through to our friends on the other side of the aisle who have consistently stated that the reid bill, according to the joint committee on taxation, is a net tax cut -- and he emphasis upon the word "net." yesterday a chart -- this chart -- was used to illustrate this point. this chart -- or, no ... not this chart, a chart that the other side was using to illustrate that point. and that -- this chart that i'm referring to as multiple bars with dollar figures. for example, in 2019 -- in 2019 we see here a figure of $40.8 billion net tax cut.

now, my democratic friend said in this number came from the joint committee on taxation. unfortunately, the chart that my friends were using at that time is not entirely clear on how they came up with this net tax cut. so that's what i want to bring to my colleagues' attention. so it's quite natural for most to wonder how that number came about. so they said, show me the data. well, to clear up any confusion, here is the joint committee on taxation table that the democrats relied on to claim that the reid bill results in a net tax cut. you see here this negative figure of $40,786,000,000. and, of course, negative, that minus mark there. now, my friends on the other

side unfortunately do not explain what's going on. instead, it appears that the other side simply made a an assertion that they hope many of us and those in the media would believe and i'm not going to let my friend on the other side of the aisle get away with this, because the entire story is not being told. so let me take a moment to explain. first, in simplest terms, where you see the negative number on this chart, joint committee on taxation is telling us that there is some type of tax benefit going to the taxpayers. for example, families making between $50,000 and $75,000, you can see, have a negative $10,084 -- $10,489 number in

their column. this means that the joint committee on taxation is telling us that this income category is receiving, $10.4 billion in tax benefits. but i need to have you listen more closely, because when we see a negative number on this chart, the joint committee tells us that there is a tax benefit. so conversely, where we see positive numbers, in these areas here, where you see positive numbers, joint committee on taxation is telling us that these taxpayers are seeing a tax increase. a tax increase. i've actually enlarged those numbers of tax returns and the dollar amounts where there is a positive number for individuals and families. once again, right in here. again, these positive numbers

indicate a tax increase. so my friends have said that all tax returns on this chart are receiving a net tax cut. if there were so, why aren't there negative numbers next to all the dollars on this chart? because not everyone on this chart is receiving a tax cut, despite what was -- has been said, including just within the last hour. quite to the contrary. a number of taxpayers are clearly seeing a net increase. and this group of taxpayers -- this group of taxpayers are middle-income taxpayers. i didn't come down to the floor to say my friends on the other side are wrong. after all, you can see the negative numbers quite frequently on the chart.

after all, you see this number, $40,800,000,000. what i am doing is clarifying that my friends on the other side cannot spread this $40 billion -- $40.8 billion tax cut across all of the affected taxpayers on this chart and then say all have received a tax cut. why? because this chart, produced by the joint committee on taxation, shows that taxes go up for individuals making more than $50,000 and families making more than $75,000. it's right here on these yellow figures. numbers don't lie, and, of course, the people that inhabit the joint committee on taxation are professional people that do not have a political agenda and

they tell it like it is. that's what they're hieferred for. they're hired for. that's why they're the same people around whether you have a democrat or republican majority in the congress. i'd like to give you my read on what the joint committee on taxation is saying here in thi this -- with these figures. first, there's a group of low- and middle-income taxpayers who clearly benefit fro under the bl from the government's subsidy for health insurance. this group, however, is relatively small. there is another, much larger group of middle-income taxpayers who are seeing their taxes go up due to one or a combination of the following tax increases: the high-cost plan tax, the medical expense deduction limitation, and the medicare payroll tax increase. in general, this group is not benefiting from the government subsidy. after all, how can you -- how

can a taxpayer see a tax cut if they're not even h eligible fora subsidy. also, there's an additional group of taxpayers who would be affected by other tax increase provisions in the reid bill that the joint committee on taxation could not distribute as other things in the bill are distributed in this chart. these undistributed tax increases include things like putting a cap on the flexible savings accounts. there's never been a cap and so when you cap it at $2,500 and people can't put in more than $2,500 under this 2,074-page bill, that's a tax increase for those people that had higher expense and wanted to put that money in a flexible savings account. and then also, there's a tax that's not accounted for here on

