[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 62 (Thursday, May 6, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4941-S4942]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        HOLDING UP THE FSC BILL

  Mr. REID. Madam President, I want everyone to listen. I know the best 
defense is good offense. That was learned long before I used those 
words. But that is what we have going on here today. We now have and 
have worked all week on a bill that is extremely important to this 
country. We refer to it as FSC. It is a tax bill that deals with 
corporate America.
  As we speak, corporate America is being assessed penalties as a 
result of trade sanctions that have been placed on them by the World 
Trade Organization. We are trying to work our way out of that, and we 
are very close to being able to pass a bill. But the majority, as they 
do all the time, will not let us finish the bill.
  Do you know what is holding up the FSC bill? Because the slow walk 
started last night. Four amendments. Four amendments: One by Senator 
Feingold, which basically says we should buy American products. He 
wants 5 minutes. Senator Cantwell wants to extend unemployment 
benefits, 30 minutes; Senator Frank Lautenberg wants corporations that 
have foreign subsidiaries not to do business with terrorist countries. 
It does not sound too outlandish to me. Senator Corzine wants to impose 
301 actions, which basically is called super 301, which simply says the 
President has to enforce our trade laws.
  Those are the four amendments, taking a total of an hour and 35 
minutes, the majority will not let us go forward with on this bill. 
That is it, an hour and 35 minutes. Tough votes by some. I don't know 
why it would be hard to vote ``buy America'' or extend unemployment 
benefits or say foreign subsidiaries should not do business with 
terrorist organizations or countries, and enforce our trade laws. That 
is what they are.

  But now we will hear the speeches: The Democrats are not allowing us 
to go forward with this most important--

[[Page S4942]]

they call it the JOBS bill; I will call it the JOBS bill. It is a way 
of kind of diverting our attention away from the real jobs problem, but 
it is a jobs bill. I acknowledge that. But that is what we are faced 
with here.
  The same good defense is being used offensively here because my dear 
friend, the Senator from Missouri, has come to the floor and said: The 
Democrats won't let us do our highway bill.
  I have here--and I am not going to bring out all three charts, but 
they are here--oh, I am sorry, we couldn't get them on three--there are 
four charts of the 390-plus organizations that are saying: We agree 
with the Democrats. We should not go to conference. They want $318 
billion in funding.
  Now, why don't the Democrats want to vote on this? Are we being 
partisan? Maybe we have memories. Maybe we can reflect back on what 
happened to the Energy bill. We went to conference with the Energy 
bill. We not only were not allowed to go to the conference, we did not 
know where the conference meetings were held.
  Medicare. We also remember that. We at least knew where the meetings 
were held because the Republicans told us: You can have two people. We 
asked others to come to the meeting. They closed the meetings. That is 
not what a conference is all about.
  Yes, we do have memories. And through all this: Oh, they won't let us 
do a highway bill. They are filibustering.
  If a conference were appointed 5 minutes from now, what would happen 
is what we want to happen. If a conference were appointed 5 minutes 
from now, we would have the staffs of the Senate--majority and 
minority--meet to decide what actually should be done. It would be easy 
because it is a bipartisan bill. Then we would go over and meet with 
our counterparts in the House, and the staffs would meet.
  This is a big bill. It would take weeks, at least 2 solid weeks, with 
20-hour-a-day, 6-day weeks, to get us to that point. They will not let 
us do that. The majority will not allow the staffs to meet on this 
bill. For people to say the only way to do a bill is to have this 
conference is foolishness--foolishness. We have passed lots of bills, 
in fact, scores of bills without going to conference. We have something 
we call a preconference, and it is just as I described would happen 
following the appointment of conferees.
  So we understand, if we were working with an administration like this 
that is so unreasonable, so impossible to deal with, and I were in the 
majority, and I had a President like they were dealing with, I would 
probably come out and do the same thing. It is all they can do. They 
are desperate. But we have the necessity of coming up with legislation 
that is truly legislation that is good for the country, not necessarily 
good for the President's reelection.

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