[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 114 (Tuesday, September 21, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9412-S9414]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CHARITABLE GIVING ACT
Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Minnesota for
yielding back his time.
Shortly, I will be making a unanimous consent request to move certain
legislation to conference, the Charitable Giving Act that passed the
House, or the CARE Act that passed in the Senate. These two bills, very
similar in nature, were passed earlier in this session, actually last
year--both were passed last year--to try to help those organizations
that are out on the front lines meeting the needs of our society. These
are nonprofit organizations across America. The President refers to
them as ``arms of compassion,'' those who meet human service needs,
those who meet educational needs, our not-for-profit sector, which are
a vitally important part of what makes America tick and what makes our
country the great envy of the world in the sense that we have such
strong communities, we have such strong voluntarism, we have such
strong commitment to our neighbor.
These community organizations have seen, particularly in light of the
decline in the stock market in the early part of this decade, with some
of the problems we have had with our economy early in the decade, the
amount of charitable giving decline. So as a result, to respond to
these pressing needs, and actually to make the Tax Code, I would say,
more equitable, we put forward a bipartisan bill offered by Senator Joe
Lieberman and me that passed 95 to 5. Support for this bill is pretty
overwhelming. In the House, it passed 408 to 13, and in the Senate it
passed 95 to 5. So there is strong support to try to help these
charitable organizations meet the needs of those in our society.
Unfortunately, we have run into a roadblock. The roadblock is there
are differences between the House and Senate bills. We would like to
sit down and work out those differences in conference and move to a
final solution to help these nonprofit organizations. We have been
blocked repeatedly on the Senate floor from appointing conferees on a
bill that is virtually noncontroversial, that has almost passed
unanimously in both Houses, different versions, but we have not been
able to do so.
On eight occasions I have come to the Senate floor and asked for
consent to do what we do as a normal course of record, which is to sit
down with the House in a conference and come up with a bill to be voted
up or down by both the House and Senate. We have had objections to it.
In fact, we have had eight objections by the Democratic leadership; 7
times Senator Reid objected, and the most recent one Senator Daschle
objected. I am going to offer another one today.
We are approaching the end of the session. We are approaching a point
where all the work that has been done on this legislation is going to
come to an end. There are 1,600 groups supporting this legislation.
There are 1,600 national nonprofit organizations that have come forward
and said: We want this to be passed.
Not only that, Senator Daschle himself said in an op-ed--which I ask
unanimous consent to have printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Rapid City Journal, Feb. 15, 2002]
Compromise Good for SD., America
(By Senator Tom Daschle)
Washington--Sept. 11 filled all of us with an overwhelming
sense of grief. But like other human tragedies, Sept. 11 also
taught us something important about ourselves. It reawakened
in Americans a sense of generosity and civic duty. There was
a heartfelt outpouring of altruism across the country as
Americans united to provide assistance to the victims of
Sept. 11.
It is important to continue building on this generous
spirit by creating living memorials to the victims of
September 11--not just in New York and Washington, but in
Sioux Falls and Rapid City, in Newell, Faith, Elk Point and
every community across South Dakota and America. We can do
this by embracing President Bush's call to build on the
important partnership between the federal government and
community-based and faith-based organizations.
President Bush has been working with Democrats and
Republicans in Congress to promote charitable giving and
encourage community and faith-based groups. On Feb. 8, the
president and a bipartisan group of Senators unveiled the
Charity Aid, Recovery and Empowerment Act--or CARE Act--that
will harness the goodwill of Americans and turn this goodwill
into good works.
I strongly support this faith-based initiative, and commend
President Bush and Sen. Joseph Lieberman for their joint
leadership on an issue that is so close to their hearts and
so important to our nation.
Community and faith-based organizations do not seek to
replace government. There will always be a need for programs
like Social Security, Medicare or Head Start. What this
proposal seeks to do is strengthen the partnership whereby
charities and government can work side-by-side to meet some
of the great unmet needs of our nation.
South Dakotans know the good works charities perform. They
have seen success stories. Sioux Falls Promise works with
community and religious leaders and educators to meet the
needs of children and young people. In Rapid City, Catholic
Social Services provides adoption services and family
counseling, while in Sioux Falls Lutheran Social Services
runs one of the best immigrant assistance programs in the
country. In other communities in our state and across the
country, religious-based charities tutor and mentor children,
give shelter to battered women and children, help young
people find jobs, and feed the hungry by running soup
kitchens and food pantries.
