Chuck Grassley

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, on Medicare--and I know the debate here is not about Medicare, but Senator Kennedy spoke to one part of the new prescription drug program to which I wish to make reference. He referred in his remarks to the dual eligibles. He spoke about a problem that is real--the problem of signing up people who were dual eligibles into the new Medicare Part D prescription drug program. I do not find fault with his explanation. I will say, however, that our committee which has jurisdiction over this, the Senate Finance Committee, has been working with Secretary Leavitt and Administrator McClellan of CMS to work through these problems. They pointed out seven problems they have identified. They have assumed responsibility for those problems, and they are giving us a program to work through those problems so they will not be repeated and enrollment will by easier and work more smoothly. But the Secretary has told us about dual eligibles, that with 50 different States having 50 different ways of handling dual eligibles, frankly, merging the information technology system at the Federal level with the information which came out of 50 different States has been difficult to do. Several of us in the Senate knew this was going to be a problem in 2003. That is why, in the Senate bill, along with the White House, we wanted to leave the dual eligibles just as they were--covered by Medicare and Medicaid. It happens that most of the Democrats in the Senate, along with Republicans in the House, felt we should end up with just 1 national Medicare Program so all of the 50 different States' dual eligibles ought to be merged into the national program. We had a debate on the Senate floor on that issue, and my point of view won on a very narrow margin. Let me see if I can find it exactly-- a very narrow margin of 47 to 51. We defeated an amendment on the Senate floor to bring them together. What bothers me is Senator Kennedy is bringing up all these problems. If he had listened to us 2 years ago, we would not have ended up where we have because we would not be integrating dual eligibles into the national Medicare Program. But people on his side of the aisle were just totally insistent that was the wrong way to go, that we ought to have them integrated into the prescription drug Part D Program. So, without embarrassing any Senator, I wish to quote a Democratic Senator who was in the middle of this debate. I am not going to give the name. Comments like this came out about how gung-ho they were to have dual eligibles in the Medicare Program. It says: It's not a frequent day that Chairman Thomas-- I assume that refers to Chairman Thomas of the House Ways and Means Committee. and I are in full agreement. But he does say such a shift ``ensures that all seniors across the country will have access to affordable prescription drugs, while alleviating much of the burden that states now confront.'' I say to my colleagues, as I indicate, I am not always in agreement, but we are going forward directly on this policy, I hope. Continuing to quote: Fully integrating a key benefit for prescription drugs into Medicare is a critical first step toward improving the current system's flaws. Not only is it unfair to exclude the poorest seniors from part of the Medicare program, it is a raw deal for some of our neediest seniors. For seniors who have worked all their lives, paid into the Medicare system, it is not fair for them to be at the mercy of State coverage decisions. All Medicare beneficiaries deserve to receive Medicare benefits. There should be no exception for drugs. It would be a very bad precedent to make Medicaid pay for items that are clearly the responsibility of Medicare except at the present and in this bill for one particular discrete population. I think that--i.e., coverage under Medicaid--puts the dual eligibles, 74 percent or less of poverty, at terrible risk, and that is not something I associate with my understanding of the values of the Senator from Iowa-- Meaning me, I believe-- whom I so much respect. That was on January 23, 2003. On June 26, 2003, this quote was given by the same Senator: Never in the history of Medicare have we precluded Medicare beneficiaries from being Medicare beneficiaries. In the underlying bill, for the very first time, we do. In that rollcall of 47 to 51, to leave the dual eligibles as they were, which presumably we would not have the problem Senator Kennedy is complaining about now--that we have a hard time integrating them into the program--he was one of those 47 Senators who thought they ought to be put into the prescription drug program. The reason we left them out is because we wanted to solve a problem for people who did not have prescription drugs, people who were dual eligibles, already had their prescription drugs through a State/Federal program, probably to a better point than maybe their having it through our bill where they pay some copay. At least in some States, they probably didn't have to pay a copay. We wanted to take care of the seniors who didn't have any prescription drug program, and by leaving the dual eligibles as they were, it would free up money to take care of more seniors. As I said, we lost out in the final analysis. In conference, we agreed to include the dual eligibles in this program. Now I hear all this complaint about how it is working to the detriment of seniors because of the integration of 50 different State programs into 1 national program. It will be worked out. It will be worked out. The Secretary of HHS, Mr. Leavitt, says it will work out. He is working on it. He has identified a solution to it, and every day the signup is getting better as we sign up 94,000 people each day into the Part D prescription drug program.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I offer motion No. 5 for Senator Santorum.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I now go to motion No. 4, which is for Senator Hutchison.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, this is repetitive, but I will state this for Senator Hutchison. This resolution of instruction calls for a permanent deduction of State and local general sales tax. Motion to Instruct Conferees

