Floor Statements

I thank the Senator from Tennessee.

Mr. President, I am delighted to be a part of the debate for all the right reasons, to talk about things we can do but also talk about things that the proposed legislation, in fact, does do to the American people, to small business, and to our future.

When I end my speeches in Georgia, I always end with the same line. I say: I am 65 years old. I have nine grandchildren; in fact, No. 9 was just born. His name is Hunter. He is 5 weeks old. I always say my life is about their lives. The rest of my life is about making their lives as rich, as prosperous, as safe, and as free as the one my parents left to me.

Legislation such as this severely threatens that. I wish to talk about two ways in which it does.

The heart and soul of America is the small businessman, as 73 percent of our employees are employed by small business. I ran one. I had 200 employees and 800 independent contractors. By law, I could provide health insurance to the 200 employees, and I did. But contractors, because they are independent, the IRS will not let an employer provide that benefit. That is one of the reasons you have a large number of uninsured who are actually working--real estate agents, sole proprietors, contractors. The Senator from Tennessee and I and the Senator from Wyoming, Mr. Enzi, then as chairman of the HELP Committee, proposed a small business health care reform act, a Republican act proposed in this body to cover one-third of the uninsured without raising rates or without raising premiums or without raising taxes. We had to get to a cloture vote of 60, and we only got to 57. So 3 years ago we missed a chance to cover one-third of the uninsured by a change in our law which would make it more affordable and accessible for independent contractors. That is what we were for.

Let me tell you what this bill does to a small businessperson. No. 1, if you have more than 50 employees and you do not offer them health insurance, you have to pay a fine of $750 per employee for ad infinitum. If it is 500 or 51, you have to pay a $750 fine. I ran a company for 20 years. When I ran that company, I did provide insurance to 200 employees. I paid about $3,200 a year for the company's expense of their group health insurance. They paid the balance. If this offer were before me as a small businessman, then I would have said: Well, I have a $750 fine if I don't insure them and a $3,200 cost if I do. What should I do? Well, as a businessman, you are going to elect not to provide insurance, to pay the less expensive cost, which is the $750- per-person fine, and drive them into a public option.

This is not about a public option, it is about a public ultimatum, because as you look at the revenue-raising procedures, the tax-raising procedures, and the policy procedures, it basically drives people to a public option and drives small business away from providing that insurance.

There is another way it hurts small business. It also says, if you do provide health insurance to an employee and the cost of their part of the premium exceeds 9.8 percent of their annual income, then you have to move them to the public option, and they get subsidized. But you get fined $3,000 a year for the rest of the number of years that person works for you because their cost to their insurance was more than 9.8 percent of their income. You might say: Well, whose insurance would be more than that? Well, if you take a receptionist or someone like that today in a business, who may be making $25,000 or $30,000--an entry- level job--9.8 percent of that is only $2,800, $2,900. It would be more than easy for their share of their premium to exceed 9.8 percent. So the company gets fined, the employee gets driven to a public plan, and more revenue goes to the government through an indirect tax of a fine.

Absolutely.

There is no question. I say to the Senator, you are exactly right. To think that it actually benefits the employee by doing that is wrong. They will have fewer doctors providing the coverage, and their cost might, in fact, be higher.

But I want to talk about one other thing on the small businessman before I yield to one of my other colleagues.

There is another tax--and we have heard the business about taxing the rich. This bill provides a surtax on payroll--a payroll Medicare tax on any employer who makes more than $200,000 if they are an individual or $250,000 if they are a couple. The Medicare tax goes from 1.25 percent--your share; the company matches it--to 1.95 percent.

Now, $200,000 is a lot of money, and so is $250,000. But to a small business incorporated as an LLC, a sub S, or something like that, that pays taxes as an individual, that is 1.95 percent doubled, which will increase the tax to 3.9-percent on every dollar that company makes on gross, not profit, if they're above $200,000. It is a tax on their business for Medicare to pay for a public option, not for Medicare. And Medicare goes broke in 2017.

So we are raising taxes on Medicare for the alleged rich, which really is most small businesspersons, all to pay for a program that does not benefit Medicare. The unintended consequences of this legislation are disastrous to small business, it is inappropriate in the way they are handled, and

it is directed to drive people to an inevitable option to where there is no option at all.

I thank the Senator from Tennessee for giving me the time. I know my colleague from Georgia, Senator Chambliss, has a few facts to add as well.

I think it is an excellent question, because every year in my company we had an annual planning retreat at the end of the year for the next year, and ironically--and I didn't know we were going to get into this discussion--but our No. 1 topic that I would send out to all of my management team is: What is the No. 1 thing we need to correct or do in our company? We would spend the entire retreat talking about that one thing. If that one thing was the uninsured, then what we would have talked about is what do you do to insure that 14 to 15 percent who don't have coverage.

Senator Chambliss hit the nail on the head: Small businesses with health plans that allow independent contractors and contractors to be covered; that is one. Have an immediate identification and registration system for people who are eligible for Medicare, Medicaid, or SCHIP so that when they come to a provider or a doctor they end up getting covered. Then, third, come up with a program that meets that last third, which Senator Chambliss referred to as hard core, those who by choice or by chance are not covered.

The last thing I would have done is said, We are going to throw out the 85 percent of this that works in order to fix the 15 percent that doesn't, and that, in effect, is what this bill does.

