[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 57 (Tuesday, March 28, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H3863-H3870]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


   PROPER ALLOCATION OF TAX DOLLARS REQUIRES EXPERIENCED LEGISLATORS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 1995, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, a large part of what we do here in the House 
of Representatives relates to budgets and appropriations. I would say 
75 percent at least of what we do is related to the budget and 
appropriations process. It is the most important thing we do, and I 
think that there needs to be far more discussion of the budget and 
appropriations process. It is a highly complex process, it is a very 
important process and the details are very important also.
  Mr. Speaker, one of the problems with term limits is that it 
trivializes the functions of the Congress. It makes it appear that this 
is an easy job and it is easy to understand what goes on here. The 
budget and appropriations process alone is a tremendously difficult 
job, and no one would recommend for a difficult job related to their 
health care that they go and seek the surgeon who has the least number 
of years, that nobody wants to have open heart surgery done by a 
surgeon with 15 or 12 years experience. On the contrary, most people 
seek the most- 
[[Page H3864]] experienced surgeon if they have an operation which is a 
life and death matter.
  If you have a complicated legal case in the courts, you go seeking a 
lawyer who understands the complexities of the law and who has a lot of 
experience in the practice of law. No one automatically says it is more 
desirable to have a lawyer who has been practicing for 6 years only or 
12 years only. That is a bit ridiculous.
  The whole premise, the arguments that I have heard for term limits, 
are unscientific, they are illogical, they just do not hold water. It 
is based on an assumption that the work of the Congress is trivial, 
anybody can do it.

                              {time}  2100

  We should have a citizen Congress. Any citizen can make these 
decisions. Yes, we should have a Congress more reflective of the 
citizenry. We should have a greater cross section of the citizenry. But 
to throw out experience as being important is to say that you do not 
think the job that we do here is important. Eisenhower was how old when 
he led the forces in Europe? MacArthur was how old when he--not how 
old, but how many years had they been in the Army? How many years had 
they been generals. Would you want inexperienced generals to lead your 
armies? No, nobody would want that because that is too important. That 
is a life or death matter. You would not want a surgeon who is 
inexperienced; you would not want a lawyer who is inexperienced when a 
large amount of money is at stake or even in a civil suit, let alone a 
criminal case.
  So why suddenly does it become a virtue to have less experience? To 
deal with the budget process here, to deal with the appropriations 
process requires a great deal of experience. It may be that there are 
some arguments, like those we have just heard, which are very important 
and there ought to be a more scientific and reasoned analysis of what 
this body is all about and what kind of structure we may need to deal 
with term limitations and being most efficient.
  It may be that the prohibition on being Speaker for more than 8 years 
is a good idea. It may be that the prohibition on serving as the 
chairman of a committee for more than 8 years or 6 years, whatever it 
is, is a good idea because with the size of the body, the 
concentrations of power may be the problem and not so much that 435 
people have been here too long.
  One of the charts that was just presented said that the average 
Member of Congress stays 8 years; 8 years is what the average is. Then 
they went on to say the leadership is here for 22 years. There is a 
problem then with leadership that may concentrate too much power for 
too long. Let us correct that problem.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. OWENS. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to support the gentleman's 
statement here. In the previous
 Congress I was chairman of an appropriations subcommittee. I had 
served for 8 years on that appropriations subcommittee and became its 
chairman. The responsibility of that subcommittee was to spend $67 
billion in a year for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food 
and Drug Administration and several other agencies, 130,000 Federal 
employees, $67 billion budget.

  There are people who will argue for term limits today who believe 
that Members should come in and in a matter of a few months or a few 
years be looking forward to leaving. I will tell you if that is the 
case, the decisions which will be made on those budgets will not be 
made by Members of Congress. Those decisions will be made by special 
interest groups who will still have influence on this body as well as 
the bureaucrats within the Federal agencies.
  Mr. OWENS. There are no term limits on special interest groups, no 
term limits on bureaucrats, no term limits on the lobbyists.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I 
think what it does is take away the voice of the people, the voice of 
America in this process by minimizing the voice and role of individual 
Members, men and women who come to this body in an effort to make a 
contribution. We were able to do some substantial things in the couple 
years that I chaired it. And, frankly, I would not have been able to do 
it without some experience, because many times you make a suggestion 
for a change and some bureaucrat will say, You cannot do it that way; 
it has never been done that way; it is impossible to do it that way. 
After a few years you find out you can do it that way.
  I would just say in closing to the gentleman, I am glad he had taken 
this special order. I hope that every Member of Congress who stands in 
this well on this floor arguing in favor of term limits will answer two 
questions before they say the first word. Those two questions are: How 
long have you been here and when do you plan on leaving? Because you 
are going to find so many Members who get up here, some Members have 
been arguing for 15 years that we should have a 12-year term limit in 
Congress. And you are going to find time and again that the Members who 
stand up here and argue for term limits have been here way beyond the 
period of time that they say is the right period of time to serve.
  I go back to the people who wrote the Constitution. Two years up for 
reelection, let the people decide every 2 years whether this 
Congressman or anyone else should stay. There was wisdom in that 
decision, and I do not think we should overturn it lightly.
  Mr. OWENS. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, it is very important that you take note of the fact that 
I want to talk about appropriations. He is on the Committee on 
Appropriations. I want to talk about the budget. That is my primary 
concern. But I want to take note of the fact that one of the problems 
with the budget/appropriation process here is that it is very complex 
and there is too little discussion of it.
  Four hundred thirty-five Members are not engaged in the discussion of 
the budget and appropriations process, which is the most important 
thing we do, which has an impact on the lives of all Americans. The 
Federal budget is more than a trillion dollars.
  I do not know what the situation is now, but Great Britain, with a 
far smaller budget, used to dedicate at least 2 or 3 days where nothing 
was discussed on the British Broadcast Corporation network except the 
budget for 2 days; 2 or 3 days, nothing but the budget was discussed.
  We have a very large budget, a very complex budget. It touches the 
lives of everybody. And that process alone requires that we have 
Members who have a great deal of experience. And we should reorganize 
the House so that more of them are participating in these very complex 
decisions related to the budget and the appropriations process.
  All of the items that we have discussed up to now during this 104th 
Congress in various ways relate to the budget and appropriations 
process. Certainly, some of the ones that have gotten the most 
attention, the balanced budget amendment was very much related to an 
attempt to place parameters on the budget process so that there would 
be a squeezing, a forcing of, a ratcheting down of expenditures for 
social programs. That was the immediate aim of the Contract With 
America, to create a condition where they would be able to force more 
and more reductions in programs that were designed to help the people 
in greatest need. They certainly did not want to make reductions in the 
area of defense, where we have obsolete weapons systems that are now 
being still funded and
 manufactured and new weapons systems that are being proposed which are 
not obsolete but unnecessary because there is no enemy that is capable 
of threatening us and we do not need an F-22 fighter, we do not need 
another Seawolf submarine.

