Floor Statements

Mr. President, the two health care bills, the one the President has already signed into law plus this one we are considering will spend another $2.6 trillion over the next 10 years.

In order to pay for it, one of the things that these bills include is over $600 billion in new taxes. The President has pledged there would be no taxes on the middle class, and he defined that to be anybody who makes less than $200,000 as an individual or $250,000 as a couple or a family.

All this motion to commit does is say: Let's take those taxes out of these bills. There are 73 million Americans who fall squarely in the middle class who make less than $200,000 a year as an individual or $250,000 as a couple who will pay the burden of these taxes if we do not make this change.

It is time for this Congress----

To help the President keep his pledge.

Mr. President, I appreciate the fact that the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee have created an Air Traffic Control Modernization Board and tasked it with reviewing and evaluating the Federal Aviation Administration facility and service realignment proposals.

The Idaho delegation has been raising serious concerns with the FAA's proposed transfer of the Boise Terminal Radar Approach Control, TRACON, for several years. Despite the years of requests for transparency and detailed cost and safety data, the agency has failed to clearly demonstrate that the radar transfer would result in improved air traffic control services for Boise air traffic users. In fact, the evidence that the Idaho delegation has seen continues to indicate that services would be diminished and efficiency and operational costs could also be impacted.

The Idaho delegation requested the Department of Transportation's Office of the Inspector General to initiate a study of the costs associated with this radar transfer. In addition we have asked the Air Traffic Safety Oversight Service, AOV, to determine whether FAA safety risk management procedures have been followed in the proposed move.

The Idaho delegation remains unconvinced that physically relocating the radar would be cost effective and question the assumptions that have driven the FAA's proposal. Because these concerns have not been adequately addressed, we believe the consolidation should be halted until the new Air Traffic Control Modernization Oversight Board completes its recommendations for realignment.

As I read the new section 308 language, the bill will halt the consolidation of the Boise TRACON into the Salt Lake City TRACON until after the board completes its recommendations for realignment even though the FAA has sent an article 46 notification to move the Boise TRACON to Salt Lake City. At this point, I ask to have printed in the Record a letter from the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, NATCA, that agrees with this position.

The letter follows.

National Air Traffic

Controllers Association, AFL-CIO,

Washington, DC, March 18. 2010.

Dear Senators Crapo and Risch: We write today to thank you

for your continued leadership in the U.S. Senate on behalf of

the air traffic controllers in Idaho.

As you know, the National Air Traffic Controllers

Association has a strong track record of support of

consolidations that do not compromise safety. Unfortunately,

the FAA has failed to collaborate with the controller

workforce during its most recent round of facility and

service realignments, including the agency's intentions to

remove local radar services from Boise. Your support for the

controllers in Idaho during this dispute has been critical

and has not gone unnoticed.

The language in Section 308 of the substitute amendment to

H.R. 1586, legislation to reauthorize the Federal Aviation

Administration, will protect the Boise TRACON and the city's

air traffic control facilities from the FAA's current plans

to transfer these services to Salt Lake City despite the

FAA's Article 46 notification of its intent to move forward

with the proposed transfer.

This language will ensure the local radar services will

remain at Boise until the Air Traffic Control Modernization

Oversight Board's recommendations are complete, or with the

full participation of and collaboration with the air traffic

controllers at Boise. Similarly, we at NATCA will not move

forward with negotiations with the FAA on the Boise TRACON

transfer without full cooperation with the Idaho

Congressional Delegation and other key stakeholders. Full

collaboration will ensure that this and all future ATC

facility and service realignments will only be considered if

the proposals serve the public good by improving safety,

efficiency and service.

The inclusion of this provision in the substitute amendment

is a direct product of your tireless efforts to compel the

FAA to work collaboratively with the air traffic controllers

and other vital aviation stakeholders in Boise. On behalf of

the air traffic controllers in Boise and throughout the

country, we want to thank you for your continued leadership

on this issue.

Sincerely,

Patricia Gilbert,

National Executive Vice President.

Mark Griffin,

President, Boise NATCA Local.

Per this colloquy, Senator Risch and I will follow up with the FAA that it is the clear intent of the Senate for the FAA to halt its consolidation of the Boise TRACON until after the new board completes its recommendations for realignment.

Mr. President, during two votes this morning, I was unavoidably absent and unable to cast my vote. Had I been present, I would have voted as follows: No--The motion to waive the Budget Act with respect to the House message to accompany H.R. 2847, the HIRE Act. No--The motion to concur with the House amendments to H.R. 2847, the HIRE Act.

Madam President, today I wish to take note of a great international internship program that is now celebrating its 11th year. I am proud to be involved for a 4th year in the Uni-Capitol Washington Internship Programme, UCWIP, an exchange program in which outstanding college students from Australia's top universities compete to serve as interns for the U.S. Congress. This program has been bringing the Washington internship experience to students from Australia for more than 10 years. In addition to working in congressional offices, the program provides students with a number of other opportunities and activities including visits to U.S. historic sites, visits to government agencies and education events.

This semester Benjamin Watson, a student from the University of Western Australia, is spending a couple of months in my office, helping me serve Idaho constituents. But students from the Uni-Capitol Washington Programme can be found throughout congressional offices, working for both the House and the Senate.

I asked Ben to share his thoughts about this program, and he said, ``The UCWIP has truly been a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Working in Senator Crapo's office has given me an insight into the workings of the world's most influential democracy, adding a practical element to my studies in politics and law. My internship has given me the chance to interact with interesting people and understand the processes and procedures of U.S. Congress, within the friendly and welcoming environment of Senator Crapo's office.''

Ben has been a great addition to my intern staff for the spring semester, and has spent many hours helping keep my schedule and activities running smoothly. His efforts are much appreciated. And I am sure that the other offices that have participated in this program feel that way toward the work of those assigned to their offices.

I cannot conclude without recognizing the efforts put into this program each year by its director and founder, Eric Federing, who spent a number of years working on Capitol Hill himself. After he visited Australia a number of years ago, he determined to find a way to introduce the U.S. Congress to the students he met. He has done such great work in sharing his enthusiasm and experiences with so many Australian students. More than 100 students have made the long journey from their universities in Australia to Washington, DC, to take part in this program. In addition to the work opportunities provided on Capitol Hill, Uni-Capitol Washington also expands the yearly experience to include some of America's historical sites and famous landmarks, including Gettysburg and New York City.

It has been an honor to participate with this program, and I look forward to continuing my association with the Uni-Capitol Washington Internship Programme next year.

Mr. President, it is an honor for me to recognize the Idaho Wheat Commission, which celebrated its 50th anniversary recently. The Idaho Wheat Commission was founded in 1959 and has been a leader in the wheat industry, working on behalf of Idaho's wheat growers and providing them with an invaluable service. Wheat is one of Idaho's top five commodities; it is grown in nearly every county; and Idaho is ranked 10th in national production of wheat. The Idaho Wheat Commission engages in research, market development, consumer education and much more on behalf of Idaho wheat growers.

The Idaho Wheat Commission funds research and provides science-based information to Idaho wheat growers concerning topics such as improved wheat variety, pest management and best practices. Research and information on these and many other topics help Idaho Wheat growers remain competitive and profitable. The Idaho Wheat Commission also aids growers by playing an important role in the development of markets at home and overseas, which helps Idaho growers find new and emerging markets for their wheat. More than 50 percent of Idaho's wheat crop is exported to over 90 other countries around the world.

The Idaho Wheat Commission, along with the University of Idaho Extension, the Idaho Grain Producer Association and the Idaho Barley commission, sponsors Cereal Schools in many different Idaho counties. These schools educate and update growers on various issues, such as results from new studies and trials or current legislative issues. They also conduct Wheat Quality Workshops twice a year where growers get a hands-on education on the importance of growing quality wheat.

Because of their many excellent educational and informational programs, the Idaho Wheat Commission has had, and will continue to have, a positive influence on the Idaho wheat industry. The Idaho Wheat Commission has been working for Idaho's wheat growers for 50 years, helping to fund research and education and to develop new markets for growers. In their first 50 years, they have succeeded at this and much more. Congratulations to the Idaho Wheat Commission for 50 years of supporting the growers of one of Idaho's most important crops. I look forward to its next 50.

Mr. President, today I wish to ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing the accomplishments of Mr. Orval Allen Kelso.

Today, deeply engaged in a war on terror, thousands of American civilians are working and serving in harm's way. Like the brave men and women serving in uniform, these patriotic citizens risk their lives every day in an effort to rebuild a stronger future for the people of Iraq. However, they are not alone. American civilian contractors have been operating in combat theatres since as early as World War II, and I am here today to tell you about one of those.

Hailing from Emmett, ID, Orval Allen Kelso arrived on Wake Island in the North Pacific in June 1941, working as a powerplant operator for Morrison Knudsen. Mr. Kelso worked as a powerplant operator until December 1941, when he was captured and taken as a POW to Camp 18, Sesabo, Japan. While a POW at Camp 18, Orval helped build the Soto Dam that provides water to Sesabo city today. He, among several hundred civilian POWs, built this dam with hardly the right tools to work with, malnutrition, improper clothing, and daily physical and emotional abuse by their captors. Orval later died in Camp 18 on April 8, 1943, just days after his birthday. In 1949, his only child, Walter Richard ``Dick'' Kelso, reclaimed his father's remains, and brought him back to rest on U.S. soil at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, HI. I also note that although Mr. Kelson was a civilian during the time I have discussed, after his death, the Department of the Navy awarded him an E4 military status.

It is fitting that we honor Mr. Kelso for his sacrifice and also be reminded of the many others who were taken prisoner or who paid the ultimate sacrifice working in harm's way. We often forget about the nonmilitary Americans who gave their all for the freedoms we cherish in our great Nation. Let us help remedy that today by recognizing Mr. Kelso and the civilian POWs taken during World War II. They are an exemplary example of the selflessness displayed by Americans in an effort to bring peace and freedom to millions, and we thank them for their sacrifice.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 40 minutes and to use that time in a colloquy with other colleagues.

I also ask to be notified when there are 5 minutes remaining.

Mr. President, I am going to engage in a colloquy about the pending motion on which we will vote later this afternoon or early this

evening. It is a motion to commit the bill to the Finance Committee and have the Finance Committee make the bill comply with the President's pledge. Here is the pledge:

I can make a firm pledge . . . no family making less than

$250,000 will see their taxes increase . . . not your income

tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains tax, not

any of your taxes.

. . . you will not see any of your taxes increase one

single dime.

I heard my colleague from Montana say the bill complies with this pledge. If that were true, then there would be no harm in having the Finance Committee scour through it and make sure it does and refer the bill back to make sure it doesn't tax the middle class.

The reality is, it is very clear this legislation violates this pledge of the President. As a matter of fact, there are over $493 billion of new taxes in this bill meant to offset the $2.5 trillion during the first full 10 years of implementation of spending in the bill.

