[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 104 (Tuesday, August 1, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8478-S8482]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
LEGISLATIVE AGENDA
Mr. REID. Mr. President, my friend, the distinguished majority
leader, has laid out a program for the Senate to follow this week. As
outlined by my friend, it is Alice in Wonderland. He talks about
Congress and the Senate being a deliberative body, as well as it should
be, and it has not been in recent years because of the Republicans'
desire to do as little as possible.
Take, for example, my friend's statement about pensions. Last Friday,
conference was agreed upon--working for months and months to come up
with an agreement that affects 45 million Americans. It is so
important. We talked a lot about the airlines. That is important to the
airlines, but a lot of other companies also benefit from this.
The conference was agreed to. The Democrats and Republicans were
ready to sign. I wasn't there. I don't know who walked in, whether it
was the Senator from Tennessee or the chairman of the Ways and Means
Committee, but someone said, no, we are not going to agree to the
conference. Even though you have agreed on it, we are stripping all the
extenders from this. The conference, in effect, is over.
Now to come to the Senate and say it is a take-it-or-leave it deal is
a little hard to comprehend. We have a freestanding bill. If we want to
be the Senate, as we are supposed to be, it is subject to amendment. A
conference report is not. The pension thing was all worked out until
the Republican majority decided they had to get back to the road to
legislative heaven, and the only road to legislative heaven in this
Republican-dominated Congress is to repeal the estate tax. So the
conference report affecting 45 million people was thrown in the garbage
to take care of 81 people, the richest people in America. That is what
this is all about.
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The minimum wage they bring to the Senate is a travesty. The State of
Nevada is an example. Everyone knows Las Vegas and Reno are based on
tourism. Thousands and thousands of people work in Reno and Las Vegas
for tips. In Nevada, those tips are not counted against your minimum
wage. It is the same in six other States: California, Montana,
Washington, Oregon, and Minnesota. Tourism is a big deal and the State
legislatures there did not want minimum wage to be counted against
their tips. Where are the States rights we hear so much about from our
friends on the majority side? They wiped this out with the bill they
sent to the Senate.
If this minimum wage passed, it would be a disservice and an unfair
statement to the people of Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Montana,
California, and Minnesota. To think we have a minimum wage package that
is good is a joke, an absolute joke. It is spread out over a longer
period of time and it penalizes seven States.
Right now, as we speak, people are being killed in Iraq. Our soldiers
are being killed in Iraq. It is nighttime in Iraq. They have not
finished the body count as to the deaths that occurred in the last 24
hours. Well over 100 Iraqis have been murdered or killed one way or the
other by the sectarian violence. We have been told by our military
commanders, and they have sent a letter to the President of the United
States, saying they need $17 billion yesterday. They want an emergency
supplemental to take care of the equipment our soldiers are using in
Iraq. The President has kept that in his bottom drawer someplace. It
has not come to the Senate. I am sure he will wait until after the
fiscal year has ended, as he has done in the past. Iraq is not part of
his normal budget even though the war is going into the fifth year.
Shouldn't we be working on that, rather than the Republicans'
domination of time in this Senate with the estate tax repeal? We have
spent more time on the estate tax than any other issue. It shows the
difference between the two parties. We are concerned about the poorest
of the poor; they are concerned about the richest of the rich. The rich
in America are getting richer--all the statistics show that--the poor
are getting poorer, and the middle class is being squeezed. For the
Republican leader to come to the Senate and say this is a take-it-or-
leave package, you take the estate tax repeal--and it has these other
little goodies they have stuck in it--take it or leave it, and as soon
as we finish that, you can take or leave the pension bill that was once
resolved Friday until they had to get back on the road to legislative
heaven with the estate tax repeal--to say that is a take it or leave it
is truly Alice in Wonderland. This is not the Senate.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I will briefly respond on a couple of
issues. Things have moved very quickly and, as the Democratic leader
knows, not as anticipated exactly as of midpoint last week for all
sorts of different reasons--in part because of the House departure--and
things have changed. I am very certain at this juncture the choices
laid out before the Senate are appropriate choices, that each Senator
will be able to come to the Senate and express in what direction they
want to go.
The distinguished Democratic leader says that extenders were stripped
out of the pension bill. Let's be very clear that the pension bill that
passed the House of Representatives did not have tax policy extenders
in it; the pension bill that passed the Senate did not have the tax
extenders policy in it. So it is a little bit hard to strip out
extenders from a pension bill that did not exist in a Senate or House
bill.