cosmetic surgery. my friend idaho, whose bill -- whose amendment is pending before the senate, recently received a letter from the joint committee on taxation stating that this additional group exists and many in this group make us less than $250,000 a year. so you see, mr. president, my friends on the other side of the aisle cannot, one, say that all taxpayers receive a tax cut. and, two, say that middle-income americans will not see a tax tax increase under the reid bill as promised by the president in the last campaign. i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call: a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from colorado is recognized. mr. udall: thank you, mr. president. i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection, it is so ordered. mr. udall: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate kphraoeuts business today it -- completes its business it adjourn until 2:00 p.m. monday, december 14, following the prayer and pledge, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day and the senate proceed to a period of morning business with

senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each with the republicans controlling the first 30 minutes and the majority controlling the next 30 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. udall: mr. president, if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it adjourn under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate starpbdz adjourned until

so i've always liked horses. jeffrey, a co-editor, jeffrey sinclair in oregon city, he puts this site up on the material about 7:30 so we crack and at about 6:30 and discuss what stories might go on the site of the previous day we talk about what is going on and what people seem to be interested in in what the big events are and then jeffrey gets the site up somewhere between 6:30 and 8:00,

time and i am in an early morning donner anyway. i do columns, counterpunch material, column for the nation, the one i've been doing since 1984. i do that every second tuesday, to a syndicated column. and we are usually working on a couple of books for counterpunch -- those are the birds, which really that dogs and cats and birds write everything for me but we try to be quiet about that. want to recall for me? sit down, here, sit, sit. good boy. now, you're miserable life as a doll of. want to give me the first chapter? some writers like note malaise. i like animals because they don't criticize -- annals always do that as start es -- soon as

you start talking the drown you out. anyway, that takes me through the morning, editing for the counterpunch books we are doing. you know, two or three book projects. but in the middle of all this because i liked to garden and i have horses and i'm always running around building things and so for word through the day. >> this is the randolph building that we put up about three or four years ago. he is a very old technique of ramming the earth down. like many writers i like thinking about other things than writing, and i like to build. this is a scrub building going into a dome, down by my friend and neighbor, greg smith. i don't like to write in the evening unless i have to do something for england, and then of course england is eight hours from here forward, and, you know, if you're going to get something on someone's desk by

8:00 in the morning you can do it until late at night. but that's the shape of my day. it's not particularly monk-like in seclusion. i spend a lot of time on the telephone with three or four people up in olympia, washington, who also does the editing on the books. our business operations are run right here in petrolia by becky grant and david wheeler, incredibly efficiency of course. counterpunch books, we started thinking we were publishing things in the internet web and wanted to keep on the form. our stuff on the counterpunch site doesn't go away. it's somewhere in the of fast sort of black hole of or in print communications. probably some government archive, god help people who have to go through it. but we thought we wanted to put

them in hard covers. we began with a book called the politics of anti-semitism because we had done a bunch of articles about critical israel that he wore an anti-semite, which is actually nonsense and we thought it was important -- it was a successful book actually, and we do our books in association with ak press, a bunch of pretty well organized anarchist's down and oakland, and ak looks after a lot of the bookshop -- looks after the bookshop distribution. we also sell the books on our website or people write in and we send them from the office in petrolia. it was natural to do it. we had a bunch of articles and then we got into books we like to read again, it's not that expensive. if you can sell them and have a website in which you can advertise them all the time. as we had done five or six books, the latest is "and

times," out this month actually on the of fourth is based on by my co-editor and co-author on this one. we have a book, deneen cassidy's book, how the irish invented slang, which will be a very big eaves and because it shows much of american slang comes from including words you wouldn't believe like poker and jazz, and dan has done this book to read it is a hidden part of american language and etymology. if you look at a charming and he says three words from irish in america today is complete nonsense. millions and millions of irish people came to america speaking irish. the words didn't go away just transmuted into american. but danny is the first person who's gone through it methodically and shown how, you know, many of the most common words in the american language and slang are pretty much straight irish beat.

