Max Baucus

Mr. BAUCUS

Mr. BAUCUS. The Senator can ask unanimous consent that he have the last statement, whatever he wants to do.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, maybe we are ready to vote. Have the Senators used their time? Mrs. HUTCHISON addressed the Chair.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, this is not an easy matter, of course. We want every child to have the opportunity to attend college, to get a higher education. That is a given. It is particularly important in these days, as the economy gets more and more complex, the world economy more globalized. I think the major advantage we have in the United States of America is our education system. When we talk about value-added, it is knowledge-based, value-added America through education that is going to give us the competitive advantage compared to other countries around the world. Education is key. It is Head Start. It is pre-head Start. It is all that goes into children, from the instant they are born, creating a family environment and community environment to help kids be excited about life--not be put down, but excited--Head Start, kindergarten, all the way through elementary, secondary and, of course, higher education. That is a given. We are doing what we can to help make that happen. Rome was not built in a day, but we are doing all we can to help make that happen. I might have a couple or three points here. One, I would like to remind Senators what we provide for in this bill that helps kids get a better education. There are the provisions which help elementary and secondary students. The amendment offered by my good friend from New York is directed more toward higher education. Let me just go through what we have for education. Essentially, it is about $35 billion in this bill, over 10 years, for education. About $11 billion of that is for higher ed; it is to add something new in this legislation which has not existed in prior law. What is that? That is to provide a deduction for college tuition. In the bill it starts at lower amounts, $2,000 or $3,000, and gets up to a $10,000 deduction for tuition for education. That is new. We have never done that before in the U.S. Congress. That is new in America. That is in this bill. It is a start. Is it everything? No. It is clear tuition in some colleges is a lot more than that, but it is a start. It will help students get a break when they go to college and other loans are available. In fact, this bill, I remind my good friend from New York, actually deletes the limitation on interest deduction for student loans so students will always have their interest deduction on student loans. Does that solve all the problems? No. It is a help, it is a start. We know in life there are no free lunches. There are none. We have to work sometimes in life for what we want to attain. We can't just give gifts to everybody. We want to help. We want to help kids go to college, do the very best we can to create conditions to make that possible. In addition, private institutions have availability for prepaid tuition programs. That has not been available in the past. I mentioned the modification of the student interest deduction; that is, the limitation is eliminated. IRAs, for education IRAs, that is expanded from a $500 contribution to $2,000. There are several other provisions in here which will help education. They total, as I said, about $35 billion over 10 years. It is $10 billion, the program suggested by my good friend from New York. I join in the frustration of my good friend from New York at the difficulty in getting amendments scored by Joint Tax. Why do we face that? It is because this bill is being rushed. There is no doubt about it. Because this bill is being rushed, we are bound to make mistakes. We are bound to not have the information we should have. That is very unfortunate. I personally believe we should not be working on a tax bill in the context of reconciliation which has very constricting limits on debate and amendments. But we are. I had hoped we would not be on this bill until Monday of this week. But others with so-called pay grades higher than mine had a different view than mine and we are here now. We have to deal with what we have. That is unfortunate, but that is where we are. I would like to have a lot more in here for education. I have a soft spot for education. I think most of us have a soft spot for education. But we cannot do it all at once. I wish we could, but we cannot. But we have a terrific--just think of it--start with the deduction of college tuition provided for in this Senate bill of up to $5,000. That is not small change. Mr. President, $5,000 toward tuition is a start. Students can make up the difference in various other ways, either through families or jobs or scholarships. There are ways to get things done, and certainly $5,000 is going to help a lot. But I want to make a point to my good friend from New York. He does have a very good point: Gee, this so-called grand compromise, this grand perfect bill, and so forth, can be made better. Of course it can. I would like it to be made better. I know my good friend from New York and other Senators realize that all things are not equal. And what is a little bit different here is that there happens to be a different body down thataway. That other body down the hall has a different view on this tax proposal. They are going to want to change this dramatically in conference. This tax bill is going to change dramatically in a direction, I might suppose, that is contrary to the wishes of the Senator from New York. So what I am trying to do, in getting a package together--and working with the chairman of the committee, for whom, I might add, I have the utmost respect--is to get an agreement that is better than what would otherwise pass in this Chamber, because if we did not have this bipartisan compromise, I guarantee you we would have a tax bill in this Chamber which would be much less to the liking of the Senator from New York and virtually every one of my colleagues on my side of the aisle. But now we can go to conference in a better position and come back with a result which is better than it otherwise might be. Were it not for that context, I would probably be here arguing, yes, we should change this; we should add more for tuition deduction; we should do that. But there is no free lunch here. We have to deal with the deck we were dealt. In that context, it is a better bill from the perspective of the Senator from New York, so we can go to conference and come back with a result that is better than it otherwise would be for the Senator from New York and for other Senators. That is really where we are. So for all those reasons--and basically it is the last reason--I have the utmost respect, I must say, for my very good friend from New York. New York has two super Senators, and one of them is Senator Schumer. The other is Senator Clinton. I must say I don't know of a Senator around here for whom I have a higher regard than Senator Schumer; I might say Senator Clinton, but certainly Senator Schumer from New York. He is on the right track. I have the utmost respect for him, but I cannot support his amendment because I want and I believe, in the end, when the conference report comes back through this process, we can come up with a better product.

