[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 61 (Monday, April 3, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H4079-H4080]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                      SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Archer] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ARCHER. Mr. Speaker, I just happened to be walking through, and 
we should be accurate in what we say here on the floor of the House.
  No. 1, the provision that was put into the health care deductibility 
for self-employed was engineered and pushed and implemented by Carol 
Moseley-Braun from Chicago, a Democrat Senator, and made its way into 
the conference report as a result of her compelling arguments that this 
in effect was a preexisting contractual obligation, a binding contract 
that was made before the effective date.
  So we should fully understand that the gentlewoman from Colorado and 
the gentleman from California are just ill-informed about this 
particular provision.
   [[Page H4080]] I am not here to defend Rupert Murdoch. I do not know 
him, and have nothing to do with him. But I will simply say this also: 
that the facts are that Rupert Murdoch gets no tax benefits out of this 
provision even though it was engineered by a Democrat Senator from 
Illinois and put in the bill by a Democrat Senator from Illinois. The 
benefit does not go to Rupert Murdoch. He gets no tax break out of this 
provision, and the facts should be presented to the American people 
rather than all of this continued rhetoric with all of the props of 
golden crowns and all of the other things that are emotionally 
presented to this House.
  We should deal with the facts as they exist.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ARCHER. I am happy to yield to the gentlewoman from Colorado.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Is the gentleman saying the stories then in the press 
are incorrect, because they say they are validated?
  Mr. ARCHER. I have seen a lot of stories in the press that are 
inaccurate.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Is this story incorrect?
  Mr. ARCHER. Mr. Speaker, I reclaim my time.
  The gentlewoman has a press report that she is holding up for the 
benefit of this House, and we all know that you cannot rely on the 
accuracy of press reports. They pick up on certain items that are 
presented to them, and then they are rapidly put into print. It does 
not mean they are accurate.
  And in this case, the accuracy of the situation is as I stated, and I 
am not here to defend Rupert Murdoch. But I think the gentlewoman, the 
Senator from Illinois, who put this into the conference report 
certainly should be asked. I do not think she was trying to do any sort 
of a favor for Rupert Murdoch, and as she presented it, she was not 
trying to give a special favor to anybody, but simply to say that the 
binding-contract rule to prevent retroactivity should apply with a 
certainty to this particular transaction.
  If this had not been a binding contract, there is no question in my 
mind that it would never have been embraced in the Senate offer and 
would never have gotten into the conference report. But it is also 
very, very important to know that this has absolutely nothing to do 
with the tax bill and spending reduction bill that will be coming on 
the floor of this House this week.
  So I just wanted to be here to set the record straight on this issue.

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