Trent Lott: “To the comments of the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, I want to emphasize that this involves a lot more than…”

“To the comments of the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, I want to emphasize that this involves a lot more than the minimum wage. It does involve a package of small business tax amendments that could be very helpful to small businesses in America, where most of the jobs are created in America anyway, or the majority of them and particularly where most of the entry-level people are working. And so that is a part of this package. The gas tax issue, whereby there would be a repeal of the 4.3-cent-a-gallon gas tax, has been involved in all of this. The issue of the taxpayer bill of rights is involved, as well as the TEAM issue which had been offered earlier, so that we could have cooperation between employees and employers. As our colleagues know, this issue took on more and more issues as it languished for 1 month or 6 weeks and every time it came up there was another angle to it. So that is point No. 1. Second, I think we were very close to having an agreement between Senator Daschle and myself last night, or late yesterday afternoon, one that was not universally appealing on our side of the aisle or on the other side of the aisle, but then I believe Senator Daschle found there were some concerns on your side of the aisle with what we were trying to get an agreement on. We have met subsequently, and we have discussed other ways that maybe that can be dealt with. But we are being extra careful because we want to develop a relationship that is one of trust and respect.”