Max Baucus

Mr. BAUCUS

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 and section 4(g)(3) of the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, I move to waive all applicable sections of those acts and applicable budget resolutions for purposes of the pending amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. BAUCUS

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, this is a new substitute amendment. We voted on an earlier version today. This is a new one. It still addresses many of the same issues as the last substitute, but it is smaller. It has fewer dollars involved and it is more paid for. The majority of this amendment is now offset. Most of the dollars spent in this amendment are offset, not by a lot but still the majority--more than half. All of the amendment is offset except for two matters: the unemployment insurance and the aid to the States under Medicaid; that is, the safety net provisions are not offset--those two. Everything else is offset. That means we do pay for changes to how doctors are compensated under Medicare. That is paid for. We do pay for all the changes to the tax laws. They are paid for as well. We also made changes to the provisions regarding S corporations and carried interest. I will have more to say about those tomorrow, but suffice it to say that the S corp changes address some of the administrative concerns and burdens some Senators had as we were attempting to stop the abuses of some professional S corps, the abuses they have been conducting. Frankly, they have been paying themselves a very small salary. These are professional corporations primarily. Then they pay themselves dividends. Because dividends are not wages, they avoid payroll taxes. They avoid the FICA tax and avoid paying the Medicare tax. That is something we are trying to stop. The substitute still addresses that abuse but in a way that is less burdensome to bona fide S corporations. The carried interest provisions generally soften some of the provisions that were contained in the substitute. The bottom line is that we listened. Several Senators had some concerns about the earlier substitute. We heard those Senators, and we have adjusted the amendment accordingly. We believe this amendment can provide a path forward. We believe this amendment can complete our work on this bill. We believe this amendment can help to enact into law help to people who need help, the unemployed, and States under Medicaid and also help create jobs our constituents are demanding. The tax provisions will have that effect. I very much hope that when we get to the substitute amendment vote, we will get the necessary votes to pass it. I am looking for something above 60, north of 60, so we can move forward to other measures. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BAUCUS

Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, this amendment is sheer sophistry. The effect of his amendment will say that not oil companies but the taxpayers will pay for cleanups. The effect of this amendment would mean no increase in oilspill liability tax from 8 cents a barrel today up to 41 cents. If there is no increase in the spill liability tax, oil companies aren't going to pay for future cleanups, the taxpayers will. He has this--I said ``sophistry.'' So it is a sophistry kind of argument. It is fog and double counting and bead counting. That is not what is going on here. The bottom line is this amendment has the effect of taxpayers paying for the cleanup, not the oil companies. This will effectively repeal the increase up to 41 cents per barrel. I urge Senators to not support this amendment.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, what is the pending business?

