[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 44 (Monday, April 10, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H2004-H2010]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                TAX LIMITATION CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I take this opportunity tonight to discuss 
a very important issue that is going to be on the floor of the House of 
Representatives this week. It is called the tax limitation amendment. 
The tax limitation amendment, known as H.J. Res. 37, is a very, very 
simple amendment that was first brought to life some 10 years ago by 
the gentleman from the 6th District of Texas (Mr. Barton).
  Last week we had a press conference where we talked about, in 
essence, the passing of the mantle from the gentleman from Texas to 
myself, being the lead for the tax limitation amendment where we will 
bring to the floor of the House of Representatives on Wednesday an 
opportunity for all Members not only to fully debate but also to vote 
on something which I believe is very, very important.
  The essence of H.J. Res. 37 is that we are going to make it more 
difficult for Washington to raise taxes on America. That is what this 
debate is all about. It will be about doing those things that 
Washington talks about, making it more difficult by requiring a 
supermajority, a two-thirds vote on the floor of the House of 
Representatives and in the Senate to raise taxes. Part of what we are 
talking about today, we would assume, is just a conservative idea, and 
I think that that would be correct. But it is a bipartisan idea. It is 
an idea not only that has grassroots all across America, people who are 
pro-business but it also has people who consider themselves Democrats, 
Democrats even, who understand that raising taxes should not be easy, 
because taxes come from people who get up and go to work every day, 
work diligently, honest people, taxpayers, and then are giving too much 
money to Washington, D.C.
  One of the persons who is the cochairman of this effort, a coleader 
in this effort, is the gentleman from the 4th District of Texas (Mr. 
Hall). This evening I am very honored to have the gentleman from Texas 
with me to help not only the discussion about the tax limitation 
amendment but also for an opportunity for us to discuss this.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from the 4th District of Texas, 
a lifelong Democrat, a conservative, and a man who understands it is 
important to make it more difficult to raise taxes on taxpayers.
  Mr. HALL of Texas. I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I am here today, of course, to express my support for 
the tax limitation amendment. I have been for this amendment from the 
word go. I really do not understand that it ought to be a Republican or 
a Democratic thrust or a liberal or conservative thrust because I think 
it is an American thrust. Requiring a two-thirds vote to raise taxes 
would force very serious consideration on this legislation at any time 
that they would attempt to raise taxes; and it would require, as the 
gentleman from Texas has said, a supermajority vote on any proposal 
that would impact the pocketbooks of every hard-working American.
  The major test of this legislation would be not what class supports 
it. We are in for at least 5 wonderful years in this country. We now 
have, rather than the deficits of the 1980s and the 1990s, a surplus; 
and we are going to have good times for the next 5, maybe for the next 
10, years to have money to be that that we ought to be for people who 
have no lobby, pay a lot of it on our debt. That is tantamount to a tax 
break for everyone.
  I think that if we would go into our district, and I say ``our 
district'' because the gentleman and I share districts in Texas. I have 
part of Dallas County in my district. He has a much larger part of it. 
I have most of Kaufman. He has a part of Kaufman in his district. He 
has a part of Smith County which is Tyler; Tyler, Texas. We represent 
the same type of people, people who want less government, people who 
want to keep the money that they work for, people who want to plan 
ahead, people who want to have money in September to buy school clothes 
without having the taxes that are put on them, that have been 
historically put on them by a 50 percent vote. A lot of those votes 
like the Tax Reform Act of 1986 would never have happened if it had 
taken a two-thirds vote.

                              {time}  2030

  So I think if they would go out into their district, into any part of 
our district, and talk to the first 10 people they see and ask them 
would you like to see it a little bit more difficult for the Congress 
of the United States to take money out of your left hip pocket, what do 
you think their answer would be?
  Mr. SESSIONS. Let me say this: the gentleman from Texas, whose 
district

[[Page H2005]]

