Real Estate Investment Thrift Savings Act

Mr. Speaker, I yield 10 seconds to the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis).

(Mr. LEWIS of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be bringing this bill to the floor today, and I would like to explain why we are doing this, why this is needed.

Just last year, according to the CRS or Citizens Against Government Waste, whichever group you want to talk about, we had over 10,000 earmarks here, totaling almost $28 billion.

Mr. Speaker, not every one of those earmarks came in just conference reports, but many of them did.

Mr. Speaker, we need more transparency and more accountability in how we spend the taxpayer dollars. In particular, Mr. Speaker, we ought to have the ability to be able to have votes on the individual merits of spending items, particularly those that we never have a chance to vote on, things that go into conference reports.

The earmark reform legislation that was passed earlier by this body did a lot to address bringing more transparency and accountability to the spending system as bills come to the floor. This is a perfect complement to that, the legislative line item veto, because after bills are considered, after conference reports are dealt with, we often find out that in conference a lot of things get put into those bills that we didn't get a chance to scrutinize. We ought to be able to vote on those things.

Now, how does this work?

And I want to get to the constitutional point in just a moment. Here is exactly how the process is laid out under this constitutional legislative line item veto: number one, after a bill becomes law, the President identifies an item of discretionary spending, direct spending or special interest tax break in legislation that is being signed into law. The President then submits a special message to Congress, no more than five, asking for the rescission of a spending item or items. After receiving this bill or messages, the House and the Senate have a total of 14 legislative days to bring it to the

floor for an up-or-down vote. If the House and Senate pass the President's rescission request, it is sent to the President and becomes law. If either House votes against it, the rescission is not enacted.

This is far different than the earlier legislative line item veto. This is not your father's line item veto. In fact, I agree with the Supreme Court ruling that said that the earlier line item veto was unconstitutional, because that line item veto, among other things, violated the separation of powers. This protects the prerogatives of the legislative branch, specifically, because this: the action is executed by Congress, not the administration. Under the old version the administration made the decision. Line item veto. That is the end of it. If Congress didn't like it, they would have to come up with a two- thirds vote to override that. That is not how this situation works.

Under this system, the President, who already has similar existing rescission authority, sends a rescission request to the Congress, just like he can do today. Only under this situation, we simply add a fast track authority, like we do with a lot of other legislation, like trade legislation, whereby we can't duck the vote by within 14 legislative days the House and the Senate vote on this, up or down. We decide in Congress. We vote to affirm the rescission. If we choose not to pass the rescission, the rescission does not take place. The money is spent. This is constitutional to the point where the gentleman who argued against the line item veto successfully in the Supreme Court in 1998 came to testify in three different committee hearings, Charles Cooper, as to the constitutionality of this, that this does, in fact, protect the prerogatives of the legislative branch; that this is consistent with the bicameralism and presentment clause in the Constitution, and maintains the separation of powers.

Now, we have worked with a lot of parties. We have worked with Democrats, constitutional experts, Republicans, OMB. In fact, this bill has been so bipartisan in the past, similar legislation has been proposed. In 1993, H.R. 1578 received 250 votes, including 174 Democrats. In 1994, H.R. 4600 received 342 votes, an expedited rescission bill, 173 Democrats. Two years ago, Congressman Charles Stenholm and I, a Blue Dog Democrat, brought it to the floor. We got 174 votes for virtually the same legislation, where we got 45 Democrats.

Now, the gentleman from South Carolina, the ranking member, has brought a lot of good points to the table. He is a gentleman who has watched this process for many years and understands this process very, very well. In particular, he brought six items of concern to the committee 3 weeks ago, which I took very, very copious notes of, which I took to heart. And because of that, we have made six big changes to this bill to try and improve this legislation, because I think the gentleman from South Carolina made excellent suggestions.

We limited time on the President's submission of a rescission request. We limited the number of requests. We wrote a ban on duplicative requests so the President couldn't send a request over and over and over and tie us into knots. We shortened the deferral period to the minimum amount necessary. We clarified that existing entitlements are exempt. Not Medicare, not Social Security, not other entitlements. We put a sunset in here so that we can revisit this law in 6 years to make sure that the balance of power is maintained.

Why is this needed, Mr. Speaker?

I think the success of this tool will be judged more in how much wasteful spending doesn't get put into bills and less on how much wasteful spending we take out of bills. Having this deterrence, having this extra layer of accountability will bring the level of sunshine, transparency and accountability to the spending and taxing process in Congress exactly where it is needed the most.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished majority whip, Mr. Blunt.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Matheson).

Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman from Minnesota will be happy to know that under the way this bill works, you cannot go after mandatory programs in the farm bill that already exist. So you cannot go back and take a commodity program out.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished Member from Florida (Mr. Crenshaw), a member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Speaker, given that my friend from Wisconsin voted for virtually the same bill 2 years ago when Charlie Stenholm and I had it on the floor, I hope we can count on his support again.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Cuellar).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 20 seconds to answer what the gentleman mentioned on tax cuts.

