Chuck Grassley

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 5, 2004, at 10 a.m., in closed session to mark up the readiness and management support programs and provisions contained in the Department of Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2005.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Personnel of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 5, 2004, at 9 a.m., in closed session to mark up the personnel programs and provisions contained in the Department of Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2005.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Forests and Public Lands of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 5, at 2:30 p.m. The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony on the following bills: S. 155, to convey to the town of Frannie, WY, certain land withdrawn by the Commissioner of Reclamation; S. 2285, to direct the Secretary of the Interior to convey a parcel of real property to Beaver County, UT; S. 1521, to direct the Secretary of the Interior to convey certain land to the Edward H. McDaniel American Legion Post No. 22 in Pahrump, NV, for the construction of a Post building and memorial park for use by the American Legion, other veterans' groups, and the local community; S. 1826, to direct the Secretary of the Interior to convey certain land in Washoe County, NV, to the Board of Regents of the University and Community College System of Nevada; S. 2085, to modify the requirements of the land conveyance to the University of Nevada at Las Vegas Research Foundation; and H.R. 1658, to amend the Railroad Right-of-Way Conveyance Validation Act to validate additional conveyances of certain lands in the State of California that form part of the right-of-way granted by the United States to facilitate the construction of the Transcontinental Railway, and for other purposes.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 5, 2004, at 2:30 p.m., to hold a closed hearing on intelligence matters.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on Wednesday, May 5, 2004 at 10 a.m. on ``Oversight Hearing: Aiding Terrorists--An Examination of the Material Support Statute'' in the Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 226. Witness List Panel I: The Honorable Chris Wray, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC; The Honorable Daniel Bryant, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Policy, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC; and Mr. Cary Bald, Assistant Director, Counterterrorism Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC. Panel II: Mr. David Cole, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, Georgetown University, Washington, DC; and Mr. Paul Rosenzweig, Senior Legal Research Fellow, The Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on Wednesday, May 5, 2004, at 9:30 a.m., for a closed hearing on steroids.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 5, 2004, at 2:30 p.m., in closed session to mark up the Department of Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2005.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. My request would be so modified.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Limited to speaking, and no requests or anything like that?

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I withdraw my unanimous consent request and yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Yes, I will. Madam President, I withdraw my unanimous consent request.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, to respond to the Senator from Massachusetts, first of all, not involving me but other people that are interested--I am interested--I have asked other members to see what could be negotiated. There are talks ongoing now that range from, hopefully, we can establish a couple other amendments for votes before that. Part of that discussion is seeing if we can reach an agreement on bringing up the amendment. However, I don't have anything to report to Senator Kennedy at this point.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, first of all, there has been a very good working relationship between the two sides on this bill. That is very encouraging. I recognize that upfront. In regard to the list of amendments, the fact that it is very short, with time agreements, is very good news. However, in that list of amendments, there are some that are nongermane, some that are very controversial, some on our side of the aisle we do not think are appropriate to be brought up on this legislation; and also a reminder that we have only dealt with two Republican amendments at this point and we have dealt with a lot of amendments on the other side. Now, there is nothing wrong with dealing with more amendments on one side than on the other, and we have been very fair in how we have approached this. I don't have a response to the Senator from Nevada, the distinguished Democratic assistant leader. We intend to work very closely with him to see if we can get this bill to finality. In the same way we have gotten this far this week--we have made a great deal of progress--it is because we have had a good working relationship with the Senator from Nevada and the Senator from Montana. I cannot state an agreement at this point. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY. I move to lay that motion on the table.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I move to table the Dorgan amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, before we move on this amendment, I ask unanimous consent that there be 4 minutes of debate equally divided prior to the vote in relation to the Allard amendment.

