming.
It states:
Climate Communication hosted a press conference featuring
experts discussing the connections between extreme heat and
climate change.
But when pressed, they couldn't make the link. Again, Borenstein
asked a great question, a question that badly needed to be asked.
Unfortunately, none of the information appeared in his article for the
AP. Without that link, Borenstein was forced to make his article about
what global warming could look like in the future. But in doing so, he
left out any mention of uncertainty expressed by the scientist.
Borenstein quoted Chris Field, a leading author of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. That is the United Nations
that started this whole thing, and they are the ones who were stacking
the scientists. He is one of the individuals. According to Field, this
report warns of ``unprecedented extreme weather events'' due to global
warming. But, as usual, Borenstein failed to mention that even the
IPCC, which normally heightens the fear factor as much as possible,
admitted in that same March report that there is significant
uncertainty regarding linking extreme weather events to human causes.
Also missing from the article was the mention of Borenstein's
interview from climatologist Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of
Technology. Fortunately, she was good enough to post her answers on her
blog since he didn't use it. Curry explained:
We saw these kinds of heat waves in the 1930's, and those
were definitely not caused by greenhouse gases. Weather
variability changes on multidecadal time scales, associated
with large ocean oscillations. I don't think that what we are
seeing this summer is outside the range of natural
variability for the past century. In terms of heat waves,
particularly in cities, urbanization can also contribute to
the warming.
There was another interesting part of the conference call that I
think is worth mentioning. When ABC News reporter Bill Blakemore asked
about the effect of La Nina and El Nino on today's hot weather, Dr.
Oppenheimer was again uncomfortable about this question and said it was
``off message.'' Yet NOAA--that is, the N-O-A-A--came out yesterday
with a different opinion. Andrew Revkin of the New York Times explained
on his blog:
In a briefing and several postings today, the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reviewed the most
notable climate and weather events of 2011. Many of these
events--from an extreme East African drought to Australian
deluges--were significantly driven by a ``double-dip La
Nina'' cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean, agency
scientists said.
In other words, it is La Nina and El Nino that made the difference.
In yesterday's Tulsa World, there was an opinion piece that directly
addressed this El Nino and La Nina debate and how it affects Oklahoma
specifically; that is, my State of Oklahoma. The editorial mentions an
interview in April of 2008 with Tulsa National Weather Service
meteorologist Nicole McGavock regarding Oklahoma's record rainfall that
month. McGavock said:
Don't go blaming global warming, but rather blame El Nino's
counterpart, La Nina. La Nina happens when the weather is
cooler near the equator along the Pacific Ocean.
It has nothing to do with global warming.
That same opinion piece mentioned another article published in
December of 2011 which was about Oklahoma's drought-filled summer of
2011. In it, associate State climatologist Gary McManus said:
Did this hot summer happen due to global warming? [No.] I
think when we study this summer, we will find that we would
have had the warmest summer regardless of global warming.
With all this in mind, it is no wonder that when Time magazine asks
the question, ``Now do you believe in global warming?'' the answer is
resounding: The American people are no longer buying it. As the
Washington Post recently reported, global warming is no longer an issue
of concern for Americans, and one of the reasons is that the public
doesn't trust those who try to use hot weather as proof of global
warming. The public has clearly grown weary of the alarmists' fear
campaigns. After all, they have been going on for 12 years.
Just how bad have things gotten for the global warming movement?
Well, one indication is that no one is even talking about global
warming except for myself and Representative Markey over in the House.
As a Politico article said yesterday, Representative Markey accused
Republicans of being silent on the threat of global warming and called
for Republicans to hold hearings.
While Representative Markey is quick to accuse Republicans of
silence, he says nothing about the silence we are hearing from the
Democrats here in the Senate. We haven't heard anybody. I haven't heard
the term ``global warming'' coming from any Senator. When was the last
time anyone heard President Obama or the Democrats mention global
warming? In fact, their campaign has failed so miserably that President
Obama, running for reelection, is pretending to support oil and gas to
gain votes.
The irony is that the President, who came into office promising to
slow the rise of the oceans and all that, has presided over the
complete collapse of the global warming movement. Since
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President Obama took office nearly 4 years ago, not one global warming
cap-and-trade bill has been debated on the Senate floor. In fact, if
anything, they are regressing in support for their pet issue. Last year
64 Senators went on record as wanting to rein in the Obama EPA's global
warming regulations.
We have said several times that there have been numerous bills
introduced ever since the Kyoto Treaty was never submitted for
ratification. That was back in the early 1990s. Ever since that time,
there have been numerous bills that would be cap-and-trade bills and
they have gone down. Each time, they go down by a greater percentage
than the one before did. In fact, if anything, they are regressing in
their support.
So the far-left environmental community has clearly been instructed
to keep quiet, although sometimes they can't help themselves and they
get into trouble, like 350.org that I referred to. They are no doubt
assured that if President Obama is reelected, he will do everything he
can to achieve his global warming agenda through regulations because
the American people have rejected legislation. That is what has
happened. Actually, the cost of it, which is not controversial--it is
because people recognize and nobody has actually refuted the fact that
if it were to pass either by legislation or by regulation, it would
cost the American people between $300 billion and $400 billion a year.
So people now realize that and know we can't afford to do something
that really is not going to accomplish anything.
Anyway, the Obama administration is already doing--we have identified
right now some $68 billion that he has, through regulations, been able
to have on all of his climate agenda. So it has already been very
expensive. Nobody is really aware of it, but nonetheless that is what
is happening. He just doesn't want the American people to know it. How
can he convince them that so much economic pain is necessary now that
the global warming movement has completely lost its trust in the
public? That would stop some of the usual suspects from continuing to
try to drum up global warming hysteria, but we wouldn't count on Al
Gore coming out of hiding to help or President Obama saying anything to
back him up--at least not now, before the election.
Just the other day, George Mason University, I believe it was, did a
polling of all of the 480 TV meteorologists. Only 19 percent of them
said we are having global warming due to manmade gases. Now, that is a
major change from before. So the trendline is going back the other way.
The polling has definitely gone the other way.
Back to last weekend's failed effort to blame hot weather on global
warming, I would like to mention three things on which scientists
agree.
First of all, we can't blame global warming on one event. Let me
share with my colleagues what Roger Pelke, professor of environmental
studies at the University of Colorado, said:
Over the long term, there is no evidence that disasters are
getting worse because of climate change.
Judith Curry, whom I already mentioned, is a well-established
scientist. She said:
I have been completely unconvinced by any of the arguments
. . . that attributes a single extreme weather event, a
cluster of extreme weather events, or statistics of extreme
weather events to anthropogenic forcing.
Myles Allen, the head of the Climate Dynamics Group at the University
of Oxford's Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics Department,
said:
When Al Gore said . . . that scientists now have clear
proof that climate change is directly responsible for the
extreme and devastating floods, storms, and droughts . . . my
heart sank.
I was on ``The Rachel Maddow Show.'' She doesn't have Republicans on
very often. She is one of my favorite liberals, and I enjoy being on. I
found out then that Bill Nye, her science guy, actually is one--one of
the things he states is, don't fall into the trap of trying to say that
because somebody is at some place that is very, very hot, that somehow
that supports global warming. In fact, Dana Milbank, a Washington Post
columnist who is a major Maddow contributor, said:
When climate activists make the dubious claim, as a
Canadian environmental group did, that global warming is to
blame for the lack of snow at the Winter Olympics in
Vancouver, then they invite similarly specious conclusions
about Washington's snow . . . Argument-by-anecdote isn't
working.
That was Dana Milbank, who is really on the other side of this issue.
So I mentioned that there are three things. One is a fact that is
incontrovertible, that people agree on, which is that one or two events
aren't going to reflect climate change or global warming.
The second thing is the cost. Years ago when the Kyoto Treaty was up,
I wasn't sure which way to go. I assumed the scientists were all
together on this, only to find out they weren't.
One thing we did find out when we got a report from several
universities, including MIT, was that the cost of this, if we were to
pass any of the bills, would have been between $300 billion and $400
billion a year. What I always do when I hear about billions and
trillions of dollars is I try to, if I can, find out how that affects
my family and the State of Oklahoma.
Back when we had the largest tax increase in 1993 called the Clinton-
Gore tax increase, they increased marginal rates, the death tax,
capital gains tax and all of that, and it was at that time the largest
tax increase in three decades. We were all pretty outraged about it.
Yet that was a $32 billion tax increase. Here we are talking about a
$300 billion to $400 billion tax increase.
The last thing I would say is that if we have a tax increase like
this, what do we get for it?
I sometimes appreciate--in fact, I always appreciate the
Administrator of the EPA, Lisa Jackson. She is an appointee of
President Obama. I asked her this question on live TV in one of our
committee hearings: If you guys are going to do this by regulation or
if you are going to have cap and trade and punish the American people
with all of the cost of this and everything else, if they are
successful, if that happened, would this reduce the CO2
worldwide? Her answer: No, it wouldn't. Because this isn't where the
problem is. The problem is in China and Mexico and India. One could
carry that argument on out further and conclude that if we have that
kind of a regulation in this country and drive our manufacturing base
overseas, they would go to places such as China and India where there
are no emissions restrictions, so it would have the effect of actually
increased CO2.
Anyway, I appreciate very much Time magazine coming out and bringing
up the igloo again. It is a thing of beauty, and it is very meaningful
to me, and I think it told a story that a lot of people needed to hear,
and they have heard it now.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
Health Care
Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I thank you for the recognition. I come to
the floor to briefly talk about the Supreme Court decision on health
care.
I was in Colorado last week. We had a wonderful time traveling across
the Western Slope of our State. We spent time in Gunnison County and
other places. We fished in Hartselle. One thing people were not talking
about there was the Supreme Court decision on health care. What they
were talking about was how we get our economy moving again; how we
recouple our economic growth in this country to job growth and wage
growth again; how we create a comprehensive and thoughtful approach to
reducing our deficit and our debt; how we educate our kids for the 21st
century; how we build this economy to make sure we leave our kids with
something better than what we found. In short, they were talking about
exactly what people inside the beltway are not talking about.
Today the House of Representatives--I don't know whether voting has
started yet--in the wake of the Supreme Court decision, is voting to
repeal the health care reform bill for the 31st time. They have been
successful 30 times. They have voted to repeal the bill 30 times, but
they feel the need now to do it a 31st time.
I saw on the TV in my office today the Twitter traffic that was
rolling at the bottom of the screen. One person after another announced
that they were voting to repeal the health care bill for the 31st time.
I thought about a Facebook post I saw last week from somebody I know
in Denver named Mary Seawall. She is on the school board there, but she
is not a politician. This is what she wrote
[[Page S4863]]
the day after the Supreme Court reached its decision on health care:
Yesterday's Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable
Care Act came on a hard day for our family. Yesterday
afternoon, we learned that our 6-year-old Annie has type 1
diabetes. She and I sat in a doctor's office crying through
her first finger prick, her first insulin shot. Our life is
now different.
She will have this disease for her entire life or until
there is a cure. A few years ago, our entire family might
have lost our insurance. She now has a preexisting condition
that likely would have made her uninsurable as an adult.
Mary wrote:
What I am saying is not political; it's a mother's sigh of
relief.
``A mother's sigh of relief.''
When I heard the Supreme Court ruling, I was waiting for
the call--
``I was waiting for the call''--
to tell me why my baby looked too thin, why she had to take
breaks walking up a flight of stairs, why she had started
wetting her bed. The ruling means she lives in a country that
won't leave her behind.
We are very lucky that we caught this early before she lost
consciousness or went into a coma, something that would have
likely happened in the next few days.
I know our luck came from health insurance that allowed her
worried parents to take her to the doctor because we had a
``bad feeling.'' Many families, even insured ones, can't do
what we did. I was raised on the idea of ``better to be safe
than sorry.'' Our health care system has been ``better sorry
than safe'' for too long.
Mary goes on to say that this Supreme Court decision ``couldn't have
come at a better time, our family's worst day.''
I hope the folks who are twittering about their repeal for the 31st
time of this bill rather than working to try to improve it, rather than
working to try to fix it, incapable of actually telling us what they
would replace this with, would take a moment to read what a mother in
Denver posted on Facebook last week.
I do not think this health care bill was perfect, and I said that
from the day we passed it. There are issues around cost, in particular,
that I continue to be very concerned with because despite the rhetoric
around this place, the reality is that we cannot solve our deficit and
debt problem without dealing with a restructuring of how we deliver
health care in the United States. Maybe the bill is not perfect, and
maybe there are suggestions that could be made to improve it. I have my
own. I tried, when we passed the bill, to put a fail-safe in place that
would actually hold this Congress to the numbers that it said it would
save, the dollars that we said we would save, and that if we did not,
we had to figure out how to cut or make other changes to get there. So
there is more work to be done. But the thing I find amazing--and this
is why I wanted to come to the floor--is how far away this conversation
is from the people I represent and what a masquerade so much of this
conversation is.
I know there were a lot of people who were disappointed that the
health care bill was declared constitutional by the Supreme Court, and
there were people who said they were going to declare it
unconstitutional, and they did not.
So the next day--and really for the next week--what we heard was,
well, the bill imposes a tax on the middle class of this country, that
the President broke a promise because he said he would not raise taxes
on the middle class.
I want everybody to know what is being talked about when people talk
about this. They are talking about a piece of the legislation called
the health care mandate. Some people call it a penalty, and some people
call it a tax. That is something that has been debated around here for
the last week. It has not been debated before this.
I do not care what label you put on it, frankly, because people at
home are not talking to me about this. Do you know why they are not
talking to me about this? Because it applies to 1 percent--1.2 percent,
to be precise--of the American people. That is what the Congressional
Budget Office told us when we were passing this legislation. And if you
do not believe me, it is on page 33--I will not enter the whole opinion
into the Record--of the Supreme Court's finding of fact, where Justice
Roberts finds as a matter of fact that the CBO said this mandate would
cost $4 billion and that roughly 4 million people would be affected.
Those are the 4 million people after Medicare and Medicaid and private
employers' insurance and personal insurance that people buy. That is a
group of people, a sliver, 1 percent of the American people who can
afford to buy insurance but do not and choose to pay the penalty or the
tax or the mandate instead of buying their insurance--$4 billion; 4
million people.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the portion of the
Supreme Court Opinion of the Court that I referred to on page 33 of the
opinion be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Opinion of the Court
The exaction the Affordable Care Act imposes on those
without health insurance looks like a tax in many respects.
The ``[s]hared responsibility payment,'' as the statute
entitles it, is paid into the Treasury by ``taxpayer[s]''
when they file their tax returns. 26 U.S.C. Sec. 5000A(b). It
does not apply to individuals who do not pay federal income
taxes because their household income is less than the filing
threshold in the Internal Revenue Code. Sec. 5000A(e)(2). For
taxpayers who do owe the payment, its amount is determined by
such familiar factors as taxable income, number of
dependents, and joint filing status. Sec. Sec. 5000A(b)(3),
(c)(2), (c)(4). The requirement to pay is found in the
Internal Revenue Code and enforced by the IRS, which--as we
previously explained--must assess and collect it ``in the
same manner as taxes.'' Supra, at 13-14. This process yields
the essential feature of any tax: it produces at least some
revenue for the Government. United States v. Kahriger, 345
U.S. 22, 28, n. 4 (1953). Indeed, the payment is expected to
raise about $4 billion per year by 2017. Congressional Budget
Office, Payments of Penalties for Being Uninsured Under the
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Apr. 30, 2010),
in Selected CBO Publications Related to Health Care
Legislation, 2009-2010, p. 71 (rev. 2010).
Mr. BENNET. What the health care bill was intended to do--and again,
it may not have done it perfectly, and there may be other ideas we
ought to be legislating around--what it was intended to do is solve a
problem that confronted not 1 percent of the American people, not 4
million people, but a problem that conservatively--extremely
conservatively--affects 50 percent of the American people and is a
$58.5 billion problem, not a $4 billion problem, because it is 50
percent of the people who are covered today by their employers who have
to pay $1,100 a year in additional premiums to subsidize the uninsured
in the United States of America. That was one of the big objectives of
dealing with this health care issue. And I say it is conservative
because this number does not even include the people who are buying
insurance on their own. So maybe if you add those numbers together, you
get to about 70 percent of the American people.
So we spent a week on cable television, on the floor of the Senate,
occupied completely with this 1 percent number over here, with no
theory at all about what we are doing for 50 percent of Americans. That
is how comical this conversation has become. I should not say comical.
That is how detached this conversation has become from what is actually
going on in the real lives of the people whom I represent and others in
this Chamber represent.
What is so amazing to me, having watched this as somebody who has not
been around here for very long and may not understand all the ways of
Washington, is that when you look at the history of this so-called
mandate or so-called tax, it is really puzzling to understand the
politics around this.
This is a chart, I show you in the Chamber, that is part of an
article that ran in the New Yorker a couple weeks ago called the
``Unpopular Mandate'' by Ezra Klein. I ask unanimous consent that the
article be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the New Yorker, June 25, 2012]
Unpopular Mandate--Why do politicians reverse their positions?
(By Ezra Klein)
On March 23, 2010, the day that President Obama signed the
Affordable Care Act into law, fourteen state attorneys
general filed suit against the law's requirement that most
Americans purchase health insurance, on the ground that it
was unconstitutional. It was hard to find a law professor in
the country who took them seriously. ``The argument about
constitutionality is, if not frivolous, close to it,''
Sanford Levinson, a University
[[Page S4864]]
of Texas law-school professor, told the McClatchy newspapers.
Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the law school at the
University of California at Irvine, told the Times, ``There
is no case law, post 1937, that would support an individual's
right not to buy health care if the government wants to
mandate it.'' Orin Kerr, a George Washington University
professor who had clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy, said,
``There is a less than one-per-cent chance that the courts
will invalidate the individual mandate.'' Today, as the
Supreme Court prepares to hand down its decision on the law,
Kerr puts the chance that it will overturn the mandate--
almost certainly on a party-line vote--at closer to ``fifty-
fifty.'' The Republicans have made the individual mandate the
element most likely to undo the President's health-care law.
The irony is that the Democrats adopted it in the first place
because they thought that it would help them secure
conservative support. It had, after all, been at the heart of
Republican health-care reforms for two decades.
The mandate made its political debut in a 1989 Heritage
Foundation brief titled ``Assuring Affordable Health Care for
All Americans,'' as a counterpoint to the single-payer system
and the employer mandate, which were favored in Democratic
circles. In the brief, Stuart Butler, the foundation's
health-care expert, argued, ``Many states now require
passengers in automobiles to wear seat-belts for their own
protection. Many others require anybody driving a car to have
liability insurance. But neither the federal government nor
any state requires all households to protect themselves from
the potentially catastrophic costs of a serious accident or
illness. Under the Heritage plan, there would be such a
requirement.'' The mandate made its first legislative
appearance in 1993, in the Health Equity and Access Reform
Today Act--the Republicans' alternative to President
Clinton's health-reform bill--which was sponsored by John
Chafee, of Rhode Island, and co-sponsored by eighteen
Republicans, including Bob Dole, who was then the Senate
Minority Leader.
After the Clinton bill, which called for an employer
mandate, failed, Democrats came to recognize the opportunity
that the Chafee bill had presented. In ``The System,'' David
Broder and Haynes Johnson's history of the health-care wars
of the nineties, Bill Clinton concedes that it was the best
chance he had of reaching a bipartisan compromise. ``It
should have been right then, or the day after they presented
their bill, where I should have tried to have a direct
understanding with Dole,'' he said.
