S.Amdt. 4359

SA 4359. Mr. GREGG submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the concurrent resolution S. Con. Res. 70, setting forth the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2009 and including the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2008 and 2010 through 2013; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

On page 30 after line 23, insert the following:

SEC. __. POINT OF ORDER AGAINST TAX INCREASE MEASURES.

(a) In the Senate, it shall not be in order to consider any bill, joint resolution, amendment, motion, or conference report that includes a Federal income tax rate increase. In this paragraph the term “Federal income tax rate increase” means any amendment to subsection (a), (b), (c), (d), or (e) of Section 1, or to Section 11(b) or 55(b), of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, that imposes a new percentage as a rate of tax and thereby increases the amount of tax imposed by any such section.

(b) Effectiveness.--This section shall not apply to any bill, joint resolution, amendment, motion, or conference report if the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation submit a report to the Chairman of the Budget Committee certifying that all of the $290 billion annual tax gap has been recovered by the United States Treasury.

(c) Waiver.--If no report referred to in section (b) is received, this section may be waived or suspended only by an affirmative vote of three-fifths of the Members, duly chosen and sworn.

(d) Appeals.--Appeals in the Senate from the decisions of the Chair relating to any provision of this section shall be limited to 1 hour, to be equally divided between, and controlled by, the appellant and the manager of the bill, joint resolution, amendment, motion, or conference report, as the case may be. An affirmative vote of three-fifths of the Members of the Senate, duly chosen and sworn, shall be required to sustain an appeal of the ruling of the Chair on a point of order raised under this section.