Providing for Consideration of H. CON. RES. 27, Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Georgia, who represents not only the Rules Committee but conservatives from across our Conference on the Budget Committee. I want to thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall) for bringing this bill to the floor today.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, we had an opportunity to have Chairman Tom Price come and speak with us about the budget and what costs what and what decisions we wanted to make and what direction we were going to go.

It was really pretty simple. He said he is presenting a budget that is going to balance. He is presenting a budget that is going to fund our military properly. And he has got a budget which is one we cannot only understand but believe in.

One of the questions I asked him yesterday was: Mr. Price, how much does the Affordable Care Act, known as ObamaCare, cost the taxpayer and the budget? He said: You know, I don't know, but I'll get back to you. Well, by the end of the hearing, he said--what he could figure--it is $108 billion.

Now, I have not checked this out. In fairness to Tom Price, he is allowed to go and doublecheck everything. That was a cursory view.

Mr. Speaker, if that is true, and if I accept the figures that the gentlewoman, the ranking member of the committee, said of the number of people who are on ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act--about 12 million--if you just do simple multiplication, 12 million into $108 billion, we are talking literally every single recipient would be costing this government more than $5 million per person for their insurance.

It is staggering. It is staggering that our friends, the Democrats, passed--it took us all day--a bill that they told us at least 24 million people who were uninsured would be on it, and a whole bunch of other people, and now here we are some 4 years later, a whopping total of 12.5 million at a cost of $100 billion or more. And yet they come to the floor and look at us like we are some self-righteous group of people because we want to balance the budget and change the direction.

Mr. Speaker, this budget is not about doing away with the Affordable Care Act. It is about properly looking at the money that comes in to the Federal Government and us properly allocating it back out. And $108 billion for 12 million people is immoral. It is unconscionable. And yet that was the testimony yesterday. Once again, I am going to have to look at it again, and I know Chairman Price is going to as well.

Mr. Speaker, this is why we do budgets. We do budgets so that we do ask the tough questions, so that we can put a pencil to the millions, billions, and trillions that the American taxpayer sent us here to do.

For us to be on the defensive by our friends, the Democrats, about wanting to balance the budget, about us wanting to do the things that will balance out and not only netting them out to where we don't spend more than what we take in, but being on the defensive because we are doing the right thing to sustain America's greatest days ahead of us, I think is a real mistake for the people who make the argument against
us, when they are the people that passed--without one Republican vote--what we were told is $108 billion for 12.5 million people.

Mr. Speaker, we have got to get away from this yelling and screaming and go to the numbers. And that is what Tom Price did. That is what Mr. Woodall is doing. They are looking at how we are spending our money and
what we are getting as a result of it. And if it really is true that for everybody who is on this Affordable Care Act, the true cost to the taxpayers is over $5 million for each person, then shame on us for not knowing, asking, and understanding. And that is what we are doing today, Mr. Speaker.

Tom Price, our young chairman from Georgia, actually has taken time to go and look at the budget. He is also doing a lot of other things that the gentleman from Texas, Mike Burgess, gave him credit for yesterday, where he is looking at some $800 billion--almost a trillion dollars--that is sitting in agencies, not spent yet, that has
previously been given to them. The taxpayer paid for it, and they are just sitting there waiting to spend the money.

Mr. Speaker, it is Republicans, it is Tom Price, it is Rob Woodall, it is the members of the committee who have taken the tough votes and have done their homework. And that is what we are presenting here today. We are presenting the hard work from a committee called the Budget Committee to come and look at, once a year, how much are we spending, what are we getting, and how can we do it better?

So I will reject the arguments from those who say that the Republicans aren't doing the right thing. We are doing the heavy lifting. It is Republicans who are trying to look at the billions that are being spent. Not just the thousands, but the hundreds of millions
and the thousand billions. Because a thousand billion is a trillion. And this is a big budget, and we need people to do what we are doing.

So, Mr. Speaker, I stand up for not just my party, the Republican Party, but I stand up for the honest and legitimate work that Tom Price and the Budget Committee have done. And I intend to follow up with this committee and to make sure we know more about the real cost of government because it is the real cost of government that turns the direction of our country, where we pass by that effort of where we create good behavior and we help people to, one, where we create people who are leaning on
the government for their life, for their lifestyle, and for their future. And that is a mistake. That is a mistake--and one that the Republican Party will try and stand up to.

I understand the difference between a person who is able-bodied and not. I have a son with Down Syndrome, and I understand that we do need to do the right things for people who can't take care of themselves--those with an intellectual or physical disability. I get it that we should be there for poor people.

But it is unconscionable if we are paying $5 million for an insurance plan, per person, under the Affordable Care Act. That is beyond the wild ideas of boondoggle. It is immoral.

So, the Republican Party is going to ask the tough questions. And when we go to the voter or taxpayer and we say: Here is what we want you to understand about your money, we can do it with the authority and the responsibility that we have done the homework. We sharpened our pencils and we made a real difference by understanding not just dollars and cents, but the future of this great Nation.

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