twitter, and the web site, politico.com. thanks so much. >> guest: thanks for having me. >> u.s. senate about to gavel back in. reporters hearing from leaders just before they come in. fox tweeting about that reconciliation effort, says that mcconnell expects to finish budget reconciliation package to repeal obamacare, defund planned parenthood on thursday. general speeches allowed til 3:00 eastern, and meanwhile over in the house they're working their way through a number of bills including one today. they, by a voice vote, passed the intelligence authorization for 2016. now we take you live to the floor of the u.s. senate here on c-span2. mr.

mr. lee: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator utah. mr. lee: is the senate in a

quorum call? the presiding officer: the senate is not in a quorum call. mr. lee: mr. president, i rise today to pay tribute to governor olene walker, utah's 15th governor, who passed away on saturday, november 28, 2015, at the age of 85. she was the first woman to serve as utah's governor, worked as lieutenant governor for over 11 year, and was a member of the utah legislature for eight years. olene walker will be remembered and revered by utahans not because of the many firsts she pioneered in politics but for her commitment to leave a legacy of public and, more importantly, private service based on principles that truly last. olene's life and year were centered ond principle on princf service and making a difference between civil discourse and meaningful dying log.

governor the governor believed that the best way to open a mind was by reading a book. she launched her read with a child program, focusing on adults to read with a child for 20 minutes a day. she knew that 20 minutes of daily reading would not only transform children across the state by getting them to read at or above grade level but would transport them to magical places, big ideas, and brighter futures. because she became governor at the age of 73 and as a grandmother, i think she also recognized that 20 minutes of reading with a child would inspire the adults in the state of utah as well. governor walker was never far from a book or a group of children to read to, often choosing her personal favorite from dr. seuss, o the places you'll go. governor walker went many places in her public service but sent thousands and thousands of utah children on adventures never to

be forgotten in the wonderful world of good books. she was living proof that books expand the mind and that a mind expanded, especially the mind of a child, could never return to its original state. i was inspired when her reading -- when reading her obituary, the last line, in typical olene walker style, stated "in lieu of floors, please read with a child." her commitment to the principle of lifelong learning is a legacy in and of itself. governor walker also understood that it didn't really matter where she served but, rather, how she served, whether working alongside her husband in the family snack business, in the legislature, or in the governor's office, olene walker knew that her time on this earth would never be measured by titles she held but by the impact and influence that she

had on others. she understood and lived by the adage, "we are to live our lives not by days but by deeds, not by seasons but by service." after leaving the governor's mansion, she participated in literacy forums, served in l.v.s. mission with her husband in new york, and at an age when most people slow down, olene walker took on a new and many would say daunting challenge of leading dozens of pre- to 11-year-old children for two hours every sunday in her l.d.s. congregation. sheerveed with charisma and charm that was elevating and enlightening. national political players, rural farmers, business executives, and children were equally inspired by her energetic approach, and they responded to her invitation to

engage because they sensed that what they were about to experience was not about governor walker. it was about them. in an age of eg egomaniacs, her service in high office is a model for all to follow, a model that all people should try to emulate. governor walker also understood the principle that mean-spirited arguments produce little, while meaningful dialogue creates much. she was known for her disarming style and for her corresponding ability to pull people into a conversation. she believed and lived by a motto that my office is committed to, that the solution to any and every problem begins when someone says "let's talk about it." olene walker challenged

political candidates, elected officials of both parties, and young people in particular to transcend the talk radio-style bombast and attacks in favor of serious and substantive discussions. the olen s. walker institute of public politics at the university is a testament to her commitment to make a difference through more meaningful and deeper dialogue. a picture taken of olene walker, taken inside the governor's mansion, contains an interesting image that illuminates much of what she was all about. resting on a desk in the background of the picture is a statue of a vibrant, energetic, pioneering bric brigham young, walking with eyes set on a bright future as he began the

endeavor of being the first to establish a lasting legacy in the tops of the rocky mountains. in the picture the statue of bringing ham young almost appears to be trying to keep up with governor walker. only olene walker could get a trail-blazing brigha brigham yoo pick up the pace. governor walker was a pioneer and a trailblazer, moving swiftly, leading with a clear vision of a better society, guided by her principles of lifelong learning, selfless service, and civil dialogue. her life of many firsts will be celebrated and emulated for generations to come because it was founded on and inspired by such principles, principles that will truly last. thank you, mr. president.

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. bennet: thank you, mr. president. i'm here today to lee flec refle tragedy that occurred in colorado springs last week, a gunman attacked a planned parenthood clinic killing three people and injuring nine others. colorado is mourning the victims, all of who represented the best of our state. officer garrett swasey was one of the first officers to arrive at the descrean. he had served as an officer at the colorado springs police department for six years. he had been married to his wife rachel for 17 years.

he leaves behind his two children, faith, only six, and elijah who just turned seven on sunday. the greatest joys were his family, faith, and profession. "we will cherish his memory, especially those times he spent tossing the football to his son and snuggling with his daughter on the couch." "helping others brought him deep satisfaction. being a police officer was a part of him. in the end," she said, "his last act was for the safety and well-being of others and was a tribute to his life." and officer swasey's actions spoke to his extraordinary courage and selflessness. as a university police officer, he wasn't under any obligation to respond when he first heard of the incident through the emergency radio. he could have looked the other way. yet he was one of the first to arrive at planned parenthood, which is four miles away from

the university. his good friend and co-passenger said that officer swasey often responded to dangerous calls off-campus and that he put other people's lives before his own. university of colorado, colorado springs police chief said there was no way any of us could have kept him here. he was always willing to go. he had an enthusiasm that was hard to quell. officer swasey is truly a hero in every sense of the word. before joining the university police force, he was a junior national champion ice skater. upon hearing the news of the tragedy,, his skating partner observed that garrett was selfless, always there to help me, always my wing man. he was my brother and my partner. i could always count on him. after his competitive career, officer swasey continued to teach skating. he also served as a copastor at

hope chapel, which he and his family attended since 2001. at church, he led care groups and taught scripture and guitar. at services on sunday, a fellow passenger at the church described how he felt. "you don't realize how much you love someone until you can't tell them anymore." mr. president, our state is also mourning the loss of kevmen kevment'srre stewart, only 29 years old. here is how his family and friends describe him. "a good friend, amazing listener, one of the most caring men i've ever met, someone you could just sit and talk to about life, caring, giving, funny, and just a damn good person." those tax rates were on display friday as he was at planned parenthood accompanying a friend. he served our country in the army and had been deployed to

iraq between 2005 and 2006. last week he died as he was trying to save others. according to reports, after being shot outside of the building, he ran back inside to warn others to seek safety. his family credits his military training, and instinct for how he respond. ke'arre wasn't a native of colorado. he was born in texas where he was a three-sport athlete playing football, basketball, and running track. his friends say he moved to colorado because he was stationed at fort carson and stayed like so many of us because he loved our beautiful state. he had two children, both daughters. they are 11 and six years old. his friends observed that he loved his daughters to death. he would do anything for them.

finally, mr. president, the third victim, jennifer markovsky, was also accompanying a friend to the clinic on frid friday. jennifer grew up in hawaii where she met her husband who was serving in the army at the time. about a decade ago in a story very similar to kierre's, they moved to colorado when he was reassigned. jennifer's family described her as a loving wife and mother to a young son and daughter. her sister-in-law toll the "-- told the "colorado springs gazette" she lived for her kids. she said jennifer often took they are children, who are 10 and 6 on hikes and spent time with them baking and working on crafts. her father, who had just wished her a happy thanksgiving one day earlier called her the most lovable person, kindhearted, always there when i needed her.

yesterday her husband said that she was a very caring and compassionate person, a patient and understanding parent. she was deeply loved by all who knew her she was always helping the kids do homework and reading books with them. we will miss her, her cooking, crafting and adventurous spirit. three young parents, mr. president, who woke up last friday morning with long, bright futures ahead of them. with the chance to raise their children and watch them grow and learn. with the chance to contribute as they had before to our community and to our country. but instead whose lives were violently ended in a hail of gunfire. three strangers to each other now joined together in our fondest memories.

nine others were wounded and our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families as well. we should also honor and thank the colorado springs police department and other local law enforcement agencies who responded so swiftly and effectively. five officers were wounded in the attack. i'd also like to recognize the employees at planned parenthood who worked tirelessly during it is extended shooting and hostage incident to ensure their patients were kept safe. this is not the day to talk about how our country begins to emerge from this season of killing and violence but let me simply say, in recent years, too many of our children and parents have had their lives stolen, and too many of the rest of us have lived to pursue the ordinary course of our lives -- going to school, going to work, seeking

health care in the shadow of the question, "whose child will be next, whose mom and dad will be next?" what we need today instead of charged rhetoric and political tactics is to find a way to at least begin figuring out, how can we deal with these problems that we need to solve. how can we make things better? i would like to thank my colleagues for their comforting words this week and i hope that all of us will take time today and in the days ahead to think of the victims and the families involved in this tragedy. take a moment in particular to think of the kids who lost their mom or dad. i have no doubt the colorado springs community and our state will come together to heal during this difficult time. we could all take a queue from that here, mr. president -- we

could all take a cue from that here, mr. president. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. mr. enzi: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: mr. president, shortly we'll be getting on a bill, obamacare repeal. it comes as a part of the budget operation. it's a special debate that can result in the passage of a bill with 51 votes in the senate. there will be a limit on the debate of 20 hours, 10 hours each side, to convey any messages they want about the bill and also to handle any amendments. at the end of the process there can be another vote-a-rama if there is a lot of amendments

still left over. so this is an amendable bill. it has quite a few rules that fall under the budget process that make this a bit more difficult than just a wide-ope wide-open -- wide-open bill. so there are rules that have to be met in order for an amendment to -- to not affect the outcome of the bill. so many of you have heard the expression, i'm sure, "caveat emptor," which means "buyer beware." the president and democrats in congress should have heeded this warning before forcing the country to purchase obamacare, which still remains unworkable, unaffordable and more unpopular than ever. for millions of americans, the law today represents nothing more than broken promises, higher costs and fewer choices. it's no surprise that a gallup

poll published last month, more than five years after the law was passed and several years into actual implementation, shows that most americans still oppose this unprecedented expansion of government intrusion into health care decisions for hardworking families and small businesses. another poll that i found interesting showed that more people were concerned about what's happened with health care than they do about climate change. that's appropriate for this week. the law is saddling american households with more than $1 trillion in new taxes over the next 10 years, according to the congressional budget offic office -- according to the congressional budget office, obamacare will cost taxpayers more than $116 billion a year. in fact, on average, every american household can expect more than $20,000 in new taxes over the next 10 years because

of this bill. obamacare's crushing regulations mean smaller paychecks for families while holding back small businesses from expanding and hiring new workers. for every american, obamacare has meant more government, more bureaucracy and more rules and regulations. along with soaring health care costs and less access to care. when we were debating this bill five years ago, i remember talking about 30 million people in the united states being uninsured. today there are 30 million people in the united states uninsured. it's just a different 30 million people. the ones who couldn't be insured are insured and the ones who were insured can't afford the insurance. of course there was a lot of talk about health care companies gouging the insured. well, we put in risk corridors so that were making an excess profit would put in mean would go to those that didn't figure

on the right number of people or how healthy the people would be that they insured. we now know that that didn't work. the amount of money that went into the fund was rather insignificant, so those who undercharged aren't getting much and companies are going out of business. today we take a crucial step forward in beginning to lift the burdens and the higher costs of this law that's been placed on all americans. as i mentioned, this is a special budget operation that only requires 51 votes. the house has already passed a bill with 51 votes -- with more than a significant majority. by the time we're done, the legislation the senate passes will eliminate more than a trillion dollars in tax increases placed on the american people while saving more than $500 billion in spending. most importantly, this bill begins to build a bridge from

the president's broken promises to a better health care system for hardworking families across the country. let's talk about the broken promises. as a presidential candidate, then-senator obama promised americans that they could keep their health plan if they liked it. when he was in office and the bill was there, he said, if you like your plan, you can keep it. millions soon learned that they can't. this is because obamacare has drastically reduced america's choice among health care plans through a federal government takeover of the insurance marketplace. in fact, the president's promise "if you like your plan, you can keep it" was named politifact's lie of the year in 2013 after the health care plan cancellations were mailed to over 4 million americans. let's talk about the higher costs. americans were also promised

lower health care costs but even the administration admits obamacare is failing to address costs and said average premiums expected to rise by 7.5% this year. recent headlines from across the country actually show much more dramatic increases. in minnesota, insurance policies on the exchange have rate hikes in the double digits, between 14% and 49%. in oregon, premiums for the benchmark plan on the exchange will go up about 23%. in alaska, the premium hike will be more than 31% for the benchmark plan. in oklahoma, the second lowest cost silver plan premiums will increase more than 35%. in utah, plans on the federally run exchange will be 22% higher

next year. higher taxes -- the president of the united states himself promised that this bill was not a tax. in fact, this was one of the law's top selling points because democrats knew it would never pass if they said it was a tax. but while they got the bill passed and signed into law, the supreme court later ruled that it is a tax. this law was deceptively sold to the american people and now these hidden taxes are being passed on to hardworking families in the form of higher fees and costs. it's time for democrats in congress and the president to admit that obamacare is a trillion-dollar tax hike that families and employers simply can't afford. we can talk about fewer choices. obamacare's mandates and taxes on employer-sponsored health plans are not only leading to higher out-of-pocket expenses

but also fewer choices and services for 150 million americans who have relied upon job-based health benefits for decades. it eliminated some of the competition. and competition is the real way to bring prices down. i remember when we did medicare part-d. i was a little concerned because there were only two companies that were providing the pharmaceutical benefit in wyoming and i thought maybe they would drop out of the -- out of the program. but medicare part-d increased competition. and what did increased competition do? it brought down the price of the pharmaceuticals by 25% before it even went into effect. obamacare didn't provide for more competition. according to the nonpartisan kaiser family foundation, employees who have job-based insurance have witnessed their out-of-pocket expenses on average for an individual climb

from $900 in 2010 to $1,300 in 2015. employees working for small businesses now have deductibles of over $1,800. and since obamacare became law, several large employers have stopped offering biflt benefits to part-time employees, including target and trader joe's. so the premiums have gone up and the deductibles have gone up. fewer choices, higher costs. so this was supposed to build a bridge to better care. over the past 50 years our nation has made great strides in improving the quality of life for all americans, but she is transformative changes were always forged in the spirit of bipartisan compromise and cooperation. these qualities are essential to the success and longevity of crucial programs such as

medicare and medicaid. senator daniel patrick moynihan, a democrat from new york, said in 2001, shortly before he retired, "never pass legislation that affects most americans without real bipartisan support. it opens the doors to all kinds of political trouble." senator moynihan correctly noted that the side that didn't support the law will focus on each and every misstep. more importantly, predicted the measure's very legitimacy would always be in doubt and the majority of americans would have trouble supporting it in the longrun because it unquestionablely achieved all of its goals. we've seen each of these scenarios play out over the past five years as the health care law has polarized america like nothing before. bipartisan support, of course,

means that bodge sides get some things -- both sides get some things into the mix of the bill. that did not happen, even though we had a very extensive amendment process in committee and on the floor. essentially the republican ideas were all thrown out, so both sides weren't included, so it with a not be a bipartisan bill. -- it would not be a bipartisan bill. after the passage we had a special time at the blair house when there were half republicans and half democrats who got to speak with the president for a day. the amazing thing at that meeting was, every time that a republican mentioned an idea, the president blasted it immediately. when the democrats suggested an idea, those were all good. at the end of the day, it turned out to be very much of a waste of time because not a single idea was even considered that was brought up at that time. so we still need health care

reform. but it has to be done the right way, not comprehensive. in my opinion, comprehensive means so large that nobody can understand it, and that's kind of what happened with this bill. you got to do it step by step. they can be pr pretty big steps. you can bring the american public along, they can tell you the unintended consequences and those can be fixed. it would be correctable. this bill hasn't been correctable. we've known of flaws. the president has put waivers on to keep us from noticing them sooner and we've offered to correct those but have never been taken up on those. so providing access to high-quality, affordable health care is something i'm confident that democrats and republicans should be able to do. it's time to build a bridge from the broken promises to better health care for each and every

american. -- once and for all. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. i ask unanimous consent that morning business be extended until 4:00 p.m. today with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. sanders: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: mr. president, me t committee, i rise in strong opposition to the budget reconciliation bill that we are debating today. in fact, this bill should tell every american just how far removed the republican leadership here in congress is from the realities of american life and the needs of the american people. at a time when the united states

is the only major country on earth that does not guarantee health care to all people, when 29 million americans today have no health insurance and even more are underinsured with high deductibles and high co-payments, when we pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs and when one out of five americans are unable to fill the prescriptions written by their doctors because drug prices are so high, what this legislation does is move us in exactly the wrong direction. it would throw more than 17 million americans off of health insurance by gutting the affordable care act being. so we have a health care crisis and this bill makes the crisis much worse. every other major country on

earth guaranteed health care for awful their peoplall of their ps bill would add 17 million more americans to the ranks of the uninsured, creating a situation in which we would have 46 million americans without any health insurance at all. now, i think any sensible person would ask an obvious question: what happens to people who lose their health insurance? how many of those people will get much sicker than they otherwise should have? -- because they were unable to go to a doctor when they needed to go? how many of those people will not be able to get the prescription drugs they need? in fact, how many of those people will die? and let's be frank. when you throw 17 million people off of health insurance, people will die because they don't go to a doctor when they should, they don't get into the hospital when they should. we know that before the passage

of the affordable care act, 45,000 americans died each year because they lacked health insurance and didn't get to a doctor on time. i have talked to many doctors in vermont and throughout this country who tell me, yes, of course, people walk into the door -- their door much sick he than they should have been. and when the doctor says, why didn't you come six months ago when you were sick? they said, well, i don't have any insurance. and by the time they walk into the door, it is too late. that is not what should be happening in america. but that is what will increasingly happen if this legislation were to pass. mr. president, in the united states of america, when you are sick, you should be able to access health care and see a doctor. that is not a radical idea. and when you go to the hospital, you should not end up in bankruptcy.

