[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 16583-16606]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



            SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS TAX RELIEF ACT OF 2000

  Mr. ARCHER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 564, I call up 
the bill (H.R. 4865), to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to 
repeal the 1993 income tax increase on Social Security benefits, and 
ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). Pursuant to House Resolution 
564, the bill is considered read for amendment.
  The text of H.R. 4865 is as follows:

                               H.R. 4865

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Social Security Benefits Tax 
     Relief Act of 2000''.

     SEC. 2. REPEAL OF 1993 INCOME TAX INCREASE ON SOCIAL SECURITY 
                   BENEFITS.

       (a) Restoration of Prior Law Formula.--Subsection (a) of 
     section 86 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended to 
     read as follows:
       ``(a) In General.--Gross income for the taxable year of any 
     taxpayer described in subsection (b) (notwithstanding section 
     207 of the Social Security Act) includes social security 
     benefits in an amount equal to the lesser of--
       ``(1) one-half of the social security benefits received 
     during the taxable year, or
       ``(2) one-half of the excess described in subsection 
     (b)(1).''
       (b) Repeal of Adjusted Base Amount.--Subsection (c) of 
     section 86 of such Code is amended to read as follows:
       ``(c) Base Amount.--For purposes of this section, the term 
     `base amount' means--
       ``(1) except as otherwise provided in this subsection, 
     $25,000,
       ``(2) $32,000 in the case of a joint return, and
       ``(3) zero in the case of a taxpayer who--
       ``(A) is married as of the close of the taxable year 
     (within the meaning of section 7703) but does not file a 
     joint return for such year, and
       ``(B) does not live apart from his spouse at all times 
     during the taxable year.''
       (c) Conforming Amendments.--
       (1) Subparagraph (A) of section 871(a)(3) of such Code is 
     amended by striking ``85 percent'' and inserting ``50 
     percent''.
       (2)(A) Subparagraph (A) of section 121(e)(1) of the Social 
     Security Amendments of 1983 (Public Law 98-21) is amended--
       (i) by striking ``(A) There'' and inserting ``There'';
       (ii) by striking ``(i)'' immediately following ``amounts 
     equivalent to''; and
       (iii) by striking ``, less (ii)'' and all that follows and 
     inserting a period.
       (B) Paragraph (1) of section 121(e) of such Act is amended 
     by striking subparagraph (B).
       (C) Paragraph (3) of section 121(e) of such Act is amended 
     by striking subparagraph (B) and by redesignating 
     subparagraph (C) as subparagraph (B).
       (D) Paragraph (2) of section 121(e) of such Act is amended 
     in the first sentence by striking ``paragraph (1)(A)'' and 
     inserting ``paragraph (1)''.
       (d) Effective Date.--
       (1) In general.--Except as otherwise provided in this 
     subsection, the amendments made by this section shall apply 
     to taxable years beginning after December 31, 2000.
       (2) Subsection (c)(1).--The amendment made by subsection 
     (c)(1) shall apply to benefits paid after December 31, 2000.
       (3) Subsection (c)(2).--The amendments made by subsection 
     (c)(2) shall apply to tax liabilities for taxable years 
     beginning after December 31, 2000.

     SEC. 3. MAINTENANCE OF TRANSFERS TO HOSPITAL INSURANCE TRUST 
                   FUND.

       There are hereby appropriated to the Hospital Insurance 
     Trust Fund established under section 1817 of the Social 
     Security Act amounts equal to the reduction in revenues to 
     the Treasury by reason of the enactment of this Act. Amounts 
     appropriated by the preceding sentence shall be transferred 
     from the general fund at such times and in such manner as to 
     replicate to the extent possible the transfers which would 
     have occurred to such Trust Fund had this Act not been 
     enacted.
                                 ______
                                 
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The amendment printed in the bill is 
adopted.
  The text of H.R. 4865, as amended, is as follows:

                               H.R. 4865

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Social Security Benefits Tax 
     Relief Act of 2000''.

     SEC. 2. REPEAL OF 1993 INCOME TAX INCREASE ON SOCIAL SECURITY 
                   BENEFITS.

       (a) Restoration of Prior Law Formula.--Subsection (a) of 
     section 86 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended to 
     read as follows:
       ``(a) In General.--Gross income for the taxable year of any 
     taxpayer described in subsection (b) (notwithstanding section 
     207 of the Social Security Act) includes social security 
     benefits in an amount equal to the lesser of--
       ``(1) one-half of the social security benefits received 
     during the taxable year, or
       ``(2) one-half of the excess described in subsection 
     (b)(1).''
       (b) Repeal of Adjusted Base Amount.--Subsection (c) of 
     section 86 of such Code is amended to read as follows:
       ``(c) Base Amount.--For purposes of this section, the term 
     `base amount' means--
       ``(1) except as otherwise provided in this subsection, 
     $25,000,
       ``(2) $32,000 in the case of a joint return, and
       ``(3) zero in the case of a taxpayer who--
       ``(A) is married as of the close of the taxable year 
     (within the meaning of section 7703) but does not file a 
     joint return for such year, and
       ``(B) does not live apart from his spouse at all times 
     during the taxable year.''
       (c) Conforming Amendments.--
       (1) Subparagraph (A) of section 871(a)(3) of such Code is 
     amended by striking ``85 percent'' and inserting ``50 
     percent''.
       (2)(A) Subparagraph (A) of section 121(e)(1) of the Social 
     Security Amendments of 1983 (Public Law 98-21) is amended--
       (i) by striking ``(A) There'' and inserting ``There'';
       (ii) by striking ``(i)'' immediately following ``amounts 
     equivalent to''; and
       (iii) by striking ``, less (ii)'' and all that follows and 
     inserting a period.
       (B) Paragraph (1) of section 121(e) of such Act is amended 
     by striking subparagraph (B).
       (C) Paragraph (3) of section 121(e) of such Act is amended 
     by striking subparagraph (B) and by redesignating 
     subparagraph (C) as subparagraph (B).
       (D) Paragraph (2) of section 121(e) of such Act is amended 
     in the first sentence by striking ``paragraph (1)(A)'' and 
     inserting ``paragraph (1)''.
       (d) Effective Date.--
       (1) In general.--Except as otherwise provided in this 
     subsection, the amendments made by this section shall apply 
     to taxable years beginning after December 31, 2000.
       (2) Subsection (c)(1).--The amendment made by subsection 
     (c)(1) shall apply to benefits paid after December 31, 2000.
       (3) Subsection (c)(2).--The amendments made by subsection 
     (c)(2) shall apply to tax liabilities for taxable years 
     beginning after December 31, 2000.

     SEC. 3. MAINTENANCE OF TRANSFERS TO HOSPITAL INSURANCE TRUST 
                   FUND.

       (a) In General.--There are hereby appropriated to the 
     Hospital Insurance Trust Fund established under section 1817 
     of the Social Security Act amounts equal to the reduction in 
     revenues to the Treasury by reason of the enactment of this 
     Act. Amounts appropriated by the preceding sentence shall be 
     transferred from the general fund at such times and in such 
     manner as to replicate to the extent possible the transfers 
     which would have occurred to such Trust Fund had this Act not 
     been enacted.
       (b) Reports.--The Secretary of the Treasury or the 
     Secretary's delegate shall annually report to the Committee 
     on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives and the 
     Committee on Finance of the Senate the amounts and timing of 
     the transfers under this section.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. After one hour of debate on the bill, as 
amended, it shall be in order to consider a further amendment printed 
in House Report 106-795 if offered by the gentleman from North Dakota 
(Mr. Pomeroy) or his designee, which shall be considered read, and 
shall be debatable for one hour, equally divided and controlled by the 
proponent and an opponent.
  The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Archer) and the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Stark) each will control 30 minutes of debate on the 
bill.

                              {time}  1445

  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Archer).


                             General Leave

  Mr. ARCHER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks 
and include extraneous material in the bill H.R. 4865.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Texas?

[[Page 16584]]

  There was no objection.
  Mr. ARCHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 4865. This is a 
bipartisan bill to repeal the 1993 tax on Social Security benefits. 
Several Democrats have cosponsored similar legislation and four 
Democrats in the Senate voted to repeal the tax just 2 weeks ago. So 
like other common sense tax relief bills that this House has approved 
this year, there is once again bipartisan support.
  Seniors should not be taxed on their Social Security benefits, 
period. Social Security checks should not arrive in the mailbox with a 
bill from the IRS attached.
  President Clinton and Vice President Gore created this tax on Social 
Security benefits to reduce the deficit. In 1993, the deficit was $255 
billion a year. This year the surplus is $233 billion. We have no 
deficit and it is time to repeal the tax.
  Seniors work their whole lives to earn these benefits. They should 
not have to pay taxes on them when they retire.
  In effect, this tax changes the rules of the game in the middle of 
the lifestream of a worker in this country. They believe they will get 
benefits of a certain economic value. This takes away the value of 
those benefits.
  There are many reasons to repeal this tax. It is a ticking time bomb 
that will explode on millions of seniors over the next generation 
because the income thresholds are not indexed for inflation. Almost 10 
million seniors pay the tax today and more than 20 million retirees 
will be hit soon. This tax is a clear and present danger to their 
retirement security.
  Second, taxing Social Security benefits is not good tax policy. Last 
week, this House voted overwhelmingly to give Americans tax incentives 
to save for retirement. What are we telling Americans by taxing these 
Social Security benefits? We are telling them not to save, because only 
if they save during their lifetime and have any other income are they 
faced with this tax. That does not make sense, particularly at a time 
when we need private savings in this country more than ever before.
  Third, this tax serves to undermine Social Security. In a 1995 
letter, AARP says the following, and I quote, ``The 1993 tax may serve 
to undermine the program. Dramatic changes that substantially erode net 
benefits will further undermine public confidence that the Social 
Security system will provide a fair return on contributions.''
  At this point, I would include that letter in the Record.

                                                         AARP,

                                                 January 20, 1995.
     Hon. Bill Archer,
     Chairman, Committee on Ways and Means, House of 
         Representatives, Washington, DC.
       Dear Chairman Archer: In the interest of time, I did not 
     respond to Representative Cardin's question at the January 
     19th hearing regarding a rationale for taxing Social Security 
     income differently from private pension income. I would 
     appreciate your inserting my written response in the 
     appropriate place in the hearing record.
       Some maintain that Social Security is like a private 
     pension, and therefore should be taxed more like a pension. 
     While both programs provide income in retirement, the simple 
     fact is that Social Security is not a private pension. Social 
     Security is a mandatory, government-sponsored, portable 
     program with almost universal coverage. The private pension 
     system is a voluntary, employer-established program that is 
     rarely portable and covers less than fifty percent of the 
     workforce. Social Security is based on a progressive benefit 
     formula that provides a greater rate of return for low-wage 
     earners. The private pension system is based on myriad plan 
     designs that more often favor the relatively higher income 
     earner. Social Security is partially pre-funded with 
     generally no access to contributions before retirement (or 
     disability). Private pensions are generally advance-funded, 
     and access to money pre-retirement is common. Social Security 
     is social insurance and is the base of retirement security. 
     Private pensions represent a privately sponsored, tax-
     subsidized income supplement.
       Those who argue that Social Security should be taxed as a 
     pension fail to fully recognize these substantial policy 
     differences. In fact, policy goals often have led to 
     different tax treatment where fundamental differences exist. 
     For example, the tax code treats mortgage interest payments 
     different than rental payments (even though both are for 
     housing), and employer provided health benefits different 
     than wages (even though both are forms of compensation). 
     Similarly, Social Security is appropriately taxed differently 
     than a pension.
       The 1993 tax may serve to undermine the program. By adding 
     additional taxes to an already progressive Social Security 
     benefit formula, these changes risk undermining the 
     widespread public support the system enjoys. Dramatic changes 
     that substantially erode net benefits will further undermine 
     public confidence that the Social Security system will 
     provide a fair return on contributions.
       Once again, thank you for letting the American Association 
     of Retired Persons testify at the January 19th hearing.
           Sincerely,
                                                    Robert Shreve,
                                Chairman, AARP Board of Directors.

  Finally, let me underscore that this bill protects Medicare because 
it requires that the annual general revenue transfer to Medicare be 
increased by an amount equal to revenues generated by this tax.
  Every Member of the House knows that Congress routinely transfers 
general revenues to Medicare. Perhaps in the beginning this was not 
considered to be appropriate. I myself wish that we had never inserted 
general Treasury money into the Medicare Trust Fund, but it has 
happened. All we do is continue the very same process. So this bill 
would not set any precedent whatsoever.
  On the contrary, the bill maintains Medicare's current financing; and 
Medicare's Office of the Actuary confirms that.
  If Medicare were threatened in any way, shape or form by this bill, 
AARP would certainly be opposed, and they are not. So it is time to 
repeal this tax on millions of seniors. It is unfair. It is 
unnecessary, and it harms the retirement security of millions of 
Americans now and in the years to come.
  Now, some may make the argument that this is not fiscally 
responsible, but I would turn that right back to them and say if they 
believed that we needed money to pay down the deficit, would they 
choose to tax senior citizens on their retirement benefits? And the 
answer would be a resounding no.
  If we want to follow that route then perhaps those who believe in it 
would propose that we tax 100 percent of the senior citizens' Social 
Security benefits because of their concern about fiscal responsibility.
  I think not. This is fiscally responsible, and it is fair and it is 
right. I urge a strong bipartisan vote for this bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill, not in support of 
taxes but in support of fairness and in support of the Medicare system 
which this bill gravely endangers for the seniors in our country.
  This bill confirms what we Democrats in Congress and the American 
people have long suspected, that Republicans do not govern with a 
budget but with a tax-cut-a-day plan. If it is a tax cut, it is in the 
Republican budget, no questions. But there is a danger in this bill. 
There is unfairness in this bill, and it is important that the public 
and my colleagues realize that.
  This bill, first of all, takes $10 billion a year or thereabouts out 
of the Medicare Trust Fund. It removes dedicated revenues. The 
Republicans say, oh, we are not taking the money out of Medicare; trust 
us.
  It is clear there will no longer be a dedicated tax revenue, but we 
can trust the Republicans to make sure that they protect Medicare, just 
as they asked us to trust them to make sure that HMOs did not pull out 
of Medicare and leave seniors without important coverage.
  These may be the same requests to trust the Republicans to lock away 
Medicare in a lockbox. Aha. Then with this very bill, we broke open the 
lockbox and we are spilling the contents of that lockbox into the 
pockets of a very few Social Security beneficiaries, the very richest 
ones. These are the same Republicans asking us to

[[Page 16585]]

trust them with Medicare that have asked us to trust them to keep a 
budget and then invented gimmicks to get around their own budget.
  Many Republicans have never liked Medicare from the beginning. Former 
Leader Robert Dole admitted, I was there fighting the fight, 1 of 12 
voting against Medicare in 1965 because we knew it would not work. Our 
former Speaker, Newt Gingrich, once pledged he would let Medicare 
wither on the vine, and our own majority leader once called Medicare a 
program I would have no part of in a free world.
  Those are not the leaders to which we should trust the medical care 
of our seniors.
  As a matter of fact, if indeed we do want to give $10 billion back to 
Social Security recipients, and we might very well like to do that, $10 
billion would cut all of the seniors' part B premiums in half. $10 
billion would give every senior in the country $250 a year in a 
refundable tax credit which they could use to perhaps pay for a 
prescription drug benefit, which the Republicans will not bring to the 
floor. It could be used for a whole host of things, instead of giving 
just 6 or 7 million seniors all of this generosity. What happens to the 
other 35 million Social Security beneficiaries? They get nothing, and 
they risk losing their immediate care benefits if the Republicans 
continue down the path of draining the Medicare Trust Fund in the name 
of tax cuts to the very wealthy.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I urge that my colleagues look carefully at this 
bill. It is not what it purports to be. It is a gift, an enticement to 
the very rich, who may very well be Republicans, but it cuts out 80 
percent of the Social Security beneficiaries from any benefits and it 
puts at risk the viability of the Medicare system just one more way.
  We have watched the Republicans try and privatize Social Security. We 
have watched them try and privatize Medicare. We have seen them vote in 
our committee. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw) voted twice in our 
committee to deny his senior constituents a discount on pharmaceutical 
drugs at no cost to the Federal Government. How can we trust leaders 
like that to protect our Medicare system when they are on the record 
time and time again of trying to deny seniors access to pharmaceutical 
drugs?
  So this is a ploy. This is a ploy to ignore the President's outreach 
to say I would take some tax cuts if a pharmaceutical benefit would be 
agreed to; if a package is put together we can work together and we can 
talk about something that is reasonable in the light of the spending 
that will be necessary. But, no, it is all or nothing. It is another 
huge tax cut to a very few wealthy people and another attempt to 
destroy Medicare as we know it.
  I urge my colleagues to oppose the bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. ARCHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I am sure that my friend, the gentleman from California 
(Mr. Stark) did not mean to mislead, but the words that he spoke were 
not accurate. The monies that are currently going into the Medicare 
Trust Fund are from general Treasury, from income tax revenues.
  Now, there was no argument against that by the gentleman in 1993 when 
it happened. We are simply replacing one stream of income tax revenues 
with a stream from other sources so that the same number of dollars go 
into the Medicare Trust Fund. In no way is Medicare harmed. The 
gentleman knows that. It is not subject to appropriations every year. 
It is an entitlement under our bill, which will hold fast just as much 
as any other entitlement program under current law. Because, yes, any 
Congress can take any benefits away. They can do anything, unless it is 
written into the Constitution, but this will have the same degree of 
validity, stability and support as any other entitlement program. I 
think the gentleman knows that.
  Of course, this tax that was unfairly put on senior citizens in 1993 
was a product of one vote, done totally by the Democrat majority, and 
they cannot stand to give up what they put on the books.

