mr. lemieux in listening to this -- mr. lemieux: in listening about this great debate, i wonder what they would think about this here. because i'm new to this chamber, i think i still have fresh eyes as to what is normal and perhaps what is a little bit departed from normal. would they think it was in their founders intention that we would be coming here to vote at 1:00 in the morning? do you think that it would be their intention on how things would work in the senate that we would get an amendment to the bill that's 400 pages long, we would get it yesterday, it would have just a little time to consider it before we try to vote on it? would it be what they intended that we would press this vote up against christmas and we would try to get it done quickly while most of the people in our country are off with their families and preparing for the holidays? would that be what they intended the process of this great, deliberative body, arguably, it is often said the greatest debating institution in the world, is that the way they

mr. lemieux: but i hope that we can talk about this. mr. baucus: may i ask the senator to yield using whatever time we have on our side. i fully agree with the senator. it is unfortunate that we can't proceed at this moment. but i pledge my support next year to work aggressively with very strong oversight to -- to boost our antifraud measures even more than there are in this bill. there's going to be an awful lot of oversight necessary when this bill is passed to make sure that all the provisions that are intended actually come true. and, in fact, we think we're working hard now to get this bill passed. frankly, i think we're going to have to work even harder next year to make sure the provisions work. but i pledge my support and to work very aggressively in that area. but i thank the senator. mr. lemieux: i thank the chairman. the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. lemieux: i wish we could -- respectfully, i wish we could do it before we had to rush to judgment on this bill. i wish we had more time. i wish we didn't have to b

mr. lemieux quickly, mr.dent, i'm here to speak about the omnibus spending bill that we're going to vote on here today. mr. president, it is more proof that washington is out of control in its spending and that the leadership on the other side of the aisle is wanting to spend our children's money. this is a $445 billion bill. i know my colleague from arizona will talk about the 5,000 earmarks in this bill costin costing $3.9 billion. and it's a 12% spending increase over last year. $46.7 billion more than the bloated budget that we passed in 2009. $46.7 billion. a 33% increase in state foreign operations, 44% increase in transportation an h.u.d. these -- and h.u.d. these are unsustainable. we have a $12 trillion debt. a debt that our children and grandchildren are going to have to pay. here we are again with a 12% increase and a bill that's full of earmarks. earmarks for $700,000 for a shrimp fishing project, $37,000 for the woodstock youth film festival initiative. i'm sure these are great programs. but when

mr. lemieux: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. lemieux: this amendment, mr. president, i had a conversation with my colleague from michigan, the phrase in here "guaranteed by law" doesn't guarantee anything. this isn't going to protect the benefits of medicare advantage. the benefits that our senior citizens enjoy -- i care, hearing care, dental care -- they're not protected by this. you can vote for it if you want to. it sounds good but it's just gift wrapping on an empty box. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the question occurs on amendment number 2899, offered by the senator from michigan, ms. stabenow. the yeas and nays have been ordered. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be a sufficient second. the yeas and nays are ordered. the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote: the presiding officer: are there my senators who wish to vote or change their vote? if not, the yeas are 97, the nays are 1. under the previous order requiring 60 votes for the adoption of this amendment, the amendment is agreed to. the

mr. lemieux: "democrats ridiculed mr.bush as the most fiscally irresponsible president in history, but then they saw him and raced. they took a $800 billion deficit and made it $1.2 trillion in 2009 and perhaps that high again in 2010. in ten months they have approved more than $1 trillion in spending that has saved union public jobs but done little to assist private job creation. still to come is this multitrillion-dollar health care bill and another $100 billion to $200 billion in jobs bills." we can't afford the programs we have let alone the programs we want. so i filed this joint resolution to have a balanced budget, and i filed this joint resolution to give the president the line-item veto like governors do. and i know i'm tilting at windmills, mr. president, because i know there are few people in this chamber or the chamber down the hall that have the courage to do this because they're part of this process. they go along and get along. but i'm fresh enough, mr. president, as you are to still remember how things wor

