[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 115 (Monday, September 25, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H8053-H8059]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NIGHTSIDE CHAT
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) is
recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr.
Boehlert).
Boehlert Lauds Court Decision on Oneida Indian Land Claim
Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Colorado for
yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I have a very important announcement. There has been a
Federal court decision today in one of the most highly visible and
significant Indian land claims in the country.
Senior Judge Neal McCurn of the Federal Court of the Northern
District of New York has denied request by the Oneida Indian Nation and
the U.S. Department of Justice to amend a lawsuit in a claim to include
20,000 innocent landowners as defendants.
Let me repeat that.
Judge McCurn has ruled he has denied a request to amend a lawsuit in
[[Page H8054]]
the claim to include 20,000 innocent landowners as defendants.
That falls under the heading of very good news.
I am delighted with Judge McCurn's decision, which once and for all
removes the threat of eviction and monetary damages from the innocent
landowners in Madison and Oneida Counties, New York.
{time} 2115
With this ruling, the innocent landowners are quite simply excluded
as parties to this longstanding dispute. Their homes are not threatened
in any way. That should be an enormous relief to all concerned.
This is precisely the result I have been working for ever since the
Oneidas and the Justice Department filed their misguided motions back
in December of 1998. I have repeatedly spoken and written to Judge
McCurn and the Justice Department urging that the landowners be dropped
from the case. The judge acknowledges my efforts on page 46 of his
decision, when he notes that, along with Senator Schumer and Governor
Pataki, I took up the landowners' cries, condemning the Federal
Government for seeking to name the landowners as defendants in this
action.
Now we finally come to an end of this sad, frightening and utterly
unnecessary chapter of our area's history which began in December 1998.
But there is still much work to be done in the Indian land claim. The
tax and sovereignty issues still need to be resolved, and the State is
potentially liable for damages. I hope that this ruling will bring the
remaining parties back to the bargaining table to resolve all the
issues in a way that safeguards our area's economy and public services
just as well as Judge McCurn has safeguarded individual property
rights. I will continue to work toward that end.
But today's court decision is unalloyed good news for the residents
in the land claim who can all breathe a little easier and sleep more
soundly.
I want to thank my distinguished colleague from Colorado for yielding
to me for this very important announcement.
Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I am back for another nightside chat. I can
tell you that it snowed in Colorado, it will not be long before we have
our ski areas ready for all of you and I hope you get out there and
enjoy the finest snow in the country out in Colorado. That was a little
promotional spot here before I begin.
This evening, getting back to serious business, there are three areas
that I really want to discuss with my colleagues: First is the move by
the President and the Vice President, their policy of releasing fuel or
barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. I will talk for
just a few minutes about that. Then I would like to move on from there
and talk about taxes. In the last few weeks with the Presidential
election coming up, with the general election coming up for Congress
and the Senate, we have heard a lot about tax cuts and tax policies and
surpluses. So I want to go into that a little and I want to distinguish
the difference between the two parties.
My remarks tonight are not intended to be personal at all. But the
fact is we do have a system which by design from day one has primarily
two parties and it is one of the checks and balances. There are general
differences. It is not applicable, by the way, to each member of each
party but generally there are differences between the Democratic
philosophy and the Republican philosophy.
Tonight I hope to distinguish between the two of them, especially
when it comes to surplus, when it comes to taxes, when it comes to
accountability to the taxpayer out there, when it comes to
accountability for the services that we are required to render to the
people that we are fortunate enough to serve back here in the United
States Congress. And then I would like to spend a few minutes talking
about Social Security. If a Presidential candidate, and I know George
W. Bush has, but if any candidate running for office this year wants to
focus on one thing for the young people or two things for the young
people, let us say, and for the women of this country and frankly for
the middle class of this economy, talk about Social Security. What are
we going to do?
My generation and the generation ahead of me is okay. Our benefits
will be there. But we owe it to the generation behind us to make sure
that Social Security is a liquid fund, is a fund that can sustain the
kind of liabilities that we have placed upon it for the generation
behind me and the generation behind that generation and the generation
behind that generation. That is our obligation. It is a point we ought
to discuss this evening.
I intend to talk a little about Social Security and some of the
things and a plan that I think will work, a plan that has worked for
all the Federal employees that work for the government today. The
government has its own plan, and many of my colleagues out there, their
constituents do not realize that one of the proposals put out there, in
fact frankly the proposal put out by George W. Bush is a policy that is
already followed by every government employee. We, as government
employees, already have this type of policy, an opportunity to choose.
So we are going to talk about personal choice. We are going to talk
about Social Security. And we are going to talk about the surplus. We
will talk about tax cuts and, of course, we want to talk about the
Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
First of all, I think a logical question, we have heard that a lot in
the last couple of days, most of us have a pretty good understanding of
what the petroleum reserve is, but for a little history, Mr. Speaker.
