Jon Kyl: “let me respond to the kind invitation of the ranking member of the Finance Committee, on which I sit, to speak to the…”

“let me respond to the kind invitation of the ranking member of the Finance Committee, on which I sit, to speak to the matter that is before us. I appreciate listening to his remarks about various aspects of the reconciliation tax bill and features thereof. Let me speak to some of those items as well. There will be a lot of debate, I suspect, over the next several hours--much of which has very little to do with the Senate bill--but I think in anticipation of what is likely to occur in the conference committee when the Senate bill joins up with the House bill and we decide what provisions to take from each of those bills and bring back to our respective bodies. Clearly, discussion about the capital gains and dividends extension will be part of that discussion. Let me start with that. I want to begin by noting that the budget resolution which the conference reached in April provides reconciliation protection for $70 billion in tax reductions over 5 years with the direction that the allocations be used to prevent tax-rate increases during the budget window, which is 2006 to 2010. Let me repeat that. The instruction that we gave for this budget was to prevent tax-rate increases during this budget window. If we do not take action, there will be tax-rate increases during this budget period. This, as the President said in his State of the Union speech, would be both unanticipated and very unwelcomed by the American people. What exactly do we mean by that?…”