Don Nickles

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment by Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator Bunning be limited to 45 minutes without second-degree amendments, and I ask unanimous consent that the amendment to be offered by Senator Byrd be limited to 1 hour equally divided without second-degree amendments.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I compliment my colleague from South Carolina and the Senator from Kentucky, Mr. Bunning, as well as Senator Daschle and Senator Conrad. We have no objection to the amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, again, I compliment our colleagues. I urge other colleagues, if they have ideas on amendments, to share them with us and maybe we can work some of them out and eliminate the need for rollcall votes. Rollcall votes take a lot of time and they also don't count on the time for the budget resolution. I have a unanimous consent agreement on two additional amendments. We have unanimous consent on an amendment by Senator Byrd, dealing with striking the reconciliation instruction, dealing with taxes on the resolution. That is limited to 1 hour. That will begin in a moment. Following that, I ask unanimous consent that an amendment to be offered by Senators Warner and Stevens pertaining to the Department of Defense be limited to 1 hour; an amendment by Senator Feingold dealing with pay-go also be limited to 1 hour, with no second-degree amendments in order.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I compliment my friend and colleague from West Virginia. He is my friend. He is a valued member of the Budget Committee. He has been on the committee for a couple of years, and I very much enjoyed his participation with us on the Budget Committee. As a matter of fact, one of my fondest moments, I will tell my friend from West Virginia, in my tenure as Budget chairman, occurred last year. We were in the process of marking up the budget. My first grandson was born. That happens to be day after tomorrow I celebrate his birth. You acknowledged it with a very nice poem, and I want to thank you for that.

Mr. NICKLES. I will be happy to yield.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I will be brief with a couple of comments. According to the Department of the Treasury, if Senator Conrad is correct, we give the Finance Committee an instruction and they can do whatever they want, but these three provisions I mention are the only ones that expire at the end of this year that have a lot of popular support because they affect millions of people. The Treasury Department says if these are not extended, 94 million taxpayers would receive an average tax increase of $538 if we do not extend these three. Seventy million women would see their taxes increase on average $662. Forty-six million married couples, including my son-in-law and daughter, including my father-in-law and mother-in- law, 46 million married couples would pay on average an additional $906 in taxes. Thirty-eight million families with children would incur an average tax increase of $902. Eight million single women with children will see their taxes increase on average by $368. Eleven million elderly taxpayers would pay on average an additional $383. I could go on. This is important to protect these families, these citizens, these women, these children from a tax increase. I am afraid that reconciliation is the only tool we can have to almost assure them they will not be straddled with a big tax increase for next year. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. NICKLES. I compliment my friend and colleague, the chairman of the Finance Committee. He and I were elected to the Senate together in 1980. We have been friends ever since. I absolutely love a person who has intensity on issues. I love a person who likes to get things done. I love it when we actually do something that makes American families better. The tax bill we passed last year helps American families. It helps this family with a taxable income of $58,000. I don't know how many times I have heard that the tax cut is a tax cut for the wealthy and the rich. That is hogwash. This proves it. A married couple making $58,000 in taxable income, if they have two kids, saves $1,600. That is real. That is significant. Frankly, it happened in large part because of the chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Grassley. I compliment him for his work and his speech. He is exactly right. I want to help American families. That is the reason we want to preserve this option. I compliment Senator Grassley. I urge our colleagues to vote no on the Byrd amendment when we vote. For the information of our colleagues, I expect we will have three rollcall votes probably at 6 o'clock. I yield back the remainder of our time on this amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. I will withhold.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I wish that was the case. But I would like to say that there has been a lot of politics. Maybe this is more a political year because of the election. We can't even get conferees for the Workforce Reinforcement Act, a bill that passed unanimously in the Senate. Yes, you might say everybody is in favor of it, but people might find a reason not to give consent to pass it or they might say: I will pass it, but I want to offer amendments. And maybe those amendments would continue to be offered, more and more amendments. Tax codes are interesting. The Senator from North Dakota and I both serve on the Finance Committee with Senator Grassley. When you get a tax bill on the floor, you could have an unlimited number of amendments. There are 100 Senators and probably every one of us has different ideas on the Tax Code. We might start debating ethanol subsidies because the Senator from New Hampshire and others believe we have overdone it on ethanol. Before you know it, we might not finish this bill. The chairman said he wants to make sure we can get it finished one way or another, to make assurances to those families who have kids, or those married couples, that they are going to continue to keep the same taxes so they don't have a tax increase. This is not about tax cuts. This is making sure they don't have a tax increase. The only way we can make sure they don't have tax increases is to defeat the Byrd amendment. Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of our time on the underlying amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I believe the regular order would be to recognize Senator Warner for his amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. If the Senator will yield for a moment, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. NICKLES. I believe, under the consent request that we had entered into previously, we have had debate on the reconciliation amendment by Senator Byrd. I believe next in order would be Senator Warner to offer an amendment, and then Feingold on the pay-go amendment. It is our intention to vote on all three of these back to back hopefully as close to 6 as possible. We have had a little break, and I apologize for that, but it would be our intention to try to have debate on both amendments and vote as close to 6 as possible. I now yield to my friend and colleague Senator Warner to manage our time on this amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, how much time had both sides used?

