Press Conference with Senator Joseph Biden (D-RE) Re: Rollback of the Bush Tax Cut

HEADLINE: PRESS CONFERENCE WITH SENATOR JOSEPH BIDEN (D-DE) RE: ROLLBACK OF THE BUSH TAX CUT
 
LOCATION: SENATE RADIO/TV GALLERY

BODY:
SEN. BIDEN: Thanks for being here. I said that once about eight years ago, and somebody said, "No, we're waiting for the next guy." (Chuckles.) It happened to be Ted Kennedy.

In case you're here for me -- (laughs) -- I'd like to -- all kidding aside, I'm going to introduce today a proposal that I realize will have tough sledding, but I am absolutely convinced the majority of my colleagues agree with. Whether they're going to be able to vote for it will be another question. And that is that two weeks ago, the president of the United States began what I believe to be was a very important and fundamental change in his position relative to Iraq. He concluded and told the American people forthrightly he believed that we needed the involvement of the international community and that he authorized and has directed the secretary of State to go back to the United Nations and to seek the support of the Security Council and the United Nations at large for helping us secure the peace in Iraq. And that was a very important, significant shift in his position, and I applaud him for it.

The second -- not shift, but the second change in his posture relative to Iraq is that some of us, and I know I've been a broken record on this with all of you, have been pleading with him for the past six months to tell the American people up front what he is going to be asking of them. None of us expected the president would know all of what was needed, but it was never in doubt -- there wasn't a serious person in Washington, there wasn't a serious person in the world who had any foreign policy experience that doubted that we were going to have, at least for the next calendar year -- next fiscal year, well over 100,000 forces in Iraq, and that it was going to cost tens of billions of dollars.

Well, the president came forward, and a lot of the American people, because he waited so long, had sticker shock when he said -- including some of my colleagues in the House and the Senate -- when he said, "I'm going to be asking for a supplemental" -- that is, for the American people listening -- "I'm going to be asking for an additional $87 billion for next year, in addition to the well over $70 billion we've already spent in Iraq." He knows, I know, the administration knows, and those involved with foreign policy and security policy know it's going to cost a lot more than that before it is over.

Third positive thing that occurred in terms of straight dealing with the American people is that Mr. Bremer came along and said -- and I think he may have prompted this change in the administration -- said that the cost of reconstruction for Iraq was going to be between $50 (billion) and $75 billion. He didn't say in one year; he didn't say we were going to pay for it all, but he did say it was necessary.

So, everybody understands that unless we get the rest of the world in on the deal of paying for this, we're left with only one of two options: we leave Iraq in shambles, squander the military victory -- which we will not do, pray God; or two, we'll ask the American people to pay for it. Kind of simple stuff. It's not rocket science.

Well, the president was straightforward about next year. The only -- there's two pieces he left unanswered, though, that I believe he's prepared to answer -- at least I hope he's prepared to answer. One is, how do we pay for this $87 billion next year? And exactly what's the $87 billion going to be spent for? Because it's time for congressional accountability; not obstruction, but accountability; detailed explanations. What are you going to spend it for? Why are you spending it here? And what else will have to be spent by us, or somebody else, in order to finish what we started here, whether you're talking about an electrical grid in Iraq, you're talking about a water system, you're talking about training the police force, or stationing military forces.

For example, most of my colleagues are unaware, because they don't do this every day like -- my job is to do it every day -- and we're basically paying for the Polish forces that are there. I'm not necessarily complaining about that, but people don't understand that. So we should level with the American people.

But the point of my asking you to be here today is that I think the answer is clear, in light of the only three options we have, about how to pay for this. And let's be very stark about this. The choices are stark, but the answer, to me, is absolutely clear, how to pay for this.

The first choice is we take a deficit that next year, by the president's own admission and our Republican-controlled Congress Congressional Budget Office says is going to exceed $480 billion, or there abouts, and we add the $87 billion on top of that. Translated: My children and grandchildren pay for my security. I kind of thought it was supposed to be the other way around; I thought we were supposed to be paying for our children's security. Because we pile the debt on top of them as it approaches $600 billion -- six-tenths of a trillion dollars in one year.

That's one choice, which I flatly reject.

