John Thune

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I have another amendment and I ask unanimous consent to temporarily set aside the pending motions and amendments so that I may offer another amendment which is also at the desk.

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. THUNE. Sure. I would ask the Chair, is there a number on those amendments?

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, 3639 and 3640--one dealing with student loans, the other dealing with striking the CLASS Act from the underlying bill.

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, in speaking to both these amendments today, I wish to make a couple of observations about the reconciliation bill that is before the Senate. Of course, it does make amendments and modifications to the Senate-passed health care bill that went through the House last week and the House adopted many of these changes. I think the thing that perhaps didn't get discussed as much as it should have throughout the course of the debate is the impact this is going to have down the road on future generations. Obviously, the other side, of course, talked about the additional expansions of coverage that are in the bill. Folks on our side talked about the impact it is going to have in the form of higher taxes on small businesses, the Medicare cuts that are going to impact seniors across this country, the higher premiums many Americans are going to be faced with. Those are all still fundamental features of this bill. In fact, many have gotten worse through this reconciliation process because the tax increases are now $50 billion higher than they were before. So now we are raising taxes even $50 billion more than we were previously, which is $\1/2\ trillion. The Medicare cuts have now gone from $465 billion over the 10 years in the bill that left the Senate in December, and the Medicare cuts now have been increased by $66 billion. So we are raising taxes more, cutting Medicare even deeper, and at the same time adding gimmicks that I think understate the true cost of this bill. We have all talked about this throughout the course of this debate. The other side has said it is $1 trillion or $900-some billion over 10 years, but when you look at the way it is scored, there are 10 years of revenues, 10 years of tax increases, and only 6 years of spending, so that understates the cost over 10 years. We have a number of other budget gimmicks, some of which I will speak to in a few moments. But when you look at it when it is fully implemented--and I think that is the number the American people need to focus on--when this is fully implemented, it is $2.5 trillion of expansion of health care in this country, and it is going to be greater intervention than we have ever seen before by the Federal Government in the delivery of health care in this country. I wish to speak for a moment--because one of my amendments deals with this issue--on how the cost of this is being understated because of the various gimmicks and tricks being used. The CLASS Act is a program that is created in the bill. It is a program where there is an assumption that there is $70 billion available in the CLASS Act to pay for this new health care entitlement. What it does is it creates a new entitlement. As if the existing entitlement programs we have that are already on the way to bankruptcy aren't enough, we now have to add another one to it. So the CLASS Act is a long-term care entitlement program, which in and of itself perhaps isn't a bad idea if it were structured correctly and if the premiums that are going to be paid by people for long-term care insurance were actually going to go into the payment of benefits. What this does is it assumes $70 billion from this new CLASS Act program, the proceeds from which would be used to pay for this new health care entitlement program. So it overstates the amount of revenue that is coming in by $70 billion. Here is why. At some point, if you are an elderly person or perhaps even a younger person today who wants to buy into this new CLASS Act long-term care program, you would pay premiums. Those premiums, allegedly, would go into a fund that would then be available to pay benefits when the time came to pay benefits. That is not going to happen because you are taking that $70 billion and you are spending it on this new health care entitlement. So at some point in the future, when those people who have gone into this program thinking they are paying these premiums so they can derive a benefit at some time in the future if they need to, when the time comes to pay out that benefit, there will not be any money. So what happens? It is borrowed. It is added to the debt. So you have another $70 billion that goes on the backs of our children and grandchildren to pay for this new entitlement program, which, again, understates the cost of this bill. That is the CLASS Act bill, and my amendment would strike that from the underlying bill. By the way, I offered that during the debate on the Senate floor during the health care discussion we had the first time around, and I got 51 votes for it. There were 12 Democrats who voted with me in support of taking the CLASS Act out of the bill. One of the reasons I think there is so much bipartisan opposition to it is because everybody recognizes what a sham this is. The chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator Conrad from North Dakota, said: This is a Ponzi scheme of the highest order, something that Bernie Madoff would be proud of. That is what he said about the CLASS Act. Even the Washington Post went so far as to make the statement that the CLASS Act is a gimmick designed to pretend that health care is fully paid for. That is what the Washington Post editorialized about the CLASS Act--a gimmick designed to pretend that health care is fully paid for. So you take that $70 billion off the overall revenues that come in under the bill and you are already creating a $70 billion hole. You add to that the $29 billion in Social Security payroll taxes that are assumed are going to come in as people who get hit--the employers that get hit with the high-end Cadillac tax, currently paying out to their employees in the form of health care benefits that are tax free, start shifting to cash compensation which would be taxable; therefore, payroll taxes would apply. That would generate another $29 billion in Social Security payroll taxes. But, there again, those are payroll taxes that at some point are going to have to pay benefits, but we don't assume that here. We assume it is going to go on to fund this new health care entitlement program. So it is another $29 billion that at some point in the future, when somebody decides: I want to draw my Social Security benefits, they are not going to be there. Therefore, we put it back on the debt. More borrowing. So we have $79 billion, $29 billion, and then we have the implementation cost of this, which CBO has not fully given us because they don't know what it is going to cost in the outyears. But based upon what they have given us of what it is going to cost in the near term, we have extrapolated that it will cost about $114 billion to implement this new health care extravaganza run out of Washington, DC. When you add that onto the cost, none of which is accounted for in the underlying bill, you have another $114 billion in cost of this thing not paid for. Then, we take the Medicare double counting, which is interesting, because you have these cuts that are going to occur in Medicare; you have these payroll tax increases that are supposed to occur in Medicare that are going to generate, collectively, $529 billion in additional revenue. But, here again, what is wrong with this picture? The assumption is, these are Medicare payroll taxes that are going to go into a Medicare fund that, at some point in the future, will pay Medicare benefits. Yet, at the same time, we are saying these Medicare revenues are going to be used to finance this new health care expansion. So what are you doing? You are double counting. You cannot spend that