[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 7]
[House]
[Pages 9298-9307]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



MOTION TO GO TO CONFERENCE ON H.R. 1836, ECONOMIC GROWTH AND TAX RELIEF 
                       RECONCILIATION ACT OF 2001

  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to section 2 of House Resolution 
142, I offer a motion.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Thomas moves that the House take from the Speaker's 
     table H.R. 1836, with a Senate amendment thereto, disagree to 
     the Senate amendment, and agree to the request of the Senate 
     for a conference thereon.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) 
is recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I have no problem at all debating the issue of energy. 
My understanding was we had an agreement in which one individual and 
then a second individual was going to be allowed to participate. No one 
communicated to this side of the aisle that there were going to be 
additional people participating.
  My understanding is that this place can only function when people 
operate on the agreements that they reach.
  Mr. Speaker, I have more than a willing opportunity to discuss any 
issue under the motion to instruct in which time is divided equally on 
either side, but under a reservation on a unanimous consent, the 
agreement that we had reached was violated by the other side. I believe 
we should move forward.
  Ms. KILPATRICK. Mr. Speaker, today, I rise in opposition to the 
motion to go to conference on H.R. 1836 the so-called reconciliation 
measure considered last week. In the House this measure was considered 
with little notice, without the consultation with, nor input from, the 
Democratic Party. This measure was crafted in the dead of the night, 
behind closed doors and now we are instructed to vote to send it to 
Conference.
  I say vote no on the motion to go to conference on H.R. 1836. This 
measure was reintroduced under the cover of a reconciliation bill in 
order to deprive the power of the minority in the Senate. The American 
people should ask themselves: Why couldn't the Republicans Leadership 
bring this bill up under normal procedures? Why did they resort to 
procedural tricks in order to thwart the will of the Senate minority? 
Then, in order to aggravate the situation, the rule passed in the House 
was a closed one, allowing for only one Democratic Amendment and a 
motion to recommit. Why was the Republican Leadership in the House 
afraid of an honest and open debate on this measure?
  It is clear that despite Republican claims to the contrary, this 
reconciliation-bill won't be the only tax cut bill sent to the 
President this year. Although the budget resolution provided for $1.35 
trillion in tax cuts, the Republican wish list includes a total of $2.4 
trillion in tax expenditures. Including the interest cost, the total 
drain on the budget surplus from these tax cuts over ten years would be 
nearly $3.0 trillion, more than the $2.7 trillion available in the 
projected surpluses outside Social Security and Medicare.
  This bill is essentially the same as H.R. 3, which this Chamber 
passed earlier in the year. I voted ``no'' then and I will vote ``no'' 
now. The Joint Tax Committee estimated the cost at nearly $1.0 trillion 
over ten years, excluding interest, with the wealthy receiving the 
lion's share of the benefits. According to an analysis by Citizens for 
Tax Justice, 44 percent of the tax cuts would go to those in the top 1 
percent, while the 60 percent of families with incomes of $44,000 or 
less would get a mere 16.5 percent of the tax cuts. The bill does make 
a portion of the new bottom 10 percent tax bracket effective in 2001. 
However, the bill disregards the need for immediate economic stimulus, 
providing only $5.6 billion in 2001. In a budget of $10 trillion, $5.6 
billion is a drop

[[Page 9299]]

in the bucket and there will be no trickle down economic stimulus 
resulting from this tax cut.
  Democrats offered an alternative tax cut that gave everyone that pays 
federal income or payroll taxes a tax cut, and provides approximately 
$60 billion immediate economic stimulus through a rebate of $300 for 
married couples.
  Our alternative was reasonable and fiscally responsible because it 
left money to address other problems facing our nation. Our tax cut 
protected Social Security and Medicare and invested in education and 
prescription drug coverage in Medicare for all seniors.
  President Bush ran on the issue of a strong defense, the price of 
which we have not yet seen. This budget, however, does not even 
consider the cost of the changes he has advocated to our defense 
infrastructure. While he deals in theory, our budget dealt with 
reality. A realistic tax cut that left enough money in the budget to 
ensure a strong defense.
  Democrats believe in tax cuts, but not at any cost. Our tax cut fixed 
the problem of the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) that the Republican 
bill ignores. It creates a new 12 percent tax rate bracket and expands 
the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). Our alternative even gives 
marriage penalty relief to couples who use the standard deduction.
  Yet our alternative did this at a realistic cost. Our alternative 
cost $585 billion over ten years, with a total cost of $750 billion 
including interest.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote no on the Republican 
tax trick. Vote against the motion to go to conference on H.R. 1836.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is 
ordered on the motion.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas).
  The motion was agreed to.


           Motion to Instruct Conferees Offered by Mr. Stark

  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct conferees.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Stark moves that, to the maximum extent permitted 
     within the scope of the conference, the conferees on the part 
     of the House in the conference on H.R. 1836, the Economic 
     Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, be 
     instructed to produce a Conference Report in which--
       1. The revenue losses and associated debt service costs do 
     not grow as a percentage of gross domestic product on either 
     a long or short term basis. In order to do so--
       A. The Conference Report shall not include phase-ins longer 
     than 5 years, delayed effective dates, or sunsets.
       B. The Conference Report shall include provisions on all of 
     the following issues: marriage penalty relief, increasing 
     per-child tax credit, estate tax relief, pension reform 
     legislation, and permanent extension of the research credit.
       C. The Conference Report shall adjust the current law 
     alternative minimum tax so that it does not disallow the 
     benefits of the tax reductions contained in the bill.
       2. The Conference Report shall be designed so that its 
     revenue loss and associated debt service costs for each 
     fiscal year do not exceed the projected non-Social Security/
     non-Medicare surplus for such fiscal year. For purposes of 
     the preceding sentence, the projected non-Social Security/
     non-Medicare surplus for any fiscal year is the projected 
     amount of the surplus for such year determined by 
     disregarding the receipts and disbursements of the Social 
     Security and Medicare Trust Funds and by reducing the 
     projected surplus for any year by its ratable portion of $300 
     billion over the 10-year budget period.
       3. The Conference Report provides benefits to every family 
     with children that has income or payroll tax liability and 
     the Conference Report includes inflation adjustments so that 
     the benefits provided to families with children are not 
     reduced over time.
       4. The conference committee shall be required to meet in 
     preparing the Conference Report pursuant to House Rule 22.

