[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 184 (Thursday, December 17, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8739-S8742]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 OMNIBUS AND TAX EXTENDERS LEGISLATION

  Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I rise to applaud my colleagues for being 
in the Christmas spirit. I have never seen so many gifts and presents 
given out in one bill.
  Let's be clear, we aren't voting on just a $1.1 trillion spending 
bill called the omnibus, we are not voting on just that bill. That 
bill, by itself, could have been acceptable because it helps veterans, 
middle-class families, our Defense Department, our border security, and 
a host of other valuable Federal programs, but we aren't voting on just 
the omnibus bill. We are forced to vote on both the omnibus and the tax 
extender package that adds an additional unpaid-for $680 billion of 
gifts for special interest groups.
  We are giving out $680 billion in irresponsible tax breaks, Christmas 
gifts to every special interest and corporation that asked for one. We 
gave Christmas presents to millionaire race car drivers and motorcycle 
riders, film, television, and theater producers, and even racehorse 
owners. Don't get me wrong. I like going to the movies, I like riding 
my motorcycle, and even going horseback riding from time to time, but I 
don't think many middle-class Americans will be happy to know we gave 
away billions of dollars in tax gifts to millionaires and billionaires 
at their expense. They should be especially upset that we did it by 
mortgaging the futures of their children and grandchildren. I have 
always said we are writing checks that our kids can't cash.
  I think a lot of Americans would want to know how we got here. How 
did we get to the point where we force ourselves to vote on a 2,000-
page, trillion-dollar spending bill at the end of the year just so we 
can all rush home for the holidays? How did we add a $700 billion tax 
extender package that gives the wealthiest among us the gifts they 
want? The truth is that we stopped following regular order. A lot of us 
only heard about regular order. We have never actually governed by it. 
I only know about regular order because before I joined the Senate and 
before he passed away, Senator Robert C. Byrd told me how this place 
used to work. We used to talk about how things would happen. He would 
be disappointed in all of us on both sides, Democrats and Republicans, 
that we have run the body he loved so much the way we have.
  This is what regular order is supposed to look like. After receiving 
the President's budget--which we do, starting our new Congress--
Congress is supposed to respond with our view of what the budget should 
look like. Then we work through 12 appropriations committees and their 
subcommittees to develop 12 separate appropriations bills. The entire 
body should then consider each individual bill and make sure they meet 
the demands of our constituents while staying within the means of our 
set budget. We need to do that 12 separate times so we can honestly 
tell the American public that we were responsible with their money and 
we can answer to that.
  Instead, we are jammed at the last minute with a $1.1 trillion 
spending bill that is over 2,000 pages long and considers the 
priorities of those 12 committees all at one time, without talking 
about them and debating them individually. Not only that, as if that is 
not enough, this year we have a special treat of adding on a $700 
billion tax gift Christmas tree package instead of actually doing the 
tax reform all of us talk about but never actually get around to. At 
some point, we are going to have to start setting our priorities based 
on our values, budgeting based on our priorities, and being responsible 
stewards of the taxpayers' money. It will happen sooner or later.
  Instead of working throughout the year in a bipartisan way, we 
continue to govern by crisis, one after another. We kick the can down 
the road all year and then add in more than half a trillion dollars in 
gifts to our special interest friends.
  Both parties are to blame. This is not just a bipartisan issue, both 
parties are at fault. The Christmas gift will add $2 trillion to our 
debt over the next two decades. My grandfather Papa Joe always taught 
me to base our priorities on our values and then budget based on our 
priorities.
  Well, we have sure shown the American people what our values are with 
this bill. We pay a lot of lip service on this floor, on cable news, 
and on campaign trails about our priorities, but when it comes down to 
it and time to govern based on the priorities, all we get is lip 
service.
  We had choices to make in this bill. We could have helped middle-
class families or could have given tax breaks to multinational 
companies--notably the major banks--parking their money abroad. We 
could choose to make college debt free or we could choose to help the 
film, television, and theater producers deduct the cost of their 
movies, shows, and plays. We could choose to double our border security 
or we could allow racehorses to be depreciable. We could choose to give 
every American family $5,600 in tax relief or we could have chosen to 
give favorable tax treatment to racing complexes. We could have chosen 
to keep the promise that President Truman made to our patriotic coal 
miners in 1946 and protect their pension and health care guarantees or 
we could choose to give $680 billion in tax breaks to special interest 
groups, millionaires, and billionaires.