Ten years later, Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat,
began picking his way back through the history--he read ``The
System'' four times--and he, too, came to focus on the Chafee
bill. He began building a proposal around the individual
mandate, and tested it out on both Democrats and Republicans.
``Between 2004 and 2008, I saw over eighty members of the
Senate, and there were very few who objected,'' Wyden says.
In December, 2006, he unveiled the Healthy Americans Act. In
May, 2007, Bob Bennett, a Utah Republican, who had been a
sponsor of the Chafee bill, joined him. Wyden-Bennett was
eventually co-sponsored by eleven Republicans and nine
Democrats, receiving more bipartisan support than any
universal health-care proposal in the history of the Senate.
It even caught the eye of the Republican Presidential
aspirants. In a June, 2009, interview on ``Meet the Press,''
Mitt Romney, who, as governor of Massachusetts, had signed a
universal health-care bill with an individual mandate, said
that Wyden-Bennett was a plan ``that a number of Republicans
think is a very good health-care plan--one that we support.''
Wyden's bill was part of a broader trend of Democrats
endorsing the individual mandate in their own proposals. John
Edwards and Hillary Clinton both built a mandate into their
campaign health-care proposals. In 2008, Senator Ted Kennedy
brought John McDonough, a liberal advocate of the
Massachusetts plan, to Washington to help with health-care
reform. That same year, Max Baucus, the chairman of the
Senate Finance Committee, included an individual mandate in
the first draft of his health-care bill. The main Democratic
holdout was Senator Barack Obama. But by July, 2009,
President Obama had changed his mind. ``I was opposed to this
idea because my general attitude was the reason people don't
have health insurance is not because they don't want it. It's
because they can't afford it,'' he told CBS News. ``I am now
in favor of some sort of individual mandate.''
This process led, eventually, to the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act--better known as Obamacare--which also
included an individual mandate. But, as that bill came closer
to passing, Republicans began coalescing around the mandate,
which polling showed to be one of the legislation's least
popular elements. In December, 2009, in a vote on the bill,
every Senate Republican voted to call the individual mandate
``unconstitutional.''
This shift--Democrats lining up behind the Republican-
crafted mandate, and Republicans declaring it not just
inappropriate policy but contrary to the wishes of the
Founders--shocked Wyden. ``I would characterize the
Washington, D.C., relationship with the individual mandate as
truly schizophrenic,'' he said.
It was not an isolated case. In 2007, both Newt Gingrich
and John McCain wanted a cap-and-trade program in order to
reduce carbon emissions. Today, neither they nor any other
leading Republicans support cap-and-trade. In 2008, the Bush
Administration proposed, pushed, and signed the Economic
Stimulus Act, a deficit-financed tax cut designed to boost
the flagging economy. Today, few Republicans admit that a
deficit-financed stimulus can work. Indeed, with the
exception of raising taxes on the rich, virtually every major
policy currently associated with the Obama Administration
was, within the past decade, a Republican idea in good
standing.
Jonathan Haidt, a professor of psychology at New York
University's business school, argues in a new book, ``The
Righteous Mind,'' that to understand human beings, and their
politics, you need to understand that we are descended from
ancestors who would not have survived if they hadn't been
very good at belonging to groups. He writes that ``our minds
contain a variety of mental mechanisms that make us adept at
promoting our group's interests, in competition with other
groups. We are not saints, but we are sometimes good team
players.''
One of those mechanisms is figuring out how to believe what
the group believes. Haidt sees the role that reason plays as
akin to the job of the White House press secretary. He
writes, ``No matter how bad the policy, the secretary will
find some way to praise or defend it. Sometimes you'll hear
an awkward pause as the secretary searches for the right
words, but what you'll never hear is: `Hey, that's a great
point! Maybe we should rethink this policy.' Press
secretaries can't say that because they have no power to make
or revise policy. They're told what the policy is, and their
job is to find evidence and arguments that will justify the
policy to the public.'' For that reason, Haidt told me,
``once group loyalties are engaged, you can't change people's
minds by utterly refuting their arguments. Thinking is mostly
just rationalization, mostly just a search for supporting
evidence.''
Psychologists have a term for this: ``motivated
reasoning,'' which Dan Kahan, a professor of law and
psychology at Yale, defines as ``when a person is conforming
their assessments of information to some interest or goal
that is independent of accuracy''--an interest or goal such
as remaining a well-regarded member of his political party,
or winning the next election, or even just winning an
argument. Geoffrey Cohen, a professor of psychology at
Stanford, has shown how motivated reasoning can drive even
the opinions of engaged partisans. In 2003, when he was an
assistant professor at Yale, Cohen asked a group of
undergraduates, who had previously described their political
views as either very liberal or very conservative, to
participate in a test to study, they were told, their
``memory of everyday current events.''
The students were shown two articles: one was a generic
news story; the other described a proposed welfare policy.
The first article was a decoy; it was the students' reactions
to the second that interested Cohen. He was actually testing
whether party identifications influence voters when they
evaluate new policies. To find out, he produced multiple
versions of the welfare article. Some students read about a
program that was extremely generous--more generous, in fact,
than any welfare policy that has ever existed in the United
States--while others were presented with a very stingy
proposal. But there was a twist: some versions of the article
about the generous proposal portrayed it as being endorsed by
Republican Party leaders; and some versions of the article
about the meagre program described it as having Democratic
support. The results showed that, ``for both liberal and
conservative participants, the effect of reference group
information overrode that of policy content. If their party
endorsed it, liberals supported even a harsh welfare program,
and conservatives supported even a lavish one.''
In a subsequent study involving just self-described liberal
students, Cohen gave half the group news stories that had
accompanying Democratic endorsements and the other half news
stories that did not. The students who didn't get the
endorsements preferred a more generous program. When they did
get the endorsements, they went with their party, even if
this meant embracing a meaner option.
This kind of thinking is, according to psychologists,
unsurprising. Each of us can have firsthand knowledge of just
a small number of topics--our jobs, our studies, our personal
experiences. But as citizens--and as elected officials--we
are routinely asked to make judgments on issues as diverse
and as complex as the Iranian nuclear program, the
environmental impact of an international oil pipeline, and
the likely outcomes of branding China a ``currency
manipulator.''
According to the political-science literature, one of the
key roles that political parties play is helping us navigate
these decisions. In theory, we join parties because they
share our values and our goals--values and goals that may
have been passed on to us by the most important groups in our
lives, such as our families and our communities--and so we
trust that their policy judgments will match the ones we
would come up with if we had unlimited time to study the
issues. But parties, though based on a set of principles,
aren't disinterested teachers in search of truth. They're
organized groups looking to increase their power. Or, as the
psychologists would put it, their reasoning may be motivated
by something other than accuracy. And you can see the results
among voters who pay the closest attention to the issues.
[[Page S4865]]
In a 2006 paper, ``It Feels Like We're Thinking,'' the
political scientists Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels
looked at a National Election Study, a poll supported by the
National Science Foundation, from 1996. One of the questions
asked whether ``the size of the yearly budget deficit
increased, decreased, or stayed about the same during
Clinton's time as President.'' The correct answer is that it
decreased, dramatically. Achen and Bartels categorize the
respondents according to how politically informed they were.
Among the least-informed respondents, Democrats and
Republicans picked the wrong answer in roughly equal numbers.
But among better-informed voters the story was different.
Republicans who were in the fiftieth percentile gave the
right answer more often than those in the ninety-fifth
percentile. Bartels found a similar effect in a previous
survey, in which well-informed Democrats were asked whether
inflation had gone down during Ronald Reagan's Presidency. It
had, but many of those Democrats said that it hadn't. The
more information people had, it seemed, the better they were
at arranging it to fit what they wanted to believe. As
Bartels told me, ``If I'm a Republican and an enthusiastic
supporter of lower tax rates, it is uncomfortable to
recognize that President Obama has reduced most Americans'
taxes--and I can find plenty of conservative information
sources that deny or ignore the fact that he has.''
Recently, Bartels noticed a similar polarization in
attitudes toward the health-care law and the Supreme Court.
Using YouGov polling data, he found that less-informed voters
who supported the law and less-informed voters who opposed it
were equally likely to say that ``the Supreme Court should be
able to throw out any law it finds unconstitutional.'' But,
among better-informed voters, those who opposed the law were
thirty per cent more likely than those who supported it to
cede that power to the Court. In other words, well-informed
opponents realized that they needed an activist Supreme Court
that was willing to aggressively overturn laws if they were
to have any hope of invalidating the Affordable Care Act.
Orin Kerr says that, in the two years since he gave the
individual mandate only a one-per-cent chance of being
overturned, three key things have happened. First,
congressional Republicans made the argument against the
mandate a Republican position. Then it became a standard
conservative-media position. ``That legitimized the argument
in a way we haven't really seen before,'' Kerr said. ``We
haven't seen the media pick up a legal argument and make the
argument mainstream by virtue of media coverage.'' Finally,
he says, ``there were two conservative district judges who
agreed with the argument, largely echoing the Republican
position and the media coverage. And, once you had all that,
it really became a ballgame.''
Jack Balkin, a Yale law professor, agrees. ``Once
Republican politicians say this is unconstitutional, it gets
repeated endlessly in the partisan media that's friendly to
the Republican Party''--Fox News, conservative talk radio,
and the like--``and, because this is now the Republican
Party's position, the mainstream media needs to repeatedly
explain the claims to their readers. That further moves
the arguments from off the wall to on the wall, because,
if you're reading articles in the Times describing the
case against the mandate, you assume this is a live
controversy.'' Of course, Balkin says, ``if the courts
didn't buy this, it wouldn't get anywhere.''
But the courts are not as distant from the political
process as some like to think. The first judge to rule
against the individual mandate was Judge Henry Hudson, of
Virginia's Eastern District Court. Hudson was heavily
invested in a Republican consulting firm called Campaign
Solutions, Inc. The company had worked with the Presidential
campaigns of John McCain and George W. Bush, the Republican
National Committee, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and
Ken Cuccinelli--the Virginia state attorney general who is
one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuits against the Affordable
Care Act.
The fact that a judge--even a partisan judge in a district
court--had ruled that a central piece of a Democratic
President's signature legislative accomplishment was
unconstitutional led the news across the country. Hudson's
ruling was followed by a similar, and even more sweeping,
ruling, by Judge Roger Vinson, of the Northern District of
Florida. Vinson declared the entire bill unconstitutional,
setting off a new round of stories. The twin rulings gave
conservatives who wanted to believe that the mandate was
unconstitutional more reason to hold that belief. Voters who
hadn't thought much about it now heard that judges were
ruling against the Administration. Vinson and Hudson were
outnumbered by other district judges who either upheld the
law or threw out lawsuits against it, but those rulings were
mostly ignored.
At the Washington Monthly, Steve Benen kept track of the
placement that the Times and the Washington Post (where I
work) gave to stories about court rulings on the health-care
law. When judges ruled against the law, they got long front-
page stories. When they ruled for it, they got shorter
stories, inside the paper. Indeed, none of the cases
upholding the law got front-page coverage, but every
rejection of it did, and usually in both papers. From an
editorial perspective, that made sense: the Vinson and Hudson
rulings called into question the law's future; the other
rulings signalled no change. But the effect was repeated news
stories in which the Affordable Care Act was declared
unconstitutional, and few news stories representing the legal
profession's consensus that it was not. The result can be
seen in a March poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which
found that fifty-one per cent of Americans think that the
mandate is unconstitutional.
What is notable about the conservative response to the
individual mandate is not only the speed with which a legal
argument that was considered fringe in 2010 had become
mainstream by 2012; it's the implication that the Republicans
spent two decades pushing legislation that was in clear
violation of the nation's founding document. Political
parties do go through occasional, painful cleansings, in
which they emerge with different leaders who hold different
positions. This was true of Democrats in the nineteen-
nineties, when Bill Clinton passed free trade, deficit
reduction, and welfare reform, despite the furious objections
of liberals. But in this case the mandate's supporters simply
became its opponents.
In February, 2012, Stuart Butler, the author of the
Heritage Foundation brief that first proposed the mandate,
wrote an op-ed for USA Today in which he recanted that
support. ``I've altered my views on many things,'' he wrote.
``The individual mandate in health care is one of them.''
Senator Orrin Hatch, who had been a co-sponsor of the Chafee
bill, emerged as one of the mandate's most implacable
opponents in 2010, writing in The Hill that to come to ``any
other conclusion'' than that the mandate is unconstitutional
``requires treating the Constitution as the servant, rather
than the master, of Congress.'' Mitt Romney, who had both
passed an individual mandate as governor and supported Wyden-
Bennett, now calls Obama's law an ``unconstitutional power
grab from the states,'' and has promised, if elected, to
begin repealing the law ``on Day One.''
Even Bob Bennett, who was among the most eloquent advocates
of the mandate, voted, in 2009, to call it unconstitutional.
``I'd group us''--Senate Republicans--``into three
categories,'' he says. ``There were people like me, who
bought onto the mandate because it made sense and would work,
and we were reluctant to let go of it. Then, there were
people who bought onto it slowly, for political advantage,
and were immediately willing to abandon it as soon as the
political advantage went the other way. And then there's a
third group that thought it made sense and then thought it
through and changed their minds.'' Explaining his decision to
vote against the law, Bennett, who was facing a Tea Party
challenger in a primary, says, ``I didn't focus on the
particulars of the amendment as closely as I should have, and
probably would have voted the other way if I had understood
that the individual mandate was at its core. I just wanted to
express my opposition to the Obama proposal at every
opportunity.'' He was defeated in the primary, anyway.
But, whatever the motives of individual politicians, the
end result was the same: a policy that once enjoyed broad
support within the Republican Party suddenly faced unified
opposition--opposition that was echoed, refined, and
popularized by other institutions affiliated with the Party.
This is what Jason Grumet, the president of the Bipartisan
Policy Center, a group that tried to encourage Republicans
and Democrats to unite around policy solutions, calls the
``think-tank industrial complex''--the network of
ideologically oriented research centers that drive much of
the policy debate in Washington. As Senator Olympia Snowe, of
Maine, who has announced that she is leaving the Senate
because of the noxious political climate, says, ``You can
find a think tank to buttress any view or position, and then
you can give it the aura of legitimacy and credibility by
referring to their report.'' And, as we're increasingly able
to choose our information sources based on their tendency to
back up whatever we already believe, we don't even have to
hear the arguments from the other side, much less give them
serious consideration. Partisans who may not have strong
opinions on the underlying issues thus get a clear signal on
what their party wants them to think, along with reams of
information on why they should think it.
All this suggests that the old model of compromise is going
to have a very difficult time in today's polarized political
climate. Because it's typically not in the minority party's
interest to compromise with the majority party on big bills--
elections are a zero-sum game, where the majority wins if the
public thinks it has been doing a good job--Washington's
motivated-reasoning machine is likely to kick into gear on
most major issues. ``Reasoning can take you wherever you want
to go,'' Haidt warns. ``Can you see your way to an individual
mandate, if it's a way to fight single payer? Sure. And so,
when it was strategically valuable Republicans could believe
it was constitutional and good. Then Obama proposes the idea.
And then the question becomes not `Can you believe in this?'
but `Must you believe it?' ''
And that means that you can't assume that policy-based
compromises that made sense at the beginning will survive to
the end, because by that time whichever group has an interest
in not compromising will likely have convinced itself that
the compromise position is an awful idea--even if, just a few
years ago, that group thought it was a great one. ``The basic
way you wanted
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to put together a big deal five years ago is that the
thoughtful minds in one party would basically go off and
write a bill that had seventy per cent of their orthodoxy and
thirty per cent of the other side's orthodoxy and try to use
that to peel off five or six senators from the other side,''
Grumet says. ``That process just doesn't work anymore.'' The
remarkable and confusing trajectory of the individual-mandate
debate, in other words, could simply be the new norm.
I asked Ron Wyden how, if politicians can so easily be
argued out of their policy preferences, compromise was
possible. ``I don't find it easy to answer that question,
because I'm an elected official and not a psychiatrist,'' he
said. ``If somebody says they sincerely changed their minds,
then so be it.'' But Wyden is, as always, optimistic about
the next bipartisan deal, and, again, he thinks he knows just
where to start. ``To bring about bipartisanship, it's going
to be necessary to win on something people can see and
understand. That's why I think tax reform is a huge
opportunity for the economy and the cause of building
coalitions.'' Perhaps he's right. Or perhaps that's just what
he wants to believe.
Mr. BENNET. I urge people to read this because what Mr. Klein does in
this article is chart the political course of this mandate from about
1989 to the present. The red shown on the chart is the years in which
this was a Republican idea, advanced by Republican Members of Congress
and by think tanks like the Heritage Foundation that actually came up
with the idea to begin with to deal with the fact that there were
people in this country who were not buying health insurance and whom we
were all subsidizing, and then when it became a Democratic idea in more
recent times.
It strikes me as one person watching all of this that this might have
more to do with the party that is in the White House or not in the
White House than it does with respect to the merits of the idea. But it
is, of course, the merits of these ideas that we should be debating and
talking about. But we should not be telling the American people that
something that affects 1 percent of the American people is a broad-
based assault on the middle class, and we should be bringing to this
floor the ideas we have for improving what 50 percent of the American
people or 70 percent of the American people are already facing. That is
what people in our States believe.
Here is part of an editorial from the Greeley Tribune, which I think
was published yesterday, where they wrote:
In 2010, the North Colorado Medical Center provided more
than $71 million in services to indigent patients who didn't
have health insurance. It wrote off another $29 million in
bad debt.
The Greeley Tribune writes:
Eventually, insured patients [must] pay for that, in higher
premiums and co-pays.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that editorial be printed in
the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Tribune Opinion: Reforms From Affordable Care Act Will Improve Access
to Care
Depending on who you talk to, the U.S. Supreme Court
decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act is either a great
step toward improving health care for millions of Americans
or it's the end of the world as we know it.
But we applaud the court's decision for many reasons. We
think the hysteria surrounding the Affordable Care Act is
generally unfounded and while not perfect, the Affordable
Care Act is a step in the right direction toward reforming
our health care system.
The Supreme Court specifically upheld the individual
mandate provision, which will eventually require everyone to
have health insurance. Those against the measure say it is an
example of a government mandate aimed at controlling what
should be a personal freedom to choose not to carry health
insurance.
We argue, however, that this really isn't that different
than being required to carry auto insurance if you drive a
car or being required to pay your taxes. It's something we
should all do to be contributing citizens of this nation.
But even more, those of us who do have insurance end up
paying for those who don't through higher health care costs.
In 2010, North Colorado Medical Center provided more than
$71 million in services to indigent patients who didn't have
health insurance. It wrote off another $29 million in bad
debt. Eventually, insured patients pay for that, in higher
premiums and co-pays.
This provision isn't meant to be a punishment. Programs are
being developed to help those who truly can't afford medical
insurance.
There are other aspects of the act that are also good,
including stopping insurance companies from denying coverage
for people with ongoing conditions and the provision that
will allow children to stay on their parent's insurance until
they are 26.
Frankly, in Colorado, where many aspects of the act have
already be instituted, the numbers are hard to ignore.
According to Gov. John Hickenlooper's office:
Because of GettingUsCovered, a high-risk insurance pool,
1,331 people with pre-existing conditions have received
coverage.
