Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 1316 and ask for its immediate consideration. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30…
Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 1316 and ask for its immediate consideration.
Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.
General Leave
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members be given 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.
Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 1316.
The rule provides for consideration of the Senate amendment to H.R. 5376, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. It makes in order a motion offered by the chair of the Committee on the Budget or his designee that the House concur in the Senate amendment to H.R. 5376.
Finally, it provides 3 hours of debate on the motion equally divided among and controlled by the respective chairs and ranking minority members of the Committees on the Budget, Energy and Commerce, and Ways and Means, or their respective designees.
Mr. Speaker, for too long too many people in this country have felt like the work that happens in Washington isn't meant to help them. Like the people who work in this city are not on their side. You know what? For a long time they have been right. For decades, corporate special interests and their out-of-touch friends in the Republican Party have blocked progress in Washington. They got what was good for the rich and powerful, not what was right for working families and the middle class.
No more. That time is over. President Biden and Democrats are putting people over politics. We are fighting to create better jobs, safer communities, and a brighter future for our planet. This is a historic bill, Mr. Speaker, and at the end of the day it is not a complicated vote. It all comes down to what your values are.
Democrats have been fighting for years to lower drug prices, and this bill lets Medicare negotiate with drug companies to lower the price of prescription drugs. It caps the out-of-pocket cost of insulin at $35 for people on Medicare. It stops excessive price hikes on drugs and says, if you are on Medicare you won't have to pay more than $2,000 a year for your prescriptions. Meanwhile, Republicans oppose this bill because it will cut into Big Pharma's corporate profits. Boo-hoo. I mean, really? They oppose this bill because they want to let pharmaceutical companies continue price gouging. Give me a break.
This bill listens to the climate experts who tell us that melting glaciers and record heat are not normal. It puts us on a path to cutting carbon emissions 40 percent by 2030, helping create millions of new jobs along the way. This is a huge investment in energy security made in America by American workers that lowers energy costs for working families. It is the biggest investment in fighting climate change in history. Ever. This is a turning point in the fight to protect our planet.
Republicans oppose this bill because they have never given a damn about pollution or climate change--they are more interested in protecting Big Oil's bottom line. That is whose side they are on.
Let's look at healthcare costs. This bill cuts healthcare costs for millions of people by locking in lower Affordable Care Act premiums, saving people $800 a year on average. Republicans oppose it because they want insurance companies to make more money by ripping people off. You can't make this stuff up.
Democrats want a tax code that is fair, where rich and powerful people pay what they owe, just like everyone else. Honest, hardworking middle-class families have to pay their fair share, but the top 1 percent dodge $160 billion in taxes each year.
The Republican answer? They want to make it easier for the rich and powerful to cheat. Whose side are they on?
Mr. Speaker, this is historic. It is bold. Just so everyone understands, it lowers the deficit, and it is fully paid for with no new taxes on families making $400,000 per year or less, and no new taxes on small businesses. Those who oppose this bill don't want to talk about how it will help people. Instead, they are pushing total made-up BS.
The money in this bill for the IRS isn't going to result in increased audits on anyone making under $400,000 a year. Don't take my word for it.
Who appointed Charles Rettig, the current Commissioner of the IRS?
Oh, it was Donald Trump.
Charles Rettig, Trump's appointee, says the money in this bill will go towards better customer support, quicker turnaround times, so people can get long-overdue refunds, and enforcing tax laws against rich people cheating on their taxes. Don't take it from me, take it from Trump's own hand-picked IRS Commissioner.
I get calls into my district office every day from people who are frustrated that their calls to the IRS go unanswered and their tax returns are late. This bill will help fix it. Look, here is the truth. This bill puts our government back on the side of working people in this country.
Like I said earlier, this is about values: Democrats put people over politics. We are fighting to reduce inflation for the people, lower the cost of healthcare and prescription drugs, make heating, cooling, and electricity bills cheaper, combat climate change with green energy, and lower the deficit.
Let's just tell the truth. Republicans are cheering for inflation. Every day they come to this floor cheering for us to fail. In my opinion, they are cheering for this administration and this country to fail because they think it will help them politically. They don't put people over politics. They put Big Pharma, oil CEOs, corporate tax evaders, and greedy insurance companies over everything else. It is rotten, it is wrong, and it is hurting America.
Enough with the cynicism. This is a great day for America. I am proud to be here. It is not very often we get to pass bills that are going to change the course of history for generations to come. I will sleep better tonight knowing that when we pass this bill we are putting people over politics to leave a better world for our kids and grandkids. This is a historic moment. Let's get this bill passed and to the President's desk.
Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support this rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I feel as if I just walked into the Festivus celebration, the annual airing of grievances. There is so much that needs to be responded to.
Let me just say two things.
On inflation, last week, five former Treasury Secretaries issued a statement--five former Treasury Secretaries--urging us to pass this critical legislation to ``help increase American competitiveness, address our climate crisis, lower costs for families, and fight inflation.''
Larry Summers was among those former Treasury Secretaries who said that this bill helps fight inflation. My Republican colleagues love to cite Mr. Summers but it seems as though they only like to acknowledge his analysis when he agrees with the point that they are trying to make.
Just on process, I just have to say this: Perhaps my friends are forgetting the extensive hearings and markups that we held during consideration of Build Back Better. The Energy and Commerce markup alone took 3 days. Almost every piece of the Inflation Reduction Act was included in some form in the original House bill. Of course, it is not identical. Unfortunately, we had to let the Senate work its will, too. Believe me, I wish we could send the House-passed bill straight to the President's desk. But I don't have the time to go through an exhaustive list.
Let me just remind my colleagues of just a few of the many provisions that this body already considered through regular order. The ACA premium reduction, prescription drug pricing reform, clean energy tax credits, energy-efficiency rebates, funds to fight wildfires, rural energy programs, clean vehicle manufacturing, funds to reduce air pollution, drought assistance, and a lot, lot, lot more.
