FAIRNESS IN ASBESTOS INJURY RESOLUTION ACT OF 2005--Resumed
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I want to speak. We are debating a budget point of order. People in America are thinking this is some kind of a technical jargon that Senators are using. What does it mean?
A budget point of order is a parliamentary rule that can be used to make sure that the Senate carefully weighs whether we are putting undue burdens and obligations on future Congresses, which obviously means to future generations of Americans.
We are raising--and I have raised--this budget point of order today. I will be the first one to admit, it is a very technical budget point of order. But let me explain the reasons I believe it is a real budget point of order in its effect, stopping huge obligations by this Government in the future.
In the wisdom, I believe, of the Senate in last year's budget, we put in a budget point of order that would say beyond 10 years, if there is spending of more than $5 billion obligated, a bill would be subject to a budget point of order. It is because it had become practice around here to make things kind of ramp up, and, then, in the future spend the money so it did not look as though we were spending money now. It looked as though things were either budget neutral or had very little impact on the budget.
I said the other day on this very floor, talking about what is going to happen with Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, as the baby boomers retire in this country, it is a serious problem we are facing. If there is a problem with this trust fund--which many people believe there will be a huge problem with this trust fund, that it will be grossly underfunded--if the problem ends up coming back to the taxpayer, it will happen at a time when the baby boomers are starting to retire.
I know the Presiding Officer from South Carolina is one of the most fiscally responsible people in this body. I have followed his short record in the Senate and know how passionate he is about our entitlement programs. I feel the same way he does. But with that looming problem of the baby boomers coming up, the last thing we can afford to do is to enact a bill that potentially could have a major impact--literally, maybe with a number in the hundreds of billions of dollars--that could have a drain on our Government.
The Senator from Pennsylvania says there are no Federal revenues at stake here, the trust fund does not allow for that. Here is why I think it is a real budget point of order. I have been around this place long enough--I have only been here in the Senate 5 years, and in the House before that 4 years, but that is long enough to see how this town works. The Congress is creating this trust fund. If this trust fund runs out of money and there are still victims around, the people in this very body will stand up and say: Congress created the problem, Congress needs to fix the problem. Everybody will join in because there will be victims and people will have posters of victims out there. And there are real victims, people who are suffering, people who are not getting the help they need today. That is why I believe this is a real budget point of order because I think the Congress will act and will give the money to supplement the trust fund. It will not be their money; it will be the taxpayers' money. But they will give the money.
Now, I have heard a lot of people come down here and say why there is a problem. The fact is, we have a broken legal system that needs to be fixed. The trial lawyers in this country have discovered these class action lawsuits: Bring your Rolodex in and we will see who we can sue. And so many people who are not victims are clogging up the courts, who I believe are led there by unscrupulous lawyers. It is blocking real victims from receiving compensation.
It has been said that many businesses have gone out of business. The chairman of the Judiciary Committee has argued one of the reasons we need the trust fund is because a lot of businesses have gone out of business so there is nobody left to sue. Why did they go out of business in the first place? It is because of frivolous lawsuits, having to spend millions and millions of dollars defending themselves. In a lot of these cases, the businesses had nothing to do with asbestos.
I remember this one company that came in to visit me. They were an insurance company thinking of getting into insuring folks in the asbestos field. So they did a study. They came to the conclusion it was too risky, and they decided not to go into that business. I forget the exact figure, but I know since that time they have paid hundreds of millions of dollars out defending themselves because they did not release the study.
This was their own internal document they used to decide whether they were going to go into a certain business. But because they did not release the study, trial lawyers brought them in to the courts and sued them. In many cases, it is cheaper to settle than it is to defend yourself in court. So they paid out umpteen millions of dollars.
The problem with that is insurance companies are a passthrough. Americans are paying the bills. They are just a company that takes in premiums and pays out claims. They are there to make a profit. And if they have to pay things out, they have to raise the premiums, which we all pay.
So we know there is a serious problem. We know it has been caused because of a bad system, and we need to fix the system. I am the first one who wants to stand up here to fix the system. The alliance that has been formed here to try to support this budget point of order is a little strange. There are some fiscal conservatives. There are some people who support the trial lawyers. I have never been exactly claimed by the trial lawyers as being one of their friends, and I feel a little uncomfortable to be in this position, to be honest with you. But I am standing up for this budget point of order because I believe this bill is fiscally irresponsible to the taxpayers into the future.
Now, I want to address one other portion or one other thought no one has addressed on the floor of the Senate. I was in the House of Representatives for 4 years, and there I served on the Ways and Means Committee. The Constitution of the United States says something very clear. It is a very simple writing. That is the beauty of the Constitution, how simple the writing is. Section 7 of article I of the Constitution states:
All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.......
That is a very simple statement. In the letter to the budget chairman, the Congressional Budget Office says:
CBO expects those sums-- talking about the sums for the trust fund-- would be treated in the budget as Federal revenues.
Section 7:
All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.
Any Member of the House of Representatives can raise this constitutional question. I cannot remember a time when somebody raised this constitutional question when the House of Representatives did not support it. It is called a blue slip. I raised one when I was there. It was on the nuclear waste bill that was up. I raised that budget point of order, and that was at a time when the vast majority of House Members supported the nuclear waste bill. Yet they supported me on that blue slip, that constitutional question, because they wanted to protect their rights as a body.
Well, beyond the budget point of order, we may be spinning our wheels because this trust fund raises revenues, and it is the prerogative of the House of Representatives to start a bill like that. So even beyond the budget point of order, we may be wasting our time with this bill because of the trust fund that has been set up.
So I encourage my colleagues, let's sustain this budget point of order and start over. Let's get a good medical criteria bill, work in a bipartisan fashion, get together and limit it.
Let's make sure that victims of asbestosis and mesothelioma are compensated. Let's get rid of all of the phony claims. It will quit clogging up our court system. We won't have all these lawyers getting rich over all these class action lawsuits. We will actually get the victims their just compensation.
If we join together and get something done and quit making partisan political points, I believe the actual victims will be better off, but so will those businesses that are threatened to go out of existence even as we speak.
I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.
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