Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise to join my good friend, Senator Akaka, in sponsoring the Department of the Interior Tribal Self- Governance Act of 2012.

Congress passed the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act in 1975 to set forth a new dynamic in the Federal-tribal relationship. Since then, we have seen many benefits for Indian communities as a result of the Federal Indian policy of self- determination in general and the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act in particular. Indian self-determination is one of the most successful, if not the most successful, Federal Indian policies in the history of our country's relations with Indian Country.

The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act was amended over 20 years ago to include the Self-Governance program. Self- Governance became a permanent program in the Department of the Interior in 1994, and it has been a resounding success. Now, as of 2012, hundreds of Indian tribes are participating in the Self-Governance program in one way or another.

It comes as no surprise to me, that the Indian tribes can administer these programs on behalf of their own people far better than the Federal government could ever hope to administer them.

Nevertheless, after some 18 years, the time has come for the self- governance program to be reviewed and improved. This bill is intended to provide ``key improvements to the way self-governance works in the Department of the Interior, improvements that have been studied, evaluated, discussed, and negotiated by the tribes and by the Department of the Interior.

During the course of this Congress, some issues did arise relating to the

self-governance program in Interior agencies other than the Bureau of Indian Affairs, in particular the Bureau of Reclamation. Indian tribal leaders and Senate staff have worked for many months to resolve those issues, and their efforts in that regard are incorporated into this bill. I believe the bill goes a long way in dealing with those issues, and the program will be better off as a result of these efforts.

I want to thank Senator Akaka, the Chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee and with whom I have worked this past Congress as Vice Chairman, for his leadership on this bill which I support and on advancing initiatives that will improve the lives of Indian people.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Madam President, I rise today to talk about the tax hikes that are going to be hitting middle-class families all across this country, and it is going to do so in a way that many Americans do not realize. Everyone in Washington is talking about the fiscal cliff and the tax increases that might come from that, but today I wish to talk about something different; that is, the tax increases that are coming regardless of what happens with the fiscal cliff. Those are the tax hikes we are seeing because of President Obama's health care law.

People who have been following this closely know that President Obama's health care law guarantees that middle-class families will pay higher taxes. The President promised repeatedly that he would not raise taxes on the middle class. As a matter of fact, he said, ``If you're a family making less than $250,000 a year,'' referring to his health care plan, ``my plan won't raise your taxes one penny--not your income taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.'' That is what the President said. But once he got into office, President Obama arranged for his health care plan to be written behind closed doors. Democrats in Congress passed it, and they did it strictly along party lines.

This law included more than 20 different tax increases. These tax increases amount to more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years. Of those, a dozen taxes specifically targeted middle-class taxpayers. The most famous, of course, is the individual mandate tax. That is the one which requires that all Americans buy a government-approved health insurance plan. If they don't for even 1 single month out of the year, then they have to pay the tax. Members of the Senate ought to remember this one. This is the one the American public still finds very unfavorable, to the point that still a majority of Americans want to change or either completely eliminate and repeal the President's health care law.

The law continues to be very unpopular. One of the main reasons has to do with this tax. It is a tax that is going to hit families harder than single people, and it is going to hit the middle class harder than wealthier Americans. You know what. That is the way it was designed, amazingly. That is the way the Democrats in this body designed the tax--to hit the middle class harder than wealthier Americans. By 2016, 4.7 million low- and middle-income households will face a tax for not buying government-approved health insurance. It was entirely predictable. In fact, a lot of us on the Republican side of the aisle did predict it right here on the floor of the Senate.

Well, this leads me to another aspect of the health care law that the White House and the Democrats have not been eager to talk about, and it is the role specifically related to this tax, and that is the role of the IRS, the Internal Revenue Service. The law gives the IRS unprecedented new powers to do what? To probe into taxpayers' lives.

Right after the election--and they waited until after the election-- the Obama administration started releasing a wave of new health care regulations. These include new rules on how the IRS plans to implement the new health care taxes. Just last week, they put out proposed rules on how they are going to enforce the new Medicare payroll taxes. They still haven't said exactly how they plan to enforce the individual mandate tax.

But we do know IRS agents are going to be verifying who bought health insurance and taxing everyone who didn't. We know the IRS will be doing more tax audits for health care spending. We know the IRS will be able to confiscate Americans' tax refunds. Why? Well, to pay for health care taxes--not to pay for health care but to pay for health care taxes and to assess interest and late fees on people without insurance.