My customer. The thing is, business is the collector of taxes for the government. Government imposes a fee, a fine, a cost to business, and it rolls into the base of what that business has to pay to produce its product and it is upon that which they make a profit. So this business of taxing business, they are getting business to collect a tax from the ultimate consumer. That is all it is.

I want to throw something else in. I appreciate Senator Brownback very much. I was in Georgia a few weeks ago, Albany, near where Senator Chambliss raised his family, at a Rotary Club. I was asked by a fellow: You keep talking about a trillion. How much is that? I babbled and fumbled. Have you ever tried to explain that number and quantify that? It is a huge number. We are talking about $2.5 trillion in the first full 10 years. I got so frustrated that I got on the calculator to figure out an analogy as to how much it is. I decided, I wonder how many years would go by for a trillion seconds to pass. I got on the calculator and worked it out. It is 31,709 years for a trillion seconds to go by. That gives

you some proportion of the volume of dollars we are talking about in taxes and costs and, as the Senator said so rightly, debt. That is a lot of money, and the American taxpayer ultimately is on the bill for every dime of it.

Right now, Georgia's current year budget for the cost of Medicaid is $2.15 billion, or about 12 percent of the State appropriations. This bill, as currently configured, raises that eligibility by 33 percent. But the Feds hold harmless the States for the first 3 years of that increase, and then it is a 90/10 split for the next 7 years, and then it is silent. To give everybody the benefit of the doubt, say States only have to pay 10 percent more. That is one- quarter of $1 billion more in Georgia--from $2.15 billion to $2.4 billion in the State budget.

We all know what is going to happen--what happened with the original Medicaid program. The State will eventually have to pay the full 35 percent match, which would mean that over time, at the end of the 10 years, using today's numbers without inflation, Medicaid costs in Georgia for about 12 percent of the population would go from $2.15 billion to $3.4 billion a year for Medicaid.

The taxpayers of the United States of America.

I agree with Senator Brownback. I guess I could sum it up in four phrases. There will be less access, seniors fear, because of cuts in Medicare. They will have less access. There will be higher costs because of the bending of the way in which they calculate premiums and the additional taxes. Everybody knows that will be a higher cost. There is a great fear of rationing, which is a component part of almost every plan to get from where we are to where they want to take us.

Lastly, I hear a lot from young people who are considering a medical career either in research or in applied medicine. They fear that medicine will not be the practice in this country in the future that it has been in the past. If that is true, if they leave and go to other fields, we will have less innovation and research and development and, in the end, less quality health care for the American people.

Mr. President, I wish to express my strong support for the Korea-United States Free Trade Agreement. As you know, President Obama is in South Korea today and tomorrow meeting with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, and I would like to take this opportunity to communicate to the President and his administration the importance of expressing support for the Korea-United States Free Trade Agreement during these meetings.

The United States and the Republic of Korea have a long history of trade. According to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, U.S. goods and services traded with Korea totaled $101 billion in 2007. The Republic of Korea is the seventh-largest trading partner of the United States. In my home State of Georgia alone, goods and services exported to the Republic of Korea total more than $390 million, making the Republic of Korea Georgia's 12th largest trading partner. Furthermore, trade with the Republic of Korea accounted for more than $3 billion worth of goods passing through the Port of Savannah, GA.

It is imperative that the United States build on this already strong relationship with the Republic of Korea by approving a Korea-United States Free Trade Agreement. Approving a Korea-United States Free Trade Agreement will enhance both economies by growing markets for both U.S. and Korean goods and services, creating jobs in both countries, and will strengthen an already strong relationship with one of the most important allies of the United States in the East Asian region.

I would also like to take this opportunity to highlight a new KIA automobile production facility in West Point, GA. This is a direct investment from the Republic of Korea that is having a positive impact on my State's economy. This week, the first KIA Sorrento vehicles were completed at the West Point facility, where 1,200 jobs have already been created and an estimated 1,300 additional jobs will be created in the coming years. The impact on the local economy by the West Point facility is estimated to be around $6.5 billion over the next 3 years, which is already having a transformative effect on a community that was facing very hard economic times before the KIA facility came along.

Mr. President, in closing, I would just like to emphasize how important the Korea-United States Free Trade Agreement is to the United States, and in particular to my home State of Georgia. The KIA facility in West Point, GA, is just one example of the impact that this proposed free-trade agreement could have on other communities across the United States. During these difficult economic times, it is critical that the administration and Congress look for ways to build the economy and create jobs, and approving the Korea-United States Free Trade Agreement would do just that.

Mr. President, I was unavoidably detained and not present for rollcall vote No. 341 on November 5, 2009, rollcall votes Nos. 342 and 343 on November 9, 2009, and rollcall votes Nos. 344 and 345 on November 16, 2009. I ask that the record reflect that had I been present I would have voted as follows: 1. Rollcall vote No. 341 on the confirmation of Ignacia S. Moreno, of New York, to be an Assistant Attorney General: ``yea''; 2. Rollcall vote No. 342 on the confirmation of Andre M. Davis of Maryland, to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the Fourth Circuit: ``nay''; 3. Rollcall vote No. 343 on the confirmation of Charlene Edwards Honeywell, of Florida, to be U.S. District Judge for the Middle District of Florida: ``yea''; 4. Rollcall vote No. 344 on the Coburn amendment No. 2757, to require public disclosure of certain reports: ``yea''; and 5. Rollcall vote No. 345 on the Coburn motion to commit H.R. 3082 to the Committee on Appropriations; Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, 2010: ``yea''.

