Wounded Warrior Bonus Equity Act

I have an amendment I would like to send to the desk and ask that it be read.

I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, this amendment is a reprise of what we did last year in offering to reform the estate tax, sometimes referred to as the death tax.

Now, in the budget itself, and in an amendment that has been offered by the other side, there is a provision to allow the death tax to be changed from the current law to a top rate of 45 percent and an exempted amount of $3.5 million, and there are some other features. My amendment, as with the proposal that had significant support last year, would reduce that top rate to no higher than 35 percent so that if you had more than one rate, at least the top rate could not exceed 35 percent, and both of the two spouses would have a $5 million exempted amount before the estate tax would kick in.

In addition, this provides for a step-up in the basis of the property. It would enable the estate tax to be paid over the current period of time, and the amounts of money in the exempted amount, or unified credit of the estate gift tax, would be indexed for inflation.

Now, the reason for my amendment is, I think most agree even in this body, either allowing the estate tax to continue under current law-- getting up to a high rate of 55 percent and an exempted amount of either $2 million or $1 million, probably $1 million--or the proposal of the Democratic chairman of the committee would result in a continued unfair burden on primarily America's small businesses and farms, but, in any event, anyone subject to the potential liability of estate tax for which there is a tremendous amount of money spent in attempting to get around the obligations of the tax or to plan against its eventual required payments.

As a result, we look for ways to further reform the estate tax so that burden would be limited to only a few estates--the very highest estates--and that most people without a huge estate would not have the burden of trying to plan around it--to buy expensive insurance and hire lawyers and accountants and estate planners and the like.

The object, in other words, is not simply to limit the estate tax liability but provide some certainty in the Tax Code so that most people realize, as their homes have gotten more valuable simply because of the increased value with inflation, and as their businesses have accumulated some capital wealth even though it may not be disposable in the sense of liquid income, they are not going to have to worry that their estate is going to be subject to a tax and so they are not going to have to worry about spending this money to deal with the tax.

That is why we need to increase the total for a couple that would be exempted from the tax to $10 million and provide that the upper rate, if that rate kicks in, could be no higher than 35 percent. Above that, you are going to find people feeling that they have to try to prepare for or to get around the payment of the tax. And the irony is, Mr. President, those we are most concerned about really don't have the assets to try to spend a lot of money, whereas those who have enormous wealth can hire all the accountants, estate planners, and lawyers they want and buy insurance so that the ultimate impact of the tax does not hit them.

Last year, when we proposed this same proposal of the 35-percent highest rate or an amount of $5 million exempted for both spouses in a motion to instruct conferees, 56 Senators, obviously both Democrats and Republicans, voted for that motion to instruct. Now, it was never carried out, but I think it demonstrates the will of this body that we want to have some reform that is more realistic and that exempts more estates from the payment of the tax and the consideration of the tax.

According to the Joint Tax Committee, in the tax year 2011, 131,000 estates alone will be subject to the estate tax--131,000. Mr. President, that is too much of a burden on too many people in this country who are not extremely wealthy. By 2015, that number goes up to 177,000 estates. The advantage of my amendment is that it would protect approximately 119,200 family businesses and family farms from the estate tax each year. It would dramatically reduce the number of estates that have to worry about paying the tax.

If we fail to act, in other words, about 131,000 families and family businesses and farms will be subjected to the tax in the year 2011 and thereafter. Under our proposal, we would, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, reduce the impact of the tax so that only 11,800 estates would be required to file estate tax returns each year, if the exemption is set at $5 million each. So, that is a huge change. It is necessary to protect the folks I think everybody in this body would like to protect from having to worry about the estate tax.

Now, it is interesting that when public opinion surveys ask people what they think about the tax, almost uniformly the results come back that the majority of Americans believe the estate tax is unfair and it ought to be eliminated. I remember a Gallup poll, now 3 or 4 years old, that said 60 percent of Americans believed it should be repealed. That is my preference, to repeal it. We haven't been able to get enough votes in this body to repeal it, but that is where the American people think it should be.

Interestingly, there was a survey conducted after the last Presidential election, and people who supported both Senator Kerry and President Bush were asked what they thought about the estate tax. The interesting thing is that while 70-some percent of the people who voted said they thought the tax should be repealed, roughly 80-some percent of the people who voted for President Bush thought it should be repealed and 60-some percent of the people who voted for Senator Kerry thought it should be repealed.

So this is not a partisan matter among the American people. They believe, whether they supported Senator Kerry or President Bush in the last Presidential election, that the estate tax should be repealed. I daresay surveys even now, to this time, demonstrate the American public opinion remains the same. The interesting thing is even those who understand they will never be subject to the tax because their incomes are simply not such that they will accumulate the wealth necessary to have to worry about the tax believe the tax to be unfair and believe it should be repealed.

But even if you leave aside the issue of the morality of the tax and people's understanding that it is not a fair tax, it hits people at the absolute worst time--when a loved one in their family has passed away and they are having to consider whether pieces of the business or farm may have to be sold off to pay the tax--they recognize that, at a minimum, it should be reformed and that is all we are trying to do.

For years, we have been trying to get a reform that basically accomplishes two objectives: It would increase the amount of the estate that is exempt from the tax so you don't have to worry about filing forms or having to try to plan around it; and for those who would still be subject to the tax above that amount, it would at least put a lid on it at a maximum of 35 percent.

Now, again, the numbers in the current law, if we don't do anything, go up to 55 percent. And under the proposal of the chairman of the committee on the other side of the aisle, that would be reduced to 45 percent. That is still way too high, and the exempted amount would be $1 million, which is way too low. Because of inflation today, there are a lot of homes that have a value of over $1 million, especially in places such as California, New York, and some other places. So, clearly, an amendment along the lines that I will be introducing to make room in the budget for this kind of reform is necessary.

I would like to make just about three other quick points.

Last year, even though the budget could accommodate estate tax reform, the majority did not bring a bill to the Senate. And despite my best efforts, it wasn't possible to get anybody to allow consideration of a bill to reform the estate tax. As a result, in the Finance Committee at the end of last year, I asked that the chairman hold hearings and seek to have a markup this spring so we could actually pass a bill and not simply deal with it in the budget that we pass each year.

The American people need to understand what is really going on. Each year we pass a budget that, theoretically, allows for a reform of the estate

tax, but then we don't do anything about it. And the budget itself isn't law. The budget is merely a goal, a blueprint of where we want to go for the year. If you don't follow it up with a bill, you haven't done anything. But Members here pat themselves on the back and go back home and tell their constituents that they voted to cut the estate tax. Oh, that is wonderful, people say. But it is never followed up with an actual bill.

So the chairman of the Finance Committee said: Well, he would have the goal of marking up a bill this spring. He has since advised me he has no plans whatsoever for a real bill on estate tax, and said: It won't happen.

It is going to be in the budget. His amendment will provide for an estate tax reform in the budget, but he has advised that he has no plans to allow that to happen, to make it, in reality, a bill that would pass and become law. So all of this is an exercise in show, with apparently no real intent to follow through and provide relief for America's families and small businesses and farms and the like.

What I would like to do, Mr. President, with my amendment, is not only demonstrate in the budget that this is the level that we want to set it, at a $5 million exempted amount per spouse and no higher than a 35-percent rate, but also ensure that the rules of the budget enable us to consider the bill during the year and not have it subject to some point of order that would enable people on the other side to say: Gee, we wish we could do it, but we just can't do it under the budget rules.

My amendment will make it possible to consider such an amendment, and I serve notice on my colleagues that I intend to try to bring it up. We are not going to sweep this under the rug year after year. If we are honest with the American people about putting it in the budget, we ought to be honest about bringing it to the floor for a vote so that we can actually pass a bill, send it to the President, and get this job done.

It is interesting that compared to other countries the United States is one of the worst in terms of the amount of money it takes from estates. The rate in the Democratic version would be 45 percent. The average around the world is 13 percent. There are a lot of countries that don't have an estate tax, and they understand why.

The irony is, I had to leave a hearing of the Finance Committee just now, Mr. President, where an individual was testifying about countries such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and places such as that, where people have decided it is not a good idea to have an estate tax, and it has been repealed in many of these countries. The United States should take a leaf out the book of some of these countries that have found it is inimical to their development and their ability to compete with other countries.

We know it is not good in terms of savings. The irony is that a lot of my colleagues are concerned about reducing the fact that our savings rate in this country is too low and are concerned about the fact that as a result we have to end up borrowing from countries such as China, for example. Yet having a big estate tax is exactly what is allowing that to happen because it discourages savings. If you save the money, you are just going to get taxed on it when you die, so why not just spend it?

