[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 72 (Wednesday, May 23, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5524-S5528]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             THE RELIEF ACT

  Mr. GRAHAM. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I voted no on the tax bill that passed the Senate. I 
recognize there are some positive provisions in that legislation. I 
will speak to two of them. One was in the area of education. There were 
a number of features which will make it easier for families to send 
their children to college, the provisions which will make it easier for 
local school districts to finance the construction of new and to 
rehabilitate older school buildings. Those are positive features. I 
also had supported the provisions that dealt with estate tax reform by 
raising the level of the exemption; that is, the amount of dollars one 
can exclude before a person calculates the estate tax obligations. By 
raising those exemptions, we have substantially diminished the number 
of Americans who will pay any estate tax.

  On the whole, I found much more that was disturbing, much more that I 
considered to be a failure of vision, than I found to be worthy in this 
legislation. I hope I am wrong. I hope the comments I am going to make 
prove to be inaccurate in the history we will write in the aftermath of 
this legislation. Frankly, my experience leads me to doubt that I will 
be wrong.
  I believe in life we are constantly forced to make choices. Those in 
politics like to avoid making choices. We are very good at telling 
people what we think they want to hear, even if the cumulative effect 
of all the things we have told the people we want is incompatible.
  For instance, most Members have told the people we want to strengthen 
Social Security. Most Members have told the people we want to 
strengthen, reform, and add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare. 
The fact is, I believe what we have just done is going to make it 
impossible to deliver on either of those commitments. I hope I am 
wrong, but I doubt it.
  I believe while what we say is not necessarily a true reflection of 
our choices, how we spend our money is a true reflection of how we will 
make our choices. I believe there was a metaphor earlier this morning. 
We had before the Senate legislation that would have provided 
substantial assistance to individual Americans and American families in 
dealing with the reality of the aging of our population. One of the 
lessons of many that we learned from the 2000 census is that America is 
getting older. I know that well from my own State where almost 19 
percent of our population is over the age of 65 and where an increasing 
percentage of our population is over the age of 85.
  Florida is a State of the future. The United States of America will 
be like Florida in another generation. Yet with the legislation that 
would have provided immediate assistance to families that were 
rendering care to an elderly grandparent, an elderly uncle or aunt, 
some loved one in the family, or to those Americans who are thinking 
about their own future and are considering the purchase of long-term 
care insurance so they will not be a burden on their children and 
grandchildren when they reach advanced age, we had a choice: We could 
have voted for an amendment that would have made a substantial 
commitment of the Federal Government to encourage and recognize those 
kinds of sacrifices, or we could have maintained for a 3-year period 
the structure of the bill which provides one-third of the tax benefits 
to 1 percent of the American people.
  We would have been asking the 1 percent of the most affluent 
Americans to have slightly deferred a portion of the benefits from this 
legislation in order to have been able to pay for substantial 
incentives for tens of millions of Americans to prepare for their today 
or future consequences of aging.
  I regret to say we chose when we made a decision today. The decision 
was, it was more important to provide that benefit for the 1 percent of 
the most wealthy Americans than it was to assist tens of millions of 
Americans to prepare for their aging families and for their own future. 
I think that is a real choice that demonstrates real values. Frankly, I 
am disappointed the Senate made such a selection of values.