  Mr. THOMAS (during the reading). Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent 
that the motion to instruct be considered as read and printed in the 
Record.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California?
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman from California would yield, 
I think it is almost complete.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will continue to read.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the motion to 
instruct be considered as read and printed in the Record.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California?
  Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the right to object.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, I am sorry, how long is the motion that we 
are not wanting to read? How long is that reading?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman from California addressing 
a parliamentary inquiry to the Chair?
  Mr. FILNER. Yes.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would inform the gentleman that 
the Clerk is close to finishing reading the motion.
  Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, I just again want to register my opinion 
that this House should be taking up the crisis of electricity in 
California where my constituents are dying.
  Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California?
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw the unanimous consent request.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) 
withdraws his request.
  The Clerk will continue to read.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the motion to 
instruct be considered as read and printed in the Record.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California?
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, and I will 
not object.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, under the 
reservation of objection of the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), 
I wanted to say that I felt that the gentleman was correct in his first 
statement. There was an agreement and the gentleman was absolutely 
correct. We intruded on his good nature by extending the courtesy that 
he had offered to us.
  Mr. Speaker, I wanted to say that the gentleman was correct in his 
assumption and his statement of the facts.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope we can now get on with the motion to instruct and 
debate it as we agreed.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Stark) for that explanation.
  Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California?
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under clause 7 of rule XXII, the gentleman 
from California (Mr. Stark) and the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Thomas) each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark).
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I am not sure where the Clerk had quite finished, but I 
would just read the last section or two here, the conference report 
does provide benefits to every family with children that has income or 
payroll tax liability, and the conference report includes inflation 
adjustments so that the benefits provided to families with children are 
not reduced over time, this is required in our motion to instruct, and 
that the conference committee shall be required to meet in preparing 
the conference report pursuant to House Rule 22.
  This motion to instruct does have three basic directions, and they 
deal with constraining the exploding revenue costs.
  The motion to instruct requires that the conference report would 
preserve the funds necessary for Medicare and Social Security which the 
current bills do not, and it should provide benefits to all families 
with children that have income or payroll tax liability.
  Mr. Speaker, we do, as I mentioned in the last paragraph, require an 
open conference as provided in the House rules.
  Since this tax bill has been written by the Senate, compliance with 
the House rules is necessary so that there is some input from House 
Members on the conference report. We should not completely abandon the 
House's constitutional role on tax legislation.

[[Page 9300]]

  Both the Senate bill and the various tax bills passed by the House 
this year affect or create exploding revenue costs.
  The revenue costs of the second 5 years in the bill is approximately 
twice the costs in the first 5 years, and some press estimates have 
suggested that we could be spending $4 trillion over the next 10 years.
  These outyear revenue costs will come at the same time as the 
retirement of the baby-boom generation, and it will create demands on 
Medicare and Social Security systems that we will not be able to 
afford.

                              {time}  1945

  The bill is based on rather uncertain surplus protections, but it 
ignores the certainty of the demographic pressures on the Medicare and 
Social Security systems.
  The bill has gimmicks that artificially reduce the cost of the bill 
in the 10-year budget window, but blow away the ranch dramatically 
after the 10-year period. These gimmicks include delayed effective 
dates, long phase-ins and sunsets. Very few provisions of the Senate 
bill are fully effective at all times during the budget window.
  The conference report uses the current law minimum tax to disallow 
many of the benefits promised in the big print of the bill. We all know 
that we will enact legislation addressing the minimum tax, legislation 
that could increase the cost of this bill by hundreds of billions of 
dollars.
  I am most concerned personally, Mr. Speaker, with protecting Medicare 
and Social Security. The motion to instruct requires the conferees to 
construct a conference report that does not invade the Medicare and 
Social Security surpluses and that reserves funds for a prescription 
drug benefit. We have committed to preserving Medicare and Social 
Security surpluses, and there is broad bipartisan support for a 
Medicare prescription drug benefit. This aspect of the motion to 
instruct merely requires the conferees to preserve fiscal resources to 
meet our commitments.
  Finally, the motion requires that all families with children that 
have payroll or income tax liability should receive benefits under the 
conference report. It is clear that the Republicans will guarantee that 
the wealthiest segment of our society will receive large benefits from 
the conference report.
  It is only fair that families with payroll tax liability should not 
be ignored. It is within that context that our motion to instruct 
conferees is offered and that we ask support for it.
  I suspect that the conferees, as few as there are from this side of 
the Capitol, will meet late into the night. I further suspect that many 
agreements have been struck in private and have been agreed to even as 
we talk here this evening.
  So as this runs through in a rush to judgment for tomorrow's get-away 
day, I would hope that this instruction would be taken to heart and 
imposed upon the conferees to protect some of the frail elderly, the 
people who depend on Medicare, the lowest-income families in our 
country who are trying to raise their children in today's turbulent 
economy.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge the adoption of our motion to instruct.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, as is usually the case with motions to instruct, it 
contains a number of phrases which seem controlling in nature. For 
example, under the first point and the A section, ``shall not 
include''; B, ``shall include provisions''; C, ``shall adjust''.
  The fact of the matter is that the motion to instruct has no binding 
capability whatsoever. In fact, if one goes up to the very first line 
and reads the motion to instruct it says, ``Mr. Stark moves that, to 
the maximum extent permitted,'' which means any time one reads 
``shall'' under here, it has no consequence whatsoever.
  However, we should not let this opportunity go by without correcting 
some of the factual misstatements that have already occurred, not just 
about the bill that we have in front of us, but about the bills that 
the House has voted on in terms of modifying the tax obligation of 
citizens of the United States.
  In the bill that the House passed dealing with the child tax credit, 
which seems to be the thrust of point number three of the listed points 
in terms of providing benefits to every family with children that has 
income tax on payroll tax liability, the answer is simple. The bill 
that passed the House provided for the ability to utilize a refundable 
credit to cover payroll taxes beyond income taxes.
  I would also tell my colleagues it is a factual statement that, on 
the Senate finance bill which just passed the floor of the Senate by a 
vote of 62 to 38, not only did they provide a tax credit on a 
refundable basis to those individuals who do not have income tax 
liability, but who have also exceeded their payroll tax exposure. So 
notwithstanding the statements that this is not being done, the fact of 
the matter is it simply is not true.
  As we go through and examine the other structures, we have to 
remember that this tax conference is being conducted under the budget 
resolution which passed both the House and the Senate, which said we 
must pay down the public debt, we must protect the Medicare or HI Trust 
Fund, we must protect the Social Security Trust Fund, and we are to set 
aside $300 billion for a prescription drug modernization in Medicare, 
and there is an additional $500 billion fund which is available for 
other discretionary programs as the Congress may determine. All of that 
with an inclusion of a $1.350 trillion tax bill that is the reason for 
us being here tonight.
  So not withstanding the lamentations, the concerns and the wringing 
of hands, this motion to instruct, which has no binding effect 
whatsoever, outlines a number of concerns that have already been taken 
into consideration and are being dealt with.
  I believe that the concern of many of my colleagues on the other side 
of the aisle is to see the Senate move in a bipartisan way with 62 
Senators supporting the Senate product and are moving now to a 
conference.
  I am reminded of our days in the minority when the phrase is risky or 
rushing to judgment, because, frankly, if anybody has bothered to turn 
on the TV and watch the Senate floor, to describe the Senate rushing to 
judgment with more than 100 amendments over the last 4 days in which 
every item was examined and voted on could hardly be described by most 
people being neutral as rushing to judgment.
  Conferences are a unique animal around here. When the House passes a 
bill that is different than the Senate and the Senate passes a bill 
different than the House, under the Constitution we are required to 
reconcile the differences in the bill. That is called going to 
conference. If it takes an hour, it takes an hour. If it takes a week, 
it takes a week. The job of the House and the Senate conferees is to 
reconcile the two bills to be presented back to each House in the same 
form to be voted up or voted down.
  I will tell my colleagues that, if one does not like the product 
produced out of the bipartisan bicameral conference committee on 
permanently reducing taxes of hard-working Americans by a $1.350 
trillion over the next decade, one has every right and obligation, I 
believe, to vote no, just as some of your colleagues on the other side 
of the aisle did.
  So let us wait until we have a product before we condemn it; for 
example, the argument that we do not supply tax relief to those 
individuals who have no income tax obligation or payroll tax 
obligation. The product that came from the Senate in fact meets both of 
those criteria. The product that came from the House met one of them.
  Let us kind of turn the flame down until one has an honest actual 
target to shoot at. This motion to instruct is a gun with no bullets. 
Wait until we have the product in front of us. If my colleagues do not 
like it, they can vote no. I think they will find, based upon the House 
and the Senate coming together, the product will be overwhelmingly 
accepted, voted on, and signed by the President.

