Ron Wyden: “to respond briefly, I thank the Senator from Mississippi. I am interested in working with him on the Finance Committee.…”

“to respond briefly, I thank the Senator from Mississippi. I am interested in working with him on the Finance Committee. This discussion does need to be part of a longer debate. The Senator from Mississippi has drawn an important distinction that a number of us have talked about as to the difference between the small firms and the independents and the big firms. What we tried to do in this bipartisan amendment is to preserve it. Frankly, in a sense, we ought to do this just to prevent the embarrassment of the Senate. When you have these big oil companies show up in broad daylight and say they don't need these tax breaks, and the Congress has just been sending out billions of dollars, that ought to be a wake-up call for both sides of the aisle, Democrats and Republicans, to work together to rethink this. I hope this will be the beginning of such an effort. It is a modest step. It will save $300 million over 10 years--clearly, not what we need to do to deal with the hemorrhaging of the Federal budget, but at least it is a step in the right direction. I thank the distinguished Senator from Mississippi and reserve the remainder of my time. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.”