before the end of the year? it has to be done. it is very important that congress act on this before they leave town. again, it is not it is not rocket science, it is not complicated thing to solve. it has to be solved before they leave town. it would not be a responsible act of government to leave this uncertainty hanging over the economy going into next year. would that apply to the estate tax and a.m.t. yes. you think it is important before december 31st, we have a agreement, legislation on those pieces? i think it is self-evidently important. you re talking about what would be dramatic changes in tax treatment of individuals, at a time when it makes no sense for that to happen. the longer term fiscal questions. we had this very interesting kind of early report last week from the coach cochairs of the president s deficit commission asking bowles and simpson, which seems to offer a pretty plausible trajectory for the fiscal position towards a position of
[applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] senate democrats and republicans each met today to reelect their party leaders. after the meetings, senate leaders spoke to capitol hill reporters. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] okay, everyone, it s been my honor to serve as the democratic leader for the last six years and my team was just did. and i am really grateful for the caucus supporting us. just to remind everyone, senator durbin is the way it. senator schumer is the vice chair of the caucus. patty murray as the secretary. these are the elected positions. i have appointed as head of the dpc, senator schumer. vice chair will be senators that are now. and how did this during and policy committee will be mark begich. we feel very sound in our approach to this lame duck and of course next year and the year after that. our focus is on the middle class. it s on creating jobs and it s working in a bipartisan basis in any way that we can.
the committee will come to order. let me thank my colleagues and witnesses for their with patience and adults the various meetings that unfortunate not at the same time to try to schedule him the hearing but you ve come a long way might have friend tom miller from iowa as well as i wanted to make sure we could have the hearing and yet accommodate the interests of all members of the committee so we moved to this time. bob and i and senator shelby will be here at some point shortly. and the idea being that our against the democratic caucus this sort of wrapping up, but there is a republican caucus which is going to start in about an hour. and so i m going to try but i m going to do is have already made a brief comments, senator shelby will do so as well and ask the witness is if they can to abbreviate their comments even further so if they can accommodate to accommodate the republican colleagues who are here who still have an obligation to get to that c