Jim DeMint

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I have a motion at the desk.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, in a moment, I will move to suspend the rules for the purpose of offering my motion to permanently extend the current individual income tax rates, finally repeal the death tax once and for all, and permanently patch the alternative minimum tax. I know a lot of work has gone into this tax compromise. I appreciate the fact that both sides have worked so hard to strike a deal. While I appreciate the efforts that have been made, I am concerned that the bill currently under consideration does not permanently extend tax rates and, thus, will have a marginal, if any, benefit to our economy. Temporary rates make for a temporary, uncertain economy. My substitute amendment ensures a long-term stable economic environment for Americans to create jobs, buy a home, invest their assets, save for retirement, and preserve their family farm or business. We need to stop and consider what we are doing to our country and to our economy. We are the premier free market economy in the world. Yet almost all of our Federal tax rates are temporary. I have been in business most of my life, and I understand a lot about how free markets work, how businesses plan--usually in a 5- or 10-year window, looking at their bottom line. How many people can they afford? Can they build a new plant? Now they are looking at whether or not to do it in the United States or all over the world. But now in our country, we have a temporary, uncertain Tax Code that makes it very difficult for businesses to plan. And it is not just with the Tax Code. For the last several years, we have waited until December to tell doctors what we are going to pay them to see Medicare patients the next year. How do they plan their staff and their offices? We know some have already laid people off, not knowing what they are going to get paid next year. Free markets, free enterprise works within a framework of a rule of law, where people know what their taxes will be, what the laws will be, what the regulatory environment will be. But in America today, if we take this compromise, almost all of the tax rates are either 1 year or 2 years, and then people can expect them to go up or change. We cannot operate the world's largest economy in this type of environment. Washington does not have a tax revenue problem, it has a spending problem. We must let all working Americans keep their hard- earned money, not just for a year or two, but allow people actually to look out and see, can they make those car payments for 4 or 5 years? Can they make those house payments for 15, 20, or 30 years? They need to know what their tax rates are going to be. We must repeal the immoral death tax once and for all. It is zero this year, but the proposed compromise will have it at 35 percent for any estate over $5 million next year. That may sound like a much better deal than we would have had. But even with that, the estimates are that this could cost 850,000 jobs to let this tax re-emerge. We must commit ourselves to recovering from our years of overspending, overtaxing, and overreaching. The American people deserve better. They told us so in the November elections. Motion to Suspend According to rule V of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I move to suspend rule XXII for the purpose of proposing and considering amendment No. 4804 to permanently extend the 2001 and 2003 individual income tax rates, permanently repeal the estate tax, and permanently patch the alternative minimum tax. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time and yield the floor.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Madam President, I submit the following notice in writing--``In accordance with rule V of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I hereby give notice in writing that it is my intention to move to suspend rule XXII for the purpose of proposing and considering the following amendment to the Senate amendment to the House amendment to H.R. 4853: Strike all after the first word and insert the following: 1. SHORT TITLE. This Act may be cited as the ``Tax Relief Certainty Act''.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Reserving the right to object, this is a nation of laws not of men. It destroys that whole foundation of our legal system when we make retroactive law. This bill has not been vetted properly by a committee. Again, it undermines our whole system of the rule of law. So I am compelled to object.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, Americans seem to be losing more and more control over their lives due to government intrusion. The government has decided what kinds of cars we can drive, what kinds of light bulbs we can purchase and what kind of health insurance we must carry. But now the government is going even further by reaching into the family unit. I rise today to speak about an issue of great importance to families across America--the rights that parents have over their families and the ever encroaching role of the international community in American life--specifically through a treaty, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. While the Convention on the Rights of the Child has many noble goals, I have significant concerns about the effects a treaty like this would have on parental rights in America. This week we looked at the Rights of the Child treaty again when it was referenced in the preamble of a different treaty--one on the international role in child support concerns, the Hague Treaty on International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance. So today, I am offering an amendment to the resolution of ratification for the Child Support Recovery Treaty that reinstates that the United States has not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. My amendment states that ``The United States is not a party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and understands that a mention of the Convention in the preamble of this Treaty does not create any obligations and does not affect or enhance the status of the Convention as a matter of United States or international law.'' Last year, I introduced a joint resolution proposing an amendment to the U.S. Constitution concerning the rights of parents and their families, which would protect the liberty of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children in the face of government intrusion. Earlier this year, 30 Senators, including myself, introduced a resolution to oppose the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. My resolution focuses on the fact that the Convention on the Rights of the Child is incompatible with the Constitution of the United States and threatens U.S. principles of sovereignty and self-governance. It would place the U.S. under