american politics who would actually like to send more money to you and less money to the government in a responsible way. so we're going to cut the corporate tax rate, i hope, to make us competitive. we're going to double the standard exemption so that working people will have more money in their pocket. we're going to clean up some of the deductions and exemptions for the few at the expense of the many, but we could only do that if we pass a budget resolution. final thought. from a party point of view, from the republican party point of view, we have got the house, the senate, and the presidency. we have got nobody to blame in this exercise but ourselves. and if you are a republican and you're frustrated with the lack of progress, count me in. the president is a willing partner to help us repeal and replace obamacare and to get a healthy tax cut to grow an economy that's dying to grow, but we have to help ourselves. if we can't muster the votes necessary to pass this budget resolution to cut your taxes,

then everybody who supported us for all these years should feel let down, and we did let you down. i hope that doesn't happen. i'm confident it won't. but to those republicans who believe that a no vote is good for the future conservatism -- future conservatism and the future economic well-being of the country, i could not disagree with you more. we will never balance the budget by dealing with discretionary spending at all. what balances the budget is entitlement reform. if you want to balance the budget, vote for graham-cassidy because it puts the budget on a sustainable path. this instruction allows us to cut taxes with a majority-only vote and gets to balance with a surplus in 2027. from a republican point of view.

this is the most important vote we're going to cast in 2017, and if we fail, that's the end of this party's ability to grow and all those who worked hard to get us here are going to be disappointed, and you should be, but we're not going to disappoint you. we're going to pass this budget resolution, we're going to cut your taxes, and we're going to eventually repeal and replace obamacare which will get the money closer to the hands of the people you voted for. with that, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. blunt: mr. president, let me first agree with the point the senator from south carolina just made about the importance of passing a tax bill this year. he made the point, and if he didn't i'll make it, that if we don't pass a tax bill this year, or at least get most of the way

there, and i hope that we get done with the tax process this year, if we don't get that done, i don't think we have the opportunity to pass a tax bill in the next four years. i think, on the other hand, if we do pass a tax bill this year, we'll have a chance to take a second look in 2019. the point i'm making, mr. president, is we don't have to do everything that could possibly be done to improve the tax code this year to take an important step, but if we don't take that important step, my belief is we're likely not to have the kind of tax relief that working families need in the next four years. so not only is the pressure on the republican senate, the republican house, a white house that wants to work with us to get this done, but the pressure should be on everybody who cares about hardworking families and

the pressure should be on everybody who wants to see tax relief for those families happen needs to understand it needs to happen now. fights that can't be won in the next few weeks can be won in this plezzal term -- presidential term, but only if we take this step successfully right now. and as the senator from south carolina and others have pointed out, this is an important two-step process. the first step is a budget that allows us to move forward so that we can do this under the budget rules and allow 51 senators to pass a bill on tax reform, and by the way, they don't have to be 51 republicans. i suspects that what happens, but once we get to 51 republicans, i'd love to see democrats join us. i'd love to see them join us before that. this is the kind of help that hardworking families need,

that -- families that have, for nine years now, stuck in a situation where their buying power wasn't increasing, their jobs opportunities weren't increasing, they generally were not seeing that better job out there that was largely available to those very same hardworking families in the past because we -- we aren't as competitive as we need to be. so really there ought to be a couple of things we focus on here. one is how do you create tax relief for working families right now so that as soon as possible they begin to see a check that has more take-home pay? the other way to increase take-home pay is to increase starting pay to make those jobs better, and so that's where we need to be looking on the other end of the spectrum on the end that creates jobs, what do we need to do to make us more competitive? what do we need to do to have us constantly have the kind of

pressure on the working job market that those people are going -- that people who are working hard for a living really have better opportunities than they'd have otherwise because we're more competitive than we should be otherwise. i think the entire focus of this discussion should be what do we do that improves the opportunities and improves the future for hardworking families? and you can do that by a tax cut right now, which we should do, and you can do that by policies that make more sense as we try to compete with the people we compete with around the world. you can't have the highest corporate tax in the entire world and assume you're going to be the most competitive country in the entire world. you can't have a tax system that uniquely is different as it relates to products you sell overseas and expect to be more

