mr. grassley: will i yield for a question? mr. schumer: yeah. mr. sley: because you new yorkers think you can make us midwesterns look bad. but i'll be glad to yield. mr. schumer: not you. i thank my colleague. and through the chair, i'd simply like to ask my colleague this. i understand we have a different point of view here. we both care about deficit reduction. could he please explain to me why it is okay to take $300 billion of tax cuts for those at the highest income levels, above a million, and not pay for it and yet we have to pay for unemployment insurance extensi extension? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: i thought i made that point very clear, because the taxpayers are smarter than we in congress are. they know that they give another dollar to us to spend and it's a license to spend $1.15. so it just increases the national debt. and when it comes to paying for unemployment compensation, we can pay for unemployment compensation because the stimulus bill was supposed to stimulate the economy and it's not being spen

mr. grassley: i'll start over, mr. president. i rise today to pay tribute to a friend and trusted advisor. wythe wilie heroically lost a two-year battle with cancer on saturday. wythe wilie was a person who left a mark. if you ever met him, you'd be hard-pressed to forget him. he was a iowa farm boy through and through, whether he was living in des moines or cedar rapids. he valued his friendships and he valued everybody he met along his life's journey. wythe had a passion for agriculture and particularly for cattle business but also for politics. he had one of the most astute political minds i've ever met. to sit and talk politics with wythe was an invigorating endeavor. his political sense and understanding of the issues at the state and federal level never failed to bring additional insight to anybody who would listen. there's a saying among my former and current staff, "once a grassley staffer, always a grassley staffer." well, wythe was the epitome of that model. he worked on my iowa staff from 1981-1987. when he left, he ha

mr. grassley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: -- the senior senator from arizona. mr. mccain: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: mr. president, i think it's very clear that the vote today will result in a significant majority vote for the pending legislation, the s so-called tax extenders. i will be one of those who will probably be voting as well. but i must say in the brief time that i have, i must say that there's almost an orwellian experience here on the floor of the united states senate, as compared with the rest of america. here we're about to pass -- here we are about to pass the tax extenders, which are necessary to give some kind of certainty to businesses small and large across america, to give tax breaks to people in these most difficult times, including my home state of arizona. and so what did we do? rather than just extend the tax breaks, which is what the majority of americans want, we engaged in the continuing practice, which has alienated the majority of the amer

mr. grassley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. assley: -- the senior senator from arizona. mr. mccain: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: mr. president, i think it's very clear that the vote today will result in a significant majority vote for the pending legislation, the s so-called tax extenders. i will be one of those who will probably be voting as well. but i must say in the brief time that i have, i must say that there's almost an orwellian experience here on the floor of the united states senate, as compared with the rest of america. here we're about to pass -- here we are about to pass the tax extenders, which are necessary to give some kind of certainty to businesses small and large across america, to give tax breaks to people in these most difficult times, including my home state of arizona. and so what did we do? rather than just extend the tax breaks, which is what the majority of americans want, we engaged in the continuing practice, which has alienated the majority of the americ

mr. grassley: it seems like every few weeks or so that there are a lot of misleading and misinformed accusations launched at our nation's renewable fuels producers. it's impossible to come to the senate floor and respond to all of them, but sometimes the claims are so outrageous that they require an informed response, so i'm here to give that response with emphasis upon the words informed. earlier this week, a number of my colleagues here in the senate, including a few of my fellow republicans, sent a letter to the majority and minority leaders expressing their opposition to extending the tax incentives for home-grown ethanol. home grown means that we're less dependent upon people like dictator chavez and our oil sheiks. my colleagues argued that the tax incentive for the production of clean home-grown ethanol is fiscally irresponsible. they express their support for allowing the 45-cent-per-gallon credit for ethanol use to expire. it's important to remember that the incentive exists to help the producers of ethanol compete with the big oil industry, and remember the big oil industry has been we

mr. chairman, ranking member grassley, center bombing and the entire committee for this opportunity to testify today. and i will pick up on stevan goss's question of how we make this happen, how we make a virtue of necessity in a voluntary way as you have charged us to think about today. to do that, i just want to step back quickly in history to the year 1950 that mr. goss just talked about. in that year, the labor leader discard retirement as too old to work and too young to die. it was very awkward. other people talk about as a role this role and in a period of about 15 years we turned this awkward state into a version of the american dream. we created a new dealer of the shorter working lives that people could actually look forward to. people started retiring early year and earlier said they could get to this goal and now in the context of trends that you talked about, the demographic revolution as nearly 80 million baby boomers moving into the 60's and the doubling of life expectancy over the last century, there is a question about whether that old deal is still sustainable at an individua

mr. camp, senators bachus and grassley. let me say a few words about this. since the reforms were implemented in 2009, more than 155,000 additional trade impacted workers who might not have been certified under the former program, became eligible for t.a.a. worker benefits and training opportunities. more than 155,000. in total, more than 367,000 workers were eligible for support in that time frame. in 2010 alone, and i also want to emphasize this number, 227 ,882 workers took advantage of t.a.a. and participated in the program, receiving case management training and/or income support. you know, i wish in a way 2727,882 people could come here and line up from here. i'm not quite sure how far the line would extend. it would be a very long way. we have a solemn obligation to continue thr expanded program. this legislation also supports u.s. businesses that need inputs for components in order to manufacture, and i underline that, downextreme products here in the united states of america. miss tariff bills like this one have been a part of u.s. policy years for