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

Mr. GRASSLEY. Could the Senator be kind enough to give him an additional minute and a half for our side? That is infinitesimal. We will argue for a minute and a half over it.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I don't have much time remaining, 2 minutes.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I think I have about 3\1/2\ minutes. I am going to take 1\1/2\ minutes for myself, and then I hope Senator Kyl will get over here. He asked me for 2 minutes. Then that would use up our time. The first reaction to the response to my remarks that I have that I want to clear up is that the author of the amendment speaks to the point that it only hits imports coming into the United States if a company moved overseas. The fact is--it may be a flaw in the way it is written--this amendment hits all imports coming into the United States. The second point is, it was stated that this was not a tax increase. This amendment raises $6.5 billion. In my judgment, when you change tax law and you bring revenue in, that is a tax increase. The second issue regarding Huffy moving overseas, the response to that is, their competition is in China and Taiwan. Companies have to do what they can to meet the competition. Would they rather have a Huffy company that existed as a U.S. corporation competing with China and Taiwan manufacturers or would they rather have the whole company go out of business? If you do not meet your competition, you do not compete you die. Then there was reference to the fact the GAO report says 61 percent of companies did not pay taxes. That could be true. But that also includes new companies and it includes companies that maybe are dormant; in fact, it does include all of those. Here is the significant thing about this GAO report: It says 96 percent of all large corporations in America pay tax. We are back to the issue of what this amendment does or does not do. It does not do enough. I have to ask the Presiding Officer if Senator Kyl does not arrive and I have 1 or 2 minutes remaining, what do I do? I want to save the time for him, if I can, under the rules of the Senate. I yield the floor and save my time for Senator Kyl.

Mr. GRASSLEY. I yield Senator Kyl my remaining time.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I want to speak against the Dorgan amendment. I yield myself such time as I might consume. Before I speak specifically to the amendment, since I heard the Senator from North Dakota express his concerns--and legitimate concerns--about jobs going overseas, I think there might be some suggestion in this amendment that this bill doesn't deal with moving jobs overseas. This amendment is all about preserving manufacturing jobs in America and creating more manufacturing jobs in America, because the basis for this legislation is that there is no benefit in this bill from the reduction of the corporate tax from 35 percent down to 32 percent for any organization that doesn't manufacture in the United States. So it applies to domestic manufacturers that are manufacturing in the United States, not domestic manufacturers that manufacture overseas. It also applies to companies overseas--foreign companies--that would come to the United States and invest here, create jobs here, and hire people in America to manufacture here. There is a lot of concern expressed about moving jobs overseas. I don't denigrate any of those concerns. But that is what the debate on this legislation has been all about for 1 whole week during the month of March, a few days during April, and now again this week. During that period of time of stalling, we have had a 5-percent European tax put on our exports to Europe--a percent again in April, and now a third movement of 1 more percent. That is going to go on every month. Even if we pass this bill this very minute, this bill probably won't be signed by the President for another month or so. We are going to continue to have this terrible European tax put on our exports there. I emphasize for listeners who ask, how can they do that? Well, it is legal under international trade agreements. The reason it is legal is because we are trying to change our tax laws to conform with our international agreements--international agreements that this body has already adopted. So we are dealing with these amendments--probably very legitimate ones--but we have had amendments put before this bill that have kept this bill long enough on the agenda so that we are already 77 percent less competitive than we used to be with our global competition doing business in Europe. So why are we here? We are here with this underlying piece of legislation to preserve and create more jobs in America. We have heard the Senator from North Dakota make a very impassioned case for American workers whose jobs have been lost when U.S. plants move overseas. We have all witnessed this heart-wrenching event. I know that my home State of Iowa has had plant closings or some parts of production move overseas. Unfortunately, this amendment will not do one doggone thing to bring those jobs back. In fact, it could very well cost even more U.S. jobs. I will explain my concerns by first examining his amendment. This amendment repeals deferral for property imported into the U.S. by foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies, even without regard to whether that property was ever previously produced, manufactured, or grown in the United States. This means the amendment doesn't focus on their primary complaint that U.S. companies are shutting their plants, moving production offshore, and selling back into the United States. The bill does not focus on this scenario. Instead, it overshoots the mark by hitting all goods sold into the United States by U.S. companies, even if it is impossible for those goods to first be produced in the