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, George Santayana wrote: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Today, we must remember the past. We must learn from past mistakes, and we must do our best to avoid repeating them. In its response to the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Federal Government made a serious mistake. It is important to remember this past so we are not condemned to repeat it. The stock market crashed in 1929. By 1933, the unemployment rate reached a high of 25 percent. A few years later--4 years later, to be precise--in 1937, the economy was rebounding. The unemployment rate had fallen to 14 percent, gross domestic product was growing at an average rate, if you can believe it, of 9 percent a year, and the stock market had more than doubled over the past 4 years. That was 1937. The economy was on the road to recovery. But this exceptional economic growth did not just happen. It resulted from strong actions by the Federal Government. From 1933 to 1937, for example, the United States dramatically increased the money supply. Lower interest rates and greater credit availability helped to stimulate spending and economic growth. New Deal programs also helped. Spending was modest but significant compared to the magnitude of the Great Depression. But the response provided a notable boost to the economy, and it helped instill confidence in the Federal Government's ability to tackle the Depression. But in 1937, after 4 years of growth, the government made a mistake. Concerned about short-term deficits, what did it do? It began to cut spending and it began to raise taxes. A bonus for World War I veterans, which provided a boost in consumer spending, was allowed to expire in 1937. Social security taxes were collected for the first time in 1937. And marginal tax rates increased dramatically. What happened? This premature attempt to reduce deficits pushed the economy back over the edge. It was premature. The jobless rate shot back up to 19 percent. In 1938, gross domestic product fell by 3 percent. Shortsighted policy decisions caused a double-dip. The mistaken desire to balance the budget too quickly effectively lengthened the Great Depression by 2 more years. I understand the desire today to reduce deficits. I share that desire. We do need to put in place deficit reduction that will take effect after the recovery has kicked in. But we must also learn from the 1937 history. We must not repeat the mistake that led to the double-dip downturn of the late 1930s. If we were to dramatically cut spending or increase taxes to reduce the deficit in the short run, it would run the risk of causing a double-dip in this great recession. Today, the economy remains too fragile to begin cutting back. Unemployment stands at 9.7 percent. The May jobs report was disappointing. The private sector created only 41,000 new jobs. In total, 15 million Americans still remain out of work, and half those unemployed have been unemployed for more than 6 months. Gross domestic product grew 3 percent in the first quarter of 2010, but this was down from 5.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009. Just as in 1937, we are in a recovery period. That is true. And just as in 1937, it is a recovery that is showing signs of weakness. If we act recklessly today, we risk a double-dip recession. If we adopt a constrictive fiscal policy in the short run, we risk prolonging the great recession for years to come. We cannot act without regard to the consequences of our actions. Make no mistake, we must tackle and should tackle our long-term deficits. That is clear. And that is why one of the goals of the President's Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform is to ``achieve fiscal sustainability over the long run.'' We do need to act aggressively to reduce our long-term deficits as the economy enters a phase of expansion. But first we must pull ourselves out of this great recession. One of the best things we can do to facilitate the delicate recovery is to pass the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act before us today. This bill extends tax cuts for families and businesses that will help them in these difficult times, and this bill sustains vital social safety net programs that will also help foster economic growth. We have made the mistake of cutting back too soon once before, and we must not make it again. The Thune amendment, which will be before us in the not to distant future this week, will move in the wrong direction. Instead of helping to create economic demand, the Thune amendment would curtail aggregate demand by more than $50 billion. Instead of continuing the good the Recovery Act has done, the Thune amendment would chop it off. The Thune amendment would, among other things, cancel unspent and unallocated mandatory spending in the Recovery Act--stop it. That spending is working. The Recovery Act is working. The Federal Reserve and many independent economists have credited the Recovery Act with playing an important role in stabilizing the economy. This is what the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in its most recent report: CBO estimates that in the first quarter of calendar year 2010, [the Recovery Act's] policies raised the level of real . . . gross domestic product . . . by between 1.7 percent and 4.2 percent, lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.5 percentage points, increased the number of people employed by between 1.2 million and 2.8 million, and increased the number of full-time equivalent jobs by 1.8 million to 4.1 million compared with what those amounts would have been otherwise. That is what CBO says about the recovery. And the Congressional Budget Office projects that the Recovery Act will continue to create jobs. It projects that the Recovery Act will create the peak number of jobs in the third quarter of this year and then begin to taper off. But we do not want to abruptly cut that job creation off. In this fragile economy, the last thing we should do is to cut back on this proven job creator. It works. It