money twice. We are taking $529 billion in Medicare cuts, in Medicare payroll tax increases that supposedly would go into a Medicare trust fund to pay benefits at some point in the future to beneficiaries, recipients of those funds, but, no, we are going to spend that on this new health care entitlement. What happens then? Someday in the future that Medicare recipient is going to say: OK, it is time to pay out these Medicare benefits. I have reached the appropriate age, I am eligible, and I want to get into the Medicare Program, and all that money that was supposed to have been in the program to pay for those benefits isn't there. Why? Because it was spent on this new health care entitlement program. So what happens? To pay those benefits, the Federal Government will then have to borrow-- more debt that goes on the backs of our children and grandchildren-- another $529 billion. So the last point I will make is--because I have another amendment that addresses this issue--this reconciliation bill did something that obviously was not included in the health care bill that passed the Senate the first time; that is, this takeover of the student loan program in this country. It is something that has been proposed around here for some time. The way student loans are distributed across the country today is we have 2,000 lenders out there who make these loans. Students can go there and get these loans. What this will do is eliminate that model, will draw all these student loans into Washington, DC. There will be four Federal call centers where students will go to get their loans. What does that do? Well, first off, it kills a lot of jobs. I have 1,200 jobs in South Dakota that are related to the student lending business, and those are all now going to be bureaucratic jobs in Washington, DC. There are 31,000 jobs across the country where you have people who are working in the student loan business. Those jobs are in jeopardy because that is all going to be drawn into Washington DC. I don't think the American people have effectively focused on what is being done in this reconciliation bill above and beyond the bad stuff that is related to health care. So we have this student loan program which is coming back into the Federal Government and a lot of the revenues now are being earmarked for other things. They are being earmarked for the health care bill: $9 billion is being used to pay for the health care expansion; $10 billion is going toward ``deficit reduction,'' but we have another $19 billion coming out of the student loan program. Who is going to pay for that? Students are. Students are going to pay for it in the form of higher interest rates on their loans. Essentially, we are now not only taxing small businesses, cutting Medicare recipients, but we are also taxing students to pay for this expansion of health care. We have another $19 billion which, at some point in the future--of course, this is all going to have to be paid for again by our children and grandchildren, but we have all this double counting that is going on and all these gimmicks that are being used to understate the cost of this bill. When you add it all up, $143 billion so-called budget savings ends up in a $618 billion cost. In other words, instead of running, as the other side has said, a $143 billion budget surplus because of this health care expansion, if you take out all the gimmicks--the CLASS Act, the revenues, the Social Security payroll tax revenues which are double counting, the Medicare double counting, and the student loan program--we have a real deficit of $618 billion in the first 10 years. If you extrapolate that out into the second 10 years, it is $1.8 trillion that will have to be borrowed under this bill to pay for the costs of it. That is the cost that we know today. That is all going to be passed on to future generations, to our children and grandchildren. The dirty little story that hasn't been told in this whole debate is how much this is going to cost future generations because of the enormous debt we are piling up and all the games and the gimmicks and the tricks and the chicanery that are being used to understate the true cost of this: $183 billion ``savings'' in this bill. When you take out all the double counting, all the gimmicks, we end up with a $618 billion deficit in the first 10 years. That is tragic. That is why I am offering this amendment to strike this CLASS Act. We shouldn't be creating another new entitlement program when we can't pay for the entitlement programs we have. They are all going bankrupt, and we are going to create yet another one, which is going to lay more debt on the backs of our children and grandchildren. The other thing I wish to mention just briefly in closing speaks to the other amendment. The other amendment, as I said, because of this takeover of the student loan business in this country, there are lots of States that are going to lose significant numbers of jobs. My State has over 1,200 jobs related to student lending; Minnesota, 675; Iowa, 526; Nebraska, 891. There are lots of places around this country where student lending creates jobs, private sector jobs. We are going to do away with those and bring all those jobs back to Washington, DC, and make students come to Washington to get their student loans, as it turns out, at a higher cost because we are using some of the proceeds of that program to pay for the cost of a new health care program. What my amendment essentially would do is say the Department of Education has to certify that there will be no jobs lost across the country associated with this takeover of the student lending business and bringing all that power and consolidating it all in Washington, DC. So those are the two amendments I offer. I hope my colleagues will vote for those. This is bad policy in so many ways, but in taking over yet another industry in this country that is creating a lot of jobs and therefore killing a lot of jobs is the wrong way to move forward when you are trying to pull an economy out of a recession. I yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, this amendment gets at the issue of the student loan program and what this bill would propose to do to that program. Under this bill, students in this country would have one option to get a student loan--the Federal Government. Today, there are 2,000 lenders across this country that make student loans. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal pointed out that the shift to government lending would mean lending would now be operated by the Department of Education, which is ``distinguished in its Soviet-style customer service.'' There are 30,000 to 35,000 jobs in this country that are associated with the student loan program. At a time of record-high unemployment levels, we need to ensure that moving student lending to the Department of Education does not place more Americans on unemployment. As our economy recovers, we should be focused on ways to increase jobs in the private sector, not ending those positions in favor of adding more government bureaucrats in Washington. This amendment would require the Secretary of Education to certify that no State would experience a net job loss as a result of the Federal Family Education Student Loan Program being terminated. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, 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 ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I ask my colleague, it seems to me, as he described this reconciliation trailer bill that the House will use, first, to try to fix elements of the Senate bill they do not like, and then that reconciliation bill would come back to the Senate, I ask the Senator: Is it not true that the House and Senate already passed their health care bills? Why then is this second vehicle, this reconciliation bill necessary? It seems to me at least the House, if it were to vote on the Senate- passed bill, that would put into law most of the provisions that are included in that bill. So why is the second process necessary, I ask my colleague from New Hampshire?

