Chuck Grassley

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 13, at 9:15 a.m. to consider pending business.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Immigration be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on Thursday, April 13, 2000, at 2:00 p.m., in Dirksen 226.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Forests and Public Land Management Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 13, at 2:30 p.m. to conduct an oversight hearing. The subcommittee will receive testimony on the United States Forest Service's proposed regulations governing National Forest Planning.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a markup on Thursday, April 13, 2000, at 9:30 a.m. in SD226.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet for a hearing on protecting pension assets during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 13, 2000, at 10 a.m.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 13, 2000, at 10:00 a.m., in open session to review the Department of Defense Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 13, 2000 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a business meeting.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 13, 2000, to conduct a hearing on Structure of Securities Markets.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on Thursday, April 13, 2000, at 9:30 a.m. on pending committee business.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on Thursday, April 13, 2000, at 2:30 p.m. on S. 1361--Natural Disaster Protection and Insurance Act.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 13 at 9:30 a.m. to conduct a hearing. The committee will receive testimony on S. 282, the Transition to Competition in the Electric Industry Act; S. 516, the Electric Utility Restructuring Empowerment and Competitiveness Act of 1999; S. 1047, the Comprehensive Electricity Competition Act; S. 1284, the Electric Consumer Choice Act; S. 1273, the Federal Power Act Amendments of 1999; s. 1369, the Clean Energy Act of 1999; S. 2071, Electric Reliability 2000 Act; and S. 2098, the Electric Power Market Competition and Reliability Act.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleague Senator Hutchinson in sponsoring this resolution. We have been working closely together to find a solution to this growing problem. Unfortunately it seems the White House fails to grasp the urgency. Mr. President, the DEA, who has for several years reimbursed state and local law enforcement agencies for the costs they have incurred in cleaning up drug laboratories, has run out of clean-up money. This has happened at a time when the number of these labs are growing rapidly, and springing up in towns and counties where there has never been a problem in the past. Iowa alone has a stack of over $83,000 in outstanding lab cleanup bills, and this amount continues to grow. Last year, Iowa received over $1.3 million in reimbursement, and at the current pace this total is expected to be higher this year. Four weeks ago, Mr. President, Mr. Hutchinson, Mr. Kyl, and I wrote the appropriations committee to alert them to this problem. Our offices were aware of this impending problem, and wanted to insure that no one was taken by surprise so there could be a quick resolution. Two weeks ago, we were joined by Mr. Craig and Mr. Ashcroft in a letter to the Attorney General, encouraging her to work with the Appropriators in reprogramming funds to cover this shortfall. I am pleased to say that within days we had been informed that a reprogramming request had been sent to the White House Budget Office for their approval. The request would allow for the use of returned COPS funds--money that was not going to be spent otherwise--to be used to clean up these environmental hazzards. I want to emphasize that this source was identified by the Justice Department, not by Congress. And I want to applaud their swift action to solve the problem, and not play politics. But then, OMB happened. It did nothing. The problem mounts, and OMB sits. That is why Senator Hutchinson and I are offering this Sense of the Senate. We hope to encourage timely action--not more sitting on bureaucratic thumbs. I urge my colleagues to join us.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the next votes in the series be limited to 10 minutes each.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Montana.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Reserving the right to object, I see this as an effort to delay passing the marriage tax penalty relief bill. Offering or voting for this motion is saying that the Senate does not want to fix the marriage tax penalty. Recommitting the bill is an attempt, I think, to kill the bill. We are going to deal with the prescription drug problem. As I said in my opening comments this morning, Republicans have already set aside $40 billion in our budget to do so. We do not need to delay fixing the marriage tax penalty in order to fix the Medicare problem. We have the resources and the time to do both. Again, I think this is a transparent effort to kill marriage tax penalty relief, and, consequently, I object.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I yield myself 1 minute. And if somebody else wants the remaining 2 minutes, I would be glad to yield it. I take this opportunity, just before the cloture votes, to clear up a couple things. First of all, the Senator from North Dakota is a very good friend of mine. I work very closely with him. I do not dispute what he said. But I do want to clarify his reaction to my saying that taxes are as high as they have ever been in the history of our country. The Senator made the point that taxes have gone down for many taxpayers. Of course, that is true. He concentrated on middle-income taxpayers. But it is mostly true because of the tax credit for children that the Republicans promoted and passed in the 1997 tax bill. For a family with two kids, for instance, that means $1,000 that Republicans provided, or about $25 billion a year. But despite the protests of the Senator from North Dakota, I still stand by my comments that the overall percentage of taxation is at a historical high of near 21 percent of GDP. Then in response to Senator Robb's comments on the Medicare reserve, it is my understanding that $40 billion was reserved for Medicare and prescription drugs in the conference report. I hope and think that the Senator from Virginia is incorrect. I yield my remaining time to the Senator from Kansas.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, how much time do we have remaining on this side of the aisle?