has been working. We passed the Recovery Act to give a needed boost to our economy. The bill was designed to work over 2 years. That was the intent of it. We have successfully started down the road to recovery, but if we were to withdraw these critical funds, we would risk causing further damage to our fragile economy. Revoking the Recovery Act funds now would send exactly the wrong signal to the American economy and to unemployed Americans. The Thune amendment would also cut other valuable spending programs. The Thune amendment's spending cuts are arbitrary and they are restrictive. For example, one provision in the Thune substitute amendment would freeze the salaries of all Federal employees except for Members of the armed services. But what about civilian defense workers? What about law enforcement? What about border protection? Another provision would cap the total number of Federal employees at current levels. If an agency needed to hire a new employee, it would first need to find an existing employee to fire. This would dramatically reduce the flexibility of agencies to make hiring decisions. The Thune substitute amendment would also cut discretionary spending by 5 percent across the board for all agencies except the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense. Apparently, this 5- percent cut would apply to the Department of Homeland Security. It would apply to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Apparently, it would apply to all the intelligence agencies, just to name a few. The Thune amendment would also, by the way, rescind $80 billion in appropriated but unspent Federal funds. But just because the funds have not yet been obligated does not mean they are superfluous. For example, when money is appropriated to build a battleship, it does not all get obligated in the first year. By cutting funds that have not yet been obligated, it would adversely affect the construction of that battleship. I support finding ways to make our government more efficient, but these cuts are arbitrary. They are inappropriately restrictive. The Thune amendment would also make changes to the new health care law that would leave more Americans without insurance. The Thune amendment does this by expanding the affordability exception to the individual mandate for purchasing health insurance. This expansion would eliminate coverage for millions of Americans. It would strike at the heart of health care reform. And the Congressional Budget Office tells us it would also increase premiums for everybody else. The Thune amendment, just to repeat, would increase premiums for millions of Americans who would have health insurance. The irony of this proposal in the Thune amendment is that it raises money for the government because the government would not provide as much in tax credits to Americans to help them buy insurance. That is the irony. But Congress has just enacted health care reform. Congress just expressed our Nation's commitment to helping all Americans to buy health insurance. We should let the new health care law take effect. The Thune amendment would also propose changes to our medical liability system that the Senate has rejected many times over the years. The Thune amendment would cap damages and make other changes to State laws. This is not the solution to medical malpractice. While the Congressional Budget Office says these kinds of ideas would generate savings, we should ask: What is the cost of those savings? What would be the cost to patients? What would be the cost to States? The same studies upon which CBO relied in calculating its cost estimate point out that certain tort reform policies may also increase the number of risky procedures performed. And these policies may lead to more patient injuries and more patient deaths. One study upon which CBO relied said that these policies would lead to a 0.2-percent increase in mortality. That sounds an awfully high price to pay. Imposing national tort reform standards flies in the face of our Nation's civil liability system. That system has always been forged at the State level. And national damage caps would put patient safety at risk. The Thune amendment employs some of the offsets that it does because it drops the oilspill liability tax. Imagine that: The proponents of the Thune amendment would rather put the recovery at risk by cutting back the Recovery Act, they would rather cut health insurance coverage in health reform, and they would rather expose patients to greater risk. They would rather do all these things than raise taxes on big oil, to pay for oilspills. And the Thune amendment employs some of the offsets that it does, because it drops some of the tax loophole closers in the underlying substitute amendment. The underlying substitute amendment closes loopholes in the Tax Code that unfairly benefit certain individuals. One such loophole is carried interest. The underlying substitute removes an inequity of the Tax Code that allows investment managers who operate through partnerships to have the income that they earn for their services taxed at half the tax rate of other working individuals. Here's how the carried interest tax loophole works. An investment manager joins a partnership with some investors. But the investment manager does not provide any capital. The investment manager provides services. The investment manager contracts to receive compensation not in the form of wage income, but in the form of a share of the partnership. That way, the investment manager gets to pay lower capital gains tax rates on the investment manager's income, rather than the higher wage tax rates that the rest of Americans pay. The underlying substitute says: No longer should we allow investment managers to have a better tax rate than teachers or doctors or firefighters. Our amendment plugs this tax loophole. But the Thune amendment would strike that provision. The Thune amendment would allow that tax loophole to continue. The underlying substitute also includes an important provision that closes another serious inequity in the Tax Code. Lawyers, doctors, and