[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 101 (Tuesday, July 20, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H6101-H6104]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




MOTION TO INSTRUCT CONFEREES ON H.R. 1308, TAX RELIEF, SIMPLIFICATION, 
                         AND EQUITY ACT OF 2003

  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion.
  The Clerk read as follows:
       Mr. Stenholm moves that the managers on the part of the 
     House at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two 
     Houses on the House amendment to the Senate amendment to the 
     bill H.R. 1308 be instructed to agree, to the maximum extent 
     possible within the scope of conference, to a conference 
     report that--
       (1) extends the tax relief provisions which expire at the 
     end of 2004, and
       (2) does not increase the Federal budget deficit.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 7 of rule XXII, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) and the gentleman from Wisconsin 
(Mr. Ryan) each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm).
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  This is a very simple motion. The motion calls on Congress to extend 
middle-class tax relief without increasing the deficit. There is a 
broad, bipartisan support for extending the middle-class tax provisions 
which expire at the end of this year. There is also bipartisan support 
for the concept of pay-as-you-go to avoid further increasing the record 
budget deficits facing our Nation. Our motion would put the House on 
record in support of a conference report that achieves both of these 
goals.
  I strongly support middle-class tax relief. I support extending 
marriage penalty relief. I support continuing the $1,000 per child tax 
credit and the expanded 10 percent tax bracket.
  What I oppose is passing those tax cuts with borrowed money and 
leaving our children and grandchildren to pay our bills.
  The Blue Dog budget and Spratt budget substitute called for extension 
of middle-class tax relief offset by suspending a portion of additional 
tax cuts for upper-income taxpayers.
  More recently, a bipartisan group of Senators has put forward a 
proposal to expand the three middle-class tax cuts for 1 year, offset 
by an extension of customs user fees and closing corporate tax 
loopholes.
  The question is not whether or not we should provide tax relief to 
middle-class families. The debate is whether we should do so with 
borrowed money, adding more debt on top of our $7.1 trillion national 
debt.
  We should not pay for tax cuts by borrowing money against our 
children's future. Congress should be required to sit down and figure 
out how to make things fit within a budget, just like families across 
the country do every day. If we do not pay for tax cuts by cutting 
spending or replacing the revenues, every dime of the tax cuts will be 
added to the debt we will leave for our children and grandchildren.
  At a time when our national debt is approaching $8 trillion and our 
Nation faces tremendous expenses for our troops overseas, it is 
irresponsible to continue passing legislation that would put our Nation 
even deeper in debt.
  As of the close of business last Friday, our total national debt 
stood at $7,273,792,456,490.62. It appears very likely the debt limit 
will be reached sometime in late September or October, with the most 
likely date being early October, and here let me pause for a moment and 
say instead of working in a bipartisan way, which we could achieve in a 
heartbeat to increase the debt ceiling, what we continue to face are 
more and more bills to increase spending and decrease revenue and 
increase the deficit.
  We offer the hand of bipartisan cooperation on this amendment 
tonight, and in my opinion, if this would suddenly become the 
leadership's position, we would pass the tax cuts that the folks on 
this side of the aisle are talking about unanimously tomorrow or the 
next day, and it would conference out of the Senate.
  But instead, it appears very likely the debt limit that will be 
reached

[[Page H6102]]

sometime in late September or October will come and go, and we will 
have a crisis.
  Secretary Snow has publicly urged Congress to increase the debt limit 
as soon as possible, even before recessing in August, and we should do 
that. The most responsible thing for this Congress to do is do exactly 
what Secretary Snow is asking us to do.
  As of the end of April, $1.726 trillion of our debt was held by 
foreign investors, more than $1 trillion held by official institutions 
of foreign countries. Despite this, the leadership of this body is 
talking about bringing up legislation that would add another $75 to 
$180 billion to that debt. And some folks even have the nerve to say 
with a straight face they are taking a conservative position.
  Those who want to extend expiring tax cuts or make the tax cuts 
permanent should be willing to put forward the spending cuts or other 
offsets necessary to pay for them.
  Applying pay-as-you-go rules to tax cuts do not prevent Congress from 
passing more tax cuts. All it says is that if we are going to reduce 
our revenues, we need to reduce our spending by the same amount.
  If Republicans actually mean what they say about controlling 
spending, you should have no problem with applying pay-as-you-go to tax 
cuts, because it would force Congress to actually control spending when 
we pass tax cuts instead of just promising to do so in the future and 
having what apparently seems to be a good campaign issue.
  The problem is that actions of Republicans have not matched their 
rhetoric. They cut taxes without cutting spending, in fact, increasing 
spending at the most dramatic rate that we have seen in many, many 
years. They charge the difference to our children and grandchildren by 
increasing the deficit. We should provide tax relief to working men and 
women, but we must do so without increasing taxes on our children and 
grandchildren. That is what the Stenholm amendment to instruct 
conferees would provide.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to be very brief about this. This is a similar 
motion to instruct that we have seen before. The practical result of 
this motion to instruct is to make sure that a tax increase hits all 
middle-income families next year.