  So the balanced budget amendment, the line-item veto, the rescissions 
that were made already by the Committee on Appropriations, $17 billion 
cut from this year's programs, of that $17 billion, $7 billion is cut 
from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, low-income 
housing programs; almost $2 billion in education programs cut, and most 
of those cuts are in programs that help the poorest students across the 
country. It is all related to the budget and appropriations process.
  Welfare reform is less a reform of welfare and more a search for 
dollars. 
[[Page H3865]] What it turned into was a search for dollars. The 
Republican-controlled leadership did not address welfare reform in 
terms of moving people off welfare and into work.
  They instead were searching mightily for ways to save money. I think 
they saved, according to the calculations, about $60 billion, among the 
dollars that they saved was about $2 billion saved on school lunches. 
This is a conservative estimate that comes from the Congressional 
Budget Office. You have heard a lot of different figures thrown around, 
but the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the school lunch 
savings in the Republican welfare reform package amounts to about $2 
billion. The search for money is so intense that we reach into the 
mouths of kids and pull out food in order to save a few billion dollars 
to contribute to the overall process of accumulating enough funds to 
give a tax cut.
  The tax cut for some of the wealthiest Americans is really the crown 
jewel. That is the crown jewel of the Contract With America. Everything 
else feeds into that. Some drastic things are being done, some extreme 
things are being done in order to guarantee that the crown jewel, the 
tax cut, is in place and that they are able to deliver on that.
  Welfare reform degenerated into an opportunity to realize some 
savings on the backs of the most needy people in the country, people 
who are victims. We are very generous with victims, and we should be. 
We are not very generous, but we recognize victims and the Government 
comes to the aid of victims.
  We have appropriated about $8 billion for the California earthquake 
victims; $6 billion was appropriated for the flood victims in the 
Midwest; $6 billion was appropriated for the hurricane victims in 
Florida. These are all victims of natural disasters, and we recognized 
that and we came to the aid of the victims.
  We have victims of man-made disasters, a mismanaged economy in our 
big cities. There was a time when there were jobs in the cities and 
large numbers of people migrated from other parts of the country to our 
big cities to get those jobs during World War II. And a period for 20 
years after World War II, more or less, there were jobs. And now the 
economy has been managed in such a way, including the decisions made on 
the floor of this House and the other body, decisions are made which 
allow for it to be more profitable to manufacture products outside the 
country, to chase the cheapest labor markets across the world, although 
the companies are owned by U.S. citizens and although the products are 
sold, the market is here, we are the consumers. Nevertheless, our 
policies encourage the people who are able to finance, manufacture to 
go to other parts of the world to do that.
  So we have created a lot of unemployed people. A lot of unemployment 
destabilizes families. The easiest way to deal with many of our social 
problems, welfare certainly, which is primarily Aid to Dependent 
Children. Children who have no other way of surviving, get assistance 
from the Federal Government.
  By the way, those checks average about $350 a month; $350 a month we 
are talking about. The most generous State, which is probably New York, 
gets up to about $600 a month, and the cost of living, of course, in 
New York in far greater than in most other places. If the average is 
$350, you know there are many places where you are talking about less 
than $200 a month for a family of three, $200 a month. That is cheaper 
than full employment.
  We have welfare in America because it is cheaper than full 
employment. If you have full employment and have to provide jobs for 
people, you are talking about a minimum-wage job and probably has to 
have some health care benefits. It will cost you far more than keeping 
people alive on $350 a month or less.
  So welfare is cheaper than full employment and that is why it goes on 
and on in America. It is always going to be here unless we decide we 
want full employment policies. Unless we decide that in our vision of 
America of the future, the vision that is being projected now by the 
persons, the group in control of the Congress is not a vision that 
talks about creating jobs for all Americans. They want to take away not 
only the jobs and the opportunities but also the opportunities to get 
the education, to get the jobs.
  Their latest budget cut proposal, they are proposing to cut aid to 
college students, college loans, which are subsidized loans. There are 
areas in our society where subsidies are very much in order. There are 
some subsidies that we ought to get rid of as fast as we can. I will 
talk later on about some of those subsidies, subsidies to rich farmers. 
Subsidies to rich farmers are one category of subsidy we need to get 
rid of as fast as possible. But we certainly should subsidize students.
  There is a proposal now that we save $12 billion, a proposal that $12 
billion would be saved over a 5-year period. Again, the process here is 
to search for money that can be put into the cash box for the tax cut. 
So we are going to take $12 billion from the students, college 
students, by ending the subsidy on their loans during the time that 
they are in school.
  Presently a college student gets a loan and they pay back the loan 
after they get out of school. And the interest on that loan starts 
accruing after they get out of college and begin to pay back the loan.
  The Government picks up the interest for the time they are in school, 
our Government. It is a subsidy, and it is a subsidy that is very much 
in order. It allows a person to get a college education and go into the 
job market and get a job which will generate income taxes that during 
the course of their lifetime will pay for that subsidy over and over 
again. It is a very meager subsidy relative to the return that you 
receive for that subsidy.
  So now that is the latest. We have gone for school lunches. We have 
gone for the poorest people on welfare. We have collected as much money 
from those programs as we can. Now we are going to go after the college 
students and take money from them in this budget process that is so 
important.