Now, I understand that my colleagues don't like this bill, but it has gone through regular order, and it is way past time that we send it to the President's desk for his signature.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Torres), who is a member of the House Rules Committee.
Mrs. TORRES OF California. Mr. Speaker, I want to begin my comments by thanking President Biden for doing what he actually had said that he is going to do and delivering for the people. I also thank our Vice President from California, Kamala Harris, for being courageous and splitting that 50/50 Senate. I also recognize the leadership of both Houses that have brought us to where we are today to consider a Senate amendment to H.R. 5376, the Inflation Reduction Act, IRA, of 2022.
This is a critical piece of legislation that will help reduce the Federal deficit and tackle inflation, lower healthcare and prescription drug costs, and address the climate crisis. The Inflation Reduction Act will also help lower energy bills for working families all while changing the Tax Code to ensure--to ensure the corporations--you know, Mr. Speaker, the ones that can donate politically and be considered as if they were humans?
If they are able to give money politically, then they should be able to also pay their own fair share of taxes, and the filthy rich should also pay their fair share.
Many families are still struggling to make ends meet with the cost of goods on the rise, forcing many to choose between basic necessities like food and lifesaving medication to stay healthy.
Let us not forget that we shut down our economy as a result of a massive world pandemic. Let us not forget that Russia, the bully, has declared war on their neighbor; and, yes, China continues to shut down many of their communities as a result of high coronavirus infections. So inflation is high.
It is disappointing to see that American families pay nearly twice as much for their prescription drugs in comparison to other developed countries.
Why is that?
Because we have been handcuffed because we are not able to negotiate fair pharmaceutical prices. I have even heard from my constituents that medication can be so expensive that in many cases they decide to reduce the recommended dosage and to decline medication altogether.
Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
With all due respect, my friend asked why we are here in August and what is the emergency. Well, the Inflation Reduction Act actually addresses an emergency that a lot of families are faced with right now.
Rising grocery costs, rising fuel costs, those things are emergencies, maybe not to people on the other side of the aisle here, but they are to a lot of families in my district and across the country. Rising prescription drug prices are an emergency.
If that is not enough, addressing the issue of the climate crisis. I mean, the front page of The Washington Post: ``As U.S. prepares for climate action, planet isn't waiting around.'' The planet is, literally, on fire, and we are actually addressing that in a meaningful way with this bill, the biggest investment ever to combat the climate crisis. Now, that is an emergency.
You should talk to young people in your district who have been fighting passionately to try to get Congress to finally address this issue. Talk to your farmers in your district. They will tell you that climate change is real.
Maybe my friends would rather be on vacation, but we are here, in August, to do something meaningful for the American people and for this planet.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Auchincloss).
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Lamb).
Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a New York Times
article titled, ``IRS says funding won't mean more audits for middle- income Americans''; an AP article titled, ``IRS plans to hire 10,000 workers to relieve massive backlog''; a TIME article titled, ``Trump Allies Are Attacking Biden For a Plan to Hire 87,000 New IRS Agents That Doesn't Exist''; and a New York Times article titled, ``For Older Americans, Health Bill Will Bring Savings and `Peace of Mind.' ''
[From The New York Times, Aug. 4, 2022]
The I.R.S. Says New Funding Won't Mean More Audits for Middle-Income
Americans
(By Alan Rappeport)
Washington.--Charles P. Rettig, the Internal Revenue
Service commissioner, told Congress on Thursday that the tax
collection agency would not increase audits of households
earning less than $400,000 if it was given the additional $80
billion that lawmakers were considering in a proposed climate
and tax legislation package.
Providing more funding for the I.R.S. has been a top
priority of the Biden administration and has emerged as key
way to finance some of the policies that Democrats are
proposing without raising individual tax rates. The
additional funding is expected to go toward hiring more
enforcement agents to crack down on wealthy tax evaders and
corporations and to modernize the agency's antiquated
technology.
``These resources are absolutely not about increasing audit
scrutiny on small businesses or middle-income Americans,''
Mr. Retting wrote in a letter to lawmakers. ``As we have been
planning, our investment of these enforcement resources is
designed around Treasury's directive that audit rates will
not rise relative to recent years for households making under
$400,000.''
That commitment is in keeping with President Biden's
promise not to raise taxes on middle-income Americans.
Mr. Rettig added that better technology and customer
service at the I.R.S. would make honest taxpayers less likely
to be audited.
The I.R.S. funding is projected to raise $124 billion in
additional tax revenue over a decade. Treasury Department
officials believe that this estimate is overly conservative
and that an agency with more robust audit abilities will
deter tax cheats.
Democrats are expected to consider the additional funding
as part of a new package, the Inflation Reduction Act, which
includes raising taxes on corporations and lowering
prescription drug costs, among other provisions. The overall
package has garnered stiff opposition from Republicans and
would need every Senate Democrat to support it in order to
pass.
Among the provisions that Republicans oppose is the I.R.S.
funding. Republicans have a long history of trying to starve
the I.R.S. of funds and have complained for years that it is
being used as a political weapon and unfairly targets
conservative groups.
The agency's scrutiny has crossed party lines, according to
the I.R.S. inspector general. But it came under fire again
last month after The New York Times reported that James B.
Comey, the former F.B.I. director, and his deputy, Andrew G.
McCabe--both perceived enemies of former President Donald J.
Trump--faced rare, exhaustive audits during the Trump
administration. The I.R.S. said Mr. Rettig had not been
involved in the audits.
In assailing the proposed legislation, the Republican
National Committee claimed this week that an ``army'' of
87,000 I.R.S. agents would ``disproportionately target poorer
Americans.''
Mr. Rettig, whose term expires later this year, insisted on
Thursday that those suggestions were unfounded.
