[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 133 (Saturday, August 6, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4055-S4057]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
INFLATION REDUCTION ACT OF 2022
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, the United States has done some good,
important, even historic work this week. On Tuesday, we passed the PACT
Act, expanding VA healthcare to an estimated 3.5 million veterans.
Their service to our Nation exposed them to potentially deadly toxic
chemicals from Agent Orange in the Vietnam conflict to toxic burn pits,
which were found to be ubiquitous in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It took too long: 12 years. Toxic exposed veterans and family members
had to stand on the steps of the Capitol, literally camped out for 5
days and nights to remind us that the veterans suffering from toxic
exposure deserve care as surely as veterans injured by bullets and
bombs.
But in the end, thank goodness, we did the right thing. The vote to
pass the PACT Act was 86 to 11--86 votes in a 50-50 Democratic/
Republican Chamber. It was a remarkable, bipartisan rollcall.
And then we made history this week when the Senate voted to ratify
the entry of Finland and Sweden to NATO. Vladimir Putin gambled that
Russia could seize Ukraine in just a few days, could use his victory to
shatter NATO's unity and to deepen divides around the world.
Vladimir Putin, again, was dead wrong. NATO is more united, larger,
and more powerful than ever, while Vladimir Putin has become an
international pariah. Russia's military is bogged down in Ukraine,
suffering heavy losses. And the Russian economy is staggering under the
weight of global sanctions imposed by the freedom-loving nations of the
world against Russia.
The Senate vote in favor of enlarging NATO to include Sweden and
Finland was 95 to 1--95 votes in favor of it in a body that is divided
equally, 50-50. Two major achievements in just 2 days, both with huge
bipartisan majorities. That is proof for the doubters that the Senate
can work together when the need is urgent and the solutions are just.
Now we are debating another historic plan that should have the
support of both parties. I listen to the speeches each day on the floor
of the Senate. And every day our Republican colleagues stand on the
floor and say it is about time we did something about inflation. They
know that is exactly the way the American families feel--and I feel, as
well. And then, sadly, when given a chance, as they will be in just a
few minutes, my Republican friends try to stop legislation that will
lower the cost and give American families a break on their cost of
living. All the speeches notwithstanding, they refuse to vote for a
provision which will actually lower families' living costs.
They oppose cutting taxes for families. They oppose banning price
gouging by oil companies. They oppose cutting healthcare premiums. They
oppose extending the Child Tax Credits. They oppose lowering
prescription drug prices. But we are going to give them another chance
to do the right thing.
They are going to have a chance to actually lower some of those big
ticket costs which they gave all their speeches about and--listen to
this bonus--reduce the deficit at the same time. Yes, the Democrats
have a proposal which will reduce our national debt by $300 billion.
Our plan is called the Inflation Reduction Act. It does exactly what it
says and even more.
The Inflation Reduction Act will cut energy costs, now and in the
future, by deploying American-made clean energy and by making the
biggest investment to battle the climate crisis in U.S. history.
You can't miss on the news the terrible things that have happened in
the Commonwealth of Kentucky in the last week. Horrible things. Thirty-
seven people--at least 37 people--have lost their lives with the
flooding in that State. They go to these remote, rural villages. It
just breaks your heart to look at the devastation.
And the reporters go to families still, I guess, trying to get back
on their feet, trying to imagine tomorrow and do these interviews. And
many times, the people are clearly in pain and distraught over their
personal losses.
There was one man I remember yesterday, particularly. He did not
appear to be the kind of person who spends a lot of time thinking about
Congressional issues or even great political issues. He was a fellow, a
hardworking fellow, who just lost his home. And you know what he said?
He said: This is climate change; what you are looking at here is
climate change. I have lived in this town for 40 years. And I have
never seen anything like that. And I can't imagine if it comes again.
For him to use the words ``climate change'' really was an eye opener
for me, because it means that he is sensitized to the reality that we
face in this world. Extreme weather has become the norm in our country,
whether it is an extreme drought, an extreme flooding situation, more
tornadoes than ever at different times of the year. The list goes on
and on.
