[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 43 (Wednesday, March 28, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H1286-H1292]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ANGEL OF REBUTTAL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Crenshaw). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, as becoming customary around these 
facilities, I find myself being the angel of rebuttal. I sat here for 
the last 30 or 40 minutes and heard my colleagues from the Democratic 
side of the aisle, I would add from the liberal side of the Democratic 
side of the aisle, because I think some of the views being espoused by 
the liberal side of the Democrats does not track with some of those 
views that are being shared or espoused by the conservative Democrats. 
So I think we should split that out.
  I would like to rebut just a few of the comments that have been made 
by preceding speakers whom were not rebutted. There was no opportunity 
to rebut them. Those are the rules. I understand that. This is my 
chance, however, to explain or at least discuss what I believe are some 
of the liberal attacks on President Bush's policy.
  Let me begin by saying that I heard repeatedly, especially from the 
gentleman from Texas, that the Republicans for some reason are 
mathematically challenged. We do not have time, we do not need to spend 
our time this evening making those little kind of, in my opinion, cheap 
shots.
  If one wants to take a look at mathematics, it does not take a lot of 
understanding to understand and to have some kind of comprehension as 
to what is happening in our stock market, what is happening in our 
economy.
  From my liberal friends from the Democratic Party, this just did not 
happen in the last 8 weeks since President Bush has had office. This 
has happened. We began to see the trend several months ago. This is 
exactly, frankly, what their side of the aisle has handed President 
Bush.
  Now, President Bush has not spent his time out there expressing anger 
about the economy that the Democratic leadership through Bill Clinton 
has given to him. Instead, he has gone to their side of the aisle, he 
has gone to the Democratic side of the aisle and said, ``All blame 
aside, let us keep the ship afloat. Before we decide who put the hole 
in the side of the ship, why do we not try and patch the hole? Before 
we put any more water in the bucket, why do we not patch the holes in 
the bucket. Let us see if we cannot resolve this as a team.''

[[Page H1287]]

  Many of my colleagues on the liberal side of the Democratic Party 
have been down to the White House to have discussions with President 
Bush. President Bush in a very professional, nonpartisan, bipartisan 
manner has extended his hand. He is attempting to work with them.
  But night after night, they are down here at this microphone bashing 
President Bush. Night after night, they are down here at this 
microphone talking about how this will not work and that will not work 
and this is not going to go, and it is Mr. No on that side of the 
aisle, from the liberal side of the aisle.
  I am telling my colleagues, this economy is in trouble. My colleagues 
can say what they want, they can say all the feel-good things out 
there, but take a look at the layoffs that have occurred just in the 
last 6 weeks. This is not the time to bash President Bush. This is not 
the time to bash his economic plan simply for the reason of being in 
opposition, of expressing or being in political opposition to it.
  I understand that there is a difference between the Democratic and 
Republican Party. I understand we have to take political positions. 
But, look, when the ship could sink, and I am not saying it is sinking, 
but it has a hole in the side, and when there is a hole in the side, 
maybe my colleagues should do something other than for the sake of 
opposition and for the sake of standing at this microphone and bashing 
this stuff. Why do they not step forward and work in a positive 
fashion. I think that the President has done that with them. I think 
the Republican side has done that with them.
  Frankly, there are many Democrats, fortunately of conservative 
leaning, who have accepted that kind of thing, who are working as a 
team.
  Let me talk about a few of the comments. The gentleman from 
Washington says it is the biggest shell game he has ever seen. That is 
a quote. It is the biggest shell game he has ever seen.
  The very next comment coming from the gentleman from Texas says, now, 
folks, we are not trying to use fear tactics. We are not trying to 
scare the senior citizens. We are not trying to use fear in our way to 
get our point across, but it is the biggest shell game we have ever 
seen.
  Come on. Those kind of tactics are long since past, in my opinion. 
Again, I am not taking away from the right or the liberal to go ahead 
and espouse their views. That is what this floor is for. That is what 
this microphone is for.
  But I am saying to them that it is not a big shell game. It is a very 
serious game out there. It is a game that a lot of people stand to lose 
by if we do not pretty soon sit down and in a fundamental fashion 
figure out what we are going to do with this economy, figure out how we 
are going to get this slowdown in the economy to at least slow down.
  I mean, the rate of those layoffs, we have got to curb it. Go and 
talk to some of those people. Just today look up the business news in 
the newspaper. Just today, Mr. Speaker, take a look at the layoffs that 
were announced. Go to some of those people that have got their job 
layoffs and say, hey, what does a tax cut mean to you.
  How much bickering should we have on the House floor? Should we try 
to go together under our leader and try an economic plan? President 
Bush is a new President in this country. He deserves, at least for a 
while, for my colleagues to extend their cooperativeness to move toward 
some kind of resolution to deal with this economy.
  Now, I know that some of my colleagues will never step forward and 
cross this aisle from the Democrat to the Republican side. I will tell 
my colleagues that, unfortunately, there are some Republicans who may 
never cross the aisle to work with Democrats. But there is certainly 
enough of my colleagues on the Democratic side, combined with enough of 
us on the Republican side, to come together as a team and work with 
this President.
  Let us resolve the issues of the economy, and then go ahead and go on 
your partisan snips and your trip that you wanted to take towards that 
path of partisanship.
  But in the meantime, let us get together with this new President. Let 
us form some kind of coalition to help our economy. This economy is 
threatened. That is no fear tactic. Take a look at it. Unlike the 
statement from the gentleman from Texas who talks about fear tactics, 
unlike the gentleman from Washington who talks about the biggest shell 
game that he has ever seen, the fact that our economy is having some 
difficulties is not a shell game.