                              {time}  2115

  So the tax cut, as the grand scenario, the climax of it is the tax 
cut proposals that will be on the floor of the House next week.
  This evening, I would like to talk in more detail about this budget 
and appropriations process. I would like to unmask some of the 
mysteries of the process and talk about some of the details. And in 
subsequent special orders we would like to go into the budget in even 
more detail.
  I am the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus alternative 
budget committee. We are considering an alternative budget that we 
would like to offer on the floor as a substitute to the leadership 
budget, to the Republican budget.
  In the Republican budget, they will present their vision of America 
for the next 5 years. As we go toward the year 2000, the budget will 
reflect what they think is most important. They have already indicated 
that there are some people and some groups that are not important, some 
people who yield and sacrifice in order to take care of others. ``The 
America of the future has no room for everybody.''
  We would like to present a Congressional Black Caucus budget which 
shows there is room in America for everybody. There are enough 
resources for everybody. We do not need to take food out of the mouths 
of hungry children. We do not need to harass college students and 
lessen the opportunities for college students. We do not need to make 
heavy drastic reductions in Medicaid.
  A lot of things that are being proposed and will be carried out 
certainly in this House are not necessary, and we want to prove that 
and show you that we can balance the budget, too.
  If American people think that there is too much waste in Government, 
I would concur. There is too much waste in Government. The problem is 
the waste is not in the School Lunch Program. The problem is in the Aid 
to Families with Dependent Children Programs, what you call welfare, 
where there might be some abuses and some waste, and there is need for 
reform.
  We support reform in welfare. Aid to Families with Dependent 
Children, the Democrats voted for a reform. I think the only time in 
this Congress and probably the only time in the last few Congresses 
that all Democrats have voted for anything together on the 
[[Page H3866]] floor was last week when they all voted for the Deal
 substitute, which was a drastic reform of the welfare program.

