Floor Statements

According to data just released by the Labor Department, retailers are going to be cutting hours at a rate unseen in more than 30 years. Investor's Business Daily had this to say of the decline:

[It] doesn't appear related to the economy, which has been

consistently mediocre. Instead, all evidence points to the

coming launch of ObamaCare, which the retail industry has

warned could cause just such a result.

So this is just the latest in a string of bad news related to the rollout of ObamaCare, just the latest reason the law needs to be repealed. What is more, businesses are being forced to cut workers' hours at a time when so many Americans, nearly 8 million last month according to Labor, have already been squeezed into part-time positions in which they would prefer not to be in the first place. Many of these are Americans who would probably much rather be working full time. Yet thanks to ObamaCare, many of them may be forced to work even less.

Actually, it gets worse. Labor also reported that total benefits for employees in service operations actually declined last quarter. That is the first such deterioration in more than a decade. Some speculate this piece of bad news could be attributed to ObamaCare as well.

All of this, bear in mind, is for a law, the full brunt of which hasn't even begun to come online yet. We are still many months away. Yet stories like this seem to be piling up.

When it comes to the implementation of ObamaCare, I fear some of the worst hit are likely to be the small businesses and the Americans who work for them. These are the hometown companies that struggled so mightily just to keep their doors open throughout the Obama economy, whose owners sacrificed so much in order to keep their families fed and their employees on the payroll. These businesses struggled against fierce economic headwinds, and they actually survived.

Will they be able to survive the next assault headed their way, to absorb the blows of ObamaCare, blows thrown at them by their own government at a time when they are already so vulnerable? Well, if things keep going as they are, it is hard to see how they will.

Just listen to this: Last week, a small business owner in the barbecue restaurant business testified at a field hearing of the House Education and the Workforce Committee. The owner of that company said it will cost his business up to $200,000 to implement the ObamaCare mandate, a $200,000 hit. What is that company's projected profit for 2013? It is $240,000. Incredible, absolutely incredible.

It is not hard to see why the Democratic chairman of the Finance Committee called this law a ``train wreck.'' It is not hard to see why so many Democrats are now airing their concerns about the law in public. Frankly, I wish they had considered these consequences before, not after passing a law. It is not like Republicans weren't warning about all of this. It is not like independent experts across the country weren't saying almost the same thing we were saying, and it is not like common sense wouldn't simply dictate much of these outcomes either.

I see that the President has decided to pivot once again to jobs. I can't even count how many times he has done one of these pivots at this point, so I will not try. But I presume he will jet off throughout the country to campaign-style rallies in order to bash Congress and claim that none of this is his fault. In the same vein, we hear he is going to have an ObamaCare event this Friday. I would be willing to bet he is not going to take responsibility there for ObamaCare's negative effects on our economy either or on so many families and small businesses.

It is about time he did. He should use that event to do so because he needs to be straight with the American people. He needs to prepare them for everything that is coming their way--the wage cuts, the lost jobs, the higher premiums, everything our country can expect as a result of ObamaCare.

That small business owner I mentioned earlier also had this to say:

Major companies I am sure have legal advisors that will . .

. guide them through this

legislation. Small businesses such as ours must obtain as

much available information as possible and do their best to

live by the letter of the law. Then because this act is

[complicated], hope and pray to not get penalized.

The law-abiding citizens of this country shouldn't have to pray for leniency from their own government. Last I checked, the government existed to help the public, not to antagonize it.

After ramming the law through Congress the way he did, ignoring the warnings all these things would happen, ignoring the will of the American people, honesty and transparency is the very least President Obama owes the American public at this point. What he needs to do, actually, is join with Republicans in agreeing to repeal this job- killing law. He needs to acknowledge the need to scrap it and replace it with the types of commonsense reforms that will lower cost, because this law is not working. I think he already knows that. Republicans certainly know it. And more and more Democrats are coming around to that realization too. So let's skip the scripted campaign events and actually work together to get something positive done for jobs, health care, and our economy. If President Obama is willing to work with us, we are here and ready to get to work.

