Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act Of 2009--Motion To Proceed
Floor Speech
SERVICE MEMBERS HOME OWNERSHIP TAX ACT OF 2009--MOTION TO PROCEED -- (Senate - November 21, 2009)
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Mr. BOND. Madam President, I thank the Senator from New Hampshire. I wish to clarify some things he said because they are truly important. I wish to make sure everybody understands it because Senator Gregg, in his position on the Budget Committee, as well as his other positions in writing this bill, is intimately acquainted with the costs of this bill.
The cost for 2010 to 2019, how much was the cost for that 10-year period?
Mr. GREGG. That is $1.2 trillion because between the period 2010 and 2014, there are no expenditures because they don't start the programs until 2014.
Mr. BOND. Is this the total expenditure or are these just the expenditures that are not covered after 2014, that are not covered by the so-called tax or revenue raisers? In other words, does this all go onto the debt?
Mr. GREGG. No, those are total expenditures which are represented to be offset by cuts in Medicare, increased fees, and increased taxes.
Mr. BOND. Cuts in Medicare. How much are the cuts in Medicare?
Mr. GREGG. When fully phased in, in the 10-year period, 2014 to 2023, the Medicare cuts are $1.1 trillion.
Mr. BOND. Madam President, $1.1 trillion cuts in Medicare. How much are the taxes and the other ``revenue raisers'' in that period?
Mr. GREGG. The taxes and fees during that period--this period, when it is fully phased in--are approximately $1.5 trillion.
Mr. BOND. So how much will go onto the debt? How much is uncovered?
Mr. GREGG. Actually, if you accept these assumptions that we are going to cut Medicare by $1 trillion and take that to create a new entitlement instead of using it to help Medicare be more solvent and then we are going to raise taxes and fees by $1 trillion--remember, most of this is not going to come out of the wealthy. It is going to come out of small businesses and higher premium costs to people on insurance or it is going to come out of HI taxes. If you accept that logic, which I find to be a bit of a reach, then it will not have any impact on the deficit in that timeframe because they have cut Medicare to pay for it, and they have raised all these taxes to pay for it.
Mr. BOND. My friend has been very active in the Budget Committee. How many times have we cut Medicare, have we allowed Medicare cuts to go into effect? I think that is a rather rare occurrence, isn't it?
Mr. GREGG. That is a fascinating question because I was chairman of the Budget Committee the last time we tried to do something in the area of the rate of Medicare costs because we received a directive from the Medicare trustees that Medicare had to be made more cost-effective or else it was going to go broke. So we suggested, when I was chairman of the Budget Committee--and everybody in this room voted for it, by the way--that we should reduce the rate of growth of Medicare by $10 billion on a $1 million timeframe. In other words, Medicare was going to spend $1 trillion over a period, 5 years. We were going to suggest a $10 billion reduction in that rate of growth which was going to be paid for by requiring people who were getting Part D premiums and had high income to pay for part of their premiums--people such as Warren Buffett would not be subsidized by people working down at the local restaurant.
We did not get one vote from the other side of the aisle. We passed it by having the Vice President sit in the chair and break the tie. That was $10 billion over 5 years.
So I think this idea that you are going to do $1 trillion over 10 years and pay for this--first off, if you are going to reduce spending or raise Medicare taxes, it should go to pay for Medicare solvency because Medicare is insolvent. It shouldn't go to create a new entitlement. Senior citizens, paying into Medicare all their lives, should not have their money taken to start a brand-new entitlement for other people, and that is what this bill does.
As a practical matter, we are not going to do that. We know that. We know this is all going on the debt. Ninety percent of this is going to end up on the debt.
Mr. BOND. I thank my colleague from New Hampshire because he has been a very solid, consistent, credible voice. What he is pointing out today is that the legislation we are debating has major implications for every American family, every American taxpayer, every American small business.