``Large corporate and high-net-worth taxpayers often engage
teams of sophisticated representatives pursuing unsettled or
sometimes questionable interpretations of tax law,'' he said.
``The integrity and fairness of our tax administrative system
relies upon the ability of our agency to maintain a strong,
visible, robust enforcement presence directed to these and
other similarly situated noncompliant taxpayers.''
[From AP NEWS, Mar. 10, 2022]
IRS Plans To hire 10,000 Workers To Relieve Massive Backlog
(By Fatima Hussein)
Washington (AP).--The IRS said Thursday it plans to hire
10,000 new workers to help reduce a massive backlog that the
government says will make this tax season the most
challenging in history.
The agency released a plan to work down the tens of
millions of filings that includes speeding up the
traditionally slow hiring process, relying more on automated
processes and bringing on more contract workers to help with
mailroom and paper processing. Getting it done will be the
big challenge, tax experts say.
The agency faces a backlog of around 20 million pieces of
correspondence, which is more than 15 times as large as in a
normal filing season, according to the agency. And the IRS
workforce is the same size it was in 1970, though the U.S.
population has grown exponentially and the U.S. tax code has
become increasingly complicated.
Additionally, the need to administer pandemic-related
programs has imposed an entirely new workload on the agency.
White House officials have said the agency is not equipped
to serve taxpayers even in nonpandemic years. A senior
administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity
Thursday to preview the new IRS plan, said processing returns
will continue to be a massive challenge so long as the agency
operates on 1960s infrastructure.
The IRS' latest plan to combat the current backlog includes
creating a 700-person surge team to process new returns,
adding 2,000 contractors to respond to taxpayer questions
about stimulus and child tax credit payments and developing
new automated voice and chat bots to answer taxpayer
questions.
There is no plan to extend the current April 18 filing
deadline, the senior official said. The new IRS plan comes as
lawmakers have made persistent calls for additional federal
funding for the agency.
Congress' mammoth $1.5 trillion omnibus package, released
early Wednesday, would provide $14.3 billion to the Treasury
Department, including $12.6 billion devoted to the IRS. That
would be the largest funding increase for the tax agency
since 2001.
However, Republicans have questioned the need for
additional funding. Florida Sen. Rick Scott's ``11 Point Plan
to Rescue America,'' unveiled in February, proposes a 50% cut
in funding and workforce at the IRS.
The White House and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
have roundly rejected Scott's idea.
Caroline Bruckner, a tax professor at the American
University Kogod School of Business, said the agency is ``at
a competitive disadvantage'' for finding new staff based on
its reputation for employees being wholly overworked. She
said she based this on her own survey of tax students she
teaches.
Bruckner said, ``It's absurd we have put so much work on
the IRS'' without giving it the necessary resources to help
Americans in the way that is expected.
Bruckner says along with increased funding, the IRS also
``really has to change its narrative and the way it talks
about its mission to one of service and being one of the most
important antipoverty systems that we have in the U.S.''
[From TIME, Aug. 9, 2022]
Trump Allies Are Attacking Biden For a Plan To Hire 87,000 New IRS
Agents That Doesn't Exist
(By Eric Cortellessa)
Since news broke on Monday that the FBI searched former
President Donald Trump's South Florida home, Republican
members of Congress and right-wing media figures have
launched a new line of attack against Democrats: that the
Internal Revenue Service intends to use nearly $80 billion in
new funding to pursue similar intrusions on average
Americans. Those dollars, Trump allies are saying, will go
toward the hiring of 87,000 new IRS agents.
``Do you make $75,000 or less?'' tweeted House Minority
Leader Kevin McCarthy. ``Democrats'' new army of 87,000 IRS
agents will be coming for you--with 710,000 new audits for
Americans who earn less than $75k.'' Richard Grenell, Trump's
former Acting Director of National Intelligence, wrote on the
social media platform: ``The FBI raids Trump's house and the
Democrats vote to add 87,000 new IRS agents to go after
Americans. Wake up, America.''
Other high-profile conservatives have insinuated that the
Biden administration intends to direct those additional
auditors to dig up dirt on the President's political
opponents. ``After todays raid on Mar A Lago what do you
think the left plans to use those 87,000 new IRS agents
for?'' tweeted Sen. Marco Rubio.
It's a notion that has taken off like wildfire, signaling
what is likely to be a prominent broadside from Republicans
against Democrats in the midterm elections.
There's only one problem. It's not true.
The Inflation Reduction Act, a landmark climate, health
care and tax package that passed the Senate on Sunday and is
expected to head to Biden's desk after the House approves it
on Friday, includes roughly $78 billion for the IRS to be
phased in over 1O years. A Treasury Department report from
May 2021 estimated that such an investment would enable the
agency to hire roughly 87,000 employees by 2031. But most of
those hires would not be Internal Revenue agents, and
wouldn't be new positions.
According to a Treasury Department official, the funds
would cover a wide range of positions including IT
technicians and taxpayer services support staff, as well as
experienced auditors who would be largely tasked with
cracking down on corporate and high-income tax evaders. ``It
is wholly inaccurate to describe any of these resources as
being about increasing audit scrutiny of the middle class or
small businesses,'' Natasha Sarin, a counselor for tax policy
and implementation at the Treasury Department, tells TIME.
At the same time, more than half of the agency's current
employees are eligible for retirement and are expected to
leave the agency within the next five years. ``There's a big
wave of attrition that's coming and a lot of these resources
are just about filling those positions,'' says Sarin, an
economist who has studied tax avoidance extensively and who
was tapped by the Biden administration to beef up the IRS's
auditing power.
In all, the IRS might net roughly 20,000 to 30,000 more
employees from the new funding, enough to restore the tax-
collecting agency's staff to where it was roughly a decade
ago.