We know we are going to see an army of new IRS agents and auditors-- to do what? They are going to investigate the health insurance choices of Americans and their families. The agency is going to have to collect a huge amount of data not just from insurance companies but from the American people. The IRS is going to want to know details such as the cost and the benefit structure of every person's health insurance policy. They are going to want to know who in each household is covered and how long they have been covered. They will want to know the incomes people reported to their insurance company and what other kind of coverage their employer may have offered.

To get all of this information, the Internal Revenue Service will have to develop new layers, additional layers of redtape for businesses and for families, new forms, new filing procedures, and new instructions. It is going to have to come up with some way for taxpayers to resolve any discrepancies, and there are going to be a lot between what their tax returns say and the data the insurance companies report. It is going to be a nightmare. It is not clear how the IRS is going to do this, but people are certainly going to need to keep very careful records. It is also clear that a lot of Americans are going to be defending themselves against audits.

All of that is work the IRS is going to have to do just to get ready for this massive amount of new bureaucracy. The problem is that several independent reviews have found that the agency is seriously unprepared. In one, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found that the IRS is not equipped--not equipped--to implement the law contained in what is called the ``largest set of tax law changes in more than 20 years.'' The IRS hasn't even conducted a thorough review of the law that it is required to execute. As a result, the Inspector General's Office said it wasn't able to determine whether the IRS had adequately planned for the workforce it will need.

There was a separate analysis done. There was an analysis done by the House of Representatives. They found that the IRS could need more than 16,000 new IRS agents, new IRS examiners, new IRS support employees. Well, you know as well as I that the American taxpayers will get hit with the bill to pay for the salaries of all of those new IRS employees--the agents, the examiners, and the support employees.

The American people knew what they wanted from health care reform. What they asked for was the care they need from the doctor they choose at a lower cost. That is what the President and Democrats promised them. It turns out that what the American public has gotten is fewer choices, more regulations, and higher taxes.

In meeting after meeting, when visiting with constituents in Wyoming, I said, ``How many of you believe that under the President's health care law, you are going to pay more for your health insurance?'' All of the hands went up.

I said, ``How many of you think that the quality and availability of your care because of the President's health

care law is going to go down or it is going to get worse?'' Again, all of the hands went up.

Now what these same people are learning is that the IRS is the chief Federal enforcer for key parts of President Obama's health care law. The people of my State and the people around the country do not like it at all.

What we are going to have as a result of the health care law is a much larger Internal Revenue Service. They are going to have broad new powers--powers to investigate, powers to monitor, and powers to tax the American people. At the same time, there is real doubt about whether the agency is even up to the job.

America's middle-class families don't want, don't need, and cannot afford more taxes. They don't want, they don't need, and they cannot afford a more powerful Internal Revenue Service, with more agents looking into the details of their health care choices, but that is exactly what President Obama and every Democrat in this body have given to the American people.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I would like to take the opportunity to express my appreciation to Rebekah Forman for her hard work as an intern in my Cheyenne office. I recognize her efforts and contributions to my office as well as to the State of Wyoming.

Rebekah is a native of Sheridan, WY and a graduate of Sheridan High School. She currently attends Laramie County Community College. She has demonstrated a strong work ethic, which has made her an invaluable asset to our office. The quality of her work is reflected in her great efforts over the last several months.

I want to thank Rebekah for the dedication she has shown while working for me and my staff. It is wonderful to have her as part of our team. I am pleased she will be continuing her internship with my office through next semester.

Mr. President, I would like to take the opportunity to express my appreciation to Mary Freeman for her hard work as an intern in my Cheyenne office. I recognize her efforts and contributions to my office as well as to the State of Wyoming.

Mary is a native of Cheyenne, WY and a graduate of Cheyenne East High School. She currently attends the University of Wyoming College of Law. She has demonstrated a strong work ethic, which has made her an invaluable asset to our office. The quality of her work is reflected in her great efforts over the last several months.

I want to thank Mary for the dedication she has shown while working for me and my staff. It was a pleasure to have her as part of our team. I know she will have continued success with all of her future endeavors. I wish her all my best on her next journey.

Mr. President, I would like to take the opportunity to express my appreciation to Ronald Palmer for his hard work as an intern in my Casper office. I recognize his efforts and contributions to my office as well as to the State of Wyoming.

Ronald is a native of Rawlins, WY and a graduate of Rawlins High School. He currently attends Casper College where he is majoring in theatre performance. He has demonstrated a strong work ethic, which has made him an invaluable asset to our office. The quality of his work is reflected in his great efforts over the last several months.

I want to thank Ronald for the dedication he has shown while working for me and my staff. It was a pleasure to have him as part of our team. I know he will have continued success with all of his future endeavors. I wish him all my best on his next journey.

