Don Nickles

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I concur with everything my colleague and friend Senator Conrad said. I ask unanimous consent to lay aside the pending amendment and take up the Lautenberg amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I also want to compliment my colleague from Nebraska. I very much appreciate his comments concerning having partisan work on the budget. I have had the pleasure of working with the Senator from Nebraska. We are very good friends. I hope his basketball team goes in defeat today against the University of Oklahoma. I wanted to make sure he is aware that could happen. You never know. Senator Inhofe, I believe, wants to speak on the Superfund amendment offered by our colleague from New Jersey. In a moment, I will ask to set this amendment aside, and we will take up an additional amendment. But let me make a couple of comments. This is a tax increase. We have had a lot of tax increases. This assumes it is going to be reauthorized. I hope and expect it will be authorized. But the taxes shouldn't be increased until it is reauthorized. That should be done by the authorizers. Chairman Inhofe is chairman of that committee. I want to protect his rights. When he returns to the Senate Chamber, I will give him ample time on whatever amendment we are considering to fully debate the Lautenberg amendment. I am willing to consider additional amendments. I tell our colleagues again we have spent a lot of time debating. We need to be moving more amendments or else other people are going to be squeezed on time. I believe the Senator from Iowa has an amendment. It is all right with me if we go to that amendment. The Senator from Connecticut, I believe, has an amendment. We are happy to consider that amendment. I want to notify our colleagues time is running and we are going to have a very late night tonight and, unfortunately, maybe tomorrow. I happen to think it is possible to finish this tonight, but it will take people not offering amendments. It will take people not making long speeches. I don't want to stifle debate. I enjoy debate. But it is important to get our work done. I see a fairly lengthy list of amendments yet to be handled. I am willing to set aside the Lautenberg amendment for the amendment of the Senator from Iowa.

Mr. NICKLES. I guess I will not set it aside. I asked unanimous consent to set aside the Dorgan amendment to consider the Lautenberg amendment but it was not sent to the desk. We will save a spot for Senator Lautenberg to introduce the amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. I appreciate that.

Mr. NICKLES. If my colleague will yield.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I think it would be most appropriate if the Senator from New Jersey did not offer his amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. I will compliment my colleague from New Jersey for his amendment if he does not offer it. I will oppose it strenuously if it is sent to the desk. I urge my colleague to withhold, if he can. Our colleague from Kentucky wants to be heard on the amendment from our friend from Iowa. I need to consult with him before we enter into a time agreement. I am perfectly willing to enter into a time agreement on several amendments.

Mr. NICKLES. As I understand the Senator from Iowa, he raises taxes only $80 billion over this period of time, so if we give a minute per billions, this would be 40 minutes a side. I am not sure. I would be willing to do 15 minutes a side, but I need to consult with a couple of colleagues. I am not positive what this amendment does, if it has a reserve fund or if it just is a direct tax increase and assumes spending.

Mr. NICKLES. I appreciate the suggestion by my colleague from North Dakota. I would like to have an assumption that no amendment gets over 10 minutes on each side. I mentioned that would be my desire at the beginning of the day. That is still my desire. That would be ample time for discussion. That would be my hope. I hope the standard amendment does not receive more than 10 minutes a side. That would be my thought. Maybe we can do that for the amendment of the Senator from Iowa. I ask unanimous consent to lay the pending amendment aside and to consider an amendment to be offered by our colleague from Iowa.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I just checked with Senator McConnell, who I think might be involved in leading the opposition, and he has no objection. So I ask unanimous consent that the time allotted for the amendment of the Senator from Iowa be 30 minutes, equally divided--the time allotted from the beginning of the debate on the amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. The Senator is correct.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I think I may have a colleague who wants to speak on this; I believe Senator McConnell. I am looking at the amendment. I can read the purpose, but I will tell my colleagues, you can put whatever purpose you want, but the net essence of the amendment is to increase taxes by $39 billion. I appreciate the assumption. I don't know if that scores correctly. I have no idea. I don't know what the tax raises today and I don't know how much money would be raised if it was increased today $1 a pack. I do know a lot of States have been doing this. My Governor in my State of Oklahoma is in the process of trying to increase tobacco taxes as we speak. This would conflict with that to some extent because a lot of States have been doing that. I believe New York and a lot of other States have very hefty taxes. This has been primarily an area where the States have maybe the heavier tax between the Federal and the State. This amendment also purports to say it will increase spending. Just reading the language, it says, ``If the Committee on Appropriations reports the legislation'' such-and-such, then the chairman of the Budget Committee may revise aggregates up to. So it doesn't actually directly increase spending. It does directly increase taxes to the tune of $39 billion over the first few years. It assumes there would be a lot of new spending. I want to make that clear. Some people are assuming it is a direct increase in some functions. Again, to repeat, my colleague from North Dakota and I have done this repeatedly. The purpose does not really mean the Finance Committee is going to get an instruction to increase taxes, decrease taxes, keep present law, have tax increases. This is a tax increase. I have been on the Finance Committee for a long time. I don't remember ever voting on an amendment to increase cigarette taxes. I guess it has floated around, but I don't remember a serious debate on increasing the cigarette tax and should this be a function to be reserved for the States or for the Federal Government. I will reserve the balance of our time for Members who may be more knowledgeable. I didn't know what the excise tax on a pack of cigarettes was until my colleague said it is 31 cents. I don't know what the wholesale price of a pack of cigarettes is. I don't know what the retail price is. I don't know, don't care too much. So maybe this is a fight for other people.