As Members know, it was created in 1975, and the intention of it was to
see if we could find a location, which we did, to store about 1 billion
barrels of oil for an emergency reserve.
Now, emergency is a very delicate word. Emergency in my opinion means
an overnight crisis, for example, if the Middle East or OPEC cut our
oil off. I am not sure that you could classify as an emergency a price
increase the likes of which we have seen in the last few weeks. Now it
is a hardship, but does it go to the level, and that is the fundamental
question we need to ask, does it go to the level that we should draw
down on what in essence is 59 days? That is all we have of supply in
this petroleum reserve. We have 59 days of supply in there.
Is the situation we are in right now, of which I am very unhappy
about, I think frankly the oil companies have overplayed their hand. I
think OPEC has overplayed their hand. But I caution all of us to think
very carefully before we condone the actions and the policies of the
Vice President and the President in going into the Strategic Petroleum
Reserve and pulling out a significant portion of that reserve which, by
the way, is not a significant portion of the consumption needs of this
country. In fact, in any 30-day period, what you are doing is pulling
out about a 36-hour supply out of 30 days.
Back to our history a little. The reserve is managed by the
Department of Energy. I am a little disappointed by the way the
Department of Energy has managed our energy policy. I am not sure that
we have an energy policy that exists. We have the Secretary of Energy,
Bill Richardson this year, and I would like to quote what Bill
Richardson said. He said, ``We were caught napping. It's obvious the
Federal Government was not prepared for the recent jump in oil prices.
We got complacent.''
Look, Department of Energy, you have an obligation not to be
complacent. That is what your Department is in place for. That is what
Congress has charged this Department with. You have got to be on the
ball. We have got to monitor that. Our country is economically
dependent in a very significant way, we are economically dependent upon
the energy policies and when oil goes up like it has gone up, we have
not yet begun to feel it but we are going to begin to feel it. But we
have over here a reserve and we have got to be very careful about that
reserve, when we use it, and under what kind of conditions we should
use it. We of course leave that discretion to the President of the
United States.
I can tell my colleagues that right now, as I mentioned, our current
days of inventory are 59 days. We have 571 million barrels of oil. The
most we can draw down, this is just for your own information so you
have an idea of how large this reserve is, we can draw down about 4
million barrels of oil a day, and it takes about, oh, 15 or 20 days for
[[Page H8055]]
that oil from when we draw it down, assuming we have refinery capacity
which we do not have today, our refineries are at capacity for a number
of different reasons, but assuming we have capacity we can move that
oil and get it into those refineries in about a 15-day period of time.
So what has happened in the last few days? First of all, there was
some rumor that the President might, as kind of an October surprise, as
a policy for the upcoming Presidential election to assist the Vice
President, that the President might order that a depletion be forthwith
out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. In regards to that, last week
the Wall Street Journal quoted the Secretary of Treasury who is
appointed by the President, who had strong disagreement with the
President and Vice President's policy to draw oil off this under the
classification of emergency, and let me quote.
The Wall Street Journal wrote: Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers
advised President Clinton in a harshly worded memo that an
administration proposal to drive down energy prices by opening the
government's emergency oil reserve quote would be a major and
substantial policy mistake. Mr. Summers' two-page memo argued that
policy. He wrote that using the reserve would have at best a modest
effect on prices and would have downsides that would outweigh the
limited benefits.
Let me go on further. Another expert, one that Republicans and
Democrats, in other words, both sides of the aisle, an individual that
both sides of the aisle respect, his opinion on the President's policy
to draw down on that:
``I think it would be a mistake to try and move the market prices
with a small addition from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve,'' Federal
Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan told a U.S. committee this year.
We are dealing with an overall market which is huge compared to our
Strategic Petroleum Reserve. He said that adding from the reserve,
quote, would not have a significant impact.
Where the impact is that I am concerned about is what the President
is doing. We have the strategic oil reserve over here and, as I said,
we have a 59-day supply and it is to be used for an emergency. That is
our 911 call right there. We have over here a market, to give my
colleagues an idea, a market on a monthly basis just for our country
which looks about like this. So what you are doing by drawing down out
of this is you are drawing in enough for a 36-hour dent in this market.
Thirty-six hours. Proportionately that is not too far off from what the
President has ordered. In the meantime, what you are doing is you are
drawing down a significant portion of this emergency reserve here. The
difficulty with that is at some point, especially when we see the
volatility that is now taking place with the oil markets, it is a point
in time I think that you should increase, not decrease your emergency
reserves. Now, surely when you put this kind of fuel in for that 36-
hour period of time, which is what it will supply for our country, when
you put it into the market and I believe in the last 24 hours gasoline,
not the gasoline but the Texas crude price has dropped a little in the
last 24 hours, you are going to have some short-term benefit.
