Small Business Paperwork Mandate Elimination Act of 2011
Floor Speech
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Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. I thank the gentleman for yielding the time.
My name happens to appear on this bill as the original author of this bill, H.R. 4. I remember when I introduced this last April, Members on that side of the aisle were told by their leadership don't dare go on this bill to repeal this necessary provision of the Affordable Care Act.
By the way, if it is truly an affordable care act, why has Secretary Sebelius granted over 700 waivers to companies and unions? Because it's not affordable. Why has virtually every member of my constituency who has health insurance had an increase in their premiums as a direct result of the ``Affordable Care Act''? Just a passing question because I'm asked that all the time by my constituents.
Why did I introduce this? Because provision 9006 of the bill has nothing to do with affordable care and has everything to do with the capacity of our friends on the other side to find ingenious ways of impacting business because I guess business is considered bad. Well, I've got an answer for you today to the question of who creates jobs. This is who creates jobs: small business. And this particular section of your so-called Affordable Care Act kills business, kills small business. What does it do? It is based on the assumption that everybody cheats. Why? Because the 1099 form is usually utilized for the purpose of making sure you carry out your obligation to pay payroll tax.
But what did we do in the so-called Affordable Care Act? We increased the reach of 1099s so that when you have no obligation to pay anything, you have to report on the person on the other side of the business transaction; so that they, supposedly, are cheating, and therefore we have what's known as the universal snitch act.
The idea that it's going to gain $19 billion, in my judgment, is created out of whole cloth. You have to assume that almost everybody cheats to get your $19 billion.
And here's the game here in Washington, D.C.: We create a new obligation on business that's never existed before. We then secretly put it in a bill--virtually no one on this floor knew it was in the bill--and then we score it for gaining $19 billion to the Treasury. And if I dare come to this floor to repeal it, I'm obligated to come up with $19 billion in new taxes or some sort of a spending cut?
The American people ought to understand the game that's played. In secret, we pass something like this, which has an unbelievably pernicious effect on business. Now, how does it have such an effect? It requires every single person involved in business or trade to go into accounting to make sure that every time they reach that threshold of $600 or more with anybody they purchase something from they have to file a 1099.
Here's what someone in my district just emailed me, a small business person, a woman:
``I have 15 employees. As owner, I am the HR department, the bookkeeping department, the administration department, and still serve my customers while surviving this economic climate. It will be a tremendous burden, both in time and dollars, to send out 1099s to all my vendors--appliance manufacturers, parts distributors, other suppliers, utility companies.''
It is a job-killer provision. We brought this H.R. 4 to the floor to get rid of a job-killer provision.
The other reason why it is a double-edged sword on small business is, if you want to minimize the number of 1099s that you file, you will not go to your local hardware store. You will not go to your local restaurant. You will go to the big box store. You will go to the chain restaurant. And we are killing small business on this floor.
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Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. So I understand the sincerity of the other side of the aisle, of those who are concerned about the middle class. Who do you think small business is? This is the middle class in my district and virtually every district across the country. These are the people who create jobs. You will put a dagger in their side. And now you come up and argue against passing this legislation because you are concerned about the middle class.
You are killing the middle class with the provision in the health care reform bill, so-called. What we are trying to do is to get rid of that. We are trying help the middle class. We are trying to help the job creators. We are trying to help the people in our districts who don't have jobs.
Don't distract the debate on this job-killer piece of legislation. Give us some relief, which is being called for all around the country.
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Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you, Mr. Levin, I appreciate that.
It's a little interesting when we hear our friends come to the floor with the same talking points. My good friend from California talks about the government takeover of health care--which of course PolitiFact called the 2010 political lie of the year.
Allowing 33 million additional Americans to have access to----
POINT OF ORDER
Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Point of order, Mr. Speaker.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. State your point.
Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. The gentleman made a personal reference to me, stating that I made a statement on the floor, and then called that the biggest lie of the year. Is that, in fact, an appropriate comment to be made on the floor during debate?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from California has not stated a point of order.
Would the gentleman proceed to state the point.
Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. I would make a point of order that the gentleman has made a personal reference to me and then followed that up by saying that what I said was a lie.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman demanding that words be taken down?
Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Not at this time, Mr. Speaker. But I would ask that the Speaker admonish Members not to question the motivation of other Members in reference to any debate that is taking place.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Oregon may proceed.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. .....
Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, I ask that the gentleman's words be taken down.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will suspend. The gentleman from Oregon will take a seat.