Mr. President, that will be, I suppose, about 12 minutes each side; is that correct?

Mr. President, I rise in full support of the extension of the unemployment insurance compensation. I rise also to express my thanks to a number of people in this body.

First, as everybody knows, we adopted a substitute to the unemployment compensation bill by Senator Reid. Senator Reid, the majority leader, has been instrumental in seeing to it this bill not only passes but that enhancements are made to this bill to help the U.S. economy, and it is totally paid for and a net positive to the Federal Treasury. I appreciate more than I can express Senator Reid's hard work to help this take place.

Secondly, I thank Max Baucus, chairman of the Finance Committee. Senator Baucus and his staff have been unbelievably cooperative in helping us find the pay-fors to match and actually exceed the cost of the home buyers tax credit which will be extended in this legislation.

Senator Dodd, chairman of the Banking Committee, 3 weeks ago hosted a 3-hour hearing in the committee on the housing tax credit and the housing market. Without his giving us that time to bring forward the issues that are so pressing in our country today, I am not sure we would be standing here at all. So I am greatly appreciative of Senator Dodd.

I particularly thank Chris Cook on my staff for the work he has done in helping make this take place.

Lastly, but not least, I thank Mr. Richard Smith, a private citizen, a person in the housing industry who dedicated countless hours of his life in the past month to educate people on the positive effects of what we are about to do.

Briefly, I want to say the following: We learned about 8 months ago that a tax credit for first-time home buyers worked. It worked to bring back the entry level marketplace in housing, and it helped to begin to stabilize the housing market which led us in late 2007 into the difficulties we have experienced over the last 20 months. Extending it is important, as long as everybody still understands permanent extension would be bad. Extending it to next April, which this bill does, with a closing no later than June 30, allows the American housing market and first-time home buyers to exercise their right to take tax they pay, convert it to equity in the investment and net appreciating asset, and help stimulate what is the rock-solid base of the American economy.

We also add, in addition to the $8,000 credit extension for first- time home buyers, a move-up buyer tax credit of $6,500. This is the cornerstone of the substitute before us now. It offers to any previous homeowner who has lived in their home for at least the last 5 years the opportunity to sell that home, invest in a new home, and take up to a $6,500 tax credit. That is going to help us boost what is the problem in the U.S. housing economy today, and that is what is called the move- up market. It is the gentleman who is transferred from Delaware with Hercules to Brunswick, GA, who cannot sell his house in Wilmington and cannot buy a house in Brunswick because the markets are so frozen and the move-up market is dead. Now he has an opportunity to sell that house and have an incentive for its purchase in Delaware and an incentive to come and reinvest that money in Georgia in a house in Brunswick. It will make a measurable difference over the next 7 months in our economy.

We also raised the means test on income from $75,000 to $150,000, which is in the current credit, to $150,000 and $225,000 in the new bill for both move-up buyers as well as first-time home buyers. Those income thresholds will open the incentive to more Americans and I think will show a measurable increase in the amount of business that takes place.

In response to the Internal Revenue Service concerns we expressed a few months ago on fraud, we put in every single request they made for fraud to

see to it the HUD-1 is attached to tax statements, to see to it there is no fraudulent claim of the money, and to see to it the IRS has every tool they can to prosecute to the fullest anybody who would abuse this credit.

Lastly, we have one exemption to the payback. As the Presiding Officer knows, the credit has to be paid back if somebody sells their house within the first 3 years of occupancy and moves. That is because they are required to own it at least 3 years. That payback is waived if they are a member of the U.S. military who has redeployed in our military in the United States or overseas. It is not right for them to respond to our country's call and then penalize them on the tax credit if they used it before by not knowing they would be called or moved again.

Again, I thank Senator Reid, Senator Baucus, and Senator Dodd for their tremendous work. I thank the Members of this body for their positive vote of 85 to 2 on cloture on Monday night and hopefully what will be a very positive vote tomorrow night to extend and pass the first-time home buyers credit and add to it the move-up buyers home credit.

I add to this list everybody who has an interest, everybody who thinks it is a great opportunity. It is a great opportunity, but it ends on April 30 for contracts and on June 30 for closing. It would not be in the best interests of the United States or this Senate to extend this credit. Part of the benefit of a tax credit is the scarcity or the urgency of its sunsetting. This tax credit will sunset on April 30, 2010, and it will not be extended. Closing will have to take place by June 30 or it will not count.

I urge all Americans who have always dreamed, if they are a first- time home buyer, of having a home of their own or Americans who have been gridlocked in the failure of our move-up market to actually move up and work, you have a 7-month opportunity that is good for you, it is good for the United States of America, and it is good for this economy.

I yield the floor by thanking all the Members of this body and urging them to vote in favor of the adoption of the substitute and ultimately on the passage of the bill.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield?

Mr. President, first, I thank the Senator from Connecticut for his many kind words. But as I said earlier today in a speech--and this is important for everybody to know--had it not been for his willingness to call the hearing 3 weeks ago in the Senate and bring in the professionals from around the country, including the head of HUD, Shaun Donovan, to talk about the application of this credit and its extension, I don't think the information necessary to bring us to this point would have happened. So the Congress and the people who take advantage of this are in no small measure indebted to Senator Dodd for that leadership and, I might add, to Senator Baucus who helped us define the pay-for. This bill, including the UI, the loss carryback, and housing tax credit, has a net plus against the deficit, not a cost to the country. That is extremely important. We couldn't have done that without Senator Baucus.

