Temporary Tax Relief Act of 2007--Motion to Proceed --

Floor Speech

TEMPORARY TAX RELIEF ACT OF 2007--MOTION TO PROCEED -- (Senate - December 06, 2007)

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I am not without sympathy for the position argued by the distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee. I think the list of horribles he has recounted by the fact that the AMT is not indexed and will cover up to roughly, I believe the figure is now, 23 million taxpayers unless we act--I am not without sympathy for what he is trying to do here. But the problem is, we are not going to agree on this side to raise taxes against the American people in order to pay for a tax cut for others. It is simply that clear. We are not going to agree to raising taxes, particularly at a fragile time for the economy, by what some have estimated would be $80 billion a year.

I believe three simple principles will help us find a solution. One is that we ought to protect the middle class from the rise of the AMT which President Clinton vetoed a full repeal of in 1999. I wish he had not done that then. That would have protected us from where we are today. We ought to pass the expiring tax provisions, the so-called tax extenders for capital gains and dividend rates and other tax relief which have contributed to 50 months of continuous and uninterrupted job growth since tax extenders relief was passed in 2003. We ought to do both without raising taxes on the American people.

Unfortunately, we know a tax increase is like throwing a wet blanket on the American economy. The AMT, if we don't act, will hit about 870,000 of my constituents, up from 150,000 now. It sounds to me as if the distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee is sympathetic to the direction we would like to move that this bill, unfortunately, does not represent. But as long as we are presented with a choice of cutting the AMT by raising taxes, I don't believe we are going to see any progress.

I yield the floor.

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