instead of throwing 17 million americans off of health insurance, what we should be doing is expanding on the improvements of the affordable care act to make health care a right of all people, not just a privilege. further, let us be clear -- and i think everybody here in the senate understands this -- the bill we are debating today is a complete waste of time. this is just another reason why the american people have so little respect for the congress. there are major crises facing our country, and the republican leadership once again is attempting to repeal obamacare. i kind of lost track about how many times this effort has been made. i think in the house twation --s over 50. i don't know how many times it is here in the senate. so let me break the news to my republican colleagues, although

i am sure they already got the news. that is, obama is not going to sign a bill repealing obamacare. i think that is not likely to happen. and what we are doing today is just a waste of time. and let's also be clear, this bill doesn't just gut the affordable care act, it also eliminates funding for planned parenthood, which provides health care services to nearly 3 million women each and every year. last week three people were killed and nine were wounded at a shooting at a planned parenthood clinic in colorado springs, colorado. while we still don't have all of the details as to what motivated the shooter, what is clear is that planned parenthood has been the subject of vicious and unsubstantiated statements, attacking an organization that provides critical care for

millions of americans and, in fact, provides very high-quality care. i, for one, strongly support planned parenthood and the work that it is doing. in my view, instead of trying to defund planned parenthood, we should be expanding funding so that every woman in this country gets the health care that she needs. mr. president, it is also my sincere hope that people throughout this country, including my colleagues here in the senate and across the capitol in the house, understand that bitter vitriolic rhetoric can have serious, unintended consequences. now is not the time to continue a witch-hunt for an organization that provides critical health care services, from reproductive health care to cancer screenings and preventive services to

millions of americans. no one is forced to seek care at planned parenthood. it is a choice, a choice millions of women make freely and proudly. mr. president, this is -- this legislation is not only bad legislation and it is not only a waste of time, because if it's passed, it will be vetoed, but what it also tells the american people is that the republican leadership is not prepared to discuss or to address the major crises facing our country. just today a report came out, the top 20 wealthiest people in this country own more wealth than the bottom half of the american people. 20 people ... 150 million

people. the level of wealth inequality in america is grotesque and unacceptable. not one word in this bill addresses that issue. mr. president, today in america millions of our people are working longer hours for lower wages. they're working two or three jobs just to survive. and yet 58% of all new income created is going to the top one percent. is there anything in this legislation that would raise wages for millions of american workers who are struggling to keep their families solvent? so, mr. president, this is a bad piece of legislation. it's a piece of legislation that is not going to go anyplace because it's going to be vetoed. and it's a piece of legislation i think that speaks to why the

american people are giving up in so many ways on the political process. people are struggling all over this country. they are hurting. they're working longer hours for lower wages. they can't afford to send their kids to college. they can't afford child care. they're worried about high unemployment. and this bill attempts to repeal obamacare. that's where we are. so, mr. president, i hope very strongly that this bill is defeated. if it is not defeated, i hope and expect the president will veto it. with that, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: mr. president, i ask consent to speak for up to 30 minutes as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, let me take you back five and a half years. february 25, 2010, the white house health care summit at the blair house, the same place where senator arthur vandenberg sat down with general george

marshall. they met privately to discuss the postwar plans after world war ii. that became the marshall plan. it is the perfect setting for a serious bipartisan discussion about how to improve health care for millions of americans. so 36 members of congress, 36of us went to the blair house at the invitation of president obama. we were there to discuss the health care bill passed by the democrats, what's now known as obamacare. we stayed there all day. l the president stayed there, too. it was televised continuously. both then-minority leader boehner and republican leader mcconnell asked me to lead off in speaking for the republicans. i said to the president that i was there to not only represent the view of republicans but i was there as a former governor and would like to have chance to speak for the governors as well because governors managing states had a big stake in all

this. i said, too, that i was at the summit to represent the views of a great many of the american people. -- who have tried to say in every way they knew through town meetings, through surveys, through elections in virginia and new jersey and massachusetts that they oppose the health care bill that was passed in the senate in the middle of a snowstorm on christmas eve. i warned the president then about the unfortunate consequences of obamacare for millions of americans. i said to the president that this would send an unfunded medicaid mandate to states. i said -- quote -- "it will cut medicare by about half a trillions. it will spend most of that on new programs. it means there will be a half trillion dollars of new taxes in it. it means that for millions of people, premiums will go up, because when people pay for those new taxes, premiums will go up and they will also go up because of the government mandates." that's what i said 5 1/2 years

ago. i said directly to the president then that instead of this partisan plan, passed without the support of a single republican in the senate, that we republicans were prepared to work with him to reform health care. i said 5 1/2 years ago to the president, we need to start over and to go step by step in a different direction. toward the goal of reducing health care costs, i said then that this means working together in the way that general marshall and senator vandenberg did following world war ii. and it means going step-by-step together to reearn the trust of the american people. those were my words to the president of the united states at the health care summit 5 1/2 years ago. mr. president, the president and the congressional democrats listened all day but they didn't take any of my advice and hardly any of the advice of my republican colleagues about what the disastrous outcomes of

obamacare would. so more than five years after the law was passed, nearly two years into its implementation, we can say one thing without question -- the unfortunate reality for the american people is that they are struggling with obamacare and that 5 1/2 years ago republicans were right. obamacare was and is an historic mistake. republicans agreed with the president and his party that our health care system was broken. we agreed that it needed to be fixed but we argued that the president was moving in the wrong direction. what obamacare did was to expand a broken system that everyone knew was too expensive. republicans said so at the summit in february of 2010. and the facts today show that we were right. let's take a closer look at what republicans said then, nearly six years ago, and what

unfortunately came true. let's look also at what democrats predicted back then or, better put, what they promised and which of their predictions and promises came true. let's go through them one by one. first, medicaid. during my opening remarks at the blair house at the summit, i said this -- quote -- "nothing used to make me madder as governor than when washington politics would get together, pass a bill, take credit for it and send me" -- the governor -- "the bill to pay. that's exactly what this does with the expansion of medicaid. in addition, it dumps 15 million to 18 million low-income americans into a medicaid program that none of us would want to be a part of because 50% of the doctors won't see new patients. so it's like giving someone a ticket to a bus line when the bus only runs half the time." that's what i said 5 1/2 years ago. medicaid had already always been

one of the federal government's biggest unfunded federal mandates. and expanding that mandate on states would only wreak more havoc on state budgets that especially at that time during the height of the recession were already struggling. our former tennessee governor, bill bradison, a democrat, said the proposed medicaid expansion under obamacare would represen represent -- quote -- "the mother of all unfunded mandates." when i was governor of tennessee in the 1980's, medicaid made up only about 8% of tennessee's state budget. by last year, it was 30.6%. states paying more and more to expand medicaid means less to spend on other priorities, like higher education, roads, schools. in 2012 i said that over the prior 10 years, tennessee's medicaid costs had gone up 43%

forcing the state to decrease its funding to colleges and universities by 11%. as a result, tuition went up 120% over those 10 years. according to the congressional budget office, the law will add 14 million new beneficiaries to struggling state medicaid programs by 2025 at an extra cost of $46 billion to states and $847 billion to taxpayers, federal taxpayers, by 2025. why is that so bad? i said at the time, and it's still true today, medicaid's reimbursement rates are so low that only about half the doctors will even see medicaid patients and many of those aren't accepting new ones. it's not hard to see why expanding a failed program isn't good for americans who need better health care. and another thing to consider is that states still haven't had yet to pay for covering the new

medicaid enrollees under the expansion. the federal government promised to pay 100% for the first few years but starting in 2017, just in a couple of years, states will have to start paying 5% and eventually up to 10%. that may not seem like much in washington terms but it's a lot of money in state budgets. states may have to start raising income taxes or gas taxes or find some other place for the -- to find the money. but regardless of how it's paid for, expanding medicaid puts a huge dent in state budgets. does that mean less money for teacher salaries? does that mean tuition is going to have to go even higher at community colleges and state universities? tennessee hasn't expanded medicaid but in its proposal to expand the program called insure tennessee, the governor has anticipated an additional $35 million in costs to the state in 2017.

in illinois, medicaid expansion will cost the state $208 million in 2020. in kentucky, kentucky's expansion will -- the state will have to pay $74 million in 2017, an estimated $336 million in 2 2021. governor-elect bevin hasn't started looking for ways to pay near huge increase yet because he plans to try to repeal t. and if you can look at the figures, you can see why he's thinking about that. so we were right that obamacare's enormous impact on medicaid and, in turn, medicai medicaid's huge negative effect on state budgets. second, higher premiums. when my turn came at the white house summit, i said directly to the president this -- quote -- "the congressional budget office report says that premiums will rise in the individual market" as a result obamacare. the president turned to me and said, i was wrong about that.

a little bit later in the day, i gave the president a letter from the congressional budget office showing that they predicted that i would be right about that. that new non-group policies would be about 10% to 13% higher in 2016 than the average for non-group coverage in that surchcurrent year. his own chief actuary, i reminded the president, for the center for medicare and medicaid services, agreed with the congressional budget office. you might be thinking that turned out better than hi predicted then. better than hi predicted, than the congressional budget office had predicted, than the joint committee on taxation had predicted, and the chief actuary for c.m.s. had predicted. but we all were right, unfortunately. that's -- we all were right. obamacare's premiums were and are higher for americans with individual health care plans. we're talking about nearly 16 million americans who purchased these individual plans. they buy these policies for

themselves, and the cost of these plans is going through the roof, mr. president. on june 1 of this year, the u.s. department of health and human services announced that nearly 700 individual and small group health plans in 41 states plus the district of columbia had requested double-digit premium increases for 2016. in tennessee, the rate hike was 36%. in maryland, 26%. on average, 2016 premium increases for oregon's biggest insurer on the state health exchange will be 25%. and for some smaller providers, more than 30%. south dakotans, 63% for health insurance through the exchange. the list of states experiencing health care spikes goes on. a recent report by the national bureau of economic research

confirmed this. going back to the nonpartisan congressional budget office which flictd 2010 that premiums would go up -- predicted in 2010 that premiums would go up. they said recently premiums on the obamacare exchange will increase by 6% on average every year between 2016 and 2024, yet 5 1/2 years ago, the president and congressional democrats told republicans time and time again during the debate, we were wro wrong, that the law would decrease premiums. when, in fact, our predictions, the administration's own estimates, estimates from the national bureau of economic research and the nonpartisan congressional budget office all confirmed premiums for individual policies are going through the roof. third, republicans said 5 1/2 years ago that obamacare would increase taxes. it did. obamacare added 21 tax increases to the tax code. that's a trillion dollars over 10 years, according to the

congressional budget office. a dozen of these target middle-income americans, in clear violation of what the president had said. and then there was our fourth prediction -- obamacare will cost jobs. sometime a few years ago after the law passed, i met with a large group of chief executives of restaurant companies in america. the service and hospitality industries the largest employers in our country. usually their employees low-income, usually minority americans. in the meeting, the chief executive of ruby tuesday incorporated, which has about 800 restaurants, said to me, and said he didn't mind being quoted, that the cost to his company of implementing the new health care law was equal to or more than his net profit for that year. and as a result, he wasn't planning to build any new restaurants in the united stat states. an even larger restaurant company representative at the

meeting said that because of their analysis of the law, instead of operating their store with 90 employees, their goal would be to operate it with 70 employees. that means fewer employees, fewer jobs because of obamacare. more recently, another family franchise business -- this one has 550 employees -- told me, we've already begun cutting the hours of our employees to get well below the 30-hour flesh hold and all of our new jobs postings are for part-time employees -- threshold and all of our new jobs post rgz for por part-time employees. as many tennesseans tel tell me0 hours a week is not enough to support a family. this is just basic economics. these costs on employers means they have less money to expand, less money to hire workers, heap

even higher costs, they cut hours. higher costs, they lay off employees. we've seen all three as a result the employer mandate that says employers with more than 50 full-time employees need to provide health insurance. what's more, obamacare went a step further and for the first time in our history defined "full-time" as a 30-hour work week. i asked the former democratic chairman of our health committee, where did that come from, france? and nobody knew where it came from. full-time work in the united states is not typically -- has not typically been considered 30 hours but it is in obamacare. and it's costing large numbers of employees to be able to work only 28 or 29 hours because their employers can't afford to hire them as full-time employees. the congressional budget office has projected that obamacare will result in 2 million fewer full-time jobs in 2017 and

2 1/2 million fewer full-time jobs by 2024. at least 400 employers across the nation, including one -- including 100 school districts, have said obamacare forced them to cut positions or reduce worker hours. now, what we republicans said would happen years ago was this, that medicaid would destroy state budgets. it did. that premiums and taxes would go up. they have. and that jobs would be lost. they have. it's all unfortunately come true. now, what -- what did the president, president obama, and congressional democrats promise us about this law? about the time of the health care summit 5 1/2 years ago. were they right or were they wrong? well, the most famous or infamous promise which politifact named -- and you'll use their without objection, so ordered -- as the -- and i'll used thinks words -- as the 2013

lie of the year was the president's -- quote -- "if you like your plan, you can keep it." millions of americans learned very quickly when obamacare was fully implemented in 2014 they wouldn't be able to keep the plans they liked. in october 2013, i received a letter from a woman, emily, whom i met. she lives in middle tennessee. she has lupus. she was one of 16,000 tennesseans who are part of a plan called cover tennessee. she wroatd me about -- wrote me about her chronic illness. she said she was deemed uninsurable, the only way to insure her was through cover tennessee. she was glad to have that coverage, and she was glad to hear about obamacare. and then she learned the truth. i cannot, she said, keep my current plan because it doesn't meet the standards of obamacare coverage. this alone is a travesty -- her words. cover tennessee has been a lifeline for me, with the

discontinuation of cover tennessee, emily told me, i'm being forced to purchase a plan that will increase my cost by a staggering 410%. my out-of-pocket expense will increase by more than $6,000 a year. please help me understand how this is -- quote -- "affordable ." this is emily in middle, tennessee. we could spend all day telling stories of americans who like their health care plans but weren't able to keep them under obamacare. in november 2013, it looked like that might be as many as five million americans. the administration did some last-minute regulatory fixes and lowered that number. but still, still many americans lost their plans, as emily did. the president also said medicare is a government program, but don't worry, i'm not going to touch it. the problem was he did touch it. $700 billion worth was taken

from medicare to finance obamacare. i said during the debate in 2009, obamacare cut grandma's medicare to spend on someone else's program, someone other than grandma. obamacare, i said, would do that at a time when the medicare trustees have told us that medicare's going broke if we don't fix it. that's their job to tell us that. i said then, i think what they're saying to us is if you're going to cut grandma's medicare, you ought to spend the money on grandma instead of spending it on something else. end quote. again the president went against the promise he repeated over and over again and raided a program that serves more than 55 million older americans. in summary, mr. president, unfortunately republicans were right when we said five years ago that obamacare would force spikes in state medicaid

spending, increase premiums and taxes and hurt jobs. and as right as we were, the democrats were wrong. they said that you can keep your plan if you liked it. they were wrong about that. they said medicare wouldn't be affected. they were wrong about that. and finally, we all agree that health care needs to be fixed, so how did we end up with a law that was such an historic mistake? well, one big reason is the debate over obamacare wasn't really a debate. if it had been we might not find ourselves in a mess today. the senate democratic leader then had a filibuster-proof majority. he didn't think he needed republican ideas, so they didn't take them. they passed a democrat bill. they voted for it, we voted against it. we sat here in a it snowstorm on christmas eve when they had 60 votes, and they unveiled a bill filled to the brim with items

from each democratic member's wish list. along with our warnings about what would happen, we offered a lot of thoughtful ideas about how to fix the health care system in a way that we thought would lower costs and expand access while making sure patients didn't lose control over their own health care. the democrats also had a majority in the house. they had a democratic president. they didn't need our ideas. so we got obamacare. so what do we republicans have to offer americans? mr. president, how much time do i have left? the presiding officer: nine minutes. the senator has nine minutes. nine. mr. alexander: thank you, mr. president. i'll wrap up. i see the senator from washington here. throughout the obamacare debate, senator mcconnell, who was the minority leader at the time, was criticized for not coming up with a comprehensive plan of his own. we told the president and the congressional democrats not to hold their breath waiting for

mcconnell-care. don't hold your breath waiting for senator mcconnell to come in with a wheelbarrow filled with a 2,700-page of his own because that's now how we thought obamacare ought to be fixed. we're policy skeptics. we doubt anyone here in washington -- republicans, democrats, independents -- have the wisdom to fix such a complex system every in america all at once. the wisest course to try to fix our health care system step by step in a way that emphasizes more choices and lower costs. this approach to health care reform is not something that republicans cooked up last month. in fact, if you will examine the "congressional record," you will find republican senators proposed a step-by-step approach to confronting our nation's health care problems and other

challenges 173 different times on the floor of the senate during the year 2009. 173 times we talked about our step-by-step direction direction for health care, almost none of which was included in obamacare because they had the votes and they didn't need our ideas. i had hoped the president would listen to us and work with us at the blair house, emphasize more freedom, more choices, lower costs. but that didn't happen. we suggested allowing individuals to buy a health care plan in any state that meets their needs. we suggested reducing junk lawsuits against doctors that only increased costs. we suggested expanding health savings accounts and other mechanisms allowing individuals to control how they spend their own health care dollars. we suggested returning power to the states to regulate their own markets and lower costs. we suggested allowing small businesses to assist employees

in purchasing insurance and look at other ways to support employers offering health care to their employees. we had specific proposals to do these things. we suggested lowering barriers at the food and drug administration so innovative drugs and devices can get to the market faster. putting the private sector in charge of health information technology. we suggested ensuring americans with preexisting conditions in a way through high-risk pools and other insurance incentives. and there are many other ideas we thought then and we think now we can work together on in a bipartisan way to lower costs, increase access, to put patients back in charge of their own health care. this week, though, we're talking about repealing he obamacare. for the last six years we've also been talking about a completely different path of providing health care at a lower cost to more americans. those steps are outlined in 2009, in 2010, in 2011, and they

are the same steps, mr. president, that we should be taking today. i've been saying since 2009 that the historic mistake with obamacare was that we had deliberately expanded a broken health care system is that already cost too much. instead of moving step by step to create a system where millions of americans had choices of plans that fit their needs and fit their budgets. and the way we should accomplish this is the same we we passed medicare, the same we we passed social security, the same way the congress passed the civil rights act, and in the same way, i hope, and nor quz hopes, we will pass a broad reauthorization of the elementary and secondary act in the next couple of weeks. none of this is done by cramming a bill down the throats of the american people with 60 votes during a snowstorm on christmas eve.

