Chuck Grassley: “last night and earlier today the Senate debated the Hagel-Ensign prescription drug amendment. During the course of that…”

“last night and earlier today the Senate debated the Hagel-Ensign prescription drug amendment. During the course of that debate, some Members on the other side made a comparison of the cost of the Graham-Kennedy prescription drug amendment and the revenue loss of a proposal to repeal the ``sunset'' of death tax relief provisions in last year's bipartisan tax relief bill. The essence of the argument was that the budget effects of these proposals are roughly equal. As we heard many times, the Senate was supposedly making a choice between these two proposals. Senator Schumer claimed, during the argument, two different figures for repeal of the sunset. At one point, the Senator from New York claimed the revenue loss was $670 billion. At another point, a few moments later, the Senator from New York claimed the revenue loss was $600 billion. The Congressional Budget Office scored the Graham amendment as a spending increase of $594 billion. This figure covers the 8-year proposal's 10-year budget effect. Now, if you accepted Senator Schumer's figures as is, then there might be some basis for his argument. That is, if, in fact, the Joint Committee on Taxation scored the proposed permanent death tax relief proposal at $600 billion or $670 billion, then Senator Schumer's argument might be worth debate. The facts are different. I don't know where Senator Schumer got his figure. Maybe it was a liberal think tank, such as the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities.”