[[Page 9301]]

  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Neal), a member of the Committee on 
Ways and Means.
  Mr. NEAL of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I want to make a sweeping 
prediction here to the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), chairman 
of the Committee on Ways and Means, that before I have seen the final 
product, I am not going to like it. I can assure my colleagues I am not 
going to like that final product.
  This motion to instruct conferees contains many good elements. As the 
chairman has acknowledged, this is one of the tools of the minority to 
make a point. I recall the distinguished majority leader of the House 
now when he was the, I believe, minority second person in command on 
the Republican side, when he said that the Clinton budget would be 
fiscal Armageddon; and I recall when the former chairman of the 
Committee on the Budget, Mr. Kucinich, the gentleman from Ohio, 
indicated that we were headed toward a depression with the Clinton 
budget agreement in 1997. So there are tools that the minority employs 
from time to time to make a point around here.
  The key point of this motion is that the conference report should not 
include phase-ins longer than 5 years. This limits the ability of each 
party to push costs we cannot afford now out into the future. It also 
means that whatever we enact into law would probably stick.
  It also is fair to acknowledge that this is truth-in-advertising for 
the House of Representatives tonight. Nor is it unheard of. As the 
current chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means has said many 
times, and I agree with him, the House works off of a 5-year 
projection. So to ask that this bill is fully phased in within 5 years 
is simply consistent.
  The motion to instruct also asks that the alternative minimum tax be 
adjusted so that none of the benefits in this bill is reversed by AMT. 
Again, taxpayers get what they have been promised. Another truth-in-
advertising provision.
  I would add my personal plea to the leadership on the other side, 
however, that we explore how to solve, even on a temporary basis, the 
incentive stock option issue with the alternative minimum tax. As the 
chairman knows, the interaction of the regular tax treatment of 
incentive stock options and AMT treatment leads to a tax trap to 
individuals in a declining market. I have a number of letters on my 
desk from people who know that right now.
  The gentleman from California (Chairman Thomas) has said to me 
consistently, and I believe him, that he wants to resolve the AMT 
issues as they arise and to look at the whole issue sometime in the 
future. AMT is a serious issue that we have to take up, and I have been 
on it consistently for a couple of years. I appreciate his sentiments, 
but this issue is one that taxpayers are facing today. They are filing 
for bankruptcy, and we cannot wait to resolve this issue in the next 
year or the year after.
  So I request the chairman to seek at least a temporary solution in 
conference such as removing incentive stock options from the 
alternative minimum tax for last year and this year while we decide how 
to permanently resolve the many problems of alternative minimum tax in 
which I will remind this body multiply and get worse day after day 
after day.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, to show my colleagues the seriousness of the minority's 
offer on the motion to instruct and the gentleman from Massachusetts 
(Mr. Neal), in terms of the statement that he just made, especially in 
dealing with the part A provision that says that it shall not include a 
phase-in longer than 5 years, I think it would be instructive if some 
of my friends on the other side of the aisle would revisit the Democrat 
tax plan which was offered on three separate occasions on the floor of 
the House which contains on its estate tax structure a 10-year relief 
period.
  So I find it interesting that they are attempting to impose on the 
conference a standard of time limit which they chose not to impose on 
themselves in bills that they offered.
  That should give my colleagues just one example of the seriousness of 
the approach of our friends on the other side of the aisle.
  Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman 
from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding 
me this time, and I appreciate all the hard work and time he has put 
into putting this tax plan together.
  As I look at the motion to instruct conferees, I know that the actual 
motion to instruct violates the very Democrat plan that has been 
offered here on the floor previous times, as the chairman just 
mentioned. So not only does it violate the earlier Democratic 
substitutes that we have seen, it also backs us off of the very 
important commitments that we have achieved in the budget resolution 
that we are achieving in this tax bill.
  Number one, what we are accomplishing here with this conference 
report as we roll this through is to put the details into the tax 
provision of the budget resolution. We have a vision which is the 10-
year budget, which has very important priorities but in that budget has 
very strict provisions that do these things: pays off our public 
national debt as fast as possible to a very negligible, almost zero 
dollar amount by the end of this decade.