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, earlier this month we began and finished the second floor debate on the tax relief reconciliation bill. At that time, I spoke in recognition of Groundhog Day because it was just around the corner. I have next to me that portrait of Punxsutawney Phil. Phil is the groundhog. In thinking of Phil and his unique form of weather reporting, I thought about that popular film entitled ``Groundhog Day'' starring Bill Murray in which a man relives the same day, Groundhog Day, over and over again. This film has taken on even greater significance for me as I seem to be in a similar situation for the third time. More than just the sense of deja vu, I feel as though I am reliving a couple of past experiences, and before these several votes tonight or tomorrow, I think everybody will agree with me. I have before you another chart. The chart shows a scene from the Bill Murray movie ``Groundhog Day.'' From this movie is a picture of Phil, the groundhog, driving the car and Bill Murray is there with him. Bill Murray is in this case the copilot. Phil is driving the car. You see Phil with his paws on the steering wheel, and you see the copilot seated behind him. As I said just now, I feel like the Bill Murray character in the movie. It seems we are reliving the same events over and over again. We are going through the same debates over and over again. For those who watch C-SPAN regularly--probably not too many Americans--they know what I am talking about because it was 2 weeks ago we were debating the tax reconciliation bill, the same tax reconciliation bill we were debating back in November, and the same debate we had a couple of weeks ago. I will summarize the floor process we have been going through on this bill. At 11:08 a.m. on Wednesday, February 1, 2006, I opened the second Senate floor debate on this bill. The rollcall vote on final passage occurred at 9:42 p.m. on Thursday, Groundhog Day, 2006. All the time permitted for debate under reconciliation--20 hours--was used in the second floor debate--again, Groundhog Day. Three Senators were not here for the final vote. There was a total of eight rollcall votes that day, including the vote on final passage. You will recall that, as I said, this was the second time. I hope you will recall I said then that we actually had debate earlier in November on the very same bill. The very same bill is this bill right here, S. 2020, the Tax Reconciliation Act. We started that debate at 3:35 p.m. on Wednesday, November 16, 2005. For 20 hours on Wednesday, Thursday, and into Friday we debated this bill, S. 2020. A total of 80 amendments was filed, and 7 of those amendments were agreed to. The liveliness of the legislation culminated in 18 rollcall votes. The final vote on passage came at 12:05 in the morning of Friday, the 18th of November, 2005. According to the Secretary of the Senate, 97 of us were there for that vote. I must not be the only one who is reliving this experience of Groundhog Day over and over again. There is one Senator whom I can't speak for, so I have to clarify that the new Senator, Senator Menendez, was not a Senator during the first debate back in November. He has been appointed to the Senate since then. He was here for the second debate because he joined the Senate after the first bill passed. Maybe the second debate would not be old hat to him, but for the other 99 Senators it would be more or less old hat. Here are the two bills. Technically, right now we are on the House bill, H.R. 4297, but between these two publications, I guess it would be fair to say they are 95 percent the same. This bill, S. 2020, was first debated in November last year and passed then as the Tax Relief Act of 2005. The Senate passed the second bill, after we amended the provisions of this to it, as H.R. 4297. The first bill, S. 2020, is 417 pages long, and the second bill, H.R. 4297, as amended, is 363 pages long. The bills are very close to the same length. What happened in between was between November and February, the Senate removed the Hurricane Katrina provisions and interest suspension provision because those proposals became law in a separate piece of legislation in November 2005. Removing the Katrina provisions and the interest suspension provision accounted for a reduction of 63 pages from this bill. The five amendments agreed to during the second floor debate added 14 pages to H.R 4297. Again, except for those five amendments that were put in, plus the Katrina provisions taken out, most all of this bill is pretty much the same. So why are we debating this for a third time, November of last year, 3 days, 2 days this year, on February 1 and February 2, and now back here again this very day, February 13? My point is these two bills are virtually the same. The Senate basically debated the same popular, bipartisan bill twice, and we are going through another one of these purposeless delays at the insistence of the Democratic leadership again today, and it may take much more than 1 day. As we consider what they are going to offer--we refer to them as motions to instruct the conferees--to the bill, we are going to go to conference on H.R. 4297 to work out the differences between the House and Senate. I have to ask my colleagues: Why are we still doing this? Didn't we already go through this exercise? Shouldn't we be finished with the Senate debate? For me, the answer to those questions is there is no reason to be here. All you have to do is in 5 seconds appoint conferees and get to work ironing out the differences between the House and the Senate. Without a doubt, we have gone through this exercise twice. When is debate on the same subject enough for the Senate? In the face of the multitude of other important issues this body needs to deal with, does the Democratic leadership want to reenact recent debates and resuscitate old talking points? The tax reconciliation bill already passed with the support of 64 of us the first time. The second time we passed this bill, the bill garnered the support of 68 Members. Included in the first count were 15 Democrats. I am pleased we picked up two more Democrats the second time we debated the bill. Maybe if we keep up this exercise enough times, we will have a bill that will get 100 Senators for it. What is the purpose of that? If we do that, we will not be passing this bill in the year 2006; we will be passing this bill in the year 2007. Do not think that the millions of taxpayers expecting us to act would be very happy about running the Senate through that many Groundhog Days. Even Phil, the groundhog, might even be a bit irritated. Phil, wouldn't you be irritated if you had to go through all of this? This legislation is extremely important. We will debate it as long as necessary. I question the necessity of going through a process that resulted in bipartisan passage of the same bill almost 3 months ago. We often think bipartisanship is when we get to 60. You are lucky to get to 60. That is what you have to do in the Senate to get anything done. To get to 64 or 68 is almost a landslide in the Senate. Why the continued debate? I doubt if the people who are stalling this want to continue the debate long enough to convince even more Democrats to vote for this bill. I don't think that is their motive. That is my first point. This is a very curious exercise. It is