so i renew our invitation to the president of the united states, and if he doesn't accept our invitation, to the next president of the united states. and to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. let's forget about party. forget about this side or that side. let's side with the american people whose premiums have gone up, who lost plans they like, whose medicare has been raided, whose state budgets have been destroyed and whose jobs have been lost. work with republicans in congress to fix the damage obamacare has done to health care in america. work with us to replace obamacare with real reforms that low costs so more nerns can afford to buy insurance. mr. president, i ask permission to include following my remarks my comments at the health care summit in february of 2010 and the letter that i handed to president obama following our debate at the health care summit

in 2010. and i yield the floor. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. murray: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, like many of my colleagues, i am deeply disappointed that republican leaders have dedicated this week to partisan political attacks rather than working with us though deliver results for the families we represent. so i want to take a few minutes today to talk about the work we could and should be doing and make clear again that republican efforts to undermine families' health care are nothing but a dead end. i'm pleased that over the last fuel months republicans and democrats have been able to work together on some really important issues. we passed another bipartisan deal. we have worked together on a bill to fix the no child left

behind law that is broken. and republicans and democrats are working to pass a transportation bill now that would do a lot to help fix our crumbling infrastructure. but there's certainly a lot more that i be we should be doing to boost wages and to expand opportunity and to make sure our economy is growing from the middle out, not from the top down. i would hope that we would be working on a way to raise the minimum wage or ensure working parents can earn paid sick days or make higher education more affordable and accessible for students. with the holiday around the corner we should be focused on what struggling families need in order to make ends meet. those are the kinds of issues i'd like to be working on and many more. but instead, mr. president, republican leaders are insistent on tilting the tea party wind whils by trying to dismantle

affordable care act for the umpteenth time. this is just a political gesture here but i want to be very clear about what it would mean for millions of men, women and children across the country if this were to be signed into law. the policies that are being put forward could cause millions of people -- millions of people -- to lose their health care coverage, make premiums skyrocket, increase costs for our hospitals and for our providers, cut off support for important public health programs by repealing the prevention fund. and take us back to the bad old days when insurance companies, not patients, had all of the power. mr. president, democrats believe strongly, that while the affordable care act was an historic step forward, the work did not end when the law passed. far from it. we are willing to work with

anyone on either side of the aisle who have good ideas about how to build on the progress that has been made so far and continue making health care more affordable, expanding coverage and improving quality of care for our families. so it's really disappointing that republicans, instead, continues to insist that when it comes to health care policies, health care politics, not families, come first. especially because, again to be very clear, this legislation has no chance of becoming law. and the very same is true when it comes to this latest attempt to cut off women's access to health care. after years of trying to turn back the clock on women's constitutionally protected rights and undermine planned parenthood, republicans should have gotten their fill of political attacks on women's health. clearly they have not. mr. president, in the wake of

the tragedy in colorado spingz last week, i've thought a lot about how important it is that we do more to ensure communities are protected from that kind of violence. and that we continue to stand with planned parenthood as it hps so many people women and men, get the care that they need. so it is very from used that my republican colleagues are doubling down this week on their efforts to defund planned parenthood and get in between women and their health care. if republicans were to succeed in the bill that they have before us, in defunding planned parenthood, our nation's largest women health care provider, our nation's largest women's health debate, with the legislation they are proposing to debate they would undermine a critical source of health care that one in five women have relied on from cancer screenings, for h.i.v. tests and for so much

more. and they would make it harder for women to exercise their constitutionally protected right to make their own choices about their own bodies and their own doctors. by dismantling critical health care reforms, this proposal would cause millions of women to lose their health care coverage and with it access to everything from birth control to prenatal care. that's simply not going to happen, not on my watch, not on democrats' watch and not on president obama's watch. mr. president, republicans may want to go back to the days when being a woman was a preexisting condition, and they may see this entire bizarre effort as nothing more than a great opportunity to pander to their extreme tea party base by attacking health care and planned parenthood, but for the millions of women and families, the policies we're debating today are no political exercise. instead, if enacted, they would represent a deeply harmful step

backward, a step away from building a health care system that is affordable, accessible and high quality, one that contributes to economic security and opportunity. women and families have seen these extreme republican attempts many times before, and frankly i think they have had enough. they don't want congress fighting over whether to roll back a law that has helped millions of people get health care coverage and bolstered our nation's public health system, a law that has been upheld time and time again by the supreme court, and they believe firmly that politicians in congress should have better things to do than interfere with women's constitutionally protected health care choices. i'm sure that they would rather see us working to actually improve health care and the many other challenges that our countries face. democrats agree with them. we want to move health care forward, not backward for women and families, and we want to do

the other important work across the aisle to strengthen our economy and grow our middle class. so today as my republican colleagues double down on their partisan political pandering, we on this side are going to continue to stand up for families' health care, stand up for women and their rights every step of the way, and i hope my republican colleagues will finally drop the politics and join us. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from west virginia. mrs. cap toe: thank you, mr. president. mrs. capito: i'd like to go back to a speech i made on the house of representatives floor on march 21, 2010, and the previous speaker talked about the partisanship that she perceives now. i thought it's interesting. i'm going to read just a couple quotes from my speech then. and we're thinking about this bill as a blanket. this is a quote from me. the obamacare blanket, a blanket of health care legislation that may be draped across america and its population in the coming years, which it has for the last four years, but i talk how its cloth has been cut behind closed doors and its color is tinged by partisan hands. that's the obamacare legislation and the obamacare plan that we have today. its huge holes will not protect

the cold winds of job loss, new taxes, government bureaucracy and increased health care costs. all of america will feel the weight of this uncomfortable burden. those were my words on march 21, 2010, in the house of representatives. today later this week, the senate will consider a bill to repeal that bill, obamacare, a costly disaster that four years later -- five years later we see has cost countless people access to their doctor, access to their health care plan of their choice and the thousands of west virginians from my state who have lost or had to change their coverage. we ought to ask individuals and families whose premiums and deductibles have skyrocketed and the small businesses who have been forced to cut hours and employees. let's consider the exchanges, the exchanges that are folding and the hospitals that are facing unmanageable costs. even the nation's largest health insurance provider has threatened to pull out of obamacare, citing high costs and

growing risks. just today, the c.e.o. of that company said that joining obamacare was -- quote -- "a bad decision. there has to be a better way, and we need to find it. the bill that we are considering this week, the senate will do two major things. it will repeal significant portions of the health care law that are not working. it will also provide a bridge to replace this law with an improved health care system. this obamacare repeal bill would eliminate enforcement for the individual and employer mandates. it would repeal $1 trillion, $1 trillion in onerous taxes. it will save and strengthen medicare. and it also will dedicate resources to fight the growing drug epidemic that is sweeping across this country, certainly in our state of west virginia within many difficulties, as many of our fellow americans

have. obamacare has upended our health care system and has broken many of the president's own promises. headline after headline in recent weeks has called attention to the increasing premiums americans will face next year. across the nation, rates for one out of every three obamacare plan will double in the year 2016. the plans that are not seeing huge premium increases, rising deductibles are placing excessive burden on patients, but not just on patients. let's think about our health providers, our hospitals, for example. when a patient has a high deductible and comes in for an expensive surgery, that patient then has to pay the $4,000 or $5,000 deductible. it's unaffordable for a lot of people, and that hospital is stuck with that bill. the situation in my state is even worse. west virginia is the only state in the country, the only state in the country with only one insurer who is participating on

the exchange. remember the president promised us choice, the ability to make decisions for ourselves. we have one choice in west virginia. highmark blue cross/blue shield has been the only company in the west virginia exchange through the first two years of obamacare. and we recently learned that it almost pulled out of the exchange in swict w 2016. it would have been disastrous for our constituents. and why are they pulling out? because they are losing millions and millions of dollars of a health care plan that was promised to be a blanket, to blanket all of us, as the speech i gave in 2010, what really turned in to be the blanket with huge holes. with only one provider, choices and accesses are already limited, but for many americans, the exchange is set up -- the exchanges set up under obamacare have become their only option because of increasing costs, many are now unable to afford the health insurance without subsidies. while highmark blue cross/blue

shield, the exchange insurance in west virginia did remain in west virginia, premiums are set to increase this year for next year by 24%. these increases are well beyond the financial reach of most west virginians. our unemployment in west virginia has skyrocketed because of the president's energy policies, and now we're looking at hardworking west virginians and telling them their health care that was supposed to be affordable and accessible is going up 24%. that's unconscionable. as one of my constituents pointed out -- quote -- this represents a significant challenge to our family budget. as my husband's pay has not increased at the rate that our health care costs have continued to rise. what about obamacare's promise to lower the cost of health care? the reality is really quite different. as another west virginian put it, and i quote -- "the law remains a failure by the administration's own metrics and

its harmful impact continue to make life more difficult for millions across the country." end quote. by repealing obamacare, we can revisit the problems caused by the health care law and the problems that existed before, replace them with reforms that work and protect those whose coverage has been disruptive. in order to ensure individuals do not lose access to current coverage, this obamacare repeal bill will provide a two-year transition period. this period will give us time to enact alternative reforms that will provide access to quality, affordable care without disrupting coverage. health care reform should give states and individuals choice. remember in my state, we don't have a choice. we have got one provider, no choice. while reducing health care costs over the long term, premiums going up 24%, deductibles skyrocketing, that's not containing costs over the long

term. americans deserve a health care system that works for them, and we know that obamacare is not it. there is a better way. i yield the floor, mr. president. and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. nelson: mr. president, we are in morning business, is that the parliamentary -- the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. mr. nelson: mr. president, i ask consent that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. nelson: now am i correct we're in morning business? the presiding officer: the senator is correct. mr. nelson: thank you. mr. president, i want to take a moment to talk about a piece of legislation that a number of us have filed. there will be several senators speaking here later in the afternoon about the seniors and veterans emergency benefits act. it's a very important piece of legislation to help millions of

americans who depend on social security benefits to make ends meet. and i want to emphasize that point that a lot of the american population do not realize that there are senior citizens that their sole existence is on the check that they get from social security. and, therefore, if something unexpectedly goes up in price price, and unfortunately we have seniors that have facing the situation of either food or some of their medicine. now how could this be in america in the year 2015? but it is there. it is among some of our senior

citizens. the last congress i had the privilege of chairing the aging committee. we held a number of hearings on this issue, and it will break your heart, but that is going on today. and so, just to add a little more drama and heartache to this, in october the social security administration announced that for the third time in the past 40 years that there was not going to be a cost-of-living adjustment for 2016. now that's under a formula, and it is legal, and since 1975 the cost of living adjustment has ensured the purchasing power of the social security benefits

stays the same regardless of the rising prices or inflation. so when we get to a point that the formula says no cost cost-of-living adjustment for a senior citizen, that becomes a fairly big deal, because 65% of all senior citizens depend on social security to provide the majority of their cash income. so it's real money that they depend on to rely to help make the basic expenses. in my state, we have a higher percentage of the population that is senior citizens -- four million floridians that are

categorized as senior citizens because of their age -- and when there is not an adjustment on the cost-of-living adjustment, these folks are starting to feel the squeeze and be forced to sacrifice on something. now what a group of these senators are going to talk about and what i'm sharing is that we're going to offer an opportunity to act before this no cost-of-living increase would take effect in january, because 20 of us have sponsored legislation introduced by senator warren to fix the fact that there's a lack of a cost-of-living adjustment.

and what the bill does -- and then i want to give you some examples of the injustices. i'm glad to see that senator warren is here. i could not join the distinguished senator later on, so i took the liberty of going ahead and telling from my point of view this legislation is going to give to about 70 million americans a onetime payment of approximately $580 to help them have the basic needs for things like food or rent. nearly 4.5 million people in florida would -- a little less than a quarter of the state's population would be eligible for that lump sum payment.

nine million veterans who receive social security benefits would receive a benefit under the bill. in my state, 323,000 veterans and their family members would get that benefit. 40% of the seniors in the u.s. have incomes below the poverty line. if they do not have social security assistance. let me say that again, and that's a shocking statement. 40% of our senior citizens in this country would have incomes below the poverty line if they did not have social security assistance.

and, therefore, this legislation that we're filing would lift over one million people out of poverty. you know, to some, a benefit of $580 may seem insignificant, but in reality it's going to make the difference to millions, because it may not seem like a big deal to a lot of people that there is no cola, but if that senior does not have the money to pay the rent or utility bill or a trip to the doctor or the groceries that they need for their nutrition, that $580 is

the difference. many americans are living paycheck to paycheck and are forced to make these tough decisions. and we ought to be making it easier for them. that's our job. there are no excuses. so i intend to work with our colleagues to see if this is a possibility. and while she is here, i would like to engage the senator from massachusetts. if i might yield to her for answering, as we sat on the aging committee and we heard the testimony of just how dire and on the line, on the razor's edge the income is for senior citizens with these social security benefits, where that

does not keep up with the cost of living that surely there is a cost of living increase in one year over the other. but if they don't reflect that in their social security check, does that not invite a tremendous hardship on that elderly person? mrs. warren: yes it does. senator nelson put his finger on a very serious problem. and that is every year because of policies made in the senate we do a calculation of cost of living changes for social security. the problem is that calculation for cost of living changes is based on only about a quarter of the population. it's not based on the whole population, certainly not based just on those who receive social

security. we know from independent analysis the costs have gone up for seniors. but because of the policies made here in congress, there will be no cost-of-living increase for seniors this year. that means they face higher costs and yet at the same time they're going to have a flat income. the proposal here to give them a one-time payment of about $581 is enough to pay three months' worth of food bills for the average senior. it's enough to help cover the costs of prescription drugs that are not covered by medicare. these are significant differences for seniors who most need it, and i appreciate senator nelson coming here early to be able to talk about this, to raise this important issue. he is exactly spot on about the difficulty. i yield back. mr. nelson: so, mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from florida's time is expired.

mr. nelson: mr. president, i ask for 30 seconds. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. nelson: and therefore, i conclude my resting the case. if the cost of every person's daily living is going up, in fact, and yet our formula shows that they get no cost of living adjustment, is that not putting a burden upon the ones that we should be respecting and protecting that should not be there, and we can do that with this legislation. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. barrasso: mr. president, first i ask unanimous consent that morning business be extended until 5:15 p.m. today, with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. barrasso: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, we are soon to be debating the future of obamacare.

now, the american people have told us that they want congress to repeal this so-called health care law. they have told us to start over with real health care reform. you know, this actually shouldn't be a very controversial vote. it's clear even to the law's supporters that the obama health care law has not worked out in any way that they had specifically expected. the obama health care law is collapsing, whether the president wants to admit it or not. democrats really should be eager to join us, to join us to help fix the damage that's been done by this law. so far, they have been much more focused on protecting president obama's legacy than on protecting the american people and the health of the american people from obamacare. last month, president obama did a radio show which he was asked about the law, about problems with the law because people all across the country are seeing

significant problems with the law. the president would not admit to a single problem with this law. he insisted, he said it's been a success. well, i go home to wyoming every weekend. i'm a doctor, practiced medicine in wyoming for 25 years, and the people who i talk to, my patients, my neighbors, people all around the state, people i run into in my travels, they do not consider obamacare a success. now, democrats come to the floor and they say it's okay that insurance rates are rising. remember, the president said they would go down by $2,500 per family? it's okay, the democrats say, that insurance rates are rising because they say the rates always went up before the law. but what they won't tell you is the premiums aren't just going up a little. they're going up a lot next year. actually, they're going through the roof. now, that was a study by the mckinsey center for u.s. health systems reform.

they found that the median increase from the bronze plans, 13% from this year to next year. that's just the average. that means for half of the people, they're going to pay more than that. for the silver plans, it's up 11%. platinum 12%. gold 15%. these are double-digit price increases. these are not a success. democrats have come to the floor and talked about some of the people who have gotten insurance coverage since the law took effect. what they won't tell you is that having coverage, having insurance coverage is not the same thing as getting medical care. "the new york times" ran an article about two weeks ago with a headline "many say high deductibles make their health law insurance all but useless." they don't even call it health insurance. they call it health law insurance because it's insurance to comply with the law not to actually give you health care.

