The only “doc fix” is a Medicare Fix

March 20, 2015

On April 1 Medicare physicians across America are scheduled to receive a 21 percent pay cut. This is no April Fool’s Day hoax, but an automatic action triggered by Medicare’s sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula, which mandates significant cuts to physicians’ Medicare reimbursements each year that Medicare payments increase more than economic growth.

Allowing the SGR’s reductions to take effect is an untenable outcome. If Congress were to subject physicians to a pay cut every time they see a Medicare patient it would quickly become unaffordable for America’s doctors to continue seeing Medicare patients, which would leave millions of seniors essentially locked out of our health care system.

No one wants to begin the month of April like this.

Congress’s instinctive reaction to the looming threat of the SGR is to ask: “How can we fund the gap in Medicare physician payments?” But this misses the point. The real problem is not the SGR formula, but the fiscally unsustainable structure of the Medicare program.

If Congress wants to respond to the April 1 deadline responsibly, without jeopardizing seniors’ access to their doctors or saddling the American taxpayer with more debt, our guiding question must be: “How do we fix Medicare so that it doesn’t cost so much in the first place?”

The only real solution to the annual SGR panic – and therefore the only solution that conservatives in Congress should accept – is a plan that includes structural reforms to Medicare that move the program away from its centrally planned, price control model toward a market-based, premium support model.

A Positive, Unified, and Conservative Blueprint

March 13, 2015

Since last November the American people have been waiting for the GOP majorities in the House and Senate to offer a positive, unifying vision for the country that addresses working families’ anxieties about our economy and frustrations with our government. Much of the work done by congressional Republicans during the first two months of the new Congress has failed to make an impact – though not for lack of effort.

The first measure of the 114th Congress was the Keystone XL Pipeline bill, which would have paved the way for economic and energy development. But President Obama vetoed it. Likewise, the most recent piece of legislation considered by the Senate – a commonsense and formerly bipartisan bill to confront the scourge of human trafficking – was unconscionably filibustered by Senate Democrats.

In light of the Left’s lockstep intransigence and radical obstruction that have defined the past two months – and that show no sign of abating over the next two years – Republicans should view the upcoming budget process as their best opportunity to finally show the American people why the GOP deserved victory last November.

Starting next week the House and Senate will begin the work of passing a common Budget Resolution, a document that Republicans should use to present the country a positive, unified, and conservative blueprint for reforming our government and growing our economy.

Inevitably there will be some disagreement over the particulars, as the Budget Resolution is a comprehensive document that involves difficult choices related to every facet and function of our federal government. However, every Republican should be able to agree to three consensus principles, each of which enjoys widespread support from the American people.
Our budget should: (1) Balance within ten years (without accounting gimmicks); (2) Not raise taxes, and; (3) Include reconciliation instructions to repeal Obamacare.

More than just good policy, following these three principles will promote the coalitional unity necessary to successfully navigate the tough decisions entailed in the budget process. With these as our guide, I look forward to working with my colleagues to craft a budget resolution in the weeks ahead.

A tax code that works for, not against, American families and businesses

March 6, 2015

According to the latest jobs report from the Department of Labor, the official unemployment rate fell to 5.5 percent in February, the lowest it’s been in over seven years. While this is a positive sign, the unemployment rate conceals two fundamental problems plaguing our economy today: a declining labor force participation rate and stagnant wages. These two factors are symptoms of the anemic growth that has defined the American economy since the end of the Great Recession.
 
To restore the shared prosperity that comes from a strong, growing economy we must reform the most antiquated and dysfunctional government policies, beginning with the federal tax system.
 
The tax code’s failures are manifold — impeding growth, discouraging investment, and restricting freedom on the business and the individual side — but they are all rooted in the same fundamental unfairness and inequity of a government that picks winners and losers.
 
A tax code that works for, not against, American businesses, families and individuals must be built on the twin pillars of equal opportunity and fair treatment for all. It must be based on the simple, yet powerful, truths at the heart of our free-enterprise system: that economic growth is a function of economic freedom, and that economic freedom depends on equal opportunity and fair treatment under the law.
 
