[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 53 (Wednesday, April 25, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H1568-H1582]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                TAX LIMITATION CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT

  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to H. Res. 118, I call up 
the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 41) proposing an amendment to the 
Constitution of the United States with respect to tax limitations.
  The Clerk read the title of the joint resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 118, the joint 
resolution is considered read for amendment.
  The text of House Joint Resolution 41 is as follows:

                              H.J. Res. 41

       Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
     United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of 
     each House concurring therein), That the following article is 
     proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United 
     States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as 
     part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of 
     three-fourths of the several States within seven years after 
     the date of its submission for ratification:

                              ``Article --

       ``Section 1. Any bill, resolution, or other legislative 
     measure changing the internal revenue laws shall require for 
     final adoption in each House the concurrence of two-thirds of 
     the Members of that House voting and present, unless that 
     bill, resolution, or other legislative measure is determined 
     at the time of adoption, in a reasonable manner prescribed by 
     law, not to increase the internal revenue by more than a de 
     minimis amount. For the purposes of determining any increase 
     in the internal revenue under this section, there shall be 
     excluded any increase resulting from the lowering of an 
     effective rate of any tax. On any vote for which the 
     concurrence of two-thirds is required under this article, the 
     yeas and nays of the Members of either House shall be entered 
     on the Journal of that House.
       ``Section 2. The Congress may waive the requirements of 
     this article when a declaration of war is in effect. The 
     Congress may also waive this article when the United States 
     is engaged in military conflict which causes an imminent and 
     serious threat to national security and is so declared by a 
     joint resolution, adopted by a majority of the whole number 
     of each House, which becomes law. Any increase in the 
     internal revenue enacted under such a waiver shall be 
     effective for not longer than two years.''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Sensenbrenner) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) each will 
control 60 minutes of debate on the joint resolution.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Sensenbrenner).
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.J. Res. 41, the tax limitation 
amendment, which was introduced by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Sessions) and ordered reported by the Committee on Judiciary on April 
4. This important legislation would amend the Constitution by requiring 
a two-thirds majority vote by Congress for any bill that increases the 
internal revenue by more than a de minimis amount.
  The effect of this amendment would not preclude Congress from 
amending the internal revenue laws so long as the change in the law did 
not increase revenue by more than a de minimis amount. For example, a 
bill that both lowered and increased taxes, if it were revenue neutral 
would not be subject to the two-thirds requirement, nor would it would 
a bill intended to raise revenue by reducing taxes.
  In addition, the two-thirds majority requirement would be waived when 
a declaration of war is in effect or when both Houses of Congress pass 
a resolution which becomes law stating that the United States is 
engaged in military conflict which causes an imminent and serious 
threat to national security.
  Mr. Speaker, 15 States have adopted similar tax limitation 
amendments. According to statistics provided by the Bureau of Economic 
Analysis, these States have benefited from greater rates of increased 
employment, greater economic growth, decreased government spending, and 
decreased rates of tax growth.
  Although similar amendments have been unsuccessfully considered by 
the House over the past few years, the need for tax reform has never 
been greater. According to the Congressional Budget Office, with the 
exception of 1942, the overall amount of individual income tax revenues 
is a higher percentage of our gross domestic product than any other 
time in our history.
  The bottom line is the taxes today are too high. Federal, State, and 
local taxes consume about 40 percent of the income of the average 
family. That is more than the average family spends on food, clothing, 
and shelter combined.
  As Congress debates meaningful tax relief for the American people, it 
is also important to recognize that Congress's voracious appetite for 
spending still endures. That is why I think it is more important than 
ever for this Congress to reconsider and support a measure that will 
make it more difficult for Congress to raise taxes in the future.
  Inevitably, there will come a time when Congress wishes to spend more 
but will not have budget surpluses to rely upon. There will be many who 
will argue that, in order for Congress to spend more from here in 
Washington, D.C., we will need to take more from the hard-working 
citizens across our great Nation.
  However, I believe this is the wrong approach, and there is another 
way to meet our Nation's priorities. That is by taking our bill and 
reducing wasteful spending, ferreting out fraud and eliminating 
ineffective programs. Raising taxes should be a last-ditch option and 
should occur only after careful consideration with broad consensus.
  Mr. Speaker, a constitutional amendment is a big step; but I believe 
our history of tax hikes illustrates that, in this case, it is 
necessary and an important step that will bring needed discipline to 
Congress and relief to America's people.
  I urge the passage of this resolution.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, to the ladies and gentlemen of the House, I want to 
begin by thanking the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), the 
chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, for requesting that this 
measure pass through the committee of jurisdiction since this is a 
constitutional subject. In many years passed, that has not been the 
case. So we begin in a very important way on that point.
  Now, I have to presume that the subject of a constitutional matter is 
being done seriously, that this is a serious discussion about amending 
the Constitution of the United States. If it is, then I think it is 
important, that for all of the Members that may not have the seniority 
that comes from being here for many years, that they understand that 
this is the sixth time that we have taken up this measure which has 
been soundly rejected on each prior occasion, not by the Senate, but by 
ourselves.
  So every year, this exercise is one that is brought to the floor and 
that we have to deal with it in good faith and using up the time of the 
House of Representatives to determine whether we want to put a tax 
limitation constitutional amendment in the Constitution.
  Now, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), the chairman of the 
Committee on Rules, has coined a phrase that this proposal may be 
nothing more than elitism gone conservative; that this is a 
conservative elitist idea; that the Republicans, as a party, know 
better than the Founding Fathers and the people's will as reflected by 
the majority of the Congress. They have a better idea.
  We go through this every year. But not even within our body do we 
find that there is a serious enough amount of support to move it to the 
other body where we think we could predict what would happen there as 
well.
  So I oppose the amendment because it is bad for democratic procedure, 
but it is also horrific for tax policy. By requiring a two-thirds 
amendment, a majority to adopt certain legislation, we undercut the 
majority rule and diminish the vote of every single Member of the 
Congress.
  Now, this matter was taken up when our Founders were together. The 
framers wisely rejected a rule requiring a supermajority for basic 
government functions. James Madison argued that, under a supermajority 
requirement,

[[Page H1569]]

the fundamental principle of free government would be reversed. It 
would no longer be the majority that would rule. The power would 
instead have transferred to a minority.
  It is on that basis that I apply the same logic now as James Madison 
applied then in determining whether a supermajority would be 
appropriate in the Constitution. The amendment is unsatisfactory 
because it is an undemocratic one.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania (Ms. Hart), a member of the Committee on the 
Judiciary.
  Ms. HART. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Joint Resolution 41 
and believe that this is actually a commonsense measure and one that 
actually enforces some discipline on the Congress to reexamine 
spending.
  As we look at the budgets over recent history, Mr. Speaker, we see 
that the spending has increased year to year to year by more than 
inflation. More importantly, Mr. Speaker, it is increased by higher 
than the average incomes of Pennsylvanians has increased and higher 
than the incomes of Americans.
  Mr. Speaker, it is only sensible for us as Members of Congress to 
enforce some discipline on ourselves so that we do not drive Americans 
to the poor house.
  It is a sensible measure that should be supported by all the Members 
to put this in place, but it is also sensible that to require a tax 
increase we would have to have bipartisan agreement.
  Clearly, Americans are of both parties and many other third parties. 
Americans do not want to be forced to pay more taxes only because of 
the decision of one-half plus one of the Congress. It only makes sense 
for us to heed their wishes and be more careful with their dollars. 
This measure would only enforce that discipline on us. It would make us 
more responsive to Americans. It would also make them more sensitive to 
their families' pocketbooks.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, apparently, Members of the Congress now all very 
simplistically refute James Madison. The gentlewoman from Pennsylvania 
(Ms. Hart), the previous speaker, a very important and valuable member 
of the Committee on the Judiciary, just told us in effect, who cares 
what Madison was thinking? I mean, that was then, and this is now.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CONYERS. Of course I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I recall one of the compromises that 
got the Constitution through the convention in the States was one that 
permitted slaves to be imported for the first 20 years of the 
Constitution and did not specifically omit slavery. Now, was Madison 
enlightened at that time, or did we need to amend the Constitution to 
get rid of something that my State fought to get rid of in the Civil 
War?
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, that is an interesting 
question that the chairman poses. If he would entertain hearings on my 
reparations bill, H.R. 40, which has been pending since 1989, I would 
be delighted with other witnesses to go in to him with a discussion of 
what the Members of States from the South who were all slave holding 
States did.
  Mr. Speaker, I did not mean to imply that James Madison or even 
Thomas Jefferson, perish the thought, was right every time on every 
issue. But I am referring to the question of whether a supermajority 
requirement on this subject should be put into the Constitution.
  Now, James Madison made many mistakes. By the way, so did all the 
other Founding Fathers. I mean, do you want to start with George 
Washington and come forward?

                              {time}  1115

  The compromise to include slavery was only made, sir, because it was 
the only way we could form a Nation. The southern leaders all said that 
without that compromise they would not do it. What I am saying here is 
that on the requirement for a supermajority James Madison was entirely 
correct then and those who cite him, including myself, are entirely 
correct now.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. If the gentleman will yield further, with all due 
respect to my good friend the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), I 
am certainly happy, Mr. Speaker, that he was not around to promote his 
earlier argument about Madison's enlightenment at the time the Congress 
debated the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments 140 years ago. I thank the 
gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. CONYERS. Could I just point out a little bit of history? I do not 
think Madison was around when the 15th amendment was being debated, 
sir. I do not think Madison was around when the 14th amendment was 
being debated. I do not think he was around when the 13th amendment was 
being debated. But let us take Madison out of the picture. Apparently 
there is some problem with Madison. Let us go to the present day. I 
never thought I would find myself on the floor defending James 
Madison's positions, but let us talk about what would happen if this 
amendment were to actually come into our Constitution. The amendment 
would permanently enshrine some $450 billion of special corporate tax 
favors into the Constitution, nearly three times as much as all the 
means-tested entitlement programs combined, something we have been 
trying to deal with for many years. Now, Madison does not have anything 
to do with that. That is a present day, 21st century problem.
  Another point that we may want to take into present consideration, it 
would be impossible to change the law to require foreign corporations 
to pay their fair share of taxes on income earned in this country or to 
repeal the loopholes which encourage United States corporations to 
relocate overseas. Now, Madison aside, do we really want to do that? Or 
is this an example of conservative elitism carried to an extreme?
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  I am very interested in the argument of the gentleman from Michigan. 
Under this constitutional amendment, we could repeal a tax loophole 
that gave these outrageous benefits to the corporation he mentioned by 
a majority vote as long as the revenue that was raised was distributed 
to the American people. If there was just a flat out repeal, it would 
take a two-thirds vote. This would make it easier to give tax relief to 
the American people in repealing these loopholes.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. 
Hefley).
  Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.J.Res. 41, the 
tax limitation amendment. I spent Easter with my daughter and her 
family out in San Francisco. While we were there, her husband was 
filling out his tax return. This, remember, is a young family. They 
have two children. They cannot afford to buy a home. They are renting a 
home. They have a good job but they are starting out as a young family.
  When he finished filling out his tax return, he said, you know, we 
spent almost half of what we earned last year in taxes. That is what 
the average American worker does, spends about half. Taxes are the 
highest they have ever been. In January of 2000, the Census Bureau 
reported that the average family paid more than $9,000 in Federal 
income tax, twice what it paid 15 years ago. Americans pay more in 
taxes than they spend on food, clothing and housing combined. Americans 
work more than 4 months, almost 5 months, just to pay their tax bill.
  A continuation of higher taxes should be better controlled. Congress 
needs to protect the taxpayer from higher taxes. The trend of big 
government and higher taxes to maintain it must cease. The government 
does not have the right to take more than it needs just because it has 
the power to do so. The requirement of a clear consensus to ensure 
limited increases in taxes is needed. We need to prohibit irresponsible 
tax hikes.
  It should not be easy to take freedom away from people. When you tax 
too much, you are taking freedom from people, freedom to earn money and 
spend it as they want to and to educate their children and to save it 
and do the things they want to with it. It should not be easy to do 
that.