  Analyzing this bill, I say it fails on three counts, which can all be 
denominated through the calendar. It failed on a long-term basis; it 
failed on a short-term basis; and it failed today.
  On a long-term basis, there is no greater challenge facing this 
Nation than the one which that amendment to which I just alluded 
represents; that is, the aging of America. When Social Security was 
established in the 1930s, for every person who was in retirement in the 
United States or was of retirement age, we had some 15 to 20 active 
people in the labor force, people who were providing the means by which 
those older Americans of the 1930s could be supported. In just a few 
years, when the large number of Americans born immediately after World 
War II reach retirement age, we will be down to fewer than four working 
Americans for every person retiring.
  We have contracts outstanding called Social Security and Medicare 
Part A hospitalization. These are contracts for which Americans are 
paying every time they get their paycheck. They look down at the 
allocation of the dollars they have just worked hard to earn and they 
see the subtractions. A big part of those subtractions of the dollars 
is taken out of every paycheck for Social Security. Another part of 
those subtractions is the part taken out of every paycheck for the 
hospitalization component of Medicare.
  Why are Americans tolerating this reduction from their immediate 
income? They are tolerating it because they have confidence in the 
contract which exists between them and the U.S. Government. That 
contract is that once they reach the age of eligibility for Social 
Security and Medicare, the services for which they are paying every 
paycheck are going to be delivered. It is going to be our challenge to 
see that those contracts are maintained.
  Today we are not in a position to say with confidence that those 
contracts will be able to be honored because both the Social Security 
trust fund and the Medicare hospitalization trust fund, by any 
actuarial standard, are seriously under water.
  We had an opportunity this year, an opportunity unique in the history 
of this country with the enormous economic growth and surpluses it has 
brought, to be able to say to the American people that for the next 
three generations we will place ourselves in a position to honor those 
contracts. From now until the year 2075, we will be in a position to 
say we have the resources, we have made the proper preparations to 
honor our contractual responsibilities. We would have started that by 
an aggressive program to pay down the national debt so that as we

[[Page S5525]]

entered the period of greater demands on Social Security and Medicare, 
we would have been in the best possible national financial position. We 
would have done it by supplementing the funds going into the Social 
Security and Medicare trust funds with a portion of the savings in 
national interest, about which Senator Hollings spoke so eloquently, 
that we are going to gain because we are paying down the national debt. 
A portion of those savings should have gone to strengthen the Social 
Security and the Medicare trust funds.
  The decision we made a few minutes ago by passing what I consider to 
be an engorged, excessive tax bill will deny us the opportunity to pay 
down the national debt as fully as we should. We will miss the mark by 
approximately $750 billion to $1 trillion in the next 10 years--what we 
could have done to have strengthened our Nation's finances. We are not 
going to be in the position to make the kind of investments for these 
trust funds for Social Security and Medicare that we should have made.

  I hope I am wrong. I hope I am unduly pessimistic. But, frankly, I 
doubt that I am.
  So we have failed the calendar in the long run. We have also failed 
the calendar in the short run.
  If there is a phrase we have heard too much of in the last few months 
and have honored too little, it is the phrase ``economic stimulus.'' 
What would happen if the economy, after a long run of booming, 
expanding economic growth, suddenly began to turn soft and unemployment 
levels reached a level we had not seen since the early 1990s?
  We all read about substantial layoffs in companies that we thought 
were invulnerable to those kinds of economic reversals. We have seen 
the stock market first decline, then come back, then generate a level 
of uncertainty, unpredictability. All those things were signals of an 
uncertain but potentially seriously declining economy. So we said: 
Let's buy an economic insurance policy. Let's not just rely on what the 
Federal Reserve Board can do with short-term interest rates. Let's 
adopt a fiscal policy that will help stimulate the economy.
  We turned to some of the best experts in the country. They said what 
the Congress could do would be to give an immediate tax cut to the 
American people, target that tax cut at those Americans who were most 
likely to spend it because the essential diagnosis of this economic 
softening is on the demand side. People are losing confidence in their 
own economic futures and therefore are less willing to make that 
downpayment for a new refrigerator, are less willing to buy a new pair 
of shoes for the children, less willing to plan for a vacation in 
Florida.
  We want to reverse those senses of insecurity and give them an 
immediate sense of confidence, both by putting more dollars in their 
pockets as well as giving them a sense that they will have a greater 
stream of funds available to them to meet their family needs into the 
future.
  So plans were developed for a serious economic stimulus right here on 
the Senate floor. We will all recall it was not very many days ago that 
we voted for an $85 billion economic stimulus in the year 2001--$85 
billion. What was the economic stimulus in the bill we just passed? 
Less than $10 billion--anemic, pathetic, not worthy of the phrase 
``economic stimulus.''
  So I hope I am wrong. I hope some of the signs we have seen in recent 
days that maybe the economy is turning around will prove to be a 
harbinger of a bright summer for America. We all hope so. But just as a 
person might hope their house doesn't burn down, that still doesn't 
keep them from buying fire insurance so, in the unlikely event it does 
burn down, they will have some dollars to start the rebuilding process.
  Mr. President, I ask for an additional 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRAHAM. We should be buying an economic insurance policy against 
the possibility that the bright summer may turn into an arid fall. In 
the short term, on the No. 1 economic issue facing America, in my 
judgment we have failed. I hope I am wrong but I doubt that I am.
  On the calendar, we failed in the long run; we failed in the short 
run; we have even failed today. This bill has too much of what I would 
call bait and switch, where you say this is what you are going to get 
done. Then when the actual product arrives it is something different.

