[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 185 (Wednesday, December 5, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14751-S14752]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             MOVING FORWARD

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, reclaiming the floor, I know for 
anybody who might be watching on the outside that all of this 
parliamentarian talk probably makes your eyes glaze over. But the 
fundamental problem is this: As recently as a year ago, my party was in 
the majority, and I had the same problem--Senator Frist and I had the 
same problem my good friend from Nevada has: Our members do not want to 
cast any dangerous votes, any votes they do not want to cast.
  The first session of the previous Congress, the 109th, was the most 
productive legislative session of my time here in the Senate. I recall 
Senator Frist and myself saying over and over and over again to our 
members that if we are going to pass this bill, we are going to have to 
give the minority their votes. And people were whining and complaining 
about having to cast votes. I recall the Democratic whip, the Senator 
from Illinois, saying: The Senate is not the House, and making the 
point that the minority is going to get its votes in order to advance 
legislation.

  I understand that my good friend from Nevada gets complaints from his 
members about having to cast votes, but the fundamental responsibility 
of the majority is to pass legislation. In order to do that in the 
Senate--we do not have a rules committee--you have to work with the 
minority, and you have to give the minority side a reasonable number of 
amendments. That is the case on the consideration of the alternative 
minimum tax fix, and that is also the case with regard to the farm 
bill.
  Now, my advice both privately and publicly to my good friend, the 
majority leader, on the farm bill is take it up and go forward, which 
is the way we have done it in the past, and it is amazing how quickly 
you move along. You can sometimes spend more time trying to get a 
consent agreement, which by its very nature requires every single 
Member of the Senate not to object--we could have made more progress on 
the farm bill by simply going to the bill, taking up amendments, and 
moving forward. That was my advice. It is still my advice. If we turned 
to the farm bill, even if we didn't have a very narrow amendment list, 
we would make dramatic progress and make it quickly. Why? Because I 
think there are significant numbers of Members of this body on both 
sides of the aisle who want to pass a farm bill. There may be a few who 
don't but a significant number do.
  So here is where we are, December 5. We have nearly a full year's 
worth of work to finish before we adjourn for Christmas. It is a little 
after noon, and we are talking about why we are getting started now--I 
gather based on some misunderstanding about phantom objections that, in 
fact, did not exist on this side to the Environment Committee meeting.
  We have offered our good friends a path forward on the AMT, on troop 
funding, on appropriations, on the Energy bill, and the farm bill. Yet 
we cannot seem to get the kind of bipartisan agreement that allows the 
minority to have some say over amendments in moving forward.
  On the AMT, the chair of the Finance Committee called the Republican 
proposal constructive and said that it was the beginning of an 
agreement. That was yesterday. We want to make sure 23 million people 
are not ensnared by this middle-class tax hike and that the tax returns 
of 50 million Americans are not further delayed. The consequences of a 
delay will be felt by millions of taxpayers who will see a delay in 
their refunds next year.
  It is, however, important to virtually every member of my conference 
that the alternative minimum tax, a tax that will never be levied and 
never be collected, not trigger a tax increase on a whole lot of other 
Americans. The effort to ``pay for'' the AMT is highly offensive to 
members on my side of the aisle, and I think the majority knows that, 
and the way to get the AMT and the extenders passed is not to ``pay 
for'' them--in other words, not to go out and raise taxes on a lot of 
other Americans in order to continue basically the status quo. We know 
we are never going to levy the AMT, and we are never going to collect 
it. The same is true with the extenders. We know we will pass that 
package. That is existing tax relief. Why should we raise taxes on some 
other Americans in order to maintain the status quo, which is the 
absence of an alternative minimum tax and the extension of the 
extenders? That is a very strongly held principle, and I believe that 
is the view of enough Senators to insist that is the way it goes 
forward.

[[Page S14752]]

  Now, we know what they plan over in the House. They are going to send 
the AMT over there, and they are going to pay for it and send it back 
over here. I think that is a huge mistake; it is an excuse for raising 
taxes on a whole lot of Americans.
  With regard to the remaining appropriations bills, the Democratic 
leader and I have had a number of constructive conversations. We are 
going to be talking to the administration later in the day on that 
subject. Any discussion of finishing up the year is going to have to 
include funding for the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. We know we have 
had this debate a lot of times--at last count, 63 Iraq votes in the 
House and Senate this year. We know that even when the war was going 
poorly and there was great opposition to the surge, at the end of the 
day the funding was there. Now the surge is succeeding, and the war is 
going better. Why would we not continue the funding now that things are 
going better when even the majority, which did not favor the effort in 
Iraq, provided funding when it was going poorly? As part of any 
settlement of the 11 appropriations bills, we are going to have troop 
funding into next year.

  On FISA, I think we have a way forward. The majority leader and I 
have talked about it. I think we both have the view that the underlying 
bill will probably be the intelligence measure. I think we should be 
able to construct some kind of consent agreement in that particular 
instance where I don't think there is much of a demand for amendments--
some amendments but not a whole lot--that will allow us to go forward.
  On energy, Senator Domenici tells me that he had an understanding 
with the majority leader and with the chairman of the Energy Committee 
in the Senate as to what would and what would not be in an energy bill 
that we would finally pass. It is my understanding that an energy bill 
that the House may act on, I gather today, I am not sure--is it today? 
Does someone know? It is likely to include tax hikes and utility rate 
increases for those of us in the Southeast. Now, in what way would an 
energy bill that raises taxes, when oil is about $100 a barrel, and has 
the practical effect of raising utility rates all across the Southeast 
be beneficial? My understanding was that the majority leader and 
Senator Domenici and Senator Bingaman agreed that was not going to be a 
part of the proposal. I do not know whether it will be a part of the 
proposal when it comes over from the House, but that agreement ought to 
be kept and those provisions ought to be removed.
  Finally, at the risk of being redundant, let me say again on the farm 
bill that we have enough time. Most of the negotiations that are going 
on, are going on off the floor. We do have floor time. It remains my 
advice to the majority leader to get on to the farm bill, process 
amendments, and move forward. I think that would be a way to make 
progress. It is probably going to be very challenging to get as tight a 
time agreement on amendments, as tight a number on amendments as the 
majority leader would like. We spend so much time doing that; we could 
be processing amendments here on the floor and moving forward with the 
bill.
  Let me say in conclusion that we do want to be cooperative, but the 
reason we have had a lot of impasse this year is because a very narrow 
majority is, in effect, trying to dictate amendments to the minority. 
That will not work in the Senate. One of the prices of being in the 
majority--it is better to be in the majority than not. I would rather 
be in majority than not. But one of the prices you pay for being in the 
majority is you have to take votes you do not want to take in order to 
advance legislation.
  So I would say to my good friend from Nevada, he is going to have as 
much cooperation as I can possibly muster. I am anxious to help us move 
forward on all of these issues he and I have been discussing here this 
morning.

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