Mr. President, I would like to take the opportunity to express my appreciation to Franci Rooney for her hard work as an intern in my Washington, D.C. office. I recognize her efforts and contributions to my office as well as to the State of Wyoming.

Franci is a native of Dallas, TX. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a bachelor of arts in philosophy and Spanish. She has demonstrated a strong work ethic, which has made her an invaluable asset to our office. The quality of her work is reflected in her great efforts over the last several months.

I want to thank Franci for the dedication she has shown while working for me and my staff. It was a pleasure to have her as part of our team. I know she will have continued success with all of her future endeavors. I wish her all my best on her next journey.

Mr. President, I would like to take the opportunity to express my appreciation to Abe Schreier for his hard work as an intern in my Washington, D.C. office. I recognize his efforts and contributions to my office as well as to the State of Wyoming.

Abe is a native of Fort Wayne, IN. He graduated from Indiana University with a bachelor of arts in political science and history. He has demonstrated a strong work ethic, which has made him an invaluable asset to our office. The quality of his work is reflected in his great efforts over the last several months.

I want to thank Abe for the dedication he has shown while working for me and my staff. It was a pleasure to have him as part of our team. I know he will have continued success with all of his future endeavors. I wish him all my best on his next journey.

Mr. President, I would like to take the opportunity to express my appreciation to Cyrus Western for his hard work as an intern in the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. I recognize his efforts and contributions to my office as well as to the State of Wyoming.

Cyrus is a native of Sheridan, WY. He graduated from Washington and Jefferson College with a bachelor of arts in environmental science. He has demonstrated a strong work ethic, which has made him an invaluable asset to our office. The quality of his work is reflected in his great efforts over the last several months.

I want to thank Cyrus for the dedication he has shown while working for me and my staff. It was a pleasure to have him as part of our team. I know he will have continued success with all of his future endeavors. I wish him all my best on his next journey.

Mr. President, I rise to talk about the fiscal cliff the country will face on January 4. We are beyond the point of the election, and there is 4 weeks until the date of the fiscal cliff. As Republicans have been pointing out on this floor, Congress must act soon to take on the numerous expiring tax provisions and the sequester. I believe President Obama must provide leadership in those efforts. I have seen very little so far.

Last week I came to the floor to speak about the fiscal cliff and some of the concerns I continue to have and hear about as I travel to Wyoming just about every weekend. I just got back from there a few days ago, and people are very concerned about the direction of the country and what may happen to all Americans on January 1.

Last week on the floor, I spoke about the President's proposal to raise taxes on people making more than $200,000 a year. In terms of spending next year, that tax increase would pay for just 6.8 days of what Washington will spend. So the whole proposal the President continues to make is basically enough to fund the government for not 52 weeks but 1 week alone. The tax increases President Obama is now trying to push

through will really do almost nothing to reduce our national deficit and nothing to reduce our national debt.

The White House and Democrats in the Senate are focused only on tax hikes while they continue to ignore the real drivers of our debt, which are the out-of-control entitlement programs of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Until we find a way to do meaningful entitlement reform, no amount of tax revenue will be able to match the increase in entitlement spending.

Well, instead of leading the conversation, the President continues in his campaign mode, going around the country to try to sell his tax hikes. The President and the Democrats in Congress are willing to go over the fiscal cliff in order to get those tax hikes. Rather than negotiate in good faith, they are willing to try to spend their time trying to convince the American people that it is someone else's fault. Going over the fiscal cliff will mean another recession, and this one is squarely on the shoulders of President Obama. It will mean unemployment spiking back up over 9 percent. It will also mean a whole host of tax increases even beyond the higher tax rates Washington Democrats want so badly. Americans are also facing big increases on the death tax and the alternative minimum tax, also known as the AMT. Both of these taxes will go up January 1 unless Democrats work with Republicans and take action to stop the increases that are already scheduled to occur.

Now, there is bipartisan agreement that these taxes should not be raised. There is bipartisan agreement that these taxes will do great damage to middle-class families, family businesses, and family farms. Any effort to stop these harmful tax increases is being held up by the President's insistence on raising tax rates--not just raising more revenue through tax reform and economic growth but specifically raising tax rates.

Let's take a look at the death tax. Today this tax, also known as the estate tax, is set up at a top rate of 35 percent, with an exception for the first $5.1 million in the estate's value. Well, those are the levels that Congress set and the President agreed to in 2010. There was a Republican House of Representatives, a Democratic Senate, as well as a Democratic President in the White House. That was in 2010. Those levels are now set to jump dramatically to a top rate of 55 percent, with an exemption for just the first $1 million. Now, $1 million sounds like a lot of money until we start looking at a situation of family- owned businesses and family farms. For instance, farmers and ranchers have a lot of assets, such as land, buildings, and livestock. Those things are worth a lot of money for the purposes of calculating the value of someone's estate, but they are not liquid assets--they cannot just spend a tractor.

