Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. And the majority?

Mr. GREGG. I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Tennessee.

Mr. GREGG. I would yield for 30 seconds to the Senator from Kansas to put in order a couple of amendments.

Mr. GREGG. I yield to Senator McCain such time as he may use.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I just want to thank the Senator from Arizona for his excellent summation of where this issue lies and its impact on the American people. I hope that statement will be read across this country because it was a reflection of the concerns which are legitimate and which are being expressed by vast amounts of Americans. It is not unusual it should be expressed by the Senator from Arizona because he is so much a personality of this Nation and a force within our political process. I would reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. GREGG. How much time do we have on our side?

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, a lot has been talked about here. A lot has been discussed. I don't want to get in an expansive discussion of the issue of the underlying bill. It has been fully aired. But this concept to vote down every amendment, that you have to do that in order to save this bill, seems to reject the concept of a constitutional process. Think about this for a moment. The whole series of amendments here are being offered to fulfill the statements made by the President of the United States. For example, Senator McCain has offered an amendment to take out the sweetheart deals. The President said the sweetheart deals would be taken out. Senator Barrasso has offered an amendment which says that if premiums go up, certain parts of this bill will not go into force. The President said premiums will not go up on working Americans. Senator Crapo has offered an amendment which says that if there are taxes on people earning less than $200,000, those taxes won't go into force. That is what the President promised. I have offered an amendment which says that if there are Medicare cuts in this bill, the cuts should go to Medicare and make Medicare more solvent--a promise also made from the other side of the aisle. All of these are amendments which are substantive and the purpose of which is to put forward the policies which the other side of the aisle represented they were going to have in their original bill. This is called the fix-it bill. Well, we are suggesting you fix it so it meets the conditions set out by the President and by the Democratic leadership. Yet now we hear that every amendment should be voted down. Why? Because the idea of sending the bill back to the House is anathema to the Democratic Party. Did I miss something? Isn't the House of Representatives controlled by the Democratic Party with a supermajority? You mean they couldn't survive the idea of knocking out the sweetheart deals, sending it back to the House, and coming back here? That is going to somehow fundamentally undermine this bill? That argument is absurd on its face. It is absurd on its face. I think the only answer is that the other side of the aisle has decided to proceed on this bill in a most arrogant process. From the beginning of the core of this bill being put together in a hidden room behind a hidden room behind a hidden door of the majority leader's office suite, brought to this floor on a Saturday afternoon, the tree was filled and we were told we had to vote on it on Christmas Eve. No amendments were allowed. Then it was taken over to the House, and the Speaker worked out the deals in the back rooms of her offices behind hidden doors without any public input, without C-SPAN there, as was represented it would be. And what happened? It passed the House without any amendments being allowed. Now, for the first time, we have a chance to offer amendments, and the position on the other side of the aisle is no amendments allowed even if they are good amendments. So, I guess, obviously, they consider their promises to be an inconvenience. Obviously, they presume the Republican Party is an inconvenience. The Democratic process is an inconvenience. It also appears, considering the opposition to this out in America, that the American people are an inconvenience and that amendments which make sense aren't going to be allowed to be passed because they don't want to send it back to the House of Representatives. It makes no sense to me, and I don't think it is going to make much sense to the American people. This bill is fundamentally flawed. It needs to be repealed and it needs to be replaced. We have suggested a whole series of amendments which will significantly improve this bill, and I hope some will be supported by the other side of the aisle since they are the policies of the other side of the aisle.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, point of order. Is there time remaining on the bill?

