Jobs and Premium Protection Act

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 President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I want to talk about the four amendments I filed on this bill. I will say right upfront, all four are supported by my Missouri colleague, Senator McCaskill, so they are bipartisan amendments. Two of them would deal with a property ownership issue created by an infringement by Federal regulators, by FERC. They both deal with a private power generating dam that was built in 1931. It created a lake called Lake of the Ozarks, and over the years private property owners have constructed literally thousands of homes that on this map beside me are impacted. The houses are the red dots. The other areas in there are thousands of buildings of one kind or another on a lake that is one of the most used lakes in the country. Some people go to those houses on the weekend and a lot of people live there all the time. This is their home.

Since the 1950s, the Lake of the Ozarks has been the most visited lake by boaters in the Midwest. It is a lake that is not owned by the Federal Government. Tourism at this lake totals about $200 million annually. Because of this tourist industry there is lots of private investment.

In 2004, Ameren Electric, the current owner of the lake--it was built, again, in the 1930s by Union Electric, which later became Ameren Electric--applied to FERC to renew their license to generate power at Bagnell Dam, which is the dam that was built to impound the water that created the Lake of the Ozarks. This application also made sure that virtually all of the homes and structures would no longer be subject to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, but FERC rejected this request. The result has been a back and forth between Ameren and FERC and the property owners for the past 7 years.

This finger-pointing by everybody involved--except the property owners, who simply think they own the property--has been nothing short of outrageous and it has left property values, businesses, tourism, tax revenues, and jobs in question. FERC has taken its role too far. FERC is acting as though they are the Corps of Engineers and somehow the taxpayers of America own this property instead of the taxpayers who actually are the individual taxpayers who own the property.

On every acre of land covered by water, taxes have been paid. Property taxes have been paid on that land since the first dream that this lake would be created--so 80 years of taxpayer money. This is not a Corps of Engineers work where the Corps of Engineers can say we own the lake, we own the shoreland, we are going to decide what you are going to do. FERC has taken its role too far and it is engaging in a pattern of enforcing shoreline management rules.

My first amendment would simply modify the Federal Power Act by changing the definition of what could be considered a ``project purpose.'' Currently, FERC recognizes public recreational use of land but not private ownership. We would not say they could no longer recognize public recreational use of land, but we would say that they have to recognize private ownership. If FERC, at a lake such as this, can decide access to the land, why can't FERC or some other Federal agency drive by a farmer's farm and say: That is a nice pond out there. I will bet it has some fish in it. Why don't we ensure that everybody who wants to have access to that farmer's pond has access to that farmer's pond?

Maybe I should not suggest that. Maybe some Federal agency would hear that and say: It is water, it is pleasant, people ought to be able to enjoy it; everybody ought to be able to enjoy it just like the people who own the property and build the property and do their work.

My amendment would stop FERC from putting the commission's policy preferences above those of ratepayers and private landowners in licensing this dam.

My second amendment would simply redraw the boundaries of the Lake of the Ozarks to reflect the 662-foot contour as necessitated by changing water levels over the past 80 years. It would limit FERC's ability to issue an order to remove structures in what they now consider a project boundary until that boundary has been more finally settled. It would limit FERC's ability to reject applications as long as power generation is still preserved.

The purpose of FERC is to see that a power generating dam generates power. It is not to control everything that is

behind that dam. That is not the job of FERC. In fact, let me leave those two amendments with a few stories of Missouri homeowners who shared their stories with me about how FERC and FERC's actions affected their lives.

This is a 30-year-old house that these homeowners have paid property taxes on for 30 years. In fact, you can see this large pine tree in front of this house. It was a seedling when they started paying property taxes, and that is a big tree. They paid property taxes the whole time. It is their first home. It is their only home. They have been informed that they are within the Bagnell Dam boundary, meaning they risk losing their house. In fact, it is one of 17 homes in this subdivision facing the same problem.

In another home, Fred and Barbara Lowtharp purchased this home 15 years ago. It was built 35 years ago. These are not new homes that somebody has just put on this property in the last couple of years and FERC has come in and said you made a mistake. This is a 35-year-old home that the current owners have lived in for 5 years. Barbara shared this with me on Facebook. She said:

We have been paying taxes and upkeep on our homes and new

homes have been built around us within the last 2 years with

permits and titles. These homes are not cabins. The majority

of us live here year round.

