[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 100 (Tuesday, June 17, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5674-S5675]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page S5674]]
                             TAX EXTENDERS

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I hope my colleagues had a chance to 
listen to the distinguished Democratic leader talk about the tax bill 
vote coming up and about Republican filibusters. I wish to tell the 
other side of the story.
  As there are 76, according to their count, filibusters, presumably 
Republican, what defines a filibuster around here is when you file a 
cloture motion. If people have a desire to talk a few hours on a bill, 
maybe even a few minutes on a bill, and immediately a cloture motion is 
slapped in, then that defines a filibuster.
  That doesn't define a filibuster. If it does, then the Democrats, by 
not letting the Senate work its will, have in a sense shut off the 
purpose of the Senate, which is, of course, to thoroughly debate what 
passed the other body.
  Tax bills can only start in the other body, and they go through there 
in 2 or 3 hours. If they are going to be thoroughly debated, they have 
to be debated here. I think it is a little disingenuous to talk about a 
filibuster on a tax bill when the definition of a filibuster is when a 
cloture motion is filed. It is filed by the majority party, not by the 
minority party.
  Over the past few years, anyone who has observed the workings of 
Congress has probably discovered that we spend a lot of time every year 
wrestling over what are called tax extenders--probably tax policy that 
for the most part has been on the books for decades, one or two 
decades, and then sunsets, and then if you are going to keep that 
policy in place--in other words, keep the existing tax policy--they 
must be extended. We call them tax extenders. Popular provisions in the 
Internal Revenue Code, then, are set to expire every year or two unless 
Congress acts. Of course, if Congress doesn't act, then taxes go up.
  In the past, I have compared this constant repetition to a film 
called ``Groundhog Day,'' staring Bill Murray, where Bill Murray's 
character relives the same day over and over again. I have a chart 
showing a scene from that classic and very enlightening film. It almost 
seems ironic that it would be appropriate on so many occasions for me 
to talk about a movie that itself is about repetition, but the 
repetitive actions of the Democratic majority and its leadership make 
it too hard to resist bringing Bill and Phil down here again to show 
you and remind you what this body, the Senate, goes through 
periodically.
  Less than a week ago, the Senate, by a vote of 50 to 44, rejected a 
motion to invoke cloture on a motion to proceed to the House bill, H.R. 
6049, the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act. In just a few moments 
we are going to repeat that exact same vote. Why? There does not seem 
to be a discernible reason.
  Getting back to Bill and Phil driving the truck, I bet the thinking 
on the other side is that it is the Senate Republicans who are 
represented by Bill on this chart, in that the Democrats want people 
like me to be put through the same actions on the same issues until we 
do what the other side thinks is the right thing. However, that 
thinking is mistaken. I am not sure how much resemblance there is, but 
Bill represents the Democratic leadership. Why? Because the majority 
sets the schedule for the Senate. When Republicans are in the majority, 
we set the schedule. Despite having slogged through this very same 
issue several times over the past few years, the Democratic leadership 
still insists on beating the same dead horse--or maybe in this case the 
same dead groundhog.
  As anyone familiar with this fine film knows--the film called 
``Groundhog Day''--this chart depicts Bill and Phil driving a truck 
moments before it goes over the cliff. In a few moments, the Democratic 
leadership is going to drive this Chamber over the same cliff we went 
over last Tuesday. The vote, again, is one I predict will fail, and we 
will be exactly where we were before.
  Going back to the ``Groundhog Day'' example, the Democratic 
leadership is stuck in the part of the film where Bill Murray relives 
the same day because he is doing the wrong things and refuses to change 
behavior.
  I would rather not see this body go over the cliff. But what really 
concerns me is that the Democratic leadership is not alone. In the back 
of his truck are roughly 140 million families and individuals who file 
tax returns. The extenders affect millions of taxpayers. Congress 
should have learned from the experience we had less than 6 months ago, 
in December. Waiting until the end of the year to solve these problems 
creates problems instead for agencies like the IRS. It is a problem for 
taxpayers who are not getting back their refunds soon enough. If the 
Democratic leadership cares about those millions of taxpayers, they 
will slow this truck down. They will not drive over the cliff. They 
will stop the truck, they will work with the Senate--in the bipartisan 
way that is the only way to get things done in the Senate--to finally 
get this bill passed, a bill that will be signed into law.
  Included in those roughly 140 million families and individuals in the 
back of the truck are around 24 million taxpayers who are now subject 
to the crushing alternative minimum tax. We need to extend the AMT 
exemption for middle-income taxpayers. Right now, around 24 million of 
those middle-income families are liable for the AMT because Congress 
has not acted to protect them for the year we are in, 2008.
  The House bill that is the subject of the upcoming cloture vote does 
nothing to protect those taxpayers, nothing on the AMT.
  Many of those families who make estimated payments are hopefully 
familiar with the form 1040-ES for the second quarter of 2008. That was 
due yesterday. Many taxpayers who were not subject to the AMT last year 
but are now caught this year should have filed this form but do not 
know they are supposed to. It is a tax that these 23 million, or maybe 
a part of that 23 million, do not pay because they never had to pay it 
before. Under current law those individuals are subject to penalty.
  I made this point on several occasions last year when a quarterly 
estimated tax return was due. I hope I do not get the same reaction now 
as I did every time I talked about the estimated tax payments last 
year, because that response was silence.
  I know many will say that Congress will act, but that is not good 
enough. The American people should no more accept an IOU from Congress 
than the IRS would accept an IOU from the taxpayer. The right thing to 
do now is to vote ``no'' on this cloture motion. The sooner we can get 
the Democratic leadership to stop driving the Bill-and-Phil truck over 
the cliff, the sooner we can get to work on this extenders bill.
  That bill, unlike the bill before us now, will pass both Houses of 
Congress and will be signed by the President. This law change will 
protect additional families from being captured by the AMT. Right now 
the Democratic leadership is in the driver's seat. You see, we have the 
Democratic leadership in the driver's seat. As I have said of Bill and 
Phil in the past, I hope eventually they decide to drive responsibly. 
Do not do what Bill and Phil do, go over the cliff all of the time. 
Vote ``no'' on the motion to proceed, put the Senate back on a path to 
a real AMT fix and also pass the extenders bill so it becomes law.
  We have been having a lot of discussion over whether these extensions 
of the expiring tax relief provisions might be offset with tax 
increases. We heard the distinguished Democratic leader say they 
should, because it might make the deficit go up otherwise.
  My position is if you extend policy that has been in place for a 
couple decades continuing existing tax policy, you are not making the 
deficit bigger. You would only do that if you increased or came up with 
some new tax policy.
  I am not going to rehash all the elements of that debate again. The 
difference between Republicans and Democrats on this point is 
important. The Democrats have their view, the Republicans have our 
view. That is the way democracy works. But here is why this is a 
different point of view. It is important because the hurdle to a 
bipartisan bill signed by the President on the AMT patch and extenders 
will not happen unless we get the differences worked out.
  There is a group of so-called conservative Democrats in the House of 
Representatives who are called Blue Dogs. I want to say that I respect 
the Blue Dogs' call for fiscal discipline. It is critically important 
in this era of deficit spending.