In the 1992 election, President Clinton's famous slogan was: ``It's the economy, stupid.'' Seventeen years later, it is again the economy that is a major issue facing the people. But this time the majority party does not seem to be paying attention. Instead, the majority has used its supermajority position to spend trillions of dollars that we don't have, including a misnamed stimulus that stimulated the growth of the deficit and the Federal Government but not jobs. We had takeovers and bailouts of banks, insurance companies, and major auto manufacturers. They have adopted a budget that would double the debt--the debt our grandchildren owe--in 5 years and triple it in 10.
It is little wonder that the unemployment rate has skyrocketed, because employers are afraid to hire. Families are seeing their budgets strapped such as never before. But the bill before us is a crowning achievement of the drive to destroy our economy and hope for the future.
Just 1 year after a narrowly averted financial collapse, with unemployment at its highest level since 1983, instead of how to create jobs, we are debating a bill that will take over one-sixth of our economy and likely kill jobs.
Don't get me wrong, our health care system is in need of reform. It costs too much, too many people are uninsured, there are too many junk lawsuits and too much defensive medicine and not enough focus on prevention and wellness.
While we all agree reform is necessary, the American people expect us to answer the questions: How much will reform cost and can we afford it? Will it lower health care costs? Can you keep your current plan? What role will the government play?
The answer to two and three on this bill is: No, it will not lower our health care costs; no, you will not be able to keep your current plan.
Then the question is: Who will make health care decisions? We are seeing evidence that they have government committees that say when you can get a mammogram, when you should get Pap screening.
Will Americans and Members of Congress have time to evaluate what is in the legislation? We hope today, as yesterday, that we will bring out for the American people the cost of this bill because what we are seeing in this massive pot, 2,047 pages, is there is a lack of commonsense reform. It is filled with costly budget gimmicks and asks the people of America to spend over $2 trillion on proposals that will heap a mountain of debt on our children and grandchildren.
Two trillion dollars is an almost unfathomable amount of money. But in Washington, trillion is the new billion, and that is not the kind of health care reform Americans want. It is not reform at all. It spends too much, it taxes too much and it cuts Medicare too much and does not provide reforms we need. Nearly $ 1/2 trillion in taxes will be added on the backs of the American people, $28 billion in taxes on businesses, which will kill jobs at a time when we have over 10 percent unemployment and even higher if you include the number of people who are no longer working or underemployed. These higher costs will ultimately be passed on to American workers and consumers.
Anybody who thinks you are going to tax health care insurers, device providers and expect that those costs will not be passed on to the consumers--that is you and me, Madam President. The head of the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation have said these higher taxes are passed along, and they will land on families, small businesses, and individuals.
It will also force Americans into a government-run health care plan. It will ration care and limit access to lifesaving treatments and put a bureaucrat between you and your doctor. In life, two things you can count on are said to be death and taxes. I didn't expect to see them both in a health care reform proposal.
We call this a pig in a poke. The only way to sell a pig in a poke is to hide from Americans what their tax dollars are buying. If I were to outline all the problems in this 2,000-page bill, we would be here until Thanksgiving. It is sort of like a mosquito in a nudist colony--there are so many targets to attack in this bill we don't know which one to hit.
Let me give you just a few. As the Senator from New Hampshire pointed out, the real cost of this bill to the American people is a whole lot more than they admit. The majority is claiming that the bill only costs $850 billion, but the way the majority gets to say that is because they are pulling a great smoke-and-mirrors trick.
Even more incredible is the Democrats' claim their bill will cut the deficit. It is a great scheme, but no one outside Washington actually believes this health care bill will do anything but increase costs and pile more debt on our kids and grandkids, and they are right.
Right now, as the ranking member of the Budget Committee has pointed out, the national debt already exceeds $12 trillion. This bill will put more on that. The true cost of the bill is not just a ``he said, she said.'' Even the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office acknowledges that the majority's bill includes gimmicks that hide the true cost of the bill.
Part of the majority's scheme to hide from Americans the true cost is the great stunt, as the Senator from New Hampshire described, to push back implementation of parts of the reform to 2014 but start collecting money in taxes now. That means tax now and pay later. That sure makes your numbers look good, doesn't it?