  It was welfare reform that was real reform. It provided for jobs. It 
provided for educational opportunities. It also maintained the 
entitlement that everybody who is a victim and needs assistance will be 
able still to receive assistance under Federal entitlement.
  And we stand behind them. We do not propose a block grant, which is a 
swindle. Any time you hear the word or concept block grant, you know 
there is a swindle about to take place, that that function, whatever it 
is, and the recipients and beneficiaries of that function are going to 
end up with much less in 4 or 5 years than they had when the block 
grant was initiated.
  That is the history of block grants. They are not done unless there 
is an attempt to foist them off on the States and begin to back away 
from the commitment at the Federal level.
  So in the School Lunch Program, where they keep insisting that there 
is more money than there was before, each year there is more money, 
well, there is not. The Congressional Budget Office has indicated that 
there is not more money because the money is a relative thing. If there 
are more children to feed, then the amount of money has to go up. It 
has to go up in anticipation of the new enrollment, additional children 
being enrolled, and it has to go up in anticipation of more children 
becoming eligible because of economic conditions which move some 
families that were not eligible and not in need before to the category 
of needy. So, again, the details are important.
  Where is the waste in Government? As we talk about the programs that 
the Republican-controlled House wants to cut, it might be good to 
juxtapose the programs that they want to cut with the programs that 
they want to keep.
  They are all in favor of keeping every weapons system that anybody 
could imagine, including Star Wars, the Brilliant Pebbles in the sky 
that is supposed to intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles that 
are going to be fired by what country I do not know since the generals 
from this country have gone to visit the generals in Russia, and they 
have gone down into the silos, and they have all agreed to point the 
rockets away from each other. And a number of things are happening 
which lessen the need for the so-called Star Wars to intercept 
intercontinental ballistic missiles, even if it could be done; and most 
scientists say it cannot be done.
  Yet it took a vote on the floor, the one time we have been able to 
win a victory for reason, rational thinking, scientifically based 
thinking on the floor of the House was a defeat of the Star Wars vote, 
but that was being proposed by the leadership.
  The leadership is still proposing billions of dollars more for 
defense at the same time as they say there is a need to cut money from 
School Lunch Programs. They say there is a need to cut money from loans 
for college students at the same time we are going to go forward with 
these new weapons systems.
  Where is the real waste? The waste is primarily in defense. The waste 
is in agricultural subsidies that go to rich farmers. We are going to 
talk about that in this great detail in a few minutes.
  In defense, you still have the F-22 fighter, which was originally 
projected to be a $72 billion cost, and because of the questions raised 
they scaled it down. But even a scaled-down version of the F-22 fighter 
will cost you $12 billion in the next 5 years.
  Listen to the figures closely. $12 billion will be used to build F-22 
fighters that are the most sophisticated fighters ever known. The 
trouble is, the second most sophisticated fighter planes ever known are 
already owned by the United States of America so who will fight the F-
22's?
  Nevertheless, they are being built for $12 billion over the next 5 
years. $12 billion is exactly the same figure that is being sought, the 
same amount being sought from the college students, college student 
loans. By making the students pay the interest on the loans during the 
time the students are in college, they will yield about $12 billion. 
The same $12 billion, if you want to save it, you can save it by 
jettisoning, discontinuing the manufacture of F-22 fighters.
  Why can't we discontinue the manufacture of F-22 fighters? One of the 
reasons may be is that they are manufactured in the Speaker's district 
in Marietta, GA. One reason may be that in the other body, the very 
prominent person in the area of making decisions about defense also 
hails from that State.
  Why do we have obvious waste continuing in the area of defense? Take 
a close look, and you might find it.
  The Seawolf submarine, another one. The argument is given we need 
another Seawolf submarine because we want to keep the technology alive. 
Nobody expects it to be able to be used to fight. That is $2.1 billion. 
Listen closely: $2 billion, slightly more than $2 billion to build a 
nuclear submarine. Happens to be the same figure that is being saved 
from the School Lunch Program. $2 billion, a little more than $2 
billion is what the Republican-controlled House of Representatives will 
get from the School Lunch Program. We could get the money instead from 
a discontinuance, a canceling of the Seawolf submarine.
  Or if you do not want to cancel the Seawolf submarine, then look at 
the CIA's budget, which is a secret budget, is estimated to be no less 
than $28 billion. All intelligence operations, because the CIA is 
really atop of all intelligence agencies, that whole operation is $28 
billion at least.
  If you save 10 percent, if you cut the CIA 10 percent per year for 
the next 55 years, you got them down to about half the size of present 
CIA, you would be saving each year $2.8 billion. $2.8 billion would 
certainly cover the cost of the School Lunch Program.
  And you can contribute it toward some of the other programs, the WIC 
and a couple of other programs that did not get increases. We are not 
going to serve all of the eligible babies and mothers in the WIC 
Program.
  So if you feel like one of my constitutents feels, that somebody has 
to do something, she said, ``We have to tighten our belts. That means 
the kids have to eat cheaper lunches, OK? We have to suffer because we 
do not want to bankrupt the country. Everybody has to contribute a 
little.''
  Well, I am not certain that everybody should be contributing a 
little. I am not certain that growing children should have to sacrifice 
any part of lunch in order to contribute to a situation which is not 
desperate. It is not a desperate situation. We have places where money 
can be saved.
  There are places where money can be saved in the corporate welfare 
structure. We give a lot of money to corporations.
  In the first place, over the last 20 or 30 years, the amount of the 
tax burden borne by corporations has dropped drastically. It used to be 
more than half, around half of the total tax burden. All the taxes 
collected in the U.S. corporations were contributing almost half by the 
corporate income tax. Now the corporations are down to about 25 
percent.
  And the amount, proportion, percentage being contributed by 
individuals, April 15 is not far away. On April 15, individuals pay far 
more income taxes than corporations.
  I would like to see us move toward a situation where we eliminate the 
individual income tax, the personal income tax as we know it. I would 
like to see us move toward a situation where we increase, get back to 
corporate, a greater share of the taxes being borne by corporations.
  I would like to see a situation where we have taxes from other 
sources and less from personal income tax, certainly people earning 
$75,000, $50,000 or less maybe should not be paying any personal income 
taxes at all. We should be looking to other sources.
  In the Congressional Black Caucus budget proposal we are going to 
call for the creation of a tax commission. That is not the first time 
that has been called for, but I think a more creative commission is 
needed to take a hard look at all the ways in which wealth is generated 
in our society now. We are generating wealth now in ways that never 
were imagined even 10 or 15 years ago.
  The recent sale that was highlighted by President Clinton yesterday, 
the recent sale of frequencies above us, you know, above our heads 
there is wealth. Frequencies optioned have brought $7 billion already 
into the Federal coffers, 
[[Page H3867]] and it is estimated that pretty soon that figure will be 
up to $9 billion.
  Well, 10 years ago we wouldn't dream of anything up above our heads 
owned by all the people being worth $9 billion. They are just beginning 
the process.
  Well, let us take a hard look at that wealth in the sky or wealth 
above our heads and how it may be used for the public good. Maybe we 
shouldn't be selling all of it. Maybe we should be leasing it or maybe 
there should be some arrangement whereby you do not have to be rich to 
buy it.
  Maybe we should have a lottery system so every American would have a 
chance, rich or poor, anybody with some know-how and might get into the 
business, could draw lots. And the Federal Government would lease it to 
him instead of a person having to put up
 the capital as an alternative. And because that arrangement didn't 
involve capital the Federal Government would go in as a partnership. 
Forty percent of profits would go to the people, to the Government and 
to the people; and the other 60 percent would go to the person who 
makes it work and earns a profit.

