I like to keep a weather eye on what the progress of the health care bill in the Senate. It doesn't normally take long since the process is so dragged out, but something caught my eye today.
Debate is ongoing about Sen. Dorgan's prescription drug re-importation amendment. Presumably this means that Dorgan's not on board with the drug manufacturer deal. I was going to check the record of that debate, but in trying to find it, I caught a great little nugget from Sen. Baucus on a different matter: the "gut Social Security and Medicare" commission that Sens. Conrad and Gregg are demanding or they'll refuse to raise the debt ceiling and force a government shut-down.
Quote over the page.
Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, commenting on the budget process in the 1980s, former CBO Director Rudy Penner said:
The process is not the problem; the problem is the problem.
The chairman and ranking member of the Budget Committee have proposed another new budget process. No one has shown greater zeal in taking on the budget deficit than the chairman and ranking Republican Member of the Budget Committee. I commend their good intentions. They work hard. But we should reject this process. Instead, we should solve the problem.
In their press release yesterday, Senators Conrad and Gregg said that ``Everything needs to be on the table, including spending and revenues.'' That is a quote: ``Everything needs to be on the table, including spending and revenues.'' But why stop there?
If Congress is going to outsource its core fiscal responsibilities, why stop with those responsibilities? Why not cede to this Commission all of the legislation in the next Congress? Why don't we outsource the entire year's work and then adjourn for the year?
Come to think of it, if we do cede all of our powers to this Commission, what is to stop them from inserting any and all business for the next Congress into the Commission's one, nonamendable, omnibus vehicle? No restrictions. They could put anything they want into it.
There is the rub. For if the Commission were merely a farce, then we could be satisfied with ridiculing it. But this Commission and its new fast-track process are truly dangerous. If we were to cede all of our responsibilities to this Commission, and we were to tie our hands so we could not amend its recommendations, then we would risk setting in motion some truly terrible policy.
Under the proposed fast-track procedures, we would not be able to amend the proposal. What if we did not like the Commission's recommendations? We would not be able to replace the Commission's recommendations with our own.
It is clear from their press release that Senators Conrad and Gregg have painted a big red target on Social Security and Medicare. That is what this Commission is all about. It is a big roll of the dice for Social Security and Medicare.
Advocates of the task force say the regular order is not working. They say we need a new process to address our long-term fiscal challenges. But they are wrong. The regular order is working. We are enacting health care reform. And serious people know that controlling the costs of health care is the central path to addressing our long-term budget challenges.
The lion's share of the reason why deficits are projected to grow so much in the long run is the enormous increase in the costs of health care. We are doing something about it. We are doing it the right way. We held open hearings. We legislated in committee. We are voting on amendments. We are legislating. We are doing what our people back home sent us here to do.
The Congressional Budget Office says that health care reform will cut the deficit $130 billion in the first 10 years and $650 billion in the second 10 years. That is nearly $800 billion in CBO-certified deficit reduction in health care alone. And next year we will legislate fundamental tax reform.
But some appear to want to throw in the towel. Some want to punt our responsibilities away. I can see that a commission may be attractive to some. After all, it is an easy way out. It takes away our accountability for what we do. Senators can blame it all on the Commission. Senators could say: The Commission made me do it.
But this is no time to abdicate responsibility. This new Commission and this Congress are less than a year old. We should not shirk our responsibility. Rather, we should do the job our constituents sent us here to do.
Luckily, we already have a process to address the budget. It is called the congressional budget process. Here is a novel idea: Why don't we use the budget process to address the budget deficit? If the chairman and ranking Republican Member of the Budget Committee are in such broad agreement on their goals, why don't they skip the Commission and go straight to their recommendation? That is exactly why Congress created the budget resolution and the reconciliation bill in the first place.
We do not need a new commission to do our work. We do not need a new process to solve the problem. To solve the problem, we just need to solve the problem.
I urge my colleagues to reject this Commission idea. Let's get back to solving the problem. Let's get back to enacting real health care reform.
Elsewhere I have recently been arguing against exercising the "nuclear option" - and I wish I'd thought of the quote Baucus used at the start of this speech. The filibuster isn't the problem, the poor quality of representation is the problem, the filibuster is just the process.
Anyway, who'd have thought it. Yesterday, the heros of the day were Byron Dorgan, for his re-importation amendment, and Max Baucus for eloquently highlighting the folly of the commission idea, and pointing out the entire purpose is to gut the safety net - and that the best way to start addressing the deficit is to pass health reform.
I guess it goes to show that even suspect Dems are still on our side at least some of the time.