[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 134 (Thursday, September 22, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: September 22, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
{time} 1720
THE CAPITOL STEPS CONTRACT AND CYNICISM IN WASHINGTON, DC
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bishop). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of February 11, 1994, and June 10, 1994, the gentleman from
Georgia [Mr. Gingrich] is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of
the minority leader.
Mr. GINGRICH. Mr. Speaker, I think at the beginning I want to talk
tonight about the Capitol steps contract and cynicism in Washington,
DC.
I was very sad that I could not be here this morning when some of my
colleagues on the Democratic side did 1-minute speeches attacking our
proposed contract for next Tuesday. I want to talk about cynicism and
negativism and what is happening in America, and what we are trying to
accomplish, and the framework within which we are trying to accomplish
it.
Next Tuesday, September 27, we will have over 300 candidates for
Congress from all over America coming to the Capitol steps to pledge a
checklist and a contract. We have a basic document that says, ``A
campaign promise is one thing, a signed contract is quite another.''
Then what it outlines, in what will later on be a full page ad in TV
Guide, is a basic set of commitments for the opening day, our
checklist, and then a contract to bring 10 bills to the House floor and
get them to a final passage vote in the first 100 days.
Mr. Speaker, I think what I am sad about about the things the White
House has done so far to try to attack the contract, and the tone in
some of the press coverage and the 1-minute speeches here by the
Democrats today, is that I think they miss the whole point of what we
are doing. There is not a word in this ad that talks about the
Democrats. There is not a word in this ad that talks about the Clinton
administration.
What this ad does is, it talks in a positive way about what
Republicans would do to solve real problems. I'm going to read the ad,
and then I'm going to explain the background of why we are doing this,
and how we got to this.
The ad starts, as I said a minute ago, with a cover which says: ``A
campaign promise is one thing, a signed contract is quite another.''
That is why Republican House candidates have pledged in writing to vote
on these 10 commonsense reforms.
Then it says:
GOP contract with America: We have listened to what you
want and we hear you loud and clear. On the first day of
Congress a Republican House will force Congress to live under
the same laws as every other American.
Cut one out of every three congressional committee
staffers.
Cut the congressional budget.
Then in the first 100 days we will vote on the following 10
bills:
One, balanced budget amendment and line-item veto. It is
time to force the government to live within its means and to
restore accountability to the budget in Washington.
Two, stop violent criminals. Let us get tough with an
effective, believable, and timely death penalty for violent
offenders. Let us also reduce crime by building more prisons,
making sentences longer, and putting more police on the
streets.
Three, welfare reform. The government should encourage
people to work, not to have children out of wedlock.
Four, protect our kids. We must strengthen families by
giving parents greater control over education, enforcing
child support payments, and getting tough on child
pornography.
Five, tax cuts for families. Let us make it easier to
achieve the American dream, save money, buy a home, and send
the kids to college.
Six, strong national defense. We need to ensure a strong
national defense by restoring the essential parts of our
national security funding.
Seven, raise the senior citizens' earning limit. We can put
an end to government age discrimination that discourages
seniors from working if they choose.
Eight, roll back government regulations. Let us slash
regulations that strangle small business and let us make it
easier for people to invest in order to crate jobs and
increase wages.
Nine, commonsense legal reform. We can finally stop
excessive legal claims, frivolous lawsuits, and overzealous
lawyers.
Ten, congressional term limits. Let us replace career
politicians with citizen legislators. After all, politics
should not be a lifetime job.
My point is, here are three reforms for the opening day that are our
checklist of what we will do. Here are 10 specific bills that we are
committed to bring to a vote in the first 100 days.
There is not a negative word here about the Democratic Party. There
is not a negative word here about President Clinton and his
administration. It is an effort on our part to be positive.
You might say, why are we being positive about this? I think that
there are two very profound reasons why it would be good to have a
positive campaign in October 1994, rather than a negative campaign.
The first reason is that people are so frustrated, people are so
hostile, people are so angry, that you do not need to go out and get
them madder. You don't have to go out and beat up on President Clinton
or beat up on the Congress. People get it. They are already fed up.
What people want to know, I think, is what are you going to do
differently? Our challenge to the Democrats is if they do not like our
10 bills, what are theirs? If they do not like our three reforms, what
are theirs? Let us have a debate between ideas, but let us not have the
kind of negative smear tactics that have driven the country, I think,
to distraction, and have broken down any willingness to have a decent
political debate.
We are prepared to debate on the issues: Is it a good idea to have a
balanced budget amendment, a line-item veto, or not? Is it a good idea
to have an effective, believable, and timely death penalty for violent
offenders, or not? Should we encourage work and family in the welfare
system, or not?
These are real policy proposals. We are going to have next Tuesday a
whole set of bills. All 10 bills are already going to be written and
available.
There is a second reason, I would argue, why it would be good to
actually try to have a debate in October on the issues. I think this
country is in trouble. People have talked about the economic recovery
and all this stuff. Nonsense. The underlying core pattern of where
America is at is real trouble.
If you do not believe me, watch any major city local television news,
including Washington, for 2 nights. The child abuse, the rape, the
murders, the cocaine dealing, the problems of American life are
unbelievable. I am a history teacher, and I tell every audience that as
a matter of history, not politics, as a matter of history, it is
impossible to maintain American civilization with 12-year-olds having
babies, 15-year-olds killing each other, 17-year-olds dying of AIDS,
and 18-year-olds getting diplomas they cannot read. I don't think that
is debatable. I think it is clear.
Yet, every single thing I just described is happening within a mile
of your national Capitol. It is happening in every major city in the
country. It is happening in West Virginia. It is happening on most
Indian reservations. It is an objective fact, if you are going to be
honest about it, that we are in the middle of the largest moral and
societal crisis we have had maybe in the coutnry's history.