Incidentally, the Treasury Department estimates the estate tax reduces the amount of money that we contribute to charity. Treasury estimates that the estate tax reduces bequests by about 14 percent. Individuals are either choosing to save less or rely heavily on estate planning which, of course, is a deadweight loss to the economy unless you are in the insurance business, in which case you think it is a real nifty idea because people have to buy insurance against the estate tax obligation that they otherwise would have.

Finally, it is an irony that the amount of money the Treasury collects--something over 1 percent of our revenue comes from the estate tax--is actually an equivalent amount of money to what is spent by people to try to avoid paying the estate tax. So, in effect, the money is paid twice. People buy insurance, they hire accountants and lawyers, and they try to find ways to get around the payment of the estate tax, and the amount of money that costs each year is almost exactly the same as what we pay in the estate tax to the Federal Government. This was according to a study by Henry Aaron and Alicia Munnell who are economists who have made this point over and over.

The other interesting aspect of the cost of the estate tax is the amount of money it costs to try to plan around it. If you are a closely held business, the estate planning is estimated to range anywhere from $5,000 to $1 million. Again, if you are a lawyer or estate planner or you are selling insurance, that is probably a great thing. But it is not great for the people who have to pay the money, and it is not the best use of the money for the economy. The IRS estimates it takes 38 hours to complete the form, which is form 706. You may have an obligation, you may not, but you still have to fill out the form. The tax preparation fees can range from $5,000 to $50,000, and 52 percent of the estates that filed a return were required to incur a sizable legal and accounting expense and other expenses even though they owed no tax. Bear in mind, over half of the people who have to file the forms end up with no obligation.

What we should do is have a tax that is predictable and clear with a large enough amount exempted so you know whether you are going to have to file the form. Hopefully, you would realize you don't have to file it because we have adopted the reforms I am talking about. We would go from something over 130,000 filers down to something over 11,000 filers. You would be catching the people with the big estates, those people who can really afford to pay the estate tax, but you would not be requiring everybody else to have to engage in this expensive planning and have the potential of having to pay part of the tax.

Again, the summary numbers to remember are, under the amendment that will be filed--or has been filed, I gather--it would freeze the rates where they will be at the end of 2011, at 45 percent. That is only 10 percent less than the top rate of 55 percent under the previous law. And it will provide an exempted amount of $3.5 million. Far more estates will be caught in the estate tax trap with the amount at that level than they will be if both spouses subject to the tax have $5 million exempted as part of the unified gift and estate tax credit.

I hope as with last year when 56 of our colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans, supported instructing conferees to include in the budget the precise proposal on estate tax reform that I have identified, we will get that kind of support out of this budget as well.

The last thing I want to say is, I think it would be better for the debate and discussion if we had followed past practices and actually offered amendments and had debate on those amendments and then voted on those amendments. Instead, what is happening this year is the majority is not allowing any votes on any amendments until tomorrow, when we get into what we affectionately refer to around here as the vote-athon, when every 10 or 12 minutes we have a vote after 1 minute of discussion of the amendment, 1 or 2 minutes. I think it is 30 seconds per side, 1 minute equally divided. Great debate. Great debate.

We have time to talk about these things now, but what you can't do is offer an amendment, have a vote on it, and know whether you have won or lost so you can determine what you want to do next. If you win, then you don't have to do two or three other amendments. If you lose, you may have to do those amendments. But we are not going to do that because the majority decided it would like to put pressure on the Members of this body to offer fewer amendments because they will have to all be voted on on Thursday and, of course, everybody knows the Easter recess begins as soon as we finish our business. So there is great pressure to offer fewer amendments, to hurry up and get out of town, rather than, in my view, spending the time necessary to do the people's business.

One of the first things we ought to be willing to do is do what is necessary to both debate and vote on an estate tax reform that would be meaningful for literally hundreds of thousands of American citizens.

I will. I will conclude saying, I hope my colleagues will in a bipartisan way, as they did last year, support the proposal I have just laid down. And while we will be doing it on Thursday, I gather, they will be able to listen to a little of the debate if they are listening now.

I am happy to yield.

Mr. President, I appreciate that. In suggesting another reason for this, I do not think I am wrong in that, but I do acknowledge that certainly what the chairman of the Budget Committee has said is true. I appreciate his acknowledgment of our courtesy with respect to Senator Byrd. I know the Democratic side would do the same thing. That was done on a previous occasion last year as well. It is one of the better traditions of the Senate.

It is also true probably this is not the first time this year because, for the first time in the history of the United States, I am informed, two Senators will be running against each other for the Presidency so that there may be other occasions where, when there are very close votes, our schedule may to some extent need to accommodate their schedules. Of course, as Members of this body they need to be here to do business as well, but we understand that is not always possible. If we could adhere to a slightly more set schedule that might be possible, but since we don't and it is almost impossible to have that kind of schedule, that issue is one that has to be accommodated, and I appreciate what the chairman said.

I do hope the trend we have seen from 2 years ago to last year to this year of not having votes early on during the week that we consider the budget, but bunching them all at the end, a process which I don't think anybody in this body really likes, would not continue; that certainly the reason the chairman indicated will not pertain next year and that we can revert to the practice next year that we have traditionally followed, which is to try to have debate on amendments, votes, and then debate and then votes, and so on, hopefully, thereby minimizing the number of votes that we consider in this so-called vote- athon that, as I said, nobody in this body likes very much.

Than this year.

I ask the chairman to yield for a question. The additional $45 billion, would you have an estimate as to--well, first, what policy in the estate tax would be attached to that? And if it is to add to the exempted amount, what would that take the exempted amount up to?

Mr. President, if I might further, I had understood an amendment such as this might be offered. My understanding was it would accommodate both an increase in the exempted amount to $5 million per spouse, and I also believe to reduce the rate further from 45 down to 35, which would make it identical to my amendment. I might be wrong on that. If you can ask the author of the amendment here if that is true, it would conform it to the levels set in the amendment I have laid down as well.

I wonder, as long as I have interrupted the chairman, if I might make one or two other points.

Will the Senator yield?

I think it would be fair to let me answer.

Mr. President, I would be happy to have the ranking member of the committee make a comment. But I wish to correct some of the facts. I can do that either on the Senator's time or on our time.

Mr. President, I appreciate the fact that the chairman of the Budget Committee and the majority whip have done some extrapolation from the number of people who die and two-tenths of a percent of this and that and, therefore, they have come up with a number. Why don't I quote the actual numbers according to the Joint Tax Committee. These are the officials numbers we deal with every year when calculating the effect of our legislation. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, if my amendment were to be adopted, 11,800 estates each year would be required to file at the exempted levels that are set forth in my amendment. If we fail to act, 131,000 families, not 7,000--family businesses, farms and so on--will be subjected to the death tax each year, starting in the year 2011.

The point is, these are not individuals. These are families or businesses with a lot more people affected by the tax than the number of filers. The filer represents all the members of the family or the employer of a company. That may be 50 or 60 or 200 people who may be out of a job. But that is how many will be subjected to filing this, 131,000.

You might make fun of this and say it is a small percentage of the number of people in the United States. If you are unfortunate enough to die and your heirs have to deal with this problem, it is a very real problem to every single one of them. Over a 10-year period, obviously, you are talking about way more than a million people. You may say that is not a significant enough number to worry about, but it is enough. We worry about a few people who suffer from all kinds of things that we try to deal with. If you have a million Americans over a 10-year period subjected to an unfair tax, it is a problem we ought to address and not just make fun of the fact that it is only a million instead of 50 or 60,000. So let's get the numbers right. You can argue, if it is only 131,000 people, should we be worried about it. I say yes, somebody on the other side might say no, but at least let's get the numbers right.

Yes.

That is correct, on the motion to instruct conferees, 56 Democrats and Republicans voted for this identical proposal.

That is correct. The rate would be reduced from 55 percent, if we don't do anything, to 35. I believe the majority proposal is 45. This would make the top rate no higher than 35 percent.

The answer is yes. If I could expand on that with a true story, some friends of my wife and mine in Phoenix had a printing business. The head of the household came out from New York in the late 1940s and from

scratch built this business which, at the time he died, employed about 200 people. They didn't take a great deal of money home because in this business, you have to plow all your profits back into buying the very latest laser printers and all the other equipment to keep it competitive. But they did all right as a family, well enough to be a major giver in the community. That is how we became friends with them because they were contributing to charities significant amounts, probably more than they could afford, boys and girls clubs and a variety of other charities. They were great contributors to the community, both in terms of their business, the people they employed, what they did, and how they supported the community. He died. When he died, his family found that despite the fact that they had spent millions on insurance and other ways to try to plan for his eventual death and the estate planning, in order to pay the tax, they had to sell the business. They did, and they got enough money to pay the tax. The company that bought it, to my knowledge, never contributed a dime to any charity in Arizona. It eventually closed the operation. So all the people who worked there no longer had a job, no contribution to the community. The family literally had to sell the business to pay the tax. While they were well off in terms of the average American, they were exactly the kind of people you want in your community to provide employment. That is the real story.