mr. lemieux: madam president, thank you. i come to the floor to talk about the issue of the bill before us, not just on this particular amendment, but on what it's going to mean for my constituents in florida and for the people of this country. madam president, i had the opportunity last week to be back home in florida in palm beach county, in broward county, in miami-dade county, where i talked to doctors, hospital administrators, folks who run medicare advantage plans as well as everyday floridians, spheskly senio--specifically senior citi. and the responses i heard were nearly unanimous. that grave concern about the bill that's being debated on this floor and a general confusion as to why the congress is pursuing on the path that it is. the people of florida don't understand why we're going to cut medicare to create a new program. the people of florida don't understand why we're going to raise taxes to cut a -- to create a new program. the people that i've spoken to in florida do not understand why we would undertake a ne

mr. lemieux: thank you, mr. president. it's always good to follow my colleague from ohio. i want to speak today about the health care bill, and i specifically, mr. president, want to speak about this new report that we received from the office of the actuary from the centers for medicaid and medicare services. and this report, mr. president, unfortunately confirms many of the problems that we already knew. but now this report comes from an independent actuary who works in the very agencies that have to implement our federal health care programs. and this actuary has reviewed the proposal that is before us, the proposal that is intended to be health care reform. and the review and report of this actuary shows the significant problems with this proposal and why we must start over and take a step-by-step approach. the first thing that this report goes through -- and i had the opportunity, mr. president, to read this report this afternoon in my office word for word and go through it line by line. and i hope that all of my colleagues do, on both sides of the aisle, because ther

mr. lemieux receipts have to meet -- mr. lemieux receipts have to meet expenditure. in florida $18 billion is what we pay for medicare it is the largest budget in the state of florida. what happens? you have to cut education. you have to cut public service programs that do things like law enforcement. mr. lemieux: correctional facilities. you hurt the other main functions in government if you keep adding in medicaid. i want to highlight a point that my colleague from tennessee made. it happened when we went through the chief actuary's report for medicaid and medicare services. this plan that the democrats have put forward, all it is is the expansion of medicaid. let's be honest, this is medicaid for the masses. 33 million people supposedly are going to be covered by this plan if it's implemented. how do those numbers add up? 18 million from medicaid. 20 million go into the new exchange and then we lose five million because their employer drops them because they can go into the exchange. so the majority of the people who are going to go under this new health care refo

mr. lemieux: well, i thank the senator from texas. mr. president? this is budget gimmickry, and like the senator from nebraska -- i didn't serve as governor, but as the chief of staff who had to work on trying to balance a budget because our constitution in florida requires that, you know, we'd sit around and we'd try to figure out how much revenues we had and then how much we could spend. and if there weren't enough revenues, we either had to cut spending or find a new source of revenue. there weren't any other choices. we couldn't engage in this budget gimmickry. and i like, if i may borrow from my friend from nebraska, the analogy of the paying for a car for four years before you get to drive it. i mean, this is really what we need to tell the american peop people. imagine you're going to buy a substantial purchase, a house or a car, and they show you the house and they say, here's what your mortgage payment's going to be and you're going to live in the house for ten years, start paying today but you can't move in until 2014. that's what this bil

mr. lemieux: it would seem to me, and, again, i'm new to this process, that a hundred senators would vote for senator mccain's proposal, because everyone in this chamber believes that we should strengthen medicare. who could be for taking money out of medicare if we don't need to do that? i mean, these are really two separate issues. shouldn't every senator in this chamber say let's send this back to the sphok that those cuts can be -- finance committee so that those cuts can be restored and we can start over and take a step-by-step approach. that only seems fair to me. perhaps my colleague from oklahoma could comment on that. mr. coburn: well, it's a -- the -- the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. coburn: i thank the president. we're in trouble on medicare in this nation. everybody knows it. we've made promises. the -- the unfunded liability on medicare is $79 trillion. for us to take a half a trillion dollars, no matter what the enron accounting says afterwards, the fact is, is we're going to reduce that, we're going to make that worse. now, we may not make it worse next