Mr. GRASSLEY. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Texas.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Missouri.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may consume off the time allotted to this side of the aisle. We have 44 minutes remaining; is that right?

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I take this opportunity, at the start of debate on this important bill to reduce taxes for married couples by eliminating the marriage tax penalty, to give some reaction to comments made from the other side of the aisle yesterday. My reaction probably should have been given last night, but the environment at that time was such that other Members wanted to speak on issues other than the marriage tax penalty, so I did not take advantage of the opportunity. It would have been more appropriate for me to respond to the Senate minority leader and other Members of the other side of the aisle last night so it would be more in context. These comments are in regard to our efforts to repeal the marriage tax penalty and also to clear up some of the inaccurate and misleading statements made by the other side of the Senate. We heard the charge made yesterday by the minority leader that, in passing this bill, we are going to be dipping into the Social Security surplus. Of course, that is going to be the Democratic mantra from now on, even though it is not the truth. Our own budget document is evidence of it not being our intent. Knowing the other side is salivating at trying to make this bogus political charge stick, we have been very careful in making sure we stay within the $150 billion in tax relief authorized in the budget resolution that will be before us later today in the form of the conference committee report on the budget for the year 2001. By carefully staying within these limits, we aren't touching one cent of Social Security money. That is important because people know the irresponsibility of Congress from 1969 until the Republican majority of Congress, the first Republican majority in both Houses of Congress in 40 years, finally got the job done of balancing the budget with decisions made in 1997. For the first time in 43 years, we are paying down on the national debt 3 years in a row. The budget we are going to adopt this afternoon for the year 2001 will be the fourth year, and we will be paying down $177 billion on that off the debt in the budget year 2001. Regardless of what the members of the other side of the aisle say, this marriage tax penalty bill we are going to pass to reduce taxes for the average married couple by $1,400, because they will no longer get hit with the marriage penalty, fits into the budget and doesn't use one cent of Social Security money to accomplish our goal of justice for middle-class married families in America. Now, we also heard the misleading charge yesterday that we in the majority are trying to dictate what amendments the Democrats could offer. All we have been trying to do is to bring some order to this process so we can get this bill, which even the President of the United States says ought to pass. In his State of the Union Message, he asked us to pass a bill eliminating the marriage tax penalty. So, yesterday, they said we were trying to dictate amendments. Well, during that discussion, we asked if second-degree amendments could be in order to the Democrats' first-degree amendments. We were told absolutely not. So the Democratic side is doing as much dictating as anyone. If we can be accused of complaining about the amendments they want to offer and objecting to it, then they have no right to deny us the opportunity to offer second-degree amendments to their amendments. In fact, the assistant minority leader stated that his caucus was in lockstep behind the minority leader. Well, that is simply part of the problem. The other side does walk in lockstep against reform in an attempt to paint this Congress as a do-nothing Congress. Funny, isn't it, how when Democrats brag about being in lockstep and unanimity behind their leader, somehow that isn't being partisan. But if Republicans were to vote in lockstep behind our leader, they would say we are being very partisan. So, again, it seems as if we have a double standard that is not quite justified. Maybe my accusations should be directed more toward the press and media than the other side of the aisle and their statements. But it seems so often if Republicans are together, we are being partisan. But if Democrats are together, they aren't being partisan. As I have followed the stories on this in the press for the last 2 days, I haven't seen any charge of partisanship by the media toward the other side of the aisle. But, boy, I bet we Republicans would be painted as partisan. Unfortunately, for the other side, this Congress has already made substantial progress and will continue to do so, and they will never be able to label us as a do-nothing Congress. I wish, though, that we had a few independent thinkers on the other side of the aisle, as we do on our side of the aisle, and not the lockstep following of leaders to the extent which it is. All I have to do as a Republican is proudly point out the independence of Senator McCain on this side of the aisle to show that there are Republicans who are independent and do not always follow in lockstep. It would be nice if there were a few ``Senator McCains'' on the other side of the aisle who were willing to break ranks and be very independent. A couple of the amendments the Democrats want to offer deal with prescription drugs. Of