43,997 more adults have gained health insurance coverage.
Nearly 1 million residents of the state with private health
insurance now have coverage for preventative health care.
Nearly 2 million residents do not have to worry about
lifetime limits on coverage, freeing those suffering from
chronic diseases such as cancer of the threat of losing their
coverage, and their ability to receive treatments.
There are many more reforms that are needed in our health
care system. There needs to be more emphasis on preventative
care. There needs to be more access to treatment for some
patients who are suffering from chronic illnesses. The
skyrocketing cost of health care needs to be addressed.
We do believe this act will head the United States toward
some of those reforms that eventually will be a direct
benefit to patients.
Unfortunately, we also realize this is going to continue to
be a political issue, and that is unfortunate. Access to good
health care should be a right in this country for every
single citizen, regardless of their income level. It
shouldn't be a tool for politicians to use scare tactics and
myths to gain more power.
We hope this historic affirmation of the constitutionality
of the Affordable Care Act is just the first step toward
improving access, and our health care system as a whole.
Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I believe that folks in Colorado have
moved on here, that they want us to improve this legislation, that they
want us to get focused on the real matters at hand, which are getting
this economy going again, getting us into an environment where we have
more jobs and rising wages again, and they are a lot less interested in
these talking points.
I do not understand why people who are in politics can simultaneously
make such a big deal about this that affects 1 percent of the people in
this country and at the same time support legislation, for example,
that forces women, that mandates women to have procedures before they
can make a choice about their own reproductive health. It does not make
any sense because it is completely inconsistent.
I have a daughter Anne who is 7, not 6 like Mary's daughter. But it
is her health care and the certainty in her life and in her sisters'
lives and the thousands of children across my State whose health care
we should be interested in.
I can see that other colleagues of mine have come to the floor, so I
am going to move along here. But before I do that and before I yield to
the Senator from Maryland, I want to say that if this repeal happened
in the House and then this repeal happened in the Senate and it were
signed into law, 932,000 Coloradans who have preexisting conditions
would lose their insurance, 50,000 young adults in Colorado who can now
stay on their parents' insurance until they are 26 would no longer be
able to, and women could once again be discriminated against simply
because they are women. It is welcome to 696,000 women in Colorado who
need maternity care or other women's health services who are not going
to be charged higher premiums since this law is in effect. And when
these exchanges are set up, 521,000 Colorado children will, for the
first time, have better vision and dental coverage.
I want to work in a bipartisan way going forward to try to make sure
we are doing everything we can to follow the examples of places such as
St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction or the University of Colorado
Hospital in Denver or Denver Health in Denver to drive higher quality
and to drive lower costs. It is essential. It is essential for our
economy, and it is essential for our competitive position in the world.
And it is essential that we put these talking points down and start
actually dealing with the facts as they are.
With that, Mr. President, I thank you for your patience, and I yield
the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Merkley). The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. CARDIN. First, Mr. President, I thank Senator Bennet for his
comments as they relate to the Affordable Care Act. I appreciate very
much the
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point the Senator made that what was passed by Congress and signed by
President Obama was really an evolution of work that had been done and
recommendations that had been made by Democratic and Republican
administrations over a long period of time and that what the Supreme
Court did was uphold Congress's ability to move forward with a plan
that will give every American access to affordable quality health care.
I could not agree more with the Senator that we need to do work on
this. We need to improve the bill. There are different things we need
to work on, and Democrats and Republicans should be working together to
move forward on the health care debate.
I also appreciate the point the Senator raised that the House of
Representatives--I think it is the 31st time they are acting on
legislation that repeals all or part of the Affordable Care Act. But
their strategy is to repeal the law, and they have nothing to move
forward with. They do not have a plan. As the Senator pointed out, if
that were to become the case--and it will not; we are not going to pass
it in the Senate--parents who now have their children on their
insurance policy, who are 23-, 24-, 25-years-old, would lose that
opportunity, and parents who can now get their children covered by
insurance who have preexisting conditions would lose that protection.
The Patients' Bill of Rights that we have incorporated against
abusive practices of private insurance companies--so that if someone
goes into an emergency room with emergency conditions, they need to be
reimbursed under prudent layperson standards--that could be lost. Our
seniors could lose their wellness exams that are covered under
Medicare. And we are closing the coverage gap on prescription drugs.
That could be lost.
Let me also point out that our seniors appreciate the fact that what
we did in the Affordable Care Act extends the life of Medicare for
about a decade. That would be lost.
Small businesses will be able, in 2014, to go into exchanges and not
be discriminated against by paying more for their insurance than a
larger company. That would be lost.
As the Senator knows, the attack on women's health care--this bill
that is now law allows women to be treated equally with men as far as
premiums are concerned. That would be lost.
So I appreciate Senator Bennet taking the time on the floor to go
over exactly what would happen if we were to repeal the Affordable Care
Act.
What we need to do, and I think the Court gave us this opportunity--
they spoke to the fact that it is up to Congress to move forward on
this--it gives us a chance, Democrats and Republicans, to say: How can
we make sure our health care system is as cost-effective as possible.
In the Senate Finance Committee today, we had a roundtable discussion
with experts as to how we can do delivery system reforms, use ways we
can manage people with serious illnesses and bring down the cost. That
is what we need to do.
But the Affordable Care Act itself reduced health care costs. Look at
the record. We will lose all that. We actually add to the deficit by
repealing the Affordable Care Act. As the Senator knows, the House
changed their rules so they can repeal the bill, even though it adds to
the deficit.
So I wanted to first thank the Senator for bringing this to the
attention of our colleagues as to what is involved. I do think
Democrats and Republicans need to work together. The one comment I hear
more and more from my constituents is stop the gridlock in Washington.
Stop debating the old issues. Let's move forward. Let's create jobs.
Let's work together. Let's get the job done for the American people.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 minutes as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Tourette Syndrome
Mr. CARDIN. I rise to bring attention to Tourette syndrome, a
neurological disorder that affects more than 200,000 Americans in the
most severe form and as many as 3 million more who exhibit milder
symptoms. Tourette syndrome or TS is characterized by repetitive
involuntary movements and vocalizations called tics.
The disorder is named for a French neurologist who in 1885 first
described the condition in an 86-year-old woman. TS occurs in people
from all ethnic groups and is present in males three to four times more
often than in females.
The early symptoms are typically noticed first in childhood, usually
when a child is between the age of 3 and 9 years of age. Although TS
can be a chronic condition with symptoms lasting a lifetime, most
patients experience the most severe symptoms in their early teens, with
some improvements occurring in the late teens and continuing into
adulthood.
In May, a 13-year-old boy named Jackson Guyton from Parkton, MD,
visited my office to tell me about his experiences with Tourette.
Jackson first noticed symptoms 5 years ago during the summer of 2007.
While on vacation with his family at the beach, his body started making
strange movements he could not control. First, came a head jerk, then
eye-squinting and rolling; later, he started emitting high-pitched
squeaking sounds. As Jackson put it: ``I was a regular kid one moment,
with good grades and very few problems, then in the next I was rolling
my eyes and making sounds. . . . like a fire alarm going off.''
In school, the sound was so loud his friends would cover their ears
and avoid sitting near him in class, and parents of other children
began complaining about his being in their children's class. With
teachers who were uneducated on TS, the symptoms continued throughout
the school year.
So as to avoid ridicule, Jackson began skipping school or spending
more time in the nurse's office than in class. Fortunately, Jackson's
parents found a physician who was able to quickly diagnose the
condition as Tourette Syndrome. Jackson changed schools and spent the
next few years in treatment, trying various medications prescribed by
his doctors.
Those medicines were somewhat helpful. Jackson tried other treatments
and clinical trials at Johns Hopkins University, where he met Dr.
Matthew Specht, a professor of child and adolescent psychiatry who
teaches children exercises to help control the tics.
That technique, cognitive behavioral intervention therapy or CBIT
requires patients to use a great amount of focus and it does not work
for everyone. But it did help Jackson control his squeaks. In the
middle school, he encountered a guidance counselor named Mrs. Oates who
helped change his life. In Jackson's words:
She learned as much as she could about TS and helped me
learn how to deal with the kids better and talk to teachers
about what was happening. She also gave me a safe place to
hang out when things were bad. Through her and a group that
my mom started to help other families with TS in our area, I
made a few friends who understood me better.
She also helped Jackson develop a presentation for the 6th grade
class in his school. Jackson is now 13 years of age, and in September
he will enter the 9th grade at Hereford High School. He is no longer
feeling depressed, and he no longer retreats from others because of his
condition. Rather, he welcomes the opportunity to use his experiences
to educate teachers and other students as a Youth Ambassador, a
position for which he was trained at the National TSA Conference with
about 40 other young people.
Recently, he presented information about TS to more than 400
elementary school students. He says he truly enjoys answering their
questions. He believes, as I do, it is important for people to
understand that children with TS are not doing strange or disruptive
things on purpose, and he just wants to be treated like everyone else.
Jackson still has unpredictable and sometimes painful tics, but he
knows now that TS will not stop him from accomplishing everything he
wants to do in life. Last year, Jackson's little brother Davis was also
diagnosed with TS. Jackson says that having a teacher who understands
the problem and knows how to help is one of the most important things
in the life of a child with TS.
He is preparing a special presentation for Davis's class that he will
deliver when the 2012-2013 school year starts. I am very proud of this
young man. I am hopeful the examples set by him, his
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guidance counselor Mrs. Oates, and other TSA Youth Ambassadors are
blazing a trial for those who are newly diagnosed.
I am also pleased Congress understands how important public awareness
of Tourette is. In 2000, Congress created the Tourette Syndrome Public
Health Education Research Outreach Program at the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. The purpose of this program is to increase
recognition and diagnosis of TS, reduce the stigma attached to the
disorder, and increase the availability of effective treatment.
The program also includes a public-private partnership between the
CDC and the Tourette Syndrome Association, or TSA, that provides
educational programs for physicians, allied health professionals and
school personnel as well as those who have TS, their families, and the
general public. To date, the CDC-TSA outreach program has conducted
more than 520 educational programs for 32,000 professionals and
community members nationwide.
This program is working well. In addition, CDC has entered into a
cooperative agreement with the University of Rochester and the
University of South Florida to better understand the public health
impact of tic disorders, including TS, for individuals and their
families and the community.
One of the areas being assessed is education, as they are looking at
the effect of TS on standardized test scores, grade retention, and the
presence of an individualized education program. Significantly, they
are also measuring teachers' understanding of TS, and this information
will be used to inform and improve outreach programs.
I urge my colleagues to support full funding of this program again
this year so we might expand awareness of TS and lead to a better
quality of life for people such as Jackson and families across the
Nation who are affected by this disorder.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to
15 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Health Care
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I have listened to some of my friends
across the aisle talking about the vote in the House to repeal what has
now come to be known as ObamaCare, which the official title is the
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. But I think history has now
demonstrated it is not the Affordable Care Act; it is the
``Unaffordable Care Act.''
My colleagues suggest the only way we can possibly protect people
from preexisting disease exclusions under their insurance policy or
make sure young adults up to 26 years old can remain covered under
their parent's coverage is to pass this $2.5 trillion monstrosity. That
is not the case. We could easily address these other issues as well as
affordability if we were to take a step-by-step approach to try to make
sure the patient-physician decisionmaking process is preserved, while
making health coverage more affordable for more Americans.
But unfortunately that was not the approach taken under ObamaCare. In
fact, under ObamaCare, there was almost no attention paid to trying to
make coverage more affordable. The focus was on expanding coverage, an
admirable goal but one that ignored affordability almost entirely. We
now know ObamaCare was based, the vote in favor of and the public
support, such as it is for ObamaCare, was based on a litany of what has
now proven to be broken promises. The promise that if someone likes
what they have, they can keep it, we know that is not true. More and
more employers are dropping their employer-provided coverage for their
employees.
The President himself said a family of four would actually see their
premiums reduced an average of $2,500 a year. What has happened?
Premiums continue to go up, roughly at the rate of 10 percent a year.
The President said, and I heard my colleague from Maryland just say,
ObamaCare cuts the deficit. How they can spend $2.5 trillion and take
$\1/2\ trillion more from Medicare, an already fragile, unsustainable
program--unless we fix it--and that cuts the deficit is, I think,
beyond the understanding of most Americans. Certainly, it is beyond
mine.
I would like to ask my colleague this question: What we know is that
now the Supreme Court has decided the constitutionality of ObamaCare.
The Supreme Court has said--and under our system of government it is
the Supreme Court that is the final word on these matters. It said the
only way ObamaCare could be constitutional is for the individual
mandate to be considered a tax--a tax. Indeed, it is a tax, a broad-
based tax on the middle class.
I want to know how many votes in the House, how many of our
colleagues in the Senate would have voted for ObamaCare if it had been
called what it is, a middle-class tax increase--a middle-class tax
increase. I think it is important to have a vote in the House today,
and I think it is important to have a vote in the Senate, as Senator
McConnell has proposed to do, to see whether, based on the fact that
the Supreme Court has finally decided this is a tax on the middle
class, whether it would enjoy the support across the aisle it did in
2009 and 2010.
But I wish to talk a moment more about taxes and indeed the
challenges that face small businesses and working families across the
country and the need for the Senate to stop contributing to the class
warfare rhetoric and gamesmanship that seems to encompass us 118 days
now before the general election and the importance of actually
addressing taxes in a constructive manner, in a way that will helpfully
get our economy growing again.
To that end, it is my sincere hope that the majority leader will
allow an open amendment process on this piece of legislation and allow
it to go forward and give Senators the opportunity to offer ideas about
how to improve this legislation and help small business job creation.
What we do know for a fact is that unless Congress and the President
act before December 31, 2012, American taxpayers will face the single
largest tax increase in American history. Why is that? Because the tax
provisions we passed in 2001 and 2003 and then again in 2010, under
President Obama, will expire at the end of this year.
For example, in less than 6 months, the highest individual tax
bracket will rise from 35 percent to just under 40 percent. I think it
is important for everyone to realize we are just talking about Federal
taxes. We are not talking about State taxes or local taxes. Many
States--thank goodness not Texas but many States--have a State income
tax which is added to the Federal tax burden. Of course, virtually
everyone in the country pays some form of sales tax.
We need to think about, when we add to the tax burden of the American
people, what that means in terms of their cumulative tax burden,
including Federal, State, and local taxes.
Unless Congress acts, people in the lowest tax bracket will see a 50-
percent tax increase. Indeed, the marriage penalty will increase, the
child credit will be cut in half, and taxes on capital gains and
dividends will increase.
Why are lower taxes on capital gains and dividends important? Well,
on capital gains it is important because we want to incentivize people
to make long-term investments, to create jobs.
Why is the lower dividend rate important? Many seniors who are
retired depend on dividend income from their retirement funds in order
to help pay their cost of living.
The bottom line is unless Congress and the President act before
December 31--and I submit it is important to act sooner rather than
later to send a signal to the markets and job creators about their tax
burden on January 1--every taxpayer in the country will pay higher
taxes.
Unfortunately, instead of engaging in a serious manner on this issue,
the President earlier this week reverted to his old playbook of class
warfare and gamesmanship. He advocated again another policy which has
failed to pass the laugh test, if you think about it. The President
previously proposed the so-called Buffet rule--named for Warren
Buffet--and said if we pass the Buffet rule and raise taxes, our
problems would all be solved.
Do you know how much revenue would be generated by the Buffet rule if
it passed? It would be enough revenues to run the Federal Government
for 11 hours--less than half a day.
[[Page S4869]]
Well, I have to admit the President's recent announcement that he
wants to raise taxes on small businesses has left me scratching my
head. I remember back in 2010, when President Obama said raising taxes
during a fragile economic recovery ``would have been a blow to our
economy.'' That is what President Obama said in 2010. But in 2012, he
seems to be singing an entirely different tune. At the time, in 2010,
economic growth was roughly 3.1 percent. That is when President Obama
said raising taxes would be a blow to our economy. Do you know what the
economic growth numbers are today? Our economy is growing at roughly 2
percent of GDP, gross domestic product. Instead of 3.1 percent, it is
growing even slower right now.
Of course, as I mentioned, this tax increase the President and the
majority leader are proposing is on top of the ObamaCare taxes. It is
not just the individual mandate I alluded to earlier that will penalize
people who don't buy government-approved health care, but that is on
top of approximately 20 different other tax increases that are part of
the ObamaCare legislation. Not only do these new taxes break the
President's own pledge not to raise taxes on individuals who make less
than $200,000 a year or families making less than $250,000 a year, but
it also creates barriers to new investment and job creation.
Recently I attended a meeting downstairs with Bob Zoellick, head of
the World Bank, and the president of the New York Federal Reserve
office--a gentleman whose name escapes me. The president of the Federal
Reserve in New York said: When talking with business people across the
country, I ask them what is your attitude, your mood? Are you going to
invest or sit back on the sidelines? He said almost universally the
message is: We are done. We are not doing anything else until
Washington--in other words, Congress and the President--figure this
out.
Who in their right mind would want to start a new business with the
uncertainty as far as taxes are concerned, or the burdens that are
imposed upon individuals and small businesses because of ObamaCare? I
mentioned that in addition to what the Supreme Court found to be a
tax--the individual mandate--ObamaCare includes a new 3.8-percent
surtax on capital gains, dividends, rents, and interest earned by many
taxpayers. This new surtax goes into effect next year, in 2013.
Another thing I found amazing in terms of the audacity of those who
supported ObamaCare in 2009 and early 2010 is that a lot of the taxes
that were included in the bill didn't go into effect until after this
next election. Isn't that an amazing coincidence?
Enacting this permanent tax hike was a mistake then, and it continues
to be a mistake now. It will discourage savings and investment, reduce
productivity, and it will depress wages and the standard of living for
millions of Americans.
According to one nonprofit economic policy research and educational
organization, a 2.9-percent tax increase would depress economic growth
by 1.3 percent. You heard me a moment ago say our economy is growing
roughly at 2 percent. This think tank says they estimate a 2.9-percent
tax increase would depress economic growth by 1.3 percent, and it would
reduce capital formation by 3.4 percent. Those are numbers that come
out of, obviously, a think tank, but that means fewer jobs and a lower
standard of living for many Americans. The damage to job creation and
economic growth would be even greater from a 3.8-percent investment
tax. You don't have to be an economist or a rocket scientist to figure
out that higher taxes are going to depress economic activity. Indeed,
it is all about incentives. If we create incentives for people to be
productive, work hard, and make investments, then they will respond. If
we raise the bar and make it more expensive and harder, they are going
to do less of it. It is that simple.
Taxpayers, including small businesses, are already scheduled to get
hit with the largest tax increase in history at the end of the year, as
I have already mentioned.
I will close on this, as far as this subject is concerned: We know
the key to job creation is to grow the economy and allow small
businesses to flourish, invest, and create jobs. That is what we are
missing now. Government has grown and grown and grown. It has spent
money it didn't have under the stimulus bill passed early in the Obama
administration. Do you know what the projection was at that time that
unemployment would be today if we passed this spending bill using
borrowed money? The President's administration said unemployment would
be at 5.6 percent. Yet it continues to persist at over 8 percent. So we
know that obviously didn't work.