Some people think it is just God being restless. I think there is
more to it. I think we--those of us who inhabit
[[Page S4056]]
this planet Earth--bear some responsibility.
The question is, will we give speeches, will we lament these extreme
weather events, or will do something? That is why this bill that is
coming up today, starting today, subject to amendment, is so important.
We can't allow our energy and national security to be dictated by some
foreign power or some foreign leader like Vladimir Putin or anyone else
who doesn't share America's national interest.
The Inflation Reduction Act, which is coming before us, invests in
clean, new American energy sources so that our future can be determined
by American ingenuity, not by some foreign cartel or some Kremlin
kleptocrat.
Earlier today, the Senator from Kentucky came to the floor and talked
about the EPA police checking on whether people are buying certain
products or not buying other products. That isn't what this bill is
about at all. Incentives are there. And I--just from a family point of
view--am going to take a look at it. Is it time for my family to buy a
heat pump? I will take a look and see. Tax credits, tax incentives
could be an incentive for me to make that decision with my family and
my wife. And that is all that we are offering--incentives for people to
choose the right things, the environmentally smart things to deal with
climate change.
The more energy solutions we discover, the cheaper our energy bills
will be. Importantly, the Inflation Reduction Act will enable the
United States--listen to this--to cut greenhouse gas emissions by an
estimated 40 percent by the year 2030.
We have a lot of young pages here who come and work in the summer. We
are glad to have them. They brighten up the place, and their energy is
a sight to behold. They probably listen to this debate and wonder if
these graying politicians, these Senators and Congressman, really do
care about the planet that they are going to be living on, raising
their own families, building their own futures. Well, this bill is an
indication we do care. And to reduce greenhouse gas emissions not only
does the right thing for America, it sets an example for the world.
Despite all the excuses, there is no excuse for ignoring climate
change, as that poor fellow down in Kentucky made obvious.
For anyone who still says global warming is a hoax--and I guess there
are a handful of those folks left--or admits that it is real and says
we just can't afford to fix it, know this: The costs of ignoring the
climate crisis are far greater than dealing with it.
A recent analysis by the Office of Management and Budget warns, if
left unchecked, climate change could reduce our Nation's gross domestic
product by 10 percent and cost Americans $2 trillion a year by the end
of the century--$2 trillion in the production of goods and services.
To put that in perspective, that is about a third of the entire U.S.
budget this year. And in case you are dismissing these warnings because
they happen to come from a Democrat or from the Biden administration,
maybe you should listen to Deloitte--a well-known accounting firming in
this country--their center for sustainable management. They released a
report in May estimating that left unchecked, climate change will cost
the global economy $178 trillion for the next 50 years. If rising sea
levels don't swamp us, rising costs of ignoring climate disasters very
well may.
The Inflation Reduction Act will enable us to make reasonable changes
now that will pay for themselves many times over. It will also cut
families' healthcare costs in four important ways. First, we extend the
enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies for 13 million Americans for 3
more years.
I was so surprised to read recently that there are still 8 million
Americans uninsured. There should be none. And our goal is none. But we
made such dramatic progress cutting by a third to a half the number of
people uninsured since the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
Have you ever had a young child in your family who was sick and you
worried because you had no health insurance as to whether they would be
seen by the right doctor, the right hospital? I went through it. It
happened right after our first child was born. We didn't have health
insurance. I never felt more vulnerable, and I never had an emptier
feeling when it came to being a father caring for his child as to not
have health insurance and worrying about that. I don't think any family
should ever have to go through that. It is an experience I will never
forget.
Second, our plan allows Medicare to finally negotiate fair prices for
prescription drugs. I listened to the Republican leader on the floor
this morning talking about what a terrible idea that is.