The IRS currently has roughly 78,000 employees. According
to John Koskinen, who served as IRS commissioner from 2013 to
2017, that's down from around 100,000 when he
first started. By the time he resigned four years later, he
said, it was clear that the agency was in the grip of a
systematic attempt by the GOP to weaken it.
``Nobody loves tax collectors,'' Koskinen tells TIME.
It's an effort that goes back to 2010, when Republicans
took back control of the House of Representatives and
immediately instituted a series of crippling cuts on the IRS.
Since then, overall funding for the IRS has fallen further,
by more than 20 percent, while enforcement funding has
dropped by 31 percent. That's made it easier for high-net-
worth tax cheats and major corporations to avoid federal
taxes to the tune of billions of dollars.
``The largest corporations in the United States with over
$20 billion of assets have had their rate of audits go from
nearly 100% to 50%,'' says Janet Holtzblattt, a senior fellow
at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. ``Among wealthy
individuals who had a positive income of a million dollars or
more, the audit rate fell from 8.4% in 2010 to 2.4% in
2019.''
Meanwhile, the employee shortage only made it harder for
average Americans to reach IRS customer support, which has
been inundated with requests far beyond what the staff could
handle. ``I used to say there's no Democratic or Republican
way to run the IRS,'' Koskinen says. ``The people who are
significantly disadvantaged are the average taxpayers who
have a simple question and can't get through. Those are
Republicans as well as independents and Democrats.'' As of
last month, the IRS backlog included 10.2 million unprocessed
individual returns.
Funding from the Inflation Reduction Act will also go
toward tech modernization. The IRS currently uses technology
from the 1960s, called COBOL, to process and intake
individual tax returns. According to government officials,
the agency has struggled to find workers who are still
equipped to code under the antiquated system.
The increased funding for the IRS is a key part of
Democrats' plan to pay for the Inflation Reduction Act. By
going more forcefully after tax cheats and increasing
compliance, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the
agency will increase revenue by $204 billion over the next
decade.
Yet while the IRS may be in desperate need of more funding,
it's not exactly most Americans' favorite government
institution. Nobody likes to fork over a big check to Uncle
Sam. Which is a big reason why Republicans are likely to keep
hammering this point in the coming months, and potentially
pointing to 87,000 new IRS agents who will never materialize.
``I think a lot of people are going to be upset by this
across the country and across the political spectrum,'' Hogan
Gidley, Trump's former White House deputy press secretary,
tells TIME, when asked about IRS funding. He falsely
described the Biden administration's plan as hiring ``85,000
IRS agents to come after mom-and-pop businesses.''
But if Gidley's right, Americans will only be angry because
of what Republicans are telling them about the IRS--not
what's actually happening there.
[From The New York Times, Aug. 10, 2022]
For Older Americans, Health Bill Will Bring Savings and `Peace of Mind'
(By Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Noah Weiland)
Washington.--After Pete Spring was diagnosed with dementia
in 2016, he and his wife emptied their checking account in
part to pay for his prescription drugs, then ran through
$60,000 in pension payments before resorting to a charge card
to help make sure Mr. Spring had the heart and Alzheimer's
medications he needed to survive--just two of the 11 drugs he
took. Mr. Spring, of Marietta, Ga., died in April, before the
unveiling of the tax, climate and health bill that the Senate
passed over the weekend. The measure aims to lower the cost
of prescription drugs for people on Medicare, like him; his
wife, Gretchen Van Zile, has been left to look back on what
felt like an outrageous injustice.
``Here seniors are in their golden years,'' said Ms. Van
Zile, 74, ``and the only people seeing gold are the
pharmaceutical companies.''
Nearly 49 million people, most of them older Americans, get
prescription drug coverage through Medicare, yet many find
that it does not go very far. Low-income people quality for
government subsidies, so those in the middle class--people
like Mr. Spring and Ms. Van Zile--are hit hardest by high
drug costs.
The Senate bill, which the House is expected to pass on
Friday, then send to President Biden's desk, could save many
Medicare beneficiaries hundreds, if not thousands of dollars
a year. Its best-known provision would empower Medicare to
negotiate prices with drug makers with the goal of driving
down costs--a move the pharmaceutical industry has fought for
years, and one that experts said would help lower costs for
beneficiaries.
But the legislation would also take more direct steps to
keep money in people's pocketbooks, though they would be
phased in over time.
Beginning next year, insulin co-payments for Medicare
recipients would be capped at $35 a month. As of 2024, those
with costs high enough to qualify for the program's
``catastrophic coverage'' benefit would no longer have to
pick up 5 percent of the cost of every prescription. And
starting in 2025, out-of-pocket costs for prescription
medicines would be capped at $2,000 annually.
``This is a huge policy change and one that has been a long
time coming,'' said Dr. Stacie Dusetzina, an associate
professor of health policy at Vanderbilt University. ``For
people needing high-cost drugs, this will provide significant
financial relief.''
Between 2009 and 2018, the average price more than doubled
for brand-name prescription drugs in Medicare Part D, the
program that covers products dispensed by pharmacies, the
Congressional Budget Office found. Between 2019 and 2020,
price increases outpaced inflation for half of all drugs
covered by Medicare, according to an analysis from the Kaiser
Family Foundation.
Perhaps no drug has been talked about as much as insulin,
the diabetes medication that is more than 100 years old.
Prices for insulin and its analogues have risen so fast that
many diabetes patients who rely on the drug put themselves at
risk by taking less than is prescribed to cut costs.
More than three million Medicare beneficiaries take one of
the 42 different types of insulin that are covered by
Medicare, according to an estimate by the Kaiser Family
Foundation, which found that the average out-of-pocket cost
is $54 a month. But for some people, the costs are much
higher.
