[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 98 (Monday, July 24, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H5664-H5669]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            DEBATING REPUBLICAN TAX POLICY IN A CIVIL MANNER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2005, the gentlewoman from West Virginia (Mrs. Capito) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mrs. CAPITO. Madam Speaker, I want to thank my good friend and 
colleague, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Cleaver) for joining me 
here this evening in an important discussion that I think should 
interest all Members. I am going to talk a little bit about how we got 
started on this.

[[Page H5665]]

  I am a member of the Rules Committee, and on the Rules Committee we 
have a Subcommittee on Civility. The chairman asked me to chair the 
Subcommittee on Civility, and I have some frustrations because now it 
is just the two of us on the Subcommittee for Civility. But we share a 
common goal here, and I think that tonight we are going to do sort of a 
demonstration project.
  We are here this evening to highlight a major problem facing the 
House of Representatives, and that is the continuing lack of civility 
during floor debate. The blame does not lie with one party or the 
other; rather, it is incumbent upon all of our Members to maintain an 
appropriate level of civility and decorum during debate.
  The manner in which we address our colleagues on the floor is not 
only recorded in the Congressional Record, but is also broadcast 
through C-SPAN to millions of Americans across the Nation each day, and 
probably around the world. The advent of C-SPAN was a great public 
service, allowing the public to view the floor proceedings in Congress 
from their homes, both the good and the bad.
  It is healthy for Members to come to the floor and debate the issues 
facing our Nation, but it must be done in a manner that is respectful 
of our fellow Members, the people we are elected to serve, and the 
distinguished body we are proud to serve. I can tell you when I speak 
to my constituents across the Second District of West Virginia on a 
variety of topics of concern to all West Virginians, I am always 
guaranteed one line of applause, and that is when I apologize for the 
lack of civility in the House of Representatives.
  So, tonight, Mr. Cleaver and I will have a good, spirited debate on 
the tax policies put in place. I firmly believe that the tax policies 
have spurred the economic growth that we are experiencing and will 
continue to lead towards a robust economy.
  Mr. Cleaver and I do not agree on this tax policy, but we can agree 
that it is an important debate to have and one that can be conducted in 
a civil manner. So we are going to highlight our differences of opinion 
on tax policy and then have a general discussion on improved civility 
in the House of Representatives.
  Madam Speaker, I now yield to my friend from Kansas City for his 
opening remarks and any other remarks.
  Mr. CLEAVER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman.
  Madam Speaker, I would like to associate myself with the comments of 
my colleague and friend, Shelley Moore Capito from West Virginia. When 
I was elected, I sought to find those who were interested in and 
concerned about the uncivil manner in which the Members of the House 
communicated with one another and, of course, there were not a lot of 
people walking around with signs saying I would like to work on 
civility.
  But I did read in some booklet that Shelley Moore Capito was one of 
those individuals interested in this issue of civility. So finding 
someone who shared my feelings that the people's House could and should 
do a lot better, we began to discuss what we felt would be an 
appropriate way to deal with this subject.