is literally overlaid on my district, the 4th District overlaid on the 
5th District, very, very similar, the kind of people, the kind of 
people's thoughts and ideas, I believe that if you went in the 4th or 
5th Districts of Texas, that people would say, I think Washington, D.C. 
has enough money. First of all, they have got enough money. They don't 
need to tax us more. They ought to be more efficient.
  The second thing I think they would say, as the gentleman has pointed 
out, is let us make it more difficult. There is no need to go back to 
the American public to ask for a tax increase, especially when we are 
in a surplus condition. Right now, today, in America we are working off 
of a surplus, and yet we know that there are people in Washington, 
D.C., that want more and more and more money.
  I would say to the gentleman from the 4th District of Texas that if 
we made it more difficult, it would immediately cause this Congress and 
the administration, whoever is President, to have to go and look within 
the administration, to go look in these agencies to find where there is 
waste, fraud and abuse, to find where there was opportunity to save 
money, rather than going back to the taxpayer.
  Mr. HALL of Texas. I think as the gentleman well knows, we represent 
a conservative area. We both represent a part of the old Rayburn 
congressional district. We talk about balanced budgets and all that. 
Mr. Rayburn had a balanced budget the last 8 years of his service here; 
and as he went back home to Bonham, Texas, to die, he looked back over 
his shoulder at a balanced budget.
  I think we could use some of that good common horse sense now. I 
think the people of this country want to be able to keep more of the 
money they are making. I just do not believe the argument that we have 
a lot more money now, so this amendment is not as important. I think 
this amendment is more important now than it was during the deficit 
times, because they have more to lose, and it is going to look like it 
is easy to put taxes on people.
  I just think it is a golden opportunity to raise the bar and protect 
hard-working Americans from tax increases in the future that are not 
supported by a majority of two-thirds of the people. I think it is 
critical that we make a statement that we are committed to controlling 
government spending, rather than raising taxes, in order to maintain a 
balanced Federal budget.
  I just think that the 10 people that I would talk to on Front Street 
in Tyler, Texas, or any part of Kaufman County, or any part of the 
district we share in Dallas County, we would talk to these people and 
ask this simple question; and I think we ought to invite the rest of 
the Congress to go home and do the same thing, ask them what do you 
think about the fact we are trying to make it a little bit more 
difficult to put taxes on you. What do you think their answer would be?
  Mr. SESSIONS. Absolutely. I believe the answer from people, if you 
talk to people who live in the districts that get up and go to work 
every day, they would say, We are very pleased. We love America. We 
support government and the essence of what it does. But today there is 
more than enough money in Washington, D.C. Make do with what you have. 
Do not come back to us. We are out producing, meaning the people back 
home, producing not only in efficiencies, but to the economy, to the 
local communities and to government, to make it work. This needs to be 
a bar that gets raised because it is that important of an issue.
  You know that there are several parts of the Constitution that put a 
two-thirds vote that is a requirement to be able to pass something. I 
believe, and I think the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall) agrees, that 
raising taxes should be one of those things that we make more 
difficult, that should require a consensus and a two-thirds vote.
  I thank the gentleman. I know that the gentleman has got a dinner 
that he has got to go to, but I thank the gentleman for not only 
working on behalf of the people of the 4th District of Texas, but also 
doing it in a national leadership capacity here tonight. I thank him so 
very much for being a part of what we are doing.
  Mr. HALL of Texas. I thank the gentleman for the time, and I 
certainly am pleased that he has accepted the leadership of this 
amendment. I pledge that I will work side by side with the gentleman 
and we will work this floor.
  I do not know how we are going to come out, but I do know that we are 
going to still be swinging at it. I suggest that, no matter how the 
vote turns out, that we start anew the day we have either won or lost 
it, to working the other end of the situation and asking those 10 
people what they think about it, and asking each Member of Congress 
here to go home and ask their first 10 people what they think about it. 
Maybe we are working at the wrong end of the deal here in Washington, 
D.C. Maybe we ought to be working at home.

  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the gentleman so very much.
  This evening we are also joined by one of the stalwarts of freedom, 
the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth), who is not only a very good 
friend of the taxpayer, but a person who understands whose money this 
really is we are talking about. At this time I would yield to the 
gentleman from Arizona.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. I thank my colleague from Texas, and I thank my 
colleague from across the aisle from Texas also for joining us here 
tonight.
  Mr. Speaker, observers could not help but note the differing tone of 
those who preceded us in this Chamber this evening.
  Mr. Speaker, I was astounded, but I guess not really surprised, at 
the level of bile, the venom, the mean-spiritedness and deliberate 
mischaracterizations that preceded us in this Chamber, and I could not 
help but notice the difference, Mr. Speaker, as we come here on a 
bipartisan basis.
  Our good friend from Texas asked, what would the people at home say? 
And, Mr. Speaker, one of the things I hear repeatedly is how sick and 
tired they are of the endless partisan haranguing and insults and 
deliberate mischaracterizations of matters of public policy, because, 
Mr. Speaker, we are involved in dealing with the public trust. All 435 
of us in this Chamber are entrusted with an awesome responsibility, to 
represent the peoples of our districts to the best of our ability, 
commensurate with full allegiance to the Constitution of the United 
States.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I would just appeal to the American people to 
understand that we are talking about a bipartisan amendment, and, in 
the words of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall), it really should not 
be liberal, conservative, Republican or Democrat. It is 
quintessentially American, because what will take place on this floor, 
through the leadership of my good friend from Texas (Mr. Sessions) and 
many of others of us, we will come to this floor and ask for a 
supermajority vote, ask for 290 of us to line up to say that it should 
be harder for Congress to raise taxes on the American people.
  We were talking about what folks say at home. The 6th Congressional 
District of Arizona, in square mileage almost the size of the 
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. From the small hamlet of Franklin in 
southern Greenlee County, north to Four Corners, west to Flagstaff, 
south again to Florence, encompassing parts of Phoenix, Mesa, 
Scottsdale, a fast growing area, where people come from all over the 
country, a near universal lament has been well, you common sense folks 
can get some things done, but that is no guarantee that in 2 years if 
there is a change in the composition of the Congress, if something 
happens, that your hard work will not be reversed.
  Mr. Speaker, my colleagues, that is precisely why we are bringing 
this amendment to the floor of the House again, this proposed 
amendment, because we believe, just as important, just as challenging 
as it is to amend the Constitution of the United States, to deal with 
questions such as impeaching a chief executive, or, in the other body, 
ratifying international treaties, we believe the same standard should 
apply to the Government reaching into the pockets of everyday, hard-
working Americans. That is the key to this amendment.
  Mr. Speaker, I would point out that, as is often the case, many of 
our States, often characterized as laboratories of democracy, the 
places where we apply with our dynamic system of Federalism the 
principles of our constitutional Republic, 14 of our 50 states

