Floor Statements

Madam President, for the benefit of my colleagues, I know there is no time limit, but I don't think I am going to take more than 15 minutes and maybe less than that. It is kind of a rough guess, but I do not intend to take a lot of time.

I wish to start by thanking Chairman Baucus for his courtesy and hard work in the legislative effort that is part of this banking bill, the part that came out of the Finance Committee, the part of the bill that is hopefully going to help the mortgage problem through amendments to the Tax Code. Our goal in the Finance Committee was to develop a bipartisan tax package that responded to the needs of Americans and, in particular, the housing market. We have done so. I wish to take this opportunity to thank Senator Dodd and Senator Shelby because they have worked very closely with us in making sure our Finance Committee part of this bill can, in fact, be a part of the bill that is before the Senate.

Everybody knows Americans are struggling to keep their homes and, with that, their jobs. Economic conditions are very uncertain. In uncertain times, it is appropriate that Congress develop tax policy addressing the housing problem and try to bring a little more certainty to the economic lives of our citizens. After all, the housing problem is at the root of our current economic turmoil.

Last year, we responded to the call for help. Congress enacted the Mortgage Debt Relief Act of 2007, which was signed into law by the President. This law excludes from income discharges of indebtedness incurred by taxpayers to acquire homes. It also extends the tax deduction for mortgage insurance premiums.

Earlier this year, Congress acted quickly on a stimulus package that delivered additional relief to the American taxpayers. That stimulus package is just now taking effect as taxpayers have received these rebate checks, because they are necessary to give the economy a much needed boost.

Earlier this year, the Senate acted on a bipartisan tax relief package that

was based on the joint efforts of Finance Committee Democrats and Republicans--in other words, almost by unanimity, a bipartisan bill. The package before us as part of this housing bill is a blend of the Senate package and a House package passed a little while ago by the other body. We have carefully balanced this tax relief package being considered today on the floor, hopefully balanced it enough that it will not run into problems when it gets back to the House because certain House tax policy leaders have agreed to it.

It addresses the housing downturn but is limited so as to ensure that it helps the problem and does not create new problems. Too often, we in Congress have to be certain we do not do things too good, that we create more problems than we solve. We are mindful that any relief that benefits one sector of the public does so at the expense of another sector. The other sector, then, is the taxpaying population that carefully manages their family's budget, especially as it relates to housing costs because of the American dream of owning your own home.

Taxpayers bear the burden of a bailout of these risky mortgages that went south, so it is very important that we have a compassionate view that recognizes that taxpayers pay the ultimate tab. As we proceed to this bill, we need to keep in mind that very worthwhile principle. We need to address the housing downturn, but we need to show restraint and we need to limit the relief so that it eases the problem and does not simply create new problems. We need to be considerate of many Americans who work hard to save and buy homes and who will ultimately pay the price of this relief.

Once again, the Senate is stepping up to the plate. The tax relief package that is before us helps encourage home ownership but also provides targeted relief to homeowners who are looking to work out of this rough patch they are in when they face foreclosure or nearly face it.

The centerpiece of this bill is a temporary $8,000 tax credit to help first-time home buyers buy homes, including homes that are in foreclosure. There is a glut of homes on the market. The glut is depressing home values. It is important that this excess inventory is moved so that we help retain home values of others who are not in foreclosure or have been foreclosed on.

On that point, I think it is necessary for all of us to show praise and respect for the efforts of Senator Isakson from Georgia for doggedly pursuing this proposal. He has a very important and understanding background as a realtor and homebuilder. He helped us shape the proposal.

The bill also increases the cap for mortgage revenue bonds to give people with distressed loans additional options for refinancing. I wish to make it clear that this is not a bailout for homeowners. Instead, this is a provision which helps enable people to keep their homes and to pay their mortgages. We can thank the leadership of Senators Smith and Kerry for this important provision.

Chairman Baucus has championed the nonitemizer deduction for part of the real property tax paid. It is in this bill. Senator Kyl wanted assurances that State and local tax authorities would not pocket this new tax benefit with higher property tax assessments. This proposal is designed to ensure that property tax payers, not State and local governments, receive the direct benefit of this deduction.

This bill contains a set of reforms to the low-income housing credit. Senator Cantwell led this effort.

A key additional reform benefits low- and middle-income military personnel who need housing near bases where they are stationed. Senator Pat Roberts, a former marine, looked out for our men and women in uniform. Senator Roberts needs a thank-you for that. With Senator Roberts' proposal, soldiers and their families in Fort Riley, KS, and other bases that have seen recent increases in population will have easier access to low-income housing.

This bill liberalizes the ability of the Federal Home Loan Banks to provide assistance to colleges and universities affected by the subprime mortgage crisis. The Home Loan Bank officials in my home State of Iowa suggested this proposal, and I was glad to pursue it and glad it is included.

Senator Harkin, this Senator, and other Members from the Midwest have witnessed the terrible weather that hit our States recently.

We have seen the damage that has been done to our communities large and small, urban and rural in our home States. It is a devastating flood. Unfortunately, the damage goes on as I speak, only a little further downstream. All the hurt has not been calculated at this point. Once again, I have to thank Chairman Baucus for pledging to help us in the Midwest. Senator Baucus came to me and offered that help. That is something the people of Iowa and the Midwest appreciate. Having the chairman of a very important committee in the Senate on your side is important. We will not forget that.

In this bill, we have a proposal specifically targeted to help people who have lost their homes to the floods. The proposal is contained in the mortgage revenue bond package. It is patterned after a proposal adopted over a decade ago to deal with floods from the mid-1990s.

The proposal would waive the first-time home buyer requirement and lift the individual income limits. With this policy in effect, States such as Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and Maine will be able to offer low-interest loans to families who have lost their homes to the flood. With the proceeds from these loans, families will be able to purchase replacement homes. The elements of the low-income housing reforms will also help disaster-devastated communities.

While I was thanking Senator Baucus, I suppose I ought to extend that beyond Senator Baucus to several other Senators. I better not name them because several have come up, and I will forget somebody. But they have come up to show their understanding of how serious it is in the Midwest and have offered their help. Some of these Senators in previous years have gone through the same destructive natural disasters the Midwest is going through at this very minute. I have informed Chairman Baucus and the leadership on both sides that the coalition of member States affected by these floods and tornadoes will refine more tax proposals in the future. We will aim to assist displaced persons and rebuild the businesses and communities affected. We will seek to offer them to this bill once it is open for amendment.

I spoke in recent days on the issue of revenue-raising offsets to tax relief. I rebutted the claims of Democratic lobbyists who were surprisingly cited in some press reports as credible sources for the Senate Republican conference. The Democratic lobbyists claimed that Senate Republicans would oppose all revenue-raising offsets. Some described our position in terms of ``theology.'' I corrected these assertions and pointed back to Senate floor debates on this point late last year. For some reason, those statements in the Congressional Record have been ignored, and Democratic lobbyists' views were substituted. The correct position is as I restate it now. I ask some folks to pay close attention so we don't get misunderstood.

Principle No. 1, if a revenue-raising proposal makes good policy sense, Senate Republicans will support it. Principle No. 2, the revenue raised should be used for new tax relief. Principle No. 3, the revenue raised should not be required for extending current law tax relief. I have explained the reasons behind that principle. Suffice it to say that we on this side don't believe in sliding down a slippery slope of guaranteeing higher taxes and higher spending. Spending drives current and future deficits.

This bill confirms the Senate Republican conference principles on the use of revenue-raising offsets. This bill contains new tax policy. This new tax policy is offset with revenue raisers that a bipartisan majority in the Senate consider improved tax policy. The main one would put in place a reporting regime on credit card payments to merchants. It is a Treasury tax gap proposal. The other significant revenue raiser would clarify the home sale exclusion rules for second homes, usually where vacation residences are involved. The revenue losses related to disaster assistance, however, are not offset. That accounting is consistent with the

bipartisan congressional practice on emergency spending and tax relief.

It has long been said that the American dream is to own your own home. Unfortunately, the subprime mortgage crisis has turned that dream into a nightmare for many Americans. The bipartisan tax relief provisions from the Senate Finance Committee that have been worked out in a bipartisan way--and, I believe, in a bicameral way through Senator Baucus--are in this bill. They aim to restore that American dream. We do it in a very responsible way.

I yield the floor.

I ask permission to speak for 3 minutes as in morning business.

I come to the floor today to give my colleagues an update on the devastating floods in Iowa, but you can also say a lot of the Midwest. The President is seeing the floods for the first time today. I appreciate Senator Harkin being there with him.

Senator Harkin and I are working closely together to make sure every base is covered in Iowa. We traveled throughout Iowa last weekend. We are meeting regularly to sort through everything that needs to happen. Today, we are covered, with him in Iowa with the President and me in the Senate to work for disaster recovery provisions in this very housing bill. The President has already named 55 of our 99 counties as Federal disaster areas.

More need to be named. I think he will see today the need to continue these declarations. During our tours through several communities last week, and hopefully again this weekend, we were pleased to see a great deal of coordination between FEMA, SBA, and our local officials. It sounded as though they were all talking with one voice, which is comforting to Iowans looking for guidance and support and, particularly, it looks a lot different than during Katrina, when it seemed like that was not particularly the case.

Today, many people are starting to get back in their homes and businesses. North of Iowa City, receding waters are bringing further heartache as residents salvage what they can and then throw away what was destroyed by the floodwaters. Those are the lucky ones. There are many who are determining whether they can salvage the house let alone what is inside.

Small communities downriver, such as Oakville and Columbus Junction, are completely submerged. Farms lost everything, including equipment, crops, livestock. The cities of Burlington and Keokuk are holding their breath to get through without devastation such as we have seen in Iowa City and Cedar Rapids.

Despite all this, Iowans continue to show their resiliency and heart. I was on C-SPAN's call-in program called ``Washington Journal'' earlier this week. People from all over the country called to say how proud they were of the way people in the Midwest, and particularly they were referring to Iowans, were pulling together and working to get through this disaster.

Of course, Senator Harkin and I could not agree more. Volunteers continue to be at the forefront of our efforts. Local churches have made heroic efforts. The Salvation Army and Red Cross have been in Iowa since the beginning. I cannot say enough about the local officials, including law enforcement, fire departments, and the Iowa National Guard.

I would like to extend my thank-yous to all my colleagues who have come forth showing their support. I think I can speak for both Senator Harkin and myself in saying we have had people in private coming up to us on the Senate floor. Having that happen is very gratifying.

Many of you have had similar events occurring in your own States and understand the pain we feel once again in Iowa. Our constituents are going to need the Federal Government's help. Senator Harkin and I have been meeting often and have also put together a coalition of Midwest Senators whose States were also hit.

I thank all my colleagues for giving our constituents the help they need as we continue down this road.

I ask unanimous consent that Tom Edwards, Jordan August, and Bobby Schena of my staff be granted the privileges of the floor for the duration of the 110th Congress.

May I ask how much time is left on this side?

Mr. President, I hope my colleagues had a chance to listen to the distinguished Democratic leader talk about the tax bill vote coming up and about Republican filibusters. I wish to tell the other side of the story.