[[Page H1570]]

  Fifteen States currently require some type of supermajority vote for 
the legislature to raise taxes. In those States, citizens are protected 
from higher State tax burdens. It is time for the government to follow 
their example to benefit all taxpayers. The amendment would not prevent 
raising taxes. Rather, it encourages Congress to look at alternatives 
before implementing tax hikes. A consensus will force Congress to 
consider genuine need.
  For these reasons and more, I encourage my colleagues to support this 
constitutional amendment.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Here is a new piece of historic information just in about James 
Madison that may appeal to my colleagues. Actually, they tried a 
supermajority, and I think they will all find this very interesting. 
Because under the Articles of Confederation in the 1780s, there was a 
provision for a supermajority. Adopting a supermajority tax requirement 
would repeat the very same mistakes made in the 1780s under the 
Articles of Confederation between the Declaration of Independence and 
the adoption of a constitution. Under these articles, it required a 
vote of nine of the 13 States to raise revenue, a supermajority. It is 
because the system worked so poorly that the Founding Fathers sought to 
fashion a national government that could operate through majority rule.
  So, Mr. Speaker, we would be ignoring a very important fundamental 
part of our history if we were to give in this area James Madison too 
hard a way to go. In fact, in the present circumstances, this amendment 
would take more votes to close a tax loophole engineered by powerful 
interest groups than to cut Social Security, Medicare and education 
programs. The amendment would also make the major deficit reduction 
measures much harder to pass when they are needed. Remember that five 
of the six major deficit reduction acts that were enacted since 1982, 
within the memory and experience of many Members here on the floor, 
included a combination of revenue increases and program cuts. President 
Reagan, Ronald Reagan, signed three of these measures into law. 
Presidents George H. Bush and President William Jefferson Clinton 
signed one each. None of these five measures received a two-thirds 
majority in both Houses.
  So, Mr. Speaker, had this proposed constitutional amendment been in 
effect during this period, substantial budget deficits would still be 
with us today.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to tell the 
rest of the story. The gentleman from Michigan is so right that the 
Articles of Confederation did require a supermajority of nine of the 13 
States to raise taxes. But the Constitution as originally ratified by 
the States was even more severe. It prohibited direct taxes on the 
people and required a constitutional amendment in the beginning of the 
last century to allow the income tax to be constitutionally passed by 
Congress.
  So if we are looking at what Madison hath written, Madison put an 
even greater straitjacket on the Congress' ability to raise taxes than 
the Articles of Confederation had.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. 
Gibbons).
  Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of this 
resolution. I want to thank my colleague and good friend the chairman 
of the Committee on the Judiciary (Mr. Sensenbrenner) and the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Sessions) for bringing this critical legislation before 
this body.
  Mr. Speaker, America needs this tax limitation amendment. Why? 
Because this year thousands, or millions even, of hardworking Americans 
are going to be suffering intaxication. What is intaxication? Let me 
say that if the word were actually in the dictionary, intaxication 
would be defined as the euphoric experience when one gets a refund and 
then realizes that that refund is actually their own money.
  This Congress has a duty to make it harder to raise taxes, while 
ensuring a more responsible Federal budget. In 1994, Mr. Speaker, I 
fought for Nevada's own tax limitation amendment. As a private citizen 
I helped gather 85,000 signatures from residents across Nevada to place 
a similar measure on the ballot before the voters. This legislation, 
may I say, passed the Nevada vote test in two successive elections, 
averaging about 75 percent of each vote count. This legislation 
requires an amendment to the Nevada constitution saying that two-thirds 
would be required to raise any new State taxes or fees.
  The Federal Government needs to be put on the same fat-free diet that 
my home State of Nevada has been on since 1996. We need to make it more 
difficult to raise taxes on hardworking American men and women. We need 
to shift congressional focus to the bloated Federal spending programs 
in this Federal bureaucracy. Passage of this legislation would ensure 
that Congress focuses its efforts to balance the budget, cut wasteful 
spending and not raise taxes as an easier and unneeded Federal revenue 
excuse.
  States that currently limit taxes have experienced faster growing 
economies, a more rapid increase in employment, lower taxes and reduced 
growth in government spending. No additional financial burden should be 
placed on the American working family without overwhelming 
demonstration of need and support from their elected officials.
  Let us stop intaxication plaguing Americans. I urge my colleagues to 
support this tax limitation amendment.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the 
distinguished gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Snyder).
  Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this 
resolution, in opposition to this amendment, and in opposition to 
changing our most basic government document in this way.
  The gentleman from Michigan has been doing an admirable job of 
sparring on these issues, but I wanted to come over and stand up and be 
counted against this thing, also, with him.
  For the last couple of months, I have been putting together a Law 
Review article on the congressional oath of office. It has been 
interesting because I have gone back and read through some of the 
statements of Madison and the framers and Hamilton. These were serious 
men that put together our most basic document. This very debate that we 
are having today was a debate that the framers had. This is the kind of 
discussion that was contemplated by them, what level of vote count 
should there be in our legislative bodies to make these kinds of 
changes.
  I not only have respect for the seriousness of their debate and their 
discussions but also respect for their conclusion, and that once they 
reached that conclusion, I think we would do well as a Nation not to 
rekindle that debate every 2 years as we seem to have been doing here 
for the last few years.
  I think this amendment would be a mistake. I think it has very little 
support around the country. Right now the thrust nationally is to lower 
taxes, not to raise taxes. In the past when we have raised taxes, the 
majority of the Members of the legislative body felt that was the way 
to go. That is not the situation today.

                              {time}  1130

  This is an amendment that is not necessary at this time in our 
Nation's history. It was contemplated by the Framers. I think it would 
be a mistake today to pass this amendment.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, there is another problem that has not been discussed 
about the amendment that we may want to take into consideration, and 
that is the possibility that a constitutional amendment of the nature 
under debate could lead to large cuts in Social Security and Medicare 
and a return to deficit spending. No constitutional debate on this 
subject could be concluded without some discussion about this.
  These reductions, large ones, in Social Security and Medicare 
benefits, have been observed by The Washington Post, in which they 
noted that when baby boomers begin to retire not many years from now, 
as a matter of fact some have already begun to retire, the country will 
be in an era of constant fiscal strain. To avoid destructive deficits, 
there will have to be tax increases

[[Page H1571]]

or spending cuts or both. So by making it harder to increase taxes, the 
amendment would compound the pressure on major spending programs. As a 
matter of fact, that is what is going on now. We are noticing that with 
the unprecedented large tax cut we are squeezing many programs that are 
very valuable and dear to many, if not most, of the people in the 
country.
  What are these major spending programs? Social Security, Medicare, 
Medicaid and others.
  Is this really what the Congress wants to do? The pressure on the 
programs is great enough as it is.
  Now Democratic members offered an amendment in the Committee on the 
Judiciary to ensure that measures designed to secure the financial 
solvency of Social Security would not be subject to the supermajority 
requirement, but the Republicans defeated this measure on a party line 
vote of 8 to 16. So we have on the record that they do not want to 
exempt the Social Security and other valuable programs from the 
possibility of financial insolvency by making an exemption to this 
Draconian proposal that we have before us.
  I think that that should deal a telling message to anybody whose mind 
may not yet be made up.
  Also, the proposed tax limitation would rule out measures to raise 
Medicare premiums for higher individuals, high-income individuals, as 
well as modest measures to shore up Social Security and Medicare. They 
would all be caught by the supermajority requirement.
  Example, if Congress attempted to make Social Security payroll taxes 
more progressive by imposing higher tax cuts on higher-income 
individuals, there would be an increase in the revenue laws and the 
supermajority requirement would be triggered, no doubt about it.
  Indeed, when the Republican budget reconciliation bill reached the 
House floor in the fall of 1995, it became more than clear that its 
proposed increase in Medicare premiums for those at higher income 
levels constituted, guess what, a tax increase.
  Similarly, legislation expanding Social Security to include State and 
local government employees, which no less than the Advisory Council for 
Social Security has already proposed, would result in a revenue 
increase and would therefore be subject to the two-thirds requirement. 
Do we really want to do that? Do we really want these kinds of 
provisions caught in this supermajority requirement?
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.
  Mr. Speaker, it is the same old story. When all else fails, drop the 
Social Security red herring. This constitutional amendment will not cut 
Social Security. If there is a revenue pinch, it will force Congress 
and the Nation to set priorities. Social Security has always been the 
top priority, and it always will be the top priority, because it is the 
principal part of our social safety net for senior citizens. So if the 
shoe starts to pinch because of a revenue shortfall, or the baby boom 
generation collecting the Social Security that they have earned, it 
will force cuts in other programs. We all know that there are huge 
wastes of money in the other programs, and this will provide the fiscal 
discipline for Congress to set better priorities than it historically 
has in the past.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Armey), the distinguished majority leader.
  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, let me begin by thanking the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), the chairman of the Committee on the 
Judiciary, for bringing this bill to the floor. Let me also thank the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) for his sponsorship of this 
legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, this is an important step and a step I believe we must 
take. Mr. Speaker, I have had the privilege of serving in this body 
since 1985. For 10 years, I served in this body as a member of the 
minority while the Democrats were in control of the House of 
Representatives, and that was a privilege.
  Mr. Speaker, in the last 6\1/2\ years, I have had the larger 
privilege of serving in the majority with the Republicans in the 
majority. Throughout all of that experience, Mr. Speaker, I have found 
that there are a few things that are consistent whether the Democrats 
are in the majority or the Republicans are in the majority. Call it the 
disposition of the legislative body, whatever is the reason, it has 
been consistently the case for so long as I have had the privilege of 
observing us at work that the first easiest thing to do in this body is 
to increase spending.
  Lord have mercy. We must constrain ourselves with all the rigor we 
can to even bring our increases down to a nominal level.
  The second easiest thing to do in this body is to raise taxes. I 
certainly have seen that done here enough, and with relative ease.
  The hardest thing to do in this body, Mr. Speaker, is to cut taxes; 
and the clearly most difficult thing to do is to cut spending.
  All that boils down to one thing: we avail ourselves of nothing that 
we can call a budget constraint. After all, Mr. Speaker, it is other 
people's money. Easy come, easy go. We do not spend it all that wisely.
  So what we are trying to do today is to give ourselves an 
institutional leveler, a rule in this institution that levels the 
playing field between raising spending and cutting taxes, just to 
counter what must be the generic dispositions of a legislative body 
given the extraordinary privilege of taxing and spending other people's 
money.
  A simple rule that would say that in this business of raising taxes 
which facilitates the increased spending, for which we have this crying 
disposition, that we should have a supermajority vote. It is a 
constraint. It is a check, a check against our desires to always build 
government larger.

  Is the Federal Government large enough? Most people in America think 
yes it is, indeed; that and more.
  Do we have enough money? We are talking about surpluses, 
extraordinary surpluses; surpluses that would not have come about 
except for 2\1/2\ years of extraordinary rigor in the restraint on 
spending that make these surpluses available; the surpluses that are 
threatened, threatened not by a shortage of tax revenue from the 
American people but threatened by the worst addiction one finds in this 
town, the addiction to the spending of other people's money.
  So we must put on the brakes. We must find a way to rein ourselves 
in, to rein in the institution, the institution of the House of 
Representatives. Indeed, the institution of Congress must be restrained 
from the all-too-easy business of simply raising taxes whenever we feel 
we have an insufficient supply of other people's money. If we cannot do 
that, Mr. Speaker, during a time when the surpluses are running, we 
cannot do it at any time.
  I just noticed the disposition at work here a moment ago in the 
discussion on this floor. The question was, what if there were a 
recession and there would be a shortfall of revenues to the United 
States? We would have an emergency need to raise taxes, it was argued, 
to raise taxes. Why? What underlies that logic is the belief that the 
object of our affection is the Government of the United States, not the 
well-being and the health of the American economy.
  Indeed, if there is a recession, Mr. Speaker, the correct thing to do 
is to lower taxes; thus, solving the problem of the recession; thus, 
solving the problem of deficiencies in revenue to the Government that 
come from the recession.
  So the logic is faulty because it is built on the false premise that 
the object of our affection must be, first, the well-being of the 
Government and then only secondarily the performance of the economy. 
The correct logic is this: the well-being of the government, as is the 
well-being of the Nation in things economic, depends upon the 
performance of the economy.
  We are left with very few tools to assure that this economy works at 
its peak of performance, but the only one that really remains is the 
lowering of taxes. So barring a volition in this body to ever change 
our dispositions, we should use a rule, a rule that says that it is 
relatively easy to lower taxes when those times arrive and it is most 
rigorously difficult to raise taxes at all times. This rule will give 
us that. It should be passed. It should be passed as a matter, Mr. 
Speaker, of respect for the American people because, after all, it is 
their money.