My distinguished colleague mentioned the pension bill. Things are
going well in conference on the pension bill. I argue that on the
pension bill they continue, even through all the other disagreements on
the pension issue itself, to go very well. The decisions were made on
the substance of the pension bill, with Democratic Senators in the room
and Republican Senators in the room, both in discussion throughout. I
am very comfortable with the pension bill in the nature of the
conference. But where the conference broke down is on the other issues,
the tax extenders that were not in either pension bill.
Repealing the death tax, the third issue that the distinguished
leader mentioned, I make it clear it is an important issue. I think the
tax is wrong, it is unsafe, it discourages savings and investment, it
punishes farmers and small business people in this country. We have
legitimate disagreement about that. I feel strongly about that. Yes, I
think the whole tax should be thrown away. It should be buried forever.
However, we came to the Senate floor and could not get 60 votes. We got
55 votes, including the ranking member on the Committee on Finance who
said it is important to bury that death tax forever.
But in the best spirit of compromise, we understand that right now
this Senate will not repeal it forever and, therefore, after a lot of
discussion between both sides of the aisle, we have come back with a
compromise that basically is not a total repeal, but it does prevent
the death tax rate from rising, after it disappears 1 year, from up to
55 percent in 1 year with the exemption dropping down to $1 million. It
gives a permanent solution. The details of that, as mentioned
yesterday--and I am sure people will talk about it today--it is a fair
compromise, and a permanent solution with some certainty for people,
for the farmers, for the small business people out there today.
Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. FRIST. Let me finish responding to my distinguished colleague.
The minimum wage that he called ``a joke,'' that we put in the
trifecta bill, or the House put in the trifecta bill, which we will be
voting on on Friday, to call a minimum wage that, it is their No. 1
issue. I have made it clear, again and again, going to the other side,
What are your issues? The No. 1 issue from that side of the aisle is to
increase the minimum wage, again and again and again.
To have this opportunity now to take their No. 1 issue, with the
issue that is very important to us, that focuses on small business and
farms, and take their No. 1 issue and put them together, to me is in
the best spirit of this Senate. I would not call it a joke when you
increase the minimum wage today from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 an hour.
Yes, it is over 36 months. Yes, we do include the minimum wage tip
credit which we feel is very important to small businesses. Yes, there
is relief for small businesses who might say out there, we cannot
afford this increase in minimum wage in the tax extenders package where
we have a 15-year depreciation to give some help to those people who
might be affected by increasing the minimum wage in a detrimental way,
but I would not call it a joke. It is their No. 1 issue. To put it
together in one bill that we can take forward, to me, is in the great
spirit of coming together in this Senate.
We come to the fifth item the Democratic leader mentioned, ``other
issues'' that we are not concentrating on. Again, if you look at this
month, we look at the infrastructure in this country, we passed the
Water Resources Development Act, a bill very important to our waterways
and support of the infrastructure to promote economic growth. The
Energy bill we will be voting on today we have spent a lot of time on,
but it has the potential for putting a billion barrels of oil not
available today out on the markets, 5.6 trillion cubic feet of natural
gas which is not available today. If you talk to farmers, the high
price of natural gas today drives up that cost of fertilizer, so it is
important that we will deliver on that today.
I mentioned earlier issues I know the other side diminishes in
importance, but that child custody bill that does address issues
around, yes, the sanctity of life, but what State laws say in people
trying to circumvent the State laws with regard to parental consent and
abortion passed this Senate. The Adam Walsh Sex Offenders National
Registry bill addressed a real problem in this country. We have 100,000
sex offenders circulating and we do not know where they are today. We
addressed that in the Senate last week.
We continue to address the issues important to real people right now
with regard to their cost of living, to hopefully lower natural gas
prices in the Senate today, to address the values they care about when
you talk about parental consent for abortion, people trying to
circumvent those laws, and
[[Page S8480]]
sexual predators; or when you talk about the infrastructure of our
waterways and our waterway development, again, which promotes economic
growth. I would be hard pressed to say we are not addressing the issues
that mean something to the average, hard-working taxpayer out there
today.
Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. FRIST. I am happy to.
Mr. DURBIN. I would ask the majority leader, since he called for the
complete repeal of the estate tax, when President Bush took office, our
national debt was about $5 trillion; now it is nearing $9 trillion. In
6 years it has gone from $5 trillion to $9 trillion. What you have
proposed in the Senate will add at least $1 trillion more to the
national debt. Is there any limit to the amount of debt you would leave
to future generations to give tax breaks to wealthy people?