i mean, it's astonishing, even "the new york times," health law insurance. the article tells the story about david rines from jeffersonson township, new jersey, 65 years old, has chronic knee pain. this man says that his $3,000 deductible makes it impossible, he says, to actually go to a doctor. he says we have insurance, health law insurance, not health insurance. we have insurance, he said. we can't afford to use it. president obama, this is not a success. democrats who support the health care law say that it created these marketplaces where people can shop for insurance. what they won't tell you, what they won't tell you is that companies have been pulling out of the marketplaces, pulling out of the exchanges all across the country. more than half of the state co-ops have gone out of business, have failed. the largest health insurance company in america says that it

may drop out of the program entirely next year. in wyoming, there is just one company participating in the obamacare exchange. that's the choice on the wyoming exchange -- one. does president obama consider that a success? democrats say that a lot of people like their insurance plans. well, they won't tell you about the gallup poll last month that found the american people are far from happy. just 33% of americans said that the health care coverage in this country is either excellent or good. one out of three. only one out of five are satisfied with the total cost of their health care. now, both of these numbers are worse than they were when president obama took office. so how are you doing now compared to where you were when barack obama went to the white house? people will tell you when it comes to health care, it is worse. another survey last month by the kaiser family foundation found that just 38% of americans have

a favorable opinion of the health care law. is that the way president obama measures success? is that what he calls a success? why won't the democrats come to the floor and talk about these surveys? democrats come down to the floor and say that obamacare has put millions of people on medicaid. i'm not sure how many have a full understanding of medicaid. as a doctor who practiced medicine for 24 years, i can tell you a lot about medicaid. they won't say anything about what a failed program, they won't admit to the fact that medicaid is a failed program. a new study last month found that cancer patients with medicaid in california, cancer patients in california, if two senators from california who voted for this law, medicaid in california patients with cancer are less likely to get recommended treatment and they have a lower survival rate than people with other types of insurance. the democrats celebrate the fact

that they have all these new people on medicaid. this is not a success. democrats don't want to talk about any of this. now, nobody on this side of the aisle is denying that there are people who have been helped by the health care law. why won't any democrat come to the floor of the united states senate and admit that for every person who has benefited, someone else may have been harmed, may have suffered? why won't democrats admit, why won't the president admit that the law has not lived up to his promises? why did we need a 2,000-page law that upended the entire health care system in this country to basically expand the broken medicaid program? none of this had to happen. none of this is what people were asking for when democrats wrote their law behind closed doors back there. certainly not what people are asking for today. this health care law has been expensive, disruptive and

devastating. it is headed for collapse, and if democrats won't admit it, then they are just kidding themselves. republicans are ready to move, to move on with a better approach. we will work to lower costs and make insurance affordable for all americans. we will make sure that people who need insurance can actually get usable insurance. that means making coverage equal care. that's what it should do. coverage ought to equal care. we will give people freedom, flexibility and choice to allow patients to make the decisions that are best for them and their family, not washington and president obama telling them what's best for them and their family. those people making those decisions for themselves will protect consumers by making insurance predictable and stable so people don't have to switch their coverage and their doctor every year. finally, we're going to fix washington by making medicare

and medicaid stronger for people who absolutely rely on these programs. you know, problem and democrats in congress do have a choice. they can join with republicans in accepting the inevitable. they can act now to reform our health care system in a way that works, or they can stand by and watch as the wheels continue to come off of obamacare. the program is collapsing, it's unavoidable. congress should not allow this health care law to harm the american people for one day longer. democrats should work with us to create a replacement that actually delivers care, not just unusable coverage. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. ms. warren: thank you, mr. president. the clock is ticking. exactly one month from today, american seniors with disabilities and others who

depend on social security and other benefits will get their first check of the new year. for those 70 million americans, that's one in five americans, january 1 is supposed to be a day of relief. this is the day when the federal government boosts their checks just a little bit to help with the rising costs of housing, food and medical care. but unless congress does something right now, for just the third time since 1975, seniors and veterans won't be receiving any cost of living increase on january 1. not one penny more. look at who gets left out in the cold. two-thirds of seniors depend on social security for the majority of their income. for 15 million americans, social security is all that stands between them and poverty. but not one of these americans will see an extra penny next year, and millions of other americans whose benefits are pegged to social security,

millions who received veterans' benefits, disability benefits and other monthly payments won't see an extra penny either. times are tough, but not for everyone. last year, the c.e.o.'s at the biggest 350 american companies received on average a 3.9% pay increase. how much money is that? well, since the average c.e.o. at one of those top 350 companies made a cool $16.3 million, a 3.9% raise landed them an additional half a million bucks each. so everything's just great for america's top c.e.o.'s who got huge raises while 70 million seniors, veterans and others who worked hard will be left with nothing. why? it's not an accident, it's not inevitable. it's the result of deliberate policies made right here in

congress. social security is supposed to be indexed to inflation so that when prices go up, benefits go up, but congress' formula looks at the spending patterns of only about a quarter of the country, and the formula isn't geared to what older americans actually spend their money on. in fact, official estimates show that the cost of core goods and services has increased but seniors won't be getting a raise. costs go forward while social security falls behind, all because of the way that congress says to calculate cola. skyrocketing c.e.o. pay is also in part the result of policies set right here in congress. taxpayers subsidize c.e.o.'s huge pay packages through billions of dollars in tax giveaways, including a crazy loophole that allows corporations to write off gigantic bonuses as business expenses. sure, companies should make their own decisions on how much to pay their executives, but

because of laws congress has passed, american taxpayers are forced to subsidize these multimillion-dollar pay packages. two decisions -- how to calculate social security raises and whether to give tax breaks for multimillion-dollar c.e.o. bonuses are made right here in congress, and right now senators bow and scrape for highly paid c.e.o.'s while they turn their backs on retirees and vets. we're here because it is time for congress to make different choices. representative tammy duckworth and i have introduced the seniors and veterans' emergency benefits act, the save benefits act, to give retirees, veterans and americans with disabilities a one-time payment of about $581. that is the equivalent of a 3.9% increase over the average social security benefit, the same percentage raise that c.e.o.'s received just last year.

now, where would the money come from? well, we can pay for it by -- just by closing the tax loophole for the c.e.o. bonuses that exceed a million dollars. in fact, according to the chief actuary of the social security administration, closing just this one loophole will create enough revenue to give a $581 raise to seniors and vets and still have billions of dollars left over to help boost social security trust fund for the future. the save benefits acts will give seniors, vets and the disabled an extra $581 a year. $581 a year may not mean much to a c.e.o., but that money would cover almost three months of groceries for seniors or a year's worth of out-of-pocket costs on prescription drugs for someone on medicare. for seniors and vets, that $581 means a lot.

already 21 democratic senators have signed on as cosponsors. dozens of organizations, social security works, afl-cio, move moveon.org, vote vets, the national council of la raza. i could go on and on on this list, have already endorsed the bill. and across the country more than 400,000 people signed petitions urging congress to pass the save benefits act. this is about money, but it is also about values. for too long we've listened to a handful of the rich and powerful insist that we cut taxes for those at the top and leave everyone else behind. and now across this country people are saying enough. taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize millionaires, c.e.o.'s, while seniors and vets have to fight for whatever scraps are left behind.

the clock is ticking. it's time for congress to step up. the money is there either way. it can go for a payment to 70 million americans who need it and who have earned it, or it can go to c.e.o.'s and the wealthiest corporations. let's vote on the save benefits act. let's show everyone where we stand, whether we stand up for tax breaks for the country's most highly paid c.e.o.'s or whether we work for the seniors and vets who work their hearts out to build this country. senator mcconnell, bring this bill to the floor and let us vote. thank you, mr. president. i yield. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii. ms. hirono: mr. president, last month i joined senator warren and others in introducing the seniors and veterans emergency benefits act, also known as the save benefits act.

this legislation is needed because for the first time in over 40 years our seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities won't receive a cost-of-living adjustment, or cola, for 2016. we're here again to urge our colleagues to support this much-needed legislation which would provide a 3.9% cola increase next year. there's a reason that we hit upon that 3.9% as the appropriate increase. i'll get to that. many of our people who rely on social security and other federal benefits are on fixed incomes. every extra dollar helps them buy basic necessities. these americans worked hard and earned modest benefits. however, based on the current benefit formula this year, they're out of luck. they won't see any increase in their income, but here's the thing. that's thought the case for

our -- that's not the case for our nation's top c.e.o.'s. according to analysis by the economic policy institute, c.e.o.'s of some of america's biggest, richest corporations not only earn an average of $16 million per year, but they received a 3.9% salary bump in 2014. hence, a 3.9% cola increase. and what does a 3.9% increase mean to these c.e.o.'s? about $635,000 more a year in their pockets. far, far more than most workers who rely on social security saw in one year or ten years or perhaps even in their lifetimes. by contrast, what does a 3.9% increase mean to most seniors in hawaii? about $580 more a year. again, focusing on wyoming, that's about enough -- focusing

on hawaii, that is about enough for a hawaii senior to buy almost three months of groceries or cover the average cost of a year's worth of prescription drugs. $580 is a big deal for a lot of people in hawaii. this bill would help about 19% of hawaii's population or 268,000 people. it includes seniors, children, disabled workers who rely on social security to make ends meet. it includes 24,000 veterans and their family members who will receive an increase to their well-earned benefits. and that extra payment of $580 would help to prevent some 2,000 people in hawaii from falling into poverty. and we are hearing from people all across the country about what will happen next year without the cola increase. one woman from lamae city in hawaii wrote -- quote -- "i feel it is deplorable that social

security did not receive a cola increase. many seniors and poor people rely on this money to help them make it through the month. and although i am not one of them, i still want to speak for them as i feel it is important." end quote. this person from lanai said this is a deplorable situation, and i agree. and that's why we need to pass the save benefits act. this bill is paid for by closing a tax loophole that benefits the wealthiest c.e.o.'s. remember that $600,000-plus salary increases they got? some of that is paid for by us taxpayers because of this tax loophole. this bipartisan idea of closing this tax loophole was even included in the former chairman of the house ways and means committee's 2014 tax reform proposal. we only have a few days left for congress to act before the end of the year. i urge my colleagues to join me in letting seniors in hawaii and

across the country know that we are on their side by cosponsoring the save benefits act. and let's just think about the disparity. 600,000-plus increases for c.e.o.'s making over $16 million a year versus the millions and millions of seniors and veterans and disabled people who rely on social security, who need and deserve this cola increase. so i urge my colleagues to bring the save benefits act to the floor for a vote and voting on it, sending it on to president obama for his signature. i yield back.

mr. schumer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new york. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: the senate is not in a quorum call. mr. schumer: thank you, mr. president. today i want to join my colleagues in strong support of the save benefits act and i want to commend the excellent work done here by my friend and the senator from massachusetts, senator warren. millions and seniors and veterans deserve more money in their is social security checks to help pay for the ever increasing costs of rent and groceries. the save benefits act would provide it. a fair and well-deserved payment to our seniors receiving social security and veterans receiving federal benefits who will not see a cost-of-living adjustment in their benefits next year. you see, next year there will be no official cost-of-living adjustment, or cola. chiefly because the formula that determines it is heavily tied to the price of gasoline, which is

low. but all the other cost of living indicators are up. rent, medicine, groceries, these are the costs our seniors are juggling most often. i talked to seniors. they say what is this, there's no inflation? my life costs me more each year, considerably more. but because there was no official cola, even as those costs are going up, social security benefits will not increase by a single dime in 2016. and, madam president, about two-thirds of seniors rely on social security for over half their income. if we don't help offset the increase in costs with an increase in these modest benefits, many will be left with one of those excruciating choices: do i buy more groceries or pay the rent this month? can i afford putting off taking my medication for another day or another week or even another month? in the past when we had years without an official cola,

congress stepped in. in 2009 there also wasn't a cola. we were in the throes of recession, but congress stepped in and passed a law i strongly supported the arra to provide a onetime $250 payment to social security recipients and veterans to help them get through these tough times. next year we should do the same. but i hasten to act, i don't like to be partisan, in 2009 the house and senate were democratic, caring about social security. in 2015, the house and senate are republican, and we're getting no relief for seniors. well, i hope that will change. the save benefits act will change it. it would provide a onetime check of approximately $580 for our veterans and our seniors and fully pay for it by closing a loophole that benefits corporate compensation packages over $1

million. to boot, it would provide this benefit while also using some of the revenue to extend the life of social security. in my state, over four million people would benefit. 1.5 million women over the age of 65, a quarter million children, half a million disabled workers in new york alone. in we think about it in real terms, that $580 is almost three months of groceries, or the average annual out-of-pocket expenses that a senior needs for prescription drugs for medicare. this is the right thing to do. social security and veterans benefits should rise to keep pace with prices. but unless congress acts, our seniors and our veterans will not see any increase in their own benefits next year. it's time to fix that. i want to ask who on the other side would say millionaires should continue to get to deduct their bonuses while senior citizens get no cola?

what percentage of republicans in america would say that? what percentage of independents? this should not be a partisan issue. we should just pass it. help the seniors like we did in 2009 when congress was under a different control. and this is a real test. who cares for the seniors? who he understands their struggles? who understands the sweat seniors break out in when they have to pay the bills and they don't have enough money to pay basic expenses? well, those who cosponsored this bill understand it. those who support this bill understand it. and i'd like to hear from my colleagues who don't support it, what their alternative is. i urge my colleagues on the other side to join us in expending to our snis -- seniors and veterans a fair increase in benefits they earned. i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call: quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: i ask consent the call of the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: i thank my distinguished presiding officer, my neighbor in new hampshire. i want to thank senator warren for her leadership on a matter of great importance to millions of americans. in october, the social security beneficiaries received some

upsetting news. i know it was upsetting to a lot of vermonters, and i have talked with a lot of those vermonters in grocery stores and on street corners, even coming out of church on sunday. for the third time in 40 years, the social security administration announced in 2016 social security payments will not include a cost of living increase. now, unless congress acts, seniors and others who receive social security benefits will not see an additional dime in payment this year. for the nearly two-thirds of beneficiaries who depend on social security for at least half of their income and for the 24% of those where social security is a sole source of income, the news isn't just distressing, it's devastating. i certainly am not going to take the time here, but i can tell so many stories of vermonters who told me and i share their

concern, so in order to address this issue, i am proud to stand with thousands of vermonters and millions of americans and to support senator warren's bill to provide social security recipients, those who receive disability benefits and veterans, among others, a one-time payment next year. the payment would be equivalent to an average increase of 3.9%. incidentally, that's the same pay increase that the top c.e.o.'s in the united states saw last year. many in congress have turned a blind eye to the problems facing social security. they argue that we can't as a country possibly afford to spend resources on our seniors. but every year, hardworking americans subsidize billions of dollars in tax subsidies with the compensation packages of corporate c.e.o.'s. i no longer allow corporations to receive tax deductions for performance pay packages for

their executives, we could give a one-time emergency payment to our nation's seniors and we could increase the solvency of the social security trust fund without adding a penny to the deficit. it's a win-win. it's a matter of priorities. are we as a country going to support the millions of americans and the thousands of vermonters who depend upon social security to make ends meet? are we going to continue to allow the country's top c.e.o.'y in 2014 topped $16 million each. more than a million dollars a month -- to continue to rake in billions of dollars thanks to the performance paid tax loophole? the choice should be clear. social security is an immensely important program. if these c.e.o.'s want to make more money, fine, but don't do it using a special tax loophole

to do it. we ought to be thinking about those social security recipients. it's an immensely important program. it's how millions of americans stay out of poverty once they enter retirement. this program has always represented a strong commitment to our nation's seniors. ever since ida may fuller of vermont received the first social security check issued, vulnerable seniors have had a safety net to fall back on in retirement or to supplement individual retirement savings and pensions. support for this bill represents a continued commitment to our nation's seniors and also those with disabilities. so let's redouble our commitment to seniors and veterans and those with disabilities in this country and pass this important legislation. it's the least we can do. madam president, i yield the floor. a senator: madam president?

the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. markey: thank you, madam president, very much. madam president, i am very proud to be a cosponsor of the save benefits act, and i think that we owe an enormous debt of gratitude to senator warren, my colleague from massachusetts, for the legislation which she has introduced because she is going to make sure that the social security benefits for seniors, for veterans, for those who are disabled will be protected, and i applaud her for her enormously innovative way that she has framed this debate for our nation. the social security administration recently determined that seniors will not receive an increase in their benefits for the next year, and that means that approximately

70 million americans, seniors, veterans, the disabled will not receive any increase in their benefit, including the 1.4 million people in massachusetts who are dependent upon these benefits. and that is just completely unacceptable. what senator warren has done is to say that for these seniors, for many of them, social security is their sole basis for having any income at all and for most seniors it's the majority of their income in their retirement, and those seniors depend on these benefits to pay for food, to pay for rent, to pay for medicine, to pay the electricity bill, in their world, prices for food and clothing and medicine, they're

not going down. they are going up. these are the necessities of life, and our seniors should not have to choose between heating and eating. so we have a simple question to ask ourselves. who contributeed most to our country over the last generation? is it a small handful of c.e.o.'s who are now paid exorbitant salaries or is it every american that got up over the last couple of generations to build us into this incredible country that we now live in? i think it was grandmother and grandpa. those are the people who got up every day. those are the people who built this great country. and right now, we're being told that their standard of living is going to stay the same or go down. there will be no increase for them. well, unfortunately, c.e.o.'s in

america make about 2773 times what the average american worker makes, and last year, america's c.e.o.'s saw their pay increase by about $635,000 to an average of $16 million, and a family in the top 1% has a net worth 288 times higher than the typical family. that is just unacceptable, and it must change. shouldn't our seniors, shouldn't grandma and grandpa who built this country receive an additional benefit from the economy which they created? this incredible wealth which they created in our country. when do they get their rest? they got up every morning. my father worked up for the hood mill company. he got up every morning. he worked as hard as a human being can work, and so have

hundreds of millions of americans. they built this country with their hard work. they deserve a social security raise. they deserve a raise that they now have disabilities -- if they now have disabilities. and if they're veterans, they not only got up and worked every single day, but they also served our country. many of them overseas protecting us against our enemies. so that is what senator warren's very wise piece of legislation focuses on. we know that grandma and grandpa deserve a raise. we know that the system that's been created allows those in the upper 1 percentile to -- one percentile continue to receive and had a here it's on average a $635,000 raise up to an average $16 million for salary, and we're saying to the people who did the work you don't get a raise at all. i think for their sacrifice, for their hard work every single

day, they deserve something. they built the greatest country in the history of the world. so let's give our seniors the 3.9% raise that senator warren has proposed. let's give them the kind of comfort and thanks they deserve for a lifetime of hard work. and let's thank senator warren for reminding all of us the obligation that we have to those great americans so that we don't forget them when it comes time at the end of the year to hand out bonuses. they deserve their raise in the same way we know that c.e.o.'s across our country, from wall street to silicon valley, are going to receive their bonuses at the end of the year. we just shouldn't turn our backs on those seniors. thank you, senator warren, for all of your great work. madam president, i yield back the balance of my time. mr. franken: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. mr. franken: thank you, madam president. madam president, we're just one month away from the new year.