grassley. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i in the members of this committee take the importance of this committee and our constitutional role as the united states senate very seriously. you, dr. berwick, were nominated by president obama to serve as cms administrator on april the 19th. you and i personally met in my office to discuss, and we did this in june, to discuss your nomination. and despite repeated requests from me and my colleagues, we were never able to get a nomination hearing. instead, your appointed under recess powers july 7. dr. berwick, i believe that that was incredibly unfortunate for you and for the position that you now hold. i think you should have the opportunity to come before this committee and explain and defend yourself and make the case in person that you're the right person to be the cms administrator. you were nominated 13 days ago and appointed 130 days ago, yet this is our first chance to get you before this committee to testify and answer questions. the phrase better now that never comes to m

mr. graham: thank you. thank you for allowing me to speak. senator grassley, senator baucus, i appreciate this. i guess the first observation i would make is that we're here on a saturday morning and this is democracy in many ways i think at its best. people understand the two votes are going to fail but it's good for americans to have genuine differences to be able to discuss what makes us tick, why we want to go one way versus the other. so the fact that america is divided on a lot of big issues is -- is just the result of living in a free country. now, what was the lessons of the last election? they are what you would like them to be but here's my observation, for what it's worth. our democratic friends really took a beating. as republicans, we have been there. in 2006 and 2008, we took a beating. 2006, the iraq war was going very badly and americans were very frustrated. president bush's popularity plummeted. in 2008, we had an economic meltdown that i thought was related to housing, that we lent money to people who couldn't afford to pay their mortgages, the mortgages were repackaged and s

grassley about 10 months ago. after that a partisan strategy was presented by friend on the other side and it failed several times. mr. president, i give them a check mark on the chart for doing the minimum. my friend in the democratic leadership did at least bring up a bill. they did in fact bring up a bill. as the chart shows, the tax extenders right here due by one year are not alone. there's three other areas of unfinished business and others as well, but i just decided to talk about these. one area we discussed at length a couple weeks ago applies to millions of middle income families this year. it's the 2010 alternative minimum tax. another area is the death tax. in less than one month the number of states to be hit by the death tax will shoot dramatically upward. as small businesses, family farms are going to be lost unless we do something about it, but here we are in the last few weeks of this session. they have not done a dog gone thing on the amt patch, and really the house did something on death tax reform, but we've done nothing and they have done absolutely flog on the tax -- nothing on the tax hikes. wh

grassley about 10 months ago. after that a partisan strategy was presented by friend on the other side and it failed several times. mr. president, i give them a check mark on the chart for doing the minimum. my friend in the democratic leadership did at least bring up a bill. they did in fact bring up a bill. as the chart shows, the tax extenders right here due by one year are not alone. there's three other areas of unfinished business and others as well, but i just decided to talk about these. one area we discussed at length a couple weeks ago applies to millions of middle income families this year. it's the 2010 alternative minimum tax. another area is the death tax. in less than one month the number of states to be hit by the death tax will shoot dramatically upward. as small businesses, family farms are going to be lost unless we do something about it, but here we are in the last few weeks of this session. they have not done a dog gone thing on the amt patch, and really the house did something on death tax reform, but we've done nothing and they have done absolutely flog on the tax -- nothing on the tax hikes. wh

grassley about ten months ago. after that, a partisan strategy was pursued by our friends on the other side. not surprisingly, it failed. it failed several times. mr. president, i'll give them a check mark on the chart for doing the minimum. my friends in the democratic leadership did at least bring up a bill. they did in fact bring up a bill. as the chart shows, the tax extenders right here, which are overdue by almost one year, are not alone. there are three other major areas of unfinished business, and there are others as well but i just decided to talk about these. oneary senator grassley and i discussed at length a couple weeks ago applies to millions of middle-income families this year. it's the 2010 alternative minimum tax. another area is the death tax. in less than one month from now, the number of states to be hit by the death tax will shoot dramatically upward. and small businesses, family farms are going to be lost unless we do something about it. and here we are in the last few weeks of this session. they haven't done a doggone thing on the a.m.t. patch. the house did something on death tax reform, but we've done nothing. both bodies

mr. grassley: i'll yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. baucus: madam president, i think it's important just to lay a few facts on the table. the senator from oregon did a good job of making this point clear, but i think, frankly, very few people in the country understand this point, this debate. to be honest, i think there are a good number of members of the senate who do not understand this point. the point being that under my amendment, which makes the -- those who receive $200,000 and less in income, their tax is permanent. under that amendment, it's important to remind all of us that every individual will get a tax break. every, regardless of his income. that is every individual who has more than $200,000 of taxable income would receive a cut of at least $5,400. if you're above $200,000, you still get a tax cut. you get a tax cut as an individual about $5,400. if you're a couple, it's probably close to double that. the same is probably true under the schumer amendment. under the schumer amendment, for those who make $1 million, their