                              {time}  2100

  The truth of the matter is, that Mrs. Capito and I disagree on the 
issue of the tax cut, and we will debate that issue passionately in 
just a few minutes. But perhaps it would be important for me to say 
before we actually get into that subject that we have different 
backgrounds. We have different political affiliations. Our districts 
are vastly different. But we do passionately agree that there is a need 
to promote civility in the halls of Congress.
  There are many, many days that I leave this House disgusted, not so 
much about a vote, as I am over what was said prior to the vote. I have 
heard all kinds of things fall from the lips of otherwise good and 
decent men, who were elected to represent a constituency here in this 
body. I have unfortunately heard, even at times religion used to hurl 
an attack at another member.
  I agree with Mrs. Capito, it is not one party, the insults have 
fallen from the lips of people on both sides of the aisle, 
unfortunately. But I would like to just end my opening comments, Madam 
Speaker, by saying that some suggest that we are in a culture war.
  If you accept the notion that we are somehow at war, then I think it 
is easy to accept the fact that whenever there is war, there is always 
collateral damage, and collateral deaths. And in the sense that we are 
having a cultural war, I would suggest that the collateral deaths or 
the damage is being done to the United States of America.
  I am not sure that there are a lot of mothers and fathers watching 
this session tonight who, on a regular basis, summon their children to 
the television set to say to them, look, we want you to watch Congress 
in action and they will teach you how to get along with people when you 
disagree. I do not think that happens very often in this country and it 
is sad.
  I yield to the gentlewoman
  Mrs. CAPITO. Well, for some additional comments on that, before we 
move to our policy debate, I think you make excellent points. I want to 
congratulate you for your initiative on this matter. But I also know 
this is not a new initiative for you. When you were a Mayor of Kansas 
City, it was something that you were very dedicated to, a lot of 
coalition building, a lot of talking across the aisle or talking with 
maybe unnatural partners that you would not naturally see could be your 
allies.
  And I think that, you know, we know and I know that when we go to our 
committees and when we go home or when we are in different arenas with 
our follow Members, Republican or Democrat, we can get a lot done when 
we are not on screen, or when we are not a talking head on a 60-second 
campaign or television ad.
  I think that the American public has sort of lost faith that maybe we 
can accomplish things. We know that things get done. I think that what 
we are running the risk of, and you mentioned collateral damage, what 
we run the risk of is losing the ear of the American public.
  Not only are they not bringing their children to the television to 
listen to what we are talking about, they are turning us off, because 
they cannot find the truth in what we are saying. Because we 
overexaggerate or we try to disparage people's character or lose 
respect in our arguments.
  I think if we lose the attention of the American public, we run the 
risk of an apathetic country that no longer cares or has faith in their 
leadership to be able to cut through and cut to the chase and lead. So 
I think we are not alone in the Congress. There is a Center Aisle 
Caucus that was put together with Republicans and Democrats together to 
try to solve this problem.
  But I am really pleased that tonight we are going to launch into this 
debate and see what we can demonstrate and what we can learn. If you 
will, we are going to go, kind of go free-wheeling. So should I go 
ahead and start?
  Mr. CLEAVER. Please. Seniority. I think it would be good if we had, 
you know, we do not get in much free-wheeling debate on the House 
floor. So if you feel you want to move in on something, go ahead, and I 
will let you interrupt, and you can let me interrupt and we will go 
like that.
  Let's talk about tax policy. In the United States Congress, since I 
have been here, we have passed two very meaningful tax bills. We have 
passed the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Act in 2005, and we also passed 
the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Act.
  We have to look at where we were, in my opinion. Where we were was we 
were post 9/11, we had a corporate scandal, we were in the beginnings 
or in the middle of a recession in our economy, and we were having 
difficulty pulling ourselves out for a lot of different reasons.
  With the leadership of the President, we followed through in Congress 
to pass those two tax relief Acts. I think I would like to go to the 
numbers and talk about some of the things that I think are significant 
in terms of the numbers and how it has influenced Americans.
  I always like to personalize everything to my State, so I have some 
State numbers as well. For instance, this year, who will gain tax 
relief? 111 million taxpayers will see their taxes decline by an 
average of $1,877. Significant numbers.
  Five million total individuals and families will see income tax 
liabilities

[[Page H5666]]

completely eliminated, because we moved the tax, the lowest tax 
bracket, down to 10 percent.
  Forty-four million families with children will receive an average tax 
cut of $2,493. That is because we have moved down significantly the 
child tax credit. Fourteen million elderly individuals will receive an 
average of $2,000, and 25 million small business owners will save an 
average of $3,641.
  So those are the numbers in terms of what could possibly be saving, 
average savings through the tax relief. But I think we need to look at 
where we are right now. We have an economy that is moving in excess of 
3.5 percent in gross national product.
  We have created, over the last several years, 1.85 million jobs over 
the last 12 months alone, and 5.4 million since August of 1993. What I 
think this translates to is more small business owners having more 
money to create jobs, to buy more equipment, which creates more jobs.
  I think we also have individuals who have more discretion over their 
own dollars. They can say what they want to buy, when they want to buy 
it because they have fewer Federal taxes to pay. I think that empowers 
them to consume more goods, which then translates to more business to 
more jobs.
  So I see it as an engine that is moving in the right direction. I 
believe that the tax relief package and the tax cuts that we passed are 
a large part of that.
  Mr. CLEAVER. If the gentlewoman will yield. First of all, I agree 
with your numbers. The job gain during this administration from 2003 to 
the present does bring the total jobs to 5.4 million. My disagreement 
with the numbers is that the numbers do not include 2.7 million jobs 
lost prior to the growth period.
  And so if you subtract the 2.7 million jobs that were lost, you 
actually will have a 2.7 million jobs increase instead of 5.4 million. 
And I have my own chart. And I do not quarrel with your numbers. But I 
have taken the numbers in a different direction.
  In 2005 dollars, income in 2005 dollars, this chart reflects the tax 
savings for Americans. And if an individual earned between $10,000 and 
$20,000 annually, their tax savings will be $2.