But, Mr. Speaker, the short-term benefit has a long-term expense
associated with it. I think it is very clear, and it has been
editorialized throughout the country, including this morning in the
Wall Street Journal, but I think it is very clear that the policy of
the Vice President and the timing consequently of the President to draw
down on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is in fact not an emergency but
is a political convenience. It is a political tool. It is being used in
a political manner. That policy is incorrect, the policy of those
reserves.
All of us on this floor realize that politics is an everyday part of
our life and when we are a month or 5 or 6 weeks out from an election,
we are going to see more politics. But there are some areas that you
have got to keep politics out of, no matter how tempting it is, no
matter how close to the election it is, the best interests of the
Nation demand that you not use that, certain items, that you do not use
these items or twist your policies for political expediency. Instead,
what you think of first are the best interests of the country. And I am
concerned that the policy of drawing down this reserve to make a very
small dent for a short-term benefit and, by the way, the benefit would
mostly be realized between now and election day, and right after the
election we are going to be in the same problem we were in before but
we are going to have less reserve. It is not a good policy. I think the
President and the Vice President should stop trying or make no further
attempts to draw down unless this country truly faces an emergency.
{time} 2130
Ever since this was created in 1977, excuse me, in 1975, when we
created this reserve, we have only drawn down on it three times. Two of
the drawdowns, two of the drawdowns, one was for the Persian Gulf War.
That was truly an emergency. I do not think any of my colleagues here
argue the fact that the Persian Gulf, when we went to war, that
justified a drawdown on our emergency reserves.
The other two times that we drew down on that reserve were practice
drawdowns to see how quickly we could get it out, to make sure we had
the logistics between the point of drawing out of the oil reserve and
getting it into the refineries, that we had that system down pat. We
did twice. We had two trial runs.
So, during the entire 25, almost 26 year history of this emergency
reserve, never has it been drawn down for political purposes, never has
it been drawn down because the price of gasoline got higher. It has
only been drawn down really, in reality, when you take outside the
practices, it has only been drawn down when we went to war.
But now the President and the Vice President decide, 4 weeks again
now from the election, or 5 weeks out from the election, that it is
time to draw it down.
My point tonight, colleagues, whether you are Democrat or Republican,
is this ought to be hands off. This should not be, whether or not we
draw down from the Emergency Petroleum Reserve, should not be
determined by whether or not the general election is 6 weeks away. Our
Department of Energy Secretary, frankly, needs to get to work and shape
that Department up down there so they do not fall asleep at the wheel,
which is fundamentally what he admitted they had done in the last
couple of months.
Now, do we have an answer? Sure you have an answer. Any time you have
high prices, there is that point of diminishing returns. OPEC knows
about it. OPEC does not want the prices to get too high. Why do they
not want the prices too high? Well, if the prices get too high and the
Government does not try and manipulate the prices, speaking of our
government, then what happens is American ingenuity kicks in. One, you
begin to see more conservation. I think that is a good, reasonable
policy. And, two, you begin to get a reexamination of what we have done
in our own country as far as exploration, what are we doing with
resources in our own country.
Those are two good policies to follow. I mean, I think of myself the
other day, to give you an example, I was driving off from the gas pump,
I just paid the price for gasoline, and I said, what can we do for
conservation? Is there something we can do immediately to help conserve
the product that we are using?
You know what I did? I looked up in the left-hand side of the
windshield of my car, and I see in my car that they recommend I change
the oil for the vehicle that I was driving every 3,000 miles, and my
recollection was that the driver's manual for that automobile
recommended an oil change every 5,000 or 6,000 miles. So I got in the
glove compartment, I looked at my owner's manual, and, sure enough, the
people who built the car, the people who engineered the car and the
people who guarantee the car say, look, for ultimate performance, all
you need to do is change your oil every 5,000 or 6,000 miles. It did
not say every 3,000; but obviously it says 5,000 or 6,000, which means
not every 3,000.
If we found ourselves in a crunch, the American people could
immediately conserve on consumption of oil products by actually having
the oil changes on their automobiles when the manufacturer of the
automobile recommends you do it.
[[Page H8056]]
I mean, that was just one idea. But I think putting in government
manipulation right before an election, oh, it may have some political
benefits for the President; but the fact is that in the long term,
folks, it is going to be a very expensive way. It is not the proper
method to approach the kind of fuel or oil difficulties that we are now
facing. Save this for a true emergency. Wait until you have a real
emergency before you go out and start drawing down on the petroleum
reserves.
Taxes
Mr. Speaker, let me talk for a few moments now, kind of switch
subjects, because I have heard a lot of discussions about taxes and
surpluses. Tonight, while I was sitting in my office, I was thinking,
you know, there really are some basic differences. Again, not to get
personal, but I think it is important; and I think it is important when
we talk to the young people of our country that we explain that there
are some differences, fundamental differences, between Democratic
leadership and Republican leadership.
