[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16574-16576]
[From the U.S. 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

[[Page 16575]]

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 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.

[[Page 16576]]

  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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