These principles – fairness, freedom, and growth – should inform the changes we make to the business side and the individual side of the tax code. Whether we’re dealing with financial capital, or human and social capital, growth and prosperity depend on freedom, and freedom depends on fairness.
 
Empowering the American people to succeed in a revived free market, in which everyone has equal opportunity to participate, requires a federal tax system that is both pro-growth and pro-family.

Building Bipartisan Support for Conservative Reforms

February 27, 2015

This week I attended a bipartisan meeting at the White House to discuss the need to modernize and reform our criminal justice system.

President Obama invited me and several of my colleagues in Congress – from both parties – to join him and Vice President Biden for a conversation on how we can work together to address the challenges of over-criminalization, over-incarceration, and over-sentencing in America.

After a generation of tough-on-crime policies helped make communities around the country safer, many of our federal criminal justice laws are now out of date, counterproductive, and unfair.

Laws that once were essential to community safety have now become instrumental in community breakdown. Today, we have far too many reformed offenders languishing behind bars, while their families and neighborhoods are left with too few fathers, uncles, and older brothers.

Given the immense financial and human cost of our broken status quo, I was pleased to join President Obama and my congressional colleagues for a dialogue to find bipartisan solutions to these problems.

One of the solutions we discussed was the Smarter Sentencing Act, a bill I recently introduced in the Senate with my colleague Senator Dick Durbin, a liberal Democrat from Illinois, which would modernize our federal drug sentencing laws and provide immediate relief to an overburdened prison system.

The Smarter Sentencing Act is a common-sense reform that will give judges the flexibility and discretion they need to impose stiff sentences on the most serious drug lords and cartel bosses, while enabling nonviolent offenders to return more quickly to the families and communities that need them.

I’m hopeful that the Senate will take up this bipartisan piece of legislation sometime soon, and in the meantime I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues across the aisle to find sensible solutions to our nation’s most pressing problems.

After our visit to the White House, Senator Cory Booker joined me on the Doug Wright Show to discuss the meeting and also to discuss why this is an issue that is uniting Democrats and Republicans. You can listen to the interview below:

If you can keep it

February 13, 2015

America is often described as an “experiment,” in the sense that the fate of the nation is never a foregone conclusion. This is what Benjamin Franklin meant when he famously declared that our constitutional convention had produced “a republic... if you can keep it.”

In America, we have a republic, not a monarchy. Here, the people are in charge. We have no king, and the only power held by elected representatives is delegated to them by the people.

This simple arrangement of power is the basis of the most just and the most equitable system of government the world has ever known. But it is also, by definition, slightly precarious. For when a free people delegate a portion of their sovereign authority to a group of representatives, they must be able to maintain careful watch over how that power is used.

Thus Dr. Franklin’s crucial stipulation: “if you can keep it.”

The behavior of Senate Democrats over the past two weeks suggests that they don’t want to keep it – at least not when doing so is politically inconvenient.

For the past two weeks, Senate Republicans have repeatedly tried to begin debate on a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security. But there has been no such debate: only diversions, equivocations, and interruptions by Senate Democrats, who refuse to allow the world’s most deliberative body to discuss the merits of a bill that would fully fund DHS while prohibiting President Obama from using any funds to implement his lawless executive amnesty plan.

This obstruction is as reckless as it is revealing.

It reveals the character and disposition of a party that distrusts the judgment of the American people, fears the consequences of open debate, and stops at nothing to advance a narrow partisan agenda.

The past two weeks do not bode well for the great American experiment in self-government. But Benjamin Franklin’s challenge still stands. It’s not too late for the Senate to get back to work and for Senate Democrats to put the power back in the hands of the American people where it belongs. 

Fund it? Fix it

February 6, 2015

The President released his budget this week only to see it almost universally rejected or ignored by Congress, the media, and the American people. His budget is a statement of this administration’s priorities and politics, both of which put Obama at odds with the country right now.

But it’s not necessarily because his budget spends almost $4 trillion, doesn’t balance, and hurts the middle class. It’s because the American people are tired of stale debates over how much government should or should not be cut, and much more interested in fixing a dysfunctional government that is badly in need of structural reform.  