  We have said $1.35 trillion is going to be the outer limits, outer 
perimeters of tax cuts--not for May of 2001, not even for the year 
2001, but for the next 11 years. We have just committed the totality of 
what we have said is a prudent amount of tax cuts for the next 11 
years. Yet at the same time we said that, we had over half of our 
Members willing to vote to add $50 billion more, beyond the $1.35 
trillion, in a debate earlier this morning.
  We know we are soon going to get a recommendation from the President 
and the Secretary of Defense for substantial increases in what it will 
cost to defend America. Senator McCain of Arizona spoke fulsomely about 
that yesterday. Yet no dollars are in our economic plan for that 
assured request for additional spending on national defense.
  We know we are going to have to spend some more money on Social 
Security, either the way I suggested, by paying down the debt and 
putting some of the savings of interest costs directly into the Social 
Security trust fund, or even a way I do not happen to support but at 
least it is a way, and that is to begin the process of partial 
privatization of Social Security. There is a $1 trillion cost over the 
next 10 years to implement that plan. There is no money in the budget 
plan to do either of those.
  We have had a number of areas in the Tax Code where it is clear we 
are going to have to have some additional funds. If we do nothing but 
pass the bill that has just left the Senate, we are going to increase 
the number of Americans who have to pay the alternative minimum tax 
from today's approximately 1.5 million to almost 40 million 10 years 
from now. That is not going to happen. We are going to find some way to 
moderate the effect of the alternative minimum tax, and that is likely 
to have a price tag of $200 to $300 billion. Not a penny of that is 
provided for.
  We also know there are going to be a number of extenders required. 
Extenders are tax provisions that are in the code but only for a short 
period of time. One of those we passed today, which was to provide an 
expanded deductibility for families who pay tuition for their child to 
go to college. We start it in a couple of years and then end it 3 or 4 
years later. The reality is we are not going to end it 3 or 4 years 
later. Once we commence this program of allowing deductibility of the 
cost of college tuition, which is a good idea, we are going to continue 
it. Yet we do not have the resources in this budget for that known 
reality with which we are going to contend.
  Today we are poking a very sharp stick in the eye of our fellow 
Members of this federalist system. Without any consultation, without 
any consideration of the impact that it will have on their ability to 
meet basic obligations such as to educate our children, we have just 
taken $10 billion a year out of the budgets of our 50 State partners in 
this American system of federalism. Half of that money is going to come 
out approximately beginning the first of January of the year 2002, well 
into the budget year that most States will start as of July 1 of this 
year, running until June 30 of 2002. In the case of my State, our 
Governor has indicated he is going to have to find somewhere in the 
range of $150 to $200 billion in the next period to pay for the hole we 
have just created in his budget beginning in January of 2002.
  So by the long-term calendar, the short-term calendar, or today's 
watch, this is a deficient tax bill. It is a deficient fiscal plan. I 
hope I am wrong. I hope America will be strong enough, resilient enough 
to avoid the kind of difficulties we have just given them as our legacy 
of action today.
  I hope I am wrong. But, frankly, I doubt that I am.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Capo). The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed for 10 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