[[Page H2006]]

have already adopted State tax limitation provisions, including my home 
State of Arizona, when in 1992 the legislature and the people decided 
that a two-thirds vote would be required for any, any, increase in 
taxation.
  Now, it is important, Mr. Speaker, to make this distinction: this 
does not prohibit tax increases, but it does say to the American people 
we understand a simple truth. The money does not belong to the 
Washington bureaucrats; it belongs to you. And we believe that if you 
work hard, play by the rules, want to provide for your family, want to 
provide for your children, have an obligation to your parents and other 
seniors in your community, are glad to shoulder that obligation, since 
it is your money, it should be tougher for Washington to get to it. It 
should be a question every bit as important as amending the 
Constitution of the United States.
  So we will come here again seeking a supermajority to enact this 
notion of a higher standard for tax increases. We are reminded over the 
last 2 decades, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1990, and, of course, the largest tax 
increase in American history, which passed in this Chamber and the 
other body by one vote, which was characterized by some in this town, 
principally those at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, as an 
``investment on our future,'' when in fact it really was an assault on 
seniors, on children, on Americans who had even left the here-and-now 
to go to the hereafter, so excessive was that tax increase it was 
retroactive to the first of the year in the grave, if the Congress or a 
future administration is tempted again to take the easy way out, to 
pickpocket hard-working American citizens, Mr. Speaker, this amendment 
would say, whoa, not so fast. Because we are a government of laws, 
because we are a government where the first three words of the 
Constitution talk about ``We the people.''
  We are accountable to the people, and we want to make it more 
difficult, we want to raise the standard, so that the same Americans, 
whether they are in the 5th or 4th Congressional District of Texas, or 
the 6th Congressional District of Arizona, or any district across the 
country, will understand that we are going to think long and hard and 
have compelling reasons to make a change, should we decide to do so 
collectively in this body with the support of the American people. But 
that will take away a temptation that has been too often easily 
employed.
  Let us raise the standard and return to the notion that the money 
belongs to the people, not to Washington. I know my friend from Texas 
has a few things to say.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, what the gentleman from Arizona has now 
clearly laid out is not only the essence of the reason why this is 
important to people back home, but I now want to add to those reasons 
and talk about why Washington needs to pay attention to the tax 
limitation amendment, H.J. Res. 94. I said H.J. Res. 39. That is wrong. 
That was last year. I have caught up now. H.J. Res. 94.
  We must make it harder for Congress to raise taxes on the American 
people. Now, many people would say, Well, Washington has it down. We 
have already created a surplus. We are going to have a surplus now for 
as far as the eye can see.
  I would say that, yes, that probably is true, provided we stay in 
power. But there is so much more that must be understood, and that is 
that just because the majority party believes that that is the right 
thing to do, it does not mean that that is what everybody agrees.
  Back in 1995, when we were in the midst of the battle, the battle to 
determine that we would have a balanced budget, that we would be able 
to work within the confines to balance the budget based upon what the 
American people have given us before the Committee on Ways and Means, 
Alice Rivlin, the OMB, Office of Management and Budget, personnel 
director, said, ``I do not think that adhering to a firm path,'' which 
means a balanced budget, that you are going to stick to it, ``for a 
balance by 2002 is very sensible.''