                              {time}  2000

  Two, once and for all, once and for all, for the first time in 30 
years, we will stop the raid on the Social Security and Medicare Trust 
Funds by making sure that we apply those dollars to those very 
programs, and to pay off the national debt, which helps us with those 
programs on top of that.
  And, third, we see that the American taxpayer, the hard-working 
families of America, continue to overpay their taxes. After we pay down 
our debt, after we improve Medicare and Social Security, people are 
still overpaying their taxes. And that is why we are taking a very 
important step by giving people some of their money back. We are 
putting money back into the paychecks of the very hard-working 
taxpayers who gave us this surplus in the first place.
  So what is important to watch is that as we take a look at this 
motion to instruct, it actually dilutes those commitments. It actually 
takes us off of the very commitments we seek to achieve, on hopefully a 
bipartisan basis, which is protecting Social Security and modernizing 
Medicare, and we have a $300 billion provision to modernize Medicare 
with a prescription drug benefit; paying down our national public debt; 
and, yes, as people overpay their taxes, giving them some of their 
money back. And we are doing it in such a way that it will help 
stimulate the economy, create jobs in this country and do it, yes, fast 
enough to make a difference.
  Now, as to the criticism that this bill is being rushed through, that 
just simply is not the case. Take a look at the Senate. We can see they 
are clearly not rushing things. As the chairman mentioned, amendment 
after amendment, 110 hours of debate over this bill. Since January, we 
have been working on this provision. And, as a matter of fact, on these 
very provisions that we will hopefully be achieving in this bill we 
have been working on for 3 years. Vote after vote in Congress, bill 
after bill has been passing Congress. This is the crescendo effort to 
finally give people some of their money back. It is a bipartisan-
bicameral effort.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on the motion to instruct.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin), a member of the committee.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, these bills are not sound tax policy, they 
are not sound economic policy, and they are not sound social policy.
  The conference committee is going to try to put together two bills. 
In this

[[Page 9302]]

case, two minuses cannot make a plus. These bills are built on the 
sands of uncertain estimates. The preceding speaker talks as if the 
money is in the bank. It is not there. It is not there. These bills 
will not help in the present. If so, very little. And what they are 
going to do is to risk our future.
  Much of the relief will be backloaded, my colleagues can be assured 
of that. Most of it will be in the second 5 years. And then, when we 
project beyond those second 5 years, it will explode in the later 
years.
  Where is the money going to be for the education bill that we just 
passed? Not raiding Medicare? The plans I have seen for prescription 
drugs take money out of Medicare, and there is no plan here on the 
majority side to find it anywhere else.
  The chairman of the committee says, well, a conference committee can 
be 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 days, 4 days. I would bet this is going to be a 
few hours in a back room without full bipartisan participation: 
Democrats, Republicans, House and Senate.
  Essentially, this bill will not help hardworking Americans. So much 
of the money goes to the wealthiest. We do not know the percentage yet, 
but when we see the final product, my colleagues can be sure that it 
will not overwhelmingly go to hard-working middle-and low-income 
families.
  I urge we support the instruction.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett), a member of the Committee on Ways 
and Means.
  Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  This motion is an attempt to improve a bill that is probably 
insusceptible to improvement. Indeed, it has always been challenging in 
discussing this tax measure whether to focus on its fundamental 
inequity or to consider its gross fiscal irresponsibility, because this 
measure has embodied so many aspects of both.
  It need not have been that way. There has been strong bipartisan 
support in this Congress for reasonable tax relief. But reason does not 
seem to be in vogue in Washington this year. Take, for example, the 
matter of correcting the marriage penalty tax. We could have done that 
the day after the Inauguration and done it on a unanimous basis in this 
Congress. Democrats tried in 1995 to implement the so-called Contract 
on America, but Republicans had higher priorities and they rejected any 
correction of the marriage penalty in the Committee on Ways and Means.
  Again this year, we find very much the same set of priorities. 
Because the bill that comes to us tonight from the United States Senate 
does not provide one cent of relief to those Americans who thought they 
were going to receive marriage penalty correction during this year. 
They have deferred the entire thing for another 5 or 6 years. So all 
these pretty photos of married couples and the discrimination they 
face, they need to know that if we approve the bill that was just 
approved over at the United States Senate, they will not get a penny of 
relief out of this bill.
  It need not have been that way. The priorities could have been 
different. A bipartisan moderate approach to resolve the major 
inequities could have been accomplished, but instead, things like the 
marriage tax penalty were used as political ploys instead of as a basis 
for coming about with reasonable reform.
  As the Senate Committee on Finance chairman said of the bill this 
week, quote, one criticism is that this bill's tax cuts are backloaded 
for high-income taxpayers. In other words, high-income taxpayers 
receive a lot of relief toward 2011 instead of 2001. This is a true 
fact, but not a valid criticism. That is some real double-speak.
  What it really means is they are loading up these tax cuts in a way 
that at the very time more people are making their demands felt as they 
retire as baby boomers, there will not be the resources there to meet 
those needs. Need increases, the ability to meet those needs decreases.
  And this is part of an overall plan of this administration and those 
within this Congress. This weekend, the Secretary of the Treasury gave 
an interview to a paper in London where he called for the total 
abolition of the corporate income tax. We will see one measure after 
another. As one of our Republican colleague said, there is another bill 
pending here. And the special interest lobbyists seeking tax breaks are 
swarming around it like ants at a picnic. This bill is presented to us 
tonight as a great picnic for the American people. But all they will 
get out of it is one series of stings after another.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. 
Once again, I appreciate the presentation of my colleague from Texas. 
It is always enjoyable.
  There were 62 votes for that tax package today. There were 12 
Senators of the gentleman's party who voted for it. And I would urge my 
friends from California, who just made an impassioned plea about 
dealing with energy in California, perhaps they should spend a little 
more time with their Democratic Senators on the other side of the 
aisle, holding their hands, because the Senator from California, Mrs. 
Feinstein, voted in favor of the package.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm).
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this simple motion 
calling for some truth in advertising and fiscal honesty in the tax 
bill.
  While we can have honest differences of opinion about the size and 
structure of the tax cut, we should all be able to shoot straight with 
the American people about the cost. Unfortunately, it appears that this 
tax bill will use every budget gimmick in the book, and possibly invent 
a few more, in order to hide its true cost.
  This motion very reasonably asserts that the cost of all tax cuts 
should be shown honestly and be phased in within 5 years so the costs 
do not increase dramatically and surreptitiously in later years. The 
tax bill passed by the other body would delay full implementation of 
the five most expensive components until 2009 and 2011. More than 70 
percent of these costs occur in the second 5 years.
  Even worse, the cost of this bill would explode to $4.1 trillion in 
the next decade, at the very time that the Social Security and Medicare 
programs will begin to face severe financial challenges with the 
retirement of the baby boom generation.
  This tax bill bets the ranch on surplus projections continuing to 
grow. If those projections are off just a bit, we will be forced to dip 
into Medicare trust funds before we even start dealing with the 
increases for defense or other needs as yet not addressed.
  By passing a large backend-loaded gimmick-filled tax cut, we risk 
returning to the era when deficit spending placed a tremendous drag on 
our economy and ran up $5.7 trillion worth of debt. Even though I would 
be delighted to be wrong, I fear we are also squandering our 
opportunity to strengthen Social Security and Medicare and pay down our 
national debt.
  I do not want my grandchildren to look back 20 years from now and ask 
why I left them with the tab for tax cutting we will politically enjoy 
today. I used to think no one else in this body would want to do that 
either, but I was wrong. The least we owe our grandchildren and the 
rest of our constituents is a little honesty, and that is what this 
motion to recommit is all about.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Brady), a gentleman on the Committee on Ways and Means, lest 
someone believe that the entire State of Texas, based upon the number 
of speakers who have come to the mike on the other side of the aisle, 
is all on one side. I would also hasten to indicate that both the 
Senators representing the great State of Texas voted for the measure 
that passed.