other professionals who operate as partners or sole proprietors are currently subject to Social Security taxes on their service income up to $106,800. And they are subject to Medicare taxes on all their service income. Everybody is. But some doctors and lawyers organize themselves as an S corporation and they can pay themselves an artificially low salary. That way, they can avoid paying Social Security or Medicare taxes on much of the income generated by their services. That is just not fair. And what is more, it hurts the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. The choice of entity should not affect an individual's tax liability for his or her services. Unfortunately, Senator Thune's amendment does not close this loophole. The Thune amendment would strike this loophole closer in the underlying substitute. The underlying substitute would also close several foreign tax loopholes. The Senate Finance Committee developed these loophole closers jointly with the House Ways and Means Committee, with the assistance of the Treasury Department. These loophole-closers would shut down highly structured and complex transactions implemented by multinational corporations to avoid paying U.S. tax. These tax benefits claimed by the multinational corporations were clearly not contemplated when Congress passed the tax law. Closing these loopholes would preserve and create jobs here in America. Closing these loopholes would discourage U.S. multinational corporations from shipping American jobs overseas. Permitting the continued exploitation of these loopholes would only encourage U.S. multinationals to invest additional capital overseas, rather than here in America. Allowing these loopholes to continue would result in the loss of American jobs. The underlying substitute amendment tackles these loopholes. Senator Thune's amendment, on the other hand, ignores them. By not addressing them, the Thune amendment would allow this irresponsibility to continue. And so, the Thune amendment would put the recovery at risk by curtailing the Recovery Act. It would cut the number of Americans with health insurance and raise premiums. It would nationalize medical malpractice law, putting patients at risk. And it would protect big oil and multinational corporations that ship their jobs overseas. I urge my colleagues to oppose the Thune amendment. And I urge my colleagues to support the bill before us. Let us protect and strengthen this fragile economic recovery. Let us preserve and create jobs, here in America. And let us enact the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act. I yield the floor.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I wish to speak in opposition to the Vitter amendment. The Senator from Louisiana is essentially offering an amendment which has the effect of preventing the oilspill liability tax from going into effect. This is a head-scratching amendment. Why in the world would any Senator suggest there be no increase in the oilspill liability tax? Right now, beginning in about--let's see, what year was it?--1990, Congress, in the wake of the Exxon Valdez oilspill, enacted an Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund and oilspill liability tax, obviously, to pay for potential or future oilspills. The tax was set at 5 cents a barrel. In the 20 years since that time, the tax has been increased just 3 cents to 8 cents a barrel. At the same time, the price of oil has increased, since 1990, from the neighborhood of $20 a barrel to $72 a barrel today. Within the last 2 years, oil has been as high as $147 a barrel. So with the increased evidence of the damage oilspills can create, and with the increased price of oil, we thought it was an appropriate time to raise the oilspill liability tax on oil companies to help pay for future spills. That is why we are doing this. In this bill, we propose to raise that tax to 41 cents a barrel. That is a very modest increase, where today oil in the market is roughly $72 a barrel. You hear this argument--it is not even an argument. It is like Alice in Wonderland stuff. I do not know where this stuff comes from. It is Alice in Wonderland stuff, that somehow we should not do this because it is double counting or something like that. The money that is raised from the oilspill liability tax goes to the Oil Spill Liability Trust Find. And our Federal Government has a cash flow system of accounting, so by definition we will start to lower the budget deficit. That is not double counting. That is just the way it works. It sounds as though the Senator from Louisiana either does not want to lower the budget deficit or he does not want to increase the tax on oil companies from 8 cents a barrel, which is so small. The fact is, what he is doing is saying this: He is saying that the Budget Office, for budget purposes, cannot count the oilspill liability tax to reduce the budget deficit. So, in effect, what he is saying is, there is no oilspill liability tax. What he is saying is the taxpayers should pay for the cleanup, not the oil companies. That is basically what he is saying. He is basically saying--by putting the kibosh on the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund and the revenue coming from it--that he wants to protect the oil companies, protect the oil companies from any increase in the taxes from 8 cents a barrel up to 41 cents a barrel and, rather, have the taxpayers pay for the cleanup, not the oil companies that would pay the increase in the oilspill liability tax but the taxpayers. I do not think that is what the vast majority of Americans wish to see. I think that is over the top and I, therefore, urge my colleagues to roundly defeat the amendment from the Senator from Louisiana who, in effect, does not want the oilspill liability tax increased and, in effect, is saying, taxpayers, pay for the cleanup, not the oil companies. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I believe there is a Senator who might want to speak on this amendment. We are tracking him down right now. So I suggest we do not yield back the remainder of our time.

Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, I don't see the proponent of the amendment on the Senate floor. There he comes.

Mr. BAUCUS

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

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, we are hoping to reach an agreement soon on a procedure during which we can cast votes on various amendments. The first would be an amendment by Mr. Cardin; the next, Mr. Roberts; and then the Sessions amendment. At the conclusion of the Sessions amendment, I think we will then have 40 minutes of debate, and then the Baucus amendment and then the Cornyn amendment, but that will be outlined much more specifically in a unanimous consent request which I think should be coming fairly quickly. I wish to say a word or two about the Roberts side-by-side amendment with respect to medical devices. I think it is important to remind ourselves that we are a democracy. Sometimes I think that is forgotten. That is, we are a country of laws. This is a country where we live by the will of the majority, as enacted into law. It used to be that we here in the Senate would air our differences, vote, and then move on. I must say that lately, and especially with regard to health care reform, many on the other side of the aisle appear to be unable to move on. Many on the other side of the aisle appear unwilling to accept the results of our legislative process as enacted into law and signed by the President. Many on the other side of the aisle appear simply unwilling to accept the new health care law. Some come to the floor daily to complain about it and, in a sense, relitigate it. It is already passed. It is the law. For the life of me, I don't understand why Senators don't realize that now is the time, since the law has been enacted, to offer constructive remarks to help make sure it works even better. We are here to serve the American people. We are not here to score partisan political points. I think most people at home want the Senate to work to offer ideas to help make the recently enacted health care reform law work even better. So today, unfortunately, we have again an amendment to carve out an exception to the medical device fee that helps pay for health care reform. This amendment would pay for the loss of revenue by leaving more Americans without health insurance. We are in a situation where if we cut out this medical device provision, then we have to make it up in some way, so this amendment would pay for the lost revenue by leaving more Americans without health insurance. Senator Roberts offered this amendment a few minutes ago, and it would again seek to make changes to the medical device excise tax that is set to go into effect in the year 2013. The Senate rejected an amendment earlier in the year very much like this one. It rejected it during consideration of the Health Reconciliation Act on March 24. We have already been there. We voted on this, not only in the health care reform bill that passed, but we also already voted on this amendment, and the Senate rejected an amendment very similar to this and rejected it soundly by a vote of 57 to 40. Here we are again. But, still, some on the other side of the aisle appear unwilling to move on. So for the same reasons we rejected this amendment in March, we should reject it again today. We should not exempt one set of medical device manufacturers from contributing their fair share toward health care reform. We should not decrease the number of Americans with health insurance, which this amendment would do--decrease the number of Americans with health insurance. We should, therefore, reject the Roberts amendment. Let me describe the amendment in a little bit more detail. First, the amendment tries to exclude certain medical device sales from assessment. As my colleagues will recall, a fee was placed on various providers to help pay for health care reform, and in virtually every case, the providers agreed to the fee. They would rather not have to pay a fee, but they agreed to it. They didn't cause a big fuss. Why? Because, as a result, more people would have health insurance, and with more health insurance, providers generally make a little more money. What they may lose on markup they could make up in volume as more people would have health insurance. Products that consumers will buy at retail are already excluded. Further attempts to exclude devices are attempts to undermine the entire medical device policy. The health care reform bill included shared responsibility for all health care industries. I would remind my colleagues, that was the basic premise of health care reform. We are all in this together. Shared responsibility. All Americans help share responsibility-- individuals, companies, insurance companies, manufacturers, doctors, hospitals. It is shared. All Americans share. It is about the only way we could make health care reform work in this country, and reform we must because of all