Once a mom or dad dies in the farm family, the IRS wants the death tax paid within 9 months. The tax is calculated on those big valuations for the farm or ranch property and has to be paid in cash. Often, the only way for a family to pay the tax is to start selling off parts of the farm. Families who have farmed for generations are forced to make life-changing decisions regarding their future, and they have to do it very quickly. They may have to sell land or livestock at a time when prices are low because the tax bill is due immediately. If we don't act in Congress, this tax is going to hit more family farms, and it will hit them much harder, taking a much larger portion of the farm just to pay the taxes.

When we take a look at this chart, talk about crushed by the death tax in terms of the number of small businesses and the number of family farms that will be hit under the estate tax in 2012 as opposed to what is going to happen in 2013, it is a huge increase in 2013 as they find a different way to calculate the death tax, and the same is true with family farms. So the number of family farms that will be hit by this death tax will jump from just under 100--the current limits--to about 2,400 farms next year. That is an enormous increase and an enormous burden on those farm families.

The same thing holds true for other small family businesses, such as the local restaurant, the grocery on the corner, or the local auto body shop. Again, these are small businesses that may have assets that are worth a lot but are not easily turned into cash to pay a tax bill.

Where I live in Casper, WY, most of the businesses we have are small businesses, such as the drycleaner, the florist, the car wash. A lot of those small businesses are run by families. Maybe it has been in the family for a couple of generations, and they want to pass their business down to the next generation, but when Washington comes looking to take its 55-percent cut, which is what is going to happen on January 1, that business will be forced to sell off assets or maybe just sell out entirely.

When we look at the chart again, we can see that under the limits we negotiated in 2010, just 200 small business estates are hurt by the death tax. Starting next year, it jumps to about 2,700 small businesses. Just like with family farms, we are not talking about big, faceless corporations. We are not talking about what happens when the founders of Walmart die. We are talking about what happens when the owner of a small family business dies. If these death tax increases go into effect, a lot of the sons and daughters are not going to be able to keep the family business their parents worked so hard to build and pass along. Democrats and Republicans agree this would be a terrible blow to a family farm or to a small family business.

There is so much we talk about when it comes to uncertainty, and just the uncertainty about what is going to happen next year under the death tax is very stressful for many families across the country who are running their own small businesses and their own small farms or ranches. At the very least, we should extend the current limits worked out in the 2010 compromise. President Obama should not be holding up that commonsense solution so he can satisfy his left-based agenda for unrealistically insisting on raising tax rates.

The other tax increase that is set to hit American families very hard very soon is the alternative minimum tax. The Presiding Officer will recall the AMT tax was created in 1969 and that occurred when some discovered there were 155 people all across the country--only 155 people--who had made a lot of money but didn't pay any taxes on it, and we know why. It was because of various tax loopholes. Congress could have done something to close those loopholes but, instead, Congress created a whole separate tax scheme. Then, to make matters worse, they didn't index the income limits for inflation. So Congress comes along every year and enacts a patch to keep the tax from hitting the middle class. The problem is we still have done nothing to patch the AMT for this year.

I have another chart about the millions of people who will owe the AMT come next April. In 2011, 3 million people paid the AMT. It was designed because of 155 people who didn't pay taxes. Now we will have 31 million Americans who will be hit by the tax for the tax year 2012 if nothing is done to patch the problem. So if we don't do something soon, the AMT will hit an additional 28 million taxpayers this year for a total of $92 billion. That is the extra tax American families face when they file their 2012 taxes by April 15 of next year. These aren't the privileged few who are taking advantage of special loopholes the tax was intended to catch. These are 28 million taxpayers who normally never have to deal with the AMT. It is going to hit middle-class families in every State, more than 31 million taxpayers total across the country.

We can debate whether it was ever a good idea to enact the AMT a number of years ago, but we certainly should all agree the AMT is about to hit a whole lot of people who should never have had to worry about it in the first place. Those people are going to have to pay the IRS an average of $3,200 more in taxes--that is what the IRS is going to expect--by April 15. Most of these people have no idea they are going to get caught in this AMT trap, and they have no idea how big a check they are going to have to write. These are middle-class, hard-working families who will get hit by additional taxes. Why? Because we can't take the simple step of patching the AMT as we always do.

