[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 29 (Wednesday, March 7, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H729-H734]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          THERE SHOULD BE NO DEAL FOR THE ALLEGED SPY HANSSEN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Graves). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) is 
recognized for half the time remaining before midnight.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I am looking forward to addressing some of 
the comments made here in the previous moments. There are 10 or so of 
my colleagues so I have plenty of stuff that I would like to visit with 
in regards to that. First of all, though, there are a couple of other 
issues I want to address this evening. One of the issues regards the 
suspected spy Hanssen who was arrested not very long ago. Of course, 
all of us in these Chambers know exactly what that story is all about.
  I also wanted to talk next, move from there, into the tax cut, the 
tax program. I intend fully to address some of the comments that have 
been made. I certainly plan to take exception with some of the doctrine 
of fear comments made by the gentleman from California and so on, but 
if we have time I then want to move from that into the death tax and 
address what some of the multibillionaires in their ad in the New York 
Times said. I should point out that these people who signed that ad, 
who support a death tax, who believe that death is a taxable event in 
this society, those multibillionaires who signed that ad have already 
formed their foundations. They have already done their estate planning 
so that they do not feel the pain that all the rest of us are going to 
feel if we happen to fall in that bracket and we are not that wealthy 
to provide for that kind of estate planning.
  In my opinion, those people in that ad, not many Members on the 
floor, not my colleagues but those people in that ad represent the 
height of hypocrisy, and I hope that some have an opportunity to read 
my comments that I hope to get to this evening.
  Let us talk, first of all, about the spy. I was very, very 
discouraged to read probably at the end of last week that in the 
negotiations, if these negotiations take place, for a plea bargain with 
this spy, who sold out his country and who sold out his country not 
with one transaction but has been selling out his country for many, 
many years, with secrets of substantial damage to this country, that 
one of the items that is mentioned as kind of a dangle, some kind of 
incentive in front of this spy, is to go ahead and let this spy, the 
accused spy, to go ahead and let him keep his pension.
  He is not yet entitled to his pension. He was 5 weeks off from 
receiving his pension, this Hanssen guy. His pension is going to be 
about $60,000 a year.
  Now, to me, allowing this alleged spy, and I keep using the word 
alleged but I think the evidence is very clear the situation we have, 
but we do have a society that one is innocent until proven guilty, but 
the fact is that we have American soldiers, in fact the gentleman from 
Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) spoke earlier about some of the people who 
have given their lives in service to this country, and those people's 
total life insurance policy does not equal in many cases one year of 
this alleged traitor's pension of $60,000 a year. It is fundamentally 
unfair, it is unsound, for either the FBI or the Justice Department to 
consider as one of the terms of their plea negotiations to offer this 
alleged spy his pension that he was 5 weeks away from collecting.
  Do not forget that while he was accumulating this pension, it was at 
the very time he was selling our country out to our enemies. He was 
selling them out to Russia. He sold us out. So he is being paid on the 
one hand and he is selling us out on the other hand, and now as if we 
have not been bruised enough we have some people out there apparently 
discussing, well, let us go ahead and let him have his pension.
  Granted, some people have said we have sympathy for his family. His 
family was not involved in the spying. I agree with that. The family of 
this alleged spy must be going through some very horrible times. It is 
clear that the evidence supports the fact that the family had no 
knowledge of what was going on with their father and this husband. That 
fact, that sympathy aside, one does not reward, and I am sorry about 
the circumstances to the family but that is the consequences of 
misbehavior, one does not reward one of the worst spies in the history 
of this Nation by going ahead and saying we are going to go ahead and 
give you $60,000 a year for the rest of your life based on your service 
to the United States Government.
  So if any of my colleagues here have an opportunity to have a 
discussion with either the Department of Justice personnel or FBI 
personnel, I hope you bring this up about this pension.
  Now let me move into some of the comments that were made. First of 
all,

[[Page H730]]