I believe it is important that we put into place an insurance policy
against any Senate effort to increase taxes on small businesses. For
that reason, I have offered time after time a proposal that would
require a supermajority to raise taxes on small businesses. The last
time I raised this proposal, when we considered the 2010 budget--which
is actually the last time the Senate passed a budget, but that is
another subject altogether--the amendment passed with the support of 82
Senators, including 42 Democrats, many of whom still serve in the
Senate.
Raising taxes on small businesses that represent the primary engine
of job growth in this country is not the answer to getting our economy
back on track.
I know about 400,000 small businesses in Texas that employ 4 million
people especially cannot afford to pay higher taxes, particularly at
this time. We know it is small businesses that create the vast majority
of new jobs.
Given that the administration has said it is committed to creating
jobs, I am left wondering why they would want to increase taxes on
those we are depending upon to do just that. I know the millions of
Americans who remain out of work are wondering the same thing today.
Voter Identification
Mr. President, I want to make a brief comment about the voter
identification debate. This is particularly important in my State, but
it is important across the country, because many States have passed
commonsense voter identification laws to protect the integrity of the
ballot and prevent dilution of the vote for majority and minority
members and everyone across the board, and to protect against voter
fraud.
Yesterday Attorney General Holder spoke in Houston, TX, at a
gathering of the NAACP. I am sorry to say his remarks were completely
inappropriate and misleading. Mr. Holder knows--or he should know--that
the Texas law that requires a photo ID in order to cast a ballot will
be issued free of charge to any voter who asks for one--free of charge.
He conveniently ignores the fact that the Supreme Court of the United
States has previously--in an Indiana case--dispositively held that
voter ID laws are constitutional and necessary to protect the integrity
of the vote. This is the low point of the Attorney General's remarks.
He once again defamed my State and our State legislature by equating
our commonsense voter ID law with a poll tax.
By invoking the specter of Jim Crow racism, the Attorney General is
playing the lowest form of identity politics. Mr. Holder knows better.
This rhetoric is irresponsible and a disgrace to the office of the
Attorney General. Shame on him.
Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Growing the Economy
Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I wanted to come to the floor today because
of the good news I have heard recently, that the Senate is going to
spend the next couple of weeks, maybe the whole month, talking about
tax policy. I think that is very encouraging, because this is one of
the issues I was hoping we would deal with early on, when I got here
last year. And I am, quite frankly, surprised it has taken this much
time, a year and a half, to pivot to this issue. I am hopeful--I don't
know if it has been determined yet--but I am hopeful on this
legislation currently before the Senate, the minority will be given an
opportunity
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to introduce ideas. I think that is important for this place to work
well.
I have read the history of this distinguished place and it only works
well, it only functions when the ideas of both sides are allowed to be
heard. I know we can count votes here, and from time to time we may
have a chance to pass a few things, but when one is in the minority, as
I am, it is harder to get ideas passed. But I would love to at least
get a vote on some of these ideas we are hoping to push forward, and
our hope is that will happen. So let's hope that works out.
What I want to remind us all about a little bit today is what our
goal is. We can't arrive at the right solutions if we don't know
exactly what it is we are trying to get to. Our goal, I believe--and
there is a consensus now throughout this country, and it is actually
something that unites both political parties--needs to be to grow the
economy. That is our goal, to grow the economy. And what will result
from growing the economy is that good will happen for everybody.
How does the economy grow is the first fundamental question we have
to answer. The economy grows when two things happen: either someone
starts a business or someone grows their existing business. That is
what leads to economic growth. It is that simple. Someone starts a new
business because they think they can make money at it or someone goes
into their existing business and says, I think we can make more money,
let's grow this thing. That is how the economy grows.
So the issue before us here as Federal policymakers has to be what
can the Federal Government do to help that kind of growth. In essence,
what the Federal Government can do is to encourage people and make it
easier for people to either start a business or to grow their business.
So if that is our goal, then every time a measure comes before this
body--tax policy, regulatory policy--what we should ask ourselves is,
does this make it easier or harder for someone to start a business?
Does it make it easier or harder for someone to grow an existing
business? Does this measure make it easier or harder for the economy to
grow? Because if we are indeed united by this goal of growing the
economy, that should be the measure of anything we take on. And it is
through that lens that I want to examine some of what we are talking
about right now. Because it seems to me, at least in some of the
policies I have heard proposed this week, that maybe some folks have
the goal wrong. Because if we closely examine some of these policies,
it sounds as if the goal is, let's take a limited economy that isn't
growing and let's divide it. And primarily it sounds like, let's take
this limited economy that isn't growing and let's allow us to take
money from people who are maybe making a little too much, give it to
the government, and the government can then spend it on behalf of
people who maybe aren't making enough.
I know that may sound appealing to the folks who are among those
Americans who aren't making enough money, but I want you to know
something: It never works. That idea never works. Here is why it never
works. It actually never works because, first of all, the money doesn't
get to you. When you give government money to spend, it invariably
doesn't usually spend it very well. In fact, when you give government
money to spend, the people who end up getting that money are the people
who can afford to hire people to come to Washington and influence how
the money is spent. So sometimes the money never even gets to you, if
in fact you allow the government to do this.
But it is more complicated than that. It can actually cost people
their jobs, and here is why. How you create businesses or how you
expand an existing business is pretty straightforward. Someone is in
business, someone makes some money or gets a hold of some money and
they decide to take that money and invest it. They use the money they
have made and they reinvest it in their business so the business grows
or they use the money they have made to start a brandnew business. This
stuff works. This is how the American economy has grown and how we
became the most prosperous people on Earth.
I know this works not just because I read about it in a magazine. I
know it works because I have lived it. As I have detailed and talked
about in the past on this floor, my father was a bartender. He worked
at a hotel as a bartender. My mother had a lot of different jobs, but
for a while she worked as a maid in a hotel. The reason I talk about
this is to explain how and why my mom and dad had a job that paid them
money to raise us and give us a chance to do all the things my siblings
and I were able to do. Someone made some money, they took that money
and opened up this hotel. That is why my parents had a job. They didn't
have a job because the President of the United States back in 1965 or
1975 gave them a job. They had a job because someone who made money
took that money and used it to start a new business or to grow an
existing business and hire them. They also had a job because other
people who had money decided to use that money to go on vacation and
they came to Miami Beach or to Las Vegas, when I lived in Las Vegas,
and they spent that money at these hotels.
The point is, people had money, and they either invested it or spent
it. And that allowed a bartender and a maid--my mother and father--to
raise my siblings and me and to give us opportunity. That was true in
the 1950s, in the 1960s, in the 1970s, in the 1980s, in the 1990s, and
it is still true. That is what is needed to grow this economy. And the
problem is, if we go after these people, if we go after the money they
have made and give it to the government, maybe they will decide not to
open that new business or maybe they will decide this is not the year
to take that vacation or instead of taking the 5-day vacation, they
take the 3-day vacation. And you know who gets hurt? The bartender and
the maid and the people who work in these places. Because money has to
go somewhere. If you are taking it out of the hands of the people who
invest it and spend it, they can't invest it or spend it, and it is
people who are trying to make it--like my parents were--who get hurt by
it.
So we have to get our goal right. Because if our goal is to grow the
economy, we don't have to call trick plays. What we can do at the
Federal level to grow the economy is pretty straightforward. All we
have to do is talk to the people who grow the economy. If we go out and
talk to the people who have a great idea and are trying to start a
business, they will tell us what they are looking for. It is pretty
straightforward stuff: tax reform.
What do we mean by tax reform? Simple. We want a Tax Code that is
stable, predictable, and affordable. Of course we have to have taxes.
Government needs revenue to be able to pay for what we all expect from
government. But it has to be a predictable system and it has to be an
affordable system. If taxes get too high, people may decide not to
invest it in this country or to leave it in the bank, and that doesn't
help anybody. So the point is we need to have a Tax Code that is
stable, predictable, and affordable.
We need regulations that are the same: stable, affordable, and
predictable. Look, we need regulations; right? I want this water to be
clean. I don't want the water to poison me. We don't want to walk out
on the street and breathe in air that will hurt us. There is a role for
regulation. The problem is that most Federal regulations are set by
bureaucrats who work for the government, and all they think about is
can this regulation maybe help. They do not think at all about the
impact of that regulation on businesses. That is not part of the
equation. When they sit down and write a regulation, that is not part
of the equation at all. So we end up having these regulations that may
not even help that much but hurt a lot; that help wipe out entire
industries, but the impact on helping the environment or whatever else
is nebulous at best. So we have to change that.
That is why we need to pass a law here like the REINS Act, which says
any regulation that has an economic impact beyond a certain amount of
money should have to be approved by elected people, who are
accountable, who have to measure both the effectiveness of the
regulation but also whether it is going to cost jobs or wipe out an
industry. Because that is important too. Protecting our industries and
our sources of job creation is as important as some of these other
things we
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are trying to protect through regulations and they have to be balanced
against one another. We do not want to simply be making decisions in a
vacuum.
Along those lines, something that is both a tax and a regulation is
ObamaCare. Look, we have a health insurance problem in America. There
is no denying that. But there are better ways to deal with it. The
problem is this bill that passed has created a tremendous amount of
uncertainty. For example, it says if you have more than 50 full-time
employees, there are certain requirements you have to meet. So imagine
if you are a company with 48 or 49 employees. This may not be the year
to hire the 50th. And maybe you are going to be the 50th, but now you
don't get hired or, worse, maybe you will decide this is the year to
turn all your employees into part-time employees. That is not good for
the workers. Yet that is the impact this law is having, not to mention
the fact it is a tax increase.
That is what the IRS does. The IRS collects taxes. And guess who you
have to prove you have insurance to. And not just any old insurance,
but insurance they deem to be acceptable. The IRS. Millions of
Americans now every year will have to prove to the IRS they have
insurance or they will owe the IRS money. That is a tax, and that is
not going to help job creation, especially if you are a small business.
I outlined this last week. Imagine a small business run by a husband
and wife with two kids, and the business--not them, but their
business--makes $95,000 a year. It will cost them between $4,000 to
$6,000 to buy health insurance. If they do not, they will owe the IRS
$2,000. Tell me that is good for that business. Or imagine if you are
thinking about going into business and you realize this is what is
going to happen to you and you decide not to go into business. That is
not good for growth. That is why this law needs to be repealed and it
needs to be replaced.
Something else we need in this country is a pro-American energy
policy. Do people realize the American innovator has come up with this
technology over the last 5 years that now has made us a very energy-
rich country? I don't know if people fully understand how energy-rich
America is. If you want a small glimpse of what it can mean to our
future, go to North Dakota. They are having a jobs boom. They can't
find enough people to work there.
Energy is important and we need to start behaving like an energy-rich
country, with a true all-of-the-above strategy where the energies we
choose are decided by the marketplace and not by politicians. When
politicians decide which energy source to use, you know who wins? The
people with the best lobbyists. The people with the best lobby. The
people with the most political influence. That is how we got a
Solyndra-type situation, where a company that was going to go bankrupt
got all this money--your tax dollars--and meanwhile America is sitting
on over 100-some-odd years of natural gas at our disposal and no
concise national energy policy to utilize it.
Let me tell you why energy matters. If we can get energy costs down
and stable and predictable, manufacturing will start coming back to
America. That is one of the leading costs of manufacturing, energy. We
are an energy-rich country. Some of those factories that closed, we can
actually get them to come back here. Imagine what that would do for
economic growth, not to mention the fact that America could potentially
now begin to sell overseas as well, creating yet another industry and
all the things that come with it.
How about free and fair trade? There is an emerging middle class all
over the world now. One of the great things that has happened over the
last 20 years is that all over the world there are now people who a
decade ago were living in poverty and can now afford to buy the
products we invent and build, people all over the world, by the way,
who can now afford to take vacations. And do you know where they want
to come? To the United States of America. They want to come to Florida.
They also want to come here.
I think that is fantastic, that now there are millions of people all
over the world who can afford to visit the United States and leave
their money at our hotels, at our restaurants, and at our amusement
parks. That creates jobs, that creates growth, free and fair trade,
that allows the American people to build things we can sell overseas to
other places and lowers the cost of buying certain things here.
Last year, we ratified the free trade agreement with Colombia,
Panama, and South Korea. We are already seeing the economic benefits of
that in south Florida. Imagine if we were able do that with more
countries in a free and fair way. It has to be fair.
One last thing we could probably do to help grow this economy is deal
with the long-term debt. And that is what it is, it is a long-term debt
problem that hovers all over all of this conversation and creates
uncertainty. People are afraid--especially people with lots of money
are afraid--to invest in the American economy because they look at this
debt problem, they look at this political process's inability to deal
with it, and they think, Do you know what. That country is destined for
confiscatory tax rates. They are going where Europe is going. We don't
want to invest in a country that is going to wind up like Europe in 5
years. That is why we have to deal with the long-term debt, and the
sooner the better.
To deal with the long-term debt, by the way, you have to deal with
what is causing it. That is why it is so important we save Medicare.
Medicare is a very important program. My mother is on Medicare. I would
never support anything that hurts my mother or people like her. But
people in my generation need to understand that if we want to keep
Medicare the way it is for our parents and if we want Medicare to even
exist when we retire, Medicare is going to have to look different for
us, for 41-year-olds. We have to save Medicare. And to deal with the
long-term debt, we have to deal with that. That is what is driving part
of the debt. That is not being driven by foreign aid, which is less
than 1 percent of our budget. The debt is not being driven by food
stamp programs. The debt is not being driven by defense spending.
Look, if money is being misspent or wasted, it is never a good idea
to do that. If there are ways to save money on foreign aid, we should
save it. If there are ways to save money in the food stamp program, we
should save it. If there are ways to save money in the defense budget,
we should save it. But that is not what is driving our long-term debt.
To pretend we are going to get 100 percent of our savings from 25 or 20
percent of our budget leads to the kind of catastrophic cuts we talk
about in this town, because no one wants to touch the big issues that
have to be dealt with.
What would happen if we did these six things? Let's say that
tomorrow, overnight, magically these things happened: We got real tax
reform, real regulatory reform, we repealed and replaced ObamaCare, we
had a pro-American energy strategy, we expanded free and fair trade,
and we had a plan in place that began to deal with the long-term debt
in a serious and sustainable way. Let me tell you what would happen:
explosive economic growth, primarily by the creation of jobs.
Do you know what more jobs means? It means, No. 1, more taxpayers. It
means you can now generate revenue for government to pay for what we
all want government to do, and you don't have to raise tax rates to do
that. It means you have more taxpayers who are now paying into the tax
system who give you the revenue you need to bring the debt under
control. Everything gets easier if the economy grows. The debt gets
easier, our budgets get easier.
Jobs also mean more customers for your business. If someone is
unemployed, it is hard for them to spend money. It is hard for them to
buy a house, much less the things that go in it. It is hard for them to
take vacations. More jobs means more stability for your business or for
the place you work in. More jobs means more taxpayers, it means more
customers for your business. And, by the way, it means a more stable
society, a place where hard work can earn them a decent wage so they
can save money for their kids' college, so they can save money for
their retirement, so they can buy a home and furnish it, so they can
afford to take a couple weeks vacation a year with their families.
Millions of Americans can't do that anymore.
Millions of Americans have done everything we have asked of them.
They
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went to school, they graduated. They were told if they did that, they
could find a job that paid them a decent wage, and they are struggling
to do that now.
By the way, all of the strategies for growth aren't at the Federal
level. It is important that States take on the issue of education
reform. It is important for us as parents to be honest with our kids.
In the 21st century, it is going to be hard to find a job if all you
have is a high school diploma. It is that simple.
If you look at the unemployment rate between people who have a
college degree or a post-high school degree and those who don't, it is
stunning. It is stunning. If you don't have more than a high school
education, you are going to struggle to succeed in this new century. We
have to let our kids understand that. It is our job as parents and as a
community to do that.
By the way, it is important for us to work with the States, as I
outlined earlier, to modernize our education system. Why have we
stigmatized career education? Why can't we graduate kids from high
school with both a diploma and an industry certification and a career?
We need to begin to teach our kids to compete with the world, not just
with other States. These are other things that have to happen as well.
The point I wanted to drive today is we need to remind ourselves of
what the goal is here. The goal is growth. The goal is, What can we do
at the Federal level to help grow the economy? Ultimately, the economy
grows because of the private sector, because someone who has made some
money takes that money and invests it by starting a new business or by
growing their existing business. We should find ways to make that
easier and encourage people to do that. That has to be our goal. It
doesn't require trick plays; it doesn't require some complicated new
gimmick. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. The American people
haven't run out of good ideas. Americans haven't forgotten how to start
businesses or even entire new industries. Even as I speak to you right
now, I am 100 percent convinced that within walking distance of this
building there is someone somewhere drawing up the great next American
company business plan on the back of a napkin or a scrap piece of
paper. And if we give them a chance to do it, they are going to do it.
We are still the same people we have always been. There is nothing
wrong with the American people. They just need a little help from their
government. I think if we get our goals right around here, we can do a
few simple but important things that allow Americans to do, once again,
what we do better than any country or any people in the history of the
world, and that is create prosperity and create opportunity.
Madam President, I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Klobuchar). The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, before I get into the substance of my
remarks, I heard the concluding remarks of my colleague, Senator Rubio,
talking about ideas and education and small business growth.
I agree with his basic concept that we are still the greatest country
in the world, that we encourage entrepreneurs and people with great
ideas, that education means a great deal to making that happen; that no
other country inspires young people, middle-aged people, even older
people to start new businesses. I hope it means he is going to vote for
the proposal that is now before us. Because what this proposal does is
take that young person within walking distance of Washington, DC, who
has a great idea and, once they start a business, allows them to get
that business to move more quickly. There are lots of those businesses,
and probably some within Washington, DC, as well. So I hope my
colleague from Florida will vote for our Small Business Jobs and Tax
Relief Act.
The proposal will spur economic growth. It will create nearly 1
million new jobs in this country. If my Republican colleagues care
about small business in America, they would work with us to pass this
commonsense bill immediately instead of playing procedural games that
are thinly veiled attempts to block these tax cuts that spur hiring.
The bill is based on bipartisan ideas that have traditionally enjoyed
Republican support, yet they are obstructing their passage. Why are our
Republican colleagues changing their tune? The only explanation is that
Republicans continue to block proposals that will help create jobs and
spur our economic recovery for their own political gain.
This is a simple proposal. It is a smart proposal. It is a tax cut
proposal. In my home State of New York, small businesses from
Cattaraugus to Clinton County are poised to grow and make the jump to
the next level. These business owners know the economy is slowly
turning a corner, but we are not there yet to full unthrottled growth,
so they are looking for Congress to do more--not less--to spur hiring.
This initiative is aimed at the small businesses that are truly the
lifeblood of our Nation, and we need to help them jumpstart expansion
plans this year. There is simply no time to waste.
There is a business in Cortland, NY, central New York, called
Precision Eforming. It is a great small business that would use this
tax cut to buy a new piece of equipment called a Dipcoater to help the
company create high-end acoustics such as hearing aids. With the
Dipcoater, Precision Eforming will increase yield and need to hire new
employees.
There are stories like this throughout my State. Napoleon Engineering
Services, a new ball-bearing plant in Olean, hopes to hire more
employees and will purchase new equipment for its growing business.
Quinlan's Pharmacy and Medical Supply in Livingston County wants to add
an additional location in Schuyler County. In Staten Island, the owner
of a small restaurant chain recently told me this proposal could help
him expand to additional locations.