Mr. NICKLES. I ask unanimous consent that the debate on the Lincoln amendment be limited to 20 minutes equally divided.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I have great respect and esteem for my neighbor from Arkansas, but this is an amendment that would increase taxes by $60 billion. I think we want to send out a clarion call to taxpayers: Look out. Our good friends on the Democrat side of the aisle are after you. They are coming. They are coming after your pocketbooks. We just considered an amendment from our colleague from Iowa for $39 billion. The Senator from California, Mrs. Boxer, offered an amendment for $24 billion, and there are a lot of other tax increases in a lot of other amendments that I guess we will discuss. The $60 billion tax increase that Senator Lincoln is offering proposes to close loopholes. My colleague from Arkansas is on the Finance Committee. We mark up tax bills all the time. The Senator should introduce her amendment to close the loopholes. As soon as I found out about the leasing provision, I started talking about we need to repeal it. The chairman of the Finance Committee put that in the FSC/ETI bill. We had that bill on the Senate floor, and it will be back in a week. We can make that law. There are other loopholes that need to be closed, many of which the chairman of the Finance Committee has in that bill, supported by Senator Grassley and Senator Baucus and many of us on the committee, most of those in a very bipartisan way. Now a lot of that is used to pay for the JOBS bill that Senator Grassley and Senator Baucus are trying to pass. The idea of being able to lower manufacturing rates, and so on, there are a lot of these ``loopholes.'' If my colleague has more loopholes, let's talk about them. I asked the Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary Snow, if he has some ideas about some loopholes that need to be closed to give me a list. I like to close loopholes. I do not like it when there are real inequities and there are people cheating who are not paying their fair share. There are a lot of unreported taxes, for example. So I am willing to do it, but this amendment just basically increases taxes. We can suggest closing loopholes but this raises taxes. In the first year, it raises $12 billion in taxes. It just so happens in the first year we are assuming continuation of present law and that will cost us $12 billion. In other words, we continue present law for primarily low- and middle-income people, and that will be $12 billion. So this will totally offset that. The net result, if these two amendments are put together, the budget resolution and this amendment, it will say zero tax relief in 2005; i.e., it will say a tax increase for every family in America, for every couple in America, for everybody who has a child in America. That is what this amendment is. I want taxpayers to look out. There are a lot of people looking after your checkbook and they are looking to get in your checkbook. Some of us are not going to let that happen. I urge our colleagues to vote no on the amendment at the appropriate time. I ask unanimous consent that we lay aside the Lincoln amendment and now take up consideration of the amendment of Senator Byrd and that the amendment have 40 minutes equally divided.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I want to echo everything my colleague from North Dakota said. I know I have complained to Senator Byrd in the past about deliberations on the budget process. I said I dislike vote-aramas. In the past, management of budget bills has many times stacked the votes. Well, there won't be any votes and people would have long debates, and, therefore, not really consider very many amendments until late Thursday night. We haven't done that, frankly in large part because of my relationship and respect for Senator Conrad. We said we wanted to avoid the vote-arama. Last year was probably the worst vote-arama in Senate history. To me, it is very demeaning to the Senate. We cast 51 rollcall votes, most of which were jammed together, most of which had 1 minute of debate each, and no one knew what they were voting on. It was not a pretty picture. It wasn't good for the Senate. I want