[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 11 (Wednesday, February 9, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H268-H273]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NATION'S FISCAL AND FINANCIAL INTEGRITY
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Biggert). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. TANNER. Madam Speaker, I know all of us here join with the
gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) with regard to the gentlewoman
from California (Mrs. Capps) and her family.
Madam Speaker, we have some Blue Dogs that are going to show up down
here on the floor in a few minutes. And as many of the Members know and
some here know, the Blue Dog Coalition is a group of around 30
Democrats who have concentrated for the last 3 or 4 years on budgetary
and financial matters that this country faces.
We are going to talk for the next few minutes about our Nation's
fiscal and financial integrity and, as importantly, what it means to
the young people in this Nation as we are poised today really at a
crossroads.
I hope that those who listen will be somewhat informed or enlightened
after we are through. I am joined by the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Turner) at the moment.
Before I recognize the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner), let me take
just a minute, if I may, to talk about our Nation's financial picture.
Madam Speaker, most observers agree that our national debt is about
$5.7 trillion. That $5.7 trillion is composed of two separate and
distinct different types of debt. The $1.7 trillion is the amount of
money we, the people, owe to we, the people. It is a bookkeeping entry.
It is represented by assets of the Social Security trust fund, the
trustees gift to the Treasury, monies that come in under the FICA tax
and the Treasury gives to the Social Security trustees a non-negotiable
instrument, bill, note or bond; that represents about, that and other
debt, Federal Reserve holds some of it, about $1.7 trillion.
We, the people, do not actually write checks for interest on that
part of the debt every year. The other part of the debt we do, that
$3.7 trillion or $8 trillion debt, we actually write checks every year
for interest. Last year, almost $240 billion of interest paid on monies
that have been consumed by people my age and older.
Madam Speaker, to give you some idea of how much money that is, $240
billion a year, it is the third largest item of the Federal budget only
behind Social Security checks and Nation's defense. Said another way,
it represents 13\1/2\ cents of every dollar that comes to this town.
Said another way, we have a 13\1/2\ percent mortgage on this country
simply because we have not had the willpower to retire this debt.
Instead we just roll it over and continue to pay interest on it.
Put another way, and this is staggering, a third, fully one third of
all the income taxes that the American people, individuals and
corporate America, pay every April 15 goes to pay nothing but interest
on it, the national debt, this $3.8 trillion dollars of hard debt that
we owe.
Madam Speaker, we are going to in this House tomorrow, I guess, start
taking up individual pieces of tax measures that are all very, very
popular. All in my judgment or some of them need to be done.
You know what? We do not have a budget. I do not know where the
marriage penalty fits in to anything. Is it more important than raising
the pay of the men and women in the uniform service of this country
that risk their lives?
Is it more important, is it a higher priority than doing something
for the veterans who we promised we would do something for years ago,
if they would give us their productive lives? I do not know.
We do not have a budget wherein we fit priorities. Is this a higher
priority than, for example, medicine? We know that rural providers in
this country are having a hard time keeping the doors open. Some of
them will close if we do not do something about that. And you know what
happens when some of them close? Somebody, maybe your father or my
father or somebody's brother or child, is going to die because that
clinic in that small town in rural America or that hospital closed and
they had to drive 50 miles to get to a suitable medical facility. I do
not know where it is going to be, but I see it is going to happen.
I see the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske) over there. He can tell
you that it is going to happen. Because sometimes seconds make the
difference between saving someone's life who is bleeding to death or
having a heart attack or a stroke.
So is the marriage penalty a higher priority than saving some child's
life who has happened to cut his hand? I do not know. But I do know
this, without a budget resolution where those decisions can be made, we
are not, in my judgment, fulfilling our stewardship at this point in
time to the American people as it relates to retiring, not just rolling
over the debt, retiring the debt so that the money saved, the interest
that you young people here will have to pay some day, is less.
We are not, in my judgment, exercising proper businesslike
stewardship of this Nation's monies if we do not have a budget that
provides for debt retirement, for the past promises we made with
respect to Social Security recipients, for the past promises we made to
the veterans, for the past promises we made to Medicare recipients.
Those things are important. Promises made and obligations kept, that is
a value that we cherish in this country.
Until we have a budget where we know where we are, where we know what
fits in this piece and that piece, it seems to me that one could argue
from a businesslike standpoint that it is not only unwise but it is
irresponsible to start bringing tax bills to the floor
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without some way of knowing where they fit in in terms of our
priorities as a people.