Quite frankly, Majority Leader Harry Reid helped us to make this happen as only he could do as majority leader of the Senate. While I appreciate very much the kind words of the Senator, it is true this has been a team effort and the captain of the team has been the chairman of the Banking Committee who brought about the hearing and helped it happen. I thank the Senator from Connecticut for that and tell the Senate we are about to do something meaningful for the U.S. economy, meaningful for the U.S. homeowners. This bill in the end is a jobs bill.

My last point to the Senator from Connecticut that people also need to know is this is the last extension. The benefit of tax credits is when they have a finality, when they have a sunset, when there is a sense of urgency to take advantage. Now is the time. With that type of momentum, the U.S. economy will come back because housing, which led us into it, will help lead us out of it.

I am grateful to the Senator for his kind remarks.

Mr. President, I was unavoidably detained during rollcall vote No. 332 on the motion to invoke cloture on the Reid/ Baucus substitute amendment No. 2712 to the unemployment insurance extension bill H.R. 3548.

Had I been present I would have voted yea for rollcall vote No. 332 and ask that the Record reflect that.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized for up to 5 minutes in morning business, and that I then am followed by the Senator from Michigan, Senator Stabenow.

Mr. President, I rise for two purposes. First, there is a huge argument in America with regard to health care, and we all know one of the main contributing factors to the health difficulties of all Americans is the subject of obesity. There are many opinions about ways to address it, but the most comprehensive way to address it is to be intellectually honest in addressing it.

The President of the Coca-Cola Company was published in an October 8 Wall Street Journal article, and it is a brilliant article on obesity, weight, sugar content, and soft drinks. I commend it to the Senate for their study.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the full article.

Mr. President, on Sunday of this past week, an event of journalistic magnitude took place in the city of Atlanta and the State of Georgia. A man by the name of Furman Bisher published his last sports column in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He typed that column on the same manual Royal typewriter upon which he typed his first column 59 years ago.

Furman Bisher is a distinguished employee of the Atlanta Journal- Constitution, a distinguished resident of our city and our State. Unlike many in his profession, he had a profound positive effect on his city and his State and on sports. Furman Bisher started writing in Atlanta, GA when Atlanta's only professional sports team was the Atlanta Crackers, a Double-A team playing in a small bandbox stadium in Ponce de Leon Park. In the 1960s, as his career emerged, he, along with Jesse Adler, were the principal writers of sports in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He began to be published in other magazines, magazines such as Sports magazine, magazines such as the Sporting News. He developed respect around the United States as a gifted, talented, and honest sports writer.

Had it not been for Furman Bisher, the Atlanta Braves probably would not be in Atlanta, GA because when Mills B. Lane and Mayor Ivan Allen risked what then was a huge amount of money, $18 million, to build a major league sports stadium without a sports team, it was not until Furman Bisher went and talked to the Bartholomay family who were getting ready to move the Milwaukee Braves from Milwaukee and convinced them to bring major league baseball for the first time ever to the South.

The same was true a few years later when Rankin Smith petitioned to buy the first NFL franchise to exist in the South, and that $7.5 million purchase happened for a lot of reasons but probably the most important of which was Furman Bisher.

What is so great about Furman is he could make sports come alive, from cricket to football, from boxing to golf. His writing on boxing is historic and his following of Atlanta native Evander Holyfield helped elevate Evander to where he became the Heavyweight Champion of the World. But probably

nothing was more important than the years of coverage of the greatest golf tournament on the face of the Earth--the Masters. None other than Bobby Jones, none other than Jack Nicklaus, none other than Arnold Palmer, none other thank Tiger Woods acknowledged that the gifted writing of Furman Bisher about that treasured tournament helped to elevate it to where it is today, the preeminent event in golf around the world.

A lot of people contribute a lot to their profession. We in Georgia are proud of so many who have given so much to our State. Today I want to pay tribute to a man who for 59 dedicated years covered sports in Georgia and made it possible for many great things to happen, a man who was gifted, a man was talented and a man who, even today, shares his wisdom and his commitment to sports as he approaches his 91st birthday.

On a personal note, as a young boy and a sports fan in the late 1940s and 1950s, I used to rush to the mailbox to get our Atlanta Journal and our Atlanta Constitution and I didn't go to the funny papers, I didn't go to the comics, I didn't go to the crossword puzzle. I went to Furman Bisher. Furman was a great writer and to me an inspiration for sports in Atlanta, GA. I wish him and his family the very best in their retirement.

I yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, are we in morning business?

I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. President, I come to the floor to discuss our economy and the pending termination or sunset of the first-time home buyer tax credit and the potential implications and effects it certainly is going to have on what is at best a very fragile economy today.

First, I wish to reference this morning's USA TODAY business section where it was reported that existing home sales trailed down in the month of August off of the month of July. They did note they were better than August of a year ago but still deplorably low. Of all of the sales that were made in the month of August, 30 percent were attributable to the first-time home buyer tax credit. Unfortunately, substantially all the rest were attributable to short sales or foreclosures.

I was home Friday. In my State of Georgia, we have a law that says that if you foreclose on a deed to secure debt or a mortgage, you must advertise for four successive Fridays preceding the first Tuesday in the following month in order to foreclose. So every Friday in the legal organ of every county in Georgia, there is a section for foreclosure advertisements. I hold before the Senate today all 74 pages of the Marietta Journal legal notices announcing the foreclosure on 1,157 homes in a county of 700,000 people.