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I think the misrepresentation of the issue
we are going to be voting on, on Friday, that has just been made by the
assistant Democratic leader needs to be addressed.
Right now, the bill, according to the Congressional Budget Office, is
around--the cost of this death tax permanent fix--is around $267
billion; again, not the $1 trillion that has been laid out. And the
issues of the dollars and the cents we can argue. What we start with,
though, is the individual out there, who is running that farm, who is
running that small business, who has been taxed again and again and
again, is actually taxed on their death for a second time, a third
time, a fourth time, and it is just wrong. I would argue it is wrong
whatever the price is, although the price is about a quarter of the
figure he put forward. It is important for us to act on what is right
and what is wrong. That is why, on this Friday, we will be doing just
that.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, will the majority leader yield for a
question?
Mr. FRIST. I will be happy to yield.
Mr. GREGG. Just to clarify the numbers, because I do think the
assistant Democratic leader has thrown a bit of a straw dog out there
in his numbers, as to the death tax, as it is presently structured
under today's law, the exemption is about $2 million. If we do not put
in place this change in the death tax, the exemption will go back to $1
million. The tax rate on dollars over the $2 million today goes up to
about 46 percent, I believe. If we do not put in place this change, the
tax rate would go up to 60 percent on everything over $1 million,
potentially.
What the proposal before us will be is to raise the $2 million limit
up to $3.5 million, or an increase of $1.5 million, which is basically
a small family restaurant or a small family farm or a small family
business. It is not to repeal the tax; it simply is to say to people
who have small businesses: You will not be wiped out. Your family won't
be wiped out by estate taxes which would be 60 percent of the value of
that business over $1 million, potentially. Is that not true?
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, that is absolutely true. And I think as we
enter this debate over the course of the week, with a lot of these
straw men that are being thrown out, we will have the opportunity to
talk about and address the reality of what the costs would be. I think
that is important. We have to address that. Our fiscal responsibility
has to be there--but ultimately how it affects that individual farmer,
who is out there, who dies, and has saved, has invested, has grown that
farm or that small business, and has already paid taxes on what they
produced, and to be able to pass that on to their children--again, not
totally free because we have certain limits. Although I would argue we
ought to repeal it totally, that is not what is on the floor. The
compromise is on the floor.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, if the majority leader would yield further,
there is no total repeal; is that not correct? What is happening is the
tax is being reformed to reflect the fact there has been an increase in
value in assets for especially small businesspeople, especially small
farmers, and we are trying to protect those families from having their
businesses wiped out. So the first $3.5 million, no, there would not be
a tax, but over that there would be a tax?
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, that is exactly right. What is important is
the permanent solution. Right now, it is absurd to think we almost have
to have three types of planning for when you die: over the next 3
years, as these prices come down; and then total elimination for a
year; and then jump back up to a rate of, as my distinguished colleague
from New Hampshire said, as high as 60 percent in 1 year, with that
exemption falling back down to $1 million.
So what we propose, what we will be voting on now--and then that is
it, that is it for this year--is a permanent solution to give certainty
so people will know what the laws are, what the taxes will be, and
clearly relieve most of the incentive that discourages savings and
investment.
Mr. GREGG. If the majority leader will yield for one or two more
questions. I would also ask, on this minimum wage issue, which the
Democratic leader has dismissed as irrelevant or ineffective, by my
calculation, a $2.15 increase--I believe that is what it is; maybe it
is 10 cents--on a $5 basis is about a 40-percent increase. That is not
an insignificant increase in the minimum wage, to raise it by 40
percent, is it?
Mr. FRIST. It is not. It is either a percentage or the amount $2.10
for every hour you are working if we pass it this week. It is the law
of the land, by the way, if we pass it this week as it is written. We
are talking about a 2.10 absolute. But also it is a percentage
increase. It is huge. Everybody needs to realize, right now this is
going to be the law of the land. The House has already passed it. If we
pass it, it is. That will go up, as both that percentage as well as
that amount, $2.10. For every hour you are working, you are going to be
getting more money.
Mr. GREGG. If the majority leader will yield for one more question
relative to the budget issues here. We have heard from the other side,
almost interminably, about the need for pay-go and to live by pay-go.
Is it not true that these tax cuts within this proposal meet the pay-go
scorecard?
