[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 144 (Thursday, October 6, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: October 6, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]


                              {time}  1300
 
                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. JACOBS. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Rowland). The gentleman will state his 
parliamentary inquiry.
  Mr. JACOBS. Has the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Bunning] been 
yielded the customary 50 percent of the time?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman has been yielded 30 minutes.
  Mr. JACOBS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I begin by commending my co-chairman, the gentleman from 
Kentucky [Mr. Bunning]. It has been a long effort, it has been an 
entirely cooperative effort, and, therefore, to that extent it has been 
a pleasant effort to correct the egregious wrong that has occurred by 
the inadvertence of the U.S. Government to the taxpayers of this 
country.
  Mr. Speaker, almost 2 years ago it was discovered that the threshold 
for household employers to pay Social Security taxes on domestic 
workers had remained $50 for 40 years. Now at the same time the 
threshold for getting any credit for paying the tax had been more than 
indexed during those 40 years. Two years ago the Government discovered 
the error, and got right on it now, and 2 years later, finally, it is 
being corrected; or, putting it another way, one might say that the 
wheels of justice will never get a speeding ticket.
  This report, this conference report, does the following:
  It allows household employers to file their obligations for Social 
Security taxes on an annual rather than quarterly basis. Moreover it 
allows them to file those taxes on their 1040 forms that they are 
filing anyway. It makes the threshold heretofore $200 per year, $1,000 
per year, and, as a token of apology to the American people, it makes 
this retroactive to the first day of this year, of 1994, refunds the 
taxes paid by any household worker or employer on wages that did not 
cross the threshold of $1,000.

  It has other features such as indexing by $100 the amount of the 
threshold into the future. It has a provision dealing with people who 
do not file 1040 forms alone, but also estimate their taxes because of 
self-employment.
  It has another principal feature, which is correcting an anomaly of a 
law that was passed in 1980 that forbade Social Security payments to 
felons in prison. The anomaly was, although I can personally testify 
that the law in 1980 was intended to deny those same benefits to 
murderers and other wrongdoers who were declared criminally insane and 
incarcerated anyway, some have read the statute not to cover those 
individuals. This would correct that anomaly, and while it is 
correcting that anomaly, it raises sufficient funds for the trust fund 
to allow for the change that I have just described, including the 
retroactive refund for those who do not cross the threshold of $1,000 
for the year 1994.
  Mr. Speaker, I look forward with avidity to hearing from my 
colleague, the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Bunning] who is from where 
my mother is from, and I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. BUNNING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Wisconsin [Mr. Petri] to speak out of order.