This is according to the owner:

We have our money invested in these properties in good

faith when we bought them, going through the right procedures

and thinking you are a property owner for over 16 years, then

being told your deed isn't worth the paper it is written on

is something that you cannot understand how this can happen

in the U.S.A.

This is the Facebook note continued: ``Really feel bullied by the FERC agency and Ameren.''

We owe it to the citizens involved to see that the Federal Government doesn't come in and just simply take their property. It is not fair. Imagine, you get a new job somewhere, this is your home, you cannot sell your home and buy a new home because FERC suddenly decided, after 16 years of paying taxes, that your land is not owned by you even though the county tax collectors thought it had been owned by you the whole time.

Let me discuss quickly the other two amendments that deal with flood control. The Missouri and Mississippi Rivers have both been impacted dramatically by flooding this year. In Holt County alone, there was an astonishing 165,000 acres under water, most of it for 3 and 4 months. In Birds Point in the boot heel of Missouri, another 130,000 additional acres of farmland is under water. In total, we had over 400,000 acres, 600 square miles--something about the size of the entire State of Rhode Island--under water during parts of this year. Vital transportation corridors have been closed, highways washed out, businesses shut down and people have been dealing with this now for months.

My first amendment, amendment No. 976, cuts the bureaucratic redtape if all you are doing is putting back something that was there before the flood. If you are rebuilding a levee, if you are putting back things that were there before the flood, to rebuild levees or locks or dams that were damaged by the flood, you should be able to do it. You should not have to go through all kinds of studies to decide if the levee that you are putting back as it was and where it was can be there again. This is the only chance we have to get these structures back in place before the 2012 flooding season starts.

Of course, in 2012 it would not have to be a flood of this size to create great problems if the levee is already gone. That is what that amendment would do. It gives the Corps the tools they need to restore flood protection to the 2011 levels, hopefully before the 2012 runoff season begins.

I want to talk about amendment No. 975, which restricts funding of the Missouri River Fish and Wildlife Recovery Program to $22 million. This still leaves a lot of money for that program, but it takes the other money that has been available for that program all year and makes it available to meet the critical flood control crisis.

We have already spent more than $616 million on that program. This is essentially a program that is one of the big projects where the government buys land from willing sellers who want to let it become more of a wetland or a wildlife reserve, something such as that. I am not saying that willing sellers should not be able to do that, but I am saying for right now $22 million--not something more like $72 million-- is enough.

In fact, we have had citizens in some of these counties call the Corps to be told truthfully: No, we don't have sufficient funds to restore the flood protection you are eligible for, but we could buy your farm. Imagine if you are on the other end of that call and you have a family farm and you are calling to find out what you can do about the levee or what you can do to get flood protection back, and they say: We cannot do anything about the levee, but we could buy your farm. If you want to go back to the kitchen table and decide if you want to sell out, the taxpayers of America have plenty of money to buy your farm, but, no, we don't have money to restore the levee that was protecting your farm just a few days ago. That is not acceptable.

That is why Senator McCaskill and I are cosponsoring all four of these amendments. We recognize that these issues are critically important in our State. In fact, the last two amendments are critically important in the seven States that start in Montana and end in St. Louis, MO, that are impacted by flooding in all seven of those States this year.

I hope we are able to consider these amendments, and I hope my colleagues will join me in trying to do what is right for the people we were sent here to work for.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

During the summer, Democrats and Republicans in Congress, as Americans well remember, had a big fight over trying to reduce spending as we approached the Nation's debt limit.

As we know, the product of that fight was a leadership-brokered deal that promised long-term savings in discretionary spending of around $900 billion over 10 years, not just in 1 year. It also created the Supercommittee, which has been meeting in secret to find another $1.2 trillion in possible savings. We hope they do and they should, frankly, find more in savings. Whatever they come up with must be voted on in the Senate without any amendment and cannot be altered in any way. This is concerning to me. Virtually every deal we have seen this year has been filled with promises of savings, but when we analyze them, the savings are not nearly as real as promised. So we do not need another plan with tax hikes that never go away and promises of spending cuts that do not materialize or are not continued.