Now, not all Democrats vote always with the Democrats all the time.
Not all Republicans always vote Republican with the Republican
leadership all the time. As we know, a lot of votes back here are
determined by geographical locations. For example, those of us in the
West may have a difference of opinion than those in the East,
regardless of whether they are Republicans or Democrats.
But clearly when it comes to government spending, there is a
difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. I know as of late
the Democrats have been criticizing tax reductions and tax cuts. I
think we have to start with the basic philosophy of what is a surplus.
I just looked it up, by the way. I just looked up over here in the
dictionary ``surplus,'' which sits behind me, and the definition is
clear. A surplus is you have more than you need.
The Government is not in the business to make money. The United
States Government was never intended by our forefathers when they
drafted the Constitution, when they had this thought, this dream, of
uniting these States, of putting these 13 States together and expanding
into the continent, they never dreamed of putting the United States
Government in business. What they wanted the Government to do was to
have their role restricted to that which individuals could not do. That
is what their concept of government was about.
What has happened recently, and I hear it more and more from the
Democratic side, from your policies of your leadership, is somehow this
surplus belongs to us; us, Congress here in Washington, D.C. ``The
taxpayers have not paid too much.'' Well, if you do not think that the
taxpayers have paid too much, quit using the word ``surplus,'' because
surplus means it is extra.
You know, we are here to produce and to provide that which
individuals cannot do as individuals, but we are not here to accumulate
large amounts of money. Now, the difficulty is that you cannot leave a
surplus in Washington, D.C. very long, because, it is very simple, it
gets spent. That is what happens to it.
If you leave this surplus here in Washington, D.C., pretty soon you
are going to have new programs and new programs and new programs. So
the Republican Party and our leadership has made it very clear that we
have two priorities: number one, the priority is to fund the Government
so that it runs efficiently and that we provide the fundamental
services to the American people that individuals could not provide on
their own.
For example, we have tremendous responsibilities in education, and we
stand up to those responsibilities. We have tremendous responsibilities
to defense for this country, to the military, to our transportation.
But once we meet those responsibilities, and once we meet the
responsibilities of spending those dollars in a responsible manner,
then we have two other responsibilities: one, the next responsibility
is that after, and, frankly, again not getting personal, but for 40
years the Democrats controlled the Congress, and take a look at what
happened to so-called surpluses then. They were smoked. They were gone
the minute they got here. We had deficits for 40 years.
So the next thing we do is, what about our overall debt? Our
leadership, the Republican leadership, feels that we have an obligation
to reduce that overall debt, and that we should take a portion of this
surplus and reduce that debt.
But the other fact that we have to consider is who is the customer?
Who are the people that we represent? Whose money is coming in here? It
is not our money. It is money sent to us with the idea that we will act
in a fiduciary manner and spend that money in such a way that, one, we
provide for government services; and, two, if we find out that the
people we represent have overpaid, then in fact we should refund that.
Now, there are some other things we have to take into mind. Every
once in a while when we are out there raising money, i.e., the Federal
Government is out there on the taxpayer, and they ask the taxpayer,
they say to the taxpayer, look, we need to fund the military, we need
to fund education, we have highways. Here is our government budget; and
in order to meet the budget, we need to have you pay out of your work,
and, remember, the people paying are not the people that are not
working. The people that pay taxes to the Government are hard-working
men and women. They are the people that go to work for 8 hours every
day.
You are asking them to take a part of their labor every day, a part
of their labor every day; in fact, you are asking them to work full
time from January 1, to, I think, around the first of May. You are
asking them to work full time. That is what amount of time an
individual has to work in this country just to pay off their taxes for
that year. So you are asking them to fund this.
Once in a while when we do this, we find out that we have taxes that
are unfair, taxes that just fundamentally are not sound. I thought I
would point out a couple of those, because the Republicans this year,
without much help, now, we did have, I will grant to you, we did have
some help from some Democrats, but some of those Democrats who helped
us switched back, unfortunately, in my opinion, because of the fact
they were put under pressure by the President to uphold his policies,
so they would not override the vetoes. But let us talk about a couple
of those taxes. I think the best way to do it is to talk about the
middle class, because that is who we are really talking about here.
What happened is we discovered some taxes, that whether we have a
surplus or not, we fundamentally disagree with the concept of these
taxes. I will give you a good example.
The marriage penalty. That is a tax that Congress somehow in its
history decided that marriage should be a taxable event. The Republican
leadership this year, with the help of some Democrats, said to the
President, and, by the way, obviously with the help of the United
States Senate, said to the President, look, marriage should not be a
taxable event. It is unfair to the middle class. It is unfair to
anybody for the Federal Government, in an attempt to raise money for
its operations, to go to people and say, simply because of the fact
that you are married, we are going to impose a tax on you.