Again, there is bipartisan agreement that we need to enact this patch, but it is being held up as part of the fiscal cliff negotiations.

The President has made his offer. He wants to increase taxes, add more stimulus spending, ignore the entitlement spending that is the true driver of our debt, and hold campaign-style rallies around the country to try to convince people it is not his fault if we go over the fiscal cliff. President Obama clearly enjoys campaigning, but the election is over. It is time for him to stop campaigning and to start leading. This means giving up his stubborn insistence on raising tax rates and instead focusing on raising revenue through tax reform and economic growth. It means doing something on these fundamental issues of tax policy that both sides agree on. That way American families will not get hit with these massive tax increases.

Thank you, and I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise today to talk about the fiscal cliff this country is facing and is coming upon us on January 1. As my colleagues have been pointing out, Congress must act soon to take on the numerous expiring tax provisions in the sequester. I believe President Obama needs to supply the leadership in those efforts. If he does not, we know taxes are going to go up on all Americans; we know the economy is going to be thrown back into a recession; and we know unemployment will return to even higher rates than we have right now.

Our recovery from the last recession has been far too sluggish. We see that all across the country. It has left too many Americans still out of work. Today our economy has created 9 million fewer jobs than we were promised under the President's own stimulus plan. Our economy has rebounded far more slowly than it did following previous recessions. As a nation we simply cannot afford another recession right now.

It would be especially tragic if there were a recession caused by a failure of leadership coming out of the White House. That is what we are trying to avoid, and we have a very limited amount of time to do it.

As chairman of the Republican policy committee, we have come out with a policy paper called ``On the Fiscal Cliff, Entitlement Reform Is Key'' because what we see is that no amount of tax revenue will fix entitlement spending when we look at the history of the United States. Over the last 40 years the average amount of tax revenue was a little over 18 percent of the gross national product. The highest ever was a little over 20 percent of the gross national product. Yet when we take a look at the tidal waves coming at us of Social Security and Medicare, unless we deal with those two tidal waves we are going to significantly have problems long term, and that message to the markets is going to be one that is quite destabilizing.

Tax increases do not solve the spending problem. If we do what the President requests, which is raising tax rates on people with over $200,000 a year of income, in terms of spending for next year that would pay for about 6.8 days. If we did it at the other level of over $1 million of income as some suggested, it would only pay for 4 days of spending.

I am very concerned about what I call the fiscal cliff. Yesterday, Politico reported that some Democrats want to call it the fiscal slope. It is time for Democrats in Washington to stop searching for better sound bites and start looking for solutions.

President Obama has said repeatedly that he wants to take a balanced approach. This balanced approach should govern how we deal with other issues as well and how Democrats work with Republicans in the Senate. Given the challenges we face, it is unfortunate that some of the President's closest allies in the Senate are for pushing the exact opposite approach.

Rules Changes

The majority leader and some members of his party have now proposed what would be an unprecedented power grab that will forever change this Chamber's rules. It will make it easier for the political majority to silence those who disagree with them and even harder to find common ground. I am speaking, of course, about the Democratic plan to change the rules of the Senate to drastically limit the use of the filibuster.

I believe the majority leader would take a dangerous step toward abolishing the rights of the political minority and restricting the right to free and open debate. They seem to want to break the rules to change the rules, and I believe it is fundamentally wrong to break the rules in order to change the rules. This would be a terrible mistake and a irresponsible abuse of power. The rules of the Senate ensure a balanced approach to debating important matters such as the fiscal crisis.

Among these rules, filibuster is critically important.

The filibuster was created so that competing groups of Senators would actually have to work together to find responsible solutions--not solutions based on one political ideology or the other.

Back when he was a Senator, President Obama understood the need for rules to protect the rights of political minorities. In 2005, then- Senator Obama said:

If the majority chooses to end the filibuster--if they

choose to change the rules and put an end to democratic

debate--then the fighting and bitterness and the gridlock

will only get worse.

Another former Senator was Vice President Biden, currently the President of the Senate. He agreed. He said:

At its core, the filibuster is not about stopping a nominee

or a bill, it is about compromise and moderation.

At the time, in 2005, some Republicans wanted to vote on well- qualified judges despite Democrats' insistence not to. They believed we needed to change the Senate rules to get these votes. Back then, Democrats called this the nuclear option. That is because of the damage it would do to the balance and compromise in Washington. Today some of those same Democratic Senators are preparing to use this nuclear option themselves.

Anytime one party or group is frustrated with the Senate's inefficiency, there are always calls to change the rules. The frustration is natural, but it is also intentional. Our Nation's Founding Fathers purposely made the pace of the Senate deliberate. They wanted to make sure there was free debate on important subjects. That is what has happened now for more than 200 years.