international legal standards in multiple areas of domestic policy that would have far-reaching effects on the way we educate and raise our children. The Federal Government, or any source of international law, should not be mandating guidelines or setting standards for raising children. The Convention on the Rights of the Child would create international standards for parents that could be enforced through U.S. courts at the expense of the Constitution; courts could inappropriately use references to the Convention as legal precedent. Parents are best equipped to decide how their children are raised and educated, not the government, and certainly not a board of bureaucrats headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The fight for protecting parental rights goes on. The DeMint amendment to the Child Support Recovery Treaty is intended to ensure that despite the reference in the preamble, the Convention on the Rights of the Child has no place in the U.S. legal system. As our Nation encounters new challenges, I believe the answers must include more freedom for Americans, not more government control--and certainly not more international control. Congress must work to protect and strengthen the freedom of American families who are the backbone of our strength as a nation. I yield the floor.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Thank you. I didn't think it would be too painful to read that whole thing at this time. This is one I can guarantee I read. Do I need to ask for a recorded vote at this time? Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, my amendment only makes one change to the underlying continuing resolution. It changes the date from January 3 to February 4. There is no reason we should fund the government only to the lameduck. We need to wait until we have a new Congress and the dust settles after the election. We don't need to be passing another continuing resolution or an omnibus spending bill with the pressure of a government shutdown before Christmas. So the amendment is just a couple of lines that change the date. Everything else in the continuing resolution is the same. Let's push the operation of the government all the way through January to a new Congress. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. DeMINT. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I commend Senator Thune for, again, a very small request of the Senate to continue to fund the government at a 5- percent reduction. It is hardly a radical idea--except in Washington. I hope my colleagues will support that. I would like to talk about another amendment for a minute, but first I think we need to address what I think has been the most irresponsible Congress I have seen in my time here. Over the last 4 years, the majority has almost doubled the national debt of all previous Presidents in 4 years. We are on that track to do it. This year, things are so bad that we didn't even bother to do a budget. We are not going to show the American people what we plan to spend, what things are costing. We are trying to get out of town today without passing funding bills to keep the government operating. We have to do a little makeshift continuing resolution. But we are getting out of town without addressing the fact that we are getting ready to stick the American people with one of the largest tax increases in history. By not doing anything, we are voting with our feet to raise taxes on everyone from the lowest income to the largest corporation, to tax dividends at a higher level, to tax death at a higher level. We are just leaving town. In the meantime, as people are getting ready to leave town, there are 20 or 30 bills that folks here would like to pass in secret, by unanimous consent, without a vote, without any debate. Some of them have some pretty big price tags. And they are squealing like someone is doing them wrong if we ask for a day or two to read these bills, to see what they cost, to see what they would do to our country. There is a sense of entitlement here that we have to pass their bill; it is some kind of emergency. But their bills have been hanging around here for months. One of them I just saw was from December of 2009. They are not emergencies, but we have to pass them but we are not going to do the business of the American people. We are not going to carry out our constitutional responsibility to set a budget, to appropriate money for the operation of our government, but we want to get our bills passed and we want to go home. What we are doing is we are going to pass a continuing resolution tonight to fund the government until December. But the only reason to fund it until December is so we have to come back after the election in a lameduck Congress and pass another spending bill to keep our government going until the new Congress comes in. I think the only reason to do that is so Senators who are not coming back can come here and pass an omnibus spending bill with thousands of earmarks that people have come to expect, so they can take home the bacon to their States one last time. There is no reason for us to have a continuing resolution that ends in December. We are going to have to come back and use the threat of a government shutdown to force through a bigger spending bill. We should not do that in the chaos after the election. My amendment would take the exact same continuing resolution that everyone is going to agree on tonight and have it expire on February 4, after we have sworn in a new Congress, after the dust has settled. Then we can make a good decision with people who maybe represent the voices of the American people a little better because they have just come in off of the campaign trail. Instead of passing something in the chaos of November and December, let's do something that is more responsible and more focused. My amendment is the exact same as the amendment tonight. The only thing it does is it strikes December 3, 2010, and inserts February 4, 2011, so it does not end, there is no emergency, there is no crisis, and there is no threat of a government shutdown. We come back in November and hopefully stop the tax increases and then go home and start over with the new Congress, with folks who are representing the voices of the American people. My hope is that my colleagues will support this amendment. There is no reason not to support it unless you want to come back here in November and increase spending, pass an omnibus and pass all of these porkbarrel earmarks to take home one last time. I encourage my colleagues to support the amendment. I understand we will have a vote on it later this evening, and I will reserve the remainder of my time. Amendment No. 4677 to Amendment No. 4674 Mr. President, I understand I need to offer the amendment.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Madam President, how long do I have to speak?