an exercise with no apparent purpose other than delay. Is the delay on the part of the Democratic leadership important? The answer is, yes. Ask American tax-paying families and you will get an answer, but you get a different answer. The answer is, yes, if you are 1 of 20 million families waiting for certainty that you are not caught in the clutches of the alternative minimum tax with which this bill deals. We hear a lot of talk about the alternative minimum tax. We will hear about it in the debate over the next few hours. This bill does something about the AMT. It holds harmless 20 million Americans so they will not be hit by a tax that they were never supposed to pay in the first place. I will use some charts that describe different provisions of this legislation and how it affects the constituents of each of the Senators, on a State-by-State basis. The data is from the Internal Revenue Service. It is the latest available in terms of State-by-State impact. The data comes from the year 2003, so it understates the tax problems of citizens in the various States for taxes in the year 2006. I apologize for not having more up-to-date information. I suggest to people who are considering the figures on the charts to more than double the figures; that will be a rough State-by-State idea. We will look at a chart dealing with the alternative minimum tax. This tax will hit 20 million Americans if we do not pass this legislation. It is not on the taxes they will file for 2005 because we are talking about income earned during the year 2006. They will be hit by the alternative minimum tax 12 months from now, when people file their taxes, if we do not pass this legislation. When you start a tax year, you ought to have some idea what the tax laws are going to be for the next 12 months and into the future. That is why this legislation should have been passed in conference last fall to get a permanent law so people earning money on January 2, 2006, would know they would not be hit by the alternative minimum tax. The basis of the bill the Senate passed and the bill that is once again before the Senate is an extension of the AMT hold harmless, so that no additional number of people will be hit by the alternative minimum tax. Every Member who is participating in this deliberate strategy of delaying our entry to conference to work out the difference between the House and the Senate is delaying the certainty these millions of American families deserve. Again, it affected 8 million in 2003. That figure now is 20 million in 2006. For my State of Iowa, it is 65,000 taxpayers. It is probably tens of thousands more now. In Nevada, there are 68,000, with a lot more than 68,000 being hit in 2006. Those are the facts on the alternative minimum tax. Look it up in the Internal Revenue Code. The AMT relief provisions expired December 31, 2005. I ask my friends and the Democratic leadership to look at the calendar: 1\1/2\ months have passed, and the alternative minimum tax hold harmless has not been extended to prevent 20 million Americans from being hit by a tax on income earned in 2006; earning the same income in 2005, they would not have had to pay that tax. The AMT hold- harmless provisions are the cornerstone of this legislation. It is the cornerstone of a bill that the Democratic leadership is delaying. I don't want to hear people talk about the alternative minimum tax problem and at the same time delay real action to help those millions of tax-paying families. I suggest we may hear that. This bill also includes another provision, broadly popular and broadly applicable in its tax benefits. I will talk about them beyond the alternative minimum tax. This chart shows deductibility of college tuition, first inaugurated in the tax bill of 2001. This is a benefit for families who send their kids to college. By definition, this benefit goes to middle-income families. A lot of these families are not low income so their kids possibly do not qualify for Pell grants. They are not high income either. All they have to do is have mom and dad write out a check, and they go to college. These are families that get the full benefit of the deduction if they make up to $65,000 as a single person or up to $130,000 as a couple. The reason I say it is conservated on the middle income is because above those figures the benefit phases out. A lot of these families are paying significant Federal, State, and local taxes, and they get no help in defraying the high costs of their kids' college tuition. This tax deduction provides help for these hard-pressed, middle-income families with a benefit and furthers a very important national goal that we try to give attention to, the support for higher education. This deduction runs out at the end of this year, 2006. These families next year will face tax increases if we do not act on this bill. We ought to act on it now, although it does not phase out until the end of this year. During the spring, people anticipate their capability of sending their kids to college. If they cannot count on this, they have to dig up money someplace else for their kids to start college in September, which carries over into 2007. The chart before the Senate shows the number of families, on a State- by-State basis, that benefit from this deduction. I emphasize that these are 2003 figures. I don't know exactly how much more we increase them because we are now in 2006, but it would be significant. In Iowa, more than 37,000 families are affected by this legislation, 37,000 in Iowa who do not know for sure if the tax deduction will be available when their kids go to college next year. Now I will pick out another State. Nevada has 25,000 families. If we do not pass this legislation, 25,000 families will not know whether their kids are going to get the advantage of this tax for the next school year. It seems to me the perpetuation of support for higher education, particularly for middle-income families, that their families cannot qualify for Pell grants, we ought to be reenacting this legislation now so these families can plan on sending their kids to college next September. Another benefit addressed in this bill is the small savers credit. This gets back to the problem we are always talking about, that Americans are not saving enough. Lower income people, spending most of their disposable income on the necessities of life, do not have money left over to save. They may not have an ethic to save. Through the Tax Code, we try to give incentive to save and some help to save. This happens to be the tax credit for low-income people to save through an individual retirement account or a pension plan. Saving money is important. We all want all Americans to be part of the effort to save for the future. This chart shows the number of low-income savers who benefit from this