[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 24949-24971]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



 CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 2615, CERTIFIED DEVELOPMENT COMPANY PROGRAM 
                        IMPROVEMENTS ACT OF 2000

  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 652, I call up 
the conference report on the bill (H.R. 2614) to amend the Small 
Business Investment Act to make improvements to the certified 
development company program, and for other purposes.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hansen). Pursuant to House Resolution 
652, the conference report is considered as having been read.
  (For conference report and statement, see proceedings of the House of 
legislatiave day of October 25, 2000, Part 2.)
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Talent) and 
the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Talent).
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, a few weeks ago I had a call from the leadership staff 
asking if

[[Page 24950]]

I had a problem with using this legislation as a vehicle for passing a 
number of things that I understood we had substantial bipartisan 
support for in the House.
  I said no. I thought if it would facilitate the passage of 
legislation that meant really good things for a whole lot of American 
people that we ought to try to do it. And we have a conference report 
and on the surface of it it has a lot of things that I think a lot of 
people in this House like.
  It has a minimum wage increase. It has small business tax relief, 
which I can testify has very strong support in the House and is very 
necessary in the small business community. It has the repeal of 
provisions which have prevented installment sales of businesses. It has 
an increase in the meals deduction, an increase in the deductibility of 
health insurance premiums for the self-employed. It has the Portman-
Cardin pension reforms. It has Medicare give-backs. And most important 
for my perspective, Mr. Speaker, it has the community renewal new 
markets bill, which we had a press conference with the White House 
several months ago and all of us agreed, Republicans, Democrats, the 
President, the leadership of the House said it was the most significant 
anti-poverty legislation to pass this body in a generation.
  I thought when I had a chance to handle this bill, and I flew back 
today to do it, that it would be a time of joy and a time of shared 
celebration.
  I understand that the President has serious objections and may well 
veto this bill, and my heart is sad at that because it just seems to me 
there is so much good in here for the American people that we all ought 
to support it. I would hope he would find a way to sign it; and if we 
have some problems, work that out in some other format or some other 
way because I am just concerned if we do not do it now, we will not 
have a chance to do these things for the American people.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman says that if there are differences in the 
bill that he seriously hopes that we could work it out. That makes a 
lot of sense, and that is why probably he is not a part of the 
Republican leadership.
  The reason we have a veto here is because somebody on the other side 
of this aisle decided that they did not want to work out anything.
  How do they think we are going to get out of here unless they talk to 
somebody? They do not have to talk to me, but they can talk to the 
gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt). They can talk to someone in the 
White House. They do not even talk to themselves. And now they come 
here and force the President to say that he is going to veto it merely 
because they have not discussed anything.
  There are some good things in this bill. There are things that can be 
worked out in this bill. I have worked with the gentlewoman from 
Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) on the school construction thing. We did not 
always agree on everything, but we sat and we worked until we made 
certain that we got it out.
  Now what is happening? With all due respect to the Committee on Small 
Business, we have a major tax initiative coming to the floor on a 
vehicle.
  Well, I respect the integrity and the reputation of the Committee on 
Ways and Means. And whether we are Republican or Democrat, liberal or 
conservative, this is not the way to run a railroad.
  It is wrong to bring out a tax bill in the middle of the night. It is 
wrong not to consult with the President. And it is wrong not to consult 
with our colleagues who are trying to work this out.
  So if they need a veto to get their attention, if they need a veto in 
order to come and sit down and do this thing right, if they need a veto 
so we can wrap up our business and get home, well, my brothers and 
sisters have got it.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to say to the 
gentleman, and he knows how much I respect him and how I have worked 
with him on these anti-poverty provisions, and I am certain that there 
are hurt feelings on both sides. I just would hope that we could 
somehow overcome this and get these important things done that real 
people and, in particular, vulnerable people depend on.
  I am just convinced that, if a veto comes down, we are not going to 
have another chance; and we will have blown this up on what the people 
will see as an inside internecine kind of squabble.
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Archer), the chairman of the Committee on 
Ways and Means.
  Mr. ARCHER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, this is one of the more difficult moments that I have 
faced in my tenure over 30 years in the House of Representatives. As 
chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, I believe I have a very 
special role; and that is to be steward of a tax code, to try to keep 
it as equitable as possible, to try to see that in spite of the 
difficulties of earning income tax that it is as simple as possible, 
and to attempt to see that it has not become a vehicle for spending.
  There is much good in this bill. I know because I helped to write it. 
I do not need to repeat all of it to Members because they have examined 
all of the good that is in this bill.
  Unfortunately, it is included with an increase in the minimum wage, 
which I have never voted for and which I believe is counterproductive 
to the very people that it seeks to help. I cannot break with my 
principles on that, and on that alone I would vote against this bill.
  Now, in spite of all the very good provisions that are in this bill, 
bipartisan, voted overwhelmingly on the floor of the House, I am 
severely troubled by items that were added at the last minute under 
pressure from the White House and pressure from the Senate. They will 
be a springboard to turn future tax bills into spending vehicles 
uncontrolled by the budget; uncontrolled by the limitation that would 
be on appropriations bills; and, in all likelihood, not adequately 
debated for what they are.
  One of those is the provision that would subsidize Amtrak by tax 
credits with the authorization of $10 billion in bonds and the interest 
being offset by a dollar-for-dollar tax credit, which would also permit 
the interest to be separated from the principal, coupled with the tax 
credit and traded on the stock market.

                              {time}  1545

  That is deja vu of what we went through in the 1980s which grew so 
pernicious that it brought on the 1986 tax reform bill to remove it 
from the code. But what we seem to learn from history is we never seem 
to learn from history, so here we go again.
  Is it big relatively, this bill? No, it is relatively small. But it 
creates a precedent for the future that Congress needs to know about. I 
have fought tax credits. I have kept six or eight of them from going 
into this bill, because I do not want the tax code to be turned into a 
spending vehicle administered by the IRS. That is a great danger 
ultimately to the future of our tax code, and then in addition a 
similar provision to have the Federal Government subsidize the 
construction of local schools through once again having interest offset 
by tax credits. I believe that we must stop this. We must prevent it 
from occurring.
  But the minimum wage clearly shuts out my capability to vote for what 
for the most part is superb tax policy, to help people get more health 
care, to help small businesses, to help pension, to help retirement 
security, all things that this Nation should try to get. And also I 
have worked so hard on a bipartisan basis with my friend, the gentleman 
from New York (Mr. Rangel), and with the Treasury to find an answer to 
the FSC problem which if we do not solve it could unleash an unholy 
trade war where everyone would suffer. I do not know what will happen 
to this

[[Page 24951]]

bill. But if we do not do but one thing, we must come back and pass the 
FSC provisions. The danger in failing to do so is too great.
  I wish I could vote for this bill. If the tax provisions that we 
crafted and put together as the basis of this bill were submitted by 
themselves to this House, I would enthusiastically support them. Each 
Member must make his own decision. My special position as chairman of 
the Committee on Ways and Means does not permit me to vote for this 
bill in its current form.
  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the 
gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velazquez), the ranking member of the 
Committee on Small Business.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hansen). Without objection, the 
gentlewoman from New York will control the time on her side of the 
aisle.
  There was no objection.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the conference agreement 
for H.R. 2614. Last August when the House passed H.R. 2614, we took the 
first step in strengthening a program that would provide countless 
businesses across this country the access to the capital they so 
desperately need to succeed.
  Fourteen months later, instead of a bill that offers opportunity, we 
now have a bill full of misguided priorities. At a time when this 
Nation is experiencing an affordable health care crisis, this 
conference report meets this growing deficiency by increasing payments 
to already wealthy HMOs at the expense of our hospitals and rural 
communities.
  This legislation will also shortchange our children by once again 
failing to address the need for school construction. In every community 
across this country, there are kids who are being taught reading, 
writing, science and math in trailers, makeshift classrooms, and in 
hallways within neglected school buildings. I am astounded that in 
today's world when it is hard enough to help our at-risk kids to keep 
pace, forcing them to learn in Third World conditions is simply 
disgraceful.
  What distresses me the most, this Congress has passed despite, all 
their lofty promises, only half of what the President asked for in his 
budget request. It is unfortunate that this bill faces a veto from the 
President because, to be perfectly frank, there is much in here that 
will help our communities by funding valuable small business programs, 
including enacting the new markets community renewal programs.
  I would like to thank the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Talent) for 
all he has done to bring valuable investment into our Nation's low-
income communities. His leadership has helped provide small businesses 
and entrepreneurs a stronger foundation which will help them grow and 
prosper. But one issue is clear. The sum of legislation outweighs the 
good this bill could do for so many in this country.
  This is not how we should be ending this Congress. We are leaving at 
a time when there is so much more that can and should be done. 
Unfortunately, the 106th Congress is ending with far too many promises 
made and far too few promises kept.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the Speaker of the House.
  Mr. HASTERT. I thank the gentleman from Missouri for yielding me this 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, in this body from time to time there comes a time when 
we bring ideas together and people together to get good things done. We 
have to work in the House, and they have to work in the Senate and you 
have got a White House on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue that all 
have input. This piece of legislation is a piece of legislation that 
both bodies, and the White House, had some input in putting together.
  We have talked about the minimum wage, and we have talked about it 
far too long; and we have not done anything about it. This is a minimum 
wage for American working people. It is over 2 years. It is something 
that I have heard required and requested on this side of the aisle for 
a long, long time. It is reality in this legislation. It is also 
reality in this legislation that small businesses, and in my district 
75 percent of the jobs are provided by small businesses, we give them 
the ability to stay in business and provide those jobs in this 
legislation.
  We talk about the waitress at the coffee shop who works maybe a job 
or a job and a half and tries to keep her kids in school and shoes on 
their feet and tries to keep a good life. She cannot afford and her job 
does not provide health care. But when she goes to buy that health 
care, she does not get the same tax deduction that an executive or 
somebody working in a big plant would get that benefit.
  This bill gives American working people who have to go out and buy 
their health care week in and week out, year in and year out that same 
tax benefit that anybody else that gets it through a corporate entity 
would get.
  My father died 2 years ago. We kept him in our home because he did 
not want to live in a nursing home. We gave him health care and took 
care of him. It did not make any difference to me whether it was a tax 
credit or not, but there are a lot of people that cannot afford to do 
that. But if you can keep a parent in your home because that is where 
they want to live, among their family, that families can get a tax 
deduction of $10,000, if you want to take care of your folks. And it is 
in this bill. It is good for all families in this country, whether you 
are middle class, whether you are at great risk or if you are upper 
class. That is what, if you choose to do it, you ought to have the 
ability to do it and you ought to have that tax deductibility for it.
  This bill also has something that the President wanted, and the 
gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Watts) and the gentleman from Missouri 
(Mr. Talent) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis) over on this 
side of the aisle worked on, was the community renewal, new markets, so 
it would invest in people's homes, invest in communities, in inner 
cities and rural areas so that those people could have a better life, 
that they could have shopping where they live, they could have jobs 
where they live, that they could fix their homes up, that they can pull 
themselves up by their own bootstraps and there is help to do it. This 
bill has that in it.
  I guess I could go on and on. This bill certainly is not perfect. We 
do not think some of the things that they do on the other side of the 
Rotunda is always perfect and I guess they may have the same attitude 
about us. But we have to work on a bicameral basis, and we have to 
accept what bodies put in this.
  I am telling you, this is the right bill for this time. We need to 
move forward. We need to take care of families. We need to take care of 
senior citizens. We need to take care of people that want to buy their 
own health care, and we need to take care of our communities that are 
in the greatest need. Even though this is a great political time, and 
the politics are at crescendo levels, it is time for this body to quit 
the quibbling, to come together, and pass good legislation. I would ask 
Members to join us on both sides of the aisle to do it. Please support 
this bill.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. Brown).
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, the power that the managed care 
industry wields over the leadership of this Congress is absolutely 
astounding. How else do you explain our inability, 4 years after 
legislation first took shape, to pass a Patients' Bill of Rights? How 
else do you explain this $30 billion Republican gift to the managed 
care industry as we short shrift hospitals and home health agencies and 
every other Medicare provider? How else do you explain Republicans 
giving almost half, 47 percent, of new Medicare money to an industry 
which has shortchanged millions of senior citizens?
  If this Republican Congress is not selling out to the insurance 
industry, how do you explain this remarkably

[[Page 24952]]

skewed Medicare funding bill? The Republican majority took bipartisan 
legislation and proceeded to strip out additional funding for public 
hospitals, to strip out funding for low-income seniors, to strip out 
provisions for rural health facilities. But they left in plenty of 
money for HMOs.
  Mr. Speaker, HMOs serve between 15 and 16 percent of the Medicare 
population, but under this bill they will get close to 50 percent of 
available funding. Let me repeat that. HMOs serve one-sixth of Medicare 
beneficiaries. The Republican bill will give them 50 percent of the 
funding. To strike this remarkable imbalance, the Republican majority 
eliminated funding measures that would help public hospitals, that 
would help home health agencies, that would help other providers so 
they remain available to Medicare beneficiaries.
  Where does the welfare of Medicare beneficiaries fit into this 
equation? The answer is it simply does not. Seniors in Lorain County, 
Ohio, where I live, were dropped unceremoniously from United Health's 
plan on December 31, 1998. Some of them joined QualChoice. They were 
then dropped unceremoniously December 31, 1999.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge every Member of Congress to oppose this fatally 
flawed bill. It is unfair to Medicare beneficiaries.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Cardin).
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, this conference report underscores the 
importance of working together, Democrats and Republicans, to get 
things done. I listened to the distinguished Speaker. There are some 
good things in this bill where we worked together. The problem is that 
the Republican leadership has used the fatally flawed partisan process 
in order to bring this bill to the floor. When you only work with half 
the Members, half the Nation is left out on the bill that is before us.
  The problem is, there is too much that is not in this bill or is 
wrong in this bill. It is inadequate on school construction. We could 
do a lot better on that. You spend too much money on health insurance 
breaks for those who already have health insurance and not enough on 
those who do not have health insurance. We can do better than that. You 
have left out the vaccine research credit which is so important to the 
health of our Nation. And you have left out the Lou Gehrig's disease, 
modernizing it so people who suffer from that disease can qualify for 
Medicare benefits.

                              {time}  1600

  We go on and on and on. If you would have brought the Democrats into 
the process, we could have a bill we all could be proud of and support. 
Unfortunately, we should follow the President's advice. He is going to 
veto it.
  I urge my colleagues to vote against the conference report.
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to say that my 
understanding is that major provider associations, including the 
hospitals and the home health agencies, support this bill. It is not 
surprising, considering it adds $28 billion back into Medicare.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. 
McCrery).
  Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of good things in this package, many of 
which were, in fact, put together with bipartisan work and support. I 
was in on a lot of the meetings on the Medicare provisions with 
Democrats talking about how to best put this together. I was in on some 
meetings with some Democrats on some tax provisions.
  One of the largest sections of the tax bill that is included in this 
bill was put together by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman) and the 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin), the last speaker, working 
together, bipartisan. So, please, do not try to make it look like this 
is something that is one-sided, put together only by Republicans. It is 
not.
  Let me just say something about the Medicare+Choice. First of all, it 
is not half of the spending in this bill, it is about 25 percent of the 
spending in this bill. With the interactions it gets up close to one-
third. But if you go back, Republican or Democrat, look at your mail, 
what do your seniors want? They want the Medicare HMOs to give them 
prescription drugs, to give them choices. It is no surprise we put 
money into that program to help them out.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. McDermott).
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, as we consider the Lott-Hastert grab bag 
bill today, I appreciated the fact that the Speaker came on to the 
floor, because he is the only person who could possibly have any idea 
what is in this.
  Now, what we hear is people saying, well, there is this thing that 
one committee did, and there is that thing that one committee did, and 
there is this thing that another did, and everybody should vote for it, 
because one of those things might be in here. But there is nobody here 
who has the least idea what is in this.
  They put five bills in yesterday, the conference report says the 
minimum wage bill, taxpayer relief bill, the Medicaid-Medicare and ship 
benefit improvement bill, the pain relief bill and the small business 
bill. They dropped them in yesterday, rolled them together, tied them 
with a knot and brought them out here and said, vote for them; we have 
got to go home.
  Now, the public policy that is produced by this stuff is what 
happened in the BBA bill in 1997. The reason we are out here fixing the 
program of Medicare again is because you did that bill the same way.
  This bill has the bill that is going to destroy our overseas trade if 
we do not get it right. But the chairman of the committee, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Archer), who I do not always agree with, but 
I agree with him on the process, there should have been Committee on 
Ways and Means people in that conference committee looking at what got 
rolled into this 960 page pile of legislation.
  Now, if you take any one of these issues, the fact you cannot find 
anything in all this money to do anything about prescription 
medications, but you can find some money to help the drug companies 
push the Justice Department away from fixing price problems that they 
have got and discovered in the law, is, in my view, silly and unfair to 
the American people.
  I urge my colleagues to vote against it. The President will veto it. 
We will have a bill.
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from 
Washington (Ms. Dunn).
  Ms. DUNN. Mr. Speaker, the average woman spends 11 years out of the 
workforce to raise children, and it is often very tough for her to 
accumulate enough retirement savings to make a difference. We believe 
this is unfair.
  I will tell you what is in this bill. This bill allows women over the 
age of 50 to contribute up to 50 percent more to their retirement plan 
in order to make up for those years out of the workforce. This will 
make it possible for a working mother to build a nurturing relationship 
with her child and achieve financial independence in retirement.
  Part of financial security in retirement means having health care 
that is affordable and dependable. Unfortunately, the funding for 
Medicare+Choice has made it tough to offer coverage in certain regions 
of the country.
  In my State, nearly 30,000 seniors were sent letters by their health 
plans alerting them to the fact that insufficient reimbursements for 
Medicare+Choice is forcing them out of the State. The President is not 
helping our seniors by attacking managed care plans. In Washington 
State, tens of thousands of seniors enjoy the benefits of their health 
care plans and are worried about losing this option. We help in this 
bill.
  I urge my colleagues to boost retirement savings for women and 
protect health care choices for seniors.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Hinojosa).
  Mr. HINOJOSA. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 2614. 
This legislation is a wolf in sheep's clothing.
  For example, by not including the Rangel-Johnson school construction

