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tv   Key Capitol Hill Hearings  CSPAN  March 20, 2015 4:30pm-6:31pm EDT

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>> mr. chairman the yeas are 12. 7910. >> the amendment has failed. no, the amendment is passed. sorry. the next one is that it came amendment. i think there is a side-by-side. >> thank you, mr. chairman. this is an amendment to provide a deficit nature reserve fund to promote dt education cosponsored s. senators baldwin and portman. >> any opposition? seeing none. i sense we can do a voice vote. all those in favor say aye. opposed? it is passed. next, the transfix amendment and then a democrat side-by-side on this one.
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has to side-by-side being distributed? >> mr. chairman, can i move my vote after. we are waiting for a ruling from the parliamentarian. >> i couldn't hear you. >> waiting on berlin from the parliamentarian. >> okay. >> can i move my votes until the end of the tranche? [inaudible conversations] the next one is to widen rural schools and there is a side-by-side which has been handed out already. [inaudible conversations]
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so on a side-by-side, two minutes of debate. >> colleagues, my amendment creates a deficit neutral reserve fund to protect america's treasures and grow our rural economies in a balanced way. the side-by-side ties the well-being of rural economies and our spectacular treasures we all revere to unsustainable logging levels. so i hope we will look carefully at the numbers here because the programs involved already get a significant amount of their funding from logging. this amendment would jack up the logging level far beyond what is sustainable and said this is in effect my amendment that will fund a balanced approach that we
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have had helping rural economies protecting our treasures versus in effect shipping again at the environmental laws that are going to harm our treasures and are sustainable when they hurt rural economies. the >> well, the side-by-side does require that there be some things done for the health of the national forest. there are two ways i really ought to approach this. we required them not to blog and then we paid them for the taxes we would have gotten had we logged. for my coal mines but in the modern business, i probably have to secure coal mines, but i won't. we need to keep utilizing the stewardship of what we have been given. i know the local and rural economies used to depend on robust timber industry.
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we can make legislative changes that enabled the industry to return and tried again and besides improving local economies over time reduce the frequency and severity of wildfire, which i am working with senator crapo and senator wyden on. my side-by-side just precludes repeated extensions of the secure rural schools paid for with tax increases. >> can i have a brief rebuttal? colleagues the pro-program already demonstrates a significant amount of money from blogging. the whole point of legislative effort in the west and other heavily logged area is to increase that the logging area. this does in effect force us to raise the sub one levels many times beyond what is sustainable.
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i think we will regret that. rural communities will not get the economic opportunities. they have been led to often in the past and we will see environmental treasures sufferer. >> mr. chairman? >> senator crapo. >> i intend to vote for both of these. has he vindicated senator wyden and i have been working together on a solution for the sgi and the wildfire fighting problems we face in the last. this amendment will be very helpful in helping us achieve the resolution of issues. i also agree with chairman would need to dramatically increase timber production in the last and we have unreasonably depressed. i support the chairman's approach to focus on that as well. i want to indicate i will be voting for both of the amendments.
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>> mr. chairman, i think i would ask for a roll call then. >> okay, roll call vote on the senator wyden amendment. i am told that we vote -- >> now, you've vote on mine first, don't you? >> i have no problem with that. we will vote on yours first. and people can vote how they want. they take us under crapo's approach. the clerk will call the roll. [roll call] [roll call]
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[roll call] >> are there any wishing to change their vote? seeing none. please report the vote. >> mr. chairman, the yeas are eat team. the nays are for her. >> we have a request on the side-by-side and i request a roll call vote. [roll call] [roll call]
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[roll call] >> mr. chairman the yeas are 12. 7910. >> next is the amendment on welfare. not sure if there is a side-by-side. >> colley, i just believe we are spending an extraordinary amount of money on welfare. we need a fundamental reform again. we can do good things for people and help them better with the $1 trillion state and federal we are spending 750 billion a year. this is a means tested program. it does include medicaid, but medicaid is designed for low income people.
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real people in real poverty. we need to help those people come out of that situation coming to a centralized office were the leaders know all of the funds they are getting an help them craft a future including job training. thank you. >> mr. chairman. >> opposition. >> i would like to ask a question. ss to help struggling americans in the road to personal independence. i assume childcare, minimum wage, equal pay job training. this fund could be used for what we believe are progressive ways to help people. >> absolutely. some of those may need your money. we need to craft a better system with a the housing subsidy, foodstamp subsidy finance committee subsidies of all kinds. i think we can do a lot better if we do it right. this would mandate anything.
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it just provides the legislation to accomplish. >> we have got a side to side, which we will be offering in a moment which includes virtually all of senator sessions noble aims, but makes it clear at a time when so many people are struggling that we do not cut benefits for some of the most honorable people in this country. what senator sessions has months to gather as welfare programs includes the earned income tax credit supplementary ssi meals on wheels and many other programs. i for one at a time when so many people are struggling to not want to see programs cut. do it to make the system more efficient? do we want to cut programs for the most vulnerable americans? i do not believe so.
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>> mr. chairman, he does say they will be no cuts to benefits to low income americans. it is so broad it could mean no program could be eliminated. >> that is not what the intent is that general funding is not cut. >> it just said no cuts in benefits which i think is he on that. i would say his amendment doesn't fulfill his goals. i would urge support of mind. >> still 30 seconds left in the additional comments. seeing none. the vote would be first on the sessions amendment. i assume we want roll call vote on both of these. the clerk will call the roll on the sessions amendment. [roll call]
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[roll call] [roll call] [roll call] >> mr. chairman the yeas are: 15. 798. >> tijuana caught the substitute? >> yes, a side-by-side related to welfare legislation that includes increased job opportunities, efficient and social welfare programs and protection for benefit cuts. this is virtually the same amendment by senator sessions amendment, but in understanding
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they are in some very, very important programs such as the earned income tax credit ssi funding for breast cancer and cervical cancer meals on wheels and many other programs. what i do not want to see if those pro-program sky. of course we could make changes but it's important in these difficult times we do not cut programs for the most vulnerable people in the country. >> mr. president, i understand what senator sanders is suggesting. i so often the case i think it is an excessive commitment to the status quo. we really need to consider some of these programs should be consolidated, even eliminated an increase in if we do that in a creative way, i believe we can improve benefits for poor people in america without any doubt.
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i do think his language constructs the reform we need to do and therefore i think it is part of the problem and i would ask my colleagues to vote no. >> rollcall will be expected then. the clerk will call the roll. [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call]
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>> mr. chairman the yeas are: tan. the nays are: 12. >> the amendment is defeated. the next one is the ayotte amendment which has the side-by-side. >> thank you. my amendment is a deficit neutral reserve funds to strengthen civilian workforce focused on military readiness and national security. i have amended my amendment to make it a deficit neutral reserve funds to address both spending and revenue to do this. also to broaden it originally was dod but across the civilian workforce across the security functions. thank you, mr. chairman. >> that has been modified bag. the side-by-side. >> mr. chairman, first of all i am not asking to vote against
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the ayotte amendment, but what i am offering is something i believe is a much stronger commitment to protecting military readiness at a time of tremendous threat around the world and the country as well. i think we have to set priorities and determine where revenue is coming from so it's not just a typical deficit neutral reserve funds but we in fact are identifying ways we are going to strengthen our civilian workforce. so i am tying not to an amendment provision of mind that will prevent u.s. companies from paying tax benefits for moving jobs overseas and ending tax loopholes like inversions. for some time we tried to do something as simple as saying that he as saying if you pick up and move to another country that taxpayers don't have to pay for the move and workers are not pay for the move. at minimum we have to do that. there is so many ways right now and which the public is
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offended. we are all offended the tax code is allowing loopholes taking jobs overseas. let's close those and put the money to good use. i would suggest for testing our military readiness by strengthening our civilian workforce to be a pretty good use for those dollars. i am actually going to vote for both of these but we really want to be serious about it. i would urge support for my amendment. >> the ayotte amendment provides a more focused approach to discussing the need for support for the workforce. this amendment would make the u.s. uncompetitive effective corporate tax rate even higher and we already have a tax reform process in the works and i would be the appropriate place to do the tax reform and that does not require the amendment so i recommend my colleagues vote no on the side-by-side and gas on
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the ayotte amendment. >> we hope for tax reform. we certainly up members of the finance committee that would like to see that happening. i can imagine what not to allow a loophole continued to let businesses and taxpayers foot the bill for the moving expenses. it seems to me we had to come together closing up on. >> first vote will be an ayotte amendment. the clerk will call the roll. [roll call] [roll call] [roll call]
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>> the the yeas are: 22. the nays are: zero. >> the clerk will call the roll. [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] >> the yeas are: tan. the nays are: 12.
