[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 86 (Friday, June 30, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6295-S6296]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       DEATH TAX ELIMINATION ACT

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now 
turn to the estate tax repeal bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. REID. Reserving the right to object. In fact, I should object. I 
object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate 
considers the estate tax bill, it be considered under the following 
limitation: That the bill be limited to relevant amendments, with the 
following exemptions of the minority: estate taxes

[[Page S6296]]

and tuition tax deductibility; second, estate taxes and Medicare 
prescription drug benefit; third, estate taxes and long-term care tax 
credit; next, estate taxes and Medicare off budget; next, estate taxes 
and retirement savings tax incentives; and, finally, estate taxes and 
kid savings accounts; that all first-degree amendments be subject to 
relevant second-degree amendments, and that there be a time limitation 
of 1 hour for debate, equally divided in the usual form, on all 
amendments.
  I also say, just taking another brief minute, that at least one of 
our Members believes it would be appropriate that we should not be able 
to bring this estate tax legislation forward until we dispose of the 
China PNTR legislation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, Senator 
Daschle and I have been discussing this matter in the hope that we 
could work out an agreement as to how we could proceed. We had 
discussed the possibility of certainly a substitute being in order on 
the estate tax legislation. I  believe the Senator from New York, Mr. 
Moynihan, had a substitute, or others, perhaps, joining with him would 
have a substitute, and other related or germane amendments to that 
issue. We even offered the possibility of having two nongermane 
amendments on each side.

  Our problem gets to be when you go to five or six--I don't know how 
many were included in that list.
  Mr. REID. Six.
  Mr. LOTT. Plus, if you have a substitute and then you have, let's 
just say, one or two related germane amendments, then you have five 
amendments on each side--that is 10 amendments--and even if we got a 
time agreement, you are talking about 12, or more, or 14 hours, which 
would be a minimum of 2 days.
  The problem we have in July is that we now have completed six 
appropriations bills, meaning there are still seven we have to get 
done.
  I hope that, at a minimum, we get five or six more done in July 
because they are very important bills that need to get completed so 
they can get in conference with the House, so they can be sent to the 
President, so hopefully he can sign them.
  We are talking about Agriculture; Interior; Housing and Urban 
Development; Treasury-Postal Service; Commerce-State-Justice--these are 
big, important appropriations bills. We have all those we have to do in 
July--a 3-week period--plus we have to do the marriage penalty tax 
elimination.
  I think there is an overwhelming desire to get that done, on both 
sides of the aisle, although we still disagree on how to get it done. 
But the Finance Committee has reported that out in a reconciliation 
bill. And there is a desire to do the China PNTR.
  I know we don't have the time to set aside 2 whole days in the midst 
of all that for the death tax. If we could just agree to a substitute 
and germane amendments--this is a bill that passed the House 
overwhelmingly. Sixty-five Democrats voted for it. Members in the 
House, regardless of region or race or sex, voted for it. Why does the 
Senate need to get into all these other nonrelated matters?
  But I understand there are Senators on the Democratic side who wish 
to have a debate and votes on these other matters. I believe they will 
probably have an opportunity to come up on other bills before the 
session is out. But that is why I object at this time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. LOTT. Under my reservation, I yield to Senator Reid.
  Mr. REID. I say to my friend, I think what we have done these last 4 
days shows we can move through things very quickly. There were over 150 
amendments after we worked on the bill a couple days. So we probably 
resolved over 200 amendments in the Labor-HHS bill.
  But I also say, in the short time I have been in the Senate, we have 
had some tax bills with hundreds of amendments and we have been able to 
work our way through those in some way.
  As with the leader, we on this side of the aisle think there should 
be some change in the estate taxes. We want to do that. We are getting 
the same calls you are.
  But I say to my friend, we would be willing to take time agreements 
on these amendments. I am certain we could finish  the amendments in 
one good, long day. We would take time agreements on these amendments.

  On tax bills that have traditionally been brought up in the Senate, 
we have not had any restrictions on them. We will agree to have some 
restrictions, but we think this would be appropriate.
  We will be happy to have our staffs work on this during the break, 
and as soon as we get back, the two leaders can again talk about this. 
We do want to bring up the estate taxes.
  Mr. BAUCUS addressed the Chair.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, if I may respond to that, just briefly.
  After the good work that has been done, in a bipartisan way, this 
past week, and after having participated in the effort that was just 
made to complete action on the military construction appropriations 
conference report, it has restored my faith that anything is possible 
in the Senate. I hope we can continue to work to find a way to resolve 
this and get it considered other than through the cloture process. I am 
going to hold out hope until the very last minute that we can get that 
done.
  So we will continue to work. Our staffs have been exchanging 
proposals, and we will continue to do that right up until the time we 
need to begin voting, which would be, I guess, Tuesday or Wednesday of 
the week we return.
  Under my reservation, I yield to the Senator from Montana.
  Mr. BAUCUS. I thank the majority leader very much. I assure him, as a 
member of the Finance Committee, we definitely plan to take up some 
form of estate tax reform. I don't know what version it would be, but 
clearly that has to pass this year.
  In addition, however, I do believe there is one other matter that is 
even more important than estate tax reform, and that is PNTR for China. 
It far transcends appropriations bills, marriage penalty relief, 
bankruptcy reform. Getting PNTR passed in July, I think, is of such 
urgency and is so important that I am constrained to object to any 
unanimous consent request that sets the schedule for July unless it 
also includes a time when we are going to take up PNTR. I know the 
leader knows that is my view. I just hope that in working with the 
leader, we can work out some accommodation to reach that objective.

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