Floor Updates
Senator Boxer: (2:13 PM)
Senator Alexander: (3:31 PM)
Senator Sanders: (3:49 PM)
- Spoke on filibuster reform.
- SUMMARY "I was here in the minority, and I was able to exercise the filibuster, and if was able to stop a lot of legislation that came over from Newt Gingrich's House and if believe in the filibuster completely and I think it's important to protect minority rights. But I do think there's such a thing as the use of the filibuster versus the abuse of the filibuster. So my position has always been clear, that I think the abuse of the filibuster is wrong. When I first came here, I thought, well, we should just do away with the 60-vote rule and I came to understand that I didn't really at the end of the day wind up believing that was wise. So I'm working with colleagues to figure out a way we can have a talking filibuster but protect the rights of the minority. But I have to say, I don't think there ought to be a filibuster allowed on a motion to proceed to a bill. And we've seen that abused and abused and overused. And these are the kinds of things I think we should get together as colleagues, as friends across the parties that divide us and not engage in filibusters on a motion to proceed to a bill. There's plenty of time to filibuster the bill itself. There's plenty of time to argue. But it seems to me whoever is the Majority Leader, be that a Democrat or a Republican, they should have the right to take us to a bill. I think that's a power that should lie with the majority, whoever that majority is. So I would certainly approve of fixing that problem. In addition, how many filibusters do you have to have before you go to conference?... Three motions? That can be filibustered before you go to a conference? That is not doing the people's business. And imagine, if a bill gets all the way to that conference phase, remember, it's gone through the committees of the House and Senate, it's gone through the votes of the House and Senate, it's gone to the Conference Committee to a vote of the Conference Committee. And why on earth should we allow three motions to filibuster - filibuster three motions? So I think there are ways we can work together."
- Spoke on the Bernal nomination.
- Spoke on the fiscal cliff.
- SUMMARY "Here's the thing I don't get. When the Bush tax cuts went into place, they were passed overwhelmingly by Republicans. Why wouldn't the same Republicans want to make sure that they continue for 98% of the people? I don't get it. I did not vote for the Bush tax cuts then. I'm going to vote for them now, for the 98%, because we're coming out of a tough time. I didn't vote for them. Do you know why? I said that we would go into huge deficits. And I don't want to say that I was right. But we did go into a huge period of deficits. It was that. It was two wars on a credit card. It was a prescription drug benefit that was not paid for by allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower prices. I voted against that, too. So here we are at a magic moment in time - a magical moment, because it's the holiday season - and we know the Senate passed the middle class tax cuts in July and we know there's 21 days left before taxes go up on 98% of the people. Rhetorically, I ask the Speaker, why don't you just pass this now? Today I read, he says, well, I don't want to do this until I see what programs Barack Obama's going to cut. That's his latest thing. To which I respond, here's the deal. In the debt ceiling fight, we cut a trillion dollars of spending. It's shown in those caps that we voted on. Very tough, a trillion dollars spending cuts over ten years. That equals what we'll get from the tax hikes on those over $250,000. Plus, we found savings in Medicare of $700 billion, cuts, which, by the way, the Republicans an ads against our people saying that the Democrats cut Medicare."
Senator Alexander: (3:31 PM)
- Spoke on filibuster reform.
- SUMMARY "It's been historically the responsibility of the majority to decide what comes to the floor. And historically the minority, whomever that happens to be, has the opportunity to have amendments. A couple of things have happened. The minority has blocked bills coming to the floor. That didn't happen. It happened 25 years ago. Something else happened over the last 25 years. A procedure called filling the tree was invented by a Republican majority leader. Senator Bob Dole was the first one to use the first so-called filling the tree. Used it seven times. Senator Byrd, who never used it, that gag rule to stop the minority from offering amendments, I guess, was disappointed he hadn't thought of it so he found a way to use it three times as he was the majority leader. Senator Mitchell used it three times, Senator Lott 11, Senator Daschle only once this gag rule, Senator Frist 15. All of those leaders used it 40 times. Our Majority Leader, Senator Reid has used it 68. So we can all come up with statistics on both sides, but shouldn't we just resolve that what we would like to do, show the country that we're grown-up, responsible adults and we can sit down and say, yes, we can agree on ways to make sure that most bills come to the floor and senators get to offer most of the amendments that they want to offer on the bill? I think we can do that. I think there's a spirit on both sides of the aisle to do that, and I'm working toward that goal, and I know a number of Democrats and Republicans are doing that. And I appreciate the spirit of the senator's remarks on the rules."
