[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 156 (Thursday, December 6, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7674-S7675]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CREATING ECONOMIC CERTAINTY
Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, for the last few days the Senate has
worked as the Senate should work. We have had amendments. We have had
both sides working to find solutions; the Defense Authorization Act,
the Russia trade agreement, a bipartisan vote on each of those. In
fact, every time we have approached legislation that way this year, we
have actually gotten something done. The FAA extension, the
Transportation bill, the postal reform bill, the farm bill, and now the
Defense bill all came out of committee, all had amendments, all had
debate, and they all had a bipartisan vote that passed the bill. That
is the way I think the Senate should work. I would like to hope it can
work that way as we approach the end of the year and as we try not to
go over the fiscal cliff.
They call it a cliff for a reason. I think a lot of people are acting
as though right below the cliff there must be a fiscal ledge, but I
don't see the ledge we are going to fall onto. I think we are actually
going to--if we go over the cliff, there will be some harm that is
done.
If we are going to take a balanced approach focusing on job creation,
we have to do the things that get spending under control as well as the
things that might produce more revenue. Nobody in the President's party
has yet endorsed the $1.6 trillion tax package he has talked about--or
I don't think there is a growing demand to have the permanent debt
limit increased. I also don't think there is any chance Congress will
look at the Constitution and decide the President, on his own, can
borrow money.
A number of people who have looked at the fiscal cliff all come up
with bad conclusions. In July of this year, a study by Ernst & Young
warned that raising taxes on the top 2 percent would destroy 700,000
jobs. Nobody has challenged that in any significant way. What if it is
500,000 jobs? What if it is 350,000 jobs or what if it is more than
700,000 jobs? This is not what we should want to do.
This study also says that raising those taxes will decrease wages by
almost 2 percent and reduce economic growth by 1.3 percent in an
economy that is barely growing 1.3 percent. If we go totally off the
cliff--that was the proposal of just the tax rates for the so-called
top 2 percent. If we go totally off the cliff, the CBO--the
Congressional Budget Office--says the consequences will be even much
worse than that. In fact, they say we definitely would put the country
into a recession.
Just last month, the Congressional Budget Office warned that with the
population aging and health care costs per person likely to keep
growing faster than the economy, the United States cannot sustain the
Federal spending programs that are now in place. That is why a lot of
people are talking about entitlement reform and think we need to look
where the money is and figure out how to reform these programs so we
can be sure these programs last.
Programs that are based on how the population looks have to change as
the population changes. Medicare was put in place in 1965. The average
person who reaches 65 lives 5 years longer now than they did in 1965.
That, of course, has a big impact on all the projections as to how this
program would work in 1965 that was put in place, and we need to look
at that. That is why Erskine Bowles, the former Chief of Staff of
President Clinton, said just last week:
Democrats must move on entitlements in cliff deal. . . . We
are going to have to reduce the cost of entitlement programs.
Senator Conrad, the chairman of the Budget Committee, said, we
``absolutely need'' to enact ``fundamental reform'' in our entitlement
programs. He was warning that Social Security is ``headed for
insolvency.''
Senator Durbin said ignoring entitlement reform is not a
``responsible approach.''
We do not want to eliminate these programs, but we want to be sure
they last, and this is a good time to look at both revenue and
spending. Surely, if this Senate works as the Senate should work, we
can find out how to do both those things.
My friend from Wyoming just talked about the death tax, the estate
tax. For all the reasons he mentioned, this is another tax we need to
look at doing something about before it goes back to the taxable levels
of 10 years ago. There are 2 million family farms or farms and ranches
in the United States--2 million--and 98 percent of them--almost 2
million--are owned by individuals, family partnerships, and family
corporations. To any extent this is corporate agriculture, it is only
corporate agriculture because a family decided that was the best way to
structure what they owned as a family--98 percent of those 2 million
farms.
Cropland prices have gone up more than most things over the last few
years, though nobody's bank account, if a person is a family farmer,
reflects that. A person's financial statement might reflect that, but
their bank account doesn't reflect that unless that person decided they
were going to sell part of the farm. What we don't want to do is make
people sell the farm or ranch or continue to have a little piece of the
farm or ranch and more likely sell a piece of it and that
multigeneration of family farms, in most cases, the person who dies and
their family is impacted by the death tax, can very likely become the
last farming generation.
At a time when we need to focus on job creation, the Joint Tax
Committee estimates that the increase in the estate tax would cost the
country over 1 million jobs. Senator Barrasso talked about the State of
Wyoming. In the State of Missouri, we have the second highest number of
farms in the Nation. They are not the second biggest in many cases but
the second highest number.
We have over 100,000 individual farms. The American Farm Bureau says
that right now, with the tax that is in place, 1,100 of those farms
would be subject to the estate tax or the death tax--1,100. If we go
back to the 2000 levels of $1 million, which would be taking us over
the cliff--as going over the cliff would have us do--15,000 Missouri
families would be affected at some point in the future by the estate
tax. The difference in 1,100 and 15,000 is 13 times as many families
would have to worry about this tax, and it becomes the motivating
factor of how they run their farm rather than how they can pass their
farm or ranch along to the next generation. I don't have the number in
front of me, but when I looked at those numbers earlier in the year, I
think it was about nine times as many small businesses in my State
would be affected by the 2000 levels as would be affected if that same
estate was taxed at today's levels.