                              {time}  1945

  It is not a fear tactic. All you have to do is open your daily 
newspaper and see what happened today. Take a look at what happened 
today. Take a look at what happened to the Dow Jones and Nasdaq and 
what happened to the S&P, and how about job layoffs that were announced 
today and the corporate losses today, and you will get some kind of an 
idea that we ought not to be bickering. And those of my colleagues who 
have important things to say, and many of those preceding me at the 
microphone, they carry some weight in these Chambers, in my opinion, 
they ought to push or pull or throw their weight towards assisting this 
President to come up with some kind of successful method to rescue our 
economy.
  I heard the comment, it is very interesting, this came from the 
gentlewoman from Oregon, a priority is education, and what is the first 
thing that the gentlewoman from Oregon says about education? ``The 
Republicans are putting no money into that program.'' That is a quote.
  The gentlewoman from Oregon says the Republicans are putting no money 
into that program. Give me a break. Come on. My colleagues know there 
are billions of dollars going into education. Ironically, just a few 
comments later the gentlewoman talks about a 5.7 percent increase in 
the President's budget for the new programs, but yet two or three 
sentences before she says, the Republicans put no money into the 
program of education. No money.
  Mr. Speaker, are my colleagues telling me that is not fear tactics? 
Are they telling me there is one Congressman or Congresswoman on this 
floor who does not support education?
  How many Congressmen or Congresswomen can you point out, and I 
address my colleague from Oregon, show me one Congressperson from 
either side of the aisle that opposes education. I have never found 
them. I have been up here for 9 years. I have gone back to my district 
hundreds of times, and I have traveled hundreds of thousands of miles, 
and not only have I not found such a Congressman, I have never found a 
citizen out there who is opposed to education. But let me differentiate 
between finding someone who is opposed to education and someone who 
wants accountability in education.
  Mr. Speaker, frankly some of the preceding speakers say the answer to 
educational woes is just writing a blank check. Testing is unfair. 
Questioning school districts is unfair. Asking for accountability is 
unfair. Give me a break.
  Mr. Speaker, what is fair? What is fair is, number one, every citizen 
in this country is putting money into the education system. Every 
citizen in this country cares about education. Every citizen cares 
about education. Every citizen in this country wants better education 
for our young people. And yet do you not think that as a part of that 
formula to come up with better education you have to have 
accountability? That is exactly what the President's budget does. It 
does it with education, it does it with the military, with the 
Department of Agriculture. It does it with foreign affairs.
  This President came into the White House and he said, Look, you are 
not going to get blank checks. I paraphrase that. You are not going to 
get blank checks. Do not just think you can come to the White House and 
say, we are surrounded by children or military weapons programs or 
farmers and ranchers; so, Mr. President, you just write the check.
  Mr. Speaker, this President had the guts to step forward and say, you 
know what, I want to measure results. What are the results? The same 
kind of thing every one of my colleagues who has spoken critically of 
the President, every one of you, when you go to buy a car, before you 
turn the cash over, you say to the dealer, I want to know about the 
results. By the way, what does Consumer Guide say about the results of

[[Page H1288]]

this? What do my neighbors who own this car say about this type of car? 
What kind of warranty work do you do, and what kind of guarantee do you 
have that this car is going to produce like you promise it is going to 
produce?
  In other words, when you go to the car dealership, you ask for 
accountability from the dealership. When you go to the grocery store, 
opera or to the art museum, you expect to have something in return, and 
you measure it. You measure it by did you have a good time. Did you 
feel that there was something that you got out of going to the art 
museum, or did the product taste good that you got at the grocery 
store. You ask for accountability.
  But when a Republican President takes the White House and asks for 
accountability, we have some of my colleagues stand up here and say, my 
gosh, no money for education. No money for the farmers. No money for 
Medicare. He is taking from Medicare. Come on. Be fair about this.
  Mr. Speaker, my bet is that most of the people that I could talk to 
in my district and across this country would say to you, do not give a 
blank check to any governmental agency. Every governmental agency, 
whether it is education where we are surrounded by children and our 
future, whether it is military where you are surrounded by weapons and 
the future protection of this country, whether it is agriculture where 
you are surrounded by farmers and our food and feed and the need to 
sustain this country for the future, no matter who it is, every one of 
my constituents that I know of would say, Do not write a blank check to 
any Federal agency. Ask for accountability.