I take strong exception with the gentleman from California who 
introduces what I call a doctrine of fear. Let me say that, first of 
all, the comments that were being made by the Blue Dogs, as they call 
themselves, many of those comments I thought were fundamentally sound 
and there are a lot of areas that I agreed with. I have a great deal of 
respect for the Members who have previously spoken, but I do not think 
the approach to take is the approach of fear.
  Let me give you a few quotes: This Congress does not put the need of 
children first. Give me a break. Show me one Congressman, one Democrat 
Congressman, show me one Republican Congressman, that in their heart 
and their mind they intentionally do not put the children first.
  In my career here in the United States Congress, even with the 
Congressmen on the other side of the aisle that I have disagreed with 
the strongest, I have never found a Congressman who I felt did not care 
about children, who did not want to put children first.
  To stand up here in front of Members and say we do not want to put 
children first, come on. That does not get us where we need to go.
  Let me move on. Massive tax cut. Compare the so-called massive tax 
cut with tax cuts of the past, including with President Kennedy.
  Let me move on from there. Ignore promises to seniors. To me, I take 
as strong an exception with that comment as I do ignore the children or 
do not put the children first. It is a real good way to get people 
shaken up. It is a good way to introduce the doctrine of fear. It is a 
good way to put a lot of scratch on the radar by saying we are ignoring 
seniors or we are not putting children first.
  I think those are unfortunate comments that are being made.
  Obviously, and properly so, the people who spoke ahead of me had that 
hour unrebutted so they got to speak for a whole hour unrebutted. So 
the reason I am going through this is trying to rebut some of those 
things, and I intend to make a case and present my case on its own.
  Let me say that the fallacy of the comments that I heard that were 
previously given, again, I would agree with the principle of these 
statements if one condition was met, just one condition was met, and 
where the fallacy of these good colleagues of mine comes into place is 
that they are assuming that the money not utilized for a tax refund to 
the workers of this country, who pay taxes, they are assuming that that 
money automatically will go to reduction of the debt.

