THIS SEARCH     THIS DOCUMENT     THIS CR ISSUE     GO TO
Next Hit        Forward           Next Document     New CR Search
Prev Hit        Back              Prev Document     HomePage
Hit List        Best Sections     Daily Digest      Help
                Contents Display    

I am amazed at the fiscal irresponsibility that people are trying to put on this, and when I say ``people,'' I am thinking right now of the Democrats who are trying to run the trade adjustment assistance and trying to attach more and more stuff on it, and maybe it is because they really do not want trade promotion authority in the first place. Maybe some of the people are saying, we did health care, we did not think some of the Republicans could agree with that, now we will try to see if we can't put steel legacy; let us put more and more on this wagon and see if

[Page: S4469]  GPO's PDF

   I used to run a company that had the steelworkers in our plan. I have negotiated steelworker plans, so I know a little something about health care costs and I know a little something about plans. You can negotiate contracts you cannot afford. That is an easy thing to do. You go along to get along. You sign contracts. You have peace and harmony, and all of a sudden you have a contract you cannot afford, and you go bankrupt. Why in the world should the Federal Government be bailing out?

   I do not think you can do that. If you do it here, why don't you do it for every other union contract that has found itself on the wrong side of the economic chain? Why don't we pick up the health care costs for railroad retirees? We took up their pension costs. Why don't we do their health care costs? Why don't we do that for other unions? I do not know where you would stop if we agreed to this.

   We have already had a battle on, are we going to have wage insurance on this bill? Unfortunately, Senator Gregg's amendment did not pass. Wage insurance, which is about as socialistic a direction as one could go, was put on this bill. It is almost like people are saying we are going to keep loading up trade adjustment assistance, where we know they cannot swallow it, where we know we are going to bog down this bill, and the bill will not pass. This bill is just going to be loved to death. We are going to keep piling it on, piling it on, and piling it on.

   I hope people will step back a little bit and say a couple of things are happening. One, we happen to have a deficit. We do not have a surplus. So we are going to be taking taxes and we are going to be borrowing money to pay for a brandnew benefit for one little group of workers. Now, maybe that group of workers has a lot of political clout, maybe they contribute to a lot of campaigns, maybe they have a lot of influence, but

   I do not see why we should do it for this group and not do it for others.

   Maybe some people think we should do this for everybody. Maybe that is the objective. I do not know. But I do not think it is affordable when I start looking at the costs.

   The Senator from Minnesota was very generous to say the cost of COBRA is typically about $700. That is for a family plan. Then you multiply it by 12, and that is $8,400. Seventy percent of that is about $6,000; $6,000 per year for which Uncle Sam is going to be writing a check. That is a lot.

   The reason I was trying to compute this was, well, $125,000, and it is going to cost $179 million. Trying to figure that out, it is a lot less than that. The difference is, three-fourths of these people are already on Medicare. They already have health care. They happen to have the same health care my mother has, but my mother is going to be paying taxes so some individuals can get their Medicare supplement? I do not know that that is right.

   I do not know why the worker in Wal-Mart, who may not even have health care, has to pay taxes so somebody else can get not only Medicare but a Medicare supplement. This is pretty much a stretch.

   There are 40 million Americans who do not have health care insurance. They have health care, possibly through the emergency room or something, but a lot of them pay taxes. They may not be able to afford their own health care, but we are going to increase their taxes or make them go into debt so they can provide health care for somebody else who already has health care, who is already paying a lot because they get Medicare.

   Medicare is not a perfect system. I think it needs to be reformed. It needs to be fixed. It needs to include prescription drugs, and we ought to be doing that this year. We ought to be working in a bipartisan way to make it happen. To say we are going to be increasing taxes or debt on the rest of America so one group can have their Medicare supplement or people in their thirties or forties can get health care for a year--and we all know the original proposal was 2 years. I also happen to believe that some people are going to try to extend this year after year, after year, after year. If they get it for 1 year, they will be fighting to get it extended for the next year. I am just guessing that might happen.

   I am going to work very hard to see that this bill does not happen, so we will not get started down that slippery slope of ever increasing entitlements, ever increasing expansion of spending, ever increasing loading up the trade promotion authority with things that are not affordable, that frankly should not become law. My guess is that if this amendment is adopted, we will not have trade promotion authority passed this Congress.

   Maybe that is the sponsor's objective. Maybe not. I do not know. But some people are trying to kill trade promotion authority. They are trying to load it up with too much. This amendment is too much, and I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment when we vote on it next Tuesday.

   I yield the floor.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader.

   Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I do not know if the other side has had an opportunity to speak. I know they have had an exchange of questions. I need 3 or 4 minutes, if I may, and I will use my leader time for that purpose.

   I enjoyed Senator Nickles' remarks, and I associate myself with them. I agree with him, and I certainly hope we can prevail in not adding this amendment to this legislation. It would be a further blow to the legislation that has certain problems now. We need to get the trade legislation done and not further encumber it with other issues such as this one. One can argue about the steel legacy costs one way or the other, and I am sure we could get a pretty good debate here. I personally think we should not go down that trail, certainly not on this legislation.

<<<

THIS SEARCH     THIS DOCUMENT     THIS CR ISSUE     GO TO
Next Hit        Forward           Next Document     New CR Search
Prev Hit        Back              Prev Document     HomePage
Hit List        Best Sections     Daily Digest      Help
                Contents Display