So what we did is we voted to eliminate the marriage tax. But the
Democrats, through their leadership and through the President, put it
back on the board. In their opinion, marriage is a taxable event; and
the President's veto, he vetoed our process to eliminate the marriage
tax, and the President put it back on the middle class of America,
primarily, by the way.
The middle class pays, in my opinion, the biggest portion of taxes in
this country. The middle class represents, quantity-wise, the largest
number of workers. That is what you are doing. When the President and
the Democratic policy, my colleagues here, when you put that marriage
tax back on after we passed the bill to eliminate it, that is who you
are taxing. And you are taxing our young people.
With our young people, we are trying to encourage marriage. We are
trying to tell the young people, and boy, it is promising, we have some
wonderful, wonderful people in the generation behind us, all of us know
that. But is this the way to encourage that generation?
There is another tax we took a look at and said fundamentally, is it
fair to tax death, the simple fact that somebody dies? Is that a fair
tax? Is that a
[[Page H8057]]
taxable event? Is that an event that our forefathers ever imagined in
the Constitution would be the basis of this price, that we go to our
taxpayers and say we want you to pay this price to be a citizen in this
country? Is death a taxable event, that the middle class pay? And do
not kid yourself, it affects every class in society.
The Democrats like to say, well, it is only the rich. They like to
play this class warfare. It is not class warfare. You take money,
regardless of how many people are in the community, take a community
with 5,000 people who have a person that has to pay the estate taxes,
say a contractor or anybody, a contractor that owns a dump truck, a
bulldozer and a couple of pickups, they are subject to the death tax.
You go to those people, and you take it out of the community and you
transfer that money right here to these Chambers in Washington, D.C.
You are transferring money from local communities out in the United
States out beyond the Potomac, and you are transferring it here. So it
affects every class. So the fundamental question of fairness, that is
an obligation we have, regardless of whether we have a surplus or not.
Now, it so happens we do have a surplus. But regardless of whether we
have a surplus or not, should we tax the event of death? We said no.
The Republicans said no, and, by the way, some Democrats joined us.
They also said we should not tax death. We sent that bill to the
President. The President vetoed it. He put it back on. The President
said death is a taxable event.
{time} 2145
And by the way, I sit on the Committee on Ways and Means. I know what
the President's budget is. The President's proposal this year was not
only do not eliminate the death tax; he has actually proposed in his
budget to increase the death tax by $9.5 billion. So the Democratic
policy and the President's policy, and again not getting personal here,
but, look, there is a difference and the American people, we need to
talk about these differences.
They want to keep the death tax in place. Not all of them, but most
of the Democratic leadership. They want to add $9.5 billion according
to the President's new policy on taxes. We think that has gone too far.
Now, there are some taxes that we have been able to persuade, that the
Republican leadership has come forward with and has been able to put
into the Tax Code. It is surprising how many of our constituents out
there do not know that this Congress, the Republican Congress, passed a
tax reduction that probably is the most significant tax break that any
individual out there who owns a home has probably had in their career.
What am I talking about? Very briefly, let us take a look. What I
want my colleagues to do is if any of my colleagues in here have
constituents who own homes, at every town meeting they go to they
should ask their constituents how many of them own homes. My guess is,
and it is an exciting thing, most of the people in the audience will
own homes. What is great about this country is our homeownership.
When I was younger, one expected to own their first home when they
were approaching 30. Now this new generation is able to buy homes at a
much earlier age. And it is an American dream. What we found happening,
what we talked about our Republican leadership and our philosophy was,
look, it is unfair to tax these young, especially younger families who
own a home and they sell their home. We hit them with a huge capital
gains tax.
What the old law was, the law that we wanted to change, it said quite
simply, look, if an American sells a house for a net profit, they make
a net profit and we will take an example here. Here is an individual.
Let us say an individual bought a home for $100,000. They sold the home
for $350,000; and they had a profit of $250,000. Under the old law,
they were taxed, they had income of $250,000.
We thought what we want to do, one of the things kind of like
marriage, we encourage our younger generation to get married. We want
our younger generation also to enjoy the economic benefits of
homeownership. So what we decided to do, and it was the Republican
leadership that did it, frankly, and I do not mind. Look, I know I am
standing up here saying Republican and Democrat a lot, but we need to
talk about this bill and who stood up when it was time to stand up.
I was surprised in the last couple of weeks. I thought the death tax
was pretty nonpartisan. We had a lot of Democrats that joined our
leadership in trying to do away with it. But a lot of them walked. We
had a lot of Democrats who joined, many joined to get rid of the
marriage tax. But they walked. So I think it is important for us to
have discussions, because there are differences.