  $20,000 to $30,000, $9. $16 if you are between $30,000 and $40,000. 
If you earned $75,000 to $100,000 your tax savings is $403. And it goes 
on up, $500,000 to a million your tax would be $4,499.
  And the point I want to make here is that the people who earn the 
most get a huge tax cut, and people who do not earn much at all end up 
at the bottom in terms of the tax cuts. And so all of America cannot 
celebrate the tax cuts because all Americans are not getting a tax cut 
that will have any kind of impact in their day-to-day lives.
  Mrs. CAPITO. I think the question I would ask you on your chart would 
be if those folks in the $10,000 to $20,000, and I do not know the 
answer to this, but I surmise that they really do not pay, by the time 
they get their deductions, by the time they get their child tax credit, 
by the time they get their marriage penalty erased, by the time the 
bracket is moved down, the actual amount that they pay in that income 
tax brackets is probably very small.
  While I admit to you a $2 average tax lowering is diminimus. I mean 
it is nonexistent for anybody. But my question would be, what is their 
actual tax burden at that level? And would you be advocating giving a 
tax break to somebody who does not actually pay the tax? We already 
have the earned income tax credit, where we try to take some of those 
things into consideration.
  Mr. CLEAVER. I would not support giving any additional tax cuts to 
people who are already paying virtually no taxes. The earned income tax 
credit, I think, adequately, appropriately and significantly deals with 
the people who are at the very lowest end of the income level in this 
country. And they are paying virtually no taxes.
  However, I do think that the tax cuts are inevitably going to be 
disproportionate because of the disproportionate income. But the 
problem that I am having with that, in addition to the fact that they 
are not as equitable as I think we could design them, we are the only 
Nation in the history of the planet that I can find out that actually 
moved for a tax cut during a time of war.
  Generally during a time of war, we ask the people of the Nation, 
particularly our Nation, to make sacrifices. And so we are making 
significant spending a part of our day-to-day living in this country 
with a conflict going in Afghanistan, a conflict going in Iraq, and who 
knows what will happen with all of the troubles now in the Palestinian 
territories as well as in Lebanon.
  So I think that we missed a rare but a very, very key opportunity to 
challenge the people of our country to make sacrifices during this 
particular time. And one of the sacrifices I think we should have 
pushed on the American public is that we cannot have tax cuts at a time 
of war.
  Because we are borrowing all of the money. Most Americans probably do 
not realize this, we are borrowing all of the money we are spending to 
fight the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  When people in the country read that we are considering supplemental 
budgets, they probably do not realize that when we say we are just 
approving a supplemental budget, it means that we are going out to sell 
our paper, we are going to out the market the full faith and credit of 
the United States. We are borrowing money from the U.K., from China, 
from Japan, and particularly, the Pacific rim countries that are 
exploding with growth.
  Mrs. CAPITO. Well, I think that the way to pay for a war, the war on 
terror, it is tremendously expensive. We have had many votes on this.
  I think we both agree that in order to stand behind our troops and 
arm our troops and give them the best technology, we want to make sure 
that we have the dollars in the Federal kitty to be able to do that. I 
believe that the tax and growth policies that we have put in place, 
that we need to have the firm and strong engine of the American economy 
running on all cylinders.
  Because if we do not have businesses producing, if we do not have 
people employed, then we are not going to have the tax collections that 
we need to sustain what is a tremendously expensive time in our 
country's history.

