[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.
____________________