2016 will bring a lot of new things, i hope good, but one thing that it will not bring is a cost of living increase for seniors, for veterans and for people with disabilities. despite the fact that the cost of health care and prescription drugs and housing are increasing the size of the social security check won't go up one cent on january 1 unless we act, unless congress acts. that's why senator warren and my colleagues and i have introduced the senior and veterans emergency benefits act or save benefits act. the save benefits act is a one-time payment to seniors and veterans receiving their earned -- their earned benefits

so they can better meet their basic living expenses. the stagnant level for benefits in 2016 and its damaging effects are part of a bigger problem. too many of our seniors are feeling the squeeze and just aren't secure enough in their retirement. today's social security benefits are not enough to live on, and other retirement savings aren't filling the gap. you see the share of private sector workers with pensions has fallen precipitously in recent years, and yet today half of all americans don't have retirement accounts like 401-k's or i.r.a.'s. so without sufficient pensions or retirement accounts, many seniors depend on social

security. social security benefits comprise over 90% of income for the poorest 25% of retirees, and social security comprises 70% of income for the middle 50% of retirees. with the cost of things that seniors have to spend money on increasing the absence of a cost of living increase in social security benefits is especially damaging. now, i've heard from many minnesota seniors who are deeply worried about the squeeze that no increase in social security will put on their budgets. jack from minneapolis wrote -- quote -- "food prices are up, my rent is up 4% in 2015 and will be up again in 2016."

he continues -- "i lost most of my i.r.a. earnings in the 2008-2009 debacle, and now i rely almost entirely on social security." if we want minnesotans like jeff and millions of americans across the country face ago similar situation, if we want them to have a secure retirement, we need to increase these benefits. that's what the save benefits act does. under our bill, seniors and veterans get a 3.9% increase. the same percentage increase that c.e.o. pay went up from 2013 to 2014. for the average beneficiary, 3.9%, that raise would come to about $580 a year. now, while that may not sound --

$580 may not sound like a lot, of course compared to the raises that c.e.o.'s are getting, $580 can make a big difference to the average american, especially the average senior. $580 may cover several months of groceries or out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs for a senior on medicare. -- who's gotten into their doughnut holes. now, some may ask, if we can afford to give seniors and veterans a raise right now. too often the ideas we've heard -- quote, unquote -- "for fixing social security" deal with raising the retirement age for

the chained c.p.i. we need to strengthen our social security system by protecting and enhancing the benefits that seniors and veterans have earned. and that means improving social security's finances. and a good place to start is by removing special provisions for the wealthiest americans in our current tax code. right now individuals making millions of dollars a year still only pay payroll tax on the first $118,500 of their income. over the long term, that is the sort of thing we need to address in order to strengthen social security. and this bill proposes to pay for the one-time increase in social security benefits in the same spirit, rebalancing our tax code by ending a tax deduction for c.e.o. pay that really

doesn't make sense and just allows corporations to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. c.e.o.'s and big businesses will still do just fine under this bill. at the same time, the save benefits act will provide critical assistance to americans struggling to meet their expenses. in fact, this increase -- this increase in benefits will lift about 8,000 minnesotans out of poverty and thousands more in every state of our union. ultimately the debate over this bill comes down to priorities. what's more important to us? protecting high pay for the wealthiest americans or tax

deductions for corporations on that high pay? or ensuring that veterans, seniors, and people with disabilities have the income security that they need to pay for health care, prescription drugs, and housing? madam president, as this year comes to a close, it's time to get our priorities straight and stand up for our seniors and our veterans. they need a raise in 2016. thank you, madam president. i would yield the floor. mr. whitehouse: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: thank you, madam president. i'm here to join the chorus for providing some additional help to our seniors on the on on socl

security. what can i say? here we go again. in 2010 and in 2011, america's seniors got told by the social security administration there'd be no cost-of-living adjustment, no increase for them. and now it's happening a third time. we all know that the price of the things that seniors actually buy has continued to go up, and yet no cola. in 2010 and 2011, we tried to remedy that with senator sande sanders' emergency senior citizens relief act. we did not succeed. there was opposition from the other side. we did succeed at getting a one-time $300 payment to seniors under the economic stimulus act in 2008, back in the depths of the great wall street recession, and another $250 under the recovery act. so we've done this before, and

it has helped, and i strongly encourage that we do it. there is a flaw built into the social security cola, which is that the c.p.i. measures things that a lot of seniors don't buy. it measures laptops and it measures flatscreens and it measures a lot of technology. but seniors in rhode island who make a little over $1,200 on average, are not buying a lot of tv's and laptops. what they're buying is food, medicine, and maybe something for the grandchildren at christmastime and that all keeps going up. we should fix that formula. there should be a c.p.i.e. -- a c.p.i. for elderly folks that tracks what their pocketbooks get spent on that does not track what c.e.o.'s buy. in the meantime, we should do this. i think it's paid for very

sensibly. we established as a country that beyond $1 million in executive compensation, it wasn't going to be tax deductible any longer. if you are a big corporation, you want to pay your c.e.o. more than $1 million, fine. you can still do that, but you don't get to have the american taxpayer kick in for the more than million-dollar salary. so what did corporate america do? they took it out of salary and moved it over to bonuses. so now get these big bonuses over $1 million, and they dodge that exemption and now the american taxpayer is back on the hook again to kick in for a plus-million-dollar corporation package for a corporate c.e.o. come on! we ought to be able to get beyond that. so we've got a way to pay for it that's fair and sensible and consistent with the policy we've already agreed with as a nation, that above a million bucks in compensation, taxpayers shouldn't be kicking in any longer to help the company pay these exorbitant salaries.

i think we've got a very good way to spend those resources, which is helping seniors, which now for the third time since i've been in the senate, are getting a zero cola while everything else goes up around them. so i commend senator warren for taking the lead on this. i am pleased to be a cosponsor of her bill, and i'm delighted to yield back. the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. ms. warren: i appreciate the colleagues who came to the floor today to talk about the save benefits act, and i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. whitehouse: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: madam president, may i ask unanimous consent that the pending quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: and may i further ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 20 minutes as if in morchl morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: thank you, madam president. as you know well every week that i am here and the senate is in session, i come to the floor to remind us of the damage that carbon pollution continues to do to our atmosphere and oceans. today i rise for the 120th time to urge my colleagues to wake up to the threat of climate change. i am not alone, although it sometimes seems a bit lonely here. we have an advertisement today

in the "wall street journal" that -- let me find it here. one second. i seem to have mislaid it. it has a considerable number of american companies who have called on the public and called on the readers of the "wall street journal" to support a strong outcome in paris, and it matches another "wall street journal" full-page advertisement -- this one back to october 22 -- that was republicans and democrats agree u.s. security demands global climate action. that had 23 republican former officials, including senators

cohen, coleman, danforth, hagel, lugar, kassebaum, smith, and snowe, and secretaries of commerce, state, treasury, members of the national intelligence council, homeland security advisors, in total 33 republican and military officials calling on us to get serious about it. so a lot of people out there, including a lot of republicans, are interested in getting something done. i wanted to build my remarks this week around something interesting that pope francis said this past weekend about the upcoming climate talks in paris. heress whahere's what he said. i'll quote him. "it would be sad, and dare i say even catastrophic, were special interests to prevail over the common good and lead to manipulating information in

order to protect their own plans and interests." sad and even catastrophic. let's look at that part. the fact is, we have changed the composition of of our a atmosphere, pushing the concentration of carbon dioxide beyond the range it has been in for at least 800,000 years. longer than our species has been on the planet, 8,000 centuries humans have inhabited the earth with an atmosphere with 300 parts per million of co2. the concentrations have now hit 400 parts per million, further out of the range than the midpoint of the range. and that trend continues to rise. and, emit way by the way, that's somebody's measurement. that's no not a theory. we have measured that.

last year at the hottest point of the year since we began takinkeeping records in 1880, te last five years are now the warmest five-year period in human history. this year son track t is on trae another record-breaker, expected to be a milestone of one degree celsius above the average temperature of the preindustrial era. many scientists agree that two degrees above the pre-era norm will likely mean irreparable harm to our planet and current way of life. so it would indeed be sad and perhaps ultimately catastrophic if we were to do nothing. yet, we here in congress continue to do nothing, which brings me to the next of pope francis' words in that opening

quotation: "special interests prevailing over the common good." well, doing nothing is just fine by the big polluters, because they make more money when we do nothing. to keep their profitable racquet running, the polluters spend huge sums on lobbying and politics, particularly right here in the united states congress. as one author has written -- and i'll quote him -- "rivers of money flowing from secret sources have turned our elections into silent auctions." "and the polluters get what they pay for. with this congress of the united states, distracted and achieved by their mischief, the effects of climate change just keep filing up. this problem got worse in 2010

when the big polluters got a gift. they got handed a big new political weapon. thanks for five justices on the united states supreme court, all of them republican appointees, the big polluters can now threaten lawmakers with the cudule of unlimited, indisclosed citizens united money. so we do nothing and the polluters offload on to everyone else the costs and damage from their fossil fuel product. the costs of heat waves of sea level rise of ocean acidification, the worsening storms and many more. the polluters have happily dumped those costs on to everybody else. they suck up hundreds of billions of dollars in effective

public subsidy. according to the international monetary fund -- and, of course, they fight desperately to protect their favored status. pope francis had it right. special interests, indeed, prevail over the common good. and that brings us to the pope's words about them manipulating information in order to protect their own plans and interests. i've spoken often on this floor about the decades-long purposeful corporate campaign of misinformation about climate change. the fossil fuel industry and its allies gin up doubt about the dangers of carbon pollution through a smoke screen of misleading public statements and sophisticated marketing and polluter-funded front groups. the mission of these well-organized and mightily

funded deniers is to manufacture a product -- uncertainty, doubt. the polluters spend huge amounts on a big, complex p.r. machine to churn out doubt about the real science. it's a fraud. it's a deliberate pollution of the public mind. we know that a network of front organizations with innocent sounding names has emerged to propagate that baloney science. this network has been well documented by dr. robert bruehl at drexel university and dr. riley dunlap at oklahoma state university, among others. professor bruehl's "follow the money" analysis, for instance, diagrams the complex flow of cash to these front groups, a flow that the fossil fuel industry persistently tries to obscure. well, a new study was released

just last week, a study by dr. dr. just infarrell at -- justin farrell at yale university. his work examines how corporations have used their money to amplify the voices of climate deniers and to exaggerate scientific uncertainty. dr. farrell used computers to perform a comprehensive quantitative analysis of more than 39 million words written by 164 climate denial organizatio organizations. yes, there are 164 of them. this is a big beast. over a 20-year period. his study compared corporate funded groups to the rest. professor farrell's stated purpose -- i'll quote him here -- "to uncover imperial cli the actual social -- empirically

the actual social arrangements on which scientific misinformation is generated and the role private funding plays in shaping the actual ideological content of scientific information that is written and amplified." he describes the climate denial apparatus as a complex network of think tanks, foundations, public relations firms, trade associations and other groups who are -- and i'll quote him again -- "overtly producing and promoting skepticism and doubt about scientific consensus on climate change." farrell describes the function of the network as, one, the production of an alternative c contrian discourse, and, two, to create ideological polarization around climate change. why polarization? because it is -- and i'll quote him again -- quote -- "well

understood that polarization is an effective strategy for creating controversy and delaying policy progress, particularly around environmental issues. sso the polarization we see in this building on this issue is a product created by a network of corporate funding climate denial front groups. we are the living proof of the success of this scheme. corporate backing created a united network, said farrell, within which the contrarian messages could be strategically created. that's right. climate denial is -- quote -- "strategically created." farrell's data showed particularly that donations from exxonmobil and the koch family foundations signaled what he

calls entry into a powerful network of influence. and i'll quote him again -- "corporate funding influences the actual language and thematic content of polarizing discours discourse." and, of course, one of the areas of distinct corporate funded polarizing discourse produced by in network was -- quote -- "questions about the scientific veracity of long-term climate change." again, it's a product of a scheme. professor farrell made another comparison. he's made the same comparison that others have made with tobacco. i'll quote him. "well funded and well organized contrarian campaigns are especially important for spreading skepticism or denial

where scientific consensus exists, such as in the present case of global warming or in historical contrarian efforts to create doubt about the link between smoking and cancer." "to create doubt about the link between smoking and cancer." that echoes the telling sentence from the tobacco denial campaigr product. just as pope francis said, the denial machinery is manipulating information in order to protect their own plans and interests. the actions of the climate denial machine have been so effective they have made it -- quote -- "difficult for ordinary americans to even know who to

trust," says farrell. doubt is still their product. some generations left bloody footprints in the snows of valley forge to secure our independence. some generations were torn to pieces by cannon fire in the great battles of the civil war. some generations endured mustard gas and trench warfare in world war i. some secured the world's freedom from the axis powers in world war two -- in world war ii. some rebuilt the american economy after the great depression. some were beaten, bombed and burned as they struggled to secure the civil rights we now

enjoy. we're the generation whose duty it is to face down the climate crisis that threatens our planet and face down the folks behind this vast climate denial scheme. all we have to do to rise to our duty is to resist all the dark money, all the fossil fuel funded threats and intimidation that citizens united made possible. let me read from an opinion that was in my clips today from david brooks, who's a conservative columnist. i see him at american enterprise institute gatherings. he's a self-identified republican conservative who is rating about climate change and the upcoming paris climate conference. and he said that the sort of

trick in this article is that he is communicating with alexander hamilton. he obviously is not but that's his rhetorical device. he says, "i seanced up my hero, alexander hamilton, to see what he thought about the paris climate conference." and here's what he said, "alexander hamilton was struck by the fact that on this issue, the g.o.p. has come to resemble a soviet dictatorship. a vast majority of republican politicians can't publicly say what they know about the truth of climate change because they're afraid the thought police will knock on their door and drag them off to an am radio interrogation." that's a conservative republican economist talking about this. we can get through this. we simply need conscientious

republicans and democrats to work together in good faith on a common platform of established science, clear facts and basic common sense. if we do that, we can protect the american people and the american economy and our american reputation from harm from the looming effects of climate change. it's on us. it's on us. we simply need to shed the shackles of corrupting influence and rise to our duty as other generations always have. we do not have to be the generation that failed. yes, we are headed down a road to infamy now but it doesn't have to be that way.

we can leave a legacy that will echo down the corridors of history so the generations who follow husband be proud of our -- so the generations of those who follow us will be proud of our efforts the way we are proud of those who did great things for our country before us. but sitting here doing nothing, yielding to the special interests won't accomplish that. madam president, this new analysis out of yale is an important addition to the increasing body of academic research and journalism that is the shining some much-needed sunlight on the shadowy enterprise of phony science and phony doubt that props up climate denial. it is time we all caught on to this deceptive enterprise. being suckered down a road to

infamy is not a good legacy. it is time to wake up. i yield the floor. oh, madam president, may i ask unanimous consent that the article i referred to earlier, "business backs low-carbon u.s.a.," the advertisement that ran in today's "wall street journal," be added as an exhibit to my remarks. and also that the david brooks article that i referenced be added to my remarks. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: i appreciate it. and i yield again. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. a senator: madam president, thank you. i would ask unanimous consent to address the senate as if in morning business. the presiding officer: the senate is in morning business. mr. moran: thank you, madam president. i rise to visit a moment with my colleagues, both republican and democrat, about an ongoing debate that we are having over the appropriateness to have policy issues decided -- debated and then decided in

appropriation bills. we're now at the stage in our legislative process in which it looks like we're going to complete our work on the final spending bill for the fiscal year that ended a few months ago and that by december 11 when the continuing resolution concludes, that we very well may have an appropriation bill that takes us into the new year completed. there are some in the senate who have argued that within this appropriations bill there is no place for policy riders, for provisions in that bill that direct in a more specific way how we spend money. i would say that that is a terrible mistake on the part of members of the senate to reach that conclusion, and i would say it's wrong for our country. it's wrong based upon the constitution of the united states that creates three coequal branches of government. the legislative branch, we know what our role is, which is to

legislate, to create the laws, to appropriate the money. and there cannot be a distinction between legislating and appropriating money. they end up being the same thing. that when we appropriate money, we are directing an administration to conduct themselves according to that appropriations bill. but we have particularly in this case a few democrats who are arguing there shouldn't be any policy riders included in that appropriations bill. i doubt that we would hear that from democrats if this was a republican president and a democratic congress. and in my view, it ought not be any different. congress's role is to make decisions about how money is spent, and for too long congress has given up the power of the purse string. why this is a significant development in our constitutional history is because in giving up the power of the purse string, we authorize the executive branch, that branch of government that is to execute the laws, to

administer the laws, to have significantly more power. and the american people and our constitution is harmed when any executive -- this president, previous presidents, future presidents -- exceed the authority granted to them by the united states constitution. sometimes i think we end up supporting presidential agreements we agree with and oppose those we disagree with but if those decisions are unconstitutional, they ought to be denied regardless of whether we agree with those decisions or not. in other words, the constitution should trump. and in my view, again, this congress and many who preceded us have taken a, the opportunity to be in the back seat and granting authority or allowing presidents to consume additional

power well beyond the constitution. so, madam president, i am here to encourage my colleagues, republicans and democrats, to reexert our constitutional grant of authority to legislate. and we ought not pay undue deference to any executive branch, whether the president is a republican or a democrat. i would say that in the time i've been a united states senator in this first term of my term in office, we have seen an executive branch that has continued to increase its power and authority to exceed, in my view, its constitutional grant of authority and in so many instances exceed the authority granted to them by a statute, a piece of legislation passed by the house, passed by the senate and sent to the president. the president should be able only to do those things which are granted to him or her by the constitution or by legislative enactment pursuant to the

constitution. and that seemingly has been forgotten during the recent history of our country. congress holds the power of the purse string. there are many of us, republicans and democrats, who would like to direct the executive branch in how money is spent. the appropriations bill ultimately will determine how much money is spent, but in addition to that we have the ability to direct whether that spending can occur, shouldn't occur or how it should occur. i offered on the floor in fact, some of you heard me speak previously, in fact all of you heard me speak previously, some of you may remember a particular provision i wanted included in an environment appropriations bill related to the u.s. fish and wildlife service, the designation of the lesser prairie chicken as a threatened species. we've had this conversation, in fact, in a bipartisan way, that

issue was voted on on the senate floor. it was approved, but that legislation that it was attached to did not become law. so now the opportunity to instruct a federal agency arises as we appropriate the money for them to operate. there is five states in the middle of the country -- new mexico, texas, colorado, kansas and oklahoma -- that have felt the consequences of a decision made by the u.s. fish and wildlife service to list the lesser prairie chicken as a threatened species. the issue that is so troublesome to me is those five states had come together to solve this problem on their own without the heavy hand of the federal government. and conservation practices were being put in place. the u.s. department of agriculture was providing technical and financial assistance to conservation efforts to landowners to provide

the incentives to put voluntary conservation practices in place across those five states. and yet, the u.s. fish and wildlife service, in my view, only paid lip service to those conservation efforts. their actions spoke louder than the words and they listed the lesser prairie chicken as threatened. this decision at that point in time didn't provide enough time for local plans to prove their effectiveness and really the reality is the problem in our state and across that region of the country was we didn't have moisture. we didn't have adequate snowfall. we didn't have adequate rainfall. and when you have little or no rain, you have little or no habitat. you can't solve that problem without moisture. and now the rains have returned, and in fact over the last two years, just as you would predict, as common sense would tell us, if there's more rain, there's more habitat, there's more birds. and the most recent census of

the lesser prairie chicken indicates that in the last two years the population of that bird, that species has increased by 50%. again common sense tells us if there's rain, there's moisture, there's habitat, then the birds return. as the moisture has returned the habitat is growing and is healthy again and the bird's population is again increasing. one might think it would, therefore, be useful to take a second look at the listing despite our request to the u.s. fish and wildlife service, they dismissed that with little thought that as the species has returned that maybe no longer it should be listed. so the opportunity that i and others have to rein in decisions that we believe are poorly made, lack common sense are unreasonable occurs in this appropriations process. and my guess is that all of my colleagues have certain issues in which they want to direct a federal agency about how to

behave. what rules and regulations are appropriate, where we believe they've exceeded their authority or where they just simply lack the common sense or sound science to make -- to have made an appropriate decision. there are some who say you shouldn't legislate an appropriations bill. an appropriations bill is a legislative effort, and it would be wrong for us not to take the opportunity to direct agencies on behalf of the american people, on behalf of the constituents in my case of kansas who feel very strongly about this issue and have suffered the consequences of the listing of the lesser prairie chicken by the u.s. fish and wildlife service. so despite the practical reasons that this listing should be reversed, the agency is not listening, and we, therefore, ought to take the opportunity to direct their behavior in a legislative way. whether or not an amendment is approved is decided here in the senate by a majority vote, and i would tell you that in the case

of this issue, again, the amendment was offered in the appropriations committee. it is included in the interior appropriations bill. the house has adopted similar language in their appropriations bill. and so for those who say this is inappropriate, this is the legislative process as it should be. this is united states senators, members of the u.s. house of representatives speaking on behalf of their constituents in a very constitutional and appropriate way. it is important for us to utilize our authority as members of congress to make decisions that benefit our country as we see best, and we ought to work together to accomplish that. there will be riders, provisions that are offered that i will, that are included in the appropriations bill that i will disagree with, but the appropriations process ought to work. and i as a member of the appropriations committee and member of the united states senate want to see us get back to the days in which the power of the legislative branch is able, is to be utilized and to make certain that we make

decisions on how we spend the money. so, madam president, i appreciate the opportunity to be on the senate floor today to speak as we move apparently next week toward the appropriations bill and its conclusion. and i just would say that in a bipartisan way, we ought to work together to find opportunities to solve problems that our constituents and americans face, and the legislative process is a way that we can do that. it's not inappropriate. in fact, it's the constitutional response to an abuse of power in an executive branch, whether it's a republican executive branch or a democrat executive branch, we ought to work together as members of congress and utilizing our constitutional authority to make appropriate decisions for the american people. madam president, i ask unanimous consent that morning business be extended until 6:00 p.m. today with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection.