  There are many arrangements that we do not look at, royalties on 
products that are created as a result of Government action and 
Government research, et cetera. We ought to take a harder look at 
those.
  I am not going to go into that much more detail now, but that is part 
of the process. We need, as I said before, people in Congress who 
understand these things factually. We need some people who have been 
here long enough to be able to imagine creatively how we may do things 
better, how we may collect revenue in less painful ways and more 
effective ways, targeting the revenue collection process to those who 
are able most to afford it and those who have benefited most from the 
riches of America in various ways.
  So let me just mention a few corporate welfare setups that ought to 
be looked at in more detail in this budgetmaking process. Instead of 
cutting school lunches, instead of going after students and trying to 
squeeze $12 billion out of the Student Loan Program, let us limit tax 
subsidies for exports.
                              {time}  2130

  Tax subsidies for exports, if they were limited, would yield revenue 
to the tune of $21 billion. Tax subsidies for exports, what is that? 
There is a title passage, a thing called the title passage, sourcing 
rule and reform the title passage sourcing rule and eliminate the 
foreign sales corporation loophole. That would enable U.S. 
corporations, I mean, that does now enable U.S. corporations to shelter 
a portion of their export income from U.S. taxation. We have a loophole 
to the title passage and the foreign sales corporation that, you know, 
whoever talks about these things, the Committee on Ways and Means has a 
monopoly on this language and a monopoly on the process, and even the 
other, most of the other 435 Members of Congress never even discuss the 
tax subsidies for exports.
  The tax subsidies for exports, according to the Congressional Budget 
Office, the Congressional Budget Office, as you know, is an objective 
body, about as objective as you can get. Most of the people who work 
there are civil servants. The top leadership is appointed by the 
leadership of the House of Representatives, so you have leadership in 
the Congressional Budget Office that is appointed by the party now in 
control of the Congress, the Republicans, but basically, the civil 
servants who were there before, people who have civil service status, 
are still there, and their objectivity is about as good as you are 
going to get.
  They said export subsidies increase investment and employment in 
export industries, but they do not increase the overall levels of 
domestic investment and domestic employment. In the long run, export 
subsidies only increase imports. You do not get any great benefit from 
it. So why subsidize corporations for exports?
  Twenty-one billion dollars would be gained over a 5-year period if 
you eliminated that.
  Impose a minimum tax on foreign-owned businesses. That is another 
corporate welfare scheme we could go after. If we merely established a 
minimum tax on foreign-owned corporations to discourage the 
manipulation of transfer prices which shield income from U.S. taxation, 
we would realize $1.9 billion. The formula approach under the minimum 
tax provides a simple way to ensure that foreign-owned companies 
conducting business in the U.S. pay an acceptable amount of U.S. tax.
  This is a quote from the Congressional Budget Office. Let us go after 
these corporate welfare items, eliminate the loopholes, and you will 
realize a lot of the taxes, the revenue that are being sought, savings 
being sought by going after the school lunch programs and college 
student loans.
  There is a dairy and breeding cattle exclusion. If we end the special 
exclusion for the cost of raising dairy and breeding cattle, you would 
realize another $700 million.
  There is a tax deferral on income of controlled foreign corporations; 
$5.7 billion would be realized over a 5-year period if we end the 
ability of U.S. firms to delay the tax on income earned by their 
foreign subsidiaries until the income is transferred to U.S. accounts, 
$5.7 billion, and on and on and on it goes.
  I am not going to exhaust the list of corporate welfare items today. 
But out there, the American people should take note this is not a 
simple process, not easy to decipher even when you are a Member of 
Congress. So I do not expect you to comprehend what has really gone on 
here.
  The mysteries are here. You hear the drum beating against people on 
welfare, demonizing of people on welfare, the comparison of people on 
welfare to alligators, comparison of people on welfare to wolves. 
Demonize and scapegoat, and all that is supposed to make you forget 
that corporations are receiving billions of dollars in subsidies from 
the American taxpayers.
  One of the groups that likes to pride itself on not receiving 
Government aid is the farm community. I have often heard and seen 
people from the Midwest and the Far West and the South who insist that 
they do not want Government giving them any kind of help; Government 
ought to get off people's backs; Government should not intrude into 
people's lives.
  There is a great deal of hypocrisy here. A large amount of your 
taxpayers' dollars are going to subsidize rich farmers. Welfare for 
rich farmers is a major scandal. It is a legalized form of corruption. 
We are just going to talk a little bit about one aspect of it.
  It is so corrupt, legal corruption, you cannot arrest anybody. I am 
not saying that you should go out and try to effect a citizen's arrest, 
or you can bring a suit. It is all legal, because it is so complex 
until most of the Members of Congress, certainly those who come from 
urban areas and are concentrating on other kinds of things, have not 
really deciphered exactly what is going on with the farm subsidy 
program and how awful the giveaway is to rich farmers.
  Let us take a hard look at it, and I invite you to follow me through 
a quick review of a report called City Slickers. City Slickers is a 
report produced by the environmental working group. The environmental 
working group is a nonprofit environmental research organization based 
in Washington. It is a project of the Tides Foundation and the 
California Public Benefit Corp., and they have started preparing a 
series of reports related to agricultural subsidies, welfare for the 
farmers. This is just the first report. If you want to get a copy of 
the report, I will tell you at the end where you can order a copy.
  It is a very well documented report based on an analysis of data that 
would probably not have been possible 20 years ago, using computers and 
analyzing the records of the Department of Agriculture. They have been 
able to come up with this very informative study which should open your 
eyes. What they are saying is that in the farm subsidy program, the 
program that has been in existence now for several decades, actually 
the program that was started in the New Deal by Franklin Roosevelt, 
that program was to help poor farmers. The Government got involved in 
paying farmers to do certain things, and it worked. It was very much 
needed.
  In fact, the intervention of our Government into the agricultural 
sphere 
[[Page H3868]] has been very successful in general. We are the most 
productive nation on the face of the Earth when it comes to food 
production. Our farm industry cannot be challenged by any other 
industrialized nation. What we produce on our farms, the kind of 
productivity is unparalleled, and part of the reason for that, a large 
part of the reason for that, is the early intervention of the U.S 
Government in the process. Government sometimes can intervene and be a 
player in a very productive way.
  The land grant colleges that were created, the experimental 
agricultural experimental stations, the county agents, all of that was 
federally, you know, generated. People talk about government should 
stay
 out of local affairs. Well, the Department of Agriculture program 
penetrated right down to the county level, and the county agent went 
out into the fields with the farmers. It was government involvement at 
its best. I am all in favor of government involvement when it is 
necessary.

