[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 14426]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1800
                    RUBBER-STAMPING TAX LEGISLATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Feeney). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) is recognized for 
5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we are going to have another 
session of the rubber stamp Congress. There is an old song by Tennessee 
Ernie Ford that goes, ``You load 16 tons, and what do you get? Another 
day older and deeper in debt.''
  This Congress at a Committee on Rules meeting tonight, the Committee 
on Ways and Means chairman did not even show up. The bill was all 
greased. We are going to pass $80 billion more of debt out of here 
tomorrow.
  Now, the Democrats offered a bill that would have cost $3.5 billion 
to take care of those people earning between $10,500 and $26,500.
  When the Republicans got this bill, they said, Oh, boy: Let's go, and 
so they have crammed everything in it that President Bush wants. They 
are going to come down here, and we will have about an hour's debate, 
half an hour on the Democratic side, half an hour on the Republican 
side; and they will stamp that baby and out she goes. That is how this 
Congress is operating. Not one single hearing will have occurred on 
this bill, not one single hearing. $80 billion in a half-hour.
  Think about it. That is why my colleague, the gentleman from 
Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), came out here, to show the almost-$1 trillion 
in debt that has been accumulated over the last 2 years under this 
administration. Well, tomorrow we are going to add another layer of 
frosting on the cake, and everybody will come with their stamp in their 
hand and do it.
  Now, we also had a discussion here with one of the gentlemen from 
Georgia who said next week we are going to deal with the issue of 
Medicare. There has been no bill put in the Congress for the single 
largest program in the Congress that the government runs, and that is 
the Medicare program. The Committee on Ways and Means that I sit on has 
had not a single hearing on the proposal that is being brought in here. 
It is being greased somewhere to take up to the Committee on Rules and 
run down here on the floor, and, in a couple of hours, everybody will 
bring their stamp out and go, Boom, I approve of everything George Bush 
does.
  That is what this Congress is about, approving whatever George Bush 
does. Nothing else. There is no thinking going on in here. They just 
wait for their orders from the White House, go up to the Committee on 
Rules, slap the bill together, bring it to the floor, and stamp it 
``approved.''
  Now, that is no way for the United States Congress to operate. We 
were made in the first section of the Constitution because the founders 
of this country believed that the Congress was where the basis of our 
government should derive, that there should be discussion among the 535 
Members of both bodies as to what is going to happen in this country.
  But this time we are in a one-party government. It is a parliament 
with a fixed-end, and this party is President Bush, the Senate and the 
House; and they run them down here and run them through and stamp them, 
and that is the end of it.
  Now, there is a serious problem in that kind of government, because 
it makes it very partisan. I was told that the Medicare bill is 
written, but that you have to ask the chairman to go up to a room and 
sit there and read it in the room. You cannot take it out; you cannot 
take it to your office. I am a Member of Congress. I was elected by 
690,000 people, and so was every other Member. But I am not allowed to 
read the bill until the day they drop it up here in the committee and 
ram it through the House in 24 hours.
  People I go home to, they say, What is in the bill, Jim? What does 
this do, what does that do?
  I do not know. And it is not because I will not read or I am not 
smart or I will not work or I will not do what has to be done, but this 
is the way this place is being run. People are not being given a chance 
to discuss this.
  We have got an even bigger issue, and that is the whole issue of how 
we got into war. Everywhere in Great Britain right now the belief is 
that Tony Blair is toast. The liberals are calling for an inquiry. And 
this House will not do it, because the Republicans have rubber-stamped 
what we did, ``I approve of Mr. Bush.''

                          ____________________