Simply put, this bill makes equipment purchases and capital
improvements for thousands of small businesses cheaper, and, by doing
that, provides a real jolt to the economy. In fact, it is estimated
that every $1 of tax cuts devoted to writing off the cost of a
business's purchases generates about $9 of GDP growth. Let me repeat
that. One dollar of tax cuts devoted to writing off the cost of a
business's purchases generates nine times that in GDP growth. Why
wouldn't we do it? Economists of every stripe will tell you that hiring
incentives like the ones in this bill are the best ways to kick-start
an economy and get people back to work. Why wouldn't we do it?
In fact, a new nonpartisan analysis of the proposal before us has
determined it will create nearly 1 million jobs this year. Look at your
State: 22,000 in Washington State, 10,000 in Nebraska, 11,000 in Iowa,
40,000 in Pennsylvania, 63,000 in my home State of New York, 77,000 in
Texas. Huge numbers of new jobs will be created by this proposal. Why
won't our colleagues move forward on it?
It is estimated that 93,000 jobs will be added to the construction
industry, 61,000 new jobs added to manufacturing. The report concludes
that the proposal's impact would be felt across every State and in a
range of industries, with a significant jump in employment in
construction and manufacturing. The proposal is targeted toward the
mom-and-pop Main Street businesses that will benefit most from this
relief.
You want to talk about job creators? You want to help job creators?
Well, these small business owners are real job creators and they are
the ones who make this country run. They come in early, they stay late,
they work hard, and they deserve a tax break.
Here lies an important contrast between what we are proposing and a
different tax cut proposal that the House Republicans have passed. The
House Republican proposal is neither focused on true small business nor
does it make the tax cut dependent on a company doing any hiring at
all. Our proposal rewards actual job creation by true small businesses,
rather than giving more tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires who
may not create a single job. They have profits; they get a cut in their
taxes for their profits even if they fire people. Does that
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make any sense? Our bill's commonsense measures have had broad
bipartisan support. There is no reason Democrats and Republicans alike
should not support them now. The relief in this bill would be a grand
slam for our economy as a whole. It puts more people to work, expedites
the expansion of successful small bills throughout the country, expands
businesses to new communities, and keeps money flowing through local
economies. For too many business owners, this relief simply cannot
wait. Let's get this bill to the President's desk and get our business
owners started on the developments that will propel them into the next
decade.
Once we pass this bill, we must work together to give certainty to
American families that they will not see a mass tax hike at the end of
the year. We should all agree our small businesses deserve tax cuts and
a Small Business Jobs and Tax Relief Act that will help them hire
workers. We should all agree no middle-class families should face a tax
increase at the end of the year. Let's take care of our areas of
agreement and then we can turn to debate on whether our country can
afford to give more tax breaks to the wealthiest 2 percent.
I yield the remainder of my time and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, as chair of the Small Business
Committee of the Senate, I am pleased to come to the floor to give some
supporting remarks for Senator Schumer's small business tax reduction
bill. The bill will invest, basically, $20 billion to the bottom line
of small businesses--owners of businesses that are dynamic and that are
growing. I would like to make that distinction. It is not all small
business that will get tax relief. It is small businesses that are
dynamic and growing and adding employees or increasing wages.
The bill is smartly and narrowly targeted to motivate and to reward
those small businesses, a subgroup of the 28 million small businesses
that exist in the country today, many of which are in the Senator's
State, Minnesota, that has some very high-growth, high-potential small
business development in the medical field, I understand. In my State,
it would be those businesses that are growing because of the increased
demand for energy and the new technologies that are coming out, not
only for oil and gas production, which is important, but also other
sources of energy. In Ohio and Michigan, it could be those small
business suppliers that are rallying around the emerging and
strengthening automobile industry, which President Obama and the
Democratic Members of this Congress had so much to do with salvaging.
Our business is not just throwing money against the wind. It is
taking precious taxpayer dollars and targeting them to those businesses
that are growing. That is why, as the chair of the Small Business
Committee, I strongly endorse Senator Schumer's proposal over the
proposal that came from the House of Representatives.
The House of Representatives' bill basically is taking $40 billion
that we do not have--we do not have the $20 billion either but one is
half the cost--taking $40 billion and throwing it at businesses, 50
percent of which, according to the CBO study, will accrue to the
highest income earners in the country--over $1 million. It is not
targeted. It is just about business profits, which are important. I
know businesses are in business to make profits. I have no problem with
that. We want our businesses to be profitable. But the Schumer
proposal, relative to the Cantor proposal, is targeted to those
businesses making a profit and reinvesting it in the business to grow--
hiring workers and putting behind this recession we are coming out of--
a recession because of poor policies of previous administrations--
coming out of this recession to help grow the economy.
We can give tax cuts in a variety of different ways. If we had all
the money in the world, maybe we could afford to do both, but we are
not that fortunate. We have to make choices. That is what we do on the
floor of this Senate every day, make choices, make distinctions between
wise ways to spend money and poor ways to spend money.
I suggest, if we have $20 billion to spend, if everybody agrees we
have at least that, that the Schumer approach is much more efficient,
will be much more effective, will get much more bang for the buck than
the Cantor approach.
I commend Senator Schumer for putting his bill on the floor, the
Small Business Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012. According to
the National Economic Council, the tax credit would provide $20 billion
in direct tax relief for businesses that hire new workers or increase
wages, and it could encourage an additional $200 to $300 billion in new
wages and jobs this year.
This tax credit, as I said, makes sense. It will help create jobs.
According to the Congressional Budget Office report released last year,
the CBO report from November of 2011, policies that have the largest
effect on output and employment per dollar of cost in 2012 and 2013 are
the ones that would reduce the marginal cost of hiring. That is exactly
what the Schumer bill does.
Firms that make capital investments in 2012 would be allowed to
deduct the full value of the investment on their 2012 return. We know
this kind of targeted tax cut can spark demand that small businesses
have been clamoring for. This tax cut is an extension of a tax
provision that expires in 2011 and had yielded an estimated $50 billion
in added investments and lowered the average cost of capital for
business investment by over 75 percent, according to the National
Council of Economic Advisers.
We have had a lot of experience in the Small Business Committee and
in the Finance Committee, on which Senator Schumer serves, in the last
couple years designing and implementing tax cuts for the middle class,
tax cuts for the job creators. Again, if we look very objectively,
considering the Schumer proposal costs half as much as the Cantor
proposal and will probably do three times if not four times better, it
is a no-brainer which one is more effective; that is, the Schumer
proposal.
Our hope is if Senators come to the floor and begin to look more
carefully at the Schumer proposal versus the proposal that came from
the House, they will realize the benefit of the Schumer approach and
give it the 60 votes we need to move it forward and will reject the
Cantor approach as being too expensive relative to the other option
that is on the table and much less effective. In the event the Senate
decides to do neither, which might happen because there have been
logjams around here for a while now, I have to say I was very proud of
my colleagues Barbara Boxer and Jim Inhofe for working to break the
logjams in a spectacular way just 2 weeks ago on the Senate floor when
they finally negotiated a 2-year transportation bill, the flood
insurance bill, the RESTORE Act, and the student loan reduction bill,
which is the remarkable work the Congress did last week.
In the event the Cantor proposal fails and the Schumer proposal
fails, I am hoping to offer an amendment that the leadership is
considering now that was put together by the Snowe staff and the
Landrieu staff over the course of the last several weeks. The only name
on this right now is mine, but it has been put together by a variety of
Senators who have been working across the aisle for months on items
that are very important to the small business community.
Again, we have 28 million small businesses in America; 22 million of
them are single employers. In other words, they are self-employed
professionals who are doctors, lawyers, landscape architects,
architects, other service providers, network professionals, and IT
professionals who are working in their own business and employ
themselves. They are very valuable. We encourage entrepreneurship in
America. We may have more entrepreneurs per capita than any place in
the world. We believe in it and we are excited.
We are also excited for our businesses that start with two or three
employees, and before we know it they have 200 or 300 employees. Then,
when we close our eyes and open them, they have 2,000 employees. That
is very exciting. We
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call them the gazelles. We look for accelerating opportunities.
As I said, we put this package together with the significant input of
Senator Snowe and her staff, along with input from Senator Kerry, who
has been an extraordinary leader in this way. Senator Merkley, Senator
Cardin, and a list of other Senators whom I am going to refer to have
been working for years on some of these issues. I wish to make sure I
give them the credit for these issues.
First in our package is the very popular and very effective 100-
percent exclusion of capital gains for investments in small businesses.
It was part of the small business tax extenders package. President
Obama has recommended this and Senator Kerry is the lead sponsor, along
with Senator Snowe, on the Finance Committee.
Let me give a little background. Until 2009, noncorporate taxpayers
were allowed to exclude 50 percent of the gain from the sale of the
stock of a qualified small business if taxpayers held the stock for 5
years. The Recovery Act increased the 50 percent to 75 percent and the
Small Business Act of 2010 subsequently increased it to 100 percent. As
of January this year, it was reverted down to 50 percent and startup
investments are no longer entitled to the preferred capital gain
treatment.
Our proposal would basically take this up to 100 percent exclusion
from the sale of capital gains that noncorporate taxpayers purchased in
2012 and 2013 and hold for 5 years. It has bipartisan support. As I
said, Senator Kerry has been the lead advocate. Senator Snowe has
worked side by side with him, and along with Senator Moran, Senator
Warner, Senator Coons, and Senator Rubio have all called for this
provision to be permanent. I wish we could make it permanent. This bill
will not make it permanent, but we will extend it for another year and
a half.
According to the Kauffman Foundation paper published earlier this
year--and the Kauffman Foundation, for those who don't know, is the
leading think tank. It is not political at all. It is just a middle-of-
the-road, well-respected think tank on small business development. They
published a paper earlier this year, the 100-percent exclusion ``boosts
the after-tax returns on such investments in startups and should induce
substantial levels of new investments in startup firms.'' They further
estimate that making this provision permanent would increase risky
investments by, conservatively, 50 percent more than the overall cost
of the provision. So they are supporting this provision very strongly
and would like to see it permanent, but we can only afford in this
package to have it for the next year as we again build our way out of
this recession.
I guess, from a conservative point of view, one of the good things
about this provision--after we vote on the Schumer proposal and the
Cantor proposal--it only scores at $4 billion. We get a tremendous
benefit for a very small investment of taxpayer money, relatively
speaking. Not that $4 billion is chump change, but compared to the $20
billion we are considering for the Schumer package and the $40 billion
for the Cantor package, we think we can take that $4 billion and,
similar to yeast, make it stretch and grow to affect a lot of people
and to spur a lot of investment.
The next provision is the small business tax extenders, the increased
deduction for startup expenditures. Again, this has been a Snowe and
Merkley initiative. I think Senator Merkley has truly stood up to fight
for this.
Under current law, taxpayers can elect to deduct up to $5,000 of
startup expenditures in the taxable year in which they start a trade or
business. The $5,000 is reduced--but not below zero--by the amount by
which the startup costs exceed $50,000.
Examples of potential startup costs: studies of potential markets,
products, labor markets or transportation systems; advertisements for
the opening of a new business, et cetera; compensation for consultants
who help get one's business started.
The Small Business Jobs Act temporarily increased the amount of the
startup expenditures entrepreneurs could deduct from their taxes in
2010 from $5,000 to $10,000, with a phaseout threshold of $60,000.
Senator Merkley fought to have this provision in the Small Business
Jobs Act. This proposal has been repeatedly endorsed by the National
Association for the Self-Employed and the National Federation of
Independent Businesses.
As part of his ``Startup America'' legislative agenda, President
Obama has called for making this permanent. Again, my amendment doesn't
make it permanent, but it does make it effective through 2013.
According to a Kauffman Foundation survey, on average, new firms
inject about $80,000 into their businesses during the first year of
operation. The vast majority of small business owners--between 80
percent and 90 percent--also invest significant amounts of their own
money. I wish to underscore this. The way this amendment came together
is we conducted in the Small Business Committee--and had very good
turnout--about three or four high-level roundtables, where instead of
just having 2 or 3 people testify, we had 20 people at a roundtable
show up. For 2 hours, in a very informal setting, they were answering
questions, such as: What is the best thing we could do to help you now?
What are the barriers to growth? What does a healthy ecosystem for
small business look like and what could we do to strengthen and make
healthier that ecosystem in America? That is where these ideas came
from.
Of course, Senator Merkley picked up on some of this and understood.
The Kauffman Foundation was there. They said that even though I have
talked a lot on the Senate floor about how small businesses need to
borrow money--and many do--when they start a company, they don't want
to borrow money unless they absolutely have to because the chances of
it not working are pretty significant. Most new startups fail, and so
people do not want to go into debt unless they have to or unless they
are a little bit more sure their idea is going to work.
The benefit of this proposal is that we are actually rewarding the
risk-takers who are digging into their savings and taking second
mortgages out on their homes and putting some of their other savings at
risk behind their idea. What we are saying is if they do that, we will
give a significant tax break, considering it costs about $88,000 to
start an average business. So this is targeted to those risk-takers. It
is not just taking money out of the Treasury and throwing it at all
small businesses. It is taking that money--and this is only $4 billion
total--and saying: Ok. Let's target it to those individuals who are
putting their lives on the line. They are putting their livelihood on
the line and their future on the line. What can we do to support them?
I am a very big believer in this provision, and I thank Senator Merkley
for bringing it to us.
I see Senator Casey and Senator Shaheen are on the Senate floor to
speak and that my time has expired. Since I am going to be on the floor
most of the afternoon explaining this amendment, I would be happy to
yield the floor.
I see Senator Sessions is here and ask unanimous consent that Senator
Casey speak for 10 minutes, Senator Sessions for the next 5 or 10
minutes and Senator Shaheen for 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, if the Senator would make that 10
minutes, I think that will be fine.
Mrs. LANDRIEU. I will amend that to 10 minutes each in the order of
Senator Casey, Senator Sessions, and Senator Shaheen.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I wish to commend the senior Senator from
Louisiana not only for her work on this legislation but for her many
years laboring in the vineyard, so to speak, on small business issues
and job-creation strategies to help our small business owners across
the United States.
I rise to speak about this legislation as well because when I go to
Pennsylvania and travel across our State, I get two basic messages from
the people of our State. They are very clear. They say two things:
First, work on job creation. Put your time into putting in place ways
to create and incentivize the creation of jobs. The second message is
work together and get things
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done. Work with people in both parties to move a strategy forward to
create jobs.
I think this legislation does both. It is focused on creating jobs,
especially as it relates to our small business owners and their workers
and their communities, but it also is a way to bring Democrats and
Republicans together to create jobs. The Small Business Jobs and Tax
Relief Act will, indeed, help small businesses hire people by reducing
the cost to small firms of bringing on a new worker or increasing their
hours or pay. The economics of this are clear and compelling. By
providing small businesses with new incentives to hire, we can create
jobs and bolster economic recovery.
Small businesses are at the center of the economy of the United
States and are vital to our recovery. I know in Pennsylvania there are
nearly 250,000 small businesses. Four out of every five firms in the
State are small businesses. This legislation is commonsense legislation
and I hope will have strong bipartisan support when we vote on the bill
itself.
It includes a business payroll tax incentive similar to legislation I
introduced back in the year 2010 that will make it easier for small
businesses to grow and to encourage economic growth throughout the
country. It will give businesses a 10-percent income tax credit on new
payroll for hiring new workers or increasing employee wages. It is, in
fact, targeted legislation. It is targeted to small business owners. It
is because it is capped at $500,000 per firm or 10 percent of a payroll
increase of $5 million.
In addition to being targeted, it is timely. It will be available
immediately for any new hires or increased wages for the remainder of
2012.
Thirdly, it is very effective. The Congressional Budget Office, known
around here by the acronym CBO, said a tax credit based on increased
payroll would create the most jobs and have the greatest positive
impact on America's gross domestic product when compared to other job
creation policies that have been proposed. Under this legislation small
businesses that hire a new worker would, on average, see more than
$4,000 in tax savings per worker hired. That is a substantial help to a
small firm, and people can just do the math as they hire more than one
person. That is a smart step in the right direction to help these small
businesses themselves as well as boost job creation throughout our
country.
As the chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, our committee just
produced a report recently--I know my colleagues can't see all the
lettering on this report I am holding, but it is a very simple report
that is just a couple of pages--outlining in very clear fashion the
impact that small businesses have on our economy in terms of the
predominance of small businesses when we consider businesses across the
board. The name of the report is ``Tax Incentives for Small Business
Hiring and Investment: Strengthening the Backbone of the Economy.'' In
fact, that is the truth. The backbone of the American economy is our
small business sector.
The report finds that enacting a tax credit for businesses that hire
additional workers or increase the hours and wages of existing
employees will help both sustain and accelerate the recovery. Across
the Nation, 79 percent of business establishments are either single-
establishment businesses with fewer than 100 employees or are parts of
multi-establishment companies with total employment of under 100
employees.
Small businesses are responsible for more hiring in the U.S. economy
than medium-sized or large businesses. As the labor market has begun to
recover, small businesses have led the way again and again. If we look
at the time period of February 2010 to February 2012, small
establishments were responsible for 46 percent of the hires versus 34
percent for medium-sized businesses and 20 percent for large
establishments.
This is a critical point: Small firms accounted for nearly half of
the hiring from early 2010 to early 2012. Small businesses truly are
the engines that power our economy.
The recent monthly unemployment reports, which show job growth at a
slower pace than earlier in the year, underscore the need to provide
new incentives to hire and invest in businesses. Many small firms want
to hire more workers, and they also want to increase hours. This
legislation will help them do that.
In addition to the payroll tax credit, the legislation will extend
the 100 percent depreciation deduction for major purchases through the
end of 2012 so that businesses that want to make a big investment--a
new building, a new significant piece of equipment--can get the benefit
of that this year. An extension of this business expensing would reduce
the cost of investment and promote economic growth.
So, in summary, the Small Business Jobs and Tax Relief Act would help
create jobs and strengthen the economy and move our recovery forward.
These are objectives we all share. I hope we can move forward in a
bipartisan manner to pass this legislation because, in the end, it
meets that two-part test my constituents give to me every day; that is,
they want me to do everything I can to help create jobs, and they want
me to do it in a bipartisan way. This legislation, in fact, does this.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
Health Care
Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, this afternoon the House of
Representatives voted 244 to 185 to repeal the President's health care
law, the Affordable Care Act. It was a bipartisan vote. A number of
Democrats voted in support of the law, although not as many as voted
originally to pass it, because a lot of the Democrats, even those who
voted against it, got shellacked in the last election, and it was a
pretty rough, intense debate.
The American people never felt comfortable with this legislation. I
believe it will be repealed. I do not believe it will be implemented.
The reason is, whether one likes it or not, we simply do not have the
money.
I wish to talk about that today. I am the ranking Republican on the
Budget Committee, and I wish to share some thoughts with my colleagues
as we wrestle with what to do on health care and how to undo the
legislation that passed by the narrowest single margin in this Senate
on Christmas Eve and was based on false accounting.
President Obama promised, before a joint session of Congress in 2009,
to spend $900 billion over 10 years on the law. He said:
Now, add it all up, and the plan I'm proposing will cost
around $900 billion over 10 years.
$900 billion is a lot of money. It is almost twice the defense
budget.
The President went on to say in support of this health care
legislation that it would reduce the debt of the United States. We are
going to add all of these new people to the insurance rolls, and it is
going to pay for itself and reduce the debt. No one really believed
that, but that is what the arguments were and the representations that
were made.
