Max Baucus: “there isn't anybody in this body for whom I have higher respect and more affection than the Senator from Iowa. I must…”

“there isn't anybody in this body for whom I have higher respect and more affection than the Senator from Iowa. I must say when I listened to his arguments against this amendment, virtually nothing was said that addressed the merits. In fact, there were some statements which were a little bit misleading. Lawyers like to call them red herrings. That is when you say something to try to get people off track so they don't think about the subject at hand. It is called a red herring. One of the red herrings we heard was that Democrats voted against this amendment in the past, and it was Democrats who voted for this increase in Social Security taxes back in 1993. That was 10 years ago. That is a different time, a different situation, different circumstance. Back then the Congress voted to reduce deficits, and that was part of a large deficit reduction package. This is 10 years later, 2003. We are faced with the question, within a $350 billion tax bill, how should the tax cuts be allocated. That is the question before us. Many of us believe it is a far wiser policy that seniors receive more of the tax benefit as a result of the cuts than is the case under the Senate Finance Committee bill. That is why we think the 1993 provision should be repealed because then seniors will receive significant benefits if it is repealed, and we believe that is a higher priority than giving a lot more dollars to very few Americans who are the elite, the extremely wealthy Americans.”