The reason we go after tax rifle shots is we do not want to give the President the power of setting policy that Congress has. We are going after pork, tax pork, spending pork, not tax policy. That would be to abrogate our responsibility of setting policy to the executive branch, and we do not want to do that. That is why the bill was written as it is today.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to respond to something that the gentleman from South Carolina said. He said under this bill we could go after mandatory programs like Social Security, Medicare, veterans benefits.

Let me be very clear: you cannot with this program go after Social Security, Medicare and veterans benefits as we know it today. We are saying new programs. Why do we say it that way? Why new direct spending programs?

There are 5,000-plus earmarks in the transportation bill just this last year. Why should that be taken off the table? If you did that, then the Bridge to Nowhere would be exempt from the line item veto. I think most people who know this stuff think the Bridge to Nowhere ought to be one of the things that the President would want to go after under the line item veto.

We are talking about new programs, not the existing entitlement programs that we have come to know and enjoy for many of our constituents.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Udall).

(Mr. UDALL of Colorado asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, before I yield to the gentleman from Texas, I would simply like to point out I think the gentleman from Maryland said we need to cut more spending. I agree. That is why we should pass this. In fact, the gentleman from Maryland voted for similar legislation that I offered with Charlie Stenholm 2 years ago and two expedited rescission bills that the gentleman from South Carolina authored in the past. So I hope we can enjoy your support this time around.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

At this time, Mr. Speaker, I would like to

yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the Appropriations Committee from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining?

Mr. Speaker, I want to address a few of the concerns that have been mentioned by the other side of the aisle.

First of all, this is a bipartisan bill. If you paid attention, a number of the speakers came to the floor from the other side of the well to speak in favor of this. Actually, three Democrats came to the floor in favor of this bill that we are considering right now, three Democrats I am proud to call friends and supporters and coauthors of this proposal. In fact, we took an amendment of Mr. Cuellar of Texas to improve this bill.

Other speakers have said this gives too much power to the President. Well, let us just remember one thing: the President already has rescission authority today. Today, the President can rescind something, defer spending, and send it to Congress. Here is the problem: Congress just ignores these things. In fact, President Reagan sent $25 billion of rescissions to Congress, and they ignored every one of them.

So we want to make that process work. We are taking the existing authority he has, making it actually shorter in time frame, and we are simply guaranteeing that we are going to vote on it.

I think, if somebody sticks a wasteful pork barrel project like a $50 million rainforest museum from Iowa, a bridge to nowhere, or something like that in a bill in a conference report where we as Members of Congress have one choice, vote ``yes'' or ``no'' on the entire bill, then the President has a similar choice: sign or veto the entire bill.

That is wrong. We ought to be able to vote on that $50 million rainforest museum. This gives us the chance to do that, and this means that we can't duck those votes.

This is a bipartisan bill. It has been so bipartisan in the past that Mr. Spratt has offered very similar legislation. We got 173 Democrats on one of them, 174 on another. Mr. Stenholm and I offered a bill very similar to this 2 years ago; we got 45 Democrats on it. I hope that we will continue to get this bipartisan support that we had been getting.

But more importantly, Mr. Speaker, the American people know we need every tool we can get our hands on to go after wasteful spending. That is why taxpayer watchdog groups are key on voting this bill. The American Conservative Union, the Americans for Prosperity, Americans for Tax Reform, Citizens Against Government Waste, the Club For Growth, Freedom Works, National Federation of Independent Businesses, National Taxpayer Union, Taxpayers for Common Sense, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce all are key voting this vote as a key vote for the taxpayer. Other groups supporting this: ALEC, the American Taxpayer Alliance, Bond Market Association, Business Roundtable, Center for Individual Freedom, Concord Coalition, Association of Wholesale Distributors, National Restaurant Association, 60 Plus, Traditional Values. The list goes on and on.

Mr. Speaker, the American people know we need this tool to go after wasteful spending, taxpayers need this tool so we can do this, and, more importantly, we need more transparency in our process here in Congress.

We passed earmark reform so that Members of Congress have to defend their earmarks when they come to the floor of the House when we write these bills in the beginning. But a lot of this stuff gets inserted at the end of the process in the conference reports; that is why we need to have this deterrent.

I think the success of this bill will be less in how much pork we get out of legislation that we line item veto out, and more in how much pork never gets put into legislation in the first place, because there will be an extra deterrent. A Member of Congress who wants to slip in some big piece of pork barrel spending that he probably couldn't otherwise justify will think twice, because he or she may have to come to the well of the House and the well of the other body to defend that pork barrel spending.