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>> defeated. the next is the stabenow amendment on medicare. are you ready? >> i understand that at this point the changes being viewed as a new amendment. i am happy to proceed, but if there is a concern i can withdraw and ring it up at the next rock. it's up to you. >> let's put it in the next raunchy. that concludes that round of those. we are ready to begin amendments again. i don't have any recap on how many more amendments they are. if anybody wants to volunteer that, that would be helpful to know how much longer we are going. do you have any idea on your side?
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>> mr. chairman, i have an amendment if we are in order. >> it has a number of amendments. i don't know exactly how many but there will be many. >> my understanding is that will be senator king on your side. >> mr. chairman and on services and intelligence communities so far we have heard powerful and very convincing testimony from our military forces across the board and in the intelligence community about the dangers of sequestered. the dangers are in modernization. we've had turek testimony of the sequestered is imposed this year, american lives will be put at risk. decline and intelligence capability decline and reconnaissance capability and as i mentioned in modernization.
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it will be a catastrophe in defense. also in nondefense in the intelligence community, but also research and development, nih head start, education job training homeless, senior services. this idea sequester was designed to be and it is and it was designed to provoke us to find a better solution. so i am offering a deficit neutral reserve funds to do just that. i know the chairman has a provision in the mark on page 48, section 302 that deals with this. my amendment clarifies that somewhat to make it clear we need to resolve the sequester issue on both sides of the ledger, defense and nondefense and suggest finding the funds for that vote for a mandatory
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spending and by that i do not mean benefit levels, but many areas of mandatory spending where there can be cuts. as well as received the revenues. it is an attempt to have a placeholder for legislation for us to work on in order to deal with the problem of sequestered. the solutions won't be easy but i think we have to remind ourselves that the sequester impacts are very real whether it is headstart slots or lack of intelligence and one of the most intense and dangerous times of international relations in our recent history. that is the purpose of the amendment. i urge your support. >> probably one of the best to talk on this would be senator ayotte who worked diligently to get an amendment or a provision already had the budget resolution that would be
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duplicative database because we already included it because she was working on the same programs diligently with the number of people including senator cain and senator king. what is in the budget already allows for both defense and nondefense and allows for any onset. i think we are party accomplished what is in this amendment. >> one of my concerns in the mark mr. chairman is the word order for national security or domestic discretionary. if the word was changed to and i would withdraw my amendment. >> we will check on that. we won't be voting immediately. >> mr. chairman, could i ask
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senator came a question just for clarification? i think there is widespread agreement that we want to add sequestration and need additional funding to do that. is your suggestion in fact one of the options archives to social security and medicare to fund the sequestration? >> there's a great deal and the term is mandatory spending that is not social security and medicare. i'm not talking about benefit levels. under the drug program there's a lot of revenue realized by bargaining for drugs. $500 billion tier of other mandatory outside of social security and health care. we don't know what the solution will be. i want to drive as broadly as possible. >> i certainly agree there are ways we can bring in more revenue. unless i mistake the way everyday, this would open the path for cuts to social security
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and medicare. would it be possible to sit down and rewrite your amendment? >> the solution will come from whatever piece of legislation is brought forward was trying to keep it as broad as possible so we would have all the options on the table. there's a lot of mandatory spending that is not tied up in actual benefits to people. >> or you are right. doesn't that the possibility of social security and medicare which concerns me very much. >> because of the way our committees are set up if we put the word and we could be asking the defense to talk about nondiscretionary and change it instead of just changing their jurisdiction and having somebody else change within their jurisdiction. this wouldn't preclude changes in both jurisdictions. and in there you might eliminate flexibility and violate the committee
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capability. >> i don't think it would be a sensible reading to say that would require the armed services committee to talk about head start. what it makes clear is if we are going to receive sequester it is to be on both sides of the ledger. that is my intent. >> the next amendment. senator grassley is that here. next amendment by senator sessions. >> colleagues, this is something many of you have voted on before. i think some may be on a cord with me, most maybe. this is a bill with the tax credit provided to illegal workers, people are lawfully with overstate the size and are now working or filing by 10
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documents with the tax identification documents not having social security numbers and are receiving tax refunds or tax credits which defined by cbo is a direct expenditure of the united states. according to the treasury inspector general, 87% about the can contain errors, many accompanied by fraudulent documents and more than 55000 were usable 12 times on approximately 102,000 tax returns with refunds totaling more than $200 million in 1987. it really amounts to a welfare payment. many of them pay no tax is at all because incomes are low and therefore the tax credits are direct payments from the u.s. taxpayers to people here unlawfully. the inspector general said this would provide an additional
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incentive for people to enter the country unlawfully. to have a lawful system of immigration, the first thing we could do is not reword that government anaphase. that is so fundamental to our system according to the irs if the law were changed irs would change its programs accordingly. they contend they don't have the money the authority to change it as the inspector general recommended. it is estimated this change would phase $7.6 billion in taxpayer money. the american working person has no duty to pay direct cash benefits to people who enter the country unlawfully. 71% of immigrant households with children are receiving benefits now. mr. chairman, i think this is the right and to do and it also
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provides that persons who receive social security numbers under any executive amnesty also would not have the benefit of receiving these tax credits. so mr. president i would say that joint tax committee has calculated this result in $1.1 billion in savings in 2018 alone. i would ask the colleagues to support this amendment. ..
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these benefits work. these immigrants work and pay into social security but they can't collect any benefits. in fact it is estimated this is really quite incredible, around 10% of the $2.8 trillion trust fund for social securityp can be attributed to undocumented immigrants. cbo confirm these immigrants contribute to the nation bottom growth and budget's bottom line. the point here is, i don't think we should deal with immigration issues piece by piece. i think they should be dealt with comprehensively. i will vote against senator
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session's amendment. >> mr. chairman. >> we'll used up the all the time. you will get rebuttal at time of vote. senator sanders would be next unless there is no amendment. >> yeah, i've got one. >> here we go. colleagues, we have talked about many, many important issues. i know that many more important issues will be coming. the amendment i'm bringing forth now, i think in fact deals perhaps with the most fundamental issue we can address and that is the integrity of american democracy and our political system. and what this amendment does is, establishes a deficit neutral reserve fund to allow for a constitutional amendment to overturn citizens united and to increase transparency in our political process. now, on this issue there are no
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greater experts in the world than the people sitting around this room. we know all the political scientists. the issue i am raising today are you comfortable with an american political system which is increasingly being dominated by a handful of billionaires, whether they are republicans, whether they are democrats, whether they are liberals, whether they are conservatives? do you want to run for office and understand that your campaign will be significantly less important than the independent expenditures than they will be spent in that campaign? are we a nation in which we pride ourselves on one person, one vote? or do we set it aside to ordinary americans you got a vote but the koch brothers and other billionaires can spend hundreds an hundreds of millions of dollars? the american people are
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profoundly disgusted with the kind of political system we are evolving into. and i will admit, sometimes it works for republicans sometimes it works for democrats but at the end of the day we have got to ask ourselves do we want a political system in which a handful of billionaires can buy and semel members of the united states congress? because that is really what it's about. so i would hope that we would allow for this reserve fund to move us toward a constitutional amendment to overturn citizens united and also bring transparency. if some billionaire wants to run an add attacking senator sessions or senator murray, you know what? that billionaire should put his pretty face on the tv screen and identify himself. and not be able to hide under some fancy name of citizens for this or citizens for that. so i understand that this is a highly sensitive issue.
