Rick Santorum on Technology Republican Jr Senator (PA)

Make R&D tax credit permanent

BACHMANN: Today the US has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world. We've got to bring that tax rate down substantially so that we're among the lowest in the industrialized world.

Q: [To Santorum]: Your state of Pennsylvania, a big industrial state, has struggled in recent years.

A: We still make things there. And what I learned from growing up in a steel town is that's how the wealth from those who create the jobs gets down. We've been outsourcing those jobs. So what we need to do is a lot of what was said here. I would add another thing: We need to cut the capital gains tax in half, but for manufacturers we need to give a five-year window where we cut it to zero. We want to encourage people to set up jobs here in America. Take that R&D credit, make it permanent, take that innovation and then invest that money here to create that broad middle of America and have that wealth really trickle down.

Voted YES on restoring $550M in funding for Amtrak for 2007.

Proponents of the bill say to vote YEA because:
• [In my state], Philadelphia's 30th Street station is the second busiest train station nationally, with over 3.7 million boarding a year. And 3,000 people are employed by Amtrak in Pennsylvania. Amtrak and the health of Amtrak is important.
• Last year the Senate transportation bill had $1.45 billion for Amtrak, which is obviously more than the $900 million in the current budget proposal. I am offering an amendment to increase that funding from the $900 million which is in the bill right now to the $1.45 billion level and adding $550 million.
• I support funding through the section 920 account [without a tax increase]. We have seen that without raising the cap or without raising taxes, the Senate has been able to come up with a robust number for Amtrak which I will support within the context of a responsible budget.
• We have spent less money on Amtrak in the last 35 years than we will on highways in this year alone. And highways don't pay for themselves, even with the gas tax. Neither does mass transit, either in this country or anywhere else in the world. But we subsidize them because they improve the quality of our lives.
• We have never provided the kind of commitment to Amtrak that we have for other modes of transportation, and this amendment will be an important step to getting Amtrak off the starvation budgets that it has subsisted on for far too long.

Opponents of the bill say to vote NAY because:
• The problem with that is there is no money in the section 920 account. If we want to talk about "funny money" financing, that is it--taking money from an account that has no money. This whole budget takes money we don't have. The result is we keep running up the debt.

Voted NO on disallowing FCC approval of larger media conglomerates.

Voted YES on Internet sales tax moratorium.

Voted YES on telecomm deregulation.