The bipartisan faith-based initiative announced by
President Bush will help meet unmet needs in our communities
by providing tax incentives to businesses and individuals to
give money to charities, by simplifying the process by which
charities can qualify for tax exempt status, and by providing
technical assistance for community and faith-based groups.
In the wake of Sept. 11, it will provide a framework and
incentives for Americans to take up arms against enemies here
at home, including poverty, illiteracy, hunger and
homelessness.
The CARE Act isn't a Republican or a Democratic plan. It is
a bipartisan proposal that strikes the right balance between
harnessing the best forces of faith in our public life
without infringing on the First Amendment. It reflects a
broad concept of public service and builds on programs
sponsored by presidents from John F. Kennedy to President
Bush's own father. Most importantly, it is representative of
what we can accomplish in Washington when we put partisanship
and politics aside and focus on what matters. I
[[Page S9413]]
look forward to working with President Bush to get this
proposal signed into law.
Mr. SANTORUM. He said himself to the Rapid City Journal in an op-ed
in South Dakota, talking about how good legislation this was:
The CARE Act isn't a Republican or Democratic plan. It is a
bipartisan proposal that strikes the right balance between
harnessing the best forces of faith in our public life
without infringing on the First Amendment . . . I look
forward to working with President Bush to get this proposal
signed into law.
It is nice that the Democratic leader said that he is looking forward
to it being signed into law, but he has done everything to stop it from
actually becoming law by standing up and objecting to this legislation
going to the conference committee so we can work out differences.
Many of those differences are going to be tough to work out. I will
admit, some of the funding issues for social service block grant funds,
some of the issues with respect to how much tax relief we are going to
give to those who contribute to nonprofits, are going to be difficult
issues to deal with, and there are going to be compromises that are
going to be needed. There are going to be some things that Republicans
are not going to be happy with in this compromise. There are going to
be some things that Democrats are not going to be happy with in the
compromise. But we need a vehicle to be able to sit down and work out
these differences because people are not going to be able to get the
benefits of this legislation, and they are profound benefits, unless we
act.
Just to go through very quickly what the benefits are, there is a
provision to encourage food donations. This is a very important part of
meeting the needs of the hungry in America. Yes, we have Federal
dollars that go for that purpose, but as my colleagues know, the vast
majority of the food that is distributed through food pantries, soup
kitchens, or missions comes from private donations. That is where the
vast majority of the food comes from.
Yes, we do provide some Federal assistance to America's Second
Harvest, to other organizations, but the vast majority comes from
donations. There is an area of the law that candidly does not
encourage, because of the Tax Code, some purveyors of food to give
their surplus food for the hungry in America. So we changed that
provision of the law. We believe--not we--America's Second Harvest
believes that 878 million meals will be provided, as a result of this
provision, for hungry Americans over the next 10 years. This is not a
small amount. This is not a minor, trivial matter.
For those who care about hunger in America, and as someone who was a
sponsor of the bill in the Senate that passed, the Good Samaritan Food
Donation Act, I care a lot about America's Second Harvest and others
who have the food necessary to be able to meet the needs of the hungry
in America.
Individual development accounts--Senator Lieberman, Senator
Feinstein, myself, and others have been working on this for years to
try to help low-income Americans have the opportunity to accumulate
wealth, to have savings and investment, to help them to get a college
education, to get a GED, or to have the opportunity to own a home or to
start a business, 300,000 matched savings accounts, matched with
Government and private dollars to help low-income individuals save, to
build wealth.
We have heard the President talk about an ownership society. This is
a very important part of that ownership society in this bill. There is
$2 billion of educational resources through what is called an IRA
charitable rollover. People have IRAs, and some people who have IRAs
candidly have a lot of money, and they do not need that money for
retirement. If they want to give it to a charity, they are heavily
penalized if they do. This will allow them to roll over their IRA. The
biggest beneficiaries of this approximately $3 billion that we believe
will be contributed will be educational institutions. Colleges,
universities, private schools, maybe charter schools, and other
educational institutions will benefit from this provision, and that is
why all of the public universities and private universities in the
country are for this provision and believe it can be a great help to
educating our children and keeping the cost of education down.