                              {time}  2245

  Therein is the entire danger. There is no assurance at all. In fact, 
if we look at the history of the United States Congress, when we leave 
a dollar on the table here in this room, within moments that dollar is 
going to go into further and future government spending. It is our poor 
history, and I say ``poor'' as to many, many decades of poor 
management. It is the poor history of financial management that dollars 
here are not utilized to reduce the debt if they are left laying 
around; they are utilized to increase government spending.
  Now, let me say to my colleagues that that is not necessarily a weak 
Congressman, and I say this generically, a weak Congressperson. It is 
not necessarily a weak Congressperson or a Congressperson who has evil 
in their eyes to go out and spend this money because it is sitting 
around. We are under intense pressure. Every one of my colleagues, 
every one of us on this floor is under intense pressure; and for the 
freshmen that have just come aboard, you wait until the pressure you 
are going to see.
  Just today in my office, and, by the way, it is not very often we 
have people that come to our office with bad projects; it is not very 
often that a decision is going to be real easy to say, that is a rotten 
project, why would we ever consider funding that. Most of the projects 
that come into our offices, including the projects that come into my 
office on a typical day like today, are good projects. They are easy 
projects. We get a lot of pressure out of our districts to spend money 
on those projects. Generally they are good projects and as the freshmen 
will find out, generally are decisions that are not going to be ones 
between good and bad programs, they are going to be decisions between 
good and good programs.
  Today alone from my own district I had a group that came in and said, 
we need $500,000 for the study of a floodplain. Good expenditure. We 
had a flood last year. The space program, people who are in on the 
space program, I do not know how many billions they wanted, but they 
certainly wanted hundreds of billions of additional dollars, and they 
say, because you have a lot of good people in your district, 
Congressman, that are dependent on the space industry, and we 
understand that the President wants to hold this spending down to 4 
percent, but we need to go into space. Well, I do not necessarily 
disagree with that. I think space, when properly managed, that program 
over at NASA is an expenditure that is worthwhile, but that is hundreds 
of millions of dollars. By the time this day was out, I sat down with 
my staff previous to these comments. I think we calculated the request 
today was just under $1 billion. That is about 10 hours of meetings. 
Well, I did not spend 10 hours with constituents, maybe 5 hours with 
constituent meetings today, and I got just under $1 billion of 
requests. That is not just one day of the week we see them. We see 
constituents all week long.
  The key is here, my agreement is with the Blue Dogs that we should 
try and reduce that debt; but the fact is that we have to get that 
money to the reduction of the debt and not to the spending.
  I heard a lot of criticism about lock boxes. That is our effort. When 
we leave money around for Social Security, when we leave money around 
for Medicare, that is our effort, of somehow trying to control future 
Congresses by saying, it is locked away from spending. The theory of 
what the Blue Dogs have said this evening will work if they can just 
figure out how to keep it from being spent on additional government 
spending, and that is the difficulty.
  If I might say to the gentleman, let me explain the situation that we 
are in. I would be happy to yield to the gentleman under normal 
circumstances; but unfortunately, because I was granted my time after 
10 o'clock, at 10:30, as the gentleman knows, I do not have a full 
hour, they split the hour, so my time is limited to 45 minutes, so as I 
get towards the end of my comments, I would be happy to yield to the 
gentleman, because I think it is appropriate. But I do have a great 
deal of information to cover.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, we have the 
second 41 minutes and we will be glad to yield to the gentleman back on 
