[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 17664]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



       VOTE AGAINST WELFARE FOR LARGE MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Isakson). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 19, 1999, the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark) 
is recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, later today we will have an opportunity to 
vote on H.R. 4986, the FSC replacement bill. That is a foreign sales 
tax credit that was inaugurated by President Nixon in which the 
Washington Times recently, in an editorial, referred to it as one of 
the largest bipartisan and unanimous blunders passed by the House of 
Representatives.
  In the early seventies, I opposed the FSC bill, or the foreign sales 
tax credit, and was successful at least in denying that tax credit to 
weapons manufacturers, on the theory that all weapons sold to foreign 
countries had to be approved by the Defense Department and the 
Secretary of State and basically were sold by our government to other 
governments, and there was no reason to give a subsidy, which is what 
this FSC thing is, to weapons manufacturers in the United States.
  The Senate saw fit to reduce that to a 50 percent limitation and that 
has been the law for some 20 years. Recently, without any hearings and 
without any discussion, almost in the dead of night, the 50 percent 
limitation to defense contractors was removed. The World Trade 
Organization has filed a lawsuit against the United States saying that 
this foreign sales tax credit is a hidden subsidy, and they are right. 
It is a subsidy. It is being changed now in language in this bill that 
will come up under suspension, but the old saying, it is a duck if it 
quacks like a duck and it waddles like a duck. In this case, it quacks 
like a subsidy and it gives money back to companies out of the 
taxpayers' pocket to subsidize sales overseas.
  What is perhaps most egregious at this time is that we are now 
cutting taxes to and for U.S. pharmaceutical companies to get the U.S. 
pharmaceutical companies to sell cheaper drugs to foreigners while at 
the same time selling them at higher prices here at home to our 
seniors. That is what will be done if my colleagues vote for 4986, and 
they should vote no.
  The pharmaceutical industry does not need another corporate subsidy 
at the expense of the American taxpayer. Why give an incentive for the 
pharmaceutical companies when they sell their products to other 
developed nations for less than we can buy them here? I offered an 
amendment to say that pharmaceutical companies could not have this 
subsidy if they were selling their drugs for 5 percent more in this 
country than they sell in Canada and Mexico. That, unfortunately, was 
defeated.
  We have shown, or studies have shown, that the American seniors are 
without drug coverage, pay almost twice as much for their 
pharmaceutical drugs as do our neighbors in Canada and Mexico. Why on 
Earth we should be giving companies like Merck, already one of the most 
profitable drug companies in the world, with more than twice the 
profits of, say, engineering and the construction industry, why we 
should give them an additional subsidy to continue to sell drugs for 
less money in Canada and Mexico and Germany and Japan than they do to 
the seniors in my district in Fremont, California, escapes me.
  I hope that my colleagues will see the nonsense in this bill. It is 
being run through. We will not even see a report. They have held the 
report up so nobody can read that. There were a few of us on the 
committee who signed dissenting views. It is a bad bill. It does 
nothing but take money from the average senior, the average purchaser 
of pharmaceutical drugs, and give it to the richest companies in this 
country.
  Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. STARK. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, if I understand what the gentleman is 
saying, we, of course, are well aware that America's seniors, indeed 
uninsured people in America of all ages, a young family that has a sick 
child that does not have insurance, these individuals across America, 
millions of them, are paying the highest price for drugs of anyplace in 
the entire world, and an American pharmaceutical company under this 
bill can continue to do that, to charge them the highest prices in the 
world and export the same drug to another country, whether it is 
Canada, Europe, wherever.
  Mr. STARK. Precisely. My Zucor, which got my cholesterol down from 
220 to 160, great stuff, 1,200 bucks a year for Zucor. Fortunately, 
Blue Cross pays some of that for me. I could buy the same drug in 
Canada for $600. And I am giving this company a subsidy so they can 
sell it for less in Canada and I have to pay more for it here? I cannot 
figure that out.
  Mr. DOGGETT. That is the vote we will be taking today, whether to 
reward these companies that charge Americans more money than anywhere 
else in the world, reward them by giving them a tax subsidy?
  Mr. STARK. That is what it seems to me, and that seems like a dumb 
idea, and I hope the gentleman and my colleagues will vote no.




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