Kent Conrad: “first I thank the ranking member on the Senate Committee on Finance, Senator Baucus, for his leadership and for the…”

“first I thank the ranking member on the Senate Committee on Finance, Senator Baucus, for his leadership and for the extraordinary amount of work he does to make the work of the Committee on Finance as responsible as it can be. There are many provisions in the underlying bill that has come out of the Committee on Finance that I support. I think they are broadly supported extensions of expiring tax provisions that ought to be extended. I salute the chairman of the Committee on Finance, Senator Grassley, for the good job he has done in putting together this package. While I agree with many of the specific provisions, I have one profound area of disagreement. That profound area of disagreement is that this package is not paid for. The result, if we pass this package, will be to deepen the deficit, to add to the debt, when we already have record deficits and we already have runaway debt. My colleagues are going to have to answer the question, Why shouldn't we pay for these tax provisions? Why shouldn't we cover the cost? Why shouldn't we prevent the deficit from being expanded? Why shouldn't we prevent the debt from being deepened? That is the question posed by my amendment. It takes many of the provisions in the Committee on Finance bill, the expiring tax provisions, and extends them for 1 year. It pays for them fully. It is very important to remember the history. How did we get in the position we are in today?…”