our time for any time that he needs.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, what is the gentleman requesting for yield 
time right now?
  Mr. STENHOLM. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. McINNIS. No, no, no, excuse me. I did not yield yet. I wanted to 
know what the request for yielding was. Do you want a minute or 3 
minutes? What are you asking for?
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I was asking to make a comment regarding a 
statement that the gentleman just inferred that the Blue Dogs were 
talking about lock boxes, and I wanted to clarify the spending.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. STENHOLM. I thank the gentleman for that. We support the lock box 
concept. Our concern is that in the President's budget, he is going to 
be using some $500 billion of the Medicare lock box, Medicare tax set-
asides for purposes of which we request, and we believe we agree with 
the gentleman on that. I just want to make sure that the gentleman did 
not intentionally misspeak. We are not down-playing lock boxes; we are 
saying we ought to set aside Medicare, Social Security, and the 
gentleman from Mississippi's comments regarding military retirement and 
civil service retirement, we ought not to be spending that for any 
purpose, including giving it back to people who have paid their taxes. 
It ought to go to the lock box.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to the gentleman, I 
appreciate him clarifying that, but just so the gentleman has an 
understanding where I am coming from, if the gentleman would care to 
look at the

[[Page H731]]

record, he will see numerous references and criticisms of the lock box 
theory.
  My purpose here is not an attack on the Blue Dogs, because after the 
gentleman's comments, apparently we agree on the lock box issue. But 
that is our mechanism, to try and put in some kind of control in the 
future so that when we reserve money for reduction of the debt, it 
actually goes to reduction of the debt and not spending. Also, I should 
say about the Blue Dogs, frankly, that during my years in Congress 
here, it is the Blue Dogs on the Democratic side of the aisle who have 
been the most restrained on excessive spending and who have led that 
side of the aisle. So this is not intended to be a criticism, but is 
intended to say to my colleagues that the lock box is the best tool we 
have been able to come up with at this point in time.
  Now, perhaps the gentleman from Mississippi, who I will yield to here 
in a minute, because I am going to refer to some of his comments, and 
perhaps he would like to reserve his request for a yield of time until 
I am finished.
  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, if I may.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman may not. I am not going to 
yield. Let me finish about the comments that the gentleman made, and 
then I will be happy to yield for a limited period of time because of 
my limited time this evening. Again, you have 10 over there, I have one 
here.
  Let me say that in regard to the gentleman's comments from 
Mississippi, he spoke very eloquently, but he said that during his 
lifetime, a great deal of that debt was accumulated during his 
lifetime. I might add that a great deal of that debt was accumulated 
during his congressional tenure as well. I am not sure that the 
gentleman from Mississippi intended this, but he said that Greenspan 
said there is all kinds of money for a tax cut. I have heard Mr. 
Greenspan speak on a number of occasions. I think the gentleman's quote 
of Mr. Greenspan is inaccurate. I have not read in any report of his 
comments, and I have not witnessed in person any of his comments where 
he quotes: we have all kinds of money for tax cuts. In fact, Mr. 
Greenspan has been very conservative in his approach for tax cuts. He 
has put it on the strategy and agreed with the strategy that George W. 
Bush has put forward, and that is, we need it in combination with, one, 
we have to reduce the interest rates, we have got to control spending, 
which Mr. Greenspan comes back to time and time again, and then the tax 
cuts have a place in there. He has not made those kinds of statements 
that we have all kinds of money for tax cuts.