Indeed, the debt limit deal, which produced the Budget Control Act this summer, claims to contain a spending cap, but that is not accurate. It is a phony cap. The cuts that matter most are, in many respects, those that of course take place right away. But, after all of the bickering and drama, we ended up with a deal that cut discretionary spending by only a paltry $7 billion from the fiscal year 2011 discretionary budget. To put this number in perspective, the total outlays for 2011 are $145 billion greater than 2010, and our deficit is nearly $1.3 trillion--$1,300 billion deficit. We are talking about promising a $7 billion reduction in spending. Nevertheless, $7 billion in discretionary cuts, at least, is real and a small step, in the right direction; right?

We are supposed to spend $1,043 billion this year. That is $7 billion less from the $1,050 billion in discretionary spending from last year. Unfortunately, this is one more empty promise, because the legislation was rushed through--this Budget Control Act--in the eleventh hour at the fifty-ninth minute. Nobody, at that time, knew there was a gimmick in it.

Here is how it worked: The Budget Control Act created a cap adjustment for disaster relief funding. It took a 10-year average for emergency spending and estimated that to be $11.3 billion for 2012. But, this $11.3 billion in the Budget Control Act is a new fund, and it is spent by regular appropriations, not by 60 votes--as in the past for emergency spending--and it is above the $1,043 billion figure. So the truth is, the bill is not and never was $1,043 billion, as promised, a limit on spending to that amount, but $1,054 billion. Therefore, spending for discretionary accounts this year will be larger than last year.

The writers of the Budget Control Act went even further. They changed the Senate rule in this bill that was passed at the fifty-ninth minute of the eleventh hour to eliminate the 60-vote rule even for emergency spending, creating another loophole. So a 60-vote point of order--which has been used here over the years to challenge a designation as emergency spending--has been stripped as part of a bill denominated as a Budget Control Act, so the new fund can be spent--this $11.3 billion--at any time as a normal appropriation, as if it were within the budget and without a 60-vote requirement. This eliminates the pressure to stay within the budget to offset annual disaster spending as a number of us have been attempting to do in recent years.

For instance, if you have $2 billion in disaster spending as part of a specific appropriation, instead of eliminating $2 billion in waste somewhere else in order to keep your total spending within the budget, you have free access to the $11 billion fund and do not have to worry about offsetting a penny. You also do not need a vote for disaster funding approval. As a result, this little offset issue has grown as a tribute to the effectiveness of Senator Tom Coburn, who has been fighting to offset so-called emergency spending designations. The 60- vote requirement to pass the emergency bill gave him some leverage and ability to challenge the spending and challenge the appropriators in order to find offsets for the new spending. Instead of calling this the Budget Control Act, we should call it the Coburn control act. This is not a step forward for us.

The real spending cap now is $1,054 billion, $4 billion more than we spent last year. You only need to go through an emergency designation process if you want to spend even more than that, but you do not need 60 votes even for that. The irony here is that there was widespread belief, in this Chamber, that we needed to tighten the emergency spending designation, because it was being abused.

To give one unbelievable example, the Senate counted $210 million in the routine funding for the census as emergency spending. The census is in the Constitution and is required to be conducted every 10 years. How in the world can we say this is unexpected emergency spending? It is as routine as anything can possibly be. It was done because otherwise spending would be needed to have been cut by $200 million somewhere else. The Budget Control Act has succeeded in actually weakening the standard for emergency spending and creates one more loophole for the spender.

Again, the effect of the $11 billion fund is that it effectively nullifies the cap we were promised. The appropriating committee will have no incentive to achieve savings when they can spend every penny of the $1,043 billion base budget all while knowing there is still another $11 billion to be spent when they exhaust the first allotment. The evidence of this is before our very eyes. To date, in one form or another, seven appropriations bills have come before the Senate floor. Four of them have been voted on and passed. The Energy and Water bill is before us this week. We should have been considering each of these bills individually and doing our due diligence, but we haven't. They have been moved through in groups. But, I am glad this legislation, the Energy and Water bill, will be considered on its own, and not bundled with others as a mini-bus or omnibus as the Washington parlance goes. The bad news is that the seven bills we have seen on the floor have already increased spending by $9 billion. We are well on our way to using every cent of the $11 billion fund, with no effort to achieving savings elsewhere to stay under budget.

The Energy and Water bill on the floor now increases spending by $1 billion. That may seem small in Washington terms, but it is the reason we are going broke. A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it is a great deal of money. If we can't, honestly, even reach the paltry goal of $7 billion in savings, how on Earth can we tackle our $15 trillion debt?

