Chuck Grassley: “in explaining the rationale for my motion to instruct, I will be referring to other motions to instruct that two…”

“in explaining the rationale for my motion to instruct, I will be referring to other motions to instruct that two Senators on the other side have put in place, Senator Dodd of Connecticut and Senator Reed of Rhode Island. The Dodd motion to instruct is yet another episode in the tale of the ``groundhogization'' of this tax relief reconciliation bill, a long journey. The Senate adopted the alternative to the Dodd amendment, a Grassley amendment, that passed, including the following Budget Act waiver language: Waive all provisions of the Budget Act and budget resolutions necessary for the consideration of the pending amendment to this bill, and for the inclusion of the language of the pending amendment in consideration of an amendment between Houses. That is what we added back on February 2 to S. 2020. The Dodd motion instructs conferees to proceed by ignoring this waiver language. You see, the waiver language only applies for the purposes of our action in the Senate. If Senator Dodd were to prevail, the conferees could not follow his directive without violating the Budget Act. It is because the Dodd motion deals with outlays. We can't do outlays in a budget reconciliation package. I might add that the Reed motion that we expect to vote on tomorrow suffers from the same defect. The conferees, even if they were inclined, can't return from conference with a provision that contains outlays. We all know this is a political season.…”