Bob Corker

Mr. CORKER

Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I wish to speak for a couple of minutes. I think I have permission to do that. Then I wonder if I can have permission from the Presiding Officer to enter into maybe a couple of minutes colloquy with my friend from Virginia?

Mr. CORKER

Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I appreciate it. I had not planned to come to the floor today, but my great friend, Senator Warner from Virginia, is here. I did want to clarify a couple of things. I did not hear all of his comments. I very much appreciate the partnership we have had, the work we have been able to do together. I think what is happening on this financial regulation bill is a lot like what happened during the health care debate in many ways. There is something that is being focused on. Some of it is sort of being blown out of proportion. I did want to clarify something. Senator Warner spent a lot of time talking about a couple of titles in the bill that Senator Dodd has put forth. There are other places in this bill that do, in fact, create an opportunity for large institutions that fail to continue on. Treasury got involved in this bill a couple of weeks before--about a week before it came to committee. There are some loopholes in this bill that give Treasury and the FDIC the ability to allow large institutions to continue on without failing. My sense is the Senator from Virginia knows what those are. My sense is the Senator from Connecticut, who is the chairman of the committee, knows what those are. And my sense is that on those topics--and they do exist, so criticisms about the Dodd bill allowing potentially creation of loopholes for large institutions not to go through an orderly liquidation or bankruptcy, are valid. But the fact is I think we can fix those in about 5 minutes. My point is I think everyone understands what Treasury did. I think everyone understands what the FDIC did. I think we can come to a conclusion in solving that very quickly. But I wanted to clarify that was not part of the title that Senator Warner came up with. The focus, then, has been on this $50 billion fund. I think Senator Warner eloquently talked about the fact this was a lot of debate. The FDIC wanted $50 billion as a debtor-in-possession fund to be operating, to figure out what the assets of these firms were worth before they sold them off. Treasury wanted no fund. My guess is that at the end of the day, on one hand you are protecting taxpayers more fully, on the other hand you are not--but my guess is, the Senator from Virginia and the Senator from Connecticut might drop that in about 5 minutes--not that the Senator from Virginia is actually advocating, he is just trying to solve that problem. My point is I think that is something that in about 5 minutes could be solved. So I do think what Senator Warner has said is true; that is, the rhetoric around this, an issue that could be dealt with literally in about 5 minutes, is probably overheated. The fact is, what we need to do is figure out a way to focus on this issue in an intelligent way. I think that, as the Senator from Virginia mentioned, people on both extremes want to make sure that if a large institution in this country fails, it is just like the small institutions in this country--they go out of business. And I think we are united on that. Are there some flaws that exist? Yes. Did the bill get a little sideways at the end? Yes. But do people understand the way we can deal with this in an intelligent, thoughtful way and fix that? Yes. I wonder if the Senator from Virginia would wish to not maybe get into specifics but agree that there are some flaws that need to be corrected, but we know what they are, and they can be corrected pretty quickly, can they not?