We can make fun by saying: Well, it is only 131,000 each year in that category. But these are real families who are contributors to the economy and to our communities, and we ought to give them a break. Most people, even though they know they are not subjected to the tax, still, when you ask them the questions in public opinion surveys, say they know it is not fair. They like families such as the one I mentioned and would like to see this tax either reformed or repealed.

If I may respond, as an expert in the Tax Code, the Senator from New Hampshire knows the technical name of the doctrine which applies in this case, except we have made an exception in the case of death. If you are robbed or if your house burns down and you collect insurance to pay for that unanticipated loss--not an economic activity; you didn't decide to invest and get a return on the investment when your house burned down--that is something you did not anticipate. It is noneconomic. The Tax Code treats that in a very good way for people, as one would expect. You get the insurance on it. You are not taxed on all that as income.

This is the third. Of the three areas that apply here of noneconomic activity with a tax consequence, this is the only place where we don't give people a break for these unanticipated activities, these noneconomic activities such as death. No, you do get taxed. And, yes, the Senator from North Dakota is absolutely correct. The dead person is not the person----

Mr. President, if I may conclude, I am answering a question of the Senator from New Hampshire.

My train of thought with regard to the answer to the question was interrupted.

As a matter of tax policy, I will answer my colleague, we can differ about the kind of taxes that should apply to economic activity, but we do agree that is the kind of activity that should be taxed, if it is on a sale, if it is on income, if it is on a return such as capital gains or dividends. But where the American people draw the line is with regard to death. I recall now the final point I wished to make. It is true the dead person doesn't pay the tax, but the people who are left to deal with his affairs at the worst time in their life do have to deal with this. What we are suggesting is, we ought to make it a little bit easier on these folks and not impose the kind of penalties that the current Tax Code, if it reverts to this because we don't act, goes to the 55 percent tax rate. I am talking about 131,000. According to the Joint Tax Committee, the number by the year 2015 will be 177,000. So this keeps increasing with respect to the number of estates each year that will have to be concerned about the tax.

It is actually not quite that. It is $5 million. The way this is written, if one spouse, let's say, the person who is not running the business, dies first, you can plan so you can get most of the effect of $10 million in the unified credit between the estate and the gift tax, but it is actually a $5 million exempted amount. So, for example, if a single person owns a business, it is only $5 million. It is not the amount that would relate to a couple of $10 million.

Of course.

I believe that is exactly the case. By the year 2015, it would be 177,000 estates.

Mr. President, I would say to the chairman he is correct. I cannot verify the number 7,000 the chairman is

talking about, but I can verify the number I am talking about. The Joint Committee on Taxation projects that 11,800 estates would be required to file estate tax returns each year. So that is a correct statement.

Of course, the additional point I made earlier was that not everybody knows exactly what their liability is and, therefore, you have about 10 times as many people who have to end up filling out the forms, going to the expense of anywhere between $5,000 and $1 million to complete the forms, the 38 hours it takes to do it, only to find some of them do have a tax liability at the end of the day. Some of them do not. The fact that you may not be subject to the tax does not diminish the fact that you will be obligated to spend the money to file a return and do all the work to try to figure out that, in fact, you don't owe the tax.

Mr. President, if I might respond with one final point, when you got to calculating how many--the lucky 7,000, and all that--I think there was some extrapolation going on, and I think the chairman is right, we should stick to the numbers from Joint Tax. That way at least we know exactly what we are talking about.

Mr. President, I thank the leaders for the action they have taken for a short-term extension of the farm bill so that we can conclude action on it. It has been a negotiation that has gone on well over a year. That is not unusual for a farm bill which is extremely contentious.

I wanted to comment briefly on the Republican leader's statements this morning about our budget. As I was driving in this morning, I heard another Republican on the air saying that we have a trillion- dollar tax increase in this budget. I don't know what budget they are talking about because it certainly is not the budget we have presented here. There is no trillion-dollar tax increase here. There is no tax increase assumed here. Honestly, if I would go down to the Senate dining room and come to this floor and introduce the dining room menu as the budget for the United States, our Republican colleagues would say it was a trillion-dollar tax increase.

This is what they said last year, and we hear the same mantra again this year: It is a trillion-dollar tax increase. When they said it last year, we didn't have a record of a Democratic Congress to refute their claim. Now we do. We can look back and see precisely what happened with Democrats in control. How much did taxes increase after the Republicans asserted repeatedly we were going to increase taxes a trillion dollars? What happened? What happened on the record, not a projection, not a forecast, not rhetorical, what is the fact? It is very interesting. Democrats controlling the House, controlling the Senate, cut taxes $194 billion--not a tax increase, a tax cut that overwhelmingly has gone to the middle class. That is the Democratic record.

Let me say about this budget, we don't have the vast spending increases they are talking about. For this year, if you look at total spending, we have 1 percent more than the President's budget. Where is that money going? We put it into energy, to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. We put it into education, and we put it into infrastructure because we don't want any more bridges, like the one in Minnesota last year, collapsing into the river with people driving home from work. That is a fact.

In terms of revenue, the truth is that over the 5 years, we have 2.6 percent more revenue than in the President's budget. We believe that can be obtained not with a tax increase--don't need a tax increase to get it--you can go after the tax gap, the difference between what companies and people owe versus what they are actually paying. You can go after these offshore tax havens which the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has told us are costing this country $100 billion a year. You can go after these abusive tax shelters where we have the spectacle of companies in the United States, banks buying foreign sewer systems and depreciating them on their books in the United States to reduce their tax bill here, and then they lease the sewer systems back to the European cities that built them. My goodness. We are better than that as a nation, better than letting people abuse the vast majority of us who are honest. That is not right. That is not fair.

I have shown on this floor many times a picture of a five-story office building in the Cayman Islands called Ugland House. That 5-story building is home to 12,800 companies. I would say that is the most efficient building in the world.

Mr. President, 12,800 companies claim they are doing business out of this little five-story building in the Cayman Islands. They are not doing business there. The only business they are doing is monkey business. What they are doing is evading their taxes.

Now we have seen, according to the Boston Globe, another building down in the Cayman Islands--this time a four- or five-story building too--and we know KBR, who is the biggest contractor for security forces in Iraq and additional workers in Iraq for the U.S. military effort there, is running an operation out of that building to evade the Social Security taxes and the Medicare taxes of thousands and thousands of workers they have employed for Iraq--another tax scam.

It is exactly the kind of thing we on this side think should be closed down. Over and over, when we have tried, this President said: No, you can't do that. That would be a tax increase. Really? Is that a tax increase? I do not think so. Making people pay their fair share, like the vast majority of Americans already do--I do not think that is a tax increase. I think that is making those folks pay like all the rest of us do. That is fair.

Mr. President, we have Senators on the floor ready to offer an amendment. I want to go to that at this moment.

I ask Senator Bingaman, how much time----

Mr. GREGG addressed the Chair.

Mr. President, I will withhold. Senator Gregg is seeking recognition.

Mr. President, I thank the ranking member for his continuing courtesy and graciousness. This is my 60th. As I left the house this morning, I told my wife and our son, who is there visiting, I have to question: What have I done wrong in my life to have my 60th birthday spent here managing the budget? But I will get over it.

I appreciate the many courtesies of the ranking member. This is a special day for me, and I am looking forward to a good debate.

With that, we want to go to the next amendment, unless the Senator--

Fair enough.

Mr. President, I say to the Senator, if you can give us a heads up at some point what your next amendment will be, that would be helpful as well.

Now we will turn to Senator Bingaman and Senator Alexander, who I think have a very constructive amendment. We welcome their description of it.

I ask unanimous consent that the time come off the resolution.

Mr. President, I think the amendment the ranking member has set up for Senator Specter doesn't actually have full repeal. Instead, what it does is change the individual alternative minimum tax from its current two-rate structure of 26 percent and 28 percent to the single 24-percent rate that was in effect prior to 1993. I believe that is what the Specter amendment does.

The first priority, of course, for dealing with the AMT is to protect families who have not been subject to it previously. So our resolution acknowledges this priority and provides a 1-year patch to prevent the alternative minimum tax from affecting another 20 million American households. That is at a cost of $62 billion.

I would prefer that cost be offset, but last year that was not the will of the body. It was not the will of the body in the very clear and compelling vote. So we don't have it offset in our resolution this year.

Our resolution acknowledges the political reality that the will of this body is to extend alternative minimum tax relief without paying for it. Restructuring the AMT, as Senator Specter proposes, is even more expensive. The Specter amendment would lose $185 billion in revenue, and it is not paid for in any way--by spending reductions or other revenue--and therefore it simply gets added to the deficit and debt. If it were adopted as is, the resolution would be in deficit in every year of the budget window.

