Senate Proceeding on Oct 21st, 2009 :: 7:06:00 to 7:18:40
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7:05:57 to 7:06:18( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: quorum call: the presiding officer: the senator from mr. voinovich: mr. president, i ask that the quorum call be dispensed with and that i be permitted to speak as if in morning business for up to ten minutes. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. and without objectn, so ordered. mr. voinovich: mr. president, several weeks ago i came to the floor it remind my colleagues and all americans about the

7:06:00 to 7:18:40( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: George Voinovich

7:06:19 to 7:06:39( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: fiscal realities which we find ourselves. i promised that i would continue these efforts until we did something to address this cris. so my colleagues are going to see a lot of me between now and the end of the year, and hopefully something will get done on this issue before the end of the year. unfortunately, i return today to tell my colleagues that the bill to repeal theedicare physician payment formula the senate

7:06:40 to 7:07:02( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: considered earlier today is a step in the opposite direction, and i was very vote on that. there were 43 for cloture and i think 53 -- 47 for, 53 opposed. wead more opposed than we had for cloture. when i spoke here earlier this fa children's favorite stories,

7:07:03 to 7:07:24( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: "the emperor's new clothes by hans christian anderson. a little piece of art work that's in that fairy tale. the wearing a nonexisting suit sown by a tailor who convinced the monarch the suit was made of the finest silk.

7:07:25 to 7:07:46( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: the swindlers told the emperor that the threads would be so fine that they would look invisible to those dim the emperor unable to see the clothing lavished the tailor with praise for the suit because they don't want to appear dimwitted and incompetent.

7:07:47 to 7:08:08( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: to show off the extraordinary suit, a parade was formed. people lined the street to see the emperor show off his new clothes. again afraid to appear stupid everyone pretends to see the suit. it is only when a child cries out the emperor wears no clothes does the crowd acknowledge that the emperor is in fact naked. mr. president, much like the

7:08:09 to 7:08:30( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: emperor in this story, america's elected leaders know we face a fiscal train wreck, but we are choosing to ignore our current economic reality. the american peoe know we are naked, and so does the rest of the world, and our credibility and our credit risk, but we refuse to acknowledge what is obvious. when it comes to fiscal responsibility, the emperor

7:08:31 to 7:08:52( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: wears no clothes. yet earlier today we had a vote on whether or a bill that would have added $247 billion to our nation's debt. the ierest alone adds another $50 billion in debt over the next ten years. we are just going to put it on the national credit c our children and grandchildren take care of it.

7:08:53 to 7:09:14( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: we are the biggest credit card abusers in the world, and the credit card we're using are the credit cards of my children and grandchildren and other americans. i am pleased that a majority of my colleagues joined me in opposing moving forward with this legislation. the president has said that the health care reform bill would not add one dime to the deficit.

7:09:15 to 7:09:35( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: yet, the bill that we voted on earlier today should be a larger part of reform legislation. and it's going to spend over $250 billion without paying for it. i suppose it's easier to make claims about health care reform legislation not adding to the

7:09:36 to 7:09:57( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: deficit when congress takes apart the cost money off the table pwurbgs to do so is fiscally and morally corrupt. the physician fixe left out of the finance committee, i suspect, not because my colleagues don'tgree it is a fundamental part of health care refo have cost money my colleagues did not want to account for it

7:09:58 to 7:10:20( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: in the bill. if the finance committee would have included the fix in their bill, the $81 they say the bill will create would have quickly turned into a deficit. that is unacceptable. and i'm not the only one that feels that way. "the washington post" discussed the effort to take the fix for the sustainable growth formula,

7:10:21 to 7:10:41( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: the formula that calculates reimbursement for under medicare out of the larger health care bill as a shell game and a budgetary smoke and mirrors. that's the end of "the washington post" quote. this is another illustration of our out-of-control spending that has caused our national debt to skyrocket.

7:10:42 to 7:11:04( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: one of the reasons why i ran for the senate and came to washington a long time ago was to reduce the federal deficit and balance our budgets. that's what i did when i was mayor of cleveland. that's what i did when i was governor of when i arrived in the senate the gross national debt stood at $5.6 trillion or 61% of the g.d.p. today the gross national debt is

7:11:05 to 7:11:25( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: nearly $11.8 trillion and the president will be coming before us to raise the national debt to over $12 trillion. the 2009 deficit stands at about $1.4 trillion. i just got back two weeks ago from athens, greece, at an organization for security and

7:11:26 to 7:11:47( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: cooperation meeting in athens. when i shared with my colleagues that we borrowed $1.4 trillion to run the government, they were all asking for astounded. they just couldn't believe it.