[[Page S5526]]

  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, we have just passed a massive tax cut 
bill. I opposed that legislation. I opposed it because I believe it is 
fiscally irresponsible. It is not just a conclusion that I reach, but 
the New York Times said that overall it amounts to another gross 
abdication of fiscal responsibility. I wish that were not the case. I 
wish we could have passed a tax cut that I could have supported.
  I proposed a tax cut of $900 billion in the context of a budget 
resolution that would have preserved every penny of the Social Security 
surplus for Social Security, every penny of the Medicare trust fund for 
Medicare, that would have taken the remainder and divided it in thirds: 
One-third for a tax cut; one-third for high-priority domestic needs, 
including a prescription drug benefit, money to strengthen our national 
defense, and resources to improve education. And even with that 
additional funding for domestic priorities, we would have continued to 
reduce the role of the Federal Government.
  This $900 billion plan was not a tax-and-spend proposal. It would 
have continued to take down the role of the Federal Government from 18 
percent of our national income to 16.5 percent of our national income--
the lowest level of Federal spending as a share of our national income 
since 1951.
  Then, with the final third, we would have used that money to 
strengthen Social Security for the future because we know it is not 
enough just to save the Social Security trust fund money for Social 
Security. We also need additional resources to strengthen Social 
Security for what is to come because every Member in this Chamber 
knows, when the baby boomers start to retire, the story changes from 
surpluses to deficits.
  One reason I believe this bill is fiscally irresponsible is that it 
is back-end loaded. It goes from a $1.35 trillion tax cut in this 
decade to a $4 trillion tax reduction in the second decade, right at 
the time the baby boomers begin to retire.
  I predict now that what we have put in place today will not stand. It 
will not stand because it is part of an overall budget approach that 
does not add up. It is going to have to be changed.
  I opposed this bill not only because it is fiscally irresponsible, 
but because it is fundamentally unfair. The top 1 percent of income 
earners in this country, people who, on average, earn $1.1 million a 
year, get 33 percent of the benefits. Contrast that with the bottom 60 
percent of American taxpayers who get half as much. That does not 
strike me as fair.
  Additional evidence of unfairness is contained in what was done in 
the rate reductions that are part of this legislation.
  We have five income tax brackets in current law. This bill would 
reduce the rates for four of the five brackets. The one bracket that 
would get no rate relief is the bracket that applies to the vast 
majority of the American taxpayers. Seventy percent of the American 
taxpayers are in the 15-percent bracket, and they get no rate relief, 
none. I do not know how one justifies that.
  In addition to that--in addition to being fiscally irresponsible, in 
addition to being unfair--this bill flunks the test of stimulus. The 
senior Senator from Florida made the case, I think, very powerfully and 
very persuasively. We know the economy is weak now. We ought to provide 
fiscal stimulus now. Fiscal stimulus can be in the form of either tax 
reduction or expenditure. But what did we do? We have only $10 billion 
of fiscal stimulus in this year. In the Senate, we passed $85 billion 
of fiscal stimulus for this year. Somewhere the vast majority of it got 
left on the cutting room floor. It makes no economic sense. You provide 
fiscal stimulus when the economy is weak. And the economy is weak now. 
We ought to provide fiscal stimulus now. This bill does not do it.