                              {time}  1930

  We have a problem and the problem is when the tax cuts passed into 
law last July and in the original tax cuts when they passed in 2001, 
the intention of this body was to make those tax cuts permanent. The 
tax cut that passed the House originally was that the child tax credits 
would be doubled, the marriage tax penalty would be vastly eliminated, 
and the 10 percent bracket would be expanded, and that that would be 
the law of the land in perpetuity.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I know the gentleman did not intend to 
mischaracterize my amendment.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I am getting there.
  Mr. STENHOLM. I guess I did not hear what I thought I heard you say.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Reclaiming my time, I am making a larger point 
that will come around to the practical effect of this motion to 
instruct.
  The point I was trying to make, Mr. Speaker, is that because of an 
arcane rule in the other body, those tax cuts were made temporary, 
meaning next year if Congress does not act, the per child tax credits 
will go from $1,000 down to $700. The marriage penalty relief will go 
away and the marriage penalty will come back into full force which 
costs the average married couple $1,400 in higher taxes. And the 10 
percent bracket which is income tax relief to low-income Americans will 
go away and go back to the 15 percent tax bracket.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. STENHOLM. You are mischaracterizing my amendment. We are 
suggesting that the tax cuts be extended through next year. You are 
describing something that is not going to happen in my amendment, 
leaving a wrong impression with the people that might be listening to 
us right now.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Reclaiming my time, the point I am coming to 
is that the practical effect of this by saying ``does not increase the 
Federal budget deficit,'' is to say that this will not, in effect, end 
up happening. And what we want to do is make sure these tax cuts stay 
in place.
  The point is this, Mr. Speaker, when the House passed its budget 
resolution, when the House deemed its budget resolution passed, we 
budgeted for this. We planned for this. It is within our budget, which 
is also a broader plan to reduce the budget deficit. The point is if 
you put this emphasis as this motion to instruct is created, it will 
put a bias in to keep these taxes high. It will put pressure not on 
reducing spending, but keeping taxes high. That is my concern with the 
gentleman's motion to instruct.
  By saying, ``extend the tax relief provisions that expired at the end 
of 2004 and does not increase the Federal budget deficit,'' that puts 
emphasis on keeping taxes high or raise raising taxes somewhere else to 
make this tax cut extended, rather than putting the emphasis where it 
ought to be, and that is reducing spending like we budget for in the 
budget resolution which we have deemed here.
  So the points is this: we want these tax cuts to be permanent. It was 
always the intention they be permanent. By having these kinds of 
motions to instruct which will have the practical effect, in my 
opinion, of derailing these tax relief measures, we will have a tax 
increase on the middle-income family earners.
  This is in our budget resolution. We budget for these tax cuts to be 
made permanent. That is what should happen. That is why I urge a ``no'' 
vote on this motion to instruct.
  With that, I understand my friend from Texas disagrees with my 
assessment of this, but that is my assessment. I think that is exactly 
what would happen if this were to be the case. That is why I urge a 
``no'' vote.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I think it is a fascinating argument. We have heard it time and time 
and time again. My friend talks about the lack of controlling of 
spending. Let me remind, Mr. Speaker, you control this House. You 
control the Senate. You control the White House. All of the great 
speeches that are made about controlling spending are your 
responsibility.
  This amendment will not stop that from happening. In fact, I suggest 
just the opposite has been happening because we continue to pay tax 
cuts but spending goes up. Nothing in my amendment suggests that 
spending would not go down. If you want to have a tax cut, pass the 
spending cuts first. Do not just do it on the promise of a theory that 
so far has not worked. Did not work in the 1980s, has not worked in the 
1990s. But yet we hear the same rhetoric; and with all due respect, my 
colleague mischaracterizes our amendment.
  I would be happy to yield at any time to my friend.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. STENHOLM. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. As this motion to instruct is written, number 
one, under the PAYGO rules that you are advocating, you will have to 
raise taxes somewhere else to pay for this tax cut or you will cut 
entitlements because that is how PAYGO works for these tax reliefs.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Reclaiming my time, I take back time because again you 
are totally misleading the body when you make that statement.
  If you go back to PAYGO as was originally passed in this body in 
1990, repassed in 1993, repassed in 1997 with Republican votes for it 
and Democrats joining, like myself, in putting that in place, it 
worked. There is nothing in this amendment that suggests that you, the 
majority party, must cut entitlement spending in order to achieve a tax 
cut.

