Max Baucus: “I might say, Mr. President, reclaiming my time, this amendment strikes the underlying bill. What about States taking…”

“I might say, Mr. President, reclaiming my time, this amendment strikes the underlying bill. What about States taking people off Medicaid, called FMAP? This bill gives about $86 billion to States so they can keep people on Medicaid, so they are not thrown off Medicaid. What about all the dollars in here that go to help build roads and highways and bridges? Earlier, I asked my colleagues to remember two figures. What were they again--99 and 79. What is that? Just to repeat, 99 is the percent of dollars in the Finance Committee portion of this bill that are spent in the first 2 years; 99 percent of the whole Finance Committee bill is spent in the first 2 years. That is CBO, and it is Joint Tax. It is their figures. Just do the math. The other figure I mentioned was 79--79 percent. What does 79 percent represent? All of the dollars in the whole bill, the Finance Committee bill and the Appropriations bill, total it all up--99 percent of the total bill will be spent in the first 2 years; 99 percent of the Finance Committee bill, 79 percent of the whole bill. Next question: how efficiently are those dollars spent? I have just established that most of the dollars, by far, are going to be spent in the first 2 years--by far. The next question: How efficiently? To what degree will those dollars create jobs? A day or two ago the Congressional Budget Office released a letter that discusses the effects of this bill on jobs, on job creation.”