  The final point I want to make is on the alternative minimum tax 
because currently only 1.5 million--actually somewhat less than 1.5 
million--taxpayers are affected by the alternative minimum tax. That is 
something we passed years ago to make certain the super rich did not 
avoid taxes altogether. Now we are going to see, under this 
legislation, nearly 40 million people affected by the alternative 
minimum tax.
  As I have said before, boy, are these people in for a surprise. They 
thought they were getting a tax reduction, and they are going to wake 
up and find that not only do they not get a tax reduction, they are 
getting a tax increase. Under the bill passed today more than 1 in 
every 4 taxpayers in America are going to be swept up into the 
alternative minimum tax.
  This is not going to happen. It is not going to happen because it 
cannot happen, just like much of the rest of this bill is not going to 
happen. It is not going to happen because it is part of an overall 
budget that does not add up. That is the unfortunate reality of what 
has happened today. It is part of an overall budget plan that simply 
does not pass the fiscal responsibility test. I regret that.
  I think we could have passed responsible tax reduction, tax reduction 
that is fair, that is weighted more toward middle-income people in this 
country than toward the wealthiest among us. And I want to be quick to 
say, I have nothing against those with great wealth. That is a great 
opportunity that exists in America. That is part of what makes this 
country economically strong. But when we are taking the people's money, 
we have to make judgments about where it should go.
  I do not think it is fair to take the people's money and give a third 
of what is provided for in this tax cut to people who, on average, are 
earning $1.1 million a year. That is not fair. That is not right. I 
especially do not think it is fiscally responsible to put in place a 
tax cut of this magnitude in light of the obvious flaws in the budget 
that serves as a basis for it.
  That basis is a 10-year forecast, a 10-year projection that everybody 
in this Chamber knows is not going to come true. Even the people who 
made the forecast say it is not going to come true. They wrote an 
entire chapter in the book saying there is only a 10-percent chance it 
is going to come true; a 45-percent chance it is going to be less 
money. That forecast was written 10 weeks ago, and since then the 
economy has weakened.
  This is unwise. This is not the way we ought to do business. We ought 
not to lock in a 10-year plan based on a 10-year projection whose 
makers tell us is highly unlikely to occur. It makes no sense.
  This Congress meets every year. We should have passed a more modest 
tax cut and reserved more money for long-term and short-term debt 
reduction, so we could be certain we are keeping on course to reduce 
this national debt.
  Unfortunately, the gross national debt of the United States will not 
be reduced at the end of this 10-year period. It will not be. According 
to the Congressional Budget Office, the gross debt of the United States 
is going to be increased under this 10-year plan, from $5.6 trillion 
today to $6.7 trillion 10 years from now.
  That is an increase in the gross indebtedness of the United States. 
That is not the direction we should be taking.
  We ought to have embarked on a policy not only to pay down our short-
term debt, the publicly held debt that is paid down under this 
scenario, but to pay down our long-term debt, our gross debt.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in 
morning business for 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I thank all Senators for their patience 
and for their goodwill. This has not been easy. This has been a debate 
that has been conducted under difficult circumstances. I thank 
Senators. I commend them. Some were justifiably frustrated, as I was, 
at the short time constraints of this process. But I think, by and 
large, we have conducted this debate in a dignified way, and I deeply 
appreciate that.
  I most especially thank our chairman, Senator Grassley. He has 
reached out with me to craft a very fair, bipartisan compromise. He has 
made all the difference in the world.
  I especially thank the assistant Democratic leader, Senator Reid. He 
has been at his post throughout the debate, keeping us on track. I 
deeply appreciate his fairness, his ability. We

[[Page S5527]]

were able to pass this bill fairly expeditiously in large part because 
of the efforts of the Senator from Nevada.
  Let me turn to the bill and make the case one more time. Some 
Senators might say--and they have said--that the tax cut is too large. 
With deepest respect, I say to those Senators that that issue has been 
decided in the budget resolution. I also note that we have added a 
``circuit breaker'' to this bill. This provision allows us to make 
changes to the tax cut if our budget targets are not met.
  Some will say the tax cut is unfair. I disagree. This tax cut is very 
fair. I take issue with many of the statements made on the floor. Some 
are not entirely accurate.
  In the first place, our tax cut is much more fair on a distributional 
basis than the President's proposal. But forget about the President's 
proposal for a minute and compare it with current law. If you set aside 
changes to the estate tax, which virtually every Senator supports, this 
bill is significantly more progressive than current law. Taxpayers 
earning less than $100,000 will pay a smaller share of the overall tax 
burden. Taxpayers earning more than $100,000 will pay a larger share of 
the overall tax burden. In other words, we make the income tax more 
progressive, not less. Our income tax system is made more progressive 
compared with current law, not less.