  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would also correct the gentleman in 
saying that it was either Greenspan or Bush in his comments, I did not 
quite catch which one the gentleman quoted, let us go have a good time. 
I do not remember, and I do not see anything. I see that George W. Bush 
takes this budget very, very seriously; and I think the gentleman 
agrees with me.
  My only point here is this budget and these tax cuts and our debate 
tomorrow, especially as I address the Blue Dogs, who I think, in my 
opinion, on the gentleman's side of the aisle I think carry the most 
substance, at least with my point of view. I think it is very important 
for us to work in a constructive fashion, that we not let emotion take 
it too far and we make the kind of statements such as the fear tactics 
that I addressed earlier about some of these comments that were made by 
some of the other people.
  Now, if the gentleman would like to speak for a minute, I would be 
happy to yield, in fairness.
  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, a couple of points. Number 
one, I was deeply disappointed when Mr. Greenspan was repeatedly quoted 
by Republicans as being the person who they say, well, now he is for 
tax breaks. I am glad to hear this Republican say he did not think he 
said that. It is a fact that Mr. Greenspan was in charge of that 
commission that led to the 15 percent increase in Medicare and Social 
Security taxes, with the promise that money would be set aside. So Mr. 
Greenspan, more than anyone else, should know that it has not.
  The third thing is when the gentleman said, let us go have a good 
time. I was using the analogy of a person who, for the first time in 30 
years, has money left over at the end of the year and it amounts to 
$1,000; but he ignores the fact that he is $686,000 in debt. That is 
where our Nation is with an $8 billion surplus at the end of 1 year for 
the first time in 30 years. The analogy is our Nation does not have 
$1.6 trillion to give away in tax breaks.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the gentleman has gone 
on a little bit beyond the rebuttal that was appropriate, but let me 
make it clear. I am not saying that Mr. Greenspan did not agree with 
tax cuts. Obviously, he did. My disagreement was the gentleman's quote 
of Mr. Greenspan, which I have back there. I took it verbatim, I say to 
the gentleman; and I just wanted to correct that, because I think that 
the quote had a bit of emotion put into it and was taken out of 
context.
  I want to be sure that this evening, because I think the plan that 
the Blue Dogs presented this evening was a very well-presented program; 
but I think in fairness, we need to present this with as much emotion 
put aside as we can. Therefore, I would like to address a couple of the 
issues in regards to the plan offered by George W. Bush.
  First of all, let me tell my colleagues, my district is in the State 
of Colorado; and in the 1970s, Colorado faced, of course, in a much 
smaller proportion, a budget surplus and the surplus actually did 
occur. Now, I know that some of my colleagues that have previously 
spoken criticize projections into the future. I want all of us to know, 
and I also heard someone say, you do not spend money you do not have. I 
happen to agree with that, although most citizens in America do spend 
money they do not have. They buy a home. I would guess that most of my 
colleagues who are here on the floor this evening probably are in debt 
and actually owe more money than they are making right now. It is 
because they can manage that debt. It is a manageable debt, and that is 
one of the things that I think we ought to take a look at. What kind of 
discipline exists? I would venture to say that my colleagues here 
personally probably have more discipline because they are not under the 
kind of political pressure to spend their personal income that we face 
here to spend the taxpayers' income.
  In the State of Colorado when we had this surplus and, by the way, 
when one buys their home, let me step back just for a moment, when you 
buy your home, you base the purchase of your home on your own future 
projections. Nobody has figured out accurate projections, very 
accurate, in my opinion. If they did, they would be very, very wealthy 
people. But when you go out as an individual and you buy a home, your 
wife and you, you sit down and you say, okay, here is what we project 
our income is going to be over the next 30 years, here is what we think 
we can afford in a mortgage, and probably the first payment you make 
every month outside of groceries for your family is to pay on that 
mortgage. Now, that is not to say that you should ignore your mortgage. 
There are consequences if you do ignore your mortgage; and frankly, the 
gentleman from Mississippi, I think, stated pretty well some of the 
consequences of ignoring the mortgage.
  The problem is in this particular body, in the other body, in this 
political process, because of the demands of our constituents, we have 
to exercise a special kind of discipline. In Colorado, we had those 
surplus dollars in the 1970s. We were so concerned that we would end up 
spending that money on good programs, that we felt it was necessary, we 
felt we met the fundamental needs of the State of Colorado. I say 
``we,'' I was not in the legislature at the time, but our legislative 
leaders then did a tax refund in the State of Colorado.
  Do my colleagues know what would have happened in Colorado when 6 
years later we ran into an economic downturn, had we not returned that 
money to the taxpayers? That money was not sitting in a bank account 
accumulating interest. That money was spotted by every special interest 
group in the State of Colorado, and those special interest groups, 
regardless of which side of the aisle it came from, they wanted to 
spend that money; and they would come to us, they would come to our 
legislative leaders and say,