Or consider food stamps. Federal welfare spending is now about $700 billion a year. It is more than $900 billion a year when you count state obligations or contributions to the same programs. Food stamps are the fastest growing major item in the welfare budget. They have quadrupled in 10 years. The Food Stamp Program is one of 18 federal nutritional support programs in the budget--1 of 18. The number of people receiving food stamps has climbed from about 1 in 50, when the program went national, to almost 1 in 7 today.

Some of the more than 45 million people receiving food stamps exceed the program's eligibility requirements. They have higher income or higher assets than you are supposed to have to qualify. But, they received the benefits because they get them as a reciprocal benefit for other Federal benefits they get. If they qualify for one program, they are then categorically entitled to the Food Stamp Program even though they do not meet the basic requirements. And reports of fraud and abuse are widespread.

We were promised recommendations by the chairwoman of the Agriculture Committee, Senator Stabenow, for how the supercommittee could achieve savings in the agriculture budget of which food stamps is the largest component of the entire agriculture budget, by far, dwarfing other expenditures, such as aid to farmers. They were supposed to arrive, the Senator promised, by November 1, but as of now, we are still waiting.

The sad truth is our Democratic-led Senate has not met its responsibility to help this Nation confront its most serious threat, and that is the debt we have. It is the greatest economic danger of our time, as we have repeatedly been warned. If we ultimately fail to control Federal spending, which has nearly doubled in 10 years, we will experience a debt crisis that leads to loss of jobs, loss of growth, and loss of economic opportunity. Such a crisis will hurt those with less income the most. It is our duty to stop the occurrence of this very preventible tragedy.

Instead of the irresponsible spending favored by the political class, it is time for Washington to be more accountable, to focus on the middle class. That means creating jobs through the private sector, producing more American energy, keeping our wealth at home, making the government lean and productive, a servant of the American people, confronting our dangerously rising debt, which threatens our economy and jobs, adopting a globally competitive tax code, upholding the rule of law and trade, eliminating unwise, damaging regulation, and finally, delivering the good people of this country the honest and responsible budget they deserve.

We have a long way to go. I am disappointed we cannot even comply with the intent of the Budget Control Act passed this summer.

I thank the Chair.

I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, first, I wish to congratulate and thank my colleague, the senior Senator from Utah, Mr. Hatch, for his continued leadership on the issue of health care. As the ranking member of the Finance Committee, he has been a stalwart and strong supporter in efforts to get for the American people the health care they need, from the doctor they want, at a price they can afford, and amazing in his fight against what this body, what the House of Representatives, and what the President have forced onto people all across this country, which, to me, has been bad for patients, bad for the providers of those patients--the nurses and doctors who take care of them--and terrible for taxpayers.

That is why week after week I come to the floor to give a doctor's second opinion about the health care law, and why I am so pleased to be here with my colleague today to join in the introduction of this piece of legislation.

As people all around the country know--those who listened to the many speeches given during the debate on health care--the President and Democrats in Washington promised the American people this trillion dollar health care spending law would lower health insurance premiums. That is what the President promised, that health insurance premium costs would go down. Well, the American people have now had 19 months to review what is in the health care law, and they are finding that the President and the Washington Democrats sold them a bill of goods.

On September 27 of this year, the Kaiser Family Foundation issued its annual survey of employer-sponsored health insurance premiums. The report showed that employer-provided health insurance premiums rose-- went up, not down--$1,303 for an average family last year alone. Remember--and we do--that the President repeatedly promised his health care law would reduce the average annual family premium by $2,500. Yet the exact opposite of what the President promised has occurred. The Kaiser Family Foundation report shows significant premium increases, not savings as the President promised.

Not only are premiums continuing to climb, but the President and Washington Democrats paid for their health care spending law by imposing billions of dollars in new taxes on American business and American consumers. Independent experts agree these taxes only serve to increase an individual, a family, or a small business's cost to buy medical coverage. Specifically, section 9010 of the health care law creates a new $60-plus billion tax on health insurance plans starting in 2014.

The health care law slaps this tax on all health insurance companies based on net premiums in what is called the fully insured market. This means the tax an insurance company must pay is equal to the percent of their market share. The larger the insurance company's market share, the higher their annual health insurance tax becomes. The aggregate tax in 2014 is $8 billion and climbs to $11.3 billion in 2015 and 2016, eventually reaching over $14 billion in 2018. After that, the law mandates the health insurance tax grow by premium inflation. More inflation, higher taxes.