Mr. President, I don't think that is fiscally responsible, so I am offering an amendment that accomplishes the same policy purpose but requires that it be offset, paid for, so that it is not

added to the deficit and is not added to the debt.

I inquire of the Senator, did he send up the Specter amendment?

Mr. President, I send the Conrad amendment to the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I think it might be useful here that we enter into a unanimous consent agreement that when we go to a fuller debate, the debate on the Specter and Conrad amendments be limited to 1 hour. Is that acceptable?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be a half hour each on the Specter and Conrad amendments, a total of 1 hour.

Then we will go to the Kyl amendment, and there would also be a side-by-side for that amendment. That would be, at this point, an amendment in my name or by my designee.

I also ask unanimous consent that there be a half hour on each for those amendments.

Our understanding is the same. Look, we are going to have to be flexible. We have other committees that are meeting, and other Members who are involved in these amendments are at other meetings. They won't be here until later. It is our intention to have that amount of time on these specific amendments, but it may not occur all at once.

Correct. Our amendments are side-by-sides. Our amendments would normally be second-degree amendments. They are not being offered as second-degree amendments here because we don't do that on the budget resolution. But those amendments that are the side-by-sides would be in the regular order. That means they would be voted on first.

We also have the Bunning amendment. Do we want to put that into the queue?

Maybe we should have a discussion and make sure we are on the same page with respect to that. Do we want to have the Bunning amendment next?

All right. That is an amendment that involves Social Security, correct?

There would be a side-by-side on our side. Would we want to limit debate on those to a half hour each?

All right. That will be the order. The colleagues who want to offer amendments and want to have floor time, it is a very good time to contact us to get time allocated because time is going to go very quickly. Please don't come tomorrow and say: Gee, where is our floor time? This is the time, this is the moment. If you want floor time, we urge you to come now.

Amendment No. 4191

Will the Senator yield on that point?

If I can address one of the concerns of the Senator, when we vote--this is a very awkward question, I say to my colleague. Let me be very direct about what it is. We are missing two of our votes. We have a third Member who is ill. So what we have said is we would defer votes on these major matters until at least some of our Members are back. The body is very closely divided. We are completely ready to have votes on other matters throughout this day. The problem is, with the major votes on these consequential issues where we are missing two of our Presidential candidates until tomorrow--they will be here Thursday and Friday--and we are missing Senator Byrd who, as you know, is ill, that is the reason we have asked to defer votes on these major amendments until tomorrow. It is a difficult situation. It has been throughout.

I do thank the Republican caucus for the extraordinary courtesy they extended to the Budget Committee by allowing Senator Byrd to vote--to allow proxy voting in our committee. Our committee does not allow proxy voting, and for a very good reason. We are the only committee that can report a fast-track vehicle to the Senate floor directly. But I do thank the Republican side for doing that. It was very gracious. I think it was in the best tradition of the Senate.

Here on the Senate floor, of course, there is no ability to allow that accommodation to a colleague who is ill. That is the circumstance. I regret it. I just say to my colleague, we are happy to have as many votes as you want to have. The reason we have deferred these major votes until tomorrow is for the reason I have given.

Mr. President, I would just say to my colleague, last year we did much better.

You remember last year we did more votes earlier. Just in line with what the Senator is thinking because that is the best way. I think all of us would agree that is the best way to do our business, to do the votes earlier. You will recall on the vote-arama on that Friday we actually finished at 2 o'clock in the afternoon because we did have more votes earlier. I am entirely, 100 percent in agreement with the Senator. I would far prefer to do it that way. I think it is easier to follow the debate and to have the votes then coincident with the debate.

(Mr. DURBIN assumed the Chair.)

Mr. President, if I might, just on the underlying amendment offered by the Senator, this amendment as we understand it-- we have just seen it--would virtually eliminate the estate tax. Let me say why. Let me first say there is no death tax in the country. Of course, if you poll people and you ask them: Do you want to eliminate the death tax? they will say sure. I had a baggage handler stop a colleague of mine, and he said: My No. 1 priority is to eliminate that death tax. My colleague, who is the current occupant of the chair, told him there is no death tax here. You are not going to pay any tax when you die unless you have $2 million.

The guy was very surprised about that because he heard all this talk about a death tax. There is no death tax in America. There is a tax on estates. At today's level you would have to have $2 million to be taxed. That affects only one-half of 1 percent of estates. When the exemption increases, as it does under current law, and reaches $3.5 million per individual, $7 million a couple in 2009, which is next year, only two-tenths of estates will be taxed.

If you are out there and you are hearing about this death tax, don't worry. It does not apply, next year, to 99.8 percent of people who pass away. It only applies to two-tenths of 1 percent of estates.

We already have a tax structure that has overwhelmingly benefited the wealthiest among us. The amendment by the Senator would cost an additional $478 billion over 10 years, and none of it is paid for. That means it goes on the debt. That means we have to borrow that amount of money, and where are we going to borrow it? We are now borrowing over half the money at our bond auctions from abroad--most of it from the Chinese and the Japanese. So we would have, if the amendment of the Senator is agreed to as is, the unusual situation of borrowing this money primarily from China and Japan to give a tax advantage to two- tenths of 1 percent of the people, but the borrowing would be in the name of all of the American people. So 99.8 percent of the American people would be borrowing this money, primarily from China and Japan, to give it to the Warren Buffets, the Paris Hiltons, and others of enormous wealth in this country.

I do not think that is a good policy. In the underlying budget, we have improved the estate tax situation, reformed it in what is, I think, a reasonable way. This is the bizarre circumstance that is in current law. The exemption now, in 2008, is $4 million--$2 million a person. OK? So if you are a husband or wife and you pass away at the same time, you have $4 million of exemption that applies today. You don't pay anything if you have estates of less than $4 million.

In 2009 that will go up to $7 million. Then in 2010, under current law, there is no estate tax, it is repealed. Then, in 2011--it is utterly bizarre--it goes down to $2 million per couple, $1 million a person.

In the underlying budget we are saying, no, that makes no sense at all to go back down to $2 million a couple, $1 million a person. It should be at $7 million a couple, as it is in 2009. If, in fact, we adopt those levels, virtually no one will pay the estate tax. That is a fact.

Here is what has happened under current law: The number of estates that are taxed is falling very dramatically. In 2000, there were 50,000 taxable estates. In 2006, that has been reduced to 13,000. In 2009, we are now expecting there will only be 7,000 estates that will pay anything. As I indicated, that is two-tenths of 1 percent; 99.8 percent of estates are completely exempt. That is a fact.

Now I am going to lay down an amendment.

I would be happy to yield.

No, this is this Tax Policy Center, I say to my colleague, and they estimate the number of estates in any year, and then they do a further analysis of how many would actually pay an estate tax, and what they have concluded is two-tenths of 1 percent.

I know the Senator is pulling my chain. Even as slow witted as I am, I can recognize when a Senator is pulling my chain, and here on my birthday, my friend and my colleague is doing that.

What we have tried to do is come up with an alternative. I will send this amendment to the desk to provide an alternative approach to that which the Senator from Arizona is offering, to go over and above what is in the Baucus amendment.

I say to my colleague, it provides another $45 billion, so that in addition to extending the estate tax exemptions of 2009, $7 million a couple, $3.5 million an individual, instead of dropping down to $2 million a couple or $1 million, we stay at the $7 million; index it for inflation.

But in this amendment I am sending to the desk, I say to my colleague, it also provides another $45 billion in a reserve fund, which means it would have to be offset either by a spending reduction or other revenue to further close the gap between what Senator Baucus provided in his amendment the other day, and the amendment Senator Kyl has laid down here.

That would be $45 billion in additional room in order to further reform the estate tax. I want to make clear that would be in a reserve fund, so it would have to be offset, it would have to be paid for.

I do not know. This is not my amendment. This is an amendment Senator Baucus and others have crafted. So I apologize to the Senator, I do not know how much more of an exemption that would permit. But others who have crafted this amendment hopefully will have an answer that can be provided when they are available.

Maybe I can conclude this part and go back to the Senator from Illinois who is also inquiring and answer his question.

Mr. President, I send this amendment to the desk. I have styled it Conrad No. 2. In fact, it is not my amendment. It is the amendment of the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who is at this very moment chairing a hearing on this subject, so he could not be here. That is why I am sending it to the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

I ask that Senator Baucus be permitted, when he is able, to further discuss his amendment. I know we have got time reserved for that purpose.

Yes, that is true, under the exemption rates for next year. Under the exemption rates for next year, it will be two-tenths of 1 percent. I believe this year it is five-tenths of 1 percent; there are 99.5 percent this year that are exempt. Next year it will be 99.8 percent exempt, as the rate goes up.

That is the correct math.

