Transportation, Housing And Urban Development, And Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010 - Conference Report

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I know we have moved to the Omnibus appropriations bill to continue government, and the time is running out for the current authorization bill, and this brings us back to the authorization of spending, but it also takes us away from health care reform.

On this side of the aisle, we have been waiting for a long period of time to vote on some amendments that are now before the Senate, such as the Crapo motion which would send the bill back to committee to take out the tax increases that are in it. Then we also have the Dorgan amendment. I can understand why maybe the majority does not want to vote on Republican amendments, but I sure don't understand why they would object to voting on Senator Dorgan's amendment, a Democratic amendment, because there have always been more Democrats than Republicans for the Dorgan amendment, and quite frankly, I am in a position where I agree with that amendment. I am a cosponsor of it. I think we would have a great deal of bipartisan support for the Dorgan amendment. But now we are just automatically away from the health care debate and those amendments.

So I am wondering why we had to do this appropriations bill right now. I think there is growing realization that maybe public reaction, negative reaction to the legislation before us--remember that 2,074-page bill that is before us--the public is getting wise to what is in that bill and there is objection to it, and maybe now the majority party would like to have a little respite from that debate. So I thought I would come back to not the substance of the health care reform bill debate but to a lot of organizations that oppose it and why they oppose it, just to keep the public's attention that we on this side of the aisle feel the health care issue is very important.

As I travel around Iowa, I hear a lot of concern about out-of-control government spending. People are worried about all of the bailouts, the banks, and the automakers, the automakers such as General Motors being nationalized. They are worried about the rising rate of unemployment, which is 10 percent now. They don't see how we will ever dig ourselves out of the deficit hole we are in, a deficit that has been increased by $1.3 trillion since President Obama's inauguration.

As Senator McCain just pointed out, the bill that has now come before the Senate to fully fund the Federal Government has 12.5-percent increases in it. From that standpoint, it seems to me we are getting away from a commonsense principle that we ought to use around here on spending, and that is that spending shouldn't eat up any more than the economic growth of the tax base that is coming into the Federal Treasury to support that spending. Quite obviously, you can't have 12.5 percent increases in appropriations this year over last year, and last year was 9 percent over the previous year. You just can't sustain that. Common sense dictates against it. But what rules here in Washington is just a lot of nonsense.

So our constituents are confused. They are confused as to why, in the face of all these fiscal problems, some in Congress are now proposing $500 billion in tax increases. Tax increases are very bad for the economy. It is more difficult to get out of the recession as you increase expenditures. They don't understand why some are proposing the largest Medicaid expansion since the program's creation. They want to know why they are proposing $500 billion in Medicare cuts to create an entirely new entitlement program that this country can't afford.

Nowhere are these worries and this confusion more evident than among business leaders of America because business is where jobs are created. Government does not produce wealth; government consumes wealth. So if you want to expand the economy, you do it through the private sector. That is where the resources of government come from. That is where the resources that sustain our people come from.

So whether it is a small business owner on Main Street or a CEO on Wall Street, the message is clear: Stop spending, get the economy back on track, and get people back to work.

Unfortunately, the health reform bill will not address any of these goals. In fact, it may just do the opposite. Don't take my word for it. Let's take a look at what the groups that represent American businesses are saying.

Let's start with the Chamber of Commerce representing 3 million American businesses. In a press release distributed November 19, 1 day after the release of the Senate bill, the Chamber called the Senate bill a ``Missed Opportunity to Enact Meaningful Reform.'' That was their title.

Let me go to a specific quote:

This bill still contains a government-run plan and an onerous employer mandate, it taxes working Americans, slashes Medicare, spends over a trillion dollars--and after all this--CBO tells us 24 million Americans will still not have health insurance.

That doesn't sound like the kind of reform that is going to help get the chamber members back on track hiring more workers so we can get this unemployment down. It sounds as though they will end up being forced to pay higher taxes and cut jobs. I am not an economist, but that certainly doesn't sound like a formula for getting this country out of the recession.

