Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act Of 2009

Floor Speech

Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act Of 2009

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Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to see my friends on the floor again today--very intelligent people, such as the Senator from New Hampshire and my friend, Senator Enzi, who is an expert on this issue, and the rest of us who know that a fight not joined is a fight not enjoyed. I look forward to another spirited discussion with my colleagues.

Maybe if I could, to start with, I will take up a point about the debate and discussion we had yesterday on the floor with the Senator from Montana, the chairman of the committee, where he asked me why did I think that certain groups supported this legislation pending before the Senate. I said I didn't know what kinds of deals had been cut. I referred to the deal made with PhRMA and others. I didn't know exactly why because I am not taken into the discussions and negotiations off the floor in the office of the majority leader.

There seems to have been some blowback on that, and somebody said maybe that wasn't appropriate to talk about deals that were cut. This morning, on the front page of the Washington Post, it says:

Deals Cut with Health Groups May Be at Peril.

Perhaps the Washington Post is impugning the reputation of someone or staffers or others. They have certainly impugned mine from time to time. But the fact is, this is a news story.

Again, I go back, very briefly, because we have a lot to talk about, my colleagues and I. The fact is, there have been deals cut, just like is reported in the Washington Post this morning, as has been reported all over America about the deals cut with various interest groups that don't necessarily represent the people they claim to represent. I know the American Medical Association does not represent the majority of physicians and caregivers. In the State of Arizona, I know too many of them. I also know they have a very large lobbying presence in our Nation's Capitol, as do the other interested groups that have ``cut deals'' that may be at peril now, according to the Washington Post.

With that, I will mention, again, that the doctor is in. Would the doctor care to give us some enlightened information, before we give our various opinions on this issue?

Mr. BARRASSO. I agree with the Senator from Arizona. I looked at another one of his favorite newspapers, the New York Times, today because we--

Mr. McCAIN. My absolute favorite.

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Mr. McCAIN. May I say in the immortal words of Howard Dean, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee--he put it simply:

The reason why tort reform is not in the bill--

Talking about this bill--

The reason why tort reform is not in the bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everybody else they were taking on, and that is the plain and simple truth. Now, that's the truth.

I totally agree with Howard Dean. I could not agree with him more.

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Mr. McCAIN. Our Republican leader is here on the floor of the Senate, and he can speak for himself, but I am sure he would appreciate the opportunity if the President would come and sit down and meet with us. I think we are all ready to have a meeting with him. Perhaps we would be able to give our input and recommendations as to what we need to do to get this bill unstuck.

That was, as I recall, the campaign. And I am getting tired of going down memory lane here, but that was going to be the ``change.'' That was going to be the change in Washington. We are going to change the climate. We are all going to sit down together, Republicans and Democrats. Well, I think on this Sunday afternoon, we are all available, are we not, I would ask the Senator from Kentucky?

Mr. McCONNELL. I would say to my friend from Arizona, normally we would be watching the Redskins game today, but we are here and ready to sit down with the President and ready to discuss with the American people this issue.

You know, it was said at the beginning of the debate, if they wanted to come up with a bill that would pass with 80 votes, the way to do that is not to craft a bill that no Republican can support and end up in the position they are in now, trying to get every single Democrat in line so they can pass this bill, even though they know the American people are overwhelmingly opposed to it. All the surveys indicate the American people do not want us to pass this bill. They would like for us to stop, start over, and get it right, with some of the suggestions that have been made here on the floor today and other days during this debate.

Mr. McCAIN. And we could do that, perhaps in the most effective fashion, if we sat down with the President and made some of the very points he made in his State of the Union Message.

I want to turn to the Senator from South Dakota, but I want to mention something first on this issue of tort reform I have never quite gotten over. One of the most famous cases of the 1970s, and I think it spilled over into the 1980s, was agent orange, the defoliant that was used during the Vietnam war and which caused so many physical problems for our Vietnam veterans who were exposed to it. It was a big class action suit the trial lawyers won. The trial lawyers got paid off first, and Vietnam veterans died before the money was distributed to them. I will never get over that.

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