Jon Kyl

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch), the Senator from Utah (Mr. Lee), and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL. I yield back.

Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Heller) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Heller) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I would say my colleague from Wisconsin is absolutely right. Let me first of all say, millions of citizens around this country have gotten engaged for the same reason as my colleague did; as a normal citizen, running his business, he saw what was happening here and he decided to get involved. Not everyone can run for the Senate successfully and come back to Washington to bring that message from America right here to the Senate Chamber, but he has done it, and I commend him for his leadership. Yes, he is absolutely right. It turns out that his predictions and those of us who were on the Senate floor when this bill passed into law saying it was going to cost a lot more than our Democratic friends said; that it was going to cost a lot more than the Congressional Budget Office estimated, well, now the numbers are in and here they are. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office last week just released its updated figures, and it shows that the real cost of the ObamaCare subsidy spending is going to almost double. When ObamaCare was passed, they estimated the cost would be $938 billion. That is on the Medicaid part as well as the taxpayer-funded health insurance subsidies. As my colleague said, that is a 10-year cost. Of course, part of the game is that they are collecting money over 10 years but only paying benefits over 6 and that can make it look pretty good, as my colleague said. But it turns out, when CBO had to reexamine, now with 2 years' experience, what they found is, looking at the entire 10-year budget window, the true size of this cost was masked. Now that we have a clearer picture, voila, CBO says the projected amount is $1.7 trillion over 10 years. In other words, ObamaCare is going to cost more than $700 billion more than CBO estimated at the time the law was passed. How can they miscalculate by almost double, from $938 billion to now $1.7 trillion? It is not CBO's fault. CBO is a bunch of accountants. They take what we give them and do their figuring. As the Senator from Wisconsin said, what the Senate Democrats and the President gave them was just part of the picture. They said: We are going to give you 10 years' worth of revenues, but we are only going to give you 6 years' worth of expenses. See how that works out. I wish we could all do our private budgets at home that way. Here is another way to look at it. We have all heard of a mortgage with a bubble payment at the end. That is, in effect, what this was. They basically said: Look, we know CBO has to estimate 10-year budgets, so we have a great idea on how to make this cost less. We will put some of the big expenditures in years 11 and 12. Voila, 10 years of expenditures, not too bad. But now that 2 years have passed and we are now looking at a 10-year budget that goes out 10 more years from now-- 12 years from when ObamaCare was first calculated--it turns out when we add in years No. 11 and 12, it adds hugely to the cost--$700 billion worth. We all said this at the time. It was a trick. It was smoke and mirrors. They were pulling a fast one on the American people. We said that. But we heard: Oh no. You can trust CBO. Sure, we could trust CBO as far as they could calculate it. But if one had said, how about years 11 and 12, they would have had to say: That is another story, but we weren't asked about that. I say to my friend from Wisconsin, he is exactly right. Now the chickens have come home to roost. Now we know what the real cost of this is going to be and, oh, by the way, if we want to go out over the entire period once the law is fully implemented--remember, ObamaCare has not been fully implemented yet. So what happens when we calculate its full cost when truly implemented? The Budget Committee, on which Senator Sessions sits, says total spending under ObamaCare will reach $2.6 trillion. So these are the real costs we have to pay attention to, not just the estimates that were made at the time they were trying to get the law passed. I might either ask the Senator from Wisconsin or our ranking member on the Budget Committee, what about this? If we use real numbers and real costs, are the American taxpayers going to be on the hook for something akin to $2.6 trillion, according to the Budget Committee? That is a lot of money.