to do what is right for the Senate. I have heard Senator Byrd say that. I happen to agree with him. I appreciate his amendment. I don't support his amendment, but I appreciate it. It is a substantive amendment. As Senator Conrad said, we are willing to take substantive amendments and debate them and discuss them and give Members ample time to consider them. But we do not need to have repetitive amendments. We do not need to have endless amendments. We do not need to have sense of the Senates. And we do not need to have people staying here until 1 o'clock in the morning voting, where they are like zombies and don't really recognize what they are voting on. I want to make a couple comments on the amendment before the Senate right now, the amendment by my colleague and friend, Senator Byrd. This amendment would increase taxes by $24.5 billion. It increases spending by about $18 billion. I urge our colleagues to defeat it. We have had a lot of amendments that will increase taxes and increase spending. We are going to be voting on that several times--maybe even more times. I hope we don't continue voting on it. I think people are making their points. I understand a lot of people want to tax more and spend more. That is understood. I do not know how many times we would have to vote on it. The tax assumption we have in the bill before us for 2005 is $12.3 billion in tax reduction. But in reality we are assuming present law will be extended. If you extend present law--no tax cut, but basically extend present law--that costs us about $12.3 billion. This bill increases taxes by about $11.2 billion. In other words, you could not extend present law. It nets out. It would tell the Finance Committee, don't do it. The net result would be a lot of families in Oklahoma and in other places around the country--if they have four kids, it would be a tax increase of $2,200, if they have taxable income of $58,000. These are not necessarily wealthy individuals. I know the top line of this says: We want to reduce tax breaks for the upper 1 percent. I urge colleagues, if you know of some tax breaks that need to be closed, Chairman Grassley is going to have a bill on the floor when we return from this recess week after next. Offer those amendments to close the tax breaks, and if they are legitimate, I may well support you. That is the time to do it. But I think a lot of these so-called closing tax breaks are not there or Senator Grassley and Senator Baucus already have them in their bill or they are planning on putting them in the bill. I am all for closing them. And I could mention other provisions. I am for closing them. But let's do it on the tax bill. This is basically saying, let's have a tax increase of $24 billion and increasing spending by $18 billion. I urge our colleagues to vote against the amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. To further inform my colleague, I believe a budget point of order lies against the amendment. I don't know that will change his desire about whether to send it to the desk, but I am fairly certain that a budget point of order does lie against it. I would urge you to consider maybe keeping it at a good verbal discussion but not sending it to the desk. But you certainly have that right to do so.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I haven't consulted with Senator Cochran. That is the reason I am caught a little bit off guard. I have no objection to limiting the debate to 20 minutes. I will be happy to limit the debate time on Senator Lieberman's amendment to 20 minutes. I may withhold some of our time for Senator Cochran to come in and debate it at a later moment. I ask unanimous consent that we have 20 minutes equally divided on the Lieberman amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, we are continuing the assault on taxpayers. Next, in the not too distant future, we are going to be voting on a lot of tax increases. This would increase taxes by $13.7 billion and increase spending by $6.8 billion. That is a 40-percent increase. We fully funded the President's request of a 15-percent increase but, obviously, that is not enough for some individuals. I will now yield management of this amendment to Senator Collins.