[[Page H6103]]

  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. STENHOLM. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Does PAYGO allow for cuts in discretionary 
spending to be used to pay for tax relief?
  Mr. STENHOLM. Yes.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I have a different understanding on that.
  Mr. STENHOLM. That is the problem. That is the problem. It is a lack 
of understanding.
  PAYGO means you have got to come up with the spending cuts to take 
care of the amount of tax cut.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. If the gentleman is suggesting that when the 
budget resolution sets its 302(a) and reconciles its provisions, then 
the answer is you can put credit on the PAYGO score card to pay for a 
tax cut. But given the fact that we already have a budget resolution 
that is deemed, that accommodates this tax relief provision extending 
this tax cut so that it does not expire, we already have in our budget 
this budgeted for.
  Mr. STENHOLM. The gentleman has misstated the facts again. There is 
no budget. There is no budget until we get a House-Senate conference 
and we have a budget. If we had a budget, I would probably be standing 
up here agreeing with parts of what you are saying.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. The House deemed a budget, so we for practical 
purposes are operating under the House budget resolution which we 
deemed to be the budget of the House because we could not get a budget 
agreement with the other body.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Reclaiming my time, that is precisely why I am standing 
here tonight offering a solution for the House and the Senate.
  There is a bipartisan family tax relief proposal in the other body. 
It calls for a clean 1-year extension of the present law, $1,000 tax 
credit. It calls for the marriage tax penalty relief and the standard 
deduction, clean 1-year extension of present law so that married 
couples get twice the standard deductions of single filers. It calls 
for the 10 percent rate bracket clean 1-year extension. It calls for 1-
year acceleration of the scheduled 2005 increase from 10 to 15 percent. 
It provides for the benefit of the child credit to military families by 
expanding the definition of earned income.
  There is not a bit of this that you are opposed to. We all agree on 
that.
  Now, what my proposal does is the offsets that they put in their 
bill. The Concord Coalition today has endorsed what this bipartisan 
group of Senators, let me read the names, Senator Snowe, Republican of 
Maine; Senator Baucus, Democrat of Montana; Senator McCain, Republican 
of Arizona; Senator Breaux, Democrat of Louisiana; Senator Chafee, 
Republican of Rhode Island; Senator Lincoln, Democrat of Arkansas.
  The other body is showing some signs of saying, look, it is time for 
us to deal with a very serious problem. If we do not act, these tax 
cuts are going to become tax increases on the middle-income folks. If 
we do not act. To act you are going to have to eventually get some kind 
of bipartisan agreement. You will never get bipartisan agreement by 
standing up in this body and saying, we passed a budget in this House. 
Whoopee. We passed one in this House. But you have got to have a Senate 
concurrence if you are going to, in fact, achieve something that we all 
agree needs to be done. That is my point.
  We can do this. It is not that difficult. Unless you just believe we 
can borrow unlimited amounts of money.
  There are some misconceptions flowing around. I have been in this 
body now for 13 terms. And when I look at spending as a percent of 
gross domestic product when I arrived here in 1979 and compare it with 
spending today, total spending as a percent of GDP, it is one half of 1 
percent less today than it was in 1979. Revenue has dropped by 5 
percent. The amount of revenue that we have available to fund the 
programs, including fighting three wars, has dropped by 5 percent; and 
in dropping the revenue by 5 percent, we are adding to the deficit at 
an alarming rate.
  It does not seem to bother you, Mr. Speaker. It does not seem to 
bother my friend. As long as we were out here arguing about tax cuts, 
it does not bother anyone. And why should it? The folks that this 
should bother are our children and grandchildren, and they have about 
as much knowledge of this as my friend arguing on the other side here 
today and they cannot vote. That is the problem. Our grandchildren 
cannot vote.
  Adding to the deficit under a political theory that has not worked, 
did not work in the 1980s, is not working today, is dangerous to the 
future health of this country. I believe that.
