[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 23 (Tuesday, February 23, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S678-S679]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            JOBS LEGISLATION

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume. I rise to address the jobs issue and the bill before the 
Senate. Part of it is to show to my fellow Senators and the American 
people that the Democratic leadership has a different view on this bill 
before us that is a partisan bill, particularly in regard to the 
absence of tax extenders being in that bill, compared to what they have 
over several of the recent years, which was very supportive of these 
tax provisions that are left out of this bill. I will explain it this 
way.
  Although the Senate Democratic leader was highly involved in the 
development of the bipartisan bill, he arbitrarily decided to replace 
it with a bill now being jammed through the Senate. From the start, 
this was something Senator Baucus and I were working on with both 
leaders of the Senate. Somehow, that didn't seem to work in the end, as 
we thought it was working very well as we were moving along. As much as 
I was surprised by the Democratic leader's disregard for 
bipartisanship, I am even more surprised by the explanation given by 
him and his people who speak for him.
  Perhaps the most significant change between the bipartisan package 
Chairman Baucus and I helped put together and the package we voted to 
move to is the package of expired tax provisions has been removed. 
These expired tax provisions are the ones I referred to as tax 
extenders. These generally very popular and certainly bipartisan tax 
extender provisions have, in fact, been extended several times over the 
past few years. What is surprising is that hyperpartisan members of the 
majority have suddenly somehow decided tax extenders are what they 
refer to as ``partisan pork for Republicans.'' A representative sample 
comes from one report which describes the bipartisan bill as ``an 
extension of soon-to-expire tax breaks that are highly beneficial to 
major corporations, known as tax extenders, as well as other corporate 
giveaways that have been designed to win GOP support.'' Like this is 
something that only Republicans have ever been for or it is just for 
major corporations.
  There is another quote in the Washington Post which includes this 
attribution to the Senate Democratic leadership:

       ``We're pretty close,'' [the majority leader] said Friday 
     during a television appearance in Nevada, adding that he 
     thought ``fat cats'' would have benefitted too much from the 
     larger Baucus-Grassley bill.

  Understand, Senator Baucus is a Democrat, I am a Republican. The 
portrait being painted, then, by certain members of the majority, 
echoed without critical examination by people in our press, is wildly 
inaccurate. For one thing, the tax extenders include provisions such as 
the deduction for qualified tuition for college and related expenses 
and also the deduction for certain expenses for elementary and 
secondary schoolteachers. That ended December 31. It is going to mean 
tax increases for these families if we don't reinstitute it. If you are 
going to college or if you are a grade school teacher, the Senate 
Democratic leadership thinks you are a fat cat, so you are on your own. 
If your house was destroyed in a recent natural disaster and you still 
need any of the temporary disaster relief provisions contained in this 
extenders package, too bad, because helping you would amount to 
corporate giveaways in the eyes of some around here.

  The bipartisan package that was shelved included an extension of 
unemployment insurance and also a COBRA health insurance extension. Do 
these provisions benefit corporate fat cats? The answer is obviously 
no. Therefore, the common, ordinary person, Main Street America, 
smalltown America or big city America, the working people of this 
country, that is who will benefit from those provisions that are left 
out of this bill.
  The tax extenders have also been routinely passed and repeatedly 
passed because, in fact, they are and have been bipartisan and have 
been very popular and have been very beneficial to the economy. 
Democrats have consistently voted in favor of extending these tax 
provisions. Let me as an example refer to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 
who released a very strong statement upon the House package of tax 
extenders in December 2009. Just 6 weeks ago, the other body passed 
these tax extenders. This is what the leader of the Democratic Party in 
the House had to say in December 2009, not very long ago: that it is 
``good for business, good for homeowners, and good for our 
communities.''
  In 2006, the then-Democratic leader released a blistering statement:

       After Bush Republicans in the Senate blocked passage of 
     critical tax extenders [because] American families and 
     businesses are paying the price because this Do Nothing 
     Republican Congress refuses to extend important tax breaks.