The second choice we have is, we go back to the middle-class taxpayers of the country, who deserve a tax break, and we say to them, "We're going to cut the services provided to you by the federal government that you need in your neighborhoods, communities and homes, in order to come up with this $87 billion. We're going to cut more cops out of your program -- out of your state. We're going to cut" -- as some of my Republican colleagues tried to do -- "the college tuition and, in other words, make college loan programs more expensive for you." Bottom line is, we can lay the burden back on the middle class, who, I might add, along with the poor, it's their sons, daughters, husbands, wives who are over in Iraq now. I think that is an unpalatable and unacceptable choice.

There's a third choice that I think is absolutely, clearly, in every fashion, way and form, equitable, fair, reasonable and demanded. And that is, we can go to the top, as it turns out, point-seven-tenths of 1 percent of the income earners in America and ask them to defer one year, give up one year, of their tax cut.

Now to get into this category of people to be affected by what I am proposing to pay for this tax cut -- for this $87 billion for Iraq, you will have to be making an income well over $360,000 a year. The average person in this category has an income of a million dollars a year, average -- take the whole category -- and giving up that one year, which is equivalent to $87 billion, means that you'll be giving up less than 13 percent of the total tax cut you're going to receive.

Put it another way. The people in this top 1 percent -- and I'm not even -- this -- my proposal, which I'll go into later, is even less than the top 1 percent -- will get, out of a trillion, 800 billion-dollar tax cut -- little more than that -- they'll get almost 690 billion (dollars) of that.

All I'm asking is, just take 600 (billion). Just take 600 (billion).

Now when I was moving this idea, which I announced in a speech at Brookings on the 9th, a lot of people came to me and said, "Well, how can this possibly -- you can never sell this. It'll never be sold."

So what I did -- and I realize it's anecdotal -- I went to the wealthiest people in my community, on occasion of two events that were -- and I come from a state that's a relatively wealthy state. And I asked the wealthiest among the people I know in the state, and I'll ask it rhetorically to anyone listening: Is there anyone who is making over $360,000 a year that is not prepared to give up one year of their tax cut -- it's spread over five, I might add -- one year to secure the peace in Iraq? I have not found a single person, not a single person, in that category -- and I obviously have no scientific poll -- who would say, "No, I won't do that." They know it's right. They know it's fair.

And the squandered opportunity of this administration is, all Americans -- the wealthiest among us are as patriotic as the poor among us. They're as ready, willing and able -- more able -- to respond to the need, if they are asked. No one has asked anything of them.

The last point I will make is that the argument that some of my friends on the right will make is that this will somehow negatively impact on the recovery. As it is now drafted -- and we've done this before in the law -- the secretary of Treasury will be instructed to find that $87 billion from the top tax bracket, those who were in the 39 percent bracket, and adjust their income tax bracket over a six- year period, beginning in 2005, to garner that $87 billion. There is no serious economist I'm aware of who will tell you that will have any negative impact on recovery -- none, none.

And so I think the president has a great opportunity here -- a great opportunity to not only not pass this burden on to our children, but a great opportunity to do what we've not done sufficiently so far: to try to rally all the American people -- all the American people -- to fight terror, enhance our security, and improve our geopolitical situation by securing Iraq.

I don't believe there's any serious group of people in this country who would argue with the premise, the premise, that the people at this moment who are most capable of paying should not pay.

Conclude by saying, the president said, just a few months ago, or longer now, well over a year ago, in his State of the Union Address -- I guess it was only a few months ago, actually -- he said, and I quote, "This country has many challenges" -- I'm quoting the president. "We will not deny, we will not ignore, we will not pass along our problems to other congresses, to other presidents, to other generations. We will confront them with focus, clarity and courage."

I call on the president and my fellow members of Congress to focus, in the president's words, "with clarity and courage" on the job that needs to be done. We need to appropriate this money to win the peace in Iraq, and we should not, as the president said in another context, pass that obligation on to another generation.

I thank you, and I'll be happy to take any of your questions.

Yes?

Q Do you have support among Democrats, Senator Baucus and the --

SEN. BIDEN: Yes. I think what's happening now is in order to be able to get this idea -- those of you who are veterans around here, and most of you are -- I have no pride of authorship in the exact language here. Do you understand what I mean by that? In other words, I am amenable and open to a different way to get this $87 billion. Some may come along and say let's do it in one year. Some may say, as I've said, let's spread it over five years to recover it. Some may say we should change the income tax bracket, as I'm proposing. This would probably mean that the people whose brackets have now gone from 39 percent down to the 35, in the remaining six -- the last six years of their tax break would go back up to slightly above 37 again to pay for this.