As there are 76, according to their count, filibusters, presumably Republican, what defines a filibuster around here is when you file a cloture motion. If people have a desire to talk a few hours on a bill, maybe even a few minutes on a bill, and immediately a cloture motion is slapped in, then that defines a filibuster.

That doesn't define a filibuster. If it does, then the Democrats, by not letting the Senate work its will, have in a sense shut off the purpose of the Senate, which is, of course, to thoroughly debate what passed the other body.

Tax bills can only start in the other body, and they go through there in 2 or 3 hours. If they are going to be thoroughly debated, they have to be debated here. I think it is a little disingenuous to talk about a filibuster on a tax bill when the definition of a filibuster is when a cloture motion is filed. It is filed by the majority party, not by the minority party.

Over the past few years, anyone who has observed the workings of Congress has probably discovered that we spend a lot of time every year wrestling over what are called tax extenders--probably tax policy that for the most part has been on the books for decades, one or two decades, and then sunsets, and then if you are going to keep that policy in place--in other words, keep the existing tax policy--they must be extended. We call them tax extenders. Popular provisions in the Internal Revenue Code, then, are set to expire every year or two unless Congress acts. Of course, if Congress doesn't act, then taxes go up.

In the past, I have compared this constant repetition to a film called ``Groundhog Day,'' staring Bill Murray, where Bill Murray's character relives the same day over and over again. I have a chart showing a scene from that classic and very enlightening film. It almost seems ironic that it would be appropriate on so many occasions for me to talk about a movie that itself is about repetition, but the repetitive actions of the Democratic majority and its leadership make it too hard to resist bringing Bill and Phil down here again to show you and remind you what this body, the Senate, goes through periodically.

Less than a week ago, the Senate, by a vote of 50 to 44, rejected a motion to invoke cloture on a motion to proceed to the House bill, H.R. 6049, the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act. In just a few moments we are going to repeat that exact same vote. Why? There does not seem to be a discernible reason.

Getting back to Bill and Phil driving the truck, I bet the thinking on the other side is that it is the Senate Republicans who are represented by Bill on this chart, in that the Democrats want people like me to be put through the same actions on the same issues until we do what the other side thinks is the right thing. However, that thinking is mistaken. I am not sure how much resemblance there is, but Bill represents the Democratic leadership. Why? Because the majority sets the schedule for the Senate. When Republicans are in the majority, we set the schedule. Despite having slogged through this very same issue several times over the past few years, the Democratic leadership still insists on beating the same dead horse--or maybe in this case the same dead groundhog.

As anyone familiar with this fine film knows--the film called ``Groundhog Day''--this chart depicts Bill and Phil driving a truck moments before it goes over the cliff. In a few moments, the Democratic leadership is going to drive this Chamber over the same cliff we went over last Tuesday. The vote, again, is one I predict will fail, and we will be exactly where we were before.

Going back to the ``Groundhog Day'' example, the Democratic leadership is stuck in the part of the film where Bill Murray relives the same day because he is doing the wrong things and refuses to change behavior.

I would rather not see this body go over the cliff. But what really concerns me is that the Democratic leadership is not alone. In the back of his truck are roughly 140 million families and individuals who file tax returns. The extenders affect millions of taxpayers. Congress should have learned from the experience we had less than 6 months ago, in December. Waiting until the end of the year to solve these problems creates problems instead for agencies like the IRS. It is a problem for taxpayers who are not getting back their refunds soon enough. If the Democratic leadership cares about those millions of taxpayers, they will slow this truck down. They will not drive over the cliff. They will stop the truck, they will work with the Senate--in the bipartisan way that is the only way to get things done in the Senate--to finally get this bill passed, a bill that will be signed into law.

Included in those roughly 140 million families and individuals in the back of the truck are around 24 million taxpayers who are now subject to the crushing alternative minimum tax. We need to extend the AMT exemption for middle-income taxpayers. Right now, around 24 million of those middle-income families are liable for the AMT because Congress has not acted to protect them for the year we are in, 2008.

The House bill that is the subject of the upcoming cloture vote does nothing to protect those taxpayers, nothing on the AMT.

Many of those families who make estimated payments are hopefully familiar with the form 1040-ES for the second quarter of 2008. That was due yesterday. Many taxpayers who were not subject to the AMT last year but are now caught this year should have filed this form but do not know they are supposed to. It is a tax that these 23 million, or maybe a part of that 23 million, do not pay because they never had to pay it before. Under current law those individuals are subject to penalty.

I made this point on several occasions last year when a quarterly estimated tax return was due. I hope I do not get the same reaction now as I did every time I talked about the estimated tax payments last year, because that response was silence.

I know many will say that Congress will act, but that is not good enough. The American people should no more accept an IOU from Congress than the IRS would accept an IOU from the taxpayer. The right thing to do now is to vote ``no'' on this cloture motion. The sooner we can get the Democratic leadership to stop driving the Bill-and-Phil truck over the cliff, the sooner we can get to work on this extenders bill.

That bill, unlike the bill before us now, will pass both Houses of Congress and will be signed by the President. This law change will protect additional families from being captured by the AMT. Right now the Democratic leadership is in the driver's seat. You see, we have the Democratic leadership in the driver's seat. As I have said of Bill and Phil in the past, I hope eventually they decide to drive responsibly. Do not do what Bill and Phil do, go over the cliff all of the time. Vote ``no'' on the motion to proceed, put the Senate back on a path to a real AMT fix and also pass the extenders bill so it becomes law.

We have been having a lot of discussion over whether these extensions of the expiring tax relief provisions might be offset with tax increases. We heard the distinguished Democratic leader say they should, because it might make the deficit go up otherwise.

My position is if you extend policy that has been in place for a couple decades continuing existing tax policy, you are not making the deficit bigger. You would only do that if you increased or came up with some new tax policy.

I am not going to rehash all the elements of that debate again. The difference between Republicans and Democrats on this point is important. The Democrats have their view, the Republicans have our view. That is the way democracy works. But here is why this is a different point of view. It is important because the hurdle to a bipartisan bill signed by the President on the AMT patch and extenders will not happen unless we get the differences worked out.

There is a group of so-called conservative Democrats in the House of Representatives who are called Blue Dogs. I want to say that I respect the Blue Dogs' call for fiscal discipline. It is critically important in this era of deficit spending.

Revenues are not the problem. One would think from the Democratic leadership that we do not tax people enough so we tax people more. In fact, we are on a revenue path that is above the historic average in terms of Federal revenue as a share of gross national product.

So when the Blue Dogs in the House of Representatives bark about deficit reduction, we on this side will howl with them. We have Huckleberry Hound here to illustrate what I am talking about. The Blue Dogs continue to bite only on the tax side.

When it comes to spending cuts, we do not hear much more than a whimper out of the Blue Dogs. They do not want spending cuts, they want higher taxes. We agree with them on fiscal responsibility, but higher taxes do not bring fiscal responsibility. Higher taxes bring an excuse for Congress to spend more money.

Spending cuts are the way to get taxes down. In fact, when I hear from my constituents, they do not think the American people are undertaxed, they think the American people or the Congress overspend.

On our side, that tax-hike hungry dog won't hunt. We have seen the story of this Huckleberry Hound chart play out in recent legislation. On the additional GI education benefits, the Blue Dogs held out for a tax increase to offset the new spending. But when the pressure from their political leadership got too hot, that objection is now history.

We have another popular new spending proposal, extension of unemployment benefits. The Blue Dogs said no offset was required because it is ``temporary spending.''

Now we have an AMT fix and we have the extenders bill before us. Because it is current law tax relief, the Blue Dogs are insisting on tax increases on other taxpayers. Such inconsistency I do not understand. As with GI benefit packages, we will meet the Blue Dogs' challenge. We will put our money where our mouth is.

The budget resolution, written by the Democratic majority and supported by the Blue Dogs, contains $300 billion in nondiscretionary appropriations. This is brand new extra spending not subject to pay-go. The AMT patch in the extender bill is a $110 billion package. After being challenged by the Blue Dog Democrats to stand up for spending cuts, I suggested we take one-fifth of what they are going to increase spending by, and it will pay for these new spending programs.

I would put them to a challenge of not increasing taxes every time to reduce the deficit, but reduce expenditures to be consistent. Instead of raising taxes, I said let's look at the new non-defense discretionary spending built into the budget. We could let that new undefined future spending expire by an amount necessary to make that AMT patch and extenders bill deficit neutral. Many on the other side say it is harmless to let defined current law tax relief expire. If that is true, then it ought to be easier to let undefined future spending expire.

After meeting the dollar amount in the spending cut challenge, some in the Blue Dog coalition still complained. They said we had to define the spending to be cut. That's a bit curious because the spending is future non-defense discretionary spending. Over the next 10 years, appropriators will spend this new extra money in future appropriations laws. Those bills have not been written yet. So, I don't know how I respond with any more specificity. I've provided the amount and the source of the funds.

The last time I checked, a dollar of spending cuts is the same as a dollar of forgone revenue. If we apply that basic math to taxes and spending, then we will achieve fiscal discipline.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce the Medicare DMEPOS Competitive Acquisition Reform Act of 2008 with my colleague, Senator Baucus, to delay and reform the competitive bidding program for Medicare durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics, and supplies. We are introducing this legislation to address serious concerns that have arisen over implementation of the competitive bidding program which is set to take effect in certain areas of the country on July 1, 2008. The bill will delay the start of the competitive bidding program for 18 months and require the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to review the program and address significant issues that have been raised regarding implementation of the program.

We must act now before the competitive bidding program takes effect. We must ensure that the frail elderly who depend on diabetic supplies, oxygen, and other medical equipment for life-threatening conditions will continue to have access to essential medical products and supplies which are vital to their daily lives. The continued viability of much of the home medical supply industry is in serious jeopardy as a result of flaws that surfaced in the program during the first round of competitive bidding. Many small home medical equipment suppliers are in danger of going out of business through no fault of their own if the competitive bidding program is implemented as planned. Losing a significant number of small suppliers from the home medical equipment industry would have severe, unintended adverse consequences on thousands of beneficiaries who need home medical equipment and supplies. If that were to occur, it would severely hamper access to essential medical equipment for an untold number of beneficiaries. It was due to these very concerns that I opposed competitive bidding for DME when it was under consideration in 2003. Now, my original concerns, unfortunately, have become a reality, and urgent action by Congress is required.

These concerns are especially problematic right now in states such as Iowa in the Midwest which are already reeling from the disastrous floods and tornadoes we have experienced this past month. The loss of many more small businesses would be disastrous to beneficiaries whose access to needed medical supplies has already been severely limited, let alone the ripple effect this would inflict on local economies which have already been severely impacted by record floods which have harmed scores of businesses and cost hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.