Houses continue to decline in their value because the market demand is down. The foreclosures we see today are not subprime loans; they were the loans that were foreclosed on a year or a year and a half ago. When we read the addresses of these 1,157, which I won't do, they are the addresses of mainstream America and the mortgages that are being foreclosed on are what are called conventional loans that were made to people who had jobs, had income sufficient to make the payments, and had downpayments of 5, 10, or 20 percent. These are the good loans a year ago that today are the loans being foreclosed on. In my State, 1 out of every 13 houses shows mortgage holders right now behind in their payments. Foreclosures are at record rates.

The first-time home buyer tax credit is about to expire. What does that have to do with this foreclosure problem we have and the problem of declining values of houses and shrinking equities for the American people? It has everything to do with it. We have a great demonstration project in the first-time home buyer tax credit that shows this Congress the way to continue and get a recovery in our housing market. In the time the first-time home buyer tax credit has been in effect, it is estimated that 350,000 home sales were made. That is 357,000 sales that would not have taken place.

What we need to do is look at the value of the home buyer tax credit and see whether an extension makes sense and, if it does make sense, how it should be structured. First of all, I say it makes sense because we had modest success the first time. But I think the limitation of a first-time home buyer at a maximum of $150,000 in income actually restricts us from helping the part of the market that is represented in these foreclosure pages because these are houses of people with more than $150,000 in income who would need to qualify. These are what are known as the move-up homes, the homes the executives and transferees from around the country sell when they leave their home county and are transferred to a job in another city or another State. We need to energize that market because the move-up market is where the problem exists.

So I would submit that when we look at the sunset date of November 30 on the first-time home buyer tax credit, we should extend it--not forever but through midyear next year, to the end of June 2010. There is a reason for that recommendation. The worst 3 months of the year in any housing market anywhere in the United States are December, January, and February because it is winter and because it is the holidays. So there is not much of a market to begin with in those 3 months. If this tax credit dies in November and then it dies the day before the declining market takes place, by the time the spring market comes back in March and April, it is too late and we will have a protracted period of even poorer sales than we have had recently. But if we pass and extend the credit through June 30 of next year, we continue to buoy the housing market around the country. If we take away the first-time home buyer limit and raise it to any home buyer who buys a home for their principal residence and resides in it for 3 years and we raise the income limitation from $150,000 for a family to $300,000, we stimulate the entire marketplace. That has a cost to it, a score of $16 billion. That is a lot of money, but it is less than 3 percent of the amount of the stimulus, and we know from what has happened in the last 9 months that it works.

It is very important that we stimulate and continue the existing stimulation of the housing market. The recession that began in December of 2007 began with a collapse of housing, first because of the subprime mortgage failures, but it continues to today, a continuing collapse, and the failures aren't subprime, high-risk credits, they are mainstream America. There is a point in time when we owe it to our country, we owe it to our economy, we owe it to mainstream America, where we know we have a proven program that works, to extend it and buoy the marketplace.

I wish to deal with some of the negatives some people have expressed about extending the tax credit.

The first negative I have heard in a lot of interviews is: Well, isn't all you are really doing is moving forward some sales that are going to take place anyway? Well, of course. That is the object. The problem is, we don't want them to take place in 2011 and 2012; we would like to move them forward to take place now. We want people back in the business of making the decision that it is a good time to buy.

Secondly, people will say: Well, it costs too much. Let's look at what we have done in 2\1/2\ or 1\1/2\ years in terms of cost to try to save an ailing economy. We have put $85 billion in 1 night in AIG. That is a lot more money than $16 billion. The Federal Reserve has at one place or another invested over $5 trillion. That is a lot more than $16 billion. The stimulus, which is a 2-year stimulus, which is just in its infancy of trying to make some difference, was $787 billion. The Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, which was passed in October of last year, was $700 billion. Yet we have a proposal that has generated 350,000 sales, costs $16 billion, that is about to die, where all of those other programs and trillions of dollars have only saved a collapse but not regenerated an economy.

So I come to the floor today to ask everybody in the Senate to think about what is happening. Six weeks from now, the tax credit sunsets. When it fails, the market again will have downward depression on values, on sales,

and most importantly on consumer confidence. Let's try to slow down the rate of foreclosure. Let's help Middle America, which right now faces difficult times. Let's take them out of the newspaper and let's take them back into a buoyant economy that has jobs, has growth, and has promise for the future.

I submit that an extension of the first-time home buyer credit by removing the means test, raising the income limitation, and extending it to midyear is good for America, makes good sense for this Senate, and I hope we will find the time before the current bill sunsets to pass it and do it for America.

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

Well, I think the majority leader is exactly right. There is a prime example of what happens when the Federal Government mandates a benefit or a program and doesn't pay for it; the States end up having to do it. Just take No Child Left Behind or take the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and IDEA. Back in 1978 we mandated funds to be appropriated for individuals with disabilities in America. In fact, we mandated States spend 40 percent per FTE more on a special needs child than on a regular child. We never sent them a dime for about 20 years. We finally, in 1999, started paying part of that 40 percent. Now we are only paying half of it.

So now we take Medicaid. Medicaid is a program, for the people out there who are listening today, where the States pay about one-third of Medicaid and the Federal Government pays about two-thirds. It changes a little bit, but that is about right. The State runs the program; the Federal Government mandates the program.