Evelyn Polay, 82, of Merrick, N.Y., spends more than $1,200
every three months on four different diabetes medicines,
including Humalog and another type of injectable insulin,
which she has been taking for about 30 years.
She still works as a part-time bookkeeper and counts
herself as fortunate. ``It's not a question of do I eat or do
I take my medicine,'' she said.
But she worries about other people, including her own
grandchildren, three of whom also have diabetes. Democrats
tried to apply the bill's proposed $35 co-payment to all
insulin prescriptions, including those covered by private
insurers. But Republican senators forced the removal of that
language--even though seven of them wanted to keep it in the
bill. To hear the voices of older Americans who confront high
drug costs month in and month out is to hear fear and worry,
anger and stress. Many say they are figuring out how to get
by, skipping vacations and other niceties for which they
saved.
For Kim Armbruster, 65, who recently retired after a 40-
year nursing career, keeping down the costs of her
medications for diabetes, psoriatic arthritis and Graves'
disease, an autoimmune disorder affecting the thyroid, has
been a scramble since she started on Medicare in March. Ms.
Armbruster, of Cary, Ill., said she had saved extra insulin
from prescriptions filled when she had commercial insurance,
enough to keep costs down before a monthly cap kicks in. But
her other conditions have caused immense financial strain.
By June, she had reached Medicare's threshold for
catastrophic coverage after paying more than $7,000 for
Enbrel, a drug she takes for the arthritis; Synthroid, which
she takes for Graves' disease; Eliquis, for atrial
fibrillation, insulin and her insulin pump.
``It's all about thinking ahead, looking for alternatives
and strategizing the home budget to be able to take the
necessary meds,'' she said. Learning to keep up with costs,
she added, had been like ``baptism by fire, to learn
everything I can possibly learn about it to maneuver drug
costs and stay healthy without complications.''
The carousel of medications taken by Mr. Spring, the
dementia patient who died in April, included eye-popping
price tags for drugs including Eliquis, for a heart
condition, and Namenda, an Alzheimer's drug. Mr. Spring also
took an antidepressant and medications to dull the side
effects from Namenda.
Those drugs ran the couple around $1,000 a month. Had the
$2,000 annual out-of-pocket cap been in place when her
husband was alive, Ms. Van Zile said, they would have reached
it by March every year. Ms. Van Zile retired from her job
working for Fulton County in Georgia so that she could take
care of her husband, further cramping their savings. ``His
sense of humor put a smile on my face every day,'' she said.
``The bitter aspect of it was the financial stress.''
Democrats have been promising for years to lower the cost
of prescription drugs. So have some Republicans, including
former President Donald J. Trump. But the Senate bill passed
along party lines, without any Republican votes. In the 50-50
Senate, Vice President Kamala Harris broke the tie vote.
Republicans, and the pharmaceutical industry, insist that
the measure will stifle innovation and reverse progress on
therapies and treatments, including those for cancer care--a
high priority for Mr. Biden. The industry's main trade group,
PhRMA, says the bill, which imposes stiff penalties on
companies that refuse to negotiate, amounts to government
price setting--not negotiation.
At a media briefing last month, Stephen J. Ubl, the chief
executive of PhRMA, warned that Democrats were ``about to
make a historic mistake that will devastate patients
desperate for new cures.''
But backers of the measure say new treatments are
meaningless if patients can't afford them. The promise of
Medicare, enacted in 1965, has always been that it would take
care of older Americans. The prescription drug benefit was
not added until 2003.
It includes the provision for catastrophic coverage, in
which the government picks up the full cost of medicines--
except for 5 percent, paid by the patient--after an
individual
spends $7,050 a year out of pocket. The Kaiser Family
Foundation says that 1.3 million Medicare beneficiaries hit
the catastrophic threshold each year; 1.4 million have out-
of-pocket costs of $2,000 or more.
``You rarely hear people complain about turning age 65 and
going on Medicare; it's often a relief,'' said Larry Levitt,
the foundation's executive vice president for health policy.
``But the way Medicare now works, there can be some nasty
surprises for people with very high drug expenses, and this
bill will provide a lot of relief.''
A study conducted by Dr. Dusetzina highlighted how the
middle class gets squeezed. She examined 17,076 new
prescriptions issued between 2012 and 2018 for Part D
beneficiaries, and found that those receiving subsidies were
nearly twice as likely to obtain the prescribed drug within
90 days as those without subsidies.
Among those who did not qualify for subsidies, 30 percent
of all prescriptions for cancer drugs went unfilled, as did
more than 50 percent of prescriptions to treat immune system
disorders or high cholesterol.
Patti Kellerhouse, a 64-year-old in Henderson, Nev., was
diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in 2017 that had
spread to her liver. On long-term disability through her
employer, she had paid $10 a month out of pocket for the oral
cancer treatment she needed. But when she transitioned to a
Medicare Advantage plan, the medication cost more than $3,100
for the first month.
While she has been able to afford the price jump, it has
stressed her financial planning. She is saving money for a
new car, among other things. She said she has daughters and
grandchildren whom she would like to continue supporting.
``I worked hard my whole life,'' she said. ``These are high
co-payments. They shouldn't happen when you're at retirement
age.''
Many Americans make tough choices about whether to continue
taking drugs they need. Bob Miller, a 71 year-old multiple
sclerosis patient in Prior Lake, Minn., is among them.
Every other day for 12 years, Mr. Miller took Betaseron, a
brand-name prescription drug that can delay the progression
of his disease by staving off flare-ups of numbness, muscle
stiffness and other symptoms that can leave patients worse
off than they were before. But the drug was expensive; even
with his Medicare insurance, it cost more than $10,000 a
year.
So he quit taking the drug in 2016 after consulting with
his doctors, who told him he could ``roll the dice'' and
survive without it--at least for the time being. Since then,
he has lived with the unsettling worry that he is gambling
with his own health.