We heard from many medical equipment suppliers that the rules of the competitive bidding program were unclear or were changed at the last minute, and that their bids were not considered. CMS has told us that roughly two-thirds of the bids submitted by suppliers were ultimately rejected for lack of proper documentation or other issues apart from price. This was done even though CMS had assured suppliers when the program began that they would be notified if their bids lacked the required documentation. Two weeks before the bidding closed, CMS abruptly decided they would not provide such notification. Appropriately, this bill terminates the contracts that were awarded under Round One and pays any applicable damages incurred as a result of the terminations, if any. In the future, the bill requires a more transparent process on the part of CMS. When Round One is re-bid, the bill requires CMS to provide feedback to suppliers with documentation issues or other problems and give them an opportunity to remedy the situation before their bids are thrown out and excluded from consideration.

As Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, I am committed to ensuring that Medicare dollars are spent wisely and provide high quality products to seniors at the lowest possible cost. The program improvements required by this legislation will ensure more protections for beneficiaries and lead to lower prices and higher quality medical products while ensuring that beneficiaries will still have access to the medical equipment and supplies that they need. These improvements will also help prevent many small home medical equipment suppliers from going out of business due to a flawed bidding process which unfairly eliminated them from the Medicare program for three years.

In our bill, the cost of delaying the competitive bidding program and adding additional safeguards to the program would be fully paid for by the durable medical equipment industry. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the delay in implementing competitive bidding and the reforms to the program included in this bill will increase Medicare spending by $3.1 billion over 5 years. To offset the cost of the legislation, in 2009 those DME items subject to Round One of the program will not receive a CPI update, and payments for those items will be reduced by 9.5 percent. Items not subject to Round One will receive a CPI update in 2009, and all DME items will receive CPI updates in years 2010 through 2013. In 2014, those DME items which were subject to the 9.5 percent payment reduction in 2009 will receive an additional payment increase of two percent over the CPI unless they are covered by competitive bidding contracts then.

As is true in many sectors, the DME industry is given a bad name by a few bad apples that spoil the barrel. Unfortunately, we hear on a regular basis from the Office of Inspector General and the Justice Department that the DME industry continues to have far too many incidents of waste, fraud and abuse. The multi-agency Medicare Fraud Task Force formed last year has uncovered numerous examples of criminal behavior and successfully prosecuted dozens of fraudulent or non- existent DME suppliers in South Florida and elsewhere. In just over a year, the task force has brought more than 120 cases against nearly 200 defendants in South Florida alone who have been charged with a total of $638 million in fraud. We must have stronger safeguards to ensure that companies who participate in competitive bidding are actual, legitimate companies that can provide the equipment and services they bid to provide. In addition, the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services is required to assess the process used by CMS to conduct competitive bidding and verify the calculations of the pricing determinations used to determine the payment amounts for competitively bid items in Rounds One and Two.

This bill also includes standards which will lead to an improved competitive bidding program. Under the bill, all DME suppliers must be accredited and meet quality standards by October 2009. We also close a loophole that currently allows subcontractors to remain unaccredited. We heard many complaints about companies awarded contracts who had no presence in the competitively bid area and who then began to solicit subcontractors to assist in carrying out the terms of the contract they had been awarded. Under the current program, subcontractors do not need to meet accreditation standards. Our bill requires that every company that supplies DME in the Medicare program must meet accreditation standards, whether they are primary suppliers or subcontractors.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation to delay the competitive bidding program in order to ensure seniors continued access to needed home medical equipment and supplies and to remedy flaws in the bidding process and make other necessary improvements in the competitive bidding program.

Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce the Medicare DMEPOS Competitive Acquisition Reform Act of 2008 with my colleague, Senator Baucus, to delay and reform the competitive bidding program for Medicare durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics, and supplies. We are introducing this legislation to address serious concerns that have arisen over implementation of the competitive bidding program which is set to take effect in certain areas of the country on July 1, 2008. The bill will delay the start of the competitive bidding program for 18 months and require the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to review the program and address significant issues that have been raised regarding implementation of the program.

We must act now before the competitive bidding program takes effect. We must ensure that the frail elderly who depend on diabetic supplies, oxygen, and other medical equipment for life-threatening conditions will continue to have access to essential medical products and supplies which are vital to their daily lives. The continued viability of much of the home medical supply industry is in serious jeopardy as a result of flaws that surfaced in the program during the first round of competitive bidding. Many small home medical equipment suppliers are in danger of going out of business through no fault of their own if the competitive bidding program is implemented as planned. Losing a significant number of small suppliers from the home medical equipment industry would have severe, unintended adverse consequences on thousands of beneficiaries who need home medical equipment and supplies. If that were to occur, it would severely hamper access to essential medical equipment for an untold number of beneficiaries. It was due to these very concerns that I opposed competitive bidding for DME when it was under consideration in 2003. Now, my original concerns, unfortunately, have become a reality, and urgent action by Congress is required.

These concerns are especially problematic right now in states such as Iowa in the Midwest which are already reeling from the disastrous floods and tornadoes we have experienced this past month. The loss of many more small businesses would be disastrous to beneficiaries whose access to needed medical supplies has already been severely limited, let alone the ripple effect this would inflict on local economies which have already been severely impacted by record floods which have harmed scores of businesses and cost hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.

We heard from many medical equipment suppliers that the rules of the competitive bidding program were unclear or were changed at the last minute, and that their bids were not considered. CMS has told us that roughly two-thirds of the bids submitted by suppliers were ultimately rejected for lack of proper documentation or other issues apart from price. This was done even though CMS had assured suppliers when the program began that they would be notified if their bids lacked the required documentation. Two weeks before the bidding closed, CMS abruptly decided they would not provide such notification. Appropriately, this bill terminates the contracts that were awarded under Round One and pays any applicable damages incurred as a result of the terminations, if any. In the future, the bill requires a more transparent process on the part of CMS. When Round One is re-bid, the bill requires CMS to provide feedback to suppliers with documentation issues or other problems and give them an opportunity to remedy the situation before their bids are thrown out and excluded from consideration.

As Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, I am committed to ensuring that Medicare dollars are spent wisely and provide high quality products to seniors at the lowest possible cost. The program improvements required by this legislation will ensure more protections for beneficiaries and lead to lower prices and higher quality medical products while ensuring that beneficiaries will still have access to the medical equipment and supplies that they need. These improvements will also help prevent many small home medical equipment suppliers from going out of business due to a flawed bidding process which unfairly eliminated them from the Medicare program for three years.

In our bill, the cost of delaying the competitive bidding program and adding additional safeguards to the program would be fully paid for by the durable medical equipment industry. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the delay in implementing competitive bidding and the reforms to the program included in this bill will increase Medicare spending by $3.1 billion over 5 years. To offset the cost of the legislation, in 2009 those DME items subject to Round One of the program will not receive a CPI update, and payments for those items will be reduced by 9.5 percent. Items not subject to Round One will receive a CPI update in 2009, and all DME items will receive CPI updates in years 2010 through 2013. In 2014, those DME items which were subject to the 9.5 percent payment reduction in 2009 will receive an additional payment increase of two percent over the CPI unless they are covered by competitive bidding contracts then.

As is true in many sectors, the DME industry is given a bad name by a few bad apples that spoil the barrel. Unfortunately, we hear on a regular basis from the Office of Inspector General and the Justice Department that the DME industry continues to have far too many incidents of waste, fraud and abuse. The multi-agency Medicare Fraud Task Force formed last year has uncovered numerous examples of criminal behavior and successfully prosecuted dozens of fraudulent or non- existent DME suppliers in South Florida and elsewhere. In just over a year, the task force has brought more than 120 cases against nearly 200 defendants in South Florida alone who have been charged with a total of $638 million in fraud. We must have stronger safeguards to ensure that companies who participate in competitive bidding are actual, legitimate companies that can provide the equipment and services they bid to provide. In addition, the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services is required to assess the process used by CMS to conduct competitive bidding and verify the calculations of the pricing determinations used to determine the payment amounts for competitively bid items in Rounds One and Two.

This bill also includes standards which will lead to an improved competitive bidding program. Under the bill, all DME suppliers must be accredited and meet quality standards by October 2009. We also close a loophole that currently allows subcontractors to remain unaccredited. We heard many complaints about companies awarded contracts who had no presence in the competitively bid area and who then began to solicit subcontractors to assist in carrying out the terms of the contract they had been awarded. Under the current program, subcontractors do not need to meet accreditation standards. Our bill requires that every company that supplies DME in the Medicare program must meet accreditation standards, whether they are primary suppliers or subcontractors.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation to delay the competitive bidding program in order to ensure seniors continued access to needed home medical equipment and supplies and to remedy flaws in the bidding process and make other necessary improvements in the competitive bidding program.

Mr. President, I am proud to be here with Senator Harkin. But I am not proud to be here because of the situation that we described to you, which is the flooding in our State of Iowa. I am going to show some pictures. Senator Harkin has some pictures. I am not going to refer specifically to the pictures during my remarks, but I think you can see from the New York Times, downtown Cedar Rapids, IA-- City Hall here on an island between the rivers, kind of in the citadel of Cedar Rapids, and water has never been that high before. This is truly a 100-year flood.

Then we have another picture here of Cedar Rapids. It happens to be on the very same street on which Senator Harkin has his office. My office in Cedar Rapids was in the Federal Building. The Federal Building is just across, right there. So it is shut down, obviously. I just want to make some remarks about the situation in Iowa and then turn the floor over to Senator Harkin.

We come to the floor to share with our colleagues and the American people the stories of more natural disasters to hit Iowa. In my case, less than 2 weeks ago I came to this very spot to honor the victims and to hail the heroes from a deadly tornado that ripped through my home county, Butler County, IA. In a little more than a week, Mother Nature has ripped open a healing wound.

As many people can see on television, Iowans are seeing record floods throughout the central and eastern part of our State. I can tell you that television hardly does justice to this historic devastation. Iowa braced for a repeat of 1993, but it didn't happen. Instead, Iowans are facing head on a 500-year flood; more than 38,000 people have been evacuated from communities across eastern and central Iowa.

Rivers have overtaken several communities, and I cannot name all of the communities, but I think of Mason City, Waverly, New Hartford, Waterloo, and Cedar Falls. And then Mother Nature took her toll on Cedar Rapids, downstream from Waterloo and Cedar Falls, and hit Coralville and eventually Iowa City. In fact, that is two separate rivers doing this damaging situation. Des Moines and Columbus Junction and Vinton have seen the full power of the raging river as well. Unfortunately, there are more communities that have already seen the force of these waters and many more being hit downstream.

Like 2 weeks ago when tornadoes hit Butler County, Iowa has been the recipient of an outpouring of support from around the country. Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff in western Iowa with Governor Culver and FEMA Administrator Paulison were both in our State to tour the rising waters, and Administrator Paulison did that with Governor Culver, Senator Harkin, and this Senator. It is my understanding that later on this week, President Bush will come to Iowa. And when it is all said and done, there are no better friends to these communities than their own local emergency management people, the local police and the local fire and the Iowa National Guard members. These people have been on the front line. They are analyzing each movement of water, watching bridges, water treatment plants, and ensuring the safety of every community member.

Most importantly, though, are those who are working together just to help a neighbor or a friend. Citizens by the thousands are filling sandbags, prisoners from local jails are helping with sandbagging efforts, and volunteers for the Salvation Army and the Red Cross

and most of the local churches--all of the local churches, I am sure-- are seen throughout the flooded areas offering food, water, and shelter.

