Judd Gregg

“ If a person has an asset, say, a home or small business or stock, they don't want to sell that asset when they are going to have to pay 30 percent or 25 percent in taxes on that sale because they don't want to have to pay all those taxes for that asset they spent their whole life building up, trying to make ends meet, trying to create a nest egg for themselves. When you put a fair capital gains rate on that sale, which is today 15 percent--which is the fair rate which was put into place by President Bush's proposals--then people are willing to go out and sell that asset. ”

“ If you bring a person who has unique talents that our nation needs and that is an adjunct to rather than a replacement for people who are already here, that creates jobs. That person is a job center.
It was interesting. We had Bill Gates testify before our committee and this is exactly what he said. Here's a guy who's probably done more to make the American economy vibrant over the last 20 years, than any other person alive. I mean, he is an individual who essentially transformed our economy and made us the leader in the world in what was the leading issue in the world, which is technology. ”

“ If we don't get on this issue of mandatory spending, we will be irresponsible as a generation. We are the generation that created this problem, the baby boom generation. We are the generation governing today. ”

“ Senior citizens disproportionately benefit from a low dividend tax rate. Why? It is logical, obviously. Most seniors are retired. If they have income, it is going to be Social Security, some pension program, or dividends, and most pension programs also involve dividends. So senior citizens are really the people who are benefitting the most from a low dividend tax rate. Yet the folks on the other side of the aisle have just passed a budget where they want to jump the tax rate on dividends by 100 percent. They want to go from a 15-percent tax rate to a 30-percent tax rate on dividends. ”

“ This concept that drugs have to actually have some flow of capital behind them to be produced because it takes so long to get them to the market, and it takes so much money to actually research them--and that is especially true in biologics and equally true in devices. It totally escapes the other side of the aisle. Their idea is, we have a good line, we have a motherhood statement, let's let people go buy the drugs somewhere else at a price that is fixed at which nobody would have ever produced the drug in the first place if that was the price. ”

“ Higher taxes, actually, in many instances reduce revenues to the Federal Government because they reduce economic activity. They certainly reduce expansion of the economy, and they reduce the creation of jobs.
Three Presidents have proved beyond any reasonable doubt when you lower income tax rates, you generate economic expansion because people are just people. They just have common sense. If they know they are going to be able to keep more of their money, they are willing to go out and work harder to get more money. ”

“ In a merit system what we should be looking for is talented people whose abilities are unique and that we need in this country. That's why there shouldn't be this strange allocation of points which makes no sense at all in the context of the purpose of a merit system. I hope that would also be changed.
So, Mr. President, on balance of the things that concern me about this bill, two of them are moving in the right direction: border security and the issue of pathway. But the things that really concern me continue to be the guest worker program and how we're going to handle the H1B issue. ”

“ There are big issues at play relative to the future of the health of Americans on the issue of importation, on the issue of negotiation and Medicare, on the issue of biologic generics, and on the issue of making sure that children are adequately tested relative to the application of drugs which are brought to the market. There are big issues relative to safety and big issues relative to whether this country remains on the cutting edge of producing products that help people and give them a better lifestyle with a biological, pharmaceutical, or medical device. ”

“ Clearly, we cannot precipitously abandon the people of Iraq or our own national interests in having a stable Iraq. So we need to look for a process which is going to allow us to proceed in an orderly way and in a way which, hopefully, can start to bring our own nation together as we try to address this most difficult issue. ”

“ Nothing in this bill goes forward, as I understand it, until that trigger is met.
And secondly, the guest worker program, there's no way that we can have an effective immigration process around here unless we take some of the pressure off the fact that we have an economy that demands people to work in this economy above and beyond what we have as a citizenry in our country today. There simply is a demand in our nation for people to come here and work. And it should be done under a guest worker program so that those folks who come here and work go back. ”

“ If you were to follow all of the proposals from the other side of the aisle, or even a significant amount of them, we would see investment in this area start to dry up. We would see a contraction of the production of pharmaceuticals that save lives, of biologics that save lives, of devices that save lives. We would see fewer and fewer of those coming to the American people and to the world because people wouldn't invest in that activity any longer, or the investments would be significantly curtailed because money would flow in other directions. ”

“ We will be in a position where our children, in order to bear the burden of those three programs, will have to pay a tax rate which will make it impossible for them to afford their own Government and will make their lifestyle significantly constrained. The pressure on them will be dramatic because the burden of taxes will exceed their ability to pay them and still maintain a quality lifestyle. ”

“ I look forward to it being a template upon which we build a broader coalition which I hope will be bipartisan, which I hope can settle out a little the differences which have so divided our nation and which will give not only the Iraqi people the opportunity to have surviving a stable government, but give ourselves the direction we need to assure our safety as we move forward in this very perilous time confronting terrorists who wish to do us harm. ”

