Harry Reid

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when I finish my procedural matters, the Senator from Vermont be recognized.

Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that all postcloture time be yielded back and the motion to proceed to S. 1789 be agreed to.

Mr. REID. I now ask unanimous consent that the only amendments in order to S. 1789 or the Lieberman-Collins substitute amendment No. 2000 be those that are relevant to the bill or the substitute amendment.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, as we speak, there are 8 million Americans who are dependent on the Post Office. These are people who have jobs as a result of the Postal Service. We need to do a postal reform bill. Doing nothing is not an option. I ask unanimous consent that we set up a procedure to allow the Senate to consider amendments relevant to the postal reform bill.

Mr. REID

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators allowed to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Mr. President, following leader remarks, the Senate will be in a period of morning business until 11:00. Republicans will control the first half and the majority will control the final half. At 11:00 there will be 10 minutes of debate on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to the postal reform bill. At 11:10 there will be a cloture vote--or at approximately 11:10--on the motion to proceed to the postal reform bill. The Senate will recess from 12:30 to 2:15 today for our weekly caucus meetings. We have to make progress on the postal reform bill today which is so vitally important to more than half a million workers.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Yesterday Senate Republicans once again rejected the idea that millionaires and billionaires should contribute their fair share to help the country prosper. Republicans sent a message to millions of honest hard-working Americans who will file their taxes today: It is fair for Warren Buffett to pay a lower tax rate than his secretary. And that is not fair. Republicans said that it is fair for Mitt Romney to pay a lower tax rate than his cleaning lady or his chauffeur. That is not fair. My Republican colleagues believe it is fair for hedge fund managers and executives to pay a lower tax rate than schoolteachers and waitresses and busdrivers. But that is something you do not have to take my word for; that is what President Ronald Reagan called a system of unproductive tax loopholes that allows some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share. In 1985 Ronald Reagan knocked the web of loopholes that allowed people making hundreds of millions of dollars each year to pay lower tax rates than construction workers or janitors. President Reagan called it crazy, and, to his credit, he worked with a couple of Democrats--Senator Bradley of New Jersey and Congressman Gephardt of Missouri--and came up with the Bradley-Gephardt Tax Fairness Act. It worked well for a long time, but we have allowed other things to get in the way of that good Bradley-Gephardt legislation. Now we are back to what Ronald Reagan was talking about those many years ago. This broken system made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing while a busdriver was paying 10 percent of his salary. That is what President Reagan said. But the same system is in place today, as I have just explained, and, as that radical liberal Ronald Reagan said, that is just crazy. Those were his words. Yesterday my Republican colleagues used some strong words to oppose the Democrats' plan to fight the inequality. Republicans called our commonsense proposal to ensure that no one making more than $1 million a year pays a lower tax rate than a truckdriver, a secretary, or a police officer--they called it class warfare. It is not class warfare but class welfare--welfare for the wealthy at the expense of the middle class. It is class welfare, not warfare. Republicans are pushing a budget that would end Medicare as we know it--just passed the House--slashing nursing home coverage for the elderly, decimating Pell grant funding, and kicking 200,000 children out of the Head Start Program. They are calling our proposal class warfare. I wish that were the most ridiculous thing they have said about our proposal to bring a measure of fairness to America's tax system, but far from it. One Member of the Senate leadership equated this measure to shooting ourselves in the head. The Paying a Fair Share Act--the Buffett rule--would have ensured that millionaires and billionaires paid at least as much as their secretaries, assistants, and even their nannies. Yet Republicans think asking those lucky millionaires and billionaires to contribute their fair share is just like shooting the country in the head. That is what they said. Our legislation would have protected 99 percent of small business owners and maintained deductions for charitable giving, and it would have been a small but meaningful step to reduce our deficit at a time when every penny--in this case, every billion--counts. It does not seem radical to me to ask Warren Buffett, who made almost $63 million in 2010, to pay a higher tax rate than his secretary. The Presiding Office can remember when he came and spoke to a group of assembled Democrats. He carried around with him his tax returns for the last several years. He is the one who told us how much he made in 2010, and he lamented the fact that he was paying the tax rate that he was. Well, it does not seem radical to me, it did not seem radical to Ronald Reagan, and it does not seem radical to three-quarters of the American people who support our legislation. The wealthiest Americans take home a greater percentage of our Nation's income than anytime in nearly a century. Yet they enjoy the lowest tax rate in more than five decades--the lowest tax rate. So it is no surprise that Americans believe millionaires should shoulder their fair share. Even two-thirds of millionaires and a majority of Republicans around the country agree it is time to fix a system rigged to favor the richest of the rich. Republicans in Congress are the only ones not on board on this issue. If you need evidence that millionaires and billionaires can afford to contribute a little more, consider this one simple fact: Last year there were 7,000 people who made more than $1 million who did not pay a single penny of Federal income tax--not a penny. Thanks to Republicans, these lucky millionaires and billionaires can keep gaming the system while middle-class workers keep picking up the tab.

Mr. REID

Mr. REID. Would the Chair report the bill, please.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have a cloture motion at the desk.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have a second-degree amendment at the desk.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have a second-degree amendment at the desk.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, relevance is a fair standard. A lot of amendments can be offered. Very few couldn't be offered unless it were something dealing with foreign policy on the Postal Service bill. A lot of people want to offer amendments dealing with situations all over the world. That is why we struggled, for example, to get the Iran sanctions bill moving. A standard of relevance merely asks that we stay on the subject--a subject this morning to which 74 Senators agreed to proceed to. I regret my friend has objected to this request. But I hope my friend from Kentucky will go home and explain to the people who are dependent on those small post offices around the State of Kentucky and those processing centers that this bill has not been resolved because of him. If we do nothing, there will be the wide-range closing of post offices. We have more than 30,000 post offices in America. Many of them will be closed. We have hundreds and hundreds of processing centers. They will be closed. The Postal Service, as we have known it, is a fleeting moment in the eyes of Americans when they cannot get their medicine they want, they cannot get the mail they want. The volume is down a lot. But that is what this bill is about: to address some of the problems we have with what we need to have happen as a new Postal Service. The chairman of the committee, Senator Lieberman, has worked extremely hard. Senator Collins has spent lots and lots of time on this issue. Of course, Tom Carper, who has a tremendous interest in this, has been working on this issue for a long time. It is a shame we have had this objection. It leaves me with absolutely no alternative but to fill the amendment tree and make sure we stick on the subject of postal reform. I remain hopeful we will be able to work together to get an agreement for consideration of amendments related to this most important task: saving the Postal Service. Committee-Reported Substitute Amendment Withdrawn Mr. President, I have been authorized by the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to withdraw the committee-reported substitute amendment.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, on behalf of Senators Lieberman, Collins, and others, I call up amendment No. 2000, which is at the desk.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have a first-degree perfecting amendment at the desk.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on that amendment.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk to the language proposed to be stricken.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on that amendment.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have a second-degree amendment at the desk.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have a cloture motion at the desk.

Mr. REID. I ask for the yeas and nays on the motion.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I got ahead of myself. Reading was one of my better subjects, but I skipped a line. Motion to Recommit With Amendment No. 2017 Mr. President, I have a motion to recommit the bill with instructions, which is at the desk.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on that motion.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have an amendment to the instructions at the desk.