United States. I will give an example. If a produce company sets up a banana farm in Costa Rica to import bananas into the United States and around the world, the income from sales to the United States are not eligible for deferral. I may be mistaken, but I am not aware of too many banana farmers in Texas or Florida. So I do not see how deferring taxes on a banana farm in Costa Rica is going to cost the United States jobs. Similarly, if a U.S. company wanted to start a mining operation in some far away land to extract a new and exotic mineral that is not found here at home, they can sell that anywhere in the world, but they could not and cannot import that back into the United States without triggering this amendment. How about coffee? The only place I know we grow coffee in the United States is in Hawaii, and that was 25 years ago. Maybe they do not even grow it there now. We have lots of coffee shops on our streets these days. If they set up their own coffee plantation in Brazil, they would get hit under this amendment that is before us. I do not know whether we raise coffee anywhere else in the United States, but we sure do not raise it in Iowa. It appears the amendment of Senator Dorgan and Senator Mikulski would allow a U.S. company to sell foreign goods to anyone in the world except to America. That does not make sense to me. I have described how the bill would operate, but I do not think that is the intent of this legislation. What I believe is intended is that deferrals should be denied if a company closes a U.S. plant, produces the goods offshore, and then imports the goods back into the United States. This does not actually happen very often. The latest Department of Commerce data on U.S. multinationals shows that only 7 percent of foreign subsidiary sales were into the United States. Nevertheless, this amendment insists that the rule of deferral in our tax law is somehow a tax benefit that moves jobs offshore and allows a company to not pay taxes on foreign income. Of course, this is not true. Deferral has nothing to do with moving jobs, and it never forgives taxes that are owed on foreign products of U.S. companies. The rule of deferral exists to keep U.S. companies competitive in the global marketplace. Let me repeat. The rule of deferral exists to keep U.S. companies competitive in the global marketplace, and it has been that way in our tax laws since 1918. For 85 years it has been the law. We are going to hear a great deal about deferrals this week. We will hear wild accusations about how this rule, which has been in place since 1918, spells doom for American workers. None of this is true. In fact, just the opposite is true. By enhancing the international competitiveness of U.S. companies, deferral ensures an ever-growing base of opportunity for U.S. companies and their employees at home and abroad. U.S. multinationals are a critical component of our economy. These companies operate in virtually every industry and have investments of more than $13 trillion in facilities located across our great country. As employers, they provided 23 million jobs for Americans in 2001, nearly 18 percent of the payrolls in the country. With a payroll in excess of $1.1 trillion, U.S. multinationals create more than 53 percent of the manufacturing jobs in America and employ more than two U.S. employees for every foreign worker. During the 10 years between 1991 and 2001, U.S. multinationals increased domestic employment at a faster rate than the overall economy. We have a recent study confirming that U.S. multinationals are significant job creators, and those jobs are not created through exporting jobs to foreign nations with low labor and low tax costs, as the amendment infers. The Department of Commerce data shows that the bulk of U.S. investment abroad occurred in high-income, high-wage countries. In the year 2001, 79 percent of the foreign assets and 67 percent of foreign employment of U.S. multinationals were located in high-income, developed nations, such as Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, and the countries of the European Union. We have to remind ourselves that corporations are comprised of people. People like good roads, safe water, reliable power grids, and stable societies. That is the only kind of environment where business can flourish. So it is only rational that if a U.S. corporation is going to make a foreign investment, it is going to make the safest investment possible. That means going to fully developed countries with thriving markets and highly paid workers. We also have to remember a simple maxim for why companies go into foreign markets: You have to be there to sell there. Today, fully 95 percent of the world's population and 80 percent of the purchasing power is located outside the United States. In other words, the United States is 5 percent of the world's population. But if we want to sell, we go where the people are. Ninety-five percent of the people are outside the United States. If you want to make sales, you go where the people are. We have an instance in which foreign sales growth has outstriped domestic sales growth. So this increased growth requires increased foreign involvement. The good news is foreign growth also results in U.S. job growth. A recent study confirmed that during the 10 years, 1991 through 2001, for every job U.S. multinationals created abroad, they created nearly two jobs in the United States in their parent corporation. That is why it is critical to our company that U.S. companies remain competitive in this international marketplace. Let's review for a moment a more rational explanation for deferral and how it works to keep our U.S. companies competitive. The United States taxes all of the worldwide income of its citizens and corporations. The U.S. income tax applies to all domestic and foreign earnings of U.S. companies. The