[[Page H732]]

look, we have a great program. You have the money in the bank. How can 
you justify to the voters that you are not going to spend more money? 
And what would have happened in the downturn is we would have had many, 
many more commitments, had we not returned that money, and our downturn 
in Colorado in the early 1980s would have been much more severe than it 
was.
  I think that the President in his approach and in his budget takes 
that into consideration. The President is not proposing, by the way, to 
return all of the projected surplus. This bill that we passed in 
regards to the President's tax cut, which is a part of the budget, and 
remember that, in my opinion, if we allow the budget to come on this 
floor first, before we commit to dollars for a tax cut, the dollars 
that we would commit to a tax cut will be already spent for additional 
spending in new programs.

                              {time}  2300

  Mr. Speaker, that is the difficulty on this floor, and in the next 3 
weeks trying to take that money that we intend, and we can use the 
money that you would like to give for a tax cut, being able to hold 
that aside from being spent is going to be extremely difficult. That is 
why we have to commit early on, in my opinion, to a tax cut.
  What the President has done on his budget is he has broken it out 
basically into a couple, 2 or 3, requirements in his budget. The first 
requirement, Social Security. We must put aside money to fund Social 
Security.
  The same thing with Medicare. The President also addresses the debt. 
Clearly, we are in complete agreement.
  I am in complete agreement with the Blue Dogs. I am in complete 
agreement with most of the Republicans that we need to reduce that 
debt. That is good fiscal management to reduce it in a planned way, but 
reduce that debt. The difficulty is between the point where the surplus 
exists and being able to move it.
  Let me demonstrate here. S for surplus, and over here for the debt 
reduction. There is another big S that falls in between them. What does 
that big S represent? It represents spending.
  President Bush does not ignore spending. President Bush does not come 
forward in his budget and say no more spending. In fact, what President 
Bush does is he comes out and says he is going to be more generous than 
most families in America, I would venture to say, are going to be in 
their own family budgets next year.
  President Bush has come forward and said you may increase the budget. 
I want a budget, and I will present a budget that will increase 
spending by 4 percent, that is a 4 percent increase. Most families in 
America will not see a 4 percent increase in their personal income next 
year.
  What President Bush has said is that an 8 percent or a 9 percent 
increase that the Congress, along with the administration, that this 
government has gotten used to, is not going to happen, because we have 
an economy that is on the edge.
  We do not have an economy that technically is in a recession yet, but 
we have an economy that is headed into a slowdown. And the way to 
address the slowdown, according to President Bush, and I completely 
agree with him, really is three legs on a stool.
  The stool needs each one of those legs. The first leg is you have to 
reduce spending or control spending. I will describe a little more 
about that later.
  The second leg is you got to reduce interest rates. We are seeing 
Alan Greenspan responding. By the way, the criticisms of Alan Greenspan 
this evening, I did not hear many of those criticisms when the stock 
markets were hitting all time highs last year. I did not hear any of my 
colleagues frankly taking the floor and criticizing Alan Greenspan.
  The third thing that we have to do on this stool to stabilize this 
economy is put some money back into the workers who are producing out 
there.
  You have people in our society who are not producing. Those are not 
the people we are trying to put money back into their pockets. We are 
trying to go to the producing American out there, the American who is 
paying taxes. We are trying to put money back in their pockets, because 
our belief is putting those dollars back in the workers pockets is 
going to help a lot more to pull this economy out of its slowdown than 
leaving those dollars in Washington, D.C. to be spent by the government 
through a bureaucratic maze.
  That is exactly what President Bush is attempting to do, and I think 
he has a very logical plan under which to do it.
  In his speech, which, by the way, many of my colleagues stood and 
applauded, the President's budget funds America's priorities. Again, 
President Bush is not ignoring children. President Bush is not ignoring 
senior citizens. He is not ignoring Medicare. He is not ignoring Social 
Security. He is not ignoring the military, but, by the way, he is not 
going to just sign a blank check.
  He wants justification. The Secretary of Defense, Mr. Rumsfeld, is 
putting a study on military. He understands what our basic needs are, 
and his budget will fund America's priorities, but there has to be 
priorities.
  Let me tell my colleagues if we spent money on every good program 
that comes in front of us, we would be broke in a week. We have to have 
priorities. Of course, taking priorities means that some are 
priorities, some are not. So you become unpopular with some people.
  This President is willing to stand tall and say we cannot fund 
everybody. I am sorry, we cannot be Santa Claus. We have got an economy 
that is having a tough time. We have some fundamental needs that must 
be funded, and the President's budget funds it.
  Next, the President provides the largest debt reduction in history. 
And here the Blue Dogs ought to be standing up applauding George W. 
Bush. And I should say, in fairness to the Blue Dogs, that at several 
points their key point was reduction of the debt, so I think they 
actually agree with George W. Bush.
  What I am saying though, however, to people such as the Blue Dogs, 
somewhere we have to be able to control spending so that those dollars 
there will be some dollars left for that tax cut.
  Here President Bush does not ignore, under any circumstances, the 
reduction of the Federal debt. In fact, he considers it a very high 
priority, and he provides the largest debt reduction in the history of 
this country.
  Finally, it provides fair and responsible tax relief. This tax relief 
is not intended to go to people who do not pay taxes. If you do not 
think you pay enough taxes, take a look at how many taxes you pay. Take 
a look at when you stop at the gas pump what you pay for a gallon of 
gasoline, what you pay when you go to the hardware store. Take a look 
at your tax bill next time you buy a car or a refrigerator or a TV.
  It was mentioned by the Blue Dogs over here, take a close look at 
what your employees' and employers' taxes are. Take a look at your 
income tax, your State income tax, your Federal income tax. Take a look 
at your municipal tax. Take a look at your county tax. Take a look at 
special districts. Some of those needs are necessary.
  We have to have tax in our system, but at some point in those 
numbers, do you not think that we can find, especially when we have an 
economy right on the edge, do you not think we can find a little bit, a 
few pennies on the dollar to go back to the taxpayer so that that 
taxpayer can also fund some of the priorities of their family?
  Let us take a look, as we go through this budget, as the President 
explained it.
  The President's budget, as I mentioned, pays off historic amounts of 
debt. It provides the fastest, largest debt reduction in history, $2 
trillion over 10 years.
  It reduces the government debt to its lowest share of the economy 
since World War I. We are serious about reducing this debt. Clearly we 
have to do it.
  By the way, it is the Republicans who continually carried that 
balanced budget amendment. We understand that, and there are a number 
of conservative Democrats, and the Blue Dogs fit in that category, who 
agree with the reduction of this debt.
  Let us go on. Responsible tax relief, uses roughly one-fourth of the 
budget surplus to provide the typical family of four paying income 
taxes $1,600 in tax relief.