But once we add up all the different spending provisions in the
health care law, including closing the doughnut hole, implementation
costs, including all of those IRS agents and other spending in the
legislation, the total gross spending for the law over the 2010-2019
period--the 10-year budget window used at the time it was enacted--was
actually $1.4 trillion. I will just show this to my colleagues with
this chart because it is very important. The President promised the
American people in his speech before a joint session of Congress that
it would cost $900 billion. People knew it would cost more. But even
then, in the initial 10 year budget window, as he proposed, when we
count up all the spending in the Congressional Budget Office estimates
of the legislation, including the enforcement mechanism through the IRS
agents, closing the doughnut hole and other spending in the law outside
of the major coverage provisions, the law spends $1.4 trillion over
that same 10 year period. That is almost 50 percent more right there. I
think that fact is indisputable. I will ask my colleagues to come tell
me if I am wrong.
I would just note parenthetically, one of the most important
components of health care reform should have been resolving the doc
fix. Under current
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law, we are projected, without legislation that takes effect, to reduce
Medicare payments to doctors by roughly 30 percent by the end of this
year.
At the time the health care law passed, the cost of a permanent doc
fix added up to about $200 billion to $250 billion over a 10 year
period. Democrats originally included the doc fix in earlier drafts of
the bill. But in the end when they looked at the numbers, if they
included the doc fix--which is critical and needs to be fixed
permanently; not continuing to hang out there every year and to be
fixed by borrowed money--then the bill couldn't have continued in
surplus. In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, it
wouldn't continue to be paid for as the President was saying. So they
just didn't do it. They just decided they wouldn't fix one of the most
important issues in health care, and it remains that way today.
So, as I work through this, we are using nonpartisan Congressional
Budget Office numbers.
Most of the major spending provisions in the law, as our colleagues
should know, do not take effect until 2014. So the true 10-year score
should be 2014 through 2023. That is the 10-year window of full
implementation. How much will the bill cost then? Each year it goes up
because until 2014 we don't really see a 10-year full cost of the
legislation.
So what Democrats did was--and the President deliberately did, with
help from his OMB Director, Mr. Peter Orszag--they manipulated CBO's
scoring conventions. In the initial 10 year budget window they only
included 6 years of spending on the major coverage provisions so that
CBO would appear to score it over 10 years and say it would only cost
$900 billion. That delay tactic was a pure budget gimmick. So we can
look at this chart and see that from 2014 through 2023, each year these
red lines represent a situation in which we are closer and closer to 10
years of full implementation and how much the cost will be.
So we go from 2014, and the next 10 years, as the bill is fully
implemented, and it will cost $2.6 trillion, almost three times the
amount the President promised it would cost.
So people ask: How do we get in a situation where we are borrowing 40
cents of every dollar we spend? This kind of deception. A CEO in a
court of law would go to jail if he proposed using that kind of
accounting in his business practice and asked people to invest in his
stock.
Analysis by my staff on the Budget Committee, based on the estimates
and growth rates the Congressional Budget Office utilizes, finds that
the total spending under the law, including the other spending not
directly related to the coverage provisions, will amount to at least
$2.6 trillion, and could be much more.
Now, how did they get this done? It is a sad state of affairs,
frankly. The Obama administration, Mr. Orszag, the Office of Management
and Budget Director who works directly for the President, also asserted
that ``health care reform is entitlement reform.'' In other words, this
is going to fix an entitlement danger--the problems we have with
Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid; entitlement programs, each one
of which are growing at fast rates that are unsustainable, that will
head to bankruptcy in the years to come.
However, a simple comparison of the Federal Government's unfunded
obligations for health care programs, before and after the health care
law was enacted, clearly proves that the President's health care reform
is not entitlement reform. It will not improve our long term spending
trajectory. It will not make these programs more viable in the future.
It did not put Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid on a sustainable
path. Those programs remain disastrously unsustainable.
The President does not even talk about that any more. Here we are
running into a reelection campaign and the country is facing a colossal
financial danger from unsustainable debt, and the President would not
even talk about it. He says things are getting along fine. I think it
is a failure of leadership for him not to talk honestly with the
American people about our fiscal challenges.
So before the President's health care law was enacted, unfunded
obligations for the Federal health care programs totaled $65 trillion
over a 75-year period. That is how much we are going to run short in
money to pay for the obligations we have incurred under Medicare and
Medicaid--and some other programs, but those are the big ones. After
the recent passage of this health care bill, however, the figure,
according to my staff's estimates, has gone up to $82 trillion. So the
difference in the two numbers is what has been added to the unfunded
liabilities of the United States. By the way, $17 trillion is 2\1/2\
times the unfunded liabilities of Social Security, which is $7
trillion.
If my colleagues think I am in error about any of these numbers, I
hope they will correct me. Perhaps I am, but we work hard to be
accurate about them, and I don't believe I am off in any substantial
degree.
The bottom line is this: We cannot afford this law and the additional
burden it places on our country's finances.
We must repeal this health care law in its entirety and replace it
with reforms that will improve our finances and reduce health care
costs for Americans, not drive up their costs. This bill, whether you
like it or not, will not be implemented. We simply do not have the
money. At this time of high unemployment, and almost no growth, it will
be hard to do the things that are necessary, that we have to do: fix
Social Security, fix Medicare, provide for the common defense. Those
things have to be done. We have no money to pay for a $2.6 trillion
program over a 10-year period. We have to save these programs we are
committed to first.
The President's health care law will not be fully implemented until
2014. It is not too late to stop it now. And we are going to have to,
simply because the finances of this country will not allow for it to go
forward.
I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire is recognized.
Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, I am pleased to come to the floor this
afternoon to join my colleagues, Senator Landrieu and Senator Casey, in
talking about the importance of addressing some of the concerns that
face small business.
Senator Casey said something that I think is very important. He said,
when he goes around Pennsylvania, one of the things he hears from his
constituents is that they expect us to work together here in
Washington, in the Senate, in Congress, to get things done for the
people of this country. I hear that from my constituents. I am sure the
Presiding Officer hears that from her constituents. People throughout
the country expect us to work together, and they want to see us address
the economic challenges we are facing in this country.
Well, one of the best ways to address the fiscal issues we are facing
is to be able to grow this economy. Nothing is more important to
growing the economy, to creating jobs, than small businesses.
Senator Casey talked about the recent report that came out from his
congressional committee talking about the importance of small business.
The fact is that over the last decade, businesses with fewer than 250
employees accounted for nearly 80 percent of all new hires. Economists
tell us that about two-thirds of the jobs that are going to be needed
to get us out of this recession are going to come from small
businesses.
In New Hampshire, small businesses are particularly important. We are
a small business State. Over 95 percent of all New Hampshire companies
have fewer than 500 employees. About 85 percent of New Hampshire
companies have fewer than 20 employees.
We have to look at how we can help those small businesses continue to
grow.
Yesterday afternoon, I met with a group of small business owners from
New Hampshire. They were all owners of construction companies. The
construction industry in New Hampshire has been one of those industries
that has been hardest hit in our State, and these businesses still need
help. These business owners need help if they are going to be able to
keep their businesses prospering and create jobs.
The legislation that is before us, the Small Business Jobs and Tax
Relief Act, will help these small businesses.
[[Page S4877]]
The Landrieu amendment that I want to speak specifically to is
critical as we look at how we can provide additional help to these
small businesses. I want to talk specifically to two provisions that
are in the Landrieu amendment, also known as the SUCCESS Act.
The first one would deal with export issues. What I have learned, as
I have been working with business and looking at how we can improve our
economy and help create jobs, is that giving those small businesses
access to international markets is critical.
What we know is that about 95 percent of the markets are outside of
the United States, and yet only 1 percent of our small and medium-sized
businesses actually export. So what we have to do is help in every way
we can through our policies to give them access to those international
markets.
Senator Ayotte and I both serve on the Small Business Committee. We
represent New Hampshire. Last year we held a field hearing in New
Hampshire, and we heard from small businesses in our State about what
we can do here in Washington that might help them export. As a result
of what we heard, we have introduced some stand-alone legislation. But
provisions in that stand-alone legislation have been incorporated into
the SUCCESS Act--the amendment that Senator Landrieu is going to be
offering.
Those provisions would help our small businesses. One, they would
improve governmentwide export promotion. Right now we have a lot of
independent silos, independent efforts that exist in different agencies
to help small businesses with exporting. What we want to do is provide
more coordination among those independent programs.
It would also increase State events that are targeted to help small
businesses export. Both provisions, as we heard from our small
businesses in New Hampshire, are important to them, as they think about
what they can do to improve their chances of exporting, getting into
those international markets, and having the jobs that can be created as
a result.
So that is one of the provisions in the Landrieu amendment, the
SUCCESS Act, that I think is very important. Senator Ayotte and I and
our staffs have worked very hard on this.
Another provision that again is from stand-alone legislation that was
introduced by Senator Landrieu, Senator Snowe, Senator Isakson, and
myself--so it is also bipartisan legislation--would extend the 504
refinancing program through the Small Business Administration.
As I go around New Hampshire, I still hear the small businesses in my
State saying that they are still having challenges accessing credit.
Well, extending the 504 refinancing program is to me a no-brainer as we
think about how we can give those small businesses access to credit.
What these provisions would do is extend for a year and a half the
ability for the Small Business Administration to continue refinancing
short-term commercial real estate debt into long-term fixed-rate loans,
again, through the existing 504 loan program--something that makes
eminent sense, something that we ought to do.
So those are two provisions I have worked on specifically with other
Members of this body. They are provisions that are bipartisan. I think
they have a lot of support. If we can get this amendment to the floor,
I think there will be a lot of support for it. And it reflects all of
the provisions of the SUCCESS Act that Senator Landrieu has been
putting together.
Again, I want to end with where I started; that is, the people of New
Hampshire and the people of this country expect us to work together to
address the issues facing the country. Nowhere is that more important
than in what we need to do to help create jobs and helping small
businesses have the support they need so they can create the jobs that
are going to get us out of this recession. Providing long-term help to
those people who are unemployed is absolutely critical. This
legislation would help do that. I hope our colleagues, when it comes to
the floor, will decide this is one more way we can help small
businesses create jobs and grow this economy.
I thank Senator Landrieu for her leadership and Ranking Member Snowe
on the Small Business Committee for her leadership and hope we can move
this legislation forward this week.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Whitehouse). The Senator from Louisiana.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from New Hampshire
for not only being such an aggressive and fine and thoughtful member of
the Small Business Committee, but for her constant encouragement to me
and to Senator Snowe to try to pull together some of the ideas that we
all can agree on and move forward.
It may not be the most perfect package, it may not be the most
extensive package, but as the Senator from New Hampshire said, it is a
package that most all of us can agree to, and it has a pricetag of only
$4 billion.
That is a lot of money. But compared to the Republican proposal that
has come over here from the House at $40 billion, and the Schumer
proposal, which I support because it is much more targeted and much
more responsible at $20 billion, this $4 billion amendment could have a
tremendous bang, a tremendous leveraging power for its cost. And the
two proposals Senator Shaheen explained beautifully actually have zero
cost because the 504 program is a program that pays for itself. All we
are doing is extending its authorization so people--and there are
thousands of them in Louisiana, in Rhode Island, in New Hampshire, and
other States--who are caught paying higher interest rates on short-term
loans for commercial buildings--and I am sure we all know someone in
that category--can now, if this amendment passes, go to their local
bank--it is not a government program; it is a partnership with the
local banks and through the SBA--and refinance their building and get a
longer term loan.
In fact, I am told that this program, this 504 program, is basically
taking up the majority of the space in this lending, that still the
lenders are very weak. They are not extending credit out in a long
fixed rate. They are lending short term. They are lending with
adjustable rates. As the Presiding Officer knows, and many others, when
a person is starting a small business and taking so much risk, one risk
that can be eliminated is the cost of their money. It is very
comforting to a small business owner--who has to borrow, who does not
have the savings or has run through their savings or the equity in
their home and they have to extend and take that risk--to be able to
have a fixed, longer term rate.
So again, this proposal came from Senator Isakson, who truly is
acknowledged as the expert in this entire Chamber on commercial real
estate and on residential real estate. He is known and respected on
both sides of the aisle. This is his proposal with Senator Shaheen. I
thank him for his leadership.
Also, the Senator spoke about the export coordination. Again: zero
cost; just smarter government, at no cost. We need more of that around
here: smarter government, less spending. That is what Senator Shaheen's
proposal does, which is a portion of this amendment, the Small Business
Export Growth Act.
Let me reiterate that 95 percent of the world's customers are located
outside of the borders of the United States. It might be shocking to
people in America to realize this, but we represent only 4 to 5 percent
of the population of the Earth. We think of ourselves as the biggest
and the best, and we are the best. We are not necessarily the biggest
when it comes to population, though.
So there are growing markets all over the world. Mr. President, 95
percent of our customers and a majority of the market are outside of
the boundaries of the United States. What we are recognizing is, right
now only 1 percent of the 28 million small businesses in America
export. Why would that be? One, it can be intimidating for a small
business, even though they have a great product, they have a great
idea, they have great technology. And India needs that technology or
some countries in Africa might absolutely want that product or that
service. The small businesses are intimidated. They do not have the
accountants, they do not normally have access to high-powered,
expensive lawyers and trade executives and experts. So that is what our
government--and, frankly, State governments are doing this. Smart
governments at the State level--whether it is
[[Page S4878]]
California, Oregon, Louisiana--all States are now recognizing: Gee, we
need to get behind our small businesses in our State and help them to
export.
I was very proud to put a substantial investment in the jobs act of
2010, which gave competitive grants to States. And it is remarkable;
just a little bit of investment at the Federal level is leveraging a
tremendous amount of excitement at the State and local level as those
governments accept those grants and then put them to work.
In Louisiana, our department of economic development has been very
aggressive in using its step grants. So, again, this is not an
additional grant program. This Shaheen-Ayotte proposal has no cost. It
is perfecting, coordinating this export initiative by establishing an
interagency task force between the SBA, the USDA, and the Ex-Im Bank.
It is really encouraging cooperation that now does not exist at the
Federal level and requires the SBA, in coordination with other
agencies, to conduct one outreach event in each State per year, which I
think would really help to motivate our State governments and our
stakeholders at the State level to be helpful.
Let me go back to the beginning. We have the SUCCESS Act amendment. I
talked earlier about 16 provisions in this amendment. We talked about
the 100-percent exclusion of capital gains. We have talked about the
increased deduction for startup expenditures, which is Senator
Merkley's provisions.
Now I want to talk about the S corp holding period. This has come out
of the Finance Committee. Senator Snowe and Senator Cardin have been
very strong advocates of this provision. Under current law, when a
corporation becomes an S corporation--and there are, of course,
benefits to becoming that kind of corporation--right now it is required
to hold its business assets for 10 years or pay punitive taxes. In our
mind, this 10-year holding period is too long. It ties up assets that
could be sold to raise capital. In 2010, in our small business bill, we
reduced this holding period to 5 years so businesses would be better
able to manage their planning cycles. So this proposal is to extend the
5-year holding period through 2012 and 2013. You know, potentially, if
we could afford it, we would like to make this proposal permanent, but
in the Landrieu SUCCESS Act amendment, it would extend it through 2012
and 2013 and has a minimal cost.
The next provision is a carryback provision--up to 5 years of general
business credits. This is a proposal about which Senator Snowe feels
very strongly. The proposal would extend the carryback period from 1
year to 5 years for general business credits earned in 2012 and 2013.
It would provide tax refunds to businesses that were previously healthy
but are currently running losses.
The proposal would improve the effectiveness of business credits that
are intended to expand investment and employment. The provision would
allow businesses greater immediate benefit from credits designed to
encourage specific types of activity. By providing businesses with
greater opportunity to claim business credits, the provision would also
give an infusion of cash to businesses, which might promote investment.
So that is another provision of our SUCCESS Act.
Section 179 is probably the most popular part of our amendment and,
again, Senator Snowe has championed this in the Finance Committee. Many
Finance Committee members are completely aware of section 179 in the
Tax Code, which deals with expensing that many restaurants and
retailers use. Basically, it provides a credit for them if a small
business buys machinery and equipment or property contained in or
attached to a building other than structural components, such as
refrigerators, grocery store counters, office equipment, gasoline
storage tanks, pumps at retail service stations, even livestock,
including horses, cattle, sheep, and goats, other fur-bearing animals--
all of the equipment or products or purchases small businesses make to
run their businesses. This would allow an immediate writeoff of up to
$500,000 for this kind of property. So, again, it is $2.3 billion over
10 years. It is the most expensive part of this whole amendment, but we
think it is $2 billion well invested to encourage those small
businesses to make these investments now, to get jobs and expansion
opportunities underway.
Twenty-six national business groups, such as the NFIB, the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Home Builders, and the
National Association for the Self-Employed, have endorsed this and have
sent a letter to us with very enthusiastic support.
The next section is expanding access to capital for entrepreneurs.
This was actually mentioned in President Obama's State of the Union
Message to us when he talked about his small business proposals. He
outlined maybe half a dozen things, a few of which we have implemented
and a few of which we have not yet implemented. This was on his bucket
list, if you will. And I am a strong proponent of this provision.
We created a small business investment company in a bipartisan way
decades ago. It has been one of the most successful programs created to
spur business development in the country. It basically operates on a
sustainable level and does not cost the Federal Government anything. It
is like venture capital--not really like venture capital--it is like an
investment; not a bank but a nonbank investment company that was
created many years before I became chair of this committee. It is
something that was done through Democratic and Republicans
administrations because it worked.
All this does is raise the statutory cap from $3 billion to $4
billion, and it increases the amount of leverage of licensees from $225
million to $350 million. They are bumping up against that $3 billion
cap. It has been very successful. We would like to take it to the next
level. And, of course, some of the most successful funds within SBIC
are bumping up against their $225 million cap per fund. So this is one
of the great ideas that came out of our roundtable. Again, not only
does President Obama support it, it has my strong support and Senator
Snowe's, the ranking member of the Small Business Committee.
The next provision would be the SBA 504 refinance. This extends for a
year and a half the ability of the SBA 504 Loan Program. We talked
about this. Senator Shaheen spoke about this, and I have already
explained it. So this is really the Isakson-Shaheen-Snowe proposal.
The next is the small business lending activity index. This is
something I have put forward. We have talked with the banks and the
SBA. They are all on board and accepting of this concept. It is a way
to measure the small business lending activity that is being done at
the city-State level through the 7(a) and 504 Lending Program.
It was very curious to me, when I became chair of this committee,
that we did not have the measurements in place to actually judge
whether some of our programs were really working. Were they working
really well or working moderately or were they very weak? So I have
instructed my staff and we have been working together to see in every
way if we measure and really record the activities of the Small
Business Administration. It is only a $1 billion agency, one of the
smaller agencies of the government, but that billion dollars comes from
taxpayers and we want to make sure that money is spent well and wisely.
So this legislation, again, is at no cost. It can be done within the
current budget. It will be called the lender activity index. It will be
posted on the SBA Web site. It will have the name of the bank, the
number of SBA loans made by each bank, the total dollar amount of SBA
loans, the ZIP Code of bank activity, the industries lent to, so we can
sort of see how our banks are lending and to what areas, the stage of
the business cycle, and then whether it was a woman-owned, minority-
owned, or veteran-owned business, if that information can be obtained.
