Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005--Conference Report

TAX INCREASE PREVENTION AND RECONCILIATION ACT OF 2005--CONFERENCE REPORT

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Mr. DURBIN. Reserving the right to object, I thank the chairman of the committee for being so thoughtful as to include the substitute as a possible vote after cloture.

I ask the Senator if he would consider including stem cell research, which we have been waiting for for a year. Senator Frist has promised he would bring it before the Senate.

There are millions of Americans suffering from afflictions such as diabetes, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Lou Gehrig's disease, and spinal cord injuries who are counting on us. Will the chairman of the HELP Committee, as part of Health Care Week, amend his unanimous consent request to include a vote, after an adequate debate, on stem cell research?

Mr. ENZI. Our purpose is to get a vote on small business health plans of some form. You proposed a small business health plan. I proposed a small business health plan. I would like for both of them to be able to get a vote so that small business can get something out of this session.

We have already been promised there will be a debate on stem cells and a vote on stem cells. I heard some of the discussion last night about the three votes that will be taken on that issue. I am pretty sure that will be covered. It would be difficult to amend onto this bill because it is a totally different subject. We need to do something for small business. This allows your small business plan and my small business plan to be considered and to get a vote.

Mr. DURBIN. Reserving the right to object, then let me ask the chairman of the HELP Committee, since we are just 4 days away from the deadline on Medicare prescription Part D, and 6 or 7 million Americans--seniors, many of whom are in precarious physical and health conditions--have been unable or have not signed up for the program and 4 days from now will face a lifetime penalty for failing to sign up, will the chairman of the committee, understanding the critical importance and urgency of this issue, amend his unanimous consent request so that we can consider this before the deadline to make certain these seniors are held harmless and have a chance to change their plans in the next year?

He can understand if stem cell research is promised months from now, and I hope we will reach it, this is something which is time-sensitive and urgent to millions of Americans. Will the Senator amend his unanimous consent request?

Mr. ENZI. I appreciate the request and the emphasis of making a decision by Monday. I hope millions of people across the United States are using all of the different mechanisms--the volunteers, the phone numbers, the Internet--to get to a very simple result, having Medicare do the math so they can make that decision.

Deadlines are a marvelous thing. I operate on deadlines. So to do it before Monday would probably preclude a lot of people from making that decision and will give people the impression that we will move the deadline now, move the deadline next time, move the deadline next time. That won't get people signed up. We have time to move the deadline after the deadline if that seems to be a major concern--I am sure there is a major concern--but to move it beforehand and not to put the pressure on it would be a huge mistake.

That falls under the Committee on Finance, not under the HELP Committee, not under HELP, and the Finance Committee has to make those determinations to bring that forward. It would not be possible to put that in this amendment.

Again, we are trying to keep it a small business health plan so that small business can have a chance for the first time in 12 years to have something done for them.

Mr. DURBIN. Reserving the right to object, I would like to say as follows: On behalf of 9 million seniors in this country who face a lifetime penalty in 4 days because they failed to sign up for this confusing prescription Part D program that has been created by this administration, and on behalf of millions of Americans who ask me every chance they get: When will you possibly bring up this issue of stem cell research so we can have the medical research to spare people from suffering and death, and on behalf of those millions of Americans who will not have a chance during this Health Care Week to even have their issue considered by the Republican majority in the Senate, I am sorry that I must object.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.

Mr. ENZI. It would do me no good to change the unanimous consent, so we have 2 more hours of debate or have germane amendments available to your bill?

Mr. DURBIN. If the Senator is asking me a question, I have given him two other requests. There are others, such as reimportation of drugs.

This was supposed to be Health Care Week. The majority leader started with medical malpractice and then went to your bill and does not want to talk about anything else. How can we miss this opportunity? The Senator from Wyoming knows these opportunities are few and far between. If we do not seize this moment and take up these issues, we will not reach them this year and people will be left penalized and still waiting for Congress to act.