In fact, the chamber's press release says:

The Chamber believes the path to a healthier economy is to cut taxes, not to raise them by $500 billion.

They go on to ask a question for which I still can't find an answer:

Why is there still no meaningful medical liability reform? Is currying favor with the trial lawyers worth passing up $50 billion in CBO verified savings?

I think it is pretty clear that the Chamber of Commerce doesn't think this $2.5 trillion bill will cure what ails the U.S. economy.

Let's see what some other business groups have to say. The National Association of Manufacturers put out a press release the same day as the Chamber of Commerce, November 19. The National Association of Manufacturers is the Nation's largest industrial trade association. Their members build the machines that keep America running, so they should know a little bit about how to get our economy running again. Unfortunately, they see Senator Reid's bill as a step in the wrong direction. Like the Chamber and like pretty much every other business group, the National Association of Manufacturers has announced that they cannot support the pending bill.

I find it hard to believe that some Senators who claim to be probusiness can support a bill that is opposed by almost the entire business community--or am I missing something? How can some Democrats who claim to want to get people back to work support a bill that economists from the far right to the far left say will reduce wages and increase unemployment? It just doesn't seem to make sense.

Like other business groups, the National Association of Manufacturers is in favor of reform. Manufacturers realize that we need health reform to lower costs, increase access, and improve quality. But according to their press release, they cannot support a bill that will--this is their quote--``add massive financial burdens to businesses that are already struggling in this recession.'' They go on to express deep concern about huge tax increases that will hurt small business manufacturers, and they are worried that both the so-called public option and the massive Medicaid expansion will just end up shifting more costs and higher premiums to private businesses.

The National Association of Manufacturers ends their press release by saying:

Oppose the majority leader's bill and urge Senators to do the same as it raises costs and ultimately will destroy jobs.

Again, I find myself asking how someone can claim to be probusiness but support a bill that is so strongly opposed by the business community.

Let's take a look at what small businesses have to say. Maybe that is where the answer is. You have to remember that small businesses create 70 percent of the net new jobs in America. In fact, it was Christina Romer, the President's top economic adviser, who said in a recent Webcast that health care reform will ``benefit small business--not burden it.''

Unfortunately, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the voice of small businesses, doesn't seem to agree. After the release of Senator Reid's bill, the National Federation of Independent Businesses said this:

This kind of reform is not what we need to encourage small business to thrive. We oppose the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act due to the amount of new taxes, the creation of new mandates, and the establishment of new entitlement programs.

Like the chamber and the National Association of Manufacturers, small businesses want and need reform, probably more so than even chamber members and the National Association of Manufacturers. But it doesn't sound as though the pending bill actually addresses the problems of small business. In fact, it sounds as though the pending bill simply creates a host of new problems--problems at a time when this country is coming back from the brink of the greatest economic downturn since the Depression.

The National Federation of Independent Businesses goes on to say:

There is no doubt all of these burdens will be paid for on the backs of small businesses.

Over the coming weeks, I am sure some Senators are going to come down here and talk about all of the benefits for small businesses that are in this bill. But in the interest of honest debate, I hope they will at least mention in their remarks that despite all of the so-called benefits, this bill is still opposed by the voices of America's small businesses. It is still opposed by the National Federation of Independent Businesses. I could go on and list about half a dozen other business groups that oppose this bill. The Associated Builders and Contractors, the Independent Electrical Contractors, the International Franchise Association, the National Association of Wholesalers, the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council, and the International Food Service Distribution Association--all of these groups recognize the devastating impact this bill will have on our economy.

We are facing the highest unemployment rate in 26 years. We have already seen the national debt increase by $1.3 trillion since inauguration or per household $11,535. The pending bill misses the mark on business' top priority, and that is lowering costs. Don't take my word for it. The Congressional Budget Office says the Reid bill bends the Federal spending curve further upward by a net of $160 billion between 2010 and 2019.

For these reasons, the pending bill is opposed by these organizations I have quoted: the National Association of Manufacturers, the Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, as well as almost every other business group based in Washington, DC, or maybe, for all I know, they are based in other parts of the country, but they still follow legislation here in this city, in the Congress.

