[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 175 (Tuesday, October 5, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6898-S6899]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Debt Ceiling

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, while the American people are battling 
inflation at its worst since 2008, Washington Democrats are behind 
closed doors, writing another reckless taxing-and-spending spree that 
would have the government borrow trillions upon trillions more. While 
our economy still struggles to fully recover from last year's COVID 
lockdowns, President Biden wants to slap Americans with the biggest tax 
hike in half a century.
  You know, it is really remarkable to watch senior, established 
leaders in the Democratic Party take their marching orders from the 
radical left. We are hearing claims and arguments that are absurd on 
their face as top Democrats try to wrestle with the positions they have 
literally been forced into.
  Yesterday, for example, President Biden's Twitter account made the 
following two claims in the space of two sentences. First, the ``Build 
Back Better Agenda costs zero dollars.'' And then in the next sentence: 
``We're going to pay for it by ensuring those at the top and big 
corporations pay their fair share.''
  How amazing, Mr. President. It's the first time in human history 
something can be totally free, yet, nevertheless, needs to be paid for. 
The Democrats' socialist logic has become so advanced, they have 
transcended mathematics itself.
  Of course, the truth is that the Democrats' massive tax hikes would 
not only hit the wealthy. It never works that way. There is no way to 
set up the kind of massive, never-ending new entitlements the Democrats 
want without coming hard--hard--after the middle class.
  Oh, and, sure enough, nonpartisan experts have already confirmed the 
Democrats' reckless taxing-and-spending spree would hit the middle 
class and shatter President Biden's promise of no new taxes for anybody 
earning less than $400,000 a year.
  But as my colleague, the junior Senator from South Carolina, has put 
it, as much as the reckless cost of their wish list would hurt 
Americans, the reckless content of the legislation may be even worse. 
Just look at what Democrats want to do to American families' healthcare 
and prescription medicines.
  Last month, a new report from the Medicare trustees confirmed that 
the trust fund for Medicare Part A is on track to reach insolvency in 
just 5 years--5 years from now. More than 54 million American seniors 
rely on Medicare, and the promises we have already made are getting 
more and more expensive to keep.
  Last year, for example, for the first time ever, the amount the 
Federal Government spent on Medicare alone exceeded everything that we 
spent on our national defense.
  With Medicare 5 years from real fiscal problems, the last thing we 
need right now are politicians stretching the program even thinner, but 
that is exactly what Democrats are doing behind closed doors at this 
very moment.
  Their reckless taxing-and-spending spree would heap hundreds of 
billions of dollars in new expenses and obligations onto the already 
troubled Medicare trust funds; hundreds of billions of dollars in new 
obligations for untested new programs, for big new pools of people, all 
using the care seniors count on as the Democrats' piggyback, with the 
program already on unsure footing.
  Even some of our colleagues on the Democratic side are calling this 
craziness what it is. As one of our colleagues said recently, we have 
to ``stabiliz[e] what we have, before we start going down this 
expensive [road]'' or else it would be ``fiscal insanity.''
  But that isn't the only damage the Democrats' bill would inflict on 
our health system. At the same time, they want to impose socialist 
price controls on the prescription medicines that Americans need. This 
is another example of magical thinking: If we just pass a law saying 
something ought to be cheaper, it will be cheaper.
  But here in the real world, arbitrary price-setting on prescription 
drugs would cut down the private sector's incentive to keep innovating. 
Expert research shows Americans and the whole world would be left with 
fewer new drugs, fewer new treatments, and fewer new cures.
  Mr. President, this isn't an abstract thing. This is a human cost. In 
the world Democrats want to create, some Americans would get sick and 
some would die who would have lived if new treatments had come into 
existence instead of being squashed--squashed--by bad policy.
  One University of Chicago academic and past leader of the Council of 
Economic Advisers has calculated that over one decade, House Democrats' 
prescription price controls could rob our Nation of 15 to 20 times as 
many collective years of life as the entire COVID pandemic has stolen 
so far.
  Let me say that again. This expert believes that the Democratic war 
on

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prescription drug innovation could result in a total loss of American 
life that is 15 to 20 times that which COVID has caused thus far.
  In a serious world, any discussion of this terrible policy would stop 
right there. But Democrats need to slash our investment in treatments 
and cures because they need to cannibalize that money for other parts 
of their partisan wish list.
  It is the same reason Democrats are clinging to their absurd, new IRS 
spying provision that would let Big Brother snoop on citizens' 
transactions in excess of $600--another perfectly awful idea, but they 
need the money.
  These desperate cash grabs capture the essence of this partisan bill 
the Democrats are drafting behind closed doors--jeopardizing seniors' 
Medicare funding, killing huge numbers of Americans indirectly by 
attacking new treatments and new cures.
  And for what?
  For a liberal hodgepodge of new entitlement programs when we can't 
even shore up the ones we already have. It is just a few more of the 
hundred ways this reckless taxing-and-spending spree would hurt the 
families of America.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Padilla). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.