course, these are political amendments. We Republicans have already set aside $40 billion in our budget to deal with Medicare and prescription drugs. All we need to do is have people on that side of the aisle--as there are bipartisan Medicare reform proposals with prescription drug provisions in them--get behind some of these bipartisan approaches and get the White House behind them. We will be glad to move on those within the $40 billion we have set aside in our budget to deal with Medicare reform and prescription drugs because we all know this problem has to be solved. We know that some seniors can't afford prescription drugs. Some seniors have to choose between food and drugs. That is not a choice they should have to make. And we have, consequently, taken the initiative in our budget and have $40 billion for that. Now all we need is a little bit of cooperation from the other side of the aisle, following on what one or two on the other side of the aisle have attempted to do with Republicans, to move a bill along in this effort. But the White House happens to be dragging its feet. Now, I think the insinuation is, from the amendments being offered on prescription drugs, that we don't see this as a problem and that we don't want to solve this problem. They aren't telling the truth. Another amendment they have asked us to look at deals with the taxation of Conservation Reserve Program payments to farmers. The Internal Revenue Service--as they so often do in their infinite wisdom but lack of common sense--is trying to impose Social Security taxes on these payments. Of course, this is the Clinton-Gore administration that is doing this to the farmers of the United States. These taxes hadn't been opposed until the Clinton-Gore administration started imposing them through the IRS. And now we have a Democrat amendment to overturn what the Clinton-Gore administration is doing to the farmers on the CRP payments. So why don't the people on the other side of the aisle just call up President Clinton and Vice President Gore and ask them to order their own IRS to drop this silly new interpretation of the law because right now we have the Vice President going around the country saying how much he is willing to help the farmers of the United States and, Lord only knows, they need help with prices at 25-year lows. Well, I guess help came after he invented the Internet because I haven't seen any help in this area since this has been in the courts in the United States. Now we have the Clinton-Gore IRS beating up on farmers with this new tax. Now, there is nothing wrong with the tax being offered from the other side of the aisle, trying to correct this; but it seems to me that there are other ways this could be handled. Yesterday, we also heard what was really a political attack, that this tax relief is somehow a ``risky tax cut scheme.'' How come from the other side of the aisle all we ever hear about is ``risky tax cut schemes''? We don't hear about the risky spending schemes that are offered by the White House or by the other side of the aisle. All you have to do is go back to State of the Union Address on January 2000 and listen to the President of the United States propose 77 new spending programs--77 new spending programs. Somehow, there is shock on the other side that we want to let the people of this country keep their hard-earned money rather than running it through the Treasury in Washington, DC. Now, there is a certain amount of good economic freedom argument you can give that is very philosophical about why the working men and women of America ought to spend more of their own money and send less of it to Washington just so they can have the economic freedom to do with the fruits of their labor and their minds what they want to do. But there is also a pretty good economic argument for not running any more money than is absolutely needed through Washington, DC. That is because money spent through the Federal budget does less economic good--in other words, it turns over less times for the economy--than money spent by individual taxpayers and working men and women of America. All one has to do is look at the defense budget. The defense budget produces a lot of expensive items. But once they are made, those items are not used for producing wealth. They serve a good purpose for our national defense. But they don't turn over any more money in our economy. We come to these risky spending schemes of this administration with 77 new programs, and we have tax cuts before Congress. Being at the highest level of taxation in the history of our country, at about 21 percent of gross domestic product, if we allow the President, through those 77 risky spending schemes, to build up to that level of expenditure at 21 percent, then when we have a downturn in the economy, the spending is going to stay up here and the income is down here. Then you have another budget deficit; whereas, if we continue the pattern of the last 50 years of taxing at about 18.5 to 19 percent of the gross domestic product, then over the historical average there will be less chance of a deficit. We want to let the working men and women keep more of their money and keep our historical level of taxation at about 18.5 to 19 percent. We do not want the extra money that is now coming into the Treasury to be eaten up by these 77 risky spending schemes of this administration. I feel compelled to correct a statement made by my democratic colleague from Illinois. My colleague stated that the Republican marriage penalty bill would require 5 million more taxpayers to pay higher taxes. My colleague stated: Here's the kicker. They don't want to talk about they have drawn their bill up so that five million Americans will actually pay higher taxes. . . . Take a look around the corner--five million Americans end up paying higher taxes under the alternative minimum tax. So now isn't that something? This is simply incorrect. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation there would be no increase in any taxpayer's overall tax liability as a result of this bill. In fact, the bill attempts to correct an AMT problem for millions of taxpayers. According to Joint Tax, in the year 2010, 9.2 million tax returns will benefit from the AMT provision in the bill--this includes 6.5 million joint returns and 2.7 million other individual returns benefiting from this bill. This is a worthy goal, and we should do what is right. According to Joint Tax, in 2010 approximately 1.5 million joint returns benefiting from the AMT credit extension will become AMT payers under the bill. However, as I just mentioned, Joint Tax estimates that the bill would not increase any taxpayer's overall tax liability. The record must be set straight--no one will pay higher taxes as a result of this bill. My friends on the other side of the aisle have rejected a request we made yesterday to allow a debate solely on the marriage tax penalty relief. The Senate leader has offered 10 relevant amendments, including their alternative marriage tax penalty proposal. The other side has rejected this offer. The other side claims they want to debate other issues--talk about issues other than tax relief. Either way you slice it--by what the Senate minority has done or by what they claim--they evidently don't care about marriage tax penalty relief itself. Senate Democrats could live with a focused debate when it applied to the education savings accounts a month ago, March 2, and ending the Social Security earnings limit for seniors over 65, which only a few weeks ago, on March 22, was passed by the Senate. However, now when it comes down to marriage tax penalty relief, our colleagues and friends on the other side of the aisle say no. Why? What has changed compared to these other two tax bills? Why were those other items only a few weeks ago so much more important than this bill that would help over 40 million families? The bill before the Senate will help 40 million families. They want to debate other issues, so they are holding up the marriage tax penalty bill. Imagine the hue and cry Democrats would raise if the shoe were on the other foot--if we were debating these other issues and we demanded to offer marriage tax penalty amendments. The House has acted. The Finance Committee has acted. The Senate should now act. However, it can't because the Democrats are obstructing this legislation like in-laws on a honeymoon. We have been more than fair. We have said this is a debate on marriage tax penalty relief--offer any amendment you want that related to this bill and we will give you a debate and a vote on it. Any amendment--up to ten of them. How many relevant amendments did the Democrats offer yesterday? Less then half of their ten addressed this issue. By my generous calculation that means that they only half care about marriage tax penalty relief. In the House, it was not this way. Forty-eight Democrats across the Rotunda voted for marriage tax penalty relief. It was bipartisan over there. Why can't it be bipartisan here? Democrats here are seeking to make this a highly partisan Senate. So the Senate must wait and over 40 million American families will have to wait. Every couple who suffers under this marriage tax penalty, which has existed for 31 years, must wait further. In a sense, everyone is going to have to wait while the other side of the aisle obstructs this tax relief effort. This is tax week across America. America's families are hunkered down over their kitchen tables figuring out their tax forms. Isn't it time these taxpayers get a break from the most unfair part of this process, the provisions that tax them at a higher rate just because they are doing what is right and are married? I want to give them that break. My colleagues want to give them that break. However, my Democrat colleagues don't want to give them that break. In fact, they don't want to even give them a debate or a vote on this very important issue. I urge the Senate to go to the final debate on this and pass it before we adjourn this week. I yield the floor.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I yield 1 minute of my time to the Senator from Idaho.

Mr. GRASSLEY

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, on behalf of the leader, I ask unanimous consent, notwithstanding rule XXII, that following the cloture votes relative to H.R. 6, the Senate proceed to H. Con. Res. 303, the adjournment resolution, with a vote to occur on adoption, all without intervening action or debate. I further ask unanimous consent that following that vote, the Senate begin debate on the budget resolution conference report and, when received, the conference report be considered as having been read and there be 4 hours of debate to be divided in the following fashion: 90 minutes under the control of Senator Domenici, 90 minutes under the control of Senator Lautenberg, and 1 hour under the control of Senator Reed of Rhode Island. Finally, I ask unanimous consent that following the use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to vote on the adoption of the conference report, without any intervening action or debate.