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but i would hope that all of us can say that the current system which is increasingly dominated by billionaires is not what the american people deserve. i would ask for support for this amendment. >> well, i haven't concentrated on that particular issue but, i have always been in favor of people having to identify if they were part of an ad. i have no problem with that. i don't think that take as constitutional amendment. i hadn't envisioned the budget process setting up constitutional amendments. you have right to set one of those up anyway without any kind of deficit neutral reserve fund or anything else. there's, no cost to the senate involved in that, other than time which is pretty precious but -- >> we have a lot of time. >> yeah. mr. chairman? >> any other opposition? >> mr. chairman? >> yes. >> i would just observe, i think our founding fathers would be al pawed if they understood the extent which we have laws and
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rules and regulations that dramatically curb the ability of people to engage in free political speech including during campaigns. if people are concerned about outside money that is not fully disclosed, i would say there is a simple solution. that is eliminate the contribution limits to candidates. then there wouldn't be any reason for people to have outside expenditures. contributions would tend to go to candidates. they would be disclosed. voters would know who is spending what. people would have to take responsibility for the ads. they wouldn't be outside groups that people could hide behind. we would have full disclosure. we would have free speech on political campaigns and i think that is the appropriate resolution but the idea we should overturn the supreme court's recognition of the first amendment i think would be a big mistake. >> are we out of time? i think 19 seconds that i see
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there. >> there is time for our side. somebody else wanted to speak. >> sure. >> here is the time. moving on amendments. next by senator crapo. >> sorry. thank you mr. chairman. mr. chairman, this is the what i believe is the crapo amendment number two. this is a bipartisan amendment. i want to thank senators warner, corker, and merkley for joining with me on this amendment which establishes a score keeping rule to insure that increases in guaranty fees, what has been called gps of fannie mae and freddie mac shall not be used to offset provisions that increase the deficit. let me explain. during the senate consideration of the fiscal year 2014 budget resolution a similar amendment was cosponsored by every single member of the senate banking committee and was included in
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the senate budget resolution by unanimous consent. however because the senate and house did not adopt the same budget, the point of order is not a part of senate rules and we need to pass this amendment. the purpose of the guaranteed fee is to offset prospective fannie mae and freddie mac credit losses from borrower defaults. thus, if you used the guaranty fees to offset new spending, then you're doubling, doubly counting the revenue n december of 2011, congress pass ad two-month extension of the payroll tax cut. that was offset by increasing the g fees for 10 years. this was simply a tax increase on mortgage, folks in the united states who obtain mortgages in order to justify congressional spending. subsequent to this additional attempts were made to use the extension of this kind of gp as cost offsets in other legislation. directing that the guaranty fees
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to the treasury department go to the treasury department rather than protecting taxpayers from mortgage losses was used because it technically brings in a new source of revenue. any increase of guaranty fees should be used to protect taxpayers from mortgage losses and as a repayment for the bailout, not for a gimmicky offset. that's why i'm offering this score keeping amendment with senators warner, corker and merkley to assure transfers from fannie mae and freddie mac will not be used to offset the deficit. the practical effect of amendment one, guaranty of fees can only be used to increase the deficit and will knot be scored as an offset, and two a 60-vote threshold will still be required on a provision that spends more or reduces taxes and is offset with a guaranty fee increase because the fee would not be recognized as an offset. i would like to include, also in the record, mr. chairman, a
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letter of support from a broad group of housing and trade associations and a letter of support from housing consumer groups. i would encourage my colleagues to support this bipartisan effort which has broad support and was a part, as i said, of the fiscal year 2014 budget. >> eight seconds. >> eight seconds. yesterday the fha, fhfa, oig said fannie and freddie not profitable forever. could come back and hit us for taxpayers. sheldon was asking, what is crapo and warner cooking up here? i would simply point out nape, national fair housing counsel national counsel of la as say variety of groups, gcs should be used in the housing industry and not used for other purposes. >> opposition can run over. >> sorry for using your time, mark. >> seeing no opposition, senator murray. >> mr. chairman i would like to offer an amendment right now that should be pass out to build
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on reserve funds so that the chairman included in fiscal year 2016 budget for additional invests in programs that support our veterans and our servicemembers. there is no more solemn promise we make as a nation than our commitment to care for the men and women who serve our country. and these men who put their lives and limbs on the live to protect our country and our freedoms and our way of life. we need to meet that promise to care for them. so this amendment builds on the existing reserve fund to additional support and resources for critical programs that help our veterans and servicemembers access health, job training programs specialty services and would allow us to expand the eligibility for the comprehensive caregiver support program to veterans of all eras. this is a critical program that helps our veterans stay in their own homes, with their loved ones and out of the hospital and give them a much better quality of life. also is much more cost effective
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thement would provide support of processing of va claims and bring down the backlog contribute to va's infrastructure needs including major medical facility leases and reduce the wait times for health care including mental health care which is needed so badly right now. finally, it would help va and dod provide fertility treatment to critically injured veterans and servicemembers to realize their dream of starting a family. it is long past time for these departments to provide this type of modern medicine. i will keep pushing to provide additional support to make changes needed at va to get veterans the care they deserve and improve programs as they transition into civilian life. we're moving in the right direction. fixing some of these problems but the work is far from over and this amendment will make sure we continue that route work especially improving care and programs to support our veterans and servicemembers. i think this is a priority we all can agree on. i urge its adoption.
