Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

I want to begin by offering the comment that on any tax measure brought to the floor of this House, I believe it is entirely appropriate to discuss the larger budget framework facing this country, the out-of-control deficit, the record level of deficit leading to records of levels of debt leading to the impending vote on debt limit. These are all very serious financial matters before the country and brought obviously germane to any discussion of tax cuts, even the one before us.

But I want to speak in favor of this bill. I would have preferred that an offset be included, offsetting the cost of this bill. But, nonetheless, this is a very measured, targeted, and important piece of social policy; and it strikes me right where I live.

On February 3, 1994, I was a freshman Member of this body. My workday ended with a drive to National Airport where my daughter came off the plane from Korea, my daughter, Kathryn, adopted daughter Kathryn; and it was the greatest day of my life, until May 29, 1996, when in another trip after another day out to National Airport brought me face to face for the first time with my baby boy, Scott.

These children have enriched my life more than anything else possibly could and beyond my wildest imagination. Each day with them is a pure joy. I now know, and am learning later than most, what a complete and fabulous adventure parenthood can be and how deeply satisfying it is to the very fundamental purpose of life.

I speak that from a parent's perspective. But I also care so deeply about the perspective of little children, little children who need homes, need families to love them. I especially am concerned about children in circumstances where placement has been difficult: special needs children, slightly older children, children that would pose for families considering adoption higher costs than an infant adoption.

Because I think this experience is so profound and fundamental to life experience, the business of having children who need homes, connected with parents who will love them and raise them as their own, I certainly do not want financial barriers getting in the way.

In the course of activity of recent years, we have moved in place an adoption tax credit, $5,000. We have now moved to double it. And with this action today, we would move to make it permanent. I think that is precisely what we need to do. We must not bar families from this experience because of their inability to front the significant up-front costs now ranging from $8,000 to $30,000 per adoption.

And my belief is that one would have to look long and hard to find an adoption agency for placement less than $15,000. So these are very significant costs. This tax credit will not cover all of them in the great majority of cases, but it will make a difference. This will make a critical difference in allowing families to participate in the miracle of adoption that otherwise would not be available.

I want to commend the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp), who in particular over the years has led this Congress and earlier Congresses in breaking down barriers that have kept kids in indeterminate status, in foster care arrangements with no certainty, no stability. He has, with earlier legislation, made it possible, I believe, to significantly change the national priority and move toward children's interests first, children interests, that being part of a permanent family.

The financial piece of this follows along with this legislation. I think it dovetails very nicely with the gentleman's earlier work.

So I ask that we put aside partisanship on the question of the bill before us. We certainly have much to discuss about the budget, as I mentioned at the outset; but this is important social legislation, the business of building families through the miracle of adoption, linking parents or would-be parents desiring to play out that role in a little one's life with children who need and want more than anything families to love them and raise them. This is good social policy. This is something we can agree on. Let us help it along with this tax credit, and I urge its adoption.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, again I support the underlying proposition before us, but there are remarks made about a national sales tax that I simply have to respond to, representing a rural area like I do.

The principal industry in North Dakota is agriculture. Agriculture is based upon family farming. The economics behind a family farm are pretty interesting. Every year, these families essentially stake about everything they have got on making equipment payments, making land purchases, buying the inputs to get the crop in, the seed, the fertilizer, the gas to run the tractor.

You are not going to find for a family-sized small business, I do not think, an undertaking beyond family farming where there is so much money that goes out the door and into the ground with the hope that you are going to have a crop come around harvest time and have something to make up those costs with.

Why go into that is because, just think of it for a minute, suddenly you are going to add about a 23 cent per dollar hit on a national sales tax. You could not come up with a worse scheme if you imagined to knock family farmers out of business all across this country. I believe it would absolutely be a catastrophe to family farmers and to rural America.

Underlying the principle further is the whole notion that we should tax wages, not wealth. The gentleman talks about leaving the payroll tax intact. But for someone living comfortably on trust fund income, zero tax on those earnings; and then a tax, of course, on consumption, like everyone else would have.

What is at stake here is an effort to make incredibly regressive changes to the Tax Code so that the moderate-income families, the middle-income families in this country, suddenly assume a significantly new burden in terms of additional taxes away from the most affluent few.

You would think the changes already made, that have been documented to be so regressive in character, would already have been enough to satisfy this appetite. But there seems to be no limit to what they want to do in terms of increasing burden on the middle- and moderate-income families, while giving a pass to the most-affluent few. When it comes to a particular industry, one I know well, agriculture, this would be a death knell for family farming all across the country.