                announcement by the speaker pro tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Thornberry). The Chair would remind all 
Members that while it is permissible to comment on a vote in the 
Senate, it is not permissible, under the

[[Page 9303]]

precedents of the House and clause 1 of rule XVII, to refer to a 
particular Senator's vote.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Brady) for 3 
minutes.
  Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding 
this time to me.
  I think the President is taking, and this Republican Congress is 
taking a very responsible approach to tax relief in America today. The 
tax relief under this proposal starts slow and it builds. It grows. As 
we pay off more and more of the public debt, and as the surplus grows, 
tax relief grows with it. We do not have a budget surplus in 
Washington, because I guarantee my colleagues that Washington will 
spend every dime the taxpayers send up here, but we do have an actual 
tax surplus because people are paying too much into government for what 
they are getting for it.
  There are people I think in Washington who are still out of touch 
with the real world, who think we just do not tax people enough, and if 
we did, that would solve everything. But look at the way real families 
are taxed in America: When they start their day, they get up in the 
morning and get a roll or a coffee and pay a sales tax; step in the 
shower, pay a water tax; jump in the car to go to work, pay a fuel tax.
  At work, at the office, they pay an income tax and a payroll tax. At 
the end of the day, they get back and drive to their home, on which 
they pay property taxes. They open the door, flip on the light and pay 
an electricity tax; turn on the television, pay a television tax; pick 
up the phone, pay a telephone tax. If they are married, when they kiss 
their spouse good night, they pay a marriage penalty tax, and on and 
on, until at the end of their life, they die and pay a death tax.
  No wonder people have such a hard time making it, why there is not 
enough money left at the end of the month just to meet the needs of 
their children, just to provide for retirement, for college, and the 
day-to-day necessities. Washington needs to get out of the way to give 
people back more of what they have earned, not what Washington has 
earned. We need to give them the power to make their decisions for 
their children, for their schools, for their health care, because we 
are overtaxing real families in America.
  In fact, Tax Freedom Day was just a week or so ago, May 3. That means 
for most of our families, they worked from New Year's Day to May 3 just 
to pay their taxes, and then they started working for themselves. So 
they have worked 5 months into the year before they start working for 
their children, their family, their own American dream.
  The Republican tax relief plan, the President's tax relief plan is a 
responsible one, one that has more faith in our families than in 
Washington to squander those dollars. I am convinced, and I am a new 
member of the committee, that our Tax Code is too complex. I do not 
agree with the instructions here dictating what that bill will do, 
because I think bipartisan Members from the House and Senate ought to 
sit down and ought to work through the complexities of this. This is 
not the time to dictate. This is not the time to destroy the 
bipartisanship. This is like getting to the end of the marriage vows 
and the minister starts making things up.

                              {time}  2015

  Mr. Speaker, this ought not be the time we do that. Let us keep a 
strong, steady path and come forward with a bipartisan tax relief bill 
that we can all be proud of.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Cardin) and see if he can explain what the Senate 
representation from Maryland did, without violating House rules.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, I am sorry the gentleman will not be able to 
refer under the Speaker's admonition how my two Senators voted on this 
bill; but I think the gentleman will find that they did the right 
thing.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CARDIN. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. THOMAS. If the gentleman would indicate his intention on the vote 
on final passage, we might be able to anticipate a comparison between 
what his Senators did and what the gentleman is doing.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, it would be very consistent with my 
Senators.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, budget reconciliation is 
supposed to be to reconcile this bill with the budget resolution. And 
our budget resolution spells out a 10-year number that is available for 
tax relief.
  Our motion to instruct basically says let us be honest about that. 
Let us be sure that the tax provisions are phased in in a way that it 
is not backloaded. By backloaded, we mean estate tax relief when it 
does not take effect for 10 years and then explodes in cost at the same 
time we have problems in funding the Social Security system and the 
Medicare system because of the baby-boom generation reaching the age of 
65.
  Mr. Speaker, this motion is basically truth in advertising. Let us 
put the provisions in and not backload it and have to pay later.
  The second thing is that this reconciliation bill ought to speak to 
our priorities; and I do not think that our priorities ought to be tax 
cuts today and tax cuts tomorrow and nothing else. We should speak to 
the fact that we want to pay down the national debt, that we want to 
preserve Social Security and Medicare and yes, put more money into 
education like the overwhelming majority of this body voted to do.
  Yet if we do not pass this motion, I am afraid that the 
reconciliation bill will do what the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Thomas), the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, said. That 
is, he wants to put 15 pounds of sugar in a 10-pound bag. It is going 
to be 30 pounds of sugar in a 10-pound bag. It will squeeze out our 
ability to do anything else.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the motion to instruct.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Maryland was not in the room when it 
was pointed out, notwithstanding his eloquence on the provision, that 
the phase-in should not exceed longer than 5 years. I do want to remind 
the gentleman that three times on the floor of the House the Democrats 
presented a tax plan, and I can provide my colleagues, for example, 
with some of the numbers. Under the estate tax relief, the language of 
the Democratic plan said in 2002, relief would be at $2 million; in 
2003 and 2004, $2.1 million; in 2005 and 2006, $2.2 million; in 2007 
and 2008, $2.3 million; in 2009, $2.4 million; and in 2010 and 
thereafter, $2.5 million.
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman asking us to meet a standard 
higher than they impose on themselves. I happily accept that challenge. 
But to indicate that we should meet a standard that the Democratic 
party did not meet in the Democrat's own program is just a little much 
to take; and, frankly, it brings into question the sincerity of the 
motion to instruct and the criteria that are placed in that motion to 
instruct, which is in fact to hold us to a standard the Democrats chose 
not to hold their plan to.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. THOMAS. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman looks at the Democratic 
substitute, the gentleman will find that 95 percent of the provisions 
take effect within the 5-year window. I think that is pretty good. If 
the gentleman would agree to live up to that 95 percent standard, I 
think we would be glad to amend our motion.
  Mr. Speaker, the point is that we do not want to have the 
overwhelming majority of revenue hit when we are in the last years of 
the bill, and the proposals we are talking about may do that. The 
Democratic substitutes never do.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, continuing on my time, if the gentleman 
would look at the Democratic tax plan