Mr. ENZI. And there is only one opportunity to talk about small business. I have been trying to expand that opportunity as much as possible. That is why I propounded this unanimous consent, so that it could be absolutely clear that both methods of taking care of small business would be done. I am sorry the other side is not willing to do that.

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, let me correct my colleague from the State of Pennsylvania who has misstated a fact which I am sure has escaped his attention; that is, on February 2, this year, there was, in fact, a vote on this Medicare prescription Part D. The vote was propounded by the Senator from Florida, Mr. Nelson. It was under the debate on the budget and needed 60 votes, but 52 Senators voted in favor, including, obviously, Republican Senators. So his statement earlier that it has never passed in the Senate is not correct.

It is correct that he voted against giving relief to seniors who failed to sign up in time on May 15. That is reflected in the RECORD. I want to make sure that is clear for the record.

I also say when it comes to this issue, we have been told repeatedly regarding this wonderful program that the seniors would figure it out and all sign up. It turns out half of them have not. It is too complicated. It is too difficult. We have been trying to give the seniors some relief from the possible penalty they will face. I don't know whether it is because of the embarrassment that the program is so complicated, but for whatever reason the Republican majority has not allowed this.

Mr. SANTORUM. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. DURBIN. I am happy to yield.

Mr. SANTORUM. Does the Senator from Illinois recall what the estimates were as to how many seniors would sign by the date of May 15?

Mr. DURBIN. Whose estimates?

Mr. SANTORUM. By the Congressional Budget Office, which scores the bill.

Mr. DURBIN. No.

Mr. SANTORUM. Between 28 and 30 million.

Does the Senator from Illinois know how many have signed up?

Mr. DURBIN. The Senator is very carefully avoiding the obvious; that is, the vast majority of seniors already have prescription drug coverage. What we are trying to do is bring into coverage those who do not have it, and more than half of them have not signed up for the program. So he is comparing numbers here that do not work.

I will reclaim my time because I would like to speak to the tax reconciliation bill. But before I do, the way to deal with this issue on small business health insurance is on behalf of the leader to sit down and decide what amendments will be in order and to move forward. But that is not the way we do business in the Senate. It is a confrontation strategy.

The Republican majority brings a bill to the Senate, fills the tree so no amendments can be offered, and then files cloture, which stops debate. So we cannot have this conversation. We cannot offer other amendments.

Why would the Republican majority leader want to avoid a vote on stem cell research? Because Members on the Republican side of the aisle up for reelection are nervous about this vote. They have said they oppose stem cell research, and they know a majority of the people in their states favor stem cell research and they do not know what to do. They want to avoid the pain. They do not want to face the votes.

I remind them what my former colleague from Oklahoma, Mike Synar, used to say: If you don't want to fight fires, don't be a firefighter. If you don't want to cast controversial votes, don't run for the Senate. That is what this is all about. You have to face the music and face the voters.

The Senator from Tennessee, the majority leader, is trying to protect and insulate his Senators from a delicate and difficult political vote. I am afraid he is going to have to answer to the millions of people across America who believe that stem cell research is critically important to a nation that counts on medical research to deal with our future.

One out of three of our children alive today will be diagnosed with diabetes. If we can do medical research with stem cells to save and spare those children, why don't we do it? We know what Parkinson's is doing to so many healthy people--cutting their lives short, compromising their ability. Alzheimer's is rampant. We have situations with Lou Gehrig's disease, spinal cord injuries.

All of these could be addressed with stem cell research. And despite the fact that the Senate majority leader has said he favors this research, he refuses to call it to the floor. That is not fair. It is not fair to the families who count on us.

If this President has decided we are going to prohibit medical research, we should have a voice in that decision. The people should have a voice in that decision through their Senators. And because the Senate majority leader wants to protect his Members from a tough vote, a controversial vote, he does not want to bring this to the floor. That is unfortunate--unfortunate for the Senate, more unfortunate for the people who count on us.

