Kent Conrad

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. I ask for a recess subject to the call of the Chair. Recess Subject to the Call of the Chair

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, under the agreed upon order, Senator Sununu was to be next. Do we know if Senator Sununu is on his way? Under the agreed upon order, Senator Sununu was to be next. He was to be here at 2:30. The plan is this. I should do this through the Chair. I say to the Chair, the intention is, the agreement was Senator Sununu--we are running a little bit ahead of schedule, but Senator Sununu will be here shortly. He will go for approximately 15 minutes. Then we will come back.

Mr. CONRAD. Yes, we will call up Senator Lincoln's amendment. So we will be back and forth.

Mr. CONRAD. We will then go to Senator Sanders for 15 minutes?

Mr. CONRAD. Then we will come back to Senator Alexander and then we will come back to Senator Nelson.

Mr. CONRAD. We will not let people send up their amendments. We will make sure that we maintain the order as we have previously, so that we will keep going back and forth. Senator Sununu will send up his amendment; then we will send up Senator Lincoln's amendment; Senator Sanders, we will ask him to withhold so we are not out of order, we ask him to withhold; Senator Alexander could send up his amendment; then we will enter Senator Sander's amendment.

Mr. CONRAD. I still have the floor. The Senator from Arizona was seeking to ask me a question.

Mr. CONRAD. Could we reach an agreement on up to 25 minutes?

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I thank the leaders for the action they have taken for a short-term extension of the farm bill so that we can conclude action on it. It has been a negotiation that has gone on well over a year. That is not unusual for a farm bill which is extremely contentious. I wanted to comment briefly on the Republican leader's statements this morning about our budget. As I was driving in this morning, I heard another Republican on the air saying that we have a trillion- dollar tax increase in this budget. I don't know what budget they are talking about because it certainly is not the budget we have presented here. There is no trillion-dollar tax increase here. There is no tax increase assumed here. Honestly, if I would go down to the Senate dining room and come to this floor and introduce the dining room menu as the budget for the United States, our Republican colleagues would say it was a trillion-dollar tax increase. This is what they said last year, and we hear the same mantra again this year: It is a trillion-dollar tax increase. When they said it last year, we didn't have a record of a Democratic Congress to refute their claim. Now we do. We can look back and see precisely what happened with Democrats in control. How much did taxes increase after the Republicans asserted repeatedly we were going to increase taxes a trillion dollars? What happened? What happened on the record, not a projection, not a forecast, not rhetorical, what is the fact? It is very interesting. Democrats controlling the House, controlling the Senate, cut taxes $194 billion--not a tax increase, a tax cut that overwhelmingly has gone to the middle class. That is the Democratic record. Let me say about this budget, we don't have the vast spending increases they are talking about. For this year, if you look at total spending, we have 1 percent more than the President's budget. Where is that money going? We put it into energy, to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. We put it into education, and we put it into infrastructure because we don't want any more bridges, like the one in Minnesota last year, collapsing into the river with people driving home from work. That is a fact. In terms of revenue, the truth is that over the 5 years, we have 2.6 percent more revenue than in the President's budget. We believe that can be obtained not with a tax increase--don't need a tax increase to get it--you can go after the tax gap, the difference between what companies and people owe versus what they are actually paying. You can go after these offshore tax havens which the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has told us are costing this country $100 billion a year. You can go after these abusive tax shelters where we have the spectacle of companies in the United States, banks buying foreign sewer systems and depreciating them on their books in the United States to reduce their tax bill here, and then they lease the sewer systems back to the European cities that built them. My goodness. We are better than that as a nation, better than letting people abuse the vast majority of us who are honest. That is not right. That is not fair. I have shown on this floor many times a picture of a five-story office building in the Cayman Islands called Ugland House. That 5-story building is home to 12,800 companies. I would say that is the most efficient building in the world. Mr. President, 12,800 companies claim they are doing business out of this little five-story building in the Cayman Islands. They are not doing business there. The only business they are doing is monkey business. What they are doing is evading their taxes. Now we have seen, according to the Boston Globe, another building down in the Cayman Islands--this time a four- or five-story building too--and we know KBR, who is the biggest contractor for security forces in Iraq and additional workers in Iraq for the U.S. military effort there, is running an operation out of that building to evade the Social Security taxes and the Medicare taxes of thousands and thousands of workers they have employed for Iraq--another tax scam. It is exactly the kind of thing we on this side think should be closed down. Over and over, when we have tried, this President said: No, you can't do that. That would be a tax increase. Really? Is that a tax increase? I do not think so. Making people pay their fair share, like the vast majority of Americans already do--I do not think that is a tax increase. I think that is making those folks pay like all the rest of us do. That is fair. Mr. President, we have Senators on the floor ready to offer an amendment. I want to go to that at this moment. I ask Senator Bingaman, how much time---- Mr. GREGG addressed the Chair.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I will withhold. Senator Gregg is seeking recognition.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be a half hour each on the Specter and Conrad amendments, a total of 1 hour.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I think the amendment the ranking member has set up for Senator Specter doesn't actually have full repeal. Instead, what it does is change the individual alternative minimum tax from its current two-rate structure of 26 percent and 28 percent to the single 24-percent rate that was in effect prior to 1993. I believe that is what the Specter amendment does. The first priority, of course, for dealing with the AMT is to protect families who have not been subject to it previously. So our resolution acknowledges this priority and provides a 1-year patch to prevent the alternative minimum tax from affecting another 20 million American households. That is at a cost of $62 billion. I would prefer that cost be offset, but last year that was not the will of the body. It was not the will of the body in the very clear and compelling vote. So we don't have it offset in our resolution this year. Our resolution acknowledges the political reality that the will of this body is to extend alternative minimum tax relief without paying for it. Restructuring the AMT, as Senator Specter proposes, is even more expensive. The Specter amendment would lose $185 billion in revenue, and it is not paid for in any way--by spending reductions or other revenue--and therefore it simply gets added to the deficit and debt. If it were adopted as is, the resolution would be in deficit in every year of the budget window. Mr. President, I don't think that is fiscally responsible, so I am offering an amendment that accomplishes the same policy purpose but requires that it be offset, paid for, so that it is not added to the deficit and is not added to the debt. I inquire of the Senator, did he send up the Specter amendment?