                              {time}  1500

  They have to defend it. Many of them know it is wrong. Some of them 
cosponsored our legislation, because they know it is wrong. It is one 
thing to say we should tax Social Security benefits the same as we tax 
private pensions; this goes far beyond that and taxes much more 
adversely than we tax private pensions. It is basically wrong, and it 
is time to repeal it.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Bonior), our minority whip.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for 
yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, not very long ago I read about a man who won $5,000 in 
the State lottery, and when he was asked what he planned to do with the 
money, he said, I am going to go to Vegas.
  Well, it is not uncommon, I think, for some lottery winners to do 
that, to go and gamble the money away; that happens for those who have 
a propensity to gamble. But it is unconscionably wrong when lawmakers 
try to do the same thing with public dollars, and that is what I 
believe the Republican program is all about.
  If we add up all of the costs of the Republican programs and tax 
expenditures, we are coming close to $1 trillion, and then we add in 
all of the budget issues that revolve around this issue, as the 
gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) has so eloquently 
demonstrated. That shows that we are talking about another $1 trillion, 
we are talking $2 trillion, and what that does is eat up virtually all, 
in fact, it does eat up all, of the proposed surplus over the next 
decade. Gone. We do not even know if that surplus is going to be there 
in the first place anyway, because we do not know what is going to 
happen in year 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9.
  Mr. Speaker, make no mistake about it. The Republicans have gone on a 
gambling junket with America's surplus, and they are telling American 
families to pick up the tab. The dollars they need for better schools? 
Spent. The dollars to clean up the environment? Spent. To strengthen 
Social Security? Spent. To pay down the national debt? Gone, spent.
  The fact is, Mr. Speaker, the Republican plan will leave the next 
generation with little else but empty promises and an enormous, an 
enormous Federal deficit.
  Also, something else. It would saddle them with something else: their 
parents' prescription medicine bills. Because if the Republicans have 
their way, America will not have the money it takes to provide the 
prescription drug benefits that people need, real benefits that are 
guaranteed, that are part of the Medicare system, and that have decent 
catastrophic coverage.
  Now, why would our friends on the other side of the aisle raid 
Medicare? Well, Willie Sutton once said when asked why he robs banks, 
he says, well, that is where the money is; and our Republican 
colleagues believe that is where the money is, in the Medicare account. 
But if they look closer, they will realize that Medicare is no cash 
cow. Since 1997, in my own State, Michigan hospitals have absorbed $2 
billion in Medicare cuts. We have closed 29 nursing facilities. We have 
had 10,000 Michigan health care workers lose their jobs since 1997, 
10,000 good jobs.
  Now the Republicans are telling us, Medicare ought to be able to make 
due with less.
  Mr. Speaker, there is an old proverb that says, ``The best throw of 
the dice is to throw the dice away.'' Today is a time to stop the 
Republican gambling junket once and for all. It is time to invest in 
Medicare, to strengthen Social Security, to pay down this debt, this 
national debt, this national disgrace that we have, and to provide for 
targeted tax relief for seniors and middle-income Americans.
  It is time to decide that we have a responsibility never to lead this 
country adrift in the red ink that we have recently seen over the 
previous decades and that we have gotten ourselves out

[[Page 16586]]

of due to courageous action on the part of this party that I proudly 
associate myself with.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). Without objection, the gentleman 
from Florida (Mr. Shaw) will control the time previously allocated to 
the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Archer).
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Shaw).
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from 
Arizona (Mr. Hayworth), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Florida, the 
chairman of the Subcommittee on Social Security.
  Mr. Speaker, I found it interesting to hear my good friend, the 
minority whip from Michigan, talk about Las Vegas, because perhaps 
there are those in this Chamber who contemplate a future career opening 
for Jerry Vale along the lines of an insult comedian. Because, Mr. 
Speaker, I am sure, quite unintentionally, the previous words in this 
Chamber served to insult the intelligence of the American people, and 
particularly the very seniors, Mr. Speaker, that our friends on the 
left claim to care so much about.
  For the record, what this House will do today, in bipartisan fashion, 
is to strike a blow for tax fairness and remove the ultimate theft of 
money from the people who most need it. The gentleman from California 
(Mr. Stark) a few moments ago talked about how this would only help the 
wealthy few. Well, I guess there are different definitions for words in 
this grand land of ours, and people are free to use Orwellian 
definitions, when, in fact, what we want to do is make sure that the 
seniors who are single and earning $34,000 a year and married couples 
who are earning $44,000 a year have their Social Security taxes 
reduced. These are the wealthy few?
  Mr. Speaker, how sad, the shameful catechism of the left, always 
embracing emotion and interesting definitions that fly in the face of 
fact.
  The other fact is, there seems to also be confusion not only on the 
status of the wealthy, since we apparently find that those earning 
$30,000 are ``wealthy'' by the definition of our friends on the left, 
but there is also confusion in terms of the date on the calendar. 
Apparently our friends believe this is the final day of October, it is 
the day to scare folks, it is Halloween. So they hope to scare seniors 
by saying there is a raid on Medicare.
  Mr. Speaker, we should not dare believe it. Our friends on the left 
continue to take revenue streams from the general accounting fund, the 
general revenue. We do not raid Medicare, we strengthen it, and we 
strengthen seniors by lowering their taxes.
  I stand in support.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Matsui), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on 
Social Security.
  Mr. MATSUI. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Stark) for yielding me this time.
  So far, in the last 6 months, my Republican colleagues, in all of 
their tax bills that they have gotten through the House of 
Representatives, basically have spent $739 billion, almost $1 trillion 
if we count the debt service that goes with this. The breakdown of 
these tax cuts is if one makes $350,000 a year, one will be getting 
about $15,000 annually on these tax cuts. If one makes $40,000 a year, 
which most Americans do, that average tax cut will be about $350 per 
year. So everybody gets a little, but we know the wealthy are going to 
get tremendous tax breaks out of this.
  Now, what this bill does, basically, is reduces the amount of 
taxation on Social Security benefits. The problem with this, the 
problem with this bill is that all of the revenues from this goes into 
the Medicare trust fund.
  Now, the Republicans are saying, well, they are going to make this up 
with the budget surplus, and all of us have heard that we are going to 
have over the next 10 years about $2.2 trillion in budget surpluses 
outside of the Social Security system.
  The problem is that my colleagues, our Republican friends, have spent 
that money already.
  If we look at this graph here, we have $2.2 trillion in budget 
surpluses, we have $361 billion that has to be set aside for the 
Medicare trust fund. They spent $739 billion on tax cuts, plus another 
$183 billion for extension of the alternative, changing the alternative 
tax and changing the expiring tax provisions. Then, if we just talk 
very moderately and conservatively, since the Republicans have been in 
control how much they have spent on appropriations bills, we have to 
add another $284 billion; and we have $54 billion for additional 
exceptions that we already had, and then we have the prescription drug 
benefit program my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have 
proposed, $159 billion, then farm support programs; and then we have 
additional spending for health care benefits, a reimbursement that 
everybody is going to agree to by the end of this year. That brings us 
to a total of $2.2 trillion.
  They have already spent the surplus. In fact, we have a deficit over 
the next 10 years of $88 billion.
  Mr. Speaker, we cannot do anything for Medicare, we cannot do 
anything for Social Security, we cannot even pay down the debt. This 
means that the false promise that they made, that they are going to 
reimburse the Medicare trust fund with general fund monies will not 
happen, and that means our senior citizens are going to have to pay 
more in premiums. That means our senior citizens are going to have to 
either pay more in premiums or they are going to end up having lower 
benefits at a time when they are going to need health care the most. 
This means that probably prescription drugs will be limited to $159 
billion over the next decade, and that means seniors will not get 
prescription drug promises, which all of them anticipate.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a false promise. This will not happen. This will 
do major damage to the Medicare system of America and damage our senior 
citizens.
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to 
point out to my friend from California (Mr. Matsui) that the Matsui 
Telephone Tax Repeal, I did not see it on the chart, but I certainly 
support it and congratulate him for his effort.
  Mr. MATSUI. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I will vote 
against it, though, if it is in a package like this, because that is 
obviously overspending the surplus; and we will create a real problem 
for future generations.
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I do not believe I 
yielded. I do not think that any of the Republican tax reductions that 
were on this chart are part of this package either.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. English), an esteemed member of the Committee on Ways 
and Means.
  Mr. ENGLISH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time, and I thank him for his advocacy of the Social Security system.
  Mr. Speaker, it is a fundamental principle that Social Security 
benefits should be tax free and today, with this legislation, we make 
essential progress toward restoring that principle. Seniors should not 
have to shoulder a disproportionate share of the burden for the fiscal 
problems that have existed here in America. Yet under current law, a 
retired senior with an annual income of $39,600 that includes their 
savings, a part-time job, and their Social Security benefits, loses 
$580 that year because of this tax. It is just not fair.
  With a non-Social Security surplus that is expected to top $2.17 
trillion in hard numbers, our seniors should not have to continue to 
pay a tax that was established in 1993 when we were operating with 
record deficits. As a Republican, since the other side has made this 
such a partisan debate, I should point out that I am pleased to vote to 
roll back the Social Security tax that was imposed with Democratic 
votes only.
  Mr. Speaker, this legislation rolls back the tax on Social Security 
benefits from 85 percent to 50 percent. If we

[[Page 16587]]

do not repeal this tax, more than 8 million seniors will have to pay an 
average of $1,180 in taxes on their benefits in 2001. We must also 
remember that if we do not pass this bill, more and more seniors each 
year will be forced to pay. The income thresholds built into the 
current law are not indexed to inflation, meaning that additional 
people will pay the tax each year and people of more and more limited 
means. By 2010, at least 13 million seniors would expect to pay an 
average of $1,359.
  Now, some on the tax-hungry left, looking to justify their vote 
against this vital legislation, may claim that we will be bankrupting 
Medicare by repealing this tax.

                              {time}  1515

  This legislation requires the money from the general revenue already 
earmarked for Medicare be increased to max the amount that would be 
lost by rolling back this tax. With a surplus of the size that we have, 
this is no time to argue against repealing this reactionary tax.
  I challenge everyone who purports to be an advocate of Social 
Security to vote today to remove this anvil from the shoulders of 
seniors and celebrate the fact that Congress has finally balanced the 
budget and run a surplus. Vote in favor of this legislation.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). Without objection, the gentleman 
from California (Mr. Matsui) will control the time previously allocated 
to the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark).
  There was no objection.
  Mr. MATSUI. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin) from the Committee on Ways and 
Means, the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Trade.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
English), the preceding speaker on the Republican side, has joined 
others at throwing darts at President Clinton and Vice President Gore. 
About 1993, they are the last ones to do that, the last ones who should 
be doing it.
  Here is what the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey) said about the 1993 
act: ``It is a recipe for disaster. The economy will sputter along.'' 
The Speaker then, Mr. Gingrich, talked about that package leading ``to 
a job killing recession.''
  The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich), the Republican chairman of the 
Committee on Budget, said about the 1993 act: ``We will come back here 
next year and try to help you when this puts the economy in the 
gutter.''
  They were wrong then, and they are wrong now. They are on another 
deficit splurge, turning gold into lead. The gentleman from South 
Carolina (Mr. Spratt) made clear how they have already exhausted the 
surplus. Their taxes are over $1 trillion. That is neither conservative 
nor is it compassionate. It is reckless, and it is cold politics.
  I finish with this point. They take Medicare monies, and they say 
they are going to put them back. The Chair of the Committee on Ways and 
Means said it is just like any other entitlement, and I quote him. 
Well, title 20 is an entitlement along the lines that they would do 
with this. They have cut title 20 by 36 percent since 1995. The last 
people in the world to be trusted with Medicare is the Republican 
majority in the House of Representatives.
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot of rhetoric regarding Medicare. I 
would like to read a paragraph from a memorandum from the Department of 
Health and Human Services, from the chief actuary, Richard Foster, that 
is from the Department of Health and Human Services, in which he says 
that the proposal would have no financial impact on the HI Trust Fund, 
no financial impact. That is from Health and Human Services. That is 
not a question of a Republican administration adding this issue. So I 
think that it is a bogus argument.
  The argument before the House is very, very clear. Do we want to give 
people or continue to tax Social Security benefits at 85 percent of 
amount received for people of incomes of $34,000 and more? To talk 
about this is some kind of a deal for our rich friends is absolutely 
ludicrous, unless my colleagues think people making $34,000 a year are 
rich.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. 
Lewis), a member of the House Committee on Ways and Means.
  Mr. LEWIS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Florida for yielding me this time.
  Talk about historical revisionism, the former speaker talking about 
1993. Well, I remember 1993. The Democrats had had Congress for 40 
years. We had $5 trillion in debt, $200 billion deficits every year. 
The taxes kept going up. The deficits kept going up. So I do not think 
they were handling it very well.
  It seems to me, over the last 6 years since we have taken the 
majority in this House, the deficits have been eliminated. The 
surpluses are going up. The taxes are going down. We have not voted for 
any new taxes in 6 years.
  But let me just say this. The other day, when we were debating the 
Marriage Penalty Relief Act, many on that side kept saying, oh, gosh, 
yes, this will destroy the Social Security, it will take money away 
from that, Medicare, prescription drugs. All this is a disaster. We 
cannot give any money to married people and their families. Today they 
are saying we cannot give any tax relief to senior citizens because it 
will destroy Social Security and Medicare and all this.
  But the reality of it is, right after we had that debate on the 
Marriage Penalty Relief Act, we had foreign aid come up. Every speaker, 
one right after another, could not give enough money in foreign aid. 
They did not worry about prescription drugs. They did not worry about 
Social Security. They did not worry about Medicare. They wanted to pile 
on more money. Nothing, nothing harmed them there.
  When we talk about bigger and more government programs, there is 
just, you know, it is fine. We can just spend all the money we want. 
But that is what got us into trouble to begin with. As we are having 
these trillions upon trillions of dollars in surplus rolling in over 
the next many years, we need to allow the American people that are 
living under a debt burden of 40 percent of their income of local, 
State, and Federal taxes some tax relief.
  It is about fairness. It is about letting our senior citizens keep 
more of their money and our married families, also.
  Mr. MATSUI. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Neal).
  Mr. NEAL of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, we meet once again to debate 
the tax cut de jour. Some of the proposals the Republicans have 
insisted on are strictly for the very wealthy, like the estate tax 
repeal. Some are spread out more evenly, like the telephone excise tax 
repeal. Some manage to do a certain amount of harm and a certain amount 
of good, like the pension bill.
  But the bill that is in front of us today does real harm to the 
Medicare trust fund. But all of this legislation is aimed at the 
November elections.
  Let us acknowledge one thing clearly today. The Republicans never 
liked Medicare to begin with. They certainly did not like Social 
Security. That is what they attempt to do with this line of reasoning 
of legislation today. It is to weaken the Medicare trust fund.
  Under current law, the revenue generated from this tax that is being 
repealed goes into the Medicare trust fund. So, in effect, all citizens 
benefit from current law. Eighty percent of the senior citizens will 
not get anything from this legislation, and 20 percent of the well-off 
senior citizens will.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to ask themselves one question: Is 
this a good trade-off? If it was such a good trade-off, why did they 
not do it 6 years ago when they took control of this institution? Why 
was it not proposed 3 years ago when we had the first major tax bill 
passed into law?
  The reason is that this proposal does not look good when massive 
deficits are staring one in the face. One cannot sell this proposal 
when it seems clear that there is a need for strong discipline in the 
general budget to resolve

[[Page 16588]]

our deficit crisis, as the Democrats did in this House in 1993.
  But for the moment, while the projections are rosy, let us remind 
ourselves, there is no guarantee that those projections are ever going 
to come through as they relate to budget surpluses. There is an 
opportunity for all of us to be very prudent today and, even on the 
Democratic side, being conservative.
  Reject this chicanery.
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Neal) must not 
have been on the floor when I read from the text of a July 18 
memorandum from the Department of Health and Human Services stating 
that this proposal would have no financial impact on the HI trust fund. 
That is Medicare. It will have no effect on it.
  I think that is something that we should always, always be very 
concerned about. We are concerned about it. That is why we are making 
up the revenue from general revenue, as it comes today, as it comes 
today.
  But the point is, and the only difference is, as to the funding of 
the Medicare program, the only difference is that the existing law, the 
1993 tax pinpoints a source, but it still comes out of general revenue. 
It comes out of the general fund.
  We simply eliminate part of that source, which is taxing people of 
$34,000 and more per year, determined evidently by my friends in the 
Democrat Party as our wealthy friends. But I can tell my colleagues, to 
be a senior citizen living on $34,000 a year, go out and find me one 
that says that he is wealthy; and I will show my colleagues somebody 
that must have a trust fund that we do not know about.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. MATSUI. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), the ranking member on the House 
Committee on Ways and Means.
  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my Republican 
friends because they never seem to run out of creative ideas in how to 
hoodwink the American people. When they had the last tax bill, and it 
was $792 billion, oh what a big mistake.
  But then they learned fast. They did not go to the Committee on Ways 
and Means and try to work out something in a bipartisan way. They went 
to someone that could probably send out a message how to pass a bill 
that never will become law, make certain that the President is going to 
veto it before you do it.
  So knowing how sensitive senior citizens are to anything that would 
adversely affect their income, I was excited when the Republicans came 
up with the idea that they were going to reduce the taxes on some 
people in Social Security. Whether they were wealthy or not, as a 
Social Security beneficiary, they wanted to get some type of relief.
  But I ask the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw), where does the money 
come from? If one asks any Social Security beneficiary do they want 
relief, the answer has to be, yes, and I want it fast. But if one asks 
them, do you want it fast enough to come out of the Medicare trust 
fund, then they would say let us take another look.
  Now, I know that my colleagues have some way to say that the money in 
the trust fund is the same as general revenues, but no one believes 
that. No one believes that the Social Security trust fund and the 
Medicare trust fund should be treated the same way one would general 
revenues.
  If my colleagues wanted to give them a tax break, why did they not go 
directly into the general revenues and give them a tax break? The 
reason they did it is because they want to break the whole idea of 
entitlement. Once they get entitlements out of the way, then they would 
know that this precious trust fund that they are turning slowly on the 
tree, maybe, one day would disappear.
  Well, it is not going to work with the seniors, and it is not going 
to work here in this House of Representatives.
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I say to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), and 
he is my friend, that the Republicans would like to take complete 
credit for this bill, but we do have allies on his side: the gentleman 
from New York (Mr. Nadler), the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), 
the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Doyle), the gentleman from West 
Virginia (Mr. Rahall), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Barcia), and 
the gentleman from New York (Mr. Forbes). They have all cosponsored 
similar legislation.
  Let us go over to the Senate for a minute: Senator Feinstein, Senator 
Conrad, Senator Dorgan, Senator Johnson.


                             Point of Order

  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw) is 
out of order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw) 
controls the time.


                         parliamentary inquiry

  Mr. McDERMOTT. Point of parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. If the gentleman will yield, the gentleman 
from Washington will state his parliamentary inquiry.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, is it proper to refer to a Member of the 
other body by name?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. It is in order to refer to individual 
Members of the other body as sponsors of measures.
  The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw) controls the time.
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, these people have all voted to repeal this 
tax, this Republican tax, this Republican tax relief bill. I think it 
is extraordinarily important to look at what we are doing. This is not 
a question of doing this for any other reason except to get rid of this 
tax because this tax is wrong.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Royce).
  Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for 
yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Social Security Benefits 
Tax Relief Act. In 1993, the Clinton-Gore administration increased the 
taxes on Social Security, arguably because we had a deficit. But I 
noticed it, I served notice at the time, that it seemed to be helping 
to pay for new Federal spending programs. I think that is why every 
Republican in the House and every Republican in the Senate opposed this 
increase on Social Security benefits. This tax was created when the 
Federal Government had a $255 billion deficit.
  Today, the deficit is gone. We have increasing surpluses. Yet this 
tax remains. As a result, seniors' benefits are taxed at rates between 
50 and 85 percent. Single retirees whose income exceeds as little as 
$34,000 are punished by this tax. This taxation in terms of fairness is 
grossly unfair. The income from which these benefits are derived has 
already been taxed. That is the point.