Just spending more on a misguided program doesn’t get you any closer to a real solution than just spending less on it. If the program is dysfunctional—if it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do, and what it’s supposed to do is worth doing—the only real solution is to fix it. Fixing a leaky faucet is not an arbitrary “cut” in one’s water bill – it’s repairing a broken system so that it only costs what it must.

After all, the problem with Washington is not that the federal government is a bit profligate, but otherwise efficient and effective with our money. No, the problem is that it’s comprehensively wasteful, unfair, and dysfunctional. It is, in a great many areas of policy, trying to do the wrong things and doing them in the wrong ways.

The federal government has taken on too much and, therefore, does very little well. The Constitution spells out in some detail the various authorities of the federal government. If it focused solely on those things, not only would Washington be less intrusive and less costly, but also more effective and efficient. That is not just making government “smaller” – a conservative priority - but also better, the proper aim of any government reform.

So for the new Republican Congress, armed with the power of the purse, our mantra should be: Fund It? Fix It.

If there is a good reason for Congress to fund a program, that in and of itself is a good reason to continually improve it.

Getting the Senate Working Again

January 30, 2015

After four years of almost total dysfunction under former Majority Leader Harry Reid, the Senate is finally getting back to the people’s work under its new leadership.
 
In a single week, the Senate voted on more amendments, from both parties, than the Democrat-controlled chamber voted on all of last year.  This may not have lowered taxes, or cut spending, or repealed Obamacare – but it still matters. Why? 

Because democracy matters, and voting is one of the most important ways members of Congress represent their constituents in Washington. It’s also one of the best ways for constituents to see where their representatives stand on the issues. 

The American people may not have been driven to the voting booth specifically because the Upper Chamber had virtually abandoned “regular order,” but there’s no question the Senate’s inability to have full and open debate contributed to the public’s frustration with Congress.  

In this sense, restoring an open amendment process to the Senate, based on robust debate, is critical to rebuilding trust between the American people and their elected representatives in Washington. For too long, this essential link between Congress and the people has been neglected. Republicans can repair it by throwing open the doors of Congress and restoring genuine representative democracy to the American republic.

No more “cliff” crises or secret negotiations. No more take-it-or-leave-it deadline deals. No more passing bills without reading them. No more procedural manipulation to block debate and compromise. These are the abuses that have created today’s status quo—the status quo Republicans have been hired to correct.

I would argue that rebuilding trust with the American people is required before we can enact the big reforms of our conservative agenda.  

So at the beginning of the new Congress, this is our challenge: to once again get Washington working for the American people.

Reunify. Reconnect. Restore.

January 23, 2015

As Republicans reflect on what to do with our largest congressional majority since 1929, we must ask ourselves: how did we get here, and what must be done to get to where we want to be?

Two years ago, many believed that Republicans in Washington had lost their way. And in certain crucial respects we had.

Following the discouragement and frustration of the 2012 election, there was a deep sense of distrust between the American people and their elected officials in Washington that was mirrored by a lack of trust between Republican elites and the conservative base of the party.

Yet Republicans had no choice but to reunite in opposition to the excesses and abuses of a president no longer constrained by, or concerned with, elections. Two years later, we’ve come a long way. we won a historic victory – now we have to earn truly it.

Moving from a divided to a united Congress is an important step toward – but not a substitute for – reunifying the Republican Party around a positive, conservative reform agenda.  Now is the time to turn our congressional majority into a national mandate. To do that we must elevate ideas over personalities, choose open debate over backroom politics, and perhaps most importantly reconnect Republicans in Congress with the American people.

The President clearly has little interest in reforming dysfunctional government policies that are holding back America’s working families, propping up well-connected elites, and keeping the most vulnerable mired in poverty. With his sights firmly set on 2016, the President intends to spend the next two years defending old ideas and failed policies.

This presents a unique opportunity for Republicans to develop and promote real solutions to America’s opportunity deficit and devote ourselves to advancing a bold, conservative reform agenda in Congress over the next two years.

Republicans in Congress have proposed thoughtful and creative reforms to our higher education, tax, welfare, transportation, labor, and criminal justice systems – all of which aim to level the economic playing field for low- and middle-income Americans.
But if you talk to most people outside of Washington, they’ve never heard of these bills.