Mr. NICKLES. I think it is good. I think it is good. My colleague from New Hampshire is not in the Chamber yet, but hopefully he will be here. I will make a couple of comments. One, we have assumed in the budget a significant increase for Pell grants already. This is another one of these things that no matter what we put in, there is going to be an amendment to increase it. I understand that. I recognize that. The history is this Congress, and frankly in the last few years since Senator Gregg has been chairman and Arlen Specter has been chairman and George Bush has been President, the amount for Pell grants has risen and risen dramatically, from about six point some billion dollars under President Clinton's last year to all the way now up to $12.5 billion. So there have been dramatic increases in Pell grants. In the year 2001, it was $8.7 billion. In our budget it is right at $13 billion. That is a significant increase. If this amendment was adopted, Pell grants would increase from 2004 to 2005 by 48.2 percent. We have had a lot of amendments. We had one just a moment ago dealing with homeland security offered by my very dear friend whom I respect greatly, Senator Lieberman, that would have increased the homeland security function by 40 percent. This increases Pell grants by 48.2 percent between 2004 and 2005.

Mr. NICKLES. Yes.

Mr. NICKLES. Well, because that is what my staff told me, and if I am incorrect, I will be happy to revise and edit my remarks. Again, I wish Senator Gregg was doing this. My staff informs me it would increase from $4,050 to $5,100 under the Senator's amendment, and that would increase the cost by 48.2 percent. It is not just the maximum amount of the award. The maximum amount of the award would be going up some 20-odd percent, but there are a lot of awards, not just at that amount but also at other amounts. That is a very significant increase, 48 percent in 1 year. Funding has gone up dramatically in this program, as I just mentioned. When there is an increase from $8.7 billion under our resolution to $13 billion--and looking at the Senator's amendment it would increase that amount from $13 billion an additional $4.9 billion.

Mr. NICKLES. I yield myself an additional 5 minutes.

Mr. NICKLES. The Senator could add $4.9 billion because it says it would increase spending by $4.9 billion for 2005. If we add that to $13 billion, that is taking a $13 billion program to an $18 billion program. My very able staff did very good work. I think that is 48 percent. Again there has to be some kind of limit. I happen to like the idea of doing some good things in Pell grants. We have assumed a 7.4-percent increase, almost $1 billion increase for Pell grants in 1 year. My colleague and friend from Massachusetts wants to multiply that times five. I do not think we can afford that. His amendment also says, well, we want to raise taxes to do it and would raise taxes by $9.8 billion. I also want to say this is kind of clever, but it does not sell. Many of our colleagues' amendments say we are only increasing taxes 1 year to pay for the spending 1 year. There is no way in the world if the taxes and spending are increased by $4.9 billion in 1 year that is not going to be continued or to be assumed. So I mention, yes, that tax increase would be extended year after year and so would the spending increase. I want to warn taxpayers, there are a lot of amendments out here. We are going to start voting on these amendments momentarily. My colleague from North Dakota has been urging me, let's get the votes started. I would like to advise our colleagues momentarily we are going to start a long list of rollcall votes. I want to advise taxpayers to look out because almost every one of these votes will raise your taxes. I will tell the spenders of the world, almost every one of these will increase spending. We will have a chance to vote. I see my colleague from Oklahoma is in the Chamber and I reserved some time for him to speak on the Lautenberg amendment. I do want to let our colleagues know momentarily we are going to begin a series of rollcall votes and it is very much my intention to run them very hard. We will have 15 minutes on the first one. I hope not much more. On subsequent votes, we are going to hold them to as close to 10 minutes as the managers can. If Senators miss votes, they miss votes. Most of these votes are going to become pretty obvious how they are going to be determined before too long. Hopefully we will not waste too many hours in the process.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I appreciate everyone's patience. For the information of our colleagues, we are going to have a series of votes starting momentarily. I am going to yield to my colleague and former chairman of the Budget Committee for a few moments. I notify our colleagues we expect several votes to begin momentarily. We are trying to warn everybody, we would like everybody to be prompt and we would like for everybody to stay on the floor. Mr. President, I yield to my colleague from New Mexico such time as he desires.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, Senator Kennedy was questioning my math. He said where did I get this answer that it increased by 48 percent. I said I got it from my staff. Now I did it myself. I regret to inform my good colleague from Massachusetts, but my staff was right. It just so happens when you add $4.9 billion that is called for by his amendment to the $12.9 billion we have in our resolution, that totals $17.8 billion. Last year we spent $12 billion. That is a 48.2 percent increase. Actually, I calculated it at 48.3 percent. That is an increase in 1 year. Pell grants, as I showed by the chart, have already risen dramatically. They have grown by 47.3 percent since 2001. Senator Kennedy's amendment would have it grow by more than that in 1 year. That is not affordable. That is not sustainable, not if you believe in deficit reduction. I have heard so many people make speeches about deficit reduction and be critical of our President, but that is not the way people are voting. They are voting for more spending, and then this hypothetical we are going to raise somebody else's taxes. I don't think you can have programs grow at 48 percent. Senator Lieberman had an amendment that would grow homeland security by 40 percent. I don't think you can have that kind of growth rate in expenditures and ever say you are serious about deficit reduction. During the debate on the Lautenberg amendment, I said I wanted to refer to my colleague who happens to be chairman of the committee, the authorizing committee that overseas Superfund, for his comments in relationship to the Lautenberg amendment. I notify our colleagues it is my expectation that we will begin a series of rollcall votes in the very near future. I yield my colleague from Oklahoma such time as he desires.