  We chose poorly. We truly chose poorly. Democrats and Republicans 
both say we need to help our hard-working American families, but we 
have completely ignored the most hard-working people out there I know, 
our coal miners, and we should be ashamed of ourselves.
  I know some of my colleagues don't like coal. They think they don't 
need it and want to get rid of it, but this isn't about coal. It is 
about the brave men and women who gave and who have gone into those 
mines every day for over a century to power our economy, produce the 
weapons to fight our wars, and provide the energy we all depend on 
today. It made us the greatest country on Earth, a superpower. 
Basically, with this God-given resource that we had, these brave men 
and women worked and worked hard, very patriotically, to make sure this 
country had the energy it needed to defend itself and to build the 
industrial might that we have to be the superpower of the world.
  They were guaranteed affordable health care and dignity in retirement 
in return for the blood, sweat, and tears they shed for our country. 
That was a guarantee, a written guarantee, in 1946. They were 
guaranteed affordable health care and retirement. I want you to know 
that by not being able to have that in this bill--as laden as it is 
with all of these giveaways, freebies, picking who is getting what, and 
all the millionaires and billionaires--we went back on our promise. We 
decided to help race car owners, film producers, horseracing 
professionals, foreign entities, and a host of other special interest 
groups, but we didn't help our own miners. We did not help our own 
people.
  Today we said that despite finding a fiscally responsible way to meet 
these

[[Page S8740]]

obligations, our priorities were not in valuing their service. I cannot 
stand on the floor and vote for a bill that tells middle-class 
Americans, students and veterans, doctors and nurses, mothers and 
fathers, and our seniors that these are our values. They simply are not 
who we are and what we are about. They are not the values that the good 
people of West Virginia, Wisconsin or all the other 50 States that we 
have in this great Union basically value, and they are not the values 
the ``greatest generation'' and our miners fought for.
  I encourage all my colleagues to vote no and show the American people 
once and for all what our values should be and that our priorities are 
about them and not about special interest people and special people who 
don't need the help. They have already done very well in life. I would 
hope we would all think twice before voting on this absolutely 
irresponsible piece of legislation that adds another $700 billion of 
debt. It is uncalled for.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to enter into a 
colloquy.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I have two of my colleagues with me; the 
three of us were former Governors. My good friend Senator King was the 
Governor of Maine, my good friend Senator Mark Warner was the Governor 
of Virginia, and I was previously the Governor of West Virginia. So we 
maybe think a little differently about how things should work in a 
budget.
  Unfortunately, we don't aim for the bipartisan success we had in 
1997. In 1997, President Clinton, a Democrat, under his 
administration--at that time we had Governor Kasich, who was then a 
Congressman, a Republican, and they worked together to get a budget. 
And, I might say, it was the last time a balanced budget was 
negotiated. The government suffered budget deficits every year from 
1970 through 1997, when a balanced budget was finally negotiated.
  In 1998, the President, along with a Republican-controlled Congress--
as we have today--recorded a surplus of $69 billion and continued to 
deliver surpluses. In 1999 it was $126 billion; in 2000 it was $236 
billion; in 2001 it was $128 billion. The Congressional Budget Office 
in January of 2001 stated in their budget outlook that the Federal 
budget over the next decade continued to be bright and would build on a 
period of historic surpluses. Historic surpluses are what they 
predicted. That was in 2001.
  However, just a year later, CBO--the same people--changed their tone, 
projecting that long-term pressures on increased spending and 
decreasing revenues due to tax cuts would set the country on a path 
toward deficits. CBO even went so far as to warn President Bush and 
Congress, stating: Taking action sooner rather than later to address 
long-term budgetary pressures can make a significant difference. In 
particular, policies that encourage economic growth, such as running 
budget surpluses to boost national savings and investment, enacting tax 
and regulatory policies that encourage work and saving, and focusing 
more government spending on investment rather than on current 
consumption can help by increasing the total amount of resources 
available for all uses.
  But Washington ignored the warnings, and the budget deficits 
returned, along with the bipartisan blame that plagues the Nation's 
Capital today.