we've got the book introduced by gore fall and the politics of the bush administration. we have not been shy to criticize the bush administration as we were not shy to criticize the clinton crowd. we are pretty radical around here. we don't think the democratic party is the answer to everything so we have done a dime's worth of difference before the last election basically saying there isn't really a dime's worth of difference in the ways between the two parties. a lot of democrats pretty mad. so we occupy a definite site. i wouldn't want to say niche because niche to me seems pretty small. we are pretty large. when people say there must be more to the democratic party although we will the republicans have their counterparts sinking come over here and you can learn a lot about life and the world. that is what we are about. i started listening to the sound of my father to get up at five thanks 30 in the morning on a typewriter just like the typewriter i've got here

clacking away and the was a different i grappled with hot metal type and newspapers, and my dad who was a writer, great writer, we are going to publish his memoirs soon and counterpunch, i claude, it was one telephone line to southern ireland in the 50's. he finished writing his articles and then he would jump on his bike and ride 3 miles to the town. in fact the only time he got mad at me in my childhood is when i got fed up with him riding into town instead of reading the book in the evening and i let down the tires on his bicycle. he was furious. he said any other father would be to you -- any other father. my father worked on that for many years, almost to the day he died, not quite 1980. i must have tight about, i don't know, four or 5 million words on one of those machines.

most journalists and writers of my generation did. the only person i know who still does i think is ralph nader. i told him i had one and he got incredibly excited he wanted to cannibalize it. i wouldn't do that. i don't know if i would still use it. so that is my work have it for writing books and editing and all that, and i wrote columns and new york until 1984. when i sent an article to england to the new states and i wrote i have to get on the subway in manhattan in the middle of the night and go down to see telex office riding on d train. all the way to the south end of manhattan. and then i move to key west for awhile and that is the early 80's when the fax machine was coming, and thank god for the

facts. then we went fedex. and it got easier to be a columnist outside new york actually. and then of course i really only went on line it must have been in 2000, no, 1998 or 1999. jeffrey sinclair, mica whiteaker said we obviously have to do that. what are our work habits now? at the typewriter away it was these electric ibm, and i thought i will have you out in a little bit. i haven't gotten the poor things out. feel treacherous about it. and here i am with the mac, you know, with a laptop. i am a hunt and peck guy, two or three figures. no all ten fingers for me. just hammering away at the keys. people used to laugh at me

because i used to wear the imagery, where the character of the keys where i would hit them hard. >> and his book the making of americans democracy and schools, e.d. hirsch argues using charnel senter teaching methods instead of focusing on academic content is a problem with early education. the manhattan institute in new york city posts this 45 minute event. >> i have this -- i didn't choose this picture. it just happened to be one of put on for the discussion period, which by the way is always valuable here at the manhattan institute and so i'm not going to exceed my 20 minutes. i want to be sure we have plenty of time for a question period. but that was an awfully pleasant picture to put up before i have my more sober graphs, and that

-- i don't know whether any of you have actually seen it. it is a 42-foot wide mural that dominates shepard hall city university, and it was done by ed wim slash field in 1904. it's called the graduate. and you can get the image of the idealism that expired particularly new york state at the turn of the century and how successful it was then. some of the themes of this new book, the making americans are new to my riding and i will connect some of them with the more familiar ones of low student achievement, and equality of result, disturbingly low level of civic commitment.

now the historical context for what i'm going to say is a less beautiful picture. it's that one of this is the pattern of favorable sat scores from the late 1960's to the present. i would like you to remember it. i'm going to leave it up for quite awhile. the s.a.t. goes back further. it was started in the 1970's. the s.a.t. is more than a college entrance exam. it's also a kind of referendum or final report card on what our schools have been doing. and before i outline why the fall of s.a.t. verbal scores is so urgently important i want to