This is good government. This is transparency. This is an added layer of accountability that is right for the taxpayer, and it is constitutional. It protects the prerogatives of the legislative branch. That is why I think this is a good bill. That is why I am pleased to call this a bipartisan bill. That is why I think we should strike this vote for the taxpayer.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``aye'' vote for this.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I reluctantly raise a point of order to the motion to recommit on the grounds that the motion includes provisions that are not germane to the bill. On those grounds, that is why I raise the point of order.

Mr. Speaker, I will just rise to say that that is evidence of my point of order which PAYGO is outside of the germaneness of this bill. Earmark reform is outside the germaneness of the bill. It is on those grounds that I raise this point of order.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the gentleman for a very substantive motion to recommit. I would like to go through a number of the provisions he raises and some of the concerns I have with them and why I have to rise in opposition.

Number one, Mr. Speaker, he excludes direct spending from the line item veto. A case in point. When we do the transportation reauthorization bill, that thing contains something like 5,000 earmarks. The bridge to nowhere is one of the most prolific examples of such things. I do not think those things should be exempt from this line item veto tool.

Number two, he reduces the number of messages from five to one. My fear with this change is that it will reduce the effectiveness of this tool. If the President only has one bite at the apple, only one bill he can send, he will only go after one or two earmarks. What if a bill has 5,000 earmarks? What if a bill has 500 earmarks? The President ought to be able to send us more votes so we can go after more earmarks and cut out more wasteful spending. If he only gets to send 1 bill, and he puts 50 pieces in that bill, then the President will be growing his vote coalition against it. Fifty State delegations also vote against it. So I think if you just do one bill, you are going to make this tool very, very small. It will not be nearly as effective because the President will be disincentivized from putting many earmarks in it because they will fall under their own weight. That is why we put five bills so we can go after a great number of earmarks so that we can get maximum output for this.

Now, the other thing, it permits amendments to strike. I understand the intent of this. I think it is valuable, but the problem I have with permitting amendments to strike is that then you are going to ping-pong back and forth with the House and Senate. You will see no end to this.

The reason why we do not allow amendments to conference reports is because conference reports represent a conclusion of a legislative process, the end of a legislative process before a bill becomes law. But that is where a lot of mischief happens, and mischief occurs because people insert earmarks in conference reports. I think by doing this you are going to encourage that. Even if you try to come up with language to streamline the conference report process, I still think this produces those problems.

Lastly, Mr. Speaker, the tax provision. This is one that is worthy of very good debate. Mr. Spratt wants to limit the number of tax beneficiaries from 100 to 10. Let me give you an example. We chose to do it the way we did it so we would go after tax pork, rifleshot tax policy, you know, this tax cut for this person, this tax entity, instead of tax policy. Let me just give you one example. The orphan drug tax credit.

We have the orphan drug tax credit in tax law today because there are a lot of small diseases that do not have a lot of constituencies, that do not have a lot of people--lupus, Duchenne's disease, and you are not going to see pharmaceutical companies engaging in committing millions of dollars in research to cure such small diseases, but we want cures for these smaller diseases, these rare diseases. So we created the orphan drug tax credit. How many people utilize this orphan drug tax credit? Very few, surely not 100, maybe 3, 4 companies. Researchers will research a cure for a rare disease, but if they do the research, they qualify for the tax credit. That is tax policy. Fewer than 100 beneficiaries get it, but we wanted to have a tax incentive so that researchers will commit their dollars to researching and finding cures for rare diseases. That is just one example of how broadening the scope of this goes into tax policy.

The goal of this is not to give the President the power to rewrite policy, to rewrite entitlement policy, to rewrite tax policy. The goal of the legislative line item vote is to give us the tool to go after pork, tax pork.

Now, what we want to accomplish with this, Mr. Speaker, is to give us the tools to go after wasteful spending, wasteful direct spending, wasteful discretionary spending, and wasteful tax pork. The key thing is that we reserve the power. The Executive can give us the bill; the Executive, the President, can pull the pork out; but who makes the decision is Congress. Congress and Congress alone, the legislative branch, are the ones who execute the action.

I think the compromise we have come up with, the base bill, is the right way to go.

And the last point I will make is the gentleman reduces the deferral period to 30 days. Here is the problem with that. That means Congress can pass a huge omnibus appropriations bill in October, as we often do, and then leave for recess until January 20, when the President has the State of the Union address. He is out of session for 3 months and Congress cannot waive the deferral period.

I urge a ``no'' vote on the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I can't help but notice the juxtaposition on the estate tax bill that will decrease revenues by $823 billion over its first 10 years of implementation and this bill which comes to us wearing the mantle of fiscal responsibility, but will barely dent the addition to the deficit we just made if that bill becomes law.