Way back in 1789, the very first session of the first Congress, Senators used the rules to slow down one of the first votes this body ever took. Naturally, there were complaints at the time about the delay. The father of our Constitution, James Madison, explained the importance of the rules that allowed the brakes to be applied to policymaking. He wrote:

If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal

controls on government would be necessary.

Angels have always been in very short supply in Washington, so voters must keep an eye on government officials and hold them responsible. Those officials must also keep close watch on each other. At times they must be able to stop each other from doing harm.

Restricting the right to debate would seriously undermine the ability of Senators to keep that watchful eye. It will lead to more bickering, more bad blood, and more bills being written by one party behind closed doors. There will be less transparency, less consideration of the unintended consequences in bills and less open discussion for the American people to see.

The filibuster is not just about stopping bad ideas. More often it is about amending bills to make them better. It is about taking the time to have the reasoned discussion that the Founders knew we should be having. It is about maintaining the balanced approach the President is calling for in these important talks on the fiscal cliff. It is about giving members of the minority and the people they represent a chance to offer their solutions.

Instead of allowing that measured approach the Founders intended, what we are seeing is the majority leader has already done an awful lot to limit debate. He has already restricted the rights of minority Senators and the people they represent. He has bypassed committees at an extraordinary pace, and he has made unprecedented use of the parliamentary trick known as filling the tree.

Senator Reid has filled this amendment tree 67 times since he has been majority leader. That is more than twice as often as the four previous majority leaders combined. Now the majority leader wants to cut off debate and abolish the filibuster. He wants to change the rules by breaking the rules. He would set the precedent that just 51 Senators could band together to change any rule of the Senate at any time. Currently, it takes 67 votes to change the rules of the Senate. In January it might be filibusters on motions to proceed. Then when the majority gets impatient on something else, it might change the rules again.

President Obama recognized in 2005 the damage that this kind of chipping away at minority rights would do to prospects for compromise. If Senate Democrats succeed now, they will destroy, for temporary political gain, any hope of achieving a truly balanced solution to the challenges we face as a nation.

Our political system functions on majority rule but with strong minority rights. That is true when the minority is outvoted 51 to 49 or 99 to 1. Democracy is not winner-take-all. The right to debate is not a luxury for the majority to hand out. It is essential to our system of government. Majorities are temporary. Being forced to listen to someone give an opinion you disagree with can be exasperating, but as a country it does us more good than harm.

Way, way back, John Adams wrote on the need for minorities to have the ability to stop the majority in the legislature. He said:

Every Member must possess it, or he can never be secure

that himself and his constituents shall not be sacrificed by

all the rest.

That was centuries ago. Sixteen years ago, Senator Robert Byrd spoke to the newly elected Members of the Senate about the history of this body. He said:

As long as the Senate retains the power to amend and the

power of unlimited debate, the liberties of the people will

be secure.

Through his excessive use of filling the tree, the current majority leader has gone a long way toward gutting the power to amend. The proposals he has now made to do away with the power of unlimited debate would do even greater harm to the liberties of the people. Many Senators here today were not around 16 years ago to hear that speech by Senator Byrd, but I hope all of us on both sides of the aisle take his warning to heart.

If Members on the other side of the aisle are frustrated with how the Senate is being run, look at how the majority leader has set the calendar and cut off amendments. Don't take this terrible and irresponsible step. We are not only arguing about the rights of the Senators to speak, we are not just talking about maintaining rules for their own sake, or even the terrible precedent that would be set under the proposal of the majority leader. We are talking about the rights of the people we represent, the right to be heard in the Senate.

The Senators who are so eager to change our rules by breaking the rules should not be so eager to take away the rights of the American people whom those rules were designed to protect. The cost is simply too high. We have too much important work to do in the Senate. We should be focused on doing all we can to avoid the fiscal cliff, to grow our economy, and to create the jobs the American people need and deserve.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, we have all paused to remember our Nation's veterans this week. This year, the Daniels Scholars wrote letters to our country's heroes in uniform. These letters, published in Because of you . . . Letters of Gratitude from the 2012 Daniels Scholars to the Defenders of American Freedom, are heartwarming.

The Daniels Scholarship Program was created by a true American patriot, Bill Daniels. Bill was awarded the Bronze Star for his service in the Navy in World War II. He was called back into service during the Korean War. Bill went on to have a tremendously successful career. Due to his generosity, young people from Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado are selected to be Daniels Scholars. In addition to their college tuition and fees, they receive tremendous support and encouragement to give back to their communities.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the letter written by Megan Saylor from Casper, WY. May it inspire all who read it.