  Mr. Speaker, you know what happens with bureaucracy and the lobbyists 
and the special interests, the minute you ask for accountability from a 
Federal program, they attack you like vultures. The minute you say on 
education, for example, what could be more motherhood and apple pie 
than education. As I said earlier, everybody to the person in these 
Chambers, everyone supports education. The liberal left supports 
education; the far right supports education. Everyone supports 
education.
  But, Mr. Speaker, the minute you ask a question, for example, where 
are those 100,000 teachers going to go, or how are we going to 
determine where the money goes for the building of new schools, the 
minute you ask that question, the special interest groups pounce on you 
like you are a piece of raw meat for a hungry tiger. You must be 
against education because you will not vote for this program. What 
gives you the right to ask a question about what kind of results we are 
going to get from testing and from 100,000 new teachers?
  Mr. Speaker, take a look at that program where we theoretically put 
100,000 cops on the streets. Take a look at some of these things. You 
have a fundamental obligation. It is inherent upon every one of my 
colleagues to ask those questions. How do we measure results? What 
results are acceptable? What results will we get for the dollars we are 
putting in?
  Now, a lot of my colleagues are afraid to discuss the results because 
they know that the results coming in will not match the dollars going 
out, and the special interest groups who are hired, by the way, 
interestingly enough, a lot of lobbyists are paid for by taxpayer 
dollars to lobby for more taxpayer dollars. Do you think they have the 
benefit or the interest of the taxpayer, of the working American out 
there in their mind? No. They are hired by taxpaying entities to come 
back here to a taxpayer-subsidized or fully supported entity to lobby 
for more taxpayer dollars. And the minute you ask for results, hey, we 
are putting this many dollars out; what kind of results are we getting 
in, oh boy, do they know how to paint a picture in your district that 
you are antifarming, or you are antieducation, or you are antimilitary, 
or you are antipeople. That is exactly the game that goes on here.
  To the gentleman from Washington State, if he wants to talk about a 
shell game, that is the shell game. The minute you ask for 
accountability, the minute you want to know about results, the minute 
you want to see if the people of our country are benefiting from the 
dollars that these Federal agencies are spending, woe, woe be you, 
because here comes the special interest groups. Here comes the paid 
lobbyists to trash you in any way they can.
  Why? Because they do not want those results out; because in many 
cases, the results do not match, match meaning in proportion to what we 
expect for results, they do not match. The dollars going out do not 
match the results coming in. They do not want to be held accountable, 
because you know what happens if you are held accountable? You will 
have to change your ways. And there are a lot of people paid a lot of 
money in Washington, D.C., to make sure the government does not change 
its ways.
  Well, we now have a President who has had enough guts to step up, for 
example, to the American Bar Association. For 26 years nobody has had 
enough guts to question their ratings on judges. How dare this 
President question the American Bar Association? I am an attorney, by 
the way, so I know a little about the American Bar Association. In my 
opinion, a lot of the people, or those lawyers, that is the association 
of lawyers, in my opinion, a lot of them are prima donnas. But how dare 
a President question the American Bar Association? This President has 
enough guts to do it, and he has done it.
  How dare a President come into the White House and say to the 
military generals, hey, I am very promilitary, I want a strong 
military, I want the best military in the world, but I am not going to 
sign a blank check for every military program out there. You better 
justify. You better give me accountability on these weapon systems that 
you are asking for in the military. You better have some answers for 
some pretty tough questions. Oh, my gosh, a President has enough guts 
to do that?
  Take a look at foreign affairs. President Bush, he stands up. He says 
to Russia, do not spy, or we expel your people. He says to China, you 
have to worry about human rights. He says to North Korea, it is not 
going to be a giveaway on your nuclear power negotiations.

  This President deserves some support. I am not saying he deserves my 
colleagues' rallying for him. I am not saying the Democrats have to be 
a cheerleader for President Bush, but I am saying that he deserves some 
time to try and put this economy back on its rail, because it was 
derailed when he got to it, and he deserves, instead of my colleagues 
standing up here in front of this microphone and doing everything they 
can to object for the sake of objecting, not for the sake of 
improvement, but for the sake of objection, this President deserves 
more. And more important than this President deserving it, the American 
people deserve more, and we ought to deliver it for him.
  Let me address a couple of other things. First of all, this tax cut. 
I like the Johnny-Come-Latelies. Some of the people talking today, 
well, we are for a tax cut. Well, take a look at the history of those 
individuals. They did not support tax cuts in the past. All of a sudden 
the reason they are on is that seems to be the bandwagon in town, and 
whatever you say, do not say you are opposed to a tax cut, at least say 
you are for some kind of tax cut. But always say, well, a tax cut that 
protects all the people, et cetera, et cetera.
  Then I heard someone up there saying, well, buying down the debt. By 
the way, for the gentleman from Texas, who talks about buying down the 
debt, just for a little accounting information here, when debt is 
issued, there are different levels of debt that can be issued. If there 
is no prepayment penalty, which means you can pay off that debt at any 
time you wish, all you have to do is call up the owner of the debt and 
say, I am going to pay you tomorrow. You put in what is known as a call 
provision. I am calling what I owe; I am going to pay it off. That 
carries less of a return than if you do not have that right.
  So what happened with the government, it wanted to maximize its 
return in many cases, and so it forfeited the right to make that kind 
of call. So there is a penalty when you pay down that debt. That is 
basic economics 101. Do not pretend that it is not out there. Do not 
pooh-pooh the President because the President says, hey, we need to do 
this in such a fiscal manner that it makes economic sense. Why pay a 
penalty for debt that is outstanding when we do not have to? It is 
something we ought to consider.

