[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 147 (Wednesday, September 28, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6202-S6204]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TAX AND HEALTH CARE POLICY

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, we are currently in the middle of an 
election year. Like most Americans, I look forward to the end of the 
political campaign season and the end of the rhetoric, spin, and 
constant battle to win the latest news cycle.
  Don't get me wrong, I am not saying this election is meaningless. In 
fact, there is quite a bit at stake this coming November. And the 
American people have some clear choices to make.
  Unfortunately, some of the more complex and consequential policy 
matters are the ones that most frequently end up in the middle of the 
political echo chamber, surrounded by hyperbolic rhetoric, empty 
promises, and overly simplistic answers to some very difficult 
questions.
  This includes, among many other areas, tax and health care policy, 
both of which fall largely under the jurisdiction of the Senate Finance 
Committee, which I chair.
  Let me be clear: I understand why both tax and health care policy are 
fertile grounds for political gamesmanship.
  When we are talking about the Tax Code or our health care system, we 
are taking about issues that impact the lives and livelihoods of 
individuals, families, and businesses throughout our country. As a 
result, people are particularly sensitive to the notion that one party 
or candidate might raise their taxes or enact policies that will 
increase--or decrease--their health care costs.
  Politicians are usually more than willing to promise that, if 
elected, they will make sure that the people in category X will 
``finally pay their fair share in taxes,'' while simultaneously 
promising that the intended audience will not see their taxes go up.
  Similarly, politicians are quite fond of telling people that their 
policies will bring down their health care costs--or even eliminate 
them altogether--while promising that the people in category X will be 
the ones to pay for it.
  I suppose the factor that most often separates these politicians from 
one another is whom they include in category X, whom they choose to 
slap with an unfavorable label so that their audience has no problem 
raising their taxes or making them foot the cost of an expanded health 
care system.
  This type of rhetoric--defining enemies and promising to make them 
pay--may make for good politics, but it almost never results in 
favorable conditions for meaningful reforms.

[[Page S6203]]