competitive than the countries who don't have that unique system that penalizes rather than encourages american products to be sold in other places. so the senate will vote later today, mr. president, on a budget resolution that reduces federal spending by $5 trillion over ten years, that provides a stronger foundation for economic growth, that allows us to move forward in the first necessary legislative steph in the senate so that -- step in the senate so that we can move immediately to tax policy, a budget that will allow us to reduce taxes by 1 point -- $1.5 trillion over ten years, a budget that would put more money in the pockets of hardworking families, a budget

that would add some opportunity that stugle for almost -- struggle for almost a decade where things didn't seem to be getting better or easier, but more difficult, because we were less competitive and less workforce to find the jobs that need to be done. and then this is a tax code that will make it simpler and fairer and more uniformly impactful on everybody that pays taxes. most people don't mind paying taxes on the income they have until they find out their neighbor next door with the same income has figured out how not to pay taxes. and so simplifying that system, there's a reason that american families and american businesses can't get through april without a bottle of aspirin. there's a reason that this tax

code creates headache after headache. there's one estimate that compliance costs with just -- with individuals and businesses complying with the complicated tax system we have costs $ 267 billion a year. that's half of the defense budget. if people are spending half of the defense budget to comply with the tax code, there has to be something wrong with that, and we have to do better. i think the proposals we're talking about does a better job. right now the individual tax code has seven different brackets, seven rates that you've got to figure out how they apply to whatever income you have, it has 100 different credits, deductions and exclusions and other exceptions that make it difficult to know what you owe or what you are going to owe.

the i.r.s. currently imposes 8.1 billion hours of paperwork on americans which amounts to about 54 hours per taxpayer that's paying taxes, more for some, less for some, but a week's worth of work, 57 hours of work. every taxpayer gives that week to the federal government. we're streamlining the tax code, increasing the basic deduction that families can have. if they don't want to go through the complication of the tax code, here's how many that live at our house, here's the basic deduction we get for each of those people who live in our house, here's how much we extract from the money we make, and here's how much we need to pay. there's no reason that one of

the compliance options can't be a post card or piece of paper. in fact, when the current income tax was imposed on the american people, the entire instructions were on one page -- the entire instructions of everybody that had to fill out the income tax form, which also, which by the way, the assurance that only the richest people would pay any income tax, so most americans would never have to lead that instruction sheet at all, now most americans find it impossible to read the 100 pages of instructions that just get you to the tax code itself. streamlining the tax code, helping families to keep more of their money, figuring out a way to be more competitive so they have an opportunity for better jobs in the future all should be an important priority for this congress. passing a budget today will allow us to take the first step

which then allows us to take the next step in tax relief that matters and makes sense to the american people. we will take that today, we should take that step today, and we should follow up as quickly as possible to win the fights that can be won this year so americans start next year understanding that their tax code is simpler, the tax code is fairier, their opportunities -- fairer, their opportunities are likely to be greater, but are for hardworking families their take-home pay will definitely be higher than it is today. i yield. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: how much time remains on our side? the presiding officer: the democrats have four minutes remaining. mr. wyden: mr. president, yesterday i was at a meeting

with the president at the white house along with several members from both sides of the senate finance committee. i said to the president flat out that democrats agree that the tax code is a broken, dysfunctional mess, and finance democrats yesterday laid out to the president our principles for reform, focusing on the middle class, not 1%, and being fiscally responsible so that the congress doesn't turn around and be looking at gutting safety-net programs like medicare and medicaid or social security. and i think it would be fair to say that a whole lot of ears in that room perked up when the president said, hey, i'm for those kinds of things. the president talked to us about

wanting help for the middle class and he said, hey, this is not supposed to be about people like him and he said he doesn't want to shred the safety net. unfortunately, as i have indicated, there is a gap as wide as crater lake between all of the administration's statements, the rhetoric about taxes and the reality of what is actually written down on paper about its tax cut plan. the republican plan, this administration's plan, that is actually written down on paper doesn't resemble what the late president reagan accomplished in partnership with democrats back in 1986. back then the two sides brought

their best ideas forward and passed major tax reform built around the idea that america is strongest when the middle class is prospering. what is on paper today is just an enormous gift to the top of the top, the most fortunate special interests. so i hope that the senate will, in a few minutes, vote for my amendment to strike the reconciliation instructions from the budget because budget reconciliation is exactly the kind of partisan process, at least for taxes, especially for taxes given the importance of taxes in this particular budget, budget reconciliation is exactly

the kind of approach that president reagan rejected in 1986. so i hope my colleagues will support my amendment, striking the reconciliation instructions from the budget. senate democrats have outlined our principles for reform. the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. wyden: mr. president, i ask for 30 additional seconds. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. wyden: mr. president, very quickly, the principles democrats have laid out in our letter are very much in line with what the president says he wants. now what we've got to do is a bipartisan process to advance it. you don't get that with reconciliation. i hope the senate supports my amendment. i yield back. the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. toomey: mr. president, i have five requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders.