``In the background, you don't know what's going on,'' Mr.
Miller said. 'There might still be some damage being done to
my nerve fibers.''
When a neurologist recently told him it might help to go
back on a disease-modifying drug, Mr. Miller told him he
would like to, if not for the prohibitive cost. The new
legislation, he said, will deliver something he has been
longing for: ``Peace of mind.''
Mr. Speaker, seniors know that this bill will help bring down their healthcare and prescription drug costs dramatically. Passing this bill will be a huge sigh of relief for 34 million Americans covered by Medicare.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Scanlon), a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Neguse), a distinguished member of the Committee on Rules.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
For anybody to suggest that the IRS is somehow coming after people is absurd and dangerous. This fear-mongering has to stop.
Yesterday, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley, made this outrageous statement that armed IRS agents will go door-to-door with assault rifles after this bill passes. All I can say to that is everyone grab your tinfoil hats.
I mean, in response, Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden said: ``It is unbelievable that we even need to say this, but there are not going to be 87,000 armed IRS agents going door-to-door with assault weapons.''
This is funding for answering phone calls, upgrading computer systems, and getting our constituents the refunds that they have been waiting for, for months and months.
I get it. My Republican friends do not want to give the IRS the ability to go after wealthy tax cheats, big corporations that are using every loophole possible to avoid paying taxes. But do you know what? Our constituents have to pay their fair share. These rich people ought to pay their fair share, as well.
I get it. My Republican friends, when they were in charge, passed a $2 trillion tax cut to make it easier for the rich and powerful to cheat on their taxes. This Democratic majority is going to make sure they pay their fair share.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I want to make clear to my colleagues that, actually, in the Senate bill, there was explicit language that made it very clear that none of this money would be used for audits for people earning $400,000 or less or targeting small businesses. But Republicans over in the Senate insisted that the language be stripped out, and now they are complaining about it.
But do you know what? I have good news for you.
Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen that makes it crystal clear that that is not what is going to happen, along with a letter from Donald Trump's appointed IRS Commissioner, who is still there, who made it very clear that it won't be used for that.
Secretary of the Treasury,
Department of the Treasury,
Washington, DC, August 10, 2022.
Charles P. Rettig,
Commissioner, Internal Revenue Service,
Washington, DC.
Dear Commissioner: The Inflation Reduction Act includes
much-needed funding for the IRS to improve taxpayer service,
modernize outdated technological infrastructure, and increase
equity in the tax system by enforcing the tax laws against
those high-earners, large corporations, and complex
partnerships who today do not pay what they owe.
These crucial investments have been a focus of the Biden
Administration since the President's first day in office, and
I was heartened to see the legislation pass the Senate this
weekend.
Notwithstanding the changes that arose because of
Republican challenges during the Byrd process, I write today
to confirm the commitment that has been a guiding precept of
the planning that you and your team are undertaking: that
audit rates will not rise relative to recent years for
households making under $400,000 annually.
Specifically, I direct that any additional resources--
including any new personnel or auditors that are hired--shall
not be used to increase the share of small business or
households below the $400,000 threshold that are audited
relative to historical levels. This means that, contrary to
the misinformation from opponents of this legislation, small
business or households earning $400,000 per year or less will
not see an increase in the chances that they are audited.
Instead, enforcement resources will focus on high-end
noncompliance. There, sustained, multiyear funding is so
critical to the agency's ability to make the investments
needed to pursue a robust attack on the tax gap by targeting
crucial challenges, like large corporations, high-networth
individuals and complex pass-throughs, where today the IRS
has resources to initiate just 7,500 audits annually out of
more than 4 million returns received.
This is challenging work that requires a team of
sophisticated revenue agents in place to spend thousands of
hours poring over complicated returns, and it is also work
that has huge revenue potential: indeed, an additional hour
auditing someone making more than $5 million annually
generates an estimated $4,500 of additional taxes collected.
This is essential work that I know the IRS is eager to
undertake.
For regular taxpayers, as you emphasized last week, the
result of this resource infusion will be a lower likelihood
of audit by an agency that has the data and technological
infrastructure in place to target enforcement resources where
they belong--on the high end of the income distribution,
where the top 1 percent alone is estimated to not be paying
$160 billion in owed taxes each year. That's important as a
matter of revenue-raising, but it's also essential as a
matter of fairness.
Crucially, these resources will support a much-needed
upgrade of technology that is decades out-of-date, and an
investment in taxpayer service so that the IRS is finally
able to communicate with taxpayers in an efficient, timely
manner. I look forward to working with you on creating new
digital tools to allow taxpayers to get information from the
IRS instantaneously and on improving taxpayer service, so the
agency is well-equipped to answer calls when they come in.
This historic investment in our tax system will accomplish
two critical objectives. It will raise substantial revenue to
address the
deficit; and it will create a fairer system, where those at
the top who do not today comply with their tax obligations
find it far less easy to do so, and where all taxpayers
receive the service from the IRS that they deserve, and that
your dedicated workforce is eager to deliver. The importance
of the work ahead cannot be overstated.
Sincerely,
Janet L. Yellen.
Mr. Speaker, let's stop the misinformation and stop the fear-mongering.
I get it. My Republican friends do not want to lower the costs of prescription drugs for senior citizens. They don't want to do anything about climate change. They don't want to pay down the deficit or the debt. I get it. But we do, and the American people do, and I am proud of this legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters), the distinguished chairwoman of the Committee on Financial Services.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. David Scott), the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Agriculture.
Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to please stop the fearmongering and pandering to the extremists.
People are listening when people speak on this House floor. We had someone show up at an FBI field office with a nail gun. Enough of the misinformation.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).
Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a Washington Post piece titled, ``Climate change's impact intensifies as U.S. prepares to take action.''