                              dirty tricks

  (By unanimous consent (Mr. Petri was given permission to address the 
House out of order.)
  Mr. PETRI. Mr. Speaker, the use of bogus polls to spread ugly rumors 
is a campaign practice the media and campaign reformers should look 
into.
  Here is how it works: A so-called pollster calls every household and 
asks a series of questions such as, ``Do you plan to vote for Smith or 
Jones?'' ``What if you learned that Smith steals candy from children?'' 
``Would that change your vote?'' ``What if you learned that Smith is 
fighting four paternity suits and his mother complains he never comes 
home for Christmas? Would that change your vote?''
  Now, obviously, the charges have to be more plausible than those--but 
they do not have to be true. They can be totally misleading. They are 
designed to spread ugly rumors.
  And you can never find these polls listed in the disclosure forms 
campaigns are required to file. Instead, separate groups which are 
allied with a political party do the dirty work technically separately 
from the actual campaigns.
  During the final weeks of the campaign, these bogus pollsters will be 
calling every household in some areas to spread rumors about 
candidates' positions on pay raises, Social Security, and who knows 
what else.
  I understand that Wisconsin and Ohio are the greatest victims of this 
technique. But you can bet it will become nationwide if it is allowed 
to go unquestioned.
  We should tighten the campaign disclosure laws so people will know 
when somebody allied with a campaign tries to pull this dirty trick. Or 
at least, the media should expose it.
  Mr. BUNNING. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, It is a pleasure to be here for Congress' second major 
piece of Social Security legislation this year, and for the final 
action in a process that the House started back in March of last year.
  This was when the Social Security Subcommittee held the first of the 
three hearings on the provisions in the conference report.
  I would like to commend my colleague, Andy Jacobs, the chairman of 
the Social Security Subcommittee, for his diligence, persistence, and 
perserverance.
  He is a pleasure to work with, and I thank him for another great 
effort.
  This legislation addresses three problems. The first is one made 
famous by the hapless Zoe Baird.
  Singlehandedly, Ms. Baird has done more to publicize the law that 
provides Social Security protection for nannies and other domestic 
employees than the IRS and the Social Security Administration have been 
able to do combined.
  As a result of the publicity that surrounded Zoe Baird, a lot of 
hardworking and normally law-abiding American taxpayers woke up to a 
terrible realization--that they were tax cheats and lawbreakers.
  I'm sure that Congress, back in 1951 when domestic workers were first 
covered under Social Security, never intended to make lawbreakers out 
of householders who hire cleaning ladies and parents who hire 
babysitters.
  But, that is just what happened when it set the wage threshold at $50 
a calendar quarter, and never provided for any increase as the years 
went by.
  A $50 quarterly threshold was probably more than adequate back in 
1951, and easily exempted the occasional cleaning lady or babysitter 
earning a $1 an hour a day or two a month. Today, $50 is just over a 
day's pay at minimum wage.
  The conference report before us addresses these problems. First, it 
raises this outdated $50 in wages paid in a calendar quarter to $1,000 
paid in a year.
  Now, I would have preferred a higher amount based on the fact that 
the $50 threshold amount was never indexed.
  I strongly supported the $1,800 threshold that was passed by the 
House last year, only to be stripped from the budget reconciliation 
bill at the insistence of the Senate--or even the $1,250 threshold that 
was in the House version of this legislation.
  But I also appreciate the need to protect Social Security eligibility 
for those who spend their lifetimes cleaning other people's homes--many 
of whom are low income women.
  I believe that the $1,000 threshold, which will be indexed, should be 
high enough to protect these employees and still relieve the average 
householder of the burden of having to report wages of someone they 
occasionally employ in their home.
  This legislation exempts teenagers under 18 who babysit or mow lawns.
  Because Americans who employ babysitters and cleaning ladies have 
been expecting Congress to fix this problem for over a year now, I am 
pleased that the House conferees were successful in making these 
provisions retroactive to January, 1994.
  It took 40 years to recognize and deal with this problem.
  Going back to the beginning of this year was the least Congress could 
do for average Americans who occasionally hire people to look after 
their children or mow their grass.
  The legislation also allows householders who hire domestic workers to 
report and pay their employees' Social Security taxes as part of their 
personal tax returns, rather than have to complete all sorts of 
complicated additional paperwork.
  Because it will be easier for householders to pay the Social Security 
taxes on their domestic workers, more domestic workers will end up 
getting the same Social Security credit that other workers get toward 
disability or retirement benefits.
  The second provision transfers a small part of the revenues now going 
into the Social Security retirement trust fund to the disability trust 
fund.
  The Social Security retirement trust, which the actuaries say has 
enough money to last until 2036 while the disability trust fund will 
run out of money as early as next spring if we don't act now.
  Currently, the disability program pays over $3 billion a month in 
benefits to almost 4 million severely disabled workers and their 
families.
  We recognize, however, that this transfer is just a Band-Aid, and 
that the administration has to take a serious look at why the 
disability program is in trouble.
  We are looking forward to getting the study they have been doing on 
this serious problem by October of next year.
  We will also be closely monitoring SSA's efforts to clear up its 
disability backlogs and do disability reviews.
  In my opinion, SSA's failure to do these reviews and take nondisabled 
people off the rolls has not only contributed to the program's 
financial problems, but to the public's lack of confidence as well.
  There are serious problems at SSA, but it will be an independent 
agency next year, unfettered by HHS. We will be expecting the 
leadership of this independent agency to do something about those 
problems.
  The third provision is also overdue. Congress voted--14 years ago--to 
prohibit payment of Social Security benefits to criminals like the Son 
of Sam, who are being completely supported at the taxpayers' expense as 
they serve out their time behind bars.
  This provision likewise prohibits payment of benefits to those who 
have committed terrible crimes, but who are found not guilty by reason 
of insanity, and are institutionalized at taxpayers' expense instead of 
imprisoned.
  To allow the criminally insane to collect benefits is an affront to 
the families of the victims of their terrible acts, as well as to hard-
working taxpayers.
  Mr. Speaker, it has been a long haul, but we have finally taken 
action on problems that have been around a long time.
  This legislation will help millions of average Americans do the right 
thing for those they employ to care for their children or clean their 
homes.
  It will help ensure that the millions of severely disabled Americans 
and their families will continue to receive benefits without worry.
  And it will stop benefits to the criminally insane who are already 
institutionalized at taxpayers' expense.
  I am pleased that we are considering this important legislation 
today, and I urge its speedy passage.