Mr. KYL. Yes. I would say when my colleague from Kansas talked about the free care, it reminded me of the old saw: You think insurance is expensive now, just wait until it is free. That is the point. Somebody has to pay for it at the end of the day, and we just happen to have some new statistics how this is working out now that CBO has had a chance to examine how ObamaCare plays out. Here is their newest estimate. We are talking about real costs to real families. CBO now estimates that ObamaCare will increase premiums by 10 to 13 percent. To make that number real, that is a $2,100 annual increase in the cost for the average family of purchasing their own insurance coverage. Six separate private actuarial analyses have all indicated ObamaCare will increase premiums with projected increases ranging as high as 60 percent. Why is that so? It is like a balloon; you push in on one side, it pops out the other. Health care is still going to cost. Doctors still have to treat people, hospitals still have to take care, pay the people who work in the hospitals and so on. It is not free, as our colleague from Kansas is pointing out. Somebody has to pay for it. If the government cannot afford it, then what the insurance companies have to do is charge the extra expense to the people in the private insurance market. When the President complains about why insurance costs are going so high, he only has himself to blame. If the government is not going to reimburse the providers adequately, they have to get the money from the private sector. That is why the $2,100 annual increase in the cost of insurance for the average family, because of the cost shifting that is going on. It is a result of the way the government designs the insurance that is provided for in ObamaCare. It hits the young people especially hard because they are the ones who have to buy insurance they do not need, according to America's Health Insurance Plans. Premiums increase 48 percent for people between 18 and 29 years old. That is in only 42 of the 50 States, premium increases of 48 percent. Then of course they also tax health insurance, which we end up paying for because that cost is passed on to us in the form of higher insurance premiums. That is a $60 billion tax on health insurance added on top of the new taxes on innovation, on new pharmaceutical products, on new medical devices. The taxes that are included in ObamaCare on those are all passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. The bottom line is we are paying for all this one way or the other, either through new taxes, through what we pay to the government, or through what we pay in our private insurance, because the physicians and hospitals have to make up the money one way or the other. The bottom line is that ObamaCare, which was supposed to have reduced costs, ends up increasing them. By the way, it was supposed to expand the numbers of people who are covered but now we find that, according to Milliman, which is a private association estimating the cost here, actuaries there have estimated the cost shift from government programs, Medicare and Medicaid, totals $88.8 billion a year, adding $1,788 to a family's insurance policy. That is on top of what I spoke of before. This cost shift obviously will greatly increase with ObamaCare's Medicaid and Medicare cuts, which are further on down the road here. That will cause premiums to skyrocket even more. The bottom line is that we were right when we said it: The law is going to drive up insurance premiums for families, it is going to drive up taxes, it is going to reduce innovation. At the end of the day, it doesn't cover more people. All in all, a great success, I would say.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Madam President, Mark Steyn is one of the most gifted writers of our time. His trenchant analysis appears regularly in National Review. Steyn writes with biting humor and personal experience with government censorship and has chronicled the concomitant growth in government power and loss of freedom in Europe and North America. In the March 5, 2012, issue of National Review he warns that America, which he calls the ``last religious Nation in the Western world,'' is in danger of going the way of European nations in replacing faith and family with the all powerful national government as the source of everything we need. He calls his piece ``The Church of Big Government.'' It reminds me of Barry Goldwater's warning that ``a government big enough to give you everything you want is a government that is big enough to take away everything you have.'' Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch), and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch), and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Madam President, let me return to the pending business before the Senate--the JOBS Act. At the same time, when millions of Americans are looking for work, we have an opportunity to do something in a bipartisan way that will actually help job creators and entrepreneurs. Despite all the hype about economic improvements, we are still experiencing the slowest and weakest recovery since the Great Depression. More than 45 million Americans are on food stamps. Unemployment has been higher than 8 percent for 3 years. There are 700,000 fewer jobs today than when President Obama took office. I repeat: 700,000 fewer jobs today. On top of that, of course, gas prices are skyrocketing. As I noted on Monday, I believe the President is painting a too rosy picture of the economy when he is out campaigning. He stated there have been 24 consecutive months of private sector job growth. But I would like