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i would ask unanimous consent to add senator wyden to the amendment. >> without objection. we already have a section 307 which is a deficit neutral reserve fund. it could include these things but doesn't specify these things. anybody else wish to comment in opposition? no mr. chairman? i would also ask unanimous consent to be added to the amendment. >> without objection. >> mr. president -- mr. chairman? >> senator sanders. >> i think senator murray brings up a very very important amendment. as former chair of the veterans committee i strongly support what she is trying to do and hope we can get a strong vote for this. >> of course my question would be do what you did last year with the very significant piece of legislation, did you need a deficit neutral? >> no. >> no. but this, mr. chairman, allows us to do a lost programs that will not be allowed under your amendment. i think it is very important
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such as the caregiver program. >> the next amendment then would be, by senator toomey. >> mr. chairman, i'd like to offer an amendment after senator graham offers his. it's more appropriate to do it at the time, i think. and if you would allow to us do that i would think it would make more sense. >> without objection. >> thank you. >> okay. since we'll have two in a row from this side i will move over to the other side and have another amendment. then come over to senator johnson. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. if you would allow me sort of a one-two punch i will just for the record reintroduce the medicare amendment that i had before that changes a date from
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2014 to indicate that the same budget years defined by the cbo. i can talk about that later but basically the same amendment not to cut medicare. and then what i would like to do now is, offer an amendment to maintain a senate, budget, point of order on the health legislation that would add to the deficit. and the point of this is that that we have in front of us a budget that would repeal the affordable care act that 16.4 million americans now are using to get health care for themselves and their families. uninsured rate has fallen from over 20% to 13% which is extraordinary. we all know there are fewer americans in bankruptcy now. there are folks receiving tax cuts to be able to afford more
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coverage. we all know that there is more opportunities to make sure you don't get dropped and you can find health insurance if you have a preexisting condition. but, what we have in this budget is a very interesting situation. i disagree totally with eliminating the affordable care act. but if this budget is going to do that, it needs to make sure and recognize that adds to the deficit. so what we have, this amendment would strike language exempting any long-term deficit created by repealing the affordable care act, from a point of order. so we have a point of order in the budget for anything that adds to the deficit. but we have a section that specifically excludes the affordable care act from that. so think about it. this budget is conceding the fact that the affordable care
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act has reduced the deficit and repealing the law would increase the deficit. in fact the most recent cbo estimate shows that repealing the affordable care act would increase the deficit by $210 billion. but you can't rig the rules on both sides. this particular budget among other things keeps the revenue raise, the fees and tax increases from the affordable care act while cutting health care for people. and then to mask the fact that it would add to the deficit there is a specific exclusion on page 69 of the chairman's mark that would exempt the affordable care act from being counted when it comes to increasing long-term deficits. that's not fair. i would argue that is really budget gimmickry. i think it is important if you are going to eliminate the affordable care act, you have to
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step up and assume the consequences of that. an one of those according to the congressional budget office, is the fact that our deficit will go up. so, this amendment would strike that provision to maintain a point of order on any health care legislation, that would add to the deficit. >> first of all i think probably any repeal is probably going to take at least 60 votes and probably 7 of 67 votes. to we're talking about some things. i'm a little confused, i've got one here that says medicare and i've got another one that they are not numbered here. so i'm a little troubling which one i'm supposed to be on at the moment. >> well, mr. chair if i might just say i hadn't indicated i had started i was resubmitting the medicare one based on a change that relates to going from 2014 to a different
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language on the, on the budget year. i just put that in for the record and didn't talk about because i had talked about it before. and then so essentially i was offering both the medicare ammendment just as, your staff asked that i redo it. so we've redone it, in terms of introducing it. but i'm speaking to insured health bills don't add to the deficit amendment which makes sure that we have really honest budgeting as we go forward on the costs related to repealing the affordable care act. >> i'm going to offer an amendment later to deal with some of these issues on honesty and accounting. obamacare act counts over $400 billion in medicare cuts to pay for this new program. and, cbo said you can't simultaneously use the money on
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medicare and then spend it on a new program. so we, we double counted that money. this says you can't have anymore cuts i suppose anymore reductions in outlays for medicare but our colleagues have done in passing the affordable care act by far had largest cut of spending from medicare in the history of the program. and have opposed everything else that would improve it. so losses we didn't fix the doctor fix. we didn't even use it to pay doctors with it. so anyway i think, that we need to get honest about how we handle medicare funding. i don't think this would be the right approach to it. thank you, mr. chairman. >> i would just add like, i said, it takes 60 votes to make any change around here. it will probably take 67 if we
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change the affordable care act at all. and, hopefully we could work together to make corrections that need to be made to things. i know that that past under reconciliation, half of it passed under reconciliation it didn't have to have 60 vote. there is some an moss anity on our side that having happened but i don't think the amendment is necessary. >> mr. chairman -- more to the point, it is just more to the point of the fact that the deficit implications are not included in this budget. >> okay. next amendment would be by lindsey graham. lindsey is not here. ron johnson. senator johnson. >> thank you mr. chairman. this is an amendment that will address the problem of improvident, i like that word,
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don't like the result, state and local governments that have increased their unfunded pension liabilities. there have been estimates that those unfunded liability, pension liabilities are approaching $5 trillion. and this amendment just simply creates, says spending neutral but i'm happy to change that to deficit neutral reserve fund to prevent use of any federal funds for bailout of those state and local governments. simply would not be fair to states that actually are fiscally responsible like the state of wisconsin whose pensions are 99% funded. oregon is over 90%. tennessee is over 90%. so in, with the looming deficits we have in our country we certainly can't afford as a federal government to be bailing out state and local governments. >> opposition? >> yep. >> senator sanders.
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>> i'm sure senator johnson would work with me to make sure that we don't bail out the crooks on wall street who helped destroy the american economy and leave millions of people without their homes, their jobs or their live savings. and i'm sure you want to join me in making sure we don't bail out the defense contractors when their cost overreturns are extraordinary to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. i don't think anybody feels great about bailing out anybody. but you have to look at a situation by situation and move in that direction. >> mr. chair? >> i would just say that i wouldn't want to bail out crooks either. i'm just talking about state and local governments in my amendment. >> mr. chair. this will sound like a flip question but it is no the flip why do you need a deficit neutral reserve fund to not bail someone out? it would seem like putting zero in that fund would be the best thing to do so you are not going to be bailing them out. so why do we need that fund.
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>> i guess budget rules. however it work, the main point we should not be bailing out state and local governments. so however we have to write it for the budget resolution, think that is budget rules. >> this may sound a little flip but we may be expecting them to bail us out so. any opposition? >> mr. chairman, i guess just a question for the author as to how you define that? is that local transportation money? community development block grants? is that, funding of health centers? is that, i mean what do you account -- because i don't know of any situation quote where we bailed out cities or counties or or states per se? we certainly support services, public services and are you suggesting that, what are you suggesting i guess? >> so, it means specifically, it is to prohibit federal funds
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from going to state and local governments to prevent receivership or facilitate exit from receivership or prevent default on obligations except for national disaster. for example, 47 municipalities filed for bankruptcy. that is what is contemplated here trying to bail those cities, for example like detroit, and they're actually were some indications -- >> did not ask for a bailout. we welcome you to come and take a look. >> but i understand that but there were people potentially talking about maybe not bought officials. i'm trying to make sure we get on record that we will not be, we will not be bailing out those states, those local governments that might be going into receivership or bankruptcy. >> next, i don't see senator whitehouse. so, senator warner i guess would be next. >> thank you mr. chairman.
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this would actually build on the good work that the ranking member and senator murray and many on this committee have done to help veterans. one of biggest challenges is to get the va though to recognize change. there was a process that started in virginia, now gone to 40 different law schools around the country, where veterans law clinics are set up, to help process veterans claims. there is still too large a backlog on these claims this is a deficit neutral reserve fund. wouldn't cost the government a dime. it would simply say we ought to encourage more of these law schools to create veterans clinics. it is good for veterans. good for the law students. obviously good for the taxpayer. the va has been very slow adopting this. this would help snug something along that has been uniformly supported. >> is there opposition?
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next would be senator purdue. >> mr. chairman, before you proceed to that, could i ask that consent that my amendment dealing with tax credits for unlawful immigrants be amended modified to make clear that when it says benefits for aliens after those words be added unlawfully present in the country, failed to state that in the document. >> the authors that the right to amend his amendment. >> thank you. >> need to get copies. senator purdue, did you have another amendment? >> no, sir, i will speak to senator graham's amendment but i
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will defer to him when he presents it. >> senator ayotte did you have another amendment? >> [inaudible] >> yes. >> i have an amendment and it is is that this? so, i have an amendment that is - deficit neutral reserve fund to provide energy assistance and invest in energy efficiency and conservation. and, from my perspective i think affordable energy drives our economy but also there have been, we need to eninsure that we protect our natural resources. my state of new hampshire is a beautiful state where we've been able to balance finding things like energy efficiency and protecting our natural resources. and this manement would allow to us -- amendment would allows to pursue all of the above energy
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strategy and look how we develop the best energy domesticwise and also the best technology to protect our environment. >> is there opposition? >> if i -- >> senator sanders. >> i am not opposed. i think this amendment addresses on right issues. this issue we deal with year after year and i would urge senator ayotte perhaps get some of their colleagues on board of this concept going beyond a just a deficit, deficit neutral reserve fund. we need to invest billions of dollars in energy efficiency, weatherization and sustainable energy. so her amendment is exactly the right thing but we have to go beyond a deficit neutral reserve fund. >> next would be senator baldwin. >> thank you, chairman enzi. i would like to bring up the
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baldwin amendment to strike section 405 of the budget resolution. this amendment is also cosponsored by senator warner. it is very simple. it would strike section 405 of the chairman's mark which eliminated a point of order against reconciliation legislation that would increase the deficit or reduce a surplus. . .
