'I See Frauds And Liars In Every Direction!': John Kennedy Castigates Fellow Politicians

thank you madam president madam president i want to talk about the american taxpayer and medicare act of which i am a sponsor co-sponsoring this legislation with me or senator graham senator hagerty senator tim scott senator rick scott senator blackburn senator holly senator cotton senator bozeman and others who are likely to join i'm going to make a few remarks about the bill a number of my colleagues would also like to comment about my bill so i will be yielding to them and at the end of my colleagues remarks i will have a motion to make uh madam president as a result of the american rescue plan working in conjunction with the budget control act of 2011. there are cuts scheduled to take effect in 2022 with respect to medicare and with respect to our farmers medicare specifically unless my bill passes and unless this body takes action will be cut 36 billion dollars those medicare cuts will include but they're not limited to but they'll include cuts to cancer treatments for our elderly those cuts would reduce laboratory fees and analysis that our seniors depend on every single day for the reasons i just referenced our farmers are also going to get cut unless we take action specifically the crop insurance programs on which our farmers rely we're recovering from a pandemic madam president as we all know now is not the time in my judgment to put this burden on our seniors and on our farmers our seniors part of the greatest generation don't deserve them and our farmers the backbone of america don't deserve these cuts either in fact america was born on a farm and i think we ought to keep that in mind this time madam president i would like to yield to the senior senator from arkansas senator bozeman thank you madam president and i want to thank senator kennedy for his help and his leadership in this effort we simply have to support america's health care providers farmers and ranchers doctors in the entire medical community are still struggling after being unable to perform non-emergency procedures during the pandemic with an aging population and more physicians not accepting medicare because of insufficient payment medicare beneficiaries would face a reality of less access to quality care that's why i introduced my own legislation to prevent these damaging cuts from harming our physicians our providers our agriculture community is also struggling and we must protect our farmers and ranchers by ensuring their operations can stay afloat and keep producing the most abundant and safest food supply in the world for all of these reasons i support senator kennedy's bill i understand that my fellow senator from missouri also has some concerns and so i yield to him and president i rise to make a very simple point which is that medicare is too important to be held hostage to political gains and that's what's going on here now we need to have a clean bill to fully fund and protect medicare for the millions of americans who rely on it including over 1 million just in the state of missouri and that's why i am supporting senator kennedy's bill to fully protect and secure medicare and i will support every amendment and bill a clean amendment and bill to fully protect and secure medicare including i think senator graham's that he's going to be offering shortly which i'm also privileged to co-sponsor and i would just say this i call on the members of both parties both parties to stop using medicare as a pawn in a political game let's fund medicare let's do it on its own let's not hold it hostage to other agendas let's not hold it hostage to other programs let's not hold it hostage to others individual ambitions whatever they may be but let's take the opportunity now with this bill to fully protect medicare for our seniors all across this country that should be something that we can all get behind and for those reasons i am proud to support senator kennedy's legislation and now i yield to senator hoeven i'd like to thank my colleague from missouri as my colleagues have pointed out we rise to support uh senator kennedy's uc uh unanimous consent request his legislation because we have consistently supported funding for medicare and funding for our farmers and our ranchers who work hard to provide food fuel and fiber for our nation that's why i support both the uc request and the amendment that senator graham is sponsoring i'm co-sponsoring that amendment as well that would ensure that we fund these priorities i do not support linking these funds with an increase in the debt ceiling as the bill from the house would do without our amendment we should not be tying the debt ceiling to important legislation that ensures health care providers can continue to care for our seniors and protects our farmers who produce the highest quality lowest cost food supply in the world so i strongly support and have co-sponsored the graham amendment which would strike the fast-track debt ceiling process from this bill as we are saying very clearly we support the funding for medicare we support the funding for our farmers and ranchers now democrats who control the white house the senate and the house are trying to use reconciliation to pass a trillion uh plus tax and spend bill on a purely partisan basis given that they obviously can use reconciliation to pass a debt ceiling increase on their own they do not need this house legislation to do it and with that i will yield to my colleague i thank the gentleman for yielding i'm honored to be here this evening to support my colleague from louisiana i want to take this nation back to a year ago a year ago this spring in april of 2020 coveted was on the rise our first our first period our first wave ripping through this country our ers were overflowing the icu beds were full and doctors and nurses across this nation ran to the sound of the battle we didn't have vaccines there weren't therapeutics but we took an oath to take care of our fellow man i joined those doctors i went to an icu in southwest kansas where we had 8 beds 12 patients and 9 ventilators so how are we gonna reward those doctors today we're gonna cut their pay we're gonna cut most doctors pay two to eleven percent even before code but there was a doctor shortage there was dr burnout because of this pay cut even more doctors will quit more doctors are going to stop taking medicare yesterday the leadership on the other side of the aisle just wanted to kick doctors but today i found out they're kicking farmers in the shins as well holding doctors and farmers hostage is no way to run a government i too am tired of seeing doctors and farmers used as pawns for political gain i support senator kennedy's bill and i'm honored to turn it back to him madam president americans may be poorer since president biden took office but they're not stupid they look around washington d.c and they see liars and they see frauds in every direction now i don't think a single member of this body supports cutting medicare or hurting our farmers especially not at this moment i don't i don't and i don't think any of my republican colleagues or any of my democratic colleagues do as well but a deal has been made a deal has been made to give us some of us see it this way anyway a choice between voting for a heart attack or cancer you either have to give up your principles on the debt limit or you have to vote to cut medicare and hurt our farmers and no one wants to do that i understand that people disagree over the debt limit but there's no disagreement in this body over over not cutting medicare and not hurting our farmers now i'm labor i'm not part of management don't want to be part of management wouldn't be good at management because i don't always fit in it's not one of my best qualities in fact it is my best qualities best quality um and that's why i brought this bill as senator harley said much more eloquently than i could the the the