[[Page 9304]]

presented on the floor on three different occasions, the single largest 
dollar amount under one of the major provisions occurred in 2010; the 
second largest amount in 2009; the third largest amount in 2008, et 
cetera.
  The point is the Democratic substitute is structured similar to 
everyone else's. The motion to instruct requires us to meet a standard 
the other side of the aisle chose not to meet themselves on virtually 
every one of the items they have in their bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I understand their desire and what they want. All I am 
saying is when the other side of the aisle chooses to impose a standard 
on the majority, I would hope that the minority would have already 
honored that standard.
  Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would like to be refreshed on what the 
Democratic tax plan is, it is here and available.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. THOMAS. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. CARDIN. My recollection is the gentleman is referring to the 
provisions concerning the estate tax relief. The other provisions were 
all phased in within the 5-year window, and the dollar amounts in the 
estate tax in the last few years was a minor amount in the overall 
effect of the bill.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would tell our distinguished chairman that the 
Democrats are entitled to one mistake, for instance, the Senate vote 
from the State of California today; and we had one provision that 
phases out over 5 years, and I think almost every provision in the 
chairman's bill phases out over 10 years. I would give him one free 
kick if that will solve that issue.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California 
(Mr. Sherman).
  Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, focusing on these phase-ins, if only the 
Republican bill, if only the gentleman would promise that he would come 
as close to not backend loading the ultimate bill, as we did in our 
Democratic plan, he would get my vote against this motion. In fact, 
instead the House bills explode in the second 10 years to a cost of 
$4.1 trillion.
  We need standards and rules for a unipartisanship-led conference 
dedicated to such extreme mispackaging of a tax bill.
  I want to talk to my Republican colleagues and say this motion to 
instruct could save a lot of heartache back in their districts because 
there is a new regime in the Senate. There may be 41 Senators opposed 
to any further tax cuts. If they let a bill go through that is widely 
publicized as providing constituents with tax relief, and then they 
open up their tax booklets at the end of the year and they see that you 
did not take care of the AMT, and the AMT takes back all of the 
benefits talked about in the speeches, if they see there is no marriage 
penalty relief or pension reform and their IRA is still $2,000, and if 
they see the R&D tax credit has been allowed to expire, they are going 
to ask why was that allowed to occur? Why did we celebrate a tax bill 
that did not deal with those provisions? And only a vote for this 
motion to instruct can be my colleague's defense.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Portman), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means, and a 
significant contributor to a number of key issues, including the 
pension and Individual Retirement Account legislation.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, just looking at the motion to instruct, I 
find it interesting that the other side is instructing the conferees to 
include provisions that were not in the Democratic substitute. I have 
the Democratic substitute in front of me. There is a requirement twice 
here that the conference report shall include increasing the per child 
tax credit, for instance, which was not in the Democratic substitute.
  We just heard that we need to add all of these things, and yet when 
the Democrats offered their own tax bill, it was not included.
  I see a permanent extension of the research credit must be included. 
That is an instruction to the conferees, yet the Democrats have no 
research and development tax credit in their plan.
  There is a discussion here of the AMT saying we shall adjust the 
current law AMT tax so it does not disallow benefits. That is in the 
House-passed bill in conference. That is something that this House took 
up as part of the legislation.
  It has a number of provisions here saying we must be sure that the 
revenue laws and associated debt service costs do not exceed Social 
Security and Medicare in the HI Trust Fund. That is included in our 
budget resolution and included in the House-passed version. And as the 
chairman said in the Senate-passed bill today, it does not in fact do 
that.
  Mr. Speaker, I would make the suggestion that the motion to instruct 
is not consistent with the Democrat's own tax plan that they came 
forward with.
  I would make the further point that despite what we have heard here 
today on the floor, the budget resolution under which this tax 
provision is provided does provide for tax relief, but only after 
taking care of Social Security and Medicare in ways this House has 
never done.
  Mr. Speaker, my colleague is shaking his head, but I have spent 8 
years here, and I have watched us raid the Social Security and Medicare 
Trust Fund. We are setting aside all of those trust fund surpluses for 
those programs in ways that we have not done before.
  We are also providing for debt relief in ways that are unprecedented. 
We will relieve the country of more of our national debt than we have 
done ever in this House. All of the available debt will be relieved. We 
also have increases in spending where appropriate: education spending, 
defense spending.
  Yet after all of that, Social Security and Medicare are being 
preserved, after the debt being handled in a way that is unprecedented 
and is appropriate, and after increasing domestic discretionary 
spending, still because there is a $5.6 trillion tax surplus building 
up in Washington, there is some room left for the folks paying the 
bills. That is the roughly 25 or 26 or 27 percent of the surplus that 
is provided for in the tax relief measure that the Senate passed today.
  Incidentally, the Senate passed that bill with 12 Democrat Senators 
supporting it. And in the House, we had tax bills go through which are 
part of the larger bill with 58, 68 up to 186 Democrats supporting some 
of the tax provisions in this underlying legislation which we will have 
an opportunity to vote on in the next day in the House.
  Mr. Speaker, the motion to instruct conferees is not consistent with 
the Democrats' own tax plan; and it seems to be inappropriate to be 
instructing conferees to be doing something that was not considered 
appropriate when the Democrats had an opportunity to offer their own 
plan.
  Mr. Speaker, this does fit within the budget nicely. It provides some 
tax relief to the hard-working Americans that created every cent of 
that surplus. It is not only reasonable, it has been bipartisan. Twelve 
senators supported it today. We have votes here in the House that have 
been bipartisan on most of the provisions that are in the tax bill 
before us.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge that we defeat the motion to instruct and move on 
to provide the American people with needed tax relief.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I do not know what the House rules say about wagering on 
the House floor, but if the rules were silent, I would be inclined to 
offer the Republican proponents and my opponents a wager. I would give 
them, whoever wanted to accept this wager, $1,000 every year that they 
meet their projected 10-year budget proposal if they would in turn be 
willing to give me $1,000 for every year in the next 10 years that they 
do not meet the budget proposal.

                              {time}  2030

  I would like to have that memorialized in the Congressional Record 
and

[[Page 9305]]