With unified control over Congress, Republicans now have the ability – and I would say the responsibility – to make their case directly to the American people, by debating and voting on the conservative alternatives to the failed status quo.

There’s no doubt that many of our reforms will be stopped short of becoming law – either by the President or Democrats in Congress – but this should not lead us to inaction. We must embrace every debate and every vote as an opportunity to persuade the American people, by drawing bold contrasts between the merits of our reforms and the failed policies of the Left.

Building a mandate for our agenda is the only way that we can reach our ultimate objective: to restore dynamism and fairness to our economy, accountability and competency to our government, and equal opportunity to every corner of our society.

Reunify the Republican Party, reconnect with the people, and restore equal opportunity to those hardworking Americans who have been left behind for too long – this is the only path to success. As I see it, this is not only good for Republicans, but good for the country. This is the way to honor our principles and return to a government of, by, and for the people.

Fixing Broken Government

January 16, 2015

Last week Republicans took over the Majority in the Senate, and it could not have come a moment too soon. The American people, exhausted from the failures of President Obama’s dysfunctional administration, have given Republicans an opportunity to take the reins of Congress and move forward on a positive agenda.  

Today, there is a crisis of opportunity in America caused in large part by government policies that hold back families at the bottom of our economy, rig the system for those at the top, and squeeze the middle class in between. The new Republican majority should take action to reform these policies, provide greater access to economic opportunity, and restore the proper role of government.

Government at all levels succeeds when it protects and promotes free enterprise and civil society. The military, the police and fire departments, our court system, and critical infrastructure – these are examples of government expanding networks of opportunity. That’s what government does well. But government fails when it tries to replace free enterprise and civil society in other areas, such as in President Obama’s takeover of our health care system, our over-charging and under-performing higher education policies, and the implementation of unfair and ineffective regulations.

In recent years the federal government has held America back by getting this wrong. We usually call this problem “big” government, and it is that. But the problem isn't merely government’s size, but also its dysfunction.  The challenge for the new majority is not just to cut big government, but fix broken government. After all, we don’t just want a less expensive version of the Left’s failed administrative state.  We want an efficient, effective government that actually protects and promotes every Americans’ pursuit of happiness.

Meeting this challenge isn’t preferable simply because doing so is “conservative” or “Republican.” It’s good because it forces government to work for the people; it empowers moms and dads, small business owners, students, and hardworking taxpayers; and it makes government effective, efficient, and accountable.

Fortunately, Republicans have already begun to introduce a number of practical solutions to some of America’s most persistent problems.  I look forward to the opportunity the American people have given us to meet the challenge of our time. 

Republicans for a Positive Agenda

January 9, 2015

This week Republicans took over the Majority in the Senate, and it could not have come a moment too soon. The American people, exhausted from failures President Obama’s dysfunctional administration, have given Republicans an opportunity to take the reins of Congress and move forward on a positive agenda.

Today, there is a crisis of opportunity in America caused in large part by government policies that hold back families at the bottom of our economy, rig the system for those at the top, and prevent hardworking taxpayers from getting ahead. The new Republican majority should take action to reform these policies, provide greater access to economic opportunity, and restore the proper role of government

Government at all levels succeeds when it protects and promotes free enterprise and civil society. The military, the police and fire departments, our court system, and critical infrastructure – that’s what government does well. But government fails when it tries to replace free enterprise and civil society in other areas, such as in President Obama’s takeover of our health care system, our over-charging and under-performing higher education policies, and implementing unfair and ineffective regulations.

In recent years government has held America back by getting this wrong. We usually call this problem “big” government, and it is that. But the problem isn't merely government’s size, but its dysfunction. The challenge for the new majority is not just to cut big government, but fix broken government. After all, we don’t just want a less expensive version of the Left’s failed administration state, but an efficient, effective government that actually protects and promotes the Americans’ pursuit of happiness.

This approach isn’t preferable simply because it’s “conservative” or “Republican.” It’s good because it forces government to work for the people; it empowers moms and dads, small business owners, students, and hardworking taxpayers; and it makes government effective, efficient, and accountable.

Fortunately, Republicans have already begun to introduce a number of practical solutions to some of America’s most persistent problems. I look forward to the opportunity the American people have given us to meet the challenge of our time.