Congressional Record, Volume 147 Issue 26 (Thursday, March 1, 2001)

[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 26 (Thursday, March 1, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H601-H604]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

(Mr. BONIOR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1
minute.)
Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I ask to take this time to inquire from the
distinguished majority leader and ask him to clarify the schedule for
the remainder of the day, the week, and next week.
I yield to my colleague, the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
I am pleased to announce that the House has completed its legislative
business for the week. The House will next meet for legislative
business on Tuesday, March 6 at 12:30 p.m. for morning hour and at 2:00
p.m. for legislative business. No recorded votes are expected before 6
p.m. The House will consider a number of measures under suspension of
the rules, a list of which will be distributed to Member's offices
tomorrow.
On Wednesday, March 7, and Thursday, March 8, the House will consider
the following measures: H.R. 624, the Organ Donation Improvement Act of
2001; and H.R. 3, the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Act of 2001.

[[Page H602]]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to wish all of my colleagues a safe journey
home for the weekend and a pleasant weekend with their families and
constituents.
Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, if I may inquire from the gentleman from
Texas, we have been hearing rumors on our side of the aisle that we
will be denied an opportunity for a fair and fiscally responsible tax
cut substitute when the bill reaches the floor next week. I ask the
gentleman from Texas if that is indeed the case.

{time} 1500

Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman continue to yield.
Mr. BONIOR. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman asking that, and
it is unfortunate when there are rumors that are upsetting the Members.
The fact of the matter is the rule that governs consideration of that
bill will be drafted in the Committee on Rules, and there has been no
determination from the committee regarding that. I really cannot, in
fact, predict or even suggest what the rule would look like except that
it would be, I should think, and we would expect it to be consistent
with what the Committee on Rules has done in the past.
Mr. BONIOR. Well, I would say to my friend that that leads me to be
even more suspicious of what may transpire next week or in the
Committee on Rules.
I just want the gentleman from Texas to know that we would consider
it a real breach of bipartisanship. And our reaction to not being able
to offer on our side of the aisle, on behalf of 211 Members of Congress
that represent quite close to half the population in this country, a
substitute that would express our views on how we want to give money
back to people, put money in their pockets, if that is not made
available to us, I would assure the gentleman from Texas that there
will be a very, very negative reaction on this side of the aisle.
I think that the gentleman, per his comments on precedent, can look
back and see that when there were examples of tax bills that came to
the floor in the past, in fact when we were in the majority, did make
available at various times, and I recall certainly during when
President Bush was in the White House, during the late 1980s and early
1990s, we were able to do that for the minority. We expect to have the
same kind of courtesy and the same type of response when we come to the
floor next week.
We would be sadly and terribly disappointed and angry, if I might say
so, if we do not have a chance to voice our view on behalf of 211
Members in our caucus.
Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield,
there certainly can be no failure on the part of this gentleman to
perceive from the manner in which the gentleman from Michigan has just
expressed that that would indeed be the case.
But the gentleman from Michigan, having served on the Committee on
Rules while in the majority, must certainly be very well aware of the
fact that the Committee on Rules does now, as it did then, take its
responsibility and its prerogatives seriously. The rule will be written
by the Committee on Rules in the Committee on Rules. I am just sorry to
say that this gentleman cannot predict what the Committee on Rules will
do at that time.
I am sorry that there is a rumor out there, but I have told the
gentleman as candidly and straightforwardly as I can that the Committee
on Rules has not met on this subject; that I have not discussed the
subject of this rule with any member of the Committee on Rules; and I
have no basis to project what the Committee on Rules would do except to
observe what has been in fact the history of practices with the
Committee on Rules with respect to rules of bills of this nature.
Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman from Texas,
having served for 14 years on the Committee on Rules, the Committee on
Rules is an extension of the leadership. It is a leadership committee.
And I am sure the gentleman from Texas is not telling me on the floor
this afternoon that he has no input into what is going to happen up in
the Committee on Rules, because I know, and I think everybody in this
institution knows, that the gentleman from Texas and the Speaker and
the majority whip, in fact, do have an input, always have had an input
on what decision is being made up in the Committee on Rules, especially
on such an important issue as a major, major tax bill.
So we expect to be treated with dignity and with fairness, and that
means having an opportunity, win or lose, to offer a substitute to what
the President and the Republican Party wants to offer.
Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, I do appreciate the gentleman's point. I mean
the gentleman is being quite firm, but the fact of the matter is the
chairman of the Committee on Rules does meet with the leadership,
usually on Tuesday, to sit down and discuss a bill of this importance
and the rule that would be drawn. And, yes indeed, in the Republican
leadership model there is leadership input.
But the Committee on Rules is in fact a committee of very competent
and able people who are quite able to make a final determination for
themselves. That determination will be made by the Committee on Rules,
and I do hope and expect with input, suggestions, recommendations from
House leadership. I am just sorry to report to the gentleman there has
been no such meeting now, and any rumors one has heard to the contrary
should have very little credence in light of the fact that no such
meeting to discuss this matter has taken place.
Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. BONIOR. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding to me, and
I would like to ask a question of the distinguished leader, my friend
from Texas.
There has been a decision made, apparently by the leadership to which
you refer, that we shall not follow the precedent and the history of
the House regarding having a budget on the floor and discussed and
debated before we get into significant parts of the budget, as the
gentleman has indicated next week we will be voting on H.R. 3, which is
a major, major tax bill with tremendous implications for Social
Security, Medicare, defense, agriculture, and many other areas.
My question to the gentleman is, Under what history and precedence of
the House has the leadership decided to bring forward a major tax bill
before we have had an opportunity to have a good bipartisan discussion
of the budget?
Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. BONIOR. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. ARMEY. I do appreciate the gentleman from Texas' inquiry. I
believe if one sought history and precedence for this decision, which
in fact I would find no need to seek, one could find that in the
consideration of the marriage penalty bill just last year.
Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman continue to yield?
Mr. BONIOR. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I would advise the majority leader that
that is precisely what bothers me about this particular decision this
year. Because now we have a tremendous potential problem with dealing
with projected surpluses of $5.6 trillion, 70 percent of which will not
occur until the years 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010. Yet next week I
believe the leadership decision has been made that we are going to
discuss the utilization of that.
I know the gentleman will say we are going to discuss giving back to
the American people some of which they have already paid. I am for
that. I know of no one as yet that is not for that. But it seems to me
that we are getting the cart before the horse when we come with that
bill first without first dealing with the budget so that we might in
fact conservatively deal with the future economics of this country.
Mr. ARMEY. If the gentleman from Michigan will continue to yield, and
I do appreciate the gentleman yielding for the points made by the
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), but let me just say with regard to
the President's budget proposal of $1.6 trillion over the next 10 years
in tax relief for the American people that we have under consideration
in the Committee on Ways and Means right now a bill which would be