                              {time}  1310

  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. JACOBS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I omitted one point that the world, or at least this 
part of it, ought to know, and that is that this bill also exempts all 
domestic workers under the age of 18 except in the case of a young 
person who works full-time, perhaps as a child, works full-time, has 
not reached the age of 18. That person would be covered under the 
payment of the taxes and the $1,000 threshold.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman 
from Connecticut [Mrs. Kennelly].
  (Mrs. KENNELLY asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
her remarks.)
  Mrs. KENNELLY. Mr. Speaker, the conference report before us contains 
a measure which will help thousands of workers across the country. It 
will update the threshold at which employers must start paying taxes 
for their domestic employees. This is what we now call the nanny tax. 
It is much-needed legislation, and it is long overdue.
  The nanny tax threshold was set more than 40 years ago and remains to 
this very day, until this very moment, artificially low. Today, if you 
use a baby-sitter or someone to mow your lawn on a regular basis, you 
probably owe this tax. And while the law was never meant to address the 
14-year-old baby-sitter, that is exactly what it has done.
  It is necessary that we safeguard people who perform domestic work. 
The law was never about the person who shovels your walk, or the person 
who mows your lawn, or about the baby-sitter. It was about people who 
proudly, with dignity, do domestic work.
  When employers fail to pay this tax, workers who have multiple 
employers can find themselves ineligible for benefits after a lifetime 
of work. This is not right, and this legislation will change this.
  This conference report raises the threshold at which taxes must be 
paid to $1,000 annually, and requires the taxes to be filed only once a 
year. Can you imagine, and some of you can, what it is like to have to 
file a tax for your domestic worker four times a year? Anyone who has 
tried to do it can truly understand why many did not. The IRS code had 
become anachronistic in this whole area. And as a result of the law 
becoming outdated, people who worked day in and day out, and worked 
hard, but who worked for a number of employers, were not getting their 
Social Security taxes paid correctly.
  As I stand here today, I hear about the gridlock, I hear about how 
Congress does not know how to do anything. I hear about how we cannot 
move forward and help the American people.
  The nanny tax is an example where we can, in a bipartisan fashion, 
make it easier for the American people to do their duty and obey the 
law. With this legislation, we make it much less likely that someone 
who wakes up in the morning and works maybe 5 days a week, sometimes 7 
days a week, at domestic work, proudly, will find that their employer 
has not paid the Social Security tax.
  We have achieved this in a bipartisan fashion. We have achieved it in 
a bipartisan fashion in the House of Representatives, and we have 
achieved it in a bipartisan fashion on the Senate side. We have 
achieved this without loading it up with a number of amendments. And we 
have achieved it in the way we should legislate.