                              {time}  2115

  But I would like to say, with the tax relief packages that we passed, 
the two major ones that we passed, we have had a surge in tax revenues. 
Just this year alone, tax revenues are running 11.1 percent over last 
year and a 14.6 percent increase over 2005.
  So what does that tell me? That tells me that with more discretionary 
income for the individual, and we also have a higher per capita salary, 
rates are going up, with more discretionary interest for small 
businesses. I live in a State where the main economic engine is small 
business, so hiring that one more person is very significant in a small 
State like ours, a rural State. Because of the tax relief and the job 
growth policies that we have put into place, our engine, our economic 
engine is roaring in terms of employment, in terms of discretionary, in 
terms of consumer spending. And I think that is reflected in the 
numbers of our tax collections being higher and higher.
  My State of West Virginia, State tax collections are up over $100 
million. I happen to live in an energy-rich State, so because of the 
energy situation, I do have to put my plug in for coal, because of our 
coal, we are enjoying a good economic stand.
  Mr. CLEAVER. I expected that.
  Mrs. CAPITO. So I think that the effect of these policies has been 
for us to be able to have higher tax collections to be able to afford 
and to be able to cut the growth of the deficit. We were projected that 
the deficit was supposed to grow by, originally projected to grow $423 
billion. That is not good. That is not good. But the good news is it is 
only expected to grow $296 billion, which is $127 billion less than it 
was originally projected because of the higher tax.
  Mr. CLEAVER. If the gentlewoman would yield, and I want to talk about 
the increase in tax revenues, but I want to make sure before we leave 
this subject, this particular area, that one-tenth of 1 percent of 
Americans, this one-tenth of 1 percent who earn $1 million per year or 
more will receive 43 percent of the tax cut, while everyday Americans, 
men and women who earn $50,000 or less, will get 2 percent of the tax 
break. They will receive a $10 yearly tax cut, or enough to buy barely 
$3 worth of gasoline. And so the people in

[[Page H5667]]