This national sales tax proposition is very bad business. Let us not let this concept take root, even in a discussion this afternoon on the adoption tax credit. This national sales tax is bad, bad business.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to engage in a colloquy with the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook), the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Transportation, Treasury and Independent Agencies of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. Chairman, I rise on behalf of the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass), the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Hart) and Resident Commissioner, the gentleman from Puerto

Rico (Mr. Acevedo-Vila) to discuss an issue that is critical to our districts, air traffic control training programs.

As you know, the Air Traffic Collegiate Training Initiative, also known as CTI, is a successful program that provides the Federal Aviation Administration an educated pool of candidates to meet its air traffic controller staffing needs.

I am proud to inform you that the University of North Dakota's air traffic controller program is one of the 13 FAA approved and certified CTI programs that graduates exemplary students ready for assignment with the FAA.

As a strong supporter of the Air Traffic Collegiate Training Initiative Program, I am concerned that the proposed report language in fiscal year 2005 House, Transportation and Related Agencies appropriation bill may effect the current role CTI programs play in the Federal Aviation Administration's training process. Some may read this report language as requiring all new air traffic controllers to receive their initial training at the FAA Academy. I would appreciate the chairman's confirmation that this proposed report directive does not jeopardize the status of CTI programs as an integral part of the FAA's training process.

I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, that was a very important clarification for us. I thank the gentleman for participating in it.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

I find this agreement to be somewhat of a close call. But where I come from we have an expression ``once burned, twice cautious.''

We are a major producer of wheat, and yet our farmers compete not just against the wheat farmers of other countries. In some instances, they compete against their governments as well, because their governments countenance a monopoly marketing mechanism called wheat board. When the Canadian Wheat Board was allowed to continue its operations in the Canadian Free Trade Agreement and the North American Free Trade Agreement, what unleashed upon our farmers was a dramatically unfair set of circumstances that have left them at a disadvantage and cost them markets and market value to the loss of millions and millions of dollars.

The U.S. Trade Representative has announced his opposition to state trading enterprises like the Canadian Wheat Board, but in this agreement we see the Australian Wheat Board, a very similar state trading enterprise, being allowed to continue without mention in the agreement. Unfortunately, this leads me to conclude this agreement should not go forward. We need more action against state trading enterprises.

Mr. Chairman, this is one fine exercise in utter budget hypocrisy. The crowd in charge of this House has failed to produce a budget. We have no budget agreement with the Senate, it remains deadlocked in conference committee, and now they direct us to spend an afternoon on the floor in this charade of an exercise in budget responsibility.

The budget debate has been something to watch. It has been contentious, it has been mean, it has turned personal, and that is just between the Republicans. They control the White House, they control the House, they control the Senate, and they have not produced a budget. No party has had solid control of all three points of power and not produced a budget in years and years and years.

Yet, rather than resolve that naughty little issue of not having a budget, they come to the floor and preen about with this budget enforcement resolution. It is a joke.

If on the face of it, it was not ridiculous already, just look behind the circumstances, briefly. The people who have brought this to the floor are the people who have pushed this country deeply into deficits, spiraling deficits that have forced us to increase the national borrowing limit of our Nation twice because we have hit the credit limit of the United States of America. Yesterday they put one in, and this week they have put a place-holder in to raise it yet a third time, bringing debt borrowing authority to over $8 trillion. We are screaming in red ink, and they cannot get a budget.

Secondly, they bring a sham PAYGO requirement up that has nothing to do with revenues. Can my colleagues imagine a family trying to get a hold of their finances saying, honey, we have to cut back on the expenses, but because we do not count the revenue side, I am going to half-time at work because I do not want to put in so many hours.

Of course you cannot balance a budget without looking at spending, without looking at revenue, but that is expressly prohibited under their PAYGO requirement. This is a sham. It is an embarrassment to this House. Reject it.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

I think it is useful to put this debate into perspective: enthusiastic ideas about how the budget process can work; talking about building a new house for the construction of the Nation's budget. It reminds me of a contractor that you might hire that has left the house in utter shambles, the project nowhere done, no hope of completion, yet he wants to talk to you about the next house, the next project.

We do not have a budget. We have a Republican President, we have a Republican Senate, we have a Republican House, and they cannot pass a budget.

So what is the amendment before us? It says we have to have a concurrent law for a budget. That will make it all right.