Mr. THUNE. Well, is it possible, I would ask both my colleagues, that the process the House is using--and by the way, this deeming the bill passed seems to be a very curious way of trying to pass legislation of this consequence, which literally impacts one-sixth of our economy and literally impacts every American in a very personal way--is meant to somehow divorce themselves from the accountability or the responsibility that comes with voting for this in the House; therefore, they are going to use this deeming provision that would essentially pass this bill without having to have a recorded voted on it? By the way, I find that incredibly ironic for a legislative body, which is supposed to be about debating and voting on legislation. But let's assume that happens and they pass the Senate bill and then attach this reconciliation vehicle, which both my colleagues have referred to. Then it comes over here and these points of order that have been raised against the bill, which the Senator from Texas and the Senator from New Hampshire have both referred to--the Byrd point of order and this section 310(g), if that point of order is raised and the Chair sustains it, I guess--or essentially validates that is a valid point of order--there would be a motion to waive it. But this point of order on this extraneous Social Security provision that could be raised against the bill would sink the bill entirely, as I understand what the Senator from New Hampshire is saying. This other--the Byrd rule point of order--would punch holes in it, but it would, in any case, have to go back to the House of Representatives. So if you are a Member of the House of Representatives, the best you can hope for is that you are going to get a bill back to the House that has a lot of provisions you cared about knocked out. The worst is that it might completely tube that process in the Senate, if this point of order, the Social Security point of order that could be raised against it, is actually not waived by the Senate. Our Republican Senators--41 of us--have signed a letter saying we will oppose waiving points of order that are raised against the reconciliation bill when it gets to the Senate. I guess my question for my colleagues is: Under that type of scenario, what happens next? Do the House Members who are going to be voting for this, assuming the Senate will fix all these things, then have to have that bill come back? Is there any way in which all these fixes that they hope are going to be eventually attached to the Senate- passed bill will be attached or that these things they hope to fix in this bill are going to be fixed? It seems to me it is very curious that they are betting on the come, so to speak, and trusting the Senate to fix these things and that is an incredible leap of faith.

Mr. THUNE. Let me, if I might, explore this a little further with the Senator from New Hampshire and follow up with a question that the Senator from Texas asked. As I understand this then, the Cadillac tax provisions that were in the Senate bill--and that bill is now over in the House and going to be voted on--because of the changes that have been proposed to it now, it would delay the implementation of the Cadillac tax. Of course, the Cadillac tax, as the Senator from New Hampshire explained, would cap the amount of health care benefits that would be tax free, essentially, so above and beyond that would then become taxable. There is an assumption made that there would be a shift from health care benefits from employers to cash compensation, which would be taxable and generate more payroll tax revenues. That was the Senate bill as it passed here. The additions or modifications that are being considered in the House would delay the implementation date. Therefore, there is a lot of payroll tax revenue that would be coming in under Social Security that would no longer be realized or at least not be realized until the year 2018, which affects the amount of revenue that would be coming in under the Senate-passed bill, if these changes are adopted. As I understand what the Senator from New Hampshire is saying, that will impact Social Security revenues. Those are payroll tax revenues, and any changes that are made to Social Security create a violation of the reconciliation process in the Senate--the Byrd rule, as the Senator from Texas referred to--and, therefore, a point of order would lie against that reconciliation bill when it comes back over here. The majority, I assume, would move to waive that point of order, but what happens if that point of order is not waived? If the majority is not successful in having that point of order waived, what happens to that reconciliation bill, which at that time would be under consideration in the Senate.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. That is what the author of reconciliation said a year ago about trying to do health care reform through this process that the majority has decided to use. There are lots of other examples of our colleagues in the Senate on the other side of the aisle--and I could go on and on. The majority leader, Senator Reid, in November of 2009 said: ``I am not using reconciliation.'' Senator Conrad, the chairman of the Budget Committee, said in March 2009 on the Senate floor: I don't believe reconciliation was ever intended for the purpose of writing this kind of substantive reform legislation such as health care reform. Even the President, when he was a Senator at that time, and now President said reconciliation is a bad idea. So we could go on and on and we can find these statements of our colleagues on the other side who, in the past, have expressed opposition, and not just timid, tepid opposition but, I would argue, very aggressive opposition to the use of reconciliation for something this consequential and are now sort of falling back. I have 18 Democrats on the record who have said they oppose reconciliation and are now saying they think this could be used for this purpose and now is being referred to as a simple majority. So, again, I would say to my colleague from Utah that I think the spin that is going on now to try to confuse the American people about what is happening is something we need to end. We need to be transparent and clear with the American people about what is being done here. I would simply ask my colleague from Utah whether he thinks the process of using reconciliation, the process that has led us to this point, or, for that matter, the underlying substance of this bill, is something the American people would be proud of and would want to see us pass in the Senate.