mr. moran: madam president, i yield the floor to the senator from utah. mr. hatch: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. hatch: madam president, throughout my time as ranking member and now chairman of the senate finance committee, finding money for surface transportation infrastructure has been a persistent and seemingly inl tractable problem -- intractable problem. even as we went into this year with a new republican majority in the senate, none of us could imagine that we could find a way to provide five years of solvency and stability for the highway trust fund. yet with today's announcement, with the completed conference report, that is precisely where we are right now. the conference report for the fixing america's surface transportation act will

hopefully be enacted within a few days' time. as the very first member of the conference committee to sign the report, i want to briefly talk about the process by which the legislation came about and how we got to where we are now. immediately before the memorial day recess there was an unsuccessful attempt to put together a package to possibly get the highway trust fund through the rest of 2016. the agonizing difficulty we faced at the time in dragging ourselves through another 18 months gave us a desire to think bigger than we had before. that is why i was determined to find to help find a way out of the cycle of short-term infrastructure bills and why i believed it was necessary for us to think outside the proverbial box and look everywhere for potential offsets. generally the finance committee is responsible for the financing title of any highway bill that goes through the senate. usually we do our best to work within our committee's jurisdiction to identify

offsets. however, because those resources have been quickly drying up, we had to look elsewhere for this package. after the committee spent weeks examining numerous options and alternatives, i was able to present our distinguished majority leader with a list of offsets that while not necessarily ideal would allow us to put together a long-term highway bill without raising taxes or increasing the deficit. i'm very pleased with the work we were able to do that as that list of offsets formed the basis of funding for the long-term deal will likely be -- we'll likely be voting on in short order. by the end of july the senate managed to pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill with three years of solvency, funding and certainty for the highway trust fund. though we were required to enact another short-term extension before the august recess, momentum had begun to build in both chambers for a long-term highway bill.

mr. president, common practice on highways over the past few years really has been to enact short-term extensions and then go and complain about the dysfunction in congress before moving on to the next order of business. the offset package produced by the senate showed that we could do things differently, and for the first time in almost two decades the long-term transportation bill was actually possible. after the august recess, the house began working off of the senate bill as a template for their own legislation. and after they passed a remarkably similar bill in november, the conference committee came together to produce the legislation announced today. while i'm not one who likes to count chickens before they have been hatched -- no pun intended -- i'm optimistic that the bill will pass with a strong bipartisan vote. putting these offsets for this long-term bill together has truly been a group effort. as i mentioned, we searched far

and wide for offsets that required a number of chairman and committees to work together, and i commend my colleagues for their efforts and their willingness to do so. and their willingness to do what it took to make the endeavor successful. i especially want to thank senator thune and the commerce committee who assisted these efforts by providing for the transfer of certain motor vehicle safety penalties to the highway trust fund. i also appreciate the work of the house financial services committee and congressman randy newburger, chairman of the subcommittee on financial institutions and consumer credit. he was able to identify a new and important offset for the infrastructure bill, a feat which few have been capable of.e around here, some have been very quick to throw out criticisms of individual offsets and were less willing to offer suggestions for suitable alternatives.

the congressman, in response to concerns about an item in the original senate offset package, came forward to produce a viable and scorable alternative that was able to garner bipartisan support and ultimately broaden the overall support for this long-term deal. back in july when the senate first proposed a long-term bill, many said we couldn't do it without raising taxes. when we passed our first bill, these same people claimed that it stood no chance of passage in the house. now just a few months later, both chambers are a few days away from considering a conference report built upon the foundation laid by that same senate bill. this legislation provides a longer extension than the vaunted safety lew extension sch many had vaunted as a long-term highway bill.

in fact, you would have to go back at least to the early 1990's to find a highway reauthorization of comparable duration. like i said, this major bipartisan and bicameral success was unthinkable just a few months ago. the while i do want to acknowledge we still face the problem of outlays from the highway trust fund outpacing the revenues, this bill would give us a much-needed five-year break from the deadlines and cliffs that all too often dictate how we deal with the highway trust fund. it is quite simply a great example of what we can do when we work together. i'd just like to briefly note that these types of victories for good government have been piling up all year under the current senate majority. we do need to start thinking now about more permanent solutions on highways, but once we pass this bill, we'll be in a better position than at any time in nearly two decades to do so. that is, as they say, is nothing

to sneeze at. before i conclude, i just want to pay tribute to chairman inhofe and chairman shuster and barbara boxer and her democratic counterpart in the house who led a conference committee who was able to sift through various issues and put together a very complex piece of legislation in a matter of just a few weeks. these two chairmen deserve a lot of credit for their efforts as do all the members who took part in the conference. today congress is making significant headway toward implementing the longest highway reauthorization bill in more than 15 years. we've heard time and again that a long-term highway bill would only be possible if we included a big tax increase, yet we have been able to defy the odds, provide much-needed funding for america's bridges, highways and roads for the next five years. this marks a watershed moment for our transportation community who will now have the security

and stability they need to plan, implement and complete critical infrastructure projects. first of all, we have crossed a major hurdle today. our job is not yet over. there is still one more vote to go, but i am confident we will get there. i look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to complete our work and ensure a strong multiyear highway bill is signed into law this year. and i look forward to working with all of my colleagues on whatever challenges lie ahead. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. and i suggest the absence of a quorum. mr. president, i withdraw that request.

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. lankford: mr. president, when you're home, television is on, phone starts to ring, your dog is at the back door barking, kids need help doing homework, occasion will occasionally you - occasionally you can forget dinner is on the stove. if you forget about it too long, your house patches on fire. you can suddenly miss out on something that's very important. our nation is dealing with a lot of issues right now -- terrorism, immigration, dealing with banking issues and our economy, education, transportation, and i do have a concern that we have forgotten this year we still have $450 billion in deficits and

$19 trillion total in debt hanging over our heads. now, if we were in any state in america and we were faced with that, the legislative branch would work and would make hard decisions and would balance their budget. every single state at the end of their legislative session comes to a balanced budget. but we don't. we just overspent. it's happened now so many times consecutively, it's built up to now, i don't have an easy way to $19 trillion in debt. articulate $19 trillion in debt, but let me give you a picture of that. we just passed earlier this year a ten-year budget plan that over the next ten years would get rid of our $450 billion in deficit and would slowly work that down within ten years back to balance. good. so let's do a hypothetical. let's say we finish out that path, we actually get back to balance in ten years, and then

year 11, we do really well. we have a $50 billion surplus. year 11, a $50 billion surplus. it's a good surplus. here's my question for you, mr. president. how many years in a row would we have to have that $50 billion surplus, how many years in a row would we have to do that before we paid off our debt? the correct answer as you're doing math in your head is 460 years in a row. if we had a $50 billion surplus 460 years in a row, we could pay off our debt. it's not going to happen, is it? we're in a bad spot. and my fear is that we're distracted and we're not focusing on something that will come back and bite us. so what do we do about that? i would ask if we could do the first thing. can we at least agree that this is a problem and that we should actually work to balance our budget? at least have that as the common

ground that we can agree on in this body and say we need to get back to a balanced budget. then we need to begin to pay this down and start that process. to approach this in a way that i think can develop real solutions, to find common ground areas but to begin with that one simple principle. so what we have done in our office is to come up with a list. we affectionately call it the federal fumbles list. 100 ways the federal government has dropped the ball. and to identify areas that we see waste, we see duplication, and quite frankly we see some regulations that are well outside the purview of the federal government, many of them that slow down the economy and drive up the cost to consumers. these federal fumbles aren't an exhaustive list, this is not everything. this is just our list. we took some from multiple agencies and multiple entities. as we pulled this list together, we encouraged this. this is our to-do list. we encourage other offices to

start theirs. so at least we could have a common ground sense of let's get back to the balance and let's actually all work together to identify something with our own office to find out ways that we can deal with some simple things. how are we wasting taxpayer dollars? what programs are rife with fraud? what duplication and inefficiency is out there? where are we overregulating that raises the costs of goods and services for consumers? and how does the government actually have processes in place that deceive taxpayers and add debt to their families? when we talk through this, we had a common agreement on our team. we're not going to just identify problems. we're going to actually work together and find a solution. our issue and our conversation has been simple. if i'm back home in oklahoma, i can sit around at the coffee house and i can visit over breakfast with folks and we can talk about all the problems. but when i get back in this room, we can't just explain about the issues. we have to fix those. that's our job. and we spend a tremendous amount

of time just complaining about the issues as if fixing it comes from somewhere else. so we take all 100 of these issues and say here's the problem, here's the solution we would propose. if people had different ideas and different solutions, bring them, but let's agree at least these things should be resolved. some of them are small, some of them are large, but we simply ask the question how do we fix this? i would say several things with that. one is we've got to fix our budgeting process, the way we make decisions about it. the way these cute little terms in our budgeting process like chimps, changes in mandatory program. it's a cute term but the problem is it's $11 billion of debt that's added every year and everyone pretends it's not there. it's not real. there is this fund called the crime victims fund. this fund is applied to go directly to what it says to crime victims, but it's actually not used for crime victims.

$11 billion each year, in fact the same $11 billion each year is used as an offset for additional spending, but the money never actually moves out of that account. it just stays there. we pretend we were going to spend it and actually spend it somewhere else and then next year do the same thing again. it's deceptive. we've got to stop that. that adds deficit and debt onto families by a deceptive tactic. we have a thing called the corporate payment shift. this one's fun as well. corporate payment shift assumes that money would come in and that money would be spent and we have a ten-year budgeting window, we moved it in the very last month to year ten plus one month. moved it just slightly out of the budget window but say we're going to spend it and actually go ahead and spend it anyway. if we had a budget that was ten years and one month, it would be out of balance --quote, unquote -- but if we put that little corporate payment shift in there, on paper it looks fine. for reality, it doesn't work.

so we identify that as one of the fumbles that we have as a government. something that we have obviously got to fix. basic oversight will help that but it's also this body making a decision on how we actually budget. we also walked through a lot of areas that we just identified things that the federal government spends money on that we thought were rather unique that we would spend money on those things and may need some oversight. how about a $43 million gas station, natural gas filling station that was put in in afghanistan? $43 million to do one natural gas filling station. now that that station is in place, it's not being used at all. it is a $43 million waste. how about the academy awards? a pretty ritzy event. the academy awards, they are choosing to build a museum, a $250 million museum, actually, and the federal taxpayer is kicking in $25,000 of that. why in the world are we kicking in $25,000 into a $250 million? do we believe at some point they couldn't raise that last $25,000, and so we had to kick

in a federal connection to it? i would disagree. one of my favorites is the fact that we just spent almost $50,000 to study the history of tobacco use in russia. i am still looking for the national security implications of why we just spent $50,000 to study cigarette use in russia. the national parks service spent $65,000 doing a study on what happens when you turn on a light in dark areas to bugs. now, i could ask anyone in this chamber that's ever been out in the woods what happens if you turn on a light in a rural area, what do bugs do? they fly at it. but we spent $65,000 trying to investigate that. the v.a. in arkansas wanted to put solar panels to show they had green energy in this area. many v.a. centers around the country are doing this.

the particular one in arkansas put them on, put them on the wrong spot, relocated them, spent $8 million total just in installation for their solar panels. any guess on how long those solar panels will have to run continuously before they pay off the cost of installation? how about almost 40 years? they will have to run continuously before they just pay for the cost of installation. that's not green energy. that's just waste. how about a challenge like this this -- social security administration and the definition for social security disability is you cannot work in any job in the economy. you're only eligible for social security disability if you cannot work in any job in the economy. but there are individuals that receive both social security disability, which by definition means you cannot work, and they receive unemployment insurance, which by definition means you're looking for a job. you should not be able to get unemployment insurance and social security disability insurance at the same time.

they violate the definitions between the two. even the president of the united states agrees with that. yet we have not been able to get that done. that's a fumble. we spent $374,000 as american taxpayers studying the dating habits of senior adults. studying the dating habits of senior adults. can someone help me with the national security implications for that? why we spent $374,000 studying the dating habits of senior adults? we also created what's called the ambassador's slush fund. the ambassador's cultural fund from the state department, $5 million -- almost $6 million -- is designed to be able to help us give money away to do construction in other areas. we've done projects like building a welcome grotto into a buddhist temple in china, which i find the ultimate irony.

if any church in america said we want to be able to add on a welcome center on to our church, we would forbid the use of taxpayer dollars for that. but in china, we literally borrowed money from them, gave it to our state department so they could build a welcome grotto into a buddhist temple back in china. i'm not sure that's a great idea. the state department also has a twitter account called think again, turn away. it's to discourage people from joining the gee ahead movement. that i again, turn away. any guess on how much americans spent for a twitter account? that one twitter account with 23,000 followers, we spent $5 million for. $5 million to maintain a twitter account. i am very confident that there are multiple teenagers at home that could help us run that for a lot less than the price. mr. president, i'd like to ask

unanimous consent that i extend for a couple more moments. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. lankford: let me mention just a couple more. mr. president, i have a real concern that our social security administration is not sharing what's called the death master file. that may seem like a macabre comment there, but the -- what happens is if we don't share the death master file, then we don't know at other agencies when to pull off a social security number off the record. so someone recognizes that a person passed away but the i.r.s. doesn't so that's still a live social security number to them. meaning that somebody could get that social security number, file, get a work permit, vote and register, all sorts of things can be done under that number. we have 6.5 million people, according to our government, that are over 112 years over. 6.5 million people. that's quite a few. actually, in the world, there are less than a hundred. but according to our government, we have 6.5 millions and those

numbers are being abused. and i can't even get into multiple issues, but let me just mention one more on this list on waste. we identified what many americans already know -- social security numbers are being stolen and used to file fraudulent tax forms. and many americans in the coming months will file their taxes only to get notification from the i.r.s. someone's already filed under this number already. it's infuriating to them and it's billions of dollars in loss to the federal taxpayer. the i.r.s. knows how to fix th this. we list out the solutions on this. we've got to actually implement this. we have to be able to protect the taxpayer and to protect individuals from identify theft being stolen. that is a fumble but it's fixable and we need to do it. i haven't even gotten into some simple things like the school lunches. ask any teenager what they think of the school lunches at this point and the new regulations. or waters of the u.s. and how even the corps of engineers

doesn't even want to implement the new e.p.a. rule. how the fiduciary standard is causing chaos among retirees and individuals wanting to get retirement advice. or rural banks and how they want to be able to give out loans for mortgages but can't in many rural areas of america. there are solutions to these. and it's our responsibility to be able to work through the process to solve this. $50 billion in deficit --with $450 billion in deficit spending and an economy that continues to slow down, this body needs to determine what is our job and do it. and it would be my encouragement in the days ahead, mr. preside mr. president, that we actually achieve that. that in the days ahead, we speak of what we got solved for the american people rather than pretending we're eating breakfast back home with some friends complaining about the problems. it's time for us to fix them. with that, mr. president, i yield back. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from mississippi. mr. wicker: mr. president, policy-makers from all over the

world will be meeting in paris this week and next to address the issue of climate change. with much fanfare, they will purport to reach an agreement that will prevent the earth's average global air temperatur temperature -- average global air temperature -- from rising more than two degrees celsius. this two-degree limit will supposedly mean success for the conference in paris and success in the battle against global warming, thus preventing catastrophic events from occurring. and so i come to the floor today to call attention to several news articles pointing out problems with this approach, with this the two degrees celsius approach. the first is a front-page story from yesterday's "wall street journal." i hold it in my hand, mr. president. it's titled "climate experts question temperature benchmark." this is not an opinion piece. it's a news article.

