OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Senate Amendments To H.R. 3590, Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act Of 2009, And H.R. 4872, Health Care And Education Reconciliation Act Of 2010

Floor Speech

Date: March 21, 2010
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Health and Health Care Education

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I have always liked to describe the process I have seen in the last few weeks of trying to put a bill together like putting a puzzle together, but forcing pieces together and trying to make them fit. And in the end, the puzzle doesn't have a complete picture. And one of the pieces they are trying to make fit to keep this under $1 trillion, is what the score is; but what we are not mentioning is the incredible unfunded mandate that we were placing on our States.

Just a couple of years ago I was a State senator. And tonight, State senators in Kentucky, my former colleagues, are meeting together to try to close a billion-dollar budget gap. And what does this bill do? This bill puts a $30 billion unfunded mandate by CBO estimates onto our States.

To the south of Kentucky, Phil Bredesen, a very respected Democratic Governor of Tennessee, says this is the mother of all unfunded mandates. And just to the north of me in Indiana, Governor Mitch Daniels said a half a million more Hoosiers will be on Medicaid, costing the State taxpayers billions of dollars.

It's going to cost my State, according to the Heritage Foundation, $303 million from 2014 to 2019. So that's what our next budget session-mates will be budgeting for 2014. So the State legislators tonight who are hoping the economy will turn around, maybe there will be a light at the end of the tunnel, are now having to deal with the $303 million freight train that's the light at the end of that tunnel.

But on top of that, this proposed bill also takes student loan money to finance this bill. The government has taken over the student loan business; they have lower interest rates. Instead of lowering the rate our students are going to be paying back on our interest, we are going to take part of that money and fund this bill on the backs of our students.

Mr. Speaker, it's unfair to put these burdens on our States and on our students.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT


Source
arrow_upward