Senator Harkin and I toured several communities Friday, as I indicated, with Administrator Paulison, the Small Business Administration, and Governor Culver, who is on the job every minute of the day. We did that on Friday. Of course, Governor Culver is doing it every day. On Saturday, Senator Harkin and I surveyed other areas. On Friday, we happened to visit Des Moines, Waterloo, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, back to Des Moines. Looking down, you could hardly see a dry piece of land between any of those cities. Houses, businesses, and crops alike are all underwater. When I say crops are underwater, I have to say that in some areas, whole fields, but there is not a field we flew over that did not have some ponding and some loss of a part of it at least. So crops are definitely hurt. Then on Saturday, Senator Harkin and I went to Mason City, Charles City, Nashua, and Waverly, and then I had an opportunity to go to my downtown of New Hartford, where all but 2 or 3 homes out of 250 had water in them. It is devastating. There is hurt everywhere. There is devastation that I never dreamt of. I suppose if we could remember 15 years back, Des Moines, yes, maybe. I ought to say that I never dreamt of it. I guess I never dreamt from that time that it would happen again to the extent it did in 1993.

We were encouraged as we traveled by the sandbaggers and their endless amount of resiliency to get the job done. But in the next moment, we felt the hurt of those staying in shelters who had lost everything. As you talked to them, they obviously showed sorrow through their tears and, of course, the effort of maybe a life of work gone down the drain. Yet, through it all, Iowans are coming together and pulling through as only Iowans can as the water begins to recede in part of the area we entered. But do not forget that in the days to come, downstream, as you move toward the Mississippi River, other people are going to go through what we saw. But as the water begins to recede, people are attempting to get back into their homes. It is obviously frustrating. It is obviously discouraging. Besides the home itself, probably meaning a lot more to other people are pictures of loved ones, ruined heirlooms handed down from grandparents that you see floating even on the second floor.

Just as we did in 1993, and more recently, the people of Parkersburg, New Hartford, Hazelton, and Dunkerton have moved forward and begun to rebuild. So will the people of the rest of the State of Iowa go forward to rebuild. It is going to take time. It is going to be weeks in some cases. In some cases, it is going to be years to rebuild and get back to where people were.

I am confident that we will get through this. Senator Harkin and I are here to help, as well as the Congressmen in the other body. We are meeting regularly to discuss what we can do at the Federal level. Our staffs are meeting and talking several times daily to coordinate work. I am confident that when it is over, we will see the resiliency of Iowans come through, and we will all look to each other and our rebuilt communities and say, as we said: It was sad at the time, but we can do it. I think we will say it has been a job well done.

Mr. President, before I yield the floor, I would be remiss if I did not pay deep respect to the four Boy Scouts who lost their lives and also to those who heroically and bravely helped others hurt during another act of Mother Nature in western Iowa on Thursday.

Funeral services are being held today for 14-year-old Aaron Eilerts of Eagle Grove, who was killed by a tornado at Little Sioux Scout Ranch. The other three were from Nebraska and I believe from Omaha. But whether you are from Omaha or Iowa, being a Boy Scout leader and having this tornado happen and losing the life of a future leader of America is a sadness, whether you are from Nebraska or Iowa. Boy Scouts are often called upon to serve as leaders of our Nation in all walks of life. We lost four promising leaders far too prematurely and painfully, adding to the already existing hurt many in Iowa are feeling.

Before I yield the floor, I thank Senator Harkin for being able to work closely with him, being able to travel together and see this situation. I wish we did not have to be working together on this project because it is sad but one that makes you proud of Iowans as well. We will continue to work together to see our way through it.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, yesterday afternoon I discussed the burden that high gas prices are having on all Americans, and not just on my constituents in Iowa but all over this great country. I think now that most of my colleagues in the House and Senate know that high gas prices mean less discretionary income for people--less discretionary income to spend at the mall, to spend at the farmers market, less discretionary income to buy ice cream on hot summer days, and less discretionary income to save for a rainy day.

I can assume my Democratic colleagues know that actions that take discretionary income away from the American people are detrimental to those people and detrimental to the overall economy--detrimental to their way of life and detrimental to our country's future. I guess I don't have to assume folks on the other side know this. This body has been debating the issue of escalating oil prices and energy for the better part of this week. I heard countless accounts from my Democratic colleagues about how their constituents are hurting. So I think my friends on the other side get it. They get that taking the hard-earned dollars out of the pockets of their constituents is detrimental to those constituents.

What my Democratic friends don't get is that raising taxes has the same effect. Raising taxes takes hard-earned dollars out of the pockets of their constituents. Don't folks on the other side think this is a problem? It is a problem for their constituents' way of life, and it multiplies into problems for our economy. It is a problem for our country's future. But I don't think the leadership on the other side understands this fundamental fact. So I guess folks on the other side just don't get it.

Is this change Americans can believe in? If they are not being told the entire story, how can they know what to believe? If the leadership on the other side isn't telling the entire story, the folks in the media need to. And I believe folks in the media are well enough educated to know what the truth is and to spread the truth. So I challenge our media friends and beltway pundits--a little like I did yesterday in remarks here--to report that higher taxes means less discretionary income, it means slower economic growth, and it won't mean more revenue for the Government to spend. It is too bad that people are of the frame of mind that if you raise tax rates, you bring in more revenue, and if you reduce tax rates, you lower revenue. I like to disabuse people of those facts.

Yesterday, I also told the beltway punditry and related press people to stop referring to the bipartisan tax relief of 2001 as the Bush tax cuts. These are the talking points of the leadership on the other side of the aisle that the press seems to somehow eat up because it gets repeated. It is just a fact of life: Bush gets all the credit for the tax cuts. Well, it is intellectually dishonest, and it gives Americans the impression that the bipartisan tax relief that was passed back then--7 years ago--is bad.

But then again, what should we expect from the other side of the aisle and their leadership's campaign? Everything coming out of that shop tends to be poll-driven. Take a poll the night before, and whatever the people are telling you the night before, that is what the message is the next day as opposed to being more concerned about good policy being good politics.

The 2001 tax relief put more money into the pockets of hard-working Americans, and they are better off for it. Sure, the leadership on the other side of the aisle wants the voters to believe tax relief is bad. The junior Senator from Illinois wants the voters to believe raising taxes will solve all problems. The distinguished Senator also wants voters to believe taxes will only be raised on people who earn lots of money, where there isn't the money to solve all the problems. His party wants people to believe there are no downsides for taxpayers, no downsides for economic growth if income taxes go up by 10 percent, even if taxes are raised on families making $250,000 or more.

Now, it is too bad, but the media seems to believe this propaganda and ignores the fact that the economics behind it are not responsible and factual, because that is the report they put out there, so that is what the people hear.

The Democratic leadership has also successfully convinced the media that raising taxes will bring in more revenue. I want to remind the media that the bipartisan tax relief brought in more revenue than was projected, much more revenue than what the 1993 Clinton tax increase brought in over a comparable period.

I have a chart here that I would like the media to take a look at, a chart which illustrates that lower taxes have generated record revenues.

See, you have the actual revenues that came in and you have the projected revenues before we lowered taxes. This chart illustrates that Federal tax revenues have been and generally continue to be coming into the Federal Treasury at or above the historical average--and the historical average, the way I say it, is the last four decades--of about 18.2 percent of gross domestic product. Now, what does that 18.2 percent of gross domestic product mean? It means that by lowering the tax rates, as we did in 2001, it does not in any way gut Federal tax revenue.

But how easy is it to explain to people who don't look at economics every day that if you lower tax rates, you are going to bring in less revenue; if you raise tax rates, you are going to bring in more revenue? Because that is kind of what common sense might tell you. But the study of economics and what really happens by the facts are two different things. You can keep tax rates where they historically have been for the last 40 years, about 18 to 19 percent of gross domestic product--and when they were at 20, we reduced them down to that point; in fact, even a little bit less growth has brought them back up--and you can do it without hurting the Federal Treasury. In fact, you can enhance it. Do you know why? Because of the dynamics of our economic system, of our market system. When you let 137 million taxpayers, with more money in their pockets, decide how to spend the money--and probably in 137 million different ways--it does more economic good than when 535 Members of Congress decide how to do it. But you know, some have the attitude around here that the judgment of 535 Members of Congress is much better than the judgment of 137 million taxpayers, so we don't need to raise taxes in order to generate revenue.

So to the media people: Don't believe the Chicken Littles. I have a chart here of Chicken Little, who says that the sky is going to fall if we keep taxes low.

I can't let my colleagues on the other side and some of the skeptics in the press say to the American public that if you earn less than $250,000 a year, you won't see higher taxes, so I have these news flashes:

News flash: You don't have to be earning $250,000 to invest money in the stock market.

News flash: You don't have to be earning $250,000 to have real estate holdings.

News flash: You don't have to be earning $250,000 to have your savings in mutual funds.

All those flashes prove that if you earn less than $250,000 a year and you

hold these investments, guess what--you will be paying more taxes. Let me take a closer look so I can demonstrate that is what is going to happen.

In 2003, Congress reduced the top tax rate on capital gains, lowering taxes again from 20 percent to 15 percent. Congress also did the same thing for dividend income, tied it with the capital gains tax rate at 15 percent. For lower income taxpayers, we thought they ought to have an incentive to save, so the tax rate on capital gains and dividends for low-income taxpayers is zero--that is zero with a ``z.'' Millions of low-income taxpayers receive dividends and capital gains. All of these taxpayers are not making more than $250,000.

To help out the media, I will illustrate these points with yet another chart. As you can see from this chart, over 24 million tax returns reported dividend income. In Iowa, for instance--my State--over 299,000 families and individuals claimed dividend income on their returns.

Another chart we have deals with capital gains. The first one dealt with dividends, now this one with capital gains. Nationally, 9 million families and individuals claimed capital gains--9 million families--and in my State of Iowa, over 127,000 of them. Now, that is a lot of taxpayers who are not earning a lot of money. So I want the media to report that. It doesn't seem to get reported. I want to see news reports that say something like this: ``Even if the other side's Presidential candidate's plan raises taxes on folks making $250,000, millions of taxpayers make less than $250,000 and will still see a tax increase.''

That is end of my proposed quote, but you will never see it in the newspaper.

I also want my friends in the punditry and media to connect the dots. If more people are paying higher taxes, the result is less discretionary income and of course slower economic growth. That is the same thing that is going on with high gas prices. The press doesn't seem to have a problem reporting that fact, but it still ends up with the consumer having less discretionary income.

I fought both Democrats and Republicans. I hope I have a reputation of taking on a cause and not worrying about whether it is a Republican cause or Democrat cause. So I have fought both to ensure that our country is on the right course. That course must be and is economic prosperity. I wish to see a real discussion of the negative implications of changing current economic policy. With high gas prices squeezing taxpayers, it is more compelling than ever.

Let's clear away the fog about what is meant to be negative about the Bush tax cuts, because broad-based tax increases are not gauzy ``feel good'' economic changes. Let's examine the benefit of keeping taxes low.