bill, on a State-by-State basis, from the small savers tax credit. Again, more than 5.5 million people take advantage of this. How many more for the 2006 figures, I don't know, but in Iowa 95,000 people take advantage of saving money through the small savers tax credit. And I will also take Nevada: 36,000, almost 37,000 people 3 years ago were saving through this program. That needs to be reenacted or there will not be incentive to save. The bill before the Senate also extends another needed tax deduction. This is for teachers who buy their own supplies for their students. This provision was developed by Senators Warner and Collins. It makes whole teachers who go that extra mile to pay out of their own pocket classroom expenses. Who is going to argue with a devoted teacher whose school district does not provide enough supply if she wants to spend out of her own salary, his or her own salary, to buy supplies? That proves the dedication of our teachers. I will point to the number of teachers included on the chart, on a State-by-State basis, who take advantage of this deduction. This deduction needs to be reenacted for these teachers to have the certainty that money they will spend today will be deductible from the taxes they file 12 months from now. Again, in my State of Iowa, almost 34,000 Iowa teachers benefit from this. Another State we could look at would be Nevada, where 22,000 families benefit. Is there any reason this help to teachers--who are good teachers but want to make better use of their talent, to make sure their students have adequate supplies--why that should not be reenacted, and why, this very day, in classrooms across America, teachers have to be worrying about whether they are going to have this benefit to reimburse them for going that extra mile? Now, there is another item in this bill which is very popular which I do not have shown on a chart. But this bill extends what we call small business expensing, so that anything which is depreciable, on an increased amount of money of up to $100,000, can be expensed in 1 year rather than spreading it out over a period of 5 to 10 years. Many small businesses use this benefit to buy equipment on an efficient, after-tax basis. This is very good for small business. Small business creates 70 to 80 percent of the new jobs in America. So it is a job-creation tax incentive. It is good, then, for workers in these small businesses. Obviously, if you employ more people, you end up with greater economic growth for our entire country. The final chart I have deals with the tax deductibility of the State and local sales tax deduction. This applies to the States of Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming. This bill helps 12.3 million taxpayers in your States. Tennessee is one of these States. It is the home State of our majority leader. He has worked hard to get this bill to the floor. For the third time now, our majority leader, Senator Bill Frist, has worked hard to move this bill into conference. I want the good people of Tennessee to know that. Now, another State that could benefit when we get this passed is Nevada, the home State of our Democratic leader. Unfortunately, this bill is going through another process of holding it up for another day of debate, meaning the people in these States who have deductibility of their State taxes do not know whether, come 12 months from now when they are filing their income tax on income earned in 2006, it will be deductible. So I would ask them to focus on the taxpayers of these respective States. I still hold out hope that the Democrat leadership will see the light. I hope they will work with me to guarantee that the folks in their States will be able to deduct their sales taxes this year. This is the third time, then, this bill has been delayed. This is a bipartisan bill with a bipartisan consensus. This needs to pass. Maybe the third time will be a charm. Maybe we will finally get this bipartisan bill to conference because you do not get bills to conference around here that are not bipartisan because when you only have 55 Republicans in the Senate, there is no way, even when all of us vote alike--and we do not vote alike--we can move a bill to conference. So it has to be bipartisan. You have to have Democratic support. So in this particular instance, we have 15, 16, 17, roughly, of the Democrats voting for it. Every Senator ought to help us pass this bill because of the provisions I just went through on these charts which are included in the bill. But there are also other reasons for supporting this bill. Our bill addresses expiring business and individual provisions that are known as extenders. These provisions include items such as the research and development tax credit and the work opportunity tax credit. This bill also includes many of the charitable incentives introduced in what we call by the acronym the CARE Act and which provisions have previously passed the Finance Committee and passed the entire Senate. In this regard, in regard to the CARE Act, in regard to the R&D credit, I have to give particular applause to Senators Santorum and Baucus in working with me to balance these incentives with several of the much-needed reforms that are supported by the charitable sector, the Treasury Department, the IRS, and donors and taxpayers to make sure charitable giving is not abused. Last, but not least, this bill contains loophole closers and tax shelter-fighting provisions that raise revenue. This bill is bipartisan. I thank my friend and working partner and ranking member, Senator Baucus, for his cooperation. He and I were not always partners on this bill, at least in the beginning, but we teamed up in the Finance Committee. We teamed up in the first Groundhog Day floor debate. We teamed up in the second Groundhog Day debate. I look forward to working with him today and hope we can team up in the conference working out the differences between the House and the Senate. As always, his cooperation and, in tense times, his good humor make a big difference in this body. Let me also thank those Democratic Senators who joined us in this bipartisan effort on our first floor journey. Most of them repeated through the second time on February 1 and 2 of this year. I ask them to help me persuade their leaders to let this bill proceed. I ask them to ask their leaders to focus on taking care of tax legislative business, bringing certainty to the tax policy of this country for the benefit of our taxpayers and the benefit of investment because investment creates jobs. I ask that the political games be cut out. I ask that we roll up our sleeves and get down to the people's business. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all quorum calls which we might have on the pending issue be equally charged to both sides.