  Recent bipartisan votes in the Senate on extending expiring tax 
provisions have come in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 
2008, the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006, which passed the 
Senate by unanimous vote, and the Working Families Tax Relief Act of 
2004, which was originally passed in the Senate by a simple voice vote,

[[Page S679]]

although the conference report received 92 votes in favor and a 
whopping 3 against. That doesn't sound, to me, like these tax extenders 
are just for GOP corporate fat cats.
  According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, 
extension of several of these provisions goes back even further, 
including the Tax Relief Extension Act of 1999, which passed the Senate 
by unanimous consent and lost just one Senator voting against it coming 
out of conference.
  Why have Democrats in the last few weeks or maybe in just the last 
few days turned against the extenders, particularly considering it 
passed overwhelmingly in the House of Representatives with Democratic 
support? The only explanation to this behavior is that certain Senators 
have decided it serves deeply partisan goals to slander what have been, 
for several years, very bipartisan and very popular tax provisions 
benefiting many different people.
  Yesterday's Washington Post article, from which I quoted, includes a 
statement from a Democratic leadership aide saying that:

       No decisions have been made, but anyone expecting us 
     immediately to go back to a bill that includes tax extenders 
     will be sorely disappointed.

  Having put their heads into the sand, this Chamber's leaders seem 
intent on keeping them there, based on that previous quote. The bill, 
as currently written, would allow employers of illegal workers to 
benefit from the payroll tax holiday. For sure, we should correct that 
mistake with an amendment. But under this parliamentary setup, you can 
only offer an amendment if not a single Senator objects to setting 
aside the existing business and replacing it with a new idea. The 
leadership's posture on this bill now prohibits this correction of 
giving illegal workers the benefit of a payroll tax holiday or the 
employer that employs them. Either the Democratic leaders are playing 
partisan politics with tax extenders or they don't understand the worth 
of the provisions to the economy as a whole and, most importantly, job 
retention and job creation.
  I wish to speak about a very specific industry where 23,000 jobs are 
at risk and, in some instances, people actually without a job since 
December 31 because the biodiesel tax credit has been allowed to expire 
on December 31. That is one of the many tax extenders.

  These workers are not GOP corporate fat cats, and in case anybody 
thinks biodiesel--because it is connected to agriculture--is related 
just to Iowans, let me make it very clear that these green jobs are in 
44 of the 50 States, with thousands of people unemployed.
  There are 24 facilities in Texas, 15 in my State of Iowa, 6 in 
Illinois, 6 in Missouri, and 4 facilities in Washington State. Ohio has 
11 facilities, there are 5 facilities in Indiana, 3 each in Mississippi 
and South Carolina, 7 in Pennsylvania, and 4 in Arkansas. New Jersey 
has 2 facilities, there is 1 facility in North Dakota. Only 6 States 
out of 50 do not have some biodiesel production layoffs because 
Congress did not act by December 31 of last year.
  You know what. We just had to stay in session on Christmas Eve--
because we had not met on Christmas Eve since 1895--to pass a health 
care reform bill that does not take effect until 2014.
  Think of that. Let people in the biodiesel industry be laid off 
because Congress cannot act because we had to work on a bill that does 
not take effect until the year 2014.
  So we need to turn away from talk about GOP corporate fat cats. We 
have to start thinking about those teachers having income tax 
provisions to be able to deduct expenses they have for their 
classrooms. We ought to think about these biodiesel workers being laid 
off. We ought to be thinking about the people who are harmed by the 
floods and have an extension of the temporary tax relief for them and 
quit bad-mouthing popular bipartisan proposals that we need to pass and 
should have passed yet last year, as the House of Representatives did. 
So we need to get back to work on a bipartisan package that was in the 
works until the Democratic leadership dramatically changed directions 
and went partisan.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. I wish to speak for up to 10 minutes as in morning 
business.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (The remarks of Ms. LANDRIEU pertaining to the submission of S. Res. 
419 are located in today's Record under ``Submitted Resolutions.'')
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Pennsylvania.

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