                              {time}  2045

  She did not believe it was sensible. It is not always a good policy 
to have a balanced budget.
  Let me say that that was 1995. Here we are, the year 2000, and lo and 
behold, not only does Alice Rivlin represent her boss, and they said in 
1995 the way things would be, but here we see it in print now, this 
President's budget that he presented, that he took 2 hours to describe 
to the American public in the State of the Union Address.
  We find out that President Clinton and Vice President Gore have more 
tax increases. Even when we are in the middle of trying to not only 
take care of and shore up not only social security and Medicare and a 
lot of other things, but we have a surplus, and what do they want to 
do? They want to raise taxes, a $96 billion tax increase, President 
Clinton and Vice President Gore, tax increases.
  Yet we know that there was another person, another group of people, 
who were right there saying, we will not raise taxes. We are in a 
surplus circumstance.
  Now what we have to do, because we recognize that we have people who 
even when we have a surplus they want more and more and more not only 
spending but tax increases, we have to go tell the story. We need to 
make it more difficult.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. If the gentleman will continue to yield, Mr. Speaker, 
as my friend, the gentleman from Texas, was relating not only the 
recent history but also the facts and figures amidst the flowery 
rhetoric that is so often part of what transpires in Washington, I 
could not help but note the successes that we have had as a commonsense 
conservative majority, and point out, Mr. Speaker, to the American 
people that it is very interesting the way Washington has worked 
heretofore.
  We have had some success here, and indeed, we have rolled back taxes, 
as we were able to enact in the 105th Congress the $500 per child tax 
credit; as we were able to work to make sure that there was a higher 
level of tax fairness; when in fact just this past week we were able to 
procure at long last the signature of the President of the United 
States on legislation to end the unfair penalty confronting senior 
citizens who chose to work beyond their assigned retirement age; 
seniors who, if they were making in excess of $17,000 a year, were 
taxed to the tune of $1 out of every $3 of their social security 
benefit, lo and behold, Mr. Speaker, that was finally changed.
  But I would note for the record that piece of legislation was first 
introduced well nigh in excess of two decades ago by the current 
chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Archer); that our current speaker, when he first arrived here in 
1987, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), introduced the self-
same legislation.
  While we welcome epiphanies, whether they come in election years or 
at other times, we are so pleased that at long last those who resisted 
that fundamental act of fairness finally saw the wisdom in letting 
seniors hang onto more of their own hard-earned money. Because I think, 
Mr. Speaker, that truly defines compassion.
  The reason I mention it is because it took so long. The anachronistic 
policies of the mid 1930s that accompanied what at that point was a 
labor shortage, it took all the way to the dawn of a new century, 70 
years, to make that change, the modest but important tax relief we 
offered in 1997, which came a decade and a half after the tax relief 
offered in the Reagan years.
  So it is extremely difficult here to get this institution, to get 
those denizens of Washington and those folks in the bureaucracy, 
focused on actually letting people hang onto more of their own money. 
We have made some progress, as I have just documented.
  One of the reasons is institutionally it has been so easy to raise 
taxes: A simple majority vote; a chief executive who is of a mind to do 
that because of previous Congresses and free-spending ways.
  Again, this is not a partisan argument. Our friend, the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Hall), was talking about the days of former Speaker 
Rayburn and the balanced budgets that were formulated with a Republican 
president, Dwight Eisenhower, and a previous majority in Congress of 
the other party. But following that time, whether the days of Speaker 
Martin or the days of Speaker Rayburn, that was then and what followed 
later was a complete role reversal.

[[Page H2007]]

  Always, always, always, Mr. Speaker, the notion was, we just need to 
raise taxes a little bit more. Mr. Speaker, I ask Members to think of 
what that says to the family in Payson, Arizona, in my district where 
the husband and wife are doing all they can to establish a fledgling 
printing business. They are working hard to make that business work, 
they are creating jobs in their small communities, they are providing a 
service, and more importantly, they are providing for their children.
  I think, Mr. Speaker, one of the key problems we have faced as a 
people is as follows. For years folks came to this Chamber and asked or 
told the American people, you have to sacrifice so Washington can 
supposedly do more. That premise, we understand, in the fullness of 
time is exactly turned around: Washington bureaucrats should sacrifice, 
Mr. Speaker, so that American families can have more.