When I was first elected to the Georgia Legislature, the expenses for Medicaid the year I was elected in the State budget were $20 million, State funds. That was 1 percent of the State's $2 billion budget. Now, today, this year, even with all of the cuts that have taken place, Medicaid is 12 percent of Georgia's budget. So it has grown from 1 percent of the budget to 12 percent of the budget in about 30 years.

Plans in the health care bill that are being talked about in the Finance Committee and that have been talked about in the House would mandate an increase of 150 percent--from 100 percent of poverty to 150 percent of poverty for Medicaid eligibility. It is said the States will be held harmless until 2013 or 2014 but no promises after that.

Let me tell my colleague what would happen to my State of Georgia if we raised mandatory eligibility to 150 percent of poverty and the State paid its third of that one-third, two-thirds matched by the Federal Government. It would raise Georgia's Medicaid budget expenses annually from 12 percent of our budget to 20 percent of our budget, $3.32 billion. States can't afford to do that.

As the Governor of Nevada said, 43 of our States can't deficit spend; 43 percent of our States must balance their budgets. Medicaid has been carved on and worked on as it is to try and preserve it under the existing law. With a 150-percent increase in eligibility and no funds from the Federal Government guaranteed, the States would be put in a position of spending one penny out of every five on Medicaid, which is about 12 percent of my State's population. That is disproportionate and it is not fair.

I think Senator Reid is exactly right. Our States should be held harmless on any mandated increases in Medicaid.

It is interesting the Senator talked about that. By the way, his experience as Governor was a great experience for Tennessee, and the Senator's leadership in education was phenomenal. But already with the restricted economy we have today and the recession in my State, our teachers this year are having to take a minimum of 3, and at the university system a maximum of 6, furlough days without pay just to try and meet the balanced budget. Part of that is the pressure of Medicaid, which is an entitlement. We cannot decide to just not pay Medicaid, we have to do it. It is a Federal law; the State has to run it.

What the States are having to do this year--my State of Georgia and I think the State of Tennessee has probably experienced some of the same thing--they are having to cut back on other programs in order to still manage Medicaid.

In a State, when they say ``other programs,'' they are talking first and foremost about education. In Georgia, 54 percent of the budget is the university system and elementary and secondary education, one out of every two cents. Well, if they can't cut Medicaid because it is an entitlement, then they have to cut education first and foremost, which is the most important function of State government. So the unintended consequences of such a mandate are going to be devastating. They only have two choices: to continue to cut education or to raise taxes. Neither one of those are a good choice.

I will tell you a little story that happened in the month of August that is indicative of what is going to happen in Medicaid services if we have the continuing pressure. I was in Forsyth, GA. It is about halfway between Macon and Atlanta. I had done a speech at the Law Enforcement Training Center and decided to go into the local sandwich shop in downtown Forsyth and have a sandwich and greet people and say hello. I had greeted people and said hello. There were about 10 of them in the room. I went up to get my sandwich. When I came back this lady had circled all the tables around and saved a seat for me, and said: Senator, we are going to have a townhall meeting. They started talking to me about their concerns.

Toward the end of the meeting, one gentleman at the end of the table finally said: Senator, I want to tell you a story. I am a pediatric ophthalmologist. I am the last pediatric ophthalmologist who takes Medicaid patients.

He said: I just want to tell you what is happening because of the pressure on Medicaid expenses.

He said: I have a child right now who has a condition where if it is not addressed, the child will go blind. There is a medicine, it is very expensive, but it can restore the cornea and the lens and help that child to be able to see. We have submitted it three times to Medicaid, and they will not pay it. It is the only drug. There is not an option. There is not a generic substitution. It is one of the breakthroughs.

So what we have already going on in health care and in our entitlement programs, but in particular in Medicaid, is we try and manage the expense by lessening the amount we reimburse. The unintended consequence of that is we lose physicians who finally say: I am just not going to take Medicaid patients anymore.

Then, the ones who finally are doing it, then we start to see what they submit as a treatment not being approved for reimbursement. So the unintended consequence of putting even more pressure on the Medicaid system is going to put more pressure to ration health care for all Medicaid patients, and that is not fair nor is it right.

The Senator from Tennessee has said frequently over the last couple of months that what we really need to do is take a step-by- step approach. Comprehensive health care reform's unintended consequences will be a disaster because it affects 17 percent of the economy. You are taking the entitlements and 86 percent of the people who have some coverage and you are threatening that they have to go into a government option. This Medicaid debate is a good example of how we need to take a step-by-step approach, we need to take first things first.

In the report before our committee, the HELP Committee, on which we serve together, we spent 67\1/2\ hours in the markup on that bill during the months of June and July. We heard about the uninsured and the uncovered in America. Of that 14 to 16 percent we hear about, a number of them are Medicare or Medicaid eligible, and they are not enrolled. So the first step we ought to take is to say we are going to create a mechanism where every Medicaid-eligible person and Medicare- eligible person is covered, which would probably mean that when someone visits a hospital because they are ill and they are qualified for Medicare or Medicaid, they get enrolled automatically so that they do have the coverage. That is the first step we ought to take in terms of entitlement.

Then we can take another part of the uninsured--those people you and I talk about, the independent contractors, small businesspeople--and we can allow the forming of risk pools across State lines and insurance sales across State lines and allow like professions to associate together to form larger risk pools to compete with major corporations. And then insurance becomes more accessible and affordable.

This debate we are having over Medicaid and the Governors' immediate reaction--which is 100 percent of the Governors, not just a couple-- demonstrates to us that we need to slow down and take step-by-step approaches to begin addressing the uncovered and uninsured without creating unintended consequences that bankrupt States and ration health care.