Mr. Chairman, if we just took all of this time and put it to work in trying to get a budget; after all, it should not be so hard: Republican controlled, Republican controlled, Republican controlled. If they just did the task in front of them, that would be a really good place to start. And in the absence of getting the budget done, all of the rest of this does not mean anything.

Mr. Chairman, this proposal would allow a vote on the Senate to reduce the House 302(b) allocation. A vote on the Senate reduces our allocation. This is an absurd idea on its face. But it perverts the name ``lockbox.'' Previously we all agreed on lockbox. Lockbox meant we did not spend Social Security, we did not spend Medicare revenues on anything but Social Security and Medicare.

The deficit policies of the majority now spend every nickel of the surplus of Social Security and Medicare, every nickel; $500 billion this year alone. They want to get up on the floor of the House and talk about creating this Mickey Mouse lockbox of theirs to capture fruit fly spending. It is ridiculous.

Let us talk about the real issue: blowing all the revenues of Social Security, all the revenues of Medicare, all of the surplus intended to strengthen these programs, gone because of runaway deficit spending, the absolute core result of Republican fiscal policies.

Rather than pass a budget to deal responsibly with beginning to get us out of this hole, they put us through this charade tonight. Shame on my colleagues. Defeat this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

We would have liked the opportunity to present an amendment to this bill that teed up cleanly the prospects of pay-as-you-go, including both the revenue and spending sides. Remember, pay-as-you-go on spending. That does not mean anything, because a budget is revenue and a budget is outflow. If you only do outflow without revenue, you will never get to balance. Never get to balance. It is not even a serious effort.

What did they do to the request we had to have a clean vote on it, the request by the Blue Dogs? They did not

make it in order in the Committee on Rules. We have been working the last several hours through 19 amendments. They have made every cockamamie idea under the sun in order. But when we wanted to have a straight pay-as-you-go to address this budget deficit, it was not made in order. It again shows why I believe the underlying bill is not a serious effort in budgeting whatsoever, and the effort put forward by my friend and colleague, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), represents an alternative in a bad situation. That is a situation we should support.

Mr. Chairman, we have a lot of energetic young legislators earnestly talking about budgets. I have got some advice for them. We do not have a budget this year. Their party, Republican party, controls the White House. They are part of the House majority. Their party controls the Senate. All these high-falutin ideas you bundled in this bill are not going to go anywhere. You ought to put your efforts where it might matter, getting a budget this year, getting a budget this year. The majority cannot produce a budget this year, and yet they run us out on a day-long adventure full of ill-founded ideas.

The gentleman from Texas speaks movingly about a budget, but in reality what he is proposing is very close scrutiny. I do not think I have seen a more irresponsible budget plan proposed in this House. He would propose excruciating cuts on essential programs while allowing any tax cut that might ever be passed irrespective of consequences to the deficit to go without check.

What are the spending cuts proposed? The Center For Budget Priorities analyzes that over 10 years, $674 billion in Medicare reduction. At time when we are in the military conflict, they come after veterans with a vengeance: military retirement, $56 billion in cuts; veterans benefits, $45 billion in cuts; TRICARE For Life, $11 billion for cuts. These are calculated on the proportional reductions that you have to make across mandatory spending programs that I know do not stop there. Nutrition programs for the little children of this country, reduced $19 billion in the gentleman's proposal. Cutting food for children.

Beyond that, student loans. At a time when our college tuitions are soaring, as our families know all across the country, proportional reductions would be $9 billion in student loan funding.

I believe this is a mean-spirited, ill-advised amendment. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

Mr. Chairman, I have no malice at my friends on the other side, but this is no laughing matter. They do not have a budget under the Budget Act without the House and the Senate passing versions, coming to agreement in conference committee and passing the final budget.

Mr. Chairman, I have a lot of respect for the sponsor of this amendment and the gentleman who just spoke, but let me make it very clear. There is nothing moderate about this proposal. Not to be too graphic, but imagine going to the deli. The person puts that little ham or turkey up there and an automatic slicer starts going. Just imagine further that the slicer keeps going until the hand goes into the slicer, up to the wrist, up to the forearm. Not a pretty picture.

This is the budget equivalent that is created in this bill. It puts automatic cuts in place by a process and then those cuts cut and they cut. They cut the fat, they cut the skin, they cut the meat, they cut the bone. They cut and they cut and they cut.

