Byron Dorgan: “Yes. When I talk about larding up, the Senator from West Virginia is talking about how people always refer to spending…”

“Yes. When I talk about larding up, the Senator from West Virginia is talking about how people always refer to spending bills as pork, but never refer to tax bills as pork. In fact, there is more lard and larding up of tax bills than almost anything else. The retroactive repeal of the corporate alternative minimum tax in the House tax bill does as I said it would--it provides the biggest tax benefits to the biggest, most powerful corporations in the country. Here is what the chief economist from Merrill Lynch said about it because, remember now, the only reason we are going through this exercise is to try to determine how we help the American economy. Bruce Steinberg, chief economist, said: The silliest idea is the retroactive AMT payments. If you want to stimulate spending in the future, you don't give out tax breaks for things that already happened. It is as simple as that.”