The result has been a breakdown in trust in government. I think there
are very deep reasons we are in trouble. I do not think what we are
going to do in the first 100 days by itself is going to get us out of
trouble. I think even if we pass all 10 of these bills--and frankly, I
don't know that we can pass all 10.
Notice, our commitment is to get them to a final passage vote, to
bring them to the floor in the first 100 days and to get a yes or no
vote, so that you will know who to keep and who to fire in 1996. But if
we are a majority, we may only be a majority of 5 or 10 votes. So when
you start listing all these controversial ideas, we are going to have
real opposition. There are going to be some real fights.
Even if we could pass every one of these, all they would be is the
beginning. The purpose of next Tuesday, with all the Republican
candidates on the Capitol steps, is to outline the beginning. It is the
first 100 days. Remember, the Congress is elected for 731 days, so the
Congress has time to really be involved in more than just one set of
ideas.
{time} 1730
Our goal would be to work very hard on these, to start on the opening
day, and then to be in a position to get the final vote done before the
100 days is up; having kept our contract, to then take frankly a couple
of weeks off, because we are going to be pretty tired. If we get all
this done in the first 100 days, we will have earned a couple of weeks
to go back home, to talk to folks, to unwind over Easter, and then come
back in early May and have a second Capitol steps event outlining a
second wave of reforms.
I say that because, for example, it is pretty clear we are not going
to pass a major health bill this year. I understand that Senator
Mitchell is still trying in some secret meetings over in the other
body, but I do not think it is going to happen. So we need to take
health reform back up in January, but if the Republicans are in charge,
we are going to start with medical savings accounts, we are going to
start with home health care, we are going to start with ensuring that
every person who is self-employed can get a tax deduction for their own
health insurance, we are going to start with lifting the antitrust for
hospitals so that they can work together in sharing very, very
expensive equipment and developing specialties to deal with cancer and
heart disease and things like that. We want to approach it very, very
differently than the way the Clinton administration did. But health
care is not going to be in the first 100 days, because we cannot
guarantee that we can write an intelligent, problem-solving bill in the
first 100 days. So that is one issue.
The second issue that we are going to work on is voluntary school
prayer. I have made a commitment and I will make a speech in the near
future outlining why I believe it is so important, that we are going to
offer an amendment on voluntary school prayer, making it possible, by
the end of June. But I would like to see us have 3 or 4 months to go
out and have the Judiciary Subcommittee hold hearings in every State in
the country so that in every State in the country, people who favor
voluntary school prayer and people who are opposed to it have an
opportunity, without having to travel to Washington, in their own State
to go to hearings and to express themselves, because I think this is an
issue that has tremendous support in the country but is controversial
and deserves to be heard.
There are a lot of other good, small things we are going to be doing.
One small thing we are going to do quite frankly is we are going to
change the House rules so that when in the future we file a conference
report, we also file the floppy disk so that it is available by
computer at the minute you see it on C-SPAN. This is actually our
briefing book on Contract with America for next Tuesday, it is pretty
big. But let us say this was a bill. Nowadays what happens is, and this
happened on the crime bill. The manager of the crime bill came in at 7
at night after we were done voting. He said, ``I now move to file the
conference report,'' at 7 at night. It was all written on paper. It
was, I believe, about 700 pages long if I remember correctly. It came
down here. At 8 the very same night, they were up in the Committee on
Rules, nobody had yet had a chance to even look at it. They hoped to
bring the bill to the floor the next day and actually pass it. That
meant that if you had been at home at 7 at night and you had seen them
file the report, even if you called your Congressman or your Senator
the next morning, they could never have mailed you the bill in time for
you to read it before the vote.
One minor but real change we are going to have is that when we file
the conference report, if the Republicans are in charge, we are also
going to make it available electronically at that moment, so if you are
sitting at home or you are in your office or you are at the local
public library and you see the conference report being filed on C-SPAN,
at that moment you will be able to access Internet and pull up the
legislative library and get on your screen and in your computer the
entire bill instantaneously.
What that is going to do is going to give ideas back out to the
country and give the country a chance, notice again, in a positive way,
with a positive reform, doing something positive to try to improve the
relationship between Congress and the American people.
I would like to yield to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Saxton],
my good friend.
Mr. SAXTON. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, first of all, let me commend the gentleman for taking
this time this evening to discuss what I believe is the biggest single
change to be proposed in the size, scope, and direction of the Federal
Government since the 1930's. We as Republicans have recognized that in
order to get the size of Government under control, in order to put in
place policy that will help our economy grow at historically acceptable
rates, which it is not currently doing, that there are some very basic
changes that we have proposed under the gentleman's leadership and
under the leadership of the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Armey] which will
put in place policies over the long term to do a lot of the things that
Republicans have been talking about for many years.
One of the things that I find very appealing about the way this has
turned out is that we know, for example, that when taxes get too high
and place too much of a burden on workers and on business that the
economy has a very difficult time performing at historic standards. As
a result of that, we know that during the late 1970's, the economy did
very poorly, and again during the early part of the 1990's after the
tax increase of 1990 and the tax increase again in 1993, that we were
unable to see the kind of growth again that we would like to see in
jobs and in economic growth generally.
I was asked to be a leader of 1 of the 11 groups that was to make
recommendations. Recommendations that we made, I believe, will be very
significant in terms of changing tax policy, in regulatory policy, to
help businesses grow, to make jobs more plentiful for workers, to
increase wages for workers across-the-board, and at the same time to
help families have an easier time of paying their taxes and making a
living.