  Since 2002, the Nation has routinely suffered from irresponsible 
budgets, resulting in a growing national debt. Between 2008 and 2012, 
the deficits totaled $5.6 trillion, and in 4 of the 5 years, they were 
larger relative to the size of the economy than they had been in any 
year since 1946. In 2014, our spending was $3.5 trillion and our 
revenues were only $3 trillion--a deficit of $485 billion. In 2015, CBO 
projects our spending will be $3.67 trillion and our revenues will be 
only $3.2 trillion--a deficit of $426 billion. Our deficit is projected 
to decrease slightly in 2016, with spending at $3.9 trillion and 
revenues at $3.5, for a deficit of only $414 billion. However, 
beginning in 2017, they begin to rise again. With spending at over $4 
trillion and revenues at $3.6 trillion, we are still adding $416 
billion and climbing.
  The three of us have a hard time understanding that. Basically, we 
all had balanced budget amendments in our constitutions. Every Governor 
sits down at least once a week with the revenue, and the revenue people 
come in with all the tax people. Every Governor sits down, and they 
tell us where we are. They tell us where we are on projected revenues 
and if we can continue spending what we projected to spend or if we 
have to start cutting. As Governor, you have to start making those 
decisions on a weekly basis, sometimes on a daily basis. But that was 
our responsibility.
  On our current trajectory, we will be returning to trillion-dollar 
levels by 2025, with spending of $6 trillion and revenues of only $5 
trillion. Our Federal debt now exceeds $18.7 trillion, equivalent to 
roughly 100 percent of GDP, and CBO projects budget deficits will rise 
steadily. By 2040, our Federal debt will reach a percentage of GDP seen 
at only one previous time in the history of this great country, and 
that was the final year of World War II.
  If we think back to World War II, our parents and grandparents were 
wondering: How do we survive? How does the world survive? We didn't 
worry about what we had spent and what revenue we had. We did whatever 
it took.
  This is all self-inflicted. This is truly self-inflicted, and it is 
not one party spending more than the other party or one party being 
more irresponsible. It is all of us not doing our job--just doing what 
we are doing today, voting on a combined omnibus with an extender bill 
wrapped into one, and saying: There is a lot of good, and we need to do 
it. If you don't do it, you are going to shut down the government.
  That is not the case. Somebody sooner or later has to say enough is 
enough. How can we go home and explain this to the people? I can't. We 
are leaving people behind and not doing the job we should be doing.
  That is why I am so pleased to be here with my dear friends. Senator 
Angus King from Maine--the job he did I think was exceptional. I yield 
to Senator Warner.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I know my friend from West Virginia and I 
compliment the Senator from Maine.
  Before these two great former Governors came to this body, there were 
many times I would stand up and rail on these issues. It is great to 
have other folks who balanced budgets and made hard choices in their 
careers. I welcome the opportunity to share a couple of my thoughts.
  I will not repeat all of the comments Senator Manchin made. I concur 
with the vast majority of them. The data is overwhelming. I know the 
Presiding Officer has also taken on this issue. There are some good 
things, so let me start with some of the good.
  As someone who feared that at some point this tax extender package 
might exceed $800 billion or get close to $900 billion, I think it is 
an interesting place when folks are celebrating the fact that it is 
only $680 billion of unpaid-fors. In many ways, there is a lot to 
commend in the policy choices made by both sides. On the Democratic 
side, making permanent the earned-income tax credit is, frankly, a 
policy that was initiated by a Republican President and called the best 
anti-poverty program around. Expanding and making that permanent is a 
step in the right direction. The child tax credit is a policy raised by 
both sides, and making that permanent and expanding it makes an 
enormous amount of sense.
  I know, as well, that from a business standpoint, one of the 
challenges businesses face in an ever more competitive world is lack of 
predictability. So for certain areas, such as the R&D tax credit and 
179 expensing, it is appropriate and timely that we make those 
provisions permanent.
  I know there may be differences, particularly even on my side. The 
bonus depreciation provisions are nice to have, but I am not sure I 
know any business that makes that decision on capital investment based 
upon bonus depreciation, and the fact that it is

[[Page S8741]]

winding down over 5 years is a great step in the right direction.
  I have some concerns about some of the international tax provisions, 
not because of the merits of the system but as someone who believes 
strongly that to keep America competitive, we need international tax 
reform. If we take things off the table now, the ability to bring those 
back to get the kind of comprehensive tax reform we need in the long 
haul makes those challenges more difficult.
  Let me again build on Senator Manchin's comments. I want to be 
respectful of my colleagues' time and make this brief. As Senator 
Manchin said, anybody in this body that tries to say this is all the 
Republicans' fault or it is all the Democrats' fault doesn't know their 
history. There are no clean hands.