It is very simple. We made sure the language is easy for the banks.
They already have to report this data; it is just not in a useable
format. This will require them to put it in a useable format.
The next is access to global markets. This is what Senator Shaheen
spoke about. So the major part of this bill is tax cuts to businesses
and then some oversight of the SBA, tightening up, coordinating our
export strategy. And then the next and final part of this--or next to
last part of our amendment is basically access to mentoring, education,
strategic partnership.
[[Page S4879]]
In our roundtable--I am not going to go into all of the details of
these items, but the bottom line is that in our roundtable, experts--
business owners and the Kauffman Foundation and others--came to us and
said: Senator, you are right, businesses need capital. You are right,
we need access to global markets. You are right that we need a fair tax
code. But what businesses also need is technical advice and support and
training, and we need more education, entrepreneurship education.
The Small Business Administration is not the education agency, so we
have been very careful not to mission creep. We have designed a couple
of proposals that can encourage better activity within the SBA to form
partnerships with nonprofits and even for-profits, not-for-profits, and
schools to promote entrepreneurship appropriately. The Federal
Government can be a model. It is only one model. But we believe
technical training is important. We have partners already established--
the women's small business centers and minority business centers.
Getting them to be more effective and providing additional counseling
is very important.
Finally on this amendment, access to government contracting is
another method for small businesses to be able to grow. Governments--
whether it is Federal, State, or local--are huge purchasers of goods
and services, and if our contracting laws are right and if they are
enforced, then small businesses in America will have an opportunity to
get started by competing for government contracts or to grow by
receiving government contracts. And they are more likely to grow. If a
big business gets a contract from the government, they can sometimes
absorb that contact and make their company more efficient, giving more
work to the people who are already there. And there is nothing wrong
with that; that is business. But when a small business gets a
government contract, most of the time it results in additional hiring
because small businesses have to be lean and agile. So they might have
five people but they have a lot of expertise. They land a contract from
the government that they are most certainly qualified to do, and then
they have to hire. So they have to hire 10 people to carry out that
contract, which is why I have been very supportive--Senator Cardin has
been a champion on this issue and Senator Levin as well--of giving
small businesses an opportunity for contracting. That will really help.
In conclusion on this amendment--I see other Members coming to the
floor. I wish to speak for another 5 or so minutes. I came to the floor
today to support the underlying bill, which is the Schumer tax cut
provision that is targeted tax relief to small businesses in America. I
hope our Members will support that.
If for any reason they don't support that, or even if we do, we will
still have an opportunity, I hope, to vote on the Landrieu amendment. I
say that humbly because this amendment has been put together by Senator
Snowe and her staff with me and members of the Small Business Committee
on both sides of the aisle. We picked up some great ideas from
individual legislation that had been filed, and it got unanimous
consent and review, talking to many people.
So we don't believe it is controversial. We know it doesn't cost that
much--$4 billion--and we believe it will have a tremendous and
immediate impact on small businesses in America.
I wanted to give that explanation. We have received a tremendous
amount of support today from a variety of organizations.
I see my colleague on the floor. I will yield the floor at this time
and perhaps will take a few more minutes before 6 o'clock.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee is recognized.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am awaiting Senator Durbin and
Senator Enzi. I will be happy to listen to the Senator from Louisiana
if she would like to continue for a while until they come. I plan to
speak for a few minutes after they speak on a different subject.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, there are a few other things I would
like to say.
I wanted to take a minute to respond to something that Senator Rubio
said earlier, and Senator Sessions, while I was on the floor. I have
great respect for those two Members, but he came to the floor with a
fairly critical diatribe, if you will, against some of President
Obama's policies. I have not been a great supporter of the President's
energy policies, and I actually appreciate some of the views Senator
Rubio holds about the fact that we need to drill more in this country.
I want to show something I think Florida should be mindful of and
suggest that the Senator from Florida could start making that speech at
home in Florida because Florida is one of the States that virtually
produces no energy, from any source. It has been a bone of contention
with me for many years that we have had Senators come to the floor and
talk about what so-and-so doesn't do and what so-and-so doesn't do.
I want to remind the Senator from Florida that the gas that keeps the
lights on in Florida actually comes from the Mobile Bay. These are the
pipelines that Mississippi and Alabama and Texas--9,000 miles of
pipelines and drilling--have off of our shore and onshore to provide
gas and lights to Florida.
This is a chart that is very interesting. Before America can be
energy independent or energy secure, each State should be energy
secure, or each region. The country is not made up of smoke and
mirrors; it is made up of 50 States. If every State and every region
would do its part, either producing or conserving or a little of both,
we could actually get there. But I get a little tired of the lectures
criticizing us--particularly from States that neither conserve nor
produce.
California gets a little bit of a break, even though they consume
more energy than any State. They are a net consumer of energy. We are
down here, a net producer. The States that produce more energy than
they consume are Wyoming, West Virginia, Louisiana, New Mexico, Alaska,
Kentucky--and North Dakota should be on here now because this was some
years ago. Probably Montana also would be on here now.
The Senator from Florida is coming and lecturing everybody about
producing, and his own State produces virtually nothing and consumes
everything. I wanted to say that I find that offensive. California gets
a little bit of a pass from me because if we look at another chart,
they do more to sort of consume energy through government regulations,
which I know the other side doesn't like. They think we don't need any
regulations, and that is their view. California has a lot of
regulations--maybe too much for me as well--but they are doing a lot to
conserve. Florida doesn't. Maybe if Florida started doing a little
drilling, it would help the United States to be more energy
independent.
My second point: I want to answer something Senator Sessions said. I
will try to find my document on that in a minute. Senator Sessions came
to the floor a few minutes ago and talked about the cost of the health
care bill. The health care bill has some expensive components to it.
The purpose of the health care bill, remember, Mr. President--because
the occupant of the chair was in the middle of that battle--was
designed to reduce the overall cost of health care for the Nation
because the percentage of the gross national product going to health
care was moving up dramatically and frighteningly--from 12 percent a
few years ago to 14 percent, to 16 percent, and it was on its way to 19
percent. It was on its way to 19 percent before Barack Obama got sworn
into office.
I am getting tired--and the American people are getting tired--of the
same diatribe coming from the other side of the aisle about how the
cost of the Affordable Care Act is causing the country to go off the
edge. This country was going off the edge before President Obama even
became President. They know that. But they are just bound and
determined to keep talking about the same old thing day in and day out,
about how the Affordable Care Act is wrecking America. The only thing
wrecking America is their stubbornness.
I want to put this into the Record. When President Clinton was
President, as you know, it was the last time we had a surplus. It was
the Republican President and the Republican leadership that turned that
surplus into a
[[Page S4880]]
deficit. The ship had already hit the iceberg before President Obama
took his oath of office. Now they want to blame the entire deficit on
the Affordable Care Act.
When the Affordable Care Act is implemented--now that the Supreme
Court has said it is most certainly constitutional--instead of fighting
it every step of the way, it would, in the long run, save money.
They want to talk about this tax, tax, tax, tax. I want to call what
they do the ``no care tax,'' because that is the Republican position.
Before there was the Affordable Care Act, people in America were losing
care rapidly. Small businesses were dropping their insurance. They
could not afford it anymore. These premiums have been going up for a
long time. The Affordable Care Act didn't drive the premiums up; they
were going through the ceiling. We had to do something to try to stop
it.
When President Obama came into office, and we saw that the trends
were going up, in our efforts to try to get the budget back into
balance it was obvious that we had to do something with health care.
But they keep talking about tax, tax, tax. I remind them that before we
passed the Affordable Care Act, there was a tax on every insurance
policy that people in America had because it was a tax for the
uninsured. It was about $1,200. That tax was on the backs of the
American people before President Obama ever became President, before we
even began debating the Affordable Care Act.
The other cost that was going on in this country was the people who
didn't have Medicare, who didn't have Medicaid, and didn't have
insurance--and it was a rising number of people without insurance. And
as States cut back on their Medicaid, a rising number of people who
didn't have Medicaid went to our hospitals, our private hospitals, our
public hospitals, and our not-for-profit hospitals. Do you know what
the Republicans want to tell them. Just treat those people for free.
There is no one to reimburse you for this cost. Medicaid will not
reimburse them because they are not 65. They don't have private
insurance. And the Governors cut back on Medicaid because they can't
bear to go look for some tax loopholes that people might not need in
order to provide working Americans with health care.
They are too busy campaigning for their next election, so they told
all the hospitals: You all go ahead and take care of these people for
free. So when a non-paying customer went to a hospital, whom do you
think picked up the tab for that? The paying customer.
So before President Obama became the President, before we started
trying to figure out a way out of this terrible mess, there was a huge
tax on the backs of the American people and a huge debt having to be
paid every year by every hospital in America. Why don't they talk about
that? They don't.
I hope the American people will listen because I am so tired of that
same old speech. I have heard it for 3 years--before the debate, during
the debate, and I guess we are going to hear it up to the election. I
hope the American people will listen. Don't let them talk about the tax
that is supposedly in this bill. The Affordable Care Act is alleviating
a tax burden. It alleviates a terrible tax burden, an invisible tax
that has been on the American people, and a heavy burden on the backs
of the taxpayers--and immoral in some ways, as well--with working
Americans working 50, 60 hours a week, and when they get sick, they
have nowhere to turn.
Instead of putting their proposals on the table, they decided they
wanted to block and tackle and stop and not contribute anything. I
think the country will make a good decision. I think the country likes
the fact that their kids can stay on their health care plan until they
are 26, and they like the fact that when they get sick with cancer or
diabetes they cannot be kicked off their health insurance. Particularly
businesses would like it if the States would step up and cover some of
these lower wage workers, and the burden would not fall on us.
For every Governor--and mine may be one--who rejects the expansion of
Medicare, who do they think has to pick this up? It is the small
businesses.
The burden should be shared for our lower income workers broadly, not
on the backs of businesses that are struggling. That is the way we
designed this program. The Federal Government said: We know it is
tough. We know it is an expansion. Do you know what. We will pick up
the 3 years 100 percent to give you some time, to help you so you can
look at your Tax Code, and you might be able to find out and let me get
this one more thing off my chest. Who made up the rule that the Federal
Government is in charge of the health of every American citizen? Do
Governors have any responsibility for health? Are we supposed to just
do everything up here? Do mayors and Governors have any responsibility
for the health and welfare of the people they serve? I suggest the
Governors--some of them--get off the campaign trail, get back to their
offices, and start putting health care legislation together--
particularly some of the Republican Governors.
I am glad I said that. I am happy to turn over the microphone. I
suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Marketplace Fairness Act
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I have come to the floor in support of
Senator Enzi of Wyoming, Senator Durbin of Illinois, and a group of
other Senators and House Members who are working on legislation called
the Marketplace Fairness Act.
I am going to let them do their own speaking. I am their chief self-
appointed cheerleader. Senator Enzi has been working on this ever since
he has been in the Senate. He has a special passion for it as a former
owner of a shoe store in Wyoming.
Let me see if I can phrase it this way. If I were to ask the
question, What do Governor Chris Christie, Governor Mitch Daniels,
Governor Jeb Bush, Governor Haley Barbour, Al Cardenas, chairman of the
American Conservative Union, Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia, and
Governor Paul LePage of Maine all have in common, one might say they
are all Republicans, and that is true. One might say they are all
conservatives, and that is true.
The other thing one could say about those Governors and Republicans
and conservatives is that they all support the Enzi-Durbin Marketplace
Fairness Act. What is the Marketplace Fairness Act and why do they
support it? The Marketplace Fairness Act is an 11-page bill about a
two-word issue, and the issue is States rights.
The reason I am such a strong supporter and a cosponsor of what they
are doing is because when I, in my former life, used to be Governor of
Tennessee, nothing would make me angrier than Washington politicians
who would try to tell me what to do about my own business. We have a
legislature in Tennessee and in Wyoming and we have a Governor and we
know what services we want and we have a range of options of taxes to
pay for that. It was always my position we could make our own decisions
about how to do that.
What Senators Enzi and Durbin and others of us are saying is that
States have a right to decide what taxes they impose and from whom to
collect them. If the States of Tennessee or Wyoming say: We are going
to have a sales tax and we are only collecting it from half the people,
it has the right to be wrong. That is what I mean by States rights.
If I were in Tennessee, I would say: Surely, you will not have a
State sales tax and only collect it from some of the people. You would
collect it from all the people who owe it. Surely, you will treat all
your businesses that are in a similarly situated situation the same
way. That would be my position if I were Governor or in the
legislature, but I will let them decide that.
What we have advanced in the Senate, which has 13 cosponsors, is a
piece of legislation that makes it clear States can decide for
themselves whether to collect State sales taxes from some of the people
who owe it or from all the people who owe it. I will give an example
and then I will sit down and listen to Senator Enzi and let him talk.
This past week I had a birthday, and my wife gave me an ice cream
maker
[[Page S4881]]
from Williams-Sonoma, which I am sure is going to add a few pounds as
the months go on. So there we were over the Fourth of July holiday, and
I wanted to get some of the stuff one needs to make ice cream. You can
buy ice cream starter from Williams-Sonoma and it comes in a can and it
makes the project a lot easier and you can buy chocolate syrup and they
will mail it right to your house. You can do all these things online,
of course, or I could have driven back to Nashville and gone to the
store in Nashville and bought it all there. If I had bought all that
stuff in Nashville, I would have paid Nashville's 9.25 percent sales
tax. If I buy it online, I wouldn't have to pay the tax when I bought
it, except that Williams-Sonoma collects it. So I went on the Internet,
put it on my credit card, and there was the amount of money it cost to
buy the stuff for my ice cream maker. Right at the end of it, it added
the tax on, the same sales tax I owed and would have paid if I had been
at Williams-Sonoma in Nashville. So I pushed the button, off it went,
they collected the tax from my credit card, sent it to the State of
Tennessee, and it was done.
Twenty years ago, that wouldn't have happened with an out-of-State
seller. It was too cumbersome. The technology wasn't advanced, the
Internet wasn't as fast, and the States had not gotten their acts
together. It was all very confusing, and the Supreme Court said you
can't impose that on States--requiring an out-of-State seller to
collect the sales tax that is owed--even though it may be owed. Today,
it is different. It is as easy to figure out the tax as it is to Google
the weather in your hometown. In fact, it is easier. It is easier to
have the tax collected online than it is to go into the store and do
it.
In any event, in the State of Tennessee, Governor Haslam and the
Lieutenant Governor--and I can guarantee we are a conservative State--
want the right to decide that for themselves. I know what they are
going to do, if they have the right to collect the sales tax from
everybody who owes it instead of just some of the people who owe it.
They are going to lower the tax rate for everybody. They might get rid
of the only vestige of an income tax we have, or the food tax might go
down. They might spend some more money for teachers' salaries. That is
their business.
But I am here to say that Senators Enzi and Durbin and others have
solved a big problem for this country, and the reason why this bill is
inevitable and why I hope it will pass this week or next week or the
next week--and why I believe the House of Representatives is going to
pass it as well--is because it is a simple 11-page bill about a 2-word
issue: States rights. That is why Governor Christie and Governor
Daniels and Governor Bush and Congressman Pence and many Republicans
and many conservatives are saying let's pass it. Let's get out of the
way and let States make their own decisions, and then the States can
decide from whom they want to collect their sales taxes.
I congratulate Senator Enzi--and Senator Durbin--on his work and I
look forward to working with Senator Enzi and I hope this year we can
continue to turn this bill the Senator has worked on for more than a
dozen years into a law.
I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, the Senator from Tennessee, Mr. Alexander,
is far too modest. Yes, I have been working on this since I got to the
Senate, but he is the one who got it shortened down to 11 pages and
made it a States rights bill. The States are realizing their rights
anyway, and there are attempts at making changes in the sales tax law
in order to cover this huge loss of revenue they are experiencing, but
it doesn't work unless we do what the Supreme Court urged us to do when
they issued the Quill decision back in the 1990s, which is to pass a
national law that clarifies how this tax would be collected if the
States choose to do it.
I am very pleased Senator Durbin joined us on this issue. Practically
every State is losing money because of the tax that is only being
collected for people who buy instate, and when they buy out of State,
they are used to it being collected and it isn't collected. So half the
time the State is not getting its money, and we need to change that
before States come to the Federal Government and say we need some money
for this project and then that sometimes gets worked into a bill. We
are out of money at the Federal level. We have eliminated earmarks, so
we can't do what we used to do, and we probably shouldn't have done it
then. At any rate, we are borrowing 42 cents on every $1 we spend, so
we don't have any money to give to the States.
But the States do have this authority, an authority to do a sales
tax. Of course, they didn't anticipate they were just going to tax the
businesses that were in their State that were paying a property tax and
were hiring local people and were participating in all the community
events and telling everybody out of State they didn't have any
responsibility in it. There has always been an effort to get their
responsibility too. I am glad we have this opportunity to discuss the
small business jobs and tax bill, but in this amendment to it--which
would be known as the Marketplace Fairness Act--we are talking about
fairness. We do expect everybody will be treated fairly.
So let's start with a common-day practice that is happening in our
Nation's retail markets today. If someone buys the book ``The Hunger
Games'' at the local bookshop in town, they will pay more for the book
from the brick-and-mortar store than if they bought the book online.
There is nothing different about the brick-and-mortar store's book
versus the book purchased on the Internet except the sales tax they
have to pay. If they choose to do so, States should have the
flexibility and the ability to fix this inequality.
Sales taxes go directly to State and local governments. They bring in
needed revenue for maintaining our schools, fixing our roads, and
supporting our law enforcement. As I like to add, have you ever tried
to flush your toilet on the Internet? If sales over the Internet
continue to go untaxed and electronic commerce continues to soar,
revenues to State and local governments will plummet. But if Congress
fails to authorize States to collect tax on remote sales and electronic
commerce continues to grow, we are implicitly blessing a situation
where States will be forced to raise other taxes, such as income or
property taxes, to offset the growing loss of sales tax revenue. Do we
want this to happen? No, we don't.
The Marketplace Fairness Act was written in the aftermath of the
Supreme Court's 1992 Quill decision. Congressional involvement is
necessary because the ruling stated the thousands of different State
and local tax rules were too complicated and onerous to require
businesses to collect sales tax unless they had a physical presence--
store, warehouse, et cetera--in the purchaser's home State.
The Supreme Court essentially stated Congress needs to decide how to
move forward. I strongly believe now is the time for Congress to act.
Many Americans don't realize when they buy something online or order
something from a catalog from a business outside their own State, they
still owe the sales tax. For over a decade, Congress has been debating
how to best allow States to collect the sales taxes from online
retailers in a way that puts Main Street businesses on a level and fair
playing field with the online retailers.
The Marketplace Fairness Act empowers States to make the decision
themselves. If they choose to collect already existing sales taxes on
all purchases, regardless of where the sale was--whether it was online
or in a store--they can. If they want to keep it the way they are, the
States can do that.
I have been working on this sales tax fairness since joining the
Senate in 1997. As a former small business owner, it is important to
level the playing field for all retailers--in-store, catalog, and
online--so an outdated rule for sales tax collection does not adversely
impact small businesses and Main Street retailers. As a State
legislator, I know we never passed a law, as I said, that discriminated
against the instate people. We never put a burden on people who pay the
property tax, who hire local residents and participate in the community
events while telling those out of State we want them to have our
[[Page S4882]]
money, but they do not have to do anything in return. We never intended
to give the out-of-State businesses a free ride. That is what the local
legislators are all concerned about.