  We basically have a capitalistic economy. That does not mean there 
are not a lot of places where there should not be intervention and 
government assistance. Government assistance to farmers made a lot of 
sense when it started. Government assistance to poor farmers kept a lot 
of people from starving. Government assistance to poor farmers enabled 
poor farmers to build, to gain the know-how and to build a great 
agricultural industry of America, but it long ago wore out. It long ago 
became corrupted.
  We do not have many poor farmers anymore. Less than 2 percent of the 
American population now lives on the farm. The billions of dollars that 
are being, of your taxpayers' dollars, that are going to subsidize the 
farms or the agricultural industry are going to rich people. They are 
going to corporations, agricultural corporations. Agribusinesses are 
absorbing your dollars. They are going to individuals, too many of them 
are rich also.
  And many of them do not live on the farm, and the last few years they 
have not set foot on the farm. That is what this report is all about. 
This report is about city slickers, people who get billions of dollars 
from your taxpayers' money, your money, meant for farm subsidies to 
help keep the farm industry alive.
  There are many good reasons why we started these programs, to 
guarantee that we would never lose the family farmer, that they would 
always be there to make farming competitive, to keep the land 
productive, to conserve the land, et cetera. There are many good 
reasons, and there are still good reasons.
  But the process has been corrupted to the point where people who live 
in the cities have never visited a farm and are drawing now checks for 
farm subsidies. Let me just read from the report City Slickers; I think 
it is such a good report, I will read verbatim from several parts of 
it.

       What is wrong with the city dweller owning a bit of land in 
     the country? Absolutely nothing, as far as we are concerned. 
     Why, we would not mind owning a little farmland ourselves, 
     nor do we have a problem with urbanites investing time, 
     money, or both in a farm operation even if it is not their 
     main livelihood, and even if the farm is thousands of miles 
     away. But why on Earth should taxpayers be involved in the 
     arrangement for these gentleman farmers? And as this report 
     documents, we are involved big-time by virtue of Federal 
     agricultural subsidy policies that are out of date and out of 
     control. It is time for a change. Sending hundreds of 
     thousands of Federal farm subsidy checks worth hundreds of 
     millions of dollars to a handful of city dwellers each year 
     can hardly be the best, the fairest, or the most efficient 
     way to help farmers stay on the land, give rural communities 
     a chance to survive and prosper or protect water, land, and 
     wildlife that farming so profoundly affects. Left to the farm 
     policy fraternity, the country's depression-era farm programs 
     will continue to misspend taxpayers' dollars. Americans can 
     do better, but only if more people become involved in the 
     debate over the Nation's multibillion-dollar farm programs. 
     After all, you do not have to be a farmer to get farm 
     subsidies. You should not have to be a farmer to have a say 
     in how your money will be spent after the new 1955 farm bill 
     is signed into law.