Of course there are some here in the House who would not like to talk
about these and so there has been an attempt already, even before our
September 27 Capitol steps event, there has been an attempt already to
change the debate, to tell America that we cannot afford to make the
changes that we want to make in order to help the economy grow. There
has been a claim that it is too expensive, that we cannot pay for it,
and as a matter of fact we have looked at this very carefully under the
leadership of the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Gingrich] and others and
we recognize that as we count here in Washington at least, and we do
not always count in Washington the way normal people count, but that as
we count here in Washington, there is a $147 billion, 5-year cost to
this program.
I want the gentleman to know that we have looked very carefully and
want everyone who is listening to know that we have looked very
carefully at this cost and we will pay the bill for this cost in terms
of the rules that exist in the House today. We will do it by making
cuts in the size of Government.
One of the things that the American people may have forgotten about
and I know some of the Members of this House would like to forget about
is that we have already demonstrated our ability to make those kinds of
cuts. In the fiscal year budget for 1994, under the leadership of the
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] and others, we showed that we could
bring a bill to this House that actually cut $369 billion over 5 years.
Then gain in fiscal year 1995, the House Republican budget that we had
right here on this floor up for a vote where every Republican voted for
it would have cut $377 billion. So those who are out there trying to
change this debate to deflect attention away from the very good
policies that are contained in this contract with the American people
need to realize that we have already in the past on several occasions
shown that we on this side of the aisle are willing to put our names on
the line and make the kinds of very difficult decisions that are
necessary to get our country back on the right track.
I just wanted to point those things out for the record.
Mr. GINGRICH. Because of your work on the Joint Economic Committee, I
know you have paid a great deal of attention to economic policy. Being
from New Jersey, you are actually living through the demonstration of
what we are talking about. As I understand it, when Christie Whitman
was running for Governor, she said, ``I believe we can cut taxes and I
believe we can cut spending.'' The newspapers attacked her and the
columnists attacked her and Governor Florio attacked her. She said,
``No, we're going to do it.'' Then as I understand it when she was
inaugurated, she said, ``We are going to keep our word,'' and I believe
she has actually cut spending and cut taxes.
But could you share with viewers from across America and with our
colleagues the story of what is happening for real in New Jersey and
why we are confident that if we apply the same principles as Governor
Whitman, that we can move in the right direction?
Mr. SAXTON. Governor Whitman has done a couple of things. First, you
are absolutely correct. During the campaign the Governor pledged to cut
taxes by approximately 25 percent over 3 years. She did so, in a way
that would help the New Jersey economy grow. I might point out that in
the most recent month's statistics, New Jersey had the biggest drop in
unemployment of any State in the country.
{time} 1740
Mr. GINGRICH. So she actually has cut spending, cut taxes and lowered
unemployment by creating more jobs for the private sector?
Mr. SAXTON. That is correct.
Mr. GINGRICH. That is the opposite, is it not, of the liberal model?
Mr. SAXTON. That is exactly opposite of the liberal model. And what
she said during the campaign and ended up doing, it was very good to
have been able to sit behind her on the stage the day she was
inaugurated, and she said if the Democrats in Washington can increase
your taxes retroactively, which Bill Clinton and the Democrats did in
this House in 1993, she said I can decrease your taxes retroactively
and she put in the first tax cut retroactive to January 1, 1992. It was
a 5 percent reduction.
So what has happened in New Jersey is, number one, we have put in
place business jobs, economic growth policy that is working. That is
No. 1.
No. 2, she did something that is equally important and that the
Contract for America is modeled after. That is to restore confidence in
government. This lady, our Governor, Governor Whitman, said during the
campaign, ``Here's what I am going to do. I am going to cut spending
and I am going to cut taxes. We're going to make government smaller.''
And in her first year she made the first installment on that.
I might add, you know we do not talk a lot on the floor here about
politics, but I might add that the voters in New Jersey, the citizens
of New Jersey appreciate that because her approval ratings are over 70
percent today.
Mr. GINGRICH. Let me build on that for a second. You have Governor
Whitman who won an election and is very popular because she is keeping
her word. Then to the south is Gov. George Allen. He gave his word on
crime and spending and he is keeping his word. Then in Massachusetts
there is Gov. Bill Weld who came in, and they had to get a balanced
budget. He said he will not raise taxes and cut spending, and as a
result Massachusetts is now creating jobs. In Michigan, Gov. John
Engler got elected and said, ``I am going to reform the welfare system
and I am going to change the welfare system and break up the
bureaucracy.'' He has now done a tremendous job. Over in Wisconsin,
Gov. Tommy Thompson, who invented Learn Fair, for example, who said,
``You don't get money if you're not getting educated, we are not giving
people money to sit around and watch soap operas,'' and he has really
begun to change government. And then Carroll Campbell just finishing
his term has a similar tradition. And I must say that I was with Gov.
Pete Wilson in California last night, and he has cut spending
dramatically in California.
When you look at the people who are prepared to be serious about it,
as you pointed out, with John Kasich's leadership as head of the Budget
Committee, the House Republicans produced a budget that cut over 5
years $400 billion. They came back and produced other proposals for
cutting spending.
But the first point to be made is about the spending side, that we
have proven again and again we can offer a budget that in fact cuts
spending.
But there is a deeper point I think, and I find it fascinating in the
news media some very phony numbers that the Clinton administration has
sent up and in some comments made here on the House floor they have
come up with a term ``a trillion dollars.'' I do not know if the
gentleman is aware of this yet. The way they get to our program costing
a trillion dollars is simply they say if you require a balanced budget,
since we are going to be borrowing $750 billion under the Clinton plan,
your plan is off by $750 billion. So they are in effect giving up on a
balanced budget. The Clinton administration is saying that they will
never balance the budget, and they are challenging our effort to pass a
constitutional amendment.