                              {time}  1320

  We are passing legislation that may not get much attention in the 
newspapers or the media who say we cannot do anything, but it will be 
noticed by the thousands upon thousands of domestic workers who now can 
count on the fact that their employer only has to fill out one form, 
once a year, when they do their income tax return.
  Numerous Members contributed to this success.
  I stand here and thank the acting chairman of our committee, the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Gibbons], to thank the gentleman from 
Indiana [Mr. Jacobs], who truly understood what was happening here, and 
to thank Mr. Archer and Mr. Bunning on the other side of the aisle. I'd 
like also to offer my thanks to Mrs. Meek, whose commitment to this 
legislation is second to none, and Mr. Houghton, who was also 
instrumental in passage of this bill and he is to be commended. I thank 
Senator Moynihan for his help, and all the other people involved. This 
bill is not for the elite of America, this is not for the well-known 
names, it is for the working men and women who have to count on their 
Social Security. This is for working people. It is also for the men and 
women of America who want to obey the law and just cannot quite figure 
out the forms and the back and the forth and the up and the down. With 
this change, they can be law-abiding citizens.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a solid achievement and should be recognized as 
such.
  Mr. BUNNING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
Texas, [Mr. Archer], the ranking member on the full Committee on Ways 
and Means.
  (Mr. ARCHER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. ARCHER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to 
me.
  I rise in support of H.R. 4278 with a great deal of compliments and 
accolades to both the chairman of the Subcommittee on Social Security, 
the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Jacobs], and the ranking Republican, 
the gentleman from Kentucky, [Mr. Bunning]. I also want to note that 
another member of our committee, the gentleman from New York [Mr. 
Houghton], contributed a great deal toward the development of this 
bill.
  It is truly a bipartisan bill. It is something that needs to be done, 
actually has needed to be done for a long time to correct a situation 
where one of the Nation's basic laws has been in effect but not 
effective. Because we are not dealing with business people who are used 
to the process of withholding from the payroll of employees. We are 
dealing with people who are average citizens in the home, employing 
other average citizens in the home, employing other average citizens to 
do work in the home.
  This bill corrects the problem by streamlining and simplifying the 
process for the employer, makes it easier to understand and to comply 
with the law, and sets a threshold below which it is not necessary to 
go through the administrative red tape because the numbers are so low 
that the cost of administration does not justify the added effort. So 
it is long overdue and something that I believe would serve the benefit 
of both the person who employs someone in the home and the person who 
works in the home.
  In addition, as the chairman of the subcommittee knows for many, many 
years I have devoted a great deal of attention to Social Security, 
along with him, to attempt to shore up and stabilize the fund so that 
Americans could have more confidence in it. There is a part of this 
bill that has been alluded to that is exceedingly important, that takes 
away Social Security benefits from the criminally insane who are 
already being supported by the taxpayers while institutionalized.
  The injustice of paying benefits to such individuals has cried out 
for correction for many, many years. This bill finally corrects it, and 
takes that load off of the Social Security fund. In doing so, it helps 
to stabilize it for the future.
  So on all counts, this bill makes sense. It is in the interest of the 
taxpayers. It is in the interest of the Social Security beneficiaries. 
It is in the interest of all Americans, and I urge its adoption.
  Mr. BUNNING. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the ranking member of the 
Committee on Ways and Means for the outstanding job that he has done on 
our committee. He mentioned shoring up Social Security has been one of 
his priorities since he first was ranking on the Subcommittee on Social 
Security. He has worked actively on Social Security issues for over a 
decade. I want to thank him for his leadership and guidance, 
particularly on this bill, and all the bills that we take up in the 
Subcommittee on Social Security.
  It is a pleasure to be here, Mr. Speaker, for Congress' second major 
piece of Social Security legislation this year, and for the final 
action in a process that the House started back in March of last year. 
This was when the Social Security Subcommittee held the first of the 
three hearings on the provisions in the conference report. I would like 
to commend my colleague, Andy Jacobs, the chairman of the Social 
Security Subcommittee, for his diligence, persistence, and 
perseverance. He is a pleasure to work with, and I thank him for 
another great effort.
  This legislation addresses three problems.
  The first is one made famous by the hapless Zoe Baird. 
Singlehandedly, Ms. Baird has done more to publicize the law that 
provides Social Security protection for nannies and other domestic 
employees than the IRS and the Social Security Administration have been 
able to do combined.
  As a result of the publicity that surrounded Zoe Baird, a lot of hard 
working and normally law-abiding American taxpayers woke up to a 
terrible realization--that they were tax cheats and law breakers.
  I am sure that Congress, back in 1951 when domestic workers were 
first covered under Social Security, never intended to make law 
breakers out of householders who hire cleaning ladies and parents who 
hire babysitters. But, that just what happened when it set the wage 
threshold at $50 a calendar quarter, and never provided for any 
increase as the years went by.
  A $50 quarterly threshold was probably more than adequate back in 
1951, and easily exempted the occasional cleaning lady or babysitter 
earning a dollar an hour a day or two a month. Today, $50 is just over 
a day's pay at minimum wage.
  The conference report before us addresses these problems. First, It 
raises this outdated $50 in wages paid in a calendar quarter to $1,000 
paid in a year. Now, I would have preferred a higher amount based on 
the fact that the $50 threshold amount was never indexed. I strongly 
supported the $1,800 threshold that was passed by the House last year, 
only to be stripped from the budget reconciliation bill at the 
insistence of the Senate--or even the $1,250 threshold that was in the 
House version of this legislation.
  But I also appreciate the need to protect Social Security eligibility 
for those who spend their lifetimes cleaning other people's homes--many 
of whom are low-income women. I believe that the $1,000 threshold, 
which will be indexed, should be high enough to protect these employees 
and still relieve the average householder of the burden of having to 
report wages of someone they occasionally employ in their home. This 
legislation exempts teenagers under 18 who babysit or mow lawns.
  Because Americans who employ babysitters and cleaning ladies have 
been expecting Congress to fix this problem for over a year now, I am 
pleased that the House conferees were successful in making these 
provisions retroactive to January 1994. It took 40 years to recognize 
