[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 37 (Wednesday, March 5, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1549-S1550]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               AMT IMPACT

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, last week our friends on the other side 
pulled the housing bill. But the problem the bill was meant to address 
obviously does not go away. The effects of the housing downturn 
continue to spread.
  Yesterday the Fed Chairman called for a vigorous response from banks 
and

[[Page S1550]]

from lenders. He said aggressive action by lenders would help stressed 
homeowners and help ensure the health and well being of the broader 
U.S. economy.
  Well, we Republicans have been saying the same thing about Congress's 
response to the housing crisis for 2 weeks. The Democratic plan for 
stressed homeowners is to raise monthly mortgage payments on those who 
buy new homes or refinance existing ones. We have a different view on 
this side of the aisle. We want to expand the family budget, not the 
Federal budget, by helping homeowners with targeted assistance and 
homebuyer tax credits that will make the problem better, not worse. We 
have a concrete plan to foster the conditions that lead to more 
homeownership by protecting existing jobs, creating new jobs, 
increasing wages and keeping taxes low.
  Among the things we can do to keep taxes low is to patch the loophole 
that threatens tens of millions of middle-class Americans with a giant 
AMT tax this year. There is no reason we cannot come together now and 
remove any doubt Americans have about paying a tax that threatens to 
cost them, on average, $2,000 more in taxes this year.
  We patch the AMT every year, and because it was never meant to hit 
middle-class taxpayers in the first place, we patch it without creating 
new taxes somewhere else. In the current economy, we should spare 
taxpayers the political theatre of waiting until the last minute to go 
through this annual charade.
  Last night the Budget Chairman said the Democratic budget proposal 
this year will include an AMT patch without an accompanying tax hike. I 
think that is certainly good news. I commend him for that decision, and 
it is one more reason we should not put off passing the AMT fix. If 
this is what the chairman intends, we should follow through on it now 
to give taxpayers added certainty. We should remove the doubt about the 
AMT now so Americans who are worried about the economy have one less 
thing to be concerned about.
  Last year a Democratic-led standoff over passing an AMT patch 
threatened to delay tax returns for 50 million taxpayers, totaling 
about $75 billion in refunds. In this economy, we cannot afford to play 
these kinds of games. We know we will patch the AMT at some point this 
year. We should give some comfort to taxpayers by doing it now. It is 
time to put American families' budgets in front of the ever-expanding 
Federal budget.
  Mr. President, I share the view of the majority leader that we are 
making good progress on the underlying bill, and hopefully that will 
continue today.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I think it is important I respond to my 
distinguished counterpart. We did not pull the bill. We were unable to 
go to the bill. We moved to proceed to the bill and had to file 
cloture. We could not get 60 votes because we had 1 Republican vote 
with us to move so we could legislate on housing.
  As I have said so many times, if the Republicans were serious about 
legislating on housing, they would have moved to the bill. I pulled the 
bill? That is as Orwellian as this conversation could be. I did not 
pull the bill. I tried to go to the bill. Republicans would not let us 
go to the bill.
  We have five simple things in our housing package that are extremely 
important to the housing industry. Transparency is Jack Reed's 
provision that all of these agreements should be transparent, they 
should be understandable.
  No. 2, the President asked, and we proceeded to do what he asked, to 
have revenue bonds to take care of some of the distressed properties. 
No. 3, we have large segments of--we were in a meeting that is still 
going on with faith leaders. The head of the Baptist Convention says in 
his neighborhoods, one, two, and three houses are going into 
foreclosure every week. They have neighborhoods that are in trouble.
  We have CDBG grants in our bill to allow States to step in and take 
care of some of those troubled properties. We also have something that 
the homebuilders care about a great deal, and that is a loss 
carryforward. It is something they want that would be helpful to the 
economy, that would be helpful to the housing market.
  Finally, we have a provision that says: If you have a home, you 
should be able to go to bankruptcy court and have the loan rate 
adjusted, just as you can if you have a vacation property that you need 
to have readjusted. Those are the five things, very simply.
  But I say if my Republican colleagues think there is a housing 
crisis, let us legislate the housing crisis. Come here, offer 
amendments and deal with it.
  But remember, they held a press conference on the same day, on the 
same day they stopped us from going forward on housing. What did they 
do in the press conference? Here is what they wanted to do to solve the 
problems of housing around our country: tort reform. Now, you can 
imagine what a laugher that is, tort reform to solve the housing crisis 
in America today.
  Secondly, they want to lower taxes. Now try that one on. They are not 
serious about the housing crisis or they would allow us to move 
forward. No, we did not pull the housing bill; they would not let us go 
to the housing bill. That is the record. Vote No. 35, 110th Congress, 
cloture, motion to proceed, cloture motion was rejected because we did 
not get 60 votes.
  So all we want are the facts. When you look at those nasty facts, it 
indicates the Republicans do not want to legislate on housing. They 
want, as the President suggested in his press conference last week, to 
let us see what happens in June when the rebates come back.
  This is not a wait-and-see, this is a problem we have to address 
immediately. What the President has done is voluntary in nature. It 
helps less than 3 percent of the homes in foreclosures now. Reports 
yesterday said it was basically worthless.

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