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>> thank you. i think those of us who have been on this committee for some time remember senator conrad. this is the reason they called it the conrad row. it was put in if memory serves correctly, against the wishes of many on our side. it simply said if you are going to use reconciliation, he wants to use these extraordinary rules let's stay true to the purpose which ought to be about the deficit. if i find it more than curious that this, one of the most important tools in this budgetary process to make sure that we don't add to the dead that we don't add to the deficit. if we are going to use extraordinary action they have the goal of reducing the deficit why anyone who is in favor of
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taking on the crisis of the $18.5 trillion of debt that goes up $120 billion per point in additional interest rates, i just fail to understand why one of the protections that was put in at great strife overcoming democratic opposition, that anyone that is fiscally responsible would want to take that out. >> the reason they would want to take that out is because that was put in just after you did the affordable care act so that nobody could do anything with the affordable care act, so all that this section of the budget does is repeal provisions and restrict the equal treatment of all -- well this resolution or a repeals the reconciliation bills and it's needed to restore them to equal treatment so this will eliminate something that would
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make it consistent with budget law prior to the year 2008 but all reconciliation bill should be created equal and their something called the third world world. the byrd world demand reconciliation bills do not increase the deficit in the long term so there is a long standing history go protection in their that will assured what you are trying to do will be done. the next amendment, senator portman. >> thank you mr. chairman. offering a deficit-neutral reserve funds for federal job training programs. the language before the members has been altered to change from spending neutral to deficit ridden neutral and removing the appropriate references to that
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and this is an amendment that talks about reducing redundancy, it improving access and enhancing access to training programs. recall we did have legislation last year that helps in this regard. it's called the career act. it was cosponsored by senator bennett and myself. so this would say that although we have made some progress we have a long way to go. it complements the amendment which was discussed earlier regarding career technical education with senator kaine and i believe senator kaine is going to co-sponsor this legislation as well but to the point he made earlier about skills training this is about taking this to worker retraining programs. right now we know from what he has told us $18 billion is being spent to administer 47 different employment training programs over nine different federal agencies. by the way 44 of those 47 programs are viewed to be
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overlapping with one another by the gao. with regard to the programs gao says quote little is known about the effectiveness of most programs so we talked earlier about the need for not just more jobs but better jobs and that's going to come from better training and that's going to come from closing the skills gap. this is an incredibly important way to do it. we are spending $18 trillion a year and we really don't know where the money is going so this is opportunity to improve access to these programs and enhance their outcomes. i would urge all of my colleagues to support the portman kaine amendment on worker retraining. >> oppositional comments? seeing none we can move on to senator merkley. >> thank you very much mr. chair. earlier we had senator kaine's
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proposal regarding career technical education and deficit-neutral reserve funds. i would like an opportunity to address that. i have a companion legislation that addresses science technology engineering and mathematics. it did include cte but i'm proposing i strike that out because this addresses the portion i was not addressed previously. s.t.e.m. education science technology engineering mathematics is incredibly important to many of our high-growth areas of the economy and these programs are generally offered as after-school programs which provide a tremendous opportunity for kids who would otherwise be latch key kids coming home to an empty house to engage in something and these are for example robotic programs where they learn teamwork. they learn leadership. they learn journalistic skills and they learn engineering skills and that has been a tremendously successful program in many parts of my state. but it's so small and investment right now that many schools are unable to participate. to hold the opportunity to
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expand those programs. >> thank you mr. chair. >> what number was back? [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> i'm going to have -- i have already provided for two from this site to do amendments consecutively but i'm going to go ahead and do a second one over on that side because senator kaine hasn't got to do one on that site. we will have to on that side and we haven't done the second one yet. >> thank you mr. mr. chair.
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i have an amendment to establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to the ongoing dod initiatives to bolster resilience of mission-critical defense infrastructure from impact by climate change. the amendment will support their efforts to strengthen installation infrastructure to withstand impacts from sealevel rise, recurrent flooding drought and other climate impacts. the hampton rosary in my state is home to largest naval insulation in the world as well as nearly 15 other installations. in this defense heavy region sea level rises occurring much faster than the historical rate of one foot a century. the level of sealevel rise is anywhere from 1.5 to 7 feet by 2130 university study showed that made norfolk road into the largest naval base in the world by 2040 will be inundated by daily tides, not just storm surges, two to three hours a day. this has been a flood-prone region but i'll acknowledge climate change is a significant
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factor. we have a hearing this summer at hampton roads and when i pointed out the problem posing tour to problem posing for a structure problem posing tour to structure a dod would have said you are not the only place effective. try running a military base in a place without a water supply so this is affecting military bases all over the country. if dod reduced -- released a roadmap and the gao and reasoned analysis last summer on how the dod can improve its infrastructure planning and practice in raising the three states as an example. alaska california virginia. with the prospect of a background of the future which we would hope to avoid for our state, a reserve fund that could help states deal with these challenges and then maybe avoid a brack scaled them enclosure would be appropriate so i would like to ask support for my amendment. thank you. >> opposition?
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this is meant to be flippant. doesn't that deepen your port? the next amendment than would be by senator graham. followed by senator toomey. >> thank you mr. chairman. this amendment will increase the account by $38 billion and i don't know if we have the charts on isil. anyway and 2011 we entered into sequestration and there is a chart somewhere around here i thought that would show you where isil is today in terms of the territory they hold. they didn't basically exist then so the reason i'm trying to increase right. they are probably coming there. the reason i am trying to increase the account is because the president has said we may leave more troops troops behind an afghan assembly plant.
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their 3000 soldiers today in iraq and the number is going to climb. if we are going to be successful overseeing contingency operations in 2015 are completely different in terms of what we expected in 2011 and we pay for this increased by taking the savings outside the ten-year window and moving them forward. i would like to yield to senator ayotte who has been a champion of this cause in trying to replenish our military spending. >> i'm a co-sponsor this amendment and i would just say given the threats we face around the world our military presence in both iraq and the airstrikes we are conducting in both iraq and syria the defense situation and what we need to do to protect our interests have changed dramatically since the budget control act passed and as we look here this is appropriate to increase money for oco given the threats we have faced around
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the world which are requiring the deployment of our troops and their assets. i want to thank senator graham for his leadership on this. >> mr. chairman? >> senator toomey. >> mr. chairman i want to fully acknowledge the important work that senator graham and ayotte and others have done out of a very legitimate concern for our defense funding level. i share their concern however i'm also concerned that this creates a mechanism by which defense spending could be increased quite significantly without any offset and it's my strongly held view that what we need to increase our defense spending for the sake of the fiscal solvency of our government and our long-term viability frankly of a nation we need to reign in spending and we need to offset the increases that are entirely necessary on the defense side. i'm going to reluctantly support the amendment in the form it is in now despite the fact that i really don't approve of the mechanism contemplated by the
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graham amendment that i appreciate senator graham and the other members on our side working with me for an amendment that i will introduce immediately after this which i will speak about but which at least helps to ensure that this device is a permanent way that we resolve our defense funding shortfall. >> if i may mr. chairman it's not my goal to increase spending overall. it's my goal to increase the ability to defend america overall and one last thing about sequestration. there is 163 programs incented from sequestration. one of them is our own pay. i'm going to go through on the floor and talk about what we left out of sequestration and see if we got our priorities right in this nation. >> mr. chairman? >> opposition? >> mr. chairman, this discussion
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is really quite extraordinary. hearing after hearing we hear from our republican colleagues say the deficit is killing us the national debt is killing us. we had to cut programs for the children, the elderly, the sick and the poor but all of that rhetoric, all of that discussion disappears because what we are looking at now undisputedly is a total budget gimmick. what you are saying is let's spend, what was it, $38 billion more for defense but let's not count that as part of the deficit. we are going to put it in the overseas contingency account. it's not deficit spending but it is real money so in my view we can argue about how much more we need for defense. we are ready are spending more than the next nine countries that at the very least i hope my republican colleagues would remember what you have been
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lecturing the american people about year after year after year and that is the deficits are real. let's not have a gimmick. if you wanted to date let's debate it. this is a total gimmick. >> other comments in opposition? there are still 41 seconds left. >> if i could. go ahead senator. >> i just wanted to note that when senator kyl and i were working for a couple of years trying to use the over contingency account to address the specifics in medicare we were talking about is a fake account and let's put it together and get rid of both of them. so we never did that in terms of medicare but now we are talking about taking the fake account of moving it ahead into a ten-year window to increase defense spending. i just think we should go in a forward way and pay for it.