[[Page H733]]

  I heard someone the other day saying this proposed tax cut only means 
a couple hundred bucks, or it only means a dollar a day. I heard that 
the other day I think in the Committee on Ways and Means.
  Let me tell you something, when people get 300 bucks or $365, that 
may only be a dollar a day but to a lot of my constituents, $365 in 
your pockets instead of the government's pockets makes a difference of 
a bicycle for your kid, maybe you could go down and buy a new TV.
  It makes a difference. Do not let people dilute the impact of a tax 
cut by saying it only means a dollar a day.
  Let us proceed on here. It improves health care. The President's 
budget will improve health care. It doubles funding for NIH, that is 
the National Institute of Health, medical research on important health 
issues like cancer, the largest funding increase in NIH's history. It 
creates more than 1,200 new community health centers to make health 
care more accessible.
  This President understands the terrible viciousness of cancer. This 
President is committed to a budget for the National Institutes of 
Health to take that issue on. This is one of those priorities.
  This President is not taking the money from the fight on cancer and 
giving it back to the taxpayers. In fact, this President is going to 
the workers and to the taxpayers and saying I think it is a priority to 
take more of your taxpayer dollars and to fight to take on this issue 
of cancer.
  It protects the environment, protects the environment, providing for 
the largest increase in conservation funds in history. Of course, we 
all take great pride in our districts, but my district is one of the 
most beautiful districts in the Nation. It is geographically larger 
than the State of Florida. It is the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.
  Those land and water reservation conservation dollars are important 
dollars for us out there. This realizes that the President realizes a 
commitment to our environment in that kind of funding.
  It preserves Medicare. It spends every dime of Medicare receipts over 
the next 10 years for Medicare and Medicare alone.