[[Page H1572]]

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I am delighted that the majority leader of the Congress 
has come to the floor. Unfortunately, he did not mention how many times 
the majority, under his leadership, has waived their own House rules 
requiring a supermajority vote to increase taxes. Maybe he forgot.
  I would remind my colleagues that during the 104th Congress, we had 
to suspend the House rules imposed by the Republican majority when we 
dealt with H.R. 1215, the Contract with America Tax Relief Act.

                              {time}  1145

  We then had the supermajority vote suspended, this is under the 
leadership of the majority, under the leadership of the distinguished 
majority leader that just left the well, in the Medicare Preservation 
Act of 1994, H.R. 2425; in the Budget Reconciliation Act of 1995, H.R. 
2491; in the Health Insurance Reform Act, H.R. 3103; and in H.R. 3734, 
the Welfare Reform Conference Report. The majority, under the 
Republican leadership, has frequently waived its own rules requiring a 
supermajority vote to increase taxes.
  The unworkability of House Joint Resolution 41 is illustrated by the 
fact that they frequently ignore their own rule preventing tax rates 
from taking increase, unless approved by three-fifths of the House, and 
this was done in the 104th Congress, many times, on six separate 
occasions. It led our distinguished colleague the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Stenholm) to write, ``The final blow to any hope that the vote on 
the supermajority tax requirement might be for real comes from the 
dismal adherence Republicans have made to their own internal House rule 
requiring a three-fifths vote to raise taxes.'' This is from the 
leadership of the gentleman who just left the well.
  After much fanfare during the organization of the 104th Congress, the 
House leadership has waived its own effort to restrain itself in every 
potential instance but one.
  In an attempt to avoid these problems at the beginning of the 105th 
Congress, the rule was significantly narrowed to limit its application 
to increases in particular tax rates specified under the Internal 
Revenue Code, rather than tax rate increases generally. Now, that 
narrow application does not apply to the constitutional provision; it 
only applies to what we do in the House of Representatives.
  So, such experiences highlight the unworkability of setting forth 
special procedural rules concerning tax laws and tax rates, and these 
problems would be greatly compounded in the constitutional context that 
we face in H.J. Res. 41.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman 
from Indiana (Mr. Pence).
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the chairman of the Committee 
on the Judiciary for this opportunity to speak on behalf of House Joint 
Resolution 41.
  Mr. Speaker, despite my belief that we ought to rarely trifle with 
the work product of the founders of this country from that balmy summer 
of 1787, where in the Philadelphia State House they crafted our 
Constitution, I rise today in strong support of the Tax Limitation 
Constitutional Amendment that we will vote on today.
  I do so, Mr. Speaker, because it is my belief that we live in this 
year 2001 in an age of reason about tax policy, different than other 
times in American history. Today, most Americans oppose most tax 
increases. But, Mr. Speaker, we must recognize that this too shall 
pass; that some day soon, given the seemingly glacial growth of the 
Federal Government, the day will come that once again tax increases are 
no longer broadly objectionable.
  So I believe that this Congress should seize upon this season of 
sensibility to constrain future Congresses from reflexively raising 
taxes to pay for that ever-growing Federal welfare state. It is a 
growth in government, Mr. Speaker, that does ultimately erode our 
economic freedoms and the balance of our liberties.
  A tax increase constitutional amendment, if adopted today in the 
Congress and sent to the States, would be an important restraint on the 
Federal Government in years ahead, and it would give this Congress and 
this government the same restraints that some 14 States live under who 
have tax limitations in their Constitution and in their laws.
  Mr. Speaker, tax increases should always be the last resort of this 
Congress, and the Tax Limitation Constitutional Amendment ensures that 
it will.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield such time as he 
may consume to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), a distinguished 
member of the Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, I join my colleagues in opposition to H.J. Res. 41. H.J. 
Res. 41 proposes a constitutional amendment that provides that changes 
in Internal Revenue laws by more than a de minimis amount would require 
a two-thirds majority to pass, rather than the simple majority now 
required.
  Let me just point out a couple of problems with that idea, Mr. 
Speaker. The proposed constitutional amendment does not affect 
spending; only paying for the spending. You can increase spending and 
enact new programs with a simple majority. To pay for the new programs, 
you require a two-thirds majority. The limitation that this bill 
proposes is on whether we will pay for the spending or whether we will 
resort to deficit spending.
  Now, the same analysis applies to correcting mistakes. It would take 
a two-thirds majority to close a corporate loophole, while it only took 
a simple majority to create the loophole in the first place. If we 
cannot come up with a two-thirds majority to close the corporate 
loophole, then that loophole remains, possibly costing millions, or 
even billions, of dollars that could be put to use elsewhere.
  In fact, changing Internal Revenue laws that change the internal 
revenue by more than a de minimis amount would also affect passing new 
laws to enforce the laws that are already on the books if that action 
would increase the internal revenues. You need a two-thirds vote to 
pass that.
  Now, if we really are being honest about reducing spending and 
limiting spending, the constitutional amendment ought to require a two-
thirds vote not to increase taxes, but a two-thirds vote to increase 
spending. Now, that would limit spending. The limitation on taxes only 
limits your ability to pay for the spending that you have already 
enacted.
  Another problem, Mr. Speaker, is that the bill has the statutory 
language involving de minimis. While two-thirds majority vote is 
required to increase the internal revenue by more than a de minimis 
amount, the term ``de minimis'' is not defined, so, we can debate 
whether you need a two-thirds vote or not.
  Some committee members have suggested that any increase in revenue 
less than one-tenth of one percent of total revenues would be de 
minimis. But I would remind you that our total revenues are in the 
trillions of dollars. One-tenth of one percent of $1 trillion is $1 
billion. I believe that most of us would consider $1 billion to be more 
than just de minimis.
  Mr. Speaker, amending the Constitution is serious business which 
should not be taken lightly. This bill presents very difficult 
questions that are not even close to being answered. It does nothing to 
limit spending; and, therefore, ought to be rejected.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.
  Mr. Speaker, if the House would read the constitutional amendment, 
they would find that the gentleman from Virginia, with all due respect, 
is misinterpreting what is in the amendment. The amendment says that a 
loophole can be closed by a majority vote if the money that is raised 
as a result of closing the loophole is used to provide tax relief for 
the American people elsewhere. But where the two-thirds vote comes in 
is if the loophole is closed and the money is raised and is used to 
finance increased spending.
  So what this Tax Limitation Constitutional Amendment encourages is 
using the money from closed loopholes to provide tax relief for the 
American people, rather than financing a spending spree by the Congress 
of the United States. I think that that is entirely

[[Page H1573]]

logical. What the amendment does is it says if you want to spend the 
money from the loophole, it is two-thirds; if you want to give it in 
tax relief, it is a majority.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina 
(Mr. Jones).
  Mr. JONES of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to come to the 
floor, and I am not on the Committee on the Judiciary, as these fine 
ladies and gentlemen, to discuss the technical aspects of this bill.
  What I wanted to do was, Mr. Speaker, back in 1995, when I was sworn 
in as a United States Congressman, a friend of mine from my district 
brought to me this reprint of a political editorial from 1878. What it 
is, Mr. Speaker, the Statue of Liberty is standing with a weight around 
her neck, and her head is bent forward, and on the weight it says 
``income tax.'' It further states at the bottom, ``the slave of 
liberty.''
  I believe sincerely that taxation, excessive taxation, makes the 
American people slaves to the Federal Government. I think whenever we 
can bring protection to the American people we should, and that is 
exactly what H.J. Res. 41 does; it empowers the people through their 
Representatives here in Washington, D.C.
  I believe sincerely that today the American people are paying more 
taxes than they have ever paid before. When I look at how too many 
times I think those of us in Washington D.C., and I am one of those, 
obviously, that many times we forget that the people are the 
government.
  The power should be with the people. The people should be able to say 
to their representatives that you must have a supermajority to pass 
taxes on us, and I think this legislation does that.
  I compliment the chairman and his committee, because, quite frankly, 
because every year for the 7 years I have been in the United States 
Congress, whenever we brought this bill to the floor I have asked for 1 
or 2 minutes to come to the floor, because, again, we need to give the 
power back to the people when we can, and to give the people the 
opportunity through the process to say whether they want the Congress 
to have a two-thirds majority to pass taxes.
  I think again we are doing the right thing, and I compliment the 
chairman and each and everyone who has worked on this resolution, and 
hope we will pass it shortly.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Scott).
  Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time to 
respond to the chairman's remarks.
  Mr. Speaker, if we passed a $1 million corporate loophole tax benefit 
that ended up costing us $10 billion because we miscalculated the 
impact, we could not close that loophole that passed on a simple 
majority vote without a two-thirds vote unless we provided $10 billion 
in tax relief somewhere just to close that loophole that we did not 
intend to create to begin with.
  Mr. Speaker, again, this amendment will do nothing to limit spending; 
it just limits our ability to pay for that spending. You create a new 
program, simple majority; to pay for it, it takes a two-thirds vote.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman 
from Arizona (Mr. Flake).
  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support the tax limitation 
amendment. I come from the great State of Arizona where we have had 
similar legislation as the law for the past 10 years. What we did not 
do that we should have is cut off the initiative route as we did, 
because when we want to raise taxes in Arizona, instead of going to the 
legislature, now it is done by initiative, that not withstanding this 
year, for the first year, because there is a lack of revenue. Finally, 
this is holding government spending in check. You see the trepidation 
on the part of the legislature to actually spend too much, because they 
would be forced to come back and raise taxes and realize they cannot do 
it because now it would require a two-thirds majority. It is great 
legislation.

                              {time}  1200

  Mr. Speaker, I am amused continually when we talk about how easy it 
is to cut taxes and how difficult it is to raise taxes, when history 
suggests otherwise. Over the past couple of decades, we have had 
numerous tax increases and just a couple of significant incidences of 
tax relief. Whenever we can do anything to actually put a lid on taxes, 
to actually cut taxes and make it more difficult to raise taxes, then 
we ought to do it.
  For the record, it was mentioned that if we are doing this, then we 
also ought to put a limitation on spending by making it more difficult 
to spend. I am in favor of that. I would love to offer an amendment to 
the amendment which would actually require a two-thirds majority to 
increase spending, but this, as it stands, is a good piece of 
legislation, and I support it.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), a senior member of the 
Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, what we are seeing today is a declaration by 
the Republican Party that they recognize that the majority of Americans 
cannot be relied upon. One of the previous advocates to this amendment 
said the power belongs to the people, but he misstates what this 
amendment does. Power now under our Constitution belongs to the 
representatives of the majority of the people, taking into account, of 
course, the two Senators per State, which is nonmajoritarian, but 
within that the majority rules. Well, apparently the Republicans do not 
have much confidence in the majority, so they want to change the rules 
so that this particular decision cannot be made by a majority.
  The gentleman said the power belongs to the people. We used to have a 
slogan, ``power to the people.'' Well, this amendment would change that 
slogan to ``power to one-third plus one of the people.'' If the 
majority of the people, as they are represented in Congress, decide 
that they want to improve our ability to do environmental cleanup, or 
if people thought that having the Social Security tax base cut off at 
$75,000 so that if one makes $30,000 every penny one earns is taxed for 
Social Security, but if one makes $300,000 the great majority of one's 
income is exempt, we could not do that without two-thirds.
  Not only are they declaring a lack of faith in the people, they are 
repudiating the legacy of some past Republican presidents. For 
instance, President George Bush raised taxes in conjunction with the 
Congress, because he thought it was very important for the economy. We 
all remember the President's famous slogan, ``Read my lips, no new 
taxes.'' Well, any future President I guess would have to say, ``Read 
two-thirds of my lips, no new taxes.'' George Bush asked us to raise 
taxes. I do not think he was profligate and irresponsible. I think he 
was responding to the particular needs of the particular time.
  At this point, no one is advocating tax increases, but different 
situations occur at different points.
  Ronald Reagan. We have heard a lot about the legacy of Ronald Reagan, 
but I was here when Ronald Reagan asked Congress to raise taxes on 
several occasions. I did not always vote for the Reagan tax increases. 
I thought the Reagan tax increase of 1982, which was to undo some of 
the Reagan tax decrease of 1981, was not fairly constituted. I did not 
like the Reagan tax increase for Social Security in 1983. But if we 
read the history books and if we read the assessments of President 
Reagan, one of the things they say is that President Reagan, Senator 
Dole, Speaker O'Neill came together to save Social Security and extend 
its solvency. They did it in part by reducing benefits in a way that I 
did not agree with, but they also did it by raising taxes.
  Indeed, some of the tax increases that were imposed under President 
Reagan remain in effect. They not only remain in effect, they remain 
untouched by the current President's tax reduction proposals. It was in 
1983 at the request of Ronald Reagan, with the concurrence of a 
Republican Senate and a Democratic House, that taxes were first levied 
on part of a Social Security recipient's income. The taxation of part 
of one's Social Security benefits for people making $25,000 in 
addition, to be recycled into the Social Security system, was part of 
President Reagan's attempt to extend the solvency of Social Security.