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent there be 40 minutes on the amendment to be equally divided.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I compliment my colleagues, Senators Stevens and Warner. I intend to support this request. Senator Stevens, when I first brought to his attention that we needed to stay with the cap of 814, brought to my attention very strongly, repeatedly, that he wanted to have the President's full request in. This amendment does that. The reason we brought a resolution out at 814 was to make sure a budget point of order wouldn't lie against the entire resolution and frankly kill the resolution. We would have to have 60 votes. The amendment Senator Stevens and Senator Warner are introducing fully funds the President's request and frankly it increases the caps to do so. It takes 60 votes to pass the amendment. It increases the deficit by $7 billion. It means we are going to have increases in defense spending by $27 billion, 7.1 percent. It is a big increase, but frankly we have big challenges with our defense. I happen to agree with Senators Warner and Stevens, when we have troops in the field who have their lives in jeopardy day by day, being fired upon, we need to give them support as requested by their Commander in Chief. I hope our colleagues will support this amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I very much appreciate the support of Senator Conrad on this amendment. We have worked together now on two or three amendments. We have agreed to some amendments. That is good progress. I also want to correct the Record. I said it was my understanding that this increases the defense amount by 7.1 percent. That is the OMB figure. The Congressional Budget Office figure is 6.8 percent. I was accurate by saying it would increase defense spending by $27 billion. I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Wisconsin for his amendment. He offered the same amendment in the Budget Committee. I have great respect for him as a friend and a colleague, but I would urge our colleagues to vote no on the amendment. We have pay-go in the existing bill. We have pay-go basically for anything that is not in the assumption of the budget resolution. We assume $144 billion on the tax side. It may sound like a lot of money, but over that 5-year period of time, we are talking about $12 trillion of revenue. The amount of money that we are saving is a very small percentage. Now, why do we try to say, Well, you should not have to pay for that? Because almost all of that, with the exception of a little AMT, is present law. We don't have pay-go if you have a lot of spending bills that sunset. When those are reauthorized, you do not say, Oh, now you have to have pay-go. You have to raise taxes or cut spending to reauthorize the farm bill, for example. As a matter of fact, I have found about $1 trillion worth of entitlements over the next several years that are sunset or due to sunset, but they don't have pay-go when they are extended. We have a lot of tax cuts that are sunset that, when they are extended, would have to be paid for. So it really discriminates against taxes, makes it much more difficult to keep tax levels where they are today. Some people say: Additional tax cuts. I say, no, keep taxes where they are today. This is a much higher hurdle if you want to keep tax levels where they are today. Adoption of this amendment is going to make it a lot harder. It is going to make it a lot harder to continue to have the marriage penalty relief we are now assuming in our budget. That is $900 for my in-laws, $900 for my kids, $900 for any couple in America that makes $58,000. We are assuming we are going to continue present law. People say: We want pay-go. We want it to apply to spending and to entitlements. But when you look at the amendment, it doesn't apply to appropriated accounts. It doesn't apply to increases in appropriations for a lot of different activities. Someone might say: That is handled in the caps. Only if you pass a budget. The idea is to pass pay-go that is going to extend for the next several years, I believe through 2009, regardless of whether you have a budget. We may or may not have a budget. A lot of people predicted last year we wouldn't have a budget. They predicted this year we wouldn't have a budget. We proved them wrong last year, and I hope and expect we will prove them wrong this year. Spending is not covered. Discretionary appropriations are not covered. What is appropriated is not covered. Next year 820-some billion will not be covered. You could have any kind of increase. As a matter of fact, it almost is an incentive for increases in appropriations because that doesn't have to be paid for. But anything else has to be paid for. The tax cuts that expire or that have an expiration date--and we have had to do that in the past for a variety of reasons--would have to be paid for. Spending programs don't have to be paid for. I didn't hear our colleague saying we needed pay-go when we were doing concurrent receipts for retired military personnel. That was about $40 billion. I didn't hear people say, when we were doing the Medicare expansion, we need pay-go for that. That was $395 billion, as scored by CBO, and that is permanent. So the Medicare bill, which is going to grow dramatically over the next several years, can continue growing almost unchecked unless a future Congress curtails it in some way. And no pay-go, even if it is $300 billion the first 10 and maybe $1 trillion the next 10 or more, no pay-go for that. So spending can increase rather dramatically. But if you want to continue having a 25-percent tax rate--and by the year 2010 it expires--if you don't pay for it, that rate goes to 28 percent in the year 2011. The difference between 28 and 25 doesn't sound like much. That is 3 percent. That is over 10 percent. That is about a 15-percent increase in an individual's tax rate. That means the marriage penalty relief we just gave would disappear. That is $1,000. By that time, it will be $1,000. Right now it is $911. We are trying to continue that. Some people say: You want more tax cuts. That is not more tax cuts. That is keeping present law. If we don't keep present law, extend present law, it is going to be a tax increase on families. What did we assume under our resolution? We assumed present law is extended. Above that, you have pay-go. That is what our resolution says. I urge our colleagues, think about this a little bit. Frankly, if you are going to have it, it really should apply to any entitlement program that is sunset. That is not in this amendment. What we did in our bill is very similar to my colleague's amendment with the exception of we say we should exempt those things that are covered in the budget. Primarily that includes extending present law on the child credit, on the 10-percent bracket, and on marriage penalty relief. We also included $23 billion for AMT relief, and we included $15 billion on the energy bill. That is the bulk of what we have extended or what we assumed. Anything above that has to be paid for, entitlementwise or taxwise. Again, I congratulate my colleague from Wisconsin, but I urge our colleagues, if they want to protect families and make sure the tax cuts happen, to vote no on the amendment. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I thank our colleague, Senator Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and also Chairman Stevens of the Appropriations Committee for their cooperation on this amendment. I am sure the Commander in Chief is grateful for this amendment. I am sure the Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces are grateful for this amendment. For the information of our colleagues, this amendment, in addition to Senator Byrd's amendment and I believe Senator Feingold's amendment, will be voted on probably a little before 6 o'clock. Also, for the information of our colleagues, I know there are other amendments out there. Senator Conrad and I already realize we are running short on time and the number of days. We are going to finish this bill by Friday. I encourage our colleagues to either not offer amendments or at least work with us so we can accept or dispose of some amendments in one way or another. But if they have amendments, please bring those to our attention tonight. It is our intention to work very late tonight. I hate to do that because our very good friend, Chairman Stevens, is having a nice event that I would love to attend, but I think our business is to complete the budget this week. For the information of our colleagues, we expect three rollcall votes shortly before 6 o'clock. I believe the regular order of business now would be for Senator Feingold to offer his amendment.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President how much time remains?