What the Republicans felt, we made a proposal. If an individual buys
the home, same example, $100,000. Same example, $350,000. $250,000
profit, under our bill, they will be taxed zero. And this passed. This
passed. And for couples the news is even better. For couples it in
essence doubles. If you own a home in the United States and you sell
that home for a net profit. Not your equity in the home. You may buy a
home for $100,000. You pay down $50,000 of it. You only own $50,000.
That balance is equity. I am talking about net profit.
Say a young couple buys a house and sells the house for a profit.
What our bill does, and it was signed into law so it is now the law,
they get to take that profit. They get to put that money into their
pocket. No taxes up to $250,000 per person or $500,000 per couple. That
is significant. That makes a big difference. That is tax policy that I
think makes good sense.
In the last few days I have heard people, especially with the
politics going around, people saying, well, tax cuts are bad. All the
Republicans want are tax cuts. I think that what we want is a fairness
in the Tax Code. I would bet anything that we would have a hard time
finding a young couple, go pick a 21-year-old male or female college
student or a 21-year-old male or female that is working in a blue
collar job and ask them do you think it is fundamentally wrong for one
party wanting to advocate for changes in the Tax Code that would bring
more fairness to the Tax Code? That would be an incentive to couples
your age or single mothers to have the opportunity to buy a home? Of
course they would agree with that.
Mr. Speaker, that is what the Republican leadership is talking about.
George W. Bush and his campaign in the last month or 6 weeks has been
talking about these tax reductions. He is not talking about going out
and picking out the wealthiest people of the country. He is across the
board. Read any analysis out there. Why? Because of the fairness of the
Tax Code. When we are fairer to income producers, our income producers
produce more income. That is just a fundamental law.
Let us talk about some other taxes that we have had. Capital gains,
for example. It used to be the old Democratic argument was that capital
gains is only for the rich. For many years I think the Democrats were
probably right on that, because there were periods of time in our
country where the only people who ever worried about paying capital
gains taxation were the wealthy.
Now, I am not one who believes in class warfare, and I say that to my
colleagues. I think over the long run, class warfare is not what the
American system is about. That is not what has made the American system
great. But the fact is we did at one point in time decades ago, decades
ago have one segment of our society that only benefited from capital
gains.
But what has happened in the last 10 or 15 years, we have lots more
people investing in land. We have a lot of people in the lower-income
brackets who own their homes. We have a lot of people whose employer or
on their own or through their employer have gone into 401(k) plans, or
they are invested in mutual funds. Now all of the sudden a much broader
population faces capital gains taxation, and yet we cannot get the
Democratic leadership, it was very difficult to get them to come to our
side to reduce that taxation.
The reduction of that taxation was not just a reduction in taxation
to the wealthy, it came across the board. And, finally, they admitted
it. But now the rhetoric that I have heard the last couple of weeks,
because the elections are coming up, is that any consideration of a Tax
Code revision or a tax cut such as marriage tax, get rid of it, or the
[[Page H8058]]
death tax, get rid of it, or capital gains or elimination of the taxes
on the profit of the sale of your home. Some of my colleagues on the
left, the liberal aspect, act as if we are going to ruin the budget,
act as if that is what led to the deficit.
Remember, in my opinion, I think a fair Tax Code is a conservative
approach. I think a fair Tax Code is a moderate approach. But I do not
think a fair Tax Code is a liberal approach. I think the liberal
approach is bringing the money any way you can, that money belongs in
Washington, D.C., it ought to be spent in Washington, D.C., as a
collective benefit for the country or for people to take the individual
responsibilities, move those individual responsibilities to Washington,
D.C., and fund it as a collective issue.
Mr. Speaker, I disagree fundamentally with that policy, and so do a
lot of American people.
But I think we have kind of disclosures in truth when we go out and
speak to our constituents. I think we have an obligation when we go out
there and say, look, ``tax cuts'' is a very broad term. Let us talk
specifically what we mean when we talk about tax cuts. We are talking
about things like the capital gains tax issue. We are talking about
things like elimination of the death tax. We are talking about things
like the marriage penalty. We are talking about the fact why do we go
to our young people, of whom we have an obligation to act in a
responsible manner for their future, why do we go to them and penalize
them for being married when in fact we encourage them to be married?
Those are policies that I think are fair game because they are fair on
their face.
So, Mr. Speaker, I hope that my colleagues, as they go out there
during this election process, that they take the time to talk to some,
and by the way not just the young people. The policies for the taxes of
the young, but take a look as well at what we, the Republican
leadership, did, the moderate approach did for our seniors. We not only
talked about the death tax issue, we not only talked about the marriage
penalty, we not only reduced the capital gains taxation under
Republican leadership, we not only eliminated the taxation up to
$250,000 when we sell our home out here in America. But we also went to
the seniors and said we have discovered another thing that is unfair
with our Tax Code. We are finding out just because of the fact you are
between the years 65 and 69, we are going to penalize you on your
Social Security if you hold a job outside of your home.