If you will look at the next chart, at the graph on taxes, the first 10 years--this includes the fees also imposed that CBO and Joint Tax said will be passed right on through to the consumer. There are $704 billion of taxes and fees in the first 10 years of the bill. If you look at the 10 years of full implementation, meaning when the spending actually starts, the taxes and fees are actually $1.28 trillion.

My colleague says this is a net tax cut bill, and it complies with the President's pledge because when you take all of the refundable tax credits in the bill and offset against the tax increases, there is a net reduction in tax. In the first place, that is not true when you take into account the fees. I don't think that is what the President was talking about. He didn't mean, did he, that you will not see your taxes go up more than someone else's taxes go down? No, he told people in America they would not see their taxes go up.

Yet what this bill does, according to the Joint Tax analysis, is, by 2019, at least 73 million American households earning below $200,000 will face a tax increase.

If that is not violating the President's pledge, I don't know what is--even if you take the numbers that the majority is trying to use and claim that those are tax cuts.

Here is the next chart. What my colleague from Montana is talking about is about $400 billion of what are called refundable tax credits. He wants to offset these tax credits in the bill against the hundreds of billions of dollars of tax increases, and then say there is a net tax cut and, therefore, no problem.

First of all, that is a problem. Secondly, what is a refundable tax credit? The $288 billion, or 73 percent of the so-called tax credit--or tax cuts that my colleague from Montana is talking about--are payments by the Federal Government to individuals or families who do not have tax liability. It is a direct government subsidy. The CBO scores these payments as a Federal outlay, as spending, not as tax relief, and that is exactly what it is. I think it is a little bit less than credible to say that we have a tax cut bill when three-fourths of the so-called tax cuts don't even go to reduce tax liability for taxpayers.

Yes.

Yes, that is right. A payment of a subsidy to an individual in the United States would be scored as a Federal outlay, or spending, as is a refundable tax credit paid to an individual who has no tax liability.

Let's assume we even accept the argument that is a tax cut. Even if you offset all of that, remember the chart a minute ago that said 73 million people would pay taxes. Even if you give them credit for that argument, there are still going to be 42 million people making less than $200,000 a year who will face a net tax increase. That is a violation of the President's pledge.

All this motion does is send the bill back to the Finance Committee, which writes tax policy, to correct that. The motion helps this bill comply with the President's pledge.

The Senator from Montana also used another example, trying to say some of these people who are paying more taxes are getting higher wages. This is the game that is going on. The employer of these people the Senator was talking about today provides a salary and health care to that employee. In this example, it is $50,000 of wages and $10,000 of health care benefits. This bill will now impose a hefty 40- or 45- percent tax on this health care plan because it is too good of a health care plan.

What CBO and Joint Tax tell us is that because of that immense tax-- 40- to 45-percent tax--the employer is just going to cut the health care plan down to where it is not taxed anymore and provide those dollars with an increased wage. So this young lady will get maybe $53,000 in wages instead of $50,000 and only $7,000 of health insurance, and her net employment compensation will still be the same, $60,000--except she will pay taxes on an extra $3,000. So her net employment package will go down not up, and 73 million Americans like her will end up with a smaller employment package, less health care benefits, and increased Federal tax liability. That is the way the bill works.

For issue after issue, there are taxes after taxes in this bill that will be paid by the people in this country who earn less than those on the threshold the President identified. That is why we simply ask that the bill be sent to the Finance Committee to have this violation of the President's pledge, this bad policy of increasing taxes on the middle class in America to pay for a huge new government entitlement program, be removed from the bill.

I thank my colleague. I will give some statistics on the point. The Joint Tax Committee analyzed just the four biggest tax provisions--not all of them--and they concluded that only 7 percent of Americans would be receiving these so-called tax cuts, which are really spending subsidies but have been characterized as a tax cut in order to argue that the bill doesn't increase taxes. Only 7 percent of Americans will receive those, which represents about 19 million people, but 157 million people--almost 8 times that amount--who get health insurance through their employer will not be eligible for these credits. They will pay, on average, somewhere between $593 to $670 a year, depending on their income categories, in new taxes that are put on their shoulders in this bill.

I notice that my colleague from Tennessee wants to say something.

The Senator from Nevada is correct. The fact is, the taxes start on day one of the bill. The spending, which is what these alleged tax cuts are that my colleague from the other side was talking about, does not start until the fourth year or 2014. And that is just one of the gimmicks in the bill in order to claim it does not drive up the budget--have 10 years of tax increases and only 6 years of spending to offset against it. I think that is how they started the spending days. They figured out how long they had to delay it so they could claim it would not drive up the deficit.

The Senator from Nevada is correct.

Before I toss the floor to the Senator from Texas who wants to make some comments, I point out that the point the Senator from Nevada made is statistically made by Joint Tax:

By 2019, at least 73 million American households--

That is not 73 million Americans, that is 73 million American households--

earning below $200,000 are going to face these tax increases.

The Senator from Wyoming is exactly right. It is the wrong thing to do when our economy needs to be strengthened and restarted, if you will, to apply a huge amount of new taxes.

Let's take the example we talked about earlier. This young lady, under the bill in the Senate right now, will not only see her health benefits go down, but the net value of her compensation package will go down. She will get a little extra wages in order to offset the reduction of her health care benefits, but those will be taxed and her net compensation package will go down.

The point here is this--and it is a little bit ironic that today the Democratic caucus is going to be meeting with the President at the White House in yet one more closed-door meeting where they are going to be trying to redraft the bill in order to get around some of the problems, which I hope they will let the American people see to debate before they try to vote on it again.

It is ironic, as Democrats come out of that caucus, if they do not support this motion, they will be violating two of the President's pledges. One, after meeting with him, they will be violating his pledge not to tax Americans who make less than $200,000--$250,000 for a family--as well as his pledge: If you like it, you can keep it.

This young lady, if she likes her package, cannot keep it. She will not have that option. Her $10,000 health care package will be reduced at least $2,000 to the minimum new government-designed acceptable policy and probably a little more than that. She will see a 20- to 30- percent reduction in her health care package against her will. I would be willing to bet she would prefer to keep the one she has now. Most Americans like the insurance they are getting through their employers.

The Senator was there when the Joint Tax and CBO experts were asked this question. They squarely and directly said these taxes and fees will be passed on, virtually 100 percent, to consumers, which means two things. First, the ones that are taxes will just be taxes passed on to the consumer, as shown in the example of the young lady we looked at. The ones that are fees will simply be passed on in the form of higher costs for medical services or higher premiums, which is one of the reasons why, contrary to the assertions by the other side, this bill will drive up the cost of health care and will drive up the cost of premiums, not down.

I agree with the Senator from Nevada. It is disturbing to see the responses. First, the response that this bill actually doesn't increase taxes; it cuts taxes. That flies right in the face of the reports and analysis by Joint Tax and CBO. I encourage everybody to read this bill. It is available on my Web site and on the Republican Web site and on the C-SPAN Web site. In addition, we will put up a reference to where you can find the bill to read it if you want to parse through it to determine who is telling the truth. The bottom line is, this bill increases taxes in the first 10 years by $493 billion. When you add fees to that, it is more like $700 billion. If you counted the first full 10 years of implementation, it is over $1 trillion of new taxes. The only response to that is to try to say that the subsidies for health insurance for those who are not able to purchase their own insurance are tax cuts, even though three-fourths of them go to those who are not, at this point, at a level where they are incurring a tax liability.

The Senator from South Dakota is correct. In fact, this subsidy is not paid to the individual. It is paid directly to the insurance company. Of the one-quarter of people receiving this subsidy who do actually pay income taxes, their income taxes will, in fact, stay the same. They are not actually getting a tax cut. What they are getting is a subsidy for the purchase of insurance that is managed through the Tax Code but is paid directly to the insurance company.

It is actually 7 percent.

I will respond first. The Senator from Tennessee is exactly right. Again, on this chart, these are the tax increases for the first 10 years of the bill, and this chart includes the fees and penalties that are charged as well. The total there is $704 billion. If you start when the bill becomes implemented or is started to be implemented, in 2014, to compare taxes to spending, the actual taxes and fees that will be collected are almost $1.3 trillion.

I thank my colleagues for coming over and speaking today and discussing this issue with me. I would like to conclude by pointing out, once again, the President said he could make a firm pledge, no family making less than $250,000 will see their taxes increase, not your income taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes. You will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime. But there are hundreds of billions of dollars in tax increases in this bill that are going to fall squarely to the backs of the middle class.

Our motion simply says: Let's fix that and take it out. The bottom line is, those who are saying that is not the case are trying in the first case to say there are subsidies in the bill that almost equal the amount of these taxes and, therefore, it is a net tax cut. First, subsidies are not tax cuts. Three-quarters of them go to individuals who have no tax liability. The other one-quarter does not reduce the tax liability of the individuals who are getting the insurance subsidy. Even if you accept all of that argument, the President was not saying you will not see net taxes go up in America. The President was not saying: We will not cut or not increase your taxes by more than we will cut someone else's taxes. I don't think anybody expected that was what he was saying. The President was saying he would not raise taxes in this bill. This bill violates that pledge.

Therefore, Members should support the motion to send this bill back to the Finance Committee to fix that glaring problem.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

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

Mr. President, I believe I have 20 minutes remaining; is that correct?

Mr. President, I ask that the Chair notify me when I have 2 minutes remaining.

Later today, Mr. President, we are going to vote on my motion to refer the bill to the Finance Committee and have the Finance Committee simply make the bill comply with the President's promise with regard to taxes.

As I have said a number of times on the floor, this bill does not correct so many of the problems we need to deal with in health care. It drives the cost of health care in premiums up, not down; it raises hundreds of billions in taxes; it cuts Medicare by hundreds of billions of dollars; it grows the Federal Government by over $2.5 trillion in the first 10 years of full implementation; it forces the needy uninsured into a failing Medicaid system and does not give them access to insurance; it imposes damaging unfunded mandates on our struggling States; it still leaves millions of Americans uninsured; and it establishes massive government control over our health care. Frankly, even if the so-called government option or government health care insurance company that is created by the bill were to be removed, there would still be massive government intrusion into the control and management of our health care system.

Well, as we were facing the prospect of dealing with this bill, the President made a pledge to the American people, and in his terms the pledge was:

I can make a firm pledge, no family making less than

$250,000 will see their taxes increase; not your income

taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes,

not any of your taxes. You will not see any of your taxes

increased one single dime.

Yet what we have in this legislation is a whole array of new taxes-- about $493 billion in new taxes to start with. And that is assuming you just start with the beginning of the bill and go for the first 10 years. If you actually compare the number of taxes that will be charged by this bill to the American people with that first full 10-year implementation period, that is $1.28 trillion in new taxes.