the presiding officer: duly noted. mr. toomey: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that there be two minutes of debate equally divided prior to each vote in the 1 1:45 vote series this morning. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. under the previous order, there will now be two minutes of debate equally divided prior to a vote in relation to amendment number 1302 offered by the senator from oregon, mr. wyden. mr. wyden: mr. president, i think i made the case. colleagues, what the american people have told us, and they certainly said it during this last work period, is that they understand that the big challenges in this country require bipartisan approaches. that's what president reagan understood when he brought together democrats and republicans for comprehensive tax reform. we immediate to pass this amendment to strike the reconciliation instructions from

the budget because they send all the wrong signals with respect to tax reform. the american people understand what it takes to tackle big issues. they understand that tax reform should be about the middle class. it shouldn't be about the 1%, and it shouldn't be about causing a huge new sea of red ink. i urge my colleagues to support my amendment to strike the recognize silks instructions from the -- reconciliation instructions from the budget. the presiding officer: who yields time in opposition? mr. toomey: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. toomey: mr. president, we've got an opportunity to today give ourselves the tool to pass a tax reform bill that will absolutely be tax relief for middle-income and working-class families and promote the kind of economic growth we've been waiting for. but to do it, we're going to have to defeat this amendment and pass the underlying budget. what my friend from oregon is suggesting is that we give a

minority in the senate the opportunity to defeat tax reform by filibuster. that's what would happen if we pass this amendment. and i have to disagree strongly with the notion that somehow this is not a bipartisan exercise. there is nothing about reconciliation that in any way discourages or prevents full democratic participation. we're going to have a markup in the senate finance committee, unlimited amendment opportunities. and then on the floor if we're able to property something out, there will be unlimited amendment opportunities on the floor and there is nothing we could do to stop it if we wanted to because those are the rules of reconciliation. every democrat in this body will have unlimited influence to weigh in on this, to amend this and it will be a fully bipartisan exercise. i urge a no vote on the amendment. the presiding officer: the question is on the amendment. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll.

vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber

wishing to vote or wishing to change their vote? if not, the yeas are 52 -- excuse me. the yeas are 47, the nays are 52. the amendment is not agreed to. under the previous order, there will now be two minutes of debate qualitily -- equally divided prior to a vote in relation to amendment number 1393 offered by the senator from west virginia, mrs. capito. the senator from west virginia. mrs. capito: i call up amendment number 1393. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from west virginia proposes amendment 1193 to amendment number 116.

mrs. capito: i would like to speak to this amendment which prioritizes tax relief to the middle class which disproportionately benefits wealthy and high earners. only 1% of the state and local deductions goes to taxpayers who earn less than $ -- to unlock the benefits we must reduce expensive deductions that do little to benefit every day americans. keeping the state and local tax deduction without modification would cost more than $10 million over ten years. that would be best to go to middle class. they would be better off with the enhanced child tax credit. we cannot let an unwillingness to reduce deductions for the wealthy stand in the way for relief of the middle-class working folks of this great

country. i hope my colleagues will support this amendment. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: i rise in strong opposition to the capito amendment. more than half taxpayers claiming the state and local deduction make less than $100,000. these hardworking middle-class folks will not appreciate congress double taxing them. the fact is the capito amendment is washington lingo that would produce a republican tax plan that hits the middle class yet again with more taxes. under capito, you could again have one hand give it p and the other -- it and the other hand take it away. you might have the republicans say, let's double the standard deduction, but then when the middle-class folks lose their deduction for state and local taxes and their personal

exemption, they are in a big hole. reject this amendment, reject state sleight of hand tax policy and those approaches like this that hit hardworking middle-class families. i yield back. the presiding officer: the question is on the amendment. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote: 4 vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or wishing to change their vote? if not, the yeas are 52, the nays are 47. the amendment is agreed to. under the previous order, there will now be two minutes of debate equally divided prior to a vote in relation to amendment number 1197. correction. in relation to amendment 1141 offered by the senator from washington, ms. cantwell. ms. cantwell: madam president, i call up amendment 1141 as

