August 5, 1976
Page 25931
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, given the discussion which has taken place in the last few minutes, and the desires of the Senator from Rhode Island, with which I thoroughly concur, I think at this point it would be a good time to move to recommit the bill, with instructions that the committee report back forthwith with an amendment in the nature of a substitute which only contains provisions extending individual income tax reductions and the $35 tax credit through calendar year 1977.
Mr. PASTORE. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. Yes.
Mr. PASTORE. I approve of that completely. I would hope it would receive the approval of this body. After all, we started out to give the taxpayer a break. Let us give him a break and let us wait and see what we are going to do about all of these other matters. I hope this motion will be adopted.
Mr. ALLEN. A parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will state it.
Mr. ALLEN. Mr. President, if a motion is made to recommit the bill with instructions to report back, would not the parliamentary situation be that every amendment that had been offered heretofore and acted upon in the Senate in the last 4 weeks be in order on the substitute?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct. When the bill was reported back under those circumstances, it would then be open for further amendment.
Mr. ALLEN. How would we accomplish anything? It would wipe out 4 weeks' work.
Mr. PASTORE. If the Senator will yield, if he wants to be that mean, that is all right. If this is an assembly of meanness, that is one thing; if it is an assembly of reasonableness, that is another thing.
The PRESIDING OFFICER The Senator from Maine has the floor.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I do not intend to belabor this point. I appreciate the point of the Senator from Rhode Island. It is perfectly possible, of course, that if this were to be done the exercise would start all over again. If that is the way the Senate wants to present itself to the country, that is certainly the prerogative of the Senate. But I have offered this amendment not for the purpose of creating an opportunity to play those kinds of games. I offer it for a serious purpose.
Mr. President, I indicated earlier this afternoon before the Senator from Connecticut offered a motion to recommit, that I was going to vote against this bill because I conceived it to be my duty to do so as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. Our clear duty is to present to the Senate the budgetary consequences of the actions which it takes. I am quite aware that there are a number of Senators who obviously believe I am trespassing into territory that is not in the Budget Committee's jurisdiction. Well, I happen to believe it is.
In any case, at the very least, we have that responsibility.
It is clear from the statistics presented to the Senate earlier that the budgetary consequences of what we have done up to this point are simply unacceptable. We ought to send the bill to the committee to have them clean it up, to extend the tax cut, and defer whatever action we are going to take on tax reforms until next year.
Mr. CURTIS. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. I have made all the statements this afternoon I need to make my point. I see no reason to belabor the Senate.
Mr. CURTIS. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. MUSKIE. I will be happy to yield.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Senator withhold momentarily?
Will the Senator send his motion to the desk?
The Senator from Nebraska may proceed.
Mr. CURTIS. Is it our understanding that the Senator would recommit the bill with instructions to report back on the expiring tax cuts plus the one amendment offered by the distinguished Senator from Maine (Mr. MUSKIE)?
Mr. MUSKIE. That is correct.
Mr. CURTIS. And the Senator would resist other amendments in which other Senators are interested?
Mr. MUSKIE. The Senator put the question. Let me answer it completely. I know the Senator and I disagree on this point. I happen to believe that the budget resolution adopted this year mandated something more than spending targets in the budget. I happen to believe, as one who helped to write the budget reform act, and as one who has presided over its implementation for almost 2 years, that we also have the responsibility to consider the impact of revenues and revenue changes upon the budget of the United States. We did so in the Budget Committee.
I happen to believe also, as chairman of the Budget Committee, that we are required by the Budget Reform Act to establish an economic policy.
Now, this motion that I have offered implements that, because that budget resolution, which undertook to do those things, was adopted by the whole Congress before this tax bill came to the floor of the Senate. So the extension of the tax cut through fiscal 1977, modified by the Allen amendment to go through the calendar year 1977, is not the result of an amendment of the Senator from Maine to this tax bill, Senator; it is an implementation of an economic policy and a tax policy mandated by this Congress in the first budget resolution.
You can put it any way you choose, but my job on this floor — and this whole Senate has charged me with it — is to try to enforce the congressional budget resolution to the best of my ability, by my best lights.