This chart shows taxes and fees, not just the specific taxes but taxes and fees--fees which our Congressional Budget Office and our Joint Tax Committee have said repeatedly will be passed on to the American consumer. Yet the President said nobody's taxes will be increased.

Let's see the next chart. Here we have further analysis of just four of the major tax provisions in the bill. There are many more, but if you look at the four major tax provisions in the bill, the Joint Committee on Taxation has said that by 2019 at least 73 million American households earning below $200,000 will face a tax increase, and when you break these numbers down further, it is not just the people making between $100,000 and $200,000, or the upper income earners, but massive tax increases falling upon people who are making well under $100,000 a year.

The response has been: Wait a minute, this bill also has some tax cuts in it, and when you offset the tax cuts against the tax increases, there are more tax cuts than there are tax increases.

I dispute that in a couple ways. First of all, even if you accept as fact that there are tax cuts in this bill, which is arguable and I will point that out in a minute, they do not offset all the taxes and fees, so it is still a net increase in taxes. But there is a subsidy in this bill to provide insurance to a group of Americans who do not have the financial capacity today to purchase their own insurance. As I mentioned earlier, the most needy of this group did not get access to insurance. They got put on Medicaid. But some in America will get some access to insurance and that subsidy will be provided by the Federal Government. The other side is saying that is a tax cut.

I disagree with that for a couple reasons. First of all, it is called, in the bill, a refundable tax credit and it is administered by the Internal Revenue Service--which, by the way, is going to need to grow by 40 to 50 percent in order to accommodate these new roles in managing the health care system. But it is a refundable tax credit in only the way Congress could put it together. It is nothing other than a government payment to individuals, most of whom pay no taxes. In fact, between 2014 and 2019, 73 percent of the people receiving the subsidy, or $288 billion of the subsidy, goes to taxpayers who pay no taxes. You can call that a tax cut if you want, but CBO, our Congressional Budget Office, does not call it a tax cut. The Congressional Budget Office scores it as Federal spending, as exactly what it is, spending by the Federal Government. It is a subsidy being provided by the Federal Government. You can argue about whether it should be provided, but to call it a tax cut is a stretch.

Even if you accept that is a tax cut, there are still 42 million American households earning below $200,000 per year who will pay more taxes. No matter how you cut it and no matter how you define tax cut, the reality is this bill imposes hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars of new taxes squarely on the middle class in violation of the President's promise that nobody in America who makes less than $250,000 as a family or $200,000 as an individual, in order to fund this bill, would be required to pay more taxes.

Some of those who have responded to this have said this is our opportunity and, if we support this amendment, we will be killing a bill that provides tax relief to the American people. As I have pointed out, the amendment does not do anything to the subsidy that is called a tax cut. The amendment leaves the subsidy in place. So it is simply wrong to say the motion I have asked to have passed would do anything to remove this so-called tax relief--or properly called subsidy--from the bill. What my motion does is simply to say the bill should be referred to the Finance Committee so the Finance Committee can make sure it complies with the President's pledge that it does not raise taxes on those who are in what the President has described as the middle class. It is very simple and straightforward. If there are no such taxes, then the motion is irrelevant. But we all know there are-- Joint Tax, Congressional Budget Office, many private organizations have squarely pointed it out. In fact, we are still studying it. If we get past the first four big taxes in the bill, these numbers I have talked about, the 42 million net or the 73 million in reality, in America--and those are households, not individuals, who will be paying more taxes-- are squarely going to be hit by this bill.

Let me give a different perspective on it. If you take all those who are supposedly getting tax relief but are really getting a direct subsidy, accept the fact that this is truly a tax cut, they represent 7 percent of the American public. The rest of the American public does not get a subsidy. The rest of the American public pays the taxes for the establishment of a huge $2.5 trillion new entitlement program that will bring that much more of the Federal Government into control of the health care economy.

We are coming back now from a 2\1/2\-hour break because the Democrats were at the White House meeting with the President. We do not know what was said there. There was apparently a negotiation behind closed doors, yet once again, of some other new changes in the legislation, some other new portions of the bill. No C-SPAN cameras were there, to my knowledge. But we now have an opportunity to talk in the next few hours about what will happen with regard to this amendment.

The President could have asked his friends in the Democratic caucus to support this amendment, which simply requires that the bill comply with his pledge. I hope he did. I hope it can be accepted. But the reality is, this legislation violates not only this pledge but a number of the President's other pledges--for example, the pledge that if you like what you have, you can keep it. Americans all over this country have heard that pledge repeated a number of times. If you are one of the employees who has employer-provided insurance and that insurance happens to fit in the so-called higher insurance packages that are taxed 45 percent by this plan, you are not going to get to keep it. Both CBO and Joint Tax have

made it very clear that you are going to see your health care cut by your employer in order to avoid this tax. Then what is going to happen is your employer might--probably will--give you a little bit more wages to compensate for the cut in your employment benefits. Your net package of compensation will not change in value, but you will get at more of it in wages and a little less in health care. But the kicker is, the wage portion is taxed but the health portion is not so your taxes are going to go up and your net package is going to go down. You are going to have a less-robust health care plan and you will have a lower overall compensation package. Does that comply with the President's promise that if you like what you have, you can keep it? What about the 11 million Americans, I believe it is, who have Medicare Advantage policies today who clearly are going to lose about half of that extra Medicare Advantage benefit under the Medicare cuts in the bill? If they like what they have, can they keep it? No.

What I am asking is simply that the Senate vote to require that the President's pledge in this one case be honored; namely, let's send the bill to the Finance Committee, it can be turned around in the Finance Committee overnight, take out the provisions that impose taxes on people in America earning less than $250,000 as a family or $200,000 as an individual and bring it back to the floor.

You will hear it said this is a killer amendment, that it will kill the bill. It will not kill the bill unless it is necessary in the bill to tax Americans to the tune of the hundreds of billions of dollars that are included in this bill. What it will do is expose that this bill cannot be claimed to be deficit neutral or to even reduce the deficit unless three things happen: the Medicare cuts of hundreds of billions of dollars are imposed; the tax increases of hundreds of billions of dollars are imposed, and the budget gimmicks are implemented.

Let me tell you about the most significant of those budget gimmicks. In order to make it so they could say this bill does not increase taxes or does not increase the deficit, the crafters of the bill have had the taxes go into effect on day one, the Medicare cuts go into effect by day one, but the subsidy program or the spending part of the bill is delayed for 4 years. So we have 10 years of revenue and 6 years of spending.

I, personally, think the way they picked 2014 to be the year in which they implement the spending part of the bill is they said: How many years do we have to delay the spending impact until we can claim there is a deficit-neutral bill? It turned out they had to delay it for 4 years out of the 10. If it took 5, they would have delayed it 5 years. That is a budget gimmick. The reality is we all know if you have the spending go into place on day one and the taxes go into place on day one and the Medicare cuts go into place on day one and took the gimmicks out, this bill would generate a deficit, another promise the President pledged not to do.

There are so many problems with this bill. But most important today, as we will have an opportunity around 6 o'clock, is to vote to at least have the bill comply with the President's pledge.

I ask how much time remains.

Mr. President, I would like to reserve the remainder of my time, and I will hold that until later in the day.

I ask unanimous consent to use the remainder of my time as well as that of the Republican leader.

Mr. President, I would like to respond to a couple of the points made about whether this bill truly does address what the American people are asking it to address. If you ask most people in America what they want out of health care reform--and

they do want reform--they will tell you they want to see control of the skyrocketing cost of health care, particularly the cost of insurance premiums. They would like to see increased access to quality medical care. It has been said a number of times by the proponents of this legislation that this bill accomplishes those objectives, but let's look at exactly what the Congressional Budget Office has told us on the core issue; namely, what is going to happen to your insurance premiums if this bill is passed.

What the Congressional Budget Office very clearly said, which is also backed by 7, 8, 9 or 10 other studies from the private sector as well as the Joint Committee on Taxation and backed by the Chief Actuary for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is that for at least 30 percent and the most vulnerable people in America, if you are looking at whether your insurance premiums are going to go up or down, they are going to go up, not down. If you are a member of the 17 percent of Americans who get your insurance in the individual market, your insurance is going to go way up. In fact, it is going to go up by as much as 10 to 13 percent in addition to what it would have gone up without the bill. If you are someone who gets your business from small groups, from a small group market, your insurance costs are going to go up from 1 to 3 percent. If you are one of the Americans who is able to get your insurance in the large group market, then you can basically expect that the bill will have no significant impact on you. There is a possibility of a slight reduction, but the potential is, it is going to have no impact at all.

What does the bill do? For 17 percent of Americans in the individual market and for 13 percent of Americans in the small group market, it clearly makes your health care premiums go up. For those who are in the remainder of the market, it basically doesn't achieve the objective of health care reform--and at what price? We often hear we need to bend down the cost curve. As I have indicated, this legislation doesn't bend down the cost curve Americans are talking about; namely, the price of their health care or their health insurance. What does it do with regard to the Federal Government? It is going to increase the cost to the Federal Government on health care by $2.5 trillion in a massive new entitlement program. So that price curve is not bent down.

Then what are we left with? Some say the deficit will go down under this bill. There is only one way the deficit can go down under this bill; that is, if you take away the budget gimmicks, massive tax increases, and massive Medicare cuts. But I will just talk about the budget gimmicks because of a lack of time. The spending side of this bill is delayed for 4 years. The taxing and cutting Medicare side of the bill is implemented on day one. So we have 10 years of tax increases to offset 6 years of spending. I think that is the way the number was reached. You have to figure out how many years to delay the spending start before you can say there was a deficit-neutral bill. The reality is, this bill doesn't deal with any of those spending curves.

The matter we will be voting on in a few minutes is my motion that would address the tax side of the bill. All it says is: Let's change the bill to comply with the President's promise; namely, that people making less than $200,000 a year or $250,000 as a couple would not pay more taxes. What we found from the Joint Tax Committee is, 73 million Americans in that category will pay more taxes. In fact, it is not 73 million Americans, it is 73 million American households who will pay more taxes and see a tax increase under this bill and not just a small one. It is massive, hundreds of billions of dollars of new taxes that will be imposed by this bill.

In response, the proponents of this bill say: But this bill is a tax cut. The only way they can say this bill is a tax cut is by looking at the subsidy that is going to be provided as a tax cut. It is called a refundable tax credit, although three-fourths of it, 73 percent to be accurate, goes to people who do not pay taxes. Yet it is called tax relief because it is administered through the Tax Code and is described as a refundable tax credit. The CBO gets this and Americans get it. The Congressional Budget Office says these aren't tax cuts. This is spending, and it is scored that way by the CBO as it analyzes the bill. The only way you can say this bill involves these kinds of tax cuts is if you say that a provision that will simply result in the payment of a check by the Federal Government to an individual who has no tax liability to assist them with their health care costs is a tax cut. Let's accept that.