                              {time}  1530

  Taxing once more these benefits amounts to double taxation for these 
seniors on Social Security.
  This tax results in lower benefits and translates into less income 
for many of America's seniors. The time has come to end this double 
taxation and restore some fairness for America's seniors.
  Mr. MATSUI. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the 
State of Washington (Mr. McDermott), a member of the House Committee on 
Ways and Means.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, let me begin by stating there is no 
Member of this body who wants to tax seniors. We are all against that. 
We would all like to give all the taxes back that we could. But having 
said that, we also want to give them benefits, Social Security and 
Medicare.
  Now, whatever comes out of this debate, the main point is that this 
money is coming out of a trust fund for Medicare. The Republicans are 
operating under a theory that a tax cut a day keeps election defeat 
away, and we have seen one after another after another. The fact is 
that they are willing to sacrifice what we did in 1993 to bolster the 
Medicare trust fund. Now that

[[Page 16589]]

things are going pretty well, they say, well, we do not need to; we can 
just take the money out of the trust fund and we will put some general 
fund in. We will kind of write an IOU on the general fund.
  The gentleman from Florida, who is leading this debate on the other 
side, said, ``If you write yourself an IOU, it is not real.'' Now, here 
we have written an IOU to the general fund; we owe this over here to 
the Medicare trust fund, and my colleague says it is not real. That is 
what we are talking about here.
  When my colleagues get in this election, they will be screaming all 
over the place when people get ads that say, ``You have taken $100 
billion out of the Medicare Trust Fund,'' they will be squealing and 
hollering and saying, ``Yeah, but.'' Nobody believes the majority and 
they do not even believe it themselves or they would not have made this 
statement about the fact that an IOU that we write, we owe it to the 
people, is not worth anything in the next session if this money does 
not come in.
  My colleague from California (Mr. Matsui) says these issues are not 
for sure; we are projecting 10 years out into the future. There is not 
a soul on this floor who believes that those are absolutely real. But 
if we give away the trust fund, we have given it away. Vote ``no.''
  Mr. MATSUI. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman 
from Florida (Mrs. Thurman), a member of the House Committee on Ways 
and Means.
  Mrs. THURMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, let us start this debate with the words of Federal 
Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, who said just last week, and I quote, 
``Anything, whether it's tax cuts or expenditure increases, which 
significantly slows the rise in surpluses or eventually eliminates them 
would put the economy at greater risk than I would like to see it 
exposed to.''
  Well, today, instead of following his advice, we are being asked to 
take up one more bill that not only eats away at the projected surplus 
but also removes an earmark source of funding for Medicare and replaces 
it with IOUs. Let us go back to June 20, when this House debated 
lockbox legislation for Medicare. I do not want to embarrass proponents 
of this bill with their comments, but let me remind them of what was 
being said in that debate. ``Simply adding IOUs to the trust fund in 
effect mandates that taxes will be increased on our kids and our 
grandkids.''
  We are no longer dealing with a lockbox, we are opening Pandora's 
box. And this is a box I will not open.
  Sunday, the majority whip said, and I quote, ``Everybody knows that 
the House of Representatives has already passed a prescription drug 
bill, but President Clinton wants universal coverage and government-run 
Medicare and we want seniors to have choice in the kind of health care 
they think is important for them.'' Tell that to the people in Hernando 
County in my district who just lost their HMO and have no prescription 
drug coverage. They have no choice. Nine hundred signatures here today 
saying we want a strong Medicare program with a prescription drug 
benefit.
  But, before we can ever get to that and start looking at the major 
funding shortfalls in the Medicare program to hospitals and nursing 
homes and HMOs, we are here debating taking $100 billion out of 
Medicare. We are going to have to put $50 billion back in from the 
surplus already. I cannot say to the families in my district that we 
are going to be destabilizing Medicare. Should this measure become law, 
I am certain in years to come we will be paying the price.
  Yesterday, the General Accounting Office estimated that with the 
stacking of tax bills, the unified budget deficits will reemerge in the 
year 2019. The GAO projection also showed, after 2019, the budget 
deficit and the debt explode, exactly the numbers that have been put 
out on this floor. We cannot leave this legacy for our children.
  In closing, let me remind my colleagues of one more statement made. 
``If you write yourself an IOU, it's not an economic asset. These notes 
are going to be paid out of the hides of future taxpayers.''
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and 
I must advise my colleague from Florida that any monies going into the 
Medicare Trust Fund is replaced with Treasury bills.
  Let me finish. It is replaced with Treasury bills. This is what the 
gentlewoman is referring to as IOUs. That is what it is under existing 
law; that is what it would do under this particular bill. If the money 
is not spent, it is invested in Treasury bills, just as it is today.
  So I must correct the gentlewoman. We do not have a bucket of cash 
that sits in there. That money that is coming out of the senior 
citizen's Social Security check every month and paying the income tax 
on it, that we are going to give them some relief from, that money goes 
into the Medicare Trust Fund and is replaced with Treasury bills and 
comes back into the general fund. Under the Republican plan here, or I 
should say bipartisan plan because I have already made it known that 
there are many Democrats who are supporting this type of legislation, 
it does exactly the same thing.
  Mrs. THURMAN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SHAW. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida very quickly, 
because I must retain my time.
  Mrs. THURMAN. I will be very brief.
  In the gentleman's debate he said, ``If you write yourself an IOU, it 
is not a real economic asset. Treasury bills are not real economic 
assets. Those notes are going to be paid off out of the hides of future 
taxpayers.'' This was said by the gentleman in the lockbox legislation.
  Mr. SHAW. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman hears me 
but she is obviously not listening. If she would listen, what I am 
saying is that the same Treasury bills that are put into the Medicare 
Trust Fund today will be put into the Medicare Trust Fund with this 
legislation. It is exactly the same. It is exactly the same.
  The gentlewoman can stand here and say this is not a real economic 
asset, but if it is not a real economic asset under the Republican 
bipartisan plan that we are arguing today, it is not a real economic 
asset today because it is the same Treasury bills. That is exactly the 
point that I am trying to make. So let us not get this confused.
  I do not blame the people who are opposing this bill for not wanting 
to talk about giving seniors some tax relief, the taxpayers who just 
make a little over $34,000 a year, I am not blaming my colleagues for 
wanting to talk about something else, but let us keep this record 
straight and let us be very clear on what we are speaking to.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. MATSUI. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of the amount of time each 
side has?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from California (Mr. Matsui) 
has 6\1/2\ minutes remaining, and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw) 
has 8\1/2\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. MATSUI. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, this is a bad proposal. It is not entitled 
``supply side economics,'' it is not entitled ``voodoo economics,'' 
however, this tax bill we are debating today and its reckless siblings 
threaten to pull the plug on our unprecedented prosperity and plunge us 
right back into the dark days of budget deficits.
  Even worse, this bill today is a direct threat to the Medicare Trust 
Fund. To the extent we take funds out of the general fund, they are 
funds we cannot use to pay down the debt. And to the extent that our 
extrinsic debt does not go down, our intrinsic debt is tougher. Over 
the next 10 years, it will drain $117 billion from Medicare. Hear me 
now: This bill would drain over the next 10 years $117 billion from 
Medicare.
  Whatever shell game my colleagues may argue, those are the facts. 
Every

[[Page 16590]]

Member of this House knows the real danger of this bill becomes clear 
when it is added to the tax cuts we have already passed: $900 billion 
plus. My colleagues, be fiscally responsible, protect Medicare, and 
vote against this bill.
  Mr. MATSUI. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Becerra), a member of the House Committee on Ways and 
Means.
  Mr. BECERRA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  In a letter dated July 24, 2000, the National Council of Senior 
Citizens described this bill that we are debating today as an 
irresponsible political gesture to upper-income persons which will have 
severe consequences for the Social Security System and the solvency of 
the Medicare part A trust fund.
  Today, my colleagues, 12 million Medicare benefits lack prescription 
drug coverage. Twelve million seniors who, on a daily basis, have to 
decide, ``Do I buy my prescription drugs or do I buy my food? Do I pay 
my rent or do I pay for my medicine?'' Twelve million. And today we are 
talking about a bill that will take $117 billion out of a system which 
right now cannot even provide prescription drug coverage to 12 million 
of those senior citizens.
  Mr. Speaker, we are here today debating a bill that does absolutely 
nothing for four out of five of those seniors when we talk about tax 
cuts. Let me say that again because it gets lost in the shuffle of all 
these words. This is a tax cut bill that will cost $117 billion over 
the next 10 years; $117 billion that will go to people out in America 
in a tax cut, who are seniors, but only to one out of every five of 
those seniors. Four of those five seniors will get nothing because this 
bill benefits only 20 percent of the most affluent of our seniors who 
are retired.
  On top of that, we do nothing in the future about prescription drug 
coverage. We do not talk about doing something on education for our 
kids, we cannot talk about retiring the debt this Nation has, but what 
we are talking about is pulling out one of these things we see so 
often. My colleagues probably know about this. When we go to the store 
to buy some things and our kids say, ``Oh, can you get me that, daddy? 
Can you get me that?'' My daughters say that to me all the time. They 
think I have all sorts of money. So what a lot of people do is say, 
well, I will charge it. Put it on my card. I will charge it again. And 
before we know it, we have put so much on this card, that somebody has 
to pay for it. And if it cannot be us, it will be the future.
  Let us not do this to the future or to our seniors. Let us not get 
caught up in politics.
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and 
say to the gentleman who just spoke, the gentleman from California, 
when he talks about prescription drugs, I support making prescription 
drugs part of Medicare. And I hope this Congress can finally come 
together in a bipartisan way and approve a plan where we can give our 
seniors some relief.
  The gentleman is absolutely right. There are people out there that 
are having to make the tough choice between whether to buy groceries or 
to buy prescription drugs. The problem is a lot of people out there 
just making a little over $34,000 a year, they do not have a choice as 
to whether to pay taxes on their Social Security benefits or to buy 
prescription drugs.
  This tax is morally wrong, and that is why we are trying to pass this 
bill and will pass this bill, and we will get a lot of help from our 
Democratic friends in doing so.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. 
Collins), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means.
  Mr. COLLINS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  The theme here from the other side is that we are harming Medicare 
insurance for our seniors. Well, as a Member of Congress and as an 
individual, that is the farthest thing from my mind. Good Lord willing, 
one of these days I will be covered under this Medicare insurance 
myself. Do my colleagues think I want to do something that will destroy 
it? Heavens, no.
  A lot has been said about the fact that this is going to take $117 
billion over the next 10 years from the Medicare Trust Fund. It will 
not. The additional tax or additional income that was subjected to tax 
in the 1993 tax bill was an income tax. Income tax goes into the 
treasury, into the general fund.

                              {time}  1545

  There was a provision in that bill at that time that required a like 
amount to be transferred to the Medicare trust fund account or credited 
to it.
  This does the same thing. The only thing this does, it repeals the 
provision of law that was implemented in 1993. But it still requires a 
like amount to go into the Medicare or credited to the Medicare 
account, not one red cent less. We are not taking anything from the 
Medicare trust fund.
  If I think back correctly about 3 or 4 years ago, the trustees of the 
Medicare trust fund stated that the trust fund would have problems in 
the year 2001, it would have deficit spending, begin to put out more 
money or pay more in insurance for seniors and money was coming in 
through the payroll tax and even through this additional fund here and 
then it is transferred in like amount to the trust fund.
  But thank goodness that the majority of this Congress saw that coming 
and made changes to the Medicare program and Medicare insurance that 
extended this solvency, the life of Medicare insurance for our seniors.
  Now those same trustees say 2015 before we begin to have a deficit in 
cash flow. No one on this side of the aisle, no one in this Congress 
from either side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, wants to do anything that 
would jeopardize health care insurance for our seniors and the 
disabled.
  To stand here with all of this rhetoric is wrong, just trying to make 
political points. The fact is we believe in the Medicare insurance 
program for our seniors. We support. One of these days we will all be 
facing it, God willing.
  Mr. MATSUI. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett), a member of the Committee on Ways 
and Means.
  Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, at a time when the demands for seniors for real relief 
on prescription drugs are thwarted in this House, at a time when this 
House does absolutely nothing about the pharmaceutical companies that 
engage in price discrimination against our seniors that literally treat 
them worse than dogs, at a time when seniors find one health care 
provider after another who will not take Medicare patients because the 
reimbursements are so low, at this time, of all times, for the 
Republicans to come forward and engage in this cynical ploy is truly 
wrong.
  Having opposed Medicare from its outset back in the days when Lyndon 
Johnson was working so hard to get it, these Republicans are determined 
to fulfill the pledge of their so recently departed leader to let 
Medicare wither on the vine.
  That is why the National Council of Senior Citizens has condemned 
this measure as an irresponsible political gesture with ``severe 
consequences for Social Security and the solvency of the Medicare Trust 
Fund.''
  The millions of seniors who rely on Social Security for most or all 
of their income will not get anything from this proposal. The gentleman 
referred to the person who has to choose between groceries and 
prescriptions. That person is not going to get any relief out of this 
bill.
  Indeed, four out of five seniors will not get a nickel from this 
proposal that is up before us today. But I guarantee my colleagues that 
five out of five seniors, every one of them, will be less secure with 
regard to Medicare if this measure is approved.
  The bipartisan Concord Coalition, cochaired by a Republican, has 
urged the House to reject this proposal on the grounds of fiscal 
responsibility and tax fairness. And this is one of those times

[[Page 16591]]

that making the tough choice for fiscal responsibility goes hand in 
hand with meeting the needs of our seniors.
  They do not want an IOU, I would tell the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Shaw). Do not be the undertaker for Social Security. Stand up for our 
seniors. It is a trust fund. We do not want to fill it with IOUs.
  We say to all of the do-not-wither-on-the-vine crowd to keep their 
hands off the Medicare trust fund.
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would remind the former speaker, the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Doggett), that what he is referring to, the Treasury bill, 
as IOUs is all that is in there right now. So this makes absolutely no 
difference.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. 
Terry).
  Mr. TERRY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of our senior citizens. We 
are here today fighting on their behalf.
  Mr. Speaker, let me tell my colleagues, a few months ago when I was 
elected, I went to all parts of my city, my district, and talked to 
senior citizen groups. And in the low and moderate area of south Omaha, 
a group of seniors, I asked them, ``What can we do for you?'' 
Repeatedly they told me of their frustration of being taxed on their 
Social Security benefits.
  I heard that they listened to Roosevelt and that they worked hard, 
they did what they were asked to do, they paid into the Social Security 
system, but they had their pension from the meat packing plants and the 
other factories they worked at in Nebraska and they worked hard to 
save. But yet, today they are penalized for that.
  They were promised that they would have their Social Security 
benefits. But what this does by taxing it at 50 percent or even the 85 
percent level that we are here to repeal today is we are confiscating 
their benefits. That is wrong. That is simply wrong.
  What that confiscation of their benefits does, that is a back-door 
way of means testing. It just astounds me that my friends from the 
other side of the aisle stand up and say they are against means 
testing, but they will certainly have an 85 percent tax bracket on half 
of those benefits based on the amount of income that they have from 
their pensions and their savings. That is wrong.
  So I ask our colleagues from the other side of the aisle, unlike in 
1993 when it was nearly unanimous to pass this tax on our senior 
citizens, join us today to do the right thing, join us for fighting for 
our senior citizens, letting them keep the benefits that they were 
promised when they were young workers. Vote for this act.
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Weller), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means.
  Mr. WELLER. Mr. Speaker, let me remind some of my good friends on the 
other side of the aisle in listening to the rhetoric that one of their 
own appointees over at the Department of Health and Human Services, the 
official actuary that is respected by both, says, ``The proposal would 
have no financial impact on the HI trust fund. Program income would not 
be affected, and the estimated year of exhaustion for the HI trust fund 
would continue to be 2025, as under present law.'' So that is all 
rhetoric and not fact.
  My colleagues, we are talking about lowering taxes on senior 
citizens. When my friends on the other side of the aisle, and I point 
out that every Republican voted no on placing this tax on senior 
citizens in 1993, when they voted to impose this new tax of 85 percent 
on Social Security benefits, it only affected 5 million seniors. They 
figured it was not a big deal. But today it now punishes or soon will 
punish almost 17.5 million Social Security beneficiaries.
  When the tax took effect in 1994, one in 10 seniors was punished by 
this tax. Today one in five is punished. And by the year 2010, one in 
three will be punished by this tax.
  It is all about fairness.
  When Congress and the President so long ago created this, they said 
that if they pay in, they are going to get their benefits as part of 
the deal. Let us make sure they get their part of the deal.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). The gentleman from California 
(Mr. Matsui) has 1\1/2\ minutes remaining, and the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Shaw) has 1\1/2\ minutes remaining and the right to close.
  Mr. MATSUI. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the 
distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), the ranking 
Democrat on the House Committee on Ways and Means.
  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, there is some talk on the other side that 
there will be no financial impact on the Medicare trust fund. And this 
would be so if they could be trusted to put the money back in.
  The question has to be, did they take out the money in the first 
place?
  I do not think in their closing statement that anyone on that side of 
the aisle can deny that if we remove the tax that the Medicare trust 
fund will be short $10 billion a year. But they say not to worry; trust 
us.
  Have they not played three-card Molly? Do they not know that once we 
show them what is under the shell, if it is not there, we will go to 
the general revenues and put it back? And that is what makes it having 
no financial impact.
  I would ask the question, what happens if the Congress decides that 
it has a priority? Maybe we want to take care of prescription drugs. 
Maybe we want to take care of the Patients' Bill of Rights. Maybe we 
want to protect the small businessperson or the farmer.
  Suppose the speculated surplus does not show up. One thing we know 
that my colleagues cannot deny is that there is an irreplaceable source 
and stream of income coming into the Medicare trust fund now.
  What they are saying is, let me just take it out and give relief to 
one-fifth of them at the expense of the other things we may want to do.
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remaining time.
  Mr. Speaker, we have this afternoon talked about from the other side 
of the aisle just about everything except the taxpayer, just about 
everything except what is really going on here.
  What we are trying to do is to give some relief to our senior 
citizens, who, incidentally, the monies that they put into the Social 
Security trust fund they were taxed on. These were not pretax dollars. 
The employee's portion is taxed. So why should we have to say it is 
taxed when they put it in, and it is taxed when they take it out? That 
is wrong.
  The whole idea of having this thing taxed on only 50 percent is 
because that was the monies that were put in by the employer that were 
not ever taxed to the employee. We need to go back to that.
  A lot has been said about what are we going to do if we are running 
the Government at a deficit. Well, I have to remind my colleagues from 
the other side of the aisle, when this tax was put in place, this was 
in 1993, the Democrats were in charge of the House of Representatives, 
and there was a deficit. There was a deficit every year. The money was 
found. It came out of the general revenue stream.
  That is exactly where it is going to come from now. We are just not 
pinpointing that it is going to come out of a tax that is morally 
wrong. It is wrong to tax people on getting their own money back.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on the Democratic substitute, and I 
would ask for a ``yes'' vote on the bipartisan tax relief bill.
  Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to 
H.R. 4865, the Social Security Benefits Tax Relief Act. Although I do 
not support this bill, I fully support providing much needed tax relief 
to recipients of Social Security benefits. For this reason, I will be 
voting for the Democratic substitute proposal.
  Mr. Speaker, it is imperative to our national strength and prosperity 
that tough and prudent fiscal strategies be pursued. These strategies 
have brought this country the largest surpluses and longest economic 
expansion in history. Unfortunately, on the basis of inherently 
uncertain projections about the future surplus, members on the other 
side of the aisle have chosen to spend the entire surplus on one tax 
break at a time.
  Mr. Speaker, this bill is another in a long series of fiscally 
imprudent tax cuts passed in