Mr. DeMINT. Thank you, Madam President. I think I can do it in that time. It seems we have time to do almost anything, but what we need to do is address the economy and jobs in this country. Just about every economist, from all across the political spectrum, says one of the most important things we can do right now is not to raise taxes. Yet taxes are scheduled to go up in 5 months on almost every American, including the businesses that create the jobs. Of the two amendments I will offer here today, one amendment will stop the increase in income tax rates, and the second will stop the tax increases on small businesses that file as individuals. Clearly, it makes no sense in the middle of a recession to raise taxes on individuals. An individual in South Carolina making $40,000 a year will pay $400 more next year in taxes if we do not act. A married couple with a combined income of $80,000 will see their taxes go up nearly $2,200. A married couple earning $160,000 combined could pay $5,500 in additional taxes. The same thing will happen to small businesses that create the jobs. We will be taking money out of their accounts and putting it in our accounts. At a time when they need to keep the money to grow our economy and to hire workers, we do not need the money to continue to waste it on what we have been doing. Consider the stimulus bill. A couple of my colleagues this week came out with a report showing where a lot of this stimulus money went: $62 million for a Pennsylvania tunnel that Governor Rendell said was a tragic mistake; $193,000 for voter perception of the stimulus bill. I could go on and on. This is not money we need to spend right now. What we need to do is assure businesses and individuals that the tax rate this year will be the same next year so they can make good decisions that will move our economy forward. Motions To Suspend Madam President, in accordance with rule V of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I move to suspend rule XXII for the purpose of proposing and considering the following motion to commit, with instructions, H.R. 1586: I move to commit H.R. 1586 to the Committee on Finance with instructions to report the same back to the Senate with changes to include a permanent extension of the 2010 individual income tax rates, and to include provisions which decrease spending as appropriate to offset such permanent extension. And, Madam President, in accordance with rule V of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I move to suspend rule XXII for the purpose of proposing and considering the following motion to commit, with instructions, H.R. 1586: I move to commit H.R. 1586 to the Committee on Finance with instructions to report the same back to the Senate with changes to include a permanent extension of current individual income tax rates on small businesses and provisions which decreases spending as appropriate to offset such permanent extension. With that, Madam President, I reserve the remainder of my time and yield the floor.

Mr. DeMINT. Madam President, may I have 1 minute to explain the amendment?

Mr. DeMINT. Madam President, we all know the economic engine in this country is small businesses. Most of our jobs come from small businesses. It makes no sense in the middle of a recession for us to take more money from small businesses and bring it here. This amendment simply keeps current tax rates the same for those who file individually as part of their small businesses. It is a simple idea. I think we all agree on it. It is important that we do it before the break and let small businesses know they can plan for next year. They can hire people. They can help grow our economy. I encourage my colleagues to support it. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. DeMINT. Madam President, I think all of us know----

Mr. DeMINT. Madam President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. DeMINT. Madam President, I think it is a sad day in the Senate when keeping current tax rates the same and stopping the largest tax increase in history is called a stunt. Over the last few weeks, the Democrats have voted to raise taxes on dividends and capital gains, affecting many senior citizens, and raised the death tax to over half of what people leave to their families. Now, today, they want to raise the marginal income tax rates. If we left the tax rates the same, it would do more to help small businesses and jobs in America than any of the bailout or targeted programs my colleagues are talking about. My Democratic colleagues have had 4 years to address the coming tax increase and have done nothing. It is very important, but it is sad that they will not address it. They will do every kind of government program that comes to mind, but they won't leave the money in the hands of the American people so we can grow our economy. I encourage my colleagues but also the American people to look in on what is happening today.