Mr. Speaker, I have written and brought to the floor of this House and seen to passage at least two, maybe three, expedited rescission bills back in the 1990s. But I can't bring those bills to this floor today because the Rules Committee won't let me. They shut me out 100 percent. Every amendment I requested was rejected, even though they were serious and substantive amendments.

So I would say to others who were here on previous occasions: Look at this bill carefully because it is not the same bill we have voted upon before.

This bill allows the President a window of 45 days in which to pick items to be rescinded. It allows the President to send five rescission bills for every appropriation bill. Five times 11, there are 11 appropriation bills, equals 55. If we have a President who makes full use of this, we are inviting chaos.

The original bill and the substitute I would have offered provide the President 10 days, which is enough. Furthermore, the more time you give the President, the more apt that the cuts he makes will be for political purposes rather than budgetary purposes. Ten days is enough for a budgetary review.

Secondly, this bill allows the House, us, Congress, to vote up or down. That's it, no amendments, no way that we can cull through the list that the President sends back up here and pick out what is a worthy project and make the case for them.

The original bill which we voted upon before and my substitute allowed a Member to go get 99 others and remove a worthy spending item from the rescission list.

Next, this bill allows the President to strike something called direct spending items. That's budget talk for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans benefits, agriculture benefits, on and on. What we have in this bill is a fast track, an expedited track to passage, summary treatment of things that the President sends up here that are supposed to be turned around in less than 30 days, and that is no way to decide substantive changes in Medicare and Social Security, but that is what this bill provides.

The original bill and my substitute have no mention of Medicare or Social Security direct spending in it. It applied to discretionary spending, as it should.

This bill allows the President to strike targeted tax benefits. So did the original bill. I offered that amendment. But this bill defines targeted tax benefits to mean those with fewer than 100 beneficiaries. That was a targeted tax benefit.

This bill defines the number down to one beneficiary and lets the Ways and Means Committee chairman be the arbiter of that. This is a sham. It is a serious deficiency in this bill, and it distinguishes this bill from the others that have come before it.

This bill allows the President to impose a 90-day impoundment on spending items for which he seeks rescission, but by the track set up in this bill, it will only take 30 days for a rescission to run its course. Why not simply confine the amount of impoundment time to something close to the amount of time it will take to consider a rescission request?

This may seem like a small point, but we are giving a substantial grant of authority to the President. If it is abused or not used in a way that we approve, then we better keep it on tight rein. This bill sunsets in 6 years. We would sunset it in 2 years. Keep it on a

tight rein in case it is abused. It may be a small point, but it could be a major point as well.

There are other things that we would have proposed in amendments that we would offer that would make this bill better. The gentleman just talked about earmarks. We put earmark reforms in our substitute. You will not find the word ``earmark'' anywhere in this bill.

If you are going to do this, and your objective is to take down the deficit, then let's put something in here known to work toward that end, and that is the PAYGO rule. It worked so well for us in the 1990s and can work again for us. Why not use this moving vehicle in the name of fiscal responsibility to pass PAYGO as well as rescission? If we did something like that, you truly would have a bipartisan bill.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price).

(Mr. PRICE of North Carolina asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moore).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Baird).

Will the gentleman suspend?

I will yield you more time.

I simply want to say to my friend from Georgia, if you want transparency as to earmarks, we offered an amendment. The Rules Committee would not make it in order. Our substitute addresses the issue of earmarks. It reinstates the earmark reforms in the Obey bill which is now languishing in conference.

I yield the gentleman 2 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to address an issue that Mr. Ryan spoke to just a moment ago.

This bill does apply to new direct spending items. Now, there could be some disagreement over what that means, but direct spending is mandatory spending, it is entitlement spending, and under that broad rubric falls Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and veterans benefits.

The reason we are very concerned about broadening the reach to include mandatory programs like that is that these are programs people depend upon; and what this bill essentially does is create a fast track, a 30-day turnaround. The President sends a bill here, we can't amend it in committee, we can't amend it on the floor, we only have an up-or-down vote, we have a limited amount of time for debate. It is a fast track with no substantive input from Congress, and I would hate to see us make an ill-advised change in Social Security or Medicare simply because it got wrapped up with other spending issues and was pushed through here on such a small fast track that we didn't realize the consequences until we woke up a month or two later.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the distinguished Democratic whip.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown).

(Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time.

Mr. Speaker, this could be a bipartisan bill. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) has taken the bill that the President sent us, which is a classic case of overreaching, and improved it very much and I commend him for that. But it is not good enough; it is not worthy of passage, in my opinion. If it really was to be a bipartisan bill, if that is what you wanted, why did I get shut out in the Rules Committee?

I came forward with two substitutes, one germane, one nongermane, with various individual amendments, all of them serious substantive things. Sure, we could disagree about them, but I didn't get to the opportunity under the Rules Committee's provision to come here and offer those on the floor of the House.