Now, let me stop here and recognize the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Turner) who has been a leader of the Blue Dogs. As I said earlier, we
are interested in the financial integrity of this country and our
ability not only to meet past promises but future obligations; and he
has been a leader on that.
Mr. TURNER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Tennessee for
yielding. The gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner) always does such an
outstanding job on trying to be sure that we stay on a fiscally
responsible course in this Congress through his membership on the
Committee on Ways and Means and his leadership of our Democrats who are
members of the Blue Dog Coalition, which, as the gentleman from
Tennessee (Mr. Tanner) mentioned, is a group of Democrats, about 30 of
us, who meet together every week and talk about being sure we keep this
country on a fiscally responsible course.
Now that is the main mission of the Blue Dog Coalition is to be sure
we are fiscally responsible. And it is hard to understand how we can be
here in the second full week of this Congress and have the Republican
leadership come to the floor tomorrow with a marriage penalty tax cut
bill.
Now, all the Blue Dogs are united in favor of tax cuts. And the
marriage penalty is one issue that we believe very strongly needs to be
dealt with by the Congress. The problem is the Republican leadership
have decided to take the same old approach that they provided in the
trillion-dollar tax cut that they proposed last year that we Democrats
opposed and the President vetoed, they have decided to take that
trillion-dollar tax cut and cut it up into little bits and pieces and
roll them out on the floor in one little bit and piece at a time. The
same old proposal.
Now, the House rules provide very clearly that you cannot consider a
tax proposal, a tax cut, a tax bill until the Congress has adopted the
annual budget. And that rule makes a whole lot of sense. You do not put
the cart before the horse.
The Committee on the Budget in this Congress has the responsibility
to adopt a framework for the fiscal affairs of the Federal Government
every year and to adopt a budget. Once we have adopted a budget and
have decided how much we are going to allocate for the various spending
needs, how much we have to pay down the national debt, how much we are
going to apply to tax cuts, then we are ready to come to this floor and
pass individual pieces of legislation, appropriation bills and tax cut
legislation, to fit within the framework of the budget.
For some reason, I guess in a complete abdication of fiscal
leadership, the Republican leaders have decided they will just forget
about a budget and they are going to bring the first of a series of tax
cuts to the floor beginning tomorrow.
Now, the truth of the matter is we all believe in cutting taxes. But
the American people spoke loudly and clearly last year when, throughout
my district, they told me they believe that the first priority of the
Congress is to pay down that $5.7 trillion national debt. If we divide
that debt out among all the families in America, for a family of four,
it is about $84,000 per family. Now, that debt was run up over the last
30 years.
When I came to Congress 2 years ago, 3 years ago now, one of the
objectives I had was to be sure that we do not pass on that $5.7
trillion debt to our children and our grandchildren. And what better
time to try to pay down the national debt than right now when economic
times are good. This may be our best opportunity to deal with the
national debt that, as the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner)
pointed out, takes about 13 percent of our budget every year just to
pay the interest on that national debt. The debt is too big.
We have had expert after expert come before this Congress and testify
that the best tax cuts we can give the American people is to pay down
the national debt. Because when we pay down the national debt, we take
the Government out of the business of borrowing so much money and that
means there is less demand for funds and interest rates all across this
country will be lower.
For most families trying to make ends meet, pay off a home mortgage,
buy a car, send their children to college, and most folks have to
borrow the money to do it, a lower interest rate will mean more to them
than reduced taxes.
When the trillion-dollar tax cut was brought to this floor and passed
in this house, the Democrats unanimously proposed a better option. We
said take 50 percent of our estimated future surplus, which we hope
will be there, nobody knows for sure, but let us take 50 percent of the
estimated surplus and let us use that to pay down that $5.5 trillion
national debt; let us take 25 percent of the future surplus and use it
to save Social Security and Medicare, which is going to be under great
stress when folks my age begin to retire about 15 years from now; and
let us take the last 25 percent and dedicate it to a good tax reduction
that will benefit average working Americans.
Mr. MINGE. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. TANNER. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.
Mr. MINGE. Madam Speaker, my colleague has been emphasizing the
importance of a tax cut in terms of paying down the debt and what that
can do to reducing interest rates. There are a couple of charts here
which I think would be of interest to our colleagues in this respect.
One chart shows what reducing the debt means to America's families.
And as my colleague has pointed out, when the Federal Government is in
the market borrowing money competing with the private sector for that
money, it drives up interest rates.