[[Page 16592]]

this session of Congress which drain our hard-earned budget surplus and 
put at risk any chance of extending the life of Social Security or 
Medicare. Specifically, this bill threatens to raise interest rates, 
slow investment and productivity growth, increase dependence on foreign 
capital, and compromise our flexibility to deal with potential future 
budgetary problems. Moreover, this Republican proposal provides 
relatively few benefits for the vast majority of our working families.
  H.R. 4865 will provide about as much relief to the top 1 percent of 
taxpayers as to the millions of working people who make up the bottom 
80 percent of taxpayers. Although we are currently in an era of 
surpluses, we should not forget that Medicare's fiscal future is 
troubled. Part A will begin running cash deficits again by 2010, 
according to the most recent trustees report. Beyond 2010, its cash 
deficits will grow ever larger, totaling nearly $7 trillion by 2040. 
Despite these looming deficits, the Republican bill would weaken, 
rather than strengthen, Medicare financing by depriving the program of 
roughly $100 billion in dedicated revenues over the next ten years and 
$464 billion through 2024. Without this income, Medicare Part A will go 
into the red again on a cash basis 5 years earlier than under current 
law. This bill will only threaten the viability of the Medicare Program 
for future generations, but it will force an even greater squeeze on 
hospitals and other health care providers dependent upon Medicare 
payments.
  Mr. Speaker, this bill will cost more than $100 billion over 10 
years. Instead of devoting these resources toward a Medicare 
prescription drug benefit that would benefit all seniors and eligible 
people with disabilities, this proposal would leave more than four out 
of five Social Security beneficiaries with no more than they have 
today. While a budget surplus exists, we must utilize the surplus 
wisely to balance targeted tax cuts with paying down our national debt.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote for the Democratic 
substitute and reject the underlying bill.
  Mr. COYNE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 4865. This bill 
would jeopardize the solvency of the Medicare Hospital Trust Fund. The 
revenue from this tax goes directly into the Medicare Hospital Trust 
Fund. The loss of this revenue would be about $110 billion over the 
next 10 years or $13.6 trillion over the next 75 years. If this 
legislation were to be adopted, absent any other action on the part of 
Congress, the Medicare Hospital Trust Fund would be depleted 5 years 
earlier, in 2030 instead of 2035. The sponsors of H.R. 4865 tell us 
that this bill will not jeopardize Medicare because the legislation 
will require the Federal Government to make up the $14 trillion 
difference. This is an easy promise to keep while we have record budget 
surpluses. But when the Medicare Trust Fund gets close to zero, there 
may be no surplus. The same projections that have produced the 
estimates of budget surpluses over the next 10 years project annual 
deficits in subsequent years. At that point, we will have to reinstate 
the tax or raise the tax burden on working families to keep Medicare 
going. Even now, the bill will use up some of the surplus. 
Consequently, this revenue will be unavailable to use for other 
programs, such as a prescription drug benefit that will help all 
seniors. This revenue will also not be available to pay down our 
national debt, leading to billions of dollars in increased interest 
payments.
  Moreover, this is only one of many tax cuts the Republicans have 
proposed that will benefit wealthier people in the coming years and 
which will leave working families in the lurch. These tax cuts will 
crowd out funding for vital programs such as education, housing and 
medical research. And, unlike earlier proposed tax cuts, this one 
directly threatens the solvency of Medicare. I urge my colleagues to 
vote against this bill because it does not benefit the large majority 
of seniors and risks the future of Medicare.
  Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. Speaker, it is clear that most of the Members of 
this institution want to provide help to seniors who receive Medicare 
and Social Security benefits. There are two proposals that we are 
considering today which purport to help those seniors. One bill will 
provide seniors with a tax cut, including the wealthiest in our society 
. . . which is virtually guaranteed to deplete the Medicare Trust Fund 
and jeopardize the future of this vital program.
  This legislation to repeal the 1993 tax provision will make it more 
difficult for the government to finance adequate Medicare prescription 
drug coverage, as well as other improvements that ultimately should be 
included in the Medicare benefit package, such as catastrophic costs 
and long-term care. This legislation is a hundred billion dollar raid 
on the Medicare Trust Fund and replaces the money with an IOU.
  Although we are currently in the era of surpluses, we should not 
forget that Medicare's fiscal future is troubled. After several years 
of deficits in the 1990s, the Part A trust fund is now running a small 
cash surplus. This is only temporary, however--Part A will begin 
running cash deficits again by 2010, according to the most recent 
Medicare Trust Fund trustees report. Beyond 2010, its cash deficits 
will grow larger, totaling nearly $7 trillion in the next 40 years.
  Despite these looming deficits, this legislation would weaken, rather 
than strengthen Medicare financing by depriving the program of roughly 
$100 billion in dedicated revenue over the next ten years and nearly 
half a trillion dollars in the next 25 years. Without this income, 
Medicare Part A will go into the red again five years earlier than 
under current law. This will not only threaten the viability of the 
Medicare program for future generations, but it will force an even 
greater squeeze on hospitals and other health care providers dependent 
on Medicare payments. This revenue loss will be permanent, while the 
projected budget surpluses are temporary.
  Fortunately, we have a more fiscally responsible alternative. The 
substitute measure also cuts taxes for 95 percent of Social Security 
beneficiaries. Seniors living alone who make less than $80,000 a year 
and couples with a joint income of less than $100,000 a year would be 
eligible for the tax cut. In addition, the alternative maintains the 
financial integrity of the Medicare program by forcing the Treasury 
Secretary to guarantee that the funds will be available, before 
depleting the Trust Fund and providing the tax cut.
  Mr. Speaker, if we really care about seniors, we must ensure we 
maintain the financial stability of Social Security and Medicare, while 
providing responsible tax cuts. The alternative we are considering 
today does both and I urge its adoption.
  Ms. ESHOO. Mr. Speaker, when I was first elected to Congress in 1992, 
I promised my constituents that I would do everything in my power to 
abstain from the spending spree that had run up the largest budget 
deficit in American history. I consistently voted against irresponsible 
spending bills and for legislation to balance the budget and bring our 
fiscal house back to order.
  Today, we're reaping the benefits of our fiscal restraint. We are now 
in our third year of budget surpluses and unprecedented economic 
progress. The United States is enjoying the longest economic expansion 
in history, the lowest poverty rate in twenty years, and the lowest 
unemployment rate since the 1970s. Whereas in 1992 we suffered under 
the weight of a $290 billion budget deficit, today we are buoyed by a 
$211 billion surplus.
  And yet, it seems that our Republican colleagues have forgotten the 
lessons we learned just eight short years ago and are spending the 
surpluses as fast as they come in. Last year, the Republicans tried to 
enact their tax cut agenda at a cost of $929 billion over 10 years. 
This sweeping bill failed because it was obvious that such a large 
package shoved aside all other priorities and put the nation's fiscal 
health in jeopardy.
  This year, Republicans have devised a more clever political strategy 
of breaking up their tax agenda, allowing them to focus attention on 
the same attractions of each part of their agenda while obscuring the 
total cost. But the cost is the same. So far this year, Republicans 
have pushed through tax cuts that would eat up $739 billion of the 
budget surpluses. When you add this to other tax cuts and spending 
increases they vow to bring up, the Republicans will have spent $88 
billion more than is available once Social Security and Medicare are 
protected.
  Today, Congress is on its way to invading Medicare as well. While we 
are currently in an era of surpluses, we must not forget that 
Medicare's fiscal future is troubled. According to the most recent 
Trustees Report, Part A will begin running cash deficits again by 2010, 
totaling nearly $7 trillion by 2040.
  Despite these looming deficits, the Republicans have introduced yet 
another tax cut that robs the Medicare program of roughly $100 billion 
in dedicated revenues over the next ten years and $464 billion through 
2024. The Social Security Benefits Tax Relief Act (H.R. 4865), repeals 
a portion of the tax on Social Security benefits thereby eliminating a 
dedicated source of revenues to the Medicare Trust Fund. Without this 
income, Medicare Part A will go into the red again five years earlier 
than under current law. The result will be a significant threat to the 
viability of the Medicare program for future generations, and an even 
greater squeeze on hospitals and other health care providers dependent 
upon Medicare payments.
  H.R. 4865 purports to replace the lost revenue to the Medicare trust 
fund from the projected on-budget surplus. However, while the

[[Page 16593]]

revenue loss to the Medicare trust fund is guaranteed, the budget 
surplus exists only in projections and faces many other competing 
demands. Furthermore, the revenue loss to the Medicare trust fund would 
be permanent, while the projected budget surpluses are temporary. Once 
the projected surpluses run out, the Medicare trust fund will be left 
with a large hole unless a future Congress is willing to raise taxes or 
cut other programs.
  Perhaps most egregious, like other Republican tax cuts, H.R. 4865 
only benefits the wealthiest Americans. The National Council of Senior 
Citizens calls H.R. 4865 ``an irresponsible political gesture to upper 
income persons which will have severe consequences for the Social 
Security system and the solvency of the Medicare Part A trust fund.'' 
The massive amount of general revenues that would be consumed by this 
bill will leave fewer resources extending the solvency of the Medicare 
program and creating a Medicare prescription drug benefit.
  The Democratic substitute amendment, on the other hand, provides the 
same tax relief as the Republican bill but offers it to more seniors at 
about half the cost. Whereas the Republican bill only benefits the 
wealthiest 20 percent of Social Security recipients, the Democratic 
substitute would provide tax relief to 95 percent of seniors. Rather 
than eliminating the tax for all seniors, the Democratic substitute 
keeps the tax in place for only the very wealthiest--singles earning 
more than $80,000 and couples earning more than $100,000 a year.
  The Democratic substitute is also more fiscally responsible. Unlike 
the Republican bill, the Democratic substitute protects Social Security 
and Medicare by conditioning the tax cut on a certification from the 
Secretary of the Treasury that the on-budget surplus is sufficient to 
replenish the lost tax revenue. Thus, it can't go into effect in years 
in which there is not enough of an on-budget surplus to replace lost 
revenues.
  We are at a historic ``fork in the road.'' If we continue down the 
path of irresponsible tax cuts for the wealthy, there will be nothing 
left for shoring up Medicare and Social Security, enacting a Medicare 
prescription drug benefit, or paying down the public debt. I urge my 
colleagues to vote yes on the Democratic substitute and no on the 
underlying bill. Congress must reverse its course and get back on the 
road to fiscal discipline.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, the ``Social Security Benefits 
Tax Relief Act of 2000'' (H.R. 4865) repeals the tax on Social Security 
benefits created in the 1993 Clinton-Gore budget plan. This tax costs 
more than 8 million seniors an average of $1,180 a year.
  In 1993, Vice-President Gore cast the Senate tie-breaking vote to 
join with the Democrat-led House that imposed this tax on Social 
Security. I believe seniors should be able to keep their hundred bucks 
a month instead of having to send it to Washington.
  It's time to repeal the tax on Social Security to let Florida's 
seniors keep more of the benefits they earned. In an era of budget 
surpluses, it's wrong to punish seniors with a tax that's outlived its 
purpose. Social Security checks shouldn't arrive in the mailbox with a 
bill from the IRS attached.
  I am committed to improving the lives of Florida's seniors. Earlier 
this year, I voted to eliminate the Social Security earnings limit and 
in favor of a prescription drug benefit. These were done in addition to 
ending the 40-year Democrat raid on the Social Security trust fund.
  I am deeply disturbed that the President refuses to help America's 
seniors and is indicating that he will veto this tax equity bill for 
our senior citizens.
  Mr. REYES. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this bill, 
another in a series of fiscally irresponsible tax cuts. Our current 
budget surplus has put us in a position to extend the life of Social 
Security and Medicare, to ensure that we are able to provide a Medicare 
prescription drug benefit, invest in education, and pay down the 
national debt.
  But the Congressional majority's strategy is not to extend the 
solvency of Social Security or Medicare by even one day or address 
other important domestic issues like education. They would rather use 
uncertain projections about the future surplus to provide irresponsible 
tax breaks. According to the Department of Treasury, the Congressional 
majority's tax schemes provide relatively few benefits for the vast 
majority of working families.
  As a result of the tax cuts passed this year, the average family in 
the top 1 percent would receive a tax cut of over $16,000--compare that 
to the $220 tax cut that middle income families received. We should 
provide fair and equitable tax cuts that allow working families to send 
their kids to college, pay for child care, and care for sick family 
members while still strengthening Social Security and Medicare and 
paying down the national debt. President Clinton's tax cut package 
would have done just that.
  In contrast, this reckless bill will deprive Medicare of roughly $100 
billion in dedicated revenues over the next ten years and half a 
trillion by 2024. This bill attempts to solve that problem by replacing 
the lost revenue with money from the projected surplus. There is no 
guarantee that we will have years of budget surpluses to work with and 
replace the lost revenue. Pass this bill and we are guaranteed to drain 
resources from the Medicare trust fund.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to stop playing politics and 
focus on good policy.
  Mr. COX. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4865, long 
overdue legislation to repeal the 1993 Clinton-Gore tax increase on 
Social Security beneficiaries.
  The media has begun calling this tax the ``Gore Tax'' because Vice 
President Al Gore cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate needed to 
send the bill to President Clinton for his signature.
  The Gore Tax impose a 70 percent income tax rate increase or retired 
couples making as little as $22,000 each, and single retirees earning 
as little as $34,000.
  These low-income senior citizens don't qualify in anyone's book as 
``rich.'' In fact, they earn barely enough to keep them out of the 
government's official definition of ``poverty.'' Yet Al Gore cast the 
deciding vote to significantly increase taxes on these low-income 
senior citizens.
  How costly has this tax increase been? This year, the Gore Tax will 
hit 10 million retirees, and force each of them to pay an average of 
$1,200 in additional taxes. This tax burden is made all the more 
devastating because of the fact that so many low-income seniors live 
largely on their Social Security income.
  The Gore Tax is not only terrible tax policy because it unfairly 
burdens low-income Americans. It's also bad tax policy because it 
discourages Americans from working and saving for retirement.
  Instead of encouraging hard work and thrift, the Gore Tax severely 
punishes Americans who set money aside for retirement--and retirees who 
want to stay productive and in the workforce during their golden 
years--by forcing them to pay thousands of dollars more in income 
taxes.
  This tax is indefensible. I urge my colleagues to vote for H.R. 4865, 
so that we can at long last repeal the Gore Tax and its unfair and 
punitive burden on America's senior citizens.
  Mr. CROWLEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Social 
Security Benefits Tax Relief Act of 2000. This legislation will reduce 
the tax burden on millions of older americans who are enjoying their 
golden years.
  In 1993, the Congress and the Administration recognized that in order 
to shore up our nation's Medicare system and pay down the ballooning 
deficits caused by the fiscal imprudence of President George Bush, some 
unpopular decisions would need to be made.
  In 1993 and today, I salute the actions of the Democrats in Congress 
and President Clinton to address the pressing needs of Medicare and our 
nation's budget concerns. Six years later, thanks in large part to the 
first Clinton administration budget and the brave Democratic Party that 
took the right, yet politicallly unpopular path, our nation is enjoying 
unparalleled economic growth.
  Budget surpluses are projected for the next decade, unemployment 
rates are at their lowest peacetime rate in American history, 
homeownership is at a record high, most importantly, and every 
community in America is benefiting from increased wealth and job 
creation.
  This is a far different picture from the dark days of the last 
Republican Administration of President George Bush. President Bush 
provided our nation with high debts, a bankrupted Medicare system and 
high unemployment rates.
  Today, thanks to the great work and keen insight of President Bill 
Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and the Democrats in Congress, we now 
enjoy a budget surplus that continues to grow beyond even the wildest 
and most optimistic scenarios of every credible economist regardless of 
ideology.
  These funds allow Congress the ability to scale back the heavy tax 
burden on working families, senior citizens and small businesses. For 
that reason, I am pleased to rise in support of this legislation to 
provide sensible tax relief to American seniors.
  This bill will ensure that those middle class seniors, many of whom 
also benefited from the repeal of the Social Security Earnings Limit 
earlier this year, will now be able to keep more of their income.
  I am pleased to work in a bipartisan way today to support this 
legislation and provide

[[Page 16594]]

the seniors of my Congressional district in Queens and the Bronx, a tax 
cut on average of $1200 a year.
  In the best traditions of the Democratic Party, I will support this 
legislation to improve the quality of life for our nation's seniors.
  Mr. CRANE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this important 
legislation to relieve some of the tax burden on our seniors by 
reversing the mistake made in 1993 by the Clinton/Gore Administration 
and the Democratic-led Congress.
  The 1993 Clinton/Gore tax increase, raising the percentage of some 
senior's Social Security benefits subject to income tax from 85 percent 
to 50 percent, was not only unfair to seniors, but it was also just 
plain bad tax policy. Under current law, when an employer collects his 
half of the Social Security tax, the employer is allowed to deduct that 
amount from gross income as an expense. The individual paying payroll 
tax, however, is subject to individual income tax on the amount of 
payroll tax directly subtracted from his paycheck. In other words, half 
of the individual's total payroll tax contribution is subject to tax 
and half is not. The correct policy then, when considering taxing 
Social Security benefits, is to tax half the benefits. That assures 
that we achieve a basic goal of sound tax policy--tax all income once, 
but only once. The bill before us would once again lower the percentage 
of income subject to tax back down to 50 percent, where it belongs.
  The 1993 tax did much more than raise taxes on the elderly. It 
effectively reduced seniors' Social Security benefits. Of course, 
Clinton/Gore and the Democratic Congress didn't cut seniors' benefits 
by changing the benefit formula. But raising the tax on seniors' 
benefits certainly had the same effect. Every month, millions of 
seniors who rely on Social Security benefits had less money to spend. 
It makes no difference to them whether they have less money because 
their benefits are cut or because the tax on the benefits is higher. 
The bottom line--they have less money.
  Mr. Speaker, President Clinton is quoted as saying yesterday, ``I say 
to Congress: Stop passing tax bills you know I'll veto.''
  I say to President Clinton, stop vetoing the tax cut bills we are 
sending you. You threaten to veto a bill to relieve the patently unfair 
marriage penalty. You threaten to veto a bill to repeal the grossly 
unfair and immoral death tax. Now you threaten to veto a bill to 
relieve an unfair burden on seniors. Mr. President, this is not your 
money. Let us return it to the people who earned it.
  The Administration likes to talk about all the total cost of the 
bills we have sent to him or plan to send. That is a little like adding 
up the total cost of all the items on a restaurant's menu. Mr. 
President, we are hoping that a couple of these tax cut bills at least 
will look good enough for you to sign them. Then we can start talking 
bout the total cost. Until you do, we will continue sending up dishes 
for your approval. Until you do start signing them, it is the height of 
folly to talk about their total cost as though you had signed them.
  Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that we are 
bringing legislation to the floor today to repeal this unfair tax on 
seniors. Our senior citizens have worked their entire lives to build 
the savings that will enable them to enjoy a safe and secure 
retirement. The 85 percent tax created in the 1993 Clinton budget 
penalizes those seniors who have done what we are encouraging them to 
do, build their own personal savings for retirement.
  The worst thing about this tax is that the income levels that trigger 
it have not changed since the law was enacted--even though the cost of 
living has certainly increased since then. Therefore, more and more 
people become affected by it each year. According to the Congressional 
Budget Office, this year 10 million seniors (that's one out of every 
five seniors) will have to pay additional taxes, and by 2010 that 
number will reach 17 million--or one-third of seniors. With the income 
levels at $32,000 for individuals and $44,000 for couples, this is not 
a tax on upper income seniors--it is a tax on middle income seniors. 
And in Connecticut it hits seniors even harder because of our higher 
cost of living.
  In a letter to Chairman Archer, the AARP expresses its concerns about 
the tax. Their letter states: ``The 1993 tax may serve to undermine the 
program. By adding additional taxes to an already progressive Social 
Security benefit formula, these changes risk undermining the widespread 
public support the system enjoys.''
  This tax was created as part of a deficit reduction program. Now that 
we are enjoying unprecedented budget surpluses, we owe it to our 
seniors to repeal the tax. In 1993, the deficit was $255 billion. For 
fiscal year 2000, the surplus is $233 billion. This tax helped create 
that surplus, so we owe it to our seniors and working Americans to 
repay the favor.
  Repealing this increase is a matter of fairness and will help senior 
citizens, especially those with moderate incomes, keep more of their 
money in their own pockets. I urge my colleagues to support this piece 
of critical tax relief.
  Mrs. BIGGERT. Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe what I am hearing from 
the other side of the Chamber today.
  When the Democrat-controlled Congress passed this tax increase on 
seniors in 1993, they told them that the purpose was deficit reduction. 
It was to balance the federal budget.
  Now, seven years later, there is no federal budget deficit. There was 
no federal budget deficit last year. There will be no budget deficit 
next year or the following year. We look ahead, and as far as any 
projection ventures forward, there will be no federal budget deficits.
  Seniors know this. Everyone in this Chamber knows this. So who are we 
attempting to fool?
  And why do we continue to force this budget deficit reduction tax on 
America's seniors when there is no budget deficit?
  The answer is that we owe it to our seniors to repeal this onerous 
tax. For seven years, ten million American seniors have paid more than 
their fair share to reduce federal budget deficits. They have 
succeeded.
  The very least we now can do is to repeal this tax.
  To do less would be to engage in the worst kind of bait-and-switch 
tactic.
  What are we to say? In 1993, the tax was needed for deficit 
reduction. In 2000, there is no budget deficit so it is needed for 
spending? That's dishonest and unfair.
  Let's face it, this Democrat substitute is little more than an 
attempt to do justice for some and not for others.
  Let's do the right thing for all seniors--the honest thing--and 
repeal this tax.
  Mr. PASTOR. Mr. Speaker, we are very fortunate to be enjoying the 
prosperity and fiscal opportunities that come with a strong economy. 
Americans should be proud of the productive labor force and 
technological achievement that have led to current and projected budget 
surpluses. But we must not lose sight of the big picture and squander 
our opportunity to use current prosperity to safeguard our future.
  The tax cut we are debating today does not consider the big picture. 
This bill would reduce funds that could be used to strengthen the 
Social Security system for the benefit of our children and 
grandchildren. It would jeopardize our ability to extend the life of 
the Medicare trust fund and create a Medicare drug benefit that is long 
overdue. Whey would we do this at a time when my constituents in 
Arizona, and Americans across the country, have made it clear that 
strengthening Social Security and Medicare are among the highest 
legislative priorities for American families?
  Republicans have argued that this proposal benefits seniors by 
reducing their tax obligation. In fact, this bill is a break for only 
the top 16 percent of Social Security beneficiaries and a threat to the 
majority of seniors who favor a Medicare drug benefit. It is a threat 
to the future of younger generations, who already lack confidence in 
Congress's ability to ensure that Social Security will be there for 
them. This bill puts benefits for the wealthiest seniors before the 
needs of the most vulnerable Americans and puts short term political 
considerations before investment in our Nation's future.
  I cannot support this irresponsible legislation. I am tired of the 
Republican leadership wasting what little time we have on proposals to 
benefit the wealthiest Americans when there is so much important work 
left undone. Let us do the responsible thing. Let us focus first on 
reinforcing the social foundation on which this Nation's future 
security and prosperity will grow.
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 4865 to repeal 
the 1993 tax on Social Security benefits. I have spoken to and heard 
from many residents in Central New Jersey who want to see this Social 
Security tax eliminated.
  Since coming to Congress, I have stood for targeted and reasonable 
tax reductions, I have crossed party lines to phase out the estate tax, 
and to eliminate the marriage penalty. I also support ending the 1993 
tax on Social Security benefits.
  As I do, however, I want to be sure that this body understands and 
appreciates the context in which this tax was enacted. The 1993 tax on 
Social Security benefits was a small part of the Omnibus Budget 
Reconciliation Act of 1993, which paved the way for significant deficit 
reduction, and the large budget surpluses we enjoy today. OBRA, 
particularly the 1993 Social Security tax, was initially unpopular. 
Many Members in fact lost their seats in this House for voting for it. 
But it was enacted for

