[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 61 (Monday, April 3, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H4085-H4086]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                              {time}  1930
                     DEBATE ON TAX PLAN PROVISIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kingston). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hoke] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HOKE. Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the distinguished gentleman, since 
it is on my time, would answer one question. Who was it that insisted 
at the conference that this sweetheart deal for Murdoch be placed in 
the conference report? Who was the individual that did that?
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Hoke, I am not part of the conference committee.
  Mr. HOKE. Do you know the answer?
  Mr. STUPAK. No, I do not.
  Mr. HOKE. I know the answer. The answer is the junior Senator from 
Illinois, the Democrat, Ms. Moseley-Braun. She is the one that insisted 
on it. She is the one that asked it be put in the conference report.
  Mr. STUPAK. If the gentleman will yield, I know you have read the 
same articles I have on the $63 million deal from Mr. Murdoch. When 
that question was put to the junior Senator from Illinois, what did she 
say? What did she say? If I had my way, we would never repeal the 
exemption for minority-owned stations, and that junior Senator is a 
minority, because she thinks it is wrong. She opposed it.
  Mr. HOKE. Reclaiming my time, that does not answer the question. The 
question is who put it into the conference report? Clearly it was the 
junior Senator from Illinois. And your attempt to somehow smear this 
Speaker on this, when the Speaker had absolutely nothing, nothing 
whatsoever to do with this, is such a blatant and ugly and clearly 
politically, partisanly motivated ploy, I do not understand why you 
make it, when it is so transparent, when it is pointed out that the 
Speaker had nothing to do with it.
  The Speaker was not involved with the conference. As I understand it, 
this is something that was put in the conference report by the junior 
Senator, a Democrat Senator, from Illinois, with respect to a specific 
request that was made to her, not even by, as I understand it, Rupert 
Murdoch, but by Quincy Jones. Have I got the facts wrong?
  Mr. BONIOR. If the gentleman will yield, let me shed a little light 
on this. You are indeed correct that this was put in the conference and 
was put in at the behest of the Senator from Illinois to take care of a 
deal that was pending. But what you are not correct on is that there 
were 18 deals pending, and this was the only one that was accepted.
  Now, you know as well as I do, my friend from Ohio, that in order for 
something to come to this floor to be discussed, it has got to get the 
Speaker's approval. The Speaker, I believe, admitted today in a 
conference he had with reporters that he met with Congressman Archer, 
the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, and they talked about 
this very issue. And they agreed to let it come to the floor. Nobody in 
this institution knew it was in the bill, except maybe a handful of 
people. It got out of here on a voice vote after we opposed the bill 
when it came to the House floor because of the billionaire exemption it 
had in it, and nobody knew here. That is not the way to do business.
  Mr. HOKE. Reclaiming my time, the fact is that the Speaker had 
nothing to do with this piece of legislation in its minutiae and in the 
detail you are speaking of with respect to a specific request that the 
Democrat Senator from Illinois, Ms. Moseley-Braun, wished to have made 
in order and insisted on at conference.
  Those are the facts. Whether or not Mr. Archer and Mr. Gingrich 
discussed the bill in general and in its terms is hardly the issue. The 
issue is who insisted that this be put in at conference. Obviously it 
was not Mr. Archer.
  Mr. BONIOR. Who insisted it stay in this bill?
  Mr. HOKE. This is my time. It was not Mr. Archer, it was not Mr. 
Gingrich, it was Ms. Moseley-Braun. It 
[[Page H4086]] was not something that our side wanted anything to do 
with. It was special legislation for the junior Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. Speaker, what I was going to ask was for people to put on their 
green eye shade so that I could go through some of the details of 
exactly how we are going to reduce the tax burden for senior citizens. 
Unfortunately, I will not have time to do that.
  What I will say is we are going to on Wednesday restore the $25 
billion in cuts that were made in Social Security, cuts to senior 
citizens by this Congress. Not a single Republican voted in favor of 
those cuts in August of 1993, and we are going to restore those cuts so 
that senior citizens are not deprived of their Social Security benefits 
that were deprived to them by the Democrat Members of the House and of 
the Senate.


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