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, this amendment fulfills the obligation to our senior citizens. This bill reduces on its face $520 billion in Medicare by cutting Medicare beneficiaries through reducing providers and by eliminating or significantly reducing the Medicare Advantage Program. That number actually, when fully implemented, is $1 trillion over the first 10 years. That is $1 trillion of reductions in Medicare. That money is then taken and used to create new entitlements for people who are not seniors and who have, for the most part, not paid into the Medicare trust fund. That is wrong. Medicare is in serious trouble. We should use the Medicare savings in this bill for the purposes of making Medicare more solvent. That is exactly what this amendment does. It keeps Medicare savings in the Medicare trust fund and uses them to make Medicare more solvent.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, this amendment addresses what is a core problem we have with our health care system, which is the fact that every year we cut our doctors' pay--those doctors who deliver Medicare services. This year, it will be cut 21 percent. This amendment restores that pay so that those cuts don't occur for a period of 3 years. This is known as the doctors fix. It should have been in the bill to begin with. The reason it wasn't in the bill was because the other side wanted to not put it in the bill because of its cost, because it scores at $280 billion over 10 years. The other side didn't want to absorb that score because it would have thrown the entire bill out of whack relative to the budget. We have come up with a way to address this doctor problem that pays for it for 3 years. Let's do it. Let's take care of these doctors who are delivering these services so they can continue to deliver services to Medicare recipients.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: This amendment pays for the doctors fix for 3 years, does it not?

Mr. GREGG. I withdraw the inquiry. Pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 and section 4(G)(3) of the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, I move to waive all applicable sections of those acts and applicable budget resolutions for purposes of my amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, just so people know, on our side the order we are going to proceed on is that the next amendment will be by the Senator from Idaho, followed by the Senator from Texas, followed by the Senator from Louisiana, then the Senator from South Carolina, and then the Senator from Oklahoma. That is the next group of five amendments.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Republican time be extended to 10:10 a.m.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I rise with some of my colleagues today to discuss one of the issues that is going to have a huge impact on how this health care issue is resolved or not resolved; that is, the question of what reconciliation is and what it implies relative to the legislative process. ``Reconciliation'' is an arcane term. It is a term that is tied to and created by the Budget Act under which we function in the Congress. It is ironic that the use of reconciliation would become the central effort in buying votes in the House of Representatives in order to pass the big, the giant health care bill, known as the Senate health care bill--which bill, as we all know, expands the size of government by $2.3 trillion and, in fact, we understand now there is a new score from CBO which is going to raise that number even further when it is accurately reflected. It takes the government and puts it into basically the business of delivering health care in this country in a way that is extraordinarily intrusive and will cost a lot of people who are on private insurance-- the insurance they have--which they probably feel fairly comfortable with although it may be very expensive--and it still leaves 23 million Americans uninsured while claiming to do a better job of insuring Americans and improving our health care system when, in fact, what it does is create massive debt that will be passed on to our children which they cannot and will not be able to afford, explodes the size of government and, in my opinion, will lead to a diminution of quality of care in this country. The way this big bill, which I outlined in the thumbnail process, is going to be passed in the House of Representatives is to have a trailer bill called a reconciliation bill, which is an art form developed around here relative to the budget process which is supposed to be used for very specific efforts, certainly not for the purpose of buying votes from the liberal constituencies in the House or to pass a bigger bill. But that bill needs to be discussed as to what its implications are. A number of us have come to the floor of the Senate today to try to explain what the reconciliation bill is and how it has historically been used but what the implications are relative to some of the things in the bigger Senate bill, in the giant bill, the giant spending bill; what the implications of the reconciliation changes in the reconciliation trailer bill will be on the bigger Senate bill, and what the representations that are being made are and whether they are accurate. Specifically, let's take one issue, and that is what is known as the Cadillac tax. The tax on Cadillac policies, which is the appropriate way to describe this, is a proposal which was in the Senate bill to basically eliminate the deductibility for health insurance policies that exceeded a certain level of cost--$27,000, I believe, is the number. To the extent an insurance policy paid for by an employer exceeds that number in cost, the excess in amount--let's say it costs $32,000 a year for an employer to have an insurance policy for you. That sounds like a lot of money, but actually there are a number that cost that much, especially of union programs. To the extent the difference between the $27,000 and the $30,000 is paid for by your employer, that will no longer be deductible by the employer as an expense. It is done in a more complex way, but that is basically the way it works out. The effect of that is fairly significant on what is known as the Social Security trust fund because it actually creates a situation where there will be more taxable wages, which will mean that the Social Security trust fund will be getting more tax revenue. This brings into play the question of whether you can even bring forward language of this type which affects the Social Security trust fund through the taxing of Cadillac policies in a reconciliation bill. I think this needs to be discussed because of a very important issue as to whether the House Members are being told correctly how this will be dealt with in the Senate. I know my colleague wants to speak to the issue.