My understanding is--and the Senator might correct me-- that under the Kyl proposal the cost would be approaching $200 billion over--$458 billion over 10 years.

Well, first, in terms of the gross debt of the United States, under this President's watch, the gross debt has nearly doubled. The foreign holding of U.S. debt has more than doubled.

This is it. It took 42 Presidents 224 years to run up $1 trillion of external debt. Perhaps this is the chart the Senator is referring to. It took 42 Presidents, all of these Presidents pictured, 224 years to run up $1 trillion of debt, U.S. debt held abroad. This President, as you can see, has far more than doubled that amount in 7 years.

Well, if his amendment costs another $458 billion, it is not offset. And in a typical bond auction now conducted by the United States, over

half of the money, well over half now, is money from abroad. So you can take well over half of the $458 billion, and it would be added to this external debt.

Well, that is the unfortunate part of, as I see it, the amendment of the Senator from Arizona. What he is doing is saying--he is asking all of us, all Americans, to put our name on the bill. But the money is only going to two-tenths of 1 percent of us. I think that is unfortunate.

I think that is clearly correct.

Yes, I think that is undeniably the case. The problem this country confronts now is we have massive deficits and, under this President, a dramatic increase in the debt. So all of these provisions are based on borrowed money. So why would we go borrow this amount of money, which is increasingly from foreign countries, in order to give a benefit to two-tenths of 1 percent of the American people, when 99.8 percent of the estates in this country are already exempted from the taxation? That is lost on me.

No, this is all put on the tab. This is all borrowed money.

I still have the floor. The Senator from Arizona was seeking to ask me a question.

I am happy to yield to the Senator from New Hampshire if the Senator wishes to engage in this debate or any other debate.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

I would like to try to harmonize the numbers because I don't want to leave people with the misimpression that we have some difference on the numbers because I don't think we do. The Senator is talking about 131,000 estates possibly being affected. But that would be at the million-dollar-a-person exemption level; is that not the case?

But that is assuming we have a million-dollar-per-person exemption. Under what is in the budget, we would have $3.5 million per person--$7 million a couple--which, according to our figures, would give only 7,000 estates out of 3.5 million any tax. I think the difference between your 11,000 and my 7,000 was, you are talking about estates that have a filing responsibility. I am talking about estates that would actually have a tax liability. As the Senator well knows, there are some additional people who have a filing obligation even though they don't have a liability.

The numbers the Senator and I are using are actually quite close. We are using somewhat different assumptions. He is talking about if we went down, which current law does, to a million dollar exemption in 2011, 131,000 estates would be affected. What we are seeking to do is to make certain that does not occur, that the exemption amount be $3.5 million a person, $7 million a couple, which would exempt 99.8 percent of estates.

That is absolutely fair. I didn't want to leave some impression that you and I had some great difference on the numbers. I think our numbers are actually very close.

Mr. President, I say to the Senator, may I be recognized for a moment? I have a housekeeping item we need to address.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 4196, which I sent to the desk, be restyled as being offered on behalf of Senator Salazar. I sent it to the desk in the name of Senator Baucus.

That should be in the name of Senator Salazar. He is the mover of that amendment.

Mr. President, why don't we do this out of courtesy to Senator Bunning, who is already here: If we could go to Senator DeMint--how much time would Senator DeMint require?

Could we reach an agreement on up to 25 minutes?

Because Senator Bunning was put on notice earlier he could come at roughly this time. I would be happy to withhold on Senator DeMint's amendment.

If the Senator will yield for a quick question?

I wanted to ask the distinguished Senator, earlier before he was able to come to the floor, there was a unanimous consent request offered with regard to the ALS registry, and I, on his behalf, lodged an objection, although I have no personal objection. I just want to ask the distinguished Senator from Oklahoma if it is his understanding it was on his behalf?

Mr. President, I understand why we find ourselves in this terrible posture today and why some people are calling this Congress the broken Congress, the dysfunctional Congress. If you look at the chart that was alluded to a moment ago about the last 31 days of the Senate, we have had 15 days of the last 31 days actually in session. We have had 10 rollcall votes. We have had 10 rollcall votes in the last 31 days. As a matter of fact, we should be having rollcall votes now on the farm bill, which is the bill I thought was before the Senate. But, instead, our colleagues from the other side of the aisle decided to put on this show for the American people to try to portray themselves as passing legislation, although they knew it could not be done in the manner in which they proposed--while we should be passing the farm bill.

Let me talk for a moment about the opportunities that they have squandered by their mismanagement of the calendar over this last year. I asked the Senator from Illinois, Mr. Durbin, if he would agree to a unanimous consent request, and also the majority leader, to help fund our troops who are in harm's way during a time of war. They objected to that.

As a matter of fact, Republicans attempted to call up the Veterans appropriations bill before the Veterans Day holiday, and the Democrats objected to bringing up that bill. Just to be clear, this is the appropriations bill that funds veterans affairs and military construction and is important not only to keeping our commitments to our veterans but to maintaining a decent quality of life for the families who are left behind while their loved one is in harm's way in Iraq or Afghanistan and other dangerous places across the world.

Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle blocked that appropriations bill like they blocked the emergency funding for the troops that is needed in order to avoid the 100,000 notices to civilian employees of the Department of Defense that they are going to be laid off. They are going to get those notices before Christmas that they are going to be laid off by mid-February unless Congress does the job it should have done a long time ago. That is not even to mention--which I will mention--the funding necessary for the Department of Defense to operate in Iraq and Afghanistan to root out al-Qaida and other foreign fighters, Islamic extremists who are trying to kill American

soldiers and who, if given an opportunity to reorganize themselves in Iraq, would use that as another launching pad to carry out murderous attacks against Americans and our allies.

Just to be clear, the Senator from Illinois, Mr. Durbin, asked me about a meeting where the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State were present. I explained, as I have just explained here today, what the situation would be like if we failed to act, and as a result of their objection, we are not acting on a timely basis.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter from the Deputy Secretary of Defense to the Republican leader that is dated December 7, 2007, signed by Gordon England to the Honorable Mitch McConnell.

Mr. President, as the letter makes clear, while the Department of Defense has the ability to fund the troops in the field until mid-February--around March for the Marine Corps--this comes at great expense to those in the Department of Defense, both in and out of uniform. The only reason the Department of Defense can basically rob Peter to pay Paul in terms of paying its bills is because other activities will not be funded, to include training, repair of equipment, and salaries. This letter makes clear that under the current law, furlough notices must soon be issued, potentially right around the time Christmas hits.

This is not any way to run the business of our Nation. Unfortunately, because of the way our colleagues have led the Senate, we have squandered a tremendous opportunity to solve the problems the American people sent us here to solve.

We have had 66 votes on cloture motions--in other words, efforts to force legislation down the throat of the minority without an opportunity for debate or amendment. That is a guaranteed recipe for failure. As everyone in this body knows, under the rules of the Senate, neither the majority nor the minority can have their own way without bipartisan cooperation. That is the way to get things done. But, rather than get things done for the American people, what we have seen is a ``my way or the highway'' approach on the part of the leadership on the other side of the aisle. That is the reason we have had 63 votes, 63 votes so far this session, on the war in Iraq, with various attempts on the other side of the aisle either to attach strings to that money or to impose arbitrary deadlines on our commanders in the field or what I would submit is basically to insist on surrender dates.

These are the same folks who called the surge a failure before it even started. They have said they supported the troops but yet, when it comes time to show their support by making sure they have the funding for the equipment and the training, to pay salaries, and to maintain a decent quality of life for their loved ones who are left behind, instead of acting on that stated support for the troops, have failed to act.

I know the other side of the aisle has given us a copy of various unanimous consent requests to give us fair notice of their intention to ask for unanimous consent, and we have done the same.

On behalf of this side of the aisle, I would ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2363, which is funding for military construction and veterans affairs.

I further ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I am disappointed to hear the objection. This is the same Veterans appropriations bill and Military Construction bill that was passed this summer by the Senate and this summer as well by the House. Why is it that it has been delayed all this time? This is funding for the very veterans who have sacrificed so much and given so much in the service to this country who are being told: No, we are going to hold that money back because essentially you are part of our political plans to put together a huge Omnibus appropriations at the end of the year and try to force the President and the minority to accept bloated Washington spending, when, in fact, there is no objection to passage of that Veterans bill or Military Construction bill, and it should be passed today by unanimous consent without further delay.

Mr. President, I have one other unanimous consent request I would like to offer. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 3997, a bill to provide tax relief for our troops. I further ask that the amendment at the desk, which is the text of S. 2340 and provides for full funding of our troops, emergency funding for our troops, be agreed to and that the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed.