I yield the floor.

Parliamentary inquiry: Are we making a speech?

Or are we considering objecting to a consent request?

Reserving the right to object, I would ask consent that the Senator modify her request so that it not be in order for the Senate to consider a conference report that includes tax increases or reconciliation instructions to increase taxes or raise the debt ceiling.

I object.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, last week one of our most senior Democratic colleagues, a primary author of ObamaCare, referred to the law's implementation as ``a train wreck.'' He warned: ``Small businesses have no idea what to do.'' They have no idea ``what to expect.'' He also expressed concern that the health insurance exchanges for consumers and small businesses could turn into a fiasco. I agree with him. I think just about everyone in my conference agrees with him.

Here is the difference. This is not some grand revelation to Republicans. We have been saying this since day one. We said a government takeover of health care would raise health care costs and premiums. We said it would raise taxes on the middle class. We said it would force millions of Americans to give up insurance plans they liked and wanted to keep. We said it would bury families and small businesses in a literal mountain of regulations, and we said it would cost our country jobs. We shouted these things from the rooftop throughout the health care debate. A few of us have even said it would be a ``train wreck.''

Until now, the President's allies mostly ignored or brushed off our concerns. But do you know what. With each passing day, it appears clearer and clearer that we were right to sound the alarm.

Only now are Washington Democrats starting to come around to the reality of what they passed. Perhaps they thought a ``yes'' vote on this bill would somehow magically cure our country's health care challenges without any cost increases, without hurting the middle class, and without the massive, unnavigable bureaucracy that is being erected literally as I speak.

That is the problem. That is why we are stuck in this mess. Our constituents did not send us here to robotically fall in line behind bad legislation and then pat ourselves on the back for ``doing something.'' They sent us here to eventually elevate public policy and to think about the medium- and long-term consequences of our actions.

Look, ObamaCare's mounting challenges shouldn't come as much of a surprise. It is not just that Republicans have warned about them for so long or that experts echoed our concerns. A lot of the problems in this 2,700-page bill should have been pretty self-evident right from the start.

In some ways I am glad to see more and more Washington Democrats and their allies come around to the reality of what they have done.

Earlier this year Democrats helped us repeal the CLASS Act, for instance. Last month, the Senate voted overwhelmingly, 79 to 20, to repeal the law's job-killing medical device tax. Last week we saw a union reverse course and come out for repeal of the law. I would hope more would come out and join us in repealing it in its entirety, root and branch. I am optimistic we will see more common sense take root in the days to come as the country learns more about this law and the harm it is causing families, businesses, and taxpayers. I suspect we will.

When administration officials are reduced to hoping that the law's implementation will not amount to ``a third world experience,'' then you know there is trouble on the way.

That is why I have also called on the President to address the Nation and give an honest accounting of what many Americans can expect as this law starts to come online: the higher costs, the premium increases, the taxes, the loss of health care plans they like and want to keep. All of that is happening. We asked him to do this in his State of the Union speech. He should have, because the longer he waits to lay out the truth for the American people, the more people are going to get blindsided by all of this. That is simply not right. The President shouldn't waste any more time. In the meantime, Americans can rest assured Republicans will keep working to repeal this law. I hope more of the President's allies will join us in this fight as well, because all of us owe our country better than this.

For the sake of my constituents in Kentucky and for the sake of Americans across the country, I urge my friends on the other side to join with Republicans and stop the train wreck, stop this train wreck before things get even worse.

Marketplace Fairness Act

On the matter currently before the Senate, I wish to make the following observation about the Internet sales tax bill. Earlier this week I announced my opposition to this bill, which I don't think is in the best interests of Kentuckians or its taxpayers in general. I know everyone in the Chamber doesn't feel that way. This bill may pass. There are Members on both sides who support it. Before it does, I hope the Senate will at least have some chance to offer amendments.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, something really remarkable happened in the Senate last night. It was sort of late in the day, so for those who missed it, here is a little recap.