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, absolutely. And this has been very
carefully crafted to make sure we do meet those criteria. The real
beauty of what is on the table--again, it is three different bills, but
each has been addressed very carefully, such as pay-go, such as
addressing the No. 1 issue from the Democrats on the minimum wage,
adding the tax extenders. We have not talked very much about those, but
it includes everything from State and local sales tax deductions to the
research and development tax credit, which is simplified and extended--
absolutely critical, as we hear from the high-tech people across this
country in terms of investing for the future to create jobs. The
college tuition deduction is in there; the work opportunity tax credit;
the welfare-to-work tax credit; the depreciation for restaurants in 15
years; the timber capital gains; the mine safety tax incentives; the
teachers' classroom expenses deduction; combat pay applies to EITC; the
gulf opportunity zone--that is, the Katrina tax credits. That is what
we will be voting on today: the permanent death tax relief, the
extension of the tax relief, and the minimum wage increase.
Mr. McCONNELL. Will the leader yield for another question?
Mr. FRIST. I will be happy to.
Mr. McCONNELL. Does the leader share my view that one of the things
we hear the most from our constituents as we go about the country is:
Why can't you people in the Senate do things on a bipartisan basis? And
I heard the leader indicate earlier that we obviously have bipartisan
support for the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, we have bipartisan
support for the tax extenders, bipartisan support for the minimum wage,
and, yes, bipartisan support for a permanent reduction in the death
tax.
Why in the world--with bipartisan support for all of these three
measures which the leader has put on the agenda for the last week
before the August break--why in the world shouldn't we come together on
a bipartisan basis and do something together that would be
overwhelmingly popular with the American people? We have seen the poll
data on the death tax. Even after Americans understand it does not
apply to them, they hate the tax and despise it because they think they
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shouldn't have to visit the IRS and the undertaker on the last day. And
we are not even, as the Senator from New Hampshire pointed out,
permanently repealing it, which would be our first choice but, rather,
getting a permanent reduction. The minimum wage is overwhelmingly
approved, and we have taken Senator Kennedy's figures. What part of
``yes'' do our friends on the other side not understand?
So I would just ask my friend, the majority leader, if he can think
of any rationale why the Senate, any reason why the Senate should not
come together--with bipartisan support existing for all of these
measures--this week and have one of the Senate's finest moments,
operating on a bipartisan basis to do some series of things that are
important for America?
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I would just very briefly respond that my
distinguished colleague from Kentucky really captures the point. Not
only is it bipartisan support, but it is bipartisan majority support
for each of these. Remember, for a total repeal, we got, in essence, 55
votes--for total repeal--and we are coming back with the compromise.
The extension of the tax relief and the long list I went through are
issues we have addressed before, and we are extending them because they
are so popular in terms of bipartisan support. And the minimum wage
increase is an issue that has bipartisan majority support.
Each of these issues has been addressed in some shape or form. I am
sure some people would come back and say we need to spend more time and
let's put it off until September and let's delay. Each of these issues
we have addressed. And there has been an appropriate compromise that is
being brought forth that people will be voting on this Friday.
So I think it does capture, potentially, if we continue to work in a
bipartisan way, the very best of what this body is all about. And it is
compromise. It is vote. It is action. It is addressing the concerns of
the everyday people out there today who do scratch their heads at times
and say: Now is the time for us to act.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Democratic leader.
Mr. REID. Again, we live in this ``land of Oz.'' The conferees had
signed off on the conference report dealing with pensions. Basically,
there had been an agreement, and they were going to put in that, as
conferences are able to do, the extenders. They all worked out. We
would have been voting on that today. But they wanted the extenders to
help the ``pathway to heaven''--the ``legislative pathway to heaven''--
of the Republicans on the estate tax, so that was taken away.
Mr. President, if you are working at one of the hotels in Las Vegas
or one of the resorts in the State of Washington or Oregon or Minnesota
or California and this minimum wage passes, you would get a decrease in
your minimal salary. It does not sound very good to me. And I think I
would class it and the people in Nevada and those other six States
would say it is a joke. How could you pass something saying it helps
me; I get a pay decrease. The minimum wage bill they have here is not
only spread out over 3 years--different from ours--it also penalizes
seven States.
For the majority leader to say that minimum wage is our No. 1 issue,
it is one of our No. 1 issues. We have a lot of No. 1 issues. We care
about the health care of this Nation--46 million people with no health
insurance. We care about the kids being able to go to college. We care
about stem cell research, which the President vetoed. That could be a
No. 1 issue. I think Iraq is a No. 1 issue--2,600 dead Americans, more
than 20,000 wounded, costing $3 billion a week. I think that is a No. 1
issue.