[[Page H1574]]

  Now, if the Republican constitutional amendment had been in power, I 
do not think President Reagan would have had the votes. I do not think 
President Bush would have had the votes.
  The point I am making is that despite partisan efforts to make it 
look as if this is somehow an effort to prevent feckless decisions to 
raise the revenues, it would have, had it been in effect, prevented the 
last two Republican presidents from getting legislation through that 
they thought was important to protect Social Security and to protect 
the economy.
  Now, I have noted a tendency on the part of my Republican colleagues 
to implicitly acknowledge that the public is not thrilled with some 
parts of their agenda, and I understand that. They have a right, I 
suppose, when they are campaigning to kind of soft pedal some things; 
you should tell them the truth, but you do not always volunteer things. 
But changing the Constitution because they believe the public is not 
likely to support their position is a totally inappropriate way to go.
  I guess we have to explain why this happens, because if one believes 
the rhetoric that says it is just the government taking people's money 
for no good reason and the people have to be protected from that, one 
has to ask the question, why would people let Members of Congress who, 
by a majority, would vote to increase the taxes that they pay. The 
answer is, as President Reagan knew and President Bush knew and 
President Clinton knew, all three of whom asked that taxes be 
increased, there are important purposes that the people want that may 
require more revenue.
  I want to go back to Social Security. The Social Security system now 
is financed by taxes that are paid up to 70-some odd thousand dollars 
worth of income. Many of us believe that is inequitable. Many of us 
believe we ought to have a package in which we reduce the Social 
Security bite on some people in the lower end, but increase it for 
wealthier people. Maybe we want to have a little gap, but then at 
$150,000 or more, start collecting some Social Security tax. Any effort 
to do that would, by this amendment, require a two-thirds vote. Power 
to one-third plus one of the people. One-third plus one of the people 
could block that effort. If we decided that we needed more revenue for 
other purposes, it is not there.
  Mr. Speaker, it seems to me a rational decision for the public to 
make in a civilized society that at a time of great wealth they might 
want to spend more on environmental cleanup. They might want to do more 
for police. They might want to help people with prescription drugs. The 
Republicans have said, well, we want a major tax cut, so here is what 
we have to do. We have to end the program that allows public housing 
authorities to hire police officers to combat drug-related crime. I 
understand people who think cutting taxes, particularly for wealthy 
people, is more important than fighting drug-related crime in public 
housing. They do not live in public housing, they do not relate to the 
people in public housing, and in a democracy that is a legitimate view 
to put forward. But why do they need two-thirds? Are they not confident 
they can win that one on the merits?
  We have people who believe we ought to be increasing the amount we 
spend on environmental cleanup. Unfortunately, there are people who 
disagree. I am prepared to debate that. But if we decide that we have 
these important public needs and the current revenues are not enough to 
meet them without going into deficit, I do not understand why we should 
take two-thirds.
  Prescription drugs. We have a proposal from the Republican Party that 
says, to get taxes at the level we think desirable, we cannot help any 
elderly person needing prescription drugs whose income exceeds $17,000. 
I think that is a very grave error. I think making sure that Bill Gates 
pays no taxes when he dies, or his heirs do not; once one dies, they do 
not pay any taxes, but the notion that Bill Gates' heirs should be able 
to inherit billions of dollars, but we cannot afford to help someone 
making $20,000 with prescription drugs at the age of 82, I think that 
is wrong. But I am prepared to debate that without fixing it. I say 
these things because they are directly relevant to this amendment.
  This is why the Republicans feel that they have to change the rules. 
They understand that there will be times when a majority of the 
Americans will say, we would rather have more revenue. By the way, 
while the Republicans claim to dislike taxes at certain times, they 
come to love them, and that is the other thing I would say to my 
Republican friends: do not underestimate your capacity to adapt.
  For example, when President Clinton in 1993 asked Congress to raise 
the gasoline taxes, there was a great deal of unhappiness on the 
Republican side, at least it was expressed and I under the Rules of the 
House of course take at face value everything said here, and when 
President Clinton remained in office, time and again the Republicans 
said, we have to get rid of this gasoline tax increase. Well, we now 
have a Republican President and we have a Republican House and we have 
a Republican Senate, and we have tax bills coming forward that would 
reduce various taxes. Do we know what else we have? The same gasoline 
tax increase that went into effect in 1993 unchallenged.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. FRANK. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. 
Yesterday I introduced a bill to suspend the Federal gasoline tax to 
provide some relief to our motorists and our truck drivers. I would 
invite the gentleman from Massachusetts and others who feel that way to 
cosponsor this bill.
  Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, I am glad that the gentleman is being 
consistent. He is not only being consistent, he is being unique, 
because while it is encouraging to some, I thought increasing the 
gasoline tax was a useful thing to do to help us reduce the deficit in 
a socially responsible way, the Committee on the Judiciary does not 
have jurisdiction over it. I will say as I read the Republican program 
for the year, with $1.6 trillion worth of tax reduction, they could not 
find room in there to reduce the gasoline tax. So the Republicans did 
not think it was a good idea to raise the gasoline tax in 1993, but now 
that they have complete control over both Houses of Congress and the 
White House, they are leaving it alone. They have decided, apparently, 
on second thought, that it was not such a bad idea after all.
  Regarding the taxes that people pay on their Social Security 
benefits, including those that Ronald Reagan asked us to pass in 1983, 
Ronald Reagan said, if one is making $25,000 a year or more, we are 
going to tax 50 percent of your Social Security benefits. That is not a 
huge amount of money, but that is what Ronald Reagan said. I voted 
against that bill. Many of my Republican colleagues who are still here 
voted for it; some Democrats voted for it as well. I had heard that 
denounced until the Republicans had the power to do something about it, 
and that is another one which has grown on them.
  This is not a debate as to what the level of taxation ought to be; it 
is a debate about democratic procedures. The Senate, as we know, is not 
majoritarian. The House is. By Supreme Court decision, the United 
States House of Representatives represents population very, very 
closely. What the Republicans are saying is this: we cannot trust the 
people elected by a majority of the House of Representatives to make 
this decision, because we do not think they will get it right. 
Therefore, we will change the Constitution to make it a nonmajoritarian 
decision as to what level of public expenditure there will be.
  Yes, there are two competing sets of needs. There are private needs, 
best settled by people having money in their own pocket; there are 
public needs, environmental cleanup, public safety, some others which 
can only be dealt with if we spend the money together. They are both 
needs of the people. Some are best done individually, some done 
together. What we have today is an effort to bias the decisionmaking 
process, because the Republican Party does not have any confidence in 
the people, apparently thinks that Ronald Reagan was wrong on the 
several occasions when he asked for tax increases, George Bush was 
wrong when he asked for tax increases.
  The point is this: no one today, given our economy, no one is pushing 
for tax

[[Page H1575]]

increases. On the other hand, to say that for all time it should not be 
a majority decision, but that this decision will have to be made by an 
extraordinary majority so that a minority can block the decision of a 
majority of the American people, 40 percent can stop 60 percent from 
going forward, is bad constitutional government and an unfortunate 
expression of a lack of confidence in the American people.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Massachusetts and his very articulate 
self has kind of laid forth the Democratic platform on what they would 
like the Congress to accomplish during the next 2 years. We are not 
dealing with prescription drugs and all of the other issues that the 
gentleman from Massachusetts is talking about. We are dealing with the 
simple proposition of whether the Constitution should be amended to 
make it harder for Congress to raise taxes. That is the proposal that 
is before us, and that is the proposal that we are voting upon today.
  Now, I would submit that the American people think that it should be 
hard to raise taxes, and I would also submit that the American people 
historically have not trusted Congress very much when the time comes to 
deal with bills that raise taxes. So all this amendment proposes to do 
is to force there to be a national consensus on raising taxes, which is 
required in a two-thirds vote. It is really pretty simple.
  Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, I would say parenthetically I guess the 
gentleman has decided to reciprocate.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Shays). The time of the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) has expired.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 additional minute, 
and I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, apparently the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Sensenbrenner) wants to reciprocate the lack of confidence the American 
people have in Congress by having a congressional expression of lack of 
confidence in the majority of the people. But I want to talk about 
prescription drugs.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I will reclaim my time then, because 
we have a chance to talk about prescription drugs a little bit later on 
when the prescription drug bill comes to the floor of the Congress. So 
I think we really ought to defer that debate until when it is really 
the question that is before us.
  Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts, but 
let us debate prescription drugs at the time that the bill comes before 
us.
  Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is ignoring the fact that with 
his amendment that he is putting forward today, and we will cut taxes 
this year, I think by more than we should but we will, if we decide 
next year that at the level of revenue available for Medicare we cannot 
afford a prescription drug program, it will take two-thirds to put one 
back. That is the flaw in the gentleman's reasoning.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, that is really 
not true, because if we cut out other wasteful spending in other parts 
of the government, we can put more money into prescription drugs, and 
it is a matter of priority.