Mr. DeMINT. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the confirmation of Ms. Kagan to the Supreme Court, and I would like to put this opposition in context with what is going on all around the country. All of us know, and we have seen on the news--and many of us have seen in person--that people are upset with what is happening in Washington. They are angry. They are fearful. They are frustrated at all the spending, the borrowing, the debt, the government takeovers. I keep hearing from people: What can we do? How can we stop it? Why is it happening? That is a question we need to keep asking here: Why is it happening? Why has this country, this Congress, and many Congresses before spent this country to the edge of bankruptcy--and continue to spend week after week? Even though the President and the majority are talking every week about the unsustainable debt, almost every week we are adding to that debt, adding new programs. It makes no sense. Our Founders believed it very important that every Member of Congress--the House and the Senate--the President, the Supreme Court, and the military officers all take an oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution. That may seem perfunctory, just something we do as a part of history. But that was not its intent because the Constitution is a document that limits what the Federal Government can do. If anyone reads it seriously, it is pretty clear its primary purpose is to limit what the Federal Government can do. It specifies a few things, such as protecting our Nation, making sure there is justice, making sure we have the rule of law and the enforcement of those laws across all of our States. But it says a lot about what we cannot do. The whole Bill of Rights says much about what the government cannot do to take our freedoms. The 10th amendment itself says whatever is not specified in the Constitution is left to the States and the people. Even though all of us take that oath of office, it seems to me, after being here a number of years, that just about everyone here sets aside that Bible when they put their hands down and completely forgets they have just taken an oath to protect and defend a constitution that limits what we can do. Last year, when we passed this health care bill, Obamacare, a reporter asked Speaker Nancy Pelosi where in the Constitution did she find the authority to require people to buy a government-approved health insurance policy. All she could say is, ``Are you serious?'' In fact, if you talk about a limited constitutional government, as I often do in the Senate, you are considered a radical, even though all of us take that oath of office. What we have turned into here--and the President has used this phrase a lot--is a ``yes, we can'' Congress. It does not matter what it is, what problem comes up all across the country, we can do it, we can fix it. Government has a solution to almost anything because we do not pay any attention to the Constitution. The Constitution is a constitution of no, of what we cannot do. That is to protect us and to avoid where we are today, which is approaching a $14 trillion debt which is about to destroy our whole country. Think about this: In the world's great bastion of freedom that we call America, our Federal Government owns the largest auto companies. It owns the largest insurance company. It owns the largest mortgage companies. It controls our education system. It just took over our health care system. It controls the whole energy sector and our transportation sector. The rules and regulations and taxes that we put on businesses pretty much means mostly it controls all the business activity in our country. When Congressman Pete Stark was asked last week--in an interview we have seen all over the Internet--is there anything that the Federal Government cannot do, he said no because he had forgotten the constitutional oath of office. What is the Court's rule, as we think about Ms. Kagan, the Supreme Court, the confirmation process? What is the role of the Court? The intent is pretty clear that it is to watch over Congress, the executive branch, to make sure we do not get outside the bounds of the Constitution. If we do, the Court is supposed to say: No, you can't; that is unconstitutional. But the Court, over the years, has pretty much thrown that responsibility out the window. Back during FDR's days, in their interpretation of the commerce clause, it had essentially given Congress and the White House unlimited ability to do almost anything that comes up, any whim that we have. That is how we ended up with over $13 trillion in debt. I know this overactive government is really important. This idea of a limited government is very important. When Ms. Kagan was in my office and I asked: Does the Constitution limit us from doing anything, she really could not come up with a good answer. It is pretty similar to her hearings, when Senator Tom Coburn asked her: If the Congress passed a law, and the President signed it, that every American had to eat their fruits and vegetables every day, would that be constitutional? And she said: It would be a dumb law. But she would not say that is unconstitutional. Friends, if this government can tell us what we have to eat, it can tell us anything. We cannot claim to have any freedoms if this government can tell us what we have to eat. It is essentially the same thing as telling us we have to buy a government-approved health insurance policy. We cannot say no. But the Constitution is intended to make sure we do. Ms. Kagan talked a lot about precedents, which are just previous court rulings, not much about the Constitution being our standard. The problem with that is a precedent is a lot like what we used to call the gossip game. Some people call it the telephone game, where you have a bunch of people sitting around a table, and the person at the head of the table whispers a phrase to the person next to them. They whisper it to the person next to them, and it goes all around the room. The whole funny part of the game is, by the time it gets back to the person who started it, you cannot even recognize the phrase. It has nothing to do with what was