[[Page 24953]]

tax credit provisions, this bill fails to leverage $24.8 billion in 
financing for school construction and renovation. Studies have shown 
that school construction costs over the next 10 years will total 
upwards of $125 billion. The Federal Government currently funds local 
transportation projects, local airport projects, as well as prisons and 
local economic development projects. Why, why is it suddenly 
unreasonable to assist our schools with this most important project, 
ensuring a safe learning environment for our children?
  We can do better than this. I urge my colleagues to vote no on H.R. 
2614.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Davis).
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I had hoped that I would have 
been able to vote on a number of the provisions in this bill in a clean 
way: Minimum wage, obviously needed; new market initiatives, obviously 
needed. As a matter of fact, there are many good features to this bill.
  But, unfortunately, it is like a wagon that has been overloaded. When 
you try and put too much on it at one time, it gets stuck in the mud. I 
am afraid that this bill, unfortunately, is stuck in the mud. It has 
got a lot of good things in it, and, as we approach Halloween, it seems 
to me that we have got a lot of good items, but we have got too many 
tricks and not enough treats.
  I hope we can come back with some clean bills that we could vote on 
that would be in the best interests of the American people, and I would 
urge my colleagues to vote no on this bill.
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Shaw).
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, I am particularly proud of and want to talk about 
several provisions that are in this bill. One would improve Medicare 
benefits to fight breast cancer and cervical cancer. My digital 
mammography provision gives women access to brand new breast cancer 
screening technology. The pap test provision makes tests more frequent 
so that cervical cancer can be found early and treated successfully.
  Mr. Speaker, it is extremely important to focus on the education 
provisions of this bill. I know firsthand that we face a public school 
construction crisis. My congressional district runs through three of 
the fastest growing school districts in the country. In Palm Beach 
County, the student population has more than doubled just since 1985. 
Broward County, the fifth largest school district in the country, has 
240,000 students and 210 schools. Miami-Dade County is the fourth 
largest school district, with over 350,000 students. It averages an 
increase of 10,000 new students each and every year.
  I am particularly excited about the portion of this legislation that 
incorporates my legislation which I have sponsored, along with Florida 
Senator Bob Graham, the Public School Construction Partnership. These 
provisions empower local districts to use innovative, cost-effective 
ways to finance new schools and repair aging ones.
  Miami Beach Senior High is a prime example of a public school that 
should benefit from this legislation. Its aging facilities diminish the 
education opportunities for the 3,000 students and teachers who occupy 
the premises. Many of these are the same buildings that were there when 
I was in high school.
  In order to encourage private sector participation and avoid debt 
capacity problems for localities, this legislation would permit tax 
exempt private activity bonds for investors willing to join public-
private partnerships to construct new public schools or renovate 
existing ones. The partnerships would use the bonds to borrow funds for 
construction and ownership of the school facilities. The facilities 
would then be leased to the public school systems, who would operate 
the facilities with their own teachers and principals. At the end of 
the lease term, the facilities would be transferred back to the school 
system without additional cost.
  A greater use of public-private partnerships would allow states and 
local communities to accelerate school construction projects at 
significant savings by giving private sector incentives to help meet 
new construction and renovation needs.
  Rather federalizing public school construction, these less costly 
provisions will allow local school districts to decide what is best for 
their students.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Doggett).
  Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, this tax bill is a true Halloween witch's 
brew; a heavy dose of money for big, unaccountable HMOs that rely on 
the bean counters to interfere in the doctor-patient relationship, a 
tiny little pinch of relief for taxpayers, together with the flavoring 
of a little eye of old Newt's threatening government shutdown for good 
measure.
  You can comb through all the pages of this bill, and one thing you 
will not find is one cent of marriage penalty tax relief. You can comb 
through these pages and you will not find one cent of estate tax relief 
for small family businesses and farms.
  This last minute conglomeration is devoid of meaningful relief for 
ordinary American families. But this partisan measure showers benefits 
on the healthy and the wealthy. It gives billions to the same HMOs that 
have a stranglehold on this Congress and are blocking a patients' bill 
of rights. They throw in $100 million every year to benefit the tobacco 
industry in its export of death and disease.
  Mr. Speaker, no marriage penalty relief; not a cent for marriage 
penalty, but $24 billion in tax benefits are included to fund the two-
martini lunch.
  Mr. Speaker, here is a bill that even the chairman of the Committee 
on Ways and Means, the Republican chair, is going to vote against. What 
better symbol of a Republican Congress that can best be called failure, 
flop, and fiasco.
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Boehner).
  Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, I find it unfortunate that we are having the type of 
debate here on the floor today that we are, because the fact is that 96 
percent of the words in the bill that we are considering have already 
been voted on in the House and been passed overwhelmingly in a 
bipartisan way, and for the gentleman from Texas to refer to the fact 
that there is no marriage penalty relief in here, nor any estate tax 
relief in here, is the height of hypocrisy, given the fact that the 
President of the United States decided to veto both of those bills.
  But, Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this conference report, 
and especially the inclusion of the Retirement Savings and Pension 
Coverage Act, based extensively on a bipartisan package of reforms 
developed by my friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman), and my 
colleague from the other side of the aisle, the gentleman from Maryland 
(Mr. Cardin).
  I think this is practical common sense legislation that will lead to 
a safer, more secure and more prosperous retirement for millions of 
American working men and women.
  ERISA is the source of our Nation's pension laws, and it was passed 
25 years ago when the American economy was dominated by large 
corporations and most Americans relied on pensions from those 
corporations for their retirement. Well, today we are a Nation of small 
employers and individual investors. Nearly one out of every two 
American families has invested in the stock market, more than three 
times the percentage 25 years ago.

                              {time}  1615

  This bill today helps workers maximize their retirement opportunities 
by expanding small business retirement plans, allowing workers to save 
and invest more, and cutting the red tape that has hamstrung employers 
who want to establish pension plans for their employees.
  The basis for these pension reforms in this conference report is H.R. 
1102. It was reported out of the Committee on Education and the 
Workforce on July 14, 1999, on a bipartisan voice vote; and we believe 
on a bipartisan basis this is a very good bill. I urge my colleagues to 
support it.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Levin).

[[Page 24954]]


  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, this debate is baffling. The Speaker has come 
here and said we need to be brought together, but he chooses a course 
that divides us. There is a lot of talk by Republicans, including Mr. 
Bush, about bipartisan, but this action is strictly partisan.
  What went into this bill and what was left out was decided completely 
within Republican ranks and its inner sanctum. Tell me of your meetings 
with the President to decide on this package. Tell me of your meetings 
with the minority leadership in the House or the Senate. There were not 
any. Instead, we have decisions made inner sanctum and very much with 
special interests in mind.
  Mr. Speaker, 187 pages of this Medicare and Medicaid bill never went 
through committee, was never voted on the House floor. So here we go 
again, forcing a presidential veto. There will be another chance to act 
on the BBA after the President forces us into the right course.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/4\ minutes to the gentlewoman 
from New York (Mrs. Maloney).
  Mrs. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the 
bill and the way it has been brought to this floor. I want specifically 
to talk about protecting the privacy of American people.
  Last night, under the cloak of darkness, the Republican leadership 
added to this bill an amendment that would have allowed confidential 
Census information to go to the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office.
  Let me tell my colleagues that this past year in every State and 
community, this poster was up, assuring the American people of their 
privacy: No INS. No FBI. No CIA. No IRS. We should add no Republican 
majority.
  The Secretary of Commerce, Secretary Mineta, has a very strong 
objection. Mr. Speaker, I will place his objection and veto threat in 
the Record.
  Mr. Speaker, I recently just spoke to Mr. Crippen, the head of CBO, 
who tells me that after seeing the Secretary's objection, he has 
decided to proceed with attempting to get the provision he wants out. 
He says he will remove it.
  Since Mr. Crippen is not a Member of Congress, I would hope that 
someone in the Republican leadership could assure me that what he is 
saying is correct and that my colleagues will not add this provision to 
any other vehicle going through Congress that is a violation of the 
privacy rights of the American people.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask if there is any assurance from anyone in the 
Republican leadership.


                                    The Secretary of Commerce,

                                 Washington, DC, October 25, 2000.
       Dear Member of Congress: As you may know, the Congressional 
     Budget Office (CBO) is currently seeking legislative language 
     which would amend Title 13, the Census Act, to allow CBO to 
     acquire confidential information collected from the American 
     people in several census surveys.
       I am writing to express my strong opposition to any attempt 
     to force the disclosure of personal census information 
     currently protected by the confidentiality provisions of 
     Title 13. If this proposal is adopted by the Congress, I will 
     recommend a Presidential veto of the legislation.
       The American people place a tremendous trust in the Census 
     Bureau and the Department of Commerce when they provide us 
     with the personal information collected by these surveys. 
     They do so, in overwhelming numbers, because the Census 
     Bureau and the Commerce Department have assured them that 
     their privacy will be protected by the provisions of Title 
     13. The critical work of dozens of government agencies could 
     not be accomplished without the public's voluntary 
     cooperation with these surveys.
       The change to census confidentiality contemplated by CBO 
     has been developed behind closed doors, at the 11th hour of a 
     legislative session, with no public hearings and no 
     opportunity for public comment or congressional review.
       The American people are already gravely concerned about the 
     privacy of their personal information. The adoption of these 
     changes with no public debate runs the very serious risk of 
     undermining the public's confidence in the privacy act of 
     census information. Should that happen, it should surprise 
     none of us that the public's willingness to cooperate with 
     census surveys will rapidly decline.
       As the CBO Director obliquely points out in his October 24, 
     2000 letter to Congress on this issue, there have been times 
     in our history when census information has not been protected 
     as it should have been. My personal knowledge of this 
     incident is somewhat less than oblique. Director Crippen's 
     reference is to the Census Bureau's assistance, at the 
     beginning of World War II, for the War Department's efforts 
     to locate Japanese Americans in the western United States and 
     confine us to internment camps. My family and I were among 
     the 120,000 Japanese Americans forced from our homes and 
     interned.
       I fail to see why this history should make the Commerce 
     Department, or the Congress, less concerned about the 
     confidentiality of census information.
       Over the course of the 58 years since that incident, the 
     Census Bureau and the Department of Commerce have built a 
     relationship of trust with the American people, many of whom 
     are profoundly distrustful of government. We have promised 
     them that their privacy would be protected, and that personal 
     information about them would be subjected to the most 
     stringent controls. I do not believe we should alter that 
     commitment, in law or in practice, without a full and open 
     discussion.
       As a former Member of Congress, and a former Member of the 
     House Budget Committee, I take CBO's work very seriously. I 
     have the highest respect for the professionalism and 
     integrity of the men and women who make up that agency.
       However, I must restate the strongest opposition of the 
     Department of Commerce to any effort to alter the privacy 
     protections currently provided by statute for personal census 
     information without a full opportunity for careful 
     congressional review and public comment.
           Sincerely yours,
                                                 Norman Y. Mineta.

  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Oklahoma (Mr. Watts).
  Mr. WATTS of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Missouri (Mr. Talent) for yielding me the time.
  Mr. Speaker, I heard just a couple of minutes ago that the marriage 
tax relief and death tax relief was not in this bill, and I would say 
to that give me a physical break.
  The President of the United States vetoed both of those pieces of 
legislation that would bring about fairness for small business owners 
and allowed them to keep their business and not give it to the 
government and also allow married couples to get some relief and not 
penalize them for being married.
  But be that it as it may, H.R. 2614, Mr. Speaker, is a good piece of 
legislation. It has Medicare adjustments for rural hospitals, for home 
health agencies. There is the pension reform that allows people to save 
more money for themselves for retirement; that is good for working 
people, for housewives.
  My wife stays at home. She is a housewife. She can save more money. 
Brownfields relief, the American Community Renewal Act, in which the 
gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Talent), myself, the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Davis) have worked very hard to target underserved 
communities, poor communities, rural communities for economic 
development, for homeownership, for opportunity in these underserved 
communities.
  This has the black farmers piece of legislation. The USDA 
discriminated against black farmers, and these farmers got a 
settlement. There is an element of this legislation that says these 
farmers should not have to pay taxes on that settlement, because the 
USDA then would be benefiting from their injustice. I mean we can go on 
and on.
  This is a good piece of legislation. I would encourage my colleagues 
not to turn our backs on the black farmers. Do not turn our back on 
these underserved communities. Do not turn our back on people that 
would love to save more money for themselves. Do not turn our back on 
these people.
  Let us pass this legislation. I urge a strong yes vote for H.R. 2614.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Dingell).
  Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, this is a bad bill. It is going to be 
vetoed. It ought to be defeated. Today, we are voting on a conference 
report which provides significant relief only to a favored few health 
care providers from cuts enacted in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997.
  The majority has turned its back on the bipartisan Committee on 
Commerce bill, choosing to strip out Democratic priorities and is 
rewarding its fat-cat industry friends instead.

[[Page 24955]]

  This should come as no surprise, though, that the Republicans would 
choose to devote billions to the insurance companies and to the 
wealthy, leaving working Americans, disabled children, seniors and 
immigrants with little, if anything, at all.
  The Republican leadership has spent all year fighting its Medicare 
prescription drug benefits, against the strong enforceable Patients' 
Bill of Rights, and against meaningful expansions of health care for 
working families.
  Why should we expect any less at this hour? At every turn, the 
Republican leadership has blocked meaningful health care legislation; 
yet, now they are passing a bill that gives only massive tax cuts for 
the rich, without any financing for Medicare prescription drug coverage 
that seniors desperately need.
  It gives billions of dollars for HMOs, more than one-third of the 
money, $30 billion over 10 years going to HMOs, with no guarantees that 
seniors will see increased access to plans or increased benefits.
  It gives billions of dollars for tax deductions for health insurance 
that will erode existing employer coverage and will not reduce the 
number of uninsured.
  The facts are clear. This is Republican pork, a rich reward to 
undeserving fat-cat friends at the expense of beneficiaries and 
vulnerable providers. No wonder this was done in the dead of night.
  Democrats have fought, will continue to fight, for a balanced bill 
that fairly allocates money for beneficiaries, providers, and HMOs.
  We believe in making sure that Medicare is always there for seniors 
and that in the absence of universal coverage, there is always a strong 
safety net that will provide high-quality health care to the uninsured 
and those of low income.
  If this is not bad enough, not only has the Republican Congress 
failed to pass a real Patients' Bill of Rights, but they have also 
passed something else, what they are calling a Medicare Patients' Bill 
of Rights. It is as phony as a $3 bill and does not have any real 
protections that are needed.
  I know the real Patients' Bill of Rights. I wrote it, along with my 
Republican colleagues, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) and the 
gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske) and others. It passed this House by an 
overwhelming bipartisan majority.
  This is no Patients' Bill of Rights nor Medicare. In fact, the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) and I wrote a letter to the 
Speaker urging him to delete it. This is a Republican provision which 
puts our seniors at risk and at the mercy of health plans.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote no on this shameful piece 
of legislation, so that we can have either an opportunity to sit down 
in a bipartisan basis and craft a balanced bill before or after the 
veto that the President is assuredly going to give and that will 
reflect the important bipartisan priorities for seniors, low-income 
families and children and will serve the interests of this country.
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute for three points.
  Number one, there is no Census language in the bill, so Members 
should know the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) was incorrect 
in her statement.
  Second, as much as I respect the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Dingell), I am not going to allow the bill to be slandered in that way. 
This bill contains provisions which will ensure health care for small 
business people that we have been fighting for on a bipartisan basis 
for years. It contains provisions which will ensure pensions for small 
business people and their employers that we have been fighting for. It 
includes the best piece of antipoverty legislation this Congress has 
passed in a generation.
  Mr. Speaker, I stood next to the President of the United States at 
the White House and we talked about the importance of this. It means 
jobs and homeownership and community policing for poor people.
  I will tell my colleagues, I am leaving here, Mr. Speaker, so maybe 
it does not matter to me and it does not matter to other people. I do 
not care who is consulted. I do not care whether the protocols of the 
Committee on Ways and Means were respected.
  This bill means real things to real vulnerable people, and we ought 
to pass it and the President ought to sign it.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
North Carolina (Mr. Price).
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to 
this bill and to the reckless way the House is proceeding.
  Mr. Speaker, this bill fails to give either high-growth or 
economically disadvantaged areas the help they need to stretch their 
school bond dollars and to undertake desperately needed school 
construction.
  This bill provides needed increases in Medicare reimbursement, but it 
directs those reimbursements disproportionately to HMOs with no 
guarantees that they will pass along the savings or that they will stay 
in our communities. In the meantime, our hospitals are shortchanged, 
particularly teaching hospitals and hospitals serving large numbers of 
indigent patients. Funding for rural health care, home health care and 
hospice care also falls short.
  The Republican leadership could not even find a way to shorten or 
eliminate the waiting period for Medicare eligibility for victims of 
Lou Gehrig's disease, despite the fact that 282 Members of this House 
have cosponsored a bill to do so.
  Mr. Speaker, there are good things in this bill: a tax credit for 
adoptive parents, a minimum wage increase, an increase in IRA 
contribution limits, an accelerated deduction for small business health 
insuance costs. But to bury these beneficial initiatives in a measure 
that in so many respects falls short is reckless and irresponsible.
  Mr. Speaker, with a week-and-a-half between today and the election, 
we have no time for reckless games. The responsible way to proceed on 
issues of this gravity--taxes, health care, school construction, small 
business--is for the Republican leaders of this Congress to negotiate 
in good faith with the minority and the president to reach a compromise 
that meets our country's needs. This should have been done weeks ago. 
Our best course now is to defeat this bill and to bring a new bill, 
adequate to the challenges before us, to the floor promptly.
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Bilirakis).
  Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, in 1997, Congress courageously acted to 
save Medicare from bankruptcy as a part of the Balanced Budget Act. 
However, the real-life effects of that law were far greater than 
expected or intended. The legislation before us today will restore $28 
billion in essential health care funding for providers and the patients 
they serve.
  It will also increase preventive health benefits for seniors, 
including screenings for glaucoma and colon cancer, medical nutrition 
therapy, and Pap smear screenings and pelvic exams. I was pleased to 
coauthor provisions of the original 1997 balanced budget law, which 
expanded Medicare coverage or preventive health services. By diagnosing 
conditions in a timely manner, we can improve the quality of life for 
beneficiaries and ultimately reduce the costs of treatment for many 
patients.
  The President has threatened to veto this critical measure that does 
so much to help America's seniors. He has expressed concern regarding 
the amount of funding provided for Medicare+Choice plans. But most of 
us have heard from an overwhelming number of seniors in our districts 
who support the Medicare+Choice plans, and who want Congress to make 
sure that they are adequately funded.
  This legislation does just that, and it spends approximately $6 
billion for it, not $30 billion, not one-half of that, but 22 percent 
of the total of $28 billion.
  Last month, Members of my Committee on Commerce worked on a 
bipartisan basis, passed unanimously, I would remind everyone, to 
assemble a package of relief for both providers and Medicare 
beneficiaries.