[[Page H603]]

only one of the seven items proposed by the President in his proposal
that would amount to under $1 trillion over the next 10 years. That
would still leave a $600 billion cushion between that and the budget,
which we are confident will also, as passed by the House, call for $1.6
trillion.
So there is ample room to be certain that whatever is passed in the
House on this floor, on the subject of tax reduction for the American
people, will fit nicely within the parameters of the budget that will
be acted upon by this body.
Mr. STENHOLM. If the gentleman from Michigan will continue to yield
briefly for the majority leader's response. Precisely why we are having
this kind of discussion today in dealing with these kinds of numbers is
why some of us feel very strongly that there is a tremendous mistake
about to be made if we get into these kinds of decisions before we have
had the kind of open and honest debate in the Committee on the Budget
in a bipartisan way and on the floor of the House in a bipartisan way,
before we have committed as yet undetermined projected surpluses.
Some of us feel very strongly that we are making a mistake, and I
hope my friend from Texas will have a good two or three nights sleep on
this question and will come to a little different conclusion before we
make that mistake next week.
Mr. ARMEY. Again, I appreciate the comments made by the gentleman
from Texas. I understand the concern he has. I served in this body for
10 years in the minority. For 10 years in the minority I often found
that I had disagreements, oftentimes heartfelt disagreements, with the
manner in which the majority scheduled the business of the House. But
the one inescapable fact that I had to live with for all those 10 years
was the fact that it was the majority's prerogative to schedule the
business of the House.
Mr. BONIOR. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I am not arguing with
the scheduling of the business, although I agree with the gentleman
from Texas (Mr. Stenholm). I would say to the majority leader that we
should have a budget before we do this tax bill. It is what good common
sense and what good families do when they plan their resource
distribution. They put a budget down together before they decide on how
they want to distribute it.
The President of the United States stood up there and gave a speech
to us within the last week in which he quoted Yogi Berra when he said
Yogi Berra said, ``When you come to the fork in the road, you ought to
take it.'' He probably should have quoted Yogi Berra when Yogi Berra
said, ``This is deja vu all over again.'' Because what we are about to
do here, Mr. Speaker, without a budget first, we are going to go right
to a tax bill where the numbers are in great dispute in terms of what
the projections are going to be in the year 2007, 2088, 2009 and 2010.
We do not know that. We cannot predict the weather in the years 2007,
2008, 2009, and 2010. OMB has been wrong continually on their
projections; and here we are rolling the dice like we did in 1981,
assuming the money is going to be there, and the fact of the matter is
we do not know that. That is why it is important for us to lay a budget
out before we move ahead with a tax bill.
Now we are being told, not by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey),
because he has been forthright and he has said he does not know what he
is going to do on the rule, but I gather from the gentleman's remarks
and what I have heard on the floor in the last couple of days, is we
are going to be shut out of even offering what we think is a more
responsible and fiscally prudent substitute to deal with that question
of exploding deficits, particularly in the out years, and putting us
back into the deja-vu-all-over-again 1981 situation that we found
ourselves in, and which took 15 years to dig ourselves out of debt
from.
So the gentleman needs to understand, and I hope he does from the
passion in our voices here this afternoon, that we want to be treated
fairly. And if we make our case and we lose on the House floor, fine,
that is the way this place is supposed to work. But if we do not get a
chance to offer on behalf of 211 Members who were elected, as the
gentleman was and his colleagues were, we feel aggrieved and we should
be angry about it.
So I just plead with the gentleman, as we start this new Congress
with this very important bill, that the gentleman goes back to his
leadership meeting with the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), the
Speaker, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), and whoever else is in
there, the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) and the whole crowd,
and the gentleman allows us to offer a substitute.
We know that the majority is probably going to win this vote. We are
not naive. The gentleman has the majority on his side of the aisle. But
we want the American people to understand that there is another
viewpoint here. And for the gentleman to shut us off and not allow us
to debate for at least an hour our view on a very important issue that
is going to affect us perhaps for not only years but decades to come, I
think it is, if I may say so, the height of irresponsibility and not in
keeping with the bipartisan tone in which the President of the United
States has been so proudly displaying and advocating over the course of
the last couple weeks.
Mr. ARMEY. If I may, Mr. Speaker, let me just say the gentleman from
Michigan makes a good point. I understand that rumors can be upsetting
and I regret that. But I still, nevertheless, in light of the rumor,
the gentleman is, on behalf of his party, correct to come to the floor
and make the points he has made, and I respect that. I can only tell
the gentleman with respect to that question, which I think is a very
important question for him to raise here today, that the gentleman's
views have been expressed very clearly here. I see no way that the
Republican leadership in the Committee on Rules when they meet on that
can be unaware of how strongly they have been expressed. Let me thank
the gentleman for that.
If I may have just one more moment on the matter of the points raised
by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) with respect to scheduling
consideration of the tax bill relative to the budget bill.