Mr. CORKER

Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I wish to thank the Senator from New Hampshire who I think has offered extraordinary leadership on this issue and on the issues regarding our country's huge amount of indebtedness. As does Senator Gregg, I find it hard to believe that we are taking over $500 billion in savings from Medicare, as he just mentioned, to leverage a new entitlement when we know that Medicare itself has a $37 trillion unfunded liability. As he mentioned, we go further by not even dealing with this doc fix which he was just discussing. I look forward to his amendment, I look forward to supporting it, and I thank him for his leadership. I wish to speak today about unfunded liabilities. I was the mayor of a city. I know the Presiding Officer served in the general assembly in the State from where he comes. I was the commissioner of finance for our State where we dealt with all of our financial issues for the State of Tennessee. I know Senator Gregg was a Governor. One of the things that I think bothered all of us who used to serve at the city and State levels was unfunded mandates. It is an incredible thing where Washington will pass a piece of legislation and, by the way, have a major signing ceremony where everybody is patting each other on the back and celebrating that they just passed something, and the part that is left out is that the States across this country are left with a huge unfunded mandate. We have a very good Governor in our State. His name is Phil Bredesen. He is a Democrat. He has spent a lifetime in health care. He has handled our State's finances very well. He called me on Friday with a sense of tremendous concern in his voice talking about the fact that this bill was going to cause the State of Tennessee, which is already experiencing huge tuition increases--we have all kinds of services there that we are having difficulties dealing with--and this bill is going to create a $1.1 billion unfunded liability for the State of Tennessee. I just find it hard to believe that, again, knowing the stress our States around this country are dealing with, we are passing legislation that puts in place a $1.1 billion unfunded mandate on the State of Tennessee. But let me go a step further. This bill also violates something we thought was sacrosanct around here and that was the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act, which basically said that we acknowledge--most of us have come from other places, served in local and State governments, and we acknowledge that we should not be passing legislation that creates unfunded mandates. We shouldn't be patting ourselves on the back, passing legislation that we say is good for the people back home, and then sending the tab there. So this bill violates that. I think everybody in this body knows it violates that. So it is just kind of, yes, we said we didn't want to deal inappropriately with States, but we decided we wanted to pass health care reform, and we are going to do it. Let me come to the one that I find most fascinating. Senator Gregg was just talking about the fact that we have this 21-percent cut coming for physicians who treat Medicare recipients, and instead of taking the Medicare savings that we found in this bill and using that to make sure these physicians are paid, we are not going to do that. So in a short time, without us taking, again, emergency action--$200 billion or so-- these physicians are going to have a cut. Let me tell my colleagues what we are doing in this bill, and I think the Presiding Officer may already know this, but in addition to creating in our State a $1.1 billion unfunded mandate, we are going to pay physicians who treat Medicaid recipients at the same level as, if you are a primary care physician, as Medicare reimbursements are today, but we are going to do that for 2 years. Now, this is like the worst joke ever that we can play on our States. What we are saying is, we are going to mandate to the States that the primary care physicians who treat Medicaid recipients, their rate has to be jacked up, and we are going to provide the money for that for 2 years, but then that drops off. So not only do we have this issue of the unfunded mandate, we are creating that exact cliff issue for States in this bill, which means that after this 2-year period ends--after this 2-year period ends and we have given them the money to pay these physicians at Medicare rates instead of Medicaid, which is much lower-- we are going to cut off the funding. So the State is going to be in the position, obviously, of having to keep that up. It is like the worst joke ever. I don't know how we can come up with legislation such as this and call it reform. I said this before. Half the people who are going to be receiving health insurance after this bill passes are going on a Medicaid Program. There was a bill in the Senate that Senators Wyden and Bennett worked on together. It had some flaws. It would have been an interesting starting place, though, and that bill did away with Medicaid and caused Medicaid recipients to have the same kind of health care that you and I have. What we have done in this bill instead of that--instead of focusing on cost--we are going to put half of the new recipients in a program that none of us--none of us--would want to be in, and we are calling that health care reform. So I do plan later to offer an amendment to deal with this issue of unfunded mandates. I think it is wrong for us as a country to have people in Federal office who push their desires off on people and then call them to pick up the tab. I was a mayor. I was a commissioner of finance. The Presiding Officer served in the general assembly. Senator Gregg served as a Governor. We know that is wrong. I don't know why we are doing it. I plan to offer an amendment to correct it. Mr. President, I thank you for the time, and I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I might meditate for about 60 seconds and step back up. I now notice the absence of a quorum, unless I should give it to the other side.

Mr. CORKER

Mr. CORKER. I would like a ruling from the Chair.

Mr. CORKER. If I could just----

Mr. CORKER. If I can just finish.

Mr. CORKER. I appreciate the explanation. I believe we are stooping to a low level.

Mr. CORKER. I thank the Senator for yielding for a question, and I thank him for this discussion. I understand my request is out of order. I actually thank each of you for your heartfelt comments. All of us know that we all want to see these benefits extended.

Mr. CORKER. That has been done.

Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Illinois. I have to say to my friend from Missouri that I agree that the discussion has been very good. I received an e-mail from my staff regarding what was happening. I got in my car and drove down here. I have to say that as I look across the other side of the aisle and on this side, I have a lot of friends, a lot of goodwill. I say to the Senator from Illinois, I don't think I have ever, in my short time here, 3 years 2 months, I don't think I have offered a message amendment. I don't think I have ever offered anything that was meant to obstruct unnecessarily. As a matter of fact, I offer very few amendments. I try to do my work with other Senators and bring things to the floor that are hopefully ready to pass. At the end of the day, the Senator from Vermont is the best I know in this body at talking about compassion for people that I know he believes; I think we all believe. I always listen to him with great awe, candidly, at his ability to express what all of us feel about people who are unemployed or have large heating bills or whatever may exist. I don't really think that is what this debate is about. It isn't. This debate is about the fact we are spending money that we don't have. Yet we have passed a $787 billion stimulus bill that won't be spent until way beyond 2012. I cosponsored an amendment, a piece of legislation with the Senator from Colorado, Mr. Bennet, to use some of that unspent money past 2012 to pay down the deficit. He is in a tough race. He wanted me to cosponsor something that was sensible, and I did. This is really not about the fact that all of us want to see people who are unemployed have these benefits. We don't want to see physicians take a 21 percent cut. It is about paying for it. I wonder if the Senator from Illinois would agree to me offering unanimous consent that we pass this measure that is before us, and we do it tonight. And we pay for it with unspent funds from the stimulus bill that won't be utilized or are not planned to be utilized until beyond 2012. That is what this debate is about. All of us want to see people get unemployment benefits. We want that. We want to see them have all the things that are in this bill. It is not about that. You know that if this bill were offset, it would have been voice voted out of here. I ask unanimous consent that we pass this measure out, that we offset it with unspent stimulus moneys that are going to be utilized past the year 2012, and then we work together, just like we are tonight, to figure out a way to make up that difference. I know this is something that is very important to the administration.

Mr. CORKER. This also is not comity.

Mr. CORKER. I believe we are stooping to a low level. The Senator from Kentucky and I agree on a lot and we disagree on a lot, and I am not here at this moment to debate the merits of either side. What I am saying is this is not the way the Senate functions. Everybody in the country now knows that the Senator from Kentucky has a hold on this bill. That is something that is honored. Not a hold on the bill, but he is objecting to unanimous consent, and that is something that we honor in this body. If the attempt made tonight is going to be to keep a man 20 years my senior here, without the knowledge that this was going to happen--obviously other people had this knowledge--you can see that nobody on our side did. I was getting ready to go to bed, get up in the morning, resume my talks with Senator Dodd--which regardless of what you all do tonight I am going to continue because I think our country has serious problems that need to be dealt with--but this, in my opinion, is beneath the Senate. And while I might be weary, I will stay here the entire night to defend the Senate and defend the fact that the Senator from Kentucky did not know this was going to happen. I am tired. I have been working hard for a long time on a bill that I think is important. I would rather go to bed and be fresh and deal with the issues that need to be dealt with for this country, but I will stay here all night because this is not the way the Senate functions. I am disappointed. I know that we have a lot between us, but I have felt actually, recently, that we were beginning to sort of make things click. I have seen people stepping out and doing things that I feel are the right things to do on behalf of the country, and I have talked to my good friend, the Presiding Officer tonight, about those kinds of things. I have a lot of friends on both sides of the aisle. But this is not the way the Senate functions.

Mr. CORKER. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. CORKER. My question is: Is this the way the Senate functions? And I am asking someone who I respect right now.

Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I have been working in an unusual way across the aisle on an issue that I think is important in this body for the last 2 weeks, and I had planned to spend all day tomorrow, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday--whatever it takes--to get a bill that I think is important to this country and important to this body. It is 10 till 11, 5 till 11. And whether you agree or disagree with the Senator from Kentucky, I am here because I think this is a broadside. The fact is that we here in the Senate give each other notice. I understand the frustration with my friends on the other side of the aisle. I talk to many of you after the lunches that take place. I know there is a lot of frustration. I understand the concerns of the people on my side of the aisle, especially after we just voted for a pay-for. And my guess is everybody on the other side of the aisle who is here tonight voted for it. Yet we are continuing to pass bills that are not paid for. I am not going to debate the merits. I know you can talk about taxes for the rich, tax reductions, and all that. The fact is, you did not give the Senator from Kentucky notice this was going to occur.

