[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.
____________________