Where is the fairness of that? For years it was like pulling teeth
from the liberal contingents. From the liberals it was like pulling
their teeth to get them to admit that that was unfair to seniors.
Finally, this year, frankly because of some good editorials written
across this country, the liberal segment of our politics back here
conceded and gave in on that and we passed that into law.
I commend the moderates on this floor, and I commend the
conservatives on this floor that were able to see that earnings
limitation on Social Security trashed. And I also want to say, even
though we did not get it passed because the President vetoed it, and by
the way it is the Vice President's policy as well, I still commend my
colleagues for stepping forward and standing up to the fact that death
is not a taxable event and that should have been thrown out the window,
that marriage is not a taxable event and that should have been thrown
out the window.
Mr. Speaker, we need to have fairness and we can talk about income
tax bracketing as well. But the fact is we have an obligation, a
fiduciary obligation to the taxpayers and to the citizens of this
country to have a Tax Code that is fair.
Let me move on to another area, one of my favorite areas: Social
Security. First of all, I want to tell about what the Government does
for its employees. And I am one of those employees. I hear a lot, of
course, out there on the campaign trail or when I am out there in my
town meetings. I go back to my district every weekend. My district is
larger that the State of Florida. I put about 50,000 miles a year in my
district in the car. I listen to people. I stop at the coffee stop.
A lot of people do not realize that government employees have almost
essentially the same type of retirement plan, in addition to Social
Security, we also have Social Security. Congress, for example, I saw
somebody e-mail me the other day that they got something off the
Internet that Congressmen do not have to pay Social Security. Of course
we pay Social Security. But we have got about 2 or 3 million government
employees on a system that is very similar to the system that George W.
Bush has proposed.
Mr. Speaker, I am amazed. I am amazed of the number of my colleagues
who are trashing George W. Bush's proposal on Social Security when, in
fact, on the other hand, we live within a policy or a program here
provided for all government employees that is almost identical to what
he is proposing.
What is it? It is called ``personal choice.'' Let me explain very
briefly how the government program works. The government program works
this way. Every government employee has an amount of money taken out of
their pay to provide for their retirement. It is an amount of money
that they have no choice of how it is spent or where it is invested. On
the other hand, while they have no voice or input as to what happens
with that, they also get a guaranteed retirement after they put in a
certain amount of years and turn a certain age; and after they vest,
they get a certain guaranteed retirement. They have a safety net there.
It is not a lot, but it is there and it is funded by the amount of
money that they have drawn out of their check. We as government
employees, all 3 million of us, have drawn out of our check.
But there is a second program in addition to Social Security, and
that program is called the Thrift Savings Program. What that allows
government employees to do, such as myself, I am allowed, as are 3
million other Federal employees, we are allowed to by personal choice
take an amount money up to 10 percent of our pay, and we are allowed to
invest that in the Thrift Savings Program, and the Federal Government
will match it up to the first 5 percent. They will match the first 5
percent, although we are entitled to put in 10 percent, and we get a
choice. You can put it in a risky fund like the stock market, although
the higher the risk the higher the return. We can put it in a safer
fund, or we can put it in a guaranteed savings fund which has low
return but almost zero risk.
{time} 2200
We have that right to make that choice, but it is only with 10
percent of our income, so we never overstep or never get in over our
heads, so to speak, on the amount of money that we put in, and we
personally get to choose how to invest it. Do you know how many people
in the Federal Government participate in that program? A very, very
high percentage.
Mr. Speaker, I would bet that every one of my colleagues sitting here
on the floor participates in that program. Participates in choice. Why
can we not do that for Social Security? If it is good for us, why is it
not good for the rest of America? If it is good for us, our system, the
Thrift Savings Plan works, why is not George W. Bush's plan good for
the rest of America?
I know that some people have said this kind of policy is a risky
policy. Risky? We have tried it and we tested it, and the government
employees like it. They get involved in it. They get personal choice;
that is the avenue that all of us should approach in trying to figure
out how to rehabilitate the Social Security system.
Now, as you know, our Social Security system, there are some factors
that put it into trouble. I mean we know that in 1935, for every worker
that was retired, every person that was retired in 1935, when Social
Security came in, we had 42 workers, 42 workers over here, providing
for that 1 person that is retired. Today, for every person that is
retired, we only have 3 workers providing for them, because we have so
many people retired.