  This tax limitation amendment is the right thing to do because it 
changes constitutionally and institutionally the bias toward always 
picking the pockets of hard-working Americans. It raises the standard 
even as we, in a signal both to Wall Street and to Main Street, in a 
new commonsense conservative Congress have at long last instituted 
policies of fiscal sanity.
  The risky scheme, Mr. Speaker, is to always dip into the pockets of 
hard-working citizens. The real test of trust and responsibility is to 
make government more responsive, to make governmental decisions more 
rational, to reduce the debt and empower everyday hard-working 
Americans to keep more of what they earn and send less here.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the gentleman from Arizona. Wonderful points. 
We believe, I believe, that the thing that Congress should focus on is 
to make sure that we are not putting more debt not only on people who 
work today, but also for our children and our grandchildren.
  This chart so accurately describes this, really, and it goes back to 
1941. But as we see, the numbers are small until we head to about 1976. 
The numbers are astronomical. They go up to $350 billion in debts. This 
is what happened when Republicans and Independents and people who are 
from other parties, including Ross Perot, began talking about how 
America's greatest days are not behind her, America's greatest days are 
ahead; but that it would require responsibility, it would require, as 
the gentleman from Arizona said, sanity, the ability to balance and to 
comprehend what was happening to America.
  So what happened is that a different vision was given. That was, we 
should not spend more than what we make. We should take the power that 
comes with the money to Washington, D.C. and put it back home. That is 
exactly what happened.
  We now see where there has been a debt reduction directly as a result 
of what we have now accomplished. This did not happen overnight. It was 
based on a set of principles which we believe, as Republicans, are 
critical to the country. They include that we are going to protect 100 
percent of social security. We have now done that.
  Lo and behold, 30 years after spending not just some of social 
security but all of the surplus from social security, Republicans said 
that not only will we not do that, but we are going to make sure that 
we lock it away into a lockbox.
  Strengthen Medicare with prescription drug coverage, that is what 
this marvelous House will be debating in a few short weeks. Forty 
billion dollars has been set aside, that is the Republican plan, $40 
billion to make sure that citizens, not just like the people in the 
Fifth District of Texas, but like people that the gentleman has in 
Arizona, who live better lives today because of technology, because of 
investment that has been made by the private sector.
  Yes, we have great doctors, but we have great drugs. Here is one 
thing we know. We understand and know that for every $1 that is spent 
on drugs, prescription drugs, we save $4 in hospital stay. It makes 
sense. It is the right thing to do.
  We made sure that we are going to retire the debt by 2013; not add to 
it, not just let it stay out there, but we are going to pay it off a 
little at a time. It did not happen overnight, it took 40 years of 
Democrat-controlled Congresses to do that. We will get it done by 2013.

  We are going to support and strengthen education, technology, 
research. We are going to make sure that education and science work 
together. That is why we are trying to double, and sticking to it, a 
commitment that was made by former Speaker Newt Gingrich that we would 
send double funding to NIH, the National Institutes of Health. Because 
we understood, and we still get it today, that if we invest in research 
and development, if we do the things by letting scientists and others 
who can make breakthroughs in not only prescription drugs and 
techniques, that what we can do is we can save lives and make life 
better.
  We will promote fairness for families, farmers, and seniors. Half of 
the Fifth District of Texas is rural. Half of the Fifth District of 
Texas went through, in an agricultural setting, a terrible drought the 
last few years. We need to pay attention to rural America.
  Restoring America's defenses. We have been able to accomplish so much 
because we were able to put on a sheet of paper the things that are 
important to America and Americans. People in the Fifth District of 
Texas, like the people in the Sixth District of Arizona, represent the 
topsoil of America. It is not the dirt, it is the people. They are the 
topsoil of our country. We are paying attention to people. We are going 
to get it right, and we are going to balance out the things that are 
important in America.
  I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth).
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague the gentleman from 
Texas, for yielding to me.
  In listening to the people of Arizona, as the gentleman so eloquently 
stated some of the goals there, we look at prescription coverage for 
seniors as we try to strengthen Medicare.
  I think it is important to make this distinction. Almost two-thirds 
of the senior community currently enjoys some prescription drug benefit 
through current insurance plans. But I think of the lady in Apache 
Junction, Arizona, who works not by choice but out of necessity at a 
fast food restaurant because she and her husband are not in a financial 
circumstance that enables them to have a complete insurance plan.
  So what we say is for the truly needy seniors, for those one-third of 
the senior community that have somehow eluded this opportunity at 
prescription drug benefits, we want to provide them. But we are being 
very careful, because as another one of my constituents reminded me, 
she came up one day, Mr. Speaker, and said, J.D., I don't want to end 
up seeing my Medicare premiums rise so that I have the honor and 
opportunity to pay the prescription bills of Ross Perot.

                              {time}  2100

  I think that is a valid point. We want reasonable, rational reforms 
that strengthen Medicare and help those truly needy seniors.
  Mr. SESSIONS. It sounds like that part of this debate is now into the 
two plans, essentially the two plans that are floating in Washington; 
one which would tax all seniors, and as I described in the Fifth 
District of Texas where all the seniors in the room would please take 
$20 out of their pocket, place them on the table, and then those people 
who placed the money, everybody placed the money, then if they did not 
need it, based upon their poverty level, if they did not qualify for 
prescription drug coverage, just please get up and walk outside the 
room. It is about 75 to 80 percent of senior citizens who would be 
paying $20 more out of their own pocket.
  I would say to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth), here is a 
$20; $20 out of their own pocket every month for about 15 percent of 
the seniors who could not afford it. Why did we not come up with a 
plan, oh but there is one, the Republican plan, that will say, senior 
citizens, all senior citizens, put that money back in their pocket, put 
it back in their pocket; we have a budget surplus in Washington, D.C. 
We will take care of those people who need it most. We are not going to 
tax every senior citizen to help 15 percent of them. Sounds like a 
better idea to me.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. I thank my colleague, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Sessions), for again very eloquently