  It just so happens that the farm bill is up for reauthorization this 
year. So aside from the budget process and the appropriations process, 
there is a new authorization process for these farm programs.
  I recall the last time we had the agricultural subsidy program on the 
floor of the House, I joined with a colleague, the gentleman from New 
York [Mr. Schumer], in offering an amendment which said that any 
gentleman farmer or gentlewoman farmer, persons who are not living on 
farms who have other incomes, any one of those who earns more than 
$100,000 a year should not be eligible for the farm subsidy program, 
and that is a clear opportunity for the Members of Congress to take 
some action in a very meaningful way.
  They would cut off anybody making $100,000 or more who also was not a 
farmer full-time from the farm subsidy program. We got only 140-some 
votes out of 435. That is the nature of the deep entrenchment of the 
vested interests that support welfare for rich farmers.
  Let me continue to read from the report though. City Slickers, that 
is the name of this report, the first in a series of Environmental 
Working Group studies on Federal farm subsidy programs that will be 
published over the coming months. They are going to publish other 
reports. It was made possible through the efforts of the environmental 
working group, analysts and computer programmers. They went to work in 
the Department of Agriculture files to pull out all of this data, and 
what I am reading from in the report is based on hard data. They have 
the charts in here. They have the graphs in here. They have the 
statistics in here. If you doubt their findings, get a copy of the 
report and check it out. It is very sound, basic work. I commend the 
people who put this report together.
  Let me read further from the findings of City Slickers:

       American taxpayers are sending hundreds of millions of 
     dollars in Federal farm subsidy checks every year to a 
     handful of absentee owners, corporations, and other farmers 
     who live smack in the middle of the country's biggest cities. 
     Over the past decade, taxpayers wrote 1.6 million 
     agricultural subsidy checks worth more than $1.3 billion to 
     city slickers, city slickers whose permanent mailing address 
     is in the heart of one of 50 of the most populous urban areas 
     in the United States.
                              {time}  2145

  They did a study and focused on the 50 largest cities, and they 
traced the checks coming from the Department of Agriculture to 
addresses in zip codes in the 50 largest cities in the country.
  The environmental working group analysis of 110 million U.S. 
Department of Agriculture computer records, computer records of $106 
billion worth of farm subsidy payments made since 1985, found over 
74,000 recipients whose current mailing addresses for Agriculture 
Department checks is in downtown New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, 
Houston, Phoenix, Miami, St. Louis, Detroit, Dallas or other top U.S. 
cities.
  If you are laboring under the assumption that welfare for the 
farmers, the subsidy program for the farmers, should not be questioned 
or not challenged because, after all, they are the people who grow our 
food and we want to keep them out there, we do not want a monopoly to 
be established by the agribusinesses. I have heard many reasons offered 
on the floor of this House.
  A large portion of the people receiving the checks are not farmers, 
ladies and gentlemen. They are drawing down the checks and receiving 
the subsidy from you taxpayers, and they are not setting foot on any 
farm, I assure you.
  When they analyzed major suburbs and satellite cities surrounding 
these big cities, they found that the payments increased greatly. A lot 
of people living in suburbs also around big cities are receiving 
payments. It went from $1.3 billion to $1.8 billion when you include 
some of the other people close to the city.
  From Beverly Hills to Key West, the research shows that it is the 
rare, well-heeled suburb, urban enclave or resort spot in the United 
States that does not receive Federal farm subsidy payments. The 
pattern, the rule, is that they do. It is rare that they do not 
receive. The richer the community is, the more likely you are to see 
large numbers of farm subsidy payments flowing into that area.
  In every major U.S. city farm subsidy checks pour in from farms 
located in dozens of States. Farms in 42 States pump government 
subsidies into New York City. Thirty-eight States send Federal farm 
dollars to Los Angeles, 37 
[[Page H3869]] States have farm program recipients in Chicago, and 41 
States are sending agricultural assistance to farmers in Houston.
  In many cities, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Tucson, for 
example, half or more of the subsidies come from farms located outside 
of the State.
  If you want to make the argument of, somebody has already got a 
rationalization put together, well, sure, people may live in the 
cities, but New York State has a big farming sector. Agriculture is a 
big business in New York State.
  So these people may live in New York City, but outside New York City 
in certain parts of the State there are farms.
  But these checks are not coming from farms in New York State. The 
checks that are going to New York City are coming from 42 different 
States, 42 different States. You taxpayers are funneling money meant 
for farmers into city slickers from 42 different States to New York.
  And in other cities it is much worse. I am going to read from a chart 
later on of the five highest ranking cities receiving these payments 
from you. In big cities, as in the countryside, a small number of 
individuals, partnerships, trusts and corporations
 collect the lion's share of Federal farm subsidies. These are rich 
people mostly who are collecting these checks.