Mr. President, I regret the obstruction on the part of the majority. This provision, the Heroes Earnings Assistance and Tax Relief Act, would ensure that our military members are treated fairly under our own tax laws. It would make clear that combat pay can be treated as income for purposes of qualifying for the earned-income tax credit. It would also make improvements to the rules for mortgage bonds for veterans, clarify rules regarding survivor and disability payments, and continue to provide pay and benefits to National Guard and Reserve members called to Active Duty. I have already mentioned the component of it that would provide full funding on an emergency basis to our troops who are currently fighting and, unfortunately, some being wounded and dying in service to their country and protection of our freedoms, which has now been objected to once again.

I will finish my remarks for this period where I started and say that we have squandered our opportunities to govern. The only way you can govern

in the Congress is by building a governing coalition, Democrats working with Republicans to try to solve the Nation's problems. When one side or the other tries to jam their agenda down the throat of the other side, it does not work, and exhibit A is the dismal record of this broken Congress during this last year.

I see why our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are getting nervous, why their desperation to pass legislation is beginning to show, because they realize they had the opportunity to lead, they realize they had the opportunity to govern, but they have squandered that opportunity. So now, in the last week and a half before the Christmas recess, they are out here trying to act as if the minority has obstructed them, when, in fact, if they had only met us halfway and worked with us to solve some of the big issues that confront our country in a bipartisan and constructive way, we would have met them halfway and we would have solved many of those problems.

I will.

The distinguished Senator from New Hampshire is exactly correct. My recollection is only 1 out of the 12 appropriations bills has actually been signed by the President, and that was after the fiscal year ended, meaning that essentially Congress is doing what no business, what no family could get away with; that is, basically to pay the bills on a timely basis. So it is another example of this broken Congress and squandered opportunity to work together to do our basic duty.

Unfortunately, I think what we have seen now is an unfortunate game being played out where, rather than pass those bills on an individual basis, there is going to be an attempt to roll them into a giant Omnibus appropriations bill, which someone observed the other day is Latin for ``hold on to your wallet.'' The President has insisted that he is going to hold the line, as he well should, on wasteful Washington spending which would require tax increases on the American people at a time when the economy is entering into a flat period. It is exactly the wrong time--if there is ever a right time--to raise taxes.

I would.

Mr. President, the Senator from New Hampshire is absolutely correct.

I would further say in response to his question, you know there is a marked contrast to the tone that was set at the very beginning of this Congress with the new majority in charge. The Senator from Illinois, Mr. Durbin, who was on the floor earlier, said:

I think the people across America said to us in this last

election, we want you to compromise, we want you to find

solutions, we do not want you to play to a draw with nothing

to show for it.

Well, that is in the Congressional Record on January 4, 2007. I agreed with that statement then. But, as I say, it stands in marked contrast to what we have seem demonstrated this last year.

The Senator from New York, Mr. Schumer, who was on the floor earlier, on that same date said:

All too often we in Washington get lost in the world of

Washington, the focus on getting something done, something

done for the American people gets lost.

Well, I wish they had heeded their own advice because what we have to show for this last year is very little, indeed. Failing to take care of our most basic responsibilities, as the Senator from New Hampshire has pointed out, to fund the Government on a timely basis--the fact is, we find ourselves in a terrible position now, with just a few days remaining until the Christmas break to get that work done.

Mr. President, I agree again with the statement made and respond in the affirmative to the question propounded by the Senator from New Hampshire. This Congress has spent 11 months holding Iraq political votes that have had no chance of becoming law.

We have had 63 votes thus far this session. In the meantime, while the majority has been fiddling, the business of the American people has not been done. I think about the issues besides those of national security that cry out for solutions, things such as border security and immigration reform. Couldn't we have used some of this time more constructively to solve one of the biggest domestic issues confronting the country today? How about energy policy? We have an energy bill that raises taxes on domestic producers and encourages our dependence on foreign oil, when we could have worked together to pass an energy policy that would have prepared us for the future. We have not done that. Health care, which is a tremendous concern of my constituents in Texas and elsewhere, we could have acted to deal with the health care access cost and quality crisis in this country, but we have not.

I know there are other colleagues who wish to speak.

I reserve the remainder of my time and yield the floor.

Mr. President, how much time remains in morning business on our side?

Mr. President, in a moment I am going to yield and ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Alabama be recognized for up to 10 minutes, followed by the Senator from Wyoming, Dr. Barrasso, for up to 10 minutes.

To be clear, we have had objections from the majority, from our Democratic friends, to legislation that is vitally important to our veterans and to our active-duty military: the Veterans' Administration and military construction funding bill that was passed by both Houses of the Congress last summer and which has been held up and held hostage to the political games here in Washington, as well as the emergency troop funding that is needed to fund ongoing operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, which we have discussed as well. This is a personal issue, as 1.7 million veterans live in my State in Texas. We have 15 major military bases where military families live and work. One out of every 10 active-duty military members who wears the uniform of the United States calls Texas home, and we have guards and reservists who are also serving valiantly in Iraq and elsewhere.

The bill which has been blocked by the majority would provide $20 billion in military construction funds important for our troops and quality of life for our military families, and it is important to my State of Texas because of our support for the troops and military families. It contains almost $90 billion for our veterans, which includes their health care, upgrading facilities, money to hire additional claims processors so veterans don't have to wait so long to get the benefits to which they are entitled. As I said, there are about 1.7 million veterans in Texas and they need these funds, and they shouldn't be held hostage to the political games here in Washington with regard to an omnibus appropriations bill.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of our time.

Mr. President, may I ask how much time remains on this side?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time remaining be evenly split between the Senator from Wyoming and the Senator from Oklahoma and the Senator from Arizona.

Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2318, a bill that provides permanent relief from the alternative minimum tax, which extends the 2001 tax cuts and the 2003 capital gains dividends tax relief, and that the bill be read the third time and passed.

I further ask that the bill be held at the desk until the House companion arrives, and that all after the enacting clause be stricken and the text of the Senate-passed bill be inserted, and the House bill, as amended, be read the third time and passed.

Mr. President, I am disappointed, and I think the American people are going to be disappointed if we don't deal with the alternative minimum tax, which, of course, was targeted at the ``rich'' when it was passed but which now affects 6 million taxpayers and which, if we don't act, will affect 23 million middle-class taxpayers next year.

My distinguished colleague didn't mention the capital gains and dividends tax relief, which has been so important as a stimulus to the economy, which has resulted in 50 months of uninterrupted job growth since we passed that legislation. I hope we will continue to work on that.

Unfortunately, given the compression of time due to the squandering of opportunities earlier this year to act on this important legislation, I am afraid we are not going to get it done before we break for Christmas. The IRS is going to have to send out notices to many new taxpayers of their increased tax bill under this AMT, unless we act promptly.

I yield the floor and yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Georgia and the Senator from Texas for their leadership. With that leadership comes a very clear voice about the problems this current Congress is facing. They are problems that are historic in character. I was once in the majority. It was the minority who said: We can do better and, therefore, we should run the Congress. In the last election, the American people listened and they changed the Congress. While I was chairing the Veterans' Affairs Committee at that time, we lost the Congress--we, the Republicans--by a reality of dropping to 32 percent in the minds of Americans as to an effective and responsible Congress. The minority played on that. They became the majority. They took over the leadership. They made a great deal of promises. Here we are in the eleventh and a half hour headed toward the twelfth hour of this session of Congress. They have not accomplished it. They have dropped below 11 percent in favorable rating among the American people.

The American people do want to see us get along. At the same time, they want their Government to function in a timely and responsible way. That is exactly what this Congress has failed to do.

I come to the floor to speak about two issues specifically. The assistant majority leader came to the floor earlier today and asked unanimous consent that S. 1233 and S. 1315 be allowed to come to the floor under unanimous consent or to come to the floor with debate and final passage. The reason he had to do that was before the Thanksgiving recess, I came to the floor and objected to the movement of those bills. The Senator from Oklahoma also now objects to the movement of those bills. I think it is very important that not only does the record bear why we objected but the American people clearly understand why we are objecting, because these are veterans bills.

These are bills that deal with critical needs of America's veterans. I was once chairman and ranking member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, and I am not going to suggest that I need to add credentials to my record as supporting America's veterans. My responsibility is to make sure the services to our veterans get delivered in a responsible and timely way, that the truly needy service-connected and poor veteran gets served, and that the needs of those coming in out of Afghanistan and Iraq, who then become veterans out of our active service, are met in an immediate way. That is the responsibility of this Congress. It is not to keep adding and adding and adding new programs that may or may not be necessary and adding and adding and adding billions of dollars that anyone in service to veterans can say is at best questionable. It is for those reasons that I objected to those bills.

Now, let me break down why because there are some very real issues here.