While I have the floor, I wish to speak on an issue that is coming up for a vote. This is the Medicare vote in a little while.

The vote we are going to take later today is a very important one-- important for our senior citizens and important for all health care practitioners around the country. The outcome of that vote will determine whether we begin working together again on a bill that the President will sign. For the sake of 40 million Medicare beneficiaries, I am here now to urge my colleagues to defeat the cloture motion today. Then we can get to work on a bipartisan basis and write a bill that can be signed into law. That is something Senator Baucus and I know how to do.

This afternoon the Senate will be voting to move forward on a bill that will be vetoed and will mean a lot of lost time--not only for the Senate, but we have to get these things done by July 1. With a Presidential veto, I doubt we will. This is a pointless exercise, then, that can be stopped in its tracks by a ``no'' vote on cloture.

What is worse, the reality is that the bill is not even ready for serious consideration. Members of the Senate, it is very incomplete, obviously incomplete. It was introduced with blanks and brackets. It will not become law.

It cuts oxygen reimbursement. It cuts power wheelchair reimbursement. It threatens future physician updates. The danger is July 1, doctors get cut 10.6 percent if we do not intervene. It is a partisan bill that delays bipartisan consideration of the Medicare bill.

While the Senate wastes time with this bill, millions of taxpayers' dollars in administrative costs are also going to be wasted because the Center for Medicare Services has to program their system to not have the physicians' pay cut go into effect July 1. But they can only do that if Congress can pass a bill that can be signed by the President.

Voting for this bill is the same as asking for the physician pay cut to go into effect. If it does, then CMS has to potentially hold millions of claims, to process them later. That costs millions and millions of dollars a week. If the Senate votes cloture on this bill, we may as well be taking a match to millions of taxpayers' dollars.

We had been working in a bipartisan process that could get us a bill that could be signed into law. For some reason the majority walked away from the table. That was kind of recently, during the end of May. With all due respect to my friends on the other side of the aisle, in the 3 weeks since they have produced a bill that, for all the rhetoric we are hearing about it, is not worth the paper it is printed on. It will not become law. It will be vetoed.

Meanwhile, doctors in this country are looking at the calendar, wondering what their payment will be after June 30, and wondering whether they can still afford to see Medicare patients. They are wondering if they have enough cash reserves if Congress doesn't get its act together.

I want to say something to the doctors back home who are listening to this debate. They tend to be very busy, so I don't expect a lot of them to be listening, but if they are I want to have them hear this. Your insider Washington lobbyists are telling you that supporting cloture is the best way to prevent the physician pay cut from going into effect July 1. I think these high-paid lobbyists here in Washington are giving you, the family practitioners and surgeons and interns back home, bad advice. It is a good thing they are not giving the advice to real patients, as you do, if this is the kind of judgment they would use. The fact is, a vote in support of cloture is the absolute worst thing that could happen if you want the physician payment update addressed by the date it ought to be ready for CMS to carry it out, July 1.

If 60 Senators support cloture we will move to pass a bill out of the Senate. Of course that will be a bill that will be vetoed. Then the Senate will sit down with the House on a partisan basis and produce a compromise that has even more spending yet, and is even more liberal and more certain to be vetoed. Then it will be voted on in the House and come back here for a vote. Then, finally, it will go to the President where it will be vetoed. Then we will have a veto override that will certainly fail.

Then and only then--how many weeks away that is I don't know--we will sit down again on a bipartisan basis to write a bill that will become law. Given how quickly things move around here, that could well be at election time. If cloture fails, I am ready to roll up my sleeves and go to work tonight. So, to all the doctors listening to this wherever you are--in your hospitals, your homes--and to folks who pay dues to groups such as the American Medical Association and to the American College of Physicians, hear me when I say the people telling you that supporting cloture is the way to get the physician payment update done fastest do not deserve the jobs they hold and the hundreds of thousands of dollars you pay them. The answer is a simple one. We need to defeat the cloture motion today and we need to get back to bipartisan work to protect Medicare for America's seniors and the providers who serve them.

Yesterday Senator McConnell, the Republican leader, and I introduced a bill, S. 3118, to address the problems we face in Medicare. The Democrats are blocking our bill from getting a vote today. It is too bad, because this is a very good bill. I spoke of some of the provisions of this bill in the last several days. It is a bill that clearly serves Medicare beneficiaries. Our bill reduces medication errors with stronger e-prescribing provisions. This will help ensure that our seniors' health care is not compromised by duplicative, dangerous, and incompatible prescriptions.

Our bill helps patients who have had a heart attack with cardiac and pulmonary rehab. Our bill ensures that

seniors who need access to outpatient therapy services will continue to receive the therapy they need.

I am very pleased our bill pays a tribute to our beloved departed colleague, Senator Craig Thomas of Wyoming, by including a number of provisions that protect access for beneficiaries in rural America. Specifically, our bill would accomplish helping rural America by addressing inequitable disparities in the Medicare reimbursement between rural and urban providers, and helps ensure these providers are able to keep their doors open.

By continuing to fund two important and very successful programs to combat diabetes, our bill helps people with that dread health problem.

Finally, our bill includes a number of extensions to help low-income seniors and families.

As we close this debate--and the vote is about 35 minutes away--I think the vote is a very simple one. The President will sign a bill that preserves Medicare for American seniors and the providers who serve them. The President will sign a bill that will provide increases in payments for rural health care in America. The President will sign a bill that reduces payments to Medicare Advantage. The President will also sign a bill promoting value-based purchasing, electronic prescribing, and electronic health records. The President will then sign a bill that does not require cuts in oxygen payments or payments for power wheelchairs.

Unfortunately, regarding the bill we will be voting cloture on, the vote is to move forward on a bill that is not a bill. I have described that. I am not going to go into greater detail.

People back home often don't understand votes on procedural motions such as the one we call cloture, which we will have at 3. But this one ought to be very easy to understand. Voting for this bill is a step backward; it is not a step forward. It will not become law, and we have to get something to the President that he will sign by July 1 to avoid doctors taking Medicare cuts of 10.6 percent.

I ask my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the cloture motion so we can get to work on a bill the President will sign. Let's set aside partisan games and get to work protecting Medicare for America's seniors.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, since I do not see other speakers, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I wish to speak on taxes, but I would like to comment a little on what I just heard from the Senator from Illinois. And he is absolutely right that I did vote to debate because I think a great deal can be accomplished through debate on this legislation. In regard to the overall bill and the motive behind it, it is good in the areas of antitrust and things of that nature, but taxing oil? The rule of economics 101 is that when you tax something, you get less of it. And the American people understand by now, with $4 gas, another rule of economics 101: If you are going to get prices down, you have to increase supply.

I would not be flippant about 13 billion barrels of oil in Alaska that we have not tapped. Yes, by the year 2030 it might be .6 percent of the world's supply, but when you are using 85 million barrels a day worldwide and when there are only about 86 or 87 million barrels of oil being pumped out of the ground worldwide, then you have to understand that a six-tenths of 1 percent increase in a world supply that is not very flexible is going to make a big difference because it is the nervousness that is in the supply of oil, and when it might be cut back because of natural disaster or terrorism activity or some German worker being kidnapped in Nigeria, which sometimes is an excuse for oil going up, more flexibility in the supply of oil is what is going to help us with steady prices and lower prices as we increase supply.

So even though I voted to bring the bill to debate yesterday, I want it fully understood that I am not a guy who believes taxing is going to increase supply. In fact, I believe more taxes is going to decrease supply.

I wish to have a debate with the Senator from Illinois and other people from the other side that what we need is supply. I could easily agree with the Senator from Illinois--maybe not about drilling in Alaska, but if he were willing to drill on the Outer Continental Shelf, willing to drill more in the Gulf of Mexico, and willing to drill more on public land. These are places we know there is an ample supply of oil we ought to make use of to keep the money in the United States instead of buying from the Arabs to give them American dollars to shoot back at us.

I think there are a lot of national security implications here that are as important as the price of gasoline for our suppliers. I said I would be willing to vote that way if we could get some understanding of drilling other places.

What I hear from the other side is: No, to Alaska; no, to the Outer Continental Shelf; no, to public lands; no, to the Gulf of Mexico. But I don't hear anybody crying--you often hear from people about the Outer Continental Shelf that you are going to ruin tourism if we do it. You are going to ruin the view of the ocean. But I don't hear anybody complaining that 50 miles off of Key West, it is OK for China to drill. But if you want to drill 50 miles off of Florida for the benefit of Americans, you would have an outcry. I don't understand it.

When I had my town meetings in Iowa during the Memorial Day recess, at every one of those meetings was brought up why don't we drill more where there is oil that is needed in the United States? Why don't we explore and make use of what we have? We can't fool the American public.

To some extent the debate we had yesterday was on a bill because if we didn't get to these issues of more exploring and more use of these resources, it would be a figleaf to cover the opinion or position of the other party that, no, we can't drill anymore.

Conserve? Yes, we ought to conserve. There is nothing the Senator from Illinois said about conserving that is not legitimate. But conserving is not the only answer to our problem. You have to have a three-legged stool of answers to our energy problems.

One of them is to drill where we know there are resources. Now, since God only made so much fossil fuel, that is short term. Then renewables is second, and conservation, the third. We need a public policy in all those areas. We have public policies for conservation--tax credit for fuel-cell cars, for refurbished homes to be more energy efficient, for energy-efficient appliances. We have tax incentives for renewable fuels. Of course we have had tax incentives for petroleum for a long period of time. We need those incentives. But to think renewables or conservation is a solution to this problem is very misleading.

Madam President, I want to talk a little bit about energy but also to talk more about taxes. That was an issue we debated yesterday. As I finished up last night, I spoke about the spike in gas prices. These increases in costs are hammering most Americans, including

too many Iowans. Iowans have seen it firsthand in the gas stations in New Hartford. I say that because sometimes I get the impression from my own constituents that everybody thinks all 100 Senators have chauffeur- driven limousines to drive around in so we don't know what the cost is to put gas in a gas tank. It is not true here in Washington, DC, except for a few of the elected leaders, and it is not true in Iowa, where I drive a 2003 Taurus. We do take care of ourselves and we do know the price of gas. In fact, I can tell you if I had been smart enough to buy gas when I left the Des Moines airport Friday night, I could have gotten it for $3.69, and I waited to buy it Sunday night and it was $3.89, and I know it is $4 out here. The point is, we feel it.

By the way, I have some advice for some of the leaders who drive SUVs around here and have chauffeur-driven limousines while we are paying $4 in taxpayers' money for gasoline. It aggravates me to high heaven when I see the SUVs idling out here, maybe to keep the car warm in the wintertime or cool in the summertime, and I saw it when the temperature around here was 60 degrees. Shut these cars off and save. There is no reason for the Senate of the United States to set an example that we do not conserve or care about the taxpayers' money by having these SUVs idle when nobody is in them, when they are not going anyplace.

I read reports about the gas issue. I read reports about the stimulus rebate checks being eaten up at the pump with this high gasoline price. In addition to this hit from gas hikes, American families are facing a big hit from planned tax hikes. I wish to take a few minutes then to talk about the additional hit taxes make on the family budget.

