Max Baucus: “today, we debate this tax reconciliation bill for a third time. We last debated this bill on February 2, Groundhog Day.…”

“today, we debate this tax reconciliation bill for a third time. We last debated this bill on February 2, Groundhog Day. My friend from Iowa, the chairman of the committee, Senator Grassley, last week compared this repeated debate to Groundhog Day. That is true. This debate does remind us of the wonderful film ``Groundhog Day,'' where Bill Murray is forced to live the same day over and over again. But at the risk of giving away some of the plot of the film, let me remind my colleagues of the lesson of the film. In the film, providence dooms Bill Murray to repeat the same day--Groundhog Day, that is--until he learns to live it right. One might say that is where we are. We are doomed to debate tax policy over and over again until we get it right. In November, when we first debated this bill, the Senate voted 64 to 33 to pass the bill to support AMT relief to middle-income families. Again, last week, the Senate voted 66 to 31 to again pass the bill and support the alternative minimum tax, otherwise known as AMT, relief for middle-income families. In particular, the Senate last week voted 73 to 24 to support the Menendez amendment to express the sense of the Senate that protecting middle-income families from the alternative minimum tax should be a higher priority in 2006 than extending capital gains and dividends tax cuts that do not expire until the end of 2008 or the beginning of 2009.…”