  That is a big reason why, despite almost universal dissatisfaction 
with the Tax Code, Members of Congress have for years now been unable 
to enact meaningful reforms.
  It is also a major reason why, even though the vast majority of 
Americans do not believe our current health care system works for them, 
many politicians refuse to even acknowledge that there is even a 
problem.
  Put simply, we need to do better. While I understand the importance 
of elections to our system, we should not let election-year rhetoric 
paint us into a corner when it is time to draft and enact policy.
  Case in point, for years now, the Obama administration has been 
ramping up its political rhetoric on corporate inversions, fully aware 
that the American people were rightly concerned about U.S. businesses 
moving their headquarters offshore.
  After years of attacking American businesses--and Republican 
politicians--for a supposed lack of ``economic patriotism,'' they 
finally had to translate their rhetoric into policy, which resulted in 
the recently proposed debt-equity regulations that have drawn criticism 
from observers and businesses throughout our economy and Members of 
Congress on both sides of the aisle for being too broad and too blind 
to ways in which businesses legitimately manage their finances.
  By all means, we should try to prevent inversions and go after 
earnings stripping, which is a closely related problem. I think most 
reasonable people want to do that. But the Obama administration's 
proposed regulations go after many legitimate business transactions--
transactions that are not at all motivated by tax avoidance.
  Put simply, these regulations will impose substantial burdens on 
businesses throughout the country and will likely hamper our still 
fragile economic recovery.
  Despite the backlash that we have seen to the Treasury Department's 
proposed regulations under section 385, they show no signs of backing 
down--and how could they? After years of demonizing American companies 
and Republicans over inversions, how politically advantageous would it 
have been to sit down with Members of Congress to craft more narrowly 
focused, reasonable solutions that would not grab as many headlines?
  Ultimately, the Obama administration has determined that it is 
better--politically speaking--to, as the saying goes, go big or go home 
on its anti-inversion policies and hope that anyone from the opposing 
party who speaks out against them will be seen as soft on corporate 
inversions.
  And, when it comes to tax policy, it appears that the pattern will 
not be changing if we are faced with another Democratic administration 
after November.
  The Democrats' nominee for President has been relatively short on 
details when she talks about her tax proposals. For the most part, her 
campaign sticks to the tried and true Democratic tactic of promising 
everything from tax cuts to ``free'' college tuition, to child care for 
middle and lower-income workers, while simultaneously claiming that all 
of it and more can be paid for simply by raising taxes on the rich and 
closing corporate tax ``loopholes.''
  Just last month, a top advisor to the Democratic nominee said that 
she opposes any reduction of the U.S. corporate tax rate, even though 
there is a broad consensus among both parties that our corporate tax 
rate is too high and needs to come down.
  I suspect that Secretary Clinton's advisors share this belief behind 
closed doors, as it is, for the most part, conventional wisdom among 
tax policy experts; yet, as they have in countless other situations, 
they have made a political calculation that supporting a reduction in 
corporate tax rates doesn't play well with the Democratic base.
  Let's set aside the fact that increasing the tax burden on American 
businesses results in costs that are largely passed along to consumers, 
including lower and middle income earners.
  Let's also set aside that their nominee has expressed support for 
ideas like a carbon tax that would also result in higher costs of 
living for Americans across the board, particularly on the middle class 
and lower-income workers.
  And let's also set aside the fact that she has endorsed taxes on 
goods like guns and soda, many of which would be predominantly imposed, 
not on the super wealthy, but the middle class and lower-income 
earners.
  If you ignore those statements on her part and focus on her plan, her 
tax and spending proposals have little basis in reality. Modest 
increases in the individual tax rates for the highest earners wouldn't 
cover our current and projected deficits, let alone pay for the massive 
spending increases she has proposed. Similarly, there aren't enough 
corporate tax ``loopholes'' that could reasonably be eliminated to 
cover the costs of her campaign promises.
  We know this because we have gone through it with the current 
occupant of the White House. In every major budget dispute and many of 
the conflicts surrounding the statutory debt limit, President Obama has 
repeatedly clamored for increased taxes on the so-called rich, often 
claiming that doing so would solve our budgetary problems.
  This is, of course, a facade that only serves a political agenda and 
it has permeated beyond the election season and into discussions that 
are supposed to be about actually creating policy.
  As I mentioned earlier, this problem persists outside of the tax 
space. We also see it in our debate over health care policy.
  Here is the reality we are living in when it comes to health care: 
Costs are going up across the board as insurance premiums continue to 
skyrocket while the implementation of the President's health law 
continues to be a disaster. Enrollment numbers in the Obamacare 
exchanges continue to fall well below the projections made by both the 
administration and the Congressional Budget Office, and the result is a 
steady decrease in options for patients and consumers and increased 
burdens on businesses and hardworking taxpayers.
  Even without the inherent systemic problems causing the downward 
spiral of the entire Obamacare system, the implementation of the law 
has been remarkably inept and unaccountable.
  For example, nearly two-thirds of the Obamacare CO-OPs have failed, 
costing taxpayers billions of dollars.
  In addition, the Government Accountability Office repeatedly reports 
that criminals and fraudsters are likely able to navigate the Obamacare 
exchanges and even obtain tax subsidies due to the lack of proper 
safeguards in the system.
  Despite all of these failures, which highlight both the shortcomings 
of the law and the innate inability of government to regulate such a 
vast and complex marketplace, the Democrats still argue that more 
government is the answer.
  President Obama has repeatedly refused to acknowledge that the health 
law isn't working, writing off unfavorable data points as being 
anecdotal or irrelevant to the bigger picture.
  The Democrats' nominee for President takes it one step further, 
doubling down on the Obama administration's position while promising 
even more government control of the health care system.
  She has outlined a number of ``reforms'' she would like to add to the 
``progress we've made'' under Obamacare. And, each of her proposals 
amounts to an expanded role for the Federal Government.
  Most notably, of course, she has resurrected the so-called public 
option, by promising voters access to a government-run health care 
plan.
  She is not alone. An expanded role for the government in health care 
is what most Democrats openly say that they want.
  I am not making that up or casting unfounded aspersions. This isn't 
paranoia on my part. My colleagues have purposefully chosen to make the 
creation of a government-run health care plan a central tenet of their 
2016 campaigns. Just a few weeks ago, the vast majority of the Senate 
Democratic caucus signed onto a resolution calling for a government-run 
health insurance option.
  It is almost as if the last 7 years didn't happen.
  It is almost as if my colleagues haven't seen the failures of the 
existing system and the overwhelming evidence of government ineptitude 
when it comes to health care.
  In their resolution, my colleagues are telling the American people 
that expanding the government's role in