You would think no one would increase taxes in times of economic distress. Record tax hikes in an era of higher gas prices would seem to be a recipe for economic disaster. So people who think taxes are not high enough, complaining about the upcoming recession--hopefully avoided but probably not--why would you want to make it worse by increasing taxes?

Some people do not seem to care. People on the other side, including Presidential candidates, proudly and passionately want to raise taxes. You see it in the debate. I am not telling you something you can't see on television. Candidates of the other political party are waiting to raise taxes. How do they want to increase taxes, you might ask? By increasing tax rates and taxing investment income.

If the other side prevails in the November elections, we will be on a path to a tax hike; taxes that will go up, as a percentage of gross domestic product, higher than they have been at any time since World War II. If they stay on that path, yet higher. Taxes should rise by almost 10 percent with virtually every American paying more. If you want to create jobs, you don't tax labor. The rules of economics 101-- if you tax something, you get less of it. If you want labor, then don't increase taxes on labor.

I wish to ask folks, particularly in the media, to take a serious look. It is in the Congressional Budget Office reports. It is the effect of letting the bipartisan Tax Relief Act of 2001 expire, and maybe a more partisan tax bill of 2003 expire.

How much more taxes would we have to pay? A lot more, say people on the other side, especially those Americans who are defined by the other side as making a lot of money.

What is a lot of money? The Democrats say if you are a family making at least $250,000 a year, you make a lot of money and don't pay enough taxes. That puts you in the current 33-percent tax bracket.

Can Americans making less than $250,000 a year be sure they will not pay more taxes? What is to say that the other side will not tax Americans making $100,000 a year? Or even $50,000 a year? The bipartisan Tax Relief Act made sure that all Americans are paying less in taxes. In 2001 and 2003, Congress did the right thing and reduced the tax liability for all hard-working Americans.

This tax relief should not be labeled the Bush tax cuts. Yes, President Bush had a great deal of involvement and deserves some credit. But I want to remind people that Congress passed the 2001 and 2003 tax relief. In fact, that year the Finance Committee was divided 50 percent Republican, 50 percent Democrat, because the whole Senate was equal, the number of Republicans and Democrats. We completely, as a body, rewrote the suggestions that President Bush put before the Congress.

Max Baucus, the current chairman, was my partner in the 2001 bill. We overcame the White House's desire to write a ``Republican only'' bill and skip the committee process. So stop calling this tax relief the Bush tax cuts. This label is politically motivated to confuse the American taxpayers about what was truly a bipartisan tax relief measure.

This label is repeated over and over. The head of the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee beats his partisan drum with this phrase. He relies on polls to drive a partisan message. The label is likewise parroted over and over in the press reports. The Sunday political talk show hosts are even getting into the act. If I had a nickel for every time I heard the words ``Bush tax cuts,'' especially from the political pundits, I would singlehandedly be able to pay off the national debt.

Colleagues and friends in the media, I beg you--I have asked you to consider what I am saying--lay off the false label of Bush tax cuts. Instead, look at the substance. The substance of the 2001 and 2003 tax relief put more money into the pockets of hard-working Americans. This is how it came about, by lowering the tax rates, providing marriage penalty relief and by providing the child tax credit. I do not hear much press discussion about how much money hard-working Americans are going to have to pay if the 2001 and 2003 tax relief expires. I ask the media people: Take a look at the data. It is real. It means dollars and cents to virtually every American taxpayer. That cushion in the family budget will be critical to deal with the burden from the higher gas prices that have been involved in the debate today and yesterday.

Other data: If the 2001 and 2003 tax relief expires, a family of four with household income of $50,000 will pay $2,300 more in taxes. That is a lot of money for a family earning $50,000. Here is a chart that will show you exactly the impact when 2010 comes and these expire, as the candidates on the other side want to do. In 2011 that family of four is hitting a tax wall, the tax wall, or $2,300 a year. These families have hit the wall. If the other side prevails, they are going to have their noses bloodied by the tax brick wall that the middle-income family hits.

Here is more data. A single mother with two children earning $30,000 will pay $1,100 more in taxes, if the tax relief bill is passed. This single mom with two kids will actually be crushed financially by a brick wall of higher taxes.

There is a lot of talk about need for change in economic policy. It seems as if change, no matter what it means, is good on its face. Many in the media and the beltway punditry fawn over the soaring rhetoric of the eloquent Democratic candidate. Indeed, there is almost a cult of personality surrounding the charismatic junior Senator from Illinois. These folks in the media and beltway punditry need to cut through the fog and look at what the Democratic notion of changed economic policy will mean to folks beyond the beltway. Look at this change not from the perspective of high-paid, latte-liberal crowds in the bluest areas of the bluest States. Look at what this means in the offices, factories, and farms of the heartland. That is what I ask many in the media and the punditry to take a good look at.

Gas prices are also squeezing the country's main job creators and that hits small business and farms. Small business has a tax hike to worry about as well. This tax hike piles on top of higher energy costs that are slamming small business.

According to the Treasury Department, about 70 percent of taxpayers who are flowthrough business owners are in the top 5 percent of the taxpayers. So my friends on the other side of the aisle, along with their Presidential candidate, are effectively saying they want small business owners to pay at least 13 percent more in taxes.

Small business owners are not Bill Gates or Warren Buffet. Small business owners are hard-working Americans

who live on Main Street. They are vital to our economic well-being. Small business employs a vast majority of America's workers. Yet small business owners have to pay more money to their Government. That is less money they can use to hire somebody.

The old law of economics 101: If you increase taxes, you get less of it; you tax labor more, you get less labor, you get less jobs. If that person is not hired, what happens? The individual is unemployed, has no income, has no health care. Instead, that worker stands in the unemployment line and collects unemployment.

Economics, like I said. All these tax hikes on small business would pile on top of the gas price hikes already crippling small business. Why should they pay more taxes? Is this change good because they can afford it? That is what the other side is saying. But it makes no sense.

What they are saying is, because these taxpayers can ``afford it,'' these taxpayers should be paying even a greater percentage of Federal Government taxes. But what does ``afford it'' mean? Do we not want all taxpayers, not just those make $250,000 or more, to pump their disposable incomes back into our economy?

Do we wish to steer taxpayers, including upper income taxpayers, toward lower return, tax-favored investments? Do we wish to steer their money away from reinvesting in small businesses or start-ups?

By the way, I wish to compliment one of Senator Obama's surrogates. I am referring to Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia. On FOX News Sunday, Governor Kaine indicated Senator Obama would propose a zero-percent capital gains rate for small start-up companies. Under current law, that is a 7.5 percent rate.

Now, we Republicans could look at this proposal. But unfortunately for the American people, Governor Kaine said Senator Obama would substitute this rate with a 33-percent increase in capital gains on other investments.

So the substitution would be bad for other investors. So let's focus on the progrowth side of the proposal and consider dropping the rate of start-ups from 7.5 percent to zero.

The political talking point that we hear again and again, raise taxes on the country's top taxpayers to generate ``needed'' revenue, is communicated to the American public.

It is said enough times and repeated by the press so many times that many Americans believe it.

It is not the fault of that portion of the American public that believes it.

It is refreshing that a vast majority of Americans think the general idea of a tax increase is a bad idea, especially in these economic times.

But the notion that there are no downsides for taxpayers or for economic growth if income taxes go up by 10 percent is a notion that the other side believes. Many in the media seem to accept this notion without further examination.

If middle- and upper-income taxpayers see a bigger tax bill, do they believe that our economy will be better off?

It is clear lower tax rates have generated record tax revenues. I challenge some of the media who are skeptical about tax relief to take a look.

Here is a chart that illustrates that lower taxes have generated record tax revenues.

This chart illustrates that Federal tax revenues have been, and generally continue to be, coming into the Federal Treasury at or above the historical average of 18.2 percent of GDP.

Now what the heck does that mean?

It means that lowering the tax rates has not gutted Federal tax revenues.

So don't believe the Chicken Littles who say the sky will fall if we keep taxes low.

It means that keeping taxes low, even for Americans earning $250,000 a year has brought in record-breaking revenue.

It also means that the Government doesn't need to raise taxes in order to generate revenue.

Now I can't let my colleagues on the other side, and some of the skeptics in the press for that matter, say to the American public that if you earn less than $250,000 a year, you won't see higher taxes.

Why? There are millions of investors earning less than $250,000. They earn dividends and capital gains.

Let's take a closer look.

In 2003, Congress reduced the top tax rate on capital gains from 20 percent to 15 percent.

Congress also tied dividend income to the capital gains tax rate, that is, 15 percent.

For low-income taxpayers, the tax rate on capital gains and dividends is currently zero.

That's zero, with a capital Z.

Millions of low-income taxpayers receive dividends and capital gains.

All of these taxpayers were not making over $250,000.

I will shed light on this fact with a chart. Nationally, over 24 million tax returns reported dividend income.

In Iowa, for instance, over 299,000 families and individuals claimed dividend income on their returns.

Here is another chart dealing with capital gains.

Nationally, 9 million families and individuals claimed capital gains. Over 127,000 of them were folks from Iowa.

I have fought both Democrats and Republicans to ensure that our country is set on the right course.

That course is economic prosperity.

I would like to see a real discussion of the negative implications of changing current economic policy. With high gas prices squeezing taxpayers, it is more compelling than ever.

Let's clear away the fog about the expiring bipartisan tax relief. Broad-based tax increases aren't gauzy ``feel good'' economic policy changes. Let's examine the benefits of keeping taxes low.

Madam President, for the last few years, I have been looking at how drug companies try and influence medical care in America. Companies can do this by, for example, creating studies favorable to their drugs, by hiring doctors to promote their products, and in some cases even intimidating critics of their drugs.

Today, I would like to talk about a different tactic by drug companies hiding data. I don't mean that they actually hide the data. But they make these numbers so difficult to find that they might as well be invisible.

Last February, I asked GlaxoSmithKline to turn over a couple of reports on Paxil, a drug used to treat depression. These reports were written by Dr. Joseph Glenmullen, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard.

Based on the review of documents uncovered in litigation, Dr. Glenmullen concluded that GlaxoSmithKline knew for almost two decades that Paxil is associated with an increased risk of suicide. He submitted these reports as an expert witness in several lawsuits now pending around the country.

So what did GlaxoSmithKline do with these reports? Well, the company tried to hide them. They went to the judge and asked to have Dr. Glenmullen's report and all the confirming documents placed under seal--that means that no member of the public could see them. In fact, Glaxo has been doing everything possible to ensure that this information remains under court seal.

It seems to me that GlaxoSmithKline tried to hide these reports because they seem to demonstrate what the company knew--that Paxil was associated with an increased risk of suicide based on the company's own studies. In fact, Dr. Glenmullen argues that GlaxoSmithKline knew this when they submitted the New Drug Application to the Food and Drug Administration back in 1989.

Essentially, it looks like GlaxoSmithKline bamboozled the FDA.

How did GlaxoSmithKline get away with this? Easy, they just moved around numbers in their studies to make it look like Paxil was safe. Here is how Dr. Glenmullen says they did it. GlaxoSmithKline ran several studies comparing people on Paxil against people on a placebo, in other words, a sugar pill.