The business community has spoken, and their message is loud and clear. For Senators who want to bend the growth curve down--and that is what we all set out to do, but we don't have a bill before us that does it--this bill is not the answer. For those Senators who want to get people back to work, this bill is not the answer.

For those Senators who want to get this country's economy back on track, this bill is not the answer.

If you support American businesses--and American businesses are what provide the income into the Federal Treasury, whether it is corporate tax or income tax--it seems to me that if you have pride in American businesses and the jobs they create, you cannot support this bill.

I yield the floor.

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, earlier today I explained to my fellow Senators, and hopefully to my friends in the media, that the Reid bill does not provide a net tax cut for Americans. Contrary to the Democrats' claims, that seems to be the situation. They claim there is a net tax cut. I hope I proved earlier today that it does not have a net tax cut. Some Americans are cut, but don't forget that some Americans have increases in taxes. I pointed directly to this data, as prepared by the Joint Committee on Taxation, to show that a group of middle-income taxpayers will see their taxes go up under the Reid bill, and that would be this class of taxpayers right here. I don't disagree with Democrats saying there is $40,786 million of tax cuts, but there are also tax increases for a large share of Americans.

I want to now build on those earlier remarks. As I stated, there is clearly a group of individuals and families who benefit from the government subsidy for health care. However, that group is relatively small. Another much larger group would see their taxes go up. So I want to take a minute to provide some statistics that we pulled from the data of the Joint Committee on Taxation looking at both the winners and the losers under the bill.

For the benefit of the public, the Joint Committee on Taxation is an intellectually honest group of professionals who are nonpartisan, and they give Congress information on the impact of policies we make here in our various committees or as individuals or the Senate as a whole.

According to this professional group, the Joint Committee on Taxation, out of those individuals and families affected by four major tax provisions under the Reid bill, individuals earning more than $50,000 and families earning more than $75,000 would see, on average, their taxes going up. Only individuals with incomes below $50,000 and families with incomes below $75,000 would, on average, see some tax relief on account of receiving subsidies for health insurance.

The data of the Joint Committee on Taxation indicates that in 2019, individuals earning less than $50,000 would, on average, receive tax relief through this subsidy equal to $875. Families earning less than $75,000 would, on average, receive tax relief equal to $2,031 from the subsidy. This so-called tax relief, however, is in the form of an advance refundable tax credit that is delivered directly to the insurance company providing health insurance coverage, not to the individual but signed, sealed, and delivered directly to the insurance company--100 percent of it. I repeat: not to the individual but to the insurance company. Clearly, this group is a winner under the Reid bill. But the same data from the Joint Committee on Taxation indicates that in 2019, individuals earning between $50,000 and $200,000 would, on average, see a tax increase of $593. That is for individuals. Now, let's go to families earning between $75,000 and $200,000. They would, on average, see a tax increase of $670.

So what does all this mean? This means the Reid bill does not cut taxes for all Americans. To the contrary, the Reid bill breaks Obama's promise not to tax individuals making less than $200,000 and families making less than $250,000 a year. And you just can't know how many times President Obama, during his Presidential campaign--whether in debates or in individual appearances when he was a candidate--made it very clear that nobody with under $200,000 a year in income was going to see a tax increase. To the contrary, the Reid bill breaks President Obama's pledge not to tax individuals making less than $200,000, and then a higher figure for families making less than $250,000.

Does the tax relief provided to individuals earning less than $50,000 and families making less than $75,000 represent a tax cut? Generally, no, because based upon the report of the Joint Committee on Taxation, of the $395 billion the government will spend on tax credits for health insurance--or subsidies for health insurance--$288 billion will be refundable, meaning individuals and families who have no tax liability will still receive the full benefit. The Joint Committee on Taxation tells us that the remaining $106 billion will go toward reducing real tax liability.

The Congressional Budget Office classifies a benefit provided to tax filers with no tax liability as government spending, not as a tax decrease. This is compared to a tax benefit that actually will reduce a taxpayer's tax liability. This means the $288 billion of government spending through the Tax Code cannot be considered a true tax reduction.

