H. Con. Res. 14

Floor Speech

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Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I am really delighted to be here with my colleagues Senator Klobuchar and Senator Warnock. I know it is an incredibly important issue for all of America. It is not a red State, blue State situation. It is about something that is near and dear to the heart of the Presiding Officer, the doctor from Kansas: That is healthcare.

Healthcare is in jeopardy, particularly Medicaid. Medicaid is healthcare. It is healthcare for kids. It is healthcare for many low- income seniors. It is healthcare for 80 to 90 million Americans. It is healthcare for folks who must live in nursing homes. They are at that stage in life where what keeps them alive and allows their kids to visit are Medicaid paid-for nursing homes.

In fact, in Vermont, two out of three of our seniors who are in nursing homes are there only because of Medicaid. So this is important to families, to kids, to seniors. It is part of our healthcare system.

And what is of concern, I think, to all of us--and I really want to emphasize I think it is all of us, not the Democrats versus the Republicans--is wanting to have a healthcare system that is going to be there when people need it, that people are not denied access to healthcare because they are poor kids, that they are not denied access to nursing home care because they have run out of their lifesavings.

We want to make certain that the healthcare needs of our children and our seniors, disabled children, disabled adults--we want to make sure those healthcare needs are met. We have to do that. It is the mark of a functioning and caring society.

There is not anybody on either side of the aisle that doesn't want to do the best we can, not just for our kids but for the kids that live in our community; that want to do the best we can, not just for our parents but for all the parents that live in a community; that want to do the best for all folks who are disabled and need the special requirements that go along with life with a significant disability.

But here is where there is a difference: The tax bill that is being proposed that will lower taxes is going to be paid for, in significant part, by drastic cuts to the Medicaid budget, maybe up to $800 billion. And in fact, in the House version of the reconciliation bill, the Energy and Commerce Committee, on which I served when I was in the House and has jurisdiction over Medicaid, was instructed in that resolution to come up with about $800 billion in savings.

What is the purpose of those savings? It is not to lower the national debt. It is not to invest in research and development. It is not to provide universal affordable childcare for a family in medical need-- things that I think all of us absolutely need.

It is to fund a tax cut. Literally, it is to fund a tax cut. So then the question becomes: tax cut for whom? We have millions of taxpayers in this country with all different incomes, and that includes everyone from folks who are making 7 or 8 bucks an hour to $15 an hour, to middle-class families maybe with two folks working--a firefighter maybe and a teacher--might be making $150,000, and they have a couple of kids, still trying at the end of each month to pay the bills, put aside a little money for college, put a little money aside, hopefully, for a 2-week vacation at some point.

Or that tax cut can be designed so it goes to folks who have really been riding the wave of the financialization of the economy, folks who have become billionaires--God bless them--multinational corporations that have extremely strong balance sheets and really strong profits, companies that already saw a tax cut in the last tax bill that has exceeded what they even asked for.

So the question that is really before this Congress has to be put in very concrete terms. It is not, Are you for a tax cut? It is not, Are you for Medicaid? Because probably every single one of us on both sides of the aisle would say yes to a tax cut, and we would say yes to Medicaid.

But we have got to be candid with one another and with the American people that the tax cut that the majority is proposing, more than half of it is going to go to billionaires, multimillionaires, and to very, very profitable multinational corporations.

In the design of the ``pay-for,'' $800 billion is going to be taken away from the healthcare that provides essential healthcare to kids and to seniors and to disabled people.

So this is not really a question of, Are you for a tax cut? We all are. It is not really a question of, Are you for Medicaid? We all are. It is a question of the specific bill that is being proposed, which is a tax cut that is designed to lower taxes for very wealthy people who won't notice one way or the other at all whether they do or don't get yet another tax cut. They won't know it. It won't affect them. It won't in any way have an impact on how they live their life day-to-day. It won't have any impact on their ability to put money aside for their kids to go to college. It won't have any impact on their ability to put money in a trust fund so their children and their grandchildren can live with total economic security. It will have no impact on that.

It will certainly have no impact on the improvement of our economy because that money won't be spent or saved rather than invested in the childcare that working families need. It won't be invested in the family leave that a parent needs when a spouse or a child becomes sick. It will have absolutely no impact on that.

So the question for us is, Why would we design a bill that is going to give a tax cut to folks that don't need it--in some cases, haven't even asked for it. It is not going to be reinvested in the economy to improve the well-being of our society through education or childcare or family leave.

But then we have the pretense that would be fiscally responsible and ``pay for'' the tax cut, but the way we are going to pay for the tax cut is taking away healthcare from people who desperately need it and can't afford it. That is what is up here. That is the question. It is not rhetoric. It is not about political principles.

This is about day in and day out survival for many American families who have absolutely no capacity financially to take care of a parent who is now in a nursing home or a parent--parents of a disabled child whose only lifeline to be able to care for that child is Medicaid.

Folks with a disabled child, as we know, it is an incredible challenge for them, and they meet it. It is amazing that a person, a family, they have the bad luck of having a disabled child, but they have the good heart that they can love that child as though it is the best child in the whole wide world. That is how they are. That is how Americans are. They accept what God gives them, and they love that child.

But it makes a difference whether they can live their life if they have Medicaid that helps get that wheelchair, that may help them with a van so they can go out as a family. That is literally what we are talking about. This is real. This is consequential. This is not about polls and who is ahead and who is up and who is down.

This is about a society, through the U.S. Senate, at this moment, that is making the decision that we are going to give tax cuts to people who don't need them, haven't asked for them, but whose political supporters here are demanding them on their behalf and give tax cuts to corporations that have had record profits at the expense of taking away the healthcare that families in your community and mine totally depend on.

This is wrong. This is wrong. The most elemental thing that a family needs is some security if they have a child or they have an elderly parent. They are not going to leave them out on the street and kick them aside. That is what is being proposed in this bill. That is what is being proposed.

I hope we come to our senses here, and we just start with the proposition that whatever it is we do, whatever tax policy we believe is in the best interest of the American people, we start with the commitment that however we implement that policy, it will do no harm to the children in your community and mine, to the folks in nursing homes in your community and mine. We will do no harm.

That, Mr. President, is why it is so essential that we defeat this proposal.

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