Let me tell you what we did have time to do this week. Before we left, we found time to do something critically important. We found time to make sure we are dealing with the tax cuts being proposed by the Republican majority.

What are those tax cuts worth to average Americans? Well, if you happen to make about $75,000 a year or less, they are worth $110.

Do you remember when the Republican majority said, we will solve the gasoline price crisis by sending every American a check for $100, and they were laughed out of Washington? Here they come again. Here comes the Republican tax cut for working families across America--$110. Thank you so much. It almost will buy two tankfuls of gas. That is their idea of helping working middle-income families.

But look down here on this chart. Look at the people who are making more than $1 million a year. Do you know what the tax cut is worth to them? It is $42,000. I will tell you this, there are 17,000 people in the State of Illinois, in the State I am proud to represent, who make more than $1 million a year. Do you know how many have written to me and said: ``Please, I need a tax cut for $42,000''? None. Not one. Do you know why? They are doing quite well, thank you.

Mr. President, $42,000 more a year for them is money, perhaps, for another purchase of something to make their lifestyle even more comfortable, or to put it in their savings, or put it in investment, but they do not need it to get by.

The people making $75,000 a year could use a real tax cut. But this bill that is before us has removed one of the tax provisions that would help working families across America. It is the tax provision which said that working families can deduct the cost of college education expenses for their kids. Think about that. Working families, some who have a first-generation son or daughter in a college, got a helping hand from our Tax Code to pay for the cost of college education. And you know it is going up. Kids come out of college today with more and more debt.

And to the families that want to help them, we said: We will give you a helping hand in the Tax Code. But guess what. When the Republicans met in conference, they eliminated that provision. They took out the tax cut for these working families for college education so they could put in a tax cut of $42,000 for people making $1 million a year.

Well, let me tell you what it means in real terms. When you look at the average family across America, it means the tax cut is worth $16. You could not fill up a gas tank unless you were driving, perhaps, a motorcycle. Mr. President, $16--that is the average tax cut across America.

The gentleman whose picture I have here is Mr. Lee Raymond, the retiring CEO of ExxonMobil. Do you remember his retirement gift from ExxonMobil? After totaling up the largest profits in the history of the company, they gave him--not a gold ring, not an engraved plaque--they gave him $400 million as a retirement gift for leaving ExxonMobil. And there is better news coming. This bill will give Mr. Raymond an additional $2.5 million tax cut. There is a guy who really needs it--really needs it--$400 million, and he did not even have to buy a Powerball ticket. And now the Republicans say: Come on. Give the guy a break. Give him a tax cut.

What is wrong with this picture? What is wrong with this picture is that the tax cuts are not only unfair, they are building a wall of debt. The legacy of the Bush administration will be the biggest increase in the debt of America in our history.

Look at this chart. When this President took office, our national debt ceiling was $5.8 trillion. By this year it is up to $8.6 trillion. The mortgage on America has grown faster under this President than any other President in our history, and more than a third of the responsibility is the President's tax cuts. Do you know why? He is the first President in the history of the United States of America to ever cut taxes in the midst of a war--the first.

Why didn't other Presidents cut taxes in the middle of a war? It did not make sense. Along comes a war that costs you $2 billion a week, and you are going to cut taxes? Don't you know that is going to drive your country into debt? This President should know that. Our Republican colleagues should know that. But they are ignoring it.

And as we are debating this bill, do you know why we are moving on it so fast? We got word this week that they are going to have to raise the debt ceiling again. We just raised it a few weeks ago. We are going to have to raise the mortgage on America again because the fiscal policies of the Bush administration have failed so utterly.

Well, we have time to do this. We do not have time to debate stem cell research. We do not have time to have a real Health Care Week. But we have time to pile debt on our kids. That is what this is all about.

