[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 62 (Tuesday, April 4, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H4150]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                 WHAT ARE OUR PRIORITIES AS A SOCIETY?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Ward] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WARD. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to join my Democratic colleagues 
today in speaking out against the proposed cuts in student loans 
offered under the Republicans' rescission package. Now let me hasten to 
point out that I am not saying, as you may have heard some Members of 
the other party say today, that Democrats just want to tax more. It is 
not a question of taxing more, it is a question of what is going to be 
cut? It is a question of what are our priorities as a society?
  As we have seen in these rescission programs, the priorities that 
have been reflected in the cuts that have been made are not the 
priorities that I was elected to Congress to talk about or to promote.
  I want to mention one thing that is particularly of concern to me 
today. This concerns this body, that as a body we should have a rule, 
as we did in the State of Kentucky where I served in the Legislature, 
that any conference committee change of a bill has to be explained on 
the floor of this House.
  What we have seen, ladies and gentlemen and Mr. Speaker, is a change 
in a very simple bill, a simple bill that was passed by a wide margin 
in the House and in the other body, but with little differences. Those 
differences were worked out in a conference report. That conference 
report had the power to add things that were never discussed in either 
the House or the other body. But with that power what they did in this 
case was to add one tax break for one very rich individual named Rupert 
Murdoch. This tax break, one of 17 that were proposed, relating to the 
Federal Communications consideration of purchases of minority 
enterprises, sales to minority enterprises, a tax break that will mean 
tens of millions of dollars in money directly to that corporate empire, 
which was not told to us on the floor of this House when it was brought 
up.
  As I say, in the State of Kentucky, there is a specific rule, a 
requirement that a change of that nature has to be raised on the floor. 
Had it been raised, Mr. Speaker, there would have been cries of foul 
from one side of this floor to the other. Had it been raised the bill 
would have been changed on the floor or defeated and sent back to be 
changed before it was brought back before us.

                              {time}  1745

  So today I have urged the President to veto that bill, veto that bill 
because, while it does offer an important tax break to small business 
people who buy their own health insurance, that is something we can do 
in an hour and a half after the veto.
  Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  I am so glad that the gentleman is talking about this.
  Now I have got a newspaper article here from the New York Daily News 
where Mr. Gingrich says, ``I'm against affirmative action for rich 
people,'' and he was urging the repeal of this tax break.
  Now I am also further reading here that the exception cleared by the 
House leaders was so tightly crafted that, by rearranging the dates in 
the legislation, it hands the break only to Murdoch.
  I ask, ``Can you believe that we were duped just like that?''
  Mr. WARD. I appreciate the gentlewoman from Georgia making that point 
because what it shows is that it is business as usual.
  I am a freshman Member; the gentlewoman from Georgia is a sophomore 
Member. We were sent here to do things differently that work. We were 
sent here to change things.
  Ms. McKINNEY. We abolutely were.
  Mr. WARD. I yield again.
  Ms. McKINNEY. We were sent here to change things, but, as it stands, 
nothing is being changed. These people are going too far, the Gingrich 
revolution has gone too far in the special interests category, 
benefiting one person, and I cannot believe that we began this hundred 
days with a discussion about Newt Gingrich and Rupert Murdoch with 
their arms entwined, and now here we are ending this hundred days. 
What? With the same discussion, about the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. 
Gingrich] and Mr. Murdoch with their arms entwined again.
  Mr. WARD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman, and the point I want 
to make is, ``If you're going to give up this kind of revenue to the 
Federal Government, what are you going to cut to make up for that 
revenue,'' and that is what we have seen, especially in the student 
loan program.


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