United States fully taxes income earned overseas by foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies. However, many foreign countries tax their companies on a territorial basis, meaning they only tax income earned within their country's borders and do not impose tax on the earnings of foreign subsidiaries. Countries that use a territorial system, such as Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Luxembourgian, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland, among other countries, have a great advantage over a U.S. company. We have to take that into consideration. The tax system is the cost of operation, and if we do not have a more level playing field for our companies, how do we expect to compete in this world marketplace? I will give an example. A U.S. company with a Singapore subsidiary will pay U.S. tax and a Singapore tax on the subsidiary's income. A French company with a Singapore subsidiary will pay Singapore tax but not any tax in Paris. That means the U.S. company in Singapore has a higher tax burden than the French company in Singapore. Two basic tax rules answer this problem and seek to put U.S. companies on a level playing field with foreign competitors from territorial countries. The first rule says when foreign income is brought home, the U.S. allows a reduction against U.S. tax for any foreign tax paid on that income. This foreign tax credit prevents the U.S. from double-taxing foreign earnings. Does anybody believe in double taxing? In effect, that would make our companies noncompetitive in this international marketplace. Like deferral, this too has been on the tax laws of the United States since 1918. The foreign tax credit is limited. It may only offset up to 35 percent of the U.S. corporate tax. If the foreign tax rate is higher, the credit stops where we stop taxing corporations at 25 percent. If the credit is lower, say 10 percent, then an additional U.S. tax will be owed up to the full 35 percent. In this example, the additional 25 percent of taxes would be owed to the U.S., which is the difference between the 10 percent and our 35-percent top rate. The second basic tax rule is U.S. companies are allowed to defer U.S. tax on income from the active business operation of a foreign subsidiary until that income is brought back to the United States, and that is usually brought back in the form of a dividend paid to the U.S. parent. This is referred to as the rule of deferral, meaning the U.S. tax is deferred until the earnings are brought back. This is the rule this amendment attacks. It is important to note deferral is not a forgiveness of a tax. It simply means we impose full U.S. tax tomorrow instead of today. We do not forgive tax under deferral because we do not want to create incentives to move operations offshore. The reason we defer tax on active business operations is so U.S. companies can remain competitive with foreign companies, from those countries that have a territorial tax system. We do not defer tax on passive activities such as setting up an offshore bank account. We tax passive activities yearly, and active operations are subject to competitive disadvantage. For example, if we impose U.S. tax today on the profits of a Singapore subsidiary, then a U.S. company will pay 35-percent U.S. taxes plus any Singapore taxes, but the French competitor located next door will only pay the Singapore tax and not the Paris tax. If a Singapore tax rate is less than the 35-percent U.S. tax rate, then the French competitor will have a tax advantage. This is because the U.S. allows the foreign tax credit offset against U.S. income tax imposed on those foreign earnings but only up to a 35-percent top corporate rate. If the foreign rate is less than the U.S. 35-percent rate, then residual U.S. taxes are owed on the difference between the U.S. and foreign rates. In another example, if the Singapore tax is 15 percent and the U.S. tax 35 percent, then the U.S. will impose an additional 20-percent tax on those Singapore earnings. The French company, however, will only pay 15 percent Singapore tax, no tax in Paris. If we did not allow deferral of that additional 20-percent tax, then the U.S. company today would have to pay 20-percent tax compared to the French company. The question on repealing deferral is whether we want to hand over the world markets to companies from France and Germany. This amendment is being offered presumably to save jobs in America, but when we have a tax system like they want, there is going to be an incentive for moving those jobs. Repealing deferral means we export our high U.S. tax rates to U.S. operations around the globe. The U.S. has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. There are very few countries with higher marginal corporate rates. This means without deferral, U.S. companies will be at a continual worldwide disadvantage compared to their foreign competitors. That is why we defer U.S. tax on active business operations, to allow U.S. companies to be competitive in the global marketplace. Some Senators today propose repealing deferral or cutting back. These proposals would export the high U.S. tax rate to U.S. operations around the world. That would be fine if all companies around the world were paying the high U.S. tax rate, but they are not. Companies of foreign countries are not subject to our tax laws and are usually taxed at a lower rate. That brings us back then to the implications of the amendment before the Senate. Our focus in considering this amendment must be on the ability of American companies to compete within the United States. The issue is not whether we tax foreign earnings currently but whether we cede the U.S. market to foreign competition: You compete or you die. The Dorgan-Mikulski amendment will increase taxes on U.S. companies, but their foreign competitors in the United States will not