And I am not playing games. I am doing my best to put that budget resolution to a meaningful test in the Senate, because if the revenue side of the budget is not a part of the budget process, I want to know it. I would have real doubts about the vitality of a budget process half of which is a gaping hole on the revenue side; and the actions of the Senate for the last 4 weeks indicate that it is a gaping hole.
I have heard the Senator from Nebraska voting to spend hundreds of millions of dollars that he would fight to his last breath if it were included in the direct spending budget. If that is the way the Senate wants it, the Senator from Maine wants to know.
Mr. CURTIS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield on that point?
Mr. MUSKIE. May I finish? I have the floor. The Senator put a question to me, and it takes me a little longer than the Senator from Rhode Island to make my case. I have been trying for 4 weeks and have not succeeded.
But if there is that gaping hole in the budget process, I think it is time for the Senate to say so, and I know of no better way to ask the Senate to say so.
Whatever the Senate says, I will accept. Whatever the Senate says I will accept.
Mr. CURTIS. Now will the Senator yield?
Several Senators addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska,
Mr. CURTIS. Mr. President, this motion to recommit would preserve the tax cuts and one Senator's amendment that costs over a billion dollars.
Here is what it would delete in revenue getters :
Real estate recapture of depreciation, $9 million next year, by 1981, $56 million. The Muskie motion would throw that out.
This is a game to delay the bill, and I want to say to you people on this side, if you want to destroy $2 billion in tax reform, vote with Mr. MUSKIE.
This bill contains farm syndicate tax recovery of $74 million for this fiscal year, and it continues on.
At risk farming and motion picture applications starts out with a recovery of only $1 million, but it goes up to $17 million.
The capitalization of motion pictures picks up $26 million the first year. The at risk equipment leasing is another item. I will not name all the items, but they add up to over $2.4 billion. That is the cash effect.
Oh, how what we have done here has been misrepresented, over and over again.
Mr. LONG. Will the Senator yield on that point?
Mr. CURTIS. I am happy to yield.
Mr. LONG. We have heard oratory over and over and over again about 244 people who paid us no income tax. Is it not true that if this amendment should pass, those 244 people will get by without paying an income tax for 2 more long years?
Mr. CURTIS. That is correct. And the action of the Senate Finance Committee on increased the revenue on the minimum tax by $980 million the first year.
Mr. LONG. Is it not also true that this bill aims $2 billion of taxes, even as it stands now, at these tax cheaters we have been hearing about?
Mr. CURTIS. That is correct. And the biggest tax loophole voted today was the Haskell amendment, that opened it up for all the Al Capones to go scot free.
I appeal to you who have a sense of responsibility to the honest taxpayer to preserve him.
We have heard a lot of talk about tax expenditure. A witness before our committee told us what is was. He said:
It is nothing new; it used to be called feudalism. It is based on the philosophy that all a man's income belongs to the Government, and if we should vote to let him keep a part of it, it is a tax expenditure.
For instance, the hardworking people of this country worked to educate their children, and we said that if they took that money and paid tuition, they could get a tax credit for $100.
That was their money they spent. They did not come to this Government and ask for a direct subsidy, a loan, or a scholarship. Those young people's parents sent them to college. That was their money. Yet there are people who say that is a tax expenditure.
That is not. That is the people's money.
Mr. LONG. Will the Senator yield further?
Mr. CURTIS. Yes, I am happy to yield.
Mr. LONG. In this bill we have a withholding tax on gamblers of $124 million. Will this not be a happy day for the gamblers? I am told that they will save $124 million this year, and I am sure they could.
Jimmy Carter, having explained at Club 21 what his views are on taxes, explained that if he is elected President, there is enough complexity involved in all this that the Democratic candidate
for President, Mr. Carter, would feel it necessary to study the taxes for a year before he will have his tax reform program to submit to us. Would not that be good news for Las Vegas? Would not that be good news, especially for the gamblers, that they have $250 million, $124 million one year and $124 million the next, a $250 million bonanza that these budget people would like to arrange for the gamblers?