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

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

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 8 p.m. tonight, the Senate proceed to a vote in relation to the Grassley motion on veterans, to be followed by a vote in relation to the Dodd motion on veterans, with no amendments in order on either motion.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I send a motion to the desk that I am going to file and not discuss at this point.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the motion to instruct that was just read is mine. Simply stated, this is a motion that says there are sufficient funds to do both alternative minimum tax and capital gains and dividends and that we should do both--in other words, as an instruction to conferees. Motion to Instruct Conferees

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I am sending several motions to the desk now. I ask that these be taken up together. I ask that the clerk would read each one at a time because I want to speak to each one. I would ask the clerk to read the first one.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, in explaining the rationale for my motion to instruct, I will be referring to other motions to instruct that two Senators on the other side have put in place, Senator Dodd of Connecticut and Senator Reed of Rhode Island. The Dodd motion to instruct is yet another episode in the tale of the ``groundhogization'' of this tax relief reconciliation bill, a long journey. The Senate adopted the alternative to the Dodd amendment, a Grassley amendment, that passed, including the following Budget Act waiver language: Waive all provisions of the Budget Act and budget resolutions necessary for the consideration of the pending amendment to this bill, and for the inclusion of the language of the pending amendment in consideration of an amendment between Houses. That is what we added back on February 2 to S. 2020. The Dodd motion instructs conferees to proceed by ignoring this waiver language. You see, the waiver language only applies for the purposes of our action in the Senate. If Senator Dodd were to prevail, the conferees could not follow his directive without violating the Budget Act. It is because the Dodd motion deals with outlays. We can't do outlays in a budget reconciliation package. I might add that the Reed motion that we expect to vote on tomorrow suffers from the same defect. The conferees, even if they were inclined, can't return from conference with a provision that contains outlays. We all know this is a political season. If you look at this motion, and if you look at the Reed motion, both cannot be adopted and followed. You can draw your own conclusion, then, why they are adopted, unless the Members don't know that this is a parliamentary situation. I can't believe they don't know what that parliamentary situation is. While we are at it, I am going to offer a motion to clarify what the Dodd and Reed motions are all about. Basically, if you support the principles of providing more health care for veterans, the supposed purpose of the Dodd amendment, and, secondly, assisting our troops with body armor, the supposed purpose of the Reed amendment, then vote for the Grassley motion. If you support these two principles but don't support a tax increase on America's seniors, at a higher cost of capital for American business, support the Grassley motion. If you just want an increase, then vote for the Dodd motion. I will summarize it this way: I appreciate Senator Dodd's attention to the issue of our veterans health care needs. This issue is of utmost importance to the Members of the Senate, as evidenced by the fact that we appropriated a massive amount of extra money last fall for the fiscal year we are in now to meet the needs of veterans, particularly those who were not recognized, people returning wounded from Iraq. But my colleagues suggest that in order to provide this support, we should give up the important economic tax policy of reduced capital gains and dividends tax, the present tax policy, just continue it for 2 more years so that people have a long-term view of what the tax policy is so that they know what they are going to invest. The Dodd motion claims to be paid for by capital gains, but capital gains offsets don't even come into play until the year 2009. I have offered a motion that supports military health care facilities, but we don't tie it up with an offset that is 3 long years down the road. You will remember that the Senate debated this issue on Groundhog Day and voted to accept my amendment that provides the same benefits but does not raise taxes to pay for it. I urge my colleagues to vote against Senator Dodd's motion and to support my motion to instruct the conferees on the amendment we have already passed. In regard to what Senator Reed is trying to do with his motion to instruct, this is the issue of funding for our military. Proper funding for those serving our country is not a controversial issue. The method of providing this funding for our military is, on the other hand, being made into an unnecessarily controversial issue. My colleague suggests that in order to provide for this funding, we eliminate a tax benefit that doesn't even arise until the year 2009, similar to the same issue in the Dodd amendment. I ask how this would provide the funds so badly needed this very day to ensure that we meet the operational needs of our courageous military service personnel. I offered an amendment that supports the operational needs of our military without tying it to an offset that is 3 long years down the road. Again, in an effort not to sound repetitive, you will remember that the Senate debated this issue also on Groundhog Day and voted to accept my amendment that provides the same benefits but does not raise taxes to pay for them. So I urge my colleagues to vote against Senator Reed's motion and to support my motion to instruct conferees on the amendment we have already passed. To sum up, if you are against a tax increase but for veterans health care and properly equipping our military, vote for the Grassley motion. If you are for a tax increase, then look elsewhere to our colleagues who are offering their version of it. Motion To Instruct Conferees

