[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 47 (Monday, April 15, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H3237-H3238]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           HOUSE REPUBLICANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from Washington [Mr. McDermott] is recognized 
during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record an editorial 
from the Seattle Times from April 12, 1996, the title of which is ``A 
Republican Floor Show Only a Cynic Could Love.'' It is written by a 
woman named Terry Tang.

                [From the Seattle Times, Apr. 12, 1996]

            A Republican Floor Show Only a Cynic Could Love

                            (By Terry Tang)

       If the House Republicans intended people to tune them out 
     as publicity-mad buffoons, they've done a terrific job.
       The latest example of their effort is the upcoming vote on 
     a constitutional amendment to require a two-thirds vote of 
     Congress to increase taxes. A floor debate and vote will be 
     staged on Monday, April 15, tax day. Don't be surprised if 
     you've heard nothing about this. Neither have many members of 
     Congress who've been on Easter break for the past two weeks.
       The House Judiciary subcommittee held a hearing on an 
     earlier version of the Tax Limitation Amendment last month. 
     That version was so preposterously worded--it would have 
     required a supermajority in Congress to alter

[[Page H3238]]

     the tax laws in any way and would have applied even to 
     raising tariffs on foreign products--that the amendment's 
     sponsors decided it had to be reworked.
       So on March 29, the day before the Easter recess, the House 
     Rules Committee cobbled together and approved a totally new 
     amendment more opaque in meaning than the original.
       No one expects a serious constitutional debate next Monday. 
     But rest assured, there will be plenty of on-camera time for 
     congressman with sagging poll numbers.
       Well before Republican leaders had the amendment language 
     in hand, they had decided that April 15 was the perfect time 
     to call a pep rally. How better to resuscitate the Contract 
     with America than with a floor show featuring a spanking new 
     constitutional amendment as prop?
       As part of the coordinated media blitz, the Gingrichities 
     were told to hold anti-tax town meetings in their home 
     districts. The campaign is as contrived as a Burger King-
     Pocahontas promo. Rep. Randy Tate of the 9th District, for 
     example, dutifully held two town hall meetings this week with 
     special guest star Grover Norquist, president of Americans 
     for Tax Reform, an anti-tax group that has made the 
     constitutional amendment its top priority.
       There's no way to separate the fakery from the legislation. 
     But who nowadays seriously expects Congress to place 
     deliberation above crass symbolism?
       The tax amendment would even obstruct the tax reforms that 
     Republicans have embraced. The GOP leaders apparently are so 
     cynical--about both the fate of the amendment (the Senate is 
     expected to put on the brakes should the House approve the 
     thing) and meaningful tax reform--that they have no trouble 
     promoting two ideas that are pretty much mutually exclusive.
       The amendment language requires a two-thirds vote of 
     Congress on tax measures unless the act does not ``increase 
     the internal revenue by more than a de minimus amount.'' The 
     hurdle would make routine tax legislation nearly impossible.
       There is no definition given of ``internal revenue.'' 
     Arguably, the only things not covered by the term are foreign 
     tariffs, all other taxes being internally generated. So 
     increasing user fees based on sound freemarket principles--
     such as national park entrance fees or grazing fees--would be 
     subject to the limitation, as would closing loopholes and 
     shutting down tax shelters.
       But these are minor objections compared to the conundrum 
     that ought to stop supplysiders cold. The amendment would 
     apply to any legislation that increases revenue to 
     the federal government; it does not deal with increases in 
     tax rates per se.
       Yet, the first principle of Reaganomics (and the rationale 
     at the core of flat-tax schemes) is that cutting taxes--be it 
     capital-gains taxes or income taxes--unleashes 
     entrepreneurial energies that increase economic growth and 
     therefore increase government's total tax receipts.
       One argument to cut capital-gains tax rates is precisely 
     that a cut would increase revenues in the short run as 
     investors rush to liquidate assets to capture their capital 
     gains. In a perverse twist, such a tax cut would be subject 
     to two-thirds approval of Congress also.
       The House leadership is well aware that enforcing any 
     supermajority requirement on tax matters is unworkable. On 
     the first day of Congress last year, the House, in a fit of 
     revolutionary fervor, adopted a rule requiring a three-fifth 
     majority on any bill raising federal income-tax rates. The 
     rule has turned out to be only a gimmick.
       The Republicans publicly touted their anti-tax scheme as a 
     promise kept--and then silently waived the rule whenever it 
     proved inconvenient.
       The House's Contract with America Tax Act inadvertently 
     raised some tax rates while cutting others, and so needed a 
     waiver. The budget reconciliation bill to cut the deficit 
     raised a few rates, thus requiring another waiver.
       The House's Medicare bill, by raising premiums on wealthy 
     seniors, needed and got a waiver, as did the new health 
     insurance reform act, which would impose a tax on some 
     withdrawals from medical savings accounts.
       The income-tax rule has nothing to do with governing, and 
     everything to do with sloganeering. The proposed 
     constitutional amendment is more of the same.
       When the Republicans were the minority, reducing policy 
     debates to bumper stickers came easily. They've yet to switch 
     out of that mode. If they, as the party in power, don't care 
     about the substance of legislation, who will? Somebody tell 
     these people they're being paid to do more than pose for 
     campaign spots and C-SPAN.