Mr. PASTORE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield to me?
Mr. CURTIS. In just a moment. I want to finish.
Do you want to make another annual evening speech about hurrying up the program?
Mr. PASTORE. No; all I want to say is, we can dance around this floor and get all excited, but the only thing I am saying is, all the Senator from Rhode Island is asking, "Let's get on the ball and pass the bill." If we cannot pass the bill, I will go for the suggestion made by the Senator from Maine. But all I am saying is that we are dilly-dallying. I know there are good features in this bill; I am ready to vote for the bill. But you do not have to talk about Al Capone and all that sort of thing. As a matter of fact, I voted with Mr. HRUSKA.
Mr. CURTIS. I know the Senator did.
Mr. PASTORE. I did not like the Haskell motion at all, so I do not have to be lectured to about Al Capone. I am not for the underworld. I am not for the Mafia. I am for law and order, and I voted that way.
Mr. CURTIS. Great.
Mr. PASTORE. And I do not think we have to kick that all around this chamber. All I am saying is, rather than waste all this rhetoric and wave our hands and all that sort of thing, and get all excited, why not have a unanimous consent agreement as to when we can pass this bill? We owe that to the taxpayers.
Mr. CURTIS. Yes. I decline to yield further, because the Senator is filibustering this bill.
Here is the point: The distinguished Senator from Maine gets up with all the aura of purity and tax reform, and wants to recommit this bill without disclosing what he would do. What he would do would take withholding away from the gamblers and keep it on the charwomen. That is what he would do by his motion to recommit and the record shows it.
Mr. MUSKIE. What is it that the record shows? I did not hear. I would like to hear. What is it the record shows that I would gamble?
Mr. CURTIS. The record shows that the Senator has a motion to recommit the provision that would impose withholding on the gambling interests and at the same time the law continues it for every other worker.
Mr. MUSKIE. The Senator believes that is the reason for my motion?
Mr. CURTIS. I do not know.
Mr. MUSKIE. Oh, well.
Mr. CURTIS. I understood that the planter from Plains, Ga., wants this bill defeated.
Mr. MUSKIE. He has a suspicion.
Mr. CURTIS. I understand that the planter from Plains, Ga., wants this bill delayed until next year.
Mr. LONG. If the Senator will yield, that is not my understanding. May I say to the Senator, that it is my understanding that there are certain interests, business interests, gambling interests, and a lot of other interests, particularly those who have been getting by without payingany taxes who want this bill to get defeated, so they can get by for 2 more years without paying any taxes or without paying their fair share.
I will ask the Senator if this is not true: If this bill is defeated all the people as to whom we heard talk about getting away without paying any taxes, they get away with it for 2 more years.
Mr. CURTIS. That is right.
Mr. LONG. It would take that much time. It takes a long time for the House of Representatives to get a bill like this to us and Mr. Carter stated — did the Senator read the newspaper — Mr. Carter said, and I am sure he was sincere about it, at the Club 21, he says, expected it will take a year to study this to make the recommendations he makes.
Mr. PACKWOOD. Was the Senator from Nebraska yielding for a question or a speech?
Mr. CURTIS. I resume the floor myself. I believe that is in accordance with the rules.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
Mr. CURTIS. Mr. President, what has happened here. We have a very complex economy with complex taxes. The House of Representatives passed a bill. Some of us thought in a few instances maybe it was an overkill. There were some Senate amendments. Part of the same staff that works over in the House of Representatives works here. This is a big bill. On the second look they have some changes. A number of changes were made by the Committee on Finance.
But we still brought in a bill to bring in $2.4 billion in new revenue. But it was immediately branded that we were perpetuating loopholes because we took the second look at some of these provisions and under the guidance of the staff improved them. And some of the dear friends up in the press have perpetuated that myth, that the Finance Committee has just carved out loopholes. Here is a long list of closing loopholes.
The Finance Committee worked for months on this bill. We brought it to the floor. We have spent 2 or 3 months defending our jurisdiction, preventing the distinguished Senator from Maine from taking over the bill after the distinguished Senator from Louisiana had worked for months on the bill, attended the hearings. Then that ended and a group called themselves the tax reformers want to take over.