S. 1233 is an important piece of legislation that a majority of those of us who supported the legislation to begin with agreed to. It is called the Veterans Traumatic Brain Injury and Health Programs Improvement Act of 2007. Any bill with that title would capture your imagination. One of the great concerns we have today is the traumatic brain injuries our men and women in service are coming out of Iraq with, especially because of the types of bombs that are being used over there. Oftentimes, this kind of injury does not show up in a veteran until he or she becomes a veteran.

If you look down through the priorities of that bill, you look at increased veterans' travel benefits--yes, rural veterans coming to veterans centers to be served; a major medical facilities project; adding to the expanded services of veterans health care; professional scholarship programs; extended time for preferred care; help for low- income veterans; traumatic brain injury program enhancement; assisted- living pilot program enhancement--all of those very valuable and very meaningful, strongly supported by the Veterans' Affairs Committee and strongly supported by this Senate.

But what happened at the last minute was that a Senator on the other side added a new program. They said: We are going to allow Priority 8 veterans to become eligible for the full service of health care under the veterans health care system. What is a Priority 8 veteran? A Priority 8 veteran is one who has no service-connected disability or injury or health care concern. Did they serve? Yes, they served. Did they sustain any injury or physical needs as a result of their service? No. Are they at the poverty level or below? No. They are above it. And in most instances--in fact, in a high percentage of them--through their own employment, they have health care.

So for a good number of years, because of costs, we who watch the veterans issues and Presidents and Secretaries of the VA have said we will not serve them. They will not be eligible for the full benefits. This President, President Bush, said: I will make them eligible, but they need to pay a small fee, a couple hundred bucks a year, to have access to the greatest health care program in the world. The minority at that time, the Democrats, said: No. They get it free of charge or they don't get it.

Well, all of a sudden into this very valuable bill they parachuted Priority 8 veterans. What does that do? Well, if you go talk to the Secretary of the Veterans' Administration, they are going to tell you that it might cause a substantial problem. Why? Because all of a sudden in this health care system there could be 1.3 million more Americans eligible for health care--not planned for, not anticipated, not budgeted for, but parachuted in, I have to believe all in the name of trying to show a concern for veterans and to demonstrate that maybe we are a little more sensitive than the other side.

What does that mean? Well, it also means the potential of between $1.2 billion more expended in 2008 and up to $8.8 billion more by 2012. Did they fund it? No. Have they stuck it in the bill? Yes. Are they trying to create a priority? Yes. Are they trying to create a new expenditure? Yes. And I said: No. Let's serve our poor and our needy and our disabled first and our traumatically brain injured and our post-traumatic stress syndrome veterans. Let's serve them now. Let's put money into the bill to do that.

So the Senator from Texas talked about the VA-MILCON bill that is right at the desk right now, sent out by the ranking minority member of the VA-MILCON Subcommittee, on which I serve, of Appropriations, Senator Hutchison. We are trying to get a vote on it. That bill--that bill alone--has nearly $8 billion worth of new spending in it for veterans. That is a near 17.5-

to 18-percent increase over last year. I believe it can be said, other than defense, to be the largest increase in a budget of all of Government for this year. But the money I am talking about, the new money for Priority 8, is not even in that one. All of this new money for veterans needs that is in the bill that we are being told cannot be passed, that we keep trying to get a vote on, does not even include the $1.5 billion to $8 billion necessary to fund this new program for veterans who are not needy, who are not service connected, and who have not been eligible for a good number of years.

That is why we are saying no. You take Priority 8 out of this, and the Veterans Traumatic Brain Injury and Health Programs Improvement Act, S. 1233, could pass, and it would pass on a voice vote because the Senate--Democrats and Republicans--have always supported our veterans. But we will not nor will I allow us to get caught in the game of first you argue on the other side that we have a war nobody likes and a President who is not managing it well, and then on the other side you are saying we are not taking care of our veterans. I reject that, and I reject it totally for these reasons.

While I was chair and ranking member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, and throughout the Bush administration, we have increased the funding for veterans on an annualized basis anywhere from 10 to 12 percent. When I talk about the appropriations bill that is at the desk for veterans being a historically large increase, well, the one the year before was a historically large increase. We have never ducked our responsibility to veterans. But we must prioritize, and we must focus on the truly needy, and we must focus on those who are coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan and traumatic brain injury and all of those who continue to suffer today. That is the first bill, and it will continue to be objected to until they take out those kinds of add-ons.

Let's talk about the second bill. The second bill is S. 1315. Now, that is an interesting bill because if you look at it on its face value, you say: Yes, that makes some sense. We are going to give a veterans' benefit enhancement to a certain class of veteran. Let me tell you who that veteran is.

The bill includes roughly $900 million in new entitlement spending on an array of veterans' benefits, but what is interesting is, it is moving money away from poor, elderly, disabled and wartime U.S. veterans. It is taking effectively $2,000 annually from our veterans and moving it over to a veteran who does not even live in the United States and is not a citizen of the United States--a Filipino veteran.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 3 additional minutes.

Why I object to this--and I call this bill the ``Robin Hood in reverse'' bill--is quite simple. If any of you have watched the Ken Burns PBS series ``The War,'' there is one whole segment of that about the war in the Philippines and the Filipinos who came forward to fight with Americans and even serve in American uniforms in defense of their land and ours during World War II. They did not become American citizens. They were Filipinos, and they have always received benefits. But this bill now reaches in and takes money away from our veterans, our poor veterans, because of a court case and is giving it to them.

Here is my problem. First of all, they do not live in this country, and they are not U.S. citizens. They are currently receiving benefits. But for the average U.S. veteran, their benefits, right now under law, cannot exceed $10,929 a year. That is roughly 24 percent of the average U.S. household income. But this benefit which is in this bill gives to a veteran--a non-U.S. citizen, living in the Philippines--100 percent of the average household income in the Philippines. They are taking that money away from our veterans to do it. That is the ``Robin Hood in reverse'' effect. At least Robin Hood, when he took money, left it in Nottingham. He spread it out amongst his own. Here we are taking money from our own and sending it all the way to the Philippines.

Now, let me say, and let me be very clear, Americans have treated Filipino veterans fairly. After the war, the United States provided $620 million--or $6.7 billion in today's dollars--to repair the Philippines. The United States provided $22.5 million--$196 million in today's dollars--for equipment and construction. We have a hospital in the Philippines, and Filipino veterans legally residing in the United States--in the United States--are fully eligible for all VA veterans' benefits based on their level of service. Survivors of Filipino veterans who died as a result of their service are eligible for educational assistance and all kinds of programs.

That is why I object. First of all, because we are taking money away from ours, but also because we have been more than generous since that war ended to our comrades, the Filipinos, who fought side by side with American men and women, who were in the Philippines at the time, after we were able to reclaim the Philippine Islands. So we have done wonderfully by them, and we have been very supportive of providing them with programs.

Remember, the average U.S. veterans' benefit--24 percent of U.S. average household income--is limited. Yet we are taking that money away from them now, giving it to Filipino veterans who are non-U.S. citizens, and increasing their benefit to over 100 percent of the average household income in the Philippines. U.S. dollars spent in the Philippines at that amount lifts--there is no question about it--lifts that Filipino dramatically. The question is, Is it fair? Is it equitable? My answer is, It is not. I offered to say, yes, we can bump them a little bit, but let's take the rest of this money and put it into educational benefits for our veterans coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan. The answer in the committee was no.

So that is why these bills are in trouble on the floor. They have loaded them up. They are too heavy. The tires are blowing out from under the trucks of these bills simply because too much is too much. In the instance of this, Disabled American Veterans--that great organization which is a loud spokesperson for our veterans--is saying: Whoa, wait a moment here. Enough is enough, and this is too much. They themselves oppose this legislation as it is currently written.

So here we have a funding bill on the floor with a 17.5- to 18- percent increase over last year's funding for veterans, and we are not allowed to vote on it. We have funding at the highest level ever for America's veterans, as we should and as we must, but these bills take us well beyond it in an unfunded environment or in one instance reaching in the pocket of our poor and disabled veteran and taking that money out and putting it into the pocket of a veteran living in the Philippines, who never became an American citizen, and who never came to this country, who has chosen to stay in his homeland. We now give them benefits, but this is a benefit well beyond what is even currently being offered to our own. Those are the fundamental reasons why we have objected.

I was pleased when the Senator from Texas said to the Senator from Illinois, the assistant majority leader: No. Yes, we will object, and we are not embarrassed about doing it, because there have to be priorities to our funding, especially at a time when the VA budget that is at the desk is the largest increase of a veterans' budget, to my knowledge, ever. We are proud of that, but there is a point when enough is, in fact, enough.

I yield the floor.

Would the Senator yield for a unanimous consent request for material to be inserted in the Record?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that minority views on S. 1233 and minority views on S. 1315 be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, this morning we have heard about a lot of good causes and a lot of good bills. But what we have been asked to do is to pass bills without any debate, without the opportunity to amend, and we just heard a Senator say we could agree to a UC and not have to vote on it. Agreeing to a UC is the same as voting yes. The fact is, we have had plenty of time to bring up all these bills, put them on the floor, debate them and have great debates so the American people become informed, and offer amendments.