The Democrats count the $288 billion in government spending when claiming the Reid bill provides a tax cut. And the reason is if the Democrats do not count this government spending as a tax cut, they could not hide the fact that the Reid bill increases taxes.

Bottom line: The Reid bill does not provide a net tax cut. Instead, the bill raises taxes and it raises taxes on individuals and families earning less than $250,000, contrary to Candidate Obama's presentation during the campaign that nobody below that figure would get a tax increase.

Check the data. No one can dispute it. It is right here in these figures. Everybody in the United States is represented by these figures here highlighted. They are the ones who are going to get a tax increase. That is the rest of the story.

I yield the floor.

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, my friends on the other side of the aisle have taken to the floor to make the argument in favor of the Reid bill that it eliminates a so-called hidden tax. What is this so-called hidden tax? The other party argues that there is a hidden health tax that families pay in increased premium costs to cover the costs of caring for the uninsured. In short, when doctors and hospitals provide treatment to the uninsured they are forced to compensate for this ``uncompensated care'' and do so by charging more to private health insurers. The cost of this care that is shifted to the insurers is then passed on to health care consumers in the form of higher health insurance premiums. Unfortunately, this so-called hidden tax is often overstated.

Families USA conducted a study attempting to quantify the cost shift associated with uncompensated care. According to this study, about $43 billion in uncompensated care is shifted to private health insurance which led Families USA to conclude that there is a hidden tax of about $1,100 that families pay in increased premiums. A Kaiser Family Foundation study dissected the Families USA numbers and estimated that the total amount of uncompensated care shifted to private insurers was closer to $11 billion, making the so-called hidden tax around $200 for a family, compared to the $1,100 that Families USA said. Let me give some ground to my friends on the other side and assume that the hidden tax does equal that higher figure, $1,100, as compared to the Kaiser Family Foundation figure of $200.

The Democrats' bill does not get rid of the hidden tax entirely. Actually, this bill makes it worse. How? First, the Democrats' health care reform bill still leaves a large number of Americans uninsured. Specifically, the Reid bill leaves 23 million out of 54 million still without health insurance at the end of this decade, remembering that this bill does not actually take effect until 2014. So between 2014 and at the end of the budget window, we still have 23 million people without health insurance. At best, the reform in this 2,074-page Democratic bill cut the hidden tax in half; in this case, to about $500 for a family.

The Reid bill adds, however, new hidden taxes. These impose $67 billion worth of so-called fees on health insurance companies and self-insured arrangements beginning in 2010. The Congressional Budget Office, the Joint Committee on Taxation, the nonpartisan experts and official congressional scorekeepers have testified that these fees will be passed on to health care consumers.

The Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation have further testified that this will result in higher insurance premiums for all Americans. The actuaries at Oliver-Wyman estimate that the fees imposed on health insurers would add $488 to the cost of the average family health insurance policy. A new hidden tax is also created as a result of the Medicaid expansion and Medicare cuts. The major cost shift in health care derives from the government programs, Medicare and Medicaid, which reimburse providers at rates roughly 20 percent to 40 percent lower than what private providers pay to the same doctors and hospitals.

President Obama understands that paying doctors below market rates leads to a cost shift. After all, in a townhall on health care reform, the President said:

If they're only collecting 80 cents on the dollar, they've got to make it up somewhere, and they end up getting it from people who have private insurance.

The Medicare and Medicaid cost shift will be increased significantly under the Democrats' health care reform bill. According to CBO's estimate, Medicaid will be increased by more than 40 percent, from 35 million to 50 million people by the end of the budget window in 2019. Additionally, the bill includes almost $ 1/2 trillion in Medicare cuts which will result in lower payments to providers.

The actuaries at Milliman Consulting studied the current cost shifting resulting from Medicare and Medicaid underpaying providers and found that this cost shift for Medicare and Medicaid totaled almost $89 billion per year, adding $1,788 to the current family health insurance policy. Increasing the current Medicare and Medicaid cost shift, as a result of this 2,074-page health reform bill before us, would add even more cost to a family health insurance policy.