There has been a lot of talk here, but those on the Committee on Finance have had to sit here and listen to all of it, and we have not done too much of the talking.
If Senators wish to destroy some sound reasonable tax reform measures, vote with the distinguished Senator from Maine. If Senators wish to perpetuate some abuses that have sprung up, go ahead and recommit the bill.
There are also some things in there that many people feel ought to be done.
The estate tax was enacted years ago to provide a tax on those large estates, that there was too much money to transfer to someone else. The growth of the country plus inflation has brought that tax down to where it reaches a great many people that should not be paying it, and all we have done here is allow for the inflation factor to bring some relief in the field of estate taxes. If Senators do not want any relief in that, Senators can vote to recommit.
Mr. President, I say that the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Finance, Senator LONG, has performed his task faithfully and well. Every group that wanted to be heard before the Committee on Finance was given a courteous hearing. They have tried to meet abuses, to close loopholes, but in so doing not to go beyond what should be done and hurt situations and persons that are not taking any unfair advantage.
Mr. President, I shall oppose the motion of the distinguished Senator from Maine who would wipe out all tax reforms for 2 solid years and deny Congress a chance to recover $2,477,000,000 in new revenue.
Mr. PACKWOOD. Mr. President, what is the pending business?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion of the Senator from Maine to recommit with instructions.
Mr. PACKWOOD. Mr. President, I have listened to the debate between the Senator from Maine and the Senator from Louisiana at some length about the powers of the Budget Committee and the powers of the Committee on Finance. I have listened to the argument that there are unjustifiable tax expenditures in this bill and I think we are confusing two and maybe three things. I think it is worth taking the time when we are new into this budget process to consider which direction this Senate wants to go.
Senators will recall when we started this debate there was an argument about whether or not the Finance Committee had to come up with $2 billion in tax loophole closures.
And frequently there was quoted a colloquy between the Senator from Maine and myself as to whether or not the Finance Committee had the obligation to close those loopholes. This was at the start of this bill. The reason I think the sequence is significant is because we are starting to see, if we go on as we are going on, a shift in emphasis and a shift in the power the different committees in this Congress are going to undertake, and that may be fine. But I think this Senate should know what it is doing when it gets into it.
That colloquy between Senator MUSKIE and myself was quoted and requoted at length. I thought it said that the Finance Committee was not under any obligation to try to come up with $2 billion if it did not want to. The Senator from Maine thought it should.
I want to quote, not from that colloquy, but from another statement from the Senator from Maine April 1, 1976, on pages 900 and 901 of the transcript of the Budget Committee. I emphasize this is unedited transcript from the reporter's notes. Senator MUSKIE said:
Just a moment. Let me make the point in light of where the debate has gone now. As far as the first concurrent resolution is concerned, all that we are doing when we act on this is establish the number that goes on the first concurrent resolution with respect to appropriate revenues.
But there is also a provision in the Budget Reform Act that it is the prerogative of the Budget Committee to specify whatever in its judgment it should with respect to tax expenditures.
Now, my own view is that if you really want to influence the Finance Committee and the Congress on the question of tax expenditures or tax spending, which I think is a better way of putting it ... then I think we have some obligation to take advantage of the report in whatever way the majority of the committee wants to indicate what proportion of that revenue number is expected to be achieved by reform in the tax law, with whatever detail it pleases the committee to include.
Next is the critical sentence.
If there is nothing in the report with respect to expenditures, or even if there is for that matter, the Finance Committee, of course, has simply the obligation to produce $361.4 billion in revenues and is not bound by whatever is or is not in the report to link that to tax expenditure reforms.
I understand that the Senator from Maine was saying that in April because at that time there was an understandable desire not to want to aggravate any Members of the Senate and to have them think that there would be a possibility that the Budget Committee would be overreaching the authority that we thought we might have given it. So there was a deference to the Members of this body.
Once we got into the debate on the floor, that statement, that the Finance Committee was not bound in any way, shape, or form by the suggestion of $2 billion in closing tax loopholes, was discarded, and we were almost put in a position of seeming to think we had a moral obligation to do it. Put that in the past.