[[Page H1289]]

  Let me go on to another point. Let me talk for a couple of moments 
about the oldest scheme in town, and that is the scheme to come up here 
to this microphone, and we see it at every level of government, by the 
way, and talk about how their budgets are being cut. Let me talk about 
how that contrasts to the American families out there; how it differs.
  Let me, first of all, talk about an American family who, let us say, 
makes $10. We will forget the percentages here and make it simplified. 
If an American family has in their family budget $10 for the year, and 
the next year the American family, and let us call them Joe and Jane 
Smith, our American family, and they spent $10. That is their budget. 
And the next year that Smith family sits down and they have $15 in 
their budget. What would the average American say happened to the 
budget? It was $10 last year; it is $15 this year. Everyone I know, 
with the exception of government officials and government agencies and 
lobbyists and special interests, everyone I know would say, hey, if you 
got $15 this year, and you had $10 last year, it is a $5 increase.

                              {time}  2000

  Your budget actually went up $5, and if you took the $5 and the $10, 
you could say that the budget went up 50 percent; our budget in our 
family this year increased 50 percent over what it was last year.
  Well, here is the old scheme, the old tactic they use in government 
agencies and government programs. They put in a budget. The budget, 
again, same thing, $10 last year. This year that agency says we would 
like to have $20. So we meet here in these chambers and we decide, 
look, we are not going to give the agency $20. We are going to give 
them $15.
  Do you know what happens? The agency goes out there and starts to 
tell its constituency, who generally that constituency are people who 
benefit from the Federal program, so, for example, if it is agriculture 
they go out to the farmers, if it is education they go out to the 
teachers, if it is military they go out to the military people and they 
say, look, we asked for $20 and that Republican Congress only gave us 
$15. We got cut $5. We got cut, our budget got cut.
  Their budget did not get cut. The budget was increased. It went from 
$10 to $15. We did not give them what they asked. We gave them an 
increase. Last year it was $10. This year it is $15. They get a $5 
increase.
  They go out to their constituency, and we heard it this evening from 
the preceding speakers, and they say it is a $5 cut.
  My colleague, the gentlewoman from Oregon, says there is no money in 
education, President Bush put no money in the education program, and 2 
minutes later or even two sentences later she said it was only a 5.7 
percent increase.
  Now there it is even more extreme; no money in education because we 
only have a 5.7 percent increase. How many American workers out there 
can expect a 5.7 percent increase in their budget this year?
  I will say something. There are a lot of American workers who are 
going to feel very lucky to have their job next year. Take a look at 
the layoffs. So for us up here as elected officials to stand here and 
say there is no money for education because it only got a 5.7 percent 
increase, no wonder there is deep distrust for government, especially 
when it comes to handling taxpayer dollars.
  Now let us speak for a moment about the surplus. I know people keep 
bantering around the surplus. What they are trying to do, do not kid 
yourself, do not kid yourself, there are some of you on this floor who 
want the surplus kept in Washington, D.C., not to reduce the debt. Now, 
that is the front you put on it. That is the picture that you paint, 
look, we want to keep the surplus in Washington, American people. Trust 
us. We want to reduce the Federal debt. Trust us. That is why we want 
it in Washington.
  You know, as well as I know, that a lot of you have the true intent 
that that money should be used for new programs.
  Let us talk about some of the new programs that come before Congress. 
We very rarely, and I say this after years of service in elected 
office, I very rarely, in fact I cannot recall one time when somebody 
came into my office asking for a new program that was a bad program. In 
my case, every program that has been proposed to me has merits to it. 
Our decisions up here are never between good and bad programs. That is 
an easy choice. Our decisions are always between good and good 
programs.
  Just the other day, in one day, in one day, I had requests for about 
$1 billion. They wanted a couple hundred million more for this 
increased spending. They wanted four or five hundred million here for 
the new space program; increased spending. They wanted another couple 
million here for flood control; increased spending. They wanted another 
couple hundred million here for a new program for children.
  These demands for those dollars will continue to come in as long as 
there are elected officials and as long as we have constituencies.
  So to come up here and say that you think you have the ability, with 
those kind of demands from our constituents, to hold a big pot of money 
in surplus is wrong.
  We have a program in Colorado for the uranium miners. These people 
were poisoned producing uranium for this Nation to fight its wars and 
to have the kind of weapons that we needed. The United States conceded 
the claims to those people, conceded the claims to those people. That 
money is due and owed to those people. The United States Government has 
agreed, they have acknowledged that, they have admitted to the claim. 
They have yet to pay the claim, and the first thing that comes up is, 
gosh, there is a surplus. So why are these claims not being paid? 
Whether there is a surplus or not, those claims ought to be paid.
  The fact is this: Everybody out there in education, in farming, in 
the military, in new highways, in new welfare programs, in new health 
care programs, in expansion of Medicare, in expansion of Social 
Security, everybody out there has got their eyes on this big surplus 
and they have ideas of how to increase the size of the government.

