mr. baucus: mr. president, i'd like to object. mr. baucus: mr.urther amend that request? the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. baucus: after the swearing-in of senator-elect kirk, that the time be equally divided until 6:30 this evening, and that the senator from oklahoma be recognized to speak for 15 minutes. and the time to be divided between the two leaders or their designees. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. inhofe: the question i have is what time would that be, approximately? right after the votes or right before? no objection. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. mr. thune: i would ask unanimous consent to be added as a cosponsor to the johanns amendment 4702 to the senate bill 510, the food safety modernization act. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: mr. president, i want to compliment the senator from nebraska for his leadership on this issue. he has done a great job of advocating on behalf of sm

mr. baucus, technically a democrat, poses the surrender terms. if they're not on the side of the working people anymore, what will they have become? >> they'll become grover cleveland democrats again, john w. davis democrats. there's a lot of stuff floating around. baucus is on record as saying he doesn't think they should be extended for millionaires. so it's going to be very interesting to see what he is actually writing in that very complicated committee of his. maybe we'll take as long on this as we took on health care, and then we won't have to deal with this issue until about a year from now. but i think you also have surprising democrats, dianne feinstein said no, we shouldn't extend this. let's have a vote on extending it to 250,000. mark warner is saying, you don't want to take that money out of the economy, let's take the money that would've gone to the really rich people and put it to more -- better uses to create jobs, like maybe a temporary payroll tax cut. and schumer proposes you lift it to $1 million, and you're going to have a re

mr. baucus' complaint essentially a variant of the claim tea party candidacies didn't turn -- cost seatsdidates a challenge for voters to love. all interesting theories, quantity fie bl. republicans have been making a structural argument. structural argument that the republican party, itself, was too disorganized and too poorly run this year to convert voter sentiment in their favor into more republican seats. that they missed seats they should have picked up because they weren't financially and logistically together enough to win elections they should have won. the first iteration of that argument or the first evidence for that argument came from the davis intelligence group. the weekend after the election. their post-election analysis was we would have a senator-elect ken buck in colorado and a senator-elect dean knino rossi. have the get out the vote efforts actually gotten out the vote? because the party was not more organized, more on that, those seats were lost to democrats. today that argument got way more personal and way more pointed. the political director of the republican nat

baucus amendment 4713 as modified. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. ask the chair now to lay before the senate the house message to accompany h.r. 5566. the presiding officer: the chair lays before the senate the following message. the clerk: resolved that the house agree to the amendment of the senate to the bill h.r. 5566, in title and act to amend title 18 united states code, to prohibit interstate commerce and animal crush videos, and for other purposes, with the house amendment to senate amendment. mr. reid: mr. president, i ask consent that the senate concur in the house amendment, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table and any statements relating to this matter appear at the appropriate place in the record as if read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask consent now that the chair lay before the senate a house message with respect to three -- s. 3689. the presiding officer: the -- the chair lays before the senate the following statement. the clerk: resolved that the bill from the senate, s. 3689, entitled an act to c

. >> senator baucus into representative murkowski, and then mr. ryan. >> i think we are delivering under a false assumption. mr. reischauer, you said if fee for service continues, that was your premise of the answer. the health care bill is not hemsed on that. it's moving off of fee for service and moving towards reimbursement or medicare based on the outcome and quality. you did mention the pilot projects. it might take some time. it's true. the basic underlying premise of the health care reform is to decrease cost and improve quality at the same time. it sounds paradox. it's true. moving towards the reimbursement based on quality and outcomes. just want to make that clear. i think you congratulation you and others who are instrumental in putting forward these changes in what you are doing is building a foundation upon which that can be done. >> that's the thought. that's the attempts. that's right. >> we don't have the plans for that. >> right. that's true. >> that's correct. >> talking about systemwide reform, the real driver of the increases i