I think in wrapping up, it is worth showing these charts to everybody again to show the path we are on, which is this path right here: a deficit this year of $300 billion to $350 billion, more than $400 billion last year; intractable, structural deficits. And, as you will see from the costs plotted by CBO, the numbers only get worse here that show the deficit sinking to almost $500 billion in 10 years.

The consequence of that? First of all, the debt ceiling, the legal limit to which we can borrow, we have seen an increase in the debt ceiling in the United States since President Bush came to office under your watch of $3.668 trillion. That is the increase in 5 fiscal years of the debt ceiling of the United States. And the total indebtedness of the United States is shown right here. The statutory debt was $5.9 trillion when President Bush took office. If we continue on the track that we are on now with his budgets, we can expect to have a debt of nearly $11.3 trillion by the year 2011. That is where we are going.

It is hard to avoid the suspicion that this bill today is sort of a diversionary tactic because, by everybody's admission, even its more ardent proponents, this won't even put a dent in the deficit. As I said, we just adopted a bill which could have an impact on revenues over 10 years, when fully implemented, of $823 billion. This will barely, barely amount to a dent in the budget, a deficit addition of that kind.

Now, the gentleman said that I have engaged in acrobatics, as if I weren't serious and sincere about the amendments I am proposing. But I have a problem with giving the President 45 days to pick through appropriation bills, because the wider the window, the more apt he will be to use it for political purposes. I have a problem with having the President send up five bills for every appropriation bill. There are 11 appropriation bills. We could have as many as 55 rescission bills here on the House floor, and then I am sure, as we take up these bills on Christmas Eve, you will be having Members ask: Who came up with these ideas?

I have a problem with direct spending that is reaching too far. If this is an experiment to start with, why not stick to discretionary spending? None of the previous bills have included that.

So for all of these reasons, this could be a much better bill. And I would offer on a motion to recommit my only opportunity a substantial improvement to the bill, and I hope every Member will seriously consider it and will also vote for it.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.

I am in its present form.

Mr. Chairman, the motion to recommit concerns entirely the budget process. It is germane and completely germane to the budget process. We add to the bill or would add to the bill the so-called pay- as-you-go provisions which were the law of the land from 1990 to 2002. We reinstate that as a complement to, and it is complementary to, the other powers granted by this bill. It relates to entitlement spending. The bill relates to entitlement spending. So this is well within the ambit of the subject matter of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I offer an alternate motion to recommit, which does not contain the objectionable features.

Mr. Speaker, let me just tell you quickly, by laundry- list fashion, the changes that this amendment would add to the bill.

First of all, we have followed the model of similar bills, the bills that were passed by this House in 1993 and 1994. We have gone back to those to create expedited rescission authority.

Secondly, we have prohibited the President or any other officer of the executive branch from using the rescission authority, that power, as a bargaining tool to extract votes on other unrelated legislation.

Number three, we have provided that during the consideration of a rescission request by the President, there is to be a motion to strike; in other words, a provision by which 100 Members of the House could ask for a separate vote on a separate item which they deem worthy, and they could have an opportunity in the well of the House to make the case for this worthy spending item.

Number four, we have limited the number of cancellation proposals that the President can send up to one appropriation bill, which is an entirely sensible change to the bill. Otherwise, under the terms of the bill, the President will be able to send 5 different rescission requests on 11 different appropriations bills, in total 55 bills, which could wreak havoc with the process and in this place. It invites chaos. It is not necessary. It was not in previous bills. It does not need to be in this bill.

Number five, we have reduced the amount of time the President has to propose a cancellation or rescission after signing a bill from 45 days to 10 days. Why is that? We think that 10 days is more than enough. The original bills passed by the House provided only 3 days. We have extended it to 10 days, but 10 days give the President all the time he needs for a budgetary scrub-down of the budget. Forty-five days is apt to cause him to look for political applications as opposed to budgetary applications.

Number six, we have reduced the amount of time that the President can withhold funds, impound funds when he proposes a rescission or cancellation from 90 days, as in the bill, to 30 days and 7 days for emergency spending. We think that is reasonable. That is roughly the time it would take for a rescission to run its course.

Then we think this is extremely important, not just reasonable, but critically important. This is a major experiment. Let us not extend it to entitlement spending. Americans depend upon Social Security and Medicare and veterans benefits. Are we going to take something that important from which people depend and put it on the fast track, the up-or-down vote process that this vote calls for? I would hope not. This particular amendment would put Social Security and Medicare and veterans benefits beyond the reach of the President's rescission power, fast-track rescission powers.

This then defines tax benefits the way we originally defined it. One of the evolutions in the history of this bill was for us to go back and say a lot of money is spent through tax expenditures in the Tax Code. There are a lot of earmarks in the Tax Code, as well as in the appropriation bills. So let us call attention to something called the targeted tax benefits that have fewer than 100 intended beneficiaries, and let us provide as to these earmarks in the tax bill the President will have the same authority. This bill has been changed significantly from 100 beneficiaries to 1 beneficiary, which guts the meaning of that original provision.