Former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin released a study in March of this year estimating the health insurance tax could exceed $87 billion between 2014 and 2020. Some on the other side of the aisle want to message this tax as a ``health insurance fee.'' I would say to my friends all across this country, Do not be fooled. This new tax directly hits small business.

The Joint Committee on Taxation makes it clear the insurance tax will be borne by consumers in the form of higher prices, by owners of firms in the form of lower profits, by employees of those firms in the form of lower wages, or by other suppliers to the firms in the form of lower payments.

Remember, this tax only hits health insurance companies that sell their products in the fully insured market. As we have learned, and heard earlier on the Senate floor, 87 percent of small businesses buy their health insurance in this fully insured market.

The fully insured market is also the place that uninsured individuals and the self-employed go when they need to purchase medical insurance. Insurance companies selling plans to individuals and small businesses are the ones that are hit with the tax. The new tax doesn't hit large, self-insured businesses. Ultimately, uninsured individuals, small businesses, and their employees are the ones who are going to end up paying this unfair tax. This new punitive tax will add hundreds of dollars to family and small business insurance premiums every year.

The Wyoming Blue Cross Blue Shield Association tells me that a Wyoming family of four will see a premium increase because of this tax of over $300 in 2014. In 2018, that same Wyoming family of four will see over a $500 premium increase as a result of the tax. These premium increases will have been passed through to consumers as a direct result of this health care law's tax component--what the President and the Democrats in this body have foisted on the American public.

Additionally, the Holtz-Eakin March 2011 study proves the health insurance tax will raise premiums by as much as 3 percent or nearly $5,000 for a family of four over the next decade. What American family, I ask you, can afford to see their take-home pay reduced by $5,000 over the next decade thanks to the President's new tax. The Nation's unemployment rate stands at 9 percent. There are 14 million Americans, people across our country, unemployed and looking for work. Struggling American families cannot bear the brunt of President's Obama's new tax.

A recent study by the National Federation of Independent Business found this health insurance tax will force the

private sector to shed somewhere between 125,000 and 249,000 jobs between now and 2021. More than half of those losses will fall on the backs of small businesses.

Two million small businesses across this country cannot afford President Obama's new tax. Twenty-six million workers, who get their insurance through their employer, cannot afford President Obama's new tax. And the 12 million people who buy health insurance plans on their own in the individual market cannot afford President Obama's new tax. That is why today we introduce legislation called the Jobs and Premium Protection Act.

I introduced this bill along with my friend, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Hatch. Our legislation is simple and straightforward. It eliminates the health care law's punitive tax on every individual, family, and small business that chooses to do the right thing and buy health insurance. Unbelievably, the health care law punishes individuals and punishes small businesses, the very two groups who find buying health insurance at an affordable price extremely challenging. Why would the Federal Government implement policies that make it harder by imposing a tax on the products these individuals buy?

Some must believe that insurers will simply be able to absorb the tax. Well, experts tell us that assumption is false. Here is what the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation said in a letter to Senator John Kyl in June of this year:

We expect a very large portion of the insurance industry

fee to be passed forward to purchasers of insurance in the

form of higher premiums.

A very large portion, they say. Then they go on to say:

Eliminating this fee would decrease the average family

premium in 2016 by $300 to $400.

Isn't that what we want, to lower the cost of insurance for individuals? This is the way to do it.

Finally, the Joint Committee on Taxation letter confirms the following:

Repealing the health insurance industry fee would reduce

the premium prices of plans offered by covered entities by 2

to 2\1/2\ percent.

This ill-conceived discriminatory tax must be eliminated. It must be stopped well before it starts to impact individuals, families, and small businesses. Our bill is a critical piece of pro-business legislation. It has the support of organizations such as the National Federation of Independent Business, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, and America's health insurance plans.

I urge colleagues on both sides of the aisle who are concerned about the cost of insurance for families of America, who are shocked and surprised, some in disbelief, that what the President promised the American people--of a reduction in premiums--isn't true, and who want to try to in a little way right that wrong to do so by cosponsoring and supporting the Jobs and Premium Protection Act.

I thank the Chair and the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Hatch--especially Senator Hatch--for his leadership and for joining me in introducing this legislation today. The time has come to eliminate a bad policy that not only increases health insurance costs but also negatively impacts America's job creators.