The Clerk will report the words.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. I ask unanimous consent, Mr. Speaker, to withdraw the previous statement.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Oregon?
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Oregon may proceed.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. I appreciate the opportunity, because I want to be very clear about what I intended, what I thought I said and I think a review of the tape would reveal. I am not calling anybody a liar.
What I intended to say, and I will ask unanimous consent to put in the Record, is that as we have repeated talking points about a government takeover of health care, this has been judged by an independent journalistic undertaking as the political lie of the year.
Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. BLUMENAUER. I yield to the gentleman from California.
Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. All I just want to make clear in the Record, I never made a reference to the government takeover of health care in my speech, and the gentleman was errant in making a personal reference to what I had just said.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. I apologize if the person who said ``government takeover of health care'' was not you. It is repeated so often by my Republican friends, including the Speaker of the House, time and time again, that sometimes I get confused because it is a litany that is used. It is in fact, and I would ask unanimous consent, Mr. Speaker, to put in the Record the PolitiFact article.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Because those words are still echoing in the Chamber. It has been said by somebody on the other side of the aisle earlier:
``PolitiFact editors and reporters have chosen `government takeover of health care' as the 2010 Lie of the Year. They chose it as the year's most significant falsehood by an overwhelming margin. The label `government takeover' has no basis in reality, but instead reflects a political dynamic where conservatives label any increase in government authority in health care as a `takeover.' ''
They point out: ``The law that Congress passed, parts of which have already gone into effect, rely largely on the free market. Employers will continue to provide health insurance to the majority of Americans through private insurance companies. Contrary to the claim, more people will get private health insurance. The government will not seize control of hospitals or nationalize doctors. The law does not include a public option. It gives tax credits to people who have difficulty affording insurance, so they can buy their coverage from private providers. It relies on a free market with regulations, not socialized medicine. We have concluded it is inaccurate to call the plan a government takeover because it relies largely on the existing health system of coverage provided by employers.''
Mr. Speaker, part of what we're seeing here, though, is this drama that is pulled out where talking points are repeated in an effort to obscure the facts going forward. The majority knows that the Democrats have attempted to adjust the 1099. We don't want it in there. We voted for fixes. It will be fixed between the House and the Senate.
What's killing small business is the crushing burden of health care, where they are trying to provide for their employees. What is killing small business is that they can't compete with big business. They have a system that has provided a downward spiral. What's providing the driving force for the government deficit is increasing costs of providing health care, for example, through Medicare. This used to be an area of bipartisan cooperation.
The Health Care Reform Act includes every significant area of reducing health care costs as either a pilot or a demonstration. It points a path towards saving hundreds of billions of dollars. Those used to be bipartisan.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. LEVIN. I yield the gentleman 2 additional minutes.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Those used to be bipartisan; but instead of working with us to refine and accelerate the provisions, people are trying to put sand in the gears. And as my friends from Michigan and from New York have pointed out, there are going to be some--we hope they are unintended victims--but there are going to be innocent victims, people in the middle class and the near middle class who don't have the control of billionaire hedge funds to control their income.
There are things that can happen that will adjust it up or down. There will be a significant penalty. We have worked to fix that cliff. We've approved it. We don't need to reinstate the cliff, the tax on honest mistakes. As has been pointed out, there are provisions to deal with fraud.
This is part of the drip, drip, drip to try and undermine health care reform, not accelerate it. It's a part of misrepresentation politically that the American public frankly doesn't deserve. It's a lost opportunity for us to reduce the deficit, improve health care, and lower costs.
This is very personal to people like me. I come from an area of the country that provides high-quality health care at a low cost. My people are penalized. Health care reform is moving to try to help people like that as we overall improve health care around the country and protect the deficit.
I am sorry for any ambiguity or misunderstanding from my comments, but I am frustrated when I hear the Republican side of the aisle continue to repeat this political lie of the year. It doesn't help the debate, it doesn't help us move forward, and we are going to have to move forward to solve the problems of this country.
[From PolitiFact, Dec. 16, 2010]
PolitiFact's Lie of the Year: `A Government Takeover of Health Care'
(By Bill Adair, Angie Drobnic Holan)
In the spring of 2009, a Republican strategist settled on a brilliant and powerful attack line for President Barack Obama's ambitious plan to overhaul America's health insurance system. Frank Luntz, a consultant famous for his phraseology, urged GOP leaders to call it a ``government takeover.''