[[Page S5675]]

  Revenues are not the problem. One would think from the Democratic 
leadership that we do not tax people enough so we tax people more. In 
fact, we are on a revenue path that is above the historic average in 
terms of Federal revenue as a share of gross national product.
  So when the Blue Dogs in the House of Representatives bark about 
deficit reduction, we on this side will howl with them. We have 
Huckleberry Hound here to illustrate what I am talking about. The Blue 
Dogs continue to bite only on the tax side.
  When it comes to spending cuts, we do not hear much more than a 
whimper out of the Blue Dogs. They do not want spending cuts, they want 
higher taxes. We agree with them on fiscal responsibility, but higher 
taxes do not bring fiscal responsibility. Higher taxes bring an excuse 
for Congress to spend more money.
  Spending cuts are the way to get taxes down. In fact, when I hear 
from my constituents, they do not think the American people are 
undertaxed, they think the American people or the Congress overspend.
  On our side, that tax-hike hungry dog won't hunt. We have seen the 
story of this Huckleberry Hound chart play out in recent legislation. 
On the additional GI education benefits, the Blue Dogs held out for a 
tax increase to offset the new spending. But when the pressure from 
their political leadership got too hot, that objection is now history.
  We have another popular new spending proposal, extension of 
unemployment benefits. The Blue Dogs said no offset was required 
because it is ``temporary spending.''
  Now we have an AMT fix and we have the extenders bill before us. 
Because it is current law tax relief, the Blue Dogs are insisting on 
tax increases on other taxpayers. Such inconsistency I do not 
understand. As with GI benefit packages, we will meet the Blue Dogs' 
challenge. We will put our money where our mouth is.
  The budget resolution, written by the Democratic majority and 
supported by the Blue Dogs, contains $300 billion in nondiscretionary 
appropriations. This is brand new extra spending not subject to pay-go. 
The AMT patch in the extender bill is a $110 billion package. After 
being challenged by the Blue Dog Democrats to stand up for spending 
cuts, I suggested we take one-fifth of what they are going to increase 
spending by, and it will pay for these new spending programs.
  I would put them to a challenge of not increasing taxes every time to 
reduce the deficit, but reduce expenditures to be consistent. Instead 
of raising taxes, I said let's look at the new non-defense 
discretionary spending built into the budget. We could let that new 
undefined future spending expire by an amount necessary to make that 
AMT patch and extenders bill deficit neutral. Many on the other side 
say it is harmless to let defined current law tax relief expire. If 
that is true, then it ought to be easier to let undefined future 
spending expire.
  After meeting the dollar amount in the spending cut challenge, some 
in the Blue Dog coalition still complained. They said we had to define 
the spending to be cut. That's a bit curious because the spending is 
future non-defense discretionary spending. Over the next 10 years, 
appropriators will spend this new extra money in future appropriations 
laws. Those bills have not been written yet. So, I don't know how I 
respond with any more specificity. I've provided the amount and the 
source of the funds.
  The last time I checked, a dollar of spending cuts is the same as a 
dollar of forgone revenue. If we apply that basic math to taxes and 
spending, then we will achieve fiscal discipline.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Rhode Island is 
recognized.

                          ____________________