Mr. President, first, I wish to congratulate and thank my colleague, the senior Senator from Utah, Mr. Hatch, for his continued leadership on the issue of health care. As the ranking member of the Finance Committee, he has been a stalwart and strong supporter in efforts to get for the American people the health care they need, from the doctor they want, at a price they can afford, and amazing in his fight against what this body, what the House of Representatives, and what the President have forced onto people all across this country, which, to me, has been bad for patients, bad for the providers of those patients--the nurses and doctors who take care of them--and terrible for taxpayers.

That is why week after week I come to the floor to give a doctor's second opinion about the health care law, and why I am so pleased to be here with my colleague today to join in the introduction of this piece of legislation.

As people all around the country know--those who listened to the many speeches given during the debate on health care--the President and Democrats in Washington promised the American people this trillion dollar health care spending law would lower health insurance premiums. That is what the President promised, that health insurance premium costs would go down. Well, the American people have now had 19 months to review what is in the health care law, and they are finding that the President and the Washington Democrats sold them a bill of goods.

On September 27 of this year, the Kaiser Family Foundation issued its annual survey of employer-sponsored health insurance premiums. The report showed that employer-provided health insurance premiums rose-- went up, not down--$1,303 for an average family last year alone. Remember--and we do--that the President repeatedly promised his health care law would reduce the average annual family premium by $2,500. Yet the exact opposite of what the President promised has occurred. The Kaiser Family Foundation report shows significant premium increases, not savings as the President promised.

Not only are premiums continuing to climb, but the President and Washington Democrats paid for their health care spending law by imposing billions of dollars in new taxes on American business and American consumers. Independent experts agree these taxes only serve to increase an individual, a family, or a small business's cost to buy medical coverage. Specifically, section 9010 of the health care law creates a new $60-plus billion tax on health insurance plans starting in 2014.

The health care law slaps this tax on all health insurance companies based on net premiums in what is called the fully insured market. This means the tax an insurance company must pay is equal to the percent of their market share. The larger the insurance company's market share, the higher their annual health insurance tax becomes. The aggregate tax in 2014 is $8 billion and climbs to $11.3 billion in 2015 and 2016, eventually reaching over $14 billion in 2018. After that, the law mandates the health insurance tax grow by premium inflation. More inflation, higher taxes.

Former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin released a study in March of this year estimating the health insurance tax could exceed $87 billion between 2014 and 2020. Some on the other side of the aisle want to message this tax as a ``health insurance fee.'' I would say to my friends all across this country, Do not be fooled. This new tax directly hits small business.

The Joint Committee on Taxation makes it clear the insurance tax will be borne by consumers in the form of higher prices, by owners of firms in the form of lower profits, by employees of those firms in the form of lower wages, or by other suppliers to the firms in the form of lower payments.

Remember, this tax only hits health insurance companies that sell their products in the fully insured market. As we have learned, and heard earlier on the Senate floor, 87 percent of small businesses buy their health insurance in this fully insured market.

The fully insured market is also the place that uninsured individuals and the self-employed go when they need to purchase medical insurance. Insurance companies selling plans to individuals and small businesses are the ones that are hit with the tax. The new tax doesn't hit large, self-insured businesses. Ultimately, uninsured individuals, small businesses, and their employees are the ones who are going to end up paying this unfair tax. This new punitive tax will add hundreds of dollars to family and small business insurance premiums every year.

The Wyoming Blue Cross Blue Shield Association tells me that a Wyoming family of four will see a premium increase because of this tax of over $300 in 2014. In 2018, that same Wyoming family of four will see over a $500 premium increase as a result of the tax. These premium increases will have been passed through to consumers as a direct result of this health care law's tax component--what the President and the Democrats in this body have foisted on the American public.

Additionally, the Holtz-Eakin March 2011 study proves the health insurance tax will raise premiums by as much as 3 percent or nearly $5,000 for a family of four over the next decade. What American family, I ask you, can afford to see their take-home pay reduced by $5,000 over the next decade thanks to the President's new tax. The Nation's unemployment rate stands at 9 percent. There are 14 million Americans, people across our country, unemployed and looking for work. Struggling American families cannot bear the brunt of President's Obama's new tax.