Mr. CORKER

Mr. CORKER. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 4691 which I understand to be the measure that is before us, that the amendment at the desk, which I understand offers a full offset to pay for this, be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read for a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Illinois for his nature this evening. I thank all of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. I think we have had a nice discussion. I think we all know this is not about any of our lack of desire to make sure that these benefits are extended. I think everybody here knows this. It has been nice listening to some of the comments. Therefore, since it was out of order before, I would like to ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 4891, that the amendment at the desk which offers a full offset be agreed to, that the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and this issue will be dealt with. Every American that is looking for the benefits we have discussed will have those forthcoming. Mr. President, I ask that that be approved.

Mr. CORKER. H.R. 4691.

Mr. CORKER

Mr. CORKER. As always, yes.

Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, the Senator from Missouri and I have worked on a number of issues together. I so much appreciate her comments. While I certainly cannot speak to what the position may be of leadership of whatever party on this particular issue, I will tell the Senator that I am absolutely a cosponsor and I absolutely agree that political winds are blowing, I might add, on both sides of the aisle. The President tried to announce something yesterday that we all know is not as strong as this amendment. It was an attempt, in fairness, to keep this amendment from gaining support because this is, as you mentioned, statutory. So it happens on both sides of the aisle. I am proud of the fact that the Senator from Missouri is standing up today supporting this legislation. I support it proudly. Again, the winds are blowing on both sides. I know there are liberal groups calling in trying to get folks on the other side not to vote for it. We have conservative groups on our side calling trying to get people not to vote for it. Again, all we are putting in place is a mechanism to try to solve this problem. People can vote against the recommendations. At the very least, we would benefit from some deep thought and a lot of work on data to see where we sit as it relates to the deficit issues. One of the things I think the election the other night said to both of us is that regardless of the outcome, regardless of some of the issues we are focused on, the American people would like for us to hit issues head-on. They do not want trickery. They do not want doubletalk. The American people would like for us to address the serious issues of this country as adults and try to come forth with real solutions to everyday problems and long-term problems. I think this legislation, which, by the way, is bipartisan--and as the Senator from Missouri mentioned, in the past it has had tremendous support. We almost had enough--I am probably exaggerating slightly--we almost had enough sponsors in the past to pass it in this body. As the Senator mentioned, the political winds are changing. Maybe one political party has advantage over the other for a day or two. Who knows. Instead of looking at this for the substance that is there and behind it, the Senator from Missouri is right, politics has come into play. I hope, just as the Senator has mentioned, that all of us can rise above that over this next week and support this very commonsense legislation that will at least get the ball rolling toward dealing with the issues that are going to affect these young people who are here helping us. We all know that political leadership at least for years--I am not talking just today--for years we have had the most selfish generation of political leadership this country has seen, kicking the can down the road on serious issues so that we can give people what they want without anybody having to pay for it except these young people. I am proud to stand with the Senator from Missouri. I thank her for her comments. Mr. President, thank you for the courtesy of time. Again, I suggest the absence of a quorum, but possibly the Senator from North Dakota may wish to speak.

Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CORKER. I will.

Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the Gregg-Conrad amendment that I hope we will vote on later this evening or tomorrow. I know everybody in this body is concerned greatly about the long-term issues we have to deal with as relates to our deficits. I think everybody in this body has concerns about that. I know there has been a lot of discussion, especially by members of the Finance Committee, that we need to deal with the long-term deficits in this body through regular order. The fact is, this is the responsibility of the committee. I respect members of the Finance Committee. Someday, I would like to serve on that committee. They do outstanding work. I think all of us realize that there is no way we are going to deal with the long-term issues relating to Social Security and Medicare without doing something that causes us to have to take a vote. A lot of people criticize the Gregg-Conrad amendment, saying that there is a possibility that one of the recommendations that may come forth from this commission that would actually make a report and call us to vote after November of this year is that there may be a tax increase that is recommended in this legislation. The Gregg-Conrad amendment would get Republicans and Democrats to agree on a way to deal with long-term issues. It does not commit people to vote for those recommendations. As a matter of fact, there is nothing in this amendment that speaks to tax increases. I know on the other side of this issue we have some more liberal groups, if you will, that are saying: We do not want you to deal with entitlements because the only way to make entitlements whole may mean making some reforms, and we do not want any changes. We have people on both ends of the spectrum who are saying do not support Gregg-Conrad when everybody in this body knows we cannot continue as we are today. We all know that. The Finance Committee, which I respect greatly, just in this last health care bill--and I am not trying to touch a subject that may be hard for all of us after the last couple of weeks, but the fact is, the Finance Committee proposed taking $464 billion in savings from Medicare to use to create a new entitlement. What that means is the Finance Committee has no notion whatsoever of doing things that make Medicare more solvent over the long haul. If we are going to take savings such as that, we ought to make Medicare more solvent. By the way, we can debate those kinds of issues, but the fact is, the Finance Committee has had decades to deal with the long-term entitlement issues. I respect their work. The fact is, during regular order, it is very difficult for this body to make the tough decisions that call us to make sure we are not pushing huge amounts of debt onto future generations. I cannot imagine why anybody in this body would oppose setting up a bipartisan group--they do not have to vote for the recommendations-- that will spend a year looking at these issues in an intelligent fashion, hopefully, and then come back and report. And you can vote yes or not. You may or may not like it. I see the Senator from Missouri. Let me say one more thing. The way I understand it is the majority leader would appoint the Democrats and the minority leader is going to appoint the Republicans. That alone ought to give people some sense that they are not going to appoint people who are out in left field, if you will, or out in right field as it relates to fiscal issues. They are going to appoint people who want to look at this generally along the lines of the philosophy of each of the two parties. I cannot understand how any of us cannot support putting in place a mechanism to deal with the long-term liabilities of this country. Mr. President, I know you join me in those concerns. You have to. The Senator from Missouri has to join me in those concerns. I hope we will set aside politics and the groups that are calling in and lobbying against this issue because we might have to make a tough decision--which, by the way, would benefit future generations--trying to keep us from doing something that would make sense. Again, if the things they recommend are not good, vote against them. But let's put some process in place to deal appropriately, to make sure seniors down the road are going to have Medicare, that seniors down the road are going to have Social Security, and that those young people we talk about so much and care so much about are not burdened with huge amounts of debt because we do not have the courage in this body to make the decisions we need to make to put this country on a solid footing. We all know that. We see it every day. We do not want to make those tough decisions. This gives us a mechanism to at least consider making some difficult decisions and putting this country on a strong footing. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORKER

Mr. CORKER. So if I understand correctly, of the new patients going into Medicaid, 50 percent of the money comes from an insolvent program. We are not dealing with the doc fix. Much of the savings they have talked about is just like the doc fix that back in 1997, the AMA, both sides of the aisle agreed to do something to save money for Medicare. As the Senator knows now, the Reid amendment takes out all the doc fix, now with a $285 billion gap over the next 10 years to deal with physicians. It is another example of how we don't have the courage. We put in place cuts. We are not going to do that. We know what damage that will cause to patients. In this particular case, we should not do that. But the fact is many of these cuts that have been discussed will never take place. They will never take place. At the end of the day, I come back to the very thing you talked about; that is, we have $12 trillion in debt, $38.6 trillion in unfunded liabilities for Medicare alone, and here we are passing a bill that is using up the resources we might otherwise use to make it solvent. Instead of doing that, we are leveraging a whole new entitlement. I heard some of the pundits this morning parroting some of the things I have heard from my friends on the other side of the aisle. Let's pass this bill. We know it is not very good, but we will fix it as we move along. What I fear is the way we are going to fix it, we are going to fix it by adding tremendous debt on future generations. My guess is over the next very short period--2 or 3 months--the other side of the aisle is going to come right back up here with a huge, several hundred billion dollar unpaid bill to deal with one of these issues we have been talking about. That is the way business is done here.