I will say for many of these bills, I am the Senator objecting. Senator Harkin knows I am objecting to the two bills he just raised.

The point is, our debt is rising $1 million a minute. When you authorize $100 million for the Realtime Writers Act, what you are saying is, I intend to get the money out of the appropriations process to develop training for something that the market should already be inducing through increased wages. If in fact there is a shortage, why is the market not taking care of it? Is it because the pay is too low? Maybe the pay ought to be higher. Maybe people ought to go into it. Instead we are going to inject $100 million of American taxpayers' money into something that will be solved through the market. If it is not, then the pay is entirely too low and the market will eventually adjust to it. But to say we are going to authorize something with no intent to ever spend, that is not the intent of an authorization. The intent of an authorization is to spend more money.

At $1.3 billion a day, we are going into debt, and it is not our debt. We are transferring it to our children and our grandchildren. To come down here and want to authorize and spend and pass without debate and pass without amendment multitudes of bills with no debate is to say, in other words, take it or leave it. And if you want to amend it or you want to have a chance to vote on it, tough luck; we are going to do it without you. It is called ``UC.''

The fact is, we find ourselves $9 trillion in debt now. The fact is, our children are facing $79 trillion worth of unfunded mandates. It is time that we change the business in the Senate. To come down and claim you want to just authorize but not spend is a hoax because you would not be authorizing unless you do spend.

The other thing the American people ought to know is, out of the over $1 trillion in discretionary budget that we spend right now, $280 billion of it is not authorized. The appropriators totally ignore the authorizers. When it comes to appropriations, they appropriate whatever they want. So it doesn't have to be authorized to get it done. They will appropriate it if they want to do it. They don't pay any attention to authorization.

When we have $8 trillion worth of authorized programs now, to say we cannot eliminate some program that is not being funded to be able to make room for one that should be funded, and to say we should not have to do that, that doesn't pass the commonsense test with the American public.

I understand that is irritating and bristling to the way we have done things in the past. I apologize if at times I am irritable and irritating, but I think the future generations are worth it. I do not think we can continue doing business as usual. So we have seen an ALS bill come down. The CDC doesn't want the ALS bill, the registry, and the reason is they can already do it. If we are going to do an ALS bill, we ought to do it for all neurologic diseases in terms of a registry, not just one. What we have decided is a celebrity or an interest group can come and we will place a priority there. Regardless of what the science says, regardless of what the basic science and the pure science says in terms of guiding us where to go on diseases, we will just respond. We will create a new program, and we will tell NIH where they have to go, or CDC where they have to go when science doesn't guide them there.

If we are going to do that, if we really think as a body we ought to be going the disease-specific direction, then why don't we do it all? Why don't we say we will do the peer-reviewed science on all the programs at NIH? Since we are going to pick the ones that have a cause behind them, why don't we do them all. Why don't we let the lobbyists tell us which ones should be first? Of course, we wouldn't do that because we know the scientists at CDC and the scientists at NIH make decisions, not on popularity, not on politics, but on the raw science that will give us the best benefit for the most people.

We look good when we do those things. We do satisfy a yearning for those who are handicapped or paralyzed or have breast cancer or have colon cancer. But if we are going to do a registry for ALS, why aren't we doing one for diabetes? We aren't we doing one for multiple myeloma? Why? Why aren't we doing those things? If we are going to pick one, if we are going to do

a neurological disease, let's do it for all of them. It shows the shallowness of what we are trying to do. Our hearts are big, but we are not looking at the big picture.

The FHA we discussed. The component in the FHA that I object to is, we have a study in the FHA bill that the GAO is mandated to do on reverse mortgages. But at the same time, regardless of what the study shows, we lift the cap. All I have asked for from the authors of the bill is to keep the cap where it is until we get the GAO study back so we know what we are doing, rather than responding to a clamoring which we have no basis, in fact, to know is the accurate thing to do; otherwise, we wouldn't be asking for the study in the first place. It is a simple request.

Instead, we come to the Senate floor and try to make us, those who object, seem unreasonable when we say common sense would say if we have a study in the bill to tell us where to go, but we are already ignoring what the results of that study may or may not be, to question that we should not have a debate about that, that we should not have an ability to amend that, we should just blindly say yes, that is not what the Senate tradition is. This is a body that is supposed to be about debate.

In the past 31 days the Senate has been in session 15 days. We have had 10 votes in 15 days, and we have had 8 days without any votes at all. All these bills could have been on the floor and had accurate debate. I would have lost most of my amendments, based on the historical record of my amendments, but the American people would have benefited from the debate about those bills. Instead, we are made to look as if we don't care if we want to try to improve a bill because we will not agree to blindly accept a bill to go through. We are made to say we don't care about people who are losing their mortgages because we think there are some commonsense changes to a bill? That isn't quite right.

You hear the reference that people vote or the committee voted or that there wasn't an amendment. The fact is, on voice votes if you do not vote, you are not recorded because there is not a recorded vote. But that doesn't mean you agree to bring the bill to the floor. We all know that.

The fact is, and you have heard me say it many times in this body, if you are born today you inherit $400,000 worth of unfunded liabilities. There is a lot of things we do wrong on our side of the aisle, I will admit that, and have done wrong on our side of the aisle, both in the tenor of how we approach things and in how we characterize things. But the best way to right what we are doing wrong is start doing it right. The fact is, it is no legacy that we should leave to the next two generations that they are born into the world with a stone around their neck. The culture and methodology the Senate--I asked the President of the Senate a moment ago: What does unanimous consent mean when we bring up these bills? It is the rules of the Senate, I was told. The rules of the Senate are, you get no opportunity to amend.

I ask unanimous consent for an additional 3 minutes for me.

You get no opportunity to debate, you get no opportunity to amend, you have no opportunity to vote. So, if you truly object to a bill or a component of a bill you are told: Stuff it. What you think about it doesn't matter, let alone the very real loss of the American people not hearing a full debate about these issues.

We have plenty of time to debate them. We have quorum calls much too much. We should have two or three bills on the floor at the same time. I am willing to debate and lose, but I am not willing to give consent I disagree with and imply to the people I represent, in my oath to the Constitution, that it doesn't matter. It does matter. It matters immensely.

The future is at risk. We are on an unsustainable course, and we are seeing some of that played out in the mortgage market today. We are seeing some of that played out with the value of the dollar today. We are seeing some of that played out in the confidence of the American people, not only in the future and what they see, but in how they view us. We do, in fact, have an obligation to secure the future, and we do, in fact, have an obligation to make tough choices, priorities. Those priorities ought to be framed in the light of what the everyday American family has to do to frame their priorities.

Instead, what we have the habit of is not making any priorities at all because we take it all. We don't choose. We choose to do it all, knowing that the consequences of that choice bear on two generations from us. We will long be gone, but the legacy we leave will deny the very essence of this country. The essence of this country is one generation sacrificing for the future, for the next. The legacy we are leaving is exactly the opposite.

So I beg some patience on the part of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that, in fact, if we disagree on a bill going by UC, it doesn't necessarily mean we disagree with the intent. It does mean that we think it can be improved or we think it can be held more accountable or, as the case of the SBA bills I am holding now, one of them is atrocious in terms of the money it is losing for the American people. Yet we are supposed to agree with those bills without amending or voting or debating.

I will be back to talk later in our time, and at the present time I yield.

Absolutely. There is no question. I thank you for covering for me in that regard.

Mr. President, we are 2 days away from the expiration of the continuing resolution--our second one. We had difficulty as a party when we were in the majority with getting the bills done on time. It is difficult to move things through this body. That is not necessarily always the majority's fault, but it requires that we work together. One way to take the pressure--the crash pressure in coming up against a point where everybody ends up losing is to have an automatic CR so we don't have that problem. There has been a bill offered that says if we cannot get our work done, there is an automatic CR, that the Government continues to run at the rate it was, or at the lower of the Senate- or House-passed bills. It takes us away from the idea of playing chicken and protects the American people and those employed by the Federal Government. I think it is common sense. It is something we ought to do. It takes the pressure off both sides so we are not running down to the end and looking at bills that nobody knows what is in them, thereby doing a grave injustice to the rest of the American people. I think it is an idea whose time has come.

On the basis of that, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2070, the Government shutdown prevention bill. I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read the third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, that tells us something. That tells us we are going to get a bill that none of us knows what is in it because we are going to run it up against a deadline--the deadline was September 30, we know that. We need a way to relieve the pressure. This bill relieves it; otherwise, we are going to do a great and harmful injustice to the American people.

I yield the floor.