Nomination of Robert S. Adler to be a Commissioner of the Consumer Product Safety Commission

Floor Speech

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Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I wish to spend a few minutes today to discuss the ongoing saga of the 2014 tax extenders package.

Getting this legislation passed through the Senate has been quite an ordeal from the outset. As my colleagues will recall, the Finance Committee reported its tax extenders package in April and a few weeks later progress stalled on the Senate floor when the Senate majority leadership refused to allow votes on any amendments.

After that time--which was in mid-May--the tax extenders sat somewhat in limbo, although both sides acknowledged the desire to get something passed during the lameduck session, if not before.

The Finance Committee extenders package, if my colleagues remember, extended 55 expired or expiring tax provisions for 2 years without making any of them permanent.

The House took a different approach which was to make certain important tax provisions, such as the R&D tax credit, for example, permanent, bringing more certainty to American businesses, families, and individuals.

Over the past several weeks, negotiations have been ongoing in the hopes of producing a bill that combined the Senate Finance Committee's package with the approach taken by the House.

I am generally hesitant to publicly comment about what happens behind closed doors in negotiations; but, on the other hand, much of what happened next has already been printed in the media. That being the case, I don't feel too awkward discussing the recent turn of events that has brought us to where we are now with the tax extenders.

Last week, before the Thanksgiving holiday, the Speaker's office and the Senate majority leader's office were very close to reaching a deal on a tax extenders package--one that would have included all of the provisions from the EXPIRE Act, which is the Senate Finance Committee-reported tax extenders bill, as well as a number of permanent tax extender provisions.

This emerging deal would have been a reasonable compromise between Republicans and Democrats and between the House and Senate approaches to this matter. It was not the legislation I would have written, but as a compromise taking place in a Congress that is, for the time being, still divided, it was likely the best both parties could hope for.

As I said, we were on the cusp of a deal last week, and then something strange happened. On Tuesday, the White House caught wind of the potential deal--even though the terms had not yet been finalized--and issued a veto threat. How often does that happen? How often does the President issue a veto threat on potential deals still under negotiation? How often do we find that extraordinary threat ratified by people who are involved in the negotiations? As I said, this was not a Republican wish list being negotiated. House Republicans were willing to make a number of tough concessions in order to get a deal across the finish line.

For example, the deal would have made permanent the American opportunity tax credit--a provision that first came into law in the Democrats' partisan 2009 stimulus bill and has been a high priority item for Democrats. It would have also made the State and local sales tax deduction--which is a high priority for a number of congressional Democrats--permanent. And it would have rolled over the tax extenders that expired during 2013--including many that most Republicans do not support--for another 2 years.

These were major concessions and, to its credit, the House was willing to make them in the interests of a bipartisan agreement.

More importantly, the deal was supported by the Senate majority leader who, the last time I checked, was a Democrat. Yet the deal wasn't good enough for the President and for the more liberal Members of the Senate, or should I say the Senate Democratic Caucus. Apparently they weren't willing to take yes for an answer. Instead of compromising even a little bit, President Obama issued his veto threat and has been rallying Democratic Senators against the proposed deal, or at least that is what I have been told. As a result, it appears unlikely that a deal on the tax extenders package will be reached in this Congress. Instead, the most likely scenario appears to be that the Congress will pass a 1-year referendum of tax extenders that have already expired.

Short of not passing anything at all, this is surely the worst of all possible worlds. Rather than the certainty that would come with making some of the more prominent individual tax extenders permanent, families, individuals, and businesses will have to once again put long-term plans on hold in hopes that Congress can get its act together the next time around.

This is bad news for middle-class families. This is bad news for individuals. This is bad news for job creators. And this is bad news for those of us hoping the government will improve the way it does business any time in the near future.

We all know the makeup of the next Congress will be different than it is now. I don't mean to be too presumptuous, but I think it is safe to say the President and his liberal allies are unlikely to get a better tax deal in the next Congress than the one the Senate Democratic leadership had been negotiating up until the last week. I commend the Senate Democratic leadership for its work on that matter. I commend the House leadership and congratulate them for doing the same thing.

Do any of my Democratic colleagues who came out against the proposed deal really think their prospects are likely to improve next year? I have to ask because, quite frankly, this recent turn of events is mind-boggling to me.