and deal with this problem. Going back to the beginning of this year 
was the least Congress could do for average Americans who occasionally 
hire people to look after their children or mow their grass.
  The legislation also allows householders who hire domestic workers to 
report and pay their employees' Social Security taxes as part of their 
personal tax returns, rather than have to complete all sorts of 
complicated additional paperwork. Because it will be easier for 
householders to pay the Social Security taxes on their domestic 
workers, more domestic workers will end up getting the same Social 
Security credit that other workers get toward disability or retirement 
benefits.
  The second provision transfers a small part of the revenues now going 
into the Social Security retirement trust fund, which the actuaries say 
has enough money to last until 2036, to the disability trust fund, 
which will run out of money as early as next spring if we do not act 
now. Currently, the disability program pays over $3 billion a month in 
benefits to almost 4 million severely disabled workers and their 
families. We recognize, however, that this transfer is just a bandaid, 
and that the administration has to take a serious look at why the 
disability program is in trouble. We are looking forward to getting the 
study they have been doing on this serious problem by October of next 
year.
  We will also be closely monitoring SSA's efforts to clear up its 
disability backlogs and do disability reviews. In my opinion, SSA's 
failure to do these reviews and take nondisabled people off the rolls 
has not only contributed to the program's financial problems, but to 
the public's lack of confidence as well. There are serious problems at 
SSA, but it will be an independent agency next year, unfettered by HHS. 
We will be expecting the leadership of this independent agency to do 
something about those problems.
  The third provision is also overdue. Fourteen years ago, Congress 
voted to prohibit payment of Social Security benefits to criminals like 
the Son of Sam, who are being completely supported at the taxpayer's 
expense as they serve out their time behind bars.
  This provision likewise prohibits payment of benefits to those who 
have committed terrible crimes, but who are found not guilty by reason 
of insanity, and are institutionalized at taxpayers' expense instead of 
imprisoned. To allow the criminally insane to collect benefits is an 
affront to the families of the victims of their terrible acts, as well 
as to hard-working taxpayers.
  Mr. Speaker, it has been a long haul, but we have finally taken 
action on problems that have been around a long time. This legislation 
will help millions of average Americans do the right thing for those 
they employ to care for their children or clean their homes. It will 
help ensure that the millions of severely disabled Americans and their 
families will continue to receive benefits without worry. And it will 
stop benefits to the criminally insane who are already 
institutionalized at taxpayers' expense. I am pleased that we are 
considering this important legislation today, and I urge its speedy 
passage.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes and 30 seconds to the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Herger].
  Mr. HERGER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to be here 
today, in support of the conference agreement on what has become known 
as the nanny tax.
  Mr. Speaker, when people think about the problem that average 
citizens have had reporting and paying the Social Security taxes on 
domestic workers, they usually think in terms of younger families who 
employ babysitters to look after their children while they work, or 
enjoy an occasional night out.
  In fact, this has been a problem for many senior citizens as well. 
Many of us know from watching our own parents and grandparents that, as 
people get older, they fight to retain the dignity that comes from 
being independent. They do not want to burden their children, who are 
busy trying to raise their own families--or who live too far away to 
provide regular help. So, they hire individuals to come into their home 
to do some of the tasks that they find difficult to do--clean the 
house, take care of the lawn, things like that.
  As we know Mr. Speaker, senior citizens are among our most law-
abiding citizens. They want to do the right thing. And they know better 
than anyone the value of earning enough Social Security credit to 
qualify for benefits in retirement. Unfortunately, up until now it was 
very difficult for them to do the right thing when it came to paying 
the Social Security tax on domestic workers they hire because of all of 
the extra, complicated paperwork they have been required to complete 
four times a year in addition to their annual tax return.
  Mr. Speaker, this legislation streamlines the whole process of paying 
Social Security taxes on domestic workers by raising the threshold to 
$1,000 a year instead of $50 a quarter, and, more importantly, by doing 
away with burdensome quarterly returns, and allowing householders--
young and old--to pay the tax on their personal tax return. By so doing 
we will be removing the worry of dealing with burdensome paperwork 
every 3 months from the minds of senior citizens who want to do the 
right thing as taxpayers when they hire domestic workers who help them 
to remain independent.
  In closing, I commend the gentleman from Kentucky for his efforts and 
leadership on this legislation, and I join with him and my colleagues 
in urging its speedy passage.
  Mr. BUNNING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Wisconsin [Mr. Klug].
  Mr. KLUG. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague, the 
gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Bunning], who has been so helpful on this 
whole process and also to the chairman of the subcommittee, the 
gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Jacobs], who has been so wonderful as well.
  I would like to take issue with my colleague from Connecticut who 
said today's piece of legislation is an indication of how well Congress 
works. To the contrary, I think it is an indication of how 
extraordinarily difficult it can be around here to get the simplest 
thing done.
  My colleague may remember that this all began in January of 1993, 
when one of the President's Cabinet nominees suddenly discovered she 
had not paid the Social Security that was due one of her workers for 
years. What was even more frightening was that Americans all over this 
country who go to work and pay the bills and try to keep their nose 
clean discovered that they were breaking the law because they were not 
filing Social Security payments if they simply paid somebody $50 in a 
3-month period.
  In this day and age, if Members have three boys like I do and they go 
out to the movie once a month and out to dinner and then hire somebody 
to shovel the snow, bango, they are over the limit and they have broken 
the law.
  So in February of 1993, I introduced one of the first variations of 
legislation to try to fix this problem and worked very closely with a 
number of my colleagues around the House. And within a couple of weeks, 
we had more than 50 cosponsors to try to solve the problem, which 
included annual reporting, as today's bill does, which required also an 
annual cost-of-living increase, as today's piece of legislation does. 
And then we found ourselves amazingly in front of the Committee on Ways 
and Means doing hearings, and it seemed like full steam ahead.
  Then it was in the budget bill, and then it got stripped out last 
year in a conference fight with the Senate.

