Department Of Defense Appropriations Act, 2010
Floor Speech
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Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I agree with my friend and colleague from Minnesota, there shouldn't be a delay in funding our troops. I do find odd the urgency of the bill that has come to us a week before Christmas, something we passed out of here months ago.
I know that history has shown and certainly the Members who are part of the Republican side of the aisle have shown constantly that we care deeply about our troops and want to make sure they are funded. But the fact that this bill has come up at this time just demonstrates the tremendous hypocrisy with regard to what is happening as this sausage is being made in the majority leader's office on this health care bill.
The reason I speak to that is this is must-pass legislation. The Senator from Minnesota--as we all do--wants to see this passed. And all of us know this will pass. But I want to point out that in this bill, there is $1.2 billion in money to go to physicians so that their pay will not be cut.
What this bill does is just point out again the tremendous fallacies of the process taking place beyond the ultimate passage of this bill, and that is the health care bill we have been discussing now for months and months. The fact is, we are taking $464 billion out of Medicare if this bill passes and we are using that money to leverage a whole new entitlement program. The fact is, we are not dealing with the physician pay cuts, which we all know are looming. We all know there is $250 billion worth of cuts that will take place in physician pay over the next 10 years. We know this bill does not deal with that. Yet, somehow or other, on this Defense appropriations bill, we are dealing with that for a few months because everybody in the world who can wake up and put one foot in front of the other knows that right after this health care bill passes, in the name of being budget neutral--again, using all the gimmicks the Senator from Maine just talked about a minute ago; using 6 years' worth of cost and 10 years' worth of revenue; taking money from an insolvent program to create another program that will become insolvent over time--what it doesn't deal with is the SGR and the doc fix.
So what will happen is the majority leader, the chairman of the Finance Committee will come forth with a bill--right after this passes, I am sure, ironically--and pass another $250 billion or try to pass another $250 billion piece of legislation, unpaid for, just so that we can say--so that you can say--so that they can say that, in fact, a piece of health care legislation passed that was budget neutral.
Mr. President, I have to tell you, I came from a world where we focused more on results, and the process really wasn't much a part of it. But in this body, with 100 Senators and 435 House Members on the other side of the building, process matters some. It matters because it really keeps each of us feeling, hopefully, if we have the right process, that there is integrity in what is happening.
I think between the way this body and my friends on the other side of the aisle have used the CBO office and 6 years' worth of cost and 10 years' worth of revenues and all this to make it look as if this bill is budget neutral, yet knowing we haven't dealt with this very important aspect, it points to one part of this process. The fact that in the morning the majority leader is going to lay down about a 300-page amendment--one I haven't seen yet--that a few people working in close quarters developed--and I don't know if the Acting President pro tempore has seen this piece of legislation--and then he will file cloture on an amendment with 300 pages worth of changes, which I understand are going to be fairly important changes, without our having the ability to amend this legislation, to me, is pretty incredible. This is an important piece of legislation. It is going to affect every American in this country.
I was talking with some of my colleagues earlier today--and I know the Senator from South Dakota has been very concerned about the provisions of this bill--and Senator Thune pointed out the other day, as the Senator from Maine did, about the taxes that start in 2 weeks and the benefits starting in 4 years, mostly. I know there are some benefits that start on the front end. But what my friends on the other side of the aisle were saying is that once this bill passes, that is just the beginning. There will have to be multiple changes over the next 4 years to actually cause this bill to work. This points to the fact that this is about a political victory.
I guess I would ask my friend from South Dakota, if we were going to pass a landmark piece of legislation and do so in a way that would stand the test of time, wouldn't you think we would vote on more than seven amendments? Wouldn't you think we would actually debate the bill in a real way and try to work out these difficulties in advance?
Again, just a few hours ago, my friends were telling me we are just going to try to pass this thing, then we are going to try to fix it over the next 4 years before all these problems hit Americans throughout our country, because what we are really doing on the front end is just collecting a lot of money. That is what we are doing to make this budget neutral. And then the real changes to the health care system take effect over time. We know we have problems, but we will fix those down the road. That is not exactly a process that I think passes muster with most people back home.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, would the Senator yield?
Mr. CORKER. I would love to hear from the Senator from South Dakota as to what he thinks about this type of process.
Mr. THUNE. If I might, through the Chair, Mr. President, ask a question of the Senator from Tennessee, if he will yield, because he is absolutely right. This is being rushed. This is a massive reordering and restructuring of one-sixth of our economy, which we are going to be expected to vote upon in just a few days, on a managers' amendment which will be the so-called latest deal struck behind closed doors, as the Senator mentioned. We are going to be expected to vote upon that without having seen it today. In fact, I don't think any of our colleagues on the other side, or very few of them, have seen it, nor have the American people.
I have listened as the other side has gotten up here today with all these statements of outrage and that it is insulting, it is unconscionable that this side would be holding up funding for the troops, and what strikes me about that is the deadline for passing the appropriations bills is September 30. I think that feigned outrage is all about a bigger, grand sort of cynical plan at work here to try to push this health care bill through.
But would the Senator from Tennessee be able to answer a question regarding this. The Defense appropriations bill passed the House last summer. It passed the Senate in October, I think October 6. So we are talking 8, 9, 10 weeks ago now. Clearly, the Democratic majority's clock management is either very bad or this was part of some big, grand plan to push this thing to the very end and to jam this thing through, to try to set it up so that the health care bill could be passed right before the Christmas holiday without the American people having had an opportunity to see it, and the Defense appropriations bill, which carries a bunch of other unrelated items, would pass as well.
Does it seem a little odd and coincidental to the Senator from Tennessee that you would be debating the Defense appropriations bill right now when it could have been done weeks ago, if not months ago? In fact, these bills are supposed to be done by September 30, which is the end of the fiscal year.
Mr. CORKER. I do think it is odd. As my colleague knows, I think the two of us--all three of us on the Senate floor on our side of the aisle signed a letter to the Appropriations Committee and to the leader of the Senate asking that these be taken up one at a time so we would be finished with this work by the time the fiscal year ended. So it is ironic.
Let me tell you the purpose, in my opinion. I certainly do not know all the inner workings of what is happening on this floor in the Senate. But this is sort of a filibuster. In other words, there is a segment where we discuss this must-pass piece of legislation, where some things can be added in that have not been dealt with that are unrelated--unrelated to defense but also 1,720 earmarks, many of which are mighty suspect. But this is a filibuster, in my opinion, where during this period of time we can be drafting, or the majority leader can be drafting what I would call the ``bad actors amendment.''
What I mean by that is, if you have had opposition to the health care bill, which is the real issue we are going to be dealing with over the next few days, if you have had some trouble with the bill, then you can go in and get some niceties.
For instance, I am sure if I decided I was going to support this bill, the health care bill--which I am not--I am sure there are all kinds of things that might spring up in Tennessee as a part of this health care legislation to make it so that the bill was more suitable, if you will, to the people of Tennessee and to me myself. My guess is this managers' amendment is going to be quite interesting to read. I look forward to seeing the details because my guess is it not only will fix technical issues, but my guess is it will also fix some wants and needs of some people who might otherwise have difficulty supporting this legislation. So, yes, I think this Defense appropriations bill--give it a little time for this to germinate. We will have a chance to see that tomorrow for the first time when cloture is filed on it--as I understand, no debate, no amendments. I think it is a shame the Senate has gotten to the point where this is the type of process that is in place.
I understand my time may be up. If not, I would love to yield to the Senator from South Dakota.
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