Mr. GREGG. It appears that the House Democratic membership is, first, afraid to vote on the bill. They are actually going to ``deem'' this, it appears, versus vote on it, which is an incredible act of political cowardice, in my opinion. Secondly, they definitely do not want to go to conference. They do not want to do what the traditional process around here calls for. When you have two different bills--a Senate bill and a House bill--we take them to conference and discuss those bills and come out with a final bill. Why don't they want to do that? Because they know they cannot pass the final bill in the Senate. To get around that, they developed this policy of reconciliation as a trailer bill so they will send back the reconciliation bill to be voted on here--not on the big bill, a $2.5 trillion bill. Thus, not only will they avoid a vote in the House on the big bill, they will avoid having to go to conference, and they will have basically bypassed the constitutional process in this manner.

Mr. GREGG. In order to buy votes, as I understand it, in the House-- and this is basically a vote-buying exercise--the reconciliation bill, in order to buy votes, they are going to put changes to the Senate bill in the reconciliation bill, and then send the reconciliation bill back here to be voted on, on the theory that it only takes 51 votes to pass it. The only problem with that approach is that a reconciliation bill is part of the budget process and has very strict limitations on what can be in it. So much of what they are talking about putting in the reconciliation bill may well be knocked out in the Senate. For example, the Senator from Texas mentioned the Cadillac tax. If in any way the Cadillac policy tax language impacts Social Security, it will be subject to a point of order. In fact, it will be subject to two points of order in the Senate, and it will take 60 votes to overwhelm that point of order. Therefore, since 41 members of the Republican Party have signed a letter saying we are going to sustain the rules of the Senate, we are going to stand by the laws that govern the Senate, the procedures here, that language will be knocked out. What is being represented to House Democrats as a way to get their vote, to vote for the big bill which is to change the language relative to the Cadillac policy tax in the smaller bill, the reconciliation bill, that probably will not survive the process and will probably be knocked out on a procedural move, a procedural challenge on the Senate floor because it is inconsistent with the Senate rules.

Mr. GREGG. The Senator from Texas understands the rules very well. A 310(g) challenge--to put it in understandable language--is a challenge that says it affects Social Security. The language affects Social Security. If the Cadillac policy tax impacts the Social Security trust fund, which, in my opinion, it does, and the Parliamentarian rules that it does, then the entire bill will fall.

Mr. GREGG. Well, there are two points of order available. One is the Byrd point of order. If that were not waived, that section would go out of the bill. So people interested in that section, who used that section as the reason they were justifying voting for the bigger bill, that section would not survive. So they would have been sold a bill of goods. The second point of order would take down the whole bill, and it would lose its reconciliation protections, which would mean the bill would require 60 votes to pass here. I can absolutely guarantee you it could not get 60 votes to pass. So you could presume the entire reconciliation bill would be dead. Again, people who are relying on the reconciliation bill in the House of Representatives--House Members on the Democratic side who are being told we will fix it in reconciliation--may well be being sold a bill of goods, if it is determined that some of this reconciliation language affects Social Security because it is very likely the entire bill will go down in the Senate because it will violate our Senate rules.

Mr. GREGG. Essentially, what I am saying is--and the Senator from Texas has certainly put it in context--the only reason they could possibly be using this vehicle, this reconciliation vehicle, this extraordinary process is because they are using it to get people to vote for the bigger bill that they do not like, and they are claiming that bigger bill will be improved by this reconciliation vehicle. Yet it is pretty obvious that the reconciliation vehicle, when it comes over here, is going to be punched through and through with holes because it will violate the rules of the Senate on issues such as this.

