[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 185 (Wednesday, December 5, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14766-S14770]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AMT
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I am pleased we are finally discussing
solutions to the alternative minimum tax problem that is poised to
swallow 19 million more filers this year. I would have rather gone
through this process several months ago but better late than never.
Over the course of the year, I have given many speeches analyzing the
AMT and describing the problem it poses for middle-class taxpayers in
great detail. On February 12, I gave a speech on the history of the
AMT. On February 13, I highlighted how the AMT affects individual
income tax liabilities. On February 15, I discussed ways to reform the
AMT and made the case that complete repeal is the best way to deal with
the AMT.
Incidentally, I made the case that dealing with the alternative
minimum tax 1 year at a time could be problematic, and current events
have proven me right.
On March 20, I pointed out the Democrats' budget had no room for AMT
relief, not even for 1 year. On March 22, I explained why we need to
repeal the AMT. On April 18, I made an appeal for quick action on the
AMT to help taxpayers making estimated payments who are already paying
the price for the lack of action in Congress. On May 14, I explained
why the AMT relief or repeal should not be paid for with a tax increase
someplace else on other people. On May 17, I criticized the conference
report on the fiscal year 2008 budget resolution for not realistically
addressing the alternative minimum tax problem. On that same day, I
gave another speech exposing how Democratic offsets to the AMT relief
would result in massive tax increases on other people.
On June 13, I discussed the inadequacy of the lead trial balloons
House Democrats were floating as possible fixes for the AMT. This was
to mark the occasion of the second quarter estimated tax payments
coming due because we had taxpayers who file quarterly already being
hit by the lack of action on the part of the Congress.
On July 24, I introduced legislation to protect taxpayers who should
have been making estimated payments for 2007 but weren't because they
did not realize Congress was failing to protect them from the AMT. In
other words, if they didn't have to pay the AMT in 2006, why would they
think they had to pay the AMT in 2007? By not doing it, they were
violating our tax laws, probably innocently.
On September 19, I marked the occasion of the third quarter estimated
tax payments coming due by again discussing the AMT problem and how
little congressional leadership was doing about it.
I just cited 12 speeches delivered on the Senate floor over the past
year. That doesn't even include press conferences, Finance Committee
meetings, and other events where I have talked about the need for
repeal of the AMT or, in the case of a shorter term fix, just making
sure it was fixed for this 1 year and kicking the can down the road. I
have been talking about the alternative minimum tax literally all year
now. House Democrats finally managed to introduce a bill on October 30,
and the majority leader turned to it in the Senate right before the
Thanksgiving recess. Democratic leadership cannot blame Republicans for
their own failure to act until almost literally the last minute.
As I said, I am glad we are finally discussing solutions, and the
Senate leadership seems to realize that the AMT should not be offset. I
also want to thank my good friend, Chairman Baucus, for all his hard
work this year,
[[Page S14767]]
and for several years, to protect middle-income taxpayers from the
alternative minimum tax. Chairman Baucus is doing our country a great
service now by trying to work out a compromise between those who want
to pay for the AMT relief and extenders with a tax increase and those
who are opposed to tax increases to offset AMT. He has consistently,
meaning chairman Baucus, avoided bitter partisanship and always worked
to do the right thing.
Those obsessed with pay-go--and for the public watching, that is pay
as you go--those who are obsessed with pay-go, who want to raise more
taxes to pay for a tax that was never meant to raise revenue, are
punishing the American taxpayers for their obsession. Unfortunately,
right now, I cannot support a package with roughly $45 billion of
offsets in it for the extenders, even though the AMT relief is not
offset.
I am still reviewing some of the revenue raisers, but my issue is not
with the raisers themselves. I will only support a raiser if I think it
is good policy and will not support a raiser simply for the revenues.
I am concerned then if we send this package to the House, they will
try to use the offsets not for what we put them in for, for the
extenders, but send it back to us as offsets against the AMT,
increasing taxes on others to pay for a tax that was never meant to be
collected, and then still not get the extenders passed, as we should be
passing them right now.