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I rise for the purpose of asking unanimous consent to change the names of the sponsors of a motion that I filed. I ask unanimous consent that the Grassley motion regarding the permanence of the child tax credit be identified as Grassley for Talent and Snowe.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I offer this motion instructing conferees that in the years 2009 and 2010, the international competitiveness of the United States in attracting capital investment, and therefore job creation, is not weakened further by higher combined corporate and individual increased tax rates on corporate and capital income as a result of the higher dividend rate. Motion to Instruct Conferees

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the words ``paid for'' also mean tax increase. The difference between these motions is, the Grassley motion does not contain the tax increase. The Dodd motion asks the conferees to raise taxes.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I turn to motion No. 6, which is my own. I ask for the reading of it.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, this motion I offer on behalf of Senator Santorum of Pennsylvania would make permanent the above-the-line deduction for tuition and fees for college.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask the clerk to read the motion that I am introducing for Senator Lott, listed as No. 3.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I am calling upon Congress to honor Dr. Norman E. Borlaug, the man of whom it is often said ``has saved more lives than any other person who has ever lived,'' with the Congressional Gold Medal. Dr. Borlaug is commonly known in the agricultural world and beyond as the father of the Green Revolution. His accomplishments in terms of bringing radical change to world agriculture and uplifting humanity are without parallel. Named by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 most influential minds of the 20th Century, Norman E. Borlaug is one of the great stories of our time. Norm, as he is known to all who work with him, was born in 1914 to Norwegian-American parents outside the town of Cresco in northeast Iowa near the Iowa/Minnesota border. His boyhood was spent on a Norman Rockwellesque farm and in a one-room schoolhouse. Eventually Norm found his way to the University of Minnesota where he became a star in Big Ten Wrestling and earned a Ph.D. in Plant Pathology. Following World War II, he spent 20 years working in the poorest areas of rural Mexico. It was there that Dr. Borlaug made his breakthrough achievement in developing a strand of wheat that could exponentially increase yields while actively resisting disease. With the strong support of the governments involved, Dr. Borlaug's Green Revolution uplifted hundreds of thousands of the rural poor in Mexico and saved hundreds of millions from famine and outright starvation in India and Pakistan. His approach to wheat production next spread throughout the Middle East and was then adapted to rice growing, increasing the number of lives saved to more than one billion people. In 1970 Norman E. Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the only person working in agriculture to ever be so honored, for a lifetime of work to feed a hungry world. Since then, he has received numerous honors and awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, The National Academy of Sciences' highest honor--the Public Service Medal, and the Rotary International Award for World Understanding and Peace. At age 91, Dr. Borlaug continues to alleviate poverty and malnutrition. He currently serves as president of Sasakawa Global 2000 Africa Project, which seeks to extend the benefits of agricultural development to the 800 million people still mired in poverty and malnutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa. Finally, Dr. Borlaug continues as Chairman of the Council of Advisors for the World Food Prize, an organization he created in 1986 to be the ``Nobel Prize for Food and Agriculture''. The World Food Prize presents $250,000 award each October at an international ceremony in Des Moines, IA, to the Laureate who has made an exceptional achievement similar to Dr. Borlaug's breakthrough forty years ago. Beyond recognizing these people for their personal accomplishments, Borlaug saw the World Food Prize as a means of establishing role models who would inspire others. In the 20 years of its existence, the World Food Prize has honored Laureates from Bangladesh, India, China, Mexico, Denmark, Sierra Leone, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. While Dr. Borlaug was born in Iowa, he is truly a citizen of all of America and, indeed, of all the world. The State of Minnesota has enacted a special day of recognition in his honor; He continues as a teacher, serving as a Distinguished Professor at Texas A&M University; and he has received honorary degrees from colleges and universities in virtually every state of the union. Reflecting this fact, a year ago the U.S. Senate passed a resolution designating October 16 as World Food Prize Day in America in honor of Dr. Borlaug. Beyond that, his name is widely recognized in Mexico, India, Pakistan and the Middle East reflecting his great humanitarian achievements in those countries. And he continues to be honored throughout South Asia and Africa, for his ongoing efforts to expand the benefits of the Green Revolution to the hundreds of millions of people still suffering from chronic hunger and malnutrition. Dr. Borlaug's achievements are in keeping with the recent presentation of Congressional Gold Medals. For over a half century, the scientific and humanitarian achievements of Dr. Norman E. Borlaug have kept starvation at bay for millions of people in third world countries. Through the passage of this legislation, the United States Senate can recognize the humanitarian contributions Dr. Borlaug has made to the entire world. The man who has saved more lives than any other person who has ever lived certainly deserves the highest honor the Congress can bestow. As the only working farmer in the U.S. Senate, I am proud and honored to introduce this important bill, and I call upon my colleagues to support this noble legislation. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I am calling upon Congress to honor Dr. Norman E. Borlaug, the man of whom it is often said ``has saved more lives than any other person who has ever lived,'' with the Congressional Gold Medal. Dr. Borlaug is commonly known in the agricultural world and beyond as the father of the Green Revolution. His accomplishments in terms of bringing radical change to world agriculture and uplifting humanity are without parallel. Named by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 most influential minds of the 20th Century, Norman E. Borlaug is one of the great stories of our time. Norm, as he is known to all who work with him, was born in 1914 to Norwegian-American parents outside the town of Cresco in northeast Iowa near the Iowa/Minnesota border. His boyhood was spent on a Norman Rockwellesque farm and in a one-room schoolhouse. Eventually Norm found his way to the University of Minnesota where he became a star in Big Ten Wrestling and earned a Ph.D. in Plant Pathology. Following World War II, he spent 20 years working in the poorest areas of rural Mexico. It was there that Dr. Borlaug made his breakthrough achievement in developing a strand of wheat that could exponentially increase yields while actively resisting disease. With the strong support of the governments involved, Dr. Borlaug's Green Revolution uplifted hundreds of thousands of the rural poor in Mexico and saved hundreds of millions from famine and outright starvation in India and Pakistan. His approach to wheat production next spread throughout the Middle East and was then adapted to rice growing, increasing the number of lives saved to more than one billion people. In 1970 Norman E. Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the only person working in agriculture to ever be so honored, for a lifetime of work to feed a hungry world. Since then, he has received numerous honors and awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, The National Academy of Sciences' highest honor--the Public Service Medal, and the Rotary International Award for World Understanding and Peace. At age 91, Dr. Borlaug continues to alleviate poverty and malnutrition. He currently serves as president of Sasakawa Global 2000 Africa Project, which seeks to extend the benefits of agricultural development to the 800 million people still mired in poverty and malnutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa. Finally, Dr. Borlaug continues as Chairman of the Council of Advisors for the World Food Prize, an organization he created in 1986 to be the ``Nobel Prize for Food and Agriculture''. The World Food Prize presents $250,000 award each October at an international ceremony in Des Moines, IA, to the Laureate who has made an exceptional achievement similar to Dr. Borlaug's breakthrough forty years ago. Beyond recognizing these people for their personal accomplishments, Borlaug saw the World Food Prize as a means of establishing role models who would inspire others. In the 20 years of its existence, the World Food Prize has honored Laureates from Bangladesh, India, China, Mexico, Denmark, Sierra Leone, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. While Dr. Borlaug was born in Iowa, he is truly a citizen of all of America and, indeed, of all the world. The State of Minnesota has enacted a special day of recognition in his honor; He continues as a teacher, serving as a Distinguished Professor at Texas A&M University; and he has received honorary degrees from colleges and universities in virtually every state of the union. Reflecting this fact, a year ago the U.S. Senate passed a resolution designating October 16 as World Food Prize Day in America in honor of Dr. Borlaug. Beyond that, his name is widely recognized in Mexico, India, Pakistan and the Middle East reflecting his great humanitarian achievements in those countries. And he continues to be honored throughout South Asia and Africa, for his ongoing efforts to expand the benefits of the Green Revolution to the hundreds of millions of people still suffering from chronic hunger and malnutrition. Dr. Borlaug's achievements are in keeping with the recent presentation of Congressional Gold Medals. For over a half century, the scientific and humanitarian achievements of Dr. Norman E. Borlaug have kept starvation at bay for millions of people in third world countries. Through the passage of this legislation, the United States Senate can recognize the humanitarian contributions Dr. Borlaug has made to the entire world. The man who has saved more lives than any other person who has ever lived certainly deserves the highest honor the Congress can bestow. As the only working farmer in the U.S. Senate, I am proud and honored to introduce this important bill, and I call upon my colleagues to support this noble legislation. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, on Wednesday, February 1, 2006, the House of Representatives passed the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, DRA, clearing the way for the President to sign this bill into law. This legislation was the product of a great deal of work on the part of Members and our dedicated staff and the experts who work in the congressional support agencies. I would like to highlight two provisions in the DRA: the Family Opportunity Act and the reauthorization of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and pay special tribute to the Members and staff who worked so hard on them over many years. Mr. President, I am particularly pleased that after years and years, the Family Opportunity Act is about to become law. This legislation has been something of a crusade of mine. This legislation extends Medicaid eligibility to families with a severely disabled child that are faced with either staying poor in order to continue to qualify for Medicaid or, worse, relinquishing a child to the State so that the child can receive the services that the child needs. The introduction of the Family Opportunity Act was motivated by the circumstances of individual families, the Melissa Arnold Family and the Dylan Lee Family. I offer my heartfelt thanks to these families for sharing their struggles with me and for being the inspiration for this legislation. I pay special tribute to my partner in this endeavor, Senator Edward Kennedy, who is a tireless champion on behalf of children and those with disabilities. During the many years we worked side by side on this bill, Senator Kennedy was most ably assisted by Connie Garner, of his staff. On my own staff, I would like to single out the efforts of Hope Cooper who worked for many years on the Family Opportunity Act and whose knowledge and compassion were invaluable assets in developing the bill. I also appreciate the work done by policy leads, Leah Kegler, Becky Shipp; health policy director, Mark Hayes; deputy staff director, Ted Totman, and staff director for the Finance Committee, Kolan Davis. I am grateful for the work done by Jeanne De Sa and Eric Rollins