Debbie Dingell: “Mr. Speaker, with this bill Congress should be keeping a solemn promise to our seniors. But what the Republicans are…”

“Mr. Speaker, with this bill Congress should be keeping a solemn promise to our seniors. But what the Republicans are doing is giving simply a fig leaf instead. This proposal covers only about 20 percent of the expenses that seniors will incur for prescription drugs in the next 10 years. Well, the Republicans say we are operating under budget constraints. We cannot afford to pay the 80 percent of the costs that the Democratic alternative would have offered had we been able to offer it. Why? Why do we have these budget constraints? Because their priority is not to give relief to the 40 million Americans who need the relief but to give it to the 500,000 of the very wealthiest Americans who want estate tax relief. Take a look at this chart. Here is the number of seniors who need this prescription drug plan and need a thorough plan, 35 million. Here is the number of people who will benefit from the Republican estate tax cut that they passed a few weeks ago and that caused the budget constraints which are preventing us from passing a real benefit. The seniors of America need to know this is why we cannot give grandma and grandpa their drugs. It is not because God came down and gave us these constraints. It is because the Republican caucus gave them to us.”