  Now, in some cases we as a collective body establish priorities. For 
example, President Bush in his education budget decided that a 5.7 
percent increase in a massive education budget was necessary, and we 
needed to expand the program. I am not standing here this evening 
saying that we should deny any expansion of Federal programs, but I am 
saying that do not mislead the American people by saying that if we 
keep a surplus in Washington it will not be spent; it will be used to 
reduce the debt.
  The fact is, Mr. Speaker, and I think you have an obligation to tell 
your constituents, that any dollars left in Washington, D.C. is like 
putting a cookie jar in a kitchen in front of a bunch of kindergartners 
who have not had lunch. What are you going to expect? Of course you are 
going to expect those kids to go to the cookie jar. I would lead the 
pack.
  Back here in Washington, D.C., if you leave a pile of money called a 
surplus, what do you think is going to happen? Every special interest 
group back here, a lot of lobbyists will be paid big, big dollars and a 
lot of agencies will go out there and gather the softest, most 
emotional aspect of their constituency, like children for education, or 
farmers in farming, or military, et cetera, and they will go after that 
cookie jar. That is why when you have a surplus the size of the surplus 
that now exists, we must make a decision, especially in light of the 
fact that we have very difficult economic times ahead if we do not get 
ahead of this train. That is why when we have that here, that is why we 
must decide do we leave this money here and create new programs or make 
additional commitments for more Federal spending, that when the 
economic bad times come and our surplus evaporates we will not have the 
money to continue them?
  We tried this many years ago in the State of Colorado in the 1970s. 
By the way, Mr. Speaker, as a reminder, my district is Colorado. I 
represent the mountains of the State of Colorado, almost all the 
mountains, the Third Congressional District. In Colorado, in the 1970s, 
we had a big surplus. In 1982, they called it Black Sunday; Exxon 
announced its pullout of Colorado out of the oil shelf development. 
Colorado went into a recession. Our budget was a tough budget.

[[Page H1290]]

  I was in the legislature at the time. We even figured out what the 
cost of opening a door with an electric switch was. That is what dire 
straits we were in economically, because in Colorado, thank goodness, 
somebody had the foresight to require a balanced budget years before. 
So in Colorado we had to have a balanced budget. We had to cut some 
things.
  People began to say, wait a minute. In the early days of the 1970s 
when there was a big surplus in Colorado, the Colorado legislators 
returned that money to the taxpayers. Had they not returned that money 
to the taxpayers in the State of Colorado in the 1970s that money would 
have been committed for an expansion of government programs in the 
State of Colorado. When the recession came in the early 1980s, we would 
have been in more dramatic trouble because we could not meet larger 
commitments made because the surplus was not returned to the taxpayers.
  Now all of us agree that some of the surplus here will be consumed by 
programs that are considered by this collective body as a necessary 
expansion of a Federal program. For example, we know we have a lot of 
baby-boomers. We know that every day more people turn 62 or 65. So we 
know that whether you want to expand a program or not, the fact is 
Social Security is going to have to expand every day because you have 
more people turning 62 or 65. Those programs we have to take the 
surplus, parts of the surplus, and fund those programs. But if we have 
programs that are not essentially necessary, not what people want 
because every constituent out there wants something out of a Federal 
surplus, there are a lot of good programs that people want, the fact is 
that we cannot fund them all. Even if we could fund them all today, we 
may not be able to fund them tomorrow when this economic downturn takes 
hold.

  This surplus is coming in for a little while so we may create and 
spend that money at the government level today, but we may not, again 
to repeat we may not, tomorrow have the money to pay for it. Then 
people will really suffer when the government does not have the money 
to follow through on its commitments.
  I think the gentlewoman from Oregon says when you make a promise like 
this, you have to keep that promise. Let me say, when you obligate 
those surplus dollars for expansion of Federal programs, the 
beneficiaries of those Federal programs considered that a promise. When 
you cannot fund it because your surplus is evaporating, when you cannot 
fund it because you do not have the dollars, the people who are the 
beneficiaries of those programs consider it a broken promise, and you 
are about to set yourself up for this. If you do not return to the 
taxpayer a substantial amount of those dollars that are not needed for 
the necessary programs, you are setting yourself up for a broken 
promise because this government, in my opinion, this economy, in my 
opinion, cannot sustain the kind of growth rate that we have 
experienced over the last several years, at least for a short period of 
time, maybe a longer period of time. So do not set yourself up for 
those broken promises.
  By the way, I heard one of the preceding speakers say, well, the 
Republicans, and obviously this was one of our liberal colleagues, want 
to return taxpayer dollars to people that will not use it. How does a 
taxpayer who gets taxpayer dollars back not use the money?
  There is one way, two ways, I guess. You destroy the money, you go 
out in your backyard, you light a match and you burn the money up; you 
destroy it. You are not using the money. You destroyed it. Or I guess 
you could go out in the backyard and dig a hole. You do not destroy the 
money but you put the money in the hole. Other than that, every 
taxpayer, or every person that gets a dollar back, but in this case it 
should be taxpayers because they are the ones who pay taxes, it is not 
a welfare program, it is a refund to the people who paid the taxes in 
should get the taxes back, the excess back, every one of those people 
will use those dollars. I do not care if they are in the 10 percent 
bracket. I do not care if they are one of the wealthiest families in 
America. Every one of those people will use those tax dollars. They 
will either put it in the bank, in which case the bank will turn around 
in the community and make loans to the community to people who are 
trying to make a business a success, and hire people in the community. 
They may go out and buy a brand new TV. They may go out and make a 
payment on a credit card debt to reduce their debt. They may use the 
money as a contribution to a charity, or as a contribution to help 
sponsor something at the local school district. Every taxpayer that 
gets a taxpayer dollar back will use those dollars. It just happens.
  So to stand up here, as the preceding speaker did, and say, well, the 
Republicans only want to return tax dollars to those who will not use 
it, I cannot make sense of that kind of comment.
  This evening, Mr. Speaker, I intended to speak about the death tax 
and its ramifications, and I also wanted to speak about water in the 
West, but next week I intend to return to this podium and speak about 
water in the West.