[From The Washington Post, Aug. 11, 2022]
Climate Change's Impact Intensifies as U.S. Prepares To Take Action
(By Chris Mooney, Brady Dennis and Sarah Kaplan)
For residents of the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, the
United States' recent success in clinching a major piece of
climate change legislation may feel like too little, too
late.
Over the past 40 years, as the world's largest historical
emitter of greenhouses gases repeatedly failed to take
significant action on the climate, the region surrounding
Svalbard has warmed at least four times faster than the
global average, according to significant research published
Thursday.
The study suggests that warming in the Arctic is happening
at a much faster rate than many scientists had expected. And
while U.S. lawmakers this summer hashed out the details of a
massive bill to speed their nation's shift toward cleaner
energy--the culmination of months of deliberations--the new
findings were just the latest visceral reminder that the
planet's changing climate isn't waiting around for human
action.
Recent studies on subjects including tree mortality in
North America and evidence of weakening ice-shelves in
Antarctica, combined with a stream of extreme weather events
that include last month's European heat wave and torrential
floods of late in Kentucky and South Korea, are providing
steady evidence of global warming's intensifying impact on
the planet.
The Arctic is where some of the shifts are most severe.
Svalbard, a cluster of Arctic islands famed for populations
of polar bears, experienced its hottest June on record. A
record 40 billion tons of ice from the archipelago had melted
into the ocean by the end of July. Melting permafrost and
unstable mountain slopes are threatening homes.
And that's just a sampling from a region that has warmed at
an astounding rate--roughly 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees
Fahrenheit) since 1979.
``It's a really vulnerable environment in the Arctic, and
seeing these numbers, it's worrying,'' said Antti Lipponen, a
scientist with the Finnish Meteorological Institute who
contributed to Thursday's peer-reviewed study published in
Communications Earth & Environment.
The study provides sobering context for this week's
expected passage by the House of Representatives of the
Inflation Reduction Act. Experts say it is a landmark piece
of legislation that will drive down U.S. emissions of
greenhouse gases by incentivizing the purchase of electric
vehicles and energy-efficient appliances, and a quickening
pace of renewable-energy installations. Recent estimates
suggest that the bill could lower U.S. greenhouse gas
emissions by as much as a billion tons per year by the end of
2030.
But that's still tiny, compared with the more than 2
trillion tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide gas that
humanity has emitted since the year 1850--a figure that does
not include any other warming gases, such as methane, which
also is playing a major role in the world's temperature
increases.
The Inflation Reduction Act will mark ``an historic
moment'' for the United States--one that hasn't seemed
plausible since President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al
Gore pushed for significant action in the 1990s, said Bill
Hare, a climate scientist and the chief executive at Climate
Analytics, a prominent science and policy institute. The bill
could have a global ripple effect that spurs other countries
to take more ambitious steps, Hare said.
Yet, Hare noted that the legislation does not bring the
United States to President Biden's goal of cutting emissions
at least in half by 2030 from their 2005 levels. It also
includes provisions for additional oil and gas drilling and
easing permitting processes for fossil fuel infrastructure--
contradicting findings from the United Nations
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that the world must
nearly eliminate coal and significantly slash the use of oil
and natural gas to have a hope of avoiding catastrophic
warming.
At the same time, Hare noted, there is an ongoing ``rush
for gas'' in Africa and Australia ``that is quite
inconsistent with the Paris agreement,'' the 2015 accord in
which nations vowed to progressively lower their emissions to
avoid dangerous levels of warming. And Russia's war in
Ukraine has prompted a near-term scramble for fossil fuels
even in relatively climate-conscious Europe.
These forces continue to push the world off track from
meeting the Paris accord's most ambitious goal: limiting
global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7
degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. Beyond that
threshold, experts warn, the world faces a future of chronic
food crises, escalating natural disasters and collapsing
ecosystems.
Already, with the world have warmed by roughly 1.1 degrees
Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit), deadly climate impacts are
unfolding. Europe is broiling amid record-setting heat waves
that have scorched crops and sparked wildfires. At least
eight people were killed in Seoul as the heaviest rainfall in
more than 100 years deluged the South Korean capital.
Droughts have ravaged Mexico and contributed to a spiraling
hunger crisis in East Africa. In the United States, people
are dying of extreme heat, and in overwhelming Hoods and
raging wildfires.
``This summer is just a horrorscape,'' said Kim Cobb, a
climate scientist at Brown University and the lead author of
the IPCC's most recent report on the science of climate
change. ``And I know it won't be stopping in the near term.''
These disasters underscore what an exploding body of
scientific research continues to show: that adverse climate
change continues to outpace the plodding progress of
political action. Even a historic investment such as the
Inflation Reduction Act, Cobb said, is dwarfed by the scale
of the crisis.
``There needs to be an infinite acceleration in frequency
of this kind of legislation,'' she said. ``I think the planet
is sending that message pretty loud and clear.''
Startling trends in the Arctic
Take the new Arctic study, which shows that the amplified
warming occurring at the top of the planet, while long
expected, exceeds what climate models predict by a noticeable
margin. ``We suspect that either this is an extremely
unlikely event, or the climate models systematically
underestimate this Arctic amplification,'' Lipponen said of
the rapid pace of Arctic warming.
The study takes as its starting point the year 1979 because
of the availability of satellite data covering the Arctic. It
defines the Arctic as the region above the Arctic Circle, and
the authors acknowledge that if longer periods are considered
or if the Arctic is defined more broadly, the rate of Arctic
warming can appear somewhat less.
The warming is most concentrated to the east of Svalbard,
in the Barents and Kara seas, regions that have also seen
some of the fastest loss of Arctic sea ice. This ice has
traditionally reflected a huge amount of the sun's heat back
into space, keeping the planet cool. But as it vanishes from
the sea surface, more sunlight is absorbed by the ocean--and
then the warmer sea surface supports even less ice.