Late yesterday afternoon the majority leader handed us a hastily crafted bill and then asked if we could pass it before anybody had seen it. Apparently, someone on the other side realized they had no good explanation for why they hadn't prevented the delays we have seen at airports across the country this week, so they threw together a bill in a feeble attempt to cover for it. It is pretty embarrassing.

It actually proposes to replace the President's sequester cuts with what is known around here as OCO. I know this isn't something that will be familiar to most viewers, so let me borrow an explanation provided by Senator Joe Lieberman in a letter he signed with Dr. Coburn last year. Here is what Senator Lieberman said about OCO:

The funds allocated for OCO or ``war savings'' are not

real, and every member of Congress knows this. The funds

specified for Overseas Contingency Operations in future

budgets are mere estimates of what our nation's wars cost may

be in the future. And since it is likely that future OCO

costs will be significantly less than the placeholders in the

Congressional Budget Office's estimates, it is the height of

fiscal irresponsibility to treat the difference between the

assumed and actual OCO costs as a ``savings'' to be spent on

other programs.

Let me read that last part again.

It is the height of fiscal irresponsibility to treat the

difference between the assumed and actual OCO costs as a

``savings'' to be spent on other programs.

This is from the man who was once the Democratic nominee to be Vice President.

There is bipartisan consensus that this thing we call OCO is a fiscally irresponsible gimmick. The director of the Concord Coalition has called it ``the mother of all . . . gimmicks.'' The president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget called it a ``glaring gimmick.'' Whether OCO is the mother of all gimmicks or just a glaring one, everybody other than the majority leader evidently agrees on one thing: It is the height of fiscal irresponsibility.

Now, just as important as what the majority leader's proposal is, however, is what it isn't. It isn't a tax increase. That is actually news. The majority leader is clearly ditching the President on this issue. As you may recall, the President has said he would only consider replacing the sequester with a tax hike. Whatever you want to say about OCO, it is not a tax hike--it is borrowed money that will have to be repaid later.

Still, it doesn't punish small businesses the way the President's proposals would. So this is, in a sense, big news. It represents a significant break from the President's favored approach on this issue.

As I said yesterday, the President rejected the flexibility we proposed on the sequester for obvious political reasons. He wanted these cuts to be as painful as possible for folks across the country and to provide an excuse to raise taxes to turn them off. Well, it is simply not working. Even his own party is starting to abandon him on this issue.

The broader point is this: Even without the flexibility we propose, he already has the flexibility he needs to make these cuts less painful. He has it right now. He should exercise it.

I also think we should all acknowledge that there is now a bipartisan agreement that tax hikes won't be a replacement for the sequester. The real solution, as I said, is for the administration to accept the additional flexibility we would like to give them to make these cuts in a smarter way and to get rid of wasteful spending first.

Surely, in the $3.6 trillion we are spending this year, we could find a way to reduce the spending we promised the

American people we would reduce a year and a half ago when the Budget Control Act was passed and do that in a sensible way. This is what we have consistently said. There is more flexibility in the law right now. We would be happy to give the President even more to achieve the cuts we promised the American people we would achieve.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I am going to proceed on my leader time.

Mr. President, as a result of the administration's poor planning and, I would argue, political motives, thousands of people were stuck on tarmacs over the last few days. The FAA's mismanagement of this issue is the source of bipartisan frustration. Our goal shouldn't be to score political points on the backs of weary travelers, it should be to fix the problem.

Look, the Obama administration knew about the sequester for months-- for months. Yet it gave the traveling public and Congress only 3 days' notice before implementing the furloughs now being blamed for these delays. The FAA Administrator testified before the Commerce and Appropriations Committees last week but made no mention of the magnitude and impact on delays of these furloughs that were just right around the corner.

It seems completely implausible to me he didn't know about them when he was testifying last week. Was the administration hiding the ball from the traveling public? It seems like a fair question.