I do not think that either Mr. Saxton or I or anybody else who is on
the Republican side thinks you can get to a balanced budget overnight.
This is like a giant company. It takes a while to downsize and rethink
and reshape. But I think that if we really put our shoulders to the
wheel we can do great work.
Was the gentleman working on the economic opportunity and regulatory
reform section?
Mr. SAXTON. Yes, that is correct.
Mr. GINGRICH. And you produced as our eighth item in the contract the
Job Creation and Wage Enhancement Act?
Mr. SAXTON. That is correct.
Mr. GINGRICH. I want our colleagues to know this is a list of what is
in the bill, so this is substance. In our outline on the Contract With
America Briefing Book this runs for 2\1/2\ pages. Here is the outline:
Capital gains tax cut, neutral cost recovery, taxpayer empowerment to
reduce the deficit and debt buydown, risk assessment cost/benefit
analysis, regulatory budget, unfunded mandate reforms, strengthen
Paperwork Reduction Act, compensation for private property takings,
regulatory impact analysis.
Now just in the bill that the gentleman chaired and was so active on
you have here a tremendous liberating effect on the American economy.
Mr. SAXTON. In just the first instance when we talked about the
capital gains tax, which I think is very important, and incidentally,
we got a roomful of people who are experts on economic growth, and
people, I might add, from both ends of the spectrum because we wanted
to get a full picture of what it was that we needed to do to make the
economy grow. We asked what is the single most important thing we can
do to produce the right action for economic growth in our country, and
the broad consensus was the single most important thing that we can do,
along with regulatory reform, and along with marginal tax rates, was
the change in the capital gains tax rate. And we wanted to be very
careful of that. So we got to Bill Archer, who is the ranking
Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, and we said how do we do
this to be fair to everybody, how do we do this so that we do not face
the argument of trying to do favors for business people, often times
who are viewed as, particularly by the other party as being rich
people? How do we get away from doing the rich people in this country a
big favor? So this bill is structured by Bill Archer in such a way that
people who are in the lower brackets get a more significant break than
people who are in the higher brackets, even on a capital gains tax rate
as well as, of course, the indexing.
So on that one item we expect very important, big things to happen.
You mentioned the neutral cost recovery, which is a fancy word for
saying giving people a good break on how to depreciate equipment they
buy for their businesses, and while these are not common, everyday
things that we talk about around the dinner table at night, at least
not most of us, we know from our experience in having watched what
happened to changes in the Tax Code that took place in 1986, 1990, and
1993, and watching the performance of the Government, that these are
the things that need to be addressed.
Mr. GINGRICH. Let me build on that a second. If you will look at the
neutral cost, again, for people who are not in business, what this
means is when a business buys a computer, or when a business buys a new
factory that they actually get to depreciate and write off on their
taxes a full 100 percent of the purchase price value.
A recent analysis, and this will tell you a little bit about why we
are in the fight with the liberal Democrats over how to score this and
how much it would cost, a recent analysis by the Institute for Policy
Innovation found that the proposal would create 2.7 million jobs,
produce an additional $3.5 trillion in economic activity by the year
2000, increase the U.S. gross domestic product by $1 trillion annually,
and increase economic activity by 1.8 percent. In other words, if you
look at the study done by the Institute for Policy Innovation, 2.7
million more Americans would be at work in the year 2000, the U.S.
gross domestic product, that is our national economy would be $1
trillion bigger. To us, a simple shorthand, we collect on the average
19 percent of the gross national product. So by allowing businesses to
buy the newest equipment, the newest computers, by allowing them to
compete with Germany, Japan, and China, by making sure Americans have
the most modern equipment in the world, we would actually increase tax
collection by $190 billion a year by the year 2000. Not a penny of
that, not a penny of that will be counted by the liberal Democrats in
the way they score this bill.
So when you read the Clinton administration's nonsense scoring, which
is pure socialism, and when you hear Democrats come to the floor and
start whining about the scoring and how we are going to spend money,
remember, they do not take into account any investment, they do not
take into account any new jobs, they do not take into account how the
free enterprise system works. And we believe just on that one provision
that if you were to look over the next 6 years you would actually
probably have several hundred billion dollars in additional tax
revenue, because more people would be at work, they would not be
drawing welfare and unemployment, they would be paying income taxes.
And with more people at work, with a higher salary paying more taxes,
you actually increase the tax revenue without having to increase the
taxes.
I am glad to yield to my friend from New Jersey.
Mr. SAXTON. This is a very excellent point the gentleman brings up,
because it would seem to the average person, I thought, I always
thought until I began to study economics, that when you reduce tax
rates the natural effect would be to get less government revenue.
{time} 1750
We know today that that is not always true, and the best example, or
the two examples of that are, one was back in the time of Jack Kennedy
when Jack Kennedy put in place his, or when Congress did unfortunately
after Jack Kennedy's death, the economy began to grow after the Kennedy
tax cuts were put in place, and as the economy grew, jobs were created,
people were bringing home bigger paychecks, and as a result, they sent
more money off to Washington because there was a bigger pie to get a
smaller slice of, and it produced more revenue.
The other good example was in the early 1980's when Ronald Reagan ran
for office. He said, ``I know what is the matter with this economy that
we call stagflation and malaise,'' and all of those things that we
heard back then; he said, ``Taxes have gotten too high.''