at the Congressional Budget Office and Ruth Ernst at the Office of Legislative Counsel, especially for their patience in analyzing and drafting the many different versions of the legislation. Mr. President, the reauthorization of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, TANF, has been a long and very difficult process, spanning three Congresses. Everyone who has worked on this reauthorization has been guided by a fundamental principle: helping those in deep and persistent poverty achieve the economic self sufficiency needed to overcome that poverty. We may disagree on some of the best ways to overcome poverty, but everyone who devoted their labor to this program did so out of the best of intentions. I particularly thank my friend and partner on the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Max Baucus, for his work on this program over the past 5 years. We didn't always agree, but we kept working together until we finally got to a compromise that satisfied us both. I hope at some point we can revisit some of the common themes we developed together in the PRIDE bill. I thank Senator Baucus's staff who worked on this issue over the past 5 years, Doug Steiger, Kate Kahan, and Liz Fowler. They are passionate, knowledgeable, and care deeply about low-income programs and the individuals who rely upon them. Other Members and their staff who contributed to the policy and the process include, the initial ``Tripartisan'' members: Senator John Breaux and his staff, Sara Triagle and Michelle Easton; Senator Orrin Hatch and his staff, Becky Shipp; Senator Jay Rockefeller and his staff, Barbara Pryor; Senator Olympia Snowe and her staff, Carolyn Holmes; Senator James Jeffords and his staff, Justin King; Senator Blanche Lincoln and her staff, Elizabeth MacDonald and Mike Anzick. Other critical Members and staff include: Majority Leader Bill Frist and his staff, Eric Ueland and Libby Jarvis; Minority Leader Tom Daschle, and his staff, Joan Huffer; Senator Rick Santorum and his staff, Randy Brandt; Senator Christopher Dodd and his staff, Grace Reef; and Megan Hauck, who contributed as a advisor to Senator Don Nickles, as well as working at the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Legislation and the White House. Throughout much of the process, Members and staff were indebted to the expertise of the Director of the Office of Family Assistance at the Administration of Children and Families, Andrew Bush and the Assistant Secretary for Human Service Policy in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Don Winstead. The Congress simply could not do our work, were it not for the incredibly talented and hardworking individuals serving in the congressional support agencies. We owe a substantial debt of gratitude for the work done by Gene Falk, Melinda Gish, and Carmen Soloman Fears at the Congressional Research Service; Shelia Dacey at the Congressional Budget Office; and Ruth Ernst at the Office of the Legislative Council. As ranking member and then chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, I was well served by policy leads, Hope Cooper and Becky Shipp; health policy director, Mark Hayes; deputy staff director, Ted Totman; and staff director for the Finance Committee, Kolan Davis.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I am pleased that the House of Representatives has passed S. 1932, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, DRA. This is a relatively modest deficit-reduction bill that represents just one-fourth of 1 percent of what Congress would otherwise spend during the next 5 years. It has been 8 years since Congress last passed legislation to reduce mandatory spending. The kinds of Medicaid changes made in the conference report are a fraction of what Governors across the country-- Republican and Democrat--asked Congress for to help State governments keep their Medicaid programs afloat for the millions of people who rely on Medicaid. Beneficiaries and taxpayers both deserve to get the highest value for every dollar that is spent on Medicaid, Medicare, and other safety-net programs. It is especially rewarding to have included in this overall package a bill I first authored in 1999. The Family Opportunity Act, which I have pushed for year after year with Senator Kennedy, was inspired by an Iowa family struggling to access health care services for a disabled child. Melissa Arnold, the mother, didn't give up, and today's legislative victory is a tribute to her kind of determination. The measure will let States create options for families that have children with multiple medical needs to buy into Medicaid while continuing to work. It is a pro-work initiative because it lets parents work without losing their children's health coverage. It is pro-family because it encourages parents to work and build a better life for their children, rather than being forced to impoverish themselves to access health care. And it is pro-taxpayer because it means more parents continue to earn money, pay taxes and pay their own way for Medicaid coverage for their children. In addition to this expansion of the Medicaid program, the comprehensive legislation includes $400 million in child-support payments that will go directly to welfare families, along with grants to promote healthy marriages and responsible fatherhood, $100 million to improve the handling of court cases involving foster care, a $200 million increase for a Safe and Stable Families program to help keep troubled families together and support adoption, and $1 billion to help parents pay for child care when they leave welfare and join the workforce. On Medicaid, some partisan critics and their allies will probably continue to distort the bill's intent and effect. I am repeating this-- the provisions on benefit flexibility and cost sharing are clear and unambiguous. The Congressional Budget Office and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services agree. The conferees agreed to language that clearly provides early periodic screening, diagnosis and treatment as a guaranteed benefit to all children on Medicaid. The conferees also agreed to language that clearly exempts individuals with incomes of less than 100 percent of the Federal Poverty Limit from any increased cost-sharing. I fought hard for these provisions and I will take appropriate actions to prevent any misreading of them to occur down the road.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. I call up amendment No. 2731.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.