provided under the previous order. mr. schumer: madam president, could we have order, please. the presiding officer: order in the chamber, please. the clerk will report the amendment. the clerk: the senator from maine, ms. cantwell, proposes amendment numbered 1141 to amendment numbered 1116. at the end of title 4, add the following -- ms. cantwell: i ask unanimous consent the reading be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. cantwell: madam president, this amendment simply raises a point of order on any legislation that modifies or eliminates state and local tax deductions. i know there are many states that have tax deductions from their federal obligations on property, but i'm specifically talking to states like mine, like washington, wyoming, nevada, south dakota, alaska, florida, texas, and tennessee. we have had the ability to itemize and deduct our sales tax from our federal income tax.

what has that resulted in? savings to the taxpayers. under the president's proposal of increasing the standard deduction, even for households between $50,000 and $70,000, if you repeal their ability to continue to itemize even with the standard deduction, you are raising taxes on them. it will not be covered. the standard deduction is only $12,000. for that bracket in my state, they are deducting up to $23,000. so please do not raise taxes on our constituents without a due process and a budget point of order that says that we all are going to be part of this process and discussion before you take away a way for our citizens to save money. i ask my colleagues to support this amendment. mr. enzi: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: madam president, this amendment is corrosive to the budget resolution's privilege,

so it falls outside the scope of what's appropriate for inclusion. adoption of corrosive amendments could be fatal to the resolution's privilege and loss of privilege could compromise our ability to pass tax reform and enforce the budget spending limits. further, this amendment is also nongermane. the congressional budget act requires that amendments to a budget resolution be germane. a statutory requirement we can't ignore. so i raise a point of order against this amendment under the budget act, section 305-b-2. the presiding officer: the senator from washington. ms. cantwell: pursuant to section 904 of the congressional budget act of 1974, i have move to waive section 305-b-2 of that act for the purposes of the pending amendment, and i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there is. the question is on the motion to waive. the clerk will call the roll.

vote: vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: is there any senator in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? if not the yeas are 47, the nays are 52. three-fifths of the senators not having voted in the affirmative, the motion is not agreed to, the point of order is sustained and

the amendment falls. the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: i ask unanimous consent to speak for ten minutes and following me senator murray be allowed to speak up to ten minutes. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. alexander: a week ago saturday night, i was having dinner with my wife and the cellphone rang. i pulled it out of my pocket and it was the white house operator and the president was calling. i walked out of the restaurant and sat on a curb outside in the dark and had about a 15-minute conversation with the president of the united states while my dinner got cold. president trump said, i'm calling about the cost-sharing payment deductions. i have cut them off as of october 1. the court says they are illegal. i don't want insurance companies to be bailed out. i think i can get block grants

to replace obamacare, but i don't want people to suffer in the meantime. so he said to me, i think i might want to get a bipartisan interim deal, a short-term deal. i called chuck schumer and told him that. the president said to me, why don't you negotiate with senator murray and try to get one, meaning a short-term bipartisan deal. i said, well, what about the c.s.r. payments? he said, i can put them back and you can use that to -- that as a negotiating deal. i told him i was working on an agreement with senator murray. he said finish it and let me know. he called me saturday and we talked twice yesterday. i reported to the president that we had finished our negotiations and that we're here today to present to the senate the agreement we recommend. the bill has 22 sponsors, half

democrat, half republican. very few bills come to the floor with that many cosponsors originally. there are a number on the republican side and a number on the democratic side who support the idea. i ask consent that the text of the cosponsors that i'm about to read be inserted in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: i ask consent that the text of the agreement that senator murray and i would like to present to the senate for its consideration and the president's consideration and the consideration of the house of representatives be spread in the record following my remarks. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: mr. president, the republican senators who are cosponsoring the alexander-murray proposal in addition to me are senator rounds, senator graham, senator mccain, senator cassidy, senator collins, senator ernst,