Even in that case, only 7 percent of Americans qualify for that subsidy, and the rest qualify for the tax increases. To say the President's promise was that I will not cut your taxes more or I will not increase your taxes more than I will cut someone else's taxes and, by the way, I will call a direct subsidy a tax cut, is not exactly what I think the President meant. It is not what the American people thought he meant when he said Americans making less than $200,000 or $250,000 as a family would not pay more taxes under this bill.

My proposal simply says send this bill back to the Finance Committee. They can turn it around quickly, if they want to. Have them take out the provisions that violate the President's pledge on taxes.

I retain the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I will just take 1 minute on this, and then I think we will probably be ready to vote.

Again, I think there are two contrasting amendments here. The Senator from Montana has indicated that my motion, which would simply ask the Finance Committee to make this bill comply with the President's pledge, would somehow kill the bill--that is not at all true--and, secondly, that it would stop the tax relief in the bill that the Senator from Montana has identified, the refundable tax credits. The bottom line is, my amendment does not even address the refundable tax credits. They remain in the bill.

All my amendment does is say: Let's have the President's pledge to the American people honored in this legislation. Let's take out the taxes that 73 million American households will pay under this legislation--hundreds of billions of dollars of new taxes.

Madam President, this is a very simple vote we are going to have. This is a vote that will correct the bill to comply with the President's promise not to tax anyone who makes under $200,000 as an individual or $250,000 as a family.

I think the vote we just had was a unanimous vote for it. It said not to take tax relief out of the bill. We have had plenty of debate about tax relief--whether it is in the bill or not in the bill. This motion says let's fix the bill and take out the hundreds of billions of dollars of taxes that will fall squarely on the middle class.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Rachel Johnson and Amanda Critchfield, two staffers from my office, be granted the privilege of the floor for the remainder of the consideration of H.R. 3590.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to enter into a colloquy with my Republican colleagues for up to 30 minutes, and that following those remarks, the Republican leader be recognized, and that following his remarks Senator Durbin be recognized to speak.

Thank you, Madam President.

Madam President, I would like to speak on health care. The pending business before the Senate right now is actually the Omnibus appropriations bill, which the Senate moved to yesterday, after having started the debate on the health care legislation.

My motion is the pending business on the health care legislation, and so it is that motion I would like to talk about. Before I do so, I would like to again raise objection and concern to the fact that we have moved off the health care legislation debate to the Omnibus appropriations bill, both because I believe we should stay on the health care issue and work it through, but also because we moved to an Omnibus appropriations bill that we have not had an opportunity to review carefully and that raises the spending--I believe for these seven appropriations bills that have been compiled together, the spending is raised by an average of about 12 percent.

Once again, Congress is in a spending free fall, and whether it be the stimulus package or the appropriations for our ordinary operations of government or whether it be the bailouts or the tremendous other aspects of spending pressures and proposals, including the health care legislation we have, there seems to be no restraint in Washington with regard to spending the taxpayers' dollars.

But let's talk for a minute about the motion that was before the Senate before we moved off the health care legislation. It was a motion I raised to object to the tax increases on the middle class in America that are contained in the bill.

The motion I have is very simple. It focuses on the President's pledge. The President pledged that ``no family making less than $250,000 will see their taxes increase--not your income taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.'' The President pledged: You will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime.

So the motion I brought was very simple. It was simply to commit the bill to the Finance Committee to have the Finance Committee go through the 2,074-page bill and remove from the bill the taxes that are in it that apply to the middle class in the United States, as defined by the President here: being those who, as a couple, are making less than $250,000 a year, or those, as an individual, who are making less than $200,000 a year.

What we have seen is that not only has there been delay on reaching that goal but a counterproposal to the amendment has been brought up by the chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Baucus. His counteramendment says:

It is the sense of the Senate that the Senate should reject

any procedural maneuver that would raise taxes on middle

class families, such as a motion to commit the pending

legislation to the Committee on Finance, which is designed to

kill legislation that provides tax cuts for American workers

and families, including the affordability tax credit and the

small business tax credit.

A number of us are here today to talk about the fact that this sense of the Senate is designed to provide cover for those who do not want to vote to protect American taxpayers. It is a meaningless sense of the Senate. We are going to go through the sense of the Senate phrase by phrase.

I would like to ask my colleague from the State of Wyoming if he would like to step in on the first phrase and comment. The first phrase says what the amendment is: ``It is the sense of the Senate . . .'' Would my friend from Wyoming like to comment on what that means?

Exactly. It is very critical to point out, a sense of the Senate has no binding impact. It is just sort of what we think.

Let's go to the next phrase in the amendment: ``that the Senate should reject any procedural maneuver that . . . '' in other words, the Senate should reject a procedural maneuver.

First of all, if the Senate is going to reject a procedural maneuver, that refers to what is happening on the Senate floor, procedural efforts. It does not refer to any substantive measure in the bill. The amendment we had pending--which this is going to be a counterpart to-- specifically refers to the substance of the bill and says the substance of the bill should be changed to take out the taxes, the hundreds of billions of dollars of taxes.

I wonder, before we go to the next phrase, does my colleague from Wyoming care to comment?

I thank my colleague from Wyoming.

The next phrase in the amendment--referring to a procedural motion-- says that ``would raise taxes on middle class families.''

There is nobody bringing a motion to raise taxes. My amendment says it is referring the bill to the Finance Committee to take out the taxes on those who earn less than $200,000 or $250,000.

I note that my colleague from Kansas has arrived.

Would the Senator care to jump in at this point?

I think that is exactly the point we are trying to point out.

The next phrase in the amendment says, ``such as a motion to commit the pending legislation to the Committee on Finance.'' Remember, that is referring to the previous phrase that refers to a motion to increase taxes.

The only thing we need to say about this phrase is, there is a motion to commit the bill to the Finance Committee, but there is not a motion to commit the bill to the Finance Committee to raise taxes. It is to cut taxes.

The next phrase in the amendment is to suggest that there is an effort to try to kill the legislation.

Now, this is my motion. I suppose the implication there is, by trying to take the taxes out of the bill, we are trying to kill the legislation. What does that mean? Well, that means if you take the taxes out of this bill, that the bill does not stand. I assume that is what the amendment is trying to say. The reason that it does not stand is because they are saying the bill does not increase the deficit. Well, the only way you can say that the bill does not increase the deficit is if you do not bring into consideration the nearly $500 billion of cuts in Medicare, the nearly $500 billion of taxes which are being put on the people of this country, and the additional budget gimmicks that do not start counting the spending for 4 years, plus a number of other budget gimmicks.

So what they are saying is, you cannot take out one of the key legs of this bill, which is the way we raise all the money for this massive new spending, or else it will kill the bill. I think it is a pretty interesting fact that they have actually admitted in their own amendment what kind of games are being played.

Yes.

I would say to my colleague from Wyoming that they are right, if this bill is not committed back to the Finance Committee to take those taxes out.

The next phrase in the amendment is--this is referring to a procedural motion, we call it--``that provides tax cuts for American workers and families.''

In other words, they don't want to send it back to committee to have a procedural motion put into place that would stop them from providing tax cuts for American families.

Again, it is rhetoric. Read the motion. The motion does not say to take out any benefits in the bill for anybody in America, unless you consider taxing people to be a benefit to them, but it simply says the taxes in the bill that are imposed on people that the President identified to be in the middle class and would be protected must be removed from the bill.

Yes.

Absolutely. Again, I believe what is going on here with this new amendment is simply an effort to sort of divert attention from the real issue that is before the American people, the motion that was before the Senate, before we were forced by a procedural vote yesterday to move off the bill, and that is the question of the taxes in the bill.

The final phrase refers to a couple of the provisions in the bill that do have some support for improving the tax circumstances for small businesses and the affordability tax credit, meaning the tax credit that will be utilized to implement the subsidies for insurance.

Again, we can say it any number of times, but the fact is the motion they are trying to avoid does not deal with either of these provisions of the bill; it deals with those provisions in the bill that tax the American people.

The Senator is, in fact, right. If you go back and try to get a little perspective on the entire debate, most Americans would agree that we need health care reform, but when they say that, they are talking about the need to control the skyrocketing costs of their health insurance and the costs of medical care, and they are talking about making sure we have real, meaningful access to quality health care in America.

In his statements, the President has many times commented about different parts of that. We remember when he said, If you like what you have, you can keep it. Well, we have seen that is not true, and there will be and have been already amendments to try to address those questions.

Remember when he said it is going to drive down the cost of health care and drive down your health care premiums? Well, we have learned now that it doesn't do that either; it actually drives up the cost of health care insurance and it is going to drive up the cost of medical care in this country.

Remember when he said you will not see your taxes go up? In fact, he pledged that if you were a member of the middle class, whom he defined as those making less than $250,000 as a couple or $200,000 as an individual, you would not see your taxes go up. Well, this motion is focused on that part of the debate. What did we see happen? Instead of letting us fix the bill, send the bill back to the Finance Committee to make the bill comply with the President's pledge, we saw two procedural maneuvers, one to maneuver off the bill, to get off the bill and move to the omnibus appropriations bill; secondly, to put up a bait-and- switch amendment that makes it look as though there is some kind of protection being put in place when, in reality, it is nothing more than a sense of the Senate relating to procedural motions that don't exist. I agree with my colleague from Wyoming and with my colleague from Kansas.

I see we have several of our other colleagues joining us here now. We need to keep the focus on health care and we need to keep the focus on those core parts of the bill that are critical to the American people.

Before I ask my colleague from Kansas if he wishes to make any other comments, I will reiterate the point that my colleague from Wyoming made with regard to the American people's understanding of this issue. In that CNN poll that I believe showed over 60 percent--I think it was 61 percent--of the people in this country who do not want this bill to move forward because they are now understanding what it does, in that same poll, 85 percent of the people in this country believe that this pledge of the President is broken by this bill.

The Senator from Tennessee is right, and he has put his finger on one of the key issues that is going on here in the Senate that sometimes isn't highlighted as closely as I think maybe it should be. That is, while we are talking about the need to make sure this bill does not raise taxes on the middle class, to make sure that the bill does not increase the cost of health insurance premiums, and to make sure that we maintain quality of health care and don't cut Medicaid and Medicare, the real battle here is an effort to create a legacy to essentially put the government in control of the health care economy. That is the debate. That is the legacy. That is the history that those who are pushing the bill are seeking to make, and they are seeking to make it at the expense of those on Medicare, of those of the taxpayers in America; and of the costs, the cost curve that they said they want to drive down, dealing with the cost of our health care.

I see our leader is here.

Yes.