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I send the Conrad amendment to the desk.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I think it might be useful here that we enter into a unanimous consent agreement that when we go to a fuller debate, the debate on the Specter and Conrad amendments be limited to 1 hour. Is that acceptable?

Mr. CONRAD. Will the Senator yield on that point?

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, March 12, 2008, at 1:30 p.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing. At this hearing, the subcommittee will examine whether the Gross Domestic Product, GDP, constitutes an accurate reflection of economic growth and social well-being, which factors are included in and excluded from the calculation of the GDP, and how national policy and decisionmaking are impacted by emphasis placed on the GDP.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate to conduct a hearing on Wednesday, March 12, 2008, at 2:15 p.m., in room SD 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. At this hearing, the Committee will hear testimony regarding Hardrock Mining: Issues Relating to Abandoned Mine Lands and Uranium Mining.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, March 12, 2008, at 10 a.m., in 215 Dirksen Senate Office Building, to hear testimony on ``Alternatives to the Current Federal Estate Tax System.''

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, March 12, 2008, at 10:15 a.m. to hold a business meeting.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Rules and Administration be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, March 12, 2008, at 10 a.m., to hear testimony on ``In Person Voter Fraud: Myth and Trigger for Disenfranchisement?''

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Readiness and Management Support Subcommittee of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, March 12, 2008, at 9:30 a.m., in closed session to receive a briefing on the current readiness of the Armed Forces.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Readiness and Management Support Subcommittee of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, March 12, 2008, at 2:30 p.m., in open session to receive testimony on military installation, environmental, and base closure programs in review of the Defense authorization request for fiscal year 2009 and the Future Years Defense Program.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 12, 2008, at 2:30 p.m. to hold a closed business meeting.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee on Aging be authorized to meet on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 from 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. in Dirksen 562 for the purpose of conducting a hearing.