  Just 862 big city subsidy recipients collected $388 million over the 
period checked, nearly 30 percent of the total payments to the postal 
areas in the top 50 cities. A general partnership in Dallas, TX, for 
instance, received 157 checks over six of the last 10 years. And this 
general partnership's 157 checks, listen to this, totaled $1.8 million. 
The $1.8 million came from farms in two counties in Mississippi. 
Mississippi, one of the poorest States in the country.
  The money is flowing from your taxpayers' pocket, supposedly to help 
the farmers in Mississippi, but it flows into a firm in Dallas, TX, 
which one firm alone collected $1.8 million over the last 6 years.
  The top recipients in Los Angeles is a general partnership in zip 
code 90024, and they received 22 checks over 7 of the last 10 years, 
and those 22 checks were worth more than $837,000.
  The top farmer in Washington, DC, received a total of 271 farm 
subsidy checks from a North Dakota county in 8 out of the past 10 
years. And his checks, the name of that person appeared in a newspaper 
article, totaled $286,000.
  San Diego's top producer is a corporation which stockholders have 
brought in 246 checks worth $968,303 from a farm in Montana, a farm in 
Montana that has drawn down your taxpayer subsidies every year since 
1985.
  More than 63 percent of the total farm subsidies paid to big-city 
recipients went to individuals who on average received at least $13,000 
a year over the 10-year period. General partnerships brought in $150 
million, averaging $72,000. Corporations with stockholders collected 11 
percent of total big-city subsidies, which equals about $138 million. 
Corporations in big cities collected about $138 million over the 
period, the 10-year period studied. Joint ventures collected $74 
million, averaging $200,000 each over a 10-year period.
  These are your taxpayer dollars flowing to poor farmers according to 
the original legislation. The idea was to keep the farmers solvent, 
help the farmers make a good living, but now it is a corrupt 
racketeering enterprise, a legal racketeering enterprise.
  You know, there may be a contradiction in that when you say 
racketeering and legal, but the savings and loan scandal showed us how 
you can swindle people, how you can have a massive racketeering 
enterprise which is mostly legal.
  Continuing to read from the report, and I am reading from a report 
called City Slickers. City Slickers is prepared by the Environmental 
Working Group. They are located at 1718 Connecticut Avenue Northwest, 
Suite 600, in Washington, DC 20009.
  I have given you this information because if you do not believe my 
figures, if you do not trust me or if you want to see more 
documentation and if you want to read the report in more detail, if you 
want to get to know about this gigantic swindle, you might want to see 
the whole report. Environmental Working Group, 1718 Connecticut Avenue 
Northwest, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20009, (202) 667-6982. Fax number 
(202) 232-2592.
  Now I understand there has been some controversy about giving out 
information about books or things for sale. This is for sale for $10 I 
think. I have no connection whatsoever with this group. I have never 
been to their office. I am not a member. Nobody on
 my staff is a member. It is a nonprofit environmental research 
organization so far as I am concerned. I welcome you to contact them to 
get the whole report.

  We need to know. Members of Congress need to know more. Even those 
who have been here 10, 12 years do not know enough, have not been here 
long enough to really learn, no matter how studious they may be or how 
hard they work at it.
  It is a complicated world, ladies and gentleman, The American 
Government is the most complicated entity on the face of the Earth. The 
Members of Congress, 435, plus the Members of the Senate, 100, are 535 
vice-presidents of the world's largest and most complex corporation, 
the world's most powerful corporation.
  We hear people talk about term limits. They want to make this body 
weaker. They want to trivialize what we do here. They want to make it 
weaker for the purpose of continuing these kinds of scams, these kinds 
of racketeering enterprises.
  The weaker the Congress is, the more it is ridiculed, the more it is 
trivialized, the less it is likely to have the people who will be able 
to take on correcting these massive racketeering enterprises which 
waste a great deal of taxpayers' money.
  The weaker the Congress is, the more likely people are to fall for 
demonizing of welfare mothers, demonizing pregnant teenagers, calling 
of alligators and wolves and making it appear that they are about to 
bring the country down.
  No, the waste that is about to bring the country down is here. This 
is one example. We are going to be showing you many others in the weeks 
to come.
  Continuing to read from the report City Slickers:

       Massive and widespread cash payments to absentee interests 
     in cities are just one of many indications that America's 
     Federal farm subsidy programs are out of date and badly out 
     of control. This study underscores just one of the 
     fundamental problems with America's depression-era farm 
     programs. They mostly now reward the ownership of land, not 
     the farming of the land but the ownership of the land. They 
     reward most those who own the most, not those most in need.

  Let me repeat that. From the report City Slickers:

       This study underscores just one of the fundamental problems 
     with America's depression-era farm programs. They mostly 
     reward the ownership of land, not the farming of it, and 
     reward most those who own the most, not those most in need.

  Welfare for the farmers is not means tested. People on welfare, aid 
to dependent children, that is what we call welfare. You have to prove 
you are poor before you can get a dollar.
  Farmers do not have to prove they are poor. In fact, it is well known 
that many of them are rich, big agribusinesses. Everybody knows. The 
rich know. Nothing hidden there. No secret. They are the ones who are 
receiving the taxpayers' dollars. Free money to people who do not need 
it.
  Continuing to read from the report, I quote:

       Absentee landowners, distant corporations and far-flung 
     investors are able to draw substantial government 
     agricultural subsidies, though they may reside in a big city 
     hundreds or even thousands of miles from the farm and never 
     set foot on that farm for years on end. As a practical 
     matter, almost anyone, almost anyone can qualify for Federal 
     agriculture subsidies. You do not have to farm the land, you 
     do not have to live anywhere near the land, you do not even 
     have to visit from time to time. You do not have to be 
     related to the farmer or to anyone else who has an interest 
     in the farm. And wealthy,
      absentee farm owners who are most likely to run afoul of 
     payment limits or other rules have ready access to legal 
     advice that can help them maximize their government 
     payments, advice provided by the government itself.

  The fact that Federal farm programs transfer massive Government 
subsidy payments to recipients in big cities, as we document in this 
report, is just one 
[[Page H3870]] more compelling reason why the 1995 farm bill must not 
result in business as usual.
  I conclude by stating this is a report called City Slickers, and we 
need to read more of it together. Get a copy yourself.
  And as we progress on our discussion of the budget and appropriations 
process here in this Congress, we are going to talk more about where is 
the real waste, where is that money that is needed to give a tax cut or 
do anything else? It is not in the school lunch program. It is not in 
the college loan program. There are billions of dollars that are 
routinely being wasted, and we should take note of that as taxpayers.

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