[[Page 24956]]

  The measure before us incorporates many of those provisions to help 
beneficiaries, as well as hospitals, community health centers, skilled 
nursing facilities, academic health centers, home health providers, 
hospice providers, and Medicare+Choice plans to be sure to help save 
for seniors their option for a Medicare managed care plan.
  I look forward, Mr. Speaker, to passing this important legislation 
today, and I urge the President to sign it into law.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar).
  Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me 
the time.
  Mr. Speaker, from a transportation perspective, there are good 
reasons to oppose this bill, but the most significant is repeal of the 
4.3 cent fuel tax for the railroads. That action goes against the 
spirit of the agreement worked out between rail labor and rail 
management on a railroad retirement benefit.
  The parties agreed to divide up equally between management and labor 
the benefits of a payroll tax reduction.

                              {time}  1630

  Our committee, the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and 
the Committee on Ways and Means crafted a bill, H.R. 4844, that 
reflected this agreement. Under the bill, the payroll taxes paid by 
railroads would be reduced $4 billion over 10 years. Railroad retirees 
and survivors would get roughly the same amount in improved benefits. 
It was a win for all parties.
  During Committee on Ways and Means consideration of the bill, there 
was an amendment added to repeal the 4.3 cent fuel tax. That would have 
upset the balance of benefits agreed to by management and labor and 
would have unraveled the unified rail coalition. The Committee on 
Transportation and Infrastructure, on a bipartisan basis said, we would 
not bring the bill to the floor with this provision in it. The 
offending provisions was stripped prior to floor consideration, and the 
bipartisan railroad retirement reform legislation passed the House 
overwhelmingly by a vote of 391 to 25.
  Now, we have the fuel tax repeal in here. That is a windfall benefit 
to the railroads with no commensurate benefit to rail workers and 
retirees. That is not fair. That is not right. That unravels the 
agreement that we put together, that labor and management voluntarily 
put together. We should not pass this legislation with that provision 
in. On this issue alone, the bill deserves to go down.
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Portman).
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I know this is a political year, and I know 
that not everybody got everything in this legislation that they wanted 
in this legislation, but is that a reason to vote against the 
legislation?
  Look at this bill. It expands health care coverage for all Americans; 
provides very important help for long-term care; increases the Medicare 
reimbursement to our hospitals, to our nursing homes, to our home 
health agencies $28 billion over 5 years and $75 billion over 10 years. 
It helps our schools to construct more schools. It provides computers 
to the classrooms, encourages adoption. It helps create jobs in our 
poorest inner cities and rural areas. It gives small businesses needed 
tax relief so that they can provide health care insurance, so that they 
can create more jobs. This is a good bill.
  Let me focus on one provision that I am particularly proud of that 
this Congress passed by a vote of 401 to 25, only a few short months 
ago, totally bipartisan. The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) and I 
worked on this for the last 3 years together. The gentleman from 
California (Mr. Gallegly) and others on our side of the aisle worked so 
hard on it. It provides retirement security for all Americans. Half of 
America's workforce, 70 million people, have no pension coverage at all 
today, and everybody agrees on the right, on the left, and the center 
that we need to increase savings in our economy so that we can be sure 
that the economic prosperity that we are now enjoying continues. This 
legislation addresses these issues head on.
  It does 3 things. It lets everybody save more in an IRA, moving it 
from $2,000 a year to $5,000 a year. It lets people save more in their 
401(k)s. Mr. Speaker, 42 million Americans that we represent now have 
401(k)s. It lets everybody put more aside for their own retirement, in 
traditional pension plans.
  Second, it allows rollover of pension plans from job to job. In our 
increasingly mobile society, that is very important to the workers we 
represent. Finally, it streamlines and modernizes our pension laws to 
reduce the costs, the burdens and the liabilities, particularly to 
small business, so that more and more Americans will be able to enjoy a 
secure retirement. This is good stuff.
  Mr. President, I cannot believe you are thinking of vetoing this 
legislation. Do not stand in the way of retirement security.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Stenholm).
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I oppose this bill precisely for the 
reasons the gentleman who just spoke says we ought to support it.
  There is no death tax relief in this bill, and after spending most of 
the year in here knowing that we could very well have a death tax 
relief for small businesses, it is not in this bill. There is no 
marriage tax penalty relief anywhere in this bill, and we spent 
considerable time talking about that.
  This bill has the wrong priorities on Medicare relief. I represent a 
district that is very rural. My rural hospitals need considerably more 
help than what those who wrote the provisions in this bill are 
suggesting. The bill also undermines welfare reform by dropping the 
provision extending transitional Medicaid. We are increasing 
discretionary spending at a record rate, cutting taxes by $300 billion 
without dealing with the estate tax, marriage penalty, or enacting 
other legislation to eliminate the national debt; and it is the wrong 
thing to do today.
  Mr. Speaker, we must recognize we have to set priorities. The 
priorities of the majority are not the priorities of this Member. I 
urge a ``no'' vote on this bill.
  I oppose this conference report because it has the wrong priorities 
in using our limited resources.
  My priorities are eliminating the national debt, providing relief 
from the estate tax and marriage penalty, beginning a National Energy 
Policy, and giving assistance to rural hospitals and other health care 
providers. This bill does not address these priorities.
  If this bill is enacted on top of the legislation already passed this 
year, we will have used nearly $1 trillion on the project surplus over 
the next ten years this year.
  According to the bipartisan Concord Coalition, if discretionary 
spending continues to increase at the same rate is has over the last 
three years under a Republican Congress for the next ten years, nearly 
two-thirds of the projected $2.2 on-budget surplus will be wiped out.
  Under one scenario, there would be just $350 billion in surpluses 
available for other priorities after we take Medicare off-budget next 
year.
  The cost of this tax bill, when combined with the telephone excise 
tax bill, will consume nearly $300 billion of the surplus over the next 
ten years, not counting interest costs.
  Enacting a tax cut as presented will consume virtually all of the 
surplus available for tax cuts, leaving no room to address other 
priorities.
  No room to deal with estate tax.
  We have bipartisan support for meaningful estate tax relief which 
would exempt all estates less than $4 million from the estate tax and 
reduce rates by 20 percent immediately.
  Nearly half of the Democratic Caucus has cosponsored an estate tax 
bill that would do that, but the Wall Street Journal reported that the 
Republican leadership has rejected that proposal because they would 
rather have a political issue for the campaign instead of accomplishing 
something on estate tax.
  No room to deal with marriage penalty relief.
  This bill excludes many important items that were included in earlier 
tax bills:
  All of the tax incentives for domestic oil and gas producers that 
were included in the Senate bill were excluded for some reason. With

[[Page 24957]]

all of the talk about the need for a national energy policy, I don't 
understand why the leadership would oppose efforts to help our domestic 
oil and gas industry.
  An important provision for farmers which clarify that CRP payments 
are not subject to self-employment taxes were dropped from the bill.
  The bipartisan legislation on Individual Development Accounts which I 
cosponsored with Representative Joe Pitts, which would help low-income 
families save money and move into the middle class, were dropped for 
some reason.
  While I support the increases in IRA limits to help middle and upper 
income families save for retirement, I do not understand why the tax 
credits to help low income workers who most need assistance save for 
their retirement were dropped.
  This bill has the wrong priorities on the Medicare relief package. 
This bill shortchanges the critical needs of rural hospitals, home 
health agencies and other health care providers.
  The bill also undermines welfare reform by dropping the provision 
extending transitional Medicaid, which ensures families moving from 
welfare to work do not lose health insurance for their children.
  We are increasing discretionary spending at a record rate and cutting 
taxes by $300 billion without dealing with the estate tax, marriage 
penalty or enacting a plan to eliminate our national debt.
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Thomas).
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, we are here today with a Presidential veto 
threat, and I am here to address that provision in the Medicare and 
Medicaid area, because in the President's message, he said, as several 
of my Democratic colleagues have said, that the bill fails to attach 
accountability provisions to the health maintenance organizations.
  I am sorry to tell my friends who made that statement that they are 
simply flat-out wrong. I hope they did not do it for political 
purposes. I hope they did it because they were either uninformed or 
misinformed.
  On page 143 in the bill, on lines 17 and 18, the language contained 
therein is the language supplied to us by the administration in terms 
of their request for accountability. Now, it seems strange with all of 
the arguments that there has not been much discussion between the 
administration and those of us that are charged with the responsibility 
as the majority to work with the minority, which we did in the 
Committee on Ways and Means subcommittee, by unanimously passing out 
the provision. It says, any of the dollars in this bill sent to 
Medicare HMOs can only be used to reduce premiums, cost-sharing, 
enhance the benefits of the beneficiaries, or utilize the stabilization 
fund. Every dollar that is added must be converted to benefits for 
individuals.
  The President also says that there are other health care providers 
that are shorted by the basis of the HMO provisions. Let us remember 
that this is supposed to be not always for providers, it is supposed to 
be for beneficiaries. It is supposed to be for people in trouble. 
Organizations surrounding that have all written us letters. More than 
four dozen associations have said, we like what you are doing, we 
support what you are doing, we hope Members vote for it, we hope the 
President does not veto it. Organizations such as the American Cancer 
Society, the American Dietetic Association, Juvenile Justice 
Foundation, the National Kidney Foundation, the National Multiple 
Sclerosis Society, these are the people that are urging us to vote for 
the bill. They want us to vote for the bill.
  The President's veto threat says that other providers have been 
shorted because so much money has been given to the Medicare HMOs. Then 
why in the world is the Long Term Hospital Association endorsing this, 
urging members to vote for it? Why is the Federation of American 
Hospitals, the National Association of Childrens Hospitals, the 
National Association of Long Term Hospitals, the National Association 
of Psychiatric Health Hospitals, the National Association of Urban 
Critical Access Hospitals, and the one usually held up, the American 
Hospital Association, says in a letter dated today, and I quote, 
American Hospital Association says, ``We are urging Members to vote in 
favor of this legislation and have recommended that the President not 
veto the legislation.''
  The other providers say, vote for the bill and pass it. The 
associations that are going to benefit, the American Red Cross and 
others, say vote for it and pass it.
  Mr. Speaker, I am just curious as to who these unnamed folks are that 
somehow are being benefited in here. Believe me, this is good 
legislation. Follow these people. Vote for it, pass it, and the 
President should not veto it.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from 
Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this legislation. 
Instead of helping those that faced the real cuts in 1997, what our 
Republican colleagues have done is they have gift wrapped an early 
Christmas present for the same HMOs that continue to reduce coverage 
for seniors and in many cases drop their coverage altogether.
  Unlike hospitals, home health, hospice providers, Medicare HMOs did 
not have their funding cut in 1997, yet this past year, we invested 
$1.4 billion in Medicare+Choice and the Medicare HMOs returned the 
favor by dropping nearly 1 million seniors, 56,000 in my State of 
Connecticut alone. And guess what? There is no meaningful 
accountability in this piece of legislation. These folks can pull the 
rug out from under people after a year. That was not changed at all in 
this piece of legislation.
  I say to my colleagues, they got $1.4 billion, talk about bang for 
the buck, and they let all of these people adrift. The Republican bill 
would now give the Medicare HMOs 41 percent of the money in this bill, 
$10 billion. It is wrong, it is unfair, it does not help those who need 
it the most.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Pelosi).
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I am rising to oppose this legislation. I 
want to recognize the extraordinary leadership of the ranking member of 
the Committee on Small Business (Ms. Velazquez), and I urge my 
colleagues to oppose this legislation.
  This bill is sadly deficient because it misses opportunities. It 
misses an opportunity to help our health care providers secure benefit 
improvements in Medicare and Medicaid that would increase the access of 
millions of Americans to the health care they need. Unfortunately, the 
Republican leadership has chosen to make HMOs not the beneficiaries the 
focus of this flawed legislation.
  Another missed opportunity was a bill that passed in bipartisan 
fashion out of the Committee on Commerce which would have increased 
enrollment in the CHIP and Medicaid, reduce out-of-pocket Medicare 
expenses and increase access to health insurance for disabled children 
and legal immigrants. It is a stark example of failed leadership.
  Another opportunity that is missed is the bipartisan legislation to 
provide incentives to private sector biotech and pharmaceutical 
companies to accelerate development of vaccines for AIDS, malaria, and 
TB.
  Mr. Speaker, the biggest missed opportunity is in school 
construction. How can we ignore the needs of our children?
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this measure which fails to 
provide tax relief to the families and institutions that need it most 
and fails to adequately meet our nation's health care needs. At the 
heart of the many flaws that are contained in this bill is the refusal 
of the Republican leadership to negotiate these measures in a 
bipartisan manner.
  We are nearly a month into the fiscal year, and the Republican 
leadership continues to push forward bills that we all know will be 
vetoed because of their refusal to reach across the aisle and 
compromise. The American people deserve better leadership and a real 
commitment to achieving the important goals of tax relief and improved 
access to quality health care.
  We are blessed in this country with the finest health care providers 
in the world. However, we must not take our good fortune for granted. 
The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 initiated several important changes in 
reimbursement rates for Medicare and other federally

[[Page 24958]]

funded health care programs. Unfortunately, many of these new 
reimbursement rules resulted in payment cuts to health care providers 
that were far greater than Congress intended. As a result, hospitals, 
nursing homes, patient care and academic health centers across the 
country are suffering.
  The refinements passed last year were a start, but they only 
addressed a fraction of the losses that the hospitals skilled nursing 
facilities that treat our most vulnerable citizens are facing. A recent 
report by the Lewin Group estimates that without further relief nearly 
60 percent of the nation's hospitals will not be able to cover the 
costs of treating Medicare patients by 2004, and in the last two years 
170 skilled nursing facilities have filed bankruptcy in California 
alone.
  Today, we have an important opportunity to help our health care 
providers and secure benefit improvements in Medicare and Medicaid that 
would increase the access of millions of Americans to the health care 
they need. Unfortunately, the Republican leadership has chosen to make 
HMOs, not beneficiaries, the focus of this flawed legislation.
  Medicare+Choice is an important program, but it is irresponsible to 
allocate over a third of the resources in this bill to a program that 
serves less than a sixth of our citizens. And to do so without any 
accountability measures demonstrates once again that the Republican 
leadership is on the side of the insurance industry, not on the side of 
patients.
  All year long we have been waiting for the Republican leadership to 
pass a real patient's bill of rights. When the House and Senate began 
the conference on this issue in October 1999 there was an important 
decision to be made, would this Congress vote to protect patients or 
HMOs? Democrats have been united and clear in our choice. We choose 
patients. But the Republican leadership has been just as clear in their 
determination to protect their friends in the insurance industry. 
Today, they have once again chosen HMOs over patients.
  Benefit improvements in Medicare and Medicaid are long overdue, and 
ignoring an opportunity to increase enrollment in CHIP and Medicaid, 
reduce out-of-pocket Medicare expenses, and increase access to health 
insurance for disabled children and legal immigrants is a stark example 
of failed leadership.
  I am also opposed to a provision that has been included in this bill 
which violates the privacy protections that the Census Bureau has 
promised the American people. This provision would provide personal 
information to the Congressional Budget Office that is given to the 
Census Bureau with the understanding that the data will be used solely 
for the Census. This year's high response rates to census surveys will 
surely decline if that promise is broken.
  Among the many important items excluded from H.R. 2614 is bipartisan 
legislation to provide incentives to private sector biotech and 
pharmaceutical companies to accelerate development of vaccines for 
AIDS, malaria, TB and any other disease that kills one million or more 
people annually. The Vaccines for the New Millennium Act, which was 
developed in collaboration with industry and public health advocates, 
creates tax and purchase credits that will increase R&D and expand the 
market for new vaccines.
  The combined deaths from AIDS, TB, and malaria total over 7 million 
each year. Preventive vaccines are our best hope to being these 
destructive worldwide epidemics under control. The National Institutes 
of Health is doing crucially important vaccine research. But private 
sector biotech and pharmaceutical companies have much of the expertise 
to develop and produce vaccines, and we must leverage their resources 
and encourage the market to work more effectively in order to develop 
these vaccines in the near future.
  This legislation fails to achieve the tax relief that American 
families need and the improvements in access to quality health care 
that they deserve. This country deserves better. I urge my colleagues 
to vote no on H.R. 2614.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Mississippi (Mr. Taylor).
  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, this is an accumulation of 
five bills that were introduced yesterday. It is 960 pages in length. I 
can tell my colleagues what my gut tells me, and I am quoting from a 
colleague in the Mississippi legislature: There are enough snakes in 
this bill that it would take a herpetologist to sort them all out.
  We are dealing with people's retirement, and one provision of this 
bill would allow the person who is rolling those retirement funds over 
to pocket the profits for 60 days. Grandma does not get them, he gets 
them, not the person who deserves them, the guy who convinces grandma 
that she needs to roll it over. That is just one provision.
  There is another provision that on a casual reading of this bill that 
I showed to over a dozen Members of Congress and an equal number of 
members of the press would have us believe that we get a tax deduction 
for paying bribes.
  Now, I say to my colleagues, if it is our job to make the tax laws 
simpler and more understandable, why on the last day of this session 
would we parade out a bill that is going to add 965 pages to the Tax 
Code that no one fully comprehends?
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is referring to the foreign 
sales provision of the bill, and that is the administration's 
provision.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Foley).
  Mr. FOLEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  It greatly concerns me to have this bill so maligned, because the 
gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey) and I worked so hard to have the 
increase for hospitals included in this bill, the inflation update. It 
pains me that Senator Kent Conrad and I worked so hard to have rural 
health care in this bill. It is in this bill. It pains me to have 
Senator Bob Graham from Florida, having worked so hard with me on 
preventive health benefits in this bill, to hear this being described 
as a partisan bill. It pains me, with the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Wexler) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutsch), who, we worked 
together on HMOs that are leaving our country destabilized to bring 
them relief and reform.
  Mr. Speaker, I realized this is not about people today, it is about 
power. When the President refused to have a public bill signing on a 
breast cancer treatment bill at the White House because he was afraid 
the gentleman from New York (Mr. Lazio) would get credit for it, who is 
running against Mrs. Clinton, I realized it is about power, not people; 
I realized it is about politics, not people, and for the other side of 
the aisle to decry this bill as some last minute attempt, after we have 
worked 2 years on producing this document, shame on them for voting no. 
Shame on them.