In the end, I think the only conclusion that makes sense is that this line of attack--the President's veto threat--and liberal opposition to the potential extenders deal is more about politics than about policy. It is about the President's strategy of following an electoral rebuke of his policies by tacking even further to the left. And it is about congressional Democrats' efforts to pander to their liberal base at the expense of good government.

I hope I am wrong about this, but as I said, there is not another logical explanation that I have heard. I hope the White House and its Senate allies will prove me wrong and come to the table with an offer that reflects a genuine compromise with the House.

I think the events of this past week have demonstrated divisions in the Democratic Party, and that those divisions are causing real problems. Once again, we had the Senate majority leader in the room and ready to make a deal, only to be undercut by the President and his liberal allies in the Senate. I find that very unfortunate. I commend the Democratic majority leader for trying.

Of course, at the end of the day, I suppose none of us should be surprised at what has happened. After all, President Obama is not particularly known for being business friendly or placing his focus on job creation, which is sorely needed in this country. Whether it is crippling environmental regulations--which we are now seeing come to the forefront in dramatic terms--or whether it is labor policy or health care, the President has demonstrated that he is all too willing to put his political ideology above the needs of our economy.

Make no mistake, the proposed tax extenders deal--the one the President scuttled with his veto threat--was all about job creation. It would have made the research and development tax credit, small business expensing, and other provisions permanent, giving certainty to the business community, paving the way for more investment, and paving the way for more jobs in our society.

The President's latest gambit on the tax extenders is just a series in a long line of instances where politics has trumped job creation. Still, as one who has been willing to work with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, I can't help but be disappointed.

But make no mistake, things are about to change around here and we will have an opportunity to right this ship. I just hope we will have a lot of Democrats who are willing to help us. We need to focus on an agenda that will actually grow our economy. We need to focus on an agenda that will actually create jobs. And we need to focus on an agenda that will empower the American people. That is going to be the focus of this new Congress.

Once again, the President and his allies here in the Senate missed a big opportunity to address some of their party's priorities with the tax extenders legislation. It is difficult to imagine that they will have another bite at the same apple in the next Congress. Absent a deal, we are now left with only one option: a 1-year extension that will likely be passed by the House this week. Once again, a 1-year extension is not a great deal for families, individuals, and businesses, but it is far better than letting these provisions lapse entirely. Indeed, if we do nothing, we run into a series of problems, including a delayed filing season, which means millions of delayed refunds for Americans who count on them. In addition, doing nothing would essentially amount to a tax hike on millions of people and businesses.

Consequently, I plan to vote in favor of the 1-year extension, unless, of course, my colleagues on the other side finally come to their senses and allow a better deal to be had.

I don't understand this kind of leadership in this country. I don't understand why the President does some of these things. I don't understand why the left just can't take an offering to them that was much better than what we are going to get. The majority leader knew it.

Republicans have been tough on the majority leader. I have been here for years. I care for him. I think it is a tough group of people to manage, just as they are on our side as well. It is a tough job. Frankly, I think the deal he worked out should have been followed. It would have given the President much of what he wanted initially, anyway. It would have brought us together one more time, and it would have been a wonderful thing.

It would have made the end of the year--the work we are doing--much more satisfying and acceptable. It would have been a good prelude to next year of our working together--something that this body needs really badly.

I want to commend the distinguished majority leader, Senator Reid, for the work he tried to do. I want to congratulate him. I want to congratulate the Speaker of the House for being willing to work on this.

I think it is unfortunate we are at this point in these negotiations, where we are going to have a 1-year extension. It is not going to be anywhere near where we had negotiated with the majority leader and had negotiated with the House. There are parts of the negotiated bill that I wish I could have changed. But, we had come a long way.

I want to pay tribute to the distinguished chairman of our committee. I don't think he had much confidence at first that we would put our original extenders bill through the committee. At least he didn't express it to me.

I said: Let's do it, and we did. Even with the parts that I wish weren't in there and the parts he wished weren't in there, it was a classic bipartisan compromise by two sides who feel very, very deeply about all these issues--each and every one of them.

I think the work that Senator Reid, the distinguished majority leader, and the Speaker had done was not only a step in the right direction but it would have been something most all of us would have been quite pleased with. I commend them for their work.

I am disappointed with where we are. I hope we can solve these problems in the future. I will be working as hard as I can to bring about bipartisan efforts in that regard.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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