Jay Rockefeller: “This amendment takes the top rate reduction of our income tax as proposed under the compromise bill and makes it…”

“This amendment takes the top rate reduction of our income tax as proposed under the compromise bill and makes it contingent upon the passage of a prescription drug bill, a prescription drug benefit that would, in fact, be voluntary, accessible, affordable. This amendment, therefore, is in the most immediate terms about priorities. It is a classic choice that Senators are going to have to make that will say a lot to the American people. It is clearly saying the Medicare prescription drug benefit that every single political person on this Hill and those at the other end of the avenue who promised to the American people is just as important as a tax reduction for the wealthiest of our people. This amendment does not preclude the tax cut--I wish that to be clear--but, rather, shifts the debate back to the promise we have made and about which we have been very firm and talked about endlessly at hearings and years of fora.”