  Let me also remind Senators of some provisions of the bill that are 
very important. We create a new 10-percent bracket that replaces part 
of the 15-percent bracket in current law--the single largest piece of 
the bill. It cuts income taxes for every American who pays income 
taxes, including everyone in the 15-percent bracket, and it reduces the 
marginal rate from 15 percent to 10 percent for 19 million low-income 
taxpayers. That is a rate reduction of one-third.
  We double the child credit, and we make it partly refundable. Thirty 
million families get a higher child tax credit. For 10 million, the 
credit is refundable.
  We expand and simplify the earned income credit. This will help 4 
million low-income working families. We include a $35 billion package 
of education incentives, including a new provision that makes up to 
$5,000 worth of tuition payments deductible. We expand IRAs; we expand 
401(k)s. We create new incentives to help low-income earners save for 
retirement. We reduce the marriage penalty to the benefit of 40 million 
couples and, of course, we address the estate tax.
  Of course, this bill is not perfect, but it is balanced. It is 
bipartisan. It is good for taxpayers. It is good for working families, 
and it is good for the economy. It is good for the country.
  Now comes the conference. That is going to be difficult. We want to 
come back with a bill that is balanced and that is fair; that is, a 
bill very close to the Senate position. After all, the Senate is 50/50, 
and it is going to be difficult to come back with a conference report 
that gets at least 51 votes in the Senate. We will be more likely to 
attain that the more it adheres to the Senate position. A strong vote 
for final passage will certainly strengthen our hand, and we did 
receive a strong vote of 62 Senators.
  I respectfully ask my colleagues, especially on this side of the 
aisle, for their forbearance and for their help as we work on, and work 
to adopt, the conference report.
  I add my deepest thanks and gratitude to the people who did the real 
work; that is, our staff.
  I will begin with John Angell, who is the Democratic staff director, 
Mr. Calm and Collected, keeping things all nice and even when otherwise 
people are frenetically running here and there. That is what a good 
staff director does. Democratic staff director John Angell filled that 
bill. Mike Evans, deputy staff director, he is our ``points of order'' 
guy. He knows more about Senate rules or at least as much as the 
Parliamentarian. I might say, I deeply relied on him as we worked out 
points of order. Then there is Mr. Everything, Mr. Russ Sullivan, chief 
tax counsel. Russ knows this Code as well as anybody I can think of. He 
is out negotiating. He is advising me. He is helping put amendments 
together. He has done a heck of a job.
  Cary Pugh is our amendments maven. She was making sure all the 
amendments were worked out and in order. Pat Heck is Mr. R&D and knows 
that subject more than I care to admit. Maria Freese handled our estate 
tax matters as well as pension provisions. Mitchell Kent really has 
helped so much in crafting the child care provisions of the bill, one 
heck of a job.
  We have our Brookings fellows: Luis Rivera and Frank Rodriguez, my 
thanks to them. Our law clerks: Jonathan Selib and Todd Smith. Jonathan 
came to work for us last Monday--his baptism by fire. He has worked so 
hard, such late nights, as has everyone. My deepest thanks to them. 
They are not getting paid.