A recent study by the National Federation of Independent Business found this health insurance tax will force the

private sector to shed somewhere between 125,000 and 249,000 jobs between now and 2021. More than half of those losses will fall on the backs of small businesses.

Two million small businesses across this country cannot afford President Obama's new tax. Twenty-six million workers, who get their insurance through their employer, cannot afford President Obama's new tax. And the 12 million people who buy health insurance plans on their own in the individual market cannot afford President Obama's new tax. That is why today we introduce legislation called the Jobs and Premium Protection Act.

I introduced this bill along with my friend, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Hatch. Our legislation is simple and straightforward. It eliminates the health care law's punitive tax on every individual, family, and small business that chooses to do the right thing and buy health insurance. Unbelievably, the health care law punishes individuals and punishes small businesses, the very two groups who find buying health insurance at an affordable price extremely challenging. Why would the Federal Government implement policies that make it harder by imposing a tax on the products these individuals buy?

Some must believe that insurers will simply be able to absorb the tax. Well, experts tell us that assumption is false. Here is what the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation said in a letter to Senator John Kyl in June of this year:

We expect a very large portion of the insurance industry

fee to be passed forward to purchasers of insurance in the

form of higher premiums.

A very large portion, they say. Then they go on to say:

Eliminating this fee would decrease the average family

premium in 2016 by $300 to $400.

Isn't that what we want, to lower the cost of insurance for individuals? This is the way to do it.

Finally, the Joint Committee on Taxation letter confirms the following:

Repealing the health insurance industry fee would reduce

the premium prices of plans offered by covered entities by 2

to 2\1/2\ percent.

This ill-conceived discriminatory tax must be eliminated. It must be stopped well before it starts to impact individuals, families, and small businesses. Our bill is a critical piece of pro-business legislation. It has the support of organizations such as the National Federation of Independent Business, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, and America's health insurance plans.

I urge colleagues on both sides of the aisle who are concerned about the cost of insurance for families of America, who are shocked and surprised, some in disbelief, that what the President promised the American people--of a reduction in premiums--isn't true, and who want to try to in a little way right that wrong to do so by cosponsoring and supporting the Jobs and Premium Protection Act.

I thank the Chair and the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Hatch--especially Senator Hatch--for his leadership and for joining me in introducing this legislation today. The time has come to eliminate a bad policy that not only increases health insurance costs but also negatively impacts America's job creators.

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

Madam President, I was just listening to the news in my office, and I heard the report that the United States has gone over $15 trillion in debt. Of course, that is just our short-term debt. It doesn't really include our unfunded liabilities, which some estimate to be $100 trillion. But, nonetheless, $15 trillion is the size of our total economy--a condition that would mean certain bankruptcy for almost any business.

All of us in these Chambers have stood in awe, I guess, looking across the Atlantic at Greece and Italy and some of our European trading partners, and it seems amazing to us that despite their terrible fiscal condition, the politicians in Greece cannot even cut spending. They talk about cutting it, but the government employees are out in the street demonstrating, and one just has to think, can't they see what is happening? Why do they want to keep spending? It is like there is an addiction.

But here we are in the land of the free, the city on the hill for the world as far as the country that sets the example for free markets and free enterprise--a country that has fought wars to keep the rest of the world free--and here we are in a situation where we have to borrow well over $100 billion every month just to keep the lights on in this place, just to keep our country going.

All year long, we have been having these public showdowns about how we need to cut spending. We have threatened government shutdowns over the continuing resolutions and over increasing the debt limit. One would think that by this point we would be cutting spending to some degree. We have established this supercommittee, supposedly to deal with our huge deficits. Yet we are passing spending bills this week-- today--that increase spending versus last year. Last year, we spent 5 percent more than the year before.

In reality, in some ways, our country is worse off than Europe because we have Federal debt, we have State debt, we have municipal debt, we have counties declaring bankruptcy, we have

States approaching bankruptcy, and yet we continue to spend more now than we did last year. After all of the fuss and fighting and brinkmanship and supercommittees, we can't seem to cut anything here. In fact, we are increasing spending.

The goal of the supercommittee is not to cut spending; it is not to cut our debt at all. The goal of the supercommittee is to reduce the amount we are going to borrow over 10 years--maybe reduce it from $10 trillion to $8 trillion or $9 trillion.

We are not even on the same page with reality right now. We have increased spending so dramatically over the last few years--we have added $4 trillion to our debt since President Obama came into office, we passed a $1 trillion stimulus, and we passed ObamaCare, adding trillions of dollars in spending.