Mr. THUNE. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. THUNE. I think they have figured it out, which is why the last survey I quoted was the CNN survey which said 48 percent of the people want us to start over and 25 percent want Congress to quit working on the issue altogether. That is literally three-quarters of Americans who have rejected the substance of this legislation--higher taxes, expanded government, Medicare cuts, higher premiums for most Americans--and some who flatout do not want anything done, which, as I said, is not the view to which I subscribe. Three-quarters of Americans understand what this bill is about. They know how it was put together, and they reject both.

Mr. THUNE. If the Senator will yield for just one final point.

Mr. THUNE. Well, I would say to my friend from Utah, it is interesting how the semantics and terminology changes in Washington depending upon what point you are trying to make. But many of our colleagues who have weighed in heavily against the use of reconciliation on a range of subjects--more specifically now health care reform--are now referring to it as simply a simple majority: All we are asking for is a simple majority vote, which does represent a spin and misdirection. Because, as the Senator from Utah has noted, reconciliation, as a procedure, has a fairly special place in the history of the Senate, going back to 1974, when it was created. It is to be used for specific purposes: to reconcile spending, revenues, tax increases, tax cuts-- primarily to accomplish deficit reduction. As the Senator from Utah has pointed out, when it is used to enact significant legislation, generally it has broad bipartisan support. The Senator mentioned welfare reform. It had 78 votes for it. That is the most frequently cited example of the use of reconciliation for something that was policy oriented. But, remember, that had 78 votes in the Senate. A huge and decisive majority of Senators decided to vote for its use in that case. You also have, as I said, other examples where it was done to accomplish reducing taxes, increasing taxes. Those are all arguably legitimate uses under the procedure of reconciliation. But now what you are finding is legislation that literally would restructure and reorder one-sixth of the American economy that would have profound consequences and a profound impact on the American people for not only the near term but the long term. We are talking about using this ``go your own way,'' ``go it alone'' process of reconciliation simply because using regular order cannot accomplish the objective that is desired by the Democratic majority. So they have fallen back on the use of reconciliation for something that is unprecedented. It is interesting to me, if you look historically at what some of our colleagues have said, there are not many people who have more experience with this issue or more experience in the Senate than the Senator from Utah, but the Senator from West Virginia, a member of the Democratic majority, has been here even longer and is cited most often as being the author of the current budget process that we have, which includes this reconciliation procedure. He wrote a letter a year ago which I wish to submit for the Record, and I wish to quote the first paragraph from that letter of a year ago in April. He said: Dear colleague: I oppose using the budget reconciliation process to pass health care reform and climate change legislation. Such a proposal would violate the intent and spirit of the budget process and do serious injury to the constitutional role of the Senate.

Mr. THUNE. I say to the Senator from Utah that he has made, over the course of the last year, many compelling arguments about the substance of this legislation and just now summarized what some of those are. The reason the American people have rejected this legislation is because they understand the substance of it. As the Senator pointed out, it has tax increases, Medicare cuts, and premium increases for most Americans. They figured that out a long time ago. That is why, if you look at the public opinion surveys that have been done with regard to the bill itself and to the process by which it got where it is, the American people reject it. The reconciliation process, which has been talked about as a way in which to ultimately pass this through the House and then through the Senate, there have been polls that have asked the American public what they think of using reconciliation to enact health care reform. The Gallup poll from February 25: 52 percent of Americans oppose the use of reconciliation. Last week's Rasmussen Report poll shows that 53 percent of Americans are opposed to the health care plan. Perhaps the most telling poll is a CNN poll from February 24--if you can believe this--that says 48 percent of Americans want Congress to start working on a new bill, and 25 percent of Americans want Congress to stop working on health care. Added together, that is 73 percent of the American public that wants Congress to either stop working on health care altogether or start over. I am not among those who think we ought to stop working on this. This is a big, important issue to the American people. They want us to do it. But they want us to get it right. What is being proposed by our colleagues on the other side and what so far has been rammed through on a very partisan basis is a $2.5 trillion expansion of the Federal Government that expands the health care entitlement but does very little to reform health care in this county or to address the underlying drivers of health care costs in this country. So the Senator from Utah is absolutely right in describing why the American people are so opposed to this legislation; that is, because they understand it. They know what it does. They are concerned about the cost of their health care insurance in this country. They are concerned as well about those who do not have health care, and we have come up with solutions we think make sense to cover those who do not have coverage. But I think it is pretty clear where the American people come down on this issue. Incidentally, I think that is also what many of these elections we have had recently are about. If you look at what happened in Virginia, New Jersey, and most recently in Massachusetts, many of those elections were referendums, if you go inside the numbers, on the health care issue. I think it is a clear message to Washington that these health care proposals are not acceptable to the American people. Yet it does not seem that those of us in Washington, DC--or at least some of us--are listening to that message. Frankly, I believe, I say to my colleague from Utah, this is a bad bill. It has been rejected by the American people, part of it because of the substance of it; part of it because the normal process has not been followed. We all know what was done to get that extra vote to try and pass this bill through the Senate, to get that 60th vote-- all these backroom deals that were put together at the last minute. We have heard the ``Cornhusker kickback'' chronicled, we have heard the ``Louisiana purchase'' chronicled many times over the last several months. But I think the point, very simply, I say to my friend from Utah, is that, one, the American people understand this will lead to higher costs for most Americans, it is going to increase their cost of health insurance in this country; two, they want to see a bill that is put together in a way that elicits bipartisan support. The Senator from Utah has been here since 1977. He has been involved in a whole series of important bipartisan debates, where important legislation was acted on in the Senate, but it was done in a way that had support from both Republicans and Democrats. I think that is what the American people expect of this process. They also expect us to conduct ourselves in a way that is transparent. Doing legislation, 2,700-page bills behind closed doors, adding last- minute backroom deals to try and get that illusive 60th vote to pass it, and now using reconciliation--something that clearly was not designed for this process--is another issue that is even worsening the American public's opinion not only of the substance of this legislation but also the process. I wish to ask my colleague about reconciliation. But before I do that, I wish to mention one thing because many of us--you and I both and others on our side--have talked a lot during the course of this debate about the cost and what we ought to be doing to address health care. If we wish to address health care in this country for most Americans--or reform health care--it means getting costs under control. We have been arguing for some time that most Americans--and I think the Congressional Budget Office has validated this, the Actuary for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has validated this--that if you are buying in the individual market, you are going to see your insurance premiums go up above what they would normally go up, 10 percent to 13 percent, and if you are someone who buys in the large employer or small employer market, you are still going to see your health insurance premiums go up; they are going to be going up at the rate they are today or maybe slightly higher, but the rate they are going up today is twice the rate of inflation. Yesterday, the Senator from Illinois, the distinguished whip in the majority, the Democratic whip, said on the floor of the Senate: Anyone who would stand before you and say, well, if you pass health care reform, next year's health care premiums are going down, I don't think is telling the truth. I think it is likely they would go up, but what we're trying to do is slow the rate of increase. So there you have it. We have been saying this all along--an acknowledgment by folks on the other side who are finally saying or reiterating what we have been saying all along; that is, health premiums are going to go up. I think if you are someone who, as I said, buys in the individual marketplace or who is in the large or small employer market, you are going to see your premiums go up. The question is How much? I think for most Americans, they would go up significantly. But I say to my colleague--and I would ask him because he has been here since reconciliation almost was put in place; you have to go back to 1974 and the Budget Act--but I am told it has been used 18 or 19 times since then. Since the Senator came here in 1977, I think every time reconciliation has been used, the Senator has been part of that process, has had to vote on that. There probably is not anybody in this Chamber who is more experienced on the issue of reconciliation--what it was designed to do, what it can do--than the Senator from Utah. So I would ask the Senator if he could explain to those of us who have not been here as long exactly what reconciliation was designed to be used for, how it is designed to function, and why it is not applicable to the case of trying to restructure or reorder literally one-sixth of the American economy, which is what health care represents in this country.

Mr. THUNE. I think it is an important one point. I hear articulated by our colleagues on the other side the whole process by which the House is acting on this legislation. I served for three terms in the House of Representatives. I still have colleagues and friends over there, and I know they have a way, through the rules process, of doing a lot of things that aren't allowed in the Senate. The Senate was designed by our Founders to be more free flowing, to slow things down, and to be more deliberative. The Rules Committee allows them to put together what is called a self-enacting, self- executing rule and, as you said, to ``deem as passed'' the Senate bill without a rollcall vote or without a recorded vote on it, which tells us right there that there are a lot of House Members who don't want to vote on the Senate-passed bill. They don't want to go on the record. The only way that bill can pass in the House of Representatives is with an accompanying reconciliation vehicle that makes the fixes that most of those House Members want to make. My point simply is this: Health care reform cannot pass absent this reconciliation process that is being promised on the House side, and also being promised to House Members is that if they vote for it over there, the Senate will follow suit. With all the points of order that will lie against this legislation when it comes to the Senate, in all likelihood the House Members are being asked to take an incredible leap of faith that the Senate is going to be able to maintain many of the provisions they added to the reconciliation bill in the House. The point--and I come back to the dialog the Senator from Utah had with the Senator from West Virginia because I think it is an interesting point of discussion and one criticism I heard from our colleagues on the other side--but, frankly, the House of Representatives could not pass health care reform absent this reconciliation vehicle. It is about one-sixth of our economy. It is about reordering, restructuring, literally, something that is personal and important to every American. When you are talking about doing issues of that consequence and that impact, it ought to be done, as the Senator from Utah has mentioned, as has been done in the past, in a bipartisan way that elicits the best suggestions and ideas of both sides and gets a broad bipartisan vote in the Senate. I thank the Senator from Utah for his leadership.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent that Senators Bennett and Roberts be added as cosponsors.