                              {time}  1645

  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Sherman).
  Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, both parties agree that the tax code should 
help school districts issue school bonds and build schools. But this 
bill provides only half of the tax credits for school bonds that we 
need. It has weasel words on Davis-Bacon, which means we will get 
substandard schools built at substandard wages.
  Worse yet, it allegedly helps our school districts by dealing with 
the arbitrage provisions. It will not build a school on Elm Street. It 
will build skyscrapers on Wall Street.
  It allows and encourages school boards to take the bond proceeds to 
Wall Street and arbitrage them in risky investments. Is that not how 
Orange County, California, went bankrupt just a few years ago?
  We need provisions that provide tax credits so that school boards can 
issue school bonds and have the Federal Government, in effect, pay the 
interest on those bonds. What we do not need is a provision that allows 
school districts to take bond proceeds, encourages them to delay 
construction, and urges them to go play the market.
  I know that the bond councils out there dream that they will become 
investment bankers, but that is not what school bonds are all about.
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Weller).
  Mr. WELLER. Mr. Speaker, I stand in strong support of this 
legislation which deserves bipartisan support. I have heard a lot of 
claims on both sides about support for expanding IRAs and retirement 
savings. It is in this bill.
  I hear a lot of claims about support for increasing reimbursements 
for our local hospitals and nursing homes and home health care 
providers. Well, there is $28 billion worth in this bill.
  I hear a lot of claims about support on both sides of the aisle in 
support of

[[Page 24959]]

increasing the minimum wage. We do that in this legislation. In fact, 
98 percent of this bill we voted in favor of already.
  Let me point out, there are important provisions that help the little 
folks. There is 10 million building tradespeople, cement finishers, 
operating engineers, carpenters, laborers, who right now have their 
pensions limited because of the section 415. I have had many colleagues 
on the other side of the aisle come up and say, ``Are we going to get 
it in the bill?'' I hope they will vote for it, because this is their 
opportunity to help those 10 million building tradespeople get their 
full pension.
  I also want to point out that we have tax incentives in here for 
brownfields, cleaning up environmental cleanup which allow every 
community in the America to benefit from that incentive.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time each side has 
remaining.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). The gentlewoman from New York 
(Ms. Velazquez) has 3\3/4\ minutes remaining. The gentleman from 
Missouri (Mr. Talent) has 2\1/4\ minutes remaining.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire of the other side 
how many more speakers they have.
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, we have two more on this side; and I 
understand we are closing, so perhaps the gentlewoman from New York 
(Ms. Velazquez) could go with a couple of speakers.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I have one more speaker, then I am ready 
to close.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Wu).
  Mr. WU. Mr. Speaker, I favor real middle-class tax cuts. I favor tax 
cuts which put small businesses on the same footing with large 
corporations. I favor pension reform. And I favor Medicare adjustments 
to keep small hospitals open.
  But I am going to oppose this bill because of the cynical inclusion 
of a provision which specifically overturns Oregon's death-with-dignity 
law. This was voted on by the people of Oregon, not once, but twice.
  What will happen if this bill passes is that things will not play out 
in grand chambers like this. Things will not play out in the hospitals 
that we are trying to keep open. There will be little rooms across this 
country, in Oregon, where the scenes will be played out in small rooms 
filled with pain.
  If my colleagues want that pain to occur, then vote for this bill. If 
my colleagues want to prevent that pain from occurring, if they want 
real tax relief, then vote against this bill.
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/4\ minutes to the gentlewoman 
from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson).
  Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of 
this bill. I point out to my colleagues that almost every section of it 
they have voted for overwhelmingly: the retirement security provisions, 
the small business tax relief, the foreign sales section, the community 
and renewal provisions, and the health care provisions. They have voted 
for it because it is good tax law and it is good for working people.
  Let us look at the Medicare section. Do my colleagues realize that 
the Medicare provisions came out of the Committee on Ways and Means 
Medicare subcommittee with unanimous support?
  The Democrats voted for a 4 percent increase for managed care, plus 
the proposal of the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Thurman) that those 
coming back into the market get a bonus. That is what the professional 
folks on your side that are the closest to this issue voted for.
  Otherwise, the Medicare section is just like the Committee on Ways 
and Means structured it, with some additional provisions from the 
Committee on Commerce that enriches, not only Medicaid, but gives 
States back that CHIP money for their children's insurance programs and 
does something we have all tried to do for a long time, and that is 
loosen the definition of ``homebound'' so more money will go to home 
care.
  That is why all the groups support this, the hospitals, the nursing 
homes, the home care providers. My colleagues should support it, too.
  This is about the strength of our Medicare system and the providers 
that serve them. It is about good tax policy across the board. My 
colleagues have voted for it overwhelmingly. Support it today.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to 
the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones).
  Mrs. JONES of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, the time is short so I wish to focus 
my remarks particularly with regard to the small business section of 
the bill and encourage my colleagues to vote against it, even though I 
wanted to commend the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velazquez) for all 
the work she has done in this effort.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire if the gentleman 
from Missouri has any further speakers.
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, the majority leader is going to close on our 
behalf.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield the remaining time to the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior).
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New York for 
yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, this bill is a giant, gargantuan, enormous hand-out to 
the HMOs. At a time when health care costs are bankrupting families all 
across America, closing hospital doors throughout this country, 47 
percent, 47 percent of the dollars under this Republican bill, under 
the Medicare part of this bill, go to the HMOs.
  The same HMOs that deny one seeing one's specialist will get $30 
billion under this bill over 10 years. The same HMOs who abandoned the 
rural areas of this country get $30 billion under this bill. The same 
HMOs who left stranded a million seniors in this country over the last 
year will get $30 billion under this bill. The same HMOs that will not 
allow one to go to the nearest emergency room because of cost will get 
$30 billion under this bill.
  But it is not enough that the Republicans would turn their backs on 
the hospitals and the nursing homes and the home health care agencies, 
they want to transfer $30 billion to the HMOs. It is not enough that 
they would do that; but on top of that, they started this Congress, we 
started this Congress with the hope that we would get the simplest of a 
Patients' Bill of Rights. Of course that has been abandoned.
  So what we have here is no Patients' Bill of Rights for our seniors, 
for our mothers and our fathers and our children. What we are ending up 
with in the Congress is a huge, enormous $30 billion gift, Christmas 
present, call it what you want, for the HMOs at the expense of the 
other providers who are struggling to care for our families.
  The President will veto this bill. The President should veto this 
bill. We will stay here, and we will fight as long as it takes for the 
hospitals, for the nursing homes, and for the caregivers of the 
American families, those people who American families depend on.
  I urge my colleagues to vote no on this bill and send a very clear 
message that this Congress has been a failure when it comes to health 
care, especially with respect to providing for our families through the 
proper channels and not through the HMO giveaway.
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. 
Velazquez) for her many kindnesses and her powerful advocacy of her 
views and the graciousness in the times we have served together on the 
Committee on Small Business. I want to thank the gentlewoman.
  Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield the remaining time to the 
distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey), the majority leader.
  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, I guess I am a little confused by all the protests I 
hear about this bill. It has been suggested that maybe we did not 
consult enough

[[Page 24960]]

with the White House or perhaps other Members of the Congress other 
than the Republicans in the House. Let me assure my colleagues, we have 
talked about that.
  This bill, Mr. Speaker, provides $245 billion in tax relief over the 
next 10 years, a figure that I personally agreed to with the Secretary 
of the Treasury on behalf of the President. That would be $11.5 billion 
impacting the first year, this fiscal year. I personally agreed to that 
figure with the Secretary of the Treasury as he acted on behalf of the 
President. That allows us to keep our 90 percent pledge to pay down 90 
percent of the budget surplus in debt reduction.
  Then as we proceeded in our discussions with the White House, we 
reminded them that we wanted to put together a bill that had proven 
standing by virtue of the votes taken in the House.
  We started off with the bipartisan Portman-Cardin bill that had 
already been voted in this House by a vote of 401 to 25, virtually all 
of us on that bill. Very little change was made with that, and only 
those little minor changes that were agreed to by the White House and 
in consultation with the authors of the bill, a Republican and a 
Democrat, and other interested parties.
  We went on, and we included minimum wage, the top priority of the 
Democrats, and attended that with a small business wage package that 
attended it when it left the House. That part of the package passed 
with a large bipartisan vote.
  We added then a foreign sales corporation fix. It had passed the 
House by 314 votes, 114 of which were Democrats, wanted by the White 
House as a top priority.
  Then we included community renewal. That passed the House by 394 
votes and was the product of what was agreement between the President 
of the United States and the Speaker of the House as they toured the 
country, talking about what they wanted to do to help people in these 
communities that did not seem to keep pace with the prosperity of 
America and all these wonderful ways. It was directly negotiated by the 
White House with the Speaker of the House; 394 us voted for it.
  Maybe it is not, then, these major component parts that bother the 
folks that now say they want to vote no. Maybe it is the fact that we 
give a long-term tax credit, tax deduction, asked for by the White 
House, given by us out of consideration for those loving children that 
take their parents into their households and take care of them in their 
old age. It does not seem a big thing to do. But I have to tell my 
colleagues rich kids do not need that, but we love it. We love it for 
those young men and women with their own families that care for mom and 
dad in their old age.
  Maybe my colleagues all object to the health insurance tax deduction 
that would give the waitress in the corner restaurant down here the 
same consideration of tax code as she struggles to buy her health 
insurance as is given to a CEO that has his insurance provided to him 
by his employer. Maybe my colleagues do not think that is fair to give 
that waitress a tax deduction for what she pays for health insurance.
  Perhaps my colleagues are upset about the adoption tax credit that 
would enable more families, particularly more low- and marginal-income 
families, to take more children into their families and love them. 
Perhaps my colleagues would rather see the children out in the cold. 
Maybe that does not bother them.
  I saw the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), the ranking Democrat 
on the Committee on Agriculture, down here complaining. Maybe it was 
the farm savings accounts that give farmers encouragement and 
assistance as they save in the good years to help themselves through 
the bad years. Maybe that is what my colleagues object to. The White 
House liked that.

                              {time}  1700

  Or perhaps it is the school construction provisions that first stops 
this immoral taxation of the meager earnings that a school district has 
on their bonds while construction is underway, and then goes on to in 
fact give further tax deductions and consideration to communities that 
want to issue bonds to build schools or renovate schools. The White 
House asked for that. Perhaps my Democrat colleagues in the House 
disagree with the White House and would rather not have that.
  Or perhaps maybe my colleagues' objections are that while we do not 
give them that, we at the same time increase for so many of these 
school districts their production costs beyond the point where it does 
them any good to have this benefit under the tax law by virtue of some 
sop they want for their labor friends that finance their campaigns.
  Maybe the things that bother my Democrat colleagues is the tax credit 
we gave to people who want to provide computers to students in schools 
and libraries. I do not know what it is that bothers my colleagues, but 
whatever it is that bothers them, they should not let what bothers them 
cause them to deny the fact that 90 percent of this passed through the 
House, mostly with their votes before.
  Maybe the problem is we are going to pass this law just too close to 
the elections. Maybe that is what is bothering my Democrat colleagues.
  Mr. Speaker, this is not a perfect tax bill. There rarely are perfect 
tax bills. But I can tell my colleagues this from my discussions with 
the White House. There are some things in this that we do not like, and 
there are some things that the President does not like. There are some 
things that are not in here that we would like to have seen in here, 
and there are some things that are not in here that the President would 
like to have seen in here. We are only mostly happy, and he should be 
only mostly happy.
  The spirit of compromise means that nobody gets to be perfectly 
happy. And maybe that is what makes this a good bill, and we all ought 
to vote on it. Because working together, us with our point of view, my 
Democrat colleagues with their point of view, our desire to help real 
people in their real lives, whether it is adopting children, helping 
individuals save for their own old age, helping mom and dad in their 
old age, securing health insurance saving for a rainy day, or perhaps 
the farmer wants a day that does not rain so much, whatever it is in 
here, we are right here, my colleagues. We are right not only in our 
understanding with our heads of the tax code and its injustices that 
must be addressed but, more importantly, in our heart for saying to the 
American people that they created the surplus and they deserve some of 
it back.
  Do we really have to keep it here so we can spend it all? I ask my 
colleagues to vote ``yes.'' I ask the President to sign the bill. It 
would make him mostly happy, I think. And that is as much as anyone can 
expect in this life.
  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill, which 
includes badly misplaced priorities in the areas of health care and 
education.
  There is a crisis among rural health care providers. As a steering 
committee member of the Rural Health Care Coalition, I have fought long 
and hard to address and alleviate this crisis. Too many rural 
hospitals, nursing homes and home health agencies are being forced to 
cut back on their services or to shut their doors because Medicare 
reimbursement levels are inadequate to cover essential costs. 
Unfortunately, rather than provide sufficient funding for these 
essential providers, the bill before us directs a whopping 41 percent 
of the available funds to managed care companies--even though HMOs 
provide coverage for only about one in six seniors nationwide.
  Because this bill provides a disproportionate share of funds to HMOs, 
all the other providers have been shortchanged. One of my priorities, 
and one of the priorities of our nation's hospitals, is to provide them 
with a full inflationary update over the next two fiscal years. As 
prescribed by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, hospitals did not 
receive an inflationary update in fiscal year 1998 and thereafter have 
received reduced updates. Rural hospitals depend more upon Medicare 
reimbursements than do urban facilities and feel a greater impact from 
payment reforms and reduction. In fact, in my home state of North 
Dakota, hospital payments are still expected to decrease by $416 
million, or 11 percent, from

[[Page 24961]]

pre-BBA levels during fiscal years 1998-2004. This is unacceptable.
  I am disappointed, therefore, that this measure provides hospitals 
with a full inflationary update for only one year, fiscal year 2001. At 
the end of that fiscal year, the promise that some my colleagues are 
making to these health care providers, a promise to help them keep 
their doors open, may be broken. I intend to uphold this promise; I 
have been in personal contact with the Administration, and they have 
assured me that they, too, are committed to our nation's hospitals and 
will continue to fight for a full, two-year inflationary update. The 
least we can do is to provide our hospitals with an annual Medicare 
payment update that reflects an unreduced adjustment for inflation, the 
same adjustment we provide in other federal programs that seniors rely 
upon, such as Social Security.
  The development of home health services as part of the Medicare 
program has been of great benefit to our nation's seniors. With home 
care, our seniors receive quality, skilled care in their very own 
homes, postponing or eliminating the need for care in more costly, and 
often more isolated, settings. Unfortunately, home health agencies have 
also suffered financially under the unintended consequences of the 
Balanced Budget Act. This measure was supposed to cut $16 billion in 
home health care spending over five years; new estimates show that we 
have actually cut $69 billion, over four times what was anticipated.
  Congress has a chance to do some good this year; we can eliminate the 
further 15 percent reduction in Medicare payments to home health 
agencies scheduled to go into effect in October 2001. This Congress, 
however, is voting on a measure that will only delay this cut for one 
more year, until October 2002. This, too, is unacceptable.
  Providers are already doing all they can to keep their doors open 
under these financial constraints. This has not been easy. Across the 
nation, thousands of home health agencies have closed or stopped 
serving Medicare beneficiaries. In North Dakota, four of the state's 36 
Medicare-certified agencies have been forced to do the same. As a 
result, the number of patients receiving Medicare home health services 
has dropped. In 1997, 3.6 beneficiaries received home care across the 
nation; in North Dakota, about 9,000 Medicare patients were served. 
Only one year later, the number of Medicare patients served by home 
care dropped an amazing 17 percent nationwide and 10 percent in North 
Dakota. We cannot continue to address the financial crisis facing our 
home health agencies on a year to year basis. We have to act now to end 
this trend by repealing the 15 percent cut in Medicare payments for 
once and for all.
  I am also disappointed with the Republican school modernization 
provision in this legislation. I believe that we have a responsibility 
to provide our children with a quality education in a safe, modern 
environment. As a father I want to be sure that my children, Kathryn 
and Scotty, are learning in the best possible environment. As a Members 
of Congress, I want that for all American children. The proposal before 
us would not achieve that goal.
  Mr. Speaker, studies have shown that American schools would need an 
additional $125 billion in construction and renovation funds to be able 
to provide our children with the best education. In North Dakota alone, 
the National Education Association estimates the need for an additional 
$545 million to adequately address school modernization issues. To 
provide schools with the resources they need, we must pass the 
bipartisan Johnson/Rangel bill, which would provide almost $25 billion 
in tax credits to pay the interest on school construction bonds. 
Unfortunately, the legislation we consider today would provide less 
that half of that amount. Mr. Speaker, I believe that the education of 
our children is worth more than that.
  This legislation also includes a change to the tax-exempt bond 
arbitrage rules that largely fails to meet the stated objective of 
modernizing schools, especially in rural areas. Under the Republican 
proposal, school districts would have four years to spend school 
construction bond proceeds rather than the two years currently 
permitted. Accordingly to Republicans, this would enable school 
districts to invest bond proceeds for a longer period and recognize 
greater arbitrage profits. The truth is, many school districts will 
receive no benefits from the Republican proposal. Schools with urgent 
needs, forced to teach children in trailers and dilapidated buildings, 
would not benefit from this legislation. Their backlog of unmet needs 
means that they do not have the luxury of waiting four years before 
completing school construction.
  The school modernization provision in the Republican tax bill is 
simply inadequate to address the urgent construction and renovation 
needs of our nation's schools, and I urge my colleagues to oppose this 
legislation.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong 
opposition to a veiled attempt by members from the other side to bring 
tax relief to the floor at the expense of some of the wealthiest and 
vulnerable Americans in our economy. It would do nothing but harm our 
seniors.
  The bill is deficient in three major areas. The legislation fails to 
include the Rangel school construction tax credit provisions, which 
would help leverage $24 billion in financing for school construction 
and renovation. In addition to providing much-needed construction and 
renovation of schools, these provisions would include vital Davis-Bacon 
wage protections for construction workers. The bill should have 
included real education reform.
  Second, the Republicans crafted a health insurance coverage without 
any input from colleagues from the other side. And it shows, Mr. 
Speaker. This is the wrong type of health reform. And it is wrong for 
the urban and rural hospitals in my district. We can do better for 
America. Republicans have spent the entire year fighting against a 
Medicare prescription drug benefit or a truly enforceable Patients' 
Bill of Rights. Even worse, Republicans have fought meaningful 
expansions of health insurance options for working families and have 
prevented assistance for families with long-term needs.
  This bill includes huge tax breaks for the wealthy without any 
financing for a Medicare drug benefit, extending the life of the trust 
fund, and protecting Medicare surplus for its future needs. 
Furthermore, the legislation still allows individuals who do not 
participate in employer-sponsored health plans to take an above-the-
line deduction for the cost if their health insurance premiums. This is 
an extremely inefficient and costly means of trying to expand health 
insurance coverage. Even worse, it could have the perverse effect of 
undermining existing employer-based coverage. Instead of this 
unprincipled proposal, Congress should immediately consider other more 
targeted mechanisms to expand health insurance coverage which would not 
jeopardize workers existing coverage.
  We also know, Mr. Speaker, that this bill includes a massive payment 
for HMOs with no requirement that plans do not leave communities and 
strand seniors or cut back on benefits. The bill would give $30 billion 
in relief to health care providers under Medicare. Unfortunately, these 
additional reimbursements are too heavily weighted toward HMOs, with 
insufficient assistance being given to urban and rural hospitals. In 
addition, this legislation fails to include adequate guarantees that 
health care plans will maintain benefits for seniors.
  It is clear that there is no meaningful guarantee of increased access 
plans or benefits. That is inexcusable. Republicans rely on a ``trickle 
down'' approach of giving large sums of money to HMOs and asking--not 
requiring--that they use the money for beneficiaries. Their bill 
includes no guarantee that plans will not drop out of communities or 
Medicare altogether when it is no longer in their interest to remain or 
that they will put new money towards maintaining benefits rather than 
shoring up their bottom lines.
  This bill would hurt my district, the 18th Congressional District of 
Texas most dearly. HMOs have already been rolling out of communities 
leaving seniors bewildered and confused about their choices. When plans 
leave an area, seniors are left with tough choices that can be quite 
traumatic or disturbing, especially for low and middle-income seniors.
  We want to pass a bill that makes a real difference for our Nation's 
seniors. And I am willing to stay here as long as we need to get the 
job done. Democrats support reasonable tax cuts, Medicare and Medicaid 
provider payment increases, and beneficiary investments. These are 
parts of the bill that I support, such as a downpayment on provider 
payment restorations, new preventative benefits in Medicare, increased 
managed care payments for counties that now have low reimbursement, and 
other provisions that provide for better care of our seniors.
  It is time to come together a real bipartisan process to resolve 
health policies in this 106th Congress. The bill has other serious 
shortcomings that really have little to do with tax discussion. For 
example, the bill allocates too little to critical beneficiary, 
provider policies. Hospitals simply receive inadequate Medicaid 
disproportionate share hospital payments increases, which has placed 
many cities at a serious disadvantage. Hospitals, such as those located 
in my districts, are facing increasingly difficult times at providing 
adequate care to seniors.
  There are other inexcusable ``reforms'' that have been inserted into 
the bill. Home health agencies receive no 2nd year delay of the 15

