Trent Lott: “this has been very delicately developed with a lot of careful consideration and very aggressive work with our colleagues…”

“this has been very delicately developed with a lot of careful consideration and very aggressive work with our colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I know Senator Daschle has Senators who have tax amendments they would like to offer. I should emphasis that this is not the last effort to try to make our Tax Code fairer this year. We will have the reconciliation bill that will involve marriage penalty tax elimination, and obviously tax amendments would be offered in that area. We still have legislation that would eliminate the Spanish American telephone tax, which we probably can't get to until the first of September. But it is something we should eliminate. Obviously, there will be an opportunity for additional tax-related amendments to be offered to these two. There may be a number of amendments on both sides that Senators would like to offer that maybe cannot be included in this type of agreement. But this is not the last train out of Dodge, thank goodness. We will have other opportunities to develop a fairer Tax Code, and Senators will have an opportunity on both sides to offer amendments. I thank Senator Daschle for his effort. I did not want us to just get to a cloture vote which might or might not pass. But if it failed, we would get no result. I think the death tax needs to be eliminated. It needs to be phased out. There may be some modifications in the bill as we go forward.”