[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 1083]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   SUPPORTING CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Lynch) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LYNCH. Mr. Speaker, we are at an important point in our 
legislative calendar and at a point that will have great impact on the 
future of this institution, this House and this Congress. We are also 
at an important point in the history of our country and what direction 
we might take.
  In the next several hours, in the next several days, we will take up 
the debate of the Shays-Meehan campaign finance legislation. We will 
have a singular opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to at last take soft money 
out of politics. We will have one shining moment to end transactional 
politics on Capitol Hill, and we will have one chance to actually make 
sure that working families' voices are heard in the halls outside of 
this Chamber instead of just the voices of special interest groups and 
high-powered lobbyists. And I hope that my colleagues will see that 
opportunity and seize it and join together and pass the Shays-Meehan 
legislation and bring rational, reasonable campaign finance laws into 
effect in this Congress.
  We are also in an important point in our history in terms of what 
direction this country will take. And those questions will be answered 
by our debate around the administration's budget and around our own 
budgetary initiatives that will be put forward on this floor. And I 
just want to take a moment to just do a gut check on where we are in 
this country's history.
  We are without question the wealthiest generation of any people that 
has ever walked this Earth. We have acquired in this generation, my 
generation, greater wealth and done it faster than any other 
generations on this planet. We have seen in the past 20 years the 
average income of the top 1 percent of earners in this country increase 
by a staggering $414,000 per year. We have seen the number of 
millionaires in our society increase by 400 percent over the past 10 
years. The rate of home ownership is through the roof, never been 
higher in this country.
  We are faced now with several challenges, knowing that we are the 
wealthiest generation, knowing we have the blessings of generations 
that have gone before us. We have a couple of challenges, and I think 
the way we face these challenges is instructive as to the type of 
people and the type of country that we become.
  We are faced with the challenge of financing the cost of this war in 
Afghanistan. And what is our response? If I can take the instruction 
from the President's State of the Union Address and the instructions of 
the majority party, we are saying that we do not want to pay for this 
war. We do not want to pay for this war. We want our tax cuts. That is 
what we are saying as a generation. We want our tax cuts. Even though 
we are the wealthiest generations of Americans, do not phase out our 
tax cuts. Do not delay them. Give us our tax cuts. And instead, we are 
saying let us build a deficit, and let us just hand the bill, hand the 
debt owed for this war to our children and to their children.
  And that, Mr. Speaker, I see as just disingenuous and to a certain 
degree cowardly. We have a responsibility to the next generations. We 
have a responsibility, especially given the blessings that we have in 
this country, to face up to our responsibility and to pay for the cost 
of the prosecution of this war. It is a just war, and I stand with the 
President in the prosecution of this war, but we must face up to our 
responsibilities.
  I also say the way we are facing our responsibilities to pay for 
Social Security, to provide a secure and decent requirement and health 
care for America's greatest generations, and instead, what we hear on 
the floor in our debate is that we should somehow privatize Social 
Security, we should somehow suggest curtailing benefits to those who 
are our most vulnerable and most in need. And, Mr. Speaker, I think we 
have missed, if that is the direction we have taken, we have missed our 
mission. We have missed our opportunity to strike, I think, a true 
course consistent with the great traditions in this country of meeting 
the challenges of each generation.

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