I am not married to the exact method. The hard part here -- for those of you who cover tax issues -- is it's very hard and it takes time to get these numbers. In other words, you have to run these econometric models; the Joint Finance Committee, the Joint Tax Committee has to do this.

So I do not have very hard, absolute numbers.

It could be 37.1 percent as opposed to 37.4 percent. It could be 36 percent. So I've said to all my colleagues, this is my proposal. Two principles. One, don't pass on the bill. Two, pay for it from those who are most capable of paying. And the third, overarching principle is, ask all America to participate in this war, this victory and this peace.

And I have vast support within the Democratic caucus. Senator Baucus has been very encouraging. Today we had a leadership lunch, meaning the ranking members of all the committees, the Democrats. There was vast support, ranging from Senator Hollings to Senator Baucus to Senator Daschle. I expect the vast majority of Democrats will support this.

And I would expect that the likely vehicle to try to do this on would be, although you know -- again, I don't want to confuse all our listeners here -- you cannot originate, in the United States Senate, a tax proposal. So we're going to have all those procedural issues that are out there.

But I think there's a vast support. A number of my Republican friends have indicated to me that, as difficult as it may be for them, they have an open mind about what they know to be the reality: Somebody's got to pay for this. Somebody's got to pay for this.

Q Senator, this is unlikely to be the last supplemental that you will --

SEN. BIDEN: Exactly right.

Q Do you imagine coming back each time and --

SEN. BIDEN: The answer is, that will depend directly on how sincerely and successfully the president is willing to negotiate with our allies to get them in on the deal. My plan all along -- you've had to hear me at a lot of these press conferences on Iraq -- my plan all along was -- and again, I'm a broken record on this -- the reason I pushed so hard for so long, with Senator Lugar and others, not to go war in Iraq till we had a consensus from the rest of the world community, as I said at the time, was we didn't need one single troop from any other nation to win. We didn't need one single bullet, we didn't need one single ground soldier, we didn't need anything from anybody else to win. And everybody used to say, "Well, why are you pushing so hard to internationalize this?" And I would say, and I say again and again and again, the real fight is winning the peace. That's the expensive proposition. That's the time-consuming proposition. That's the proposition that requires a real strong stomach. And if we don't have folks going in, then there won't be folks there with us when we get in -- which has, unfortunately, proven to be true. Notwithstanding the fact the administration says this is already international, 27 nations are there already, count -- do the math, folks.

Ninety-five percent of the people who are dying are American men and women, 90 percent-plus of the troops are American, and 99 percent of the money's American taxpayers' money.

So the president has finally decided that that is not a good idea -- to do this alone. So now he's out trying very hard, I hope, to bring in the rest of the world to help pay for this, to help secure it, in terms of forces, and to help manage it, in terms of what the future Iraq will look like. That's in our interest -- for that to happen.

If it happens, then the likelihood of coming back for supplementals in giant numbers diminishes significantly. If it doesn't happen, then we got a real problem.

So I'll cross that bridge, as they say, when we come to it. Yes?

Q Have you talked to anyone in the House about this?

SEN. BIDEN: I haven't, but -- not directly. In other words, some of my staff has talked to House members. There are similar -- there's a similar proposal, as a matter of fact --

Q (Off mike) -- Spratt?

SEN. BIDEN: Well, no, it's not Spratt's -- Spratt may have a proposal as well. I ask my staff. Who?

STAFF: Congressman Wexler.

SEN. BIDEN: Congressman Wexler has a similar proposal. He goes and takes it out of, I think, capital gains or the --

STAFF: The top brackets.

SEN. BIDEN: Pardon me?

STAFF: And the top --

SEN. BIDEN: And the top brackets.

So there's all different ways of doing this. But I understand -- I think this is one -- the main reason for me to do this is a little bit like why we all introduce a bill and put it in the record: so everybody focuses on it.

Again, I am not married to my exact proposal; that it has to be, you know, only the top seven-tenths of 1 percent; that it has to be one year over five, et cetera. I am open. I am open to amending it and altering it.

But I am committed -- and I believe a majority of the members of Congress -- they may not have the political capability of doing it, because there's a lot of pressure on the other side to keep the tax cut inviolate -- but they're reading the same polls you're reading. Fifty-one percent of the American people, if I'm not mistaken -- I have it here somewhere. I won't bore you when you probably know it better than I do. Fifty-one percent of the American people in a recent poll, within the last week, said that -- would you rather -- in order to pay for this $87 billion, would you rather increase the deficit or repeal the tax cut to get it? And they said, "Repeal the tax cut."