senator senator murkowski, senator burr, and senator corker. i thank them all for doing that and senator murray will talk about the equal number of democrat cosponsors that we have. we hope that senator mcconnell and senator schumer, the president of the united states, and the house of representatives will consider our proposal. this is a first step, improve it, pass it sooner rather than later. our purpose is to stabilize and then lower the costs of premiums in the individual insurance market for the year 2018 and 2019. in plain english, most americans get their insurance from the government or on the job. about 6% or 18 million americans go to the individual market to buy it. they are the ones we're worried about. they are the ones we're seeking to help. there are 350,000 in tennessee, songwriters, farmers, small

businesses. they are the ones that could get the skyrocketing premiums or may not be able to buy insurance at all. our agreement amends the affordable care act permanently to give new flexibility for states to create insurance policies that have a larger variety and lower costs. and, number two, it continues the cost-sharing reduction payments between 2018 and 2019. first about cost-sharing. cost-sharing reduction payments are subsidies that pay for copay -- copays and deductibles. that's what they are. every democrat wants them to continue and so do many republicans, including, mr. president, every republican in the majority and the house who voted for the repeal and replace bill because it continued the cost-sharing payments for two years.

let me say that again. every republican in the house of representatives who voted to repeal and replace obamacare this year, voted for a provision that continued the cost-sharing payments for two years. our bill does the same thing. the only difference is that we eliminate any question about whether paying them is legal. now, why would so many republicans, so many democrats support these payments for two years and the president of the united states be interested in it? because the congressional budget office has told us that if we don't do it, if we let them expire, premiums in 2018 will go up an average of 20%. they are already set in most cases. the federal debt will increase by $194 billion because of the have to cost of subsidies to pay the higher premiums, and up to 16 million americans may live in counties where they are not able to buy any insurance in the

individual market. so unless the cost-sharing payments, which the president says are illegal -- and i agree with him the federal court in washington, d.c., has told him it is illegal, not properly authorized by congress -- unless they are replaced with something else temporarily, there will be chaos in this country and millions of americans will be hurt. the president says there should be no bailout of insurance companies -- no bailout of insurance companies. i agree 100%, so does senator murray. she can speak for herself. and as i said to the president in our telephone calls, four of them in the last 10 days, that if there is a way to improve the language in our bill, we would like to do that. we have it so that -- some conservatives object to the idea of paying them at all, but i

would ask what's conservative about unaffordable premiums? what's conservative about $194 billion of new federal debt, what's conservative about creating chaos so millions can't buy health insurance? what's conservative about a four-lane highway that would be the chaos that leads to a single-payer solution for insurance in this country? do you really think that if 50 counties in tennessee or iowa or kansas or any state are in a situation where no one can buy insurance in an individual market the government-sponsored insurance is not far behind? of course it is. that's why senator graham cosponsored and senator cassidy have cosponsored our bill because our bill would have been part of the senate republican repeal and replace bills if budget rules had allowed it. so the president knows -- well,

senator graham and senator cassidy knows that if we repeal and replace obamacare in one year, two years, three years, it takes two or three years for it to take effect and we still need the cost-sharing payments for the interim and you can't pass those in the senate with 51 votes. it takes 60. the republicans are for it, the majority of the house have voted it, it sounds like something that might actually become law before the end of the year. the second flexibility. the biggest difference between the senate republicans and the senate democrats about health insurance in the individual market is whether washington should write more of the rules or if states should write more of the rules. our position has been states should. we've had about 50 votes, maybe more, and we lost them all and we made thousands of speeches and we lost them all. we haven't moved an insurance it toward or objectives in the last seven years of giving states

more flexibility in creating insurance policies in the individual market. this agreement does. it provides and authorizes states to offer a new insurance policy called catastrophic insurance for people of all ages that would keep a financial -- a medical catastrophe from turning into a financial catastrophe. it encourages interstate agreements among states in health insurance. it streamlines the innovation waiver, section 1332, we call it, for states that want to do what alaska did, which is to create a fund to pay for the very sick and reduce premiums for everybody else by 20% and use no new federal dollars, and most important it changes a law to make it easier for states like iowa, oklahoma, new hampshire, minnesota, massachusetts, tennessee, alaska, and many others to use their creativity to write

policies that offer more choices and lowers costs. some say that's not enough, but that's more than we've gotten for eight years and it's the first step. so i welcome anyone who wants to negotiate further with senator murray or senator schumer. that's what the legislative process is. now, i would like to add, because i forgot to do it when i listed the sponsors, and i'd like them to be added in the record. senator isakson and senator grassley to the sponsor which will be two additional republican sponsors, i would say to senator murray. so that gives us a total of 13. the presiding officer: without objection alexander no, take -- mr. alexander: no, that gives us a total of 12. i apologize. we have a total of 12 i would say to th through the chair to r