                              {time}  2015

  It is a very critical issue. In the east, basically, the problem with 
water is getting rid of it. In the west, our problem is trying to store 
it and obtain it. Colorado, the State that I represent, is very unique. 
In fact, the district that I represent is especially unique. My 
district is the third congressional district of Colorado. That district 
is the highest district in elevation in the Nation. We live at the 
highest elevation of any of the population of any of the districts in 
this country. Our water all runs downhill. As you can imagine, when you 
are at the high point, your water runs downhill. In my particular 
district in my particular State, that district gets 80 percent of the 
water and 80 percent of the population resides outside of it. Water 
storage, water for power generation, water for protection of our 
environment, water for human consumption, water for agriculture. It 
takes on different particularities in the west than it does in the 
east. There is a clear differential between water issues of the west 
and water issues of the east.
  Mr. Speaker, although I intended to address it this evening, next 
week I intend to take this podium and speak specifically about the 
water issues of the west and the east. But this evening, I felt it 
necessary to rebut some of the remarks and some of the attacks that 
were directed towards the President's program on economic recovery, 
some of the remarks that were being made about the surplus, some of the 
false pretenses, in my opinion, that may have been created as a result 
of an impression that allowing surplus money to stay in Washington 
means that surplus will automatically reduce the debt. I felt we had to 
address that.
  However, there is another issue I think we need to address tonight 
called the death tax. I have talked about this a number of times. Some 
of my colleagues say, oh, boy, here it goes again, the death tax. Well, 
do my colleagues know why I keep coming up here about the death tax? 
Because I have a lot of families, and these are not the Gates, these 
are not the wealthiest families of America that I am speaking of. I 
have a lot of families in my district that are suffering because the 
government has taken it upon itself to go in upon the death of a family 
member and consider death a taxable event and take money from that 
family, money in the form of property from that family, despite the 
fact that all of the taxes have been paid on that property. It is 
called the death tax, and it is fundamentally unfair. I have heard 
repeatedly from this floor, well, it is just the rich people, and they 
ought to have to give back to the community. By the way, the death tax 
is not giving back to the community, the death tax is a taking. It is 
forcing you to take.
  By the way, my second point, when the government comes in and imposes 
a death tax upon the estate of a member of one's family, we should not 
kid ourselves that for one minute that money goes back to the 
community. Do my colleagues know where that money goes? It comes to 
Washington, D.C. for this collective body to redistribute throughout 
this fine country. And how many of those dollars do we think go back to 
the little community or even the large community under which that 
person was a citizen or where that person resided prior to their death. 
Do not let people tell us that by

[[Page H1291]]

going and attacking a person's estate, that those dollars are given 
back to the community. It does not go back to the local community.
  I think the best way to express it, and, by the way, Bill Gates I 
think has taken opposition to the death tax, but his father who spoke 
from a foundation headquarters, his foundation was created to get 
around death taxes. It was some of the wealthier families. Some of the 
wealthier families may not have, but some of the wealthier families in 
this country who said that the death tax is a good tax, keep it in 
place, those families have already created their foundations, they have 
already hired their attorneys, they have already secured their life 
insurance, so that they have minimal impact when they pass on. We can 
bet our bottom dollar that every one of those wealthy families who 
recently signed an ad saying keep the death tax in place, we can bet 
every dollar we have that they have already arranged to make sure that 
the next generation of their family will have a very comfortable 
living.
  What about those people like a lot of people in my district who 
cannot afford the team of attorneys, who have no idea how to create a 
foundation, who do not have the money to do the kind of estate planning 
that allows one to hire and pay huge premiums for life insurance. What 
about those families? By the way, those families could be a family of a 
deceased person, a person deceased who had a dump truck, a bulldozer 
and a backhoe free and clear and a garage. In my district, that puts 
one in estate tax territory, in death tax territory.
  Well, I think the best way to pass this on to my colleagues is to 
read some of the expressions that have been related to me through 
letters from people who have heard me from this microphone speak about 
the death tax and the inequity of death tax and how it has devastated 
families in this country. It is fundamentally the most unfair tax that 
we have in our entire system of taxation.