Frankly, this episode is a perfect illustration of why Republicans sought to give the administration even greater flexibility to ensure they could prioritize essential services. One of the primary areas for which that flexibility was intended was air traffic control. The fact the administration rejected it strongly suggests a political motive is at play.

I would also remind everyone this flexibility was rejected by nearly every Democrat in the Senate, and the President threatened to veto legislation that granted it, holding it hostage to tax hikes instead.

So here is what I would suggest at this point. We are where we are. The Obama administration needs to direct the FAA to review their current spending and use their existing flexibility to keep America moving as smoothly as possible. Ensuring the safe, efficient movement of the traveling public is a much higher priority than the administration's own travel, conferences, and consultants.

Not all government spending is created equally, and so this morning I am calling on the Obama administration and the FAA to be smarter and more transparent about the sequester. That means prioritizing funding to ensure flights are not needlessly delayed or canceled.

If for some reason the President or the FAA do not believe they have the flexibility to address this issue, they should ask Congress for the flexibility they need. Until then, however, they should use the flexibility we all know they do have to ease the burden on passengers.

But let's be clear: We wouldn't even be in this situation if the administration hadn't rejected the flexibility we offered them months ago or if they had done the planning they needed to do in the first place. There is no good reason for these delays.

Mr. President, this week, the Senate is debating a bill that would authorize States to require retailers to collect taxes on remote sales. I recognize there are a range of views on this bill, and these views don't break along partisan lines nor do they follow, really, along traditional ideological lines. Speaking for myself, however, I intend to oppose the bill, and here is why.

For me, the issue boils down to the fact the legislation we are considering would create an enormous compliance burden for a lot of small businesses out there, making them tax collectors for thousands of far-away jurisdictions. Just as importantly, this legislation would increase the tax burden on Kentuckians. As I have said before, I don't think the people of Kentucky sent me here to help them pay higher taxes.

Brick-and-mortar companies complain about the inequity that exists in current law, where their customers have to pay taxes that online shoppers do not. Frankly, that is a legitimate concern; but by imposing this new Internet tax, States would suddenly be empowered to force online retailers to simultaneously comply with all the different tax codes of all the States in which their customers reside. And that is no small feat.

From what I am told, there are nearly 10,000 State, local, and municipal tax codes nationwide. While complying with so many codes might not be a big deal for large online retailers, it is actually a huge burden for the little guys. So small business owners are worried, and justifiably so.

I know they are in Kentucky because so many keep writing to share their concerns with me. One small business owner lamented that ``small online business owner[s] ha[d] been silenced and pushed to the side'' in this debate as larger companies ``[press] for the changes to take effect as quickly as possible. The simple matter of the fact is that any business with [fewer] than 100 employees would be completely overwhelmed by applying, keeping, updating, and reporting sales tax for every state and tax zone in the United States.''

It is pretty hard to argue with that. Moreover, this is a bill that-- once again, as happens all too often in the Senate--hasn't been run through a committee, hasn't been properly vetted, and hasn't yet had the kinks worked out of it.

It is not like there aren't other things that can be done to improve tax compliance for online shoppers--things that don't require us to turn private businesses into tax collectors for remote State governments. Most States impose a use tax, for instance, which requires taxpayers to report how much they have purchased on the Internet. Individual States that are concerned about this issue could choose to enforce their own existing use taxes rather than expect the Federal Government to impose sweeping legislation to empower States to reach across borders to collect taxes.

And let's not forget the fact that the Internet has been such an enormous source of innovation and convenience for our constituents, our country, and our economy--even in these tough economic times. But that is largely because the government has kept its nose out and allowed innovation to flourish.

I won't be supporting this bill. If States decide they need this revenue, they should keep in mind the tremendous burden they will be placing on the little guys who do so much to drive this economy. In my view, the Federal Government should be looking for ways to help, not hurt, these folks. Let's be honest; the big guys can take care of themselves. Let's not make it even harder for the smaller competitors.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would like to say a brief word about last night's tragedy near Waco. From the media reports we have seen, there have clearly been a great many injuries and a terrible loss of life. We are all thinking of and praying for the victims and their families.