[[Page 24962]]

percent cut; nursing homes will not even benefit from the proposal to 
provide $1 billion in grants to states to improve quality by increasing 
staff ratios; hospices receive no 2nd year of update; and beneficiaries 
receive much less than HMOs.
  Bipartisan proposals that have been excluded include are shameless. 
This bill contains no health coverage option for legal immigrants, 
passed on a bipartisan basis; no health coverage for children with 
disabilities who cannot access private insurance; no improved 
enrollment for uninsured children in schools and other sites; no 
extension of transitional health coverage for people leaving welfare 
for work; and no waiver of the Medicare waiting period for people with 
Lou Gehrig's disease.
  Mr. Speaker, we must work together to correct this legislation and 
send something to the President that he can actually sign for that 
benefits the American people. I urge my colleagues to join me in 
rejecting this bill that is bad for our schools and for our seniors. We 
ought and can do much better, Mr. Speaker.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, like many of my colleagues, I believe 
that we need to make changes in 1997 Balanced Budget Act to restore 
cuts made to Medicare and Medicaid. Unlike the authors of the 
provisions in H.R. 2614 that we are discussing today, I believe that 
increased payments deserve to go to those entities that actually 
provide health care to our nation's senior citizens and persons with 
disabilities.
  There are some important provisions in this bill. I am extremely 
pleased with the provision to protect Illinois and other states that 
stand to lose needed Medicaid funds under a proposed change regarding 
intergovernmental transfer provisions. This is an important provision 
that will allow my state and others to continue to provide needed care 
to the uninsured and the underinsured. But overall, this bill ignores 
critical priorities, falls far short of what is needed, and actually 
undermines some protections that many of us have fought so hard to win 
over the past few years.
  A major problem is the decision to reward Medicare HMOs instead of 
directing more resources to actual care providers. Only 16 percent of 
Medicare's 39 million beneficiaries are in Medicare+Choice, managed 
care plans. Yet, over the next five years, those plans would receive 40 
percent of the newly-restored payments under H.R. 2614. Over a ten-year 
period, nearly half of the new payments would go to Medicare HMOs. Of 
course, the 84 percent of beneficiaries who are not in Medicare managed 
care won't get their fair share under this proposal. But there is no 
guarantee that Medicare+Choice enrollees will benefit, either.
  There is no requirement under this bill that Medicare managed care 
plans pass any of those increased payments through to hospitals, 
doctors, nursing homes, home health agencies or hospice providers. 
There is no guarantee that, even with those new payments, 
Medicare+Choice plans will stay in the market. Last year, we increased 
Medicare+Choice payments and 934,000 beneficiaries still received 
letters in the mail saying that their plan was going to leave them high 
and dry. Yet, Medicare HMOs would get 40 percent of new payments, 
despite the lack of accountability and guaranteed coverage and despite 
reports by the General Accounting Office that in 1998 alone Medicare 
spent $5 billion more on those beneficiaries in Medicare+Choice plans 
than if those enrollees had been in traditional Medicare.
  Instead of spending billions of dollars on Medicare HMOs that are 
here today and gone tomorrow, I would rather spend those dollars to 
provide direct payments to hospitals, particularly those that serve a 
disproportionate share of low-income and uninsured patients and provide 
critical teaching services. I would rather delay the 15 percent 
reduction in home health spending for another two years, provide 
nursing home quality grants and support efforts to move individuals to 
home and community-based care.
  I am particularly concerned that this bill does not provide adequate 
funding for hospice and palliative care services. We are all concerned 
about the high price of prescription drugs, but this is a particular 
problem for hospice organizations that rely on prescription drugs to 
provide critical pain relief to terminally ill patients. When Medicare 
established payment rates for hospice services in the 1980s, medication 
costs represented about $1 of the daily rate. Today, those costs have 
increased by about 1500%, to $16 a day. Yet, payment rates have not 
kept pace and the result is that many hospice care entities are 
struggling to survive. In fact, as a Milliman and Robertson study 
conducted in response to a Congressional directive concluded, ``the 
trend is clear that Medicare hospice per diem payments do not cover the 
costs of hospice care and result in significant financial losses to 
hospice programs throughout the country.''
  We could be acting today to provide health care for legal immigrant 
pregnant women and children, to adopt the Family Opportunity Act, to 
extend health coverage for people leaving welfare for work, to 
eliminate the Medicare waiting period for persons with ALS, and to 
expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program. H.R. 2614 ignores 
these very real priorities in favor of Medicare HMOs. This is the wrong 
priority, and I hope that my colleagues will reject this bill.
  We have time to engage in real negotiations, to debate fairly and to 
respond to the needs of patients. We can and we must act before we go 
home this year to pass real, meaningful and pro-patient changes to the 
1997 Balanced Budget Act.
  Mr. UNDERWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I would like to express my opposition to 
the conference report for H.R. 2614, which includes several tax-related 
provisions dealing with community renewal, the repeal of Foreign Sales 
Corporation laws, health care and Medicare provisions, minimum wage, 
small business tax cuts, pension reform, and Individual Retirement 
Account expansion.
  This legislation, which was drafted without the consultation or 
active participation of Congressional Democrats or the Administration, 
fails to provide adequate funding for school construction and 
modernization needs, health coverage for the uninsured, credits for 
long term care, pension coverage, and accountability provisions for 
excessive payment increases to health maintenance organizations (HMOs).
  More importantly, this legislation fails to take into account the 
dire economies of the U.S. territories, including the Territory of 
Guam. For several months, I have appealed to the Administration and 
Congressional leaders for tax relief legislation for Guam because of 
the exclusion of the U.S. territories from the President's New Markets 
Initiative legislation and the adverse impact that legislation 
repealing the Foreign Sales Corporations (FSCs) program will have on 
Guam.
  Guam's economy continues to suffer as a result of the Asian financial 
crisis since our island's tourism industry relies heavily on Japan and 
other Asian countries due to our close proximity to Asia. Moreover, 
Guam's unemployment rate is at an unprecedented 15.3 percent, more than 
three times the national average.
  I have requested that legislation I have sponsored, which is crucial 
to Guam's economy, be included in any final tax package, particularly 
if the legislation seeks to help distressed communities. The Guam 
Foreign Direct Investment Equity Act would provide Guam with the same 
rates as the fifty states under international tax treaties. Since the 
U.S. cannot unilaterally amend treaties to include Guam in its 
definition of United States, my legislation amends Guam's Organic Act, 
which has an entire tax section that mirrors the U.S. tax code. The 
legislation does not cost the federal government any money. It simply 
allows the Government of Guam to lower its withholding rate for foreign 
investors. My legislation passed the House previously as part of a Guam 
omnibus bill on July 25, 2000. The bill has Administration and bi-
partisan Congressional support.
  As background, under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, there is a 30 
percent withholding tax rate for foreign investors in the United 
States. Since Guam's tax law ``mirrors'' the rate established under the 
U.S. Code, the standard rate for foreign investors in Guam is 30 
percent.
  My proposal provides the Government of Guam with the authority to tax 
foreign investors at the same rates as states under U.S. tax treaties 
with foreign countries since Guam cannot change the withholding tax 
rate on its own under current law. Under U.S. tax treaties, it is a 
common feature for countries to negotiate lower withholding rates on 
investment returns. Unfortunately, while there are different 
definitions for the term ``United States'' under these treaties, Guam 
is not included. Such an omission has adversely impacted Guam since 75 
percent of Guam's commercial development is funded by foreign 
investors. As an example, with Japan, the U.S. rate for foreign 
investors is 10 percent. That means while Japanese investors are taxed 
at a 10 percent withholding tax rate on their investments in the fifty 
states, those same investors are taxed at a 30 percent withholding rate 
on Guam.
  While the long term solution is for U.S. negotiators to include Guam 
in the definition of the term ``United States'' for all future tax 
treaties, the immediate solution is to amend the Organic Act of Guam 
and authorize the Government of Guam to tax foreign investors at the 
same rate as the fifty states. Other territories under U.S. 
jurisdiction have already

[[Page 24963]]

remedied this problem through delinkage, their unique covenant 
agreements with the federal government, or through federal statute. 
Guam, therefore, is the only state or territory in the United States 
which is unable to take advantage of this tax benefit.
  At the end of the day, should the President and Congress agree on tax 
legislation or legislation on the President's New Market's Initiative, 
It would be a shame that Guam is not provided any economic relief as 
well. I believe that U.S. policymakers have an obligation to help all 
Americans, wherever they reside, including the U.S. territories.
  Lastly, Mr. Speaker, I am also disappointed that the conference 
report for H.R. 2614 fails to include a legislative proposal that 
addresses the Medicaid needs of the U.S. territories. H.R. 5126, which 
was introduced by Congresswoman Donna Christensen and co-sponsored by 
all of the territorial Delegates, including myself, to provide Medicaid 
relief to the territories by removing the Medicaid caps imposed on the 
territories and adjusting the Federal matching rate, is supported by 
the Congressional Asian Pacific American, Black, and Hispanic Caucuses.
  As part of the 1997 Balanced Budget Act negotiations, the 
Administration proposed a phase out of the caps. While Congress 
appropriated the initial increase of 20 percent for FY 1997, no other 
increases were appropriated in the following years. As Congress and the 
Administration revisit the Balanced Budget Act plan in this give back 
proposal, we request that the issue of increasing the Medicaid caps for 
the territories be revisited.
  The U.S. territories have the highest unemployment rates, the highest 
poverty levels and the lowest per capita incomes in our nation. The 
territories have not enjoyed the same level of economic growth as the 
rest of the Nation and their ability to meet the Medicaid needs of 
their residents is constrained by their economic circumstances. Faced 
with depressed economic conditions and rising health needs of growing 
indigent populations, the reliance on Medicaid assistance has grown 
beyond the federal caps and beyond the territorial governments 
abilities to match the funds. Lifting the cap or even following up on 
the FY 1997 commitment to raise the Medicaid caps for the territories 
by 20 percent each year until all achieve parity with the rest of the 
nation is vital to insuring that all American citizens and children who 
depend on Medicaid support are not limited by geography when it comes 
to meeting basic healthcare needs.
  I urge my colleagues to remember the U.S. territories in any tax-
related legislation, particularly as it affects distressed communities, 
and request that my colleagues oppose the conference report for H.R. 
2614.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (BBA) 
substantially cut payments to health care providers in order to reduce 
total Medicare spending. I voted against the Balanced Budget Act 
because the cuts were too severe and have threatened health care 
delivery to the Medicare population. It is no surprise to me that the 
bill before us today, H.R. 2614, seeks to undo portions of the BBA. 
However, I am extremely disappointed with the unfair provision of this 
bill; it doesn't provide adequate help to the neediest parts of our 
health care system.
  Hospitals absorbed the largest funding reductions under the BBA, 
Oregon hospitals alone are expecting a $33.6 million loss in fiscal 
year 2002. However, hospitals only receive a fraction of the ``give 
back'' provided by H.R. 2614. Over 41 percent of the spending in this 
bill goes to Medicare HMOs, affecting only the 16 percent of the 
Medicare population covered by managed care plans. I will not support a 
bill that does not provide sufficient relief to our hospitals, home 
health care agencies, nursing homes, and hospices.
  Hospital payments aside, the increased funding to Medicare HMOs does 
not ensure improved healthcare for Medicare HMO customers, nor does it 
address the flawed Medicare managed care reimbursement rate structure 
that unfairly punishes cost effective states like Oregon. Managed care 
plans in my district have recently doubled the monthly co-payment from 
$35 to $69.50 with no corresponding increase in benefits. At the same 
time, seniors in states with higher than average reimbursement rates 
like California, New York, and Arizona have no out-of-pocket costs for 
health care and often receive dental and vision coverage and a 
prescription drug benefit. It is unfair to increase payments to 
Medicare HMOs without focusing relief on those customers that are 
forced to pay the highest rates and receive the fewest benefits.
  A major concern is a provision that would criminalize decisions 
doctors make on pain management for the most seriously ill and overturn 
Oregon's Death with Dignity Act. Oregonians have twice voted to support 
the assisted suicide law. H.R. 2614 not only is an attack on the 
Democratic process, but also threatens to pain management. There is 
evidence that doctors are increasingly hesitant to prescribe pain 
medications to terminally ill patients for fear of being accused of 
unlawfully assisting a suicide. The on-going attempts by Congress to 
criminalize the doctor-patient relationship are a threat to pain 
management in all fifty states.
  Mr. COYNE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this misguided 
legislation. This bill contains a number of positive provisions, but it 
also contains a number of provisions that would hinder what I believe 
should be our long-term goals--ensuring that all of our citizens have 
access to affordable, high quality health care.
  I support a number of provisions in this bill. I introduced 
legislation last year that would have made the current tax provision 
allowing the expensing of brownfield clean-up costs permanent, and I 
introduced legislation with Congressman Jerry Weller that would have 
eliminated the existing language which limits the brownfields expensing 
provision to certain targeted areas. I am pleased that language 
expanding the definition of qualified sites and extending the 
expiration date of this provision through 2003 was included among the 
community revitalization provisions contained in this bill.
  I am a cosponsor of the Rangel-Johnson legislation that would 
establish a tax credit for qualified school modernization bonds, so I 
am concerned that H.R. 2614 does not contain this bipartisan language 
to promote school construction, renovation and repair. Moreover, I am 
concerned that the bill does not provide adequate protection for the 
construction workers who would be employed on the school projects that 
this legislation would finance.
  The Medicare and health-related provisions of this legislation also 
cause me great concern. I believe that the Members of the House are 
nearly unanimous in supporting additional funding for Medicare. I 
strongly support such an increase myself. I am concerned, however, that 
this $27 billion package contains too large an increase in funding for 
Medicare HMOs and not enough an increase in Medicare benefits for 
seniors and reimbursement for hospitals, home health care services, and 
other health care providers. Consequently, I must oppose H.R. 2614.
  Finally, I have serious concerns about some of the health-related tax 
provisions contained in this bill. The bill would allow individuals who 
do not participate in employer-provided health plans to take above-the-
line deductions for the cost of their insurance premiums. I have two 
concerns about this approach. At best, it is an expensive and 
inefficient way of ensuring that all Americans have access to 
affordable health insurance. It does little to help the uninsured. But 
of perhaps even greater concern is the possibility that this provision 
would undermine our existing system of employer-based health insurance.
  For these reasons, I must oppose this legislation, and I will support 
the President should he veto this bill. It is my hope that Congress 
will be able to craft better legislation addressing Medicare and tax 
cuts before it adjourns for the year.
  Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Mr. Speaker, I oppose H.R. 2614. This bill 
includes both the balanced budget act giveback plan as well as the 
Republican's tax cut proposal. Both of these provisions were negotiated 
behind closed doors and without consulting either Democrats or the 
Administration.
  While there are many problems with this legislation, I am extremely 
disappointed that it does not include the Commerce Committee-approved 
provision giving States the option to provide basic health care 
coverage to legal permanent resident children and pregnant women.
  The 1996 Balanced Budget Act mandated that lawfully present children 
and pregnant women who arrived in the U.S. after 1996 must wait five 
years before they can apply for basic health care. As a result, this 
vulnerable population cannot obtain proper health treatment such as 
preventive and prenatal care.
  Making health care available to this group, through Medicaid and the 
State children's health insurance program, is simply good public 
policy. It would provide critically-needed health services to 144,000 
children and 33,000 pregnant women per year--children and mothers who 
have followed the rules, paid taxes, and are in this country legally.
  We cannot let these children and mothers down by excluding this 
critical, bipartisan measure.
  Unfortunately, the Republican-negotiated package does just that.
  As Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and as a Member who 
represents a large Hispanic community, my top priority is to advocate 
for the fair treatment of all hard-working, tax-paying families, 
including legal