  As Senator Manchin mentioned, the good news is we are actually at a 
relatively low rate of annual deficit. The challenge is that, because 
of unthoughtful behavior by those of us in this Chamber and many that 
preceded us, now the aggregate debt our Nation faces is $18.5 trillion, 
and it will go up.
  I talked to a group of high school students this morning and said: 
The biggest challenge you are going to inherit is this massive amount 
of debt. If we are not careful, within a few years the Federal 
Government of the United States will be a social insurance party and an 
army and nothing else.
  Yesterday Senator Cantwell spoke to this. I know the Federal Reserve 
appropriately started to inch up interest rates. With this aggregate 
debt--by the way, we just added $680 billion more to this debt over the 
next 10 years through these unpaid-for tax extenders--interest rates go 
up one percentage point. At 100 basis points, that is more than $140 
billion. We can have $140, $150, $180, depending on how they collect 
it. But let's take the conservative, $140 billion a year of additional 
spending off the top before we spend on any other priority. That is 
more than this government spends on the Department of Homeland Security 
and on the Department of Education combined.
  So at some point we do have to say ``no mas.'' At some point--and I 
hope it will be starting next year--we will step back and look at this 
holistically. Even though there are good policies in this extender 
package, the overall aggregate is a challenge.
  Two last points. We worked on a transportation bill in this body. 
While I supported the policy goals when it was here on the stand-alone, 
I voted against it because the pay-fors were a hodgepodge that 
basically had nothing to do with transportation. It is remarkable to me 
as a businessman--not as a Senator, but as a business guy. You look at 
your balance sheet on your expenditure side and your revenue side. They 
are both spending. Purely from a government standpoint, you are 
spending on the Tax Code or you are spending programmatically. When we 
spend on investments like transportation, we have to pay for them. When 
we spend in the Tax Code, suddenly there is a free pass that these 
items never have to be paid for. Yet going forward, when we look at our 
budget next year, we will have less ability because the revenues have 
been decreased over a 10-year period of $680 billion. I know my 
colleagues will speak to these issues.
  I want to make a final point. I am not sure of my colleagues' stand 
on this, but it is of grave concern to me. I supported the Affordable 
Care Act. I think there are good things in it; I think there are 
problems that need to be fixed. But one of the components of the 
Affordable Care Act that even its greatest critics point out is that it 
actually was paid for. Some of those pay-fors, we are paying for. They 
were policy choices; one in particular was the so-called Cadillac tax. 
The remarkable thing about the Cadillac tax was that was the one point 
of agreement--whether you are an economist on the left or the right--
that not only would it generate revenues for the so-called ACA, but it 
would also be one of the most powerful reform packages to hold the 
overall cost of health care down. Perhaps due to an election year rush 
and because the pressure is on both sides, Congress is taking its 
proverbial punt. Rather than fixing the Cadillac tax or rather than 
fixing the medical device tax, we are delaying the implementation of 
both of these revenue sources.

  I will make a wager now with any Senator in this body that while the 
promise of this delay is only for 2 years, 2 years from now there will 
be another reason to delay additionally. In doing so, what we do is 
undermine the financial legs as well as some of the policy legs of the 
ACA, and in a State such as mine where we have not expanded Medicaid, 
we provide fodder to those who want to delay the expansion of Medicaid 
because they are afraid that the Federal Government will not honor its 
commitments. By delaying the implementation of these pay-fors, 
unfortunately, I think we strengthen their argument.
  I thank both of my colleagues. They are both dear friends--the 
Senator from West Virginia and the Senator from Maine. We have 
sometimes been lonely voices in our caucuses on these issues.
  With that, I want to turn this over to my friend, the Senator from 
Maine--who, like the Senator from West Virginia, has balanced budgets, 
has made tough choices--to speak on the issue of the tax extenders and 
the omnibus, Mr. King.
  Mr. KING. Madam President, I believe the Senator from Wisconsin wants 
to make a comment before I do.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Fischer). The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Mr. JOHNSON. Madam President, I was sitting in the chair and I was 
listening to----
  Mr. McCAIN. What is going on here?
  Mr. KING. A quick colloquy.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There was consent granted for a colloquy.