[[Page H2008]]

and practically pointing out the difference.
  There is something else we should note. Even as we turn to the 
subjects of Medicare and Social Security, the institutional bias that 
always asks for tax increases, even as we celebrate in bipartisan 
fashion the fact that the President signed into law the end of the 
earnings penalty on seniors who chose to work past retirement age and 
we restored fairness that had been 70 years in the making, or should I 
say 70 years in the waiting, it is worth noting, the gentleman spoke 
about the largest tax increase in American history, it 
disproportionately affected seniors. It jacked up Social Security 
taxes. It hit Americans all across the board but it nailed seniors, and 
while we have taken this first step to restore tax fairness, it was 
born of another important step that was taken as the President of the 
United States was kind enough to come down a couple of years ago and 
stand at the podium behind my friend, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Sessions), and he said something that was a wonderful rhetorical 
flourish, but once we took away the bells and the whistles and the 
theatrics it was a shot across the bow and a warning to all American 
seniors, and my colleague from Texas I think he has more on that topic 
right here as we look at this chart.
  Mr. SESSIONS. We do, and I thank the gentleman for mentioning that. 
The President of the United States, just a few short years ago, said 
Social Security first, Social Security first.
  It took the Republican Party and a plan to get that done. We ended 
the raid of Social Security because it was the right thing to do. 1998 
was the last year that the Congress of the United States will allow the 
surplus in Social Security, the hard-earned money that people have put 
into it, to then be spent for general budgetary items.
  There, as always, are at least two different views. Let us role back 
the tape. Let us remember just a year ago, when we talked about the 
year 2000, the Republican plan said 100 percent of Social Security, 
meaning that if people gave that money for Social Security, it should 
only be used for Social Security. It should not be used for something 
else. That is what savings plans are about. That is what the government 
took it for. The government took the money, it is required by law, and 
we believe that 100 percent of it, that is the way it should go.

  There was another side. There is another story. The other story in 
Washington, D.C. is, the President has his own plan. We understand 
that. We are willing to debate it, even on the floor. Of all of the 
surplus, the President said 62 percent of the surplus goes to Social 
Security, but 38 percent of Social Security goes to new government 
spending. How much money are we talking about? We are talking about, in 
fact, a lot of money. The surplus in the year 2000, $137 billion. That 
is $137 billion that instead of going to general revenue will be put 
directly into Social Security.
  Now, one would say that is exactly what the gentleman from Arizona 
said, and I say, yes, that is close, except that the Democrats are 
still holding back our lockbox. They will not allow us to designate it. 
So the best we can say is, no money should be spent. The President 
still has $85 billion of the $137 billion.
  In fact, the gentleman from Arizona and I are getting very good at 
this. If I can find my penny, every single penny that is given by an 
American for Social Security should only be used for Social Security, 
and that is what this is all about.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. The gentleman has heard it in his district. One of the 
first things I heard, when I was honored and entrusted with this 
responsibility of service in the Congress of the United States, at 
innumerable townhall meetings across the width and breadth of my 
district, was a concern that funds were commingled. There was a fancy 
Washington term for it, of course there always is; the bureaucrats 
spoke of a unified budget. Well, that is a nice word, but what we 
really should have called it, Mr. Speaker, was a commingled budget, 
where Social Security money was not set aside and preserved for Social 
Security and to the point even now would we have those who lead the 
executive branch always talk about these plans for spending and 
trusting government more, it is very interesting that they forget about 
the basics.
  Thank goodness, Mr. Speaker, that a common sense Congress reminds 
Washington's bureaucrats and big spenders, no, we need to restore that 
firewall. It has been our intent since day one and now we have done it 
in our budgetary plans, not a single dime, not a single cent of Social 
Security money spent on any other program; all of it, all of it, going 
to save and strengthen Social Security. That is the difference, is it 
not, Mr. Speaker? Because as I mentioned at the outset, we are 
entrusted with this constitutional responsibility. We take an oath of 
office and we are given a responsibility, a role, a mandate, an oath, 
not to deceive the American people, either by pandering to foreign 
governments to solicit campaign donations in what is a cynical, sad and 
macabre twist on the notion of having political opponents, and somehow 
confusing political opponents with enemies to the point where in a free 
society those in the highest offices in our land, who took, presumably 
the same oaths of office, entrusted with those responsibilities, would 
live up to them. In the same sort of rhetoric here on this House floor, 
in a speech two years ago, it was said, let us set aside 62 percent of 
the Social Security surplus for Social Security. What was left unsaid, 
when we do the math as my colleague pointed out, 38 percent of that 
money is set aside for Social Security to go to new government 
programs.
  Mr. Speaker, it has been said of those who head up the other branch 
of government by columnists from their own State, do not listen so much 
to what they say; watch what they do.
  We best secure America's future by restoring trust, by resurrecting 
that firewall, by putting Social Security funds in a lockbox to be used 
exclusively for Social Security, by making it more difficult to raise 
taxes. Rather than having Washington succumb always to the siren song 
of picking the pockets of hard working Americans, we reaffirm the truth 
that the money, when all is said and done, does not belong to the 
Federal Government or the Washington bureaucrats. It belongs to hard 
working Americans and they ought to hang on to more of it and send less 
of it here.
  Mr. SESSIONS. The gentleman has led directly to the point that I 
believe is the essence of the tax limitation amendment, and that is in 
the era of surpluses, when the government has effectively, as a result 
of the Republican Congress, made sure that Social Security and Medicare 
will not be spent, it was given for a reason. It will be used for that 
reason. Then lo and behold, we have extra money called a surplus, that 
came about, the very essence of it came about because we cut taxes. We 
encouraged America not only to go work harder but to work smarter. We 
encouraged America to invest in America.
  Just a few short years ago, we were worried about all the jobs in 
America going offshore. Ten years ago we were told America's greatest 
days are behind her. The best education is somewhere else; the best of 
technology is somewhere else; the best of future is somewhere else. We 
today and every Member of this body tries to take credit for it and 
that is okay, of the things that have happened in the last 5 years. It 
is the right thing to do for us to understand that we had to balance 
the budget; we had to take Social Security off budget; we had to make 
sure that we created a surplus.
  Now tonight we are talking about making it more difficult to raise 
taxes, a simple thing. We want to make it more difficult for Washington 
to take your money. H.J. Res. 94, the tax limitation amendment, will be 
voted on on Wednesday, will be voted on because it is the right thing 
for America today. What is going to happen with more of the money, the 
money that is today a surplus? Here is what we are going to do: We are 
going to make sure that it goes back to the people who gave it to 
Washington. I am not sure they gave it because they wanted to 
necessarily, but they gave it and they expect us to do wise things with 
it.
  Responsibility, here is what we are doing: We want to end the 
marriage penalty. Just a few short months ago in January, President 
Clinton stood right behind me and he stated he would be more doing away 
with the marriage penalty.
  We are now talking about repealing the senior earnings limit. The 
President of the United States signed that

