Natural Resources Management Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I want to congratulate the Senator from Alaska on doing a wonderful job pulling together pieces of legislation that have been lingering around here for a long time. They have gone through the committee process and have been vetted--sometimes multiple times--but have never ultimately made it across the finish line. We have an opportunity here, when we get a chance to vote, to complete that work and to do something that will be very meaningful for Senators on both sides of the aisle who represent a wide swath of our country.

As the Senator from Alaska pointed out, she and her staff were very helpful to us. We have a little issue in Custer, SD. The city of Custer wants to have an airport--to expand their airport operations, and the Forest Service wants to transfer some of the land in order for them to do that, and it takes action by Congress to make that happen. So we are grateful to Senator Murkowski and her team for all they have done to advance this legislation and to give us an opportunity, once and for all, to get a number of things across the finish line that have been waiting for a long time. The Economy

Madam President, Democrats like to present themselves as the party of working Americans, but if that were ever true, it is certainly not true anymore. You don't have to look any further than recent Democratic policy to see how disconnected the Democratic Party is and has become from ordinary Americans.

Let's take the so-called Green New Deal. This proposal, which would require that all U.S. energy production be renewable, could raise electricity bills for families by more than $3,000 per year--$3,000 per year.

It is difficult to see how anyone who understands the challenges faced by working families would propose adding $3,000 per year to their electricity bills. When I am home in South Dakota, I regularly hear from South Dakotan families who are working hard to make ends meet. I can think of few families in my State--or anywhere else, for that matter--who could easily absorb an additional $3,000 a year in energy costs. With last week's polar vortex or even the average cold winters we get on the Great Plains, it is frightening to think about how many people would be at risk if it weren't for reliable and affordable energy.

Then, of course, there is the Democrats' Medicare for All proposal. This sounds like a simple solution--who doesn't want to increase access to healthcare?--until you hear the price tag. The so-called Medicare for All would cost an estimated $32 trillion over 10 years. That is equivalent to the entire Federal discretionary budget more than two times over.

Democrats like to present the fiction of free healthcare. Well, that is precisely what it is--fiction. There is just no such thing as a free lunch, and there is certainly no such thing as free healthcare. Nurses have to be paid. Lab technicians have to be paid. MRI and x ray technicians have to be paid. The people who cook for patients and keep our hospitals clean have to be paid. Pharmacists have to be paid. Medical supplies have to be purchased. Someone has to pay all those costs.

Under the government-run healthcare plan of the Senator from Vermont, the government would be paying all the healthcare bills. So the government would pay all those costs, but the government is going to have to get all that money from somewhere. Where is that money going to come from? Well, it is going to come from the American people, and the government would need a lot more money from ordinary Americans to cover the cost of Medicare for All. Doubling the amount of individual and corporate income tax collected would still not be enough to pay for the mammoth costs of this plan.

Make no mistake--this is not a plan that would be paid for solely from the coffers of the rich; the so-called Medicare for All would be paid for on the backs of middle-class Americans. Americans would see stratospheric tax hikes, to say nothing of the loss of their employer-sponsored health insurance. Under Medicare for All, if you like your health insurance, you will not be able to keep it because Medicare for All would do away with all employer-sponsored insurance. One hundred and seventy-five million Americans would lose their healthcare coverage and be forced into a government-run replacement--a replacement where the government sets the prices and makes the decisions about what gets covered. So you will still be paying for your healthcare via new and higher taxes, but the government will have the final say.

I could go on. I could talk about other Democratic proposals, such as the proposal to raise the top marginal tax rate to 70 percent--a rate we haven't seen since 1965--which would be a tax hike not only on individuals but on small and medium-sized businesses as well. Then there is the House Democrats' proposal to substantially increase the corporate tax rate even though lowering it to make American businesses more competitive globally has helped grow our economy. It has helped keep businesses and jobs in the United States, and it has produced new benefits and opportunities for American workers.

Suffice it to say that the Democratic agenda is not an agenda for the middle class. It is an agenda crafted by and for elites and far-left special interest groups. It is an agenda for people who don't have to worry about the size of their energy bill or a hike in their taxes. It is not an agenda for working families.

Republicans know that working families had a tough time in recent years. Years of economic stagnation during the Obama administration left wages essentially flat, and jobs and opportunities were few and far between. For too many families, getting ahead has been replaced with getting by.

Since Republicans took office 2 years ago, we have made huge progress at turning the economy around. Tax reform has made life better for ordinary Americans. It has put more money in their pockets and in their paychecks. It has reduced utility bills. It has expanded the jobs and opportunities available to workers.

Today, the economy is growing, unemployment is low, and wages are rising at the best pace in a decade. But there is still more work to be done, and Republicans are committed to accomplishing that work. We want to expand the benefits of tax reform even further. We want to lower the cost of living. We want to make healthcare more affordable. We want to help Americans save for their children's education and for their retirement. We intend to do it all while leaving Americans in charge of their own decisions. We know that Americans are the best judge of what they and their families need and where their money should go, and Republicans are committed to keeping Americans in charge of their own destinies.

We have made a lot of progress so far for American families, and we are committed to making a lot more. We will oppose every attempt by Democrats to advance an agenda that will result in fewer jobs, lower paychecks, and increased burdens for American families.

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Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Cassidy).

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