[[Page 16595]]

a good cause--to reduce the deficit and help shore up the Medicare 
program.
  It's important to remember the status of the Medicare Trust funds at 
that time. Medicare was in far graver condition than Social Security 
and was rapidly nearing insolvency. In fact, the 1993 Medicare Trustees 
report projected that Medicare would become insolvent just six years 
after the report in 1999. Thanks to the cumulative effects of the 1993 
package, however, as well as changes made in 1997, the Medicare program 
is projected to remain solvent through at least 2025. That is a 
remarkable turn around, and we have a lot of courageous Members of 
Congress who are no longer with us today to thank for it.
  These measures also helped to create a budget surplus that we could 
never have imagined just a few years ago. We have gone from budget 
deficits of over $200 billion per year--deficits which, by the way, 
included Social Security surpluses--to record on-budget surpluses 
today.
  Now that budget surpluses have been created and are projected to 
continue into the next decade we can make reasonable and targeted tax 
cuts.
  But we must not get complacent about the condition of Medicare or 
Social Security, or minimize the challenges that will only increase as 
the baby boom generation reaches retirement. It is crucial that we 
maintain the strength and long term solvency of Medicare and Social 
Security through whatever tax reductions are ultimately passed, 
following the negotiations that will take place with the leadership of 
Congress and the White House.
  I am satisfied that H.R. 4865 provides a general revenue offset to 
replenish the loss of revenue from repealing the 1993 tax--revenue that 
is dedicated to the Medicare trust funds. But this also means that 
these are now funds that cannot be used to meet the many other varied 
needs a rapidly aging population presents.
  I challenge this Congress not to neglect the other essential needs of 
our seniors and our communities. While passing meaningful tax relief is 
essential, I also intend, and hope Members on both sides of the aisle 
will work with me, in seeing that a real prescription drug benefit is 
provided under Medicare. This is what our seniors want and are asking 
for. It is especially critical that a prescription drug benefit be a 
central part of Medicare and not as an add-on. We know Medicare. 
Medicare works.
  Insurance companies, on the other hand, have not demonstrated a 
dedication to guaranteeing coverage to seniors, and indeed, their 
business is not geared towards that goal. Their representatives have 
made that clear.
  I also hope we can begin to work in a bipartisan way to establish a 
long-term care insurance program for older Americans and persons with 
severe disabilities. By reauthorizing the Older Americans Act and by 
creating a tax credit for caregivers, we are making promising strides 
in that area. But there is a long way to go, and meeting the needs of 
our rapidly aging population will require our utmost attention.
  Mr. Speaker, while we take action to provide meaningful tax relief 
here today, we must not lose sight of the larger overall need to 
maintain our budget surplus and continue to preserve Medicare and 
Social Security for today's and tomorrow's workers.
  Mr. REYES. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Democratic 
substitute and in strong opposition to the fiscally irresponsible 
Republican tax scheme. The substitute would raise from $44,000 to 
$100,000 the annual income level at which couples must include 85 
percent of their Social Security benefits as taxable income. By raising 
these levels, the substitute would provide the same tax relief as in 
the reported bill for approximately 95 percent of beneficiaries.
  The tax reductions in the Democratic bill would be contingent on a 
year-by-year certification by the Secretary of the Treasury that there 
are sufficient surpluses outside the Social Security and Medicare 
programs to make the general fund transfers necessary to reimburse the 
Medicare Trust Fund. Thus, before the Medicare Trust Fund is depleted, 
the substitute guarantees that the budget surpluses exist to ensure 
these appropriations will actually be made to the Medicare Trust Fund 
to replace the lost revenue.
  Our proposal can only go into effect in years in which there is 
enough of an on-budget surplus to replace lost revenues in the Medicare 
Trust Fund. The Republican bill makes no such guarantees and merely 
relies on continued surpluses year after year. Furthermore, the 
Republican bill requires huge transfers of federal funds from general 
revenues into Medicare. It takes money out of one pocket and puts it 
back in the other pocket. These transfers jeopardize the program's 
solvency and could result in increased Medicare premiums.
  Our seniors deserve better than political games. I urge all of my 
colleagues to vote for the Democratic substitute and against the risky 
Republican tax scheme.
  Ms. KILPATRICK. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong and stringent 
opposition to H.R. 4865, the Social Security Tax Benefits Relief Act. 
First and foremost I must say that I am for providing tax relief to our 
nation's citizens. There are seniors and others in our country who are 
clearly in need of tax relief. However, any tax proposals that we 
consider should not solely benefit those at the top of the economy who 
are least in need of a tax break. We, as Democrats, have tried to 
structure targeted tax proposals that will benefit those in the middle 
and lowest rungs of the economic latter.
  This bill will benefit only the top one-fifth of Social Security 
beneficiaries. While many of these people are not rich, this regressive 
distribution of the benefits from the GOP bill is consistent with 
favor-of-the-wealthy trend of previous Republican tax cuts. According 
to the Department of Treasury, roughly half of the tax cuts passed by 
the House this year will go to the wealthiest 5 percent of households. 
The other 95 percent will share the other half.
  I say to those listening, do not be fooled by the misleading title 
given this legislation. This bill will jeopardize all that we have done 
to ensure that the budget is balanced in a manner that protects the 
longevity of Social Security and Medicare while also leaving enough 
aside to provide the prescription drug benefit that our nation's 
seniors need. This tax cut will raise the aggregate amount of tax 
expenditures of nearly $740 billion--rivaling the amount they attempted 
to pass in the 1999 tax-cut bill vetoed by the president ($792 
billion). This amount threatens to liquidate nearly all of the 
projected budget surpluses.
  This latest Republican tax proposal while appearing to be a straight 
forward tax cut for some Social Security beneficiaries is truly a 
dangerous scheme that particularly threatens the solvency of medicare. 
The revenues collected from this tax go directly to fund the Medicare 
Hospital Trust fund. By depriving Medicare of this dedicated revenue 
stream, Republicans would create a massive, unfunded promise that 
explodes in the future years. Medicare actuaries estimate cumulative 
losses at roughly $13.7 trillion in dedicated revenue over the next 75 
years. Republicans would replace a sure-thing with an IOU to be drawn 
on the trust fund forever. Nothing guarantees that Congress will offset 
this cost elswehere in the budget, or curtail other tax cuts enough to 
guarantee this money will be there for Medicare.
  Like all of the other tax cuts that the Republicans are pushing 
through, they are doing so knowing that this measusre is clearly headed 
to the long line of other bills that the President has indicated he 
will veto. Instead of working with the President to come up with 
bipartisan tax legislation the Republicans insist on pushing through 
thoughtless and unwise tax legislation that threatens Medicare and 
other important programs only to score political points in an election 
year. In 1995, this very same drill brought the government to a 
shutdown. In subsequent years, in an effort to thwart the budgetary 
goals of the President, they have done the same thing they are doing 
now, only to see their efforts stall under the weight of presidential 
vetoes.
  It is frustrating to vote against measures like this that proclaim to 
do good while failing to meet the clear needs of our citizens. Given 
the frustration we all feel here in Congress, I extend a plea to those 
on the other side to discontinue their efforts to score political 
points. I urge Members on both sides of the aisle to reflect on the 
successes and failures that we have experienced here during the course 
of the District work period, so that when we return, we can come 
together and address the pressing needs of the American people.
  Mrs. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to revise 
and extend my remarks. I thank the Gentleman from New York, Mr. Rangel, 
for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this legislation. This is 
a bad bill which moves us in the wrong direction. It fundamentally 
weakens Medicare at a time when we still need to be protecting and 
strengthening it. If the majority party believed in truth in 
advertising instead of putting attractive names on awful bills, they 
would call this bill ``The Sunset on Medicare Act''. For we surely put 
Medicare at enormous risk by making it more dependent on annual 
appropriations.
  If there is anyone who believes that we are strengthening Medicare by 
eliminating a dedicated source of $117 billlion in revenues over the 
next ten years ($13.7 trilllion over the 75 year solvency period for 
the program) and substituting general revenues, please see me

[[Page 16596]]

when this debate concludes and I'll sell you the Brooklyn Bridge! No 
one can seriously assert that Medicare is made more secure by replacing 
a dedicated tax source with a promise to make payments to Medicare from 
the General Fund.
  Relying on annual appropriations from general revenues to make up the 
shortfall that this legislation will create is a very dangerous 
strategy, particularly given the Majority's insistence on adopting 
huge, reckless tax cuts for the wealthy, rather than targeted tax 
relief for the middle class.
  This bill will jeopardize our ability to add a much-needed 
prescription drug benefit to Medicare and will endanger other important 
domestic priorities. It is especially irresponsible because we know 
that the start of retirement among the Baby Boomer generation will 
cause the number of people using Medicare to double from 40 million to 
80 million between now and 2030.
  We know that good economic times do not last forever. What will 
happen when there is a downturn in our economy or if the Republicans 
push through even larger tax cuts? The general revenue ``promise'' to 
replace funds taken from Medicare will prove to be worthless.
  We have a solemn responsibility to strengthen and secure Medicare and 
Social Security not just for today's beneficiaries, but for future 
beneficiaries. I will not be a party to weakening Medicare when we need 
to strengthen and protect it. Reject this irresponsible bill.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 
4865, the Social Security Benefits Tax Relief Act of 2000. This 
legislation would repeal the burdensome tax on Social Security benefits 
imposed by the Clinton-Gore Administration back in 1993. The 
Administration created this proposal during a time when the nation was 
attempting to reduce the Federal budget deficit, but now that we enjoy 
a plentiful surplus, it is only right to repeal this unduly high level 
of taxation on our senior citizens.
  Mr. Speaker, in 1993, the Clinton-Gore Administration imposed the 
Tier II tax on up to 85% of Social Security benefits. Consequently, an 
individual recipient whose income exceeds $34,000, and a married couple 
whose income exceeds $44,000, find themselves having 85 percent of 
their benefits taxed rather than the previous 50 percent of their 
benefits. This abrupt change in law hurt our senor citizens who have 
worked hard toward a fiscally-responsible retirement plan based on the 
50 percent taxable benefit level. The Administration claims it was 
necessary to increase this taxable base in 1993 to reduce the Federal 
budget deficit, but that deficit is gone now and it is time to return 
to the nation's senior citizens the money that is rightfully theirs.
  This is not just a tax on the rich, but rather, a tax that hits the 
average senior citizen. In this year alone, 10 million beneficiaries 
are affected by this tax. By 2010, over 17.5 million beneficiaries will 
be affected. For seniors who fall within range of this income 
threshold, a great disincentive was created in 1993 for seniors to 
continue to work or save additional money for fear that an increase in 
income would cause more of their Social Security benefits to become 
taxable at this outrageous rate.
  Not only is the tax burdensome, the income thresholds are not indexed 
for inflation, which means that more and more lower income people are 
affected by the tax each year. Although it may have appeared reasonable 
to tax an individual's income which exceeded $34,000 back in 1993, 
without indexing that income threshold for inflation, we are continuing 
to tax more lower income beneficiaries every year.
  When many of us signed the Contract With America back in 1994, we 
pledged to do away with this burdensome Tier II tax by this year. Well, 
Mr. Speaker, the time has come to follow through with our promise and 
to allow America's seniors to keep more of their money.
  I thank Congressman Archer for his efforts in bringing this measure 
to the floor. I enthusiastically support H.R. 4865, the Social Security 
Benefits Tax Relief Act of 2000, and encourage my colleagues to vote in 
support of this important legislation.


     Amendment In The Nature of a Substitute Offered by Mr. Pomeroy

  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I offer an amendment in the nature of a 
substitute.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will designate the amendment in 
the nature of a substitute.
  The text of the amendment in the nature of a substitute is as 
follows:

       Amendment in the nature of a substitute offered by Mr. 
     Pomeroy:
       Strike all after the enacting clause and insert the 
     following:

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Social Security Benefits Tax 
     Relief Act of 2000''.

     SEC. 2. INCREASE IN ADJUSTED BASE AMOUNT CONTINGENT ON 
                   AVAILABILITY OF BUDGET SURPLUSES.

       (a) In General.--Section 86 of the Internal Revenue Code of 
     1986 (relating to social security and tier 1 railroad 
     retirement benefits) is amended by adding at the end the 
     following new subsection:
       ``(g) Increase in Adjusted Base Amount Contingent on 
     Availability of Budget Surpluses.--
       ``(1) In general.--For any taxable year beginning after 
     December 31, 2000, subsection (c)(2) shall be applied--
       ``(A) by substituting `$80,000' for `$34,000' in 
     subparagraph (A) thereof, and
       ``(B) by substituting `$100,000' for `$44,000' in 
     subparagraph (B) thereof.
       ``(2) Contingency.--
       ``(A) In general.--Paragraph (1) shall apply to taxable 
     years beginning in any calendar year only if the Secretary of 
     the Treasury certifies (before the close of such calendar 
     year) that the condition specified in subparagraph (B) is met 
     with respect to such calendar year.
       ``(B) Condition.--The condition specified in this 
     subparagraph is met for any calendar year if the projected 
     on-budget surplus for the fiscal year beginning in such 
     calendar year (determined by excluding the receipts and 
     disbursements of part A of the medicare program) is greater 
     than the projected appropriations that would be required by 
     section 3 of the Social Security Benefits Tax Relief Act of 
     2000 for such fiscal year if paragraph (1) had been in effect 
     for all taxable years after 2000.''.
       (c) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section 
     shall apply to taxable years beginning after December 31, 
     2000.

     SEC. 3. MAINTENANCE OF TRANSFERS TO HOSPITAL INSURANCE TRUST 
                   FUND.

       (a) In General.--There are hereby appropriated to the 
     Hospital Insurance Trust Fund established under section 1817 
     of the Social Security Act amounts equal to the reduction in 
     revenues to the Treasury by reason of the enactment of this 
     Act. Amounts appropriated by the preceding sentence shall be 
     transferred from the general fund at such times and in such 
     manner as to replicate to the extent possible the transfers 
     which would have occurred to such Trust Fund had this Act not 
     been enacted.
       (b) Reports.--The Secretary of the Treasury or the 
     Secretary's delegate shall annually report to the Committee 
     on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives and the 
     Committee on Finance of the Senate the amounts and timing of 
     the transfers under this section.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 564, the 
gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy) and a Member opposed each 
will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy).

                              {time}  1600

  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, the Democrat substitute provides tax relief for senior 
citizens that is fiscally responsible and safeguards the Social 
Security and Medicare trust funds. The amendment provides the same tax 
relief as the underlying bill to 95 percent of Social Security 
recipients but reduces the cost of the bill by $43 billion over 10 
years. The amendment replenishes the revenue lost to the Medicare trust 
fund with revenue dedicated from the general fund surplus. Most 
importantly, unlike the Republican bill, the Democrat substitute 
protects Social Security and Medicare by requiring the Treasury 
Secretary to certify that the Medicare and Social Security trust funds 
are not being used to underwrite this tax relief.
  Nearly 80 percent of our senior citizens will not be affected by 
either the majority or minority substitute. They do not pay this tax. 
Now, of those that do pay the tax, the Democrat substitute takes care 
of all but those 5 percent earning as a household over $100,000.
  Now, in doing so, we ensure, first of all, 95 percent of all Social 
Security recipients are covered, but we save over the course of the 
bill $43 billion. At that point in time, it becomes a matter of 
priorities. Where do you want these resources to be allocated? Is the 
highest purpose for this $43 billion the tax relief purpose of 
households over $100,000, senior citizens with outside income of 
$100,000 or greater? Or could it be applied more appropriately? For 
example, as the chart indicates, that $43 billion saved in the Democrat 
substitute could go a long way to funding very meaningful prescription 
drug coverage for our seniors.