It has been calculated that if we can reduce the publicly held debt
from $3.7 trillion down to $1.3 trillion, which is possible if we show
the type of discipline we have been talking about, that interest rates
on homes are projected to climb by 2 percent and that this would reduce
the monthly payment that America's families have on an average home of
$115,000 a mortgage of that size by approximately $150 a month.
So there is a dividend right away to America's families. It is
building on what my colleague talked about.
Secondly, we can look at students. And if we are looking at students,
they would receive a dividend that is estimated to be $35 a month on
their student loans if we would reduce the national debt in that
fashion.
{time} 1145
So this interest rate dividend has been projected and has been
calculated, and I thought that this would be a very good way to
illustrate with some specific numbers the exact point that the
gentleman just made.
So I would like to thank the gentleman for making that point and
yield back.
Mr. TURNER. That point is certainly well taken. I think the benefits
of paying down the debt maybe are not quite as obvious to the American
people as we need to try to make it. Most of the people I talk to in my
district are fiscally conservative folks that believe if you owe $5.7
trillion dollars, you ought to try to pay that down. They do not
believe in owing money. Many folks do not realize in addition to paying
down the debt, as the right thing to do, that we will get an interest
dividend that the gentleman from Minnesota talked about.
I really believe that the important thing for us to emphasize to the
American people is that our Republican leadership, beginning tomorrow,
is coming back with the same $1 trillion tax cut that they tried to
pass last time and that the American people realized was just a ploy to
try to show who could be for cutting taxes the most, and now they are
breaking that big $1 trillion tax cut down into little pieces and
trying to roll them out here on the floor, because it is harder to vote
against a little tax cut than it was that $1 trillion one, hopefully
forcing the Members of this House to vote for a tax cut.
We are going to vote for a marriage penalty tax cut as Democrats, but
we are going to do it in the context of a budget that reduces the
national debt, that saves Social Security and provides the kind of tax
relief that average working Americans need.
Mr. TANNER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I want to take
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this time to recognize another Texan. Being from Davy Crockett's
district, I have to recognize these Texans, as you know, but one of the
leaders in the House on financial matters and fiscal conservative
business-like principles that we are trying to advance here, the
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm).
Mr. STENHOLM. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Tennessee for
yielding. I thank the gentleman for taking the time today and giving
the Blue Dog Democrats and perhaps others hopefully on both sides of
the aisle the opportunity to engage in this debate before we get into
the political debate of tomorrow.
It is difficult to be perceived as being against a tax cut,
particularly when you agree that the marriage tax penalty should be
corrected, but it is not difficult to oppose a bill that not only
corrects the marriage tax penalty, but also gives a marriage bonus to
those that are currently getting a bonus. I am sure in the limited time
tomorrow we will not have an opportunity to fully debate that.
But the real purpose for which we take this hour today is to talk
about why paying down the debt should be the number one priority for
this Congress and why some of us on this side of the aisle feel so
strongly that not following the regular order of determining the
priorities of the Congress is a drastic fiscal mistake.
We now have the opportunity to pay down this debt we all talk about
if, and this is one of the big questions, if the projected surpluses
materialize. That is why we and the Blue Dogs have been saying now for
quite some time, let us not spend projected surpluses as if they are
real money, surpluses that may or may not occur in 2007, 2008, 2009,
2010.
Is that conservatism? Are we going to go back to the same fiscal
policies that we followed in the 1980s when we borrowed over $3
trillion pursuing a fiscal policy that did not quite work out, unless
you perceive that borrowing money by the Federal Government, taking
that money away from the private sector, is a good investment.
We do not. We happen to believe that paying down the debt and the
fact we are now going to be in our third year of seeing our Federal
debt, that which the Federal Government is borrowing, be reduced, is
good fiscal policy and has contributed to the fact that we now have the
longest single economic recovery period in the history of our country,
economic expansion; that unemployment has now hit and gone below 4
percent; that we have more people working in America than at any other
time in the history of our country. We think that is the result of
something that we have been doing right, and that is that we have been
living since 1993 on a course that has gotten us into the position now
of actually being able to debate what we are going to do with projected
surpluses.
To those that suggest that we start out with a tax cut, you are in
fact saying that the plight of rural hospitals is of secondary
importance. The fact that we have over 250 representatives from rural
communities all over the United States in Washington as I speak begging
us for additional investment in hospital care in rural areas, that that
is of secondary importance, and we are not even going to discuss that
until later, and perhaps never get there, because when you make the
argument of a $1.3 trillion tax cut, you will find there is no money
available in the budget for additional investments and needed
investments in any program.
To those that suggest that we should start with a tax cut, you are
saying that we do not need to invest any further in the defense
capabilities of this country, that there is no need for us to do
anything but freeze defense spending for the next 10 years at current
levels; and anyone knows what that will do to the ability of the United
States to defend ourselves against what might happen in the next 10
years.
Why are we not debating what the priority investments should be,
along with how we shall deal with our Tax Code?
It is no secret we have real problems in rural America in the farming
sector. The President has proposed putting into the budget debate an
investment, an expenditure, if you please, of taxpayer dollars. Should
that not be debated, and if the majority of this House feels that is
not a prudent investment, have it voted down? Should that not be
considered in the budget process?
When we talk about spending, we have those that believe, and
sincerely believe, that all Federal spending almost is a waste of
money. They choose to close their eyes to the fact that we, the
Congress, in a bipartisan way, over the last 4, 5 or 6 years, have done
a pretty darn good job of restraining discretionary spending, a pretty
darn good job. Can we do better? Yes. Should we do better? Absolutely.
But can we do it in a way in which we say we are going to freeze and
continue cutting in the area of defense, of agriculture, of health
care?
I repeat, if we cannot find it in our wisdom to recognize that rural
areas are being substantially penalized to the degree that we will have
to close hospital after hospital after hospital unless we can find it
in our hearts and in our judgment to increase spending in this area,
then we have to be prepared to suffer the consequences.
Now, I do not think that is what the Congress will do. But my
question is simply this to the leadership: Why did you choose to come
with the first bill of the year with a tax cut that is politically
attractive? Why do you choose to ignore the budget process that we all
say we believe in and in which we will make tough choices? Why do you
short circuit it? Unless it is, as some suggest, a politically
attractive way to get to the $1 trillion tax cut without anybody ever
having to face up to the realities of what we are talking about. I
think we are making a bad mistake when we do that.
As Members before me have said today, I support dealing with the
intricacies of the Tax Code that penalize couples for being married.
That is ridiculous. Let us fix that part. But let us do it in the
context of a total budget approach that will not jeopardize the
economic recovery we have been in now for the last 7 years and that we
have all indications we can continue if we just manage to stay on
course.
I want to repeat again, and then I will yield back: we are in danger,
if we choose this road that we start tomorrow, we are in danger of
saying to our rural communities, I am sorry, but there is no money left
for investment in health care in rural communities. That is the choice.
We are in danger of saying there is no money to be used for increasing
the durability and longevity and strength of the defenses of this
country, which most of us agree need to be done.
Why are we not having that argument first? That is our question. We
will have a motion that will provide that we can do everything
everybody talks about, if it is possible to do it within the context of
a budget and tough decisions. One of those needs to be being a little
conservative with our first bill out of the box. I hope that we will
find a way to do that.
One last point: I get real concerned when I see the leadership of the
House of Representatives continuing, continuing, to ignore the need of
making changes in our Social Security system and our Medicare system
for the future. I get very concerned when I continue to hear the finger
pointing of the House of Representatives leadership towards the
administration for not dealing with Social Security and Medicare and
Medicaid, when everyone knows we can do it in the House of
Representatives.
Why have we not spent one second talking about the future needs of
Social Security in the context of the budget? If we are going to fix
Social Security for the future, so our children and grandchildren will
have the same benefits that we have today, those on it today, it is
going to require some changes; and it is going to require changes that
will cause the need of utilizing some of those surplus dollars we are
talking about. But we completely ignore that, and I think that is a
shame.
Mr. TANNER. Madam Speaker, last year I said when we have projections,
and I think the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Minge) is going to talk
about projections in a minute, that no reasonable business person in
this country that I know of would spend 80 percent of a 10-year
projection on anything. That is what we were asked to do last year with
that $800-some billion tax bill.
We are for tax cuts, but to obligate 80 percent of a 10-year
projection? I do not know what the price of cotton and
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soybeans is going to be next week, and these people in Washington try
to talk about 10 years like it is real money. It is not even here yet.
Madam Speaker, I would like to yield to the gentleman from Minnesota
(Mr. Minge) to speak on what the surplus may or may not be.
Mr. MINGE. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Madam Speaker, we have an opportunity this morning to discuss here
with our colleagues the context in which we are considering a tax cut
proposal. It is a tax cut proposal that deals with the problem that all
of us agree needs to be addressed; and the question is, what is the
most effective way to address it, and what is the appropriate time in
this process to address it?
I would like to start out by echoing the comments of our colleagues
from Texas in terms of the timing. I serve on the Committee on the
Budget. We do not yet have even the beginnings of a budget resolution,
and that is the primary task of the committee on which I serve. Indeed,
the chairman of that committee, our colleague, the gentleman from Ohio
(Mr. Kasich), has written a letter to the chairman of the Committee on
Ways and Means expressing his concern about bringing up legislation
dealing with tax reductions prior to a budget.
This is not a situation where one party is trashing the other party.
This is a situation where even the Republicans recognize that the tax
cut proposal ought to follow the development of a budget.
{time} 1200
So when the Chair, the Republican Chair of the Committee on the
Budget is saying to the Republican Chair of the Committee on Ways and
Means, let us do this in a logical process, just like any business
organization would do. I think that is an admonition that we ought to
take seriously.
Now, we have also mentioned, and so have our colleagues from Texas,
the difficulties of projecting what is going to happen in terms of
Federal spending and revenues over a decade, and where do we actually
stand in terms of the amount of money available. This chart shows what
is really available in terms of a surplus and when it becomes
available. There is an anticipated surplus if we look at the old
figures that were used in 1997, there is an anticipated surplus of
$1.85 trillion over 10 years. Now, that is deceptive because as
everybody knows here in Washington and actually most people around the
country, the so-called budget caps that would generate that kind of a
surplus have been broken with regularity over the last 2 years.
So if we simply assume that defense spending, spending for education,
for health care, for agriculture, and for a range of other things that
all of us recognize as priority matters, that that spending is not
going to be cut here in the year 2000 and in the years to come, but
instead, there is enormous pressure to simply maintain this level of
support for Federal programs and increase it at the rate of inflation.
Over half of that surplus disappears, and that is the blue portion of
this pie chart, Mr. Speaker; $1.021 trillion disappears.
Given the very strong advocacy on behalf of the Defense Department
that is going on today on the Senate side and went on yesterday on the
Senate side, and what I know is going to come on health care, and our
colleagues have already talked about health care, and what we know is
going to come on environmental programs and on education and so on, it
is fair to say that this blue portion is truly not a surplus, and that
leaves us with the orange and with the green.
Now, the orange represents the extension of tax reduction measures
that are currently on the books, and also farm aid legislation that
represents some sort of a compromise or a mean between what was done in
the early 1990s and what has been done here in the late 1990s in terms
of dealing with the very serious problems in the farm economy. If we
assume that we are going to extend these tax reduction measures which
are currently on the books like the research and development tax credit
and others, then this original portion disappears and include with that
the type of farm programs I just mentioned. That leaves us with the
green portion. That is about $607 billion over 10 years, $60 billion a
year.
Now, it is important to note that $200 billion of this is actually
surpluses in the Medicare program during the period of time before the
baby boom generation retires. I submit that that surplus in Medicare,
just like the surplus in Social Security, should not be used for
current expenditures. So that brings us down to $400 billion, and this
is what we have available over 10 years. The first bill out of the
chute would expend almost half of that for one tax problem alone,
ignoring all of the other tax reductions that many of us think ought to
be considered and also ignoring program priorities and debt reduction
which my colleagues have talked about. I submit that the debt reduction
component is a powerful consideration and a portion of this surplus
ought to be devoted or committed to just straight debt reduction.
We have already talked about the interest rate savings to America's
families, to students, and others if we reduce the debt.
Well, this chart, this pie chart I think is important for all of us
to clearly understand as we move ahead and determine whether we should
take up a tax reduction measure before the budget has been developed
and before we know the full dimensions of these matters.
Well, there is a great deal that we need to cover here this morning,
and I would like to thank the gentleman for the opportunity to cover
this portion of it which has become very clear to those of us on the
Committee on the Budget.
Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
Let me follow up on something that the gentleman said about the
uncertainty of this budget projection, this surplus; and I want all of
my colleagues to listen to this. If the CBO estimators are wrong in
guessing or in predicting what the rate of growth of the economy of
this country is going to be for the next 10 years by just one-tenth of
1 percent, if they say over the next 10 years, the rate of growth of
the economy is going to be 2.7 percent a year, and it is 2.6, do we
know how much money the surplus is reduced just on missing that 10-year
guess, one-tenth of 1 percent? It is $211 billion. It is huge, because
it is geometrical.
I would submit to my colleagues that no human being, Alan Greenspan
maybe excepted, but no human being can tell me or anybody else in this
country what the rate of growth of the economy of this Nation is going
to be for the next 10 years, and that is why we ought to err on the
side of caution as we go forward here, rather than pretending like this
is real money that is already here. It is not.
I would like to take this moment to recognize a young leader in
Congress who is from the great sovereign State of Louisiana (Mr. John).
Mr. JOHN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, my neighbor from
Tennessee, for managing this hour. I also want to thank Minority Leader
Gephardt for granting us an hour, the Blue Dogs an hour to actually
talk about our plan.
There is bipartisan, bicameral, universal support for a marriage
penalty tax deduction or tax decrease. The President has it in his
budget, the Democrats have it in their recommittal substitute that we
will see tomorrow, the Republicans have it. Truly this debate that we
are having here today, and that we will have tomorrow, is not about a
marriage penalty. Everyone agrees, everyone has a plan. We will talk
about the differences in the plans, but everyone agrees that there
needs to be a correction. It was an unintentional glitch in a tax law
that happened several or many years ago. So I think that the true
debate is about how do we go about it?
Let me give my colleagues a scenario. We come up here a lot, go back
to our districts and come up here a lot and we talk about how we ought
to run government more like a business. Let me give my colleagues a
scenario about where I think we are today in this debate. When a CEO of
a company goes out and talks to potential investors asking them to
invest in his company, in his idea, do we believe that he will be
successful in gaining some financial support from potential investors
if he just says trust me, I do not have a plan yet, I cannot see the
big picture, I am not sure where we are going to be in 10
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years, but I just need some money, because I have this little bitty
plan or this notion that is out there. I suggest that this company will
not make it very far.
Let me take it one step further. What would have happened under the
trust-me notion if this Congress would have passed the $1 trillion tax
cut last year? Everyone agrees that after we look at discretionary
spending caps, we look at some emergency spending that we only are
going to have a projected $780 plus billion surplus over the next 10
years. Think about that. If we would have passed a $1 trillion tax cut
last year, we only have $780 billion projected today, and it has only
been 6 months. We would be running a deficit before the tax cut even
was fully engaged.
So I beg the Republican majority to take a look not at the fact that
we need a tax cut. I am going to vote for a marriage penalty tax cut.
The America people will have a tax cut bill that will have a marriage
penalty decrease in it. I feel good about that. I am almost confident
that that is going to happen. But let us put it in an overall budget
frame. Let us lay out our plan. That is the responsible thing to do.
We have been very disciplined fiscally over the last several years.
That is why we are here today. That is why we can enjoy and have this
debate which I guess several years ago we would not have even had about
the problems we have with the kinds of surplus that we are predicting.
We need to continue, and I beg the majority to show us a road map.
Give us a plan. We want to cut taxes. I am going to vote for it. The
Blue Dogs will vote for it, the Democrats will vote for it, and
everyone wants it. It fits in a plan. But we ought to spend half of
whatever that surplus is in paying down the debt first, 25 percent in a
targeted tax cut that should include the marriage penalty and will, I
believe, and 25 percent for priority spending.
We have heard my colleagues talk about some of the other spending
needs that we have in this country. How do we know if they are more
important than something else until we look at the business plan. There
is not one person, businessperson in America that could go to the bank
and borrow some money today and say I do not have a business plan, but
I need some money. Show us a plan. Keep us on the road to fiscal
discipline. Keep us on the road of good economies across America, but
make sure we do it in the whole picture.
Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to compliment the gentleman for
his leadership.
I will recognize another young leader here who is from the State of
Florida and who has been very active with us in trying to do something
with regard to a business-like approach to our Nation's financial
picture, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd).
Mr. BOYD. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Tennessee for yielding
me this time, my colleague, who is a leader in our Blue Dog Coalition,
in coordinating this hour so that we are able to talk a little bit
about the surplus and debt reduction and some of the issues that are
important to us.
Mr. Speaker, when I first came to Congress 3 short years ago in 1997,
I saw something happen that was truly miraculous I thought, having
heard all of the bad things about Washington, the partisanship that
exists here. But what I witnessed in 1997 was an agreement where the
majority leadership, the Republicans in Congress sat down with the
President, a Democrat, and actually negotiated in good faith, and those
negotiations led to a budget agreement which has provided us fiscal
discipline that has produced 2 consecutive years of budget surpluses.
It also provided $250 billion in tax relief, and it extended the life
of the Medicare program. We were able to do that because of bipartisan
cooperation and people sitting down in good faith and negotiating from
each side of the aisle.
Fast forward a couple of years to 1999, and we will see that all of
those lessons learned from bipartisan cooperation seemed to fly out the
window. The majority leadership of the Congress rammed through a
totally partisan budget without any input from the President or the
Democratic side of the aisle. That partisan budget cornerstone was $800
billion in tax relief and very little for anything else. We all know
that this was totally rejected by the American people and actually,
this failure to construct a bipartisan budget resulted in that tax bill
being vetoed and left Congress and the President haggling over the 13
annual appropriations bills that this Congress must pass.
{time} 1215
Actually, we ended up, as you know, rolling the last five or six into
one omnibus appropriations bill, which is never the best way to do it.
Unfortunately, it seems that my friends and colleagues on the other
side of the aisle, the majority leadership of this Congress, have not
learned from last year's mistakes, and have not recalled the success
that can be had when they act like we did in 1997.
Instead of building on the 1997 balanced budget agreement and forging
another compromise with the President, what we have this year is an
attempt to pass major tax legislation before a budget is even written.
How much of a surplus do we think ought to go to debt reduction?
Well, nobody knows because we have not done a budget. How much should
go to reforming the social security and Medicare systems that my friend
and colleague, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), spoke so
eloquently about?
We know that is the major, major social problem for this country
moving into the 21st century, the viability of the social security and
Medicare system. How much of this surplus will be required to deal with
those problems? We do not know. We do not have a budget. We have not
written our budget plan.
How much should go to our other priority programs that have been
spoken of here, such as defense? Maybe the most important function of a
Federal Government is defense of its borders and its people. Well, we
do not know. We know that we have drawn down defense funding over the
last decade, and in the last couple of cycles we have actually begun to
increase that again. We know that we will continue to have to increase
defense spending to keep up with modern weapons and readiness, and pay
our men and women who are in the service like they should be paid.
How about veterans and military retirees? Certainly that is one of
the hot button issues now on the minds of everybody that is a Member of
this Chamber. This country has gone back on its promise to provide
lifetime medical benefits for those who have served their country and
retired from the military. There are over 60 percent of the Members of
this Chamber who are cosponsors of a bill which will deal with that
issue, and we do not even know how much it will cost yet. It might cost
$6 billion, $8 billion, $10 billion, but 60 percent of the Members of
this Chamber are cosponsors of that bill.
There is a major commitment to deal with that issue, but yet, we want
to advance a tax bill before we write a budget dealing with military
retirees and veterans' health care benefits.
My colleagues in the majority on the other side of the aisle will
tell us they are for paying down the debt. I believe many of them are.
But the sad truth is that the Committee on the Budget had not even had
its first hearing this year when the legislation was scheduled for a
floor vote that would include a $182 billion tax bill for the marriage
tax penalty. Where is the plan for debt relief? Us Blue Dogs, those of
us who are Blue Dogs, believe that ought to be the cornerstone of any
surplus plan.
So Mr. Speaker, it is not too late to do the right thing. If we
really want tax relief to become law, my suggestion is that the
leadership on the majority side sit down with Democrats in Congress and
the President and let us develop a bipartisan budget agreement. In that
agreement, we will deal with the social security issues, the priority
spending, we will deal with debt reduction, and we will deal with tax
relief. Those of us who are Blue Dogs feel very strongly about that.
I want to again thank my friend, the gentleman from Tennessee, for
allowing us to have this time.
Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr.
Boyd) for his comments. I hope we will be charitable to the Gaters next
fall in Knoxville when they come to see us.
Mr. Speaker, I yield again to the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Stenholm). He has done as much as anyone in this
[[Page H273]]
Congress in the last 10 or 15 years on the budget.
Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Let me just kind of sum up what I think I have heard, listening to my
colleagues today. What we are suggesting is that the conservative thing
for this House to do is to make the tough calls on the budget and put
the tax cut within the confines of what we can agree in a bipartisan
way is the blueprint that will allow our economy to continue to grow as
it has in the past 7 years.
We get very, very disturbed when we hear people talking about, well,
there is a $4 trillion surplus, and we can give one-fourth of it back
to the people because it is the people's money.
If only that were true. Well, it is true, it is the people's money,
but it is not true that we have $1 trillion to give back, unless we are
prepared to say to the 55- to 65-year-olds today, ``We are going to let
you worry about your social security check when it starts coming due in
2014. We are going to let you worry and let your children and
grandchildren worry even more about it.''