  I say reading it when I got to my office today and thought somebody 
has got to talk about this issue.
  Some weeks ago my son called me. He is in business school in 
California and asked me about something that was happening here in 
Washington, DC, and I proceeded to explain to him what I thought would 
happen. And he said, after I had finished, ``Well, now I know what the 
cynics think.''

                              {time}  1315

  Mr. Speaker, I objected to that. I said, ``No, I am giving you a 
realistic view of what is going to happen here in the Congress,'' and 
he said, ``Dad, don't get excited. There were the idealists in Greece 
who wanted things a certain way, and then there were the cynics who 
actually looked at things as they really were and dealt with them.'' He 
said, ``Cynicism has gotten a bad name because it has come to mean that 
we do one thing and try and create the impression that something is 
happening when, in fact, something else is happening, and the people 
then get cynical about what's happened.''
  What is going to happen today is the height of political cynicism 
because of what will be created. In fact, they choose the exact time 
they are going to start to debate, when folks in California are able to 
get to their TV's. They are not going to do it here at this time of day 
when people are at work in California. They are going to wait until 
later in the day. The vote will be taken at 9 o'clock tonight, 6 
o'clock, when everybody is sitting down and eating, in California. This 
is a timed debate put on simply to make the American people think that 
we are going to control taxes.
  Mr. Speaker, nothing could be further from the truth. As my 
colleague, the gentleman from Virginia, [Mr. Moran], simply pointed 
out, I am a member of the Committee on Ways and Means. When this House 
came into session under this leadership, they said we are going to put 
in a rule that requires a 60-percent vote every time we raise taxes. 
So, through our Committee on Ways and Means things would come, and we 
would raise our head and say, ``Hey, how are you going to get the two-
thirds vote for this out on the floor?''
  And they said, ``Well, we're going to waive the rule.''
  Three times, perhaps four times, I am not absolutely sure, they have 
waived that rule when they have brought things out here on the floor.
  Now today they are going to come out and say we are going to pass a 
constitutional amendment that will prevent us from doing exactly what 
we have done in the last year and 3 months that the Republicans have 
controlled this House. They have no will to do what they believe. They 
simply want the people to cynically believe that they want that to 
happen. But they are never going to do it.
  Now, cynicism is destructive in this society for one reason. People 
watching this debate are going to say to themselves why should I go and 
vote for that bunch of yahoos, whoever he is. I saw a bumper strip 
coming in from the airport last night that said, ``Reelect nobody.'' 
Reelect nobody? Consider what that means. That means everybody on the 
floor of the House is going to be subject to people walking around 
thinking, well, if they were there under that kind of cynical baloney, 
I do not want them, and my view is that the American people are made 
cynical by this kind of behavior. There are some absolute realities 
that must be faced in this country if we are going to be serious.
  Now, the first thing that this amendment, if it were to go into 
place, would say, is that all the cuts, anything that is going to 
happen in this country, is going to mean we have to reduce spending. We 
can never raise revenue, we cannot because two-thirds--we did not even 
get two-thirds on this floor when we were saving Social Security. Two-
thirds of the Members did not vote to support Social Security. So all 
the old people who might be thinking about this, just remember, Mr. 
Speaker, they got to understand that we could not have saved Social 
Security on the floor of the House of Representatives in 1983 because 
there were not two-thirds of the Members who would vote for it.
  So what we are saying here today is that we are going to cut things, 
and all the programs that people are now resting on, Social Security, 
Medicare, Medicaid, aid for student loans, all those things will be 
subject to a two-thirds vote. No matter what is going on in the world, 
no matter what the circumstances of our economy, no matter what 
happens, it will take two-thirds.
  Now, as you heard the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Moran] say, that 
means the Senators from 17 States can block whatever is going on and 
the majority will no longer rule.

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