[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 160 (Wednesday, December 12, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7753-S7754]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              FISCAL CLIFF

  Mr. REID. Madam President, the headline news for the last many weeks 
has been the fiscal cliff. In speaking to the President 6 months before 
the election, a few weeks before the election, a few days before the 
election and immediately after the election, he indicated we needed to 
get our financial house in order, and that his goal--to do just that.
  But to do that, and because of past experiences, he laid out what he 
wanted, and it is very simple: The rates for those who have been 
blessed with economic security in this country will have to be a little 
higher and middle-class Americans will keep the same tax structure they 
have had for the last many years. He will not raise taxes on the middle 
class, but those people who have done well will have to pay a little 
bit more. The American people think this is the way it should be.
  Now just a little bit of history. I have said this before, but I will 
go into a little more detail today. When I first became the leader, I 
took a trip with a number of Senators to South America, countries that 
we American Senators had never been to, such as Bolivia. It was a 
wonderful trip. It was great for our country and good for the Senators 
to learn more about that most important part of the world to America.
  I was very fixed on who I wanted to go on that trip with me, but the 
two I asked to go were Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, who had been 
chairman of the Budget Committee, and Kent Conrad, who was the chairman 
of the Budget Committee at the time. Those two fine Senators spent 
about 18 hours seated side by side, both having tablets to write on, 
and they were working on the No. 1 issue they thought important for 
this country, which was what we should do about the future of our 
country economically. They came up with an idea that was very good. It 
had worked before on closing military bases.
  We had military bases that we had been trying to close since World 
War I, and we couldn't do it. We didn't have the political will to do 
it. So we had a base closing commission. With the base closing 
commission we said: OK, we are going to have a commission that will 
work on this and they will report back to us. There will be no 
filibusters, no amendments, just an up-or-down vote. We did that. We 
had two rounds of those, and we closed scores of bases and saved the 
country hundreds of billions of dollars.
  That is what Judd Gregg and Kent Conrad patterned their legislation 
on. They would have an appointed commission that would report back to 
us, no

[[Page S7754]]

amendments, no filibusters. I thought it was novel, a great idea. So 
the legislation was drafted and I brought it to the Senate floor. Seven 
Republicans who had cosponsored the legislation wouldn't vote for it. 
We couldn't get 60 votes to bring it to the floor. So a number of us 
asked President Obama if he would do a commission and he did. It was 
the Bowles-Simpson Commission.
  The Bowles-Simpson Commission didn't have the potential the Judd 
Gregg-Kent Conrad work had, because although they would send us 
something here, we could amend it and filibuster it. But we didn't have 
to worry about that, because we couldn't get enough votes from the 
commissioners to do that. So that was a failure.

  Then President Obama entered into negotiations with the Speaker and 
they had talks that went on for weeks. They failed. They had another 
round of talks. That failed. Joe Biden, our Vice President, met with 
the majority leader of the House of Representatives, the Republican 
Eric Cantor. Cantor walked out of those meetings.
  After all that, there was an agreement made here that we would have a 
supercommittee. It would work under the same terms and conditions as 
the program Judd Gregg and Kent Conrad came up with. The supercommittee 
would have 3 members appointed by me, Senator McConnell, the Speaker, 
and Leader Pelosi--12 in all. Then we would bring their work to the 
floor, with no amendments, no filibusters. About a week before they 
were ready--they had to report by statute--I got a letter signed by 
virtually every Republican Senator saying: No revenue.
  So the President is not going to fall for that again. Because every 
time we have done this--and I just went over what has happened, and we 
can add to that the Gang of Six, the Gang of Eight, and other well-
intentioned Senators--never, ever could they agree on revenue. So the 
President is not going to fall for that again. He is not going to do 
that again.
  It is as though we are going to have a card game and they say, you 
show us all your cards and then we will show you ours. But when it 
comes time to show the cards of the person you are playing against--
nope. It reminds me of the ``Charlie Brown'' cartoon. How many times is 
Charlie Brown going to try to kick that football? Because we know every 
time he approaches that football it will be taken away from him. He 
can't do it. That is what has happened here, and we are not going to 
fall for that again.
  The American people aren't going to be under the illusion the 
Republicans will, sometime in the future, come up with revenue. They 
are either going to agree to raising the rates or we are going over the 
cliff. How many times do we have to go through this drill to know it is 
an unfair game? So President Obama is not going to fall for that again. 
He has been very, very clear.
  I heard Leader Pelosi say on the news this morning she has hopes 
Speaker Boehner will come around. I hope that, in fact, is the case. 
But to this point there hasn't been a lot of progress, and I am very 
disappointed.

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