Entitlement caps under this proposal would devastate so many programs: Medicaid, medical assistance to the poor, estimated cut at $175 billion. The President of the American Legion has written to express his profound concern about entitlement caps, as well he should because the projected cuts of the Kirk proposal, $28 military retirement and disability, $22 billion veterans' benefits, TRICARE for life, $6 billion.

We also see student loans once again taking a hit. They also hard freeze other programs, discretionary programs, no inflation. That means again put the automatic slicer in place and the cuts start happening. The cuts

under that proposal alone on discretionary programs would take, as a proportion of the Federal Government discretionary program, spending down to a level not seen since Herbert Hoover was President. Herbert Hoover was a Republican. And he was the last Republican other than the existing President to have a job loss under their administration.

It appears that this is no accident. Herbert Hoover seems to be someone that they aspire to, because this economic plan takes the Federal Government to the days of Herbert Hoover. There is nothing moderate about it. Reject it.

Mr. Speaker, my thoughts and prayers go out to Mrs. Reagan and her family as our nation mourns the loss of President Reagan.

Our nation has lost a leader. President Reagan inspired Americans to a higher purpose. He believed, and led all Americans to believe, that our country could be the ``shining city on the hill.'' It was his spirit and faith in American values that helped reinforce America's faith in itself.

I was serving in the North Dakota Legislature on the day President Reagan was shot. I remember the somber atmosphere and deep concern from Republicans and Democrats alike as legislators gathered around a television anxiously awaiting word on the President's condition. With characteristic optimism, President Reagan went on to recover from his wounds and continue to lead the nation as our President.

President Reagan's passing brings us sadness at the loss of an American leader, but reminds all of us of his lasting legacy of service to our nation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very worried that somebody might hurt themselves patting themselves on the back on this one so let me put this in perspective. What we are about to legislate is a congressional directive to the Treasury Department, to the agency overseeing the IRS, to do what the IRS is doing.

We are all for simplified tax forms for seniors, and I will be happy to support this legislation. I will go into the detail of it in a minute. I have got before me and I will offer as an exhibit in the Record a sample form released by the Treasury Department yesterday which is precisely the subject of the legislation before us.

In other words, in this instance, Congress appears to be scrambling to try and get in front of the parade that is already well under way. We have prospects, I believe, of bringing this online with or without this legislation. But because everyone is for tax simplification for seniors, I urge my colleagues to vote for it.

To correct any misunderstandings, seniors are not presently precluded from using the 1040EZ form. On the other hand, it does not capture a senior citizen deduction relevant to their needs. That is why seniors using simplified forms tend to use the form 1040A. It is a simplified form, 20 million Americans use it, a number of them seniors; but it includes items not relevant to seniors' taxable situations. Items like educator expenses, student loan interest, tuition and fees deductions, these are extra lines on here. They are very clear what they purport to mean, but they are irrelevant to a senior's considerations.

So the IRS, under the leadership of Commissioner Mark Everson, has developed a form that is simple, two pages, captures the sources of income commonly reported by seniors, including investment income, pension, interest, dividend income, capital gains and losses. It includes all of that, but still in a simplified form with a larger font to make it a little more readable for seniors.

I commend the commissioner for his leadership of the IRS. I believe that he has taken steps to improve its service to taxpayers while improving compliance with the Tax Code by the taxpayers. I am very heartened about the stepped-up targeted audit activities geared toward large corporate concerns that have been routinely cheating on the Tax Code. I also commend him for this particular initiative simplifying the Tax Code for seniors. I guess we in Congress thought it was such a good idea we are scrambling to get a little bit of the credit ourselves.

So I would urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this legislation.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, back in North Dakota people chuckle about the story of the chicken who was absolutely convinced that dawn arrived as a consequence of his crowing. Well, we have heard some crowing today. And the reality is we are going to have a simplified tax form for seniors. In fact, the Treasury Department has published it, shown us what it is going to look like. All this without a congressional bill. But what the heck. It is a good idea so let us join the party and quickly pass this bill.

I would like to straighten out a couple of things. It is not, as my friend and colleague on the Committee on Ways and Means said, that over the last 10 years of Republican majority in this House they have marched steadfastly towards the goal of tax simplification. Well, we all know the reality is a bit different. Hundreds of pages have been added to the Tax Code. It is more complex than ever. Things phase in; things phase out. It is a nightmare. And so I am really delighted to hear both sides of the aisle talking about tax simplification.

I believe this is precisely something we need to do. Now, while the 1040EZ was crafted essentially to capture those that are just basically reporting their W-2 statements, single people or married, wage earners without children, it has done a good job of that. Obviