Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 4890) to amend the Congressional and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 to provide for the expedited consideration of certain proposed rescissions of budget authority.

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 my colleague and good friend from Florida (Mr. Putnam) for the time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this rule and the underlying legislation. It is the misguided belief of some that the line item veto will serve as an effective tool to overcome the profligate spending by Congress. The irony, of course, is that if Congress had any kind of backbone, we would do it ourselves. For instance, if these same Members, who in my opinion feign seriousness about reining in spending, were actually serious, they would support our colleague, Mr. Flake, more often in his admirable yet heretofore unsuccessful attempts in cutting spending using the constitutionally mandated method, writing them into or removing them from bills before being sent to the President.

Proponents argue that giving the President enhanced authority and power would check Congress' mismicromanagement of Federal spending. Frankly, I think this reasoning is preposterous. I highly doubt that increased rescission authority would be used to decrease our Nation's deficit. To the contrary, I believe such authority would only further the aims of the partisan politics we have seen through this Congress and this administration. And let me be fair. If there is

ever a Democratic President, I think he or she would likely use this particular legislation in a partisan fashion.

For more than 5 years, the President has continually signed off on budgets that have only deepened our Nation's deficit. If the President seeks to cut excessive spending and lower the deficit, he, meaning this President, should adopt the traditional means he already possesses before seeking expanded authority.

Americans might have less trouble keeping their heads above water if they were not being overwhelmed with the red ink flowing in Washington, D.C. The truth of the matter is that this President has no need to use his power to veto when he can convince the majority in Congress to strike sections of legislation that go against the President's political agenda. In fact, in the more than 5 years that President Bush has been in office, he has not used the veto authority he currently possesses to veto a single piece of legislation that would lower our deficit or reduce the debt.

Who knew that in the year 2000 the Supreme Court would choose America's first prime minister and relegate Congress' role to that of an advisory committee.

Someone said recently that this Republican Congress has been simply a rubber stamp for the President. I politely disagree. My view is that at least a rubber stamp leaves an impression.

We have heard, and we will continue to hear, that almost all our Governors have something akin to line item veto authority. This, however, should not be used as a reason why we ought to do the same at the Federal level. In Florida, for example, the Governor's expanded veto authority has clearly shifted powers long held by the State legislators to the executive branch. We cannot let this happen here. We, the legislators, not the executive branch, should determine the legislative agenda.

Ms. Slaughter, in our meeting the other day, said where is it that this divine notion of what ought to be in the power of the purse is over there at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, no matter who occupies that office?

Now, once you take an even closer look at this bill, it gets even worse. The bill's provisions mandate that no amendment can be made to any rescission bills while in committee. This heavily restrictive ``all-or-nothing'' approach to the legislative process is quite damaging. Moreover, it totally undermines proponents' arguments that the President's ``all-or-nothing'' power to veto is what must be curbed.

The bill also stipulates limited debate in both the House and the Senate. It certainly does not answer the question of what happens if the Senate votes one way and the House votes another on one of the measures that the President has determined should be rescinded. These requirements do nothing but upset the delicate balance of power that our Founding Fathers crafted.

A footnote right there: Didn't the Supreme Court already tell us once before that veto in this particular fashion was unconstitutional, the line item veto?

If this bill passes, consensus, the ultimate cornerstone of the legislative process, as well as the principles of democracy itself, will most definitely be lost. Furthermore and most importantly, I do not think it wise or in the best interest of the American people for the legislative branch, this House that the Founding Fathers gave the power of the purse, to delegate more of its powers to any administration. Republican, Democrat, Independent, Green, wherever the President comes from, they should not have the power constitutionally mandated for the legislative branch to have. Administrations have continually abused our trust and usurped our constitutional authority.

For more than 5 years, the delicate system of checks and balances that our country depends on has been compromised all too often. Whether using so-called signing statements, and I wish I had to time to explain to the American public that dynamic, and I might add used by President Clinton as well, but not as much as by President Bush, which include caveats to bills, or tapping our phones, or wildly interpreting authority given by the PATRIOT Act, this President has shown little to no regard for Congress' coequal authority for control over the management of the country.

We cannot let this President, or any President for that matter, upset the balance needed to run this country. Granting line item veto authority to the executive branch would not only be offensive to democracy, it would be a serious mistake. It would undermine the United States Constitution, and it would be the kind of mistake we cannot afford to pay.

We are not children in this body, Mr. Speaker. We do not need to enshrine in law a paternalistic relationship between Congress and the President.

I urge rejection of this rule, and I urge rejection and entreat my colleagues to defeat the underlying bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, excuse me. Will my colleague remain for me to use some of my time to ask him a question before I yield to my good friend Mr. Miller?

And I might add my good friend and fellow Floridian, and he is my good friend.

Let me ask you, Mr. Crenshaw, do you feel that this House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, or the Congress, is in a deficit spending environment at this time? Can you answer ``yes'' or ``no''?

Right. And every year since the President has been in office, we have been in this deficit spending environment; would you agree?

Then tell me what is down and what is up? Did we not raise the debt ceiling twice?

Reclaiming my time, you say that this will be a little bit more. Our good friend Paul Ryan, who is an author of this legislation, yesterday in my dialogue with him, he agreed that this legislation gives the President the power to do five messages in regular legislation and 10 in an omnibus. Do you think by any stretch of the imagination that the American public believes that this is going to reduce the national debt?

Reclaiming my time, we do not live in Alaska, and no affront to you. I am delighted that we have $1.8 billion coming to Florida for coastal protection, but the President could have line itemed that, too.

Mr. Crenshaw, you served in the State legislature. And under Democrats and Republicans that had the line item veto, the simple fact of the matter is they have used it in a partisan fashion more often than not. That is among the fears.

Thank you for the dialogue.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I am pleased to yield 4 minutes to my good friend from California (Mr. George Miller).

Mr. Speaker, before yielding to my good friend from Wisconsin, perhaps it would be helpful if we have a little bit of historical foundation. Sometimes we forget these great people that met and debated for a long time before they determined the form of government that we should have.

But one of the things that they established most immediately in Article I, after the Preamble, ``We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America,'' Article I, Section 1, colleagues: ``All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.'' Not a President.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to my friend, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).

(Mr. KIND asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I don't believe he said that. I want to continue along those lines. Evidently the previous speaker doesn't know what Governor Jeb Bush just did, but that is another story.

I want to keep the Constitution before us. What it says in that same article, which, incidentally, was the first article, the article creating the President was the second article, in the first article, ``No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time,'' by the Congress.

I am pleased to yield 4 minutes to my good friend from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper).

(Mr. COOPER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to my good friend from Massachusetts (Mr. Neal), a distinguished member of long standing on the Ways and Means Committee.

(Mr. NEAL of Massachusetts asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, because of the limited number of speakers that I have left, I will reserve my time and allow my colleague from Florida who has more time and maybe more speakers to proceed.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield to my good friend, the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps), for 1\1/ 2\ minutes.

Mr. Speaker, my good friend from Pennsylvania began his remarks by quoting Ben Franklin who also was from Pennsylvania. Let me also say to you what Mr. Franklin said. At the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in your home State and his, Benjamin Franklin was asked, What have you wrought? He answered, A Republic, if you can keep it. He did not say a monarchy.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

The gentleman my good friend Dr. Gingrey from Georgia said we are over here railing while they are getting ready to pass later today the line item veto and repeal the ``death tax.''

Let me tell you what we ought to be railing about. Yesterday, we pulled the Voting Rights Act, an opportunity for its reauthorization. This Nation has an immigration crisis, and you are getting ready to take a dog-and-pony show on the road.

Fifty-five million Americans do not have health insurance, veterans' identities have been stolen because of incompetence, and gas prices are at an outrageous high, and here we are discussing something that ain't going to balance the budget.

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

Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time. I have no further speakers other than myself, and I am prepared to close.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remaining amount of our time.

During the course of this debate and discussion, I have cited to the United States Constitution frequently. I remind my colleagues that article I of the United States Constitution created the Congress. Article II created the President of the United States. Article III created the courts. The Founders must have had something in their mind as to what was first, and as it pertains to the power of the purse, they made it exactingly clear.

In this same Constitution, there are four sections dealing with powers of the President, 10 sections dealing with the powers of Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I will be asking Members to vote ``no'' on the previous question so I can amend the rule to provide that immediately after the House adopts this rule, it will provide for separate consideration of legislation introduced by Representative Spratt that provides a comprehensive approach to controlling our spiraling deficits without stripping the House of Representatives of its power of the purse.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment and extraneous materials immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, before we turn over our constitutionally granted power to the executive branch, let us vote on a measure that will actually reduce the deficit, rein in irresponsible spending and help to bring accountability back to the House's legislative process.

Mr. Spratt's bill does many things to encourage deficit reduction. It reinstates pay-as-you-go rules for both mandatory spending and revenues. It amends the Congressional Budget Act to stop the reconciliation process from being used to make the deficit worse or the surplus smaller. It enforces the 3-day layover requirement in the House rules to give Members adequate time to review legislation. It adds earmark provisions. The bill protects important mandatory spending like Social Security, Medicare and veterans benefits from any expedited rescission process. It prohibits the President or executive branch officials from using the rescission authority as a bargaining tool or even a source of blackmail just to secure votes.

In all fairness, when Mr. Clinton was the President of the United States, the first thing that he did with the veto power he had was veto something in toto.

It will be used in a partisan manner.

It is important for Members to know that defeating the previous question will not block the underlying bill, but by voting ``no'' on the previous question, we will be able to consider the Spratt alternative bill.

I urge all Members to vote ``no'' on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 886 and ask for its immediate consideration

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my good friend and colleague from Florida (Mr. Hastings), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

(Mr. PUTNAM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 886 is the rule that provides for debate of H.R. 4890, the Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006.

As a member of both the Rules Committee and the Budget Committee, the two committees of jurisdiction for the underlying legislation, I am pleased to bring this resolution to the floor for our consideration.

The Legislative Line Item Veto Act is the product of years of work on both sides of the aisle in Congress and at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. The original Line Item Veto Act was signed into law in April of 1996. It was later found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in its 1998 ruling on Clinton v. The City of New York. In each Congress since 1998, there have been multiple proposals from both parties to give the President constitutional line item veto authority.

In his State of the Union address this year, President Bush stated: ``I am pleased that Members of Congress are working on earmark reform, because the Federal budget has too many special interest projects. And we can tackle this problem together if you pass the line item veto.''

This subtle, but powerful, statement gave momentum to the effort to consider a constitutional option to the original Line Item Veto Act. The statement was followed up by an official message from the President to Congress in which he specifically asked Congress to consider his proposed Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006, which was subsequently introduced by Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

This legislation is based on an expedited rescissions approach to controlling spending that has been historically supported by both Democrats and Republicans as a means of bringing greater transparency and accountability to the budget and spending process. In fact, during the early 1990s, and again in 2004, expedited rescissions proposals that would have provided the President with the ability to propose the cancellation of spending items and special interest tax breaks and have them considered by Congress on an expedited basis were widely supported by Members of both parties. The Expedited Rescissions Act of 1993 was introduced by the ranking member, the Democratic leader on the Budget Committee, and received 258 votes on the House floor, including 174 Democrats. The Expedited Rescissions Act of 1994, another bill sponsored by the ranking member on the Budget Committee, received 342 votes on the House floor, including 173 Democrats. In 2004, the Ryan- Stenholm bipartisan Expedited Rescissions amendment received 174 votes on the floor, including 45 Democrats, one of which was the ranking Budget Committee member.

The current version of H.R. 4890 is also the product of that bipartisan effort. Based on input from Members from both sides of the aisle, it is narrowly drafted to meet the intent of allowing the President to work with the Congress to reduce wasteful spending, while preserving the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches. This legislative line item veto ensures that the power of the purse remains in the hands of Congress, where our Founding Fathers placed it and intended it to remain. Both the House and the Senate must affirm the President's vetoed spending. We will vote on any items the President selects. Congress maintains the final say on where and how and if the funding in question occurs.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Ryan, the Budget Committee, and the Rules Committee for creating legislation that will enable this Congress to maintain control of our spending priorities at both the beginning and the end of the budget process. This legislation is another example of the Republican-led Congress and our President pushing forward with fiscal discipline.

I urge members to support the rule and the underlying bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to my colleague from Florida, a member of the Budget and Appropriations Committees, Mr. Crenshaw.

Mr. Speaker, I would just remind my friend that on the three previous occasions there has been an opportunity to vote on this issue, 173 Democrats one time, 173 Democrats another time and 45 Democrats at another time all joined the cast members at his theater.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Miller).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller).

Mr. Speaker, I would say to my friend from Tennessee I am sure he did not mean to impugn or personalize the debate against any given chairman in this Chamber.

I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Schmidt).

(Mrs. SCHMIDT asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot), the chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution.

I thank my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Dent).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. English), a leader on our Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey), a member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to my colleague from Texas (Mr. Conaway), a member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bradley).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to my friend from North Carolina (Mr. McHenry).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining on each side?

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Speaker, and I would inform my friend from Florida that I have no further speakers and we prepared to close as well.

Mr. Speaker, this has been an important debate. It has been a good debate about an issue that has been around for a long time, and it has been around under a variety of iterations, the first version having been found unconstitutional, as my friend from Florida pointed out, and read to us from the Constitution. But because of that, the sponsor of this bill has adjusted it so that it is written in a constitutional form, and it is written in a constitutional form because it leaves the power of the purse in the hands of Congress, as the gentleman pointed out in article I of the Constitution.

It says that we have yet another resource for the President and the Congress to work together to eliminate wasteful spending which we all know exists in this town, but it says that the final say-so rests with the Congress, so the final power of the purse remains in the legislative branch, a very important point.

My friend also overlooks the fact that in these different versions that have been around and most recently have been around in almost identical form to what we are hearing and debating today, there has been support for the Democratic-sponsored version of 174 Democrats when President Clinton was the one who would get the line item veto; in 1994, under the sponsorship of a Democrat, 173 Democrats supporting; in 2004, a bipartisan-sponsored bill, 45 Democrats supporting. Apparently there was a change of heart depending on who the President was in office, whether there was Democratic support for the line item veto; 174 votes for the line item veto when President Clinton was in office, only 45 when President Bush was in office.

But be that as it may, this remains a bipartisan issue. It is an institutional issue. And this effort is carefully crafted to protect this institution, this legislative branch, so that the power of the purse rests with us; but we have expanded the ability to root out wasteful spending.

This is an important issue. I urge the House to adopt the rule and adopt the underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

It is fitting that we are talking about the line item veto when we are doing the estate tax. President Clinton left you guys an estate of $5 trillion, and like irresponsible relatives, you went off and blew it. And now you are saying to the country, like so often serial killers leave notes for the police, as the Son of Sam did, saying, ``Help me before I kill again,'' you are saying, ``Help me before I spend again.''

You control all the mechanisms of spending. You control the House. You control the Senate. You control the Presidency. And you need help before you spend again. What is this, Comedy Central? What is it you are doing here? ``Help me, I can't stop spending. Give me a line item veto, and maybe the President will veto 1 million here or 10 million there or 5 million there.''

We have an $8 trillion debt. You inherited a $5 trillion surplus. The money you are going to give to the richest families later today in this country, the richest 7,000 families, you are going to borrow from Social Security.

Mr. Crenshaw says you are now being fiscally responsible because you have a rainy day fund. You are the only family in America that went out and borrowed money to put into a rainy day fund because you do not have any money. The American people do not have any money in this government. All they have is debt. And you want a bill to help you to keep from spending again. What you need is a 12-step program on spending.

It is called intestinal fortitude. It is called having a spine. It is called having some guts to do what is necessary. But the first thing you did was get rid of the discipline and pay-as-you-go. So now you are stuck.

But more importantly, the Nation is stuck, and so we see this little plea, on the morning that we are going to give away almost $1 trillion to the richest people in the Nation, you have a plea here that maybe the President will stop the bridge to nowhere. How about Congress stopping the bridge to nowhere? How about doing what you were elected to do?

You don't need a line item veto. This isn't about statutes. This isn't about vetoes. This is about what the Congress is to do. You walked in here fresh, newly elected, and you got handed $5 trillion. And now you can't stop yourself. You can't stop yourself.

You can stop yourself from giving the people an increase in the minimum wage that hasn't increased since 1997. You can't give those people 70 cents more an hour. But you give it away to the richest estates, and then you can plead that but for the line item veto, we would somehow get to a balanced budget.

Every dollar you are going to spend today, tomorrow, and every dollar you spent yesterday and the day before came out of the Social Security Trust Fund. I am sure that America, while you are putting away a rainy day fund on borrowed money, I am sure America is delighted that you are putting away the estate tax on their Social Security earnings, on their trust fund. You are taking their trust fund that belongs to all Americans called the Social Security Trust Fund and you are raiding it for the trust fund of the heirs of the richest estates in America. What a wonderful example today. What a wonderful example for young people to learn about our obligations to future generations.

This is a theater of the absurd. You have run the country into the ditch financially. You got a $1 trillion war going that you can't figure out how to stop. You have stolen most of the money from Social Security Trust Fund. Every year we have a deficit. We have a $8 trillion debt. And you want to talk about the line item veto.

You know, the government is spending money like a drunken sailor, and Ronald Reagan said, well, at least the sailor was spending his own money.

You are spending the public's money at a rapid, illegal, unconscionable, immoral rate, and you ought to stop, but the line item veto won't do it.

Lots of things have changed since 1997, but the value of the minimum wage isn't one of them. Because of Congress' failure to act on behalf of the lowest paid workers in America, the minimum wage is still just $5.15 per hour. $5.15 per hour. Think about that. At $5.15 per hour, you would have to work all day just to fill a tank of gas at today's gas prices.

At $5.15 per hour, you would have to work for at least 30 minutes just to afford a single gallon of milk.

Democrats have a simple and reasonable proposal: We want to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour over the next two years. Doing so would directly benefit 6.6 million American workers. The vast majority of those workers are adults. Hundreds of thousands of them are parents with children under the age of 18.

We have all heard the well-worn economic arguments against raising the minimum wage, and we all know they simply aren't true. The truth is that raising the minimum wage won't hurt the economy, and can even help it.

But forget about economics. That's not what this issue is about. This issue is about doing what's right. And it is just wrong that, in the wealthiest and most advanced country in the history of the world, millions of adults work full-time, all year, and yet still earn an income that leaves them deep in poverty.

It is just wrong for the Republican leaders of this Congress to refuse to allow even a vote on raising the minimum wage. But what makes all of this far worse is that today, once again, as it has done so many times during the past several years, the leaders of this House are going to push tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country .

You know, starting in 2009, only the largest and wealthiest 7,500 estates nationwide will pay the estate tax. The Republican plan to gut the tax on these 7,500 estates will add three quarters of a trillion dollars to the federal budget deficit over the next decade. That's trillion with a T.

Lee Raymond, the former CEO of Exxon Mobil, stands to save as much as $160 million if this estate tax repeal goes through. This is the same Lee Raymond who left his job with a $400 million retirement package.

Why is the Republican leadership so worried about people like Lee Raymond? Why is the Republican leadership constantly looking for new ways to help the absolute richest people in the country? When is the leadership of this House going to do something for the lowest-paid families in America?

If you are born with a silver spoon in your mouth and you stand to inherit millions or even billions of dollars that you did not work to earn, then this Congress wants to serve you. But if you get up every day and go to work to earn a living, then don't expect any help from this Congress. The message all of this sends could not be clearer. The Republicans value wealth, not work.

If you hold up your end of the bargain and contribute to your community and our economy by working hard every day, then you should not have to live in poverty. It is well past time for this Congress to treat America's working families with the respect and dignity they have earned.

The choice to provide hundreds of billions more in tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy is shameful. It's even more shameful to do it while steadfastly refusing to raise the minimum wage.