                              {time}  1215

  Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, if that is the case, why is the President not 
putting adequate money into prescription drugs this year instead of 
saying only $17,000 as an income cutoff?
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman knows, the President 
proposes and the Congress disposes.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Cunningham).
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, in the Department of Defense, we have 
480,000 bureaucrats that buy and sell. They charge 22 percent to the 
military. Should Congress eliminate a lot of that bureaucracy, and 
instead of having taxpayers cough up money for more defense, should we 
just put more money into it without more reform?
  In education, we get as little as 48 cents to the dollar because of 
the bureaucracy in education. This morning the Secretary of Education, 
Rod Paige, testified. The gentleman from Wisconsin pointed out that the 
President's budget only puts in 6 percent increase. Six percent. 
Traditionally we have been increasing it by over 12 percent. The 
Secretary pointed out that there has been a flatlining; that we put 
more money in education, but there has not been any change. Can 
Congress work harder, can we do our job to eliminate Federal 
bureaucracy and spending or can we afford to give the money back to the 
American people? I pick on not just education, I pick on defense and 
all government agencies.
  Mr. Speaker, environmental cleanup was mentioned. Seventy percent of 
Superfund went to trial lawyers. Do we look as a Congress and work with 
the States on how to clean up the environment, or do we keep dumping in 
money?
  Many of my colleagues fought against welfare reform. Sixteen years 
was the average. They want to dump more money. We have to raise taxes 
to pay for that. Welfare reform put people back to work, and it helped 
stimulate the economy.
  Capital gains, my colleagues said it was only for the rich. Alan 
Greenspan said it helped stimulate the economy. So we do not reduce 
taxes? What I am saying is that my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle always want to spend more money without reforms.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Shays). Without objection, the gentleman 
from North Carolina (Mr. Watt) will control the time of the gentleman 
from Michigan (Mr. Conyers).
  There was no objection.
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the 
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).
  (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise 
and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I really wish we were gathered 
here today to engage in serious legislation that confronts some of the 
concerns that we have here in this country. As I left my district, I 
noticed on the front page of the business section a number of 
corporations that are in fact laying off workers. I would imagine that 
you will see over the next couple of weeks and months, the necessity of 
increasing compensation for those who are now laid off and cannot in 
some areas, where there is not the appropriate number of jobs available 
to provide for them, they will then stay unemployed. That means that 
families will be without their breadwinners and will be without an 
income.
  Mr. Speaker, we stand here today addressing a situation which has 
occurred on an annual basis. I believe it is almost going to get the 
kind of standing like Christmas. We will have it every year. This is 
the sixth annual year that our colleagues have wasted our time with a 
constitutional amendment dealing with a two-thirds supermajority on a 
tax increase.
  We have listened to my colleagues suggest to you how confining this 
kind of procedure would be; but more importantly, how it impacts the 
Constitution where our Founding Fathers, as wise as they were, 
suggested that a majority reflects the will of the American people. 
When we begin to use the supermajority, we begin to get into a 
desperate situation.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, is the gentlewoman from Texas aware 
that the Constitution written by the Founding Fathers prohibited 
Congress from levying direct taxes on the American people, and it 
required an amendment about 100 years ago in order to allow Congress to 
even have the power to do what we are talking about?
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I am certainly aware of that;

[[Page H1576]]

and I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. Speaker, it was a hundred years ago; and we have proceeded under 
that legislation, and I believe we have done very well.
  The idea now, of course, is to further diminish the responsibilities 
of the Members of Congress in the majority vote by again putting over 
us the supermajority which again eliminates the opportunity to provide 
financing for issues that we are concerned about. The very fact that 
this particular amendment has not passed six times in a row suggests 
the wisdom of this Congress, both Senate and House. My colleagues know 
that this is a wrong-headed way to go.
  Mr. Speaker, here we stand again providing this kind of legislation; 
and yet the amendment that I had intended to offer, an amendment that 
would provide for a supermajority not to reduce benefits in Social 
Security and Medicare, has not been accepted, or has been ruled out of 
order as it relates to presenting it to the floor.
  If it is as important to put a two-thirds supermajority on not 
raising taxes, and by the way to my colleagues and friend, that means 
that corporations with tax loopholes, that means that they will have a 
field day. It means that the assessment by the American people that 
this administration and this Congress is more business oriented or more 
paying the piper of the corporate interest, it is true. It means that 
tax loopholes cannot be closed under this supermajority, because it 
means if you are suggesting that you raise the taxes of corporations, 
you will have to have a supermajority. Of course that means that you 
take away the one vote, one person.
  When you talk about Medicare and you talk about Social Security for 
people, and you say can we have an amendment to ensure that you have a 
supermajority in order not to reduce the benefit, that has not been 
accepted.
  Mr. Speaker, I would simply say to my colleagues that we realize that 
a supermajority has been imposed on certain aspects of the business of 
this House. But I do believe that this idea of a supermajority on 
taxation eliminates the very vital opportunity of suggesting that even 
though we may have some prosperity, although I have noted there are 
layoffs, while we have this prosperity, and the American people may 
decide to invest in their national parks and their defense by providing 
increased salaries for our men and women in the Armed Forces, to invest 
in education, we now stand on the floor of the House to suggest a 
supermajority so in fact the people of the United States will not have 
the resources to ensure that their will be done.
  Mr. Speaker, I conclude by saying that it is not necessary to have a 
supermajority to railroad the $1.6 trillion tax cut that the President 
wants. Why we stand for the seventh time on the floor of the House for 
a two-thirds majority, I do not know. It seems that we want to make 
this as annual as a Christmas holiday.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose H.J. Res. 41 and to introduce an 
amendment that I believe will improve it.
  Mr. Speaker, my amendment is germane. The underlying legislation, 
H.J. Res. 41, is an attempt to help the most well to do Americans 
through a constitutional amendment that limits the ability of Congress 
to raise taxes and cut deficits. It is no secret that this legislation 
is designed to disproportionately help the richest people in this 
country.
  Mr. Speaker, my amendment seeks to protect the average person, the 
neediest, and our seniors by requiring the same two-thirds 
supermajority as the sponsors of H.J. Res. 41 call for. However, my 
amendment requires the two-thirds supermajority to cut Social Security 
and Medicare which help the rest of us.
  H.J. Res. 41 could make it difficult to maintain a balanced budget or 
to develop a responsible plan to restore Medicare or Social Security to 
long-term solvency. Both of these amendments deal with taxes. Both deal 
with what we all know is a zero sum game. My amendment is germane 
because if it is okay to help the rich, it is germane to help the poor 
and average Americans.
  H.J. Res. 41 is a resolution proposing an amendment to the 
Constitution of the United States of America with respect to tax 
limitations, that would require any bill, resolution, or other 
legislative measure changing the internal revenue laws require for 
final adoption in each House the concurrence of two-thirds of the 
Members of that House voting and present, unless the bill is determined 
at the time of adoption, in a reasonable manner prescribed by law, not 
to increase the internal revenue by more than a de minimis amount.
  H.J. Res. 41 also states that for purposes of determining any 
increase, there shall be excluded any increase resulting from the 
lowering of an effective rate of any tax and permits the waiver of such 
requirement, for up to 2 years, if there is a declaration of war or if 
the United States is engaged in a military conflict which causes an 
imminent and serious threat to national security and is so declared by 
a joint resolution which becomes law.
  Mr. Speaker, by requiring a two-thirds supermajority to adopt certain 
legislation, H.J. Res. 41 diminishes the vote of every Member of the 
House and Senate, denying the seminal concept of ``one person one 
vote.'' This fundamental democratic principle insures that a small 
minority may not prevent passage of important legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, this legislation presents a real danger to future 
balanced budgets and Medicare and Social Security. That's why I have 
offered an amendment to H.J. Res. 41 that would add a new section to 
H.J. Res. 41 requiring the same two-thirds supermajority when cutting 
programs that protect Social Security and Medicare. Under H.J. Res. 41, 
it would be incredibly difficult obtaining the requisite two-thirds 
supermajority required to pass important, fiscally responsible deficit-
reducing packages. And at a time in our history when the Baby Boomers 
are now retiring, H.J. Res. 41 could make it more difficult to increase 
Medicare premiums for those most able to pay their fair share of the 
bill, and could make it difficult balancing both Medicare and Social 
Security payroll taxes in the long term.
  H.J. Res. 41 would make it nearly impossible to plug tax loopholes 
and eliminate corporate tax welfare, or even to increase tax 
enforcement against foreign corporations. H.J. Res. 41 would also make 
it nearly impossible to balance the budget, or develop a responsible 
plan to restore Medicare or Social Security to long-term financial 
solvency.
  That's why my amendment would require a supermajority to further 
challenge these important social programs that serve a great need in 
this country.
  Mr. Speaker, H.J. Res. 41 is the exact same bill that this committee 
considered in the 105th Congress and my opposition is unchanged. In 
fact, a phrase in the minority's dissenting views in the 105th Congress 
stating that ``the Framers of the Constitution wisely rejected the 
principle of requiring a supermajority for basic government functions'' 
still hold true today.
  The minority in opposing this tax limitation amendment cited James 
Madison who vehemently argued against requiring supermajorities, 
stating that under such a requirement, ``the fundamental principle of 
free government would be reversed.'' It would be no longer the majority 
that would rule. Conversely, the power would be transferred to the 
minority because a small minority could block the necessary 
supermajority from passing any tax increases. In fact, it is 
significant to note that because of population patterns, Senators 
representing some 7.3 percent of the population could prevent a bill 
from obtaining a two-thirds majority.
  Mr. Speaker, I am deeply troubled by the concept of divesting a 
Member of the full import of his or her vote. As Dean Sameual Thompson, 
one of the Nation's leading tax law authorities, observed at a 1997 
House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on the same proposal: ``The core 
problem with this proposed Constitutional amendment is that it would 
give special interest groups the upper hand in the tax legislative 
process.'' As such, the potential loss to the Treasury Department from 
such loopholes is staggering. A Congressional Budget Office study found 
that over half of the corporate subsidies the Federal Government 
provides are delivered through ``tax expenditures'' that selectively 
reduce the tax liability of particular individuals or businesses. Such 
expenditures cost the Federal Government $455 billion in fiscal year 
1996 alone--triple the deficit at that time.
  Mr. Speaker, this resolution simply dilutes the vote of Members by 
requiring a supermajority of them to do something as basic to 
government as acquire the revenue to run government. It is a 
diminution. It is a disparagement. It is a reduction of the impact, the 
import, of one man, one vote.
  Mr. Speaker, H.J. Res. 41 will also make it nearly impossible to 
eliminate tax loopholes, thereby locking in the current tax system at 
the time of ratification. The core problem with this proposed 
constitutional amendment is that it would give special interest groups 
the upper hand in the tax legislative process. Once a group of 
taxpayers receives either a planned or unplanned tax benefit with a 
simple majority vote of both Houses of Congress, the group will then be 
able to preserve the tax benefit with just a 34 percent vote of one 
House of Congress.
  In addition, H.J. Res. 41 would make it inordinately difficult to 
make foreign corporations

[[Page H1577]]

pay their fare share of taxes on income earned in this country. 
Congress would even be limited from changing the law to increase 
penalties against foreign multinationals that avoid U.S. taxes by 
claiming that profits earned in the U.S. were realized in offshore tax 
havens. Estimates of the costs of such tax dodges are also significant. 
A 1992 Internal Revenue Service study estimated that foreign 
corporations cheated on their tax returns to the tune of $30 billion 
per year.
  Another definitional problem arises from the fact that it is unclear 
how and when the so-called ``de minimis'' increase is to be measured, 
particularly in the context of a $1.5 trillion annual budget. Would we 
look at a 1-, 5- or 10-year budget window? What if a bill resulted in 
increased revenues in years 1 and 2, but lower revenues thereafter? It 
is also unclear when the revenue impact is to be assessed--based on 
estimates prior to the bill's effective date, or subsequent 
determinations calculated many years out. Further, if a tax bill was 
retroactively found to be unconstitutional, the tax refund issues could 
present insuperable logistical and budget problems.
  Mr. Speaker, the amendment to this legislation which I have offered 
here today, takes this legislation in a different direction. It 
requires the same two-thirds supermajority as does the underlying bill, 
but ensures that we fulfill our promise to.
  I hope that my colleagues take seriously the path H.J. Res. 41 would 
lead us down were it to be adopted as is, and I urge my colleagues to 
support my amendment.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to myself.
  Mr. Speaker, in response to the comment that I made, the gentlewoman 
from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) said that since the income tax amendment 
was ratified in 1913, we have done very well. I would agree with her 
100 percent. We have done too well. We have done too well having an 
escalating cascade of taxes on the American people.
  What has happened is that we went from the original Constitution that 
seemed to serve us very well for 140 years prohibiting direct taxes on 
the American people, to having the pendulum swing far too far in the 
other direction so that now the Federal tax expressed as a percentage 
of GDP is the highest in peacetime history of our country.
  Mr. Speaker, this amendment pushes that pendulum back in the middle 
by making it harder to raise taxes. I think the American people would 
say hooray for that because Congress has been much to eager since 1913 
to dip into the pockets of the American taxpayer deeper and deeper.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Barton).
  (Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and 
extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise as a strong supporter of 
this constitutional amendment to require a two-thirds vote to raise 
taxes on the American people. Until the last Congress, this was the 
Barton tax limitation constitutional amendment. I was very pleased and 
willing to let the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) and the 
gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg) become the original cosponsors in 
this Congress.
  As has been pointed out, when the Constitution was ratified in the 
late 1700s, there was a supermajority required to raise taxes. It was 
100 percent because you could not have a Federal income tax. The 
Constitution did not allow it. As has been pointed out by the chairman 
of the Committee on the Judiciary, in 1913 we changed the Constitution 
to say that income taxes were acceptable.
  The first income tax levied on the American people after that income 
tax was passed, about 99 percent of the American people paid no income 
tax because you had to have an adjusted income of over $3,000 cash; and 
most Americans in the early part of the 20th century did not have 
$3,000 cash income. But if you did, if you did, you paid 1 percent; 1 
percent of income over $3,000. And if you were super-rich, in other 
words if you got up to where you had cash income over, I think it was, 
$50,000, you paid an additional 1 percent.
  Mr. Speaker, what does the American taxpayer pay today? The income 
tax levied on the American people had gone up at one point in time 
9,000 percent. We got up to a 90 percent tax bracket. Now how is that 
possible? It is possible because it only requires 50 percent plus one 
vote in the House and 50 percent plus one vote in the Senate to raise 
your income taxes. That has been done repeatedly the last 100 years.
  What does this constitutional amendment do? It does not say that you 
cannot raise taxes; but it says if you are going to raise taxes, you 
need more than a bare majority. You need more than 50 percent plus one; 
you need two-thirds.
  Now our Founding Fathers knew that there would be times when we 
needed to do things that needed to be a superconsensus. To ratify 
treaties and to change the Constitution requires a supermajority vote. 
What is more important to require a consensus more than a bare majority 
than raising income taxes? It is interesting when you look at the 
opinion polls around the country, the States that have supermajority 
requirements to raise taxes, their taxes are lower. They are lower. 
States that do not have it, their taxes are higher.
  Mr. Speaker, we have used the States as a laboratory; and we have 
proven that it works at the State level. It would work here in 
Washington. If you look at interest groups, do you know that the 
interest group that most supports requiring a supermajority to raise 
taxes, it is not rich, country club Republicans, it is not soccer moms, 
it is male, head-of-household union members. Now they tend to vote for 
our friends on the Democratic side of the aisle, which is fine. Eighty 
percent of them support a supermajority requirement to raise income 
taxes. That is the highest number of any segment of our country, 80 
percent.
  So why is it that we cannot pass this in the House of 
Representatives? We want it, but to amend the Constitution you have to 
have a two-thirds votes. It is because some people in this body want to 
raise taxes. They want to spend more money. We are only going to spend 
$2 trillion this year. Let us vote for this tax amendment and send it 
to the Senate and get them to pass it.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt) 
has 14\1/2\ minutes remaining. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Sensenbrenner) has 29 minutes.
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner).
  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for this time.
  Mr. Speaker, it was helpful to have the original author of this bill 
on the floor to discuss it. In this debate, we have begun to discuss it 
with some platitude; that this is a bill about having two-thirds of the 
House and the Senate decide before we raise taxes.