Well, I just want to suggest to him, we have been doing that at the
Veterans' Administration for years. They have been negotiating
pharmaceutical prices so that our veterans get affordable drugs and
taxpayers get a break and don't have to subsidize them. That, to me, is
just common sense, and it is humane. The notion that we are going to
extend that to Medicare recipients is not a radical idea. It involves
something that we think is fundamental to the free market economy:
competition. If these pharmaceutical companies want to sell their drugs
to the Medicare recipients, we say to them, let's negotiate, on a
certain number of those drugs, reasonable prices.
Now, some people say that is too much government, government stepping
in there and trying to establish the prices that will be paid for these
pharmaceuticals.
Well, I would say to the same pharmaceutical companies that are
raising these objections: Look what you are doing today in Canada. You
take exactly the same drug made here in the United States, sold to
Americans at an inflated price, and sell it at a deep discount to
people living in Canada. Why do you do it? Is it out of the kindness of
your heart? No. The Canadian Government stood up and said you are not
going to gouge Canadian families. Yes, we would like to have your
pharmaceuticals and, yes, we will put them in our formulary, but you
cannot dictate the prices to us. We are going to negotiate those
prices. And the pharmaceutical companies sat down and did it--not just
in Canada but in Europe.
When you say the same thing in the United States, that they treat
Americans and those under Medicare the way they treat Canadians, you
have the Senator from Kentucky coming to the floor and calling it a
college sophomore socialist answer. I don't think so. I think it is
just common sense.
These pharmaceutical companies are some of the most profitable
companies in the United States year in and year out. They make money
hand over fist. And I am glad they do, in many respects, because they
can invest that money in the next generation of drugs.
You say to yourself: Wait a minute. If you are going to give them
less for the product, they will have less for research. Not necessarily
because there is something that you ought to remember that I think is
very important. I want to make sure I get these figures right. The big
pharmaceutical companies today spend more on advertising than on
research.
Let me give you a couple of examples. Bayer, one of the makers of
Xarelto--you have heard that one, haven't you, on TV--spent $18 billion
on sales and marketing, $18 billion. How much did they spend on
research for new drugs and new products? Eight billion. More than twice
as much of the research budget went to be spent on marketing and
television advertising.
Incidentally, the United States is only one of two nations in the
world that allows direct-to-consumer drug advertising. The other one is
New Zealand, if you can imagine. They put all this money on television
advertising drugs like Xarelto. Why? So that people say: Wait a minute.
Maybe that is what I have needed all along. I have to write down that
name. How do you spell ``Xarelto?'' They get it right, finally, because
ads keep coming on hour after hour on television, and they go to the
doctor and say: I need Xarelto.
The doctor may have second thoughts about whether that is a good
drug, but he doesn't have a lot of time for each patient. He is not
going to debate his customers. He ends up writing a script for a high-
priced drug like Xarelto, and Bayer makes more money.
They are not the only ones. Johnson & Johnson--that is a pretty well-
known company. They spent $22 billion on sales and marketing. How much,
if they spent $22 billion on sales and marketing, did they spend on
research? Twelve--twelve. Do you see a pattern here?
[[Page S4057]]
To be fair, not all of pharma's big bucks go into TV ads. Over the
past 5 years, the 14 largest drug corporations spent more on stock
buybacks lining the pockets of their CEOs than on R&D. Remember what I
just said. They took their profits, turned them into stock buybacks so
that the wealthiest people in America got a better balance sheet. Money
that could have gone into research for new drugs, they diverted into
profit-taking. So this notion about saying that Medicare should be able
to negotiate more competitive and fairly priced drugs is not
unreasonable, and it isn't going to stop research. We know that.
Can I add one other element to this? Each of these pharmaceutical
companies has a benefactor, a major benefactor. Think of it. It is an
Agency that generates research by the billions each year, and the
product of that research--which is a suggestion for new drugs, for
example--is literally given to the pharmaceutical industry to use and
make a profit. What is that Agency? The National Institutes of Health.