Finally, this is an experiment. We are ceding a lot of authority to the President of the United States that the Congress has under Article I of the Constitution. In order to make sure that this authority is not misused or abused or manipulated, we are providing simply that we have a sunset of 2 years. Two full years would mean President Bush would have this authority for 2 fiscal years, but that we would review it and decide whether or not we should go forward with it or make major changes.

These are all serious, substantive amendments. They are not tilted in any direction at all except in the direction of getting a better bill which we can vote upon.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I rise with great respect for my friends on my side of the aisle when it comes to this proposal today.

I took an interest in this starting 2 years ago when it seemed to me we needed some additional tools to bring these budget deficits under control. We have gone from surpluses to enormous deficits, and from reducing our national debt to increasing the debt tax on our children; and it is my opinion that this bill will help us begin to bring our budget back into balance.

As has been mentioned here, it follows the approach of our former colleague Charlie Stenholm, and it also mirrors what 43 Governors have, as our friend Congressman Castle mentioned earlier today. It also mirrors a bill that I introduced in the last Congress as well.

So, in sum, this will promote accountability. It will promote transparency. It is a small start. I believe that it balances the constitutional responsibilities between the President and the Congress; and perhaps if we pass this today, then we create some momentum so that we move toward putting PAYGO back in place and reining in the earmark situation that we now face in this Congress that in part has led us to these enormous deficits.

So let's pass this. Let's work together. Let's find a way to balance the budget and not pass on the debt tax to our children.

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and, again, I rise in support of this important piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, over the last 5 years we've seen a dramatic change in the Federal budget--a change for the worse.

We've gone from budget surpluses to big deficits, and from reducing the national debt to increasing the ``debt tax'' on our children.

There's no mystery about how this happened.

Partly, it was caused by a recession.

Partly, it was caused by the increased spending needed for national defense, homeland security, and fighting terrorism.

And in part it was caused by excessive and unbalanced tax cuts the president pushed for and Congress passed.

This bill does not directly address those major causes of our budgetary problems.

Fixing them will take long-term work on several fronts, including taxes.

And it will take stronger medicine than this--such as restoring the ``PAYGO'' rules that helped bring the budget into balance in the past.

That's why I thought the House should have been able to at least debate a stronger version of this bill, in the form of the substitute proposed by the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Spratt.

And that's why I voted against the Republican leadership's restrictive rule that prevents even debating that substitute.

But, even so, I support this bill because it can help, at least a little, to promote transparency and accountability about spending items and tax breaks.

We have heard a lot of talk about spending ``earmarks''--meaning spending based on proposals by Members of Congress instead of the Administration.

Some people are opposed to all earmarks--but I am not one of them.

I think Members of Congress know the needs of their communities, and I think Congress as a whole has the responsibility to decide how tax dollars are spent.

And earmarks can help fund nonprofits and other private-sector groups to do jobs that Federal agencies are not able to do as well.

In short, not all earmarks are bad.

In fact, I have sought earmarks for various items that have benefited Coloradans--and I intend to keep on doing that.

And a similar case can be made for targeted tax breaks, as well.

Still, we all know some bills have included spending earmarks or special tax breaks that might not have been approved if they were considered separately.

That's why the President--like his predecessors--has asked for the kind of ``line-item veto'' that can be used by Governors in Colorado and several other States.

And that's why about 10 years ago Congress actually passed a law intended to give President Clinton that kind of authority.

But the Supreme Court ruled in 1998 that the legislation was unconstitutional.

And I think the Court got it right.

I think trying to allow the President to in effect repeal a part of a law he has already signed--and saying it takes a two-thirds vote in both Houses of Congress to restore that part--went too far.

I think that kind of line-item veto would undermine the checks and balances between the Executive and Legislative branches of the government.

So, I could not support that kind of line-item veto.

But this bill is different.

It is a practical, effective--and, best of all, Constitutional-- version of a line-item veto.

It is not unprecedented. It follows the approach of legislation passed by the House of Representatives several times during the Clinton administration under the leadership of our former colleague Charlie Stenholm and others, including Tom Carper, Tim Penny and John Kasich.

It also is similar to bills I introduced under the heading of measures to ``Stimulate Leadership in Cutting Expenditures,'' or ``SLICE.''

Under this bill--as under SLICE--the President could identify specific spending items he thinks should be cut--and Congress would have to vote, up or down, on whether to cut each of them.

Current law says the President can ask Congress to rescind--that is, cancel--spending items. But Congress can ignore those requests, and often has done so.

This bill would change that.

It says if the President proposes a specific cut, Congress can't duck--it would have to vote on it, and if a majority approved the cut, that would be that.

