Tom Harkin: “I have to say to my friend from Wyoming: Where did that come from-- 100 pages of regulations for every page that is in…”

“I have to say to my friend from Wyoming: Where did that come from-- 100 pages of regulations for every page that is in the bill? That is going to be 200,000 pages of regulations. Where did that come from? It sounds like it came from the health insurance industry to me. Boy, I tell you, that is quite a figure. Well, obviously, it is a bogus number, and I do not know where that figure came from. I would like to ask my friend where that did come from. But I say to my friend from Wyoming, the Senator just said there is no help--I wrote it down here as fast as I could--no help for small businesses until 2014. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. In the Affordable Care Act, we attached--in the tax bill that Senator Baucus got through the Finance Committee, small businesses, beginning this year, 2010, will receive a tax credit--a tax credit, not deduction, a tax credit--of up to 35 percent of the cost of an employee's health insurance. So you have a small business, prior to this year, that did not get a tax credit, I say to my friend from Wyoming. I mean, the Republicans ran this place for 8 years under George Bush--8 years. They had a Republican President, Republican Senate, Republican House. They did not give small businesses any tax breaks for health insurance. We did. It is in the bill, a 35-percent tax credit this year for small businesses. That would cover 83.7 percent of all small businesses in the country.”