I did not invent for this Congress the name ``the do-nothing
Congress.'' Pundits all over America call this the do-nothing Congress
because we have done nothing. We have been in session very few days. We
have accomplished virtually nothing. And that is why it is called the
do-nothing Congress.
Now, we did not--my friend, the distinguished minority whip, the
assistant Democratic leader, did not invent the cost of this bill. It
is every place, in editorials all over the country--``bad bargain'' in
the Washington Post, it is referred to. And in here it talks about the
measure would cost $753 billion. No, it is not total repeal; it is only
80 percent repeal: $753 billion.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: House estate tax proposal
has essentially the same long-term costs as earlier version.
For the people watching this, Mr. President, understand what has
happened, as has been pointed out by the distinguished Senator from
Illinois this morning. During the 6 years President Bush has been in
office, the debt has skyrocketed, almost doubled: $9 trillion. Now,
remember, during the Clinton years, the last 3 years President Clinton
was President, the debt was paid down. So it is great for them to talk
about pay-go. And as the majority leader mentioned, the death tax he
does not like, he does not care how much it costs, he said here right
now.
Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator from Nevada yield for a question?
Mr. REID. I would be happy to.
Mr. DURBIN. I asked the majority leader a question. I said: Since we
are adding to the debt which we are leaving to our children and
families, is there any limit to the amount of debt you would create in
America to provide tax breaks for people who are the wealthiest? And he
would not reply to that, which suggests to me--I would ask the Senator
from Nevada--that when the majority leader and the majority whip both
said they really favor repeal of the estate tax--repeal, complete
repeal of the estate tax--that they are prepared to incur whatever debt
is necessary and leave that to future generations in order to benefit
the wealthy few in America.
We have reports from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities that
the number of people to be benefited in 1 year in America from this
estate tax reform is 8,200 people. The average benefit by estate tax
reform, as they call it, would be $1.4 million for each one of those
persons.
I say to the Senator from Nevada, if the majority party in the Senate
is not even sensitive to the fact that they are now leaving three-
quarters of a trillion dollars of debt for our children and future
generations to benefit 8,200 families, is this pay as you go? And if it
is pay as you go, how are the Republicans paying for their reform or
repeal of the estate tax?
Mr. REID. I say to my friend, like they pay for everything else. My
16 grandchildren are going to be paying for it, and their children are
going to be paying for it. You talk about a death tax; the estate tax
is not a death tax. What this Republican-dominated Washington has done
in the last 6 years has passed on a birth tax to my children, their
children, my grandchildren, and their children.
It is obvious what the priorities of this Republican Senate and the
Republican House are: to take care of the fat cats, the rich people.
That is what it is all about. They know this minimum wage legislation
they sent us is flawed. It eliminates an increase for the hard-working
poorest of the poor in seven States, and it is spread out over 3 years.
Mr. DURBIN. I ask the Senator from Nevada, over what period of time
have the Democrats in Congress been asking for an increase in the
minimum wage and over what period of time have Republican Presidents
and the Republican-led Congress said no repeatedly to an increase in
the basic $5.15 minimum wage? How long have we been asking for a
straight-up vote on increasing the minimum wage?
Mr. REID. It has been about 10 years. As I said here yesterday, I
don't know why, even though it is a flawed measure they sent us, I
don't know why they have moved forward. Maybe it is because we stood up
and said there will be no congressional pay raise until the minimum
wage is increased or maybe it is because Oprah did a show on this last
week or maybe it is a combination of both.
Mr. DURBIN. I ask the Senator from Nevada, when the Democrats said
there will be no congressional pay raise until the minimum wage goes
up, and all of a sudden the interest in the minimum wage was rekindled
on the Republican side of the aisle, now that the Republicans have said
we ought to spread the increase in the minimum wage over 3 years,
perhaps the congressional pay raises should be spread over a 3-year
period of time. There should be some symmetry if there is an
insensitivity to what the lowest paid workers are receiving. I ask the
Senator from Nevada
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if that is a proposal we ought to consider.
Mr. REID. Of course, we should consider it.
I say through the Chair to my friend from Illinois, we are in this
predicament because the Republicans have put us here. We are spending
an inordinate amount of time on seeing if they can run up a debt of
approximately $1 trillion to the American people to take care of 8,100
people. That is why we are here. It is not because of the minimum wage;
they hate the minimum wage. You know that, I know that. It is not
because of the extenders. The extenders are good for most everybody.
