Jay Rockefeller: “I rise today in order to offer an amendment to restore $50 billion to the Medicare Program. This amendment restores $50…”

“I rise today in order to offer an amendment to restore $50 billion to the Medicare Program. This amendment restores $50 billion by closing corporate loopholes and by extending expired tax provisions already included in the Republican budget. Mr. President, we are back again trying to make sure that the Medicare Program is not gutted to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy. This is where we were a year ago. This is where we are again now. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have tried to dress up their budget. They are proposing all kinds of fancy maneuvers and 3 separate budget packages. They are pretending their latest budget is somehow kinder and gentler. But there is really not much new here compared to what we had last year. They lost the budget battle last year with the American public when the public realized that the drastic cuts in the Medicare and Medicaid programs were going to be used to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy. Instead of going back, as I would have thought they would have done, to the drawing board and come up with some new ideas and better health policies, they have merely changed the rhetoric.”