[[Page 16597]]

  Finally, the Democrat substitute protects Social Security and 
Medicare by requiring that before the tax cut takes effect, the 
Secretary of Treasury must certify that the budget surplus, excluding 
the Medicare and Social Security trust funds, is sufficient to cover 
the projected revenue loss.
  This is very important. Because the majority proposal, while it talks 
about transferring general fund revenues to cover the revenue lost in 
this tax measure, does not address the circumstance of if there are no 
general fund revenues available.
  Look at this third and final chart. Under the projections that we 
have now put together of their spending and tax plans, they completely 
exhaust the surplus within the 10-year period of time, and in fact are 
$88 billion into the red, right back into Republican deficits of old, 
no funds available for the type of transfer envisioned in their bill.
  Now, the Democrat substitute ensures that the Medicare trust fund 
will never be raided by this measure and therefore is a preferable way.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). Does the gentleman from Florida 
(Mr. Shaw) claim the time in opposition?
  Mr. SHAW. Yes, Mr. Speaker.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw) is 
recognized for 30 minutes.
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. It 
is interesting to sit here and if you listen to all of the debate, it 
is very interesting to note, and I will say that the gentleman who was 
just in the well certainly, I cannot accuse him of any hypocrisy 
because he was not a part of the debate on the general debate that we 
just concluded, so my remarks are not in any way aimed towards him.
  Like the Republican bill, he depends on general revenue. Unlike the 
Republican bill, he has a certification as to certain surpluses. As a 
former CPA and a lawyer, I have great trouble with that. How would I as 
a CPA advise my clients as to whether or not there was going to be a 
surplus? How is the IRS going to even prepare the income tax forms that 
have to be gotten out? And how can we depend upon guesses every year 
coming from somewhere as to whether there is going to be a surplus? 
These are all very difficult questions.
  I would like to also point out to my colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle, how did we make these transfers in the past when we did have 
deficits? Under the 1993 tax bill that we are trying to nullify here, 
these transfers were made to Medicare in 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997 
and 1998, even though we had deficits in all of those years. We had a 
deficit in every one of those years. This argument simply does not hold 
water. When the money is transferred to Medicare, it stays inside the 
Government. The size of the surplus or the deficit does not really make 
a difference.
  I would like to also mention the question as to whether the dedicated 
stream of income as coming out of the Social Security recipient's hide 
is any more reliable than the bill that is before us today that this 
substitute is trying to change. Any Congress can change what the 
previous Congress did. There is no question about that. But both bills, 
both the 1993 bill and the bill that is before us today, does not 
require any congressional action next year. The underlying bill does 
not require any congressional action next year. It automatically 
happens unless Congress decides to change the law. So the whole 
argument that has been made here that somehow Medicare is put at risk 
under the bill before the House, the principal bill before the House, 
simply does not hold water at all.
  I think it has gotten to be the question when you do not want to talk 
about the facts, you talk about something else. Anyone who has 
practiced law and had any type of trial practice, if the facts are not 
with you, you talk about something else. That is exactly what has been 
happening here today.
  I compliment the gentleman on his bill. It is certainly an 
improvement over existing law. But it does not get by the basic test. 
Is it morally right to tax 85 percent of the benefits that seniors are 
receiving under Social Security regardless of their income? If it is 
morally wrong, it is wrong. If it is wrong; it is wrong. This is what 
we are trying to reverse.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to make some 
brief responses. I imagine the gentleman, my friend and colleague, was 
a very good lawyer from the way he spun his argument back. The fact of 
the matter is if there is not a risk that there will not be sufficient 
general fund revenues to flow into these trust funds to make certain 
the Medicare trust fund is whole, lawyers and accountants would not 
have any issue advising their clients. The fact of the matter is, as 
the third chart I showed earlier demonstrates, very conceivably the 
plans of the majority would erode the surplus and leave this Nation in 
the position of having money come from Social Security or Medicare. 
That is what the substitute wants to avoid.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Green).
  Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from 
North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 
Capuano) for working together on this substitute. I think it offers a 
sensible and cost-effective substitute for the Republican plan. I share 
some of the concern of my Republican colleagues because we do have a 
surplus. Let us give some of it back. The difference is the Democratic 
substitute does that. It raises the caps from $34,000 to $80,000 for 
individuals and from $44,000 per couple to $100,000. It retains some of 
the money in the Medicare trust fund. But even better, even better than 
just talking about the tax cuts, these cuts will not be taken out of 
the Social Security surplus.
  We have a problem in Washington because oftentimes we pay for tax 
cuts and spending with Social Security surplus funds. We are no longer 
doing that, thank goodness. But in adding even more so better than the 
Republican bill, we make sure that the Medicare trust fund is whole 
every year. Instead of just a promise that every year it will go in 
there, it requires that certification.
  The issue my colleague from Florida brought up, I do my own taxes and 
my taxes are not due until April 15. The IRS does not send me my form 
until the end of December. So I would assume during that year somewhere 
the certification would be made.
  Our proposal will relieve middle-income seniors of the burden of the 
tax without busting the Federal budget. While I did not agree 
wholeheartedly with the imposition of the tax, I think cutting it now 
would have an adverse effect on both the budget and the Medicare 
program as a whole. Rather than eliminating the tax for all seniors, 
our legislation again only leaves it to the 5 percent of the wealthiest 
compared to the 20 percent who pay it now. Let me say it again, that 
our bill allows the tax cut to take place only if there is a surplus to 
pay for it in the Medicare trust fund.
  Unfortunately, at the rate my Republican colleagues are spending it 
as my colleague showed, there is not going to be any of that surplus 
left, so this is just a wink for the Medicare trust fund. Between 
spending $739 billion in tax cuts plus entitlement and discretionary 
spending, we will be $88 billion in the hole.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge a vote for the Democratic substitute.
  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Capuano), cosponsor of the Democrat substitute.
  Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Speaker, I would just like to ask a question. It 
seems to me from all the debate that I have heard in the last several 
hours that somehow the tax on Social Security is going to disappear. 
Well, for those people who understand the tax forms, who still do them, 
who still read the tax laws, I have one question. Will line 20(b) on 
the 1040 tax form disappear under your proposal?

[[Page 16598]]

  I will answer the question. The answer is no. The answer is no. Every 
single person, every single one who is currently paying taxes on any 
part of their Social Security will still pay taxes on their Social 
Security after the Republican proposal. I want to say that again. No 
single person will go to no tax on their Social Security because of 
their proposal. Not one.
  I also want to turn the clock back just a little bit. To hear it 
today, the world started in 1993. My God, it is amazing. I have to turn 
the clock back just a little bit further and go to 1983. 1983 was the 
year, the first time a single penny on Social Security income was taxed 
by anybody. This Congress voted it under President Reagan and Vice 
President George Bush's administration. They voted, along with 97 
Republicans. Of those 97 Republicans who voted to tax Social Security, 
the gentleman from Florida was amongst that group, as was a gentleman 
named Mr. Cheney from Wyoming. They both voted to tax Social Security 
income. This bill will not do anything about that tax.
  My question is, if that is so good, what is so bad about our proposal 
to raise the tax level so that only the richest people in America get 
hit a little bit? If it is so morally reprehensible or morally wrong, 
to quote several comments made today, what is so morally right about a 
1983 tax? The answer can only be, because in 1993 we had Clinton-Gore, 
and in 1983 we had Reagan-Bush. Somehow Reagan-Bush taxes are morally 
okay, but Clinton-Gore taxes are morally wrong. That is absurd. That is 
absurd and it is offensive to say it. I understand if you want to slash 
the tax, cut the whole thing out. After the proposal is passed today by 
the Republican majority, there will still be, this year, this year if 
this is ever passed into law, $13.8 billion still raised on the taxes 
on Social Security. I do not want anyone at home, including my mother 
who is here today, to go home thinking that they will not be paying 
taxes on their Social Security. They will be.
  This whole discussion is about politics. That is what it is about. It 
is about a convention coming up next week. People want to say, We voted 
to cut taxes. It is not true. It is a misnomer. It is as misleading as 
anything I have heard.
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I would like to remind the gentleman from Massachusetts that none of 
the Social Security recipients today would be receiving their benefits 
if it were not for that 1983 tax bill. It was necessary.
  Mr. CAPUANO. If the gentleman will yield, I would not have opposed 
it. I would have voted with him.
  Mr. SHAW. I thought the gentleman was trying to make a point there 
that needed clarification. I am very proud that we have kept Social 
Security. Line 20(b) on the tax return, is that the first tier on 
Social Security, the first tier tax?
  Mr. CAPUANO. If the gentleman recalls his tax law, he would 
understand that they are both combined together on page 25 of the 
instructions.
  Mr. SHAW. I congratulate the gentleman on his sense of humor, but if 
that is the first tier, the tax on the first tier, then that would 
certainly remain under both bills. I do not have the tax return. The 
gentleman obviously has one before him. I might say that I would be 
glad to take a look at it and discuss the tax return with him.

                              {time}  1615

  But I think the question is, and we seem to be losing our way here, 
the question is whether or not we are going to give tax relief to our 
seniors.
  Back when this tax, this 85 percent tax, was passed by this Congress, 
there was a deficit of $255 billion. If you go back and look at the 
argument and the reasons for the tax, it was to get rid of the deficit 
or to cut down the deficit.
  Now, I did not support picking out the seniors and going after them 
for this, but that is exactly what the majority party did at that time; 
and that is when the Democrats ran the House.
  Now, we do not have a deficit of $255 billion under the Republican 
House; we now have a surplus of $233 billion, $233 billion. If this tax 
was for the purpose of getting rid of the deficit or getting the 
deficit down, now is the time to give it back. This was a tax that was 
supposed to pay down the deficit. The deficit is gone. We picked out 
the seniors to do it. We now have a surplus of $233 billion, and it is 
time to get rid of this tax.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Smith).
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, for two reasons, what the 
chairman says is correct. The increased tax on Social Security benefits 
passed in 1993 was for the purpose of reducing deficit spending, even 
though the money of the tax was earmarked for Medicare. As far as its 
justification for deficit reduction, it is appropriate that we repeal 
this tax increase. We are now experiencing huge surpluses and make up 
that money to Medicare. Therefore, to continue to justify this tax for 
deficit reduction is not appropriate.
  Let me offer another reason why it is appropriate to reduce this tax. 
Higher-income retirees tend to be workers who paid in more Social 
Security taxes than lower-wage earners; and because the Social Security 
system is so progressive, higher-income wage earners already receive a 
much smaller percentage of what they paid in in terms of the benefits 
they receive. It is not fair in a relative sense that they be 
additionally penalized by this tax.
  Now, it is my opinion that eventually, as we lower the tax rate 
overall, as suggested by Governor Bush, we should tax Social Security 
benefits the way we tax private pensions. We now tax private pensions, 
but we only tax the value of the employer's contribution plus total 
interest as a percentage of the whole. We do not tax the recipient's 
contribution. That amount in a typical Social Security pension received 
from high wage earners is 15 percent. In contrast, an average low wage 
earner retiree has already received in benefits about seven times his 
or her after-tax contribution.
  So our goal should be to lower the tax overall and to treat those 
higher-income recipients that are already in a progressive state at a 
fair tax level related to the lower tax level.
  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor).
  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment my 
colleague from Florida, the attorney. He said a couple of things that I 
think are noteworthy. Number one is when the facts are not on your 
side, talk about everything but the facts.
  My colleague from Florida, the facts are not on your side. I am not a 
lawyer, but I can read the Treasury report. The Treasury report that 
came out on June 30 of this year has some extremely interesting facts.
  Number one, there is still no surplus, other than the trust funds, 
and the trust funds raised about $170 billion. Yet we have a cumulative 
surplus of only about $176. Why is that? Because they stole $11 billion 
from somebody's trust fund to pay the bills.
  The second thing is I have heard over and over we are paying down the 
debt. Again, according to the Treasury's own figures, the debt has 
grown by $42 billion of public debt this year. This year we have spent, 
as of today, $300 billion of the taxpayers' dollars down a rat hole 
called interest on the national debt. It is not taking care of old 
folks, it is not educating kids, and we are going to keep throwing 
money down that rat hole until we pay down the debt, and you do not pay 
down the debt unless you balance your budget.
  Again, this is coming from the Bureau of Public Debt. This is June 
30, 1999. The publicly held debt was $5.636 trillion. One year later, 
June 30, 27 days ago, the public debt is $5.685 trillion, an increase 
of over $40 billion.
  Again, I would say to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw), I am not 
a lawyer, but I can read.
  To the point: Where did they steal the $11 billion? Did it come out 
of Social Security? Did it come out of Medicare? Did it come out of the 
approximately $10 billion of the Military Retiree Trust Fund? Because 
they certainly stole $11 billion from somebody's trust fund under this 
charade of a balanced budget.

[[Page 16599]]

  I urge Members to reject the Republican proposal. I urge this 
generation of Americans that has run up $5 trillion of the $5.7 
trillion worth of debt which has been incurred in our lifetimes, let us 
pay our bills and not stick our kids with them.
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the gentleman in the well, was he 
speaking for or against the substitute?
  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SHAW. I yield to the gentleman from Mississippi.
  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I will not be able to support 
either of them, because I think this generation ought to pay its bills.
  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the substitute and in 
opposition to the final bill. I feel that the substitute is much more 
fiscally responsible than the attempt in the final version to basically 
bet the entire budget surplus on the hopes that the surplus money 
projected out in 10 years will in fact materialize. But I have always 
felt that, given the current economic numbers, we can provide some tax 
relief to Americans and working families, and even to seniors who need 
it, as long as it is done in a fiscally responsible way.
  The substitute creates an exemption for individuals up to $80,000, up 
to $100,000 for married couples, and will exempt 95 percent of seniors 
in our country, and yet it will not bet the entire farm by the complete 
elimination that the final bill calls for.
  I also think it is fair to do it that way as well, because when you 
look at current earnings and what they are taxed on for FICA purposes, 
it phases out at roughly $76,000 in the current year. That means those 
earning more than $76,000 no longer pay FICA taxes, yet working 
families below that level are taxed on every dollar that they earn.
  The other point that I want to make, Mr. Speaker, is this: this body 
has never been accused of being consistent philosophically on a lot of 
issues, and we are not in this instance. Earlier this summer when 
gasoline prices were spiking around the country, there was a lot of 
talk and excitement out here about repealing the Federal gas tax to 
provide relief. But when people realized that that would mean taking 
money out of the Highway Trust Fund to do it, a dedicated revenue 
stream, they said, oh, no, no, no, we cannot do that, we should not 
touch that, because it will jeopardize roads and highways and bridges.
  Now, all of a sudden, when we have a dedicated revenue stream that 
goes into Medicare and a tax cut proposal is on the table to withdraw 
funds from that, that seems to be acceptable. That seems to be okay if 
we do it, even if it may jeopardize the long-term solvency of the 
Medicare program.
  We could not do it with the gas tax repeal, which is a more 
regressive tax than what we are talking about in this instance, but we 
are willing to jeopardize the Medicare program under virtually the same 
exact circumstances.
  At least the substitute ensures that surpluses in fact materialize to 
pay for the revenue shortfall in the Medicare Trust Fund that the tax 
repeal will create.
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise the gentleman who just spoke that 
neither the bill in chief, H.R. 4865, nor the substitute, puts Medicare 
in jeopardy. There is a replacement of the money coming out of general 
revenue under both bills. So I think this is very clear.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SHAW. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. KIND. We could have done the same exact thing with the gas tax 
with the Federal Highway Trust Fund, but that was not acceptable 
because there was a dedicated revenue stream for our infrastructure 
needs, just as there is right now with the Medicare.
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the gas tax is a use tax 
to pay for highways. What we are talking about now is Social Security. 
It is quite different. And to say that it is right to tax some folks 
and it is wrong to tax other folks on the same type of income and 
moneys that they are receiving under Social Security, which they have 
paid for, this is not a welfare program, this is an earned benefit. 
That is what Social Security is, an earned benefit under which all 
American employees have been duly taxed at the time it was earned and 
paid into the Social Security trust fund.
  We just simply have a difference of opinion. The gentleman from North 
Dakota wants to give his tax relief to people under $85,000. We think 
if it is wrong, it is wrong, it is wrong for all people; and that is an 
honest disagreement.
  But neither program, and I want to repeat this, neither the Democrat 
substitute nor the bill that is mainly under consideration here in any 
way jeopardizes the Medicare fund. That is a blue herring. It is weird 
that anybody would really come in to say this, when the bills, both 
bills, in black and white, specifically state that those funds will be 
put into the Medicare fund.
  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished 
gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy); and I thank the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Green), as well as the gentleman from Massachusetts 
(Mr. Capuano).
  To the distinguished gentleman from Florida, I think the issue is a 
holistic approach to what we are trying to do. Frankly, I think it is 
important to distinguish why I am here opposing the Republican plan, 
and supporting, and gratefully supporting, the Democratic substitute, 
because I cannot in good faith close hospitals, as they would be 
closing in my community, or throw senior citizens off of Medicare.
  What we have in the substitute is a plan that spends $75 billion, but 
in refuting the comments by the gentleman from Florida, the substitute 
ties the funding to certifying that the Medicare Trust Fund is solvent.
  If you take all of the expenditures that our good friends on the 
Republican side of the aisle have been spending on tax cuts, of which 
the American people have said, I want a solvent Social Security, a 
solvent Medicare, and I want other opportunities, it is almost $2 
trillion. If we are trying to get a prescription drug benefit, debt 
reduction, Social Security and Medicare solvency, this is what the 
Republican plan leaves us with, a deficit of $88 billion, meaning that 
we have no way of paying for those items that are so needed.
  Let me share with you the fact that the American Association of 
Health Plans indicates that at least 711,000 Medicare beneficiaries, 
your parents, my parents, aunts and uncles, 711,000 Medicare 
beneficiaries will suffer the loss of their current health benefits in 
January of 2001 because the Medicare Choice programs are being forced 
to exit.
  Let me also share with Members, in my own hometown, Aetna U.S. 
Healthcare has moved out and seniors are being thrown off these plans. 
My own concerned citizen called me and said, What do I do? I do not 
have an HMO choice. So more of them are going to need more Medicare.
  It is to shore up this program that I support the substitute, and I 
would hope that we would support the saving of Social Security and 
Medicare.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Democratic Substitute to 
H.R. 4865, Social Security Benefits Tax Relief Act of 2000. I am urging 
my colleagues to support this measure so that all, not just a minuscule 
fraction, of America's seniors get the benefits they are entitled to.
  There is an undeniable Medicare/Social Security crisis in America. 
HMOs are withdrawing from communities across the nation leaving seniors 
without adequate choices for health care coverage. One of the biggest 
insurers in my state of Texas will not renew its contract to offer 
Medicare+Choice HMO for the entire state. According to the American 
Association of Health Plans (AAHP), at least 711,000 Medicare 
beneficiaries will suffer the loss of their current health coverage in 
January of 2001 because Medicare+Choice plans are being forced to exit 
the program.