                              {time}  1230

  Actually, it is a bit more complicated than that. See, it says that a 
bill, a resolution or a legislative measure changing the internal 
revenue laws shall require for final adoption in each House the 
concurrence of two-thirds of all Members of that House voting and 
present unless that bill, resolution, or other legislative measure is 
determined at the time of adoption in a reasonable manner prescribed by 
law not to increase the internal revenue by more than a de minimis 
amount.
  Well, I guess, then, what we have got to have is a certain amount of 
litigation, I suppose, about what constitutes a de minimis amount. I 
think that is really what we need. We need a process around here that 
makes it even more difficult for us to come to a consensus about how it 
is that we are going to tax and spend the money that we have to do here 
each year.
  I think it is going to be actually an extraordinary constitutional 
battle if we pass a constitutional amendment that says it has to be 
decided by the courts how much a de minimis amount is that we are 
allowed to raise taxes in order to qualify under this constitutional 
amendment. Because let us consider what the scenarios will be.
  When we pass a budget, there will be a determination, well, it only 
raises taxes a de minimis amount. Then every interest group under the 
sun that has a problem with that budget will then have a standing to go 
into court and say, well, that is not a de minimis amount, it is 
actually more. Or some other group will come in and say, well, no, no, 
no, that is less than a de minimis amount, so you should be permitted 
to do it. We will have nothing but litigation over that point.
  Secondly, I think it is interesting to note in all of this discussion 
about

[[Page H1578]]

whether or not we should have a higher burden to raise taxes, why is it 
no one is proposing that we have a higher burden to spend the money. To 
be intellectually honest about this debate, one should say, well, we 
should have two-thirds to spend any dollar of the money coming in, 
because both of those sides make the same argument that the previous 
gentleman made, that we have been out of control spending, taxing and 
building and everything else. If we are truly going to be consistent 
and want to be sure that we have it right, it should be a two-thirds 
majority to increase spending as well.
  So if one wants to make a philosophical point here, I guess one 
could. One does not like taxes or one likes taxes. From the point of 
governance, this thing is a disaster. That is why no one is taking it 
seriously perhaps outside those of us who get paid to debate these 
things. It is really and truly a cumbersome way to do things.
  I find it fascinating that my colleagues who rail against the overly 
litigious way that often our society operates should now open the door 
to a whole new area of constitutional law which is going to be defining 
de minimis. I think that would indeed be folly.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, very plainly, on page 3, lines 4 and 5 of the 
constitutional amendment, it says that Congress defines by law what a 
de minimis amount is. So this does not require litigation.
  But having said that, listening to the argument of the gentleman from 
New York (Mr. Weiner) would have persuaded the Members of the first 
Congress and the Congress that sat in 1863 to reject the 1st and 14th 
amendments to the United States Constitution. Because if one looks at 
the Constitution annotated, those amendments have been the subject of 
countless court decisions by the Supreme Court as well as the appeals 
courts and the district courts because they were not, quote, properly 
drafted, and because they would have, quote, encouraged litigation.
  I do not think, had the gentleman from New York been in the first 
Congress or in the Civil War Congress he would have voted against the 
1st amendment and the 14th amendment. But the argument that he used 
which does not hold water with this amendment is that this amendment 
does not encourage litigation because it says that Congress defines by 
law what a de minimis amount is.
  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from New 
York.
  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished chairman for 
yielding to me.
  Mr. Speaker, here is the difference. This is not a question about 
whether or not we are interpreting whether someone's speech is 
abridged. This is taking an inherent constitutional congressional 
obligation which is deciding these questions and having litigation over 
what a specific term of art means.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Hall) to demonstrate the bipartisan support this 
amendment has.
  Mr. HALL of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.J. Res. 
41, the Tax Limitation Constitutional Amendment. I have been a 
cosponsor of this legislation since we first started it back in 1995. I 
have appeared before in front of post offices on April 15 and talked to 
distraught taxpayers on that particular day. I will get the same answer 
from all of them.
  I am going to continue to support this as long as it takes to provide 
a constitutional protection against tax increases for hard-working 
Americans.
  It would have a chance. This bill is going to pass sooner or later. I 
am not sure when it is going to pass, but it will pass. I will tell my 
colleagues when it could pass. It could pass when every Member of 
Congress would take the time to walk out into the streets of their own 
district and ask this simple question: Would you like to make it more 
difficult for Congress to raise taxes? If my colleagues do not get a 
yes answer from that 9 out of 10, then it will be different to the 
various areas that I have made that same inquiry.
  The tax increases that have been enacted since I have been in 
Congress have passed by narrow margins, once I think by a single vote. 
Legislation that hits everybody's pocketbook ought to require more than 
a simple majority of passage. A two-thirds vote requirement would give 
the taxpayers the protection they need and they are entitled to.
  The amendment would do more than just provide tax protection. It will 
help ensure that our efforts to maintain a balanced budget will focus 
on eliminating wasteful and unnecessary programs and achieving cost 
savings wherever we can, not raising taxes as a means of achieving this 
goal.
  Now, we are blessed with the projected budget surpluses over the next 
few years. I do not know if it will last for 10 years. That is the 
length of our budget. But I do not think anything this Congress can do 
can screw it up in less than 3 or 4 or 5 years. So I think we have got 
some real good years directly in front of us.
  President Bush and the Congress have pledged to return a portion of 
that surplus to the American citizens this year in the form of tax 
relief, and Congress is working out the details on that. However, 
should the economic environment change and the surplus begin to 
dwindle, our first line of defense should not be to breach our 
agreement with Americans by not lowering their taxes. Any serious 
economic situation that might call for increased taxes has to be 
addressed with the cooperation and understanding of all Americans and 
with more than a simple majority.
  If we ever have a balanced budget amendment, and I think there will 
be a time when we will pass a balanced budget amendment, take two-
thirds to pass that amendment, but they could comply with it by simply 
raising taxes with a majority vote. Now, that does not look right to 
me.
  I think that a lot of States have already moved forward on this 
initiative and have enacted tax limitation measures of their own. 
Congress ought to recognize their efforts and give the States and the 
American citizens the opportunity to decide for themselves on this 
amendment.
  I urge my colleagues to join in the passage of this legislation in 
the 107th Congress.
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner).
  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, I just want to clarify one point I did not have the 
opportunity previously in response to the chairman. Unlike the 1st and 
14th amendment, when one imagines the 1st and 14th amendments saying 
thou shall not abridge speech except to a de minimis amount or everyone 
has equal protection under the law except to a de minimis amount, one 
would never find that language in the Constitution of the United States 
because that is not the way constitutions are written, and thank 
goodness this one will never be part of it.
  I mean, the fact of the matter is, as litigious as a society as we 
have, can anyone recall any time in history that there was a budget 
resolution that was challenged on constitutional grounds around here? I 
do not think I have ever seen that. Has there ever been an opportunity 
where an increase in taxes was challenged on constitutional grounds?
  Frankly put, we are going to have, any time we have any change to the 
IRS budget, for example, if we have an increase in the number of people 
that the IRS puts on in their ability to enforce the different laws 
even, if it might increase the amount of tax collection, we are going 
to have a lawsuit.
  This notion that we are somehow are not going to have constitutional 
conflicts, that we do not have constitutional conflicts in the 1st and 
14th amendment, so therefore we should not have done it is absurd. This 
is not language that goes into the Constitution, because it opens 
ourselves up to all kinds of litigation.
  But a second point is also important. The Framers of the Constitution 
envisioned this body, Congress, having the ability to make certain 
decisions about how monies are expended, about how taxes are raised, 
lowered, either. Do we really want to turn that over to the courts? Is 
that a desirable outcome to say, well, you think it is de minimis, fine 
by us. We do not want to be in that circumstance. I am quite certain 
the

[[Page H1579]]

distinguished chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary does not want 
to be in that position either.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  Mr. Speaker, the Framers of the Constitution have used terms of art 
like due process of law and equal protection under the law and the 
courts have interpreted it. If the argument of the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Weiner) is that we should draft constitutional amendments so 
tightly that the courts do not interpret it, then I think we probably 
would have to rewrite the Constitution right from article I, section 1. 
We do not want to do that. But we do want to give Congress the 
authority to determine what de minimis is.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. 
Hayworth).
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the Committee on 
the Judiciary for yielding me this time.
  The temptation is here, Mr. Speaker, to directly address the curious 
and clever arguments. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner), for 
example, he seems to be suggesting that we truncate the role of the 
judiciary in our separate and co-equal branches from our constitutional 
Republic.
  He also seems to set up an interesting reinterpretation of what our 
Founders meant in setting up this Constitution. Because, Mr. Speaker, 
if it was so desirable to have direct taxation of personal income, why 
did not our Founders include that in the original document called the 
Constitution or in the first 10 amendments known as the Bill of Rights. 
They understood the powers that would be abridged,the rights of 
citizens that would be abridged.
  Ultimately, it came through the 16th amendment which required a 
supermajority for ratification. So the balance we strike today in 
adopting this constitutional amendment is to strike a balance to say, 
if a supermajority was required for the amendment process, there should 
be a supermajority required for raising taxes.
  Now, under the realm of I have heard everything, I think it was 
suggested earlier we have a supermajority for spending. Let us explore 
that. But today let us vote yes on this amendment.
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, we have no further requests 
for time and one final speaker. So if the gentleman from Wisconsin is 
ready to close, then I will proceed.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I encourage the gentleman from North 
Carolina to recognize his final speaker, and then we can wrap this up.
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as 
I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, this debate is always interesting at this time of the 
year. Every year, for the last 6 years, around April 15, this same or 
some version of this proposed constitutional amendment has come to the 
floor of the House, not as a serious legislative initiative, because I 
think it has always been acknowledged that there is not sufficient 
support for such a constitutional amendment. Instead, it comes to the 
floor as a political vehicle to dramatize and have a discussion about 
whether taxes are too high or whether the expenditures are out of 
control.
  We have a political discussion in the context of a proposed 
constitutional amendment.