- Spoke on the fiscal cliff.
- SUMMARY "It was said the other day, in the history of the United States, every great crisis has been solved by presidential leadership or not at all. Every great crisis has been solved by presidential leadership or not at all. A number of us have made our suggestions about what to do about the fact that our debt is too big. We're spending money we don't have, and one way or the other we have to fix it. It's that simple. We shouldn't be borrowing 42 cents of every dollar we spend. We have to fix it. A number of us on the Republican side have said, we'll hold our nose and do some things we normally wouldn't do. If the president will come forward with a president on restraining entitlement spending, we'll help raise revenues and put together and that makes a budget agreement that the new Foreign Minister of Australia has said, the United States of America is one budget agreement from reasserting its global preeminence."
- Spoke on right-to-work legislation.
- SUMMARY "I believe in states' rights. I believe states have the right to be wrong as well as the right to be right. And with all these Midwestern states having the right to be wrong and not having right-to-work laws, we benefited enormously in our state by the arrival of the auto industries and other manufacturers. But for our country as we exist over the next 20 or 30 years in a very competitive world where jobs can be anywhere, where things can be manufactured anywhere, we want at least those things that are going to be sold here to be made here. And having a right to work law which permits the UAW and General Motors to have a partnership at one plant in Tennessee and Nissan and Volkswagen to have a nonunion plant at another place in Tennessee by vote of the employees, I would submit will make us a stronger competitive country. It has everything to do with economics. And I wish that the president yesterday had spent his time on the fiscal cliff instead of going to Michigan and arguing in favor of denying workers their right not to pay union dues in order to get their right to not pay union dues in order to get a job and efforts to keep our American automobile industry from being as competitive as it needs to be in order to compete in the world marketplace."
Senator Sanders: (3:49 PM)
- Spoke on the fiscal cliff.
- SUMMARY "Just think about some woman who is 66 years of age, not feeling well. She goes in to the doctor's office. She is diagnosed with a serious health care problem. There is no Medicare there for her. What does she do? She goes over to a private insurance company. What do you think the private insurance company is going to charge this person who is already ill? Outrageous rates that she can't afford. And what happens to that senior, that person who is 65 or 66? Do they die? Do they go bankrupt? Do they go to their kids who don't have the money to help them stay alive? It is a disastrous idea. Raising the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67 would leave at least 435,000 seniors uninsured every year. Imagine being 66 and not having health insurance. Easy for folks around here to laugh in the congress. Easy for wealthy people to laugh about it. It ain't so funny if you're living on $15,000, $20,000 a year and you have no health insurance. It would increase costs to businesses by $4.5 billion. It would of course increase out-of-pocket costs for seniors. And the estimate is by about $3.7 billion. For the individual senior, the estimate is that for two-thirds of seniors age 65 to 66, they would pay an average of $2,200 a year more for health care. So you're trying to live on $20,000, $25,000 a year, $30,000 a year, suddenly you're hit. On average. It could more, could be less. $25,000 a year. And on and on it goes. It would increase premiums by about 3% for those enrolled in the health care exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act because many 65 and 66-year olds would be enrolled in the exchanges instead of Medicare. It would save the federal government $5.7 billion in 2014 but it would cost seniors, businesses and states and local governments $11.4 billion. Double that. Double what the federal government would save. So, I would hope that all of those folks who before the election, Republicans and Democrats, running around the country and in their own states, we're for the middle class. We're going to protect Medicare. I hope they go back and read their pre-election speeches and stick to what they said before the election. That's one of the issues that are out there in terms of the so-called fiscal cliff or deficit reduction."