Mr. BAUCUS. How much time remains?

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I urge the Senate to heed the wise words of the chairman of the committee. They were important. That is, in the final analysis, this will come down to whether there are 51 votes to adopt the conference report. This is an evenly divided Senate, 50/50, for all intents and purposes. I am sure the Vice President can break the tie, but it is basically 50/50 and it comes down to whether there are 50 or 51 votes. I do believe very strongly that the bill we are working on today is a very significant improvement from my point over what we otherwise would be passing in this body and that it is a bill very similar to that offered by the President and passed by the House. This bill before the Senate today is much better in terms of distribution, child tax credit, refundability, more for education, tuition deduction provided for, a whole host of provisions. It is a lot better from my point of view and the point of view of the vast majority of Members of this side. I urge Members, as our very wise chairman has said, to think about this over the next several days, because when we do come back from conference, the conferees are going to have to come up with the result, to sustain not only in the House, which is very easy, but to sustain in the Senate, which is more difficult. I urge the conferees and I urge Senators to be prudent, wise, and to remember there must be 51 votes in the Senate to adopt a conference report. I commend the chairman of our committee, but particularly Members on my side of the aisle who have offered amendments. There have been good amendments, very well intended, and I wish I could have ordered more of them. I could not, in the view to get a better bill for all Senators, Democrats and Republicans. I think it is important for all Senators to vote for a tax cut that they think is better than otherwise we would be facing. Some Senators are not going to vote for a tax vote that the conferees will bring back. It will not happen. But I think it is my responsibility to bring back a conference report for which some Senators on my side of the aisle can vote. It is my hope we can bring back a conference report that does have the support not only of 51 Senators but significantly more than 51 Senators so it truly is bipartisan. That very much depends on the conferees. I thank my good friend from Iowa who has been so decent and straightforward and honest as the day is long, a very wonderful person. We have more miles to travel, and my expectation is we will travel those in the same spirit of cooperation. I see my good friend from New Jersey standing ready to leave. I say to my good friend from New Jersey, I appreciate his efforts, particularly on the stimulus amendment. There will be another day when we can adopt very good amendments as proposed by my friends from Florida as well as New Jersey.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I would just like to say that on an earlier amendment I got a little carried away in being critical of it. In fact, I even suggested the amendment was more of a message amendment. I do recognize that, frankly, it was a very good-faith effort to meet a real concern; namely, whether we can meet our fiscal responsibilities as we look to see whether these budget surpluses materialize or not. I do still think the amendment is not a good one, but not because it is not well intended. It is very well intended. The authors have worked very long and hard to try to figure out a way to make it work. But I think it is too complicated. It is more in the nature of a Rube Goldberg solution. But it is very well intended. I compliment the Senators who offered that amendment and tell them I respect their effort efforts. I just apologize to those Senators if they took personal offense at my earlier comments.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I very much appreciate the comments of both the Senator from Louisiana and the Senator from Iowa. This is a very fine amendment for lots of reasons, as has already been articulated here. I think we can find a way to get this done. I compliment the Senators. We know lots of families who would love to adopt a child. How wonderful it is for the families to be able to adopt a child. It means a great deal for the parents to have those children. So many people want to have children and just cannot. I thank the Senator for what she is doing.

Mr. BAUCUS. I have stated my reasons why I think this is not a good idea. I stand by what I said, on the entitlements, which is an additional reason why the provision isn't firm, to say the least. It is more than infirm; it is beyond infirmity. I urge that the Senate not approve it. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask consent that 5 additional minutes be evenly divided on this amendment.

