[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16761-16762]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            MORNING BUSINESS

  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, in behalf of the leader I ask unanimous 
consent that there be a period for morning business with Senators 
permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DeMINT. 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the quorum call be rescinded.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. DeMINT. Mr. President, this is that time of year when Congressmen 
and Senators go back to their States and report to the people about 
what we have done and what we plan to do. I am looking forward to going 
back to the State of South Carolina. I know the people are going to be 
interested in things that are much simpler. They want to know if we are 
going to help make the future better than the past, if we are going to 
make them safer, if we are going to make them more prosperous, if we 
will do the things in Congress that will protect the values they 
believe make this country great.
  As we think about how we have made this country safer, we can all be 
thankful there has not been an attack by terrorists in this country 
since September 11. A lot of that can be attributed to the President, 
his firm stand against radical Islamic terrorists around the world, and 
his effort, along with Republicans, pushing the PATRIOT Act to give our 
Government the tools it needs to track down terrorists.
  Unfortunately, as many Americans know, our Democrat colleagues have 
made it very difficult for the President and for Republicans to do 
those things that are necessary to protect our people. The minority 
leader was bragging, boasting, that they had killed the PATRIOT Act. 
Fortunately, we were able to overrule and get that bill passed so our 
country will be safer.
  Our colleagues on the other side have also criticized the President 
for using technology to track communications of terrorists and to trace 
their finances--on every turn, criticizing.
  Perhaps the biggest problem we have is our Democrat colleagues do not 
even appear to know the enemy we are fighting. They seem to believe 
that if we withdraw from Iraq that somehow this global war against 
radical Islamic terrorists will just go away.
  Most of us who are thinking clearly know that Afghanistan and Iraq 
are just two fronts in this battle on terror. It is a global war. We 
see it now in Lebanon. We see it in many places around the world. We 
have even been able to stop some attacks in the United States. The 
right is right: We are facing an enemy that is spread around the world. 
If we allow them to win in Iraq, we will never defeat them anywhere. We 
are making this country safer. We are doing it despite the obstruction 
of the other side of the aisle.
  South Carolinians and Americans will ask how we are protecting 
values. Unfortunately, again, I have heard too many of my Democrat 
colleagues say we need to be dealing with important things and not 
messing with these value issues. They have tried to block a number of 
things, but we were able to pass the Child Predator Act, we were able 
to pass the Child Custody Act, and we were able to get some good judges 
approved so we can stop the activist courts from overturning our values 
and our beliefs in this country. We have made progress.
  I want to talk specifically tonight about helping Americans make ends 
meet. I know I have heard this around South Carolina, and my colleagues 
are telling me they are hearing it all over the country, that despite a 
good economy, many Americans are still having trouble making ends meet. 
As we say sometimes back home, there is too much ``month'' at the end 
of our money. People have gotten raises, but they have also seen more 
taken out of their paycheck for health care. They have seen the cost of 
gasoline continue to rise.
  We know our Democrat colleagues, for decades, have blocked new energy 
supplies in this country. They have blocked the generation of 
electricity with nuclear power. They blocked the development of new oil 
reserves in Alaska more than 10 years ago. If they had not stopped it 
then, we would now have an additional 5 percent supply of oil at a time 
we desperately need it. The point is, my Democrat colleagues have 
raised the cost of living for many Americans. We have to stop that.
  This week we started off well. We passed a new energy bill that will 
open new exploration in the gulf. We know there are huge reserves of 
oil and natural gas that will lower the cost of gasoline and make it 
easier for our businesses to compete in this country. That is something 
we passed despite Democrat obstruction.
  On Friday this week we will take up one of the most important bills 
of the year. This gets at the recent calls for prosperity that the 
American people are asking for. We call it the Family Prosperity Act. I 
call it, raise your standard of living and lower the cost of death.
  This bill includes a number of things. It increases the minimum wage 
but, more importantly, it provides a number of research and development 
tax credits, tax credits for welfare to work, a lot of tax incentives 
to expand our economy, increase jobs and help everyone increase their 
income in this country, not through a Federal mandate but by just 
letting businesses and individuals keep more of their own money and 
reinvesting in our economy. That is the way to help increase income. 
This bill includes all of that.
  It also reduces this death tax and gives some permanency out there. 
It makes absolutely no sense in this country when people pay taxes 
their whole lives, and when they die we are going to take more of it. 
We have not been able to overcome the Democrat obstruction to 
completely eliminate the death tax, but we have come up with a good 
compromise.
  All week we have heard the Democrats in the Senate talking about this 
death tax, with lots of misinformation about what it really means. The 
death tax does provide revenue to the Federal Government--last year, 
about $24.8 billion, which is a lot of money, there is