Today, the Senator from Maine argued in opposition to the debate on the Roth amendment, which has no fiscal effect in the next year; that as chairman of the Budget Committee, he had an obligation to oppose the amendment. He accused the Senate of being fiscally irresponsible, of putting into the law—
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield on that point?
Mr. PACKWOOD. No, I do not think so, yet.
Mr. MUSKIE. That is typical.
Mr. PACKWOOD. Of being fiscally irresponsible, of building in long term, permanent tax expenditures, without any regard to its fiscal effect. He noted that we had cut this bill down to $150 million from a $2 billion bill.
I ask Senators: Are we going to be faced with a situation, when Senator ROTH or anybody else offers an amendment that has no effect on the next fiscal year, which in 1981 will lose $1.1 billion — will we be faced with the argument that we cannot consider that, that we should not consider that, that the Budget Committee has not considered it?
They have not considered the housing programs for 1981 or a lot of other programs for 1981.
Does that preclude this body from morally having any right to speak on those subjects? I do not think so.
I do not think we intended to create a Budget Committee which was going to be at the top of the pyramid of all other committees and at the top of the pyramid all over the actions on the Senate floor and say no action can be taken until the Budget Committee has reviewed it and has decided whether or not it is appropriate for their fiscal projects 3, 4, or 5 years hence.
I will conclude with the argument about tax expenditures. Today, the Senator from Maine said, over and over, "I have seen the Senate vote for exceptions in the Internal Revenue Code — and that is spending — when they would not in any way, shape, or form vote if those were direct appropriations for the same amount," as if to say they are one and the same thing. So far as I am concerned, they are not.
I supported the Roth amendment. I think it is a very fair amendment, to try to give to middle income parents in this country a deduction, to try to send their children to college. If it costs $1.1 billion in lost tax revenues in 1981, so be it. That is a world of difference from appropriating $1.1 billion to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and telling them to spend it on scholarships or tuition for college students.
Mr. PACKWOOD. I yield.
Mr. LONG. The Senator from Maine offered an amendment that would cost about that much this year, a direct budget buster, busting his own target. The Senator put in the RECORD his letter explaining that the economy was going to pick up and, therefore, we would have more revenue. That is the attitude the Senator took on his own amendment.
Mr. PACKWOOD. That was for one quarter, not a year — 3 months.
We have heard the expression "tax expenditure." I would much rather encourage people to go to college, to encourage the expansion of business, or encourage the installation of geothermal and insulating materials by a tax incentive, instead of a straight out expenditure.
Perhaps one day we will face up to this in a long debate, in a crowded Chamber, as the best way to encourage people to do things in this country.
We allow people a deduction on the interest when they buy or build a house. That is a tax expenditure. We allow people to take a deduction for interest because we want to encourage homebuilding.
If one wants to close that loophole, if one wants to call that a tax expenditure, fine. I do not agree with it. If the alternative to encouraging homebuilding in this country is for the Government to give a subsidy to everyone who wants tobuy or build a house — $2,900, $3,000, $4,000, or $5,000 — to give a preference, to allow them to have a deduction on the interest paid, I think it is a sad choice; because what is going to follow soon afterward is that you are building a house where the Government says you have to build it and in the size the Government says, or you will not get the subsidy.
I will tell Senators what many people who are called reformers object to. They object to the individual diversity in this country, because we encourage people to do things through tax credits instead of forming them into a uniform mold, where they have to conform to the same peg and hole in order to get a subsidy from Washington.
I do not think it is fair for the Senate or for the Finance Committee to be accused of being , almost immoral if we keep some of these socalled loopholes in the law, where we are trying to encourage private citizens to do things that we regard as socially desirable policy. That is preferable to the Government taking their money away and giving it back to them to do the policies we think they should do.
I do not think the Senate should have to say to itself, that we will approve no amendments — might as well not have any debate — on any issue that the Budget Committee has not considered. If that is the purpose of the Budget Committee,we can expedite the Senate's business very well. We probably can go back to meeting in March, adjourn in June, come back three or four times a year, and ratify what the Budget Committee has done, or turn it down, and we will not have any need for any hearings.