Mr. President, I agree with my colleagues. I think the comment of our leader is very insightful. As you start seeing the evidence mount, and the fact that the American public is understanding the weight of this mounting evidence about this legislation, we could be at the tipping point right now, where it has become so evident that the purpose behind health care reform has not only been missed by this legislation, but it has been made worse--the objectives.

I point to this chart, the cost curve. When you talk to most Americans about what they believe the purpose behind health care reform is, the vast majority say it is to control the skyrocketing costs. Well, those who are promoting the bill say it does that, it bends that cost curve. Which cost curve? Is it the size of government? That goes up $2.5 trillion in the first full 10 years of implementation. The cost of health care--the CMS report came out, it is about the 10th report, but this is from the actuary of the Medicare and Medicaid system who analyzed this independently, and he says health care costs are going to go up, not down.

The CBO said the cost of insurance is going to go up, not down. The Federal deficit--they say the bill doesn't make the Federal deficit go up. In fact, regarding that, the only way they can claim that is if they implement their budget gimmicks of delaying implementation of the bill for 4 years on the spending side, while raising taxes now, or if they raise hundreds of billions in taxes and cut Medicare by hundreds of billions of dollars.

These things are starting to be understood by the American people. That is why I believe we are starting to see those kinds of answers in the polls. It is not just the CNN poll, as the leader knows. Many polls are showing the American people get it.

Yes.

I thank my colleague. Mr. President, how much time remains?

I thank the Chair.

No, it does not. I appreciate the comments of my colleague from Florida, all my colleagues on the Senate floor today.

As the Senator from Texas indicated, one of the items of business before us today is my motion to commit this bill to the Finance Committee to take out the taxes that the President pledged would not be in there. The President pledged that no one who makes less than $250,000 as a family or $200,000 as an individual will pay any taxes under this bill. Yet in the very first 10 years, there is almost $500 billion of those taxes, a huge portion of which falls on people who are in that category.

As has been indicated, the real implementation of the bill on the spending side does not happen until 2014. If you count the amount of taxes that start when the spending starts, it is about $1.2 trillion of new taxes. Really, the only thing that is transparent--because this was all crafted behind closed doors--the only thing that is transparent is the gimmick.

The President said, as the Senator from Texas pointed out, that he would not let a bill come across his desk and get a signature if it spent more than $900 billion. First of all, you have to say: Wow, why do we need almost $1 trillion of new spending? But when they went behind closed doors and came up with this bill, it turns out it cost around $2 trillion or $2.5 trillion.

How did they make it meet the $900 billion test? They just said: Look, let's delay its implementation for long enough that the number comes out to under $900 billion. That happened to be the year 2014. So if you don't count the first 4 years and only count 6 of the 10, then in this budget window we are working in you can get your number. It is just remarkable.

Before I ask the Senator from South Dakota about his perspective, because I know he is working with the Senator from Texas on an amendment to try to correct this gimmick, I would like to respond to one quick point I know our opposition on the other side has continued to make, and that is they actually say there are no tax increases in the bill.

How do they say that? Here is the way they say it. There are subsidies in the bill that are provided to people with low income who do not have adequate access to insurance. Those subsidies total about $400 billion in the bill in the first 10 years, which is really only 6. They count those subsidies as a tax cut. The technical term given to them is a ``refundable tax credit,'' although $300 billion of those subsidies do not go to taxpayers. The people who receive them do not have a tax liability. But then they offset those subsidies against the taxes the rest of America will pay and say, therefore, there are no taxes in the bill.

I think that is another form of gimmickry. I ask my colleague from South Dakota what his perspective is on the types of gimmicks we are seeing and whether the American people should insist that these kinds of things be removed from the bill.

Madam President, I wish to speak on the Omnibus appropriations bills, to which we just moved, as well as to return and make some comments on the health care legislation from which we just retreated.

First, regarding the Omnibus appropriations bill, I am very concerned about the fact that, as my motion is pending on the health care bill, dealing with one of the more important issues; namely--the President's pledge to make sure no one in America who makes less than $250,000 as a couple or $200,000 as an individual will be required to pay for the unbelievably high cost of this bill.

While we were facing that amendment, the majority has decided they will shift from the bill--I understand that is a tough vote to take because the bill contains so many hundreds of billions of dollars of new tax increases that the American people squarely in the middle class will be called upon to share. We should not have shifted from the health care debate to move to the Omnibus appropriations bill, not only because of the importance of the issues we are dealing with on the health care legislation but because of the Omnibus appropriations bill itself.

This Congress cannot control its appetite for spending. The appropriations bill we see before us now is called omnibus because it packages together seven of the original appropriations bills this Congress has been working on--and we are studying them to find out the details. But from the information I have received, the average rate of growth in spending in this bill overall--over those seven bills--is somewhere between 12 percent and 14 percent growth in

Federal spending.

This Congress has generated a $1.4 trillion deficit in less than 12 months. For next year, we want to see Federal Government grow by another 12 to 14 percent. That doesn't count the new stimulus package spending that is being talked about, and it doesn't count the spending--that almost $2.5 trillion in new spending--contemplated in the health care legislation, and any number of other pieces of legislation waiting in the queue to come before the Congress.

At some point, fiscal restraint has to return to Washington, DC. We have not seen it here for far too long. I know it is very tempting to just say we can pile the debt on our children and grandchildren and spend what we want to spend today. There are those who say the only way we can have a strong economy is to spend ourselves into prosperity. Yet it is not the government that creates jobs. It is the formation of capital, the investment by small businesses and entrepreneurs in new ideas and products, and the expansion of business in the United States that will allow us to sustain a strong, healthy growth in our economy.

If we continue to rely on borrowing money from the future in order to

spend ourselves into prosperity, we will continue to see our national debt mount to a point where it cannot be sustained. We are already at a $12 trillion national debt, a national debt that is projected to double over the next 10 years to $24 trillion. I object to moving off the health care bill, where we had such critical amendments and motions pending. I object to moving to a bill that will now increase the spending of the Federal Government by 12 to 14 percent.

Let me shift for a moment and talk more about the health care bill. The motion I had brought--the pending motion before the Senate--or it was before we shifted off the health care bill--was a simple motion that would have required the bill to be committed to the Finance Committee, with instructions to the Finance Committee to take out those parts of the bill that impose a tax increase on people in the United States who earn less than $250,000 as a couple or $200,000 as individuals.

Very straightforward, it is exactly what the President pledged he would do, on multiple occasions, to the American people. Yet we have shown there are almost $500 billion of taxes in the first 10 years of this bill. If you look at the real first 10 years after the spending has kicked in--the 2014 to 2023 time period--it is almost $1.2 trillion in new taxes, a huge portion of which falls on the middle class. The response has been that actually this bill is a net tax cut. How can that be? The only way it can be claimed to be a tax cut is if you take the subsidies in the bill--about $400 billion worth of them--which are used to provide people at lower income categories, who don't have adequate access to insurance, with a subsidy toward the purchase of insurance and if you call that a tax cut. In the bill, it is actually called a renewable tax credit--even though $300 billion of the $400 billion goes to individuals who do not pay taxes, do not have a tax liability, and it is scored by the CBO as spending, not tax relief. Even if you were willing to count that money as tax relief, then you would have a situation in which 7 percent of the Americans would be receiving these government subsidies, while the remainder would be paying the price--paying the taxes.

To put some numbers on that, out of 282 million Americans who have insurance in America today--or will have in 2019--only 19 million would receive this tax credit being talked about. Remember, the vast majority of them get what is called a tax credit, but it is a government subsidy going to those who have not generated a tax liability, and 157 million of the 282 million would be people who get health insurance through their employer and will not be eligible for that health insurance.

After you do all the numbers and take out the taxpayers who make less than $250,000 a year as a couple or $200,000 as an individual, the bottom line is, after all those who are subsidized are taken out, there are still 42 million Americans in the middle class, as defined by the President, who will pay hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes.

My amendment would simply require that those taxes be taken out of the bill, the President's pledge be honored in the bill, and the bill then be put into a posture to return to the floor for further debate.

There is one other item I would like to talk about. One of the things that is often said by the opponents of my amendment is that this bill actually drives down the spending curve.

When they say that, I wonder what curve they are talking about. Are they talking about the size of government? No. The size of government under this bill grows up by $2.5 trillion. Are they talking about the cost of health care? No. The CBO study indicated very clearly that at best Americans will not see the cost of their health care go down. For those in the most needy categories, the 17 percent of Americans who are in the individual market, their health insurance will actually go up by 10 to 13 percent.

Are they talking about the Federal deficit? Actually, CBO says the deficit will go down. That is not the size of the government, but that is the size of the debt or spending each year. But how does it go down? It goes down only if you use the budget gimmicks that I will outline in just a minute or if you include all the taxes, the hundreds of billions of dollars of taxes that are in the bill, and if you count the Medicare cuts that are in the bill.

Take out any one of those--the nearly $500 billion of Medicare cuts, the nearly $500 billion of taxes, or the budget gimmicks--and this bill does not drive the deficit curve down.

What are the budget gimmicks--and I will close with this--what are the budget gimmicks about which I am talking? There are a number of them. The biggest is that the proponents of the bill do not count the first 4 years of spending. If you look at the 10-year spending cycle of the first 10 years of the first part of this bill, the taxes go into effect on the first day the bill is law, on January 1 of next year. The spending does not start until the year 2014.

So we have 10 years of taxes, 10 years of Medicare cuts, and 6 years of spending. That is how they are able to say it balances out. If they started the spending and the taxing on the same day and did not give themselves a 4-year run of tax collection until they start the actual implementation of the spending part of the bill, it would drive the deficit down also.

All we need to do in this Senate is to slow down, refer the bill back to committee, have them fix the provisions on taxes, and then work on some of the common ground we know we have that will help bend the spending curve down and will help improve the situation for Americans across this country who are calling for us to control the skyrocketing costs of health care.

It is my hope that as the Senate goes through the next few weeks of debate on this legislation, as well as the other legislation we bring before us, we will remember our children and our grandchildren and all Americans today who are calling for the kind of true health care reform that will truly address the kind of fiscal responsibility and the kind of cost containment that we should be seeking in this Chamber.

I yield back my time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak, as well as engage in a colloquy with several of my colleagues.

Thank you very much, Mr. President. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the issue of taxes and jobs today as we focus on the critical legislation in front of us.

I have proposed an amendment, actually a motion, to commit this bill back to the Finance Committee to help us honor the President's pledge on taxes. As we have discussed now for more than a week, notwithstanding all of the claims that are being made about this legislation, one of the irrefutable facts is that it grows the government dramatically. If you take the first full 10 years of spending, not counting the first 4 years that are not included in the spending--in other words, they are delayed in order to make the numbers look better--if you count the first full 10 years of implementation of this bill, it will result in $2.5 trillion of new Federal spending. It will grow the Federal Government by that much.