Mr. President, I rise today to submit for the Record a document that I think everyone in this body should consider.

There is no question that our Nation is facing a challenging financial future.

Our country needs real leadership to recognize the problems that we are facing and address them directly.

For 75 years, my home State has benefited from the knowledge and expertise of the Wyoming Taxpayers Association. The Wyoming Taxpayers Association has fought for transparency, equity, balance, and stability for Wyoming taxpayers.

There is no question that the U.S Tax Code is a mess and in need of serious reform.

As we look to address our debt crisis and reform the Tax Code, we should take a responsible, sensible approach to taxation.

The Wyoming Taxpayers Association's ``Cornerstones of Taxation'' provides an excellent foundation that we should consider as we debate the future of the U.S. Tax Code.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the Wyoming Taxpayers Association's ``Cornerstones of Taxation.''

Mr. President, just yesterday, the White House went out and applauded the fact that Saudi Arabia is producing more oil. The President goes to Brazil and tells the President of Brazil we want to be their No. 1 customer. This is at the same time this White House is blocking American energy projects and American energy jobs.

Held hostage by environmental extremists, this President continues to block and cause people to lose jobs in the United States. Earlier this week, the No. 3 coal producer in the country announced the layoff of 1,200 workers. So not only are Americans who are working in American energy losing their jobs, the President's policies continue to block new jobs from being created. The President continues to stand in blockade of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would bring back thousands of good-paying, family-wage jobs. Yet the President says no.

Harry Reid, the majority leader, stands at that desk and he blocks over a dozen bills passed by the House of Representatives that are good American energy jobs that will put people back to work.

Republicans stand ready to produce more American energy, which will put people back to work, will stimulate our economy, and will help lower energy costs for American families. The American people deserve better than they are getting from the Democratic majority in the Senate and from the Democratic President of the United States.

Mr. President, I would like to associate myself with the remarks of the Senator from South Dakota, who speaks so eloquently on the major issues facing our Nation, the concerns of people all around the country: their quality of life, the cost of energy, the cost of their health care, the impact of government regulations and rules that make it harder and more expensive for small businesses to add workers to their rolls.

A Second Opinion

I come to the floor today as a physician, a doctor who has practiced medicine in Wyoming, taking care of families there for about a quarter of a century, to do as I have done week after week since the health care law was passed: to give a doctor's second opinion about the health care law because one of the reasons I got involved in politics was, as a doctor, I have concern for my patients, worried that they were not getting the care they need from the doctor they want at a lower cost, realizing the impacts of costs on the availability of care, the quality of care. So when the health care law was passed, I had great concerns because I felt it was going to end up being bad for patients, bad for the providers--the nurses and doctors who take care of those patients-- and terrible for the American taxpayer.

It was interesting that during the discussion of the health care law, Nancy Pelosi, the then-Speaker of the House, said that in terms of the health care law, first you had to pass it before you got to find out what is in it. Well, the law has been passed, and as more and more people are finally finding out what is in it, the law continues to be very unpopular. But it is interesting that when a law is written behind closed doors, passed in the dark of night, when people on the side who voted for it actually never read it, did not understand the implications, that here we are 2 years later with so many people still saying: What is in it?

One of the things I want to visit about today is an editorial in the New York Times from just a couple of weeks ago. It was while I was traveling around the State of Wyoming, visiting with people, visiting with former patients, that an editorial came out with the headline ``A Glitch in Health Care Reform.''

Well, for 2 years I have been coming back to the Senate floor, week after week after week, talking about things that were in this health care law--unintended consequences, things people did not realize were there, did not understand were there, were surprised to find out were there.

So the headline is ``A Glitch in Health Care Reform.'' Right under that, the subheadline is ``Millions of middle-class Americans could be left without affordable coverage.'' And then my favorite line, the first line, the first paragraph:

Confusing language in the health care reform law has raised

the possibility that millions of Americans living on modest

incomes may be unable to afford their employers' family

policies and yet fail to qualify for government subsidies to

buy their own insurance.

Confusing language. That is what happens when a law is written behind closed doors, not read by the people who voted for it, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States of America says: First, you have to pass it before you get to find out what is in it. And this is an editorial in the New York Times 2 years after the health care bill has been signed into law: Confusing language. ``A glitch in health care reform. Millions of middle-class Americans could be left without coverage.''

So it is not a surprise that I will continue to come to the floor with a doctor's second opinion because we will continue to find where confusing language leaves people confused.

