Political Quotes

On the recordApril 5, 2011
I am compelled to answer because now I hear about fraud and $25 billion. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot say this amendment costs money--what the Joint Committee on Taxation said is it could not determine a revenue score. And it is important to point out that this amendment does not spend an additional dime. And the only reason--the only reason--this amendment would have a revenue effect would be if the offset increases health insurance costs or cuts coverage for small businesses. Otherwise, there is no issue. So you can't have it both ways. Either there is an admission that it is going to cost small businesses more, cost taxpayers more, or it is not. That is No. 1. No. 2, this is not about fraud. This is not about someone seeking something they did not have the right to receive. Fraud is individuals who are deliberately underreporting their income or fraudulently trying to get extra support. That is not what we do. Those enforcement provisions in the law to combat fraud and abuse are untouched by my amendment. This is simply about someone who honestly got a subsidy. And we have a provision in the law that deals with how they pay back, but it doesn't throw them over the cliff and send them a surprise $10,000 tax bill. So that is simply not exactly quite the same thing. Yes, the doc fix--we did use a provision to deal with the SGR with the doc fix, but we did not put small businesses and families at harm, as H.R. 4 does.…
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Bob Menendez
Democratic · New Jersey

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