[[Page 24964]]

immigrants. Denying health care coverage to legal immigrants is not 
fair treatment.
  For this and other reasons, I cannot support this legislation.
  I urge my colleagues to oppose H.R. 2614 and work to craft a true 
bipartisan package that includes the restoration of health care for 
legal immigrant children and pregnant women.
  Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Speaker, the bill before us is an example of a 
fatally flawed partisan process that strips out important provisions 
that are important to a list of bipartisan supporters.
  First and foremost, almost 50 percent of funding in this bill before 
us goes to HMO's in the Medicare program--over $34 billion over the 
next 10 years. Let me repeat: . . . $34 billion to Medicare HMO's that 
serve just 16 percent of the Medicare beneficiaries.
  And why? Under current law, according to the General Accounting 
Office, ``Medicare's overly generous payment rates [to HMOs] well 
exceed what Medicare would have paid had these individuals remained in 
the traditional fee-for-service program.'' Incredibly, in the name of 
moving to what some claim is a more efficient model of care, we could 
completely repeal Medicare+Choice and save taxpayers money, reduce 
premiums for Medicare beneficiaries, and extend the life of the 
Medicare trust fund.
  There is a fundamental problem with the Medicare+Choice program, and 
it goes well beyond the argument that we need to address pull-outs of 
managed care plans. Instead, we need a fundamental re-consideration of 
how this program operates. Instead, this Republican bill is throwing 
yet another $34 billion into the program.
  What are we getting for this $34 billion? There is no guarantee that 
plans will not drop out of communities or Medicare altogether. There is 
no guarantee that they will put new money toward maintaining benefits 
rather than shoring up their bottom lines. Where is the accountability 
for $34 billion?
  Time and time again in the Congress, you have to question which party 
is truly about fiscal responsibility. This partisan Republican drafted 
bill certainly does not reflect such responsibility.
  To pay HMOs all of this money with no accountability, what was 
dropped or lost?
  Dramatically cut by 72 percent was the Medicaid disproportionate 
share hospital (DSH) program from the levels passed in a bipartisan 
mark-up in the House Commerce Committee. That bipartisan legislation, 
introduced by Chairman Bliley and Ranking Member Dingell, incorporated 
provisions from legislation introduced by Representatives Whitfield, 
Bilbray, and myself. That legislation corrected a $10.4 billion cut to 
the Medicaid DSH program over five years. It prevents further cuts to 
the Medicaid DSH program in FY 2001 and well into the future.
  In sharp contrast, the partisan Republican bill before us only 
protects the program in FY 2001 and FY 2002 and that dramatically cuts 
funding to states and our nation's safety net hospitals in FY 2003. The 
effect is a 72 percent cut from what was included in bipartisan 
Commerce Committee package.
  In the State of California, hospitals will lose $143 million in 
federal Medicaid DSH funding in FY 2003. This legislation imposes a 
horrible cliff effect on hospitals and a fix that would require $4 
billion over 5 years. Don't put off this issue on the 107th Congress. 
Address it today.
  What other provisions were dropped or left out in order to give 
Medicare HMO's the bulk of the money?
  Dropped were bipartisan proposals to provide health coverage options 
to legal immigrant children and pregnant women, which was included in 
my bill, the Improved Maternal and Children's Health Coverage Act.
   Dropped was another provision from that bill to improve enrollment 
for uninsured children in schools and other sites.
   Not included were provisions to extend coverage to pregnant women 
through CHIP--resulting in bizarre public policy that provides prenatal 
care just to teenagers that get pregnant prior to age 18 but cuts them 
off once them become adults. If you are concerned about infant 
mortality, mother-to-child HIV transmission and a number of other 
maternal and child health issues, this is something that we should pass 
this year.
   Dropped was the Family Opportunity Act, which would have improved 
work incentives for parents of children with disabilities who cannot 
access private health insurance.
   Dropped was a provision to extend the transitional health coverage 
for people leaving welfare for work.
   Dropped was provision to extend Medicare coverage for people with 
Lou Gehrig's disease, whose life expectancy following diagnosis is 
often shorter than the waiting period.
   Not included was a $3,000 tax credit for people with long-term care 
needs or their family caregivers.
   Not included were provisions to provide Medicare and Medicaid 
smoking cessation counseling to help out nation's elderly and low-
income populations stop smoking and extend their lives.
   Not included was anything to address the need for a Medicare 
prescription drug benefit.
  What's more, this bill omits common sense language that was included 
in the Commerce Committee's mark to improve Medicare coverage of 
diabetes outpatient self-management training authorized in the 1997 
BBA. This simple technical fix would allow the Health Care Financing 
Administration to recognize state diabetes education programs already 
established by nearly a dozen states so that they may continue to 
provide that service for beneficiaries.
  As it is written currently, the 1997 BBA provision forces HCFA to 
slash the number of diabetes education programs eligible for Medicare 
by setting unreasonable credentialing standards, which do not recognize 
the state programs. HCFA estimates that only 750 programs would meet 
the new standards next year. Hundreds of programs currently in 
operation would be forced to stop serving Medicare patients. This is 
not the expansion of service that was envisioned in 1997. The technical 
fix makes sense; it is a low-cost, bi-partisan provision, yet it has 
vanished as a casualty of partisan wrangling and Medicare beneficiaries 
with diabetes will be the victims.
  In addition, there are a growing number of reports across this nation 
about how states have failed to spend their CHIP allotments due to poor 
outreach and enrollment and state bureaucratic barriers. In a number of 
GAO reports during the past three years, a number of these bureaucratic 
barriers have been identified and highlighted.
  We now have three years of experience with this program and a number 
of reports that all point to the bureaucratic barriers that prevent 
children from gaining access to coverage, including unnecessarily 
lengthy and complex application forms and enrollment processes.
  For these reasons, I firmly believe we should consider comprehensive 
legislation in this area this year to address the problems we all know 
to be true with the CHIP program. Rather than enact the $1.9 billion 
reduction in CHIP that the Senate Appropriations Committee originally 
proposed or to reallocate money among the states, we should fix the 
problems. While I understand that some may not want to address this 
issue out of concern that it highlights particularly terrible 
enrollment in Texas, it is the 10 million uninsured children in this 
country that are left suffering.
  And finally, I would also like to highlight an additional concern 
with the impact that BBA may have on Medicare beneficiaries with regard 
to their access to vital ambulance services. The BBA required HCFA to 
place ambulance service providers on a Medicare fee schedule through a 
negotiated rulemaking process. The problem was the BBA required the 
process to be conducted in a budget neutral fashion, so HCFA was 
precluded from addressing the actual costs of such services in creating 
the new few schedule.
  Unfortunately, a recent study by Project Hope, an esteemed health 
care think tank, indicates that ambulance services providers may face a 
profound shortfall in Medicare payments. It is essential that these 
providers are fairly reimbursed so that Medicare beneficiaries, and all 
Americans, are guaranteed that the 911 system is protected and there 
when needed.
  Certainly, there are a number of provisions in this legislation that 
I strongly support, including:
  Language from may bill, the Medicaid Safety Net Hospital Preservation 
Act, which prevents further pending Medicaid disproportionate share 
hospital (DSH) cuts to states and our nation's safety net hospitals.
  Language to help our nation's community health centers receive 
adequate payments through the Medicaid program.
  Language to address hospital Medicare bad debt payments, which comes 
from legislation I introduced with Representative Greenwood.
  Language to fund diabetes research at levels of $70 million in fiscal 
years 2001 and 2002 and $100 million in fiscal year 2003.
  Those provisions and others in the bill related to hospitals, nursing 
homes, home health agencies, others are fantastic and should be 
supported. However, they all come from language passed in the 
bipartisan Commerce Committee mark-up on September 27, 2000. 
Unfortunately, we can do much better. Our nation's elderly and low-
income citizens deserve it.
  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, this Member rises today to express his 
support for the conference report for H.R. 2614 which includes

[[Page 24965]]

tax relief, restoration of Medicare funding, and an increase in the 
minimum wage.
  This Member would like to emphasize the following reasons, among many 
others, for supporting this legislation.
  First, this legislation addresses retirement savings by allowing 
workers to save more. In particular, it increases the current 
individual retirement account contribution limit from $2,000 to $5,000 
phased in over three years. In addition, it increases the contribution 
limit on employer-sponsored 401(k) plans from $10,500 to $15,000.
  Second, the conference report for H.R. 2614 would assist taxpayers 
with the costs of health care. In particular, it would do the 
following: provide a deduction for long-term care premiums if the 
taxpayer pays more than 50 percent of the premiums; and provide a 100 
percent deduction for health insurance for self-employed individuals to 
become effective in 2001 (under current law, it reaches full 
deductibility in 2003).
  Third, the conference report for H.R. 2614 will provide small 
business tax relief. In particular, this legislation increases the 
phased-in business meal expense deduction. Furthermore, it repeals 
current law which prohibits a business owner from spreading the capital 
gains tax payment over the life of the installment note. This Member 
has been contacted by numerous small business owners who support this 
repeal since they desire to sell their business over a period of years 
and yet still remain involved in the business.
  Fourth, the conference report for H.R. 2614 provides essential tax 
assistance for affordable housing. In fact, it increases the highly 
successful Federal low income housing tax credit from $1.25 per capita 
to $1.75 per capita by 2002. This tax credit provides an essential 
incentive to developers to construct affordable housing. In addition, 
this legislation increases the private activity bond cap from the 
current $50 per capita to $75 per capita and it increases the small 
state bond cap limit from $150 million to $225 million by 2002. The 
private activity bond cap in Nebraska provides tax exempt financing 
for, among other things, single and multifamily housing.
  Fifth, this measure maintains the current tax treatment of foreign 
sales corporation (FSC) beneficiaries in a manner that the United 
States believes to be World Trade Organization compliant. If this 
provision had not have been included by November 1, 2000, it would have 
been especially damaging to U.S. farmers and ranchers.
  Sixth, this Member strongly supports the Medicare Balanced Budget Act 
provisions of this legislation. Communities within the state of 
Nebraska greatly rely upon its rural health system. The viability of 
the town often revolves around the hospital and access to health care. 
Increased funding for rural disproportionate share hospitals (DSH), the 
extension of the Medicare Dependent Hospital (MDH) program in rural 
areas, and increased access to telehealth medicine will help assure the 
continued viability of rural health facilities. Nebraska also has the 
greatest number of critical access hospitals (CAH) in the country and 
some specific provisions will also benefit these hospitals. These 
provisions include the reduction of out-of-pocket costs for 
beneficiaries receiving clinical lab tests and the expansion of access 
to ambulance services in CAH.
  Lastly, this legislation increases the minimum wage from $5.15 to 
$6.15 over two years. A relatively small number of Nebraskans now work 
for less than $6.15 an hour as it is, but they are often teenagers or 
employees of very small businesses. This Member believes that an 
increase in the minimum wage can at least be partially justified by the 
relatively minor decline in purchasing power of the minimum-wage 
dollars since the rate was last increased in 1997. Of course, this 
Member would have preferred that the increase be spaced over three 
years, rather than two (and this Member unsuccessfully voted to do so 
on March 9, 2000), as this would have more closely matched the impact 
of inflation on the value of the minimum wage. Moreover, this Member 
believes the aforementioned tax relief measure will help at least a 
large number of small businesses off-set increased costs due to the 
increased minimum wage.
  Therefore, for these reasons, and many others, this Member urges his 
colleagues to support the conference report for H.R. 2614.
  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 2614, which 
includes the so-called Medicare givebacks legislation.
  There are some good things in this bill. It includes an increase in 
the minimum wage over two years. It contains several incentives for 
Americans to save for their retirement. And it expands economic 
development assistance to underserved communities.
  But for as much as I support these provisions, I cannot support this 
bill. As so many of us know, the reductions in Medicare payments 
mandated by the Balanced Budget Act in 1997 hit our hospitals very 
hard. and frankly, the BBA relief measure that Congress passed last 
year was just not enough.
  Our hospitals nationwide are hemorrhaging from the impact of Medicare 
cuts. They need help to recover from these losses and cope with our 
rapidly changing health care system. Even with significant cuts in 
personnel, many hospitals are experiencing major deficits. And the 
plight of teaching and high-need hospitals is especially grim.
  That's why I introduced H.R. 3580, the Hospital Preservation and 
Equity Act, which would provide hospitals an adequate adjustment for 
the cost of caring and would restore the inflationary update for 
hospitals for the last two years of the BBA. I am not the only one who 
thinks this is critical--321 of my colleagues have cosponsored this 
legislation. These co-sponsors, our colleagues, come from every corner 
of this country, urban, rural, and suburban. They are Republicans and 
Democrats, but they agree--our hospitals need these inflationary 
payments in full, In fact, MedPac--the Congress's advisor on Medicare 
payment policy--has called for inflationary payment above the full 
level authorized now.
  But despite the overwhelming support for H.R. 3580, the Medicare 
givebacks language in this bill does not provide the needed two years 
of relief. And this bill shortchanges our hospitals in other ways as 
well. Instead of keeping the Indirect Medical Education adjustment at 
6.5 percent for at least two years, this bill enacts further cuts in 
2001, 2002, and 2003.
  Our hospitals are our lifeblood, and they need our help. Sadly, this 
bill fails to provide adequate relief to these ailing facilities. We 
can and we must do more. I urge my colleagues to do the right thing and 
provide meaningful relief to our hospitals.
  Mr. NEAL of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I regret that I have to speak 
out against this tax bill. That regret comes from the fact that it has 
been put together in a very clever manner. For me, it cloaks a number 
of very good provisions of secondary importance, with some more 
important items that are simply bad policy. I have generally found that 
when you are weighing all the items in a tax bill, you have to be 
particularly sensitive to bad policy because once a provision gets into 
the tax code, you can rarely get it out. On the other hand, the good 
items will resurface again in the next bill, either during the next few 
days or next year.
  I like very much the 100 percent deduction for the self-employed, a 
large number of the pension provisions, the housing provisions 
especially the immediate increase in the low income housing tax credit 
and the private activity bond cap for first time buyers, and the 
insurance provisions, among many other provisions. Repeal of section 
809 and section 815 are examples of the type of clean-up of the tax 
code that we need to do more of, and I congratulate the majority party 
for including these items.
  Nevertheless, there is bad policy contained in a number of items of 
the bill that will have an adverse impact on average Americans. If a 
reasonable test of a provision is that it does something good, as 
opposed to simply doing something, then some key provision of this bill 
fail.
  For example, the health deduction provides an incentive for healthy 
individuals to drop group health insurance. This drives up the cost of 
the group pool for everyone else, and thereby drives up the total cost 
of the system, while providing a minimum increase in coverage.
  Relaxing the arbitrage rules on school construction bonds provides an 
incentive for local governments to delay the construction of new 
classrooms for two additional years--not a good provision when you are 
enacting a school modernization program.
  And the many good, solid provisions of the pension bill are negated 
by a few provisions that provide an incentive to reduce pension 
coverage. If the retirement savings credit and the small business 
credits were included, at least there would be countervailing pressures 
to expand coverage for moderate income workers. But those incentives, 
while accepted by Senate Republicans, were rejected out of hand by 
House Republicans.
  So now we have to decide which way to go, yes or no. It would not be 
too hard to have crafted this bill to get a yes, but unfortunately 
there is enough bad policy in this bill to require a ``no'' vote. 
Perhaps this will produce a situation where the leadership on the other 
side of the aisle rethinks its decisions, and brings out an acceptable 
bill. I hope this is the case.
  Mr. BENTSEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Taxpayer 
Relief Act of 2000. I

[[Page 24966]]