  Let me start out, this one is from a gentleman, Mr. Marshall Frasier. 
``Dear Congressman McInnis. I was encouraged by President Bush's State 
of the Union in his outline of his proposed budget and the tax relief. 
I am President of the Colorado Livestock Association and elimination of 
the death tax is our members' number one tax priority.
  ``We have operated as a family partnership since the middle 1930s. My 
parents died about 5 years apart in the 1980s, and the estate tax on 
each of their one-fifth interest was 3 to 4 times more than the total 
cost of the ranch which was purchased in 1946.''
  In other words, the estate tax on one-fifth of the interest of his 
father and one-fifth of the interest of his mother's interest in the 
ranch, the estate tax on that totaled more, each of them, individually, 
that one-fifth, the tax on that one-fifth totaled more than the entire 
purchase price of the ranch in 1946, and we call that equity, we call 
that fairness. This is a ranch, by the way, where all of the taxes have 
been paid.
  Let me continue. ``Eliminating the death tax and marriage penalty and 
reducing the tax rates will go a long way towards providing jobs and 
bolstering the national economy. This, in turn, will enable hard-
working families in the Colorado cattle industry to pass their heritage 
on to the next generation.''
  Let me stop here for a moment. A lot of this is not about passing 
money to the next generation; a lot of this is about passing a way of 
life to the next generation. In this letter Mr. Frasier says, to pass 
our heritage. My in-laws happen to be ranchers. They love the land. 
They do not make any money on the ranching operation, but they love the 
land. They have been on that land since the 1880s, since the 1880s. 
What is their goal in life? One, they are proud of their heritage, they 
are proud of what they do, and they want to have the opportunity to 
pass it on for 100 generations to come. Why should not a family be able 
to pass on the family farm for 100 generations to come. Why should the 
government have a right to come in to somebody like Mr. Frazier and his 
parents and say to his father who has a one-fifth interest in the 
ranch, the tax on your one-fifth interest in the ranch is going to be 
more than the total purchase price of the ranch.
  Mr. Speaker, this should be a country that encourages heritage and 
family operations to go from one generation to the next. This should 
not be a country that discourages family business or farms or ranches 
from going from one generation to the next.
  Let me continue. ``I have 3 sons involved in our operation and a 
grandson starting college next fall and it is important that we keep 
agriculture viable, to keep our beef industry from becoming integrated 
as pork and poultry have become. We need to make it possible for our 
youth to be able to stay on our ranches and farms.''
  Mr. Frazier, you are right.
  Nathan Steelman, another constituent of mine. Now, this is 
interesting. This is not an old-time rancher writing to me, this is not 
a well-polished politician writing me, this is not somebody in their 
40s or 50s writing me after they have had an opportunity for a career; 
this is a college student, this is a letter from a college student, 
Nathan Steelman.
  ``Dear Congressman. I am a college student at the University of 
Southern Colorado in Pueblo which is in your district. I grew up in a 
family which has lived and thrived in agriculture for many years. My 
parents and grandparents are involved in a typical family farm, a farm 
that has been in the same family for more than 125 years. My grandpa is 
76 years old and in the last years of his life. My parents have been 
discussing this situation for the last several months. My parents worry 
about the death tax. They worry about how they are going to be able to 
keep the farm running once grandpa passes away. The eventual loss of my 
grandpa will trigger this tax upon my family's inheritance. My parents 
hope that they will be able to pay this tax without having to sell part 
of our family operation that my family has so hard worked in 
maintaining over many years. The outcome, however, does not look good. 
Farmers and ranchers are having enough trouble keeping family 
operations running the way it is. Statistics show that 70 percent of 
all family businesses do not survive a second generation, and 87 
percent do not survive a third generation. My family has worked very 
hard to keep the family farm running this long. We feel as if we are 
being penalized for the death of a family member. From what I 
understand, the opposition is concerned about are many individuals who 
are being affected by the death tax are those that are theoretically 
very wealthy people. Statistics show, though, that more than half of 
all people who pay death taxes had estates that are valued at less than 
$1 million. My family falls under this same category. That just does 
not seem fair to me.

  ``Mr. McInnis, my family's farm is not located within your district, 
but when I moved to Pueblo, I felt like I needed to express my concerns 
to someone who might be dedicated to abolishing this death tax. I hope 
that you do this.''
  Let me go through a couple other letters. Generally, I do not read up 
here. Generally I like to make my comments without reading, but these 
letters are very moving. These letters were not solicited by my office, 
by the way. These letters were sent in on their own volition.
  This letter is from Chris Anderson. ``Dear sir, my name is Chris 
Anderson. I am 24 years old and I currently run a small business. It is 
a mail order business. I am not a constituent. I currently reside in 
New Jersey. However, I listened with great interest as you spoke this 
evening on the topic of the death tax, as you called it. I in all 
likelihood will not face the problems you were outlining.''
  Let me point that out. This gentleman writing this letter says in all 
likelihood, I am not going to face the problems that you have outlined, 
at least not in the near future.
  ``I am not in line to inherit a business. However, I am soon to be 
married and look forward to having a family and perhaps one day my 
children will want to follow in my footsteps. I hope and pray they will 
not be faced with the additional grief caused by a death tax. A 55 
percent tax is, at best, a huge burden on a family business and the 
loved ones of the deceased. At worst it can be a death blow that ruins 
what could otherwise have been the future of yet another generation.''

[[Page H1292]]

  Let me repeat that. At worst, it can be a death blow that ruins what 
could otherwise have been the future of yet another generation. This is 
a 24-year-old young man talking about trying to preserve the future of 
another generation and talking about what the death tax does to 
threaten that next generation.