Mr. NICKLES. I yield my colleague from Iowa such time as he desires.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I will be shortly yielding back the remainder of our time. I believe our agreement was we would go to the Byrd amendment first. I think we agreed to have 1 minute on each side to recap the debate.

Mr. NICKLES. I have already asked Senator Byrd to come in. Has the Senator from Wisconsin concluded?

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, my colleague from Wisconsin is correct, these tax changes we made last year expire at the end of this year. Actually, I think they have been in effect for 2 years. If we do not extend them, it is going to be a tax increase on American families. We are trying to protect American families. I heard my colleague from Wisconsin say we want to protect taxpayers. That is exactly what we are trying to do. We are basically saying over $13 trillion in spending and about $12 trillion in revenues. The only thing we are trying to protect over the next 5 years is $144 billion. That is basically extending present law to make sure people do not have a tax increase from what their tax rates are today. Above that, we have pay-go. That is basically what our resolution says, with the exception of the energy bill, and perhaps one other minor provision; AMT is an extension of present law. We do not want the families who are paying taxes today to have a big tax increase, if they have 4 kids, of $2,200 next year. So we said everything else, yes, is pay-go. We do not have pay-go for the farm bill. We do not have pay-go for all of these multitude of entitlement programs I mentioned. They all sunset. They all expire at a certain period of time. There are some real inequities, almost a bias, for more spending. We do not have pay-go for incremental increases in discretionary spending, but we say, oh, if you want to keep your present tax level, you have to pay for it. What some people mean by that is we want to have higher taxes on somebody else. The net result could be, especially in a political year, one where the partisan feelings are so strong you would end up with no tax bill, which ends up increasing taxes on American families. I do not want that to happen. If we look at the total amount of money spent, the difference is $144 billion. We are saying we want to apply pay-go above everything else. When talking about $13 trillion, it is not that significant. I think it is important to protect the $144 billion, so we protect American families so they do not have a tax increase next year. I reserve the remainder of my time and yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES. That is correct.