The House has shown it does not respect the need to get 60 votes in
the Senate, and I do not expect that to change right now. If the
majority leader is serious about reaching a compromise, and really
respects the minority, as he claims, he needs to get his colleagues in
the House on board. I have been around long enough not to make it too
easy to stab me in the back by having things that even leadership in
the House has suggested could happen with this tax ping-pong operation
that might go on here.
It is unfortunate congressional leadership took so long to deal with
the alternative minimum tax and that some are still putting an
obsession with pay-go and narrow partisan interests over the wellbeing
of their own constituents. We can talk until we are blue in the face,
but the bottom line is we need to change the tax laws with respect to
the alternative minimum tax. That law change needs congressional action
and a Presidential signature, and anything else is just plain talk.
I would like to end this part of the remarks I am making today with a
suggestion. I hope we get all parties to an agreement by changing the
law on the AMT patch. By all parties, I am referring to House
Democrats, House Republicans, Senate Democrats, Senate Republicans,
and, of course, nothing is going to happen if the President can't sign
it. Without an agreement, we will not get a law. And without a law
change, this is what is going to happen: 23 million families face an
unexpected tax increase that is going to average about $2,000 per
family. Without a law change, we make worse the filing season fiasco
for yet another 27 million families and individual taxpayers. That is
on top of the 23 million who, for the first time, are being hit by the
alternative minimum tax.
So here is my suggestion. It is simple. It is black and white. It is
in a letter from Chairman Rangel and Chairman Baucus and ranking
Republicans McCrery in the House and myself for the Republicans in the
Senate Finance Committee. We are the senior tax-writing committee
members from the Congress. That letter was dated October 31 this year
assuring Treasury Secretary Paulson and Acting IRS Commissioner Stiff
that we would work to pass an AMT patch bill expeditiously. That letter
contains the test that ought to be applied to any proposal in substance
and process on an AMT patch.
Let me remind you, this is a bipartisan letter by the most senior
tax-writing Members of the Congress. And it starts with ``we,'' meaning
Chairman Rangel, Chairman Baucus, and ranking Republican members,
McCrery and Grassley. Here is what that sentence says:
We plan to do everything possible to enact AMT relief
legislation in a form mutually agreeable to the Congress and
the President before the end of the year.
That is the end of the quote, but I want to put emphasis within that
quote on these words: Passing legislation in a form mutually agreeable
to the Congress and to the President before the end of the year,
meaning the end of 2007. Chairmen Rangel and Baucus and their ranking
members made it clear in this letter.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the letter I have been
referring to be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Tax Writers Notify IRS of Upcoming AMT Fix
Finance Ways and Means leaders intend to prevent tax from affecting
more Americans, urge IRS to begin planning now for accurate tax forms
Washington, DC.--Leaders of the congressional tax writing
committees notified the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) today
of imminent changes to the alternative minimum tax, and
encouraged the agency to plan now to produce accurate tax
forms for the 2007 filing season. Senate Finance Committee
Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), House Ways and Means Chairman
Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), Finance Ranking Republican Chuck
Grassley (R-Iowa), and Ways and Means Ranking Republican
Member Jim McCrery (R-La.) sent a letter to Acting IRS
Commissioner Linda Stiff, indicating their intention to
complete legislation preventing the AMT from affecting any
additional American taxpayers for 2007. The AMT was
originally meant to ensure that wealthy Americans paid some
income tax, but without indexing for inflation it has begun
to affect middle-income American taxpayers.
The text of the Tuesday letter follows here.
October 30, 2007.
Ms. Linda E. Stiff,
Acting Commissioner, Internal Revenue Service, Washington,
DC.
Dear Acting Commissioner Stiff: Under present law, more
than 23 million taxpayers will be subject to higher taxes in
2007 unless legislation is enacted to limit the reach of the
Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). We realize that this fact is
causing concern for many taxpayers and is creating
administrative difficulties for the IRS as the agency
prepares for the upcoming filing season.
As the leaders of the Congressional tax-writing committees,
we want to assure you that legislative relief is forthcoming
so that no new taxpayers will be subject to the AMT for
taxable year 2007. To accomplish this, we are committed to
extending and indexing the 2006 AMT patch with the goal of
ensuring that not one additional taxpayer faces higher taxes
in 2007 due to the onerous AMT. In addition to allowing the
personal credits against the AMT, the exemption amount for
2007 will be set at $44,350 for individuals and $66,250 for
married taxpayers filing jointly.
