Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008 -- Continued

Floor Speech

CONSOLIDATED APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008--Continued -- (Senate - December 18, 2007)

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I haven't had a request on this side for many people to speak. I think I will speak for 9 or 10 minutes on my side. If people want time, I will be glad to yield time.

When we were debating the Tax Relief Act of 2005, the other side forced a series of debates on the same subject matter. We had the same debate three times, and it culminated on Groundhog Day, February 2, 2006. Despite numerous votes and debates in each round, we went through essentially the same debate and vote not once or twice but three times.

I have two charts that will remind folks of that exercise.

My first chart depicts a groundhog. For those of you who see the groundhog, you will recall that the centerpiece of that debate involved the alternative minimum tax patch. During the first groundhog debate, the bipartisan majority had to prove that we meant business on the cornerstone of that bill, which was the last AMT patch that was enacted. I am referring to the AMT patch that protected then about 15 million families, and now we are talking about protecting about 23 million families.

The bipartisan majority, I am pleased to remind everybody, stuck to our guns in conference on that bill. We made sure the AMT patch was one of the cornerstones of the conference agreement. So despite the extended debate, what we said would happen did happen.

Now, the next Groundhog Day is February 2, 2008. That is just 45 days from now. That may seem like a long time, but given recent history, I am worried. Here is why.

About 47 days ago, the two tax-writing committee chairmen, Congressman Rangel and Senator Baucus, and the ranking members, Congressman McCrery, and this Senator, wrote Secretary Paulson and acting IRS Commissioner Stiff and pledged to get an AMT patch bill to the President before the end of the year. We wrote the letter for a couple of reasons. The first reason is to spare 23 million middle-income families from an average tax increase of $2,000 per family. As everyone now agrees, this monster tax was not meant to hit 23 million middle-income families. The second reason was to assure the Secretary of the Treasury and the IRS Commissioner that we would do everything possible to minimize delays in refunds for another 27 million families and individuals, on top of the 23 million who would be hit for the first time.

After pledging to get mutually agreeable AMT patch legislation to the President in a form he could sign--that is what the letter was about--we are instead now engaged in this Groundhog Day type of exercise. We are essentially having the same debate, and we will go through the same votes the Senate went through just a couple of weeks ago. In other words, the floor debate tonight illustrates my worry that we are repeating the Groundhog Day exercise.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a copy of that letter by the two chairmen and ranking members.

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Mr. GRASSLEY. So we are not quite there yet, but the way we are going, we might not get this year's AMT patch done until the next Groundhog Day.

Let me bring up another chart to expand on this point. I have next to me the portrait of Punxsutawney Phil, that famous groundhog. In thinking of Phil and the weather report he will provide in 45 days, I also thought about the popular film entitled ``Groundhog Day.'' That movie stars Bill Murray, in which a man relives the same day--Groundhog Day--over and over and over. This film has taken on greater significance for me as I seem to be in a very similar situation. More than just a sense of the deja vu, I feel I am reliving a past experience.

We are going through the same debate we had a couple of weeks ago. We are on a different bill and the amendment has different offsets. Yet I seem to remember already having this debate.

So, Mr. President, instead of taking the next steps and focusing on what we said we would do in the letter and finding a mutually agreeable--those are words from the letter--resolution to the AMT patch, the House Democratic leadership is insisting that the Senate repeat the same debate and vote of just last week.

At 5:01 p.m., on Tuesday, December 4, 2007, we took up H.R. 3996, with the title ``Temporary Tax Relief Act of 2007.'' For several hours on Tuesday, Wednesday, and into Thursday, we debated the bill. The final vote on final passage came at 7:25 p.m., Thursday evening, December 6.

According to the Secretary of the Senate, 93 of us were here for that vote. So I must not be the only one reliving this experience.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the results of that final vote.

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, as we consider the Senate amendment to the omnibus bill, I have to ask: Why are we still here? I have to ask: Didn't we already go through this exercise? I have to ask: Aren't we finished with the Senate debate?

In the face of the urgent need to enact an AMT patch, does the House Democratic leadership want the Senate to reenact recent debates and resuscitate old talking points? Our un-offset AMT patch already passed with the support of 88 Senators.

While I believe this legislation is extremely important and we will debate it for as long as is necessary, I question the necessity of going through a process that resulted in overwhelming bipartisan passage of the same bill 2 weeks ago.

That is my first point. This is, in fact, a curious exercise. It is an exercise with no apparent purpose other than delay. Is the delay on the part of the House Democratic leadership important? Why doesn't the House send the amended House bill which cleared this Chamber by a vote of 88 to 5 to the President of the United States for signature? Because President Bush will sign it. That bill does meet--again the words from the letter of the chairman of the committee--that bill does meet the mutually agreeable criteria of the tax writers' letter. The amendment before us, just as the prior House vote, does not meet the mutually agreeable criteria that was in that letter.

Nearly all House and Senate Republicans have a problem with this amendment and its predecessor that failed in the Senate. The problem is not necessarily with the offsets themselves. Some of them might be acceptable tax policy to this Senator and others on our side. The debate and resistance on our side rests with a bigger principle. It is about accepting the notion that the unintended reach of the AMT should be permitted unless we find offsetting revenue from other taxpayers; in other words, other taxpayers being taxed to offset revenue from middle-income taxpayers who were never supposed to pay this tax in the first place. It is the use of the AMT then as an open-ended revenue-generating machine that creates problems on the Republican side of the aisle.

I am going to point to another chart to illustrate this debate. This is a chart of a very fine horse, a horse named Trigger and his rider Roy Rogers. Trigger is a fine horse, but he is dead. He is very dead. Trigger is so dead that he is stuffed and resides in a museum. This debate is the practice of beating a dead horse. It would be like tourists taking swipes at Trigger as they go through the museum. Everyone knows beating a dead horse is a waste of time, but that is what we are doing. We need to stop beating a dead horse. We need to show our good friends in the House Democratic leadership that they need to stop reviving a dead horse of an offset AMT patch. It is a dead horse. Let's stop beating it. Vote against this amendment.

After this exercise is done, then I urge my friends in the House leadership to pass the un-offset AMT patch bill we sent them several days ago, that very same bill that passed this body 88 to 5.

Think, will you, on the other side of the Capitol, think of the 23 million families that will face a tax increase of $2,000 per family if we don't get this bill to the President. Think of the 27 million families and individuals that will face even longer delays in getting their refunds next year if we don't get this bill passed, or even if we do get this bill passed, it is going to be delayed. Think of these hard-working taxpayers. Stop beating a dead horse and let's get the people's business done.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

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