                              {time}  1245

  I want to submit to my colleagues, however, that this is not a 
discussion about whether taxes are too high or not. If you ask probably 
10 out of 10 people on the street whether taxes are too high, all 10 of 
them will tell you taxes are too high. It is not a discussion about 
whether we spend too much money. I am sure there are people who will 
have varying opinions about whether the Federal Government spends too 
much money. My experience has been that they typically vary based on 
whether the money is being spent for the benefit of the individual who 
is taking a position or whether it is being spent for the benefit of 
somebody else. If money is being spent for your benefit, then most 
likely you are going to support that expenditure, and if it is not 
being spent for something that you believe is beneficial to yourself or 
to the country, then you are going to oppose that. So this is not a 
debate about whether we spend too much either.
  I think it is a debate about democratic rule and democracy and 
majority rule, because there are only two instances in our Constitution 
where a supermajority such as this is required. That is to declare war, 
which we seldom use because the Presidents have decided that you do not 
even need a supermajority to do that and that is not a good idea, so 
there has been this constant struggle between the executive branch and 
the legislative branch even in that area. And the other is to amend the 
Constitution, which brings me to this point. I think our Founding 
Fathers recognized that there needs to be something special to require 
a two-thirds majority, because the idea of majority rule was almost 
synonymous with the concept of democracy and they did not want to do 
anything that was contrary to that principle.
  Now, my colleagues who continue to profess to me that they are 
conservatives seem to have forgotten that there is something 
conservative about the concept of majority rule. They seem to have 
forgotten that there is something conservative about maintaining the 
integrity of our Constitution.
  In 1994, when my Republican colleagues took over the majority in the 
House in the 104th Congress, we had a total of 118 proposed 
constitutional amendments. In the next term of Congress under their 
control, we had a total of 86 proposed constitutional amendments. In 
the last term of Congress, we had a total of 52 proposed constitutional 
amendments. Now, these are the people who came in here telling me that 
they believed in some conservative philosophy. These are the people who 
are now telling me that somehow or another they have a better idea 
about this than the historical founders have had. I am a little 
confused by this. There is something else going on here.
  I think this is about democracy. I think this is about democracy, and 
I think it is about my ability to represent the constituents who have 
sent me here on an equal footing with everybody else in this body. It 
is not about winning and losing a vote. It is about every individual in 
this country having the right to have an equal voice in the government. 
That is why we redistrict and do a census and based on that census 
redistrict the whole country every 10 years, to go out of our way to 
provide every American an equal voice in our government. And when we 
set up a system in our Constitution that on one subject, such as taxes 
or spending or whatever else interrupts that balance, requires some 
supermajority, then basically what we are saying is we are devaluing 
the representation of some Members of this body, and we are overvaluing 
the representation of other people.
  Now, I am not going to argue with the notion of whether taxes are too 
high, but I do not think that is what this debate is about. If you go 
out on the street and you ask 10 people whether they believe that a 
basic tenet of democracy is majority rule, I bet you 10 out of 10 of 
them will tell you they believe in majority rule and they believe in 
the democracy that we have put in place. That is what this debate is 
about, my colleagues. That is what this debate is about, whether I am 
going to give you more power in the government to make this decision or 
whether I am going to have an equal place on behalf of the constituents 
who sent me here to cast a vote that has equal value to yours.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, I will be very brief. This amendment is very simple. It 
makes it harder for Congress to raise taxes. It requires Congress to 
put fiscal discipline on itself so that if there are loopholes closed, 
the tax relief would be given to the American people rather than being 
spent on some type of proposal that maybe the American people would not 
approve of.
  The original Constitution written by James Madison prohibited direct 
taxes except ``in proportion to the census, or enumeration hereinbefore 
directed to be taken.''

[[Page H1580]]

  When the Congress attempted to pass an income tax in the late 1890s, 
the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional. On February 13, 1913, 
the 16th amendment was ratified by the several States and became a part 
of our Nation's Constitution which specifically gave the Congress the 
power to lay and collect taxes on income from whatever source derived 
without apportionment among the several States and without regard to 
any census or enumeration. Since that time, boy, have those income 
taxes taken off. With the constitutional amendment ratified in 1913, 
the heavy hand of the Congress and of the Federal Government has dipped 
deeper and deeper into the pockets of the people of the United States 
of America, so that today Federal income taxes as expressed as a 
percentage of gross domestic product are higher than at any time in the 
peacetime history of our country, including during World War II in many 
of the years.
  So I guess the question is really simple. Given the track record of 
Congress since 1913, do we want to continue making it easy for Congress 
to raise taxes? Or do we want to force Congress to cut spending, to 
have better priorities, and then to attempt to achieve a national 
consensus to raise taxes as a last resort? Because a two-thirds vote 
does require a national consensus to be formed.
  I would hope that the Members of the House would approve this 
constitutional amendment and send it to the other body, because it will 
send a message that this Congress is serious about making it tough for 
future Congresses to raise taxes and to force them to set priorities in 
spending the public's money, not the Congress' money but the public's 
money.
  I ask for an aye vote.
  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, here it comes again.
  I was a newly-elected Member of Congress the last time we debated 
this proposed constitutional amendment--but I was told that the House 
had already considered it more than once.
  So, it was no surprise that the debate about it sounded very 
rehearsed. I got the impression--and it has only been strengthened 
today--that many Members have heard all the arguments before. And I am 
pretty sure the debate will not change many minds about the proposal.
  But, as I said last time, this resolution strikes me as one of the 
oddest pieces of legislation that I've encountered--and I think it's 
one of the worst.
  For one thing, while I'm not a lawyer it seems clear to me that the 
language of the proposal is an invitation to litigation--in other 
words, to getting the courts involved even further in the law-making 
process.
  To say that Congress can define when a constitutional requirement 
would apply, provided that the Congressional decision is 
``reasonable,'' is to ask for lawsuits challenging whatever definition 
might be adopted.
  Aren't there enough lawsuits already over the tax laws? Do we need to 
invite more?
  But more important, I must oppose this proposal because it moves away 
from the basic principle of democracy--majority rule.
  If this were part of the Constitution, there would be another 
category of bills that would require a two-thirds vote of both the 
House and the Senate.
  That's bad enough as it applies here in the House, but consider what 
that means in the Senate. There, if any 34 Senators are opposed to 
something that takes a two-thirds vote, it cannot be passed. And, of 
course, each state has the same representation regardless of 
population.
  Consider what that means if the Senators in opposition are those from 
the 17 States with the fewest residents.
  Looking at the results of last year's census, the total population of 
the 17 least-populous states is about 21 million people.
  That's a respectable number, but remember that the population of the 
country is more than 280 million.
  So, what this resolution would do would be to give Senators 
representing about 7 per cent of the American people the power to block 
some kinds of legislation--even if that legislation has sweeping 
support in the rest of the country, and even if it had passed the House 
by an overwhelming margin.
  Right now, that kind of supermajority is needed under the 
Constitution to ratify treaties, propose constitutional amendments, and 
to do a few other things.
  But this resolution does not deal with things of that kind. It deals 
only with certain tax bills--bills that under the Constitution have to 
originate here, in the House. Those are the bills that would be covered 
by this increase in the power of Senators who could represent such a 
very small minority of the American people.
  Why would we want to do that? Are the proponents of this 
constitutional amendment so afraid of majority rule? Why else would 
they be so eager to reduce the stature of this body, the House of 
Representatives, as compared with our colleagues in the Senate?
  Remember, that's what this is all about--``internal revenue,'' 
however that term might be defined by Congress or by the courts. When 
Congress debates taxes, it is deciding what funds are to be raised 
under Congress's Constitutional authority to ``pay the debts and 
provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United 
States.'' Those are serious and important decisions, to be sure, but 
what is wrong with continuing to have them made under the principle of 
majority rule--meaning by the members of Congress who represent the 
majority of the American people?
  So, Mr. Speaker, I cannot support this proposed change in the 
Constitution. Our country has gotten along well without it for two 
centuries. It is not needed. I would not solve any problem--in fact, it 
probably would create new ones--and it would weaken the basic principle 
of democratic government, majority rule. It should not be approved.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, this bill will hamstring Congress in an 
unprecedented manner.
  Requiring a two-thirds majority essentially renders Congress unable 
to increase revenues, as demonstrated by the five major deficit 
reduction measures enacted between 1982 and 1993. None of these bills 
passed by a two-thirds majority, yet a majority of this representative 
body found them necessary to reduce the federal debt and balance the 
federal budget.
  This bill will hurt federal programs when the baby boom generation 
begins to retire. This could lead to steep reductions in Medicare and 
Social Security benefits, not to mention other needed federal programs.
  Congress needs to impose balance in its budgets but this would be 
made impossible by requiring a two-thirds majority. Everybody likes the 
benefits that the federal government provides but nobody likes to pay 
for them. So it's always easy for a Member of Congress to reduce taxes, 
yet very difficult to increase taxes--even under a bill that requires a 
simple majority vote.
  A two-thirds majority would be required of any bill seeking to raise 
federal tax revenues. This includes taxes on corporations that find 
loopholes to lower their effective tax rates. This also includes 
businesses that we find pollute the environment. Just last year, the 
Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that forty-one of 
Fortune's top 250 U.S. companies paid less than zero in federal income 
taxes at some point between 1996 and 1998. This means that rather than 
paying the $9 billion in federal income tax, as required by the 35 
percent statutory corporate tax rate, these companies generated so many 
excess tax breaks that they received rebate checks from the U.S. 
Treasury totaling $3.2 billion. One astute University of Miami Law 
School professor accurately depicted today's bill as the ``Tax Loophole 
Preservation Amendment to the Constitution.''
  The legislation before us today would mean that corporate welfare 
could continue to flourish at the expense of American seniors who risk 
decreased Social Security and Medicare benefits with passage of this 
devastating bill. This is too big a gift to give to corporate America 
when we need more money for our children's education, and we need a 
Medicare prescription drug benefit for our seniors. I urge my 
colleagues to allow Congress to continue its prescribed work in 
devising and enacting an annual budget that includes increasing 
revenues in the same manner as it decreases revenues--by a simple 
majority vote.
  I urge a ``not'' vote on H.J. Res. 41.
  Mr. WATTS of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to wholeheartedly 
support House Joint Resolution 41, the Tax Limitation Constitutional 
Amendment of 2001. I am happy to be an original co-sponsor of this 
legislation and hope that one day we can see this safeguard in place in 
order to protect the wallets and pocketbooks of American taxpayers.
  This biggest things in life are usually the hardest things to 
accomplish. The same is true with law and government. Going to war. 
Impeaching a president. Overriding a veto. So, too, should raising 
taxes. It should be difficult to raise taxes. Our system of checks and 
balances can look out for the average taxpayer if the tax limitation 
amendment were indeed the law of the land.
  Over one third of the population of this nation lives in states with 
tax limitation amendments.
  President Clinton's tax hike in 1993--the largest tax increase in 
American history--would have died a miserable death if the tax 
limitation amendment existed back then.
  If we really need to raise taxes, if we really need to generate more 
revenue than we are already collecting, then two-thirds of Congress 
will do the will of the people. If there is a war, there is an 
exception. But raising taxes ought