There is no question--when the Senator referred to independent contractors, I had a flashback to my 33 years in business. For 22 of those years, I ran a real estate brokerage company. I had accountants, secretaries, and backroom operators. All my salespeople were independent contractors. I provided group medical under ERISA for my secretaries, backroom operators, and my employees, but the Federal law--the IRS Code--prohibits an employer from providing health care to an independent contractor.

So here we have another unintended consequence of a Federal mandate that says to somebody: Simply because of the way in which you establish yourself and earn your income, some people can get group medical coverage and some cannot. In the case of those who worked for me, it forced second-career, middle-aged people not to be able to participate in a group policy. They had to buy insurance in the spot market. That spot market in health care is expensive because there is no shared risk. You don't have young people, older people, and well people to balance the cost of the pool. You have one individual who, if they already have health problems, may be uninsurable because of a preexisting condition.

It is important that we look at the existing unintended consequences in the Tax Code that prohibit companies from being able to offer group medical insurance to the independent contractors who work for them.

I agree. You cannot just treat 4 States differently from the other 46. You have to treat everybody alike.

I say to Senator Alexander that there is another step-by-step thing we ought to talk about. In the pay-fors--the Medicaid increase of 150 percent is a pay-for. It is part of the cost of insuring everybody. There is another one; that is, the assumed $500 billion in savings from waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare. I got a phone call----

This is my Medicare month. I am supposed to enroll. So it is now a personal issue with me.

I did a telephone townhall meeting, and a fellow said: Senator, I have a question for you. If there is $500 billion in savings in Medicare, why aren't you all using it now to help save Medicare instead of giving it to another program to pay for it? Medicare is going broke by 2017.

They are saying it is over. So we are selling a revenue saver to pay for the expansion of health care at the Federal level by saying we are going to reduce payout for seniors in Medicare by $\1/2\ trillion in waste, fraud, and abuse. Well, assuming we know there is $\1/2\ trillion there, it ought to already be cut out and it ought to be going into the Medicare trust fund to shore it up so it lasts longer than 2017. We should never promise we are going to pay for something on something we think is there and then just move the numbers down for the convenience of making a sale today.

I think, as a senior, and on behalf of all seniors, we all realize if that $\1/2\ trillion isn't there in waste, fraud, and abuse, the first thing you are going to do is have reimbursements cut; the next thing, instead of three out of four doctors taking Medicare patients, it will only be two out of four or one out of three; and pretty soon the next thing is that seniors will have health care that is inaccessible and their doctors will not be available. That is a dangerous road to go down.

That is correct.

Social Security is another example of what happens when you don't have good fiscal discipline. Unfortunately, for the better part of half a century, when people have paid their FICA taxes to go into the Social Security trust fund, it goes in and then immediately it is replaced by an IOU and the money is moved to general appropriations and spent. That is why Social Security is going broke in 2037. I just got my statement last week, and on the cover--everybody ought to read their Social Security letter, the column on the right-hand side which tells you what the trustees are telling you about the solvency of Social Security.

We cannot make any more hollow promises to the American people. We have to keep the promises we have made, and those promises are Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid. So instead of expanding things we already can't afford, we need to be finding ways to stabilize them before we run off and make a promise we can't keep.

The American people understand. This colloquy has been helpful to demonstrate something, I say to Senator Alexander. We on the Republican side have been accused from time to time of being obstructionists on health care reform. I think we indicated this morning we have been instructive, going on a step-by-step basis, dealing with the problems manageable one at a time, not sacrificing Social Security or Medicaid or Medicare, not sacrificing our States and forcing them into the impossible position of declining revenues and increasing costs through a mandated Federal program that, in the end, is only going to result in rationing of care to Medicaid-eligible beneficiaries and more and more pressure on our States already.

We are not trying to obstruct anything. We find it very instructive that there are ways, on a step-by-step basis, that we can close the gap on the number of uninsured people without taking away the benefits others have.

I thank the Senator for allowing me the opportunity to participate in this discussion. We are learning from our Governors. I have learned from my townhall meetings and from my visits in Georgia. We understand America is tuned in and a lot of America, 16 percent of it, needs attention for more affordable, accessible health care. Let's be about the business, on a step-by-step basis, of providing that and closing that gap without threatening to destroy the programs we have established over the years and promised to our seniors and to those less fortunate.

The Senator from Arizona and the Senator from Georgia and I all sat through 67\1/2\ hours of markup in the HELP Committee on an 839-page bill, which was not scored and had 3 titles blank and they are still blank. We didn't have text during that debate on three titles within that bill, and what they are developing in the Finance Committee today, as I understand it, is concepts. The language is somewhere that we have not yet seen. This is too important for us to guess on and to take a chance on. It is most important that Congress know precisely what it is doing.

Yes, I ran a small real estate company for 22 years. We tried--myself and other distinguished Senators--on the floor to pass small business health reform 3 years ago which would have made more affordable and accessible health care to those independent contractors, the small business people. It was rejected and we could not get a cloture vote.

Under outside estimates--not mine--of the 47 million alleged uninsured, up to 16 million would have access to insurance because of associated health plans and small business reform. That is a third of the uninsured.

Those are the two things Republicans don't want, which is more debt to bankrupt our children and grandchildren and more taxes. Robert from Loganville was on my teletown hall meeting a week ago in Georgia. We were talking about the pay-fors. He said, ``Senator, I want to ask you a question. The administration keeps talking about there being a half billion dollars of waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare. If that's true, why haven't you saved it instead of using it to save against a national health care?''