Repeatedly, President Obama has told the American people he will not allow them to be taxed--those whom he describes as the middle class--in order to pay for this huge new increase in Federal spending.

To use President Obama's own words:

I can make a firm pledge . . . no family making less than

$250,000 will see their taxes increase . . . not your income

taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes,

not any of your taxes . . . you will not see any of your

taxes increase one single dime.

Yet what does this bill do? It includes $493 billion of new taxes in just the first 10 years. If you use that full 10-year timeframe--that timeframe that starts after the 4 years of spending that have been suppressed in order to change the numbers and the calculations on the bill--the total number in that 10-year window is $1.2 trillion of new taxes.

The question is, Do these taxes fall only on the wealthy or do they fall squarely on those in the middle class? The answer is the large majority of them fall on the middle class. In fact, the Joint Tax Committee has indicated that by 2019, individuals earning between $50,000 and $200,000 would, on average, see a tax increase of $595,000. Families earning between $75,000 and $200,000 would, on average, see a tax increase of $670,000.

My colleague from Montana, the chairman of the Finance Committee, has argued that there is actually a net tax cut in the bill. How do we get to those numbers? Based on a Joint Committee on Taxation report, of the $394 billion that the government will spend on what are called tax credits--that is the tax cut that my colleague is talking about--$288 billion of those $394 billion in credits will go to people who pay no taxes today.

If you think about it, how can it be a tax cut if the money is spent from the Federal Treasury and sent to--or to somebody on behalf of--a person who is not paying taxes in the first place? You can call it a subsidy. You can call it a credit if you would like. I know the words used in the bill are a ``refundable tax credit,'' but the reality is it is nothing other than pure Federal spending. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office classifies this kind of benefit as government spending.

I will yield on the Senator's time.

There is a payroll tax. There is.

Reclaiming my time, although people do pay a lot of sales taxes--not Federal sales taxes, by the way--and although people do pay a lot of other types of taxes, they will pay penalties and fees--in fact, under this bill they will be paying a lot more taxes. The reality is I don't think that is what President Obama was talking about. When he made his pledge, I think his words were: ``You will not see any of your taxes go up.'' The bottom line is you can't say, well, if you offset this tax and you don't count the sales tax or if you add in the sales tax to counteract it--that is not what the President was talking about.

Once again, as Joint Tax has said, by 2019 individuals making between $50,000 and $200,000 on average would see a tax increase of $590,000, and families making between $75,000 and $200,000 would see a net increase on average of $670,000.

Let's go to the next chart.

I note my colleague from Tennessee is here. If he would like to step in at any time, please feel free. I just have two other charts to show, and then I will toss the floor to the Senator. I see he has, I think, a question brewing.

In the analysis that was done by the Joint Tax Committee, by 2019, these people whose taxes I have just described who are squarely in the middle class, there will be at least 73 million American households-- that is not individuals, that is households--73 million American households earning below the $200,000 that will face a tax increase. Sometimes the proponents of this bill say, well, that doesn't net out the subsidies we are providing to some of them. If you net out the subsidies--and I don't think that is necessarily an argument, but if you do net out the subsidies--it is still at least 42 million American households that will see their taxes increase under this legislation.

How can that comply with the President's promise? All the motion I have brought does is say to commit this bill to the Finance Committee and make the bill fit the President's pledge. The President pledged that people in the middle class, which he defined as families making less than $250,000 or individuals making less than $200,000, would not see their taxes go up.

With that, again, I see my colleague from Tennessee is ready to join in with me, and I would ask if he has any comments or questions to raise.

Yes. As a matter of fact, in my own mind, I distinguish between taxes on the American people and fees that will be charged to companies and businesses in the private sector that are also being passed on to the American people. All of those will occur.

One interesting clarification or explanation with regard to this refundable tax credit that is talked about so often: it isn't actually refunded to the taxpayer, as I understand it, or to the individual who doesn't pay taxes but is receiving the credit. It is paid directly to the insurance company, as I understand it. So even though some people could be claimed to be paying less taxes by this argument, because some of those who receive the subsidy will get a greater subsidy than they will a tax increase, the fact is even they still get a tax increase and even they still pay their taxes at the higher level. It is just that some of them will get a subsidy that will help to offset that.

I thank my colleague. We will see State taxes as well as Federal taxes going up.

Senator Johanns has joined us as well. Before I ask him to join in with questions and comments, I want to make one other clarification.

Again, we have the President's pledge up here on the chart. The motion I have offered simply says: Make the bill comply with the President's pledge. If there are no new taxes, the bill doesn't have to be changed if we pass this motion. If there are, it does.

Remember, I don't think that when the President made this pledge, he was saying he will not increase taxes on a net basis. In other words, I didn't hear the President say: I won't raise your taxes higher than I would cut them in some other areas. He specifically didn't say he would count subsidies being paid out to those who do not pay income taxes as an offset to any tax increases he wanted to raise somewhere else. The

President didn't get into all these nuances. He said he was not going to raise taxes on the middle class. The fact is, the middle class will see huge tax increases under this bill.

Before I toss the floor to my colleague, I will say this: CBO estimates that only 7 percent of all Americans will receive any of these subsidies. Yet, specifically, out of the 282 million Americans with some type of health insurance, only 19 million of them will be eligible for the tax credit for their health insurance. The rest of the millions of Americans are going to be the ones paying those taxes. That is how it ends up. At minimum--and we are still going through the bill, and this number is growing--at least 42 million people who make less than $200,000--and, frankly, far less--are going to be paying a lot more taxes. That is the reason for the motion.

I yield to my colleague, Senator Johanns.

Mr. President, I will add some statistics that I was reading while my colleagues were commenting. If you take out that CBO report, which is what actually analyzes this on a nonpartisan basis, the impact of these Medicaid expenditures, not including the proposed increase we heard about overnight, it clearly says:

CBO estimates that State spending on Medicaid would

increase by about $25 billion over the 2010-2019 period as a

result of the provisions affecting coverage in table 3. That

estimate reflects States' flexibility to make programmatic

and other budgetary changes to Medicaid and CHIP.

That is the statistic my colleague from Tennessee was looking for.

Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for their comments.

How much time remains on our side?

I will make a couple of other comments, and I will allow my colleagues to wrap up with their final comments. I want to raise an additional issue.

On this chart, we show what is going to happen with the IRS. Right now, the CBO estimate indicates that because the IRS is in charge of the implementation of so many of the mandates and other requirements in this bill and because of the new taxes that will be forced onto the American people, there will need to be an expansion of the IRS. The CBO says that could mean as high as an additional $10 billion at the IRS.

If there are no new taxes in this bill or no new mandates in the bill, if there is no increased role of the Federal Government in the management of the health care economy in this bill, why do we need to have the size of the IRS, which is a $12 billion institution today--why does it need to grow to almost double, up to $22 billion?

The point is, the motion I have made is very simple and straightforward. We can argue back and forth about what the President said or whether this bill has tax cuts or tax increases in it or whether, in the net result, it does one thing or another.

The bottom line is, with regard to about 157 million Americans who get their health insurance through their employer, by 2019, they are not going to be eligible for these tax credits people are talking about. They are going to be paying increased taxes.

All this motion does is protect those 42 million people we were talking about who are going to see their taxes go up; 42 million households will see their taxes go up.

If the other side is right and what we are talking about does not exist in the bill, then this motion should be harmless because all the motion says is commit the bill to the Finance Committee and tell the Finance Committee to take out the taxes that impact the middle class.

I ask if either of my colleagues from Nebraska or Tennessee would like to make any concluding remarks.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

No, I will ask a question later, then.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 20 minutes.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Before I begin my remarks, I would like to yield a couple minutes to my friend and colleague from Oklahoma who would like to respond to the question that has been raised as to whether

the Republicans are presenting reliable, meaningful, and comprehensive alternatives.

I thank my friend from Oklahoma because it is frustrating sometimes to have it continuously said that there are no alternatives being put forward when we have for years promoted major and comprehensive alternatives to the kinds of issues Americans are asking us to address today.

What is it that Americans are asking? I have said this many times on the floor. Americans are asking us to find a pathway to lower health care premiums and costs and to increase access to better quality health care. Yet what is it that we are being faced with in this legislation? This bill drives up the cost of health care, not down, contrary to claims that have been made on the floor repeatedly; raises taxes by hundreds of billions of dollars; cuts Medicare by hundreds of billions of dollars; grows the government by $2.5 trillion; forces the needy uninsured--it doesn't give them a pathway toward subsidized insurance or any access to insurance but instead forces them into a failing Medicaid Program; imposes damaging unfunded mandates on the struggling States; leaves millions of Americans still uninsured; and establishes massive government controls over our health care economy. And we wonder why we cannot get engaged in a meaningful bipartisan solution here with this kind of heavy-handed approach being insisted upon.

When I talk about the fact that it raises the costs or the size of government, often the response is: No, this bill doesn't raise the size of government, it doesn't increase the size of government, it is balanced. Actually, CBO has issued a report that says it reduces the deficit. Well, the fact is it grows the size of government over a true 10-year period by $2.5 trillion. It does provide some increased taxes-- a lot--and it does cut Medicare. By doing so, it does reach an equilibrium, according to CBO, with regard to its impact on the deficit. But let's not mistake this deficit with the size of the government. This bill will grow the size of the government and the reach of the government by $2.5 trillion.

With regard to the question as to whether it truly impacts the deficit, I think most Americans have already heard that there are some budget gimmicks here. You could not ever claim this bill doesn't increase the deficit unless you had all the taxes I am going to talk about in a minute and unless you had all of the Medicare cuts we have been talking about for the last week, and unless you had the budget gimmicks that are in the bill. The budget gimmicks are clearly depicted right here.

Look at the first 4 years of this bill on the spending side: very little, if any, spending. The actual implementation of the spending part of the bill doesn't happen until 2014, but all the taxes start in the first year, and all the Medicare cuts come into place in the first year, and we start seeing the offset side of the bill run for a full 10 years. It is going to be easy to say you have balanced out spending and taxing if you don't count the spending for the first 4 years. But if you look at that first true 10-year period of time, it is a growth of the government by $2.5 trillion.

What I am here today to talk about is my motion that is on the floor to do one very simple thing: to commit this bill back to the Finance Committee and have the Finance Committee make the bill comply with the President's pledge to the American people about taxes. And what was his pledge, repeated many times across this country? In the President's own words:

I can make a firm pledge . . . no family making less than

$250,000 will see their taxes increase . . . not your income

taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes,

not any of your taxes . . . you will not see any of your

taxes increase one single dime.

That was the rhetoric. That was the pledge. What is the reality of the bill? In its first 10 years, the bill raises taxes by $495 billion. If you take that 10-year window that starts in 2014 where you are comparing spending and taxing at the same time, the total of taxes in that 10-year window is $1.2 trillion of new taxes, a huge proportion of which falls squarely on the backs of the middle class whom President Obama has defined here to be those earning less than $250,000, and that is per family. He said under $200,000 per individual.