[[Page 16762]]

no question about it. But if you look at what keeping that money in our 
economy would do if we were able to eliminate the death tax completely, 
a number of economists say this would add $847 billion in capital 
investment and create over 100,000 new jobs a year.
  Simply leaving that money in the economy, rather than bringing it 
here to Washington, where every American knows we don't necessarily 
spend it in the most efficient way, it would add over $10 billion in 
growth per year to our gross domestic product. This economic activity 
and the tax revenues associated with it would more than offset the loss 
of revenues from eliminating this death tax.
  Let's look at it another way. This really gets back to the American 
family and what this means to us as a Nation. This death tax provides 
less then 1 percent to the Federal budget as far as tax revenues. What 
it does to an individual family, a small business, a farm--I have heard 
all week this is just the richest people in America. That is absolutely 
not true. The people who work for these small businesses and farms are 
not rich. Many times when a person dies, their estate has to sell the 
farm or sell the business in order to pay, sometimes, over half of what 
that business is worth. A family may have to work their whole lives to 
build up this business. There is no reason when they die that we will 
take half of that value and put it in the Federal Government.
  Only the Democrats are going to try to make America believe that 
somehow we are better off as a Nation, somehow the lower income people 
in this country are better off if we take money from a family farm or 
small business or car dealership, if we take that money and put it into 
Government. Somehow America is better off and this will help the little 
guy.
  What this does, it takes his job, it diminishes our economy because 
this money will not work as hard in our Government to create jobs and 
to raise personal income as it will if we leave it where people are 
investing and hiring people, creating jobs, building our economy, all 
across the country.
  Unfortunately, again, our Democrats are obstructing one of the most 
important things we can do for the American people at this time. We can 
keep talking about a good economy, but lower and middle-income 
Americans are not increasing their incomes as fast as the cost of 
gasoline and health care is increasing. We have tried to put a small 
business health plan on the floor of the Senate this year that we think 
would lower the cost of health care to small businesses to around 20 
percent, but it was blocked. We hope to bring it back.
  Too many Americans do not have health insurance. Those that do are 
paying more and more every year. If they get a $25 a week raise and 
their employer has to take $50 more a week out of their paycheck for 
their health insurance, they are worse off than they were before. When 
they stop by the gas station, if it costs $25 more to fill up their car 
than it did a year ago, they are worse off than they were.
  This bill we will be voting on--the motion to proceed--on Friday, we 
will bring it to the Senate floor to debate and work on it in 
September. We can send a signal to the people of South Carolina and the 
people of this country that we care about the problems they are having 
making ends meet and we are not going to stand for the Democrat 
obstruction that continues to keep the cost of living higher by 
blocking new energy production, keeping taxes high and fighting the 
things that will actually lower the cost of living such as lowering the 
cost of gasoline and lowering the cost of health care.
  The Family Prospect Act includes the first increase in the minimum 
wage in almost 10 years. It includes a reduction in the death tax so 
small family farms and businesses will not have to be sold. It includes 
tax credits for college tuition, welfare to work, and many other things 
we know will create jobs. It is truly the Family Prosperity Act.
  I call on my colleagues to stop obstructing what we are trying to do. 
We believe we can raise the income of every American and that we can 
lower the cost of living if we just work together.
  I hope all of our colleagues, Republican and Democrat, will see the 
individual family in America is much more important as far as their 
income than the Government. By passing this bill, at least moving on to 
debate at the end of this week, we will have done a lot to reassure 
Americans that we do care about lowering the cost of living so they can 
live more prosperous lives.

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