I hope that is not what the Senate intends, and I hope the Senate will not send this bill back to committee after 10 weeks of committee work and 5 weeks of work on the Senate floor, to say that we do not like what we have now fashioned.
Mr. LONG. Mr. President, I was aware of the fact that there was a group organized to undertake to tell us what we should do about our bill before we ever had our executive sessions. We had suggested to us, with some speeches on the floor, the type thing we should do; that if we did not do that, they were going to attempt to write our bill for us on the floor. When we reported our bill, it became clear that they expected to make a big thing out of this, well coordinated with certain press people in town; that they were going to give us a hard time; that they were going to fight us about anything in the bill and quarrel about anything the mind of man could quarrel about; and if they could not get their way, they would try to defeat the bill even though they had voted for practically everything in it.
That is the reason why I ask that we just vote on these titles. We have 11 titles agreed to unanimously, and we agreed to most of the others with only one or two dissenting votes.
Senators may not like everything in here, but it is a good bill as far as it goes, and that is all one can say about any bill. Senators are tired of voting on this measure. They are tired of considering measures and tired of working, and they want to quit and go home. Some want to go to the Republican Convention, and others want to take a rest or do whatever they are committed to do.
It would be all right with me to make a motion to recommit and report back with the bill the way it stands. That would be all right with the Senator — to report back the way the bill stands. At least, we would close these loopholes we have been talking about, and we would carry out what the Senate has voted to do.
I am a respecter of the Senate. I try to recommend what I believe the Senate wants to do. Of course, I have my own convictions and my own conscience to serve and my own duty to my country, as does every other Senator. But I try to keep in mind what the Senate would like to do about this; because, as a committee chairman, I realize that I have a duty to the Senate of the United States to try to bring to the Senate a bill that I think the Senate would be likely to agree to.
I ask this, Mr. President: Is the motion to recommit subject to amendment?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The instructions on the motion to recommit are subject to amendment.
Mr. LONG. Then, I am going to discuss this matter for a few moments while an amendment is prepared. I am going to see if Senators are tired of working on this matter and do not want to consider any more amendments. If that is what they want to do, then I will offer an amendment to this motion to simply say that we recommit and report back exactly the way the bill stands now.
That would deny some Senators the right to offer their amendments. I dislike doing that. But I would much rather do that than have every tax cheater in America or every tax avoider in America get by without doing what he should do. The House worked for a solid 3 years on this bill. They worked in the previous Congress, they worked in both sessions, and they finally got out a version of tax reform that had too much controversy and was too late to be passed that year. What did we do?
In the dying days of the session, we simply stripped from the bill the language in it that would not be controversial and we passed that in the closing days of that session. We took care of that problem.
Then, we proceeded, when they sent us this bill the following year, to take care of the priority matters first, such as the debt limit, and we went to work on this bill.
The distinguished Senator from Massachusetts and his group asked for a meeting. We held a meeting over in the majority leader's office, Mr. MANSFIELD's office. They pressed me hard, saying, "Look, we want this bill out here so we can vote our version of tax reform between now and that Democratic Convention." I suffered a lot of criticism for trying to get this bill out as quickly as I could so the Senate could vote on it. I was trying to do what I committed myself as a gentleman to do, to have that bill out here, hoping that the Senate I could pass it before the Democratic Convention.
Those same Senators had every right to offer all their amendments, and they did. That is why it has taken so long out here on the Senate floor, to let them offer amendments and to hear them make their arguments at length. They had a right to do it. I do not criticize them for a moment.
They had their day, and they won on some of them, may I say. I congratulate them on their victory. But they did not win enough to suit their desires.
In view of the fact that they did not have their way altogether, they would just prefer that every tax avoider in America get away with it for the next couple of years, rather than let a bill go through that they have not been able to write completely according to the way they would like to do, even though they have voted for most of what is in this bill.
That would be a sad travesty, Mr. President. Imagine that. All these people, all this conversation.