hope that I could collect every year for the next 10, and I think I 
might leave that open for a while.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman 
from Washington (Mr. Inslee).
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, the President offers this tax cut plan as 
his energy plan. He refuses to do anything about prices of energy, 
which has gone up a thousand percent on the wholesale electrical market 
in the State of Washington, but instead offers a few dollars in the tax 
cut plan. As a short-term response to our energy crisis, this is an 
abject failure; and I will say why and I will say how.
  We live in interesting times. Tomorrow we cannot say who is going to 
control the U.S. Senate, but we know the oil and gas industry is going 
to control the White House. As a result of that, every single dollar, 
every single dollar that my constituents might get next year back from 
this tax cut, maybe 15 bucks a month for a middle-class family, is 
going to be eaten up several fold by energy companies. They are going 
to take that couple bucks from Uncle Sam, and they are going to ship it 
in their envelope to the energy companies, many of them who happen to 
be the President's political allies.
  Now, at a townhall meeting a guy told me he was cutting his energy 
use, but his prices were skyrocketing. And he said, Jay, that plan, 
that tax cut plan, sort of reminds me of a money-laundering operation. 
One just takes the money, launders it through the taxpayers and gives 
it over to the President's political allies in the energy industry. Why 
not just cut out the middleman and just give it all to the energy 
industry, just cut out the middleman?
  That would be wrong because we have people losing jobs today in the 
State of Washington, 43,000 people losing jobs, and the President and 
the Republican Party will not act on this. It is a travesty. We should 
be doing a price cap, a price mitigation plan tonight instead of this 
bill.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Filner).
  Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) 
showed the truth of this tax bill. The GOP majority, GOP, gas oil and 
pollution, is going to make sure that when we leave for our recess we 
have passed a tax bill 40 to 45 percent of which goes to the wealthiest 
1 percent of our population.
  The people who live in my district in San Diego, California, will get 
very little out of this tax bill; and whatever they get, as the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) said, is going to go directly to 
Exxon or to Enron or to any one of those energy companies that is 
bleeding California dry.
  We are going to leave town with that tax bill, but we are going to 
leave town without doing anything for the people in San Diego or the 
rest of California or the rest of the West.
  The chairman of the committee is from California. He knows we are 
being bled dry. He knows we are paying $70 billion this year for 
electricity, whereas 2 years ago we paid $7 billion. The demand has not 
increased significantly. The costs have not increased significantly. 
Where is that 10-fold increase going? It is going into the 800 percent, 
900 percent, 1,000 percent increase in profits by the major oil 
companies and the major electricity generators of this country, and yet 
this Congress is not going to act on the issues confronting California.
  The people of California ought to be telling the chairman of the 
Committee on Ways and Means, solve our crisis. Stop the bleeding in 
California. Give us a reasonable cost for electricity, and then we can 
go home and enjoy our vacations.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to do two things: one, to respond to the offer of 
a wager of the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark), and I would tell 
the gentleman that I would be more than willing to risk $1,000 a year 
over the next 10 years with one proviso. The gentleman is concerned 
about whether or not we will honor our budgetary numbers and live 
within our means. I will tell the gentleman that if he makes sure that 
the Republicans are in the majority for each of those 10 years, I have 
no question at all that the gentleman would owe me $1,000 a year.
  If, however, included in his wager that the gentleman's party regains 
the majority, I can assure him the American people are going to lose 
far more than $1,000 each for the rest of their lives.
  So, if the gentleman will assure me of a continued majority of the 
responsible party that has produced a surplus that we have now, that is 
not a wager; that is an investment.
  I will also tell the gentleman from California (Mr. Filner), who has 
repeated this several times, that he is pleading on the floor to stop 
the bleeding in California, I have to tell my friend, the gentleman 
from California (Mr. Filner), it is pretty hard to do it from here 
because, frankly, the bleeding is a self-inflicted wound.
  The gentleman ought to go to Sacramento. His party controls the lower 
house of the legislature, the upper house of the legislature, and the 
gubernatorial mansion; and if his party would address supply and demand 
rather than assuming it is a rock and roll band on the question of 
delivering energy, California can address its significant level. If 
California wants to maintain air standards higher than the national 
level and plead for us to assist them when, in fact, the national level 
is unsatisfactory for Californians, then I would tell the gentleman 
once again that this bleeding he cries out for in California is self-
inflicted.
  Mr. FILNER. The gentleman is here. Would the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Thomas) yield to talk about the bleeding in California?
  Mr. THOMAS. No, I have no interest in yielding.
  Mr. FILNER. * * *
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker.



  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Thornberry). The gentleman will suspend. 
Does the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) yield to the other 
gentleman from California (Mr. Filner)?
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I will tell the gentleman, I am not 
yielding. I am trying to make a statement in conclusion.
  Mr. FILNER. * * *
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will suspend. The gentleman is 
out of order. The time is controlled by the gentleman from California 
(Mr. Thomas).
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, as was pointed out by the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman), the majority is always willing to 
look at motions to instruct if they are, in fact, useful and 
appropriate. What we have seen during the course of this debate is that 
the motion to instruct offered by the other side attempts to hold the 
conference to a time-year standard that they would not hold themselves 
to, and that beyond that the requirements stated of having to be in 
this particular tax package are items that they did not hold themselves 
to.
  So it would seem to me that one of the basic standards in examining a 
motion to instruct to see if it, in fact, is serious and ought to be 
considered by the majority is to contain provisions which the minority 
lived up to in its own measure presented on the floor. We found it to 
be deficient in a number of areas; and, therefore, I would reluctantly 
urge my colleagues, notwithstanding, I am sure, the meritorious and 
positive attempt to provide a help to the conference, that we reject 
this motion to instruct.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman 
from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I think this debate is about 
several issues; and, frankly, it is about crafting a conference process 
by this motion to instruct that would allow us to do some of the things 
that we say in this House we are committed to.
  It is interesting that we just voted on an education bill, leave no 
child behind; but, frankly, with a $1.6 trillion tax bill out of this 
House we will leave many children behind.
  I want to work with my colleagues from California because I need to 
say

[[Page 9306]]

to this House the energy crisis, the energy problem, is not a 
California problem; it is a national problem. Some of us believe that 
it is important to have short-term relief, and that short-term relief 
some agree and some disagree may be to eliminate on a temporary basis 
the gasoline tax that we have and provide dollars to the highway trust 
fund in substitute of what we are paying out to the richest Americans 
in this country.
  So the motion to instruct might allow us to craft a tax bill that, 
one, is addressed in the first 5-year period and, two, protects Social 
Security and Medicare.
  I would hope my colleagues would listen to the fact that we cannot 
spend a bunch of money and try and solve America's problems. This is a 
good motion to instruct, and we should bring the tax bill down. It 
should be a reasonable bill. We need to address the energy problem; and 
if we do so, we need it with the monies that are now being expended in 
a wasteful manner, giving away to rich people, rich tax dollars, and 
not helping those who are in need.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the 
gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), the distinguished ranking 
member of the Committee on the Budget, to close the debate.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from South Carolina is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Stark) for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I do not have a large chart. I simply have this piece of 
paper which I previously have put in the Record. On this one sheet of 
paper, we show the consequences of the conference agreement that we 
adopted on the budget and the consequences in particular of the tax cut 
that we are about to send to conference.
  This tax cut will have a cost in the area of $1.3 trillion. When one 
factors into the budget all of the puts and takes, one starts with 
$5.610 trillion, it seems that everything is possible. My lord, $5.610 
trillion. But if we back out the Social Security surplus and then back 
out the Medicare surplus, the available surplus for policy actions 
before tax cuts is substantially less than that. It is about $2.6 
trillion.
  When one backs out the tax cut, we end up with, after interest 
adjustments, a contingency reserve of $504 billion. There is $504 
billion for policy initiatives, for estimating errors, over a period of 
10 years. Now that, too, sounds like a lot of money until we look at 
the bottom line and see that in the first 5 or 6 years that cushion for 
errors, that contingency reserve, ranges between $12 billion and $30 
billion; never a big number, particularly when we consider this: in the 
puts and takes that I have just mentioned, in getting to this so-called 
contingency reserve, this cushion fund, there is no calculation for an 
increase in education, inflation only. No real spending increase in 
education at all.
  More seriously, more importantly, we have in this budget a 
placeholder number for national defense. It is $325 billion next year, 
but everybody knows that Mr. Rumsfeld is now transforming our military 
and will soon be on the Hill, after this is all done, with a request 
ranging anywhere from $20 billion to $35 billion next year, and 
probably $250 billion to $350 billion over the next 10 years at a 
minimum. Nobody disputes that.
  I showed this chart today to Mr. Rumsfeld when he testified before 
our committee. I told him that what we assumed is that he would be up 
here next year for at least a $20 billion increase.