{time} 1515

His position is well known to us, has been well known to us, and has
been expressed by people on this side of the aisle. We have been and
are cognizant of that position as we plan the legislative schedule for
the next few weeks. It is not a position that has not been considered.
It is a position that has been weighed well, as raised by people on
both sides of the aisle. Still in light of those considerations, we
have made these scheduling decisions. We are quite comfortable to
proceed on that. We understand that they will be disconcerting and
upsetting to Members, but we believe in the interest of managing the
business of this House, that is the best way to proceed and I would
hope that the gentleman could accept that.
Mr. BOYD. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. BONIOR. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
Mr. BOYD. I thank the gentleman from Michigan for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, not to belabor the point, but I want to make a quick
point that maybe has not been made. That is, that there are many on
this side of the aisle that happen to agree with the President and many
of the initiatives that he laid out in his speech on Tuesday evening
and also in his budget he has presented, including strengthening our
defense, including improving our educational system, including writing
and implementing a prescription drug program, including helping
assisting our veterans on their health care needs, including
agricultural baseline needs that we know will exist, and also including
his position on demeanor and the way he deals with people in a
bipartisan way. It is refreshing. I know many of us on this side of the
aisle have had many meetings with him since he has become President,
including this Member, and with his staff to work on these issues.
I would simply say to the majority leader that I believe that most
responsible people would think that it would be the proper thing to do
to develop the budget, that is what the regular order of the rules of
the House call for, prior to picking out a very small portion of that
financial plan to pass which may seriously affect the way you do the
other part. That is the only thing that I would say to the
distinguished gentleman from Texas. There are a group

[[Page H604]]

of us that feel very strongly about that.
Mr. ARMEY. If the gentleman will yield further, again I appreciate
that. I hope the gentlemen on his side of the aisle and my side of the
aisle that feel so strongly in terms of this operational management
model will abide with us in our interest of signaling to the American
people on this tax reduction, this tax relief, that help is on the way.
We want to get that signal out there early. We believe we can do that
and be perfectly consistent with the requirement that in the end, as we
work our way through this, it must all be reconciled to the budget that
is passed by this body, the other body, and, of course, reconciled
between the two bodies. There, of course, is no getting around that. So
no matter how early we might act on any one part of it, in the end we
will have that full reconciliation that I think would be a comfort to
his concerns.

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