the lower end, as I said earlier, are hurt.
  But with regard to the tax revenues that are surprising Democrats and 
Republicans alike, I would like to just quote Bruce Bartlett, who was 
an economist with President Reagan and also with the first President 
Bush. And he said, ``I do not see how President Bush's tax cuts can be 
given any credit for the booming economy. All we have seen is the 
upturn we get after every recession. In other words,'' he says, 
``without any tax cut at all, we would be pretty much in the same place 
economically.'' And then Bernanke, the new Fed chief, said, ``I think 
it is unusual for a tax cut to completely offset revenue loss.'' And I 
agree certainly with former Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan who said 
that tax cuts should be made in the context of a PAYGO resolution, 
which I support very strongly, and I know there are Republicans who 
support the PAYGO resolution as well.
  And for people who are watching us, what Alan Greenspan is saying is 
that, yes, tax cuts can be healthy, but the government must become a 
disciplined body and that they must pay as they go, that we cannot 
afford to just become ravenous in our spending to the point where we 
push our country into a very, very dangerous place economically. We are 
$8.4 trillion in debt, and we have raised the debt ceiling repeatedly 
to the point now where it is over $9 trillion. And the problem with 
that constant raising of the debt ceiling is that we are borrowing our 
children and our grandchildren into significant trouble down the road.
  And $1 trillion is very interesting. Most people have difficulty with 
1 trillion, and I do, too. However, $1 trillion would equal essentially 
if a person spent $1 million a day from the time they were born until 
they were 75 years old, $1 trillion. We are $8.4 trillion in debt. And 
with that kind of debt, we can ill afford to subtract dollars out of 
the Federal budget that would generally be coming from tax dollars 
while we are taking money out, not only with the debt, but with the 
interest payments, which I will speak to a bit later.
  Mrs. CAPITO. Well, I think you have hit on an excellent topic in that 
the deficit is troubling to all of us. I certainly don't want to pass 
on to my children and grandchildren a heavy and burdensome deficit. And 
we found ourselves in a position with the recession, with corporate 
scandals, with the war on terror, with an attack on our Nation where we 
had to respond, we have had to beef up our defense, beef up our 
intelligence, beef up our armaments and at a very, very expensive cost. 
Not even to mention our homeland security costs, something that 
unfortunately I wasn't here but I am not sure I would have been any 
wiser.
  That is one thing I don't like about our debate in Congress, we all 
have great hindsight. We can predict what we would have done, but it is 
hard to say at the time that we would have been right. But I think we 
let our homeland security reach a point where we just weren't paying 
attention, and so we have put billions of dollars, and rightfully so, 
into not only protecting our localities to helping with our first 
responders. We found that was a real weakness on 9/11. We are now 
talking about border security and border protection, which is something 
that is tremendously important to all of us.
  So there is no question that the strains and binds on our budget have 
been very, very difficult. And what we haven't done, along with the tax 
and growth policies, is we haven't reined in our spending as well as we 
should on certain areas where we can be much wiser with the Federal 
dollar.
  But we cannot find ourselves in the situation where we are in now, 
where we have found this year with the larger tax collections of 11 
percent higher that has been able to already demonstrate just this 
first 6 months that we are now able to say that our deficit growth is 
going to be $126 billion less than it was projected to be simply 
because we have more tax, a tax revenue that has been spurred by the 
economic growth that has been spurred, in my opinion, by the tax cuts 
and reconciliation packages that we passed.
  And I would just like to read one thing to remind myself and 
everybody else, and this is a little off the subject, but if you will 
allow me, all the individual taxes that we all pay, we pay State sales 
tax, a lot of us do in West Virginia, we do, 5 percent on food, 6 
percent on everything else; State income tax, local property tax, 
Federal income tax, capital gains tax, dividends tax, State corporate 
tax, Social Security payroll tax, FICA tax, gasoline tax, gambling tax, 
cigarette tax, cell phone tax, telephone tax, Federal State tax, State 
tax, municipal fees.
  I mean, we are taxed not to death, but we are getting there. And I 
think the best thing that we can control here in Congress is our 
Federal income tax and the income tax that we assess on our small 
businesses. That is why I think Americans are always very mindful of 
their Federal taxes on April 15, but I think that come these past April 
15s, with the tax relief, families with children, married couples, 
families in the lower-income brackets who have been moved either off 
the rolls or down to the 10 percent bracket have all seen, along with 
those who make more money on your chart, more than the $1 million, have 
been able to see more money in their pockets so they can have more 
discretion and more responsibility over their own personal money, and 
they don't send that money here to Washington where we spend it or, as 
you said, overspend it.
  Mr. CLEAVER. I agree with you that we are taxed heavily in this 
country, all the way from these Chambers, this Chamber all the way to 
city halls around the country. But I do believe in tax cuts, and I 
think that we would be wise or certainly we would have been wise to 
have some tax credits to the corporations who engage in a certain 
amount of research and development. I think if the tax credits can be 
linked to research and development, then we know that those dollars are 
going to recirculate, they are going to come back into the budget.
  I also think that we ought to give tax credits, that the one we had 
has expired, for parents who are sending their children to college, 
they ought to get tax credits. We are going to be locked into a very, 
very tough competitive battle with India, with China, with Japan, and 
even with Taiwan; and so we have got to educate as many children as 
possible, and we have got to make it easy for parents to pay for that 
college.
  But the reason we won't be able to do that, and this is another thing 
that should cause us to reconsider the tax cuts, is the interest 
payments on the debt. Now, the interest payments are obligatory, and it 
is right now the third largest expenditure in the United States Federal 
budget; and that is very, very dangerous. We can cut Veterans Affairs, 
we can cut homeland security, we can cut education; but we can't cut 
net interest because the interest on the debt is obligatory. And it 
doesn't matter what else happens economically in this country. We have 
got to pay at least the interest on the debt because the Chinese, the 
European market will not have an understanding that we are not paying 
this interest.
  And I also think that is extremely dangerous, because we are 
borrowing money from countries that in all likelihood we are going to 
have some difficulty with. We are even borrowing money, $50 billion so 
far, from OPEC.
  And how does this fit in with the tax cut? Well, the problem is that 
we are continuing to borrow money, taking money out of the budget with 
the tax cut, and the interest is rising. And the interest payments do 
in fact have a very, very direct impact on taxes. And we would 
obviously be able to lower taxes if we were able to lower the interest 
rate.
  We have become a debtor nation, and that is not healthy. We owe 
everybody around the world, and in fact we will end up borrowing $36 
million during this 1-hour debate, $36 million during this one hour of 
debate. And when we are borrowing that kind of money and then giving 
tax cuts that will not come into the Federal coffers, it seems to me we 
are working against ourselves.
  Mrs. CAPITO. I guess my question to you would be, in looking at your 
chart, as just a point of clarification for me, the hand chart, the red 
is the interest payment. Is that correct?
  Mr. CLEAVER. Yes.
  Mrs. CAPITO. Your solution that you are advocating would be to raise 
the taxes from where they are right now to pay and meet this 
obligation. Is that basically correct?

[[Page H5668]]

  Mr. CLEAVER. No. I think we eliminate the tax cuts, which would allow 
us to begin to retire our debt. And if we just eliminate the tax cuts, 
and I will have to fumble through my papers to find out the exact 
amount of money that we would bring back into the Treasury, but it 
would be so significant that it could essentially put us in good stead 
with regard not only to our debt but the interest we are paying, or not 
only the interest but the debt we have.