  Mr. JOHNSON. Very briefly, I was sitting in the chair and I was 
listening to the Senators from West Virginia and Virginia, and I am 
sure the Senator from Maine will also be talking about an area of 
agreement. The Senator from West Virginia talked about our mortgaging 
our children's future. That is the truth.
  I want to commend the Senators for highlighting this mortgaging of 
our children's future and the facts. I know a couple of Senators 
supported my amendment to the budget process, laying out the 
information. The only thing I want to chime in on is to lay out the 
truth of how severe this mortgaging of our children's future is. One of 
the things I did in the budget process was to lay out a 30-year deficit 
projection by CBO, putting it in dollar format.
  The fact of the matter is, according to CBO, over the next 30 years 
the projection deficit is $103 trillion--about $10 trillion over the 
next decade, $28 trillion in the second decade, and $65 trillion in the 
third decade. We got that in the budget process to lay it out over 30 
years. In the budget process, we also asked CBO to put this in as a 1-
page income statement, to lay out where that $103 trillion comes from. 
We have this 1-page income statement that lays out revenue and deficit. 
The first two lines are Social Security and Medicare. Over the next 30 
years, there will be $14 trillion more in benefits paid out than is 
brought in by the payroll tax into Social Security. It is a $34 
trillion deficit in Medicare. The remainder of that $103 trillion 
deficit is interest on the debt.
  I want to commend the Democratic colleagues here who are so concerned 
about the mortgage of our children's future and these added deficits 
from this tax extender package. It is a real concern. We have been 
trying to find the areas of agreement that unify us. This is certainly 
one of those things. We have to stop this process.
  I appreciate the Senator yielding time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Mr. KING. Madam President, I rise to join my colleagues, including 
the Senator from Wisconsin, to discuss what we are going to be voting 
on tomorrow.
  First, I should say I have no major problem with the budget deal, 
with the omnibus. The process isn't exactly what it should have been. 
We didn't consider our 12 appropriations bills on the floor. However, 
the appropriations process did go through the committee process, and it 
was a result of bicameral and bipartisan negotiations.
  My problem is with the tax extenders part of the package. First, it 
is a double standard. For all of this year--and we struggled in the 
Armed Services Committee and through the appropriations process--
everything that had to

[[Page S8742]]

be increased in spending for whatever purpose had to be paid for. That 
was the standard. Everything has to be paid for. We had to find 
offsets. Then all of a sudden, we are considering a $680 billion hole 
in the deficit that doesn't have to be paid for. It is like we are all 
concerned about the debt, except when we aren't. Frankly, as someone 
who has been here for a fairly short time, I find this puzzling. The 
rule ought to apply both ways, because tax expenditures, by the way, 
are what they are. Republican and Democratic economists concede that 
the deductions, loopholes, and changes in the Tax Code are called tax 
expenditures. That is what they are, because otherwise they would be 
revenues to the government.
  These are real dollars, and this is what has happened since the Tax 
Reform Act of 1986, when tax expenditures represented about 5 percent 
of GDP. Here we are today, and then the package we are talking about. 
We are going up into this area. This is almost 8 percent of GDP. This 
is a huge outlay that is like new mandatory spending. It happens 
automatically. It doesn't have to be reviewed every year. There is no 
assessment of whether these expenditures are effective or not, and some 
of them obviously are.
  I have no problem with many of the items that are in here--mortgage 
interest deduction, health care interest deduction. But some of them 
deserve consideration, just as our budgets deserve consideration. This 
is on automatic pilot. This is a kind of new mandatory spending. The 
other piece is that we are deepening the debt hole. This is the percent 
of GDP of spending, and these are revenues. This is the deficit. This 
is the debt. That is what is killing us in the long run.
  There is a tremendous interest rate risk here--as the Senator from 
Virginia pointed out. We are now at historically low interest levels. 
In living memory, I don't know a time when interest rates have been as 
low as they are. For every point that interest rates go up with an $18 
trillion debt, the cost to the Treasury is $180 billion. The math isn't 
that complicated. If interest rates go up to 5 percent, just interest 
payments on this $18 trillion debt will be $900 billion a year. So 90 
percent of our current total discretionary budget would go to interest 
payments. It would swamp the defense budget. It would swamp the 
discretionary budget. Yet we are tiptoeing along the edge of this 
precipice.
  If interest rates go up with an $18 trillion debt, we are in real 
financial trouble. The second problem with this huge debt is it gives 
us no room for slack. It gives us no room for an emergency, for a 
recession, for hostilities, for a major terrorist attack and its effect 
on our economy. We have no cushion because we have used the cushion up. 