am supporting this legislation because I believe that we must address 
several issues, including providing more funding for Medicare and 
Medicaid reimbursements to health care providers, helping more 
Americans to save for their retirement, increasing federal funding to 
rebuild our nation's schools, and investing in community revitalization 
efforts. Although I am disappointed that this legislation excludes 
certain tax and health provisions, I believe on balance that we must 
move forward on this effort. At this late date in the 106th Congress, I 
am concerned that this imperfect legislation will be the only 
opportunity to provide these vital tax and health benefits.
  I am particularly pleased that this legislation includes provisions 
to provide higher Medicare reimbursement for our nation's teaching 
hospitals. As the representative for the Texas Medical Center, the 
nation's largest medical center, providing this relief to teaching 
hospitals is critically important. Today, many of these teaching 
hospitals are facing financial difficulties because they are receiving 
lower reimbursements from managed care health plans, lower Medicare 
reimbursements due in part to the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, treating 
a larger number of uninsured patients, and insufficient support for 
their biomedical research which provides the cutting-edge treatments 
that patients need.
  This bill provides necessary higher reimbursements to hospitals. This 
measure provides a full Market Basket Index (MBI) update for the 
Prospective Payment System (PPS) reimbursement paid to hospitals 
beginning on April 1, 2001. It also provides an update of MBI minus .55 
percent for Fiscal Year 2002 and Fiscal Year 2003. Both of these 
provisions are improvements over current law. This bill also includes a 
provision to increase Indirect Medicare Education (IME) payments to 
teaching hospitals to an average of 6.5 percent for Fiscal Year 2001 
and 6.375 percent in Fiscal year 2002 and 5.5 percent in Fiscal Year 
2003 and subsequent years. These IME payments help teaching hospitals 
to pay for the indirect costs of training our nation's physicians. This 
bill also includes a provision to provide higher reimbursements for a 
hospital's resident amount to 85 percent of the national average. Under 
current law, all hospitals are eligible for at least 70 percent of the 
national average. This provision will help those hospitals, such as 
those as the Texas Medical Center, who have historically received lower 
per residency amount. This provision builds upon legislation which I 
have cosponsored (H.R. 1224) that would provide a full 100 percent per 
residency amount for all hospitals.
  This comprehensive package also includes improvements in the Medicaid 
and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) program. 
Although I am disappointed that the conference report eliminates an 
earlier provision based upon legislation that I had sponsored (H.R. 
1298) to expand the presumptive eligibility program, I am pleased that 
this Medicaid provision would permit the cost of presumptive 
eligibility programs to be deducted from the SCHIP appropriation 
instead of the Medicaid appropriation, without a subsequent offset. 
Under current law, there is a disincentive to conduct presumptive 
eligibility programs because states receive lower Medicaid funding if 
they use them. This provision will ensure that states receive higher 
SCHIP allocations to conduct their presumptive eligibility outreach 
programs. This legislation also includes higher Disproportionate Share 
Hospital (DSH) payments for those hospitals which treat a 
disproportionate share of uninsured and underserved patients. This 
provision would increase Medicaid DSH payments equal to their Fiscal 
Year 2000 DSH allotment plus a percentage change equal to the consumer 
price index for each year. This increase cannot exceed 12% of each 
state's total medical assistance payments. In Texas, where more than 25 
percent of our citizens do not have health insurance, the DSH program 
is vitally important to these hospitals which treat these patients. 
During the debate on the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, I fought to 
increase Medicaid DSH payments. This legislation builds upon this 
effort to ensure that our safety net hospitals get the funding they 
need to continue to provide quality health care to all Americans.
  This bill also includes provisions that ensure that the State of 
Texas can continue to utilize the State Children's Health Insurance 
Program (SCHIP) allotment for Fiscal Year 1998 and 1999. I am a strong 
supporter of the SCHIP program which was created as part of the 
Balanced Budget Act of 1997 because it will help many working families 
to provide health insurance for their children. There are currently 1.4 
million uninsured children in Texas who may benefit from this SCHIP 
program. Under current law, the State of Texas will forfeit up to $446 
million since the SCHIP program in Texas has only been available in 
recent months and therefore many children have not been signed up yet. 
This measure would correct this inequity by ensuring that Texas can 
reapply for these funds. Texas would be eligible to their allotment 
minus the amounts distributed to those 10 states which have spent their 
allotment multiplied by a ratio of the state's unspent funds as 
compared to the total amount of unspent funds. These redistributed 
funds will be available through Fiscal Year 2002.
  This legislation also includes necessary improvements to the 
preventive benefits provided to Medicare beneficiaries. This measure 
provides coverage for biennial pap smears and pelvic exams for all 
Medicare beneficiaries, effective July 1, 2001. This means that all 
women on Medicare will get the recommended screenings they need to 
detect cancer and get early treatment if necessary. It would provide 
annual glaucoma screening for high-risk individuals and individuals 
with diabetes. This legislation also includes colorectal screenings for 
all Medicare beneficiaries, instead of screenings for only high-risk 
individuals. Colorectal cancer can be effectively treated as long as 
patients learn about their cancers at early stages. This bill would 
also provide higher payments for mammograms and would encourage the use 
of new digital technologies that can detect cancer at earlier stages. 
This measure provides medical nutrition therapy for beneficiaries with 
diabetes and renal disease. As a cosponsor of legislation to provide 
Medicare coverage for medical nutrition therapy, I am pleased that we 
will extend this coverage to those Medicare beneficiaries who will 
benefit from this nutritional therapy. With better nutrition, we can 
help these patients with chronic diseases to stay healthy and reduce 
health care costs.
  This measure also provides other benefits for Medicare beneficiaries. 
It would reduce the copayments that Medicare beneficiaries are required 
to pay for outpatient procedures. Under current law, beneficiaries can 
pay up to 70 percent of hospital's charge of an outpatient procedure. 
This bill would cap the amount that Medicare beneficiaries are required 
to pay to the hospital inpatient deductible for this year. Currently, 
this hospital deductible is $776 per year. This bill also lowers the 
outpatient copayments to 60 percent of the hospital's charge for an 
outpatient procedure in January 2001 and dropping 5 percent lower each 
year to 40 percent in 2006. This legislation also includes a provision 
to eliminate the current 3-year time limitation for coverage of 
immunosuppressive drugs for those beneficiaries who receive an organ 
transplant. As a cosponsor of legislation to eliminate this time limit 
(H.R. 1115), I am pleased that Congress has acted to ensure that these 
lifesaving drugs are available to organ transplant patients. Without 
these immunosuppressive drugs, there is a danger that these Medicare 
patients will reject their donated organs.
  This legislation also includes a provision based upon legislation I 
sponsored (H.R. 854) that would require the Commissioner of the Social 
Security Administration (SSA) to conduct outreach efforts to identify 
individuals who may be eligible for the Medicaid payment of their 
Medicare premiums, copayments, and deductibles. This provision requires 
the SSA Commissioner to provide a list annually to each state's 
Medicaid agency with the names and addresses of people who may be 
eligible for this program. It is estimated that there are up to four 
million low and moderate income Americans who are eligible for, but not 
enrolled, in the Qualified Medicare Beneficiary (QMB) and Select Low 
Income Medicare Beneficiary (SLIMB) programs. This outreach program 
would help to identify these individuals and encourage them to 
participate in this cost sharing assistance program. The Social 
Security Administration (SSA) is a logical choice for providing this 
information since they already have income related information which 
they collect from each social security recipient and can identify those 
low and moderate income individuals who might benefit from this help.
  I am also pleased that this legislation includes necessary pension 
reforms that will help more Americans to save for the future. Mr. 
Speaker, as one who has consistently advocated for legislation to 
foster greater retirement security and, as one of the authors of H.R. 
352, pension legislation that was subsumed into this measure, I support 
H.R. 2614. This measure not only enhances retirement security by 
increasing the annual contribution limits for individual Retirement 
Accounts (IRAs) and provides ``catch-up'' provisions for older workers, 
but also eases the administrative burdens that keep small employers 
from offering pension plans.
  Despite the fact that unemployment is at an all-time low and incomes 
have risen to historical highs, we, as a nation, have an abysmally low 
savings rate of 3.8 percent of disposable personal income. Moreover, 
the percentage of

[[Page 24967]]

private sector workers covered by a pension plan has decreased by 2% 
from 45% in 1970 to 43% in 1990, which leaves Social Security as the 
main source of income for 80 percent of retirees. With the approaching 
retirement of nearly 76 million Baby Boomers, clearly the three-legged 
stool of retirement security is in jeopardy.
  In addition to an increase to the annual contribution limit for 
Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) to $5000 by 2003, indexed for 
inflation, H.R. 2614, much like the bill I offered with Mr. Blunt of 
Missouri, encourages small businesses to provide retirement plans for 
their employees. Time and again, small employers tell me that the 
expensive and complicated procedures to establish a plan keep them from 
offering plans. Not surprisingly, only 21 percent of all individuals 
employed by small businesses with less than 100 employees participate 
in an employer-sponsored plan, compared to 64 percent of those who work 
for businesses with more than 100 employees.
  H.R. 2614 would reduce plan costs and ease administrative burdens by 
streamlining a number of onerous pension regulations, lowering pension 
plan insurance premiums, simplifying top heavy rules, simplifying 
annual report requirements, and eliminating Internal Revenue Service 
(IRS) user fees for new plans. Moreover, H.R. 2614 recognizes American 
workers will hold several jobs during their working life by increasing 
portability for retirement savings and allowing workers to rollover 
investment in different pension plans.
  H.R. 2614 also promotes retirement savings by low and middle income 
by providing for a temporary non-refundable tax credit equal to the 
$2,000 maximum annual contribution for individual earning $25,000 or 
less and couples earning $50,000 or less. It also provides for a three-
year tax credit equal to 50% of the first $1,000 of expenses associated 
with the adoption of a qualified pension plan by a small business. 
Additionally, I would note that H.R. 2614 also establishes greater 
notice requirements for employers who convert their pension plan to a 
cash balance or similar hybrid plan, eliminating the potential for a 
participant's normal retirement benefit being ``worn-away'' by the 
conversion.
  Mr. Speaker, I am also pleased that H.R. 2614 provides for the 
national minimum wage to rise by a dollar to $6.15 over two years. The 
purchasing power of the minimum wage today is 21% less than in 1979. 
Under current law, a single mother of two, employed full-time, 40 hours 
per week for 52 weeks, earns $10,712, $3,200 below the poverty line. 
Work should be a bridge out of poverty but, unfortunately, too many 
full-time workers still live below the poverty line. We cannot truly 
reform our welfare system until we ensure that work pays more than 
welfare.
  Another aspect of H.R. 2614 that I support is the inclusion of 
provisions from legislation I voted in favor of in July 2000, the 
Community Renewal and New Markets Act of 2000, H.R. 4923. While the 
economic boom we currently enjoy has enriched the lives of many 
communities, there are still far too many that need reinvestment. In 
addition to creating nine new Empowerment Zones, H.R. 2614 provides for 
the designation of 40 ``renewal communities'' that would be eligible 
for an array of tax benefits including, immediate deductions of up to 
$35,000 for equipment purchased by small businesses, a 15% wage credit 
for each community resident a small business employs, expensing of 
certain environmental remediation costs associated with Brownfield 
cleanups, as well as Commercial Revitalization Deductions for taxpayers 
who rehabilitate or revitalize buildings located in a renewal 
community.
  Under the New Markets Tax Credit provision in H.R. 2614, investors in 
eligible funds would receive a tax credit worth more than 30% of the 
amount invested and would take a 5% credit for the first three years of 
investment, and 6% for the next four years. The New Markets Tax Credit 
would be widely available on a competitive basis to eligible entities 
serving low- and moderate-income communities in census tracts with 
poverty rates of at least 20% or median family income which does not 
exceed 80% of the area income. H.R. 2614 also would establish a new 
class of venture capital funds that target a lower rate of return and 
provide more hands-on management assistance to their small business 
portfolio investments, New Markets Venture Capital Firms (NMVC). The 
Community Revitilazation provisions of H.R. 2614 are targeted and have 
the potential to make a very real difference in communities throughout 
this nation.
  For all of these reasons, I am supporting this bill. Although I would 
have preferred to include more provisions and would have excluded other 
provisions, I believe that on the whole that this comprehensive package 
of provisions represents what can be achieved today. I believe that we 
need to be realistic that this compromise legislation is likely the 
only option available for this year and I urge my colleagues to support 
this legislation.
  Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2614 contains some very laudable tax cut 
measures which I strongly support. However, the bill also contains some 
very troubling provisions, provisions which have no place in what ought 
to be purely tax relief legislation. As a result, this bill represents 
an eleventh-hour political compromise which makes politicians feel good 
but does more harm than good for the American people.
  Many Members, including myself, have worked hard to bring some 
measure of tax relief to American families this year. We worked to pass 
meaningful bills which would have eliminated the marriage penalty and 
eliminated the harmful estate tax. We worked to increase deductions for 
health care expenses. We worked to increase the tax-deductible amounts 
individuals can contribute to their IRA and pension plans. We worked 
for these tax cuts because we know that American families pay too much 
in taxes. Tax relief has been, and should be, our guiding principle.
  Accordingly, I strongly endorse many of the provisions in this bill. 
I fully support the increased IRA and pension plan deduction amounts, 
which will benefit virtually all Americans. Tax-deductible and tax-
deferred savings incentives represent the very best kind of tax reforms 
this Congress can make. Not only do Americans pay less in taxes with an 
increased deduction, they also have an increased incentive to 
accumulate retirement savings.
  Another worthwhile portion of this bill addresses the needs of rural 
hospitals, which were unfairly singled out for excessive reductions in 
Medicare reimbursements by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. While 
Congress deserves a share of the blame, most of the problems 
experienced by rural health care providers are the result of flawed 
implementation of the Act by the Health Care Financing Administration 
(HCFA). This administration has decimated rural health care in order to 
artificially prolong the life of the Medicare trust fund, while 
avoiding reforms that would give seniors more control over their health 
care decisions. The administration should not play political games with 
Medicare trust funds at the expense of rural hospitals. By doing so, it 
has violated the promise of quality health care made to senior 
taxpayers in rural areas.
  Mr. Speaker, I also am pleased that this bill extends the Medical 
Savings Accounts (MSA) program created in 1996. MSAs and generous 
health care tax deductions are critical to preserving health care 
freedom. Federal policies removing consumer control over health care 
dollars inevitably have led to increased decision making by HMOs and 
federal bureaucrats.
  We must restore individual control over health care dollars, and MSAs 
coupled with health care tax credits and deductions are an important 
step in the right direction. MSAs and health care tax deductions lower 
health care costs without sacrificing quality by motivating patients to 
negotiate for the highest quality care at a reasonable price.
  Similarly, today's small business tax relief measures are 
commendable. We place a huge regulatory and tax burden on our nation's 
small employers, many of which find it difficult simply to comply with 
the tax laws. I support any efforts to reduce taxes and regulations on 
our small entrepreneurial employers.
  Unfortunately, these positive tax relief provisions are outweighed by 
other measures in today's mixed bag legislation, measures which have 
been agreed to only because many Members want to claim they have passed 
a ``tax relief'' bill before they go home. The administration has 
thwarted many of our tax relief efforts through the veto process, and 
we apparently have decided to take whatever tax measures we can get, 
regardless of the price. So now we find ourselves in a position where 
we cobble together some less sweeping tax relief proposals which the 
administration will accept, and we put them in a larger bill which 
contains some very bad measures favored by the administration. Before 
we tout today's bill, however, we ought to be honest with our 
constituents about the real nature of this last-minute compromise.
  The small business tax relief in this bill is more than outweighed by 
the provisions raising the federally-mandated minimum wage. While I 
certainly understand the motivation to help lower wage workers, the 
reality is that a minimum wage hike hurts lower income Americans the 
most. When an employer cannot afford to pay a higher wage, the employer 
has no choice but to hire less workers. As a result, young people with 
fewer skills and less experience find it harder to obtain an entry-
level job. Raising the minimum wage actually reduces opportunities and 
living standards for the very people the administration claims will 
benefit

[[Page 24968]]

from this legislation! It's time to stop fooling ourselves about the 
basic laws of economics, and realize that Congress cannot legislate a 
higher standard of living. Congress should not allow itself to believe 
that the package of small business tax cuts will fully compensate 
businesses and their employees for the damage inflicted by a minimum 
wage hike. Congress is not omnipotent; we cannot pretend to strike a 
perfect balance between tax cuts and wage mandates so that no American 
businesses or workers are harmed. It may make my colleagues feel good 
to raise the minimum wage, but the real life consequences of this bill 
will be felt by those who can least afford diminished job 
opportunities.
  We also make a mistake when we rush to change our domestic tax laws 
to comply with the ruling of an international body. Nobody in Congress 
or the administration wants to talk about it, but this is the first 
time in the history of our nation that we have changed our laws because 
an international body told us to do so. We are not considering this 
legislation because American citizens or corporations lobbied for it. 
We are considering it solely because of the demands of the WTO 
appellate panel, which agreed with EU complaints about our corporate 
income tax laws. We created the Foreign Sales Corporation rules back in 
the 1980s, but now the EU has decided our law exempting a small portion 
of foreign source income from corporate taxes represents a ``subsidy.'' 
We have plenty of federal subsidies in this country, but the FSC tax 
treatment assuredly is not one of them. FSCs do not receive a subsidy--
no tax dollars are collected from taxpayers and given to FSCs. The FSC 
rules simply permit the parent corporation to pay less taxes on its 
foreign income. Most EU countries don't tax their corporations on 
foreign income at all! So the EU complaint that the FSC represents a 
subsidy is ridiculous.
  This measure clearly demonstrates how our membership in the WTO 
undermines our national sovereignty. I have warned this body that the 
WTO does not promote true free trade, but rather enforces politically 
influenced ``managed trade.'' I warned this body that our agreement to 
abide by WTO rulings would force us to change our domestic laws. I 
warned this body that our participation in the WTO was 
unconstitutional. Yet Members scoffed at this idea. Members of the Ways 
and Means committee said it was ``unthinkable'' that the U.S. Congress 
would change our nation's laws because of an order by the WTO. We were 
told that we had to join or else we would lose the international 
``trade wars.'' Today we see our sovereignty clearly undermined, and at 
the same time we stand on the brink of a retaliatory trade war by the 
EU. So the WTO has given us the worst of all worlds.
  We should not change our tax laws at the behest of any body other 
than the U.S. Congress. If we want to help American businesses, we 
should simply stop taxing foreign source income. Today's FSC measure 
will not appease the EU; they already have indicated that the House 
version of this bill is unsatisfactory to them. Worst of all, this 
measure gives the President further unconstitutional executive order 
powers to make changes when demanded by the WTO in the future. Never 
mind that the legislative power is supposed to reside solely with 
Congress. We simply cede our legislative authority to the WTO when we 
pass this measure, and it's shameful that it likely will go unnoticed 
by the American people. We ought to tell them exactly what we are doing 
to national sovereignty when we pass this last-minute mixed bag of tax 
measures.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the leadership for bringing this 
conference report to the floor. This conference report includes many 
important provisions to spur individual retirement savings.
  Most importantly, the report includes language that increases the IRA 
contribution limit, a proposal I have worked on for several years. The 
popularity of this issue is evidenced by the more than 222 bipartisan 
members who cosponsored my IRA legislation.
  For years, millions of Americans have relied on Individual Retirement 
Accounts to help save for a secure retirement. However, despite their 
past success, IRAs are in danger of becoming obsolete because inflation 
is destroying much of their value. Since 1981 the limit on IRAs has 
been frozen. Had it simply kept pace with inflation, Americans would 
now be able to contribute $5,068 instead of only $2,000.
  If IRAs are to continue to be a real help for people as they plan for 
their retirement years, it is past time for the federal government to 
allow higher contributions.
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in reluctant 
opposition to this bill. I am a staunch supporter of numerous 
provisions in this legislation, and have a solid voting record in 
support of many of these provisions in past measures. However, because 
language was tucked into this bill at the last minute that would 
overturn Oregon's assisted suicide law, I have no choice but to vote 
against it.
  I gave people my word that I would not come back to Congress and vote 
to overturn what they have twice voted for. And as much as I strongly 
support the tax relief and health care language in this legislation, I 
cannot swallow the poison pill provision that would overturn Oregon's 
law. Where I come from, a person's word still means something and I 
intend to keep mine.
  This legislation contains solid small business tax reductions, 
pension reform, and help for rural communities for health care 
improvements. I enthusiastically support these items and was fully 
prepared to vote for them. As a small business owner, and having served 
five years on a community hospital board, I understand the problems 
facing our communities and believe these provisions would be of great 
benefit to them. But to vote for them would mean I would also vote in a 
way that was against what I had promised. That's something I just 
cannot and will not do.
  The provision to overturn Oregon's law only came to light shortly 
before the House began debating this bill. It was a complete and 
unwelcome surprise. And it has no business being tacked onto an 
otherwise sound piece of tax reform and Medicare enhancement 
legislation.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I strongly oppose HR 2614, the bill being 
considered on the House floor today with the innocuous title of ``the 
Certified Development Company Program Improvements.'' Those provisions 
are far surpassed by major controversial tax, Medicare and Medicaid 
proposals that have been added to it by the Republican leadership 
without any consultation with our side of the aisle or the 
Administration.
  This bill is a stellar example of what goes wrong when the 
legislative process is discarded and replaced with closed-door 
negotiations among a few select members of the majority party. And, it 
clearly spotlights the wrongheaded priorities of the Republican party.
  On both the health front and the tax front, the bill before us today 
is a disgrace. The provisions of this legislation squander real 
opportunities to provide assistance to the families in our country who 
need the most help and instead lavish funds on those who need it least. 
It also provides gifts to industries that have thwarted our efforts to 
pass a Patient's Bill of Rights, a Medicare prescription drug benefit, 
and would prefer not to see an increase in the minimum wage.
  On the Medicare front, nearly 40% of the spending is directed to the 
HMO industry when only 16% of Medicare beneficiaries are even enrolled 
in Medicare HMOs. HMOs will get $11 billion in new funds over 5 years 
and more than $34 billion over 10 years. Yet, there are no real 
accountability provisions that require these HMOs to commit to serve 
beneficiaries for a longer period of time or to maintain a specific 
level of benefits in exchange for these significant new dollars. That 
is wrong.
  On top of lacking real accountability, subsidies of this level to 
HMOs simply defy the facts. The non-partisan General Accounting Office 
has shown time and time again that Medicare HMOs are overpaid for the 
patients they enroll. The latest data shows that Medicare spent $5.2 
billion in 1998 that would not have been spent if those beneficiaries 
had been enrolled in fee for service Medicare rather than the 
Medicare+Choice program. And this is for a program that was created in 
1997 under the guise that it would save money and be the long-term 
solution to Medicare's solvency problems.
  The Administration and many of us in Congress had urged that these 
HMO subsidies be lowered, but that request fell on deaf ears. That 
shouldn't surprise any of us since the HMO industry is financially 
backing the Republican health care agenda through a media campaign 
directed at issues and candidates. The efforts of this industry alone 
were the most significant factor that halted Congress from enacting a 
real, enforceable Patients' Bill of Rights this year.
  However, even worse than the largess of the rewards to HMOs is the 
first that those dollars squeeze out needed funds to other segments of 
Medicare--particularly beneficiaries.
  The most important improvement we could make for beneficiaries in 
Medicare would be the addition of a Medicare prescription drug benefit. 
The fact is this will be our only Medicare legislation this year. This 
bill was our last opportunity to deliver a Medicare prescription drug 
benefit for seniors this year. Instead, there is nothing in here that 
helps the millions of Medicare beneficiaries without drug coverage.