We plan to do everything possible to enact AMT relief
legislation in a form mutually agreeable to the Congress and
the President before the end of the year. We urge the
Internal Revenue Service to take all steps necessary to plan
for changes that would be made by the legislation.
Thank you for your immediate attention to this matter.
Sincerely yours,
Max Baucus,
Chairman, Committee on Finance.
Charles E. Grassley,
Ranking Member, Committee on Finance.
Charles B. Rangel,
Chairman, Committee on Ways and Means.
Jim McCrery,
Ranking Member, Committee on Finance.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Now, our leaders in both the House and the Senate need
to back up the tax writers. We Senators need to pass a package that is
agreeable to the President and to the House. What do we all agree on?
We agree the patch needs to get done right now. So that is the base of
what should pass the Senate, if we are to get a law enacted. House and
Senate Democrats insist on offsets for a patch.
The old joke is that you better make certain the light at the end of
the tunnel isn't a train coming toward you. Unfortunately, the joke is
on the American people when it comes to the upcoming tax-filing season.
Because of the failure of the Congress to act, the taxpayers are going
to feel as if they have been hit by a freight train come April 15. The
sad part is this was not necessary. Congress could have done the right
thing. Congress could have acted. We have never in this century gone
this late without passing the AMT patch and having it in place. The IRS
and the Treasury have made it clear that the failure to act would cause
very real problems in the filing season, in terms of confusion and in
terms, especially, of a delay in providing taxpayers their refunds.
[[Page S14768]]
I am astonished when I hear that some in the Democratic leadership
are telling reporters these claims of a filing fiasco are all somehow a
bluff. The Democratic leadership certainly didn't think the problems of
the filing season were a bluff when we were delayed in passing an
extenders package last year. That is when the Republicans were in
control. I strongly advocated then that we needed to pass the extenders
package and warned of its negative impact on the filing season, and I
was not listened to by my Republican leadership. But Democrats, now in
the majority but back then in the minority, joined me in those
statements. Now the clamor is much smaller with the alternative minimum
tax which will affect 25 million taxpayers and will be, in many ways,
significantly more disruptive to the filing season than the extenders
delay last year.
As you can see from a chart I have here--I am going to ask my staff
to hold that chart up. We all know the story of Chicken Little. But
every once in a while, Chicken Little is right. When it comes to the
filing season, the sky is falling.
It is important that my colleagues understand that by failing before
Thanksgiving, we have already gummed up the works. As my colleagues can
see from this next chart, the deadline of October 15 for finalizing
forms and instructions has already passed. We have passed the November
7 deadline for printing the tax forms--as you can also see in the
chart--and the absolute drop dead date for printing was November 16.
Every week that we don't act, this problem will get worse and worse.
I should make it clear that we are not only hearing from the IRS that
the delays have created a filing fiasco; the tax preparer community is
making it clear that the problems are real and they are big.
We recently received a letter from the independent IRS Oversight
Board that voiced ``grave concerns about the serious risks to the 2008
filing season if legislation to change the AMT is delayed.''
The IRS Oversight Board makes it clear that there is a big, big
difference from Congress passing AMT relief this week as opposed to the
third week of December. The board specifically says that another 2 or 3
week delay by Congress could mean that another 31 million taxpayers
will face a delay in filing returns and that another approximately $70
billion in refunds could be delayed.
These numbers would be on top of the 6.7 million taxpayers who
already face a delay in filing returns and the $17 billion in refunds
that are going to be delayed because we have not acted to pass the AMT
``patch.''
So if we continue to dilly-dally and delay on AMT relief until
Christmas, it will be a total of 37.7 million return filings delayed
and $86.9 billion in refunds delayed. These delayed refunds are not
just paper; they represent real money that many working families are
counting on to help them to pay the bills, make an important purchase
or even have an important medical procedure done.
To be blunt, we are already in the soup and it is a question of how
bad it is going to get.