That is why they put it on the pension bill in conference. We are here
because of the estate tax repeal. That is what this is all about. All
the rest is fluff. As I say, the dominating issue of this Republican
Senate has been estate tax repeal. That means more to them than
spending time debating the war in Iraq. It means more to them than
talking about health care.
It means more to them, certainly, than talking about global warming
because, according to them, it doesn't exist. It certainly has taken
away time to talk about why the President vetoed stem cell. This issue
relating to the estate tax has taken care of everything for them. That
is their No. 1 issue. You talk about the minimum wage being our No. 1
issue. They don't have No. 2, 3, 4, 5, like we do. Estate tax is it.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader is recognized.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I will be very brief. Our agenda has been
very clear. It has been clearly articulated and, as people look back,
as they look forward, they will see how all the pieces come together
because each time we take a bill to the floor there is a complaint. On
child custody, there is obstruction; we are going to stop it. But it is
clear to the American people. When we go back to our States and talk to
the people, they get it. The Democratic leader is right in many ways.
He says Iraq and dead Americans--the words he used--$3 billion, all of
which I look at as securing America's homeland and those enduring
values of freedom and liberty that we know are so important to our
generation and that next generation. That is what this war on terror is
about. It is the No. 1 issue, securing America's homeland. I will come
back to that in a second.
I hope we can address supporting our troops overseas in the
Department of Defense appropriations bill, this week. We need to do
that this week as well. We could go to that tonight. I will talk to
Chairman Stevens as soon as I finish here to see if we can take that to
the floor tonight and address it over the next couple of days.
Securing America's homeland, we addressed in part through our border
security bill, and addressing immigration, we did spend several weeks
on the floor of the Senate.
The second thematic is securing America's prosperity. By prosperity,
the other side wants to talk about rich people because they know it has
connotations to it and the sound bites work. But if you look at what we
are doing, we are talking about people at the lowest rung of the
economic ladder. We are talking about small businesspeople. We are
talking about people who feel the squeeze that we know they feel
because of energy prices and because of health care. Although they can
say we are not addressing those, at 5 o'clock today we are voting on
the bill that can have the single greatest impact since our last Energy
bill a year ago, which was very successful, a bill which has the
potential for reducing that squeeze that people are feeling today when
they fill their tractors with fuel. We are addressing it on this floor.
We addressed health information technology, which I think is the
single most incremental variable that can transform health care today
in terms of improved quality, improved availability, and reduced cost,
by getting rid of the waste and the abuse and even the fraud and the
medical errors that do typify our health care sector. We addressed that
in the Senate. We passed it in the Senate, and the House passed it last
week. Now we can go to conference and pass it. So when we talk
prosperity, too often the other side just talks about rich people. We
too often talk about the 5.4 million jobs created--very, very
important--the 4.7 percent unemployment rate, the lowest of the average
of the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s--all very important. We are
addressing what the average person, the typical taxpayer is feeling--
energy prices--on the floor of the Senate today.
We are addressing health care costs through health information
technology by trying to take small business health plans to the floor
but having it stopped from consideration by the other side of the
aisle. People feel those health care costs.
The third thematic is securing America's values. We have securing
America's homeland, No. 1; securing prosperity, No. 2; and securing
America's values, No. 3. Last week, on child custody protection, it is
being stopped by the other side of the aisle. This body has spoken, but
it is being obstructed. The Adam Walsh child protection bill, passed,
signed by the President. We are going to continue to fight for
America's values.
I will close by saying, there is a lot we will be talking about over
the course of the week. I restate once again that vote will be Friday.
Are we ready to address a permanent solution to the death tax this
Friday? We are going to say yes or no. If it is no, we are not going to
do it this year. Extension of tax relief, the issues and the policies
that I outlined before, we are going to do them now, this week, or we
are not going to do it, as well as the minimum wage. Remember, if we
pass it this week, or if we demonstrate that we are going to pass it
this week, people across this country who are making the minimum wage
will have that minimum wage go. It has already passed the House, from
$5.15 to $7.25, a $2.10 increase, if we vote correctly on this Friday.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I wanted to correct the Record. I spoke
inaccurately in that on the issue of pay-go, there is available under
pay-go approximately $300 billion to cover the cost of this tax bill.
In one 5-year period, it may be out of compliance, but over the entire
10-year period, it is clearly within compliance. I did want to make
that clarification.
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