“ When they sell that asset, what happens? Two things which are very good for the Federal Government happen. No. 1, capital gains occur so we get revenues; otherwise, we would not get those revenues because people would just sit on those assets; they are not going to sell them and pay the high tax rate. When you have a fair tax rate, they sell them, the Federal Government gets the revenues, and the second thing that happens is they take that new money they have from the sale of that asset and reinvest it. By human nature, they reinvest it in something that is more productive. ”

“ We would be back on a path toward making sure we have a government that people can afford, while we still have a government that is delivering the services that people want. That should be our bottom-line goal. ”

“ The tax law--even though we are generating a lot more revenue for the Federal Government, even though we are well over that mean number of 18.2 percent of gross national product, even though we have had jumps in revenue of 11 percent, 9 percent, 15 percent--we actually have a tax law today that is generating more revenue but is also more progressive. High-income individuals are paying more of the tax burden. Low-income people are getting more money back from the Federal Government. ”

“ Plus, unfortunately, this bill creates layer after layer of bureaucracy in addition to the bureaucracy which already exists and a cost on top of the cost that already exists, as a result of the number of amendments on this floor, which makes it more difficult to get these folks into the country. And, in addition, the bill creates a new standard which makes absolutely no sense, absolutely no sense. Which says that the skill of the individual relative to talent -- let's say it is an astrophysicist -- has to match up exactly with the job that's available. We're an incredibly fungible economy. ”

“ Believe me, if capital is disincentivized from going into these areas because they do not get a reasonable return, they will go somewhere else--they will go into developing software, into gaming, into whatever it is that happens to give them a reasonable return, into investing in some other country's activities in some area.
Capital does not flow out of goodwill into pharmaceutical production, into biologic production, into device production. ”

“ If you go on the Internet, and you purchase something through a pharmaceutical firm off the Internet, you do not know whether that product--even though it may be represented to be FDA-approved--is FDA-approved because there is no way to certify the site you are purchasing from is an FDA-approved supplier. ”

“ So by about the year 2025, because of the retirement of the baby boom generation, three programs--Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid--will absorb all the money that historically the Federal Government has spent, which means there will be no money left over for education, laying out roads, or environmental protection. ”

“ I've made the point throughout the discussion of this bill that from my standpoint, a good piece of immigration legislation has to accomplish essentially four things. The first it has to do is make the borders secure. There's no reason that we cannot secure the southern border. The northern border is a bigger problem because of its length and its topography, but the southern border can be secured. ”

“ At the low end of the income scale, the bottom 40 percent of people who have income do not basically pay income taxes. Obviously, they pay withholding taxes, but as a practical matter that segment of our society pays virtually nothing in income taxes. They get money back, in fact, on the earned-income tax credit and other benefits the Federal Government puts in place. ”

“ If you go across the border, and you buy a pharmaceutical product which is alleged to be one thing, and it turns out to be another thing, the damage it causes you is going to be economically much more significant than the savings which you may have accomplished by purchasing that drug across the border. ”

“ I think we should reject the Democratic approach under their budget of raising taxes and stay with this tax law that is raising so much new revenue and is so progressive and has such a strong benefit for senior citizens. ”

“ In addition, we should not give up an industry or undermine an industry and geniuses and creative individuals who are producing products which are saving lives and are giving people a better livelihood. ”

“ What will that do to Federal revenues, that dramatic increase in taxes? What will that do to the economy? We are not sure, but we suspect it will slow the economy dramatically. Some of these great gains that we have seen in the economy, the 22 months of expansion, the 7.4 million new jobs, may be significantly impacted by that type of a tax increase. ”

“ A lot of people are going to be hurt, and some people are going to die as a result of buying products which have not gone through FDA approval and which are not subject to FDA oversight because they are bought from a pharmacy or a provider in Canada, and that product may have come out of India or it may have come out of Afghanistan. It may have come out of Pakistan. It may be adulterated, and it may kill. The same can be said by a factor of 10 relative to purchasing on Internet pharmacies. ”

“ In addition, especially in the area of capital gains, if you have a fair capital gains rate, which is what we have today, it causes people to go out and sell an investment which they might otherwise hold on to. ”

“ More importantly, the reason I take the position I take is because I believe very strongly that America should not give up its lead in one of the industries where it is at the cutting edge and where it is producing jobs and where it is producing the intellectual capital that is going to keep us a vibrant, strong economy. ”

“ The issue, of course, is the safety and efficacy of products which Americans buy. The FDA has been given the responsibility and has executed that responsibility extraordinarily well to make sure when an American citizen buys a pharmaceutical product or a medication, it is what it says it is and it does what the doctor prescribes. ”