So when Reagan ran for office in 1980, he promised the American
people he was going to cut taxes by 30 percent. Again, just like the
Governor Whitman we talked about a few minutes ago, a lot of people
said, ``Ronald Reagan cannot do that.'' In 1981, 1982, 1983, we all
know what happened. We had that 30-percent cut over 3 years of the tax
rate, and bingo, the economy began to grow again. As a matter of fact,
the gentleman was talking about growth in revenue when taxes are
reduced. In 1980 our total revenue in our country was about $500
billion. By the end of the decade, in spite of the tax cut, our revenue
had doubled. We had over a trillion dollars to spend through this
Congress.
The gentleman's point is very well taken. When we have to score
things around here that do not take into consideration that economic
growth produces more jobs, more income, and more revenue to the Federal
Government, it is a false way of figuring out the net result of tax
policy.
Mr. GINGRICH. Let me make another point. This is not just about
taxes. We have a contract for 10 items of legislation, and we have a
checklist for some very important reforms.
Let me make one more point before I yield to my very good friend from
Connecticut.
In the work the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Saxton] has done on
the Job Creation and Wage Enhancement Act, in the analysis they point
out, and I quote, ``The Clean Air Act expressly forbids agencies from
weighing economic effects in writing their implementing regulations.''
Now, let me tell my colleagues what this means, because this is going
to be a real crisis for the State of California by next spring. The
Environmental Protection Agency is currently writing a master plan for
air quality in California which currently, and it will be announced
February 1, after the election, but the best evidence we have so far is
that it is going to say to long-distance trucks, ``You can only make
one stop in the entire State.'' It is going to say to ships, ``You
cannot go into Long Beach or Los Angeles harbor if you have boilers
that are still hot.'' And since seagoing ships do not turn their
boilers off, that means no one will come in.
Apparently a group of bureaucrats have sat down in a room and written
the perfect Clean Air Act for an agricultural society with no trucks,
no cars, no airplanes, and no ships. But it is madness.
What we are saying is when you write regulations, you are going to
have to look at what do they cost. You are going to have to do an
economic benefit analysis, and you are going to have to assess the real
risks. You are going to have to actually bring science to bear and not
just the latest Ralph Nader press release.
My guess is there are hundreds of billions of dollars in savings and
millions of jobs that will be saved by the 21st century, 6 years from
now, by these two items. Yet when you first read them, they do not seem
so powerful.
But when you look at the number of job-killing regulations now coming
out of the Government, you begin to realize why this kind of
legislation is so vital.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend, the gentleman from Connecticut.
Mr. SHAYS. I was listening to what both of you were saying on the
floor in my office, and I just felt compelled to come over and make a
few comments.
I mean, I just relish the thought that on the first day that a
Republican majority is in charge that we would force Congress to live
under the same laws as every other American and cut the number of
congressional committees and our budget and then move forward in the
first 100 days with some very important elements.
As someone who has been in public life for a number of years, the one
thing that is eminently clear to me, as you have pointed out, I say to
the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Gingrich], that 12-year-olds having
babies and 14-year-olds selling drugs, 15-year-olds who are killing
each other, and 18-year-olds who cannot read their diplomas is truly
the legacy of the welfare state.
Candidly, Congress, Republicans and Democrats, know the welfare state
is dead. There just is a sense of how do we move forward. For me, it is
extraordinarily exciting to think that as a Member of Congress that I
can deal with the issues that we have left in this agenda that is a
contract with the American people to provide a balanced-budget
amendment and a line-item veto.
I mean, I think of the extraordinary opportunity a line-item veto
would provide and to truly move forward even more of getting tough with
criminals, welfare reform, which we have talked about for 2 years and
not taken any action, strengthening our families.
I know; I have a family of four boys. I know my parents basically had
the deductibility of about $8,000 per child in today's dollars, and yet
that is not available to families today.
What is exciting for me as a member of the Committee on the Budget is
to be part of 13 Republicans who came in with alternative budgets last
year and this year because of your urging. I mean, one of the things
that has happened in this general assembly, in this Congress, is that
we have been empowered to move forward in such a meaningful way. Our
Committee on the Budget is coming up with reforms, recommendations,
welfare reform, health care reform. It is really sad that President
Clinton did not put away his veto pen earlier. It is sad the partisan
political rhetoric did not stop earlier and we could not deal with some
of the incremental needs of dealing with administrative costs and tort
reform in our package.
As a rank-and-file Republican, I am going to be one of those 300 who
is going to sign on to have some commonsense legal reform, and I have
an ability through these 10 items to make it very clear to my
constituents that where I might disagree on the last item of term
limits, because I happen to think that term limits is not the problem.
I think the problem is 40 years of one-party control; the American
people deserve to see that debated. And here we are having an open
dialog after hours, but when there is a debate on the bill, we have
closed rules, and to know those rules will not be closed and there will
be true debate, I look forward as a Member of one of 435 Members if I
am reelected to have a debate on term limits.
I might make an argument that says, you know, 40 years of one-party
control is the problem and not the fact that someone has been 6 or 8 or
10 years.
But it is exciting, and I just heard some comments today about, you
know, criticism of this package, and I just want to weigh in as one
Member, a moderate Member in this caucus, and to me every one of these
issues is right on target in terms of the opportunity for the Americans
to see what can happen in the first 100 days.
Mr. GINGRICH. Let me give our colleagues an example. On our contract
of 10 bills that we will bring to the floor and get to a final passage
vote on the first 100 days, No. 9 is commonsense legal reforms. It is,
in fact, called the Common Sense Legal Reforms Act. I think the
gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Ramstad] was the leader of this
particular project.
All of these, I should tell my colleagues, were developed under the
leadership, or with the leadership, of the gentleman from Texas [Mr.