murray. that would give us 12 democratic sponsors. i thank senator grassley for his willingness to do that. i want to thank -- the only thing i would say to those who want to negotiate further to get more flexibility is to keep in mind with the cost-sharing payments, you can't get most of those changes without 60 votes in the united states senate. now, i want to thank senator murray for being an able and effective negotiating partner. we worked on many pieces of legislation together. she's tough and respected in her caucus and she does what she says she will do. and she's interested in getting a result. i respect that. and i thank her. i want to thank president trump for his encouragement. he's the one who called me ten days ago and culled me again last saturday and called me twice yesterday. i want to thank him for his encouragement to encourage a -- someone to come up with a

bipartisan agreement to cover these two years so people wouldn't be harmed, and his willingness to consider what we're offering today. i want to thank senator mcconnell and senator schumer because they've created an environment in which senator murray and i could make this proposal, and i hope that they and our other colleagues will seriously consider it. the president was right to suggest that we need a short-term agreement so people won't be hurt. now, some people are still objecting to the idea of continuing these temporary cost-sharing payments for two years. and the other provisions that would have as the objective keeping premiums from going up in 2018 and premiums begin to go down in 2019. they're listing the groups around washington, d.c. i would suggest they listen to some other people, listen to the waitress, listen to the songwriter, listen to the brick layer, listen to the small

businesswoman. the people of america, there are 350,000 in tennessee, who may be terrified by the prospect of increasing premiums or even the prospect of not being able to buy insurance at all. these are people who don't get insurance from the government. they don't get it on the job. they might never know when they're going to lose their job and they'll be in this individual market. we have a solution here. senator murray and i and 24 total of us united states senators are offering it today. we are certain that it can be improved. we look forward to working with those who would improve it. but i do not believe that congress will want to fail to deal with a problem that will hurt millions of americans if we allow it to continue. i predict that this agreement that we're suggesting today with 24 senators will become law in some fashion before the end of

the year. i think most senators and most house members will be looking around for a solution when they consider the consequences of a failure to act. and when they look for a solution, i believe that this solution supported by 24 united states senators, half democrat, half republican, will be the easiest solution to adopt. because i believe all the democrats want it. almost all the house republicans have already voted for it this year. and the senate republican leaders who would prefer to repeal and replace obamacare would put it in their bill if they could get it in there, but they can't because the budget rules won't allow it. i think the president. i yield the floor to senator murray. mrs. murray: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: mr. president, first i really want to thank chairman alexander for his

leadership in launching a bipartisan process as well as his dedication to seeing it through and getting a result as he says. i have to say that after seven years of intense partisanship on these issues, which would lead everyone to believe there was no hope for republicans and democrats to come together and work to strengthen our health care, i'm really pleased with this common ground we have been able to find providing multiple years of certainty when it comes to payments to reduce out-of-pocket costs that affect those people that senator alexander just talked about, the waitress and the songwriter and the people that care and need this to restoring critical investments in making sure people know about open enrollment and can get covered, offering states more flexibility to innovate as the affordable care act intended while maintaining those essential health benefits like maternity care and protecting people with

preexisting conditions and the elderly. and it does all this while making sure that costs do go down for our families and preventing insurers from double dipping and getting the benefit of both that cost reduction and higher premiums. and if there are ways to do this even more to make sure patients come first and insurers can't have their profits, i am, as i know senator alexander is as well, open to that. now, chairman alexander just took some time to lay out the policies we are putting forward in this legislation, so i want go into those details. but i do want to take a few minutes to focus on what this legislation would mean for the people. we are all here to serve. because what is really at stake is that patients and families across the country are now looking ahead to next year, and they are realizing they are about to pay the price for the uncertainty and partisanship we have seen, especially from this

administration, on health care over the last nine months. to many of those families that out-of-pocket cost reduction payment we're debating here in congress has nothing to do with politics. it has everything to do with whether they'll be able to make ends meet at end of the month. they are looking to this congress and administration and asking what we plan to do. so i am very glad the democrats and republicans agreed we need to act and we could do much better working together under regular order rather than doubling down on partisanship and dysfunction. as a result of the hard work of chairman alexander and members of our health committee and with input from half the senate, we were able to put forward an answer, a bipartisan solution that prevents families from paying the price of sabotage and uncertainty, one that members on both sides of the aisle can be proud to support starting with the list of original cosponsors