What are some of these taxes we are talking about? First, there is the excise tax on high-cost premium plans. One might say, wait a minute, that is a tax on companies, employers who provide very high quality insurance to their employees. It is an ingenious way--it is technically written that way--but it is an ingenious way to actually increase the cost, the tax base, of the workers and not the employer. Let's see the first chart. The way this works is the government will now say to an employer: You cannot provide health insurance to your employees that is worth more than a certain amount. Most employees who get health insurance--and that is most employees in the country who get health insurance from their employer--get wages and health care as a part of their total employment package.

I picked an example of a woman who receives $50,000 in wages and let's assume a $10,000 employer-provided health care benefit. The government is now going to say wait a minute, to her employer; we are going to tax you if you provide that health care benefit on such a robust level. CBO and Joint Tax have told us that the reaction of the vast majority of all employers is going to be to reduce the health care benefit down below the level that gets taxed. They are not going to reduce the employee's overall benefit, however, their overall employment package. So let's pick a number. Let's say they reduce this $10,000 down to $7,000. They will increase the wages by $3,000 and the employee's total compensation package stays the same: $60,000, with one difference. Now that extra $3,000 is wages instead of health care, and it gets taxed. And that way the individuals in this country see their health care values go down. Their total compensation package stays the same, but then gets also reduced as it is taxed, and our Joint Tax Committee and CBO have told us that 84 percent of this $149 billion new tax is going to be borne by those with incomes under $200,000.

That is one way this bill ingeniously gets at the pocketbook of those making less money than the $200,000 or $250,000 as a family that the President talks about.

What is the next way? Medical deductions. I think everybody in America who itemizes deductions knows about the first line that says you can itemize your medical expenses, and to the extent they exceed 7.5 percent, you can deduct those medical expenses. So people who have a large proportion of their income represented by medical costs get a break in the Tax Code for that deduction. Well, that break is now going to be smaller under this bill because the level of where you are able to

get it is no longer going to be 7.5 percent, it will be 10 percent. And as I indicated, that 84 percent of the excise tax is going to fall on people making less than $200,000 a year. Ninety-nine percent of the medical deduction restriction will fall on people making less than $200,000 a year; as a matter of fact, making a lot less than $200,000 per year.

Then what about the next one? The next major tax in the bill is the Medicare payroll tax. This one has been presented to the American public as a tax on rich people. It starts out primarily impacting people at the higher levels, but at the outset, it will already hit 345,000 Americans, and it is not adjusted--I think most people understand how the alternative minimum tax works today. It is not adjusted for inflation properly. So over time, the payroll tax itself is going to increasingly hit more and more people in that income category under $200,000.

There has been some analysis on these three provisions in the bill. Joint Tax has indicated that by the year 2019, at least--and I say at least because we are only talking about three provisions in this bill right now, and there are more--73 million American households--not individuals, households--73 million American households earning below $200,000 that are going to face a tax increase.

Some have responded to this by saying, Wait a minute. Our bill actually cuts taxes and you are not characterizing this fairly. The tax cuts they are talking about are primarily a $394 billion government subsidy for purchase of health insurance, a subsidy that will be administered through the Tax Code. What they don't tell you is that $288,000 of this so-called tax cut is nothing other than a direct government payment to those who don't pay any taxes today anyway. It is not reducing their tax liability; they have no tax liability. It is a direct government subsidy, and CBO says so. It is scored by CBO not as tax relief; it is scored by CBO as direct government spending. To characterize that as tax relief I believe is inaccurate.

Moreover, even if it were true tax relief, is that what the President was saying, that I won't raise your taxes more than I will lower someone else's or was he saying to the American people that he would not raise taxes on people who are making less than $200,000 a year, or $250,000 as a family? I believe it is inherently obvious what the President was saying. And to say now that we are cutting somebody else's taxes so we can raise yours does not comply with the President's pledge.

To give another couple of perspectives on this in terms of numbers, when all is said and done, 7 percent of Americans will get this so- called tax relief that is, in reality, direct Federal spending, and the rest of Americans--specifically, those who don't fall in that category--will get the tax increases. Out of 282 million Americans with some kind of health insurance today, only 19 million of them will be helped by this subsidy. The rest are going to fall into that category of those who get to share in the burden by seeing their taxes increase.

But let's say we give credit for all of these arguments and say, All right, we will let you claim that all of this spending is tax relief. What is the true story then? Even if you give that argument, which is not valid, by 2019, there will still be at least 42 million American households earning below $200,000 that will face a tax increase. This is information from the Joint Committee on Taxation.

In fact, the data there is rather interesting. Joint Tax data indicates that by 2019, individuals earning between $50,000 and $200,000 on average will see an increase in their taxes of $593. Families earning between $75,000 and $200,000 will see on average a net tax increase of $670.

So what does my amendment do? My amendment says very simply that the bill will be committed back to the Finance Committee and that the provisions in the bill that violate the President's pledge should be removed. Simply make the bill comply with the President's pledge. The President, frankly, shouldn't sign this bill unless this amendment is passed and implemented, because that is the direction we need to go.

Once again, the President's pledge is that no family making less than $250,000 is going to see their taxes increased.

There is further information available about this, though. I recently sent a letter to the Joint Tax Committee. I recently sent a letter to the Joint Tax Committee asking them about whether there were other provisions in the bill other than these three--the reason I talked about these three taxes is because those three taxes have been analyzed by Joint Tax and it is Joint Tax that is telling us what they are going to do.

In response to my letter saying are there more taxes in the bill than those you have analyzed, the answer has come back, yes, and below, they say, is a list of the provisions that they have not previously distributed and that have statutory incidence on individuals with those who fall below the income threshold which has been defined already. What are these taxes? There is a confirmed definition of medical expenses for health savings accounts. In other words, the reduction of benefits in health savings accounts will have an impact, and I believe that impact is about $1.5 billion.

The increased penalty for nonqualified health savings account distributions and limitations on flexible spending arrangements will raise almost $15 billion. Most of this--although we don't have the data yet from Joint Tax--most of this comes from families below the income tax threshold, as well as the 5 percent excise tax on cosmetic surgery and similar procedures and the individual mandate in the bill that will force all Americans to purchase insurance or the IRS will come and collect a fee from them.

I don't have the chart here that shows what will happen with the IRS, but think for a minute. The current size of the IRS is about $12 billion in terms of the appropriations we give them to perform their functions. CBO says that if this bill passes, there will be so much additional business for the IRS in monitoring health care and the new plans and programs in the bill, there will have to be at least another $5 billion and maybe a $10 billion increase in the size of the IRS just so it can implement its enforcement responsibilities under this bill.

The bottom line is that the President of the United States, Barack Obama, has made a pledge. It was that pledge, among a number of others--such as ``if you like what you have, you can keep it''--that caused us to see a strong low-confidence level by the American people, and maybe it is time for Congress to truly dig in and build a strong health care reform package. That pledge is being squarely broken by this bill.

Again, all we are asking in this amendment is to send the bill back to the Finance Committee and have the Finance Committee make the bill conform to the President's pledge. What that will mean to the American people is that in the first 10 years of the bill, just under $500 billion of new taxes will not be imposed, and over the true first 10- year period, when the spending starts kicking in, $1.2 trillion worth of taxes will not be imposed.

There are many other issues with this bill that we have seen discussed. There is the question of whether it truly increases the cost of premiums in health care. Virtually 10 out of 11 studies say that it does. The CBO report says that, clearly, for 30 percent of Americans, it does it in major ways, and for the other 60 percent, the impact is marginal, or the status quo.

As we move forward, some of these big problems with the bill need to be fixed. My motion focuses on taxes. We have debated Medicare for some time now. We need to talk about the unfunded mandates on the States. We need to talk about the impact on premiums in health care because we don't want to be passing legislation that drives up the cost of health care at a time when that is the primary purpose for people calling for health care reform.

I urge my colleagues to let us step down for a moment from the intensity of the debate, commit this bill to the Finance Committee, and let's, on a bipartisan basis, work out some of the solutions to these problems and do so in a way that does not result in such a massive growth of our Federal Government, such a massive increase in taxes, such a massive unfunded deficit on the

States, and all for no control of cost or health care premiums.

With that, I yield back the remainder of the time I requested.

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the Medicare Advantage Program again. It is one that is facing nearly $120 billion in cuts under the Democratic health care bill.

Currently, there are nearly 11 million seniors enrolled in Medicare Advantage, which is about one out of every four seniors in the United States. In my home State of Idaho, that is about 60,000 people or 27 percent of all Medicare beneficiaries in the State.

Medicare Advantage is an extremely popular program. In fact, it is probably the most popular and fastest growing part of Medicare. A 2007 study reported high overall satisfaction with the Medicare Advantage Program. Eighty-four percent of the respondents said they were happy with their coverage, and 75 percent would recommend Medicare Advantage to their friends or family members.

But despite the popularity of the program, the massive cuts in the Reid bill will result in most seniors losing benefits or coverage or both under Medicare Advantage.

I have a chart in the Chamber which I have shown before. You cannot see the individual States too well on it from this distance at this size, but you can see the coloring on the United States in this chart.

If you live in a State that is red, deep red, or the pinkish color-- which is almost every State in the Union--then you are going to see your benefits cut under Medicare Advantage under this bill.

Why am I bringing it up again? We have already had a vote on it. In fact, we have had two votes on it. The majority has insisted on keeping these cuts in the bill. The reason I am bringing it up again is because, as we have combed through this 2,074-page bill, we have found out there is a provision in the Reid bill that would protect Medicare Advantage benefits for some people in the United States, for just a few in this country.

During the Finance Committee markup, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida advocated on behalf of Medicare Advantage and the beneficiaries in his home State of Florida. Subsequently, during closed-door negotiations, the legislative language was added to protect those beneficiaries.

This is interesting because one of the responses to us, as we have tried to stop the imposition of these cuts to Medicare, has been this bill will not cut any Medicare benefits. Well, if not, then why does Florida need a special exemption for its citizens? If not, why not support the McCain amendment that would give the same protection to all Medicare Advantage beneficiaries that the bill gives to primarily just a few in Florida?

Specifically, section 3201(g) of the Reid bill, very deep in the bill on page 894, has a $5 billion provision drafted to prevent the drastic cuts in the Medicare Advantage Program from impacting those enrollees who reside primarily in three counties in Florida: Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach. It seems unfair that taxpayers would foot a $5 billion provision that provides protection for only some of the Medicare Advantage beneficiaries. It certainly proves there are cuts to Medicare Advantage benefits in this bill; again, benefits that one out of four beneficiaries in America receives--one of the fastest, if not the fastest, growing parts of Medicare. Instead of preferential treatment for some, why not extend these same protections for Medicare Advantage to all beneficiaries under Medicare? I know the 60,000 Medicare beneficiaries on Medicare Advantage in Idaho, my home State, want and deserve that same level of protection.