That is precisely right. The pay-fors they are talking about to keep us from going into debt are moneys that may or may not be there. They involve taxation and raising taxes on small businesses. Those are the things we don't want to do as Republicans.

The Senator is precisely right, because as of right now, Medicare goes broke in 2017. That is only 8 years from now. In this bill, part of the pay-fors is to raise the cost of Medicaid on the States to a level that would take Georgia's Medicaid payments in 2014 by State tax dollars to be from 12 percent to 20 percent of our State budget. That is not the way to run a railroad.

Absolutely.

A lot of them are based in defensive medicine, which is practiced because of runaway lawsuits and verdicts. The administration's most recent comment about tort reform, to which the Senator from Arizona referred, was they want to do a study. A study is not what we need. What we need is action. That is one of the biggest contributors to the rising cost of health care we have.

The other consequence of that is the threat of it, and the cost of becoming a physician is driving young people to go into other professions. We are going to have a shortage of providers, not just in physicians but nurses and caregivers, if we have an overly regulatory system and an indefensible tort system.

It is raising the cost to the consumer because a lot of those types of things that are being taxed are purchased discretionarily and are not covered. They are paid for out of the pocket of the consumer. When you tax the medical device, you are just raising the cost of the medical device to the consumer.

I completely concur with the Senator from Arizona and the Senator from Tennessee. There is common ground, but you have to be willing to find it. So far that has not been the case. When we get to that point, we can solve a lot of the American peoples' problems. Just ramming through something we cannot read, we cannot quantify, we cannot score is not the way to go about it.

My only comment in closing is simply this: The Senator is exactly right. Once this horse is out of the barn, you can never put him back in. We have to get it right to begin with. We need to go back to the drawing board, have a bill we can read, and a bill we can afford.

I ask unanimous consent we set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 2504.

I ask further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

First, I thank the chairman for the courtesy of allowing me to call up the amendment at this time and appreciate the courtesy of the Senator from Maine. I have requested in appropriations the designation which is included in this amendment which says the Secretary may--underline the word ``may''--appropriate $5 million to Morehouse College for the purpose of the curation and the care of the Martin Luther King, Jr., papers in Atlanta, GA, for the civil rights museum of history.

Briefly, not to belabor the point, a number of years ago, as you may know, the family of Martin Luther King put up the King papers for auction to the highest bidder. A number of people in the State of Georgia and the city of Atlanta determined that those papers belonged to the world and raised $32 million amongst themselves to buy the papers to protect them forever for posterity. An issue came up in the U.S. House of Representatives to appropriate that money, and it didn't happen. Without those bidders, those papers would have gone to the highest bidder. Whether or not it would have remained in the public purview for posterity no one knows. But we do know because of the people and the mayor of Atlanta, Shirley Franklin, the distinguished Representative of our State, had the courage and fortitude and foresight to raise the money, and those papers are now under protection for the people of the world.

The money is being raised to build the civil rights museum, and it will start in the not too distant future at Centennial Park in Atlanta. It will house the papers of Martin Luther King, but there are 10,000 exhibits within the papers of Dr. King. Therefore, Morehouse College has been designated to be the curator and protector of those papers, much as our archivists in the country do for the great historical documents of the United States. This money would go to assist Morehouse College as the curator to protect those papers, which will be in the public domain forever.

I appreciate very much the distinguished chairman allowing me to offer the amendment. I hope at the appropriate time it will be adopted. I think it is an important contribution to the history of our country and future of civil rights and the world.

I yield the remainder of my time. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I wish to honor in the Record of the Senate Fort Valley State University in Fort Valley, GA, and the schools leadership team, headed by its great president and alumnus, Dr. Larry E. Rivers.

This fall, more than 1,500 new freshmen have started classes at Fort Valley State University, making their mark on their very first day as the largest incoming freshman class in the schools history. This large freshmen class allowed the school to exceed the enrollment goal set by Dr. Rivers. In fact, total enrollment has doubled since Dr. Rivers arrival at Fort Valley State University in 2006.

The 2010 edition of Americas Best Colleges by U.S. News Media Group listed Fort Valley State University as No. 21 among historically Black colleges and universities. FVSU is listed among first-tier schools such as Spelman College, Howard University, and Morehouse College.

Due to these great achievements by FVSU, the school is expanding at a rapid pace. A new $9 million stadium opened on August 29, 2009, to start the Wildcat football season. In addition, plans for 2010 include a $16.7 million science building and a $6 million student amenities building. Other plans for the future include a Family Development Center and the expansion of the Stallworth Agricultural Research Building to add additional laboratory space. The Georgia Board of Regents also recently approved new FVSU College of Education programs, including agriculture education 6-12, special education general curriculum/early childhood education P-5, middle grades education 4-8, and school counselor. The board of regents also approved online bachelors degree programs in political science, psychology and English--Technical English and professional writing--and offsite programs in criminal justice, business administration, and an online criminal justice franchise.

It is also evident through the school's community outreach efforts that the young people who attend Fort

Valley State University are putting the skills they learn in the classroom to even greater use in the surrounding community and are learning to make a positive difference in the lives of others.

I am pleased to acknowledge the great work that is done each day at Fort Valley State University, and I appreciate the vision of Dr. Rivers and his team to ensure students receive the highest quality education possible.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to speak as in morning business.