Mr. BAUCUS. Also, we have a lot of other amendments lined up this evening, and I do not know whether those Senators really want to move to their amendments or not. There was a time agreement. I see Senator Landrieu is here. Senator Landrieu may want to offer her amendment at this time.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I do not think I can agree to that unless there is an equal opportunity to respond.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, with all due respect to my very good friends, this is an uncertainty layered upon an uncertainty. The uncertainty is whether the surplus target will be met. The uncertainty layered on top of the uncertainty is whether the trigger will be pulled. We cannot legislate certainty. We can only exercise good judgment. We, as a Congress, in these next years, have to decide what to do according to the circumstances at the time and exercise good judgment as to what we should do. Unfortunately, nobody has discussed the substance of this amendment. It is because we are in this time constraint where everything is rushed, and we are in message amendment time. Nobody has looked at the substance. There have been no hearings on this. Let me tell you what this thing does. I am all in favor of the intent, but if this is enacted, we are making a mockery of the Congress--a mockery. First, you cannot and should not limit public debt management. The Treasury Secretary has to have discretion in debt management. Right off the top, we are tying the hands of the Treasury Secretary, for whatever reason he or she may want to borrow more, sell more securities, sell more bonds for domestic reasons or for international reasons. Secretary Rubin has said consistently that we should not tie debt management to fiscal policy. You should not do it. It is wrong. I understand why the Senator from Indiana is offering this amendment, and I understand why the Senator from Maine is offering the amendment. Let me talk about the uncertainties in this amendment. I do not know if Senators know what is in the amendment. This amendment essentially provides--I will summarize it--scheduled debt reduction targets, in even numbered years, and the Treasury Secretary will certify whether these targets are being met. If they are not being met, then what happens? What is triggered is that reductions in taxes are automatically stopped, the growth rates for discretionary spending are automatically held at the rate of inflation, and entitlement spending increases are automatically stopped. What about a Medicare drug benefit? I heard that entitlement increases will be stopped. No, I will stand corrected because I see the Senator from Indiana shaking his head. But the way it is drafted, new entitlement spending, as I understand it, is included in the trigger. But I stand to be corrected if that is not the case, but that is how I read this amendment now. What happens in odd-numbered years? Things are not automatic. But any Member can stand up in this Chamber and say the targets have not been met and set a trigger process in motion. Boy, is that uncertainty. Do we really want to tie our hands like that? Do we want to limit our discretion in future years as to what is best by putting this automatic provision in the law? Do we want to tie the hands of our Treasury Secretary in debt management? Do we really want to do that? What are other countries going to think watching us do this? Talk about the steepness of the yield curve. Why is the yield curve steep? It is steep because the bond market today believes in the outyears that interest rates are going to rise. Why? Because the Federal Reserve has just lowered interest rates by 50 basis points. And because this tax cut is going to pass. The market thinks there is going to be growth because of the stimulus of this tax cut and because of the lowering of short-term interest rates. As a result, the market believes there will be inflation in the outyears; therefore, long-term interest rates are going to be higher. That is what is going on. And I will tell you something else. The markets will not believe a trigger which is not real. This is not real. This is a message amendment. It is a message amendment. It is not real legislation. We should not be standing here--I am getting tired of message amendments, Mr. President. I want to legislate. I do not want to give messages. I want to legislate, and this is a message amendment. It is not legislation, serious legislation. I believe we should not adopt it.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, we do not have a lot of time, so I cannot go into great detail. I believe we have 5 minutes; is that correct?