The problem that many of us have with expenditures, spending
programs, of which we are also opposed to the creation of new
entitlement programs, very strongly. We should not create new spending
programs, any more than we should have massive tax cuts at this time,
based on projected surpluses.
Here are the numbers, a $4 trillion surplus. $2 trillion of it is
social security. Fine. Put that towards paying down the debt. That
leaves $2 trillion, of which some say $1 trillion should go to a tax
cut. All right, let us assume for a moment, fine, let us do it. Then
that means that all of the rest of government is basically going to
live at current expenditure levels for the next 10 years.
Here is where I have a problem, because in the defense area alone, I
do not believe for one second we can prepare this country for the
future threats that we are going to have if we assume that defense is
going to stay frozen at year 2000 levels. I do not believe that. But
that is what we are going to get into if we follow this path.
How much can we cut back from the current baseline without allowing
for inflation? That is something we ought to debate, and we ought to do
it program by program.
Let us assume for a minute that we let defense grow at the rate of
inflation. There are many of us that say that in itself is not enough
because we have allowed it to trend downward too long and too far. But
these are the kinds of discussions we ought to have first. We ought to
deal with the spinach part of the budget before we deal with the
dessert.
In the area of health care, this is one thing that is getting
overlooked. How many of us hear from our senior citizens and others,
young people, young working families who are having a difficult time
paying their pharmaceutical bills? Are we going to ignore that very
real need in this budget? I think not.
I have mentioned agriculture. We can mention veterans. We can mention
the rural hospitals again. Why are we not doing the regular process?
Why are we coming in with what someone perceives is a politically
attractive marriage tax penalty, with which we all agree, we ought to
deal with the penalty, but why should we also give, under the name of a
marriage penalty, a bonus to those who are already getting a bonus in
the tax cut because they are married, also? I do not understand the
logic of that.
I have a little rule of thumb: If it meets the West Texas tractor
seat commonsense approach, then it is a pretty good idea. That does not
meet anybody's commonsense approach, it defies logic, except somebody
has decided it is a good political move.
I hope the House will show the wisdom of saying, we are for it. Let
us put this bill back into the committee. Let the committee deal with
it in the confines of the overall budget. Let us deal with a marriage
tax penalty, but let us not do so at the expense of social security and
Medicare, because that is the basic, fundamental choice we will make.
Once we start down the path of saying that we are going to have tax
cuts, one piece of cake at a time, and if we have 12 cuts or 10 cuts or
5 cuts at $182 billion, we are soon going to spend $1 trillion. When we
get into that, we are going to see that we will have jeopardized the
very thing all of us have said we will never do, and that is
jeopardized the future of social security and the Medicare program.
That is the fundamental choice that we will make if we start down
this politically attractive path without dealing with the tough
decisions that we need to make, and we can make in a very bipartisan
way.
Mr. TANNER. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Speaker, we will be back to talk about debt retirement, to talk
about the priorities of this Nation, every time that we have one of
these bills before we have a budget where we know where we are.
I voted against the $800 billion tax cut last year. It would have
been good for me. People say, well, you all are against tax cuts. It
would have been good for me. I would have had a tax cut. I could have
voted for it. But it would not be good for my kids and grandkids, and
everybody knows that, not when we have a $5.7 trillion national debt,
paying $240 billion a year in interest alone.
It is a generational mugging to them, to all the young people in this
country, to not pay our bills and to retire, not roll over, this
national debt.
I do not want to leave this Nation in my productive years here, I do
not want to leave a Nation where the water is so polluted that fish
cannot live in it and kids cannot swim on it. I do not think Members
want that kind of country either for their children. I do not want to
leave a country to our kids where they have to wear a surgical mask to
ride their bicycle across town because the air is so foul and so
polluted. That is not the kind of country I want to be proud of when I
leave this town.
I do not want to leave our kids a country with a 14 percent mortgage
on it, one that is going to strap them every day of their college
career and productive lives to do nothing more than pay interest. That
is as paramount to me in terms of what kind of legacy we leave to our
kids that come along after us than any other single thing.
Clean air, clean water, and a country that is financially strong,
that is what we ought to be talking about, rather than doing these
things. We are going to have this tax bill up here, we do not have a
budget, we do not know where it fits, but this is going to be real good
for some of us politically. No sane business person in this country
would go down this path. Yet, that is where we are facing.
Mr. Speaker, I genuinely appreciate the opportunity that the Blue
Dogs have had to discuss these matters. We feel very strongly about it.
Hopefully we can engage again at a future date.
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