``Takeovers are like coups,'' Luntz wrote in a 28-page memo. ``They both lead to dictators and a loss of freedom.''
The line stuck. By the time the health care bill was headed toward passage in early 2010, Obama and congressional Democrats had sanded down their program, dropping the ``public option'' concept that was derided as too much government intrusion. The law passed in March, with new regulations, but no government-run plan.
But as Republicans smelled serious opportunity in the midterm elections, they didn't let facts get in the way of a great punchline. And few in the press challenged their frequent assertion that under Obama, the government was going to take over the health care industry.
PolitiFact editors and reporters have chosen ``government takeover of health care'' as the 2010 Lie of the Year. Uttered by dozens of politicians and pundits, it played an important role in shaping public opinion about the health care plan and was a significant factor in the Democrats' shellacking in the November elections.
Readers of PolitiFact, the St. Petersburg Times' independent fact-checking website, also chose it as the year's most significant falsehood by an overwhelming margin. (Their second-place choice was Rep. Michele Bachmann's claim that Obama was going to spend $200 million a day on a trip to India, a falsity that still sprouts.)
By selecting ``government takeover'' as Lie of the Year, PolitiFact is not making a judgment on whether the health care law is good policy.
The phrase is simply not true.
Said Jonathan Oberlander, a professor of health policy at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill: ``The label `government takeover' has no basis in reality, but instead reflects a political dynamic where conservatives label any increase in government authority in health care as a `takeover.' ''
AN INACCURATE CLAIM
``Government takeover'' conjures a European approach where the government owns the hospitals and the doctors are public employees. But the law Congress passed, parts of which have already gone into effect, relies largely on the free market:
Employers will continue to provide health insurance to the majority of Americans through private insurance companies.
Contrary to the claim, more people will get private health coverage. The law sets up ``exchanges'' where private insurers will compete to provide coverage to people who don't have it.
The government will not seize control of hospitals or nationalize doctors.
The law does not include the public option. a government-run insurance plan that would have competed with private insurers.
The law gives tax credits to people who have difficulty affording insurance, so they can buy their coverage from private providers on the exchange. But here too, the approach relies on a free market with regulations, not socialized medicine.
PolitiFact reporters have studied the 906-page bill and interviewed independent health care experts. We have concluded it is inaccurate to call the plan a government takeover because it relies largely on the existing system of health coverage provided by employers.
It's true that the law does significantly increase government regulation of health insurers. But it is, at its heart, a system that relies on private companies and the free market.
Republicans who maintain the Democratic plan is a government takeover say that characterization is justified because the plan increases federal regulation and will require Americans to buy health insurance.
But while those provisions are real, the majority of Americans will continue to get coverage from private insurers. And it will bring new business for the insurance industry: People who don't currently have coverage will get it, for the most part, from private insurance companies.
Consider some analogies about strict government regulation. The Federal Aviation Administration imposes detailed rules on airlines. State laws require drivers to have car insurance. Regulators tell electric utilities what they can charge. Yet that heavy regulation is not described as a government takeover.
This year, PolitiFact analyzed five claims of a ``government takeover of health care.'' Three were rated Pants on Fire, two were rated False.
CAN'T DO IT IN FOUR WORDS
Other news organizations have also said the claim is false.
Slate said ``the proposed health care reform does not take over the system in any sense.'' In a New York Times economics blog, Princeton University professor Uwe Reinhardt, an expert in health care economics, said, ``Yes, there would be a substantial government-mandated reorganization of this relatively small corner of the private health insurance market (that serves people who have been buying individual policies). But that hardly constitutes a government takeover of American health care.''
FactCheck.org, an independent fact-checking group run by the University of Pennsylvania, has debunked it several times, calling it one of the ``whoppers'' about health care and saying the reform plan is neither ``government-run'' nor a ``government takeover.''
We asked incoming House Speaker John Boehner's office why Republican leaders repeat the phrase when it has repeatedly been shown to be incorrect. Michael Steel, Boehner's spokesman, replied, ``We believe that the job-killing ObamaCare law will result in a government takeover of health care. That's why we have pledged to repeal it, and replace it with common-sense reforms that actually lower costs.''
Analysts say health care reform is such a complicated topic that it often cannot be summarized in snappy talking points.
``If you're going to tell the truth about something as complicated as health care and health care reform, you probably need at least four sentences,'' said Maggie Mahar, author of Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Health Care Costs So Much. ``You can't do it in four words.''