So the American people are already here. (Chuckling.) As usual, the American people are already ahead of us on this. They're not stupid. They understand that if we don't pay for it now -- and think about this, folks: Can anybody name me -- a rhetorical question: Can anybody pick a time, any time in American history, where a president has called us to war, told us it's going to be long, hard and expensive, and said, "And by the way, no sacrifice for the wealthiest among us; we're going to give you a tax cut while you go"? I can't think of any time in American history that's ever happened.

Folks understand it, including wealthy folks, including wealthy folks.

Yes?

Q A few minutes ago, you started to talk about the vehicle, and then you got into procedural things.

SEN. BIDEN: Vehicle, I would hope, would --

Q What kind of -- (inaudible) -- chance to move this on the supplemental when it comes to it, despite procedural hurdles?

SEN. BIDEN: Yes. Yes.

Q Are you expecting it to be a 60-vote hurdle? (Off mike.)

SEN. BIDEN: I think it'll be a 60-vote hurdle. But I'm also, in the meantime, now, once it's introduced -- because everybody keeps saying to me -- when I talk about this, they say, "Well, what do you have?" So we're introducing it. And now I have something that I'll go to the House leadership on the House side with, on the Democratic side, and a few Republicans, I think, are amenable. I'm talking to senior Republicans on this side who are open to this idea, open to the notion, and we're beginning the process.

Q If you don't get this through, if there isn't some way to pay for it, either through your proposal or some variation of it, will you vote against the money?

SEN. BIDEN: No. I don't -- see, that's the problem. There isn't any way to vote against this money. We're going to leave 140,000 troops there, basically, high and dry. You can't do that. You can't do that.

Now 21 billion (dollars) of that is for reconstruction. You theoretically could separate that out.

But this is a process. This is a process. And I am hopeful that at the end of the process, the end of this appropriating process here, we will have found a way to pay for it through the tax structure.

Yes?

Q According to The New York Times today, there's new intelligence with the Defense Department saying that our biggest worry in Iraq is the Iraqi people --

SEN. BIDEN: Absolutely, positively.

Q -- (off mike) -- the administration has been saying that it's there are these extreme Ba'athists, there are these foreign fighters --

SEN. BIDEN: This is another example of Mr. Rumsfeld being wrong for about the 10th time on Iraq. Really, it's getting frustrating here. They didn't even read Dr. Hamre's report. Dr. Hamre, with a group of leading American foreign policy experts, at the request of the secretary of Defense, from the end of June into July, went for a couple weeks -- I don't know the exact time -- into Iraq to examine the question of what needed to be done, what are the problems and how should we proceed.

They came back with a very good report. The essential element of the report is exactly -- and I'm about to make a speech on this point on the floor -- is exactly the point made by The New York Times today -- and I'm not speaking for the intelligence community -- quoting sources, quoting the intelligence community. And it was this:

Remember, he said, the window of opportunity in Iraq is very narrow, and it's closing very rapidly. And the window he was talking about a lot of people misunderstood. He was talking about the window of the sufferance of the Iraqi people for our presence in Iraq. Early on, the Iraqi people said, "We" -- according to the polling data, over 70 percent said, "We want the Americans to stay for at least a year. It's going to take that long to get things straight." We had some percentage over 50 percent saying, "We want them to stay three, four, five years." I forget the number, but multiple years. And Hamre said, "Watch out." Unless their situation improves markedly quickly, that window is going to close.

And the conclusion was, if it closes, then you have yourself a real live guerrilla war; then you have a pond in which the fish can swim. Not his words. That's a reference to Vietnam and -- actually, a reference to (Mao ?), I think.

But the point is this, it's closing, man. It's closing rapidly. Ask our commanders. Some of you were here at a press conference when Chuck Hagel and Dick Lugar and I came back, after we were the first Senate team into Iraq, and we told you about the discontent of the military, the U.S. military, the U.S. military, in Iraq.

Folks, this whole administration better be in the same page supporting Colin Powell's effort to internationalize this, because if they have not had an epiphany, if they are not in the same page, we're in real trouble; we're in real trouble.