[[Page 16600]]

  For instance, Aetna U.S. Healthcare (Aetna) has announced its 
withdrawal from certain Medicare markets in the Houston metropolitan 
area. Mr. Speaker, that is of serious concerns to seniors in my 
district that are unaccustomed to shopping around for some other plan 
that may be less than adequate. Overall, Aetna is withdrawing from 11 
states and from certain counties in three other states. These 
withdrawals will affect approximately 355,000 seniors currently 
enrolled in Aetna affiliated Medicare plans throughout the country.
  Allow me to take a moment to share the frustration that seniors in 
Texas and elsewhere must go through when seniors are forced out of 
their health coverage. In 1999, about 53 percent of CIGNA HealthCare 
members disenrolled, 32 percent of Texas Health Choice members 
disenrolled, and 22 percent of Prudential Health Care members 
disenrolled. Those seniors had to find alternative means to pay their 
bills with fewer, sometimes higher expensive alternatives.
  A concerned senior citizen recently called my office when she was 
informed that her Medicare HMO was going out of business. She quickly 
realized--with some discomfort--that she would have to sign up for 
another plan. She was confused by the suddenness of this call and 
understandably concerned about alternative health coverage. She is one 
of many such seniors that are faced with highly uncomfortable choices.
  We need to bring some relief to seniors to offset Medicare's 
escalating costs and to reduce taxes for our seniors. Many of my 
colleagues here share the goal of reducing the tax burden on middle-
income seniors. I do strongly support a fair repeal of Social Security 
benefits subject to tax. That is why I strongly support the substitute, 
which seeks to both reduce the tax burden of all income levels while 
maintaining fiscal responsibility.
  At the same time, we must ensure that Medicare's solvency is 
maintained. Unlike the Republican proposal, the substitute will not 
jeopardize Medicare's future. That is absolutely vital to the aged 
population of our nation that rely on these funds.
  Under the current bill, the tax repeal for Social Security benefits 
only benefits the wealthiest 20 percent of seniors. According to the 
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, H.R. 4865 would benefit 
``higher-income beneficiaries while requiring $14 trillion in general-
revenue transfers over 75 years.'' We need to strengthen and modernize 
Medicare and Social Security, not weaken it.
  The substitute would raise from $44,000 to $100,000 the annual income 
level at which couples must include 85 percent of their Social Security 
benefits as taxable income. The annual income level for single Social 
Security beneficiaries would go from $34,000 to $80,000. By raising 
these levels, the substitute would provide the same tax relief as in 
the reported bill for 95 percent of the beneficiaries while continuing 
a dedicated revenue stream to Medicare.
  The substitute would also include the appropriations language in the 
reported legislation that would provide for general fund transfers to 
the Medicare Trust Fund equal to the tax reductions under the bill.
  It is critical that the tax reductions in the substitute depend on a 
year-by-year certification by the Secretary of the Treasury that there 
are sufficient surpluses outside Social Security and Medicare programs 
to make the general fund transfers necessary to reimburse the Medicare 
Trust Fund. Therefore, before the Medicare Trust Fund is depleted, the 
substitute guarantees that the budget surpluses exist to ensure these 
appropriations will actually be made to the Medicare trust fund to 
replace the lost revenue.
  America's seniors are depending on us to balance the need for tax 
relief with the need for Medicare solvency. If we come together today, 
we could bring real relief to our most vulnerable seniors. That is the 
least we can do for our seniors.
  I urge my colleagues to pass the substitute to H.R. 4865.
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a statement made by the former 
speaker, the gentlewoman from Texas. The gentleman from North Dakota 
can correct me if it is in his bill, but I do not believe either bill 
has anything to do with any certification that the Medicare Trust Fund 
is solvent. I believe what the gentleman refers to is a projection as 
to the surplus, and it does not address any projections as to the 
Medicare Trust Fund. That is not in either bill, as I understand it.
  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SHAW. I yield to the gentleman from North Dakota.
  Mr. POMEROY. The certification requirement in our substitute does 
ensure that the Medicare Trust Fund stays solvent, because it requires, 
before the effect of the tax in a given year, it requires certification 
there are sufficient general fund revenues to move into the Medicare 
Trust Fund.

                              {time}  1630

  Without that certification, we believe one could find themselves in a 
situation where there was no general fund revenue available to move 
into the Medicare Trust Fund.
  Mr. SHAW. Reclaiming my time, I would only point out to the gentleman 
that general revenue, since 1993, has been going into the trust fund 
and we did not run surpluses until 1998. So the Republican plan, as the 
gentleman refers to it, or I refer to it as the bipartisan plan, it 
keeps Medicare funded. There is no question about that. Neither bill 
addresses what is paid to hospitals. That is another problem.
  The gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) brought this up and that 
is a problem across the country. We know that and we are looking at it 
in the Committee on Ways and Means and elsewhere in this Congress. But 
I would say that this does not in any way increase the funding for 
Medicare. It does not affect the benefits one way or another. It does 
not increase it. It does not decrease it. Both bills completely, do 
completely, replace the money in the Medicare Trust Fund that is taken 
out to give the Social Security beneficiaries some tax relief, and I am 
talking about people between $3,000 and $4,000.
  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SHAW. I yield to the gentleman from North Dakota.
  Mr. POMEROY. On the point of the gentleman, well made but I take 
issue with it, that in those years when we ran deficits we transferred 
money from the general fund, I think a more appropriate way to view 
what was occurring is trust fund dollars were being spent, dollars from 
the Social Security trust fund, dollars more appropriately allocated to 
the Medicare Trust Fund. The majority and minority have found a point 
of consensus that we do not want anymore to spend the Social Security 
Trust Fund on anything but Social Security.
  We believe, therefore, that this certification requirement requiring 
before that revenue is lost in a given year, there be general fund 
revenue available to replace it in the Medicare Trust Fund, is the only 
way that will ensure the solvency of the Medicare Trust Fund without 
using funds from either the Social Security or Medicare Trust Fund to 
keep it whole.
  Mr. SHAW. Reclaiming my time, I would say to the gentleman that 
Medicare is going to be funded whether we get into new deficit spending 
or if we continue to run a surplus. I think the gentleman realizes 
that. The Congress is not going to cut Medicare funding. There is a 
stream coming out of both bills that keeps Medicare whole.
  So I think we need to redirect the argument as to who is going to get 
the tax relief.
  There are going to be some people in this House, such as the 
gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), and he stated his reason for 
doing that, that he is going to oppose both bills. He stated his reason 
for it. That is an honest argument. But to say that one bill is going 
to run up deficits and the other is not is certainly not the right way 
to debate so that we can get all the facts out here on the table.
  I think we need to redirect the debate back to what is before us, and 
that is who is going to get the tax relief. That is the only question 
that is before us at this particular moment as to the substitute.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. POMEROY. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Andrews).
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from North 
Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy), for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the underlying bill and 
in support of the Democratic substitute. The

[[Page 16601]]

underlying bill violates a hard-won national consensus on fiscal 
policy. I thought we had learned and agreed in two ugly decades of 
moral and economic bankruptcy in this country that we should base our 
governance not upon what we desire and wish to do but on what we can 
afford. I thought we had agreed that we should base our decisions not 
on the money that we hoped will be there but on the funds that we know 
that are there.
  The underlying bill, I believe, violates this consensus because it 
contributes to a proposition in which the majority says that for every 
extra dollar that we think we are going to have, we are prepared to 
spend a $1.05. That consensus in this country would say that, first of 
all, we should not spend $1.05 for every dollar that is brought in and 
we should not assume that we are really going to have that dollar 
because it is based upon guesswork, economic sorcery and a desire for 
funds that may or may not be there.
  I thought we had learned that we cannot have everything. I do not 
like this tax on Social Security benefits. I do not like the tax on 
gasoline. I do not like the tax on capital gains. I do not like a lot 
of things that we levy taxes on. But the one thing I really do not like 
is telling people they can have everything, higher defense spending, 
debt reduction, save Social Security, a prescription drug benefit, more 
spending on education, more spending on health care, and an immense tax 
cut as well.
  The real deficit in this country for 20 years was not in dollars and 
cents. It was in credibility. Let us not renew that deficit. Let us 
oppose this bill.
  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), the minority leader of the House.
  Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, this is a bad piece of legislation and I 
hope it is not passed, and I hope that the alternative that we have 
before the House could be passed in its stead.
  I think this bill should be renamed. It should be the Savage the 
Medicare Trust Fund bill, because this bill takes $116 billion out of 
the Medicare Trust Fund.
  Now, why is that a concern? We have been worried for months and years 
about the Medicare Trust Fund. We have been saying how are we going to 
get enough money into the Medicare Trust Fund to extend its solvency? 
This bill will cut its solvency by 5 years.
  Now remember that we are in a time when we have the need to do 
something to put more money out of the Medicare Trust Fund to take care 
of problems from the 1997 Balanced Budget Act. We all have nursing home 
operators coming to see us because they do not have enough 
reimbursement out of the Medicare Trust Fund. Half the nursing homes in 
the country are bankrupt today because of the cut in reimbursements 
from the Medicare Trust Fund.
  The academic health institutions, I am visited by Washington 
University and St. Louis University in my town. They have been cut by 
the Medicare 1997 bill. They want restorations.
  The home health care people cannot get out to do the home health care 
visits and so we are probably, before we leave in this Congress, going 
to restore funding out of the Medicare Trust Fund for them.
  If we put it altogether, the savings from the 1997 Act over 10 years 
comes to over $200 billion. If we did half in terms of give-backs, that 
would be as much as this bill costs.
  So instead of talking about hitting the trust fund for $100 billion, 
we are going to hit it for $200 billion. That will cut its solvency 10 
years.
  So this is the Savage the Medicare Trust Fund Act. That is what it 
is.
  Now, the Republicans say, well, we will put the money back from 
general revenue. We will put it back from the surplus, the vaunted 
surplus. If we look at this chart, we can see that if we just take 
their trillion dollar tax cut, and I will get back to that in a minute, 
and put realistic spending projections in debt service, we already are 
running a deficit even with present projections. Let us remember these 
are projections.
  How many have heard of Ed McMahon sending the envelope from 
Publisher's Clearinghouse saying one may have won $10 million? Has 
anyone gotten one? If they have, I bet they did not go out and spend 
the $10 million because it might not show up.
  Well, these projections may not come true, and then where will we be? 
That is why our alternative is contingent on the surplus actually being 
there, so that each and every year we will figure out whether or not 
what we hope would happen actually happened.
  Now, the other problem we have here is that this is just one more tax 
cut in the tax-cut-a-week program, which is really dividing the big 
chocolate cake we had out here last year from the Republicans. They had 
a $750 billion tax cut. They passed it, I think, probably about this 
time last year and they were going to go home in August and excite the 
American people about the great things about this tax cut. Guess what? 
The President vetoed it and when they came back they have never tried 
to override the veto.
  If it was such a great bill, why did they not try to override the 
veto? No. Instead, they cut that big cake into pieces and this bill 
today is one of the pieces. Guess what? The cake is even bigger than it 
was last year. It is a trillion dollars.
  Why, in the name of common sense, would we want to go back to the 
deficits that we suffered in this country from 1981 to 1995, fifteen 
years of deficits?
  There were times in this House many Members felt like trustees in 
bankruptcy, $200 billion, $300 billion a year, and passage of all these 
tax cuts together will take us right back to the deficit spending and 
the red ink we had in those years.
  Finally, let me say we can do tax cuts this year. You bet we can do 
tax cuts this year, if they are sensible, if they are targeted, if they 
do not spend so much of the surplus that we get back to deficits.
  The President talked about expanding educational opportunities by 
making tuition deductible, tax relief through a for long-term care, a 
home health care credit, a child care credit, expanding the earned 
income credit, helping families save for retirement, relief from the 
marriage penalty and estate tax for family-owned businesses and farms.
  Under the President's plan, a family of four making $31,000 a year 
gets over $350 in tax cuts. Under the Republican chocolate cake that 
cost a trillion dollars, they get $131. Under the President's plan, a 
family earning over a million dollars gets about $100 in tax cuts but 
under their plan they get $23,000 in tax cuts. That is the difference.
  You bet we can do tax cuts. We can even do a big piece of this tax 
cut if we do not give it to the high rollers, as we do not do in our 
alternative.
  You bet we can deliver tax relief to the ordinary families of this 
country if we were not so obsessed with giving huge amounts of money to 
the wealthiest families in this country. You bet we can do tax cuts.
  Finally, let me say this, I say to my friends in the other party we 
need to do tax cuts this year. This tax cut, if it is passed and sent 
to the President, will be vetoed. Their marriage tax penalty, which was 
focused on the wealthy, will be vetoed. Their estate tax relief, again 
focused on the wealthiest Americans, will be vetoed.
  If one is a family out there today watching this, an elderly family, 
a middle income family, an average family, working hard every day, they 
want tax cuts now that mean something to them. In the name of sense, 
why can we not sit down at a table and work out all of these tax cuts 
so that the President will sign them, so they fit in a budget that is 
sensible and prudent and let us get the tax relief for the American 
people this year?
  Vetoes and press releases get us nowhere. Let us pass real tax cuts 
that will help the hard-pressed working American family.
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, just a couple of observations I would like to make, and 
it is interesting, the minority leader whom I have a great deal of 
respect for, it is interesting they talk about how the Republican tax 
cut is going to savage

[[Page 16602]]

Medicare but the minority substitute will not when they are both tax 
cuts. We both replace this money. It is absolutely unbelievable that 
these arguments are being made this way.
  I would like to also point out, there is a lot of things that we 
should sit down and talk about. I would love nothing better than to sit 
down and talk to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) and members 
of the minority party. I would contribute my entire August break to 
sitting down and talking about Social Security and getting this thing 
done. I would like to also talk to the President about getting Social 
Security reform done, and do it this year and do it on this President's 
watch. I think this would be a wonderful thing. It would be a wonderful 
legacy that the President can leave, but we are getting stonewalled. We 
are getting stonewalled from the minority side. This type of 
legislation is not going to go forward and it is not going to go 
forward unless the leadership and the Democrat party tears down that 
wall and lets us proceed.

                              {time}  1645

  Neither of these bills, and I will say it again, and this is getting 
so repetitious, neither of these bills in any way jeopardizes Medicare, 
it absolutely is not going to happen under either the substitute or the 
bill, main bill itself. Again, I must point out to the House that the 
letter that we have received from the administration's Department of 
Health and Human Services says, and it says very forthrightly, that 
this proposal will have no financial impact on the Medicare trust fund. 
It is in writing, it is dated July 18.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania (Mr. English).
  Mr. ENGLISH. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the chairman of the 
Subcommittee on Social Security for his fine work and his defense of 
Social Security and his defense of the legislation we have before us 
today.
  I rise to oppose the substitute, because the substitute is a last 
gasp attempt by the minority to preserve a tax increase that they 
passed when there was a deficit and when they were in the majority, and 
it was passed with their votes alone. The trouble with the substitute 
that they offer is very simple. It is an attempt to preserve this tax 
on Social Security benefits against the day when it is inevitably going 
to be shifted back on to the middle class.
  Why do I say that? It is because they have not indexed their 
provisions for inflation. They have raised the caps on what this tax is 
going to apply to, they have expanded the exemption, but at the same 
time, they have not indexed those changes for inflation.
  So over time, we are going to experience the same difficulty that we 
are facing now. The tax will apply to more and more Social Security 
recipients, and in the end, I think the only solution to dealing with 
this Social Security tax that they passed is to repeal it outright. If 
they want to go after high-income Americans and tax them, there are 
fairer ways to do it than by taxing Social Security benefits because 
when we tax Social Security benefits, we violate a principle.
  Mr. Speaker, Social Security benefits should not be taxed. We should 
leave in place a healthy Social Security system and leave the benefits 
completely free from taxation. It is a priority, if we are going to 
preserve the Social Security system in the long term, to make sure that 
those benefits are tax free. By preserving this surtax, that they and 
they alone passed, they are attempting to leave the camel's nose under 
the tent. We cannot allow that to happen.
  Mr. Speaker, what we are passing today is fiscally sound, it is a 
recognition of the fact that we are now running gigantic surpluses, and 
that having run those surpluses, the time has come to roll back some of 
those taxes that we have imposed on the taxpayer back when we were 
running deficits.
  This is common sense legislation; it is one that enjoys broad 
support, and I hope that we can have bipartisan support not only to 
pass this legislation, but also to block the substitute which is a 
last-ditch attempt to preserve this tax.
  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Stenholm).
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Florida was correct a 
moment ago when he said, this is all about who is going to get a tax 
cut, and that is precisely why I oppose both the substitute and, even 
more strongly, the base bill. Because the gentleman from Florida knows 
that the Archer-Shaw bill, for the future of Social Security, requires 
this $116 billion in order to fund it. Therefore, the tax cut they are 
perfectly willing to give back today will jeopardize the very plan my 
Republican colleagues have worked very hard for.
  The gentleman from Florida also knows that this gentleman is ready to 
reach out and to work with my colleagues on the other side on a 
meaningful Social Security fix. However, I would submit to my 
colleagues, and why I so strongly oppose this so-called tax cut, is 
because we are misleading the senior citizens of this country. Because 
no matter how many times the gentleman from Florida stands on the floor 
and says nothing in his bill will jeopardize Medicare, how can he say 
that, when the removal of that will require $14 trillion over the next 
75 years to replace it.
  Now, the gentleman will say that he is going to replace it, and both 
bills replace it, but let me point out legislating general revenue 
transfers to the Medicare trust fund simply to tread water in terms of 
solvency is a dangerous precedent. I have joined with the gentleman 
from Florida on his side of the aisle for criticizing our President for 
proposing that, but now the gentleman brings a bill that transfers $4 
billion more than the President has proposed, the gentleman criticizes 
him, but suddenly today, because this is being advertised as a tax cut, 
he is for it.
  Now, it is time for us to get serious about legislating. I wish we 
could do this, but not before political conventions. I understand that, 
because the short-term political appeal of this legislation is so 
great. But anyone that looks at the results and anyone that looks at 
the facts knows better. We remember the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. 
Taylor) standing here just a moment ago and showing all of us, there is 
no surplus; when we consider all of the trust funds, there is no 
surplus.
  While I understand the short-term political appeal of this 
legislation, before you cast your vote I would ask my colleagues to 
consider the long-term ramifications this bill will have for Social 
Security and Medicare.
  Although we are currently in an era of surpluses, we should not 
forget that Medicare's financial future is troubled. The legislation 
before us would weaken, rather than strengthen Medicare financing by 
depriving the program of roughly $14 trillion in dedicated revenues 
over the next seventy-five years. This will not only threaten the 
viability of the Medicare program for future generations, but it will 
force an even greater squeeze on hospitals and other health care 
providers dependent upon Medicare payments.
  While the revenue loss to the Medicare trust fund is guaranteed, the 
budget surplus that is supposed to replace the lost revenues exists 
only in projections and faces many other competing demands. Once the 
projected surpluses run out, the Medicare trust fund will be left with 
a large hole unless a future Congress is willing to raise taxes or cut 
other programs.
  Legislating general revenue transfers to the Medicare Trust Fund 
simply to tread water in terms of solvency is a dangerous precedent 
that will significantly affect our ability to enact fiscally 
responsible Social Security and Medicare reform. I have joined with 
many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle criticizing the 
President for proposing general revenue transfers to prop up the Social 
Security and Medicare trust funds without reforming those programs. I 
would point out to my Republican colleagues that the general revenue 
transfers in this bill are nearly $4 trillion more than the total 
general revenue transfers to the Social Security and Medicare trust 
funds combined under the President's budget.
  We should be working to address the long-term financial problems 
facing Social Security and Medicare instead of voting on the tax cut of 
the week. Unfortunately, the majority's plan to use all of the surplus 
on tax cuts will take away the resources that we will need to finance 
Social Security reform plans such as the Archer-Shaw bill.