If a patient attempted suicide before a study began--let me emphasize this: Before the study began--that person was automatically put into the placebo group. That means the company was comparing Paxil users against patients who were already prone to suicide. So when you compared the placebo numbers to the Paxil numbers, it looked like Paxil was the same as the placebo.

But, when Dr. Glenmullen re-analyzed the data, he found that Paxil WAS associated with a risk for suicide. And it looks like this is what GlaxoSmithKline was trying to hide from the American public.

Thankfully, a judge in Kansas made one of Dr. Glenmullen's reports public.

Finally, I would like to address GlaxoSmithKline's responses to my questions about whether it hid data on Paxil. I am unhappy to say that Glaxo's answers were a little more than word games. I don't wish to use the word ``lie'' but let me say this: their answers were less than candid.

Let me give you one example. In a letter to GlaxoSmithKline, I asked them when they learned that Paxil was associated with suicide risk. They wrote back that they ``detected no signal of any possible association between Paxil and suicidality in adult patients until late February 2006 . . .''

So GSK claims to a U.S. Senator they knew nothing about suicidality in adults until February 2006. But in the United Kingdom, government investigators found that the company had the data back in 1998.

Two weeks after I received the letter from GSK, England's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency released a report on Paxil.

The report concluded that data from GlaxoSmithKline's own clinical trials confirmed that patients under 18 had a higher risk of suicidal behavior. This report involved 4 years of investigation by this agency which is England's counterpart to our FDA. It was the largest most thorough report in the history of that agency.

According to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the only reason that criminal charges were not filed in the UK is because ``the legislation in force at the time was not sufficiently strong enough . . .'' So the company didn't get off because it didn't do anything wrong. It got off because the laws in UK did not address such situations.

Today, I am asking the FDA to take a look at the same information that was examined in the UK. And I am asking the FDA if we need to change any laws here in the United States.

We cannot live in a nation where drug companies are less than candid, hide information and attempt to mislead the FDA and the public. These companies are selling drugs that we put in our bodies, not sneakers. When they manipulate or withhold data to hide or minimize findings about safety and/or efficacy, they put patient safety at risk. And with drugs like Paxil, the risks are too great.

The CEO of GlaxoSmithKline, Jean-Pierre Garnier, is resigning. I hope that the company's new leadership will do right by the public and be more open about side effects of their products.

What happened with Paxil, as well as, in my investigations involving the painkiller Vioxx and the antibiotic Ketek are only a few examples of why it is important that bad actors be held accountable when they withhold data, submit questionable or fraudulent data, or attempt to mislead the FDA, the medical community, and the public.

That is why I am also working on legislation that would require that companies certify to the FDA that they gave the FDA complete and accurate data related to the safety and efficacy of their products and that the information is not false or misleading. If a company knowingly violates those certifications, it could be subject to civil and possibly criminal penalties.

Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce today the Preserving Access to Medicare Act of 2008.

If we do not act very quickly, the physicians who treat Medicare patients will face a 10.6 percent pay cut, effective July 1.

It is not in the best interest of America's seniors who depend on Medicare for their doctors to take such a significant cut.

Such a dramatic cut will affect access that seniors have to their doctors.

The bill we are introducing today provides a 0.5 percent physician update for the remainder of 2008 and a 1.1 percent update for 2009.

This increase is identical to the one the majority is looking to proceed to tomorrow.

Preserving access to health care for Medicare beneficiaries is a first priority, but it is not the only thing we are accomplishing in this bill.

The bill will also improve the quality of care in Medicare. It increases the physician quality reporting bonus from 1.5 percent to 2 percent for 2009 and 2010.

The bill retains the Physician Assistance and Quality Improvement (PAQI) fund to specifically help avert future physician cuts.

It promotes value-based purchasing, e-prescribing, and electronic health records.

It includes a responsible rural package, including a rural home health add-on payment.

It returns the ownership of oxygen equipment to the supplier, not the beneficiary.

The bill extends section 1011 of the Medicare Modernization Act for two years at a total of $400 million.

It phases out the duplicative Indirect Medical Education payments from Medicare Advantage.

The bill makes reforms to Medicare Advantage marketing practices to curb abusive activities. It requires all MA plans to report on quality.

I also want to devote a moment to what the bill we are introducing today does not do.

Unlike the bill the majority wants to proceed to tomorrow, the bill we are introducing today does not make cuts to payments for power wheelchairs.

Unlike the bill the majority wants to proceed to tomorrow, the bill we are introducing today does not reduce payments for oxygen.

Unlike the bill the majority wants to proceed to tomorrow, the bill we are introducing today does not make large, unwarranted cuts to Medicare Advantage, altering policy decisions designed to maximize patient choice.

Unlike the bill the majority wants to proceed to tomorrow, the bill we are introducing today does not eliminate the PAQI fund, which Congress specifically created to help avert future physician cuts.

Unlike the bill the majority wants to proceed to tomorrow, the bill we are introducing today does not expand eligibility for low-income Medicare programs, which would increase long-term entitlement spending and expand coverage under an already unsustainable program.

While well intentioned, this is not the right time for entitlement expansions like this.

The Medicare program is headed for a fiscal crisis that demands comprehensive reform.

Many would also like to add income-relating Part D subsidies to this bill as well. That change would make high income seniors shoulder a greater share of their Part D premium just like already happens today with premiums under Part B of Medicare.

These kind of changes need to be done. The other side has told us that they cannot support increasing premiums on high income seniors in order to provide greater assistance to lower income seniors.

Many on our side are disappointed by their position.

So it seems we will need to reserve those reforms on premiums until we are working on comprehensive Medicare reform in some future bill.

Finally, let me turn to the most critical difference between the bill we are introducing today and the bill the majority wants to proceed to tomorrow.

The bill we are introducing today can be signed into law. The President will sign our bill.

The bill the majority wants to proceed to tomorrow--if it somehow were

to make it to the President's desk--will be vetoed.

Republicans were not the ones that walked away from the negotiations and put a timely outcome of this effort in jeopardy.

I am ready to sit down on a bipartisan basis to find a compromise that protects seniors' access to Medicare and that can be signed into law.

Today we are introducing a bill that accomplishes that.

Tomorrow we are voting to proceed to a bill that does not.

I hope we can move beyond this political exercise soon to accomplish what seniors are counting on us to do.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a bill summary be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce today the Preserving Access to Medicare Act of 2008.

If we do not act very quickly, the physicians who treat Medicare patients will face a 10.6 percent pay cut, effective July 1.

It is not in the best interest of America's seniors who depend on Medicare for their doctors to take such a significant cut.

Such a dramatic cut will affect access that seniors have to their doctors.

The bill we are introducing today provides a 0.5 percent physician update for the remainder of 2008 and a 1.1 percent update for 2009.

This increase is identical to the one the majority is looking to proceed to tomorrow.

Preserving access to health care for Medicare beneficiaries is a first priority, but it is not the only thing we are accomplishing in this bill.

The bill will also improve the quality of care in Medicare. It increases the physician quality reporting bonus from 1.5 percent to 2 percent for 2009 and 2010.

The bill retains the Physician Assistance and Quality Improvement (PAQI) fund to specifically help avert future physician cuts.

It promotes value-based purchasing, e-prescribing, and electronic health records.

It includes a responsible rural package, including a rural home health add-on payment.

It returns the ownership of oxygen equipment to the supplier, not the beneficiary.

The bill extends section 1011 of the Medicare Modernization Act for two years at a total of $400 million.

It phases out the duplicative Indirect Medical Education payments from Medicare Advantage.

The bill makes reforms to Medicare Advantage marketing practices to curb abusive activities. It requires all MA plans to report on quality.

I also want to devote a moment to what the bill we are introducing today does not do.

Unlike the bill the majority wants to proceed to tomorrow, the bill we are introducing today does not make cuts to payments for power wheelchairs.

Unlike the bill the majority wants to proceed to tomorrow, the bill we are introducing today does not reduce payments for oxygen.

Unlike the bill the majority wants to proceed to tomorrow, the bill we are introducing today does not make large, unwarranted cuts to Medicare Advantage, altering policy decisions designed to maximize patient choice.

Unlike the bill the majority wants to proceed to tomorrow, the bill we are introducing today does not eliminate the PAQI fund, which Congress specifically created to help avert future physician cuts.

Unlike the bill the majority wants to proceed to tomorrow, the bill we are introducing today does not expand eligibility for low-income Medicare programs, which would increase long-term entitlement spending and expand coverage under an already unsustainable program.

While well intentioned, this is not the right time for entitlement expansions like this.

The Medicare program is headed for a fiscal crisis that demands comprehensive reform.

Many would also like to add income-relating Part D subsidies to this bill as well. That change would make high income seniors shoulder a greater share of their Part D premium just like already happens today with premiums under Part B of Medicare.

These kind of changes need to be done. The other side has told us that they cannot support increasing premiums on high income seniors in order to provide greater assistance to lower income seniors.

Many on our side are disappointed by their position.

So it seems we will need to reserve those reforms on premiums until we are working on comprehensive Medicare reform in some future bill.

Finally, let me turn to the most critical difference between the bill we are introducing today and the bill the majority wants to proceed to tomorrow.

The bill we are introducing today can be signed into law. The President will sign our bill.

The bill the majority wants to proceed to tomorrow--if it somehow were

to make it to the President's desk--will be vetoed.

Republicans were not the ones that walked away from the negotiations and put a timely outcome of this effort in jeopardy.

I am ready to sit down on a bipartisan basis to find a compromise that protects seniors' access to Medicare and that can be signed into law.

Today we are introducing a bill that accomplishes that.

Tomorrow we are voting to proceed to a bill that does not.

I hope we can move beyond this political exercise soon to accomplish what seniors are counting on us to do.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a bill summary be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 1 minute.

Mr. President, I ask my colleagues not to give consent to cloture at this time because there are a lot of matters in this bill that ought not be in here. We have matters in here for trial attorneys, and we have matters in here for Davis-Bacon.

We are talking about solving a housing crisis. This is not the way to do it. We ought to give more consideration to it, and not granting cloture is one way of giving greater consideration to what we are going to do.

cloture motion

Mr. President, I congratulate the Senator from South Dakota. He is expressing a very simple law that everybody learns in economics 101: If you increase supply, it reduces price; if you restrict supply, price goes up. What we want to do is increase the supply of energy.

For myself, I want to explain earlier today my vote to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 3044, the so-called Consumer-First Energy Act or, another title, the antiprice-gouging bill. I want to explain it because people might think that I am in support of everything in the legislation. I will explain why I wasn't, but why I thought we ought to move forward.

The legislation includes provisions that I have long supported, including the no oil producing and exporting cartels legislation. I am an original cosponsor of the NOPEC bill. This bill would authorize the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to bring lawsuits against oil cartel members for antitrust violation because it is a fact of American law, if oil companies were doing the price fixing that OPEC countries do, these executives would be in jail. Yet we are faced with the same anticompetitive environment from other countries.