the waste that otherwise occurs in our system. There are some estimates that there is up to 29 percent waste in the American health care system. That is a lot of money. We spend about $2.5 trillion a year on health care reform and waste in the American health care system. That is a lot of money. We spend about $2.5 trillion a year on health care reform, and 29 percent comes out to around over $800 billion of waste. I am not saying we can get all of that waste out of the system, but I am saying the passage of this legislation will go a long way, in many respects because of its very strong provisions to attack fraud and abuse in Medicaid and Medicare. The health care reform bill included shared responsibility for all health care industries. Medical device companies pledged to do their part. They pledged to do their part, and they must do their part. This is particularly true since that industry will see at least 32 million more customers as a result of reform, leading to substantial new profits. The device industry and many other industries in health care will see 32 million more customers as a result of this health care reform law we passed, leading to substantial new profits for them. This amendment offered by the Senator from Kansas also seeks to weaken the individual responsibility requirement in health reform-- weaken it. Remember, this is a shared responsibility. He wants us to weaken a large part. The Congressional Budget Office has indicated that the requirement is one of the most critical pieces of reform; that is, that requirement that the Senator wishes to weaken. CBO, again, states this requirement is one of the most critical pieces of reform. Without it, we lose coverage for millions of Americans. Without it--without that reform--premiums could spike by up to 15 to 20 percent in the nongroup market. Premiums were likely to go up 15 to 20 percent in the nongroup market if this health care reform bill had not passed. That is the analysis of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. So, clearly, we must resist efforts to weaken the individual responsibility policy in the health care reform bill. I, therefore, do not support this amendment. I have a couple of other matters. I have not had much opportunity to speak today, so I wish to speak on those matters. I see my good friend from Utah wishes to speak and I will try to speak quickly so he can make his remarks. The Senator from Arizona came to the floor a few moments ago to attack a number of laws we have enacted this Congress. First, he attacked the Recovery Act. The Senator from Arizona ridiculed the Recovery Act's effects. But we here turn to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office for the straight facts. What are the facts? I think it was the late Senator Moynihan from New York who once said, you know, you can argue the policy, but you can't argue facts. Facts are facts. Facts are very tenacious things that are there that you can't wish away. So what are the facts, according to the Congressional Budget Office? The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that in the first quarter of calendar year 2010, the Recovery Act's policies raised the level of real gross domestic product--that is adjusted for inflation--raised the level of gross domestic product by between 1.7 percent and 4.2 percent--not zero, not decreased but raised--raised the gross domestic product in the United States between 1.7 percent and 2.4 percent. Also, CBO says the Recovery Act lowered the unemployment rate by between .7 percentage point and 1.5 percentage points. That is the conclusion of the Congressional Budget Office. What else did the Congressional Budget Office say? That the Recovery Act increased the number of people employed by between 1.2 million and 2.8 million--increased the number of people employed. That is the consequence of the act. The Congressional Budget Office further states that it increased the number of full-time equivalent jobs by 1.8 million to 4.1 million compared with what those amounts would have been otherwise. I think that is pretty clear. I respect the ability of the Senator from Arizona to state his own thoughts. That is why we are here in the Senate, in many respects. But we can't dispute the facts as stated by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the facts which I just recited. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 4 p.m. today, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the following amendments in the order listed and that no intervening amendment be in order prior to the votes, with 2 minutes of debate prior to each vote, with the time equally divided and controlled in the usual form; that after the first vote in the sequence, the succeeding votes be limited to 10 minutes each: Cardin amendment No. 4304; Roberts amendment No. 4325; Sessions amendment No. 4303, with a modification which is at the desk, and that the amendment be modified.