We continue to use it up, even when the economy improves. This $18 
trillion some day is going to have to be paid back.
  Finally, these aren't really tax cuts. Tax cuts are when you lower 
taxes and lower expenditures or raise other taxes so it is revenue 
neutral. If you cut taxes in a time of deficit, which means you have to 
simply borrow the difference of what the revenues would have been, that 
is not a tax cut. That is a tax shift.
  We are simply shifting the taxes from ourselves to our children. This 
bill should be called the ``tax your grandchildren act'' because we are 
cutting our own taxes, but we are borrowing the money that otherwise 
would be collected and our kids are going to have to pay it back at 
some point with interest.
  That is unethical. That isn't right. If 5-year-olds knew what was 
going on and could vote, we would be dead ducks, because that is who is 
bearing the burden of these policies.
  What do we have to do to solve this? In some ways, it is simple and 
in other ways it is hard. Conceptually it is simple. We have to bring 
expenditures and revenues into balance. That means looking at the whole 
course of Federal revenues and also Federal investments, and we also 
have to make investments to make our economy grow.
  The best solution to this deficit problem is a growing economy. But 
ultimately for me, this is an issue of ethical stewardship. Tom Brokaw 
wrote the famous book ``The Greatest Generation.'' They fought World 
War II, sacrificed, built the Interstate Highway System, and built the 
economy that we are running on today--the greatest generation.
  I shudder to think what would be the case if Tom Brokaw wrote a book 
about our generation, which is borrowing and is not keeping our 
infrastructure up, is not adequately providing for the common defense, 
and is shifting the cost from us to our children. That is not 
stewardship; that is intergenerational theft. That is what we are 
engaged in here.
  We are going to have one vote tomorrow. I intend to vote for the bill 
because I believe in the budget section, but I am very uncomfortable 
with the tax extender section. I don't have policy problems with many 
of those tax extenders. I do have a fundamental problem if they are not 
paid for. I don't think it is honest for us to go home and say that we 
cut your taxes when our grandchildren are going to have to pay those 
bills with interest.
  That is the point that I think needs to be made about this, not that 
we are going to be able to stop this train that is going to be coming 
through here in the next 24 hours, but that we really need to talk next 
year about serious tax reform, about trying to balance revenues and 
expenditures and putting this country on a financial path, on a fiscal 
path that is sustainable and responsible.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, my colleague and dear friend from 
Virginia, Senator Warner, has worked extensively on trying to reform 
our Tax Code. We had something called the Simpson-Bowles Commission, 
which I think he took the lead on and was very much instrumental. What 
does this do to give you the chance to basically fix the problems we 
have with the Tax Code?
  Mr. WARNER. It decreases our revenue line going forward. It does take 
some of the things, particularly in international tax reform, off the 
table. There are arguments that some of these being made permanent may 
make it easier. I will give you an example. The R&D tax credit is 
something that most of us on both sides of the aisle support. Here is 
the kind of only-in-Washington math that takes place. We are making 
permanent the R&D tax credit and not paying for it. Yet, if next year 
we decided to cut back on the R&D tax credit, that would be viewed as 
additional revenue to the bottom line, even though the cost of it has 
never been built in. Again, people who maybe are watching might say: I 
don't understand that accounting.
  Let me assure you: If you questioning that accounting, then welcome 
to Washington, DC, and Federal Government accounting and budget lines.
  I think this will make it more challenging. There are some benefits, 
as I said earlier--predictability to our business community. I would 
echo what the Senator from Maine has said. At the end of the day, we 
are simply transferring the obligations from our responsibility to that 
of our kids and grandkids. Long term, that is not going to give them 
the same kind of country that we all inherited.
  Mr. MANCHIN. As we finish up on the colloquy here, the House is going 
to vote twice. They are going to vote on the extenders bill and the 
omnibus bill. For the second time, we are going to roll them into one 
in the Senate. We will not have the opportunity to vote twice. The 
omnibus bill is something that I could have supported. The extenders 
bill is absolutely something I cannot support, for the future of our 
country and our children. It is a shame that we don't have a separate 
vote.
  With that, I thank the Senator from Maine and the Senator from 
Virginia for this colloquy.
  With that, we yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to address the 
Senate in morning business and take as much time as I may consume.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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