As our gas prices continue to rise, it is time to say enough is enough to OPEC anticompetitive activities. It is past time to let OPEC know that we are committed to stopping illegal pricing, the same illegal pricing that would put CEOs of major oil companies in jail.

This legislation also includes provisions aimed at reducing speculation in oil markets. I support that. I can't say for certain whether the provisions included in the bill will have the desired effect. I can say, however, that something needs to be done to address what seems to be out-of-control speculation in crude oil markets, and speculation of crude oil tends to show up on the business pages of the newspaper as a major cause of the increase in oil and, in turn, gasoline.

I am pleased that recently the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has taken steps in recent days and weeks to increase their access to data and information that will hopefully allow them the proper oversight and transparency of energy markets. Take a little bit of speculation, take a little bit of unknown out of the market, more transparency ought to help our markets work better.

In conjunction with what the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is up to and my wanting to build on what they are doing, I asked Acting Chairman Lukken and Commissioner Chilten very pointed questions during a recent confirmation hearing in the Agriculture Committee on the CFTC's oversight responsibilities. In addition, I sent a letter to the CFTC today seeking more information about the CFTC's action to rein in speculation by investment banks and traders on foreign exchanges.

I voted today as I did in a manner uncustomary of Republicans to proceed to the bill because I think we need to have a debate on the critical issue of energy prices. However, that doesn't mean I support everything in S. 3044. The bill, for instance, included a windfall profits tax on oil companies. I saw firsthand a couple decades ago the result of a windfall profits tax the last time it was enacted. It didn't do anything to produce more energy. Simple economics: You tax something, you get less of it. Why would those on the other side believe if you tax energy production, you would get more energy produced? Of course, it is counterintuitive. Yet this bill doesn't include a single provision to increase the production or supply of traditional energy resources. Why aren't we considering policies to develop the resources that God gave us at home? We have a huge supply of oil and gas in Alaska. We could be opening areas of the Outer Continental Shelf to exploration. We could be looking at Federal lands onshore for energy production. These are things we could do this very day that would increase supply and drive down prices. Yet they have been blocked time after time by people on the other side.

If you think this is a partisan shot by a senior Republican, let me suggest to you that I can show you rollcall after rollcall after rollcall, not just recently but over a long period, of opposition from the other side to increasing the supply of fossil fuels and the use of fossil fuels we know. My constituents need to know why they are paying $4 at the gas pump. Yet we in Washington have done little to increase our own supplies.

Speaking from the grassroots of the State of Iowa, I want to remind my colleagues of what I said last week on the floor of the Senate. Of at least 14 out of the 17 town meetings I have had, the question came up very simply: Why aren't we producing more oil? Why aren't we going where the oil exists, with $4 gas? I can give a simple answer, and I tell the people ahead of time in my town meetings. I try not to make partisan comments, but occasionally I think I can when it is intellectually honest to do it. I suggest to them that there is opposition in the other party to more exploration, where we know there is oil. We just don't have the votes to get the job done.

That could be considered a partisan shot, but I think I can back it up with rollcalls. It is a justification to my constituents when I am asked why we don't drill more where we know there is oil. Most of my constituents expect you to do this in an environmentally sound way as well. That doesn't, to me or my constituents, appear to be incompatible because the United States is dependent upon oil cartels and foreign countries such as Iran and Venezuela, very unstable, yet we have done nothing to help ourselves. That is the way my constituents see it, as evidenced by 14 out of 17 town meetings I held during the week of Memorial Day. In the other three town meetings, it just did not happen to come up.

I believe oil is trading today at around $135 a barrel. Yet there is an overwhelming aversion to environmentally sound resources developed at home. We ought to be developing our domestic resources. There is no rational reason not to, and at $4-a-gallon gas, consumers ought to be outraged they are not exploring for more domestic resources, and Congress making decisions to do that, and to do it so quickly that it is telling people why it is not being done. At the grassroots of America, we ought to be having the same march on the Capitol as when people are outraged about other things, which we do not seem to be having this time.

Maybe we will have this outraged expressed. It is a little bit of a quandary to me why, at the grassroots of America, when gas goes from $3.50 to $4, or from $3 to $4, it does not seem we are having as much outrage as we had when gasoline was going from $1.50 to $1.75 about 4 years ago. Maybe it is because people have lost confidence in Congress. I do not know. I can understand why you can lose confidence in Congress when you have $4 gasoline and we know where there is 13 billion barrels of oil in this part of the country and 7 billion barrels of oil in other areas of the country and we are importing 10 to 15 million barrels of oil a day and paying out to some foreign country money that if we drilled in the United States we would keep in the United States.

The bill I am explaining to you takes billions of dollars of permanent tax provisions and dumps them into a special piggy bank designed to let appropriators dole out special interests checks for their favorite spending projects. I know the rhetoric you have heard today is to make big oil pay to lower the price of gasoline. But I can promise you, there is absolutely nothing in this bill that accomplishes that charge. This bill, flawed as it is, would have to be amended. Any permanent tax provisions on the backs of the energy industry should immediately go back into tax benefits that expand conservation and clean energy tax provisions currently in the Internal Revenue Code.

We cannot put the cart before the horse. It is irresponsible to change taxes for future undisclosed spending. It is even more irresponsible to do this before we make certain the current tax benefits available for wind, solar, alternative fuels, and much needed conservation in buildings and homes.

It was wrong for the Democratic leadership to dump permanent tax provisions into a slush fund for future appropriations. But those types of wrongs cannot be fixed if we never proceed to the bill, hence why this Senator voted as I did today, contrary to what a lot of the members of my party did.

House Extenders Bill

I turn now to the tax extenders bill. I voted today on the second rollcall along with 43 other Senators against invoking cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 6049, the House extenders bill.

Earlier today, the Democrat leadership released a description of a substitute extenders bill that included many provisions that were not extenders.

As you know, I joined Senator McConnell in filing an extenders bill last Friday that is not offset by increases in taxes elsewhere because it is our policy that if you extend existing tax policy, you should not have to raise taxes on somebody else for an extension of tax policies that in some instances have been in place for 20 years.

Here are some of the reasons, then, why I opposed the Democratic leadership bill and support the Republican leadership bill.

The Senate Democratic leadership bill contains numerous provisions that do not either extend or make permanent expiring tax provisions. On the other hand, the Republican bill really is an extenders bill, with all the provisions in the Senate bill extending or making permanent expiring tax provisions.

Included in the Senate Democratic leadership bill is a proposal to give $1.2 billion in tax credits to New York City, even though New York City does not pay Federal tax. This proposal is widely reported to fund the building of a train from Manhattan to John F. Kennedy Airport, through the use of New York Liberty Zone tax credits.

According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Congress has never--and I want to emphasize ``never''--before provided a limited tax benefit such as this to a governmental unit.

In addition, the bill provides a new $1.6 billion tax benefit just for trial lawyers. Now, think about that. We are trying to extend tax policy to bring economic development and create jobs, and it has something in it for trial lawyers. It allows trial lawyers to deduct their upfront expenses in contingency fee cases, even though they expect to recover them when they win or settle the case. And these trial lawyers do expect to win or settle their case; otherwise, they would not take the case on a contingency fee basis.

So why should trial lawyers get a deduction for something they expect to get back? We do not give lenders a current deduction when they make a loan. Some would argue that this is a large chunk of pork that the Democratic leadership bill is trying to feed to trial lawyers.

The Democratic leadership bill, for the first time in history, makes tax benefits directly conditioned on the Davis-Bacon Act. That is the prevailing wage requirement. It is added to a new provision called the New Clean Renewable Energy Bonds.

The Senate Democratic leadership bill only extends provisions that expire at the end of 2007 until the end of 2008, setting up another extenders fire drill early next year. In contrast, our bill on the Republican side generally extends provisions that expired at the end of 2007 until the end of 2009.

The Democratic leadership bill contains permanent tax provisions to offset temporary extensions of current law. Anonymous Democratic lobbyists are misstating the Republican position on offsetting expiring tax relief provisions. The lobbyists have been quoted in the Roll Call newspaper and other publications stating that part of the Republican theology is opposition to offsets.

Republicans will support offsets if they make sense on the policy merits. If the revenue-raising proposals make policy sense and offset the revenue loss for new tax policy--I want to emphasize ``new tax policy'' as opposed to extending existing tax policy--then it will likely garner majority support among Senate Republicans.

However, one of the revenue raisers in the Democratic leadership bill is a proposal to delay the effective date of the worldwide interest allocation rules. This provision was enacted in the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004, with a delayed effective date for revenue purposes.

The decision to reform the interest allocation rules was bipartisan back then in 2004. The reform came out of the Finance Committee working group set up by Chairman Baucus in 2002 and passed the full Senate by a vote of 92 to 5. So after a vote of 92 to 5--bipartisan--why would they try to undo a very important provision in it? The current rules actually penalize domestic manufacturers who compete in global markets by making it more likely they will be double taxed on their foreign income.

The Senate Democratic leadership bill would delay the effective date even further--can you believe it--by 9 years, giving it an effective date of 2018. This provision raises almost $29 billion over 10 years.

The President of the United States, aware of how important this provision is that is going to take effect in 2009--that was actually passed in 2004 to make our manufacturing competitive with international competition--issued a statement of administration policy noting that ``the Administration strongly opposes the provision in the bill that would subject U.S. companies to continued double taxation by delaying the effect of new rules for allocating worldwide interest for foreign tax credit purposes.''

Let's look at the Senate Republican alternative. I hope people listening know that a minority in the Senate has a responsibility to have alternatives, not just jab at the majority position. So we have this responsible alternative. It contains alternative minimum tax relief and extensions of individual and business tax provisions, but with no offsets, following the philosophy we have that if you have had tax policy in place for decades that tends to sunset from time to time--it has been on the books--you should not

have to raise taxes on new people to extend it for a few more years. So there are no offsets for the continuation of existing tax policy.

It also includes the Ensign-Cantwell energy tax incentives, an unoffset provision which was approved by the Senate by a vote of 88 to 8. This means an overwhelming majority of this body were willing to pass energy extenders without requiring offsets.

So why, if we have a vote of 88 to 8 to extend energy tax credits for a few years, and we do not have to offset it--how does the other side get the idea that if you had other tax policies that maybe have been on the books for decades and sunset, you have to have offsets for that? I do not understand the inconsistency.

The bottom line is, we need a package that can garner 60 votes in the Senate and get a signature by the President of the United States. So Senate Republicans will seek to proceed to the Senate Republican leadership bill which contains a package of proposals that have bipartisan agreement.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and since I do not see other Members ready to speak, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I would like to inform my colleagues that I have requested to be notified of any unanimous consent agreement before the Senate proceeds to the consideration of any legislation that amends the Immigration and Nationality Act. I intend to reserve my right to object to any such request unless legislation to reauthorize the E-verify program run by the Department of Homeland Security is included.

Last week, I introduced legislation to permanently extend the employment verification program, which was created in 1996. This program has been a valuable asset for more than 69,000 employers across the country that want to comply with our immigration laws. This program needs to be reauthorized this year. For that reason, I have asked the minority leader to consult me before any unanimous consent agreement on immigration legislation is considered.