[[Page 24969]]

  Earlier versions of this legislation reported by the Ways and Means 
Health Subcommittee and the Commerce Committee included numerous 
beneficiary provisions that would have made tangible improvements in 
Medicare benefits for real people. Provisions that Republicans have 
dropped during their closed door negotiation include:
  Medicare coverage for victims of ALS, (Lou Gehrig's disease)--a bill 
sponsored by 282 members of the House,
  Improvements in Medicaid coverage of legal immigrants,
  Allowing low-income Medicare beneficiaries the dignity of being able 
to apply for financial assistance at Social Security Offices rather 
than welfare offices, and
  Providing states with greater flexibility to more easily enroll 
children in the CHIP program.
  In addition, there are numerous improvements for traditional Medicare 
providers that we have tried to get considered, but to no avail. 
Instead of funding HMOs, this legislation could have:
  Given greater relief to our nation's hospitals, home health agencies, 
and other traditional Medicare providers,
  Required nursing homes to implement programs to improve quality for 
our frail seniors who reside in these homes,
  Done more to assist hospice programs serve the needs of terminally 
ill beneficiaries.
  There are also egregious provisions included in this legislation for 
particular special interests. For example, the bill delays the Health 
Care Financing Administration's ability to pay more accurately for the 
few prescription drugs it now covers--a gift of at least $50 million to 
a drug industry that has been lying to the taxpayers about their true 
cost of sales. These are windfalls to the pharmaceutical industry pure 
and simple--and they come at the expense of patients.
  Several of the tax provisions included in this end-of-the-year 
monster of a bill include provisions that claim to provide access to 
health care for uninsured people in this country. Don't be fooled by 
the rhetoric. These tax provisions are nothing more than thinly-veiled 
attempts to further tax policies that benefit upper income Americans 
and do nothing for those in middle and lower incomes.
  The above the line tax deduction for people who purchase their own 
health insurance certainly sounds like it would expand coverage. But, 
because 93% of those without health insurance fall into the zero 
percent tax bracket or 15% tax bracket, this tax change does nothing to 
help them afford a health insurance policy. Those in the zero tax 
bracket get nothing from the change and those in the 15% bracket get 
only 15 cents on the dollar--not nearly enough to make a $6000 family 
health insurance policy suddenly affordable. In fact, 94% of this 
expensive program's cost goes to benefit people who already have health 
insurance. It barely expands ``access'' at all and it spends tens of 
billions of dollars not accomplishing its stated goal.
  Our nation faces an upcoming crisis on long term care costs. The tax 
changes proposed in this legislation do nothing to alter that fact.
  Long term care health insurance continues to be of questionable 
benefit at best. And, it is a product that only those with significant 
financial means can afford to purchase. So, like the tax deduction 
criticized above, this deduction will go mainly to people who could 
have afforded to purchase long-term care insurance with or without the 
tax benefit.
  It is nice that the Republicans are finally recognizing the very real 
problems facing caregivers for chronically ill family members at home. 
Unfortunately, they have once again chosen to deal with a very real 
problem for millions of American families and couples--many of them 
lower income--by providing a tax deduction. Of course, tax deductions 
provide the least help to those who pay the least taxes--the very 
people who need financial assistance the most. By refusing to provide a 
tax credit for caregivers--as the Administration and Democrats have 
urged--the Republicans have greatly reduced the value of this policy 
change for everyone outside of the upper income tax brackets.
  The many additional tax provisions in this bill are designed to help 
the CEO's who run the big companies--not the rank file Americans who 
work for the big companies.
  The school construction tax package falls $15 billion short of the 
necessary funding to see that our deteriorating schools are modernized 
and well-equipped so that our children can learn in a safe environment. 
The average American public school is over forty years and old and 
falling apart. Seventy-five percent of U.S. public schools report that 
they need funding in order to bring the building into good overall 
condition. The GOP doesn't see school construction as a dire need since 
they would prefer to see the public school system dismantled. The 
school construction funding level in this bill is unacceptable.
  In addition to ignoring the needs of our children, the Republican 
leadership has chosen to ignore the needs of the working men and women 
who will help to construct and modernize our schools. The Davis-Bacon 
Act has applied to contracts for public construction ``to which the 
United States or the District of Columbia is a party'' since 1931. The 
House Democrats insisted on providing prevailing wage protections in 
any school construction tax package that came to the House floor. In 
fact, we have already introduced a bipartisan school construction bill 
that includes the prevailing wage provisions, cosponsored by 228 House 
members--Democrats and Republicans. Once again, the GOP demonstrates 
that they care nothing about working Americans when they eliminated the 
prevailing wage protections for school construction.
  I was one of 25 members of the House of Representatives to vote 
against the pension tax bill the first time it was voted on. Not only 
did the bill completely neglect to provide any tax incentives to help 
lower-paid workers save for their retirement, but it actually 
eliminated non-discrimination rules designed to protect the rank and 
file worker. In hopes that the Senate would correct these egregious 
provisions, many of my colleagues voted for the bill anyway. The Senate 
Committee on Finance adopted provisions that would further weaken the 
non-discrimination rules--rules that protect against disproportionate 
pension benefits for higher-income workers. We should be strengthening 
these rules to ensure that all working Americans save for their 
retirement and middle-income earners have the same pension advantages 
as their corporate bosses.
  I commend my colleagues for including an increase in pension 
portability for workers who change jobs in the bill before us today. 
Workers don't remain at the same job over their careers and it is 
important that we not penalize workers for changing jobs. I also 
applaud my colleagues for seeing a need to provide relief on Section 
415 benefit limits. Benefit formulas in collectively bargained plans 
are not related to compensation. The current limits placed on multi-
employer pension plans unfairly reduce the pensions of low and middle-
income workers. Unfortunately, there aren't enough provisions in this 
bill to help low and middle income workers to outweigh the far too many 
provisions that will harm these same workers.
  Finally, I completely oppose the repeal, and replacement, of the 
Foreign Sales Corporation (FSC). The esoteric tax break is nothing more 
than corporate welfare for some of the nation's most profitable 
industries. The European Union has filed a complaint with the World 
Trade Organization (WTO) that the FSC is an export tax subsidy and 
therefore illegal under international trade laws. I completely agree. 
Yet instead of repealing the tax subsidy and complying with our 
international trade obligations, this bill seeks to remedy the FSC with 
a near exact replacement.
  The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy recently released a 
report that shows a rise in pretax corporate profits by a total of 23.5 
percent from 1996 through 1998. At the same time, corporate income tax 
revenues only rose by a mere 7.7 percent. In addition to the myriad of 
corporate tax deductions this Congress insists on expanding, programs 
such as the FSC can help explain the disparity in corporate profits and 
corporate income tax rates.
  The FSC helps subsidize some of the most profitable industries such 
as the pharmaceutical, tobacco and weapons export industries. Why 
should Congress help out the pharmaceutical industry if the industry 
insists on charging U.S. consumers more for prescription drugs than 
they charge in Europe? We shouldn't! The pharmaceutical industry sells 
prescription drugs in the U.S. at prices that are 190-400 percent 
higher than what they charge in Europe. The U.S. subsidizes the 
pharmaceutical industry by approximately $123 million per year through 
the FSC. This is unfair to the American taxpayer and must not be 
allowed to happen.
  The top 20 percent of FSC beneficiaries obtained 87 percent of the 
FSC benefit in 1998. The two largest FSC beneficiaries, General 
Electric and Boeing, received almost $750 million and $686 million in 
FSC benefits over 8 years, respectively. RJ Reynolds' FSC benefit 
represents nearly six percent of its net income while Boeing's FSC 
benefit represents twelve percent of its earnings!
  We must stop pandering to corporate interests and the wealthy. This 
bill does not have to be so weighted to the HMOs, drug companies, other 
big business, and those with upper incomes. We must help low and 
middle-income families obtain health care coverage and pay for 
prescription drugs. We can do this by enacting a responsible minimum 
wage bill, a

[[Page 24970]]

targeted tax bill, and a balanced Medicare/Medicaid package. H.R. 2614 
is a shameful piece of legislation that I encourage my colleagues to 
oppose.
  It would take an hour for the Republicans to fix this bill. They know 
what provisions we don't want in the bill and they know which ones we 
want inserted. Those changes would redirect this bill to the people who 
need the help--Medicare beneficiaries, traditional Medicare providers 
who serve them, and the millions of people struggling to earn incomes 
that allow them to provide for their families. Vote against this bill 
today.
  MR. CLAY. Mr. Speaker, I oppose this bill for many reasons. This bill 
fails to adequately address the critical need we have to renovate and 
modernize our public schools. It falls way short of the bipartisan 
Rangle/Johnson bill that would support nearly $25 billion in bonds over 
the next two years to help states and districts build and modernize up 
to 6,000 schools. It is shameful that in the era of budget surplus we 
cannot make a decent investment in our public school buildings. Over 
one-third of all schools need extensive repairs. The average school 
building is 42 years old. Beyond that, a record of 52.7 million 
children are enrolled in elementary and secondary schools, and the 
number will increase by almost a half of million a year. By 2003, this 
will mean we need to build another 2,400 schools just to keep pace with 
student enrollment.
  This bill also drops critical Davis-Bacon wage protections contained 
in the bipartisan Rangle/Johnson bill. This means working families who 
help build the schools, and others who work in the community will be 
significantly shortchanged on wages and benefits. It also means that 
communities will be shortchanged by substandard construction of 
schools. This Congress should be about lifting hard-working families up 
in the era of prosperity, not driving wages and benefits into the 
ground.
  I also want to note that, once again, the Majority has included a 
minimum wage increase in a tax bill filed with poison pills. This 
scheme allows the Majority to claim they're for a minimum wage 
increase, while knowing full well they've blocked it by combining it 
with a special interest tax bill that can't become law. Let's be clear 
what this means. Democrats in Congress are for a minimum wage increase 
and would take action to make it happen. Republicans in Congress want 
to say they're for the minimum wage increase, while actively blocking 
its passage.
  I urge a no vote on this bill.
  MR. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, improving retirement security has been a 
top priority of our Committee and of this Congress. We must expand 
access to private pension plans and make innovations that will maximize 
every American's opportunity for a safe, secure retirement. We are 
committed to strengthening the retirement security of workers and their 
families by expanding private pension coverage and protecting their 
pensions and retirement savings.
  I want to address the important pension reform provisions contained 
in the conference report before us. It includes 22 provisions from H.R. 
1102, the Comprehensive Retirement Security and Pension Reform Act, 
reported out of the Education and Workforce Committee on July 14, 1999 
by a bipartisan voice vote.
  These reforms will directly improve the retirement security of 
millions of American workers by expanding small business retirement 
plans, allowing workers to save more, making pensions more secure, and 
cutting the red tape that has hamstrung employers who want to establish 
pension plans for their employees. The ERISA reforms include: granting 
relief from excessive PBGC premiums for new small business plans; 
accelerating the vesting of workers' accounts; repealing and modifying 
a wide range of unnecessary and outdated rules and regulations; 
providing more frequent benefits statements to workers; requiring 
enhanced disclosure and other protections when future pension benefits 
are reduced (as in the case of conversion to a cash balance plan); and 
repealing the so-called ``full funding limit'' that arbitrarily limits 
defined benefit plan funding to a less than actuarially sound level.
  I am very pleased at the bipartisan nature of these pension 
provisions. The legislation reported out of our committee has a broad 
spectrum of support, and subcommittee chairman John Boehner has been a 
leader in this Congress on pension reform. He has maintained this 
bipartisanship during his fine stewardship of the bill through our 
committee.
  Pensions provide a needed backstop to our Social Security system for 
lower and middle-income workers--meaning the difference between 
retirement subsistence and real retirement security for millions. Fully 
77% of current pension participants are middle and lower income 
workers. By taking action to expand pension availability this year, we 
will help those workers who are most in need of secure retirement 
savings.
  I urge Members support for these changes that will improve the 
retirement years of American workers.
  Strengthening our private, employer-based pension system is a 
critical issue for all Americans--especially the 76 million Baby 
Boomers who are nearing retirement age. This legislation increases 
retirement security for millions of Americans by strengthening that 
``third leg'' of retirement security--our pension system. Today we take 
an important bipartisan step towards ensuring that American workers 
enjoy their golden years comfortable and secure.


                             General Leave

  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and 
includes extraneous material on H.R. 2614.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). Is there objection to the 
request of the gentleman from Missouri?
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time has expired.
  Without objection, the previous question is ordered on the conference 
report.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the conference report.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 237, 
nays 174, answered ``present'' 1, not voting 21, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 560]

                               YEAS--237

     Aderholt
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barcia
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bentsen
     Bereuter
     Berkley
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bishop
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Brady (TX)
     Bryant
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Canady
     Cannon
     Capps
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Coble
     Coburn
     Collins
     Combest
     Condit
     Cook
     Cooksey
     Cox
     Cramer
     Crane
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Davis (VA)
     Deal
     DeLay
     DeMint
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Dooley
     Doolittle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Edwards
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Everett
     Ewing
     Fletcher
     Foley
     Fossella
     Fowler
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     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
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Isakson
     Istook
     Jenkins
     Johnson (CT)
     Jones (NC)
     Kasich
     Kelly
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kuykendall
     LaHood
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     LoBiondo
     Lucas (KY)
     Lucas (OK)
     Luther
     Maloney (CT)
     Manzullo
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCrery
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller, Gary
     Minge
     Moore
     Moran (KS)
     Morella
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Ose
     Oxley
     Pease
     Peterson (MN)
     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)
     Sabo
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaffer
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shows
     Simpson
     Sisisky
     Skeen
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Souder
     Spence
     Stabenow
     Stearns
     Sununu
     Sweeney
     Talent
     Tancredo
     Tauscher
     Tauzin
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thompson (CA)
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Toomey
     Traficant
     Upton
     Vitter
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Weygand
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson
     Wise
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                               NAYS--174

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allen
     Andrews
     Archer
     Baca
     Baird
     Baldacci
     Baldwin
     Barrett (WI)
     Becerra
     Berman
     Berry
     Blumenauer
     Bonior

[[Page 24971]]


     Borski
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Capuano
     Cardin
     Carson
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Conyers
     Costello
     Coyne
     Cummings
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Forbes
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Frost
     Gejdenson
     Gephardt
     Gonzalez
     Green (TX)
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     Hastings (FL)
     Hill (IN)
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hoeffel
     Holden
     Hooley
     Hoyer
     Inslee
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     John
     Johnson, E.B.
     Jones (OH)
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennedy
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind (WI)
     Kleczka
     Kucinich
     LaFalce
     Lampson
     Lantos
     Larson
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Maloney (NY)
     Markey
     Mascara
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Menendez
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller, George
     Mink
     Moakley
     Mollohan
     Moran (VA)
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Pelosi
     Phelps
     Pickett
     Pomeroy
     Price (NC)
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Rivers
     Rodriguez
     Rothman
     Roybal Allard
     Rush
     Salmon
     Sanchez
     Sanders
     Sandlin
     Sanford
     Sawyer
     Schakowsky
     Scott
     Serrano
     Sherman
     Shuster
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Stark
     Stenholm
     Strickland
     Stump
     Stupak
     Tanner
     Taylor (MS)
     Thurman
     Tierney
     Towns
     Turner
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Walden
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Weiner
     Wexler
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Wynn

                        ANSWERED ``PRESENT''--1

       
     Paul
       

                             NOT VOTING--21

     Blagojevich
     Bliley
     Brady (PA)
     Campbell
     Chenoweth-Hage
     Crowley
     Danner
     Franks (NJ)
     Johnson, Sam
     Klink
     Lazio
     Martinez
     McCollum
     McIntosh
     Metcalf
     Packard
     Payne
     Peterson (PA)
     Spratt
     Thompson (MS)
     Waxman

                          ____________________


                              {time}  1722

  Mr. KINGSTON and Mr. SHADEGG changed their vote from ``nay'' to 
``yea.''
  So the conference report was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________