                              {time}  2030

  He is 24 years old and he is already thinking about the next 
generation. This letter is not a plea for help.
  ``I just want you to know that although I am not a victim of this 
tax, I appreciate the fight against it. I firmly believe that Congress 
and the government at large need to recognize that America's future is 
and will always be firmly rooted in the success of small business. Many 
of these businesses are family-owned and need the next generation to be 
able to continue them into the future.
  ``I spent a few years working for a small family-owned business. Not 
just myself but several workers depended on the income they derived 
from working for this small family business operation. I fear for those 
workers when the tax man comes knocking. This tax has claws that rip at 
many people, and many more people than the immediate family of the 
deceased. It also has a huge impact on the employees of the family 
business.
  ``I hope your constituents recognize this and they will continue to 
work to get rid of this tax.''
  Now, remember, what this letter focuses on is not his particular 
situation, but what it does to the employees of a small business who 
may not themselves inherit the business but who depend on that farm of 
another family or depend on that business of another family for their 
living.
  Recently, we had a death in my district in a small community, and 
this individual was hit with the death tax, the estate was. Do Members 
know what it did to that community? That individual was the largest 
employer in the community, the largest contributor to charities, the 
largest contributor to his local church, the largest owner of real 
estate in that community.
  Do Members know what happened to that community? All of those assets 
and those jobs, that money that supported many, that had to be 
accumulated in a pot. The majority of that money, the majority, this is 
not an exaggeration or an embellishment, the majority of that money had 
to be wired to Washington, D.C. for redistribution throughout this 
country.
  Do Members think any of those dollars went back to that little 
community in the State of Colorado, or it could have been in the 
community of Missouri, or out in Michigan, or in California, New York, 
or Virginia? This hurts those communities. It does not just devastate 
families, it hurts people that are related to that small business, that 
work for that small business.
  Again, a lot of the big businesses and wealthy people have planned 
around this. They have purchased premiums for life insurance.
  Fundamentally, this death tax is not only unfair, it has consequences 
that were never intended by the drafters of our Constitution. If the 
people that dreamed of America, if the frontiers-people of our country, 
if the Founders of our country, if those people who fought in the 
Revolutionary War ever imagined that at some point this government, 
which theoretically encourages creativity, encourages small business, 
theoretically encourages freedom, if they could believe or if they 
would hear that the government itself would tax death as an event, and 
that the government would take that money from a community and transfer 
it to the Nation's capital, to a central authority for redistribution, 
they would turn in their grave. They would not believe it. It defies 
the dream of being a success in America. It defies the American dream.
  That is not to say somebody should not pay taxes. I need to remind 
the Members that these death taxes are on property that has already had 
its taxes paid. It is simply a way to generate money.
  When the government and the bureaucracy needs to figure out how to 
generate money, they have to figure out an event. If we buy a car, 
there is a reason to generate revenue, sales tax. If we make money, 
there is income tax. If we buy gasoline, there is fuel tax. So they 
figure, ``What are we going to do? There is a pot of money out there 
that maybe we ought to have. Let us get our hands on it.''
  If we take a look at the origins of the death tax, we will see that 
it was a theory of people that redistribution in this country was what 
we should do. We should move from a capitalistic society to a 
socialistic society, where central authority redistributes the dollars. 
As a vendetta against the Fords, the Carnegies, and Rockefellers, they 
imposed this tax way back then.
  Look, that theory failed. This country does not believe in 
redistribution of wealth, it believes in the capitalistic type of 
system. It should get rid of this tax. This tax only punishes these 
young people, this 24-year-old and this young man and his wife who have 
a mail order business. Why punish them? Let us encourage the next 
generation.
  Let me conclude by saying we have covered two subjects this evening.
  One, I spent the first part of my remarks rebutting what was being 
said about the surplus in the budget and so on. Mr. Speaker, I want to 
say to the Members, they need to say to their constituents, if we leave 
dollars laying around in Washington, D.C., the special interest groups 
and some of the highest paid professionals in this country, the 
lobbyists, are waiting for those dollars to be sitting here so they can 
put them into new programs. It is not going to go back to the 
taxpayers, it is going to create a larger and bigger government. Some 
day we will pay the price for letting the government grow too big.
  So I talked about that, and rebutted some of the comments made 
earlier by some of my colleagues.
  The second part was this death tax. We have an opportunity to reduce 
or eliminate or significantly alter this punishment tax. That is 
exactly what it is.
  Do not listen to some of these wealthy families who signed an ad, 
like Ted Turner and some of those people, and in my opinion he is one 
of the most pompous people I ever met, who said, ``Let us keep this in 
place,'' et cetera, et cetera. Listen to that 24-year-old who has a 
small operation. Listen to the young man who has no business, and he is 
not going to inherit anything. Listen to what he says about the next 
generation.
  I ask Members to take their time this weekend when they go back to 
their districts to talk to those people that are not the billionaires, 
those people who just barely are getting by, but they want to pass 
heritage from one generation to the next generation.
  I think Members have an obligation to do that. If they really do it, 
I think they will come back here next week ready to vote with us to 
eliminate or reduce the death tax and the burden it puts on the 
American people.

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