How many times have you had to hear me say we have to change the complexion of the force for no other reason than if it's only Americans -- one of you, I will not name you, quoted me in one of your releases as saying -- about six months ago -- saying that I don't want an American flag on the shoulder of an American soldier to become a bull's-eye for every malcontent in the world. And if that's the only thing they see, that's what's going to happen.

The reason to internationalize this is not merely so we don't carry the whole burden, it's so that you communicate to the Arab world, you communicate to the Iraqi people that this is not a U.S. occupation; this is a world -- worldwide liberation to build a new Iraq. But you have to fundamentally change the mixture so when people walk out in the street, they're seeing Iraqi soldiers.

That's why I've been pushing so hard -- why -- it's beyond me why we did not, at the request of our own people in country, go to the Europeans and seek those 5,800 Carabinieri, European police, who are sort of paramilitary, which our folks said we need. And the reason that we need them is we want to have five Iraqis with three Italian Carabinieri who are real live cops patrolling so there's an Iraqi face, an Iraqi translator, an Iraqi person, but a professional, serious professional, the three European Carabinieri.

Why have we not done that? Why have we not done that?

When I asked that question to some of my European colleagues who would know, the response was, up to three weeks ago, "Because you haven't asked." It's time to ask. It's time to ask.

And so, I think the New York Times article, without confirming the intelligence comments in it, is absolutely, positively dead right- on based upon my experience in this issue, based upon my visit to Iraq, and based upon all I know about the way things are moving in Iraq.

Yes.

Q When you brought up the prospect of the tax proposal to your Democratic colleagues, did you sense any uneasiness among them about --

SEN. BIDEN: None. I didn't sense any unease.

Q Has that changed since the supplemental has come up?

SEN. BIDEN: Not at all. Well, I didn't bring it up until the supplemental came up. I did not bring it --

This is not a veiled attempt to do away with the -- I voted against the tax cut. I'm going to clean hands here. I thought the tax cut is a massive mistake. I voted against the tax cut. But this is not a veiled attempt to do away with the tax cut. This is not a game. This is about -- not scoring political points. This is about making sure my 22-year-old daughter doesn't pay for my security by inheriting a one-year deficit that's going to be $87 billion higher. That's what this is about.

And so, once I explained that to my colleagues, there were some Democrats who said, "Joe, why don't you repeal it all? Why don't you" -- there are some Democrats who would like to have it beyond this. But I have found no, including the senators who voted for the tax cut, whether they'll like exactly the language and exactly the mechanism I picked, I can't tell you at this point, because it's not been disseminated to everyone yet. But, I didn't get any negative comment when I raised it at the caucus of all Democratic senators. And I got substantial support, including an endorsement by the majority leader, that this is the best single way to go. Everybody's trying to figure out how to pay for it.

And so, I -- at least on the Democratic side, and among Republicans who I pull aside and talk to. I've written specifically to a half a dozen Republicans who I think might be interested in this. And if they need some political change in this to accomplish this same end, but to make it more palatable, I'm open. It should be bipartisan.

Q Did any -- (inaudible) -- tell you that, any Republicans?

SEN. BIDEN: I have just literally just in the last two days done that. Two are saying "I'll consider it; let me think about it, how to do it," and others have not responded to me yet.

Okay?

Q Senator, can you -- have you spoken to Wesley Clark about his presidential bid? And what do you think -- (off mike)?

SEN. BIDEN: I have. When I concluded that I was not going to attempt to get into this race in August and let the Democratic Party know that, and -- General Clark called me. He and I had spoken before that as well. I've spoken to him several chances -- several opportunities since then, and relatively recently.

I have a very high regard for Wes Clark. A very high regard for Wes Clark. And I think he will do nothing but add to the field. And I think that he is a very, very serious player, a very serious person.

This is a man -- in my discussions with him, we have spent most of our time talking about domestic issues. I am convinced he has given this a great deal of thought. This is not a fellow who is entering this race based upon the four stars on his shoulder alone. This guy did not become a Rhodes Scholar because he's slow, and he was not a successful commander of NATO because he didn't know how to organize people. This is a very serious guy.

And I think that he will -- the real test for him -- it's a very difficult thing to never have run for office, and the first time you run for office, run for president of the United States. So, the test for Wes Clark, in my view, will not be whether he's competent to be president. I think he clearly is. (Chuckles.) The test will be whether or not he can navigate the shoals of a very difficult political process to get the nomination to have an opportunity to become president, and only time will tell that.

But I have a very high regard for him, and I think he's a first- class guy.

Thank you all very much.

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