disagreement that reasonably reasonable people are having over the debt limit in a has has been conflated in a cynical attempt to fool the american people by putting them both in a bill that we're going to certainly be asked to vote on and we're going to be asked to give the american people either a heart attack or cancer you've got to choose and i don't have to make that choice and i'm not going to make that choice and that's why i brought this bill i do not agree with my democratic friends about the debt limit um i don't support bill back better i understand many of my democratic friends do i understand president biden does i understand senator schumer does understand speaker pelosi does and i respect that but i don't support it now they're going to try to pass bill back better and they're going to try to implement it but they can't do it without raising the debt ceiling now if i don't support the bill back better bill why would i want to allow them to borrow the money to implement the bill back better bill i should i i don't and i'm not going to break my word and vote to do that if my colleagues want to do that that is their business i don't tell people how to vote if i'm ever asked how to vote i rarely i almost always say follow your heart but just take your brain with you and that's why i brought this bill and i want to make it very clear and you can write this down and take it home to mama i do not support cutting medicare and i do not support cutting farmers i do support keeping my word to the american people when i tell them i'm going to do something by god i'm going to stick and i'm not going to be scared away by some cynical deal that was made in washington d.c now madam president as if in legislative session i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s3344 the bill about which i have been speaking and my colleagues to protecting the american taxpayer and medicare act at this time it is at the desk i further ask that the bill be considered read a third time in past and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table is there objection reserving the right to object madam senator from oregon madam president and colleagues i yield to no senator in my support of this country's senior citizens my background colleagues was i was co-director of the oregon gray panthers the senior citizens group for almost seven years before i went into public life and i know that there is no senator here who doesn't support senior citizens farmers the extraordinarily important americans that my colleagues have been talking about but what really has not been explained here because we all kind of talk this special lingo around here is what my colleagues really seek to do in the kennedy amendment what my colleague from louisiana wishes to do is rip up an agreement reached between democrats and republicans specifically colleagues senators schumer and mcconnell so what they did is reach a bipartisan agreement to diffuse an economic time bomb by creating a process to avoid default senator kennedy's proposal sticks off flame right back under that fuse now the two parties obviously have different approaches when it comes to gamesmanship around this country's financial commitments setting all that aside the fact is our country is now way too close to default for the senate to be playing games this debate is almost entirely about financial commitments made under past presidents it doesn't have anything to do with legislation that's still in the works that is a fact the reality is my colleague from louisiana seeks to bring the country closer to default the senate ought to be clear on the consequences if that were to come to pass default would be an economic disaster for our country as well as for individual families and businesses and again colleagues since senior citizens came up so frequently this has been my particular passions why i went into public service social security stops going out military could stop getting paid interest rates go into the stratosphere making existing federal debt even more expensive if you go forward with this proposal costs go up for families who want to buy homes or buy cars getting a small business loan becomes more expensive jobs across the country are wiped out amid this turmoil and all of that would happen right in the middle of the holidays when americans are simply trying to enjoy their time with families go out and shop for presidents presents and enjoy their time together my view is after almost two years of pandemic and economic chaos people have had it hard enough and two leaders a democrat and a republican have come together because they understand the senate doesn't need to add another catastrophe to their financial challenges the challenges i just described one by the way that would be entirely self-made there is an agreement before the senate colleagues an agreement between the republican leader and the democratic leader that agreement brought the two sides together my colleagues must not throw that agreement away and i respect all my colleagues all of them but i just believe that this proposal from the senator from louisiana is misguided it brings our country closer to default therefore i object madam presidential is heard madam president i really appreciate my colleagues remarks i do i don't agree with his objection but i i i appreciate them i just want to say a couple more words um i didn't make a deal now let me say it again and let me say it a different way i don't hate anybody lord knows i look for grace wherever i can find it i like every one of my colleagues i really do the senate's the most interesting group of people i've ever been around um i'm not part of management i'm labor and i meant what i said i belong in labor because i don't always fit in and i do believe it's one of my best qualities the truth of the matter is then this is what we're disagreeing over president biden senator schumer speaker pelosi my other democratic friends have proposed the bill back better bill now any economist with a pulse will tell you that it's going to cost about five trillion dollars without the gimmicks it's going to raise taxes a couple of trillion will probably end up having to borrow another 3 trillion to pay for it we'll have to borrow the money we don't have the 3 trillion we don't even have five percent of it now i think that the bill represents a spending taxation and borrowing orgy that we don't need but i understand my democratic colleagues disagree i get that um my democratic friends can't pass and implement the bill without raising the debt limit that's just a fact because they won't be able to borrow the money now if if i don't support the bill why do i want to support allowing them to borrow the money especially when senator schumer my friend senator schumer can do it on his own he can do it before the weekend is out all he's got to do is do a simple amendment to the budget resolution what am i missing here and i know a deal has been made and some people are going to vote for it you're not looking at one of them and i respect their right to make a deal but i didn't make a deal but i've been put in a position of saying okay kennedy we're going to show you you got to choose between keeping your word to your people or cutting medicare and we wonder why congress polls right up there will skim milk that's why they look around they see frauds and liars in every direction i really regret that my bill didn't pass because it would have protected our elderly and i do support protecting elderly and it would have protected our farmers and i do support protecting our farmers and this so-called deal puts them both at risk thank you very much madam preston

Channel: Forbes Breaking News

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Keywords: Sen. John Kennedy, Build Back Better, Senate

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Length: 22min 52sec (1372 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 08 2021