                              {time}  1330

  Then we found ourselves in February of 1994, nearly a year after the 
original bills had been introduced, nearly a year after the first 
hearings had begun, and we were stalled out. And so at that point, my 
colleagues, the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. Kopetski], and the gentleman 
from Wisconsin [Mr. Kleczka], both Democrats, and the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania [Mr. Santorum], also on the Committee on Ways and Means, a 
friend of mine, began to try to urge the Senator from New York [Mr. 
Moynihan] and our colleagues in the other body to get moving so we 
could finally get this done. We almost found ourselves in a situation 
again this week where it died in conference once again, where we had a 
$1,800 threshold, a $1,200 threshold, a $1,000 threshold and a $670 
threshold.
  In a final gesture to good, common sense and in a final tribute again 
to my colleagues from Kentucky and Indiana who managed to stick with 
this and bulldog all the way, we find ourselves with a very important 
piece of legislation today which solves the problem which says you have 
an annual $1,000 standard, a cost of living increase, and for the 
millions of Americans who discovered way back in January of 1993 they 
were law-breakers will discover when they file their income taxes next 
April, they are no longer law-breakers, in fact they can comply with a 
law which is now meaningful and intelligent and much more germane in 
1994 than the 1950's piece of legislation we found ourselves with.
  Mr. BUNNING. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New 
York [Mr. Houghton], a member of the subcommittee, who has done an 
exceptional amount of work on this legislation.
  Mr. HOUGHTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. HOUGHTON. Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk about a couple of 
individuals. First of all, the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Bunning] 
and the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Jacobs]. They have done an 
extraordinary job. But I have got to talk about the people that I have 
worked very closely with on this, the gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. 
Meek] and the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Mrs. Kennelly]. They really 
have stuck to this, they put their heart into it, and I would like to 
feel that they were of help to the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. 
Bunning] and the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Jacobs] in pulling off 
this legislative coup which we thought was going to go down the drain 
about 24 hours ago.
  Very briefly, I happen to be an optimist. I know that it is difficult 
to get legislation through here, having seen what happened to GATT and 
the delay of that, the fact that this could come to a conclusion, I am 
really very happy about. Some people could think this is not in the 
league of finance reform or of crime legislation or things like that, 
but I think it is very important. There was a problem out there, it was 
not being fixed. Not only were people not paying their taxes, but also, 
very importantly, those making a minimum amount of wage were not 
getting Social Security credit, and not really understanding it. The 
solution was there, the package was put together, I think it is a good 
bill, and I very strongly support the conference report on H.R. 4278.
  Mr. BUNNING. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman from New York [Mr. 
Houghton], my colleague on the subcommittee, for his remarks and for 
his continued support during this process. He has been extremely 
concerned about getting the nanny tax problem solved.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. 
McCrery].
  Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank him for his valiant efforts on the part 
of hardworking Americans who will benefit from this change in the law, 
and also the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Jacobs] on the Democratic 
side, I thank him for his unyielding efforts to get this law 
simplified.
  The Members of the Congress now have an opportunity to do something 
that we seldom do here, and, that is, to make the lives of many hard-
working Americans across this country a little bit simpler, a little 
bit less complicated, a little bit less burdensome. Usually what we do 
on this House floor has the opposite effect. But this bill finally is 
one that can make things better for folks who try to abide by the law, 
who work hard, and also provide a job for somebody in their community.
  My wife works, and so we happen to have someone who comes in and 
keeps our baby boy. We have gone through this hassle of filing all the 
forms necessary, and, of course, paying the taxes. It is a real 
disincentive. I was just talking to another Member who said that when 
he and his wife had a similar circumstance a few years ago, they hired 
someone and the hassle was so great that after keeping that person on 
the job for just a little while, they decided to let the person go, 
because it just was not worth the hassle. That is the effect of the law 
that is on the books now that we do not hear about too often, people 
actually losing jobs because of the hassle that Congress has imposed 
upon those families who need to have somebody to come into their home 
and keep their children during the day.