The easier cost shift to address would be the $1,700 cost shift from defensive medicine. The Democrats do not address cost shift from defensive medicine which Dr. Mark McClellan, former head of CMS, and Daniel Kessler estimated adds $1,700 in additional cost per average family. Addressing this reform alone could save more than covering all of the uninsured.

So you see, the Democrats say their bill will eliminate the so-called hidden tax. My friends seem to come up short on that one. Also, my friends add new hidden taxes that will burden middle-class Americans.

I ask my friends to be transparent when they are talking about getting rid of the hidden tax. The Democratic health reform bill actually makes things worse.

I yield the floor.

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I don't rise to add to what the Senator from New Jersey said. I just wish to take this opportunity to tell him I agree with him, and I appreciate his leadership on this issue over several years--even the years before he came to the Senate.

Often, I am asked in my State, because we can export so much agricultural stuff, if I would vote to open trade with Cuba. I said I am willing to open trade for Cuba when they give political freedom and economic freedom to the people of that country because this dictator has run Cuba into the most impoverished country in the world. Before he took over, they had a very viable middle class and they were a prosperous country.

I stand ready to help the Senator on what he is trying to do in that area.

Mr. MENENDEZ. If the Senator will yield, I thank the distinguished Senator from Iowa for his comments and for the position he has taken over a long period of time. It may not be the easiest, but I believe it is the one that is morally correct. Most important, on that day--which I believe is sooner rather than later--in which Cubans are free, they will remember who stood with them in the midst of this. That will make all the difference in the world. I thank the Senator.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I come to the floor at this point to give some breadth to a statement that was made on the floor earlier today. It was made by my friend, Senator Baucus. I don't take offense to what he said because I sensed a great deal of frustration in his statement. I will read what he said so you know what I am reacting to. The reason I don't take offense to what he said is because he and I have worked so closely together over 10 years, with one or the other of us being chairman of the Finance Committee, that we have such an understanding of each other.

Just prior to the remarks I am going to read, he had spoken positively about Senator Enzi and me. So I want my colleagues to know this statement is not made out of anger that I am going to give a rebuttal to.

Well, we kept working bipartisan--working together, for days and days, hours and hours, and then, fortunately, Mr. President, it got to the point where I'm just calling it as I see it. I can't--I--one of my feelings is I'm too honest about things. And it's--the Republicans started to walk away. They pulled away from the table. They had to leave.

I ask you why? Why did that happen? And the answer is, to be totally fair and above board, is--and above board, is because their leadership asked them to. Their leadership asked them to become disengaged from the process. I know that to be a fact. Why did their leadership ask Republicans to leave and become disengaged from the process? To be totally candid, they wanted to score political points by just attacking this bill. They were not here to help--help be constructive, to find bipartisan solutions. They were for a while, then when the rubber started to meet the road and it came time to try to make some decisions, they left and began to attack--and began to attack.

I wish to take a few minutes to respond to these remarks that I read. It was asserted, through these remarks on the floor, that some Republicans in the so-called Gang of 6 were directed by the Senate Republican leadership to cease participating in bipartisan talks. The Gang of 6 referred to the six bipartisan members of the Senate Finance Committee. On the Democratic side, the members were my friends, three chairmen, including Senator Baucus, Budget Committee chairman; Senator Conrad; and Energy Committee chairman, Senator Bingaman. All are senior members of the Democratic Caucus. On the Republican side, the three members included Senator Snowe, ranking member of the Small Business Committee; Senator Enzi, ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee; and this Senator. Senators Snowe and Enzi are senior Members of the Republican caucus.

Chairman Baucus convened this working group with a singular goal of a bipartisan health care reform bill. We met for several weeks up in the Montana Room of Chairman Baucus's office. I would agree with the way participating Members have described these discussions. They were well informed, thoughtful, provocative, challenging, and frustrating all at the same time. But I would say that in the months we negotiated, there was never once that anyone walked away from the table. There was never once that there were any harsh words.

