Trent Lott: “I begin by congratulating and expressing my appreciation to leaders on both sides of the aisle for finally coming to an…”

“I begin by congratulating and expressing my appreciation to leaders on both sides of the aisle for finally coming to an agreement on a process that will get us into conference on this important legislation. It is unfortunate that it has been delayed for weeks. We should have been in conference a month ago or more. Some of the demands about how we would go to conference or what would happen in that conference have been very inappropriate. One can't preordain what will come out of a conference. They can't say that any one person will determine whether a conference is reported, whether it is a leader or anybody else. But this issue is so important that we need to go into conference. It is about some important tax provisions that will help manufacturing, service, and our high-technology businesses and workers. It is a way to deal with a problem we have caused by a ruling by the World Trade Organization saying that our tax provisions, our alleged subsidies, were not in compliance with WTO, and we are being penalized in an increasing amount each month on a lot of American products because we have not dealt with this issue.”