face a similar tax increase. This can lead to a loss of domestic market share, or even if market share is maintained losses may be incurred on domestic sales because of pricing pressures and uncompetitive margins created by the additional tax burden. The best measure of an economic impact of their tax increase is the very concerns Senators Dorgan and Mikulski cite in debating their amendment, whether U.S. employment levels of the U.S. companies will drop after this additional tax is imposed. This goes to the issue of whether salespeople, purchasing agents, line workers, or others could lose their jobs if the Dorgan-Mikulski tax increase is imposed on companies' imports. Keep in mind their amendment would attack imports of bananas from Costa Rica and coffee from Brazil. That is going to cost U.S. jobs. The amendment will kill U.S. jobs and the amendment is defeating its own purpose and should not be supported in the Senate. If the objective of Senators Dorgan and Mikulski is to ensure companies do not reduce U.S. employment by round-tripping production, then it is equally important to ensure their tax increase does not reduce U.S. employment. Increasing taxes on U.S. companies will not bring those jobs back to America. A company will only pay taxes if the company is profitable, and they will only stay profitable if they remain competitive in their markets. But in the United States, taxes are a 35-percent cost to profit, and that is where a competitiveness disadvantage can occur when the U.S. company is competing against foreign companies that will not incur this tax increase. Senator Baucus and I, in trying to develop this bipartisan bill that is before us, held hearings last July regarding the effects of international competition within the United States. So I think we have a right to believe we are very familiar with the domestic effects of these kinds of rate differentials. I would like to close with a quote from Joseph Guttentag, International Tax Counsel for the Clinton administration. He gave this testimony before the Senate Finance Committee 9 years ago, July 21, 1995. He said this: Current U.S. tax policy generally strikes a reasonable balance between deferral and current taxation in order to ensure that our tax laws do not interfere with the ability of our companies to be competitive with their foreign-based counterparts. I hope a statement from another administration, particularly from a recent Democratic administration, the Clinton administration, will carry a lot of weight with both Republicans and Democrats in helping to defeat this amendment on which we will soon be voting. I hope Senators will join me in voting against the job losses that will result from this amendment and this tax increase that comes on American business with this amendment.

Mr. GRASSLEY. I yield the Senator from Montana whatever time he might consume.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I am going to address issues about the Medicare discount card, and I particularly want to respond to criticism that we heard yesterday from the other side. Listening yesterday, as I did, and then listening today to the criticism about the high price of gasoline, I have come to the conclusion that over the last several days members of the other party have a guilt complex about some of the votes they have cast in recent months. For instance, only 13 out of 49 Democrats voted to break the filibuster on the national energy policy. If we had a national energy policy, they would not have any worry about high gasoline prices. Then, of course, all but about 12 of them voted against the drug discount card to give seniors reasonably priced prescription drugs. So they come in and trash the bill we passed in a bipartisan way. I hope they realize they made big mistakes on some of their votes last year and suck it up and move on. In regard to what was said yesterday about Medicare, first, yesterday was a very historic day for Medicare beneficiaries in my home State of Iowa and all the other 49 States. Before then, many beneficiaries paid some of the highest prices for drugs. Now they can begin shopping for a Medicare-approved discount card that will help them pay less, a lot less. With discounts taking effect June 1, this program will provide Medicare beneficiaries with immediate savings on their medicines until the comprehensive Medicare drug benefit begins in 2006. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, beneficiaries will save $4 billion to $5 billion over the next year and a half on drugs. That is not chickenfeed. That is saving a lot of money for our seniors. Older Americans and individuals with disabilities can choose a card that gets them the lowest prices on drugs they need. Finding the best card could not be simpler. Contrary to what one of the Senators told us yesterday about how complicated this process is, they are hoping the seniors, whom they consider their political property, will believe them that it is complicated and they will not bother to look at it because it is too complicated. Do the seniors of America need to have Democrats scare them more? This is how simple it is: Call 1-800-MEDICARE any time, 24 hours a day. They can call their State Health Insurance Information Program, SHIP as it is called, and get counselors at the local level. Most of them are very well-trained volunteers to help seniors decide. They can go online themselves if they want to, or with a family member, to compare prices offered by different cards. They can find low or no-cost cards that include their neighborhood pharmacies, all by making one telephone call any time in a 24-hour day to a 1-800-MEDICARE number. Using their Medicare-approved drug discount card, beneficiaries will save at least 10 to 25 percent on the cost of their drugs. Like the drug benefit itself, the Medicare-approved drug discount card targets