the article points out that the two-degree target is both arbitrary and based on questionable research. the article quotes mark maslin, professor of climatology at university college london sayinr maslin -- "it emerged from a political agenda, not a scientific analysis. it's not a sensible rational target." the article goes on to say that despite assumptions by policy-makers, the two-degree target does not express -- quotc view." indeed, no report by the u.n. intergovernmental panel on climate change even mentions the two-degree limit. economics professor william norhaus appears to have been the first to use the two-degree figure. the article notes that his work

argued that a rise of two or more degrees would put the earth's climate outside the observable range of temperature over the last hundred thousand -- over the last several hundred thousand years. now, i ask my colleagues, mr. president, how did they measure air temperature a hundred thousand years ago, 200,000 years ago, as professor norhaus appears to have been concerned b. but i would also point out -- concerned about. but also point out to my colleagues that being outside the observable range is far different from being catastrophic. it's not the same thing. but from that has evolved the two-degree model. this is not the first time that the model has been criticized. in october of last year, david victor and charles kennel wrote about it in the journal "natur "nature." victor is a professor of

international relations at the university of california-san diego and kennel is a professor at the scripps institute of oceanography in la hoya, california. yesterday i got this article from the journal "nature" and read it myself. in their piece, professor victor and kennel wrote, "politically and scientifically, the two-degree celsius goal is wrongheaded. it has allowed some governments to pretend that they are taking serious action to mitigate global warming when in reality they have achieved almost nothing." and this is one of the things i worry about, mr. president. this is one of the things i fear from the paris conference. the united states will agree to do a lot, costing job growth here, and other countries will do almost nothing, as the professors say. victor and kennel say that the 2009 and 2010 u.s. conferences

in copenhagen and cancun officially adopted this approa approach. they then conclude -- and i quote again -- "there was little scientific basis for the two-degree celsius figure that was adopted." additionally, in an op-ed last month for the "wall street journal," environmentalist bjorn lumborg sights his own peer-reviewed study to show how the most high-flown promises in pair lis fail to make -- paris will fail to make any substantial impact on climate change. even if every country fulfills every promise made in paris over the next decade and a half, according to dr. lumborg, the growth of global temperatures would be reduced by less than .05 degrees celsius. or .005 of a degree celsius. by the end of the century, the

year 2100. so is it two degrees or is it less than .005 of a degree? and is two degrees sensible and rational? not according to professors maslin, victor, kennel and certainly not according to dr. dr. lumborg. and one more quote from professors vic disper kennel. -- victor and kennel. they point out one of the major problems in the two-degree celsius approach. quote -- "failure to set scientifically meaningful goals makes it hard for scientists and politicians to explain how big investments in climate production will deliver tangible results." yes, what are the tangible results? what can we expect in tangible results from the agreements that will certainly come out of par paris? we'll be $3 billion poorer,

that's for certain, because the president has pledged $3 billion from taxpayers for the green climate fund. i would point out that $3 billion could be used for alzheimer's research or malaria or malnutrition or any number of other problems the people of the world see as more important than climate change. tangible results coming out of paris. electricity bills will be high higher. lower-income americans will be colder in their own homes. our economy will have suffered and job growth will have been slowed perhaps by as much as $154 billion a year. that figure comes from stanford university analysts who say that if we adopt the obama administration's proposal of cutting domestic carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 28%,

g.d.p. will be reduced by $154 billion per year. and if we spend all this money, trim our g.d.p. by $154 billion per year and actually achieve this impractical two-degree celsius, where will humankind be then? how much will the sea level not rise? no one can say. how much thicker will the ice cap be in the arctic or antarctic? no one knows. how many coral reefs will be preserved? no one will even venture a guess. all of this to be done, all of this money to be spent and experts cannot say how much it will help, if at all. dr. lumborg writes that the paris agreements are -- quote -- "likely to see countries that have flourished with capitalism willingly compromising their

future prosperity in the name of climate change." mr. president, negotiators in paris should weigh the real-world costs against the negligible environmental impact when discussing emissions reductions. and finally, mr. president, the obama administration's international promises should come back to the senate for advice and consent of congress. under the constitution, the approval by two-thirds in the senate is needed to enter into a legal and binding treaty. i join many of my colleagues in urging the president to submit to congress any agreement with the u.s. in paris with regard to u.s. emission targets and timetables or pledges that appropriate taxpayer dollars. americans should have a say in the approval process.

a recent fox news poll showed that only 3% of americans believe that climate change is the most important issue facing our country. so in conclusion, the president's promises in paris are not based on scientific analysis according to those professors but would certainly slow the economy, cost jobs, cost billions of dollars, divert money from real and pressing needs and be of limited value. with so much at stake, these policies should come back to congress for debate, consultation and approval or disapproval. thank you, mr. president. mr. grassley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: mr. president, i would just ask unanimous consent that i follow senator grassley after he's completed his remarks. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection.

the senator from iowa.@ mr. grassley: i come to the floor because we're discussing obamacare on the reskil reconcin bill. webster's dictionary defiance the word "success" as the correct or desired result of an attempt. so i want to discuss the definition of the word "success" as we consider repeal of obamacare. on the day the bill was signed into law, president obama said the following following -- quoty we're affirming that essential trunnel, a truth that every generation is called to rediscover for itself, that we are not a nation that scales back our aspirations." end of quote. such grand words for where we are today with obamacare today the success of the law that now bears his name is defined in much more meager terms.

think of all that that we have been thraw to this point much the fight over the bill and the extreme legislative means used to pass it through the congress. then the supreme court decision that effectively repealed half of the law's coverage. think of all the changes made to the law through regulations to make sure that obamacare actually got launched. the postponing of the employer mandate, the postponing of lifetime limits. think of the impact this law has had on our economy, people losing jobs, people losing the health insurance they currently have because if you like what you have, you may not be able to keep it. and let's talk about that for a moment. if you like what you have, you can keep it. this was the promise the president made to the american

people on at least 36 separate occasions. it's a great sound bite, isn't it? it's easy to say. it rolls off the tongue very easily. it's also not true. it was never true. it was obviously not true when the law was written. it was obviously not true when the first proposed regulation came out. this is what i said on the senate floor september 2010, and i quote myself -- "only in the districdistrict of columbia couu get away with telling the people, if you like what you have, you can keep it, and then pass regulations six months later that do just the opposite and figure that people are going to ignore it." end of quote. it's true that i have -- it's not true that i have some magic

crystal ball when i said that. we all knew it at the time. the administration certainly knew that the day would come when millions of people would receive cancellation notices. now my constituents clearly know that. i heard from many iowans would found out the hard way that the president made a bunch of "pie-in-the-sky" promises that he knew he couldn't keep. constituents like this from perry, iowa, who wrote to me, "my husband and i are farmers. for nine years now we have bought our own policy. to keep the costs affordable, our plan is a major medical plan with a very high deductible. we recently received a letter that our plan was going away, effectively, january 1, 2014, it will be updated to comply with the mandates of obamacare.

to manage the risk of a much higher premium, our insurance company is asking us to cancel our current policy and sign at a higher rate effective december 1, 2013, or we could go to the government exchange. we did not get to keep our current policy. we did not get to keep our lower rates. i now have to pay for coverage that i do not want or will ever use -- will never use. we are not low-income that might qualify for assistance. we're the small business owner that is trying to live the american dream. i do not believe in large government that wants to run my life." end of quote of that perry, iowa, constituent. here'sanother one from mason city. "my wife and i are both 60 year old and i have been covered by

an excellent we willmark bluecross blueshield follows for seven years. it is not through my employer. swleected the plan because it had the features we wanted and needed. our choice and because we are healthy, we have a preferred premium rate. yesterday we got a call from our agent explaining that since our plan is not grandfathered, it will need to be replaced by the end of 2014. the current plan has a $5,000 deductible and the premium is $511 per month. the best option going forward for us from w. lmark would cost $955 per month, a modest 87% increase, and have a $10,000 deductible. and because we have been diligent and responsible in saving for our upcoming retirement, we do not qualify for any taxpayer-funded

subsidy." end of quote. now, these are just two of many letters, e-mails, and phone calls i've received from iowans about the shortcomings of obamacare. and now the issue has turned to cost. millions of people face rising costs. the impact is real and undeniable. here's another one from a constituent in des moines. quote -- "in 2013, i encountered some medical problems which caused me to real estate tire early. my spouse works as an adjunct instructor. thus, not qualify for medical coverage. in 2014, with four part-time jobs between us, we made $44,289 in adjusted gross income. our obamacare insurance costs $968 per month and after credits we paid $478 per month, or approximately 13% of o ouradjusd

gross income. in 2015 our agruesed gross income will be approximately the same. however, our obama insurance jumped and our cost to $590.12. the insurance company touted that premiums went up less than 10%, but as you can see, my cost went up 23%. the impact to adjusted gross income went to 16%, a 23% increase. i gist just received my 2016 premium estimate. our adjusted gross income is likely to be the smaim. same. our premium is expected to rise to nearly $1,400. our cost after the credit is jump 63% and the impact to our adjusted gross income is that 25% of our income will be spent

on health insurance. that's a 56% increase." end of quote. thousands of iowans have contacted me asking what can be done. now that we clearly see that what the president sold the american people was a bag of washington-best gift hot air. all of the grandiose talk of this statute and what we ultimately have is an expanded medicaid option with a glorified high-risk pool and a government portal that makes d.m.v. look very efficient. finally, i would be remiss if i didn't mention the co-op disaster. the first co-op to fall was io iowa's co-op. co-opportunity knew they were in trouble because they enrolled

more than 150,000 people when they were planning for less than 240,000. co-opportunity was in contact with c.m.s. and so was the state of iowa. c.m.s. chose not to further fund co-opportunity and co-opportunity has since been liquidated. american taxpayers have billions of dollars invested in these co-ops. the taxpayer only gets their money back when co-ops succeed. c.m.s. stewardship of this program has proven that co-opportunity was not an exception but unfortunately the rule as more and more co-ops have faivmentd so we all know that americans deserve better. they voted for better. it's time to admit that obamacare has not achieved the correct and desired result of an attempt. it has not been a success by any measure. unless, of course, you lower your standard to the point that

the mere act of keeping the doors open is a success. how sad is that for all we have been through? maybe, just maybe, it's time to admit that the massive restructuring has failed. partisanship has failed. perhaps it's time to sit down and consider commonsense, bipartisan steps that we could take to lower the costs and improve quality. perhaps we could enact alternative reforms aimed at solving america's biggest health care problems. reforms like revising the tax code to help individuals who buy their own health insurance, allowing people to purchase health coverage across state lines and form risk pools in the individual market, expanding tax-free health savings accounts, making health care price and quality information more transparent, cracking down on frivolous malpractice

lawsuits, using high-risk pools to ensure folks with preexisting conditions, giving states more freedom to improve their medicaid, and using provider competition and consumer choice to bring down costs in medicare and throughout the health care delivery system. the american people need to know that this failed program is not the only answer and we're not scaling back our aspirations. and with this vote this week, we once again demonstrate to the american people our willingness to not accept failure and to aim better. that's what america is all about. i yield the floor. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent -- the presiding officer: the senator from iowa.

mr. grassley: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent of the leader -- i ask unanimous consent that morning business be extended until 7:00 p.m. with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. wyden: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: with so many issues to wrap up before the end of this year and so many enormous challenges facing our country, my view is the senate ought to be embracing bipartisanship at every turn. in fact, earlier today the senior senator from iowa and i released an 18-month bipartisan inquiry into sovaldi, which is this blockbuster drug to deal with hepatitis c. and the reason we did is because these specialty drugs are really the drugs of the future -- for cancer and alzheimer's and

diabetes and defeating hepatitis c, if people can afford them. and using the company's own documents, there were real questions about whether pricing was just really kind of -- excuse me, whether access and affordability was just kind of an oversight, because all they really cared about was maximizing revenue. and a republican, a senior member of this body, a good friend of mine, and myself as a democrat came together because we thought this question of making sure that the public can get access to breakthrough cures and that they be affordable was something that would require bipartisan effort. and i'm very proud that the senior senator from iowa and i joined in that effort earlier

today. so we ought to be embracing bipartisanship, and i come tonight to, unfortunately, talk about this reconciliation legislation because i think it is the antithesis of what chairman grassley and i sought to do earlier today, which was to take a bipartisan, you know, approach. the reconciliation legislation, in my view, is a re-vectio-- isa visajection of bipartisanship -- is a a rejection of bipartisanship. it would undermine women's health it would mean millions more americans go without insurance, and it puts at risk our ability to have affordable health premiums. i think it is going to drive these health insurance premiums up. so i'm going to just spend a few minutes tonight talking about why i object to this legislation

and, again, why it really is the aantithesis of the kind of bipartisanship that we need here. my first concern is the senate is looking once again at a plan that would wreak havoc on women's health in our country by denying the funding for planned parenthood. it's important to recognize the horrific act of gun violence that happened at a colorado planned parenthood clinic last week. it was another in a long string of tragedies that have taken place across the nation, including one in my home state in roseburg, oregon, in october. this time, it marked an attack on the american public and women's health. millions of american women have sought routine medical care in planned parenthood clinics just like the one in colorado.

more than 70,000 oregonians are served by the 11 planned parenthood centers in my home state. the bottom line is that planned parenthood is a bedrock institution for women's health in america. in my view, it's wrong to bring such a misguided controversial proposal before this body in the wake of the horrible tragic events in colorado. here are the services planned parenthood offers that would be at risk of disappearing with this reconciliation proposal. pregnancy tests, birth control, prenatal services, h.i.v. tests, cancer screenings, vaccinations, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, basic physical exams, treatment for chronic conditions,

pediatric care, adoption referrals, nutrition programs and more, and this seems to be the latest offering in what amounts to an ongoing, coordinated campaign to regrettably undermine the fundamental right of all women in our country to make their own reproductive choices and attain affordable high-quality health care. when you wipe out planned parenthood's funding, you dramatically and painfully reduce women's access to services that have absolutely nothing to do with abortion. and i want to repeat that, mr. president. i've done that on this floor before. what i have talked about are all of those important services. cancer screenings, gone. physicians, gone. treatment for chronic

conditions, gone. pediatric care, gone. the list goes on and on and they have absolutely nothing to do with abortion. so i hope that this campaign against women's health will come to an end. the second objection i want to touch on tonight is the harm the bill threatens to do to millions of vulnerable americans by repealing as much of the affordable care act, frankly, as senate procedure would allow. based on the reports of the bill's contents, here's what's at stake. according to the nonpartisan experts at the congressional budget office, this proposal would mean 14 million more americans would go without health insurance. for people who shop for their own private insurance coverage, premiums would increase by 20%. that's potentially hundreds or thousands of dollars taken out

of families' pockets. emergency rooms would once again be the fallback for people without a doctor. typical americans with insurance would once again have to pay the hidden tax of higher premiums to cover the cost of those without coverage. there have been more than 50 votes to repeal or undermine the affordable care act, and there is still no viable plan, no viable plan to replace it. as a member of congress, you can object to a law and want to make changes, but america cannot and will not go back to the days when health care was reserved for the healthy and the wealthy. that's what this plan does. mr. president, before i came to the congress, i was codirector of the -- co-director of the senior citizens group, the gray panthers, and i remember what health care was like in those days. in effect, the system really did

work for people who are healthy and wealthy. if you are healthy, you didn't have any preconditions, you didn't have any of these preexisting conditions. if you were wealthy, you could just pay the bill. but it really was care that worked for the healthy and the wealthy. and yet, with the affordable care act, that was changed, and unfortunately what this destruct ive reconciliation bill would do would be to take us back to those days when health care was reserved for the healthy and the wealthy. the fact is despite raising costs for families, causing turmoil in insurance markets and raising the number of uninsured americans by 14 million, this bill doesn't even manage to repeal the affordable care act fully. that's because of the reconciliation process, because of the way it works, which brings me to the final issue i

want to raise today. reconciliation is a sharp, sharp departure from the usual procedure for senate debate. usually bills being considered on the senate floor are subject to an unlimited debate and unlimited amendment. further, it typically takes 60 votes to pass a bill assuring that there is at least some measure of bipartisan support. these regular order procedures give the senate its unique character. the reconciliation procedure is an exception to this usual approach. reconciliation imposes tight limits on debate and on amendments and allows a vote of a bare majority of senators, 51, to pass a bill. the reconciliation procedure originally was created to facilitate the passage of budget-related bills which can be particularly important and particularly hard to pass. but reconciliation shouldn't be

a free pass that allows the majority to pass anything that it wants on a fast track. that would undermine the fundamental character of the united states senate. i am concerned that the reconciliation process is being misused here. everybody in the chamber knows what is happening. this bill is not designed to address budget-related issues. it's all about repealing the affordable care act to the maximum extent possible, and repeatedly the bill's advocates have proposed to repeal obamacare, to dismantle obamacare. and a few weeks ago, the parliamentarian advised that the reconciliation process could not be used to repeal the individual and employer mandates. the parliamentarian said that would violate what is known as the byrd rule against extraneous

amendments because the provision's budgetary effects would be dwarfed by the health policy effect. in response, the majority has proposed to formally retain the mandates but to completely repeal the penalties enforcing them, and that is not, to me, a kind of straightforward way to legislate. that is a very cynical approach, and that's not this senate at its best. the complete elimination of all penalties is to my mind tantamount to repeal of the mandates. a mandate without an enforcement system is not a legal requirement. it is a mere recommendation. it is like having speed limits but not fines for violating. by deleting the penalties, the proposal fundamentally alters the character and operation of the law. finally, i will mention,

mr. president, i think this would set a very dangerous precedent for this body. these penalties can be eliminated in a reconciliation bill. the door is going to be open to all kinds of proposals to strip away penalties in a future reconciliation bill. for example, you could keep an environmental law on the books but you could just say let's strip away the penalties for violating. that would allow a majority to fundamentally undermine a nonbudgettary law in a reconciliation bill. i have enormous respect for the parliamentarian and her staff. they work diligently to serve the senate. they have got to make some tough calls. i will say that this one leaves me disappointed and perplexed. with so many issues, as i touched on earlier, mr. president, i would hope that the senate would spend more time

doing what chairman grassley and i did somewhere in the vicinity of nine or ten hours ago. we said there was an important issue. it happened to be a health care issue as well, prescription drugs. we spent 18 months with our very dedicated staffs, democrats, republicans working together to try to find some common ground. hugely important issue, important to the people of colorado, oregon, everyone where else. and we in effect said it was important because it was about the future. the drugs of the future are going to be specialty drugs, exciting drugs with the opportunity for, you know, real cures. people are going to have to be able to afford them. and using the company's own documents this morning, chairman grassley and i pointed out how affordability and accessibility

weren't really the issue. the issue was just maximizing revenue. but the most important thing, whether you agree with the two of us or not, it was bipartisan. it was democrats and republicans coming together on a hugely important issue. this reconciliation proposal we will deal with on the floor of this senate is a rejection of the kind of bipartisanship that i was part of somewhere like nine or ten hours ago. it's part of what i believe the united states senate is all about, that the senate is at its best an institution that functions in a bipartisan way, and that's why i felt compelled to come tonight to the floor, mr. president, and lay out my concerns about a very, very troubling precedent, and that is the one that's being set with the reconciliation bill. with that, mr. president, i

yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. mcconnell: mr. president, are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are. mr. mcconnell: i ask consent that it be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i move to proceed to calendar number -- the presiding officer: the majority leader is recognized. mr. mcconnell: i move to proceed to calendar number 29, h.r. 3762. the presiding officer: morning business is closed. the clerk will report the motion. the clerk: mowing to proceed to the consideration of h.r. 3762, an act to provide for reconciliation and so forth. the presiding officer: the motion is not debatable.