  This bill is a great effort on the part of the members of the 
Committee on Ways and Means who have worked so hard to make this 
provision in the law less complicated and it is a great opportunity for 
all of us as Members of the House and Members of the Congress to do 
something that will not only make lives less complicated in this 
country but also give the opportunity for more people to go to work in 
this country. Any time we can do that, we ought to do it.
  I urge all of my colleagues to vote in favor of this legislation.
  Mr. BUNNING. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to conclude our side by thanking the 
chairman of the Subcommittee on Social Security for his extreme hard 
work in solving some of the problems in the conference, and the staff 
that worked with him on solving those problems.
  It is not easy to come out with the numbers that we came out with, 
but it is only through our chairman's hard work that we were able to 
accomplish this. I really cannot say enough kind things about the 
gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Jacobs] and the hard work that he has done 
on this. I think generally speaking that is how good bipartisan 
legislation comes about. I know the gentleman in the chair also has had 
a lot of experience in that. I would like to thank everybody involved 
in this whole piece of legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. JACOBS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, before making the customary motions, I too would like to 
express specifically my gratitude first of all to the gentleman from 
Kentucky [Mr. Bunning]. It is just a pure pleasure and an example I 
think to all Members of the Congress and really all citizens of our 
country that if you are a different religion, if you are of a different 
party or whatever, if we truly do all want the same things, namely, 
justice, fairness, civility, that you can do it even with honest 
difference of opinion in a very pleasant way. That has been my 
experience working with the gentleman from Kentucky.
  None of God's children is a waste of skin. My mother's favorite 
quotation is from an old Senator, I think, from Arizona who said, 
``There is so much good in the worst of us and so much bad in the best 
of us that it hardly becomes any of us to say very much about the rest 
of us.'' That is the best way to legislate. We have honest differences 
of opinion, although I must say that the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. 
Bunning] and I have gone in lockstep on this obvious problem.
  I also pay my compliments to the Senator from New York [Mr. 
Moynihan]. He has been a stalwart both with the independent agency and 
also in clarifying and straightening this problem out; and the 
gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Klug], as has been indicated, has made an 
enormous contribution, been devoted to the cause, and a number of other 
people, including the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. McCrery] who spoke 
here today. I thank those who were kind enough to compliment my own 
efforts and I return those compliments greatly.
  Mr. Speaker, in a free society, the best statecraft is reasonable 
laws. Reasonable laws will be adhered to because most people that God 
put on earth are reasonable if you get to know them. Reasonable laws 
will be obeyed. Unreasonable laws will not be obeyed. Today we have the 
opportunity to make a law that has been enormously unreasonable 
reasonable. It is a happy day for all Americans.


                             general leave

  Mr. JACOBS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks 
on the conference report on H.R. 4278, the legislation under 
consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Rowland). Is there objection to the 
request of the gentleman from Indiana?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. BUNNING. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I 
yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. JACOBS. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, I yield 
back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the 
conference report.
  The previous question was ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the conference report.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. FORD of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the 
ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a 
quorum is not present.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
  The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 423, 
nays 0, not voting 11, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 494]