Mr. GREGG. That would be like a ``the check is in the mail'' type promise. I would not take it with a serious grain of salt.

Mr. GREGG. The concept where you would take the most important piece of legislation dealing with domestic policy in this country in the last 50 years and not vote on it is an affront to the purpose of a constitutional democracy. We are sent to the Senate to vote on a lot of issues and a lot of them not quite as significant as this one. But if you have the most significant issue you are going to possibly ever have before you, certainly in my career, you would expect that you would want to vote because you would want to express yourself. I mean, why did you run for this job? Why did you want to serve your constituents if you were not willing to stand on something of this importance?

Mr. GREGG. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, this isn't so much a jobs bill as it is a debt bill. It has debt, debt, and debt. I voted against the budget which passed the House of Representatives. I voted against it because it had $1 trillion worth of deficit every year for as far as the eye can see. It basically put our country on a path of unsustainability, where the national debt will double in 5 years and triple in 10 years; where every one of these young men and women sitting before us who are pages, by the time they graduate from college, will have $133,000 in Federal debt on their heads they will have to pay off as they go to work. I voted against it because it was profligate, because it wasn't disciplined, and because it was excessive. However, it appears it wasn't excessive enough for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. This will be the third week in a row the leadership of the Democratic Party in this body has brought a bill to this floor that violates their own budget and spends more than their own budget called for. A budget which this year will run $1.6 trillion of deficit isn't running a big enough deficit, according to the other side of the aisle. They have to run up the deficit with this bill by another $3 billion of authorized money, above their own budget. That is on top of last week, when they spent $30 billion this year and $100 billion over 5 years in excess of their own budget. When is it going to stop? When is it going to stop? When are we going to stop spending money around here as if there is no tomorrow? Because pretty soon there will be no tomorrow for our children as we add this debt to their backs and make it impossible for them to have the standard of living we have had. Yesterday, Moody's said that although today the AAA rating of this country is not at risk, it may be down the road if we continue to spend money we don't have at the rate we are spending it. That is not a sign of optimism for the future; that is a sign our Nation is in trouble, and it is in trouble because of us. There is a lot of talk around here about what is the systemic risk to this economy. The systemic risk is this Congress, which continues to spend money it doesn't have, send the bill on to our kids at a rate they can't afford to pay off. As a result, their lifestyle will actually have to be reduced, their quality of life, their standard of living will go down because they will be paying for all this debt we are putting on their backs today. What is even worse is this Congress isn't even willing to live by the PROFLIGATE--and I hope capital letters will be put in the Record on that because it should be all spelled out in capital letters--by the PROFLIGATE budget which passed the House, which projected trillions of dollars of deficits for as far as the eye could see and doubled the debt in 5 years and tripled it in 10 years. That wasn't enough. No. We have to come to the floor again this week, after last week, after the week before, with another bill that breaks their own budget. So all I am asking for is that the other side of the aisle be willing to at least live by its own budget. Last week I asked that they be willing to live by their own pay-go rules. That didn't pass, and $100 billion was spent that wasn't paid for. So this week I am making a point of order that simply says: Live by your own budget. You passed a budget; at least live by that. Can't you live within a $1.6 trillion deficit? Do you have to add another $3 trillion of authorized dollars to this deficit this year? Gosh, I hope not. So I am making a point of order and asking that we live by the budget that was passed by the Democratic Congress. The pending amendment would cause the aggregate levels of the budget authority and the outlays for the fiscal year 2010, as set out in the most recently agreed to concurrent resolution on the budget, S. Con. Res. 13, to be exceeded--the Democratic budget, by the way. Therefore, I raise a point of order under section 311(a)2 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Mr. GREGG. Parliamentary inquiry. I have made a motion that says the budget point of order stands under section 311, which point of order specifically lies because of the fact that the bill before us spends more in authority and outlay than the Budget Act passed by this Congress allows. Is that not correct? Is that motion not well taken?