We have people stepping forward on this from both sides of the aisle.
I recently discussed this issue with the chairman of the Finance
Committee, Senator Baucus from Montana, who has spoken out about
protecting farmers and ranchers in his State who want to pass their
property along to their children. I told him I would do anything I
could to help him maintain the estate tax levels we have now, though
both he and I are in support of legislation that would eliminate the
estate tax. That would be my preference. But very often in a democracy
we don't get our preference. We try to figure out what we might be able
to accomplish that is not quite all we would want to accomplish.
Keeping this year's level would be important.
Senator Landrieu from Louisiana called the estate tax at this year's
levels of estate tax ``a make or break issue'' and called it
``inherently unfair.''
Senator Pryor from Arkansas has stressed the need for ``stability''
so
[[Page S7675]]
families can plan. Whatever we do with these tax policies, as much as
possible, we need to do them in a permanent way. This business of going
1 year at a time or 2 years at a time on the estate tax--if someone's
family has a taxable estate event this year, it is not a big deal; if
they have it in January, it is devastating. We don't need to continue
to have that.
This shouldn't be a partisan issue. It is about protecting families
and the things they have put together, often working side by side as a
family. We need to work across the aisle on this issue and other
issues.
Rules Changes
One of the issues that right now is making that harder than it needs
to be is this discussion of the rules changes. Some people want to
change the historic role of the Senate which is designed to foster
compromise and debate as we had this week on the Defense bill, or like
we had as the Russian trade bill came to the floor.
Instead of reaching across the aisle, this kind of discussion about a
rules change is an attempt to build a wall.
Now, every time this discussion happens, the minority always appears
to say the same thing.
Senator Reid, the majority leader, pledged, in December 2006, ``to
run the Senate with respect for the rules and for the minority rights
the rules protect'' when he became the leader.
He said:
The Senate was established to make sure that minorities are
protected . . . and I am going to do everything I can to
preserve the traditions and rules of this institution that I
love.
In 2005, then-Senator Obama said:
If the majority chooses to end the filibuster . . . then
the fighting and bitterness and the gridlock will only get
worse.
In that same year, 2005, Senator Schumer said breaking the rules
would ``change the whole balance of power and checks and balances in
this great Senate and great country.''
And Senator Durbin warned in 2005 that what was then called the
nuclear option would ``really destroy our system of checks and
balances.''
Everyone will rush and say: Well, the Republicans talked about doing
this then. That is why these people were making these comments. But the
point is, the Republicans did not do it. The Republicans did talk about
it in the majority, and they listened to the minority. They listened to
the arguments about the Constitution, and they did not do it. What you
talk about may be important, but what you do is really important.
Hopefully, Democrats will look at this again and decide they do not
want to do it. The Senate rules say it takes 67 Senators to change the
rules. I believe that is what the Parliamentarian will rule in the next
Senate if this comes up. Then, if you are going to do it with less than
that, you have to immediately vote to overrule the Parliamentarian and
break the rules to change the rules.
It does not sound like, to me, that is the way to solve problems or
to work together, particularly in a Congress where the Senate is
controlled by one party and the House is controlled by the other. What
good does it do to force things through our system that cannot possibly
get to the President's desk?
The Senate operates differently from the House of Representatives for
a reason. I was in the House. I liked the House. The House is run by
the majority. That is the way the Constitution intended it. They have
2-year terms, and every year after the election, it was envisioned that
the House of Representatives would be more responsive to what voters
thought they wanted to do that day. But it was also envisioned that the
Senate would serve as the reason you had to think for a while about
this. It would not just be one election, but usually in the Senate it
takes a couple of elections where people have verified: No, we want to
change course. And changing course in a country as great and as big and
as diverse as ours is a big decision. The Constitution works that way
for a reason.
This is a hornet's nest that I do not think we need to kick over. Our
Nation's Founders knew what they were doing. Let's let the House be the
House and the Senate be the Senate. Let's continue to have a reason for
two different legislative bodies. If all we are having is a House that
works like the House and a Senate that works like the House, we have
significantly minimized the great genius of the Constitution.
Allowing the minority party to exercise its rights to debate and
amend legislation should be the rule, not the exception. I hope the
Senate, which is led by Democrats today, and will be next year, will
stop this debate and start figuring out what we can do together to
solve problems, just like we have done this week with the Defense bill
and the trade bill; just like we have done in this Congress with, as I
said to start, with FAA and Transportation and postal reform and the
farm bill--all of which came out of committee, were open to wide-
ranging amendments, had a bipartisan vote, and reached the kind of
legislative conclusion that the Constitution envisioned and the people
we work for have every right to expect.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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