I recently joined the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee
in writing to Ms. Stiff, the Acting Commissioner of the Internal
Revenue Service, asking that the IRS do the following:
No. 1, take steps to educate taxpayers about the possible changes in
the law and tax forms;
No. 2, work closely with the tax preparation community to keep them
aware of the IRS to update programming and minimize delays and to
encourage the tax preparation community to inform their clients and
consumers about likely delays in processing returns and distributing
refunds;
No. 3, ensure that all IRS call center employees are fully informed
about the status of the tax filing season and can provide accurate and
timely information to callers;
No. 4, within available resources, increase staffing of IRS call
centers to accommodate the increased call volume that will likely
result from taxpayer confusion.
I think these steps will allow us to do the best we can with a very
bad hand. But there should be no doubt, the real answer is to pass AMT
relief and pass it now.
For many years now, and certainly many times this year, I have tried
to shed light on the monstrosity that is the alternative minimum tax
and how the failure to index the AMT for inflation threatens middle-
class taxpayers. While I have consistently fought for full repeal of
the alternative minimum tax, I have had to be content with enacting a
series of provisions, since 2001, to increase the exemption amounts
pertaining to the AMT to prevent new taxpayers from being caught by it.
However, similar action has not yet been taken for tax year 2007.
Despite plenty of advanced warning, congressional leadership's failure
to act means that time for proactive action has already passed.
The IRS is printing tax forms and making other arrangements to
process tax returns submitted for the upcoming filing season. Any
legislative fix undertaken now to check the advance of the AMT will not
eliminate a problem, but will only manage it. Despite being deeply
disappointed that congressional leadership has not seen fit to act
faster, I was hopeful that the magnitude of around 19 million
additional tax filers paying the AMT for tax year 2007 was finally
beginning to hit home. The AMT finally seemed to be getting the
attention it deserved, but recent rhetoric has again put me into a
negative frame of mind.
Rather than offer new ideas and insights into how to solve the AMT
problem, which in the case of many would be to offer any ideas at all,
some of my colleagues are merely recycling the same old and tired
talking points of years past. More specifically, I'm referring to the
accusation, made by left-leaning think tanks and also by the House
Committee on Ways and Means majority, that advocates of tax relief in
2001 and 2003 deliberately--I want to emphasize they are accusing use
of deliberately using the AMT as a trick to minimize the revenue cost
to the Federal treasury as a result of those policies. While it is true
that some families benefit less from 2001 and 2003 tax relief than they
otherwise would have, to say this is by design, as is indeed done in a
Committee on Ways and Means press release issued on November 14, is
absolutely ridiculous.
Republicans have consistently fought, even before the 2001 tax relief
bill, to curtail and eradicate the alternative minimum tax. In 1999,
congressional Republicans passed the Taxpayer Refund and Relief Act of
1999, which completely repealed the AMT, and this bill was vetoed by
President Clinton.
Getting back to the Ways and Means press release of November 14, in
it I myself am cited as critiquing President Bush for not doing more in
his 2001 and 2003 tax packages to counteract AMT effects. I do
absolutely want to make clear that despite my belief that the AMT was
also a pressing problem at that time, I wholeheartedly supported tax
relief in 2001 and 2003 and still think it was absolutely the right
thing to do. In fact, I think the provisions in both bills should be
made permanent.
In order to counteract the effect of the AMT, Congress passed and
President Bush signed into law a series of provisions to increase AMT
exemption amounts to keep inflation from pushing new tax filers into
the clutches of the AMT. If Ways and Means Democrats were serious in
their implied concern for the effectiveness of 2001 and 2003 tax
relief, they could do two very simple things: First, House Democrats
could make 2001 and 2003 tax relief permanent; second, they could fully
repeal the AMT. Of course they have shown no sign of doing either of
these two things. In fact, opposition to the 2003 tax relief package
was so intense among Democrats that the Vice President was called upon
to break a tie during a vote in the Senate.
The provisions of the 2001 and 2003 tax relief bills were not made
permanent because doing so might have made it impossible for the bills
to overcome Democratic opposition. I believe that including AMT repeal
in those bills would have had the same effect.
Aside from being quoted in the November 14 Ways and Means press
release, I found it unintentionally humorous in that it reveals that
House Democrats are doing exactly what they accuse Republicans of
having done since 2001. While they accuse Republicans of using the AMT
as a budgeting
[[Page S14769]]
gimmick, they are using the AMT as a gimmick to make it appear they are
easing the tax burden when they are not.