  My friends on the other side apparently do not believe that. And that 
is fine. As long as you stand up and say, honestly, I do not believe it 
is going to harm the United States of America that we borrow another 75 
to $180 billion, because tonight I do not know what my friends are 
proposing in this mysterious conference. Very unusual procedure that we 
are talking about in doing what no one knows until the leadership deems 
that it is going to be on the floor, and deems the way it is going to 
be carried out, and deems the way that it is going to, in fact, effect 
the future economy of this country.
  Now, that is perfectly within the purview of the majority party, to 
continue to allow business as serious as the economic future of this 
country to be decided in a very small cadre of Members who happen to be 
in the leadership. And if you continue to do as you have been doing, 
you are going to be successful in this body. But then what happens if 
we cannot get an agreement with the other body?
  Why would we not come together tonight and say, okay, we can have a 
1-year extension and we can pay for it, either with the way the Senate 
has proposed it or by finding some other spending cuts up front. Not 
doing it like we did it 2 weeks ago, and spending 7 hours in this body 
debating all these wonderful amendments and then having nothing. Some 
got 100 votes and some got 105. And that is perfectly within the 
purview of any Member to stand up and speak for what they are for. But, 
ultimately, when you are in the majority party you have to accept the 
responsibility, the responsibility of your actions.
  Just as I took the hand of your party in the 1980s when we were in 
the majority in this body and we worked together for some compromises 
regarding the economy of this country, we offer that hand tonight. This 
amendment, if you look at it honestly, again, is a very simple motion. 
It calls on Congress to extend middle-class tax relief without 
increasing the deficit. What is wrong with that? I ask my colleagues, 
what is wrong with extending middle-class tax relief without increasing 
the deficit? Why are my friends on the other side of the aisle so bound 
and determined that you want to continue to increase the deficit 
because you have a theory, a theory, that by cutting taxes without 
paying for them that it will do something other than increase the 
deficit?
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. STENHOLM. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I was thinking we were going to yield all time 
back.
  I want to be very brief. We do want to reduce the deficit. We are 
trying to reduce the deficit. I think there is a better way than this 
vehicle. That is the point I am trying to make.
  I do believe there is a difference of opinion on how the PAYGO rules 
work. But also I think it is important to point out the fact that the 
tax cuts that took place last year, since then we have actually raised 
more money in tax receipts under these new lower tax rates than we did 
last year under the higher tax rates. So the facts are there; but, 
nevertheless, the point of this is we passed budget resolutions. We 
have not gotten one with the other body for a lot of reasons, but we 
have deemed it here. We passed the budget to try to get a handle on 
spending and reduce the deficit. I would have done even more on 
spending control in our budget resolution.
  This is not the vehicle to do it because I believe this vehicle will 
make it harder to extend this tax relief; and, therefore, you will have 
a tax increase on middle-income workers. And I believe the better 
vehicle to get a hold of our deficit is to pass a good budget that gets 
down our deficit, that reduces our deficit.
  I thank the gentleman for giving me the time.

                              {time}  1945

  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I do. I respect the sincerity of the 
gentleman

[[Page H6104]]

and his belief. I happen to believe that he is wrong and is being 
proven wrong every day by the facts. And let the facts speak for 
themselves.
  That is the whole question today, and this is something that we can 
continue to argue, but if we do not get some agreements fairly soon, 
middle-income folks will get a tax increase, and it will not be my 
fault.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hensarling). Without objection, the 
previous question is ordered on the motion to instruct.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to instruct 
offered by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm).
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this motion will be postponed.

                          ____________________