                              {time}  2130

  Mrs. CAPITO. Okay. To draw a contrast here in our two positions, you 
would be for eliminating the tax cuts.
  Mr. CLEAVER. Yes.
  Mrs. CAPITO. I would be for keeping the tax cuts in place, letting 
them grow for their maturation. I think a lot of them do not kick in 
for full force until 2010, because the trend that I am seeing is this 
11.1 percent more collections, more people working, industrial 
production increasing 4.3 percent, real hourly compensation rising at 
3.2 percent, real consumer spending increasing at 5.1 percent over the 
first quarter, productivity in the Nation up 3.7.
  See, I would say to you that because of the tax relief, because of 
the job growth package and because of that, we are going to be able to 
grow ourselves and our economy to meet the needs to be able to take a 
sizeable chunk out of that red part of your chart.
  Mr. CLEAVER. That would be true, but we cannot do everything that we 
need to do and give the tax cuts. I mean, I think we have to keep in 
mind the growing cost of the war against terror, and we do not even 
budget for it. Most of the Americans will probably find it amazing that 
we do not even budget for the war, and the supplemental budget, of 
course, is supposed to be for unexpected costs. We did not even budget 
for the rebuilding of the gulf coast region. All of that finds its way 
into the supplemental budget, and I am saying that we are borrowing 
money that we might not have to borrow if we had it in the Treasury, 
and we would have it in the Treasury if we had not given it in tax 
cuts.
  Now, I want to say that the economic stimulus, the administration's 
tax cuts in 2003 had particularly low bang for the buck. The moderate 
economic growth has not been disbursed, as I said two or three times a 
night, to most American families. After accounting for inflation, the 
typical American family's income has decreased every year of the Bush 
presidency for a total reduction of $1,700. Now, that is when you 
factor in the inflation. It has dropped to $1,700.
  The GDP growth in the first quarter this year was, as you said, a 
strong 5.6 annual rate, but most forecasts, including the economists in 
the White House, see the growth moderating to around 3 percent over the 
next few quarters. So, whether you take the economists who lean on the 
Democratic side or on the Republican side, the truth of the matter is 
they all agree that things will moderate shortly to around 3 percent in 
the next few quarters.
  So I do not argue with the facts, and we all ought to be happy there 
is some life injected into the economy right now. I just do not think 
that we ought to come to the conclusion that it is long lasting, number 
one; and number two, I think that it would be wrong to assume that all 
is well in this government so we can give the people a tax cut back 
because it lulls them into believing that we have no problems.
  I want to say that we do have some major problems, some major 
economic problems, not the least of which is the growing debt that is 
eating away at us. I thought this was interesting. If we pay $1 per 
second, it would take us 284,000 years to pay off our debt. 284,000 
years to pay off our debt if we paid $1 per second, and that is scary.
  The other numbers, if we laid dollar bills side by side all around 
the globe, we would be able to go around the globe 34,196 times with 
dollar bills reflecting the debt we have, and we cannot afford to give 
tax cuts, fight the wars, handle the many issues that come before us at 
the same time. We just cannot do it.
  Mrs. CAPITO. Well, again, I think we are probably going to agree to 
disagree on this, our policies, and we have disagreed through our 
votes, I think, on the floor of the House.
  I think what I have appreciated about your argument is you have 
talked about the problems that we have, and I think that is what we 
need to do in this body. We need to agree on what our problems are, and 
we have not even touched on some of our bigger ones like Social 
Security and Medicare for the future, and this is all going to pool 
into this argument.
  So, my suggestion would be that, of course, I believe, and I think I 
have emphasized that point quite enough tonight, that the policies that 
we have put in place have us on the right track. What the future will 
bear, the future will bear, and we will be able to see, but had we not 
had these policies in place, I do not think we would see this engine 
moving as quickly as we have.
  So I am going to rest my argument here on those facts, on the 
economic facts, on the facts that in my State of West Virginia, we have 
some of the historically lowest unemployment we have ever had; and that 
we have 50,000 West Virginians who have children who are now paying 
fewer taxes; and that we have 94,000 taxpayers in West Virginia who are 
benefiting from a lower tax rate; and that we have 510,000 taxpayers 
who now are in the 10 percent bracket; and we have 194,000 married 
couples who are paying less, and these are not the wealthy 1 percent.
  These are the hardworking people of West Virginia who live in a 
beautiful State, the same State they want to raise their children in 
and want to have a future there.
  So I will rest my case with that and listen to your final argument.
  Mr. CLEAVER. My final argument is, and I think this is a very, very 
good example or illustration of the disparity between the recipients of 
the best ends of the tax cut.
  Lee Raymond, who was the retiring CEO of ExxonMobil, owns 7.7 million 
shares of their stock. Now, at the current dividend rate, he would 
generate, if he sold his stock today, $10 million. On top of that, he 
will have a $2.5 million tax cut. I think when we see that kind of 
disparity it has to pull at us that something is dreadfully wrong.
  Now, I am not upset with Mr. Raymond. I do not even know him. He may 
be a nice person. He may want to tithe to the church I pastored, but 
what I am concerned about is the fact that his total retirement package 
came close to $400 million, including his 7.7 million shares of stock. 
That is far more than one human being needs to earn, and I think that 
people who are earning $34,000, $45,000 a year are going to look at a 
$2.5 million tax cut for this gentleman and wonder about themselves.