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, yesterday, one of my colleagues criticized me for trying to redirect unspent stimulus funding to pay for tax relief for small businesses by citing all the jobs the stimulus bill supposedly created. I, as many people do, have my doubts about some of these estimates, but I can guarantee this much: none of these jobs have been created or saved by the unspent funds. There is a lot of money in the stimulus bill that has yet to be spent, according to recovery.org, which is the administration's Web site. About 38 percent of the stimulus money approved last year out of that $1 trillion amount--round numbers--has been spent. So there is a lot of unspent and unobligated money. Frankly, many of us, at the time it passed last year, suggested it would be a much wiser use of those funds if we directed those toward small businesses. Small businesses are the creators of jobs in our economy. They create two-thirds of the jobs. They are the economic engine that drives the economy in this country. Ironically, less than 1 percent of that $1 trillion that was approved last year in stimulus funding was directed at incentives for small businesses to create jobs. We put money into all kinds of other things which, to date, have shown little evidence that any jobs have been created. It seems to me, at least, and the argument that was made at the time by many of us, was that allowing or creating more of these incentives, putting more policies in place that would incentivize small businesses to create jobs would have been a much better use of stimulus money. What my amendment very simply says is, of those unspent, unobligated funds--and that universe of funds represents about $160 billion that has not only not been spent but not obligated--we use some of those funds to do what we should have done in the first place; that is, to create incentives for small businesses to hire new people, to put people back to work, and to make capital investments. I take issue with what was said on the floor yesterday, that somehow my amendment was going to cut the Economic Recovery Act short. It doesn't do that at all. In fact, what this does is simply say those funds that have not been spent, not been obligated in the stimulus bill that was passed last year, be redirected toward these particular provisions that will provide incentives for small businesses to create jobs. Very simply, what are those? It extends by 1 year the bonus depreciation that allows small businesses to accelerate the way they write off equipment purchases; accelerated depreciation schedules so they can take more of that cost upfront as a deduction. It also makes permanent the section 179 deduction and increases that as well so that small businesses are able to expense more of those types of investments--again, an incentive for them to invest more, hopefully to create jobs. It eliminates the capital gains tax on investment in small businesses. By the way, that is something the President, in his State of the Union speech, came out in support of. So this is something the White House has already endorsed. Finally, it provides for a 20-percent deduction for small businesses against their income. Why is that necessary? Many small businesses, and, in fact, half of small business income, we are told, when tax rates go up next year would be subject to that higher tax. If a small business that passes through their income to their individual tax return is currently paying at the 33-percent tax rate, they are going to see that tax rate go up to 36 percent of that income. If they are currently paying at the 35-percent tax rate, they are going to see their tax rate go up to 39.6 percent starting next year, in 2011. This allows them to take a 20-percent deduction against their income that will help in some ways limit or mitigate the impact of the higher tax rates that they will be subject to beginning in 2011. Again, I think it is a fairly straightforward amendment, and I simply argue, again, to my colleagues that it makes sense for us, in my view, to be making investments, be putting policies in place that will incentivize job creation in this country, and that job creation, again, occurs in the private economy with small businesses. Small businesses, we are told, create two-thirds of the jobs in our economy and, in fact, about half of the people in this country who work, who are employed currently, work for small businesses. They have a tremendous impact on our economic well-being, on job creation. It is important, in my view, that we take steps here that will add to the ability of our small businesses to get out there and do what they do best; that is, make investments and create jobs. I take issue with what was said yesterday about this amendment: that it would cut short the Economic Recovery Act. It does not do that at all. These are not funds that have currently been spent or obligated. These are funds that are unspent, unobligated out of the $1 trillion bill passed last year which, as we all know, to date has not created the jobs promised. In fact, since the bill passed last year, we have lost 2.7 million jobs in our economy. I think, frankly, one of the reasons for that is it was misdirected in the first place. We should have been focused on job No. 1, and that is helping those job creators in our economy, which are small businesses. I want to point out that the National Federation of Independent Business, which is the largest trade organization representing small businesses in this country, at least the largest small business advocacy organization, has written a letter in support of my amendment. I want to read one paragraph from that letter. It says: The Thune amendment is a necessary step in helping to provide more certainty to small businesses about their future tax liability, whether to make long term capital expenditures, and hire more workers. We hope this amendment will provide momentum to clear other obstacles in the path to job creation. I guess what I would say by way of closing is that although there is a great debate here about how best to create jobs, I think we can all agree a lot of the $1 trillion stimulus bill that passed last year has not been spent. The argument that it would be timely, targeted, and temporary, I think all of those criteria have not been met. More important, the ultimate metric by which I think we judge whether it has been a success or not has not been met either, and that is job creation. Look at the economy today. Unemployment stands at 9.7 percent. The commitment made when the bill was passed a year ago was that if we pass this stimulus bill, we will hold unemployment below 8 percent. We know it is well past that. If you look again at the job numbers and the number of people in this country still looking for work, still struggling, still struggling with the loss of income, the best thing we can do is get them back to work, and the best way to do that is not to create jobs in Washington, DC, or invest in government programs; it is, frankly, to get the small businesses in our economy, the creators of jobs, the engine that drives this economy forward, liberated in a way, providing certainty with regard to tax policy so they know that in 2011, when their tax rates go up--at least those who pass their income through their individual tax return--they are going to have some relief, allowing some relief with regard to capital gains taxes by exempting small business investment, allowing for bonus depreciation so they can write off