[[Page H2009]]

last Friday in the White House garden. It was beautiful. We are now 
going to have senior citizens who are no longer penalized with an 
unfair tax. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Archer) worked on that for 30 
years.
  We want to reduce, eliminate the death taxes. We want to expand 
education savings accounts. Lo and behold, in my home I have a 6-year-
old Down's Syndrome little boy who could use the money. We could also, 
by spending it efficiently on all sorts of not only educational tools 
for our baby, our son, our child, but also to help nurture him to where 
he will be able to be self sufficient.
  We have a 10-year-old at home, a 10-year-old who every single day 
reads every book and takes everything that we can get our hands on, 
gobbles it in, understands that his future is the same as our country's 
future. We are going to spend more money on education. My son 
understands and so does my wife.
  We are going to increase health care deductibility. We want every 
single working American, and especially those today who are not allowed 
to, by law, to be able to deduct their health care. We want every 
single person to have health care. Every single person deserves a right 
to have their own doctor, not just show up at some clinic, not just to 
have a doctor available but their doctor who they know and understand.
  We want to provide tax breaks for communities that do not have as 
much money as others, and we want to strengthen private pension plans 
to where people have an opportunity to save for their future.
  What we are talking about is the tax limitation amendment that will 
be the crowning jewel on responsibility, it is the crown jewel of 
responsibility, to make it more difficult for the Members of Congress 
to vote for tax increases. We have enough money. We should do the right 
thing and yet we recognize, I recognize, that in this town we have not 
flipped everybody.