Armey], the House Republican Conference chairman, with tremendous help
from the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde], who had several policy
forums as the head of the Policy Committee, and I think with
enthusiastic support from the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Michel], who
had seen over the years the need to move to a much more positive and
proactive kind of approach.
No. 9 on our list of 10 bills is the Common Sense Legal Reforms Act.
It includes discouraging wasteful litigation, honesty in evidence,
reasonable limits in punitive damages, truth in attorneys' fees, a
legislative checklist, and proportional liability.
I am going to take right out of the contract with America's Briefing
Book, which is really a tremendous work that has been put together to
explain the whole thing, what they say about it, because I think it
will give our colleagues a sense of why on the Republican side we are
ready to have a positive campaign this fall. We are ready to go out to
the country and talk about ideas and about solutions and about real
positive things and why I was so discouraged today by the four or five
negative and mean-spirited 1-minutes that just did not get it. They did
not understand what we are trying to do here.
If you will notice this, when we go through this, I think you are
going to see it does not attack the Democrats. It does not attack the
Clinton administration. It talks about a real solution.
Here is what it says on commonsense legal reforms:
Our legal system has become burdened with excessive costs
and long delays and no longer serves to expedite justice or
insure fair results. Instead, overuse and abuse of the legal
system impose tremendous costs upon American society. It has
been estimated that each year the U.S. spends an estimated
$300 billion as an indirect cost of the civil justice system.
These billions of dollars result from dramatic expansions in
the number of cases filed, a tripling of cases in the Federal
courts alone in the last 30 years. In fact, in 1989 alone, 18
million civil lawsuits were filed in State and Federal
courts, amounting to one lawsuit for every 10 adults. Enough
is enough.
Although the vast majority of these cases are filed in
state courts, federal reforms can have a substantial impact
and provide a model for state reform, without having reform
dictated to the state by Washington, D.C. The Common Sense
Legal Reforms Act provides concrete steps to restore the
efficiency and fairness of our federal civil justice system
by:
Discouraging Wasteful Litigation. One of the most effective
ways to ensure that nuisance, or frivolous, lawsuits are not
filed (or that a frivolous defense is not offered) is to
require that the loser of a lawsuit pay the winner for the
legal fees incurred. The loser pays approach encourages
careful consideration of the merits of one's case and the
exploration of a settlement prior to filing a suit. This fee
shifting provision would be limited to federal diversity
cases to ensure that litigants seeking to enforce federal
civil rights are not affected adversely. Along the same
lines, many lawsuits could be avoided if the parties would
just sit down and discuss their differences before going to
court. To achieve this first common sense step, the bill
requires claimants to notify the other party prior to filing
suit, thus encouraging settlements before resorting to
litigation.
Honesty in evidence. The last decade has witnessed an
explosion of abusive practices using rent-an-expert-witnesses
and unsupported scientific theories. The bill prevents the
use of junk science by requiring expert testimony to be based
on sound scientific theories and bars contingency fees for
expert witnesses and permit greater review of experts'
qualifications.
Reasonable limits on punitive damages. It is news to no one
that juries have been winging out of control over the past
decade in awarding punitive damages to sympathetic plaintiffs
far in excess of what is recovered to make them whole. Part
of the blame is to rest on the system, because it gives
juries very little guidance with which to make such awards.
The Common Sense bill provides these standards by requiring
that awards be based on ``clear and convincing'' evidence of
malicious conduct and be limited to three times compensatory
damages.
Truth in attorneys' fees. Attorneys often operate under a
billing arrangement, called a contingency fee, that is based
on a percentage of the damages recovered. While this fee
arrangement helps some worthy claimants have access to the
courts, it also creates a situation ripe for abuse by
attorneys. To prevent abuse, one way to secure the benefits
of contingency fees while protecting unsuspecting plaintiffs
is to require attorneys to disclose up front the exact terms
of a billing arrangement, document the actual time spent on
the case, and allow a client who believes he has been misled
to petition the court for redress.
Legislative checklist. The vague and incomplete laws
Congress passes today encourage litigation to determine
exactly what Congress meant when it spoke in a particular
bill. This provision mandates that Congress follow a simple
checklist to ensure that new legislation make clear exactly
what is intended, such as whether the new law includes a
private right of action, a statute of limitation, or is to be
applied retroactively.
Proportionate liability. Under today's liability standards,
litigants can go after the deep pocket defendants for the
full amount of damages even though this party was responsible
for a small fraction of the harm. This standard encourages
abusive practices of shake down the deep pockets despite
their limited liability. The bill requires apportioning
liability on the basis of a defendant's responsibility.
{time} 1800
My point in reading through this one bill is to get across to people
that just in this one area we are talking about very major, very
significant litigation reform in a way that is going to dramatically
improve job creation, lower the cost of living in America, increase the
opportunity to create new businesses and do the kind of things that
will increase Government revenues by increasing the size of the economy
and putting more people to work.
I yield to my friend from New Jersey.
Mr. SAXTON. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to illustrate by way of three items why
the section that the gentleman reads from in our document, Contract for
America, why these things are so important. Now, where the loser pays
in liability suits, at least in some cases, out-of-court settlements
would be encouraged. Where punitive damages--where punitive damages
would be subject to reform; the truth-in-attorneys-fees and the other
things the gentleman read through, why they are so important.
Now, let me give three illustrations. I happen to live in a
relatively small county in New Jersey, about 450,000 people. We
currently have 13 judges. Those 13 judges are an expense to the
taxpayer of something under $500,000 per judge, with their staff and
their space costs and all of those things. It costs about $500,000 per
judge per year.
So we have 13 judges at that cost in my little county; that is a cost
of $6.5 million a year.