  My final point that I have continued to make, as my uncle says 
sometimes I make the argument poorly, but it is that we cannot do 
everything. We cannot do everything. We cannot fight a war, $87 billion 
a year; we cannot fund all of the programs that people lobby you and me 
every day to fund; and we have used up every single nickel of the 
Social Security surplus. That is devastating, and we have got to come 
to grips with pay as we go, like all other Americans. If they want a 
refrigerator, they try to wait and pay for it.
  But what we have done is has been to demonstrate that to the people 
of the United States that the amount of credit they have, credit debt 
does not matter. In 2004, we saw the average credit card debt for 
Americans rise by 63 percent. Now, Asians save on an average of about 
20 percent. The savings rate, Mr. Speaker, for the United States, this 
is embarrassing, is minus zero. We go on the other side. We are not 
saving any money at all.
  So the country looks at us, the Congress of the United States, we are 
spending wildly, and they have joined in. Because the American public 
is not saving, the government cannot borrow domestically. We are 
borrowing some domestically, but when we get ready for the heavy 
lifting, we are travelling around borrowing money from Caribbean 
Nations.
  I think that reeling in the tax cuts will allow us to address some of 
those other problems and reduce the amount of borrowing.
  Mrs. CAPITO. Well, that is a very respectful debate, and if you are 
ready, I think we will just kind of close. I think we have covered a 
lot of our bases, and I want to thank the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. 
Cleaver) for, I think, a very instructive debate, and I think we have 
learned a lot from each other. I certainly have, and I would now like 
to

[[Page H5669]]

move just a little bit about the civility issue in Congress.
  I found a couple of quotes, one of which was from Winston Churchill 
who said, ``Many forms of government have been tried, and will be tried 
in the world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect 
or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form 
of government except all those other forms that have been tried from 
time to time.''
  None other than our first President, President George Washington, 
when he began, he wrote, ``Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior,'' and 
it is fun to thumb through this because some of them are telling us not 
to spit on the floor and make sure we go out clothed and all those 
things that I think we do do that all right. But the very first one 
that he has is, Every action done in company ought to be with some sign 
of respect to those that are present. He also said, ``Think before you 
speak, pronounce not imperfectly, nor bring out your words too hastily, 
but orderly, distinctly.'' Those are wise, wise words, I think, from 
our very first President. I am sure that if he is in Mt. Vernon 
listening to us right now, or not us, but some of the debate that we 
have on the floor of the House, then he is not too proud at the level 
of disrespect that we sometimes show our colleagues.
  So I want the thank you for joining with me in this effort. I want to 
say to all the other Members on both sides that we want this to be an 
ongoing practice, where we will pick a good topic that we can debate 
civilly and other such exercises, and we are going to grow this 
committee, the two of us, so we can return this body to the great 
esteem, the great integrity, the great respect and the great historical 
honor that I believe it is due. So I thank Mr. Cleaver.
  Mr. CLEAVER. I thank the gentlewoman. I actually have read George 
Washington's book on civility. Russ Carnahan, my colleague from 
Missouri who is from St. Louis, gave me that book shortly after we 
arrived because I was talking all the time with many of the freshman 
Members about the issue, and so he very kindly gave me that book.
  I think neither of us are likely to change our opinions on the tax 
cuts, and I think that people who watch, particularly Members of 
Congress, hopefully realize that talk does not have to be toxic, and in 
many instances, that is what has happened on this floor. The more 
convinced we are that our position is sound and moral and ethical and 
right, the less hostility we need to speak of it.
  To give you an example, Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Junior, both 
believed so deeply in what they were doing and the moral world coming 
to their side that they were so civil that they were willing to be 
beaten and to even go to jail. They did not respond in kind to the 
things that were done, and so on this floor, if we believe deeply in 
what we are saying, that is even more reason to be civil.
  When I was elected to this body, and my father and my sisters and my 
wife and our 4 children and nieces and nephews all came to Washington, 
I was very excited over the fact that I was elected to this body. Only 
18,000 people in the history of this republic have been able to sit in 
this Chamber and debate, and we are the only office in the United 
States that must be elected. You can ascend to the presidency without 
being elected; you can ascend to the vice presidency; you can ascend to 
the Senate, to governors, to lieutenant governor, to the to the U.S. 
Senate and so forth. We have to be elected here.