That is why I am here to support the McCain motion to commit, and that is what his motion to commit would accomplish, very plain and very simple.

The McCain motion would extend this grandfathering provision to all beneficiaries in the Medicare Advantage Program so all seniors in this popular and successful program could maintain that same level of benefits that today they enjoy under the current law. Every senior in the Medicare Advantage Program deserves to keep these critical extra benefits, which include things such as dental protection, vision coverage, preventive and wellness services, flu shots, and much more.

In fact, most people who are not on Medicare Advantage in the Medicare Program have to buy supplemental insurance to get access to this coverage. Those in Medicare Advantage, which is one of the reasons it is such a popular program, have the opportunity to get it through their Medicaid services. Why is Medicare Advantage so opposed? Well, some say it is because of the extra costs, except that the extra costs in Medicare Advantage are returned to the government or shared with the beneficiaries. I think the reason might be because Medicare Advantage is one part of the Medicare Program that we have successfully been able to turn over to the private markets for operation. Interestingly, when the private sector gets involved in administering this part of the Medicare Program, the Medicare beneficiaries get more benefits, and it becomes the most popular program in Medicare.

I know my colleague from Pennsylvania, Senator Casey, has filed an amendment to protect the 864,000 Medicare Advantage beneficiaries in his home State, and I would expect strong bipartisan support for the McCain motion to commit, since I think every Senator representing their constituents in their State wants to see this kind of protection. At the end, the McCain motion to commit is simply an amendment that will protect nearly 11 million seniors today enrolled in the Medicare Advantage Program and help to keep the President's promise when he said if you like what you have, you can keep it. If this bill is not amended in the way it is being proposed to be amended by Senator McCain's amendment, 11 million Americans are not going to be able to keep what they have in the Medicare Program, and that is just a start on the impact of what people in America are going to see under this legislation in terms of a reduction of their benefits and the quality of services they have access to.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I yield the floor.

Madam President, I have a motion at the desk which I wish to call up and ask for its immediate consideration.

Thank you, Madam President.

As the motion which has just been read clearly states, this motion would be to commit this bill to the Finance Committee for the Finance Committee to do one simple thing, and that is to make the bill conform to President Barack Obama's pledge to the American people about health care reform and who would pay for health care reform.

In a speech he has given in a number of different places, President Obama has very clearly stated:

I can make a firm pledge . . . no family making less than

$250,000 will see their taxes increase . . . not your income

taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes,

not any of your taxes. You will not see any of your taxes

increase one single dime.

All this motion does is to commit this bill to the Finance Committee to have the Finance Committee assure that its provisions comply with this pledge.

Now, why would we want to do that? I think most Americans are very aware today that this bill comes at a huge price. There are $2.5 trillion of new Federal spending, $2.5 trillion of new Federal spending that is offset, if you will, by about $500 billion worth of cuts in Medicare and $493 billion worth of cuts in the first 10 years are tax increases, $1.2 trillion of tax increases in the first real 10 years of the full implementation of the bill. There is no question but that much of the tax increase that is included in this bill to pay for this massive increase in Federal spending will come squarely from people in the United States who make less than $250,000 as a family or less than $200,000 as individuals.

All we need to do is to go through this bill to see that by the analysis we have made so far, it appears that at least 42 million households in America will pay a portion of this $1.2 trillion in new taxes, people who are under these income levels to whom President Obama made the pledge.

I will have a greater opportunity tomorrow to discuss this motion in more detail. Tonight I just had a few minutes to make the introduction and to call up the motion, and we will then get into a fuller discussion on how this bill provides a heavy tax burden on the middle class of this country in direct violation of the President's pledge.

So as I conclude, I would simply say this is a very simple amendment. We can debate about whether the bill does or does not increase taxes--I think that is absolutely clear--on those in the middle class. But all the motion would do is to commit this bill to the Finance Committee to have the Finance Committee make the bill comport with the President's pledge.

I will conclude by just reading his pledge one more time. The President, in his words, said:

I can make a firm pledge . . . no family making less than

$250,000 will see their taxes increase . . . not your income

taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes,

not any of your taxes. . . . you will not see any of your

taxes increase one single dime.

That is what this motion accomplishes.

With that, I yield the floor.

That is fine.

Madam President, I am here to speak in support of the Gregg amendment. I rise in support of my colleague's amendment because it would prohibit using Medicare cuts in the Democratic health care bill to pay for new government spending.

It is interesting, as you listen to the debate--in fact, I was interested to hear my colleague from North Dakota say the Republican amendments would increase the deficit. They would only do that if you assume all of the spending in the bill, which is also opposed by the Republicans.

One of the key parts of the debate that I think needs to be emphasized here is, among all of the other things this bill does, when you have the first full 10 years of real implementation of the bill, it is a $2.5 trillion increase in Federal spending, paid for with hundreds of billions--in fact, trillions in new taxes and cuts in Medicare.

The purpose of the Gregg amendment is to require that when we do achieve savings in Medicare, instead of it being used to just transfer into a new government entitlement program, making Medicare less solvent, we use the savings for Medicare itself.

In the first 10 years of their bill, we will see cuts in Medicare by $465 billion, every dollar of which will simply be transferred over to a massive new Federal entitlement program. If you actually take the first 10 full years of the implementation of the bill--and recall that there are some budget gimmicks being played to say it is not generating a deficit, and it is not really implemented fully until about 4 years into the bill--if you take the first 10 years of implementation, the cuts to Medicare are not $465 billion but $1 trillion, and $3 trillion over a longer period of time as we evaluate the bill moving into the future.

In Medicare's hospital insurance trust fund, annual outlays already exceed the annual income, so the fund is drawing down its holdings to pay full benefits--but not for long. By 2017, the HI trust fund will be insolvent and will no longer able to pay full benefits for seniors. These cuts will make it worse.

This amendment provides that the major provisions in the underlying bill, including the subsidies and Medicaid expansion, cannot go into effect unless the Director of OMB and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services certify that all of the projected spending in the bill is offset with savings, but that savings shall exclude any changes to Medicare or Social Security. In other words, we require that Medicare savings be used for Medicare and Social Security savings be used for Social Security. This will ensure that the savings generated from the Medicare cuts in the bill don't go toward the creation of a new entitlement program at the expense of our seniors. If the non- Medicare savings don't offset the new costs, then the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of HHS are prohibited from implementing new spending or revenue-reduction provisions in the bill.

Republicans have opposed the Reid bill's harmful cuts to Medicare through three votes. Should those cuts remain, the Gregg amendment makes sure Medicare savings go to making the program more solvent, not to offsetting the new entitlement programs.

Congress should not raid Medicare--a program that has $38 trillion in unfunded liabilities--and use it as a piggy bank to pay for a new health care entitlement. The government already has $70 trillion in unfunded obligations over the next 75 years, and we should not add to it with these dangerous provisions. The $70 trillion in unfunded obligations represents a burden of $600,000 per American household. The Reid bill carries an estimated cost of $2.5 trillion over the first 10 years that it is fully implemented. It is fully loaded with budget gimmicks.

Earlier in the debate, we voted 100 to 0 for the Bennet amendment--a rule of construction--which stated that nothing in the bill ``shall result in the reduction of guaranteed'' Medicare benefits. In contrast with the Bennet amendment, the Gregg amendment actually guarantees there will be Medicare for future generations, while guarding against the creation of a new unfunded entitlement this country cannot afford.

I wish to respond a little bit to some of the arguments my colleague from North Dakota just made.

I mentioned we have had three votes already to try to take these Medicare cuts out of the bill. All of those votes have failed. The Senator from North Dakota indicated those votes would have reduced the deficit or would have caused a huge deficit problem. That is only true if you assume the $2.5 trillion of spending in the bill will continue.

But those who claim there is a reduction in the deficit in this bill can do so only if they assume three things--one, if they assume the budget gimmicks are implemented. They have not included the SGR payments for physicians--a $245 billion cost over the next 10 years. It is just not in the bill because it cannot be accounted for.

Second, they have delayed the cost implementation portions of the bill by 4 years now, so that they have 10 years of revenue and 4 years of spending, so they can claim it balances. Even then, they cannot claim this bill helps the deficit unless they assume the hundreds of billions of dollars of new taxes and the hundreds of billions of dollars of cuts in Medicare. If any one of those items was taken out-- the Medicare cuts, the tax increases, or the budget gimmicks--this bill would be shown to be what it is: a huge expansion of the Federal Government that is going to necessitate increased tax burdens and reductions in spending, as well as budget gimmicks to hide what cannot be hidden in order to claim it doesn't generate a deficit. I think most Americans understand that those kinds of gimmicks are the things we see all the time in Congress when we are trying to make it look as if we are not engaging in debt spending and increasing the national debt.

The bottom line here is that there is a significant amount of reform that can be achieved, that can reduce the cost of health care, that can reduce the cost of health insurance premiums, that we could agree to on a bipartisan basis if we were not stuck in this debate on the insistence that we create a massive new intrusion of the Federal Government into the operation and control of the health care economy and the development of another massive new Federal entitlement program at the expense of some of the current entitlement programs.

I haven't even talked about what is being done in Medicaid yet. I am sure others will talk about that.

This bill, as I said, will increase spending and the size of the government by $2.5 trillion. It will cut Medicare benefits over that same true full period by $1 trillion. It will increase taxes by hundreds of billions of dollars, and over that true full 10-year period of implementation, over $1 trillion. It will force the neediest of our uninsured in this country not into the opportunity to gain insurance coverage but into another failing entitlement program, which is Medicaid. It will drive a massive, unfunded mandate onto our States, which are already trying to figure out how they are going to deal with their fiscal problems. It will cause the cost of health insurance to go up for 30 percent of all Americans immediately and for the 70 percent who are in the large groups and get insurance from large companies, and they will basically see no significant savings and ultimately more taxes.

The bottom line is, we are not going to see an increase in the ability to control or handle the cost of health care. We are going to see an increase in government, an increase in government controls, an increase in taxes, and a reduction in the stability of our Medicare programs. That is not the way we should approach reform.

The Gregg amendment simply says let's create a lockbox, if you will, for Medicare, the same kind of lockbox we need for Social Security to keep the Congress from continuing to raid Social Security. Let's put it into place to ensure that all these great statements we hear on the floor about how we want to protect and preserve Medicare are enforced.

It simply creates by power of law, by force of law, the necessary mechanism to help all of us be sure that what we are talking about on the floor actually happens; namely, that we protect Medicare from being raided for the establishment of yet again another massive Federal entitlement program.

Madam President, I yield back my time.