  Our office manager, Josh LeVasseur, has done a heck of a job. Josh is 
sort of our home base manager. He keeps our office organized. Our 
office assistant, Jewel Harper, is always upbeat, always cheerful. And 
our interns: Lindsay Crawford; Emilie Klein; and Annabelle Bartsch, who 
has been a numbers cruncher; she did one great job. Our ``budgeteer,'' 
Alan Cohen. Alan knows more about debts and budgets than I care to 
admit. Liz Fowler, our chief health counsel, has helped so much with 
health matters. Tom Klouda, who works on Social Security. And then, of 
course, Michael Siegel in my personal office has done a super job 
dealing with the press, and many others in my personal office.
  I also commend Senator Conrad's Budget Committee staff. Senator 
Conrad has had about six or seven staff on the floor at all times, 
probably to carry all those charts he brings over here. I don't know 
anybody who has more charts than the Senator from North Dakota. They 
have been very instructive, very helpful.
  There is the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation. They are the 
ones who really are not honored enough and do so much work. And I thank 
the entire floor staff and all the pages.
  On the other side of the aisle, I thank Kolan Davis, Mark Prater, 
Dean Zerbe, Elizabeth Paris, Ed McClellan, Diann Howland, Brig Pari, 
Leah Shimp, Jeanne Haggerty, and Gina Falconio.
  I save my greatest thanks to those who really have the hardest job of 
all; that is, our leader, Senator Daschle, Democratic leader. Senators 
from both sides of the aisle pummel him with their requests, with their 
demands, with what they want. It is an impossible job to be leader in 
this body. I thank Senator Lott as well. I have the highest regard and 
respect for the Senator from South Dakota as well as the Senator from 
Mississippi. They have done one heck of a job. I wish more Americans 
knew how hard they tried to corral and herd 100 Senators together to 
reach a result that is good for our country.
  In summary, my heartfelt thanks and gratitude for all the people who 
have worked so hard. We have other issues ahead of us, more amendments, 
more bills, but thus far, they have been just great.
  I thank, finally, my good friend from Iowa, Chuck Grassley. Many 
times I have told the world of the high regard I have for him. It is 
pretty hard to say much more. He is such a great guy. Deep down, nobody 
is more salt of the earth, a straight shooter who tells it like it is 
and is dependable, honest, and direct--making him very popular--my good 
friend, Chuck Grassley.
  I yield back the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa is recognized.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Montana for his 
kind remarks. More important, I thank him for the cooperation that has 
been going on since day 1 of this year that we have been working 
together, bringing to culmination this vote and, eventually, a 
conference report that we hope will successfully pass the Senate a 
second time and go to the President with the largest tax cut for 
working men and women in our country.
  In addition to that, this is within the tradition of how the Senate 
Finance Committee works. I think I have served in the Senate when we 
had as many as 55 Republicans and as little as 42 Republicans; and in 
any of those circumstances, the products of the Senate Finance 
Committee, whatever party controlled it, for the most part, were 
overwhelmingly bipartisan. On the other hand, if it were not that way, 
there would not be much chance of getting a bill through this body with 
100 Members of the Senate.

[[Page S5528]]

  I thank the number of people who voted for this bill on final 
passage. I am not sure I expected that large a number of votes. I 
expected a sizable number of Democrats, but many more voted than I 
anticipated. Quite frankly, I didn't expect to get every Republican 
vote, which we did in the final analysis. I thank all of my colleagues 
who voted for the bill. Those who didn't vote for it, I thank them very 
much for their cooperation in letting this come to final passage, even 
though they did not like it.
  So with passage of the RELIEF Act, I feel that struggling families 
will have more money to make ends meet. Parents and students will be 
able to more easily afford the cost of a college education. A 
successful businesswoman will be able to expand and hire more people. A 
father finally getting a good paycheck after years of work will be able 
to provide for his aging mother. A farmer won't have to worry about 
passing on to his children the family farm without selling half of the 
land, maybe, for estate taxes. The examples are endless, but the great 
benefits that we realize when we give tax relief to working men and 
women are great.