to note how the numbers tell a different story. Economists generally agree that for employment to just hold even, about 150,000 jobs need to be created each month in order to employ the new people, the new entrants, into the job market or the workforce, and these include people such as those who have recently graduated, those who have concluded military service or other family obligations. Again, about 150,000 each month need to be created just to stay even. The logical question to ask is, How many of the last 24 months saw a job growth above 150,000? The answer is, only 10 of those 24 months. In other words, job creation has been high enough to keep pace with the new force entrants only 10 months out of the last 2 years. In fact, private sector job creation was actually lower this last February than it was in January. This is according to a chart on the President's own campaign Web site. So we clearly need better public policy to put people back to work-- legislation that will actually spur job creation. Practically every bill that has come to the floor in the last 3 years has been labeled a jobs bill, but to an Orwellian effect. Even bills such as ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank, which imposed massive new costs on businesses, were called jobs bills by their supporters. But, finally, with the JOBS Act now pending, we have a rare occasion to pass a bill that Republicans and Democrats agree will help create jobs. The House overwhelmingly passed the bill 390 to 23--majorities in both parties, and the President has issued a Statement of Administration Policy endorsing the legislation. So this is something we should move forward with. The JOBS Act will demonstrate to entrepreneurs and job creators that we value what they do, that we want to make it easier for them to innovate, to gain access to capital to grow and to lift others up as they become more successful. America has many dynamic companies and fast-growing businesses with the potential to create many more. The people behind successful companies are driven by the satisfaction that comes from creating and innovating and solving problems, and in many cases they are making products or providing services that improve our quality of life. This is a good thing. It deserves our support. Good public policy--hurdles to opportunity, on the other hand--can help people accomplish their goals, and this bill will help to solve some of this by getting those hurdles out of the way. For example, the JOBS Act will help to cut some of the redtape that burdens startup companies. One of the best overhauls is a reduction in the costly regulatory burdens contained in the infamous Sarbanes-Oxley section 404(b) accounting rules. Reducing this burden means growing companies can spend less time on paperwork and more time on raising capital and growing their businesses. These are companies that have the potential to be the next Groupon, Yelp, or LinkedIn--three companies that didn't exist a decade ago and all of which recently had initial public offerings. Here is what the Chamber of Commerce had to say in support of the House-passed bill. The JOBS Act would enhance capital formation needed to build new businesses, expand existing businesses and create jobs. . . . [It] would put into place several important and in some cases overdue reforms that would incentivize initial public offerings (IPOs). Part of the beauty of this bill is we don't even know who will benefit from its policy reforms. It applies to everybody. It is the opposite of the crony capitalism that provided government funds to companies such as Solyndra and General Motors. Indeed, this is legislation that will demonstrate what the private sector can do when government promotes freedom and opportunity. It will show we don't need government to try to create jobs or make ham-fisted attempts to play venture capitalist. Because this is such good bipartisan legislation, it is deeply troubling to hear it is being stalled right here in the Senate. The front-page headline of the Congressional Quarterly this morning reads: ``Democrats Move to Slow `Jobs' Bill.'' The article notes that passage appears unlikely this week as Democrats try to add controversial provisions to the bill which do not have broad bipartisan support. If this bill does not pass, or if the Senate Democrats add poison pills, it will be quite obvious this is part of a broader political strategy--one that relies on a ``do-nothing Congress.'' That is the campaign theme the President has been running on. If Congress actually does something in a bipartisan way that helps many Americans, well, it will undermine his narrative. He is relying on congressional dysfunction to keep that narrative going, and that is why we have to rise above it. Yes, this is a cynical conclusion, but if this bipartisan bill is derailed, it will be hard to draw any other. It was our understanding, when we all agreed to go to the bill, it would be considered under regular order. This bill is too important to play procedural games, such as filing cloture and filling the parliamentary tree and the like. I urge my colleagues not to stall this bill or to jeopardize its passage with partisan provisions. Let's get this bill to the President's desk. Our first priority should be helping Americans get jobs, not strategizing to save the President's job.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch), and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch), and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) and the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Utah (Mr. Hatch) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.