In the release, Ways and Means Chairman Rangel is quoted saying ``The
house passed a bill to prevent the AMT from hitting 23 million families
this year without hurting the economy by adding to the national debt.''
What this means is that the House is protecting some people from the
AMT by subjecting other filers to additional taxes. This is the same as
if your community's animal control officer caught a rabid dog on your
street and let it go someplace else across town. Your problem appears
to have been immediately solved, but in the longer-term, the
fundamental problem still exists. The fundamental problem with the AMT
is the massive amount of unintended revenue it is forecast to collect,
and the unwillingness of many of my colleagues to forego that revenue.
If Ways and Means Democrats are serious in their appeal to the
administration regarding the AMT to ``work with Congress to do the
right thing and kill it,'' they will abandon any notion that revenues
not collected because of AMT relief or repeal ought to be offset.
Finally, I want to address the baseless claim that the Bush
administration's tax priorities were responsible for the AMT problem on
a technical level.
This exact point was raised in 2005 by Democratic Ways and Means
staffers in a letter to ``Tax Note,'' a prominent publication for tax
professionals. At the time I requested that the nonpartisan Joint
Committee on Taxation look into this matter. Their analysis showed
that, as I have long maintained, the biggest problem with the
alternative minimum tax was it was never indexed for inflation.
In response, I received from the Joint Committee on Taxation a letter
dated October 3, 2005. I have requested an update of that document and
will discuss the updated numbers as soon as they are available. That
estimate could be interpreted to indicate that if the Bush tax cuts
were repealed, alternative minimum tax revenues could be expected to
drop by $302 billion, or 27 percent.
At the time, the Joint Committee on Taxation estimate also found that
extending and indexing the hold-harmless provision in effect at the
time would reduce alternative minimum tax revenues by around $667
billion, or 59 percent. Of course, the analysis of this question is
complicated by the fact that the variables we are examining overlap and
interact with each other. But responsible analysis of available
information certainly does not support the allegation that the tax
relief packages signed by the President in 2001 and 2003 are
responsible for the explosion of the alternative minimum tax. If
anything, House Democrats and their pet think tanks have illustrated
the fallacy of using projected revenue reductions as a proxy for
percentage causation.
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the October 2005 Joint
Committee on Taxation revenue estimate I referred to be printed in the
Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Congress of the United States,
Joint Committee on Taxation,
Washington, DC, Oct. 3, 2005.
memorandum
To: Mark Prater and Christy Mistr
From: George Yin
Subject: AMT Effects
This memorandum responds to your request of September 29,
2005, for an analysis of the portion of the AMT effect (AMT
liability plus credits lost due to the AMT) which can be
attributed to the failure to adjust the AMT exemption amount
to inflation, assuming alternatively that the EGTRRA and
JGTRRA tax cuts (``tax cuts'') are either permanently
extended or repealed. We also explain how this information
compares to information previously provided to you on August
31, 2005 and September 16, 2005.
For the purposes of this analysis, we have first assumed
that the tax cuts are repealed. The first set of figures in
Table 1 compares the AMT effect under this assumption if,
alternatively, (1) the AMT exemption amount hold-harmless
provision is not extended beyond 2005; (2) such provision is
extended permanently; and (3) such provision is extended
permanently and indexed after 2005. The second set of figures
presents the same comparison under the assumption that the
tax cuts are permanently extended. All of the information
provided in this table was previously provided to you in our
September 16, 2005 memo, except in a different format.
TABLE 1
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AMT effect
Item (billions of
dollars)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tax Cuts Repealed:
(1) Hold-harmless provision not extended.............. 399.9
(2) Hold-harmless provision extended permanently...... 212.0
(3) Percentage of AMT effect attributable to failure 47%
to extend hold-harmless provision (((1)-(2))/(1))....
(4) Hold-harmless provision extended permanently and 169.7
indexed..............................................
(5) Percentage of AMT effect attributable to failure 58%
to extend and index hold-harmless provision (((1)-
(4))/(1))............................................