7:11:54 to 7:12:16( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: i reminded them also that debt was like the debt we racked up in other words, that's the period we compared it to. so the 2009 deficit stand at $1.4 trillion, at $#.1 trillion -- 9.1 trillion over the next decade which does not include the borrowing of the

7:12:17 to 7:12:37( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: trust funds and three times the deficit gnat deficit in our history -- the national deficit in our history. the medicaid program is scheduled to be bankrupt by 2017. i can't understand why we're not talking about that. that means the money coming in is not enough to t the -- the supply is not going to be enough to take care of the demand.

7:12:38 to 7:12:58( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: just what's happening now in social security, the next couple of years the money coming in isn't going to be adequate to take care of the people who are on social security, so we're going to have to borrow that money in order to take care of their needs. we nee to take a comprehensive look at the program. i will be the first to admit we must honor our commit not our nation's seniors and ensure they

7:12:59 to 7:13:19( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: have access to quality health care services. i have heard it firsthand from family and friends in places in ohio. medicare beneficiaries face delays for physician services right now. in fact, 6.8% of ohioans live in a designated primary care shortage area. we need more doctors and nurses. the situation is only going to

7:13:20 to 7:13:42( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: get worse. 39% of physicians are over the age of 50 and considering limiting the amount of time they see patients. for these reasons, i have been advocating for the past several years that we need a permanent and commonsense fix for the flawed, sustaable growth rate formula, which we refer to as

7:13:43 to 7:14:03( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: the doc fix. i don't think anyone -- i don't think there is anyone on either side of the aisle that disagrees. we need to do this. yet, mr. president, this bill we just considered is not the way to do it. any fix must be part of a larger conversion -- conversations and it must be done in a way that does not simply add to the burd our children and grandchildren.

7:14:04 to 7:14:24( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: i' pleased that in a letter last week to senator reid, ten senate democrats joined me in this conclusion, asking the majority leader that he get serious about the federal deficit and tax and entitlement reform. they cannot continue to kee without consequence.

7:14:25 to 7:14:45( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: as i have been advocating, we must give larger reform serious thought before it's too late. we must act on the tough issues today. as gerald seid "wall street journal" yesterday, administration officials also know they have little choice but to start showing early next year that they take the deficit seriously

7:14:46 to 7:15:06( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: econom reasons. and that's why senator lieberman and i have introduced legislation called the saving america's future economy which basically creates a bipartisan commission that would deal with the deficit and deal with tax reform and that if a

7:15:07 to 7:15:32( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: supermajority of those agree to the solution, that that would get expedited procedure on the floor of the senate and move to an up-or-down vote. very much like we do with the brac process. i've been trying to do this now for four years, and i've talked

7:15:33 to 7:15:53( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: to orszag, and it's really interesting. two years ago he was with a lot of former c.b.o. drecialghts and said we have to have a commission. it is the only way we're going to deal with intiementz. it is the only way we're going to deal with tax reform. and yet we're not able to convince the administration that they move forward with us to tackle this very, very heavy

7:15:54 to 7:16:14( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: responsibility. and, mr. president, time is running out. time is running out. the dow is going down. people are talking about not using the dollar as exchange anymore. mols of the economic experts say if we -- most of the economic experts say if we keep going on this unsustainable course, we we're going to start to see interest rates skyrocket in this country.

7:16:15 to 7:16:36( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: over half of our debt is in the has of the chinese and indians and the opec nations, japan. and we're in bad public understands it. they understand -- they understand that the emperor has no clothes!

7:16:37 to 7:16:57( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: we're not doing anything about the problem. and they get it today. and i happen to believe that the undertoe that's out there in -- that the undertow that's out there in the country today is the fact that the american people understand that things aren't right. mr. president, your state, my

7:16:58 to 7:17:18( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: state, you know what they're doing? they're buying less. they're not putting it on their cards, and they're trying to save some money. they know that they've been on a bing, and they look -- 0 on a binge and they look to us and they say, what are you doing? what are you doing? we care about ourselves, but we also care about our children and

7:17:19 to 7:17:40( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: grandchildren. it's not fair to individuals to do what we're doing. so we have a moral obligation to do what we can to try and make sure that this generation,his generation's standard of living will not be less than those that came before them.

7:17:41 to 7:18:01( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: and many people believe that's going to be the case. the passage of legislation to fix the physician payment formula by borrowing more money will only help guarantee that they are right. so, mr. president, we have a serious problem. i'm going to be coming to the floor over and over and over and over again to see if we can't do it. i'm going to do what i can to try to convince the president

7:18:02 to 7:18:22( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: that he ought to participate in setting up this commission, working with senator gregg and senator kent conrad to see if we can't get them together to agree on what this commission would look like. we're hoping that the president is alert enough to know 245 if he doesn't deal with this

7:18:23 to 7:18:40( Edit History Discussion )

George Voinovich: problem -- that if he doesn't deal with this problem, it's not only a substantive problem that needs to be dealt with but a major political problem, that he's going to have. the american public demands that we start talking about something about this process and they know that we're running out