mr. chairman, senator lemieux, yes. these are a little bit more difficult to prosecute then you would think they are. they're just extremely costly. and as you know they don't shake a lot of money and attorney generals office is and you have to make tough choices between going after all kinds of bad guys. buy gas and thank you all. as an academic i'll plug my article. to the usage and the fact that nobody knows it and to go after these other entities. for a frankly, i think the hearings were doing here is probably more effective at doing that than anything else. but the answer to your question is yes and it should happen. >> professor? >> my answer is similar to repress or cox. i believe that going under unep might be more effective. the disclosures are not effective for some courts might say that in order to have a sent, particularly in consumer protection, there has to be noticed and it must be ambiguous. i highly suspicious that given the way the offers are presented it as been done in an ambiguous fashion. the event

mr. reed of nevada, aye. senators voting in the negative. alexander, bohmbach, chambliss, coburn, corker, corn then, demeant, ensign, graham, grassley. hatch, hutchinson. inhofe, kyle, lemieux, lugar, mccain, connor, rich, roberts, sessions, voinovich and wicker. >> mr. byrd, aye. mr. webb, aye. mr. vitter, no. mr. baucus, aye. >> mr. kerry. mr. kerry, aye. mr. schumer, mr. schumer, aye. mr. kaufman, aye. mr. shelby, no. mr. bennett of utah, no. >> mr. lincoln. mrs. lincoln, aye. ms. landreaux. ms. landreaux, aye. >> on this vote, the yeas are 63, and the nay are 55. the motion is agreed. the question is on the motion to concur with the house amendment. sufficient second? there appears to be a sufficient second. clerk will call the roll. [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] mr. reid: madam president? the presiding officer: mr. leader. mr. reid: may we have order, mr. reid: may we have order, >> leader, may we have order, please the presiding officer: anyone wish to change their vote or hasn't voted? by a vote of 88 ayes and 10 noes, the motion to concur on the house amendment to the senate amendment on defense appropriations is approved. leader. mr. reid: first of all, to th

mr. kyl: i also ask unanimous consent that following my remarks, that senator brown from ohio and then senator lemieux from florida be recognized in that order. the presiding officer: without objection. so ordered. mr. kyl: thank you, mr. president. each day, it seems that there's a new analysis of the democratic proposal on health care that suggests that it's not such a great idea, and today a devastating report was made public by the obama administration itself, the department of health and human services group that is in charge of medicare and medicaid. it goes by the initials c.m.s. issued a report, specifically the chief actuary, richard s. foster of the centers for medicare and medicaid services issued a report about the effect of the reid legislation on health care as it pertains to a whole variety of things. the cost of the legislation, the effect it's going to have on taxes, on premiums of beneficiaries, the costs with respect to medicare and the kind of things that will occur to beneficiaries in medicare and so on. it's -- it's a complete report by a person who i think all would agree is not

. >> senator lemieux, i would like to thank you because i always try to teach my students the body of anything else question. i think i have been heard today. >> mr. branch, anything else you think that we need to be aware of that might be helpful for preventing this fraud from happening in the future? >> i think one of the big steps that could be done is like has been mentioned earlier, is to actually hold these reputable, one time reputable companies responsible for allowing these other side to come in and do that. and essentially they are one and the same. they may not be taking as much money, but by allowing the other companies to come in, they are just as guilty. and if we can discourage them to allowing these companies in, then i think that we will see a lot less of this problem in the future. >> thank you. >> i agree with mr. france, that the companies, the reputable websites, they need to be held more responsible about who they are affiliated with. >> thank you again, mr. chairman. i think we have some good direction from our witnesses today. >> i agree with you senator. before -- we will have a vote on a very good judge who has turned ou

mr. lemieux: madam president, thank you. i come to the floor to talk about the issue of the bill before us, not just on this particular amendment, but on what it's going to mean for my constituents in florida and for the people of this country. madam president, i had the opportunity last week to be back home in florida in palm beach county, in broward county, in miami-dade county, where i talked to doctors, hospital administrators, folks who run medicare advantage plans as well as everyday floridians, spheskly senio--specifically senior citi. and the responses i heard were nearly unanimous. that grave concern about the bill that's being debated on this floor and a general confusion as to why the congress is pursuing on the path that it is. the people of florida don't understand why we're going to cut medicare to create a new program. the people of florida don't understand why we're going to raise taxes to cut a -- to create a new program. the people that i've spoken to in florida do not understand why we would undertake a ne