Tax Cuts Extended Permanently:
(6) Hold-harmless provision not extended.............. 1,139.1
(7) Hold-harmless provision extended permanently...... 628.5
(8) Percentage of AMT effect attributable to failure 45%
to extend hold-harmless provision (((6)-(7))/(6))....
(9) Hold-harmless provision extended permanently and 472.0
indexed..............................................
(10) Percentage of AMT effect attributable to failure 59%
to extend and index hold-harmless provision (((6)-
(9))/(6))............................................
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the information provided to you on August 31, 2005 and
September 16, 2005, we analyzed the portion of the AMT effect
attributable to the tax cuts. In the analysis described
above, we identify the portion of the AMT effect attributable
to failure to adjust the AMT exemption amount to inflation.
There is, however, interaction between these two contributing
factors to the AMT effect. In order to avoid double counting
of interactions, a stacking order is imposed. The
apportionment of effects to each contributing factor will
vary depending on the stacking order, even though the total
effect remains constant.
This phenomenon is illustrated by Tables 2 and 3 below. The
first two columns of Table 2 show the portion of the AMT
effect attributed to the tax cuts, consistent with the
information provided on August 31, 2005 and September 16,
2005. The second two columns of Table 2 show the portion of
the AMT effect attributable to the failure to extend and
index the hold-harmless provision, consistent with the
information provided in Table 1 above. Note that if these two
contributing factors were completely independent of one
another, the information in Table 2 would suggest that the
two factors together contribute to more than 100 percent of
the AMT effect. In fact, as shown in Table 3, the two factors
together contribute to only 85 percent of the AMT effect.
Thus, there is substantial overlap between these two factors.
TABLE 2
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AMT effect AMT effect
Item (billions of Item (billions of
dollars) dollars)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Baseline.............................................. 1,139.1 Baseline 1,139.1
Repeal tax cuts....................................... 399.9 Extend and index AMT hold-harmless provision 472.0
-------------- -------------
Difference............................................ 739.2 Difference 667.1
Percentage of baseline................................ 65% Percentage of baseline 59%
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TABLE 3
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AMT effect
Item (billions of
dollars)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Baseline.................................................. 1,139.1
Repeal tax cuts and extend and index AMT hold-harmless 169.7
provision................................................
-------------
Difference................................................ 969.4
Percentage of baseline.................................... 85%
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, as I said, I will discuss those
updated numbers when they are given to me by JCT.
I mentioned earlier that the argument that our recent tax policies
are responsible for the wild growth in the alternative minimum tax is
an old and a very tired argument, intellectually dishonest. The Ways
and Means press release of November 14, 2007 refers to a letter of
March 6, 2001, sent by Mr. Rangel to President Bush.
I just talked about a Democratic staffer making the same point in Tax
Notes in 2005. I am not bothered by these arguments in and of
themselves. They are based upon poor analysis, if that, and it is easy
for me to respond to them. What does bother me, however, is that
clearly many people are more interested in trying to make cheap
political points than actually dealing with the alternative minimum
[[Page S14770]]
tax. If House Democrats were concerned about the tax burden, they would
repeal the alternative minimum tax without raising taxes on other
taxpayers to replace revenue that was never supposed to come into the
Federal Treasury, because these 23 million middle-income taxpayers were
never supposed to be hit by the alternative minimum tax, because it was
only meant to be paid by the superrich.
I have made the point many times, that this alternative minimum tax
was never meant as a revenue source, and I do not care if I made it
twice in a row, three times in a row, it is a fact of life: These 23
million people were never meant to pay it. The alternative minimum tax
is only supposed to hit the superrich--it was an unsuccessful attempt--
when the alternative minimum tax was passed in 1969, to promote tax
fairness. This point has not been challenged.
Rather, my friends in the House and elsewhere have distorted that
argument into a claim that Republicans intended to use the alternative
minimum tax to secretly diminish the impact of the 2001 and 2003 tax
relief packages. I have shown how that argument is flawed every time it
is dug out of the closet by someone. The alternative minimum tax
certainly is not a secret. But it is a mystery how so many people can
engage in so much pointless discussion when what we need now right now,
actually several months late, is urgent action.
I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. McCaskill.) The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SALAZAR. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum
call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SALAZAR. Madam President, what is the pending business?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is in morning business.
Mr. SALAZAR. I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________