[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.
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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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