business purchases, and increasing section 179 expensing, that deduction that currently exists in the Tax Code making that permanent. Those are all steps, small steps, but at least important steps, in my view, that will move this economy forward and do what I think many of us want to see done; that is, create the conditions and the economic climate where jobs can be created where we get people back to work. We are going to have a vote on this amendment this afternoon. Again, my colleagues who were debating an underlying bill that has tax extenders, COBRA extension, unemployment benefits extension--all of those sorts of things, all of which I understand are important, particularly right now when we have a lot of people who are out of work. But, again, the best remedy we can offer to the American people is to create jobs and get people back to work. That will make it less necessary for us to act on the legislation we have to act on today that addresses all the economic dislocation and hurt the American people are experiencing as a result of this economy. A year ago when this stimulus bill passed, less than 1 percent of the money was directed toward small businesses. We can fix that today with this amendment by directing these tax incentives, using unspent, unobligated stimulus money to do it. It is all paid for. It is all offset. It does not pass debt to future generations. It does not add to the deficit. It is all paid for. It puts the money where it should have been put in the first place and directs it in a way that will be adding to job creation in this country. I ask my colleagues to support this amendment. I think it will be voted on in a couple of hours. I yield the floor.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I have an amendment I introduced yesterday at the desk and I have some modifications to it which are also at the desk. I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be so modified.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. I would like to have my amendment be made pending.

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I call up amendment No. 3338 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, as we all know, our economy is suffering. We have an unemployment rate that is currently at 9.7 percent. Furthermore, we have large portions of the population that are either underemployed or have dropped out of the workforce because of limited job prospects. There are a variety of factors that have contributed to this recession. The government's response so far has been largely ineffective, particularly with regard to employment, and I would argue that the best thing that we can do to address the issue of unemployment and having to extend unemployment benefits and COBRA and other types of benefits, all of which are considered in this underlying bill, is to get people back to work. That is fundamentally the very best thing that we can be doing-- focusing on how we create jobs, how we grow this economy, how we provide opportunities for those who have lost their jobs, who are underemployed, to get back into the workforce. That, to me, ought to be the focus of our efforts in the Senate. The bill that was passed about a year ago, the stimulus legislation which we now know is going to cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $862 billion without interest, with interest well over $1 trillion, was all borrowed money. It is going to add $1 trillion to the national debt. Despite that amount of spending, only $6.2 billion was spent on tax incentives for small businesses, and another $730 million was spent in funding for the Small Business Administration. So I want to think about for a moment what that means in terms of the dimensions of the bill that was passed last year. We had a $1 trillion bill. Together the incentives for small business in that bill represented less than 1 percent of the total cost. We all know small businesses have a much greater impact on the economy and on employment than that number represents. Small businesses employ more than half of all of the Nation's private sector employees. They create nearly two-thirds of all of the new jobs and create a disproportionate number of the patents that are issued in our Nation. At the time we voted last year on the stimulus bill, I believe now this was one example of the priorities in that legislation that were misplaced if we are intent on and focused as a laser on creating jobs and getting this economy growing again. I made the argument at the time, as did many of my colleagues--and we offered amendments in support of that belief--that the best way to get the economy growing again is not to focus on a lot of government spending on new government programs, but, in fact, to provide incentives for small businesses, the engines of our economy; to get out there and to start investing and to start creating jobs. So I offered an amendment that was an alternative to the stimulus bill a year ago, which, according to the economic model developed by the President's economic adviser, would have created twice as many jobs, and it would have cost half of what this stimulus legislation is going to end up costing the taxpayers of this country--again, all of which is borrowed from future generations. While the Senate passed a smaller jobs bill last week, Senators in the Chamber were blocked from offering amendments. I wanted to offer this amendment a week ago when we considered the other jobs bill that passed through here. That was a $15 billion jobs bill which I think is now pending action in the House of Representatives. But I am offering this amendment now because we have this underlying tax extenders bill, and I think it is important that we discuss and debate how best we can stimulate the economy, how best we can grow the economy, get it expanding again, and how best we can create jobs to get people back to work. It seems to me, again, that ought to be the first priority on which we as a Senate get focused. What my amendment would do is, it would, for the year 2010, extend depreciation. It would permanently increase the section 179 deductions that allow small business to expense more of the investment they make as opposed to having to depreciate those. By lowering the cost of new capital expenditures, these provisions would encourage companies to invest in new equipment, make capital purchases, capital investments; it would increase both growth and employment. It would also eliminate capital gains taxes on small business investment. This simple, permanent reduction in taxes was supported by the President in his State of the Union Address, and it would increase investment as well in small businesses. This amendment also would allow a 20-percent deduction for small business income. We currently have a lot of small business owners who pay their taxes at the individual level. It is called flowthrough income. They have a small business. The income flows through to their individual tax returns and so they pay at individual tax rates, and those tax rates are set to rise on