For example, Medicaid expansion does not begin until 2014. That is in section 2001. Section 1311 says health insurance exchanges are not fully operational until January 2014. Section 1323 says a public health insurance option is not available until 2014. Most of the major insurance reforms, however, in section 1253 take effect in 2014.
The tax on health insurance starts in 2010. That is section 9010. Section 9009 says the tax on medical devices starts in 2010. Section 9008 says the tax on pharmaceutical manufacturing starts in 2010. That is even worse than the Senate Finance Committee bill which initially had it starting in 2013, but it is a great gimmick to allow them to hide the cost of the bill. Claiming savings of $122 billion by recording taxes over 10 years and only scoring costs over 6 years would get an officer in a publicly traded corporation sent to jail. Move over, Bernie Madoff. Tip your hat to a trillion-dollar scam. This is magnificent, and that is in this bill. I am glad all Americans can read it. They can check out the sections I cited.
Even the Congressional Budget Office has called ``bull'' on this stunt, saying it would be difficult to maintain the savings the majority has been touting. No wonder. And the true cost, as the Senator from New Hampshire has pointed out, is $2.5 trillion. But it will also be increasing taxes. In fact, everyone will be taxed one way or another. Forget what the President promised about no taxes. Sections 9004 and 9010 will tax Americans who have insurance. Section 1501 will tax Americans who do not have insurance--almost $8 billion. Taxes will be placed on medical device manufacturers, section 9009; and as the CBO has said, those taxes will be passed on in the form of higher prices and thus in the form of higher insurance premiums.
Because of the tax on health insurers, section 9010, the CBO and the Joint Committee have said these taxes will be passed on in the form of higher health care premiums. Pricewater-houseCoopers says that is $487 a year per family. That is how much these taxes on the health insurers and health payment plans will cost the average family.
Employers will be taxed. About $2 billion in new taxes will be placed on employers who do not meet government approved health care plans. That is section 1513. That is where American workers are going to pay for it because that is where they lose their jobs. Headlines in the Wall Street Journal and letters I have seen from leaders of businesses say we are not expanding; we cannot afford to expand; we cannot afford to take on more employees.
Why are we having a jobless recovery? Because the threats of Washington's overspending, overcontrolling, overtaxing, and overregulating are telling prospective employers that they are about to hit the ditch with all the things the Government is putting on them.
For all of the taxes and mandates, according to CBO, about 5 million Americans would lose their employer coverage. That is because the costs would go up, the regulations would go up. Currently, 83 percent of Americans have health insurance, and they are concerned that it costs too much. Americans want affordable health care, but this bill raises the cost of health care. New taxes and mandates will be passed on to American families, the American taxpayers, and American small businesses.
The bill still leaves 24 million Americans without insurance. According to the CBO, the government-run plan will have higher premiums, and the CBO said it will drive up the cost of health care. This was supposed to lower the cost of health care. It will not do anything of the kind.
To sum up, $2 trillion in more spending gets the American taxpayer, in the 2,074 pages, a Federal bureaucracy that increases the cost of health care, raises premiums, slashes Medicare for seniors, and puts unfunded burdens on States.
Let me just make two last points: The States, according to CBO, will get coverage for these new Medicaid eligibles for the 2 years that they will get covered and then they will dump it on the States--$25 billion. There is a $25 billion cost.
The Senator from New Hampshire and I were both Governors of our States. I can tell you, States do not need that kind of burden, particularly in their difficult circumstances.
Slashing Medicare for seniors? In Missouri, Medicare already only pays 80 percent of the costs. More and more hospitals and doctors have to limit the number of Medicare patients they can accept. If we continue, and if they push through this Medicare cut, then fewer and fewer Medicare patients are going to be able to get health care.
I hope my colleagues will listen to what the American people are telling us and vote against the bill. That is certainly the message I am getting from Missouri.
I yield the floor.
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