[[Page H1581]]

to be the very last resort taken in order to solve a fiscal problem.
  We need to make it harder for Congress to raise taxes. We need to 
pass the Tax Limitation Constitutional Amendment.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of House Joint 
Resolution 41. This joint resolution requires a two-thirds vote in both 
the House and Senate for any bill that changes the internal revenue 
laws by more than a de minimis amount. The resolution also allows 
Congress to waive the supermajority requirement to pass a tax increase 
(1) during a period of declared war between the U.S. and another 
country, or (2) when Congress and the president enact a resolution 
stating that the U.S. is engaged in a military conflict which threatens 
national security. Tax legislation enacted under this waiver can be in 
force for no longer than two years after its enactment.
  Mr. Speaker, H.J. Res. 41 provides a simple mechanism to curb 
wasteful and abusive government spending by restraining the 
government's unquenchable appetite for taking the American people's 
money. The more the government has, the more it spends. The more it 
spends, the more it needs. The Tax Limitation Amendment will ensure 
that when the government needs money, it will not simply look to the 
American people to foot the bill.
  A Constitutional amendment is the only way we can assure the American 
people that Congress will only take from their pocketbooks that which 
is truly needed. This Constitutional amendment will force Congress to 
focus on options other than raising taxes to manage the Federal budget. 
It will also force Congress to carefully consider how best to use 
current resources before demanding that taxpayers dig deeper into their 
hard-earned wages to pay for increased Federal spending.
  Furthermore, if Congress has less to spend on programs, it will be 
forced to act responsibly and choose what is truly important to the 
American people, and it will be forced to make sure government programs 
are run as effectively and efficiently as possible. Simply put, the 
harder it is for Congress to tax the American people, the harder it 
will be for Congress to spend their money.
  Mr. Speaker, Once and for all, it is time for Washington to get off 
the American people's backs and out of their pockets.
  I thank my colleague, Mr. Sessions, and I urge my colleagues to 
support House Joint Resolution 41.
  Mr. OTTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.J. Res. 41, the 
Tax Limitation Amendment to the United States Constitution. This 
legislation will protect the American people from runaway government 
spending and keep Uncle Sam out of America's pocketbook.
  This Amendment demonstrates the respect this Congress has for the 
states and taxpayers of the United States. Today, the United States 
taxpayer faces the highest tax burden ever. I am pleased to have joined 
a bi-partisan majority in passing President Bush's tax relief package a 
few weeks ago. But the measure we take up today in the House is a 
longer-term solution to keep our taxes in check. No longer will a 
determined, razor-thin majority be able to force through tax increases 
against the will of the people. In 1993 this country was subjected to 
massive tax increases that passed each House by a single vote.
  I believe that if Washington, D.C. really thinks a tax increase is 
necessary, we should be able to convince the representatives of \2/3\ 
of the states. We require a \2/3\ vote of Congress to change the 
constitution, we require a \2/3\ vote to overturn the President's veto, 
we require \2/3\ votes for many important votes. Shouldn't we recognize 
that to working Americans, how much Washington takes away is the most 
important issue of all? I am proud to vote for this amendment, and I 
will recommend its passage to the legislature of my home state of 
Idaho.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I oppose the constitutional amendment before 
us because it is flawed and fundamentally anti-democratic. As the 
ranking Democratic member of the subcommittee of jurisdiction over 
constitutional amendments, I also want to register my strong objection 
to the manner in which the majority has once again disregarded regular 
order and proceeded without any hearings or subcommittee consideration. 
I would hope that our fundamental governmental document would merit 
more respect and care.
  H.J. Res. 41 disregards the constitutional principle of majority 
rule, requiring instead, a two-thirds ``super majority'' vote to raise 
taxes. The only exceptions to the super majority requirement are: bills 
that do not increase taxes by more than a ``de minimis amount''; when a 
declaration of war is in effect; or when the United States is engaged 
in a ``serious military conflict'' that causes an ``imminent and 
serious threat to national security.''
  James Madison, in The Federalist Papers No. 58, warned against such 
super majorities, stating that, under such a requirement, ``the 
fundamental principle of free government would be reversed. It would be 
no longer the majority that would rule: the power would be transferred 
to the minority.'' For example, based on data from a 1996 U.S. Census 
report, Senators representing only 7.3% of the U.S. population could 
prevent a tax bill from obtaining the two-thirds super majority 
required to pass. And the bill would require a far larger vote count to 
raise taxes than to lower taxes.

  This ``one way ratchet'' mechanism dilutes a member's vote on tax 
bills that are central and fundamental to the workings of our 
government. Although the sponsors point out that it is not 
unprecedented to provide in the Constitution for a two-thirds vote for 
certain significant actions, such as overriding a presidential veto or 
congressional impeachments, in the 104th Congress, the then Chairman of 
this Committee stated ``I am troubled by the concept of divesting a 
Member of the full import of his or her vote. You are diluting the vote 
of Members by requiring a supermajority . . . it is a diminution. It is 
a disparagement. It is a reduction of the impact, the import, of one 
man, one vote.''
  H.J. Res. 41 is designed to benefit the wealthy and powerful at the 
expense of the average American family and the poor. This 
constitutional amendment makes it difficult to close unfair tax 
loopholes that benefit the powerful corporations and wealthiest 
Americans, requiring a two-thirds supermajority to do so. For example, 
the amendment makes it difficult to curb ``corporate welfare'' and cut 
unproductive tax expenditures that grant subsidies to powerful special 
interests. Yet, according to a recent editorial in the Washington Post, 
``when the baby boomers begin to retire . . . the country will be in an 
era of fiscal strain. To avoid destructive deficits, there will have to 
be tax increases and/or spending cuts. By making it harder to increase 
taxes, this amendment would compound the pressure on the major spending 
programs: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the rest.'' This is 
wrong, Mr. Speaker; and I think that we ought not to allow it.
  This amendment would also endanger important excise taxes that fund 
public safety and environmental programs whose extension would be 
subject to a supermajority vote. Many such excise taxes are dedicated 
to purposes such as transportation trust funds, Superfund, compensation 
for health damages, taxes on alcohol, tobacco, and pensions, as well as 
a variety of environmental taxes.
  The amendment is also vague and runs the risk of transferring 
authority from the Congress to the courts. For example, the amendment 
fails to define the term ``internal revenue laws'' to which super 
majority votes would apply, and also fails to define the term ``de 
minimis'' to which super majorities do not apply. These vagaries would 
empower the courts to divine the congressional intent on tax issues 
that are not the province of the courts, and would bring the courts 
into fundamental policy disputes that are strictly the province of the 
Congress.
  Finally, the majority has recognized just how unworkable a 
supermajority requirement can be. On at least six separate occasions 
waived its own House rules requiring such super majorities to increase 
taxes where it suits their needs. For example, during consideration of 
the Contract with America Tax Relief Act in 1995 the majority waived 
the currently necessary three-fifths majority rule needed to raise 
taxes. This is wrong.
  This legislation would end the ability of the American people, acting 
through their representatives in Congress, to decide how they want to 
raise and spend their own money. The democratic principle of one 
person, one vote is before us today. I believe that we must protect it 
for this generation, and for generations to come.
  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, this Member rises in principled opposition 
to House Joint Resolution 41, the so-called ``tax limitation'' 
constitutional amendment. Certainly it would be more politically 
expedient to simply ``go along'' and vote in support of a 
constitutional amendment requiring two-thirds approval by Congress for 
any tax increases. However, as a matter of principle and conscience, 
this Member cannot do that.
  As this Member stated when a similar amendment was considered by the 
House in the past, there is a great burden of proof to be borne for any 
deviations from the basic principle of our democracy--the principle of 
majority rule. Unfortunately, this Member does not believe the proposed 
amendment to the U.S. Constitution is consistent or complementary to 
this important principle.
  There should be no question of this member's continued and 
enthusiastic support for a balanced budget and a constitutional 
amendment requiring such a balanced budget. In my judgment, tax 
increases should not be employed to achieve a balanced budget; balanced 
budgets should be achieved by economic growth and, as appropriate, tax 
cuts. That is why this Member in the past has supported the inclusion 
of a supermajority requirement for tax increases in the Rules of the 
House. However, to go beyond that and amend the Constitution is, in 
this Member's

[[Page H1582]]

opinion, inappropriate and, therefore, the reason why this Member will 
vote against House Joint Resolution 41.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Shays). Under House Resolution 118, an 
amendment in the nature of a substitute, if printed in the 
Congressional Record and if offered by the minority leader or his 
designee, would be in order at this point. The Chair is aware of no 
qualifying amendment.
  Pursuant to House Resolution 118, the previous question is ordered.
  The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the joint 
resolution.
  The joint resolution was ordered to be engrossed and read a third 
time, and was read the third time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the passage of the joint 
resolution.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the 
ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a 
quorum is not present.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
  The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 232, 
nays 189, not voting 11, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 87]

                               YEAS--232

     Aderholt
     Akin
     Andrews
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barcia
     Barr
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Berkley
     Berry
     Biggert
     Bilirakis
     Bishop
     Blunt
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Boswell
     Brady (TX)
     Brown (SC)
     Bryant
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Cannon
     Cantor
     Capito
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Coble
     Collins
     Combest
     Condit
     Cox
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crenshaw
     Cubin
     Culberson
     Cunningham
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Davis, Tom
     Deal
     DeLay
     DeMint
     Diaz-Balart
     Doolittle
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Etheridge
     Everett
     Ferguson
     Flake
     Fletcher
     Foley
     Fossella
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gilman
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Gordon
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Graves
     Green (TX)
     Green (WI)
     Greenwood
     Grucci
     Gutknecht
     Hall (TX)
     Hansen
     Harman
     Hart
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Horn
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Isakson
     Issa
     Istook
     Jenkins
     John
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Keller
     Kelly
     Kennedy (MN)
     Kerns
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kirk
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     LoBiondo
     Lucas (KY)
     Lucas (OK)
     Maloney (CT)
     Manzullo
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCrery
     McInnis
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller, Gary
     Moran (KS)
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Osborne
     Ose
     Otter
     Oxley
     Pallone
     Paul
     Pence
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Platts
     Pombo
     Portman
     Pryce (OH)
     Putnam
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Reynolds
     Riley
     Roemer
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roukema
     Royce
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Sanchez
     Sandlin
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaffer
     Schrock
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shays
     Sherman
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shows
     Simmons
     Simpson
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Souder
     Spence
     Stearns
     Stump
     Sununu
     Sweeney
     Tancredo
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Toomey
     Traficant
     Upton
     Walden
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                               NAYS--189

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allen
     Baca
     Baird
     Baldacci
     Baldwin
     Barrett
     Becerra
     Bentsen
     Bereuter
     Berman
     Blagojevich
     Blumenauer
     Boehlert
     Bonior
     Borski
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Brady (PA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Capuano
     Cardin
     Carson (IN)
     Carson (OK)
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Conyers
     Costello
     Coyne
     Crowley
     Cummings
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Dooley
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Edwards
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Ford
     Frank
     Frost
     Gephardt
     Gillmor
     Gonzalez
     Hastings (FL)
     Hill
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hoeffel
     Holden
     Holt
     Honda
     Hooley
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hoyer
     Hyde
     Inslee
     Israel
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones (OH)
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind (WI)
     Kleczka
     Kucinich
     LaFalce
     Lampson
     Langevin
     Lantos
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Luther
     Maloney (NY)
     Markey
     Mascara
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Menendez
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller, George
     Mink
     Mollohan
     Moore
     Morella
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Peterson (MN)
     Phelps
     Pomeroy
     Price (NC)
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Rivers
     Rodriguez
     Ross
     Rothman
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanders
     Sawyer
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Scott
     Serrano
     Shaw
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Solis
     Spratt
     Stark
     Stenholm
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Thomas
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Thurman
     Tierney
     Towns
     Turner
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Wexler
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Wynn

                             NOT VOTING--11

     Capps
     Cooksey
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     McHugh
     Moakley
     Moran (VA)
     Roybal-Allard
     Smith (TX)
     Vitter
     Watts (OK)

                              {time}  1322

  Messrs. FORD of Tennessee, CUMMINGS, TURNER, ACKERMAN, and THOMAS 
changed their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Messrs. PORTMAN, BARTLETT of Maryland, and McKEON changed their vote 
from ``nay'' to yea.''
  So, two-thirds not having voted in favor thereof, the joint 
resolution was not passed.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
  Mr. WATTS of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and 
missed the vote on final passage of H.J. Res. 41, the Tax Limitation 
Constitutional Amendment (recorded vote No. 87). If I had not been 
detained, I would have voted ``aye'' on this important bill.

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