Given the horrendous event at the Boston Marathon on Monday, followed by the event near Waco last night, it has been a very difficult week for all of us. Our hearts are a little bit heavier.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, the last few days have been trying ones for our Nation. Monday's attack in Boston reminded us that terrorism can still strike anywhere at any time. As yesterday's news of an attempt to send ricin to the Capitol reminds us, it is as important as ever to take the steps necessary to protect Americans from those who would do us harm.

This morning I would like to recognize the postal and law enforcement officials for their excellent work in detecting and preventing this threat before it even reached the Capitol. They proved that the proactive measures we put in place do, in fact, work.

We have faith that the men and women charged to protect the American people will find those responsible for the attack in Boston and for the letter here at the Capitol. The truth will eventually come out, and justice will be delivered.

Later today the Senate will begin to consider amendments to legislation that deals with one of our most fundamental constitutional rights as citizens. There are many different perspectives on this issue, and passions are high on all sides. That is why I would urge the majority to allow the full and open amendment process we were told the Senate would have. Today's votes are a very good start. The American people deserve the opportunity to be heard on this matter. We should respect that. So let's approach this debate in the spirit of transparency that the American people expect.

In my view, we should focus on keeping firearms out of the hands of the criminals and those with mental issues that could cause them to be a threat to our society. The government should not punish or harass law-abiding citizens in the exercise of their Second Amendment rights. It is that focus on protecting communities and preserving our constituents' constitutional rights that will be my guide as we begin to vote on amendments on this bill.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today the thoughts of every American are with the people of Boston but especially with the many victims of yesterday's horrendous attacks and their families.

Many who were looking forward to celebrating the achievement of a loved one yesterday woke up to the grim reality of facing the rest of their lives with a disfiguring injury. For them, yesterday's attacks were the beginning of a long and difficult journey. Three others who lined up to encourage others, including an 8-year-old boy who was there to cheer on his dad at the finish line, lost their lives in the blast.

We pray in a special way for these families.

As the President said yesterday, the two parties stand united today in our deepest sympathy for all those who were affected firsthand by these heinous attacks and in our unshakable--unshakable--resolve to bring those responsible, and any others who are contemplating acts like this, to justice.

These horrific attacks are a grim reminder of the hatred and contempt that many continue to harbor in their hearts not only for our Nation and its freedoms but for innocent human life. On 9/11 we were forever disabused of the notion that attacks like the one that rocked Boston yesterday only happen on the field of battle or in distant countries. With the passage of time, however, and the vigilant efforts of our military, intelligence, and law enforcement professionals, I think it is safe to say for many the complacency that prevailed prior to September 11 has actually returned. So we are newly reminded that serious threats to our way of life remain.

Today, again, we recommit ourselves to the fight against terrorism at home and abroad.

Another point: As always, we marvel at the courage and the selflessness of those who rushed to the scene after yesterday's blasts. In moments like this, we see the worst of humanity and the best of our fellow citizens: whether it was the exhausted marathoners who became helpers and healers the moment they realized what had happened; the doctors and nurses who had expected the usual marathon day uptick in cases of dehydration or exhaustion but who spent the rest of their day handling far worse; or the first responders and law enforcement officials who rushed to the scene with total disregard for their own safety, including those who tore down a fence to get to the wounded before they were even sure the area was safe.

We honor all of them today.

Those responsible for this act of terror will be brought to justice for their deeds. But today our thoughts are mainly with the victims, their families, and friends--and all those whose lives have suddenly been turned upside down by the wicked designs of those responsible. For most of us, it is hard to imagine how anyone could even contemplate doing something like this. But, as always, as a nation, we will face this sad reality head on and show the world that America does not cower in the face of it.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.