we are revealing today. and senator alexander listed the 12 republicans. the 12 democrats are senators murray, king, shaheen, donnelly, klobuchar, heitkamp, franken, manchin, carper, baldwin, mccaskill, and hassan. and we are doing this today not only because it will help protect our families from premium spikes that are set to kick off in the next year but because it sends a powerful message that when members of congress decide to get past our talking points and take a few steps out of our partisan corners, there is a lot we can agree on and a lot we can get done. mr. president, chairman alexander and i are going to continue to make the case for this agreement. we're already getting a promising response from many members on both sides of the aisle, and i'm very appreciative of senator schumer for his strong support, and i'm optimistic that with chairman alexander working on this, we'll

continue to build momentum and as he said, we will get this done. because at the end of the day this isn't about republicans or democrats. it is about doing the right thing for the people we serve. and that means having an answer to the premium spikes that are going to set in and burden our families next year. we have been able to find one. it is bipartisan. we both gave on this. and i really hope all of our colleagues will work with us to get this signed into law and show the american public we can get the job done for them and we understand the priorities of this country. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. mr. alexander: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: if i could ask a question through the chair to the senator from washington. in my conversations with president trump, he's made it clear and several of my colleagues have made it clear on the republican side that they don't want to bail out insurance companies. and what i responded is that i

100% agree. and i think it's important for -- i've already said this to the president, but it's important for our colleagues to know that probably the most heated debate senator murray and i had was not over whether we agreed with that but on how to actually do it in the most effective, strongest, toughest way possible. so i wanted to emphasize that point. these payments are designed to help low income americans pay their copays and deductibles, and we have in our agreement about a page and a half of language that requires every state to come up with a way to make sure that the benefits of those payments go to the consumers in 2018 and not to the insurance companies. and i wanted to ask senator murray if there's -- if she sees any disagreement at all between her and me and most of her

colleagues on that side of the aisle and over here about whether we -- whether we want to bail out insurance companies and whether we would be willing to consider any effective language that would improve our own language. mrs. murray: mr. president, i respond to my colleague through the claire. the negotiations are always tough. there's things you disagree on and you have to work your way to an answer. the one issue we did not disagree on but we worked the hardest on and had the most discussion on was how we make sure we have the language in place on this that consumers benefit and it is not a bailout for insurers. we absolutely share that point, and i know we both heard from members on both sides of the aisle they share that point. we have strong language in here, but we are still open together to make it stronger under anybody's suggestion because our

intent is to make sure that our constituents get the result of this. and we are together on that, working on that. and i absolutely disregard anyone who says this is a bailout for insurers because they haven't read the bill if they've seen it. i really want to thank senator alexander for his attention, discussions, hard work to reach this point. mr. alexander: thank you, mr. president. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. ms. murkowski: mr. president, before i speak to an amendment which is expected to be voted on later this afternoon, i want to take just a brief moment and thank my colleagues, the chairman of the help committee, and his ranking member, senator murray, the work they have done to knit together this compromise and we all recognize that it is a compromise, is such an important one, and it comes at such an important time. it's not only good from a policy

perspective to ensure that we don't pull out the underpinnings on the individual market here, but it's good from the perspective of the health of our institution, to be able to demonstrate that at a time when things are a little tense let's just say on issues that are highly emotional, highly personal, and highly, highly complex, that we can come together. we can demonstrate the ability to govern. and it doesn't come without great patience and persistence. these two individuals, these two leaders, have really helped guide us here in the senate to find a better path not only when it comes to how we deal with access to health care, reducing costs, reducing premiums, providing for better levels of care, but also a better path for the senate. so i just want to acknowledge and show my genuine appreciation for their leadership.

mr. president, as chairman of the energy committee, i've come to the floor today to urge every member here to vote against amendment 1301 that will be voted on later this afternoon. the f.y.2018 budget instructs the energy committee to raise $1 billion over the next decade. that's all that it does. it just says go out and find a billion dollars over the next decade. and i will tell you, i appreciate -- i appreciate chairman enzi's willingness to include this instruction. and i have every confidence that our committee will be able to meet the instruction. and there's good reasons why we should be able to meet it and really very good reasons why we