small businesses beginning in 2011. In fact, a lot of our small businesses, about half, are going to be impacted by those increases in marginal income tax rates that will occur in 2011. This would help mitigate the impact of those increases on the 20 million people working in small businesses, those small businesses which would be taxed at a higher rate under the President's tax proposals. Finally, this bill would prevent Davis-Bacon prevailing wage requirements from raising the cost for projects funded under the stimulus bill. While I understand the importance of good wages, projects that comply with Davis-Bacon restrictions see labor costs on average 22 percent higher than market rates. This stimulus bill was the first time where that requirement was inserted into this sort of a stimulus bill designed to create jobs and grow the economy. Waiving these provisions will help eliminate the confusion and stretch taxpayer dollars so we get more bang for our buck in the amount of dollars currently out there, hopefully, trying to create jobs. My amendment would be paid for by redirecting unspent or unobligated stimulus funds from the bill passed last year. Out of that $862 billion in spending, according to what we hear from the administration's Web site, recovery.org, about 37 percent of that money has been spent as of the end of this last year. Bear in mind, a lot of that money is obligated, but we understand that the unspent, unobligated amount on the spending portion, not on the tax portion, is about $160 billion. It would seem to me that if the purpose of all our efforts is to create jobs, we ought to begin to think about who creates those jobs. Two-thirds of the jobs in our economy are created by small businesses. Why then should we not be focusing our efforts on creating incentives for small businesses to invest? Frankly, that would have been the way I would have gone about the stimulus bill. Many of my colleagues offered amendments, and many of them supported my amendment. I think I had 37 votes for my amendment that would have focused in the stimulus bill of a year ago more on small businesses, whereas the bill that ultimately passed only spent under 1 percent of that total amount, almost $1 trillion, on small businesses which are the economic engine, the job creators in the economy. If we can figure out ways to get small businesses some relief so they can start hiring again, we address all these other issues--9.7 percent unemployment which, incidentally, the promises made when the big stimulus bill passed last year was that if we didn't pass this stimulus bill, unemployment would go up to 8 percent. We have blown way by. That is at 9.7 percent. We were told it would create millions of jobs. We know now that since its passage last year, we have actually lost 2.7 million jobs in the economy. Clearly, the prescription put in place is not working. I argue that is largely because it was misdirected. It was directed toward creating new bureaucracies in Washington, perhaps some government jobs, but the fact is, the good-paying, permanent jobs in our economy are created in the private economy. The biggest creator of those jobs is small businesses. Frankly, we ought to be looking at what types of policies can we put in place that will create an environment in which small businesses can go back out there, make investments, put people back to work and then we start, hopefully, bringing the unemployment rate down, get people back employed again, and a lot of these measures we are now having to take with regard to unemployment benefits hopefully would cost the taxpayers a lot less. The best thing we could do for people who are without a job is to get them back to work. The best way to do that is to get small businesses hiring again. One final point. One of the things I hear repeatedly from small businesses in South Dakota and across the country is there is a sort of paralysis about investors looking at investing in different areas and different projects. But looking at Washington, DC, and seeing all this policy uncertainty, they see this cloud over the economy. It is creating economic anxiety. What I hear from a lot of small businesses and people who create jobs is that they are worried about the policy uncertainty in Washington, DC. Is Washington going to pass this massive new health care bill which includes an employer mandate that would raise taxes on small businesses? Is Washington going to pass a climate change bill that has punishing energy taxes, particularly on areas in the Midwest? I have a couple of power plants in my State that are on ice right now because of uncertainty about what is going to happen with regard to coal-fired power. There is a lot of uncertainty out there swirling around about what Congress might do or, worse yet, what the EPA might do on their own. There is uncertainty about what is going to happen with taxes. Are we going to see taxes go up in 2011? In fact, for small businesses, about half who do allow their income from their small business to flow through to their individual income tax return are going to see those marginal rates increase when they go from 33 to 36 and 35 to 39.6 percent, significant tax increases, which is why I have a deduction for small business income as part of this amendment. We need to bring some certainty to small businesses in the area of taxes, certainty with regard to regulation, certainty with regard to the litigation environment. We have so much uncertainty swirling around Washington, it is creating a huge cloud. Now we have a situation where small businesses are making decisions based upon political factors rather than economic factors. We want them making decisions based upon economic factors, not worrying what has become the new center of gravity, and that is Washington, DC. Washington cannot create permanent, good-paying jobs in our economy. Those can only be recreated in the economy as we unleash small businesses and entrepreneurs and provide incentives for them to do what they do best. That is to grow their businesses and to make capital investments and to create jobs. I hope my colleagues will support this amendment. It is paid for. It is offset. This doesn't add anything to the debt. We don't have to borrow money. All we do is redirect unspent, unobligated stimulus moneys, moneys left over from last year's stimulus bill toward small business tax incentives which, frankly, many of us argue--and I argued at the time and I hope more people agree now--should have been a greater focus of the stimulus in the first place. If we are serious about creating jobs, we have to go to where the job creators are. The economic engine is small business. My amendment creates tax incentives for them to go out and create jobs and does it in a way that doesn't add to the deficit, doesn't add more borrowing and allows the small businesses to do what they do best. I encourage my colleagues to support the amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. THUNE. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. THUNE. Yes.