Date: 2011-04-14
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

I thank my colleague. The gentleman from Texas mentioned the fact that as part of the Affordable Care Act last year we made some reforms in Medicare. Yes. we did. We got rid of the overpayments to the private plans. the Medicare Advantage plans. Why did we do that? Because they were costing the taxpayer 114 percent of the fee -for- service. which is why this notion. frankly. that by saying to seniors you cant stay in Medicare now. youve got to go into the private insurance market. has been disproven by our experience most recently. So we said were not going to overpay them. And you know what? We used some of those savings to close the prescription drug doughnut hole that seniors fall in. We used some of those savings. Now. its important to understand that the Republican budget. even though there was a lot of demagoguery about that. you kept those savings. but what you didnt do is continue to close the doughnut hole. Immediately upon passage of the Republican budget. that doughnut hole will stop closing for seniors. I want to pick up on a point Mr. GARAMENDI made about Medicaid because. as this chart indicates. the great majority of funds for Medicaid go to seniors and individuals with disabilities. Make no mistake. this happens immediately. Were not talking about 10 years from now. 8 years from now. This happens right away. Now. Medicaid is a program where actually the costs of care have grown much slower than the rest of the health care market. including the private market. and yet it is a program that is stretched very thin. You take $700 billionplus out of that system. you are going to be putting people at serious risk. already overstretched programs. So what choice did you make? Well. this is what choice you made with respect to Medicaid. You cut about $771 billion. Guess what? You returned to the tax rates that were in effect on the top 2 percent income earners during the Clinton administration. over 10 years. $800 billion. Those are the choices youre making. Put all of these individuals at riskseniors in nursing homes. assisted living facilities. poor kidsso that you can provide that tax break. Ive heard it said on the floor that. oh. boy. if we do that. if we go back to the Clintonera tax rates. thats going to really hurt the economy. Thats going to hurt jobs. Look at this. Heres the Clintonera tax rate: 20 million jobs were created during that period of time. Heres the current tax rate. end of the Bush administration: 653.000 jobs lost. The history tells the story. The reason is because there are lots of factors that go into decisions by businesses how to invest. And while. obviously. tax rates are a part of it. they are not the major driver in the economy. Ive heard it said that this is going to hurt small businesses. I hope one thing that we can agree on is that small businesses are the engine of our economy. Theyre what make this economy go. And so we always hear from our Republican colleagues. well. you go back to the Clinton era rates for the top. youre going to hurt small businesses. Well. I hope everybody will look at the Joint Committee on Taxation. What they say is that there are only 3 percent of small businesses who fall into that higher income category. because were talking about taxable income. Only 3 percent of small businesses fall into those rates. Now. we hear from our Republican colleagues. oh. thats true its only 3 percent. but its 50 percent. Well. here. Fifty percent of the income comes from those 3 percent. Why do you think that is? Well. look at the same Joint Committee on Taxation report. Many such businesses are hardly "small." In 2005. over 12.000 S corporations and over 6.000 partnerships grossed more than $50 million. Theres your momandpop store. Theres your momandpop store working hard as a small business trying to make ends meet. Those are what Republicans are calling small businesses. Im going to give you some examples of those small businesses. And there are lots of them. but just to give people an idea of the Republican definition of small businesses: major Wall Street investment house KKR. one of the big four accounting firms. Pricewaterhousethese are S corporationsFortune 100. Pipeline Company. Enterprise GP Holdings. Washington law firms. The Acting CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.