                              {time}  2045

  Each year thereafter, it was staircased by $5 billion until it 
reached $50 billion. He did not demur to those numbers.
  Here is what happens when we factor in defense at that level and when 
we also factor in to these calculations, emergency spending, which is 
at the historic average of about $5 billion to $6 billion a year. Next 
year, the contingency reserve in 2002 is $12 billion. Defense and 
emergencies alone will need $15 billion. That means we are back in the 
red again. In 2003, defense and emergencies will need $24 billion. The 
contingency reserve is $19 billion. In 2004, defense and emergencies 
will need $31 billion. The reserve is $24 billion. That is how thin the 
ice gets as a result of this budget and, primarily, as a result of the 
proposed tax cuts. That is the risk we are taking.
  Furthermore, for those who want to say there is still money left for 
education, there is no money in here for education over and above 
inflation. That is already factored into the equation. Once we do the 
defense budget, there is no room left for policy initiatives. There is 
nothing set aside for Social Security and Medicare, other than what 
they will accumulate in their own trust funds.
  That is why I am opposed to this budget. It comes too close to the 
margin, too close for comfort, and leaves no room for error. I think 
everybody should bear that in mind, because this motion to recommit 
tonight at least says, let us take the tax bill and try to make it as 
well-contained as we can within the parameters of the budget we have 
here. That is the least we can do, is send our conferees to the 
conference committee and tell them, do a better job than either House 
has yet done in fitting this tax bill into a budget reality.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Thornberry). Without objection, the 
previous question is ordered on the motion to instruct.
  The question is on the motion to instruct offered by the gentleman 
from California (Mr. Stark).
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a 
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not 
present.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
  The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 198, 
nays 210, not voting 24, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 146]

                               YEAS--198

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baca
     Baird
     Baldacci
     Baldwin
     Barcia
     Barrett
     Bentsen
     Berkley
     Berman
     Berry
     Bishop
     Blagojevich
     Blumenauer
     Bonior
     Borski
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Brady (PA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardin
     Carson (IN)
     Carson (OK)
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clyburn
     Conyers
     Costello
     Coyne
     Cramer
     Crowley
     Cummings
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Deutsch
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Edwards
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Ford
     Frank
     Gephardt
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Green (TX)
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     Harman
     Hastings (FL)
     Hill
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hoeffel
     Holden
     Holt
     Honda
     Hooley
     Hoyer
     Inslee
     Israel
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     John
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones (OH)
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind (WI)
     Kleczka
     Kucinich
     LaFalce
     Lampson
     Langevin
     Lantos
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Lucas (KY)
     Luther
     Maloney (CT)
     Maloney (NY)
     Markey
     Mascara
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McIntyre
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Menendez
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller, George
     Mink
     Mollohan
     Moore
     Moran (VA)
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Phelps
     Pomeroy
     Price (NC)
     Radanovich
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Rivers
     Rodriguez
     Roemer
     Ross
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanchez
     Sanders
     Sandlin
     Sawyer
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Scott
     Serrano
     Sherman
     Shows
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Snyder
     Solis
     Spratt
     Stark
     Stenholm
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Taylor (MS)
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Thurman
     Tierney
     Towns
     Turner
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Velazquez
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Wexler
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Wynn

[[Page 9307]]



                               NAYS--210

     Aderholt
     Akin
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barr
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Biggert
     Bilirakis
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Brady (TX)
     Brown (SC)
     Bryant
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Cantor
     Capito
     Castle
     Chabot
     Coble
     Collins
     Combest
     Condit
     Cooksey
     Cox
     Crane
     Crenshaw
     Cunningham
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Davis, Tom
     Deal
     DeLay
     DeMint
     Diaz-Balart
     Doolittle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Everett
     Ferguson
     Flake
     Fletcher
     Foley
     Fossella
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Goss
     Granger
     Graves
     Green (WI)
     Greenwood
     Grucci
     Gutknecht
     Hall (TX)
     Hansen
     Hart
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Isakson
     Issa
     Istook
     Jenkins
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Keller
     Kelly
     Kennedy (MN)
     Kerns
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kirk
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     LoBiondo
     Lucas (OK)
     Manzullo
     McCrery
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McKeon
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller, Gary
     Moran (KS)
     Morella
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Osborne
     Ose
     Otter
     Paul
     Pence
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Platts
     Pombo
     Portman
     Pryce (OH)
     Putnam
     Quinn
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Reynolds
     Riley
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roukema
     Royce
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Saxton
     Schaffer
     Schrock
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shays
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simmons
     Simpson
     Skeen
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Souder
     Spence
     Stearns
     Stump
     Sununu
     Sweeney
     Tancredo
     Tauzin
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Toomey
     Traficant
     Upton
     Vitter
     Walden
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Wicker
     Wolf
     Young (FL)

                             NOT VOTING--24

     Becerra
     Bereuter
     Cannon
     Chambliss
     Clement
     Cubin
     Culberson
     Dicks
     Dooley
     Frost
     Graham
     LaHood
     Largent
     Moakley
     Murtha
     Oxley
     Rahall
     Scarborough
     Shaw
     Smith (WA)
     Visclosky
     Whitfield
     Wilson
     Young (AK)

                              {time}  2108

  Messrs. GOODLATTE, WATTS of Oklahoma, ISSA, BUYER, and BALLENGER 
changed their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Mr. HOLT changed his vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
  So the motion to instruct was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Thornberry). Without objection, the 
Chair appoints the following conferees: Messrs. Thomas, Armey, and 
Rangel.
  There was no objection.

                          ____________________