Instead of talking about cutting, the debate now seems to be, how can we take more from the American people in taxes to feed our addiction? We have focused our guns on those very people who create our jobs and create most of the opportunity in our country, people who are already paying the largest portion of national taxes of any country in the world because we have shifted so much of the tax burden onto the top income earners. We are blaming them for the wealth gap when, in fact, the real blame for the wealth gap comes from the government taking so much out of the private sector, regulating with such a heavy hand, and having the second highest corporate tax rate in the world.

The problem with the middle class is not those who are making too much money; it is a Federal Government that doesn't understand that the more we spend and borrow, the fewer jobs there are going to be in our country today. Yet that is the big argument here. Instead of cutting spending, we are actually talking about taking more from hard-working American taxpayers and bringing it in here and giving it to the people who have created that $15 trillion in debt. How could anyone make sense of that?

It is really pretty amazing, after all the promises we have made to the American people, that we are watching our debt go up like this-- passing $15 trillion--and we still can't talk about any substantive cuts.

Let me give one example of something that makes so much sense. Over the last two decades, we have seen welfare spending increase nearly 300 percent. There are 77 means-tested welfare programs, and over the last couple of decades, since welfare reform, the spending has increased nearly 300 percent. That is more than the combined increase of Social Security and Medicare. It is more than the increases in education or in defense. Are we helping people? Not at all. We have more people in poverty than we ever have had, and we are discouraging self-sufficiency while encouraging dependency on government.

In the last 4 years alone, we have nearly doubled what we are paying for food stamps, from $40 billion to $80 billion in this year's budget. If all we did was return welfare spending to 2007 levels, we could save almost $2.5 trillion over the next 10 years. That is twice the goal of the supercommittee in cuts. But are we even thinking about it? Is it even on the table? Absolutely not, because the one thing I have seen with this place is we are very good at getting bipartisan agreement on increasing spending in areas of need, but we seldom see bipartisan agreement on any cuts. Would we look at responsible caps on welfare spending? Not even a chance. It is not even on the table with the supercommittee discussions.

With Medicaid alone, if we return spending to 2007 levels, we could save more than the goal of the supercommittee of $1.2 trillion, but we are not willing to discuss cuts.

I think it is a sad day for America that we are plowing past $15 trillion, pretending to be responsible to the American people, while last week and this week and on into the rest of the year, we are going to be passing spending bills that spend more than we spent last year. At the same time, we are supposedly in a recession, Americans are tightening their belts, many are out of work, and what we are talking about here is, let's continue to spend and take more from hard-working, tax-paying Americans so we can keep our spending addiction going here in Washington.

It is utterly irresponsible, what we are doing. All the President can do is point at those whom he calls millionaires, who are generally the people who are creating the jobs, running the small businesses, and having the most to do with creating the investment that makes our economy grow, and try to blame them for the problems we create here in Washington.

It is time we keep our promises to the American people. I know it is hard for some in these Chambers to cut spending because dependency on government often means a dependable vote for many politicians. It is time we look at the future and the debt that we are loading onto ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren. This country will not survive the types of policies we are producing here in Washington today.

This supercommittee should look at real cuts in spending. If our Democratic colleagues are not willing to go along with responsible spending caps on programs such as welfare, then we need to walk away from the table and take our case to the American people and tell them what is really the truth, which is that the elections in 2012 may be our last chance to turn this around. We cannot keep spending at this level and keep taking more and more from the private sector, from the job producers in our country, bringing it here to Washington, and spending it on wasteful programs that are fraught with fraud and duplication and not even ever consider cutting any of them.

Last week, Dr. Coburn had a couple of amendments to an appropriations bill that had some very small cuts to what had been deemed wasteful, ineffective programs. On one of his amendments, he only got 13 votes. So this is clearly a bipartisan problem.

We need to cut spending. Washington has a spending problem, it does not have a low-tax problem. It is time we focus our attention on reducing the size and scope of the Federal Government and having it live within constitutional boundaries. We need to eliminate programs that are wasteful, return others to the States, and trim our budget to the point where we can pay for what we are spending so that we will not keep adding trillions and trillions of dollars of debt on to our country and our citizens and our next generation.

Madam President, I yield the floor, and I note the absence of a quorum.