Mr. BAUCUS. That depends on how long the remarks are going to be.

Mr. BAUCUS. I am sure they are going to be wonderful. That wasn't the question.

Mr. BAUCUS. We will work it out. We can always delay the first vote until, say, 5 minutes after 4 to accommodate the Senator from Utah.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, the Senate is not in order. Amendment No. 4325

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, the Roberts amendment would address almost exactly the same matter the Senate voted on March 24. We rejected it then and we should reject it now. The amendment would carve out an exemption for certain medical device manufacturers from paying their fair share of costs for health care reform and it will be paid for by reducing the number of people to be covered by health insurance. The last thing we should do is cut back on health insurance coverage, and I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment. I move to table the amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, this is the Sessions-McCaskill amendment. We have voted at least four times on this amendment. The Senator from Alabama has offered pretty much the same amendment. For now, four times the Senator from Alabama has sought to fix caps on the work of the appropriations process. Three times the Senate has rejected this amendment. I think we should do so today. The amendment by the Senators from Alabama and Missouri robs the Appropriations Committee and the Congress of flexibility to respond to changed circumstances in years to come. It would set budget caps, binding years into the future, no matter what happens between now and then. So for all of the reasons the Senate rejected this amendment three times before, I believe we should reject it again today. The Sessions amendment seeks to change the budget process; therefore, it violates the Congressional Budget Act. I thus raise a point of order that the Sessions amendment violates section 306 of the Congressional Budget Act.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be 20 minutes of debate, with the time equally divided, with respect to the Cornyn amendment No. 4302, and that the amendment be modified with the changes at the desk; that Senator Baucus then be recognized to offer an amendment on the same subject as the Cornyn amendment; that the two amendments be debated concurrently for the total time as specified above, with no intervening amendment in order to either amendment; that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to vote with respect to the Baucus amendment, to be followed by a vote in relation to the Cornyn amendment, as modified; that prior to any succeeding votes in this sequence, there be 2 minutes of debate, equally divided and controlled in the usual form, and that any succeeding votes be limited to 10 minutes; that the next amendment to be offered be from the majority and then an amendment from the Republican side.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, pursuant to the previous order, I call up my amendment No. 4326 and ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with once it is reported.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, the Cornyn amendment is a dangerous one. It would send the wrong message to people who are buying America's debt. It would send a message that we are suspicious of people who buy our debt and would require the Treasury to opine the intent of purchasers of U.S. debt. It would thus discourage people from buying American debt. This would cause us to have to pay higher interest rates on our debt, and that would mean higher rates of inflation. It would roil the bond markets at a sensitive time. Look at what has happened in Europe and the softness there. For lots of reasons I think it is unwise to undertake this risky adventure.

Mr. BAUCUS. Yes.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I move to table the Cornyn amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, in a few moments I will speak on the pending business before the Senate--the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act--but before I do, I would like to refer to the comments of the Republican leader, as well as the statement of the Senator from Louisiana that he gave yesterday. For several months now, Americans have witnessed a massive oilspill in the Gulf of Mexico, Americans have seen the sweeping environmental damage, and Americans have seen the dramatic economic effects. It is something that is overwhelming, it is appalling, and it is incredible how much damage is being created by the BP gulf oilspill. I am sure to the average observer there might seem no better time than now to ask oil companies to contribute more to shoulder the burden of the oilspill. Actually, they have caused the spill--at least one company has--and they should bear the burden. This, then, would seem to be an appropriate time to raise the oilspill liability tax. The oilspill liability tax is pretty small. It is 8 cents a barrel. That is all it is currently. One would have to come up with a pretty creative argument if one wanted to protect big oil companies from this fee. Well, the Senator from Louisiana, and just now the Republican leader, have done that. They have come up with a pretty creative argument to protect the oil companies. The Senator from Louisiana, for example, has returned to the last refuge of bean counters, and he has cried double counting. The double counting argument seems to be a favorite among bean counters, Mr. President. It seems to be the argument one falls back on when one cannot argue the substance and one just wants to muddy the waters. In reality, the funds collected by raising the oilspill liability tax will strengthen the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. That is simple arithmetic. But opponents of raising the tax on big oil companies want to make it less attractive for doing so. They want to make it so that the funds collected by raising taxes on big oil do not count in the Federal budget. That way it will be less effective and less attractive to raise taxes on big oil. So don't be misled by the green eyeshades talk. Don't be misled by the bogus charges of double counting. Don't buy into the arguments of those who want to protect big oil. I urge my colleagues that when we get to it later today to vote against the Vitter amendment and to reject the arguments we have been hearing today that raising the per- barrel tax for funds which go into the oilspill liability fund is somehow double counting because, clearly, that money goes into the trust fund, and funds from that trust fund are then used to pay for the cleanup and some damage that has occurred and also counts toward reducing the Federal deficit because it is extra money that goes to government debt and, therefore, is money which is not doubled counted. I urge my colleagues to reject those arguments.

Mr. BAUCUS. I will yield to the Senator.

Mr. BAUCUS. That is correct.

Mr. BAUCUS. That is correct.