                              {time}  2210

  Those Medicare dollars are going for Medicare and Medicare alone. 
Again the President has said, look, there are certain dollars we cannot 
put into the tax refund, into the tax cut. We have to fund priorities. 
Medicare is a priority. It strengthens defense and our military by 
improving their quality of life. He talks about the new weapons, and 
defense is a priority for President Bush. Again, he is not using that 
money to filter or waste it away in other spending. He is not giving 
that money to our taxpayers, he is saying that money needs to go into 
defense.
  Improving education. I think this President will go down in history, 
President George W. Bush, as the education president. He cares about 
that. Reading is a big issue. His wife is a teacher. Laura Bush has 
spent more time in a classroom than most of my colleagues. I think 
everybody on this floor cares about education. I have never met a 
Congressman who does not care about education. This President lists it 
as one of his highest priorities. He says that if we want better 
education, we had better be able to pay for it.
  George W. Bush wants the strongest military in the world. He wants it 
maintained, but he is not going to sign a blank check. He wants 
accountability. He wants accountability in defense, in education, in 
Social Security, et cetera, et cetera. But that is not to say he is not 
willing to spend the dollars. You prove that those dollars are going to 
go to the improvement of our education, and you are going to have those 
dollars, and his budget allocates for it.
  Social Security, it protects Social Security. Let me say my approach, 
I heard a couple of comments from two separate Members who said that we 
are on route, we are on track to turn this country over in the worse 
shape than any other generation in the history of this country. That 
for the first time in the history of this country, this generation is 
going to turn this country over to the next generation in worse shape 
than they found it.
  Mr. Speaker, I could not disagree more. I am an optimist. I think 
that we live in the greatest country in the world. I think there are 
more things going right than wrong. Clearly our focus is to deal with 
problems. It is kind of like being a fireman. Firemen deal with fires, 
so pretty soon you may think that the only thing that happens is fires, 
but it is not. When you look and put it in its proper proportion, there 
is more going right.
  Sure it is easy to criticize education and criticize this and that, 
but take a look at what is going right and if we work together as a 
team, if we come together and understand, number one, we have an 
economy that is headed for a slowdown. We do not need to bring up 
emotional statements like somebody does not care about children. How 
many of your constituents do not care about education or seniors? Put 
that garbage aside. Every one of your constituents cares about 
education and seniors.
  The question is priorities, and the President has three basic 
priorities. Number one, you have got to take care of the priorities of 
this country. Number two, you have got to have, and let me put my chart 
back up here, you have got to provide for debt reduction. It is a 
priority with this President. Number three, you need to provide some 
money back to the people who gave that money. Do not forget, it is a 
very easy job when you talk about money back here in the government, 
and by the way, the city of Washington, D.C. is the biggest government-
funded city in the history of this country.
  The fact is that we do not get our money by going out with some 
capitalistic idea of going out and working, our funding is done by 
taking that money out of the workers' pockets, out of the taxpayers' 
pockets and transferring it to Washington, D.C. for redistribution. 
That is how the money comes back here.
  What the President is saying is wait a minute, in all of these 
priorities, maybe one of our priorities, not the top priority, not the 
only priority, but maybe one of our priorities ought to be 
consideration for those people who have to go out and create that 
money. The people who go out and get their money, not because it is 
transferred in their pocket, but because they go out and work for it 
and they earn it. Here it is transferred through tax mechanisms.
  I think it is fair and reasonable for the President to say we need to 
commit a certain part of my budget to a tax cut. I also think that it 
is reasonable, to my colleagues in the Blue Dog group, I think that 
they would agree or I think it is very reasonable to say we had better 
commit some dollars to this tax reduction now because if you do not put 
those dollars aside, over the next 3 or 4 months which it will take us 
to produce a budget, last year we did not get one until almost 
Christmas, but if you do not put that money aside now, there is not 
going to be money left for those workers out there.
  I understand the position let us get a budget first. That is an easy 
argument to make. When you make that argument, you cannot assure those 
workers out there that there are going to be dollars to go in their 
pockets.

  Let me say in conclusion, I enjoyed the discussion here tonight and 
listening to my colleagues. I look forward to future discussions and 
would be happy to engage in a special orders with the people from the 
Blue Dogs, but I think it is important that we tell both sides of the 
story which is exactly my purpose in rebuttal this evening and also in 
discussing the Bush plan.
  Mr. Speaker, next time I speak I intend to talk about the death tax, 
the question of whether death should be a taxable event, and I intend 
to go into some of the issues regarding the budget.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm).
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker if the gentleman from Colorado would wait, 
we offered some additional of our time because you were generous to 
give some of your time.
  We would like to continue some discussion, I know that the gentleman 
from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) would, and also I appreciate very much 
the tenor of their talk tonight and respect that they have paid to the 
Blue Dogs and some of the things we agree on, and I return the favor to 
the gentleman from Colorado.

[[Page H734]]

  I found most of what he said I totally agree with, and I believe he 
will find that is the Blue Dog position, but I do not believe the 
gentleman intentionally misspoke regarding the President's budget and 
the utilization of Social Security and Medicare trust funds. I know he 
did not intentionally, and all I say is if the gentleman will carefully 
examine the President's budget, I believe he will find that there is a 
double counting of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds because 
I believe the gentleman and I will agree that those moneys that are now 
being paid in by the hard-working men and women today, everybody paying 
into the Social Security trust funds, those moneys are already 
obligated.
  When the baby boomers begin to retire in about 4 years, and it really 
hits in 2011, the Social Security trust fund has big problems in paying 
off. Therefore, it as has been proposed in the President's budget, we 
choose to reduce the debt by the Social Security trust fund moneys and 
that is all, then we truly are not making any progress towards fixing 
Social Security.

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