Kent Conrad

This requires strong action, determined action.

Health care is where it is at.

We are very pleased that the Obama administration intends to ask for BIE funding for UTTC.

We thank the House and Senate Interior Subcommittees and our congressional delegation--Representative Pomeroy, Senator Dorgan and Senator Conrad for their support.

I thank the leader. I was thinking about this the other night. We don't thank the leader enough. We are blessed on our side with a leader whom I think every Member on our side has high confidence in because of his good judgment, his…

But would the Senator acknowledge that the $300 billion that he referenced is simply not accurate.

I say to the Senator a 1-percent difference is a 1-percent difference, whatever the denominator is. One percent is a very small amount of money.

One percent of $3 trillion, I think the Senator would acknowledge, is not $300 billion, it is $30 billion?

This amendment simply allows individuals who buy health insurance on their own to deduct it from their taxes. All of us talk about the uninsured. This is a chance to give a number of the uninsured the opportunity to buy health insurance on…

If you want to blow a hole in the budget as big as all outdoors, here is your opportunity--a trillion dollars not paid for, a trillion dollars that we are going to go out and borrow from the Chinese and Japanese. That makes absolutely no…

The budget resolution already provides for a 1-year package of extenders that is fully paid for. The Kyl amendment would add a second year without paying for it. Consequently, the Kyl amendment would drive us $28.6 billion into debt…

The Senator has made a good suggestion and one that Senator Gregg and I have just discussed that we will do during this break, and that is to try to put together, No. 1, a finite list of amendments that still require a vote; and, No. 2, a…

I want to, one more time, implore our colleagues--we have some colleagues who have multiple amendments pending. By the time we end this tranche, we will have had nearly 40 votes. That is significantly more than any of the last 3 years we…

There are real cuts, the Senator is right about that. This would cut, across the board by $21 billion, education, veterans' health, homeland security, law enforcement. If you want to do that, vote for the Bunning amendment. I urge my…

The alternative I have offered would provide for a reserve fund that would allow the repeal of the 1993 tax increase on Social Security benefits in a way that would protect Social Security and Medicare and not increase the deficit or the…

The alternative minimum tax will affect an additional 20 million families if it is not dealt with. In the budget resolution, we have a 1-year patch to prevent additional families from being hit. This is at a cost of some $62 billion. For…

The Graham amendment, well-intentioned as it is, is the road to fiscal irresponsibility. This will absolutely blow a hole in the budget. We now have balance by 2012, and we maintain balance in 2013. If you adopt the Graham…

We fully fund the President's defense and war costs request. So let's not have any misunderstanding about that for the troops.

That is absolutely fair. I didn't want to leave some impression that you and I had some great difference on the numbers. I think our numbers are actually very close.

I would like to try to harmonize the numbers because I don't want to leave people with the misimpression that we have some difference on the numbers because I don't think we do. The Senator is talking about 131,000 estates possibly being…

Well, that is the unfortunate part of, as I see it, the amendment of the Senator from Arizona. What he is doing is saying--he is asking all of us, all Americans, to put our name on the bill. But the money is only going to two-tenths of 1…

Well, if his amendment costs another $458 billion, it is not offset. And in a typical bond auction now conducted by the United States, over half of the money, well over half now, is money from abroad. So you can take well over half of the…

My understanding is--and the Senator might correct me-- that under the Kyl proposal the cost would be approaching $200 billion over--$458 billion over 10 years.

Yes, that is true, under the exemption rates for next year. Under the exemption rates for next year, it will be two-tenths of 1 percent. I believe this year it is five-tenths of 1 percent; there are 99.5 percent this year that are exempt…

No, this is this Tax Policy Center, I say to my colleague, and they estimate the number of estates in any year, and then they do a further analysis of how many would actually pay an estate tax, and what they have concluded is two-tenths of…