So, it would give the President a bright spotlight of publicity he could focus on earmarks or special tax breaks, and it would force Congress to debate those items on their merits.

That would give the President a powerful tool--but it also would retain the balance between the Executive and Legislative branches.

I think that is very important, and I appreciate having had the opportunity to work with Mr. Ryan and others to fine-tune the bill while it was being considered in committee. I think the result has been to improve the bill considerably.

Mr. Speaker, under the Constitution Congress is primarily accountable to the American people for how their tax dollars are spent.

By making the taxing and spending processes more transparent and specific, this bill can promote that accountability.

Of course, without knowing what the President might propose to rescind, I don't know if I would support some, all, or any of his proposals.

But I do know that people in Colorado and across the country think there should be greater transparency about our decisions on taxing and spending.

And I know that they are also demanding that we be ready to take responsibility for those decisions.

This bill will promote both transparency and accountability, and so I urge its approval.

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) for the work he has done on this very important bill. We have had our differences, but in the meantime he has been more than cooperative.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the Legislative Line Item Veto Act. My opposition is based on Congress's experience with previous efforts to give the President line item veto authority, as well as my serious concerns over what this bill would do to the balance of budgetary power between the Legislative and Executive Branches.

During 1997, President Clinton exercised his authority under the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 to cancel spending authority or tax benefits 82 times. Total cancellations of discretionary budget authority amounted to $479 million, or less than three one-hundredths of one percent of the total fiscal year 1998 Federal budget.

The cancellations made during this period were mired in controversy. On October 6, 1997, President Clinton cancelled $287 million for 38 military construction projects in 24 States. Soon after the cancellations were announced, the administration admitted, in response to bipartisan criticism, that they had used flawed information in deciding to cancel nearly half of the projects.

The administration used three criteria in making these decisions. The cancelled projects: (1) were not requested by the military; (2) could not make contributions to the national defense in fiscal year 1998; and (3) would not benefit the quality of life and well-being of military personnel. These criteria were applied by the bureaucrats within the White House and OMB without consulting either the Department of Defense or the Members of Congress who sponsored the projects.

Congress's motivation for funding many of these projects was safety. A Live Fire Command and Control Facility at Fort Irwin, CA, would enable the Army to safely train personnel in the live firing of ordnance. Renovations at White Sands Missile Range, NM, would address the absence of fire suppression systems.

Other projects provided much-needed housing. One would provide housing at Dyess Air Force Base in Texas, where there were no existing facilities to house the 13th Bomb Squadron.

Appropriations Chairman Bob Livingston singled out a particularly egregious cancellation relating to the money for Army reserve units in Utah. He said, in a letter to President Clinton, ``I can only conclude that your decision was based on something other than an altruistic yearning to cut spending. Mr. President, this was an embarrassing mistake . . .''

The Clinton Administration responded to some of the criticism by stating that many of the cancelled projects would be requested in future budgets anyway. This only fueled congressional objections, however, as Members could not understand why the projects were not necessary now when they could be considered necessary in the next budget cycle.

Congress responded by passing a bill to disapprove the President's military construction cancellations. The bill was vetoed by the President. The House voted 347-69 and the Senate voted 78-20 to override the veto, enacting the bill and nullifying the cancellations.

On June 25, 1998, the Supreme Court ruled that the Line Item Veto Act violated the presentment clause of the Constitution, thus ending a divisive and contentious fight between the Executive and Legislative branches.

The experience of the original Line Item Veto Act should cause Congress to be extremely cautious about giving the President new line item veto authority. Even though implementation under H.R. 4890 differs from the 1996 Act, the proposed bill would transfer a great deal of budgetary power to the Executive Branch.

The expedited rescission authority mandated by H.R. 4890 would give new weight to the President's rescission proposals. While under current law any rescission proposal can be disregarded by Congress if it has no merit, H.R. 4890 requires votes in the House and Senate. The President, or even bureaucrats within the agencies or the Office of Management and Budget, would set the legislative agenda by deciding what rescissions to include in a bill.

A President could also structure his rescission messages with more of an eye toward politics instead of good policy. For example, a President, encouraged by his political advisors, could propose rescissions that target the projects of one political party. In this event, the debate over the bill would be blatantly political and would certainly lead to legislative stonewalling by the offended party. A President could also make deals with specific Members of Congress to further his legislative agenda. He could easily threaten to cancel an item directly benefiting a particular Member's district, and then back off his threat if that Member votes in favor of the President's program. If a President is interested in trading Members' projects for their support for expanded entitlement spending, for example, overall spending would actually increase.

H.R. 4890 could also present Congress with a procedural nightmare. Each rescission bill would use up to five hours of debate time in the House and ten hours in the Senate. The President could submit up to five rescission messages for each enacted spending or tax bill, or up to ten messages for an omnibus bill. A multiple-rescission-bill scenario could easily eat up precious legislative time when the legislative calendar is already severely limited.