On November 9, 2011, Senators Durbin, Alexander, Tim Johnson, and I
introduced, with six of our other colleagues, in a very bipartisan way,
the Marketplace Fairness Act to close this 20-year loophole that
distorts the American marketplace by picking winners and losers, by
subsidizing some businesses at the expense of other businesses and
subsidizing taxpayers at the expense of other taxpayers. All businesses
and their retail sales and all consumers and their purchases should be
treated equally and fairly.
I wish to provide some highlights of what the Marketplace Fairness
Act accomplishes:
The bill gives States the right to decide to collect or not to
collect taxes that are already owed. The legislation would streamline
the country's more than 9,000 diverse sales tax jurisdictions and
provide two options by which States could begin collecting taxes for
online and catalog purchases. The bill gives States two voluntary
options that would allow them to collect the State sales taxes that are
already owed if they choose.
The first option is the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement,
supported by 24 States that have already passed laws to simplify their
tax collection rules. The second option puts in place basic minimum
simplification measures States can adopt to make it easier for out-of-
State businesses to comply.
The bill also carves out small businesses so they are not adversely
affected by the new law by exempting businesses with less than $500,000
in sales online or out-of-State sales from collection requirements. It
is very important there is an exemption for startup and small
businesses if they have less than $500,000 of sales in 1 year. Once
they reach the $500,000, then the next year they have to begin
collecting the tax. This small business exemption will protect small
merchants and give new businesses time to get started.
Don't let the critics get away with saying this kind of
simplification cannot be done. In the early 1990s, when the Quill
decision was handed down, the Internet was still in diapers and cell
phones came with bags and looked like bricks. Cell phones now have
Internet capability, and software, computers, and technologies have all
advanced at an exponential pace. The different rates and jurisdiction
problem is no problem for today's programs.
As a former mayor and State legislator, I also strongly favor
allowing States the authority to require sales and use tax collection
from retailers in all sales, if they choose to do so. We need to
implement a plan that will allow States to generate revenue using
mechanisms already approved by their local leaders. We need to allow
States the ability to collect the sales taxes they already require, if
enacted. This would provide $23 billion in fiscal relief for the States
for which Congress does not have to find an offset. This will give
States less of an excuse to come knocking on the Federal door for
handouts and will reduce the problem of federally attached strings. It
will give States a chance to reduce property taxes or other taxes.
The Marketplace Fairness Act is not about new taxes. No one should
tax the use of the Internet. No one should tax Internet services. I do,
however, have concerns about using the Internet as a sales tax
loophole. Sales tax collection is already required by my home State of
Wyoming no matter how or where we buy something, if it is not taxed by
the State we get it from. We are supposed to fill out our own form and
submit the information. Nobody is used to filing that kind of form or
doing that kind of tax collection, and they never know whether the tax
is owed or how much it is, particularly on small purchases.
It is always collected at the stores by the stores in state. We have
to make the system simpler so they don't have to fill out forms. Under
Wyoming law, online purchases are already subject to a sales tax; it
just can't be collected and given to our State. The situation is very
similar to that of other States.
Senators Durbin, Alexander, and I have worked tirelessly to assist
the sellers, States, and local governments to simplify sales and use
tax collection and administration. We have worked with all interested
parties to find a mutually agreeable legislative package to introduce.
Many hours have been dedicated to finding the right solution.
I want to publicly commend and thank Senators Durbin and Alexander
for taking a leadership role in working on this important policy issue.
Ten years ago, the bills we considered to try to close this loophole
were not adequate to solve the problem. Marketplace Fairness does solve
the problem. It is simple. It is about States' rights. It is about
fairness. At a time when States' budgets are under increasing pressure,
Congress should give State and local governments the ability to enforce
their own laws. I strongly encourage my colleagues to support amendment
No. 2496, known as the Marketplace Fairness Act, and get it enacted
into public law this year.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennet). The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Alexander of Tennessee and
Senator Enzi of Wyoming, cosponsors of this measure and participants in
this colloquy on the floor today. I am sorry I wasn't here at the
outset, but I am grateful for their participation and comments they
have made, and especially for their commitment to this cause.
I think Senator Enzi--and I would give special thanks to Senator
Alexander, who stepped in at a very important moment and helped us
craft a part of this bill--helped us craft an agreement on this bill
and brought some new approaches to it which have been extremely
helpful.
The notion of offering this as an amendment is a show of good faith
on our part and a show of commitment to the seriousness and the
importance of this issue. The fact that many Democrats and Republicans
can join together in this bipartisan manner is an indication that this
bill cuts across party lines. I think it gets down to a basic issue, as
it says, of fairness.
The economy is clearly getting better. There are better days ahead;
jobs are being created and our economy is growing stronger. There may
be times when the job numbers are disappointing and the stock market
stumbles, and we continue to face challenges in Europe and other
places, but we are improving.
Businesses in Illinois and across the country are starting to see
customers come back. Small retailers in my home State of Illinois are
pushing the slogan ``buy local'' in their effort to urge consumers to
come back to local stores, farmers markets, and shoe stores, instead of
buying online. These efforts support local brick-and-mortar sellers who
contribute to the community in so many different ways. They sponsor the
local baseball teams, they collect sales and use taxes that pay for
services such as fire, police, and trash collection, and they provide
good-paying local jobs.
While these efforts have been successful, many local retailers share
with me how frustrating it is to lose business because online retailers
have a built-in advantage that I have seen firsthand. While local Main
Street businesses collect State and local taxes and use taxes, their
online competitors don't. In Illinois, this can mean an 8-percent
differential in price. This encourages customers to buy everything from
electronics to books online to avoid paying sales tax and use taxes.
A couple examples:
Bob Naughtrip, owner of Soccer Plus in Palatine and Libertyville, IL,
describes how his biggest online competitor can offer a discount of
more than $10,000 because it doesn't have to collect sales and use
taxes. Bob sells sporting equipment to local sports clubs, and it is
not unusual for these clubs to make purchases that exceed $100,000 a
year. He can't compete when the competition has a $10,000 price
advantage, so he loses the business.
Matt Lamsargis, owner of the Springfield Running Center--a person I
have come to know--and Bob Thompson, owner of BikeTek, both in my
hometown of Springfield, told me when I visited their small businesses
last year they are victims of ``showrooming,'' they call it. They lose
business when customers walk into the store, look around, maybe even
try on the clothing and shoes or even get fitted just right,
[[Page S4883]]
write down a few numbers, then walk out the door and order the product
over the Internet at a discount, because the Internet seller doesn't
collect sales tax and these local retailers have to. Ironically, some
of the customers, dissatisfied with their online purchases, come back
to the same store to complain about a product they didn't even buy
there. So we have got to find a way to make this a fairer marketplace.
Why can't State and local governments require online retailers to
collect sales and use taxes? For 20 years, State and local governments
have been prohibited from enforcing their own sales and use tax laws
because of a Supreme Court decision in Quill v. North Dakota where the
Court clearly stated that only Congress has the authority to solve this
problem.
Last year, Senator Enzi, Senator Alexander, and I introduced the
Marketplace Fairness Act with additional cosponsors. We now have 13
bipartisan sponsors. This bipartisan group of Senators understands that
to truly help small businesses grow and create jobs, we need to make
sure they compete on a level playing field. The Marketplace Fairness
Act would do that. That is why it is being filed as an amendment to the
Small Business Jobs and Tax Relief Act.
Our amendment is about saving Main Street businesses and the jobs
provided by those businesses. This bill does not mandate the States but
it allows States, if they choose, to require online and brick-and-
mortar retailers to play by the same sales tax rules. The bill
eliminates the built-in price advantage that has distorted the market
for 20 years.
It includes, as Senator Enzi recently said, a small seller exemption
for those selling less than $500,000 worth of commodities a year. If
Grandma Bennet's apple butter is being cased up and sold to the tune of
$10,000 or $20,000 a year online because her smart grandson has given
her advice on how she can retail this online, she doesn't have to start
collecting sales tax until she has sold $500,000 worth of goods; in the
next year, she collects sales tax. So we are trying to be sensitive to
smaller businesses and, as Senator Enzi said, startup businesses.
This bill includes 240 organizations. I ask unanimous consent that
the list of those organizations be printed in the Record after my
remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. DURBIN. This is an issue where the International Association of
Firefighters and AFSCME stand together with the National Retail
Federation, the Retail Industry Leaders Association, and the Consumer
Electronics Association. What an amazing coalition.
Amazon.com, the largest retailer online in America, supports our
bill. Yet the largest online retailer, in supporting this bill, still
has Members of the Senate questioning whether they are going to react
positively. They are on record in favor of this.
It is also supported by groups such as the U.S. Conference of Mayors,
the National Association of Counties, and the National Council of State
Legislators. The National Governors Association supports the
Marketplace Fairness Act, because these State and local governments are
losing about $23 billion a year on uncollected sales tax. In Illinois,
we are losing about $1 billion a year, about 15 percent of our current
deficit. It would make a difference if we could collect this. Again,
the States would have to make that decision. We don't force it on them.
This has the support of eight Democratic Governors and 13 Republican
Governors, including Governor Quinn of Illinois, O'Malley of Maryland,
McDonnell of Virginia, Mitch Daniels of Indiana, and Haley from the
State of South Carolina. Recently, Governor Chris Christie from the
State of New Jersey publicly came out in support and said:
I too--along with Governors like Governor Daniels and
others--urge the federal government and Congress in
particular to get behind . . . legislation to allow states to
be able to make these choices for themselves. . . .
Governor LePage, a Republican Governor from the State of Maine, wrote
a letter of support saying, ``The Marketplace Fairness Act does not
raise taxes.'' The point he makes and the argument here is this is not
a new tax.
So if this bill has such broad bipartisan support, why haven't we
passed it? Well, we need 60 Senators. The majority leader has said to
me and Senator Enzi, ``Show me the votes.'' And that is what we are
trying to do--bring together a bipartisan group that will support this,
that understands it is simple fairness for small businesses that create
jobs and opportunities all across America. And with the sales taxes
they collect, they provide for local police and firemen, for the sewers
and streets, and the things in life that we come to take for granted in
our cities across America. We want to make sure the online retailers
are making the same contribution.
So I urge my colleagues, when this amendment comes before them, to
support it on a bipartisan basis.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Exhibit 1
Support for the Marketplace Fairness Act
American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial
Organizations; Abbell Credit Corporation, Chicago, IL; Acadia
Realty Trust, White Plains, NY; AFL-CIO Department for
Professional Employees; Airgas, Inc.; Alabama College
Bookstore Association; Alabama Retail Association; Alaska
Veterinary Medical Association; Alliance of Wisconsin
Retailers; Amazon.com; American Apparel and Footwear
Association; American Booksellers Association; American
Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; American
Federation of Teachers; American Specialty Toy Retailing
Association; American Veterinary Medical Association; Arizona
Retailers Association; Arkansas Grocers and Retail Merchants
Association; Association for Christian Retail; Association of
Washington Business; AutoZone, Inc.; Balliet's LLC; Barnes
and Noble, Inc.; Beall's, Inc.; Bed, Bath, & Beyond, Inc.;
Ben Bridge Jewelers, Seattle, WA; Best Buy Co., Inc.; Blake
Hunt Ventures, Inc., Danville, CA; Build-A-Bear Workshops,
Saint Louis, MO; Buy.com; California Association of College
Store; California Business Properties Association; California
Retailers Association; California Veterinary Medical
Association; Carolinas Food Industry Council; CBL &
Associates Properties, Inc., Chattanooga, TN; Cencor Realty
Services, Dallas, TX; Center on Budget and Policy Priorities;
Certified Commercial Investment Member Institute;
Chesterfield Blue Valley, LLC, St. Louis, MO; Christian
Booksellers Association; City of Carrollton, Texas; College
Stores of New England (MA, CT, RI, ME, VT, NH); College
Stores Association of New York State.
College Stores Association of North Carolina; Colorado
Retail Council; Colorado Veterinary Medical Association;
Connecticut Retail Merchants Association; Consumer
Electronics Association; Consumer Electronics Retailers
Coalition; The Container Store, Dallas, Texas; The
CortiGilchrist Partnership, Ilc, Al Corti, Principal, San
Diego, CA; D. Talmage Hocker, The Hocker Group, Louisville,
KY; David Hocker & Associates, Inc., Owensboro, Kentucky; DDR
Corp., Beachwood, OH; Delaware Veterinary Medical
Association; Dick's Sporting Goods, Inc.; DLC Management
Corp., Tarrytown, NY; Donahue Schriber Realty Group, Costa
Mesa, CA; Economic Alliance of Snohomish County, WA; Edens &
Avant, Columbia, SC; Evergreen Devco, Inc., Glendale, CA;
Fairfield Corporation, Battle Creek, MI; Federal Realty
Investment Trust, Rockville, MD; FedTax, David Campbell, CEO;
Florida Retail Federation; Food Marketing Institute; Foot
Locker, Inc.; Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America;
Forest City Enterprises, Inc., Cleveland, OH; Gap Inc., San
Francisco, CA; Garrison Pacific Properties, San Rafael, CA;
General Growth Properties, Chicago, IL; Georgia Association
of College Stores; Georgia Retail Association; Georgia
Veterinary Medical Association; Glimcher Realty Trust,
Columbus, OH; Governing Board of the Streamlined Sales and
Use Tax Agreement; Government Finance Officers Association;
Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association; The Greeby
Companies, Inc., Chicago, IL; Hart Realty Advisers, Inc.,
Simsbury, CT; The Home Depot, Inc.; Hy-Vee, Inc.; Idaho
Retailers Association; Idaho Veterinary Medical Association;
Illinois Association of College Stores; Illinois Retail
Merchants Association; Illinois State Veterinary Medical
Association; Independent Running Retailer Association;
Indiana Retail Council.
Indiana Veterinary Medical Association; Institute of Real
Management; International Association of Fire Fighters;
International Council of Shopping Centers; International
Economic Development Council; International Federation of
Professional and Technical Engineers; Iowa Retail Federation;
Iowa Veterinary Medical Association; J.C. Penney Corporation,
Inc.; JCPenney; Jewelers of America; Jo-Ann Stores, Inc.;
John Bucksbaum, Private Real Estate Investor/Developer,
Former Chairman and CEO of General Growth; Kemper Development
Company, Bellevue, WA; Kentucky Retail Federation; Kentucky
Veterinary Medical Association; Kimco Realty Corporation, New
Hyde Park, NY; The Kroger Company; L. Michael Foley and
Associates, LLC, La Jolla, CA; Limited Brands, Inc.; Los
Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce; Louisiana Retailers
Association; Louisiana Veterinary Medical
[[Page S4884]]
Association; Lowes Companies, Inc.; Maine Merchants
Association; Maine Veterinary Medical Association; Malcolm
Riley and Associates Los Angeles, CA; Marketing Developments,
Inc. MI; Marshall Music Co., Lansing, MI; Mary Lou Fiala,
CEO, Loft Unlimited, Ponte Vedra Beach Florida; Maryland
Retailers Association; Massachusetts Veterinary Medical
Association; Meijer, Inc.; Michigan Association of College
Stores; Michigan Retailers Association; Michigan Veterinary
Medical Association; Mid States Association of College Stores
(IA, NE, KS, MO); Middle Atlantic College Stores; Minnesota
Retail Association; Minnesota Veterinary Medical Association;
Missouri Retailers Association; Mountains and Plains
Independent Booksellers Association; NAIOP, Commercial Real
Estate Development Association; NAMM, National Association of
Music Merchants; National Association of Chain Drug Stores;
National Association of College Stores.
National Association of Counties; National Association of
Real Estate Investment Trusts; National Association of
Realtors; National Bicycle Dealers Association; National
Conference of State Legislatures; National Education
Association; National Governors' Association; National
Grocers Association; National Home Furnishings Association;
National League of Cities; National Retail Federation;
National School Supply and Equipment Association; Nebraska
Retail Federation; Nebraska Veterinary Medical Association;
The Neiman Marcus Group, Inc.; Nevada Veterinary Medical
Association; New Atlantic Independent Booksellers
Association; New England Independent Booksellers Association;
New Jersey Retail Merchants Association; New Jersey
Veterinary Medical Association; New Mexico Retail
Association; Newspaper Association of America; North American
Retail Dealers Association; North Carolina Retail Merchants
Association; North Carolina Veterinary Medical Association;
North Dakota Retail Association; Northern California
Independent Booksellers Association; Ohio Association of
College Stores; Ohio Council of Retail Merchants; Oklahoma
Veterinary Medical Association; Outdoor Industry Association;
Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association; Pennsylvania
Retailers' Association; Performance Marketing Association;
Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council; Petco Animal Supplies,
Inc.; PetSmart, Inc.; Planning Developments, Inc., MI; The
Pratt Company, Mill Valley, CA; Professional Beauty
Association; Properties, Inc., Chicago, IL; The Rappaport
Companies, McLean, VA; Real Estate Roundtable; Realtors Land
Institute; REI (Recreational Equipment, Inc.); Reininga
Corporation, Healdsburg, CA; Retail Association of
Mississippi.
Retail Association of Nevada; Retail Council of New York
State; Retail Industry Leaders Association; Retail Merchants
of Hawaii; Retailers Association of Massachusetts; Rhode
Island Retail Federation; Rocky Mountain Skyline Bookstore
Association (CO, MT, NM, WY); Safeway, Inc.; Sears Holdings
Corporation; Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce; The
Seayco Group, Bentonville, AK; The Sembler Company, St.
Petersburg, FL; Service Employees International Union;
ShareASale; Simon Property Group, Indianapolis, IN; Soccer
Dealer Association; Society of Industrial and Office
Realtors; South Carolina Association of Veterinarians; South
Carolina Retail Merchants Association; South Dakota Retailers
Association; Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance;
Southwest College Bookstore Association (AR, LA, TX, OK, NM,
MS); Steiner + Associates LLC, Columbus, Ohio; Stirling
Properties, Covington, LA; Tanger Factory Outlet Centers,
Inc., Greensboro, NC; Target Corporation; Taubman Realty
Group, Bloomfield Hills, MI; Tennessee Retail Association;
Tennessee Veterinary Medical Association; Texas Retailers
Association; The Timberland Company; Tractor Supply Company;
Tri-State Bookstore Association; The UAW; U.S. Conference of
Mayors; Utah Food Industry Association; Utah Retail Merchants
Association; Utah Veterinary Medical Association; Vermont
Retail Association; Vestar Development Co.--Phoenix AZ;
Virginia Retail Merchants Association; Virginia Veterinary
Medical Association; Wal-Mart Stores, Bentonville, AR;
Washington Retail Association; Washington State Veterinary
Medical Association; WDP Partners, LLC, Phoenix, AZ; The
Weitzman Group, Dallas, Texas; Wendy's Company; West Virginia
Retailers Association; West Virginia Veterinary Medical
Association; Western Development Corporation, Washington, DC;
Westfield, LLC., Los Angeles, CA; Wisconsin Association of
College Stores; Wisconsin Veterinary Medical Association;
Wolfe Properties, LLC, St. Louis, MO; World Floor Covering
Association; Wyoming Retail Association; Wyoming Veterinary
Medical Association; Zumiez, Inc., Everett, WA.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all remaining
time postcloture be yielded back and the Senate adopt the motion to
proceed to S. 2237.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________