                               YEAS--423

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allard
     Andrews (ME)
     Andrews (NJ)
     Andrews (TX)
     Archer
     Armey
     Bacchus (FL)
     Bachus (AL)
     Baesler
     Baker (CA)
     Baker (LA)
     Ballenger
     Barca
     Barcia
     Barlow
     Barrett (NE)
     Barrett (WI)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bateman
     Becerra
     Beilenson
     Bereuter
     Berman
     Bevill
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bishop
     Blackwell
     Bliley
     Blute
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bonior
     Borski
     Boucher
     Brewster
     Brooks
     Browder
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Bryant
     Bunning
     Burton
     Buyer
     Byrne
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Canady
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carr
     Castle
     Chapman
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clinger
     Clyburn
     Coble
     Coleman
     Collins (GA)
     Collins (IL)
     Collins (MI)
     Combest
     Condit
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Coppersmith
     Costello
     Cox
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crapo
     Cunningham
     Danner
     Darden
     de la Garza
     Deal
     DeFazio
     DeLauro
     DeLay
     Dellums
     Derrick
     Deutsch
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Dicks
     Dixon
     Dooley
     Doolittle
     Dornan
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Durbin
     Edwards (CA)
     Edwards (TX)
     Ehlers
     Emerson
     Engel
     English
     Eshoo
     Evans
     Everett
     Ewing
     Farr
     Fawell
     Fazio
     Fields (LA)
     Fields (TX)
     Filner
     Fingerhut
     Fish
     Flake
     Foglietta
     Ford (MI)
     Ford (TN)
     Fowler
     Frank (MA)
     Franks (CT)
     Franks (NJ)
     Frost
     Furse
     Gallegly
     Gejdenson
     Gekas
     Gephardt
     Geren
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Gingrich
     Glickman
     Gonzalez
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Gordon
     Goss
     Grams
     Grandy
     Green
     Greenwood
     Gunderson
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     Hall (TX)
     Hamburg
     Hamilton
     Hancock
     Hansen
     Harman
     Hastert
     Hastings
     Hayes
     Hefley
     Hefner
     Herger
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hoagland
     Hobson
     Hochbrueckner
     Hoekstra
     Hoke
     Holden
     Horn
     Houghton
     Hoyer
     Huffington
     Hughes
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hutto
     Hyde
     Inglis
     Inhofe
     Inslee
     Istook
     Jacobs
     Jefferson
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson (SD)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Johnson, Sam
     Johnston
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kasich
     Kennedy
     Kennelly
     Kildee
     Kim
     King
     Kingston
     Kleczka
     Klein
     Klink
     Klug
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kopetski
     Kreidler
     Kyl
     LaFalce
     Lambert
     Lancaster
     Lantos
     LaRocco
     Laughlin
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lehman
     Levin
     Levy
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (FL)
     Lewis (GA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Lightfoot
     Linder
     Lipinski
     Livingston
     Lloyd
     Long
     Lowey
     Lucas
     Machtley
     Maloney
     Mann
     Manton
     Manzullo
     Margolies-Mezvinsky
     Markey
     Martinez
     Matsui
     Mazzoli
     McCandless
     McCloskey
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McCurdy
     McDade
     McDermott
     McHale
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McKeon
     McKinney
     McMillan
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek
     Menendez
     Meyers
     Mfume
     Mica
     Michel
     Miller (CA)
     Miller (FL)
     Mineta
     Minge
     Mink
     Moakley
     Molinari
     Mollohan
     Montgomery
     Moorhead
     Moran
     Morella
     Murphy
     Murtha
     Myers
     Nadler
     Neal (MA)
     Neal (NC)
     Nussle
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Orton
     Owens
     Oxley
     Packard
     Pallone
     Parker
     Pastor
     Paxon
     Payne (NJ)
     Payne (VA)
     Pelosi
     Penny
     Peterson (FL)
     Peterson (MN)
     Petri
     Pickett
     Pickle
     Pombo
     Pomeroy
     Porter
     Portman
     Poshard
     Price (NC)
     Pryce (OH)
     Quillen
     Quinn
     Rahall
     Ramstad
     Rangel
     Ravenel
     Reed
     Regula
     Reynolds
     Richardson
     Ridge
     Roberts
     Roemer
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Rose
     Rostenkowski
     Roth
     Roukema
     Rowland
     Roybal-Allard
     Royce
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanders
     Sangmeister
     Santorum
     Sarpalius
     Sawyer
     Saxton
     Schaefer
     Schenk
     Schiff
     Schroeder
     Schumer
     Scott
     Sensenbrenner
     Serrano
     Sharp
     Shaw
     Shays
     Shepherd
     Shuster
     Sisisky
     Skaggs
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (IA)
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (OR)
     Smith (TX)
     Snowe
     Solomon
     Spence
     Spratt
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Stokes
     Strickland
     Studds
     Stump
     Stupak
     Swett
     Swift
     Synar
     Talent
     Tanner
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Tejeda
     Thomas (CA)
     Thomas (WY)
     Thompson
     Thornton
     Thurman
     Torkildsen
     Torres
     Torricelli
     Towns
     Traficant
     Unsoeld
     Upton
     Valentine
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Visclosky
     Volkmer
     Vucanovich
     Walker
     Walsh
     Waters
     Watt
     Waxman
     Weldon
     Wheat
     Williams
     Wilson
     Wise
     Wolf
     Woolsey
     Wyden
     Wynn
     Yates
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Zeliff
     Zimmer

                             NOT VOTING--11

     Applegate
     Bentley
     Coyne
     Dingell
     Gallo
     Slattery
     Stark
     Sundquist
     Tucker
     Washington
     Whitten

                              {time}  1402

  So the conference report was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________