Now, one of the areas that is so often discussed on the Senate floor is the Congressional Budget Office. Well, they came out today with a new report. It talks about the health care law. No surprise. They said they got it wrong a couple of years ago. They have relooked at the numbers. This is the Congressional Budget Office that is supposed to be an expert on making some assumptions and making some suggestions and some predictions. Today they came out with a report called ``Payments of Penalties for Being Uninsured Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.''

Now, let's go back. Payments of penalties for being uninsured. Well, this is a health care law that reaches into every home in America and says: You must buy a government-approved product. You must have health insurance. Not enough money to pay for doctors to care for patients but plenty of money for IRS agents to investigate the American people.

What does it say when we go through the report? They said, well, they thought there would be about 4 million people who would have to pay penalties for being uninsured under the health care law. Well, they were only wrong, they say, by 50 percent. They were off by 50 percent; not 4 million but 6 million Americans will be penalized and have to pay taxes under the health care law which the Supreme Court found to be constitutional.

Well, it may not be unconstitutional, but it is still unworkable, very unaffordable, and very unpopular. So I come to the floor week after week as new reports continue to come out saying CBO was wrong. The New York Times, talking about ``confusing language.''

You know, I would say James Madison, the father of the Constitution, had it right when he said:

You should pass no laws so voluminous they cannot be read,

so incoherent they cannot be understood.

But that is what Democrats in the House and the Senate did when they passed and when the President signed the health care law.

Now, another report has just come out within the last couple of days. I recall the President, when he was talking about the health care law, said computerizing medical records would cut waste and eliminate redtape. Now what does the report say? Well, it says the amount of paperwork, the amount of manhours put into just complying with the rules and the regulations they have come up with--they are predicting-- and I will get into those who have done the predictions--that businesses and families will end up spending 80 million--80 million-- hours a year on paperwork trying to comply with this health care law.

Former Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Fred Goldberg said the current form of the Obama health care law ``will be a needless administrative and compliance quagmire for millions of Americans.'' The Ways and Means Committee in the House of Representatives under committee chairman David Camp found that more than half of those 80 million manhours will be consumed by small businesses. That is the group that can least afford to have to spend this kind of time, this kind of manpower. Talk about productive work and nonproductive work, this goes into the category of nonproductive work. So they are either going to hire more people to just do paperwork or take people from doing productive work and move them onto the nonproductive side.

They are talking about 40,000 full-time people working the number of hours they would work to get this 80 million manhours of work. It is wasteful. It creates no wealth overall to the economy. It is not a productive activity. So those are the things we see week after week.

Then, finally, last week there was a group of franchise owners who were traveling around visiting with Members on Capitol Hill about the impact of the health care law on them and on their small businesses. They want to hire people. They want to get people to work. We know under the President's economy, there are 23 million Americans who are either unemployed or underemployed, people looking for work, looking for better work, looking for more hours.

But let's look at the incentives as well as the consequences that are included in the health care law. Well, these small franchise owners will tell you that in order to try to comply with the law and not be driven out of business because of the expense of the penalties and the high level of insurance they would have to provide to their workers, they only have a couple of choices.

One of the choices--they do not like it, but one of the choices is to cut the number of hours an employee works because then they are a part- time employee. Then they do not have to receive the benefits of the mandate, of the health care law. That is not what they want to do. It is not what the employees want. They want to work more hours. But the consequences of what the Democrats in this institution have passed, the consequences are that people who want to work more are going to lose that opportunity.

The other thing they are looking at is saying, well, just drop paying for insurance at all and pay the fine. Pay the penalty because the consequences and the incentives are such that the fine is, from a business standpoint, the path to follow rather than to provide the high level of insurance the President mandates. It may be a lot more insurance than people want or need or that the businesses can afford.

So I will continue to come back to the floor to talk about the President's broken promises. He said: If you like what you have, you can keep it. We now know people who like their health insurance are not going to be able to keep it. He said the insurance rates would drop by about $2,500 per family per year. We have seen the rates have gone up more than $3,000 a year instead of dropping $2,500 a year.

The promises are many. The realities are quite different than what the President has promised. That is why the American people continue to find the health care law unpopular. It is why our seniors who have seen 700 billion of their Medicare dollars taken away from them, not to save Medicare but to start a whole other government program for others, that is why they know it is going to be harder to find a physician to take care of them, especially if their physician retires or if they move to a new location.

That is why I will continue to come back to the floor to continue to talk about trying to help people get the care they need from the doctor they choose at a lower cost. This health care law is bad for patients. It is bad for providers, nurses, and doctors who take care of those patients. It is terrible for the American taxpayers. That is why I believe we need to repeal and replace this broken health care law.

I yield the floor.