It is one of the most well-known climate ``feedbacks''--a
phenomenon through which an effect of warming contributes to
further warmth. Although scientists try to account for this
feedback in the models they use to predict future climate
change, they might be underestimating it. At the extreme, the
new study finds some regions between Svalbard and the Russian
island of Novaya Zemlya that are warming at a rate of over
1.25 degrees Celsius, or 2.25 degrees Fahrenheit, every
decade,
That's massively disruptive to Arctic life, human and
otherwise.
But interconnections among the ice, atmosphere, land and
ocean mean that no part of the planet will be unaffected. As
extreme temperatures bake the carbon-rich permafrost of
northern landscapes, the thawing earth releases carbon
dioxide gas.
Even as people begin to cut their emissions, nature's
emissions have just begun.
A sudden collapse
There's also concerning news from the other pole.
NASA scientists, led by Chad Greene, have derived a
technique allowing them to study the enormous, sometimes
country-size platforms of ice, called ice shelves, that
encircle Antarctica. These are Earth's main defenses against
massive sea level rise, acting as a bracing mechanism that
holds back Antarctica's inland ice.
But the shelves are sustaining severe damage. Several, like
Larsen A and B, have collapsed entirely. Thwaites Glacier,
Antarctica's most worrying and perhaps most vulnerable spot,
has lost about 2 trillion tons of ice from its ice shelf,
which has dramatically retracted inland, new research found.
The overall area lost from Antarctic ice shelves since 1997--
about 14,000 square miles--is a little bit larger than
Maryland and represents about 2 percent of the total ice
shelf area.
As a reminder of these ice shelves' vulnerability, the
Conger Ice Shelf in East Antarctica--traditionally thought to
be the coldest and most stable part of the ice sheet--
suddenly collapsed this year.
Conger was not very large for an Antarctic shelf--merely
the size of a large city. But its unexpected collapse--which
appears to have been triggered by a sudden period of unusual
warmth--should prompt alarm, scientist say.
``It means that Antarctica's ice shelves are vulnerable,
and they can still surprise us,'' NASA's Greene, who works at
the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said of the event.
Greene's study, which appeared in Nature this week, was co-
written with colleagues from NASA and the University of
Tasmania.
``Conger counters a common expectation that ice shelf
collapse should only occur after a long period of thinning
and weakening,'' he continued. ``Conger tells us that ice
shelves can collapse without any warning signs whatsoever.''
Imperiled northern forests
In another sign of the swiftly shifting climate, new
research this week also details how tree species that
dominate North American boreal forests--including firs,
spruces and pines--are experiencing growing stress and a
decline in the survival of saplings in response to rising
temperatures and reduced rainfall.
The five-year, open-air experiment details how critical
trees that have populated the southern edge of boreal
forests--a key ecosystem for wildlife, timber production and
for soaking up massive amounts of carbon dioxide--are
suffering profound impacts as the world warms. But the
species that are most likely to replace them, such as maples,
are not poised to expand their distribution fast enough to
fully replace the trees that are on their way toward dying
out.
``The species that are most abundant there are much more
vulnerable to climate change than I and other scientists had
thought,'' said Peter Reich, a lead author of the study also
published in Nature and a longtime forest ecology professor
at the University of Minnesota.
If current trends continue, Reich said, swaths of boreal
forests ``will be impoverished, and they might even fall
apart or collapse'' over the next half-century unless warming
slows. ``The take-home message for me is that a large part of
boreal forests, one of the largest carbon sinks in the world,
is probably going to take a pretty good hit in the next 40,
50 years, even in a best-case scenario,'' he said.
That's disturbing news, because Earth needs to gain
forests, not lose them, as people try to employ every trick
in the book to get carbon that is in the atmosphere back into
plants, soils, rocks and even underground storage caverns.
Reich sees his most recent findings in a broader context:
While the climate-focused legislation expected to pass in
Congress this week is a positive, the impacts of climate
change will continue to accelerate, and they will require
more far-reaching action.
Reich called the Inflation Reduction Act a ``good first
step'' but added that ``even in the most optimistic scenario,
there's going to be a lot of pain and suffering.''
``It's going to take an economic toll on poor and rich
alike in the future,'' he said. ``We shouldn't pat ourselves
on the back and say, `Mission accomplished.' ''
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Castro).
Mr. Speaker, I don't see any other speakers on our side, so I yield to the gentleman for his closing, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
The decision before us is simple. I don't know what my friends across the aisle find so off-putting about making historic investments in healthcare, cutting costs at pharmacy counters, combating climate change, slashing energy prices, and reducing the Federal deficit. Maybe they are just angry that we want to lower costs for the American people by making the wealthy pay their fair share. Or maybe it is because they know that this bill will put their Big Pharma and Big Oil buddies on notice.
Do you know what? I am proud of what we are finally doing here. I am proud that we are finally allowing drug prices to be negotiated to lower those costs. I am proud that we are extending the biggest expansion in healthcare coverage in a decade. I am proud that we are reducing future energy costs for thousands of families. I am proud that we are making the biggest investment to combat climate change ever.
Today, we are putting people over politics. People over politics, that is what Democrats are about. Today, we are delivering.
I know it took a while to get us to this point. It is a testament to the President and the Vice President. It is a testament to the Speaker of the House and to the Democrats on both sides of the Capitol that we are finally pushing this across the finish line. It is a testament to the climate activists,
especially the young people who have been fighting for action. It is a testament to the senior activists, groups like AARP, that have been fighting tirelessly to get prescription drug costs down lower so seniors don't have to choose between their prescription drugs and paying their rent or their utility bills.
We have done it. We have moved the ball.
Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to seize this opportunity before us. Vote for this rule and the underlying legislation so that the American people can truly have a fair shot in the 21st century.
Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule and the previous question.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.