While we were engaged in those discussions, there was constant pressure from folks outside the room for us to reach a quick deal. That pressure came from the White House, it came from the Democratic leadership, it came from advocacy groups outside, and it came from many media folks covering the day-by-day meetings. To be fair, the Senate Republican leadership was very concerned about some of the directions the policy discussions were taking in the Gang of 6. That concern grew, particularly after the very partisan HELP Committee markup occurred. Senator Hatch left the original Gang of 7 because of the character and result of the HELP Committee markup.

Most important, the Senate Republican leadership was concerned that a bipartisan Finance Committee bill would be co-opted into a partisan floor bill, when the Democratic leadership merged the bills. Senators Snowe, Enzi, and I anticipated that concern.

To be fair to Senator Baucus, as he was negotiating with us, he tried to convince us that we would be very much a part of those merging of the bills. He offered that in good faith. I believe him. I even believe him today saying that. But seeing how neither the HELP Committee nor the Finance Committee was as involved as they should have been in what Senator Reid put together in this 2,074-page bill, I wonder whether Senator Baucus could have, if we had a bipartisan agreement, actually carried out that guarantee.

From the get-go, we Republican members of the Gang of 6, to make sure we were a part of the process that I described, as Senator Baucus told us we would be, asked for assurances from the White House and from the Senate Democratic leadership on the next step in the legislative process, if we, in fact, did arrive at a bipartisan agreement.

I also found that many in the broader group of Republicans, who provided the bipartisan glue for the CHIP bill of 2008, had similar concerns. All Republicans had process concerns, such as where would it go once it left the Senate Finance Committee.

We wanted assurances, and here is what we wanted. The assurances requested boiled down to a good-faith promise that the bipartisan Finance Committee health care bill would not morph into a partisan health care reform bill when Majority Leader Reid merged the two committee bills. We wanted to make sure the bipartisan character of a bipartisan Finance Committee bill was going to be retained through these next steps. To do otherwise would be akin to getting on a bus and not knowing where the bus was going or how much the bus ticket would cost. Assurances were also requested with respect to a conference between the House and Senate. The assurances were similar to assurances requested by Senator Reid and made by the then-majority Republican leadership during the period of 2005 and 2006. The Democratic minority leader, at that time, made these assurances a condition to letting major regular order Finance Committee bills even go to conference.

As an example, take a look at the Congressional Record, and you will see the assurances made by then-Majority Leader Frist to then-Minority Leader Reid. These requests were made repeatedly to the Democratic leadership, publicly and privately, about how the postcommittee action of the bipartisan group would be handled in the merger with the HELP Committee bill. It was a focus of a July 8 lunchtime, face-to-face meeting at the majority leader's office, with Senators Reid, Baucus, Conrad, Bingaman, Snowe, Enzi, and myself. The bottom-line response from Senator Reid at that meeting was he needed 60 votes.

I guess, the implication was, despite the fact that the Democratic caucus contained 60 members then and now, Senator Reid didn't think it was possible to secure the votes of all members of his caucus. A restatement of the reality of the Senate rules was not the assurances the three Republican Senators--this one included--sought from Senator Reid.

Senator Reid, himself, recognized the validity of this request in an August 8 Washington Post article. I ask unanimous consent to have that article printed in the Record.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I will quote, in part, from the article:

The closer these negotiators move to striking a deal, the more fraught the discussions become by issues of trust and political will. Among Republicans, the pressure is especially acute. All three GOP senators fear they will be sidelined once the bill is approved at the committee level, with their names invoked to demonstrate bipartisanship even as they're left with no say over the final product as it is meshed with the Senate health panel's version and then ultimately with the House bill.

Republicans were also worried that the bipartisan product could be lifted into a partisan reconciliation bill. I quote further from that same Post article:

Reid said he already provided the Republicans with some assurances, and added, ``I'll do more if necessary.''

Continuing to quote from the Post article:

He said of GOP concerns, ``I don't blame them.'' And he added that, considering the political realities of the Senate, with its large number of moderate Democrats, health-care reform would have to gain significant bipartisan support to cross the finish line.