                              {time}  2145

  If a vacancy occurs, nobody can appoint anyone. We have to be 
elected. That means that this is a special body. There is nothing like 
it.
  And so I assumed when I came here I would join the likes of James G. 
Blaine and Cordell Hull, who came to this floor and demonstrated a 
wizardry of words. Once upon a time, the level of debate and oration in 
Congress was the envy of the world. We had the example of the silver-
tongued spellbinders like Daniel Webster and John Quincy Adams and 
Henry Clay. And the amazing thing that many Members of this body may 
not know is that Henry Clay was in the United States Senate, but became 
so enamored with the debate in the House, that he did something that 
people would never even think about doing today. He left the United 
States Senate to become a Member of the House of Representatives, to 
stand in that well to debate the great topics facing the Nation.
  That is one of the things I thought about when I came to this body. 
Henry Clay was known as the great compromiser, not as the great bomb 
thrower, but the great compromiser. He is remembered in history because 
he knew how to work with people on all sides, a compromiser. And 
somehow we have to come to the conclusion if we want to be remembered, 
maybe, just maybe we can be remembered better for our ability to work 
with one another.
  We had a situation when I first came here with 25 jobs being lost in 
Kansas City, and some people told me that I needed to go to war. We 
were going to lose it anyway, so I needed to go to war with a 
Republican, Frank Wolf. It didn't sound right to me. So I did something 
that was completely stupid. I called Frank Wolf on the phone, went to 
his office, we met, we talked about the issue, and he said, Cleaver, 
you're right.
  Twenty-five jobs were saved because I refused to go to war with 
someone just because he was a member of the other party. And I am 
convinced that much more could be accomplished here if we worked 
together.
  I have heard this story more than once. Barry Goldwater and Lyndon 
Johnson are about to launch their Presidential races. Barry Goldwater 
calls the White House and made a request that would be laughed at 
today. He asked that he be allowed to ride around the country with LBJ 
on Air Force 1 and they would stop at various cities and debate the 
issues. That is the kind of leadership that we need now in this 
Congress.
  I believe a part of the reason that the tone in this Chamber has 
plummeted so low is because the volume is too loud, literally. Too 
frequently Members fail to extend the courtesy of attentive and 
respectful listening to other Members when they speak on the floor. Too 
frequently volume is so loud in this Chamber with disrespectful and 
discourteous conversations that Members end up shouting to be heard, 
and that only contributes to the incivility here in the House.
  Let me conclude by saying that as we were thinking about this debate, 
I looked at everything I could look at, and one of the things that 
surfaced was that civility derives from the Latin word civitas, which 
means city, especially in the sense of civic community. Civitas is the 
same word from which civilization comes, the age-old assumption behind 
civility is that life in the city has to be civilizing. People could 
not live in a city without civility. And I believe that we cannot and 
should not dare to walk into the people's House without a strong and 
irreversible commitment to civility.
  I would like to thank the gentlewoman from West Virginia for this 
opportunity. I hope that next month we will have other Members of this 
body joining us for a discussion on something that we feel very 
passionate about, and will probably not convince the other side, but I 
think the public will benefit by the debate.
  Mrs. CAPITO. I agree with the gentleman, and I have to say 
additionally that I am a mother of three, and I think sometimes that 
the lessons that we teach our children, when we come here, we have 
forgotten. We teach our children not to interrupt; we teach our 
children to show respect to their classmates and their parents; we 
teach our children to not say bad words; and we teach our children to 
listen or be quiet when other people are talking. I have even been in 
this Chamber when I have heard hissing at another Member when they are 
speaking.
  So I pledge to you my cooperation, and I enjoy your eloquent words.

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