originally said. That is exactly how precedent works. Once you throw the standard out, then the whole idea of a constitutional standard is out the window, if we have judges today who are making decisions by picking and choosing the precedent that agrees with their opinion rather than basing their decisions on true constitutional standards. I oppose Ms. Kagan's nomination because she, in my opinion, does not believe in constitutional limited government. She does not believe in the original intent of the Constitution but more of President Obama's belief of a more living Constitution. As President Obama said before he was elected, he sees the Constitution as a document of negative liberties because it tells the government what it cannot do. But it does not tell us what we have to do. It was never supposed to tell us what we have to do. But the progressives in power in Washington and many of our judges believe they need, through court rulings, to change that Constitution. What has resulted in that is the government controlling more and more of our lives, spending and borrowing money we do not have, and bringing our country to the brink of economic disaster. We cannot afford more ``yes, we can'' judges in our country. We can cannot afford more ``yes, we can'' Senators or Congressmen. And we certainly cannot afford another ``yes, we can'' President. The decisions that have been made about our economy over the last couple of years have brought our economy to its knees. This is no longer something we can blame on President Bush. In fact, the Democrats have been in control of policymaking, economic policy spending for 4 years now. This is not Bush's recession. This is the result of Democratic economic policies. This nomination will continue our move in the wrong direction because it will put another person on the Court who does not see their role as limiting what we can do in Congress, and this Congress desperately needs a Supreme Court that tells Congress no when we step outside the bounds of the Constitution. Mr. President, I believe America is looking at Congress closer than they ever have before. They expect us to make the hard decisions, to stop the spending, to stop the waste, to stop the borrowing, to stop the debt, to stop the government takeovers, and to stop our courts from taking our freedoms away. That is why I am opposing Ms. Kagan to be a Supreme Court Justice, and I encourage my colleagues to consider their vote and to vote no. Mr. President, I yield back.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I submit the following notice in writing: In accordance with rule V of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I hereby give notice in writing that it is my intention to move to suspend rule XXII for the purpose of proposing and considering the following Motion to Commit H.R. 1586 with instructions: Mr. DeMint moves to commit H.R. 1586 to the Committee on Finance with instructions to report the same back to the Senate with changes to include a permanent extension of the 2010 individual income tax rates, and to include provisions which decrease spending as appropriate to offset such permanent extension.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I submit the following notice in writing: In accordance with rule V of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I hereby give notice in writing that it is my intention to move to suspend rule XXII for the purpose of proposing and considering the following Motion to Commit with instructions H.R. 1586: Mr. DeMint moves to commit H.R. 1586 to the Committee on Finance with instructions to report the same back to the Senate with changes to include a permanent extension of current individual income tax rates on small businesses and provisions which decrease spending as appropriate to offset such permanent extension.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I submit the following notice in writing: In accordance with rule V of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I hereby give notice in writing that it is my intention to move to suspend rule XXII for the purpose of proposing and considering the following Motion to Commit (with instructions) to H.R. 5297: Mr. DeMINT moves to commit H.R. 5297 to the Committee on Finance with instructions to report the same back to the Senate with changes to include a permanent extension of the 2010 individual income tax rates, and to include provisions which decrease spending as appropriate to offset such a permanent extension.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I submit the following notice in writing: In accordance with rule V of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I hereby give notice in writing that it is my intention to move to suspend rule XXII for the purpose of proposing and considering the following Motion to Commit (with instructions) to H.R. 5297: Mr. DeMINT moves to commit H.R. 5297 to the Committee on Finance with instructions to report the same back to the Senate with changes to extend all current individual income tax rates on small businesses and to include provisions which decrease spending as appropriate to offset such a permanent extension.

Mr. DeMINT

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, this year is the first time in many decades that death in America is not a taxable event. For the first time in many, many years, folks who worked hard and built businesses, built farms, do not lose what they have worked for when they die. The Heritage Foundation estimates that if we do nothing as a Senate and allow the death tax to go from zero to 55 percent, America will lose 1.5 million jobs because when we take the money and the property of the people who are working and running businesses and farms, it not only affects the families of those who die but those who work for those businesses and work on those farms. It is immoral for us to take what people work for throughout their lives. Their property, their income has all been taxed at least once before. Let's do the right thing and vote for this amendment today. Let's keep the death tax at zero. This is not a tax cut; it is just leaving the tax rate the same.