. >> senator baucus into representative murkowski, and then mr. ryan. >> i think we are delivering under a false assumption. mr. reischauer, you said if fee for service continues, that was your premise of the answer. the health care bill is not hemsed on that. it's moving off of fee for service and moving towards reimbursement or medicare based on the outcome and quality. you did mention the pilot projects. it might take some time. it's true. the basic underlying premise of the health care reform is to decrease cost and improve quality at the same time. it sounds paradox. it's true. moving towards the reimbursement based on quality and outcomes. just want to make that clear. i think you congratulation you and others who are instrumental in putting forward these changes in what you are doing is building a foundation upon which that can be done. >> that's the thought. that's the attempts. that's right. >> we don't have the plans for that. >> right. that's true. >> that's correct. >> talking about systemwide reform, the real driver of the increases i

baucus and johanns with respect to amendment 49 -- 4696. substitute. the motion to suspend with respect to amendment 4697, dealing with earmarks. there are two amendments, mr. president. i the thought there was one. there are two. that there be a total of four hours of debate with respect to the coburn motions, equally divided and controlled between senators coburn an inouye or their designees. upon the use or yielding back of that time, the senate proceed to vote with respect to the motion to suspend in the order listed, johanns 1099, baucus 1099. coburn earmarks coburn -- if any motion is successful, then the senate vote immediately on the amendment. that no further motions or amendments be in order, the substitute amendment if amended abe greed to, the bill as amended be read add third time, the senate proceed to passage on the bill and cloture motion with respect to the bill be withdrawn. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent we now proceed to a period of morning business, senators allowed to speak for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask consent we now proceed to calend

mr. president, but i also know the value of -- of teamwork. so there's another tall democrat on the senate finance committee who would like to work on bipartisan tax reform. we have an excellent chairman, chairman baucus and senator grassley, they have already had one hearing on this issue. there is a lot to work with here on this tax reform issue. and by the way, there is another group in addition to erskin bowles and alan simpson who have weighed in essentially behind the idea senator gregg and i are talking about. president obama had a tax reform commission that recently came in. it was chaired by the distinguished paul volcker that made a very substantial case for simplifying the tax code to ease the burden on workers and families and businesses. senator gregg and i looked at the volcker commission proposals, ending the alternative minimum tax, increasing the standard deduction, consolidating the incentives for savings and retirement, allowing taxpayers to ask the i.r.s. to fill out their tax forms for them. those were all recommendations by president obama's commission, the volcker commission, that are part of the proposal that senator gregg and i have put together, s. 3018. get rid of loopholes,

mr. baucus: mr. president, can we have order? the presiding officer: please take your conversations outside the chamber. mr. baucus: mr. president, this next vote is very simple, plain and simply it repeals the 1099 provisions that all -- said to small business we're going to repeal. pure and simply repeals 1099 and i encourage us to vote to appeal, get this over with so we can move on to other business. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from nebraska. the chamber will come to order. please halt your conversations. the senator from nebraska. mr. johanns: mr. president, i want to say one thing, this adds $19 to the federal deficit -- $19 billion to the federal deficit and i yield my time to judd gregg. mr. gregg: this is not the proper way to address this issue to add $19 billion to our deficit. that has to be paid by our children and small businesses affected by this 1099 proposal. let's do this the right way. let's do it the way that the senator from nebraska has suggested

senator baucus, the chairman of the committee, in introducing this legislation, and i would urge at this point that we move forward and i would at this point make the following request. madam president -- mr. durbin: will the senator yield for a question? mr. reed: i will yield. mr. durbin: i would like to pose a question to the senator from rhode island. i thank you for your time on this issue and your leadership on this issue, and i'm happy to join you. i just want to make sure we put this in the context of the so-called lame-duck session. this is a session when we are debating tax cuts, and the position held by the other side of the aisle is that we should give tax cuts to those making a million dollars a year in income. that's roughly $20,000 a week that people are being paid. and if i understand the difference in the democratic position from the republican position, we think those making a million dollars a year should get roughly $6,000 in tax cuts. they believe that those making a million dollars a year should get $100,000 in tax cuts. i also understand that if the republican position prevails, it will add $700 billion to the deficit over ten years just to give tax cuts to those ma