President Obama and the Senate Democratic leadership set a deadline of September 15 for the bipartisan Gang of 6 to produce a proposal. If the proposal were not available by then, the President and Senate Democratic leadership made it clear the plug would be pulled on further bipartisan talks.

I point that out because that is very significant. A powerful member of the Senate Democratic leadership, the senior Senator from New York, made it crystal clear the Senate Democratic leadership would pull the plug. That member, who is very smart and articulate, made it as transparent as possible that the September 15 deadline was more important than a bipartisan deal.

I ask you to go back and look at the media reports. The Gang of 6 was unable to reach a deal on contentious issues such as abortion, the individual mandate, and financing issues by White House/Democratic leadership's deadline.

Chairman Baucus had to move forward. I respect the pressure my friend from Montana was under. I have been there myself. But the record needs to be correctly made that the September 15 deadline was not a Republican deadline. It was a deadline imposed by the White House and the Senate Democratic leadership. I might say that wasn't just the GOP deadline--it wasn't a deadline for the Gang of 6 either. I didn't sense, from the three Democratic members, that they agreed with that.

So the Senate Democratic leadership pulled the plug on the talks. Again, go check the public comments and press reports. They pulled the plug. Senator Enzi and I could not agree to the product at that point because of substantive issues that were resolved against us and the failure of the White House or Senate Democratic leadership to deliver on those process assurances that we asked for.

Senator Snowe did have substantive issues resolved sufficiently at the Finance Committee markup so that she could support the bill.

I might note today that I heard Senator Snowe caution the Democrats as she gave them the boost from her vote in the Finance Committee--that was right after the bill passed--she made it clear that her vote for later stages would depend in part on data on the key question of whether the product makes health care more affordable. Her letter to CBO dated December 3 lays out the issues in precision.

At the next stage of the process, the merged-bill stage, all of the Senate Republicans' worst fears were confirmed, but it was especially telling to Senator Enzi and me. My sense is Senator Snowe appreciated it more than any other member of our conference. The bottom line was that the majority leader's merged bill was constructed in such a partisan way that Senator Snowe's input was cast aside.

Let's be clear. Senate Republicans did not set deadlines. Senate Republicans did not threaten to go their own way if the deadlines were not met. Even today, the pending motion from this side of the aisle puts the question to the Senate this way: Take the bill back to the Finance Committee.

As the old saying goes, hindsight is 20/20. As I look back on the process, I make these observations: There was an uncanny disconnect between those inside and outside the room. Many on the outside, mainly from the left side of the political spectrum, seemed to want a reform deal just to have a deal. They did not seem to be that curious about the contents. Perhaps for some of those folks, it was a bit of an imperative to draw on the good will that any President has in the first few months of office.

For those of us in the room--meaning the room where the negotiations were going on--there was a realization that we were tackling, as Chairman Baucus has described it, an extremely complex set of issues. We learned very quickly that closing the loop on the policy issues, let alone finding political consensus, was not easy.

The pressure to close a deal by the July 4 recess was overwhelming. My friend, the chairman, wisely pushed back and said we would get a deal when we reached a bipartisan deal. The Group of 6 was unable to reach a deal on contentious issues such as abortion, individual mandate, and financing issues faced by the White House-Democratic leadership deadline. Chairman Baucus had to move. In my heart, I feel he would rather not have had that sort of pressure or make that decision. But that was not our deadline. It was a deadline imposed by the White House and the Senate Democratic leadership. They pulled the plug on the talks. Go check the public comments and the press reports. They pulled the plug. Senator Enzi and I could not agree to a product at that point because of the substantive issues that were very much involved.

I want to make it very clear, for this Senator, of the three Republicans who were negotiating, kind of in summary, that the Republican leadership, I think, had questions about a lot of things that were going on in those negotiations. But never once did Senator McConnell, my leader, say to me: Get out of there.

That is the impression that was left this morning.