Now, it may not surprise the gentleman, after the words I just heard,
to know that in order to bring a civil case to trial in New Jersey, in
my county of Burlington, it is about a 5-year wait because the civil
docket is so filled with so many suits. So that long period of time
becomes a very frustrating thing for people who really have a
legitimate civil suit.
So there is a proposal in front of the New Jersey legislature today
to create three more seats, three more judges at a cost of $1,500,000
for the taxpayers of our area to pay. Now, that is a burden on the
taxpayers in Burlington County, it is a burden on the taxpayers of New
Jersey. It may provide jobs for some attorneys who become judges, but I
do not think that is what this is all about.
So it is a very cost-producing, time-consuming situation that is
caused by this huge court backlog that we have in my little county.
No. 2, an illustration of what tort reform means in the items the
gentleman read off, which are proposals. This is a personal story. I
have a friend who is a doctor, who is a gynecologist whom I have known
for years. He called me up one day not too long ago and said, ``Jim, I
just wanted you to know before somebody else tells you that I am
closing my practice and I am going to move to another State,'' he said,
``Colorado, and I am going to work in a clinic.'' I said, ``Why would
you do that? You have a wonderful practice. You have been in practice
for many years. People think the world of you.''
He said, ``Jim, I get sued so many times that I have a choice, I
either have to go out of business or practice without insurance.'' He
said, ``I am not going to do either. I am going to go someplace where I
can practice, where I will have insurance and it won't be such a burden
on me and,'' he said, ``My patients.'' I said, ``What do you mean, your
patients?'' And he said, ``Well, if I have to pay $100,000 or $125,000
a year in insurance premiums, I cannot continue to pay those costs
myself, I have to pass those costs along to my patients in higher
doctor fees.''
So I understood then how important this was. We have discussed for a
long time around this institution about how we control medical costs.
One of the important ways to get a handle on medical costs is to reduce
the cost within the system and tort reform, the items the gentleman has
listed here, help do that.
No. 3, do you know we do not build piston airplanes in this country
anymore? And the reason we do not build piston airplanes in this
country anymore is because the product liability associated with small
piston-driven airplanes is so high because of the way the liability
laws are written that American manufacturers no longer find it feasible
or possible to build these types of planes anymore.
So this issue that the gentleman has pointed out is something we have
dealt with around here for a long time. I hope that as we put out this
contract for the American people that these kinds of items will be
brought to full light. I hope we can debate them throughout this coming
campaign.
Mr. GINGRICH. Let me say that the gentleman's points reflect three
things which I want to say very quickly before I yield to my friend
from Connecticut.
One, we are really concerned, at its heart, about changing the things
that are not working in America and we think there are--these are deep
and significant. When you realize, with 13 judges in your county, it is
still taking 5 years to get to court, you know something is not working
right.
Second, what we are proposing here in our contract is substance,
these are real bills with real details. This is not some press release
or some press conference, but rather a detailed systematic effort led
by Congressman Armey, the conference chairman involving many Members of
the Congress and many candidates across the country to develop a real
good substantive program of reform.
Third, the thing I was most struck with today in what I thought was a
sad performance by the Democrats during the 1-minutes today, that we
are being totally positive. The gentleman from New Jersey did not bash
the Clinton administration, he did not talk about the Democrats just
now. He talked about real problems in the litigation system, real
problems in the courts and our effort to find a real solution. And that
would be a fabulous turnaround for America if this fall we could have a
campaign between two sets of solutions, we could have the Clinton
administration, the Democrats offering their solution to these
problems, and we would be offering our solutions and let the country
choose which one they like.
I yield to my friend from Connecticut.
{time} 1810
Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I just would like to weigh in again as a rank
and file Member and emphasize that I heard one of the individuals
speaking today and talking about how there was this top-down emphasis
that we, as rank and file Members, would have to go lockstep in a
contract with the American people, and that is an individual who simply
did not know how this was generated. This was a bottomup. It was every
Member weighing in whether it was moderate Members in the Republican
Caucus or the most conservative, and these are elements in which we
find tremendous commonality.
I mean I would like not to have to have a balanced budget amendment,
but as someone on the Committee on the Budget and someone who has
continually tried to get our financial house in order, I do not see any
other alternative, and I believe that it has to happen. I think the
tool of a line-item veto is more important, and during that debate I
will probably put more emphasis on that, but it is going to have my
vote, a balanced budget amendment, a line-item veto, and all of us who
stepped forward on the Capitol steps, 300 strong, are saying to the
American people, ``If you elect us, this is what will happen.''
I look at what I am seeing Republicans do around the country, and it
is exciting to see Republicans elected in Democrat States like
Massachusetts, and I have seen what Governor Weld was able to do. In
Connecticut, we raised taxes, instituted a new income tax. Governor
Weld had the same option in Massachusetts because he had serious
financial challenges, and he chose to veto budgets until he got budgets
that were able to be balanced without any tax increase. One of the
exciting things he did there, which we know we have to do here, is we
have to take the entitlements, take them off automatic pilot, and put
them back on as an appropriated expense. Welfare in Massachusetts is an
annual voted item because of the leadership of a Republican.
I mean I get excited thinking that for the first time in 8 years that
I have been a Member, if I am fortunate enough to be returned, that I
will be able to deal with these issues on the floor of the House, know
that there will not be restricted votes, know that we will not have
king-of-the-hill amendments so that everybody gets to vote for every
amendment, but then the amendment that is designed to ultimately pass
passes, but to know we are going to have open and free debate on the
issues the gentleman talked about.