[[Page S6204]]

health care will ``lead to increased competition and reduced 
premiums,'' and ``ensure that consumers have the affordable choices 
they deserve,'' even though virtually everything about the Obamacare 
experience contradicts that conclusion.
  The inevitable result of the course my colleagues want to follow is a 
single-payer health care system, even if many of them won't admit that 
is their long-term goal. I have noted several times that, in a world 
where the government dictates both the products on the health insurance 
market and the prices at which they are sold, the eventual result will 
be a market where the government is the only available provider.
  From the time Obamacare was drafted, I have argued that Democrats 
intended to keep expanding the role of the government in the health 
care sector until they could argue that, after a series of failures, 
the only option left is a nationalized, single-payer health care 
system.
  And my arguments have been called paranoid and inflammatory by 
pundits and politicians on the other side; yet, looking at this current 
campaign season, it is not remotely a stretch to say that my colleagues 
support and eventually intend to impose a health care system run 
entirely by the government.
  Whether we are talking about taxes or health care or anything else, 
the problem with this type of rhetoric and all of these campaign 
promises isn't that my colleagues are simply wrong on the facts. The 
problem is that, when the rubber meets the proverbial road, these kinds 
of promises don't lead to good results for the American people.
  And, here is why: While some unfortunately seem to live in a 
perpetual election cycle, once the votes are all counted, we have an 
obligation to actually govern the country.
  I know that fact is sometimes lost on a number of people in this 
town, but it is the cold, honest truth. The purpose of elections is to 
eventually enact policies that are preferred by the voters.
  Yet, in every election, candidates and Members of Congress spend 
months taking unreasonable positions and making outlandish promises 
because they play well with the voters. But, once the election is over, 
all of that rhetoric--the promises as well as the attacks--have to be 
translated into actual policy. And, far too often, that process of 
translation leads either to gridlock when elected officials refuse to 
move off of their unreasonable campaign positions or to results that, 
in the eyes of many voters, appear watered down in comparison to the 
promises they heard in the middle of campaign.
  Is it any wonder, then, that the American people are, by and large, 
growing more distrustful of the government?
  Is it any wonder why the vast majority of Americans across the 
ideological spectrum have a negative view of Congress?
  As chairman of the Finance Committee, I am well aware that I am going 
to be tasked with translating election-year rhetoric into workable 
policies. I am also aware that the policies that fall within the 
Finance Committee's jurisdiction are often those where we hear some the 
most contentious rhetoric and unrealistic promises during each and 
every election cycle, which makes the job of crafting policy that much 
harder.
  Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt my own ability to reach policy 
solutions that can satisfy members of both parties, and, as chairman 
and previously as ranking member, I have worked very hard to do so. 
And, prior to that time, I had a great deal of success working through 
difficult policy matters with members in both parties to find the right 
answers to complex problems.
  I believe strongly that we can be successful in coming up with tax 
policies, health care policies, or any other policies that serve the 
best interests of the American people. I simply do not believe that 
election-year rhetoric and hyperbolic campaign promises are the right 
starting points for these efforts.
  Allow me to boil it down a little further and get more specific.
  I believe wholeheartedly that we can reform our broken Tax Code on a 
bipartisan basis, I just don't think we can do it by starting with the 
notion that tax reform should be about raising revenue for increased 
spending and punishing disfavored income groups, unpopular industries, 
or savvy investors.
  I also believe we can find a bipartisan way to fix our ailing health 
care system. But I simply don't believe that it can be done if we are 
focusing on expanding government in order to keep campaign promises to 
create a government-run health plan.
  I look forward to tackling these issues with my colleagues and to 
reaching across the aisle to find the right answers. In my view, that 
will be much easier to accomplish if my friends on the other side of 
the aisle will eventually be willing to set aside the rhetoric they 
have employed during the campaign to appease their base.
  I am willing to work with anyone to address these and other issues. 
We're just going to have to find a way to cut to through the politics 
and partisanship that all too often slows us down.

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