I can only say that I think I have established a reputation in the Senate, particularly while I was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, that I did not listen to either the White House or people in leadership necessarily when I thought a bipartisan compromise was the only way to get things done. I suppose there is a whole long list of things that I ought to write down before I make this statement, but I can only think of two or three right now that I can be sure of that I can say in an intellectually honest way that I stood up to the Bush White House when I was chairman of the committee.

They came out immediately for a $1.7 trillion tax cut in 2001. I made a decision early on that it was not good for the economy and it was not politically possible. So we passed a much smaller, in a bipartisan way, tax bill for that year. And yet it was the biggest tax cut in the history of the country.

In 2003, when the White House and House Republicans in the majority at that time said we had to have a $700 billion tax cut in addition to the tax cut that was passed in 2001, there were not votes in the Senate among just Republicans to get it done. To secure the votes to get it done, we had to limit it to half that amount of money, or just a little bit more than half that amount of money. And in order to get those votes, contrary to the $700 billion tax cut that the Bush White House wanted and the House Republicans wanted that we could not get through here, I said I will not come out of conference with a tax cut more than that amount of roughly $300 billion.

We got that done by just the bare majority to get it done. But I stood up to the White House, I stood up to the House Republican leadership who thought we should not be doing anything that was short of that full $700 billion.

There have been other health care bills very recently where I stood up against the White House and against our Republican leadership.

I think I have developed a reputation where I am going to do what is right for the State of Iowa and for our country. And I am going to try to represent a Republican point of view as best I can, considering first the country and my own constituency.

Then when it comes to whether people in this body or outside of this body might think that for the whole months of May, June, and July, and through August, with a couple meetings we had during the month of August, that we were dragging our feet to kill a health care reform bill, I want to ask people if they would think I wouldn't have better things to do with my time than to have 24 different meetings, one on one with Chairman Baucus, or that I wouldn't have more than something else to do than have 31 meetings with the Group of 6. These were not just short meetings. These were meetings that lasted hours. There was another group of people--Grassley, Baucus, and others, sometimes that included people from the HELP Committee and
the Budget Committee. But we had 25 meetings like that. I wonder if people think we would just be meeting and spending all those hours to make sure that nothing happened around here. No. Every one of the 100 Senators in this body, if you were to ask them, would suggest changes in health care that need to be made. Even in that 2,074-page bill, there are some things that most conservative people in this country would think ought to be done.

We all know to some extent something has to be done about this system. We worked for a long period of time, thinking we could have something bipartisan. But it did not work out that way, and now we are at a point where we have a partisan bill.

That is not the way you should handle an issue such as health care reform. Just think of the word ``health,'' ``health care.'' It deals with the life and death of 306 million Americans. Just think, you are restructuring one-sixth of the economy.

Senator Baucus and I started out in January and February saying to everybody we met, every group we talked to, that something this momentous ought to be passing with 75 or 80 votes, not just 60 votes. Maybe one of the times the White House decided to pull the plug on September 15 may have come on August 5 when the Group of 6 had our last meeting with President Obama. He was the only one from the White House there and the six of us. It was a very casual discussion.

I said this before so I am not saying something that has not been said. But President Obama made one request of me and I asked him a question. For my part, I said: You know, it would make it a heck of a lot easier to get a bipartisan agreement if you would just say you could sign a bill without a public option. That is no different than what I said to him on March 5 when I was down at the White House, that the public option was a major impediment to getting a bipartisan agreement. Then he asked me would I be willing to be one of three Republicans, along with the rest of the Democrats, to provide 60 votes. My answer was upfront: No. As I told him, you can clarify with Senator Baucus sitting right here beside you, that 4 or 5 months before that, I told Senator Baucus: Don't plan on three Republicans providing the margin, that we were here to help get a broad-based consensus, as Senator Baucus and I said early on this year, that something this massive ought to pass with a wide bipartisan majority.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I need to correct the Record. In the part of my statement where I refer to the July 8 meeting with Senator Reid, it was only Snowe, Grassley, and Enzi, not the other Senators I named. So I wish to correct that for the Record.

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