  I thank many members of the committee staff, both Republican and 
Democrat. Most of all, I think we have to thank the members of the 
Finance Committee--each one--for sitting through 10 hours of debate. 
Roughly a week ago now, we worked day and night to get that bill 
through. I thank my Finance Committee staff, Mark Prater, with me here, 
our chief tax counsel; and other tax counsels, including Ed McClellan, 
Brig Pari, Elizabeth Paris, who is here with me; Dean Zerbe, as well as 
Diann Howland. These individuals have been the workhorses of the 
committee, keeping the lights burning long into the night to make this 
final product the statutory language that it is and the perfection that 
statutory language must have.
  I also thank the entire staff support, particularly Gina Falconio, 
Leah Shimp, Jeanne Haggerty, and Carla Martin. Lastly, on my side, I 
thank Kolan Davis and Ted Totman, the committee staff director and 
deputy staff director, for riding herd on all of this work.
  This is a bipartisan bill. It would not have been possible without 
the close work and cooperation at the staff level. So as chairman of 
the committee, I have to appreciate and thank the minority staff for 
their good work, particularly Russ Sullivan, chief tax counsel; as well 
as Cary Pugh, Pat Heck, Maria Freese, Frank Rodriguez, and Mitchell 
Kent. In addition, I thank John Angell and Mike Evans for their time 
and hard work as leaders of the staff for the Democrats.
  Let me extend my thanks as well to a person who is not very public--
Lindy Paull and her staff at the Joint Committee on Taxation, who 
probably want to be known for their anonymity. They provide a great 
deal of extensive knowledge and guidance to this effort, particularly 
not only in writing but also in their analysis of the cost of 
legislation--what different policies add up to particular income into 
the Federal Treasury or less income into the Federal Treasury.
  Then I think we should not forget the Assistant Secretary for Tax 
Policy, Mark Weinberger, and his staff for their assistance because 
even though they don't have a vote on Capitol Hill, there is a lot of 
expertise at the U.S. Department of Treasury that this committee--the 
Senate Finance Committee--has on a regular basis called upon for 
analysis for their opinions, and also to some extent to give us a view 
of the executive branch of Government as one more issue in 
consideration that we ought to have.
  My thanks also goes to Jim Fransen and Mark Mathiesen and their 
capable staff and legislative counsel for taking our ideas and drafting 
them into statutory language.
  Then, finally, as Senator Baucus has done, I thank people on his side 
of the aisle who worked so hard as leaders of the Senate Finance 
Committee or Senate Budget Committee. I also believe that we would not 
be here if we had not had a successful budget resolution passed to make 
room for this third largest tax cut in 50 years, the largest tax cut in 
the last 20 years. So I thank Senator Pete Domenici and his staff 
director, Bill Hoagland, and the entire Budget Committee staff for 
their assistance. They were assistants to me during this deliberation, 
as Senator Conrad was for Senator Baucus, but also that sort of 
leadership provided the budget resolution.
  This is a historical bill for historical times, and I am honored and 
privileged to be a part of it. Once again, as Senator Baucus has said 
so often, and I have said often, I hope this spirit of bipartisanship 
continues, as it has, as a tradition in the Finance Committee through 
our leadership but will also be a standard for other work we do in the 
Finance Committee; more importantly, that it is something which is 
contagious, and that there will be closer working relationships and 
more bipartisanship between all Senators and the products of the 
Senate.
  We go to conference now, and there again we are going to have to 
produce legislation that hopefully gets the same bipartisan support 
this bill did. If it is something a little less than that, it can't be 
much less. I don't want to be gambling that we will get 51 votes when 
we come to the floor of the Senate after the negotiations are done. I 
want to make sure that when we come to the floor, we come to the floor 
in a way that, before we bring the bill up, we have bipartisanship.
  The fact is there aren't a lot of Democrats voting for this bill. We 
can't take for granted the 62 people who have voted for it already.
  I wish we could. It would make for a very easy conference. We go 
there now to negotiate with the other body. I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I congratulate my colleagues from Iowa and 
Montana for the great job they have done. It was a tremendous amount of 
work, a tremendous amount of patience. I congratulate them.

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