I wish I had a recording to play back all those eloquent speeches that made these rafters ring about those 244 people who paid no income tax. Were they not eloquent? Did they not ring the rafters? Those same Senators would like those same people to get away with that for 2 more years, and maybe even those people who paid a little bit of tax, though not all.
Maybe the Senate is just weary. I have been working a lot, too, but the Senate is just weary of considering this matter and weary of voting. The hour is getting late. Here it is, getting close to 8 o'clock. If the Senate wants to consider no more amendments, but just vote to let the tax avoiders, tax cheaters, and people who have fine lawyers to help them get away with paying no taxes get away with it for 2 more years, then that is all right.
I send to the desk an amendment and ask that it be considered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment will be stated.
UP AMENDMENT NO. 316
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Louisiana (Mr. LONG) proposes unprinted amendment No. 316:
Amendment to motion by Mr. MUSKIE:
Strike the last word on line 4 and all the words thereafter through line 6 and insert in ] lieu thereof the following: "to which the Senate has so far agreed."
Mr. LONG. Mr. President, if this amendment carries, this would deny us the opportunity to consider the proposal with regard to the inheritance tax, but the House is sending us a bill on inheritance taxes, so we shall still have an opportunity to discuss it. If this amendment carries, I promise Senators that I shall do my best to see that on that bill, they will have their chance to offer and have considered the amendments that they would be barred from having considered by virtue of the fact that the Senate has just gotten weary.
Mr. JAVITS. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. LONG. I yield for a question. I do not desire to yield the floor.
Mr. JAVITS. I ask the Senator whether or not he believes that the effect of his amendment will be to deny 7 Members who have amendments to offer the opportunity to offer them when
the committee reports the bill back? If so, I shall respectfully suggest a point of order against the amendment.
I know how the Senator feels, but he is tired, too. I hope he will not press forward with this amendment. I think that Senator Muskie has offered us a clean, up and down proposition. I intend to vote no. I voted "aye" on Senator WEICKER's motion respecting tabling because I wanted to hear the very debate which is taking place. So I hope, and I just express this as one Senator and a
relatively old friend, that we will not complicate it any further. It is a clean cut proposition — do we want to go ahead or not?
Mr. LONG. Let me make this clear to the Senator. If this amendment that I am making is agreed to, it will deny to other Senators the right to offer their amendments to exactly the same extent as Mr. MUSKIE's motion would deny them the right to offer their amendments. They can offer it, but a motion to recommit and report back, under the traditions of a Senate, is tantamount to a gentlemen's agreement that we are going to pass the bill just as it stands at that point. What that means is that when a motion to recommit and report back has been agreed to, the Senators have agreed among themselves that they are not going to offer any more amendments.
That would not deny the Senator his amendment. That amendment is in the bill. I have another one I would like to offer. They have denied me the chance to offer mine.
Mr. JAVITS. Knowing the Senator as I do, I believe he would be tempted to vote no on his own amendment. Therefore, would it not be wise not to push it?
Mr. LONG. My proposition is this: If the Senate is weary, if the Senate is tired, they want to go home and say, "Well, we did the best we could," as Harry Truman said about that judge out there in Missouri, "I done my damnedest," all right; or, "I have done just about all I can do, and therefore I want to go home" — if they want to do that, they should not junk what they spent a month out here working on and voting for.
Mr. JAVITS. Will not the Senator vote no on his own amendment?
Mr. LONG. I say to the Senator I shall vote for my amendment to the Muskie motion. If that amendment carries and it be the will of the Senate that we ought to persevere for another day or so and pass this bill, that is fine with me.
Mr. PACKWOOD. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. LONG. Yes, for a question.
Mr. PACKWOOD. I believe it was the intention of the Senator from Louisiana in his amendment to the motion to recommit to recommit everything that we have passed, with instructions to report back, and that everything we have passed will be reported back in the bill.
Mr. LONG. That is right.
Mr. PACKWOOD. I do not believe title VI has been adopted yet. I want to be sure the Senator's amendment includes either the prepaid legal services or the Roth amendment as passed. If it does not, will the Senator include those two we already acted on today?