I say to the gentleman, ``You talked about the issue of commonsense
legal reform, and I thought basically you were going to consume the
rest of our time because there was so much in it. We could go through
each of these issues, the budgetary side and so on, and again as a
member on the Committee on the Budget, what is exciting is that we are
going to pay for every tax reduction, if, in fact, a tax deduction does
not include more revenue. In many cases it will. A capital gains
exemption by almost any outside expert knows that it is going to
encourage economic growth and provide more revenues.
I look at the senior citizens earning limit and think why do we want
older Americans not to work? Why would we want to take those who have
the greatest experience? And it seems to me, if we get older Americans
to work, why should they be penalized by an earnings limit? Let them
work. If they are working, my logic says they are paying taxes, and to
me that seems so logical.
We are going to have a debate on the floor of the House if we have
enough Members who have signed this contract elected.
Mr. GINGRICH. Let me just say that, again going back to why we are
having a little bit of a problem over how we score, how much would this
cost, the fact is the very point I just made. If we get economic
growth, if people get jobs, if people leave welfare and go to work,
common sense tells you you just saved the money for the Government over
here on welfare because you are not paying it, and by the way, since
they are now at work, they are paying some taxes, so you are making
some money for the Government over here. None of that, zero, was scored
by the Clinton administration is assessing what they are doing because
in their model they just do not show dynamic behavior. They do not show
what people are doing.
And so I find it very frustrating in a way that here we are in a
situation where we are trying to do develop a real set of positive
ideas, the Republican House contract with America. We are trying to lay
out for people 10 major bills to be brought forward in the first
hundred days, 3 major things to be done on the opening day, and, by the
way, my pledge is, as I hope I would be the Republican candidate for
Speaker if we are a majority, and my plan would be to take this very ad
out of TV Guide, and keep it at the Speaker's desk, and make it
available at the time, and I yield to the gentleman from California.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. I would just like to ask you, as our leader, Newt,
why it is that we cannot do these things now. I do not think many of
the people who were watching understand just what kind of restrictions
we are under as Members of the House of Representatives as a minority.
Some people do not even know that we do not control--for example, none
of the chairmen of any of the committees is a Republican. Many of
them--you know I had fought a big battle on the illegal alien issue in
these last couple of years, and time and time again I have been
thwarted from even bringing up this by parliamentary moves on the part
of the majority party.
Now these things we are talking about as part of our 10 points, we
would have liked to have done this a long time ago, but over, and over,
and over again the Democrats who control the majority, they will not
even let us bring it to a vote on the floor of the House.
Mr. GINGRICH. Well, of course, that is part of the difference. One of
the reasons we are saying this will happen if we are a majority is
because, if we are a majority, it is the Speaker's power to recognize,
it is the Speaker's power to schedule, so we are then in a position to
say, ``Hey, we are going to do this,'' and, if we are a majority, we
can. We cannot make this same commitment if we are not a majority
because we have every evidence to believe that the Democrats will block
these ideas, and in fact at this very moment they are blocking, and
that is part of the problem.
Let me yield to another friend from California who is here.
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I thank the gentleman from Georgia.
I heard Jack Kemp make a statement last weekend at the Republican
convention in San Diego, and I also heard you, Newt, speak to a group,
Women Who Win, to emphasize the same issue, and that issue was that it
should not be the Republicans' position just to trash or debate
Democratic ideals, but to come up with new ideas and new formulas that
are better, and I think that what you have done with these pledges are
better ideas--and to sell it to the American people.
And I look at history to establish certain ideals, and I look at
1986, and there was a budget deal that for every tax dollar that comes
in we will cut spending by three, and the other side of the aisle said,
``We're going to give you an ultimate way to do that, to control the
budget,'' and that was called Gramm-Rudman, and Republican Presidents
bought into that. But it was not enforceable.
Then in 1990, Mr. Speaker, George Bush had the same pledge, for every
tax dollar that comes in we were promised on the other side of the
aisle that we will cut spending by $3, and to do that we are going to
put caps on every budget, and we are not going to allow you to spend
any more than that. That was unenforceable.
And then the Clinton tax that comes up, the largest tax in the
history of this country outside the 1990 tax, and yet even in a crime
bill we waive the Budget Act to increase by $9 billion money going into
a crime bill. So, you cannot enforce it.
So, what I am trying to point out, a better idea, I would not have to
take the checkbook away from my daughters if they manage their account
well. I am happy to say I have not had to take that checkbook away
because they are very fiscally conservative, except my older daughter
maybe a little bit is a deficit spender sometimes. But at the same time
the reasons why we are going to a balanced budget amendment----
Mr. GINGRICH. If she hears you said that, you may be in trouble when
you get back.
Mr. SHAYS. Do you want to strike your words?
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. No, my oldest daughter, I apologize, but my oldest
daughter is somewhat of a deficit spender. My 12-year-old is actually
loaning her money at 10 percent interest. I mean she is going to be the
business person in the family, and she calculates daily interest on a
486 computer at 12 years of age.
But Ross Perot was right in one issue, in the fact that the country's
No. 1 issue is not crime, not health care, not education, but the
national debt.
{time} 1820
We spend $1.3 billion a day on just the interest, and we are spending
beyond what our children have. And the reason for a new idea, like a
balanced budget amendment, is not a new idea. We would not have to have
the idea if the problem did not exist. What we are trying to do is come
to the resolution of a problem in a very effective way, because
Congress cannot control itself.
I commend the gentleman from Georgia. I think this is one of the most
dynamic, inspiring deals that I have been involved with in the 3 years
I have been in Congress.
Mr. GINGRICH. Let me say the purpose of taking this time tonight is
to say this is about substance, about solutions, and about being
positive. I would like to challenge our Democratic friends to try to
develop their version of 100 days that has the same positive substance
and solution orientation, and not to just degenerate into negative 1
minutes because they have nothing better to say.
____________________