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>> all the time has expired on the amendment. senator toomey. >> thank you mr. chairman. so my amendment is in direct response to the amendment that senator graham and others have -- my concern is in the absence of my amendment and assuming that senator graham's amendment succeeds we will have significantly increased oco spending and if that's spending actually is appropriated which it might well occur, then the oco baseline is increased correspondingly and that it's up to a very large number over 10 years. what my amendment would simply do is to ensure that the amount of oco funding that would be spared from a budget point of order would in 2017 b. the number it it would be whether or not senator graham's amendment would not so in other
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words we don't permanently expand the oco level of funding. it occurs in one year and not thereafter. >> opposition to the toomey amendment? we will go ahead with some additional amendments and we will probably have the next tranche of votes at, what is reasonable? at 4:00. we will cover all of the ones that we have gotten here so far. i think senator wyden would be next. do you have an amendment? >> thank you very much mr. chairman. this is a deficit-neutral reserve funds to protect medicaid and colleagues, i
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recognize that this is a controversial issue and i just want it understood why i feel very strongly about this. this really goes back for me to the days when i was codirector of the oregon gray panthers and i had a full head of hair and rugged good looks a long time ago. >> beyond my memory. >> yeah and medicaid alone covers 60% of nursing home residents. this is the key to ensuring access to long-term care for vulnerable, low income seniors and persons with disabilities. so i know we are going to have a discussion and we are going to throw numbers around fast and furious as is the case because that is what we do in the budget but i just want colleagues to
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understand that if we pass this amendment, i am very interested in working with senators on both sides of the aisle as the ranking democrat to look at reform that would strengthen this program. i just want us to recognize that i think this kind of approach is going to put at risk the crucial benefits that millions of grandparents and parents and families rely on from one part of the country. reform absolutely. there isn't one of these programs are we can't reform and i look at my colleagues on the other side of the isle whether it has been comprehensive reform reform. senator crapo and i have teamed up and that number view have
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been part of the important bipartisan effort where we ensure the protection and well-being of fall are both people and we also demonstrate that you can find some real savings. i just think the medicaid budget deficits constituted today puts particularly at risk seniors and long-term care facilities nursing homes. medicaid covers 60% of that population and i again would hope that we pass this amendment and vowed to take a balanced approach that ensures we recognize the demographic challenge is going to be all about we have 10,000 seniors turning 65 every day for years and years to come. this budget i think is going to be particularly harsh on vulnerable older people in nursing homes and i hope my colleagues will support the amendment.
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>> mr. president, in the budget control act and the sequester which was part of it a lot of major programs received no reductions in their growth path. medicaid is probably the largest largest, a substantial percentage every year and received no reduction in the growth at all and neither did food stamps and neither did a lot of other programs. so i would just say we do need to review how to make medicaid run better and any good reform has got to be more than just tinkering around the edges. it's a program that helps the poor, not the elderly really. it's a program for low-income people and i think that we should not adopt this amendment because senator wyden i do believe you are very sincere in your work to improve the program but i think the language in here would go further than i would be willing to agree on as we work to reforming it.
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>> mr. chairman i will be very brief by way of a rebuttal. it strikes right at the heart of the entitlement issue. there is something in between doing no policy reform. i understand that. i'm interested in protecting vulnerable people and very much aware we will need policy reforms to do that. there is something in between that and $400 billion which in my view is going to put at risk so many of the older people. i am sure all of you, i've seen a number of you talk about the demographics in the days ahead. not only are we going to see all those baby boomers turning 65, we have seen a rapid increase in the number of people who live beyond the age of 80 based on some of the studies that i have seen. that's pretty much a prescription in needing medicaid
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long-term care dollars pretty and a lot of instances it was essentially exhaust the private resources. for example senator sessions talks about new policy. one of the things i have been interested in a fresh approach and we are going to look at them and the finance committee is private savings for long-term care. again that's going to take some time. we have got people who i believe are going to suffer under this approach. thank you mr. chairman for the time. >> there is delay minutes left in the opposition. i want to make a couple of comments on it. i am not sure based on my past experience the chairman of the health education labor and pensions and we were able to eliminate some programs, streamlines and programs buying some programs to make a difference so that the affected
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childcare programs were able to continue and to have a little bit more money. i'm not sure on working on this but that would be a possibility in anything and medicaid. we have got to be able to scrutinize these things. the authorizing committees are the ones that are scrutinizing. we ought to allow flexibility. my experience with any program is that if you reduce the level of requests you are considered to have cut their budget so they would have to be a a lot more definitions in hearing what this involves. so the next amendment is senator crapo. >> thank you mr. chairman. this is crapo amendment number three to and operations chokepoint. late last summer news reports surfaced regarding a department of justice led initiative that targets certain industries ability to access banking services without first showing the companies or industries are
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breaking the law. rather than targeting bad actors for illegal activity this effort known as operation chokepoint is causing banks to deny or terminate credit lines due to fear that doj subpoenas are unjustified regulatory action by federal banking regulators. legitimate industries, legal but not acceptable apparently to the administration, are now facing the threat of the doj oversight and unjustified regulatory pressure. one of the supporters of this amendment, the chamber of commerce has stated enforcement agencies have the tools to root out fraud and predation directly and the chamber supports their efforts to do so. but under operation chokepoint government officials punish entire categories of lawful businesses by instilling fear in the institutions that make them. this has left things with little
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choice but to terminate long-standing relationships with customers and because of explicit or implicit threats from the regulator or the department of justice. now who are these disfavored industries? will we found out that one of them is the firearms and ammunition industry in the united states. in idaho we have heard from several idaho businesses involved in the gun and ammunition business who experience difficulty finding essential banking services as a result of this operation. at the urging of many members of congress, the federal national regulators updated their regulating guidance and frankly ended the list of unacceptable businesses in the united states, but they continued operation chokepoint getting them to withdraw their list of unacceptable businesses with a good first step. but we must eliminate this an appropriate program. that is why i'm offering this amendment to establish a deficit-neutral reserve funds
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and the department of justice operation chokepoint and frankly in this case to protect the second amendment. this amendment is supported by the national rifle association, the gun owners of america, the national shooting sports foundation and not just industries related to the second amendment. it's supported by the american bankers association the credit union national association electronic transactions association independent community bankers of america, the national association for federal credit unions and the u.s. chamber of commerce. the department of justice must not politicize its enforcement policies and we must not let operation chokepoint continue. >> mr. chairman? the description we have just heard and senator crapo and i have been having a discussion about it is unrecognizable to the program as it exists. what is this program really about? the electronic transactions are occurring to pull money out of citizen's bank accounts without
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their permission. these remote transactions have been used in a predatory fashion across america. for example in north carolina there was 11 bank has suffered an assault in which $2.4 billion was taken out of their customers accounts without their permission. there was a case in california where a large sum was taken out of customers accounts for services that they did not order order. these types of remote electronic transactions have been a problem of theft, predatory theft to ordinary citizens so the department of justice put together working group to say this must stop. now there has been the allegation as we have heard that legitimate businesses have been targeted. quite frankly, the evidence of that is extraordinarily scarce but i have offered a friendly amendment to modify this
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particular provision to end the program but to modify it. so the legitimate transaction the legitimate businesses are not affected. and so that means it would continue to target these predatory activities that are stealing money from american citizens while making sure legitimate activities are not touched. so i offer that friendly amendment. >> mr. chairman to respond. senator markley and i have been discussing in and unfortunately i'm not in a position where i can accept the amendment at this point because it allows operation chokepoint to continue. let me be very clear nothing in this amendment will stop the legitimate functions of the department of justice or our financial regulators from dealing with fraud. i would like to quickly read from the american bankers association letter and by the way this letter was signed by the credit unions, the independent community bankers and the american bankers association.