A Republican Congress might tend to support a Republican President's rescission proposals. However, there may not always be a Republican President in the White House. Expedited rescission authority would provide new opportunities for conflict between a White House and Congress of differing parties. The result could be a legislative deadlock manufactured by the Executive Branch.

The experience of the Line Item Veto Act under President Clinton showed how contentious the debate could become over saving a relatively small amount of money. Congress should have serious reservations over giving the Executive Branch so much sway over the funding of congressional priorities and the framework of the legislative agenda.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in opposition to H.R. 4890, the Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006.

I will readily admit that the underlying goal of this bill is commendable. Reducing government waste and unnecessary spending is an admirable goal, one that this Congress should pursue diligently. In fact, I voted in favor of the Line Item Veto Act of 1996.

I have seen the line item veto in action . . . by President Clinton on a military construction appropriations law. Experience is a cruel, but effective teacher. That experience has shown me that the line item veto in its practical application would abrogate Congressional authority and give the executive additional power over the legislative branch, threatening the fine balance of power that our Founding Fathers wisely ensured.

Since 1996, the Supreme Court has ruled the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 unconstitutional for its violation of Article 1, Section 7, known as the Presentation Clause of the United States Constitution. Justice Kennedy stated in his opinion in Clinton v. New York, ``Failure of political will does not justify unconstitutional remedies''. I stand by the decision of the Court and believe that its judgment is applicable to the bill before us.

In the Supreme Court ruling on Clinton v. New York the opinion of the Court stated that the ``cancellations'' of the 1996 Act were not merely exercises of the President's discretionary budget authority but a violation of Article I, Sec. 7, giving the President ``unilateral'' power to change the language of a duly enacted statute. In plain English, the bill did not allow Congress to exercise its constitutionally invested powers.

The bill before us today, H.R. 4890, attempts to avoid this hazard by requiring an up or down vote on each rescission. While these rescissions come to Congress for forced consideration, it does not get around the objections of the Court that the President, in his rescissions, is unilaterally changing a duly enacted statute. By forcing Congress to take up rescissions I fear this measure would tip the scales of power in favor of the executive. The Clinton ruling states that ``Statutory repeals must conform with Article I, (INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919, 954,) but there is no constitutional authorization for the President to amend or repeal. The constitutional return is of the entire bill and takes place before it becomes law, whereas the statutory cancellations occurs after the bill becomes law and affects it only in part'' (Clinton v. New York pp. 17-24).

This gets to the heart of my argument that Congress has still not addressed the objections of the Court. The ideals of the 1996 Act for fiscal restraint did not match the practical application leading me to question the ability of the executive to faithfully carry out this legislation, no matter how well intentioned. I cannot in good faith and a clear conscience hand over legislative authority to the executive branch and vote for legislation that seeks to dilute this process.

With regard to the practical aspects of the line item veto, when I voted in favor of the 1996 Act, it was my hope and likely the hope of everyone who supported the measure that the power would be used responsibly, wisely, and prudently. I saw this power abused and misused.

After signing the Military Construction Appropriations measure for Fiscal Year 1998, President Clinton used the line item veto authority for 38 construction projects. The Clinton administration cited three criteria for canceling

the projects. The projects (1) were not requested by the military; (2) could not make contributions to the national defense in FY 1998; and (3) would not benefit the quality of life and well-being of military personnel. The Clinton administration did not even follow its own criteria! The Clinton administration even acknowledged that it had used erroneous data as the basis for striking 18 of the 38 projects. The overwhelming majority of the projects were on the administration's own 5-year construction plan. It cut critical funding for our Nation's Guard and Reserves.

This was a blatant use of raw executive arrogance and power. It was simply an exercise of the White House wanting its way and ignoring the spending priorities set by Congress. Furthermore, the Clinton White House made very clear that it would use the line-item veto as a matter of politics, rather than objective fiscal policy. The line item veto was being used as leverage against Congress to obtain consent to the White House's demand for both more spending and for policy positions.

The Clinton administration made illegitimate the fundamental rationale for the line-item veto . . . to reduce spending. They used the power to threaten the cutting of Members' projects to extract more spending for the administration's priorities; thereby, the line item veto was used to increase spending, not decrease spending.

Despite the need to trim federal spending, I am convinced that this legislation, if enacted, could again be misused by the executive branch, as has already been proven by the example of the Clinton administration. As Justice Kennedy wrote, ``That a congressional cession of power is voluntary does not make it innocuous'' (Clinton v. New York p. 4).

I am a voice for the Fourth District of Indiana. My constituents want controls on the budget and restraint in federal spending. But, neither will I have their voices muffled by an executive power grab. I took an oath to ``defend the Constitution.'' I must protect the voice of my constituents and the power the Constitution invests in me as their representative.