Mr. LONG. The section of the Senator has been included.
Mr. PACKWOOD. That would be partof the motion?
Mr. LONG. The Senator's section is in there.
Mr. PACKWOOD. I just want to make sure that on the motion of the Senator from Louisiana with instructions to come back with everything we have passed, it would include the Roth amendment of today and my amendment on legal services.
Mr. LONG. It would not include the Roth amendment, nor would the Muskie motion. If the Muskie motion is agreed to, the Roth amendment goes down with the Muskie motion.
Mr. PACKWOOD. I understand that, but I observe that we voted after a lot of work on the prepaid legal services. I want to make sure that is included.
Mr. LONG. That is definitely in. That is in.
Mr. PACKWOOD. If the Senator's motion carries, that will come back with the bill.
Mr. LONG. That is how it will be.
I yield to the Senator from Kansas for a question.
Mr. DOLE. If the amendment passes, for those of us who have waited day after day and hour after hour, listening to the self-appointed so-called tax reformers, that means we cannot offer our amendments?
Mr. LONG. That is what the effect of it would be.
I put it this way to the Senator: As between two difficult decisions, which would he rather have: The one which he has been able to get agreed to in the committee, and one where all he has been able to get agreed to thus far and voted for goes down the drain and all we get is a simple extension of the tax cut? Between the two now — I am just asking him if he would vote for my amendment rather than the Muskie amendment.
As far as I am concerned, if the Senate wants to do what I would like to do and stick around here for a while and vote the whole thing up or down, that is all right with me, too.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield further? There will be a little meeting in Kansas City next week and probably for the pure politics of it, nothing could suit the Republicans and those listening more than to recommit this bill and not have a tax bill.
The Presidential candidate of the Senator's party, Jimmy Carter, has indicated it is a national disgrace, and I assume if you wanted to play politics Republicans would vote to recommit this bill and go out across the country and help President Ford or whoever the nominee might be, and agree with Jimmy Carter that it is a disgrace that the Democrats cannot do anything about it.
But some of us have spent weeks and weeks and months and months on the tax bill, and it just seems to this Senator that if we now have one or two amendments that we should not be denied the opportunity to present those amendments.
The Senator from Kansas has an amendment to increase the personal exemption from $750 to $1,000. The Senator thinks it is worthwhile. I intend to have a vote on it. Would I be precluded from offering that amendment?
Mr. LONG. I say to the Senator he would not be precluded from offering an amendment, it could still be offered. But I believe the Senator knows what the precedents are. When a motion to recommit and report back is agreed to, while the bill is still subject to amendment, the precedents and traditions of the Senate are that that amounts to a gentlemen's agreement that we will not agree to further amendments.
So the Senator can offer it, but the Senate has, in effect, agreed it is not going to accept more amendments. So the Senator has got a right without a remedy, from a lawyer's point of view, admittedly.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. LONG. I yield for a question.
Mr. MUSKIE. I do not really want to ask a question. I want to ask unanimous consent that I can make an observation.
Mr. LONG. I do not want to yield the floor.
Mr. MUSKIE. I want to make a very simple point. It will not take more than 30 seconds.
Mr. LONG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I might yield 30 seconds to the Senator from Maine without losing the right to the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr LEAHY). Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. MUSKIE. I want to say that whether the Senators vote for or against the Senator's amendment, whether they vote for the Muskie motion or against the Muskie motion, I will get the message You can fool around with the message as to the budget as much as you want to I think the clear cut one will be my motion. The Senate will have a chance to send a clear message to me and to you but I will get the message whichever one it is.
I am not going to try to force Senator DOLE or anybody else to accept my position on this motion. All I want is a signal. It will not take very long to get to vote on it.
Mr. HANSEN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. LONG. Well, Mr. President, I would like to know which way Senators want to go. It may be that Senators prefer to work another day or so and finish action on this bill. If that is what they want to do then I am ready to offer a motion to table the Muskie motion, which would take my amendment with it, and if that motion fails then, Mr. President, I would insist on my amendment because I think my amendment is a better one constructively.
Mr. President, I move to table the Muskie motion.