[[Page 16603]]

  I urge my colleagues to preserve the integrity of the Medicare 
program and vote against this bill.
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to 
respond basically to the comments made by the gentleman from Texas. He 
is quite right, he has reached out across the aisle in order to solve 
the problems of Social Security, but I would correct him in one 
statement. For the next 15 years, the Archer-Shaw plan uses the Social 
Security surplus to save Social Security. After that, there is a period 
of time when general revenue does come in. That is 15 years out. I 
believe the gentleman's plan does depend upon general revenue right 
from the very beginning.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SHAW. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, according to the scores of Social Security 
by CBO, both of our plans require the very same dollars that the 
gentleman proposed to give back today in the long term. We would not 
disagree on that.
  I would just say, we are consistent. What the gentleman has said 
about our plan is correct, and what I have said about the Republican 
plan is correct. Let us not split hairs. We need that money. If the 
gentleman gives it back today, as he proposes, he is going to do damage 
to Medicare unless we somehow find the magic money somewhere else.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Wynn).
  Mr. WYNN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  I rise in strong opposition to the Republican tax cut proposal for 
the rich, and I rise in support of the Democratic alternative.
  There are many of us in this House who would like to roll back taxes 
on Social Security. The problem is, we do not believe we ought to do it 
for the very rich or the super rich.
  The Democratic alternative quite simply says, we can provide tax 
relief for Social Security recipients, 95 percent of them, and do it in 
a fiscally sound manner. It seems to me now the Republicans have to 
answer the question: why should we give tax relief to people who make 
over $100,000, those seniors who make over $100,000 and who only 
represent 5 percent of the senior population. There is a fundamental 
question of fairness here.
  Second, there is the question of fiscal prudency. They take $117 
billion out of the Medicare trust fund. They tell us well, we will put 
this money back by taking money out of the general fund and putting it 
back into Medicare. However, as has been pointed out time and time 
again, we have red ink. We will not have, when they get through tax 
cutting and spending, we will not have any money to put back into the 
trust fund. So on that score, this plan simply will not work.
  The Democratic alternative, on the other hand, saves $45 billion and 
makes much more fiscal sense, while still providing sensible tax 
relief.
  Second, there is a question of fairness. We will hear the Republicans 
talk about seniors who make $34,000, and that is not a lot of money. I 
agree, but why do they give a tax break to seniors who make $300,000 a 
year? That does not make any sense.
  Finally, I think we ought to consider something really important. 
Prescription drug coverage. We have 12 million seniors in Medicare who 
do not have prescription drug coverage, and I assure my colleagues, if 
we have this tax giveaway as propounded by the Republicans, we will not 
be able to provide a prescription drug benefit.
  So when we analyze the entire package, we get an excessive Republican 
plan and a fiscally responsible Democratic plan. I urge adoption of the 
Democratic alternative.
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Cunningham).
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, regardless of what both sides are 
talking about in terms of numbers and fixes, there should be certain 
principles. The American people are taxed too high, both on the high 
end and on the low end of the spectrum.
  In 1993, when my colleagues on that side controlled the White House, 
the House and the Senate, they increased the tax on Social Security in 
their tax bill. They also spent every single dime of the Social 
Security Trust Fund, and now they argue that they want to save it. They 
also spent every dime out of the Medicare trust fund for great 
socialized spending, which drove this Nation deeper and deeper in debt. 
In 1994, when we took the majority and said, we are going to save 
Medicare, and we did, some joined us, but most, including the Democrat 
leadership, fought everything against a balanced budget and welfare 
reform and Social Security lockbox, because it eliminated their 
spending.
  The principle is that the American people are taxed too much; we want 
to give some of their money back. It is not our money.
  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Bentsen).
  Mr. BENTSEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 4865. I want 
to make a couple of points.
  It is interesting that we are seeing this bill again. This particular 
tax issue has not been on the House floor since 1995, but the 
Republicans have decided to drag it out of the barn right before the 
Republican convention and stick it up there so they can go and campaign 
on it. They do not care that it drains all of this money out of the 
Medicare trust fund, and they say, we will make that up out of general 
revenues, even though we have not done that before with respect to the 
Medicare insurance trust fund. My colleagues will remember, it was not 
too many years ago that we were concerned that the trust fund was going 
to become insolvent. Both sides were trying to figure out a way to do 
it. Now it is solvent until 2027, I think, and now we are going to 
drain money out of it.
  But the thing that is also ironic about it is, on the budget 
resolution and I worked on the budget, the Republicans said we only had 
$40 billion of general revenues to spend on Medicare to improve the 
Medicare program, and we could not put a real prescription drug program 
on the floor because we could only spend $40 billion over 5 years.
  Well, they passed their fig leaf plan that had bipartisan opposition 
to it, that spent $40 billion, they are talking about doing a Medicare 
give-back bill that will spend $25 billion, and today they are going to 
spend $44.5 billion of general revenues of the projected surplus for 
this tax cut bill that they want to do. They are spending the general 
revenues more times than we spent the spectrum, and they are doing it 
under false pretenses. That is the problem with this bill. They drain 
the Medicare trust fund, they do not stick by their budget resolution; 
they are doing for purely political reasons, and it is a real shame.
  Mr. Speaker, I would love to get together with the gentleman from 
Florida and work through these problems, but nobody is ready to 
legislate and they are certainly not going to legislate before the 
Republican convention this next week in Philadelphia, so perhaps we can 
come back in September, sit down, figure out a sound fiscal policy that 
both parties can agree upon and give senior citizens prescription drug 
relief, in addition to tax relief, let us give them relief from rising 
prescription drugs.
  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Capuano), a cosponsor of the democratic substitute.

                              {time}  1700

  Mr. CAPUANO. Mr. Speaker, again I rise at the end of the day simply 
to draw the line as I did earlier about what I think this proposal is, 
this substitute. The difference between the substitute and the main 
bill is simple, very, very simple.
  We believe in the concept that tax cuts should first go to those who 
need it most. I understand there was a philosophical difference of 
opinion on that, and I respect that; but that is our belief.

[[Page 16604]]

  When one has to balance out where pennies should go, where dollars 
should go, where even billions should go, they should go to those who 
need it most first. That is why our proposal raises the levels to 
$80,000 for a single person and $100,000 for married couples.
  The second most important part of this bill has to do with how this 
gets done. Under the Republican proposal, it is a political promise; 
and that is all it is. Under our proposal, it remains a dedicated 
revenue stream.
  There is a distinct difference, and it is a difference that I 
generally hear from the majority side. The difference is that people do 
not trust us. I happen to agree. They do not.
  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Green), another cosponsor of the substitute.
  Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, to follow up on my colleague from 
Erie, Pennsylvania, where he said this is the last gasp, this is the 
last gasp to try to make sure we do not raid the Medicare Trust Fund.
  I know the argument from my colleagues on the other side said there 
is no difference in the substitute and the bill. There is a big 
difference, that each year that the Medicare Trust Fund, they have to 
be certified that is there is a surplus that can go into the trust 
fund, not automatically tax cuts and then hope there is money to pay 
for the trust fund.
  The same would apply to the Social Security Trust Fund, Social 
Security surplus that we are building up now. We would not use the 
Social Security surplus to take it out of one senior's pocket and put 
it in the other for a tax cut. That is just wrong. Our seniors in our 
country know better than that, Mr. Speaker.
  That is why the substitute should be adopted. We need to make sure 
that we give seniors a tax cut, but we do not raid the Medicare Trust 
Fund or take it out of their social security surplus that not only they 
paid but we are all paying.
  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, does the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw) 
have any additional speakers?
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, we had a couple Pages that wanted to speak on 
this side, but I do not think they would be in order. We have one more 
speaker and that will be to close.
  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I believe we have the right to close.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). The gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Shaw) has the right to close.
  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Davis).
  Mr. DAVIS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, we are squandering a golden 
opportunity here today to preserve this surplus, to protect Social 
Security and Medicare, and pay down the debt.
  As has been mentioned earlier, when one adds up all the spending and 
tax cuts this House is passing, we have already used up the entire 
surplus. That is why the argument that general revenues replacing this 
tax cut protect Medicare simply does not fly on the facts.
  Now, what does the motion to recommit represent? It represents an 
honest statement that there should be a legitimate debate about the 
extent to which seniors should contribute to the cost of Medicare in 
the years that go forward.
  Yes, I say to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw), I think one can 
make some legitimate points about reducing this tax once we have the 
general revenue in place for Medicare. But that should be part of a 
broader debate on Medicare reform.
  We should not be doing Medicare reform ala carte. We ought to be 
having an honest and open debate about what fairness represents in 
terms of the share of the baby boomers like myself are going to pay, 
what share seniors are going to pay, how we are going to structure 
prescription drugs we all agree upon. Those are the facts. That is why 
we should defeat this bill and adopt the motion to recommit.
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of our time to the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Archer), chairman of the Committee on Ways 
and Means.
  Mr. ARCHER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time, and I compliment him on the outstanding work that he has done as 
chairman of the Subcommittee on Social Security to protect the rights 
of seniors. That is what we are about today.
  Those Members who have listened to the rhetoric, if they were trying 
to be objective, sure must be puzzled because they have heard trillions 
of dollars thrown around. They have heard they are going to jeopardize 
Medicare. They have heard all types of comments.
  Why? Why is there such desperation on the part of the minority to 
undo a wrong? Is it because they have got to defend what they did in 
1993 even though it was wrong? They will defend it at any cost with 
whatever rhetoric, because it is basically wrong to tax senior citizens 
on their Social Security benefits, then say we are doing it to balance 
the budget. That is the wrong way, if in fact that truly is the 
rationale.
  We are here to right a wrong today. So what is the response of the 
Democrat substitute? To do precisely what we do in our base bill in 
transferring general Treasury revenues into the Medicare Trust Fund. 
Now, if they really believed in the argument that they have made 
against our base bill that it jeopardizes Medicare, then why are they 
doing the very same thing? All they are doing is leaving the tax in 
place, continuing the wrong, helping some people and saying, well, we 
are for targeted tax relief. This is targeted tax relief. But the 
Democrats' idea of the target is leave the bull's eye out. We do not 
want to truly score for the right thing.
  If one was going to find a tax and claim we need this to balance the 
budget, the last tax one would pick would be to tax the Social Security 
benefits and destroy the value of those benefits that people work a 
lifetime to achieve and then say, well, that is okay. It is not okay.
  This is not political for me. I oppose this tax vehemently when it 
was first put in place. I opposed even the original tax to tax 50 
percent of the benefits because it is wrong.
  No matter how one couches it, no matter how one says, the President 
is going to veto it, why will he veto this? He will veto it only to 
defend the wrong that he put on the books in 1993.
  But we are going to do the right thing. It is responsible.
  But when I look at the Democrat substitute, I realize that it is a 
typical sleight-of-hand approach. First, you see it, then you do not. 
It says to seniors, well, we will give some of you some relief, but 
only if the budget is balanced. So maybe they get it; maybe they do 
not.
  How does one know how to plan what the value of one's Social Security 
benefits is going to be in advance? One cannot under the Democrat 
substitute. They put seniors on a yo-yo string and say look what we are 
doing for you. It is like Peanuts when Charlie Brown is told kick the 
ball; and just as he gets to the ball, Lucy pulls the ball away. That 
is the Democrat substitute. I do not think seniors want that with their 
benefits and the value of their benefits.
  In addition, they do what AARP has told us over and over again is in 
violation of the Social Security contract. They means test the Social 
Security benefits. They say to seniors, you have not really earned 
these benefits. You are not really entitled to them. We are going to 
determine whether you get them or not.
  Then they also say to young workers, do not save, because if you 
save, you are going to lose your Social Security benefits. Only if you 
save will you lose your Social Security benefits. That is a terrible 
signal to send to young workers at a time when we need savings more and 
more and more.
  Maybe that is the worst part of it. But it is bad through and through 
and through.
  We are here to correct a wrong and to do the right thing. We will not 
be deterred by the smoke screen that is put up on the other side of the 
aisle in defense of the wrong that they put on the books in 1993.
  I say to my colleagues, because I know we are going to get votes from 
people who are objective and know the

[[Page 16605]]

right thing on the Democrat side, I say to all of my colleagues, vote 
against this substitute and vote for the bill. It is the right thing to 
do.
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, over the past few month, it has become 
increasingly clear that the Republicans' only real agenda is tax 
breaks. I am not against cutting taxes. However, the Democratic 
approach of targeted tax cuts that go to those who need them most is 
better for our country.
  The reduction of taxes for our nation's seniors is certainly a worthy 
goal, but we must not reach that goal by placing Medicare in jeopardy. 
The problem with the tax cut in the Republican bill is that it 
eliminates a dedicated tax source for the Medicare Trust Fund and 
replaces it with an IOU from the general fund.
  As a result, we will have $100 billion less over the next 10 years to 
use to extend Medicare solvency, offset Medicare reductions made in 
1997, and provide all seniors a true Medicare prescription drug 
benefit. These are vitally important goals and they should not be 
sacrificed for tax cuts.
  The Democratic alternative targets this tax cut to low and middle-
income seniors by raising the income threshold at which Social Security 
benefits are subject to taxation from $34,000 to $80,000. This provides 
tax relief while protecting the Medicare Trust Fund from losses. 
Protecting Medicare and Social Security must be a priority for this 
Congress. We must avoid losses to Medicare that will force seniors to 
pay higher out-of-pocket payments for the health care that they 
deserve.
  I urge my colleagues to support the Democratic substitute.
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 564, the 
previous question is ordered on the bill and on the amendment by the 
gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy).
  The question is on the amendment in the nature of a substitute 
offered by the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy).
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. POMEROY. 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 169, 
nays 256, not voting 10, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 449]

                               YEAS--169

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Andrews
     Baca
     Baird
     Baldacci
     Baldwin
     Barcia
     Barrett (WI)
     Becerra
     Bentsen
     Berkley
     Berman
     Bishop
     Blagojevich
     Bonior
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Capps
     Capuano
     Carson
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Condit
     Conyers
     Cramer
     Crowley
     Cummings
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Dooley
     Doyle
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Farr
     Filner
     Frost
     Gejdenson
     Gephardt
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Green (TX)
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     Hall (TX)
     Hill (IN)
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Holt
     Hooley
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     John
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones (OH)
     Kaptur
     Kennedy
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind (WI)
     Kleczka
     Klink
     Kucinich
     LaFalce
     Lampson
     Lantos
     Larson
     Lee
     Levin
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Lucas (KY)
     Luther
     Maloney (CT)
     Maloney (NY)
     Markey
     Mascara
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McGovern
     McIntyre
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Menendez
     Millender-McDonald
     Mink
     Moakley
     Moore
     Moran (VA)
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Pickett
     Pomeroy
     Price (NC)
     Rahall
     Reyes
     Rivers
     Rodriguez
     Roemer
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sanchez
     Sanders
     Sandlin
     Sawyer
     Schakowsky
     Scott
     Serrano
     Sherman
     Shows
     Sisisky
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Stabenow
     Stark
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Tauscher
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Towns
     Turner
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Wexler
     Weygand
     Wilson
     Wise
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Wynn

                               NAYS--256

     Aderholt
     Allen
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Bass
     Bateman
     Bereuter
     Berry
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bliley
     Blumenauer
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Borski
     Boyd
     Brady (PA)
     Brady (TX)
     Bryant
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Canady
     Cannon
     Cardin
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth-Hage
     Coble
     Coburn
     Collins
     Combest
     Cook
     Cooksey
     Costello
     Cox
     Coyne
     Crane
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Danner
     Davis (VA)
     Deal
     DeLay
     DeMint
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Doggett
     Doolittle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Edwards
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Everett
     Fattah
     Fletcher
     Foley
     Forbes
     Ford
     Fossella
     Fowler
     Frank (MA)
     Franks (NJ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Green (WI)
     Greenwood
     Gutknecht
     Hansen
     Hastert
     Hastings (FL)
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hill (MT)
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoeffel
     Hoekstra
     Holden
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hoyer
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Inslee
     Isakson
     Istook
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Kanjorski
     Kasich
     Kelly
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kuykendall
     LaHood
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (GA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Lucas (OK)
     Manzullo
     Martinez
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McDermott
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McKeon
     Metcalf
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller, Gary
     Miller, George
     Minge
     Mollohan
     Moran (KS)
     Morella
     Murtha
     Nethercutt
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Ose
     Oxley
     Packard
     Paul
     Pease
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Phelps
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Pombo
     Porter
     Portman
     Pryce (OH)
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Rangel
     Regula
     Reynolds
     Riley
     Rogan
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roukema
     Royce
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Sabo
     Salmon
     Sanford
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaffer
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Skeen
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Snyder
     Souder
     Spence
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Stump
     Sununu
     Sweeney
     Talent
     Tancredo
     Tanner
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Thurman
     Tiahrt
     Toomey
     Traficant
     Upton
     Vitter
     Walden
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Waters
     Watkins
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                             NOT VOTING--10

     Barton
     Ewing
     Gilman
     Jenkins
     Largent
     McIntosh
     Myrick
     Smith (WA)
     Spratt
     Vento

                              {time}  1732

  Messrs. WHITFIELD, TANNER, CANNON, SALMON, HERGER, BILBRAY, KINGSTON, 
BRADY of Pennsylvania and GREENWOOD changed their vote from ``yea'' to 
``nay.''
  Ms. DeGETTE, Ms. KILPATRICK and Mr. MEEKS of New York changed their 
vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
  So the amendment in the nature of a substitute was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). The question is on the 
engrossment and third reading of the bill.
  The bill 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 bill.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.


                             Recorded Vote

  Mr. ARCHER. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 265, 
noes 159, not voting 11, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 450]

                               AYES--265

     Abercrombie
     Aderholt
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Bass
     Bateman

[[Page 16606]]


     Bereuter
     Berkley
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bishop
     Blagojevich
     Bliley
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Brady (TX)
     Bryant
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Canady
     Cannon
     Capps
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth-Hage
     Clement
     Coble
     Coburn
     Collins
     Combest
     Condit
     Cook
     Cooksey
     Cox
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crowley
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Danner
     Davis (VA)
     Deal
     DeFazio
     DeLay
     DeMint
     Deutsch
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Dooley
     Doolittle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     Engel
     English
     Evans
     Everett
     Fletcher
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fossella
     Fowler
     Franks (NJ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gejdenson
     Gekas
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Gordon
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Green (WI)
     Greenwood
     Gutknecht
     Hall (TX)
     Hansen
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hill (MT)
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Holt
     Hooley
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Inslee
     Isakson
     Istook
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Kaptur
     Kasich
     Kelly
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kucinich
     Kuykendall
     LaHood
     Lampson
     Larson
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     LoBiondo
     Lowey
     Lucas (KY)
     Lucas (OK)
     Luther
     Maloney (CT)
     Maloney (NY)
     Manzullo
     Martinez
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McKeon
     McKinney
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller, Gary
     Mink
     Moore
     Moran (KS)
     Nadler
     Nethercutt
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Ose
     Oxley
     Packard
     Paul
     Pease
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Pombo
     Porter
     Portman
     Pryce (OH)
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Reynolds
     Riley
     Roemer
     Rogan
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roukema
     Royce
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Salmon
     Sanchez
     Sandlin
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaffer
     Schakowsky
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shows
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Sisisky
     Skeen
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Souder
     Spence
     Stabenow
     Stearns
     Stump
     Sununu
     Sweeney
     Talent
     Tancredo
     Tauscher
     Tauzin
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Toomey
     Traficant
     Turner
     Upton
     Vitter
     Walden
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins
     Watts (OK)
     Weiner
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Wexler
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson
     Wise
     Wolf
     Wu
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                               NOES--159

     Ackerman
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baca
     Baird
     Baldacci
     Baldwin
     Barcia
     Barrett (WI)
     Becerra
     Bentsen
     Berman
     Berry
     Blumenauer
     Bonior
     Borski
     Boyd
     Brady (PA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Capuano
     Cardin
     Carson
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clyburn
     Conyers
     Costello
     Coyne
     Cummings
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Edwards
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Frost
     Gephardt
     Gonzalez
     Green (TX)
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     Hastings (FL)
     Hill (IN)
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hoeffel
     Holden
     Houghton
     Hoyer
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     John
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones (OH)
     Kanjorski
     Kennedy
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind (WI)
     Kleczka
     Klink
     LaFalce
     Lantos
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Lofgren
     Markey
     Mascara
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McIntyre
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Menendez
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller, George
     Minge
     Moakley
     Mollohan
     Moran (VA)
     Morella
     Murtha
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Peterson (MN)
     Phelps
     Pickett
     Pomeroy
     Price (NC)
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Rivers
     Rodriguez
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanders
     Sanford
     Sawyer
     Scott
     Serrano
     Sherman
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Snyder
     Stark
     Stenholm
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Tanner
     Taylor (MS)
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Thurman
     Tierney
     Towns
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Weygand
     Woolsey
     Wynn

                             NOT VOTING--11

     Barton
     Ewing
     Gilman
     Jenkins
     Largent
     McIntosh
     Metcalf
     Myrick
     Smith (WA)
     Spratt
     Vento

                              {time}  1748

  So the bill was passed.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________