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in association. and they state senator crapo's amendment would in no way inhibit the enforcement of anti-fraud laws. all of the requirements of the bank secrecy act and other anti-fraud statutes would continue in full force and effect just as they did before the operation of the creation of operation chokepoint. and then they go on to point out that the banks and credit unions in this country work closely with doj and their financial regulators to deal with the exact kinds of issues that the senator is racing. my point is simply this. there is no reason for us to continue to allow this kind of an operation which targets legitimate businesses. ..
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they said yes, modify the program to make sure it does not target legitimate activities by legitimate interest. too bad the program would hurt americans across this country. >> next amendment by senator white house. >> thank you very much, chairman. we have a responsibility to meet the emergency management needs of the country and the disaster expenses that we face. we find in recent years what has actually been put into the budget has been running around
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21.52 on occasion $1.6 billion. but we actually spend over these years to 53 billion, 8.8 billion, 13 billion, 7.155 billion -- 17,000,002,013. so there is a recurring g@7.155 billion -- 17,000,002,013. so there is a recurring gap between what we budget for and what we experience in our disaster response. this amendment would create a deficit mutual reserve fund that would relate to fema's ability to prepare for this. in rhode island were seen unprecedented fisheries, unprecedented storm activity from sandy. we have seen homes washed into the sea, 10 inches of escher's sea level rise and that the carbon loading we are doing to
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our atmosphere and oceans continues whether were dave and whether wilding all over the place is going to keep reasonably people could project and experience would lead us to project this disaster expenditures high. i hope we can support the deficit neutral reserve funds relating to preparedness and federal management agency to respond to these disasters on land and in the ocean are those about the notion states we see ocean disasters as well for which we then have to fight for emergency fund named because we've not adequately prepared ourselves for what is foreseeable. >> in opposition, i would mention that if you look at some of the details in the budget, something i complained about since i got to the senate is a matter and what i complained about is that a timer having $4 billion a year in disasters.
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but he was always an emergency. is that if you've got $4 billion a year maybe you like to plan ahead for it and put it into the budget. that now has gone up to $7 billion a year on average for disasters did you will find that the $7 billion a year for each of the 10 years of the budget so we would actually be acknowledging the disaster. >> -- year-by-year. we hope we can agree on this. >> mr. chairman do we have time on this? >> s. briefly. >> the environmental works committee last week and i acquired the week he for and i acquired it for what evidence she had that she had morse warned. in fact real clear that we've had fewer hurricanes substantially fewer in the last decade contrary to global warming predictions.
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we've also had tornadoes. also i pcc international panel on climate change is worldwide have not reduced. in fact slightly greater. i don't know what the future leads us, but we are fortunate that we haven't had more hurricanes. also no more tornadoes and apparently fewer drought. i have asked questions to provide any evidence to support her suggestions and statements that we've had more of all of these and i look forward to area is in the next week or two. >> senator johnson has the next amendment. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i think as a fellow accountant, you are every bit as frustrated as i am at obtaining information on programs. i am hoping this amendment will follow in the same bipartisan
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spirit from obtaining information. i am concerned as we've now implemented obamacare cbo and their projections have stopped recording the money is or i'm sorry to patient protection affordable care act. the way they were trying to get the bill passed. a simple amendment requires transparent reporting on the ongoing cost with the protection affordable care act and i am hoping that this will garner bipartisan support. >> opposition? >> mr. chairman, if i might ask if the senator would he willing to add costs and savings as an amendment. >> absolutely. but after the full measure, the full information in terms of ballot relies on our budget i'm happy to include that.
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>> is the senator then willing -- is the senator willing to revise his amendment went >> i will work with senators so i know what and which needs included in there. >> further in opposition? [inaudible conversations] >> this is an amendment. senator ayotte may not solve every problem that we are addressing, but it is a small step forward. this is some of the outgrowth of the task force to come from a task orders where we pass legislation to eliminate
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duplicated and unnecessary reports. we got rid of 300 last year. we now still have 4000 on the list reviewed on a regular basis and this would again simply imagine this process along. senator ayotte may want to speak to this. this is our government report, kelley appeared >> i just want to support senator warner on this. this has been important work we have done in the performance task force and i fully support the amendment. it's good government. it makes sense and i thank him for bringing it. >> i would add we have been able to document millions of savings from this. but it all counts. >> i appreciate the effort of both of you and also time you put in reviewing regulations. i know how city mayor to read. any opposition? next on our side would a senator tree of lakes.
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>> i have a deficit neutral reserve fund to address and prescription opioid abuse. i don't know if you are all experiencing this in your state the same way we experience this in new hampshire. this is a public health epidemic. we've had a 60% increase in drug deaths and is so cheap on the streets right now the people addict to prescription drugs are now shifting to harebrained and it's killing people. we need to address this and look at this issue and make sure we are working with state localities to stop the public health epidemic. we need to work with fun person as well but we can arrest her way out of the problem unfortunately which is devastating people in this country. [inaudible] >> -- opposition. >> i'd like to be added as cosponsor. >> without objection. >> i would do.
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the mac without objection. without objection. >> senator king. >> i have one along the line of fire call it to ron johnson style amendment of information. it is simply to require the cbo congressional budget office when they produce economic outlook to produce a list of tax expenditures from 1965 to the present and for projected for the following 10 years. this is a slightly different format than senator white house but it basically with the required information to be in the congressional budget office and economic outlook they produce every year. very straightforward information.