Mahar said the GOP simplification distorted the truth about the plan. ``Doctors will not be working for the government. Hospitals will not be owned by the government,'' she said. ``That's what a government takeover of health care would mean, and that's not at all what we're doing.''
HOW THE LINE WAS USED
If you followed the health care debate or the midterm election--even casually--it's likely you heard ``government takeover'' many times.
PolitiFact sought to count how often the phrase was used in 2010 but found an accurate tally was unfeasible because it had been repeated so frequently in so many places. It was used hundreds of times during the debate over the bill and then revived during the fall campaign. A few numbers:
The phrase appears more than 90 times on Boehner's website, GOPLeader.gov.
It was mentioned eight times in the 48-page Republican campaign platform ``A Pledge to America'' as part of their plan to ``repeal and replace the government takeover of health care.''
The Republican National Committee's website mentions a government takeover of health care more than 200 times.
Conservative groups and tea party organizations joined the chorus. It was used by FreedomWorks, the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute.
The phrase proliferated in the media even after Democrats dropped the public option. In 2010 alone, ``government takeover'' was mentioned 28 times in the Washington Post, 77 times in Politico and 79 times on CNN. A review of TV transcripts showed ``government takeover'' was primarily used as a catchy sound bite, not for discussions of policy details.
In most transcripts we examined, Republican leaders used the phrase without being challenged by interviewers. For example, during Boehner's Jan. 31 appearance on Meet the Press, Boehner said it five times. But not once was he challenged about it.
In rare cases when the point was questioned, the GOP leader would recite various regulations found in the bill and insist that they constituted a takeover. But such followups were rare.
AN EFFECTIVE PHRASE
Politicians and officials in the health care industry have been warning about a ``government takeover'' for decades.
The phrase became widely used in the early 1990s when President Bill Clinton was trying to pass health care legislation. Then, as today, Democrats tried to debunk the popular Republican refrain.
When Obama proposed his health plan in the spring of 2009, Luntz, a Republican strategist famous for his research on effective phrases, met with focus groups to determine which messages would work best for the Republicans. He did not respond to calls and e-mails from PolitiFact asking him to discuss the phrase.
The 28-page memo he wrote after those sessions, ``The Language of Healthcare 2009,'' provides a rare glimpse into the art of finding words and phrases that strike a responsive chord with voters.
The memo begins with ``The 10 Rules for Stopping the `Washington Takeover' of Healthcare.'' Rule No. 4 says people ``are deathly afraid that a government takeover will lower their quality of care--so they are extremely receptive to the anti-Washington approach. It's not an economic issue. It's a bureaucratic issue.''
The memo is about salesmanship, not substance. It doesn't address whether the lines are accurate. It just says they are effective and that Republicans should use them. Indeed, facing a Democratic plan that actually relied on the free market to try to bring down costs, Luntz recommended sidestepping that inconvenient fact:
``The arguments against the Democrats'' healthcare plan must center around politicians, bureaucrats and Washington ..... not the free market, tax incentives or competition.''
Democrats tried to combat the barrage of charges about a government takeover. The White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi repeatedly put out statements, but they were drowned out by a disciplined GOP that used the phrase over and over.
Democrats could never agree on their own phrases and were all over the map in their responses, said Howard Dean, former head of the Democratic National Committee.
``It was uncoordinated. Everyone had their own idea,'' Dean said in an interview with PolitiFact.
The Democrats are atrocious at messaging,'' he said. ``They've gotten worse since I left, not better. It's just appalling. First of all, you don't play defense when you're doing messaging, you play offense. The Republicans have learned this well.''
Dean grudgingly admires the Republican wordsmith. ``Frank Luntz has it right, he just works for the wrong side. You give very simple catch phrases that encapsulate the philosophy of the bill.''
A RESPONSIVE CHORD
By March of this year, when Obama signed the bill into law, 53 percent of respondents in a Bloomberg Poll said they agreed that ``the current proposal to overhaul health care amounts to a government takeover.''
Exit polls showed the economy was the top issue for voters in the November election, but analysts said the drumbeat about the ``government takeover'' during the campaign helped cement the advantage for the Republicans.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat whose provision for Medicare end-of-life care was distorted into the charge of ``death panels'' (last year's Lie of the Year), said the Republicans'' success with the phrase was a matter of repetition.
``There was a uniformity of Republican messaging that was disconnected from facts,'' Blumenauer said. ``The sheer discipline . . . was breathtaking.''
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