Eighty-six million lower and middle-income Americans will benefit
from the nonitemized deduction. What does that mean? Two-thirds of
Americans do not itemize, period. They fill out the short form, the
1040EZ. We have a certified public accountant in the Chair, and he can
explain this better than I can, but I will do my best.
Right now, if someone is one of these two-thirds of Americans who
contribute to their church, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, they
cannot deduct the contribution that they made; whereas, if one
itemizes, they can. So what we are trying to do is to provide some
encouragement for people who do not have complex tax forms to give
money to these organizations. That is what this nonitemized deduction
for charitable giving is about. Eighty-six million lower- and middle-
income Americans will do that, and it will be billions of dollars in
increased donations as a result of it.
As Joe Lieberman said--we had a press conference recently--what is
left in this bill is all good. There is nothing bad. There is nothing
controversial or that would be disagreed upon. There is disagreement on
how to pay for this. There is disagreement on how much of this we want
to do. There is disagreement as to how much we are going to have in
direct Government assistance to nonprofit organizations, social service
block grant funds. All of that is a controversy, but all of it is an
argument on how much good we want to do, or how the focus should be.
The idea that we cannot get a discussion on how we can help those in
need in our society, how we can help those organizations that want to
help those in need, and get that into a form in which we can resolve
these differences and come to a solution, to me, is very discouraging.
I have met with Senator Daschle from South Dakota. I have asked him
to allow us to go to conference, and the Senator from South Dakota
basically said: You have to agree before we go to conference to
everything I want in this bill. If you don't agree with everything I
want in this bill, then you can't go to conference.
What is the point of conference? If we have to do exactly what the
Senator from South Dakota wants, to write this bill exactly how he
wants it or we can't get a bill, that is hardly the kind of bipartisan
cooperation that we have seen in getting this bill to the point it is
right now. This is not the way legislating works. It is not my way or
the highway from the minority. It is not my way or the highway to the
American people, who would like to see some help for those in need in
our society. You either do it the way I want to as the Democratic
leader of the minority in the Senate, not the way the President would
like to do it, nor the way the House would like to do it, nor how the
Senate majority would like to do it, but how the Senator from South
Dakota would like to do it himself. That, to me, is not bipartisanship.
That is not reaching across the aisle to make things happen in a
positive direction for an area in the country that is in need.
I am willing to compromise. I have said to the Senator--in fact, I
said to the Senator from South Dakota that I am willing to make
reductions in areas of this bill that I care most about, and I am
willing to give in areas that I care probably less about. I am willing
to make that compromise, but it is not all or nothing. It can't be all
or nothing. That is what we are being told. To me, that is an insult to
the very people we are attempting to help and certainly not in keeping
with the comments of the Senator from South Dakota that he made in
Rapid City. I understand how he would say those things in South Dakota.
But here in Washington, DC, it is a very different story. It is not a
story that says to those who are not-for-profit organizations that want
to help, that need these resources and are in need, to not come and
apply because we are going to deal with you exactly how this bill is
going to be written.
This bill has been written in more of a bipartisan fashion than any
bill I have ever been involved with in the Senate or in the House where
I served. This is all good, the Senator from Connecticut said.
[[Page S9414]]
I am hopeful we will have an opportunity to place this good
legislation in a situation where we can forge a compromise that will
give us not everything I want, not everything the Senator from
Connecticut wants, not everything the Representative in the House who
is leading the effort on the House side wants, not what others want,
but that we can arrive at a compromise in a bipartisan way to allow
this bill to provide remedies for the needs of our society by getting
this bill passed and signed into law.
Unanimous-Consent Request--H.R. 7
I ask unanimous consent that the Finance Committee be discharged from
further consideration of H.R. 7, the charitable giving bill, and the
Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.
I further ask unanimous consent that all after the enacting clause be
stricken, that the substitute amendment, which is the text of S. 476,
the Senate-passed version of the charitable giving bill, be agreed to;
that the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, the motion
to reconsider be laid upon the table; further, that the Senate insist
on its amendment and request a conference with the House; that the
Chair be authorized to appoint conferees with a ratio of 3 to 2; and
that any statements to the bill be printed in the Record.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
Mr. REID. Objection.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, if I can conclude and then I would be
happy to let the Senator speak, I will submit for the Record a letter
from Senator Lieberman and I to the conferees on the FSC/ETI bill. We
believe this is an important enough measure that we should pass it this
year. If we are not able to go to conference and work out differences,
Senator Lieberman and I may ask the conferees on this tax bill to
please consider the Charitable Giving Act as part of the FSC/ETI
conference. I hope if this is not the vehicle, we can get it to
conference another way.