It does the basic research by the Federal Government, paid for by
American taxpayers--billions of dollars--and makes it available to
pharmaceutical companies to develop the next generations of drugs. That
is as it should be. But this notion that the pharmaceutical companies
are just making it on their own and their own skills goes way beyond
the obvious. NIH is helping very much.
We want to cut healthcare costs to make sure as well that seniors cap
their out-of-pocket prescription drug costs at $2,000 a year, and
$2,000 a year is still a sacrifice for many seniors, but it is a
reasonable amount. We know what is happening now. Many seniors have
drugs that they are supposed to be taking. They can't afford to fill
the prescriptions or they take half the dose when they should be taking
a full dosage. That is the reality of the prescription drug pricing in
America.
Is it a serious problem? Well, just ask Blue Cross Blue Shield in
Chicago, and I have: What is the impact of these inflated prescription
drug prices on healthcare premiums? Blue Cross Blue Shield said to me
that it is the No. 1 driver of increased health insurance premium
costs, the cost of prescription drugs.
So when we start bringing down these costs, we are also going to
create a situation where we have less incentive to increase premiums
for health insurance.
Fourth, we penalize drug companies if they try to increase the price
of the drug more than the rate of inflation. That was another on the
list of sophomore in college socialist ideas, according to the
Republican leader on the floor this morning. Well, I think he is wrong.
We know what happens to the price of these drugs year in and year out.
They just don't go up with the cost of inflation, they go up by
multiples that reach the point people can't afford to pay it. That has
to come to an end.
Five years ago, Republicans used this same process we are using
called reconciliation to pass a nearly $2 trillion tax bill that
overwhelmingly benefited big corporations and the wealthiest people in
America, and they put the whole boondoggle on the credit card. It was
unpaid for--tax cuts unpaid for. They claimed their tax cuts would pay
for themselves. Dynamic scoring, they called it. Instead, they blew up
the national debt.
Our plan is paid for, and here is the bottom line: No one in
America--no one earning less than $400,000 a year--is seeing any
increase in their taxes. Now, the Republicans say: Well, if you raise
taxes on the wealthiest people, it is going to hurt the poorest people.
When it gets right down to it, many of these corporations are extremely
profitable--a billion dollars a year in profits and pay no Federal
taxes. What is wrong with this picture?
The average American family is paying their taxes, as the law
requires, and yet these corporations have found an escape hatch to
avoid paying any taxes whatsoever. If they pay any taxes, they are
going to hurt the poor families. The poor families are doing their part
to pay their taxes. It is time these wealthy individuals and
corporations did the same.
Instead of adding to the national debt, as our Republican colleagues
did with their tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, our proposal
that we will vote on today will reduce the deficit by $300 billion.
That is on top of the $1.7 trillion we have already cut from the
deficit this year. Cutting the deficit reduces inflation pressure in
the long run. In the short term, we are fighting inflation by lowering
the cost of energy and healthcare, two of the biggest ticket items in
family budgets.
And lastly, Senator McConnell and our Republican colleagues seem to
have developed a great respect for the economic wisdom of former
Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. I can't tell you how many times
Senator McConnell has mentioned Larry Summers' name as if he is the
great leader of all the great thinkers in the economics field in
America. Let me tell you what Mr. Summers happens to say about our plan
that we are going to vote for today and that all the Republicans are
going to oppose. He said:
This bill is fighting inflation.
He also said:
This is an easy bill to get behind.
I didn't hear that this morning when Senator McConnell came to the
floor and talked about his view of this bill. Larry Summers was his
expert previously. Now he is ignoring when Summers says we ought to
vote for this bill to reduce inflation.
Do our Republican friends really want to tame inflation and help
families with energy and healthcare or just come to the floor and
complain? That is the choice they have. If they want to help, we have a
plan. It is fair; it is paid for; it fights inflation; and it lowers
the deficit. Wouldn't it be great if they would join us in a bipartisan
effort to pass this at this moment in history? It is what America is
waiting for and looking for. I hope that a number of Republicans will
surprise us and join us.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
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