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, there are parts of this job that are not fun, and one of them is standing up and saying: I cannot agree with my good friend from West Virginia. Believe me, he is a good friend. There is no stronger advocate for seniors and prescription drug benefits than Senator Rockefeller. In many respects, we are here because of a man named Brian Schweitzer. Who is Brian Schweitzer? Brian Schweitzer is a man from the State of Montana who ran for the Senate. He mobilized this Nation, or at least got this Nation to realize that we need to provide a prescription drug benefit under Medicare. He took busloads of seniors to Canada, where seniors could buy prescription drugs for much less than they cost in the United States. He took busloads of seniors to Mexico, where seniors bought drugs for much less than they could buy the same drugs, manufactured by the same drug companies, in the United States. He basically started a kind of popular ``prairie fire'' for the right reasons. As a consequence, this issue probably was a major component in about five Senate elections this last year. It could have been determinative in a couple, but it was certainly a major issue. And for good reason. Last year, the 50 most popular prescription drugs used by seniors rose by twice the rate of inflation. Fifteen of those 50 drugs increased by three times the rate of inflation, and eleven of the 50 most popular drugs used by seniors increased by three times the rate of inflation. Utilization--a fancy term for ``use''--is increasing. Costs are increasing. We all know that if we were to write a Medicare bill today--not as we did in 1965--we would include outpatient drug coverage under Medicare. That is a given. We also know that it is a very expensive proposition. We have to write a prescription drug benefit bill that is fair, that makes sense, that is responsible, and that helps seniors. Let's take a drug that is very popular among seniors, Prilosec. Prilosec is a prescription drug that relieves ulcers and similar gastrointestinal illnesses. The out-of-pocket expense for Prilosec is about $1,400 a year. The average Social Security benefits are $10,000 a year. So that means that more than 10 percent of Social Security benefits would go toward buying Prilosec for a senior with an ulcer. And we know that seniors take a lot more prescriptions than Prilosec, which helps them so much. We all know the importance of prescription drug therapies. That is a given. I do not think anybody disagrees with that in this Chamber. The real question is, how do we design a benefit, and when? I tell you, I will work as hard as I can to get a prescription drug benefit passed this year, working with my good friend from Iowa, Senator Grassley. But I do not think it is wise to condition the enactment of major legislation upon other legislation. In fact, I believe it is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has ruled that you cannot condition enactment of legislation upon a contingency. It is unconstitutional. It would not stand constitutional scrutiny. Although the constitutional issue is one reason, the second reason I speak in opposition to this amendment is a public policy reason. It does not make sense to condition passage of one major bill upon passage of another major bill. We should take up issues as they come up, one at a time. It is perhaps a bit simplistic, but you take each event as it comes. We cannot condition hour 6 against hour 8 or 11, and so forth. It cannot be done. So I say to my very good friend from West Virginia--I mean, he bleeds for these issues, and correctly so, because it is the right thing to do. But there is a time and place for everything. One can question, what is the right time? The right place? There is a proper time and place. According to Ecclesiastics, there is a time and place for everything. I urge us to resist the Siren song of contingency and, rather, to take up the issue of prescription drugs when the time comes--and that time is after the passage of this tax legislation, which I suspect will pass. In relation to the conference report, I am not sure the conference report is going to be agreed to. That is a very real concern that I have. But certainly in the next three months or so, we can sit down and work hard to get a prescription drug benefit, a universal benefit, along the principles we all know we need and want, passed this year. And we can do it. Let's do that, and pledge to do that. But I do not think it is wise public policy to condition passage of one major piece of legislation on another. Besides, I believe it is unconstitutional. So why are we are going to do something that is going to be ruled unconstitutional? Let's just do our tax business now and then get the prescription drug business done. Let's aim for it.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. BAUCUS. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. BAUCUS. I am sure teachers agree with that. Another point, Mr. President, is that teachers can, today, deduct unreimbursed expenses. It is in the law today. Just as any employee, they can deduct unreimbursed expenses. They can deduct them. If it were your sister buying supplies, she can deduct all that. It is already deductible today, as my good friend from Virginia mentioned, as professional expenses. We are not talking about another deduction but adding a credit. It is something in addition to what teachers can already do. They can deduct their professional expenses today, buying paper, and so forth. It is true they don't have the world's highest tax bracket, so the value of the deduction isn't as much as it otherwise might be, but it helps a lot. I think we should keep the policy of deducting unreimbursed expenses, but let's not, on top of that, add a credit. I think we should just hold the line.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I have such reactions when I hear my friends from Connecticut speak. There is no greater champion for kids than the Senator. I am surprised he doesn't have a kids tie on because often he does wear one. A couple points. Connecticut is one of the highest per capita income States in America. My response is, let them try to pay teachers a little bit more.

Mr. BAUCUS. May I reclaim some of my time?