If you want to know the foreign-held debt of America, take a look at this chart. Who are the mortgage bankers for America? Japan, No. 1, with $673 billion; China, No. 2, with $265 billion; and the list goes on. We have to borrow money from foreign countries to float our debt. They loan us money so we can keep going and give tax cuts to the wealthiest people in America, knowing full well that any of these foreign countries could turn on us tomorrow and say, ``We are sick and tired of the dollar. We are moving to the Euro or some other standard,'' and our economy would be paralyzed as a result of it.

It is the height of irresponsibility--height of irresponsibility--for us to drive this Nation so deeply into debt, particularly from a party that used to pride itself on being a fiscally conservative party. He is the first President to raise taxes in the midst of a war, giving tax cuts to the wealthiest people in this Nation, piling debt on children to the point we have never seen in our history, and borrowing money from foreign governments at a rate we have never seen.

This chart indicates that in the history of the United States, before George W. Bush was elected President, 42 other men held the Presidency. In that entire 224-year period of time, in the history of the United States, all of the previous Presidents borrowed $1.01 trillion in foreign-held debt for America--$1.01 trillion. This President, in 5 years, has borrowed $1.22 trillion. That is more than double the foreign-held debt.

Is America safer and more secure because of this? Of course not. And you know what the impact of this is. Remember the debate over Dubai Ports? More and more of these countries awash in dollars they have loaned us are now coming into the United States to invest. They are becoming a bigger part of our economy. So it is not just debt for our children; it is squandering our economic future. And that is a priority that this Republican majority wants to move to today.

When you consider who wins and who loses in Washington, it is very clear. Big oil wins with this bill, and not just Mr. Raymond who got a $2.5 million tax break. Two Senate provisions would have collected nearly $6 billion from oil and gas companies such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips. The Republican majority took them out of the bill. At a time when the oil companies are experiencing the greatest profits in their history, the Republican majority has decided this is not the time to tax them, this is not the time to ask them to give back to America. So they stripped out the tax provisions on big oil.

The lobbyists for the financial service companies did very well, too. Citigroup, GE, and JPMorgan will be able to delay paying taxes on profits they make overseas. What is it worth to them? It is worth $4.8 billion. Why are we providing tax giveaways to companies to keep their profits overseas? Why is our Tax Code rewarding conduct that ships jobs overseas? The Republican majority thinks this makes as much sense as giving tax cuts to people who make $1 million a year.

Who are the losers? Well, every American is going to end up losing because our national debt is going to grow dramatically because of this irresponsible fiscal policy.

This bill, sadly, will not allow Americans to deduct State and local sales taxes. School teachers who buy their classroom supplies have lost their deduction. Families paying college tuition will not be able to deduct the tuition from their taxes. Fewer people will be hired from welfare to work. Businesses working to do research and develop new technologies will not get the tax credits they have had. These are only some of the losers.

But the real losers are the American kids. The kids are going to have to pay for this: $2 trillion that the Bush tax cuts have added to the debt of America--$2 trillion.

Our national deficit is expected to exceed $11 trillion within 5 years. The money we are spending today is not free, no matter how much we pretend it is. Someday we are going to have to pay for it. I should say someday our children will have to pay for it.

So this President--the first in history to cut taxes in the midst of a war, the first President to amass a wall of debt larger than every other President before him when it comes to foreign debt, the first President in history to create a $9 trillion IOU for our kids to pay--is going to have his chance in a few moments with his bill that he so dearly believes in. And you will find that his party will stand behind him.

The President's popularity is not at a high point. Obviously, the Republican Senators believe the way to win the next election is to keep digging the deficit hole deeper. What we are witnessing here is not a debate about tax policy. It is the death rattle of a failed Bush economic policy.

I would say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, I admire your consistency. You stick with the program even though the debt has become unbearable. You stick with it even when conservatives in your own party can no longer explain what your party stands for. You stick with it when we are in a war that costs us $2 billion a week. You stick with it even though we have become indebted further and further to foreign countries, which, if they called in the debt, would make life miserable for this entire Nation. At least you are consistent.

Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.

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