assistance to those most in need. Beneficiaries with low incomes, that is less than $12,600 for an individual and $16,900 for a married couple, will qualify for a $600 credit this year, another new $600 credit next year. If there are two in the family, that is $1,200 this year and $1,200 next year. If they do not carry it all this year, it can carry over to next year. If they do not use it all up before the new insurance program for prescription drugs is put in place, they can carry it over into 2006 until it is used up. Some people have said these cards will not offer good discounts. That is what we heard yesterday. So I did some checking. To give an example, let us take a woman enrolled in Medicare in the largest city close to my farm, in Iowa, with an income of $12,000 a year. Let us call her Helen, to be short. Helen needs to fill prescriptions for Celebrex, Norvasc, and Zocor. With no discounts, she would pay $7,297 at her local pharmacies for these drugs from June of this year until the end of 2005. Helen goes to this pharmacy because she knows and trusts this pharmacy. She does not want to order her drugs through the mail. With a basic discount card offered by this legislation, she would save $1,213--that is 17 percent--off of her drugs. Now the $1,200 by itself is a pretty big savings, but that is like giving her the drugstore.com price at her local pharmacy. Helen has a fixed income of $1,000 a month. This means she also qualifies for the transitional assistance and does not have to pay an enrollment fee. By applying for the card and qualifying for the $600 credit, she also learns she is eligible for other assistance programs, such as those offered by drug manufacturers. With the $600 on her card in both 2004 and 2005, combined with these additional discounts, she will save $6,894. I will repeat that because that is very significant. She will be saving almost $6,900 off of her drug bill. That is a 95-percent savings for her. I ask the people who were criticizing this program yesterday if they consider that chickenfeed. For someone living on a fixed income, what a relief that is going to be. About a third of her income will be freed up for other priorities. Since enrollment began Monday, May 3, we have heard some Members come to this Chamber to criticize the drug discount card. That is a shame. The discount card program will mean real savings for beneficiaries, especially with low incomes. Seniors have been waiting a long time to get relief from high prescription drug costs. This legislation delivers that relief. I know this is an election year, but this is not the time or the issue to play politics at their expense and to scare the seniors of America. More than 300 organizations--I wish these people on the other side of the aisle would put this in their pipe and smoke it--endorse this legislation. They will say this drug discount card is a first step toward making drugs more affordable for all Medicare beneficiaries. The president of the National Council on Aging described the new Medicare law as the single most important opportunity to help low- income Medicare beneficiaries to have emerged in the past 35 years. This is what the president, Robert Hayes, said: (Low-income) people should run--not walk to sign up. This is especially true for the estimated 4.3 million low-income beneficiaries who will see immediate relief with a combined $1,200 this year and the next which they can use to buy their lifesaving prescription drugs. What I find alarming is that some would try to score political points rather than help low-income beneficiaries get some much needed help with their drugs. So my colleagues voted against this bill last year. Suck it up and move on. I was personally involved in the negotiations last year. I can tell my colleagues that during the Medicare conference, both Republicans and Democrats--that is bipartisan--strongly supported the creation of a drug discount card. While some would like people to believe otherwise, this Medicare- approved drug discount card is a good deal. Since January of this year, I have held 39 town meetings throughout Iowa to tell my constituents about this drug discount card program and what it does. As Members of Congress, we should use this opportunity to educate beneficiaries and to tell them about the $600 credit. I am concerned about a political environment that confuses and misleads Medicare beneficiaries and that in the end causes more harm than good. They deserve better than that. I want to address a couple of criticisms that people have been making. First, some have said that prices are going to change every week. Drug card sponsors can only increase the price if there is a change in the sponsor's cost. Card sponsors can lower prices at any time, which will have a positive impact. I have been assured that CMS will aggressively monitor the prices charged by card sponsors to make sure that they treat beneficiaries fairly. CMS will track any changes made in drug prices and complaints received by 1-800-MEDICARE and other sources. They also will ``mystery shop'' to make sure that sponsors are not falsely advertising. If CMS finds that a card sponsor is taking advantage of seniors, they can freeze enrollment, impose fines or kick the sponsor out of the program entirely. Lastly, some have been saying that prices on the Medicare Web site are inaccurate. CMS has assured me that the prices are the right ones. Prices on the Web site are the best prices that the cards can guarantee. So they cannot be higher, but they could be lower. I said this last week and I will say it again: We should move on and not lose sight of what really matters. And that is helping beneficiaries like Helen from Waterloo and the millions like her get drugs at lower prices. The bottom line is that the discount card program is a really good deal for our Nation's Medicare beneficiaries.