Mr. BAUCUS

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, today I am pleased to re-introduce an important, common sense, community-based bill with my friend, Mr. Jeffords. That bill is the Post Office Community Partnership Act of 2001. It is not by mistake that we offer this bill during National Historic Preservation Week. This week, sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, highlights the need to support the diversity and history of our communities and work to revitalize them. A few years ago, we discovered that post offices throughout the country were not paying attention to local ideas and local needs before closing, relocating, consolidating, or constructing new facilities. I know of several examples in my home state of Montana. Post offices in Livingston and Red Lodge, for example, proposed changes that would have severely altered the downtown fabric of those communities. These small, rural towns have a Main Street by name and by function. It's on Main Street that people stop by the post office on the way to the bank or the grocery store. It's where they enjoy the chance to not only get all their ``in town'' chores done, but also interact with each other. It's small town ``Main Streets'' all over the country that are threatened when post offices close or relocate. At a time when many rural communities are struggling, the closure or relocation of a Main Street post office is the sounding of a death knell. Communities like Livingston and Red Lodge define our rural landscapes. They have been built around a cluster of essential services that ensure their vitality. Communities are unnecessarily hurt when cornerstone institutions, like post offices, close or relocate. People not only lose a gathering place, they lose an important element of their community. There are certainly instances where closures, relocations, consolidations, and new construction are good choices for a community. This bill doesn't change that. What it does, is address those instances where people and communities have suffered because the Postal Service has made a decision without consulting with community members. While the Postal Service has made some internal changes in the past couple of years to include more public involvement, I fear that new pressures on delivery service will tempt the Postal Service to focus on ways to meet their business needs, while belying the role they play in communities. Today, Senator Jeffords and I are re-introducing legislation to ensure public participation in local post office decisions relating to closing, consolidation, relocation, or new construction. This bill isn't about imposing new mandates on the Postal Service. It's about honoring the role that the Postal Service plays in our towns and communities. It's about protecting a partnership that communities and the Postal Service have nurtured throughout the history of this country. Indeed, partnership is what this bill is all about. Specifically, our bill outlines a process for community notification and involvement. It makes sure that a community's voice is heard. It requires the Postal Service to post notification of proposed facility changes. It specifies that local government officials be notified of the proposed changes at the same time as persons serviced by the local post office. And it requires the Postal Service to follow local public participation processes if they are more stringent than their own. These common-sense provisions will ensure that communities continue to partner with the Postal Service and that both the Postal Service and our communities will continue to enjoy a mutually beneficial relationship. I urge my colleagues to support Senator Jeffords and me in passing this important legislation. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BAUCUS

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, today I am pleased to re-introduce an important, common sense, community-based bill with my friend, Mr. Jeffords. That bill is the Post Office Community Partnership Act of 2001. It is not by mistake that we offer this bill during National Historic Preservation Week. This week, sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, highlights the need to support the diversity and history of our communities and work to revitalize them. A few years ago, we discovered that post offices throughout the country were not paying attention to local ideas and local needs before closing, relocating, consolidating, or constructing new facilities. I know of several examples in my home state of Montana. Post offices in Livingston and Red Lodge, for example, proposed changes that would have severely altered the downtown fabric of those communities. These small, rural towns have a Main Street by name and by function. It's on Main Street that people stop by the post office on the way to the bank or the grocery store. It's where they enjoy the chance to not only get all their ``in town'' chores done, but also interact with each other. It's small town ``Main Streets'' all over the country that are threatened when post offices close or relocate. At a time when many rural communities are struggling, the closure or relocation of a Main Street post office is the sounding of a death knell. Communities like Livingston and Red Lodge define our rural landscapes. They have been built around a cluster of essential services that ensure their vitality. Communities are unnecessarily hurt when cornerstone institutions, like post offices, close or relocate. People not only lose a gathering place, they lose an important element of their community. There are certainly instances where closures, relocations, consolidations, and new construction are good choices for a community. This bill doesn't change that. What it does, is address those instances where people and communities have suffered because the Postal Service has made a decision without consulting with community members. While the Postal Service has made some internal changes in the past couple of years to include more public involvement, I fear that new pressures on delivery service will tempt the Postal Service to focus on ways to meet their business needs, while belying the role they play in communities. Today, Senator Jeffords and I are re-introducing legislation to ensure public participation in local post office decisions relating to closing, consolidation, relocation, or new construction. This bill isn't about imposing new mandates on the Postal Service. It's about honoring the role that the Postal Service plays in our towns and communities. It's about protecting a partnership that communities and the Postal Service have nurtured throughout the history of this country. Indeed, partnership is what this bill is all about. Specifically, our bill outlines a process for community notification and involvement. It makes sure that a community's voice is heard. It requires the Postal Service to post notification of proposed facility changes. It specifies that local government officials be notified of the proposed changes at the same time as persons serviced by the local post office. And it requires the Postal Service to follow local public participation processes if they are more stringent than their own. These common-sense provisions will ensure that communities continue to partner with the Postal Service and that both the Postal Service and our communities will continue to enjoy a mutually beneficial relationship. I urge my colleagues to support Senator Jeffords and me in passing this important legislation. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. BAUCUS

Mr. BAUCUS. I do not object.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I regret I was not present on the floor when the leader and the chairman and ranking member of the committee were proposing a unanimous consent request.