Kent Conrad: “First, let me answer the question of the Senator from Arizona. Am I surprised? I am not surprised there are things in…”

“First, let me answer the question of the Senator from Arizona. Am I surprised? I am not surprised there are things in here almost nobody knows about. I started out by going back to President Reagan's admonishment to us never to permit this to happen again. That was in 1988. This is 2004, and here we are again 16 years later with over 3,000 pages dumped on our desks, and we are told to vote on this in a few hours. Nobody knows what is in here. We have been scouring this bill--thank goodness some sharp-eyed aide of mine saw this little nugget. I must say, I am surprised something such as this could even get through a flawed process like this one. I am amazed we are about to pass in the Congress of the United States a provision that would allow some staffers to look at any tax return of any individual, of any company, and not have civil or criminal penalties apply to them for the release of that information. I tell you, that is serious. That is serious.”