Max Baucus: “I support the pending substitute amendment. I encourage my colleagues to support it as well. I almost need a flow chart…”

“I support the pending substitute amendment. I encourage my colleagues to support it as well. I almost need a flow chart to explain how we got here. But because of several events, there is now more room for tax cuts. Yes, you heard right: more tax cuts. We should tread carefully, though, rather than dive in. We have an opportunity to show responsibility. And I think that this substitute does just that. Let me first explain how we got here. As my colleagues will recall, the tax reconciliation bill that we passed last November included much- needed relief for the Gulf States affected by Hurricane Katrina. Congress passed and enacted those incentives separately in December. Further, our tax bill allocation was limited by the fact that the spending reconciliation bill had not been enacted. The House is expected to pass that bill today, clearing it for the President. The bottom line is that this bill can accommodate $18 billion more in tax cuts. We have an opportunity here to show some responsibility. And the responsible thing to do is to pass another year of extenders. Otherwise, we will be right back here in a few months to pass those extenders. Or since it is an election year, we will be back during a lame duck session considering the same set of expiring provisions. These are very popular, bipartisan tax cuts we extend year after year. But we never have the resources in any given year to make them permanent.…”