Back then in 1935, the average person lived to about, I do not know,
it was probably 61, I think, for men and 65, somewhere in that range,
today it is pushing the 80s. People are living longer. That is good
news, but it also puts more of a burden on Social Security. And as a
result of that, while Social Security is cash-rich, in other words, on
a cash flow basis, the money coming in today, our Social Security is in
the black.
The fact is, on an actuarial basis, the basis of which we look into
the future
[[Page H8059]]
and say can Social Security make it, on that basis, Social Security's
bankrupt. So what do we do?
First of all, if we are going to make changes in Social Security, we
have to do what George W. Bush has proposed and what a number of us
support very strongly; that is, one, we have to guarantee that the
people like, for example, my age and the generation ahead of me are not
going to lose their benefits. They are not. There is nobody on Social
Security today or nobody from age 40 or above say, for example, that is
going to have their benefits threatened.
The Social Security benefits will be there, and do not let the
liberals use the fear tactics of telling you that we cannot be bold in
Social Security, that we should not try something new, that we ought to
stay with the same old thing, even though it is not working in the long
run.
We have to have some kind of assurance to the workers presently in
the later stages of their career that your benefits are okay. I am
telling you, the generation, the X generation, or the younger
generation, whatever you want to call them, these people are bright
people. They are energetic people. They want choice more than ever in
the history of this country. This generation following us wants
independence, and they are bright enough to handle it.
They have experience in business. They want to have choice. They want
to be able to choose. They want to choose more than ever, whether they
live in the country or here, they want to choose whether their kids go
to public school or private school. I think George W. Bush has hit the
button right on the top of it, this generation, this young generation
wants to make some choice in Social Security.
We have a plan that is tried, true and tried, so to speak, right
here. We are part of it. What is the opposition to going to the Social
Security and putting that into effect, the same kind of plan that every
one on the floor of the House of Representatives and almost three
million other Federal employees enjoy. It works. I think we ought to
try it.
Mr. Speaker, I will tell my colleagues the biggest mistake we can
make here and biggest misservice we can do to our constituents here is
to sit idle. Look, this is election time, in the next 4 weeks, 5 weeks,
or 6 weeks, we are going to have a lot of political rhetoric, but the
minute that goes by, in 6 weeks, I think we have an obligation to step
up to the plate and do it; get it done; get this train back on course.
Now, I think there is always going to be a disagreement between what
I would call moderate and conservative on economics and the liberal
philosophy. The liberal philosophy, in my opinion, has a huge safety
net that takes care of everybody and does it on a collective basis.
Now, I am not sure how they pay for it, but they feel that the
responsibility of the individual is the obligation of the government,
but the moderate and the conservatives feel that the responsibility of
the individual is exactly that, the responsibility of the individual
with the assistance from the government, where the individual cannot
provide.
I think doing something with Social Security fits in the latter
category. It is allowing individuals to have some choice. It does not
give them complete choice because we do not want a person who loses all
of their money to still look to us and put the blame on us, the
government; what we want an individual to do is to have some choice. It
is at that point where I think people are economically savvy enough to
make some of these choices.
Mr. Speaker, a lot of people, a lot of workers, no matter what kind
of job they have decided to participate in mutual funds. They are
making more choices on their personal finances. They are becoming more
and more knowledgeable about it. They are becoming more and more
confident about it. We have a good economy.
What is interesting, too, is when we have those down days on the
stock market, these people do not hit the panic button. It is not like
the great panic in the early last century. These people are more
patient with it. So why can we not be? I mean we work for them. We work
for the people.
Why do we not step forward and let them have more choice in the
Social Security plan that they want to participate in? I mean it is a
big part of their future, and they ought to play as active a role in
that as they can possibly do it.
Frankly, I think the plan that the Republicans and some Democrats and
George W. Bush has put forward is worth looking at. I am amazed in
these last few weeks how it has been trashed and trashed and trashed,
when, in fact, as I said earlier in my comments, 3 million government
employees are on that type of plan right now, and it works for us. It
will work for our constituents.
Let me wrap up and conclude my remarks this evening.
First of all, I think it is a mistake. And I think it has driven the
policy, as underlying as its foundation, to take oil from our strategic
petroleum reserve, that reserve should be restricted to true
emergencies.
The fact that our gasoline prices have gone up is discouraging. Who
is not angry about that? Who does not think that there is not some
gouging going on out there? Sure, it is discouraging, but is that
really, truly the type of emergency that we would envision, or is that
driven by political policy? My position is the policy of the President
is not that policy that was intended when we created the strategic
petroleum reserve.
Second of all, tax; when they talk out there on the political trail
and they talk about tax reductions, make a question, is it fair? Should
it be there in the first place?
Third of all, give us some choice in Social Security. We need a new,
bold plan that protects current beneficiaries of Social Security,
guarantees certain benefits for future generations of Social Security,
but also let these beneficiaries participate and help choose and help
direct the investments they make with that program.
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