I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC, July 22, 2004.
Dear Conferees: We are writing on behalf of the charitable
community, large and small, across this country seeking to
aid families and better their neighborhoods and communities
by helping those in need. As you know, both the Senate and
the House of Representatives have passed legislation in this
Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support that provides
significant additional incentives for charitable giving
around the country and additional resources for efforts to
help those in need including innovative Individual
Development Accounts (IDAs), increased Social Services Block
Grant (SSBG) funding, and the Compassion Capital Fund. The
Charity Aid, Recovery, and Empowerment Act (CARE) passed the
Senate on April 9, 2003, by a vote of 95-5. The House of
Representatives passed companion legislation, the Charitable
Giving Act, on September 17, 2003, by a vote of 408-13.
Since both the Senate and the House have strongly supported
charitable incentives, and since both the Senate and House
FSC-ETI (JOBS) bills include charitable reforms which limit
existing practices, inclusion of a package of charitable
incentives in the FSC-ETI conference is appropriate and
within the scope of the conference for this Congress.
Furthermore, we believe that any revenue raised through
constructive reforms impacting charities should be dedicated
to expanding charitable giving incentives in order to help
those in need.
We strongly urge the conferees to work with the many
sponsors and supporters of the CARE Act in the Senate and the
Charitable Giving Act in the House to include the significant
provisions shared by both bills and full and fair
consideration of those that differ--for the benefit of all
Americans. The time has come to expand the tools of
generosity and increase resources for those in need in a
bipartisan fashion.
Thank you for your consideration of this request. We look
forward to working with you in this important effort.
Sincerely,
Rick Santorum,
Joseph Lieberman,
U.S. Senators.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I just came to the floor after having
presented an award to Senator Gordon Smith. The Suicide Prevention
National Organization gave him an award, which is the No. 1 award that
this organization can present. Gordon Smith's son took his own life at
age 22. We passed in the Senate in recent days--in fact, on Garrett
Smith's birthday--the Garrett Smith Suicide Prevention Act.
The reason I mention that is that matter was passed and is going to
become law. The President will sign it any day.
As a result of what I suggest to my friend from Pennsylvania happened
in this instance, we are not objecting to the passage of this bill. We
have never objected to the passage of this bill. We are simply saying
that it be handled in the way the Garrett Smith legislation passed, and
let the House take whatever action on it and we bring it back. If we
like what they have done, we will take it; if not, we will amend it and
send it back to them.
We have had numerous bills enacted into law without using a
conference to negotiate differences between the House and the Senate. I
say numerous; I don't say several. I say numerous. I have not counted
these, but I assume there are about 100 pieces of legislation.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Santorum). The time is under the control
of the Senator from Wyoming.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to
speak in response to the Senator from Pennsylvania for up to 10
minutes. I will be happy if the Senator wants me to speak afterwards,
whatever he wants me to do. I know we have a recess to take place at
12:30. I want to give fairness, and I should have the opportunity to
respond.
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, the Senator from Nevada may wish to speak
after I speak. I will be covering some of the same ground. I will be
making a unanimous consent request.
Mr. REID. Would the Senator allow me to respond to him and Senator
Santorum's unanimous consent request following his statement?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, if there is
to be an agreement soon, I would like to be a part of that agreement. I
would like to offer a unanimous consent request to set a date for a
vote on the reimportation of prescription drugs. If we reach an
agreement, I would like to be a part of that so I can offer a unanimous
consent request that the Senate be able to consider that issue.
Mr. ENZI. I am going to object to giving some leeway to the Senator
from Nevada to give some kind of response because we are going to be
asking unanimous consent. But I have listened for the last 2\1/2\ hours
to comments from the other side that I have not been able to respond
to. To give unlimited additional time to the other side to again make
comments that we obviously would like to comment on, too, isn't
reasonable at this point in time. We are already into the time of the
policy meetings, so we are extending beyond that time. We are having to
take that time in order to use our allotted time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Wyoming.
____________________