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>> senator king do you consider things like home mortgage deduction for charitable contribution as a tax expenditure? >> yes. and they did actions -- it is the whole package. the total amount would all have to be listed so we have the information. >> that is one way to look at it. i don't think most people do. >> this is an proposing baby necessarily eliminated or changed. it's had the information before us. >> thank you gave maybe i'm just a cosponsor? the differences mind puts that information into the budget document in his would require cbo to do it on a more continuing a fifth. it is were the information to be aware of and i supported and asked to be added as cosponsor. [inaudible conversations]
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>> okay. on our side, senator sessions would be next. >> mr. president, hundreds of billions of dollars in medicare savings to the hospital insurance trust fund were double counted under the affordable care act. at least 400 billion in fiscal year 2010 2019. -- medical group said in its the improved hospital insurance financing can not simultaneously be used to finance other federal outlays such as coverage expansions on the affordable care act into the extent extent of the trust fund by the appearance of this result from respect to counting conventions. cbo said the key point to savings to the hospital insurance trust fund under
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obamacare and i am quoting directly, would be received by the government only ones so they cannot be used to pay for future medicaid spending and at the same time pay for current spending on other parts of legislation or other programs. to describe the full amount of trust fund savings at improving the government to pay future medicare benefits and finance the new spending outside medicare would essentially double count a large share of those saving and overstate the improvement in the government fiscal position. this is a huge thing. the double count $400 billion as was done when we passed -- you passed on the legislation on december 23rd, whenever it was, so that is the point in
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question. we do need transparency. we need to understand this. it's just not right to cut social security or medicare expands or benefit and claim on programs heading to disaster financially and claim you save the money that can be spent on another account. if money is saved in medicare, if money is saved in social security, it should be used to strengthen those programs effectively. i hope this amendment would allow us to think more clearly and more transparently about this issue. >> opposition. >> we are going to have to study senator sessions and then it. -- amendment. >> just for the record when we were strengthening medicare with wellness visit and closing what we've called the doughnut hole to allow more seniors to be able
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to get lower-cost prescription drugs and all the other things we did to strengthen medicare we found in looking on the finance committee some areas where we could save dollars. one of those were at the time overpayments and certainly medicare advantage has an important role to play but i remember asking the budget office at the time if we capped the pavement for medicare advantage of 150% of what doctors and hospitals receive through the direct medicare program, would there be any savings and they said yes. there was such a huge overpayment going on. 85% of seniors going through traditional medicare, 15% through the private insurance market and the amount of money at that time the private insurance market was hugely overpaid compared to everybody else in the seniors then were
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picking up the cost. the point is we put some caps on overpayment that has save dollars and that in fact have gone back into making sure more seniors can receive prescription drugs by closing the doughnut hole, by getting a wellness visit every year without any out-of-pocket cost and other things. i guess i would start what we have to look at this amendment, i would say to my friend from alabama that icon from a very different perspective about what we actually did because i believed that we looked for saving and then strengthened medicare and in fact benefits for seniors have gone now. >> those suggestions to make sense. like when medicare costs work on it, the money should have been used for example, to pay the taxes. but it was taken and spent and
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not for the doctors but some of those did work as you said. >> mr. chairman. >> senator wyden. because medicare is part of the overall federal budget, the medicare savings in health reform both extend the life of the hospital insurance trust fund and reduce the federal budget deficit. the analogy i make is this is similar to a baseball player hitting a homerun. it adds to his team score and it also improves his batting average. neither situation would eat double counting. so to me, we have to get on as i characterized this morning but we had another hearing on the affordable care act, bipartisan approaches that are going to
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protect the medicare guaranteed to generate savings. i am opposed to this amendment. by the way i would say not in a partisan way republican-controlled congress is didn't object when cbo projected medicare savings to extend the solvency of medicare and reduce deficit under several other approaches. the balanced budget act of 97 and deficit reduction act of 2005. i hope we will reject this amendment and get on as we talked about this morning senator stabenow and others were there with a partisan approach is to protect the medicare guaranteed particularly in the area of tackling chronic disease. thank you, mr. chairman. >> you can't been the same dollar twice. cbo and cms said that is what we've done. republicans did do it in the past. we need to admit.
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>> okay. we said we would go to 4:00. it is a few minutes past 4:00. we will go ahead and get started. the first amendment is senator keating with his sequester replacement. >> we are beginning to vote yeah. people need like five minutes. >> mr. chair, would you mind if we took five minutes before beginning not? >> as long as we only take five minutes. and that is not rumble for us. -- not normal for us. >> are we taking a break?
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>> mr. chairman, are we taking a break? i didn't your conclusion. >> harden? >> are we taking a break? >> i was hoping not. how many requests are there to take a break? none. we will go ahead then. the first amendment is senator king. >> mr. chairman, this amendment simply creates a deficit neutral reserve funds in order to be a place keeper or finding a solution to the sequester which i think we all agree is not good either on domestic or defense side. it says that it should be both defense and nondefense and it allows spending cuts as well as revenues. the
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>> opposition? >> mr. chairman, senator cain appropriately wants to end sequestration and i think almost all of us agree with him i'm not. the way his amendment is written that caused to be offset by changes of mandatory programs and receipts. as he indicated earlier, there's many ways you can do it but it does leave the possibility open with significant cuts in social security and medicare and for that reason i will oppose the amendment. >> by the way by amendment now says recedes. it should say revenues. i would amend it to change the word receipts to revenues. i think it is clear, but in order to clarify it further. >> i think i would ask you to do that on the floor. my comments were very similar to senator sanders and that is pretty scary. >> the role is to bring people
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together. if i brought senator sanders and senator and the together. >> you want a roll call vote? >> please call the roll. [roll call] [roll call] >> can i be recorded as of two? >> mr. sanders. [roll call] [roll call]
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>> mr. chairman, how am i recorded? >> anytime? >> no. >> are there any who wish to change the vote? what is the recorded vote? the yeas are: 10. the nays are: 12. >> the amendment is defeated. next is senator sessions and i think he is modified his amendment. >> with permission i would like to modify a more appropriately after the words benefit for alien, i would insert the word without legal status. i think that's a better way to phrase it and i would ask my colleagues to support the amendment that would have a reserve fund to deal with illegal immigrants while qualifying for the refundable tax credit.
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i position the inspector general of the united states treasury department has taken a nasa treasury department exxon at dog what was unable to do so they say in a vast congress to fix it and we are overdue and do we not. >> opposition understaffing now? >> mr. chairman, i want to associate myself as indicating we desperately need comprehensive immigration reform to address all of these things. i hate it is important that children who are here legally. it is important for the record to say anyone who is not here legally cannot receive today the earned income tax credit, social security food stamps traditionally called welfare programs, housing vouchers. affordable care act medicare pell grants in social security disability. i think it's important because
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it has somehow keep receiving services that are not here legally. i just want to put that in the record i hope we will focus on comprehensive immigration reform. >> summer fraudulently using social security in this with correct that. >> that's a request from the irs to be more specific. do you want a roll call vote? please call the roll. [roll call] [roll call] [roll call]
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>> mr. chairman, the yeas are: 12, the nays are: 10. >> senator to me hit the nail on the head when he talked about the debate here. i understood less get rid of all campaign limitations, which means the billionaires can give directly to candidates. who are those members of congress elected with a house of billionaires going to be representing? do you think they are representing the middle class? you are going to be a paid employee for the billionaire class. i think enough is enough. we've got to overturn citizens united output >> mr. senator to me. or is are very credit to vote.
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if members of congress i rather think that would be noticeable and they would be quite free to exercise their discretion that not electing someone who was an employee of the universe. i don't know why we have so little dance in the electorate. >> so-called click please call the roll. [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call]
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>> mr. chairman, the yeas are: 10, the nays are: 12. >> the amendment fails. senator crapo's amendment. >> i will yield to my cosponsor on this. [inaudible] >> we should not be using the gc going to support our industry as a piggy bank for other programs. it is rare to see where you've got bankers come a civil rights groups come naacp followed mine on the fiscally responsible amendment. >> all those in favor say aye. opposed? cary. next is the murray amendment. >> thank you, mr. chairman. this is the amendment that takes a deficit neutral reserve fund and section 307 and expanded to allow us to use drastically
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needed issues for our veterans and service members including providing additional job training programs and specialty services and caregiver support i think we all know many veterans come asian batteries need as well. allows them to stay in their home and work with infrastructure needs which are dramatic and mental health care as well as providing fertility treatment are critically injured veteran who could no longer have families and it's important we expand this time so we can make sure we address the real needs of service members. >> i am really encouraged by the ability of both reserve funds to provide the body with the ability to address issues confronting our veterans. i would ask or a gas vote. -- out of them neighbors safe to do. opposed?
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passes. next one is the stabenow amendment. >> thank you, mr. chairman. we are still working issues on that particular one i would has to move to the end of the? on medicare. >> so far the parliamentarian. >> i understand they're still working through some issues. if we don't do it here, will start they do it on the floor. >> we are striking a section as well. second amendment. >> moving to the next one we appoint the board are of course in the budget resolution on anything that would add to the deficit. we see when it comes to the group you are the affordable care act, there is not a point of order added to that which is allowed under that. in fact the affordable care act reduces

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