                              {time}  2115

  The real spenders are still out there, people who will take money. 
This is why we have to have a tax limitation amendment, a two-thirds 
majority.
  Oh, the debate will happen here on the floor, trust me, the debate 
where people will stand up and talk about we have got to spend more and 
more and more and more and raise taxes more and more.
  I would say that discipline and responsibility is what will make the 
difference, and the responsibility comes down to what my party stands 
for. My party deeply believes that, if we want to have America's 
greatest days ahead of her, then we will empower people back home, men 
and women, children, small businesses, large businesses, people to 
invest in America because they know they can do so because the risk is 
not there to say, when one becomes successful, the government in 
Washington, D.C. wants their share, too. I think that they would 
understand fair share is okay. But in Washington, if one is successful, 
that means Washington wants more and more and more and more.
  That is why we offer the tax limitation amendment. That is why this 
is bipartisan. It is bipartisan. It makes sense, because we want to 
create wealth and opportunity for generations to come. We want to get 
away from where Washington, D.C. all of a sudden sees where, oh, there 
is now an Internet out there, we ought to tax that. There is something 
else out there, we have got to raise taxes on that.
  We still have been paying, for 70 years, a telephone tax that was 
done, ah, to raise money for the war. By the way, that was World War 
II.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth).
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, it is even more profound than that. In 
doing our research, we have crafted, again, bipartisan legislation to 
end this. But, Mr. Speaker, I am sure the American people will note 
with interest that a luxury tax was imposed on the telephone really 
before the advent of the 20th Century. It came in the Spanish American 
War.
  So, Mr. Speaker, Teddy Roosevelt led the charge up San Juan Hill, and 
patrons of this new technology of the telephone, I guess at that time 
it was fairly called a luxury, we are paying a luxury tax. Telephone 
users since that time up until the present day at the advent of the 
Internet is still paying a luxury tax on telephones instituted in the 
Spanish American War.
  We are taking steps to roll that back. Perhaps that is the most 
graphic example of the institutional bias in Washington, D.C. toward 
taxes.
  Let us not forget that, in fact, what paved the way for the 16th 
Amendment to the Constitution that allowed for the direct taxation of 
personal income was a Supreme Court opinion that said direct taxation 
of personal income would be constitutional provided it was a temporary 
measure. That leads to what will transpire in our Committee on Ways and 
Means this week, hearings on changing our tax system, on offering real 
reform.
  But, Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) for 
shouldering the burden of responsibility and leadership and bringing to 
the floor the tax limitation amendment. Because real reform starts with 
this institutional change where we say, if raising taxes is so 
important to us as a people, let us at least raise the standard, make 
it difficult, make it more difficult, require a two-thirds majority, a 
supermajority, as we do on questions of constitutional amendments, as 
we do on questions of impeachment, of constitutional issues.
  If we are willing to take these steps, there should be a standard of 
accountability and a lack of institutional bias that always favors the 
bureaucrat. There should be a leveling of responsibility and a higher 
standard to protect the taxpayer. That is the key, the measure that 
will be offered by the gentleman from Texas on this floor in the days 
ahead. It is an important first step.

  Mr. Speaker, as I think about Americans who may be within the sound 
of my voice electronically, who may be there pouring over that Form 
1040, maybe succumbing to the EZ Form because the hour grows late or 
the deadline of April 15, I would hope, Mr. Speaker, that those 
Americans would take time to write, call, and fax their Members of 
Congress to let them know where they stand, to let them say to their 
advocates on Capitol Hill, you should advocate the notion that we 
should raise the standard and eliminate the institutional bias toward 
more and more and more taxation and higher and higher spending.
  Just one final amendment to the amendment offered, in a friendly 
rhetorical fashion, to the gentleman from Texas. There is really a 
better word to use for surplus. Really what we have right now that is 
widely referred to as a surplus is, in fact, an overcharge of the 
American people who are now taxed at the highest level in our history 
parallel only by a period of grave crisis in World War II.
  There is no excuse in a time of relative peace, to be assured there 
are challenges that confront us internationally, and we must provide 
for the common defense, and we are willing to take those steps to 
rebuild and restore our national defense, but having said that, there 
is no excuse for the American people to be taxed at the same level at 
which they found themselves taxed in World War II.
  So with this tremendous overcharge, after setting aside a massive 
portion for what it was designated for to begin with, strengthening 
Social Security, strengthening Medicare, we owe it to the people who 
have placed their trust in us to give that overcharge back.
  When one pays for something at a store, if one gives a greater amount 
of money in that retail exchange, one expects a return, one expects 
cash back. With this overcharge, we are saying it is time to give that 
money back to the people to whom it belongs.
  That is why I applaud the gentleman from Texas, and that is why I 
hope Americans, Mr. Speaker, within the sound of my voice will call, 
write, fax, e-mail, phone their Congressional Representatives and ask 
them to support this tax limitation amendment.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona, from 
the 6th District. Tonight we have had my colleagues hear a wonderful 
debate about the tax limitation amendment from the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Hall), a Democrat from the 4th District of Texas, and the 
gentleman from the 6th District of Arizona (Mr. Hayworth). They had the 
opportunity to talk about, not only their districts,

[[Page H2010]]

but their vision of what America is all about, and it should be more 
difficult to raise taxes.
  We heard the story about the senior earnings limit, the earnings 
limit put on seniors years ago. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Archer), 
chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, this was the very first 
bill that he presented upon being a Member of Congress 30 years ago. 
After years of working on this effort, he finally succeeded in giving 
the President of the United States, the House, and the Senate, the 
other body, the opportunity to agree to this bill, what turned out to 
be unanimous. What 5 years before was impossible, because the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Archer) sat in the chair as the majority party 
representative to the Committee on Ways and Means, it got signed into 
law.
  The tax limitation amendment, H.J. Res. 94, will be debated on 
Wednesday. I hope my colleagues will join us to support this.

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