February 22,2010

Grassley: So-called Jobs Bill Omits Key Job Provisions; Process Leaves Zero Room for Improvement


The Senate is about to engage in a cloture vote on the Senate Democratic Leadership’s thirdstimulus bill. What I find surprising is that what we are about to vote on indisputably andabsolutely belongs to the majority leader. That is to say we are not going to vote on a bipartisanpackage that I put together with Finance Committee Chairman Baucus. I was under theimpression that the Senate Democratic Leadership was genuine in its desire to work on abipartisan basis, but clearly I was mistaken. Although the Senate Democratic Leader was highlyinvolved in the development of a bipartisan bill, he arbitrarily decided to replace it with a bill hehopes to jam through the Senate.

As much as I was surprised by the Senate Democratic Leader’s disregard for bipartisanship, I ameven more surprised by the explanations given by him and his cohorts.

Perhaps the most significant change between the bipartisan package Chairman Baucus and Ihelped put together and the package we will be voting to move to is that a package of expired taxprovisions has been removed. Normally referred to as extenders, these generally very popularand certainly bipartisan provisions have been extended several times over the past few years.What is surprising is that hyper-partisan members of the majority have suddenly decided that thetax extenders are partisan pork for Republicans.

A representative sample comes from one report, which describes the bipartisan bill as “anextension of soon-to-expire tax breaks that are highly beneficial to major corporations, known astax extenders, as well as other corporate giveaways that had been designed to win GOPsupport.” Just today the Washington Post includes this attribution to the Senate DemocraticLeadership. From the Post:

“ “We’re pretty close,” {the majority leader} said Friday during a television appearance inNevada, adding that he thought quote, “fat cats”, unquote, would have benefitted too much fromthe larger Baucus-Grassley bill.”

The portrait being painted by certain members of the majority, echoed without criticalexamination in some press reports, is wildly inaccurate.

For one thing, the tax extenders include provisions such as the deduction for qualified tuition andrelated expenses and also the deduction for certain expenses of elementary and secondary schoolteachers. If you are going to school or if you are a grade school teacher, the Senate DemocraticLeadership thinks you are a fat cat so you are on your own. If your house was destroyed in arecent natural disaster and you still need any of the temporary disaster relief provisions containedin the extenders package, too bad, because helping you would amount to a corporate giveaway inthe eyes of some.

The tax extenders have been routinely passed repeatedly because they are bipartisan and verypopular. Democrats have consistently voted in favor of extending these tax provisions.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a very strong statement upon House passage of taxextenders in December of 2009, saying this was, quote, “good for businesses, good forhomeowners, and good for our communities,” end quote. December of 2009 was not very longago. In 2006, the then-Democratic Leader released a blistering statement, quote, “after BushRepublicans in the Senate blocked passage of critical tax extenders,” end quote, because, quote,“American families and businesses are paying the price because this Do Nothing RepublicanCongress refuses to extend important tax breaks,” end quote. I ask unanimous consent that bothof these statements be printed in the record in their entirety.

Recent bipartisan votes in the Senate on extending expiring tax provisions have come in theEmergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008; the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006,which passed the Senate by unanimous consent; and the Working Families Tax Relief Act of2004, which originally passed the Senate by voice vote although the conference report received92 votes in favor and a whopping 3 against. According to the non-partisan CongressionalResearch Service, extension of several of these provisions go back even further, including theTax Relief Extension Act of 1999, which again passed the Senate by unanimous consent but lost1 vote on the conference report.

Blinded and dazed by the power of their now not-so-super majority, certain Democrats have inthe last few weeks turned against the extenders. One Democrat said, quote, “Our side isn’t surethat the Republicans are real interested in developing good policy and to move forward together.Instead, they are more inclined to play rope-a-dope again. My own view is, let’s test them,” endquote. Another member of this large 59-vote majority exclaimed, quote, “It looks more like atax bill than a jobs bill to me. What the Democratic Caucus is going to put on the floor issomething that’s more focused on job creation than on tax breaks,” end quote.

The only explanation for this behavior is that certain senators have decided that it serves a deeplypartisan goal to slander what have been for several years bipartisan and popular tax provisionsbenefitting many different people.

Today’s Washington Post article I quoted from earlier includes a statement from a SenateDemocratic leadership aide saying that, quote, “No decisions have been made, but anyoneexpecting us immediately to go back to a bill that includes tax extenders will be sorelydisappointed,” end quote.

Having put their heads into the sand, this chamber’s Democratic leaders seem intent on keepingthem there. I appeal to all of you to vote against the Democratic Leadership’s effort today to jamthe Senate. A vote for the Senate Democratic Leadership’s cloture motion is a vote to foreclosean opportunity to improve the bill. It also is a vote to forbid any corrections to mistakes in thebill. And there is a significant mistake in the Senate Democratic Leadership’s bill. The bill ascurrently written would allow employers of illegal workers to benefit from the payroll taxholiday. We should correct that mistake with an amendment. The Senate DemocraticLeadership’s posture prohibits this correction.

Either the Democratic leaders are playing partisan politics with tax extenders, or they don’tunderstand the worth of the provisions to the economy, including job retention and creation. Thebiodiesel industry alone says 23,000 jobs are at risk due to the biodiesel tax credit being allowedto expire. Those workers are not fat cats.

And in case anyone thinks biodiesel is something only Iowans worry about, these green jobs arein forty-four of the fifty states. There are 24 facilities in Texas. There are 15 facilities in Iowa.There are 6 facilities in Illinois and 6 in Missouri. There are 4 facilities in Washington. Ohiohas 11 facilities. There are 5 facilities in Indiana. There are 3 facilities each in Mississippi andSouth Carolina. There are 7 facilities in Pennsylvania and 4 in Arkansas. New Jersey has 2facilities.

There is one facility in North Dakota. Only 6 of the 50 states do not have some biodieselproduction. They are Alaska, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Wyoming. Theother forty-four states have some biodiesel presence. I ask unanimous consent to put in therecord an article from the Erie, Pennsylvania, newspaper, describing the struggles of a localbiodiesel plant.

So we need to turn away from talk of fat cats. We need to get back to work on the bipartisanpackage that was in the works until the Senate Democratic Leadership’s dramatic change indirection. Many people who are not fat cats or a part of large corporations are counting on theseprovisions being extended, and they are counting on their elected representatives to worktogether, as we were doing, to get the job done.

I yield the floor.