question occurs on the motion. all those in favor say aye. all those opposed say no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. mr. mcconnell: -- the presiding officer: the clerk will report the bill. mr. mcconnell: i send a substitute amendment to the desk. the clerk: h.r. 3762 an act to froir reconciliation and so forth. mr. mcconnell: i now send a substitute amendment to the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the amendment. the clerk: mr. mcconnell proposes an amendment number 2874. strike all after the enacting clause and insert the following: title 1 -- finance. mr. mcconnell: i ask that the reading be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the consideration of h.r. 3762 now be for debate only during today's session of the senate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: mr. president,

the senate is now considering the house-passed restoring america's health care freedom reconciliation act of 2015. we finally have a chance to vote to end obamacare's cycle of broken promises and failures with a simple majority vote. i look forward to completing action on this bill this week. new, mr. presidentnow, mr. presk unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today it adjourn -- i understand there is a bill at the desk and ask for its first reading. the presiding officer: the clerk read the title for the first time. the clerk: h.r. 427 an act to amend chapter 8 of title 5, united states code, to provide that major rules of the executive branch shall have no force or effect unless a joint resolution of approval is enacted into law.

mci nomr. mcconnell: i now ask a second reading and object to my own request. the presiding officer: objection is heard. the bill will be read for the second time on the nextologicallive day. -- on the next legislative day. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today it adjourn until the l.9:30 wednesday, december 2. following the prayer and pledge, the the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day. lastly, following leader remarks, the senate then resume consideration of h.r. 3762. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it stand jawrngdz under the previous order. -- i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order. the presiding officer: the the presiding officer: the

more now on the reconciliation bill. spin at the senate going to start its reconciliation process with provisions to refill parts of the health care law. we are joined by burger sever at the congressional reporter with "politico" and let's start with some of the basics. what is reconciliation and also why are senate republicans using this to repeal parts of the health care law? >> guest: is a process the senate can use to overcome the democratic filibuster. the democrats can't filibuster and they only need 51 votes to pass this. so it's basically a way of kind

of using the fast-track method to get this repealed to the president's desk. otherwise the democrats will filibuster in the intent to -- in which they have done in the senate to force a basically a procedural maneuver by republicans to do it the exact same way the democrats pressed the health care law on the senate back in 2010. >> host: little bit about reconciliation. what happens in reconciliation? >> guest: so essentially it's a way, essentially gaming the budgetary process to send instructions to change the budgetary level to use this process and the way the republicans are using it is to essentially take out the individual employer mandate of obamacare and also defund planned parenthood. they're also going going to take on the medicaid expansion through a two-year expansion period and take away from the

obamacare taxes so it all evens up on the ledger basically. they can do a full repeal but they are getting most of it in legislation. >> host: senate republicans are trying to stick together on whether a plan is going to be in. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell tweeted or you break tweeted about what he was saying but, says president obama what have amanita veto decision on obamacare repeal and that's from minority leader harry reid. you heard mcconnell has an obsession with obamacare. he can't give up with his obsession. what are we going to see on the floor in terms of debate time in terms of amendments. you mentioned essentially a vote-a-rama. >> guest: basically bears trying to hope to get an agreement between rita mcconnell on the parameter of the reconciliation debate and i think you will see at the end of the week passage of the

reconciliation which again you'll may need 51 votes to the majority. in between you can get into this vote-a-rama. the republican leaders are trying to avoid this as much as they can. they don't want to go all night again. they are to have a budget vote-a-rama before which proposes any amendment you want on the budget and you can do that on reconciliation. there is a little bit of a thought that we did this already and we can do some of them but try not to stay up all my intel 4:00 in the morning again so it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. that will determine when they can finish and how arduous it is. >> host: some republicans actually don't support attaching this to the reconciliation, the obamacare partial refocus because they want the entire obamacare repeal the. through this process will things change enough to get their support and if not what happens

then? >> guest: the thing, the biggest development in the last 24 hours with senate republicans added the medicaid repeal. they wanted to go further that was cruz and rubio wanted to go further in the house so senate republicans are having bad and, pushing a more conservative and mike lee have very good things to say about this last night. a colleague just asked cruz that we would..

the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: mr. president, mr. alexander: mr. president, >> i asked consents to speak for up to 30 minutes in morning business. >> without objection. >> mr. president let me take you back five and a half years every 25th, 2010. white house health care summit at the blair house. the same place where senator arthur vandenberg sat down with general george marshall to discuss the post-war plans after world war ii. it became the marshall plan. it was the perfect setting. it is the perfect setting for a serious bipartisan discussion about how to give health care to millions of americans. .. here,

too. it was televised continuously. both then-minority leader boehner and republican leader mcconnell asked me to lead off in speaking for the republicans. i said to the president that i was there to not only represent the view of republicans but i was there as a former governor and would like to have chance to speak for the governors as well because governors managing states had a big stake in all this. i said, too, that i was at the summit to represent the views of a great many of the american people. -- who have tried to say in every way they knew through town meetings, through surveys, through elections in virginia and new jersey and massachusetts that they oppose the health care bill that was passed in the senate in the middle of a snowstorm on christmas eve.

i warned the president then about the unfortunate consequences of obamacare for millions of americans. i said to the president that this would send an unfunded medicaid mandate to states. i said -- quote -- "it will cut medicare by about half a trillions. it will spend most of that on new programs. it means there will be a half trillion dollars of new taxes in it. it means that for millions of people, premiums will go up, because when people pay for those new taxes, premiums will go up and they will also go up because of the government mandates." that's what i said 5 1/2 years ago. i said directly to the president then that instead of this partisan plan, passed without the support of a single republican in the senate, that we republicans were prepared to work with him to reform health care. i said 5 1/2 years ago to the president, we need to start over president, we need to start over >> need to start over and give step-by-step in a different direction toward

the goal of reducing healthcare cost. i said then that this means working together in the ways of general marshall and senator vandenberg following world war ii, going step-by-step together to rerun the trust of the american people. those were my words to the president five and half years ago. mr. president, the president and congressional democrats listened all day but did not take any of my advice and hardly any of the advice of my republican colleagues about what the disastrous outcomes for obama care would be so that nearly two years intotwo years into the implementation we can say one thing without question, the unfortunate reality for the american people is that they are struggling with obama care and five and a half years ago republicans were right. obama care was and is an

historic mistake. republicans agree with the president and his party that our healthcare system was broken. we agreed that it needed to be fixed, but we argued the president was moving in the wrong direction. what obama care did was expand a broken system that everyone knew was too expensive. republicans said so at the summit in february of 2010, and the facts today show that we were right. let's take a closer look at what republican said then, nearly six years ago and what unfortunately came through. let's look also what democrats predicted and which of their predictions and promises came through. let's go through them one by one. first medicaid. during my opening remarks at the blair house i said this, nothing used to make me matter as governor them when

washington politicians would get together, pass a bill, take credit for it and send me the bill to pay. that is exactly what this does. the expansion of medicaid. in addition the 15 to 18 million low income americans i dumped in the medicaid program and none of us want to be a part of. so it's like giving someone a ticket to aa bus line when the bus only runs half the time. that's what i said five and a half years ago. medicaid had always been one of the federal government's biggest unfunded federal mandates. and expanding that mandate on states would only wreak more havoc on state budgets and especially at that time during the height of the recession they were already struggling. they said the proposed

medicaid expansion under obama care would represent the mother of all unfunded mandates. when i was governor of tennessee in the 1980s medicaid made up only 8 percent of the state budgets. last year it was 30.6 percent. states pay more and more to expand medicaid meaning less to spend on other priorities like high education, roads, schools. in 2012 i said that over ten years to the season medicaid costs and gone up 14 percent. increasing funding by 11 percent. as a result tuition went up 120 percent over those ten years. according to the congressional budget office allow we will have 14 million new beneficiaries to struggling medicaid programs by 2025 at an extra

cost of 46 billion to states and $847 billion to taxpayers, federal taxpayers by 2025. why is that so bad? i said at the time, and it is still true today. only about half the doctors will even see medicaid patients, and many of those are not accepting new ones. it is not hard to see why this is not good for americans who need better healthcare. and another thing to consider is the states still don't have enough to pay for the new enrollees. the federal government promise to pay a hundred percent for the 1st three years. starting in 2017 states will have to start paying 5 percent and eventually up to 10 percent. that may not seem like much

in washington terms,terms, but it is a lot of money and state budgets. states may have to start raising income taxes or gas taxes or find some other place to find the money. regardless ofmoney. regardless of how it is paid for, expanding medicaid puts a huge dent in state budgets does that mean less money for teacher salaries? tuition will have to go even higher? tennessee has not expanded medicaid, but the proposal to expand the program called ensure tennessee anticipating an additional 35 million and cost to the state inand 2017. in illinois it will cost the state 208 million. in kentucky the expansion of the state will have to pay 74 million in 2017. the estimated 346 million in 2021. the governor elect has not

started looking for ways to pay for the increase yet. and you can look at the figures and see why he is thinking about that. obama care's enormous impact on medicaid and in turn medicaid's effect on state budget. second, higher premiums. the white house summit send directly to the president, the congressional budget office reports says that premiums will rise in the individual market as a result of obama care. pres. turned to me and said, i was wrong. a little bit little bit later today i gave the president a letter showing that they predicted that i would be right about that. new non- group policies will move ten to 13 percent higher than the average for nongroup coverage under current law. in the same letter i reminded the president's own chief actuary agreed with

the congressional budget office. you might be thinking of things turned out better than i had predicted, better than i have predicted when the congressional budget budget office have predicted, the joint committee on taxation had predicted for the chief actuary, but we all were right unfortunately. we all were right. obama care premiums were and are higher for americans with individual healthcare plans. we are talking about nearly 16 million americans who purchased individual plans. they by the policies for themselves, and the cost is going through the roof, mr. president. the us department of health and human services announced that nearly 700 individual health plans and 41 states plus the district of columbia have requested double-digit premium increases for 2016.

in tennessee 36 percent. in maryland 26 percent. on average 2016 premium increases of the state health exchange will be 25 percent. south dakota's 63 percent for health insurance through the exchange. the list of states experiencing healthcare spikes goes on. recent report by the national bureau of economic research confirmed going back to the nonpartisan congressional budget office which predicted the premiums could grow up and said recently premiums will increase by 6 percent on average every year between 2016 and 2024. yet five and a half year zero the present,

congressional democrat told republicans time and time again we were wrong and the law would decrease premiums when in fact our prediction, the administration's own estimates, estimates from the national bureau of economic research in the nonpartisan congressional budget office all confirmed premiums for individual policies are going through the roof. third, republican said five and a half years ago that obama care would increase taxes. it did. obama care added 21 tax increases to the tax code. that is a trillion dollars over ten years according to the congressional budget office. a dozen of these target middle income americans in clear violation. and then there was our 4th prediction. obama care will cost jobs. sometimes a few years ago after the law passed i met with a large group of chief

executives. the service and hospitality industries are the largest employers in our country. usually there employees are low income, usually minority americans. in the meeting the chief executive of ruby tuesday incorporated which has about 800 restaurants said to me and said he did not mind being quoted that the cost of his company and implement the new healthcare law was equal to or more than his net profit for that year, and as a result hea result he was not planning to build any new restaurants in the united states. an even larger restaurant company said because of their analysis is that operating aa store with 19 employees their goal would be to operate it with 17. that means fewer employees, fewer jobs because of obama care. more recently however family friend charged businesses one asked comeau we have

already begun cutting the hours were employees to you well below the threshold. all new job postings are for part-time employees. this has a bad impact on the employee relations. thirty hours of work is not enough to support a family. most lost hours or because of obama care. these are just a few examples of basic economics. employers have less money to expand,expand, less money to hire workers, to keep even higher costs, cut hours, higher costs. you have seen all three as a result of the employer mandate. they need to provide health insurance. what's more, obama care when aa step further and for the 1st time in our history to find full-time as a 30 hour

work week. i asked the former democratic chairman of the health committee where that came from. no one knew. it is causing large numbers of employees to be able to work only 28 or 29 hours because their employers can't afford to hire them as full-time employees. the congressional budget office is projecting obama care will result in 2 million fewer full-time jobs and two and a half million fewer full-time jobs by 2024.2024. that means 400 employees across the nation including 100 school districts have said obama care force them to cut positions or reduce worker hours. what we said would happen years ago was this, that medicaid would destroy state

budgets.budgets. it did. premiums in taxes would go up. they have. the jobs would be lost. they have. it has all unfortunately come true. president obama and congressional democrats about the time of the healthcare summit five and a half years ago. with a writer were they wrong? one of the most famous would politicize named was the presidents, if you like your plan you can keep it. millions of americans learned quickly that obama care was fully implemented in 2014 they would not be able to keep their plan. in october 20132013 i received a letter from a woman whom i met. one of 16, part of a plan

called cover tennessee. she wrote me about her chronic illness. said she was deemed uninsurable. the only way to ensure her was through cover tennessee. she was glad to have the coverage, and she was glad to hear about obama care. and then she learns the truth. i can't keep my current plan because it does not meet the standards of obama care coverage. this alone is a travesty, her words. it has been a lifeline. i am being forced to purchase a plan that will increase my costs by a staggering 410 percent. my out-of-pocket expense will increase by more than 6,000 per year. please help me understand how this is affordable.

we can spend all day telling the stories of americans who like the health care plan but have not been able to keep them. in november 2013 the president also said medicare is a government program but i'm not going to touch it. the problem was he did. $700 billion was taken from medicare to finance obama care. i said during the debate in 2,009 obama care could grandma's medicare to spend on someone else's, someone other than grandma. obama care i so would do that at a time when the

medicare trustees have said that medicare is going broke if we don't fix it. i said then, i thinki think what there saying to us is if you're going to cut grandma's medicare spending on grandma instead of spending on something else. the pres. wentpresident went against the promise he repeated over and over again in summary, unfortunately republicans were right only said five years ago that obama care workforce fights, increase premiums in taxes. as right as we were, the democrats were wrong. you can keep your plan if you liked it. they were wrong. medicare would not be affected. there were wrong

about that. finally, we all agreed that health care needs to be fixed. how did we end up with a law that was such an historic mistake? well, one big reason is that the debate was not really a debate. if it had been we might not find ourselves in the mess today. the senate democratic leaders had a filibuster proof majority. they passed a democratic bill. they voted for it, we voted against it. a snowstorm on christmas eve when they had 60 votes and unveiled a bill filled to the brim. along with our warnings about what would happen, we had ideas on how to fix the system in ways that we thought would lower cost and expand access. democrats had a majority in the house. so we got obama care.

so what do we republicans have to offer? how much time do i have? >> nine minutes. >> how much? >> the senator has nine minutes. nine. throughout the obama care debate sen. mcconnell, the minority leader at the time was criticized for not coming up with a comprehensive plan of his own. we told the president of the congressional democrats not to hold their breath waiting for mcconnell care. don't hold your breath waiting for senator mcconnell to come in with a wheelbarrow filled with a 20 page bill of his own is that is not how we believe the healthcare system ought to be fixed. we are policy skeptics. we doubt that anyone out there in washington has the

wisdom to fix such a complex system everywhere in america. the wisest course would be to try to fix our health care system step-by-step in a way that emphasizes more choices and lower cost. this approach is not something that republicans cooked up last minute. in fact, you will find republican senators proposed confronting our nation's nation's health care problems and other challenges 173 different times on the floor of the senate during the year 2009. 1732009. 173 times we talked about our step-by-step different direction for healthcare, almost all of which was included in obama care because they had the votes and did not need ideas.

i hope the president would listen and work with us. emphasize more freedom, choices, but that didn't happen. we suggested allowing individuals to buy healthcare plan. we suggested using junk lawsuits against doctors to increased cost.cost. we suggested expanding health savings accounts and other mechanisms allowing individuals to control how to spend their own healthcare dollars. suggested allowing assistance in purchasing insurance. we had specific legislative proposals to do these things. we suggested lowering barriers to the fda, putting the private sector in charge

of health information technology, suggested ensuring americans with pre-existing conditions and there are many other ideas we thought then and think now we can work together on in a bipartisan way to lower cost, increase access and put patients back in coverage of their own healthcare. we are talking about repealing obama care. for the last six years we have been talking about a completely different path of providing health care at a lower cost more americans. the steps are outlined in 2,009, 2010 plan 2011 and are the same steps that we should be taking today. i have been saying since 2009 that the historic mistake of obama care is that we deliberately expanded a brokena broken healthcare system that already cost too much instead of moving step-by-step to create a

system where millions of americans had choices to spend to fit there needs and budgets. and the way we should accomplish this is the same way we passed medicare, the same way we passed social security, the same way congress passed the civil rights act. and in someand in some ways i hope in the senator from washington hopes we will pass a broaderbroad reauthorization of the elementary and secondary education act in the next couple of weeks. none of this is done by cramming a build on the throats of the american people during a snowstorm on christmas eve. i renew our invitation to the president of the united states command if he does not accepted to the next pres.president. and to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. let's forget about the side of outside. let's side with the american people whose premiums gone up, who lost plans they like

, his medicare has been raised play state budgets have been destroyed, and whose jobs have been lost. work with republicans in congress to fix the damage obama care has done call work with us to replace obama care with real reforms the lower cost some more americans can afford to buy insurance. >> mr. president. >> the senior from washington. >> thank you. like many of my colleagues i am deeply disappointed that republican leaders have

dedicated this to partisan political attacks. rather than working with us. i'm going to take a few minutes to talk about the work we could and should be doing and make clear that republican efforts to undermine families healthcare are nothing but a dead-end. the past another bipartisan budget deal. we have worked together on a bill to fix the no child left behind law command republicans and democrats are working to pass a transportation bill that will do a lot to help crumbling infrastructure. there is certainly more that i believe we could be doing the boost wages and expand opportunity and make sure our economy is growing from the middle out, not from the top down.

i would hope that we will be working on a way to raise the minimum wage or insure working parents can hard paid sick days or make higher education more affordable and accessible for student. but the holidays just around the corner we should be focused on struggling families need in order to make ends meet. those are the issues i would like to be working on them anymore. republican leaders are insisting on tilting by trying to dismantle the affordable care act for the umpteenth time. this bill will not be signed in the law, but i want to make clear. i want to be very clear about what it would mean for millions of men, women command children across the country. the policies that are being put forward because millions of people to lose their health care coverage.

make premiums skyrocket, increased cost for hospital and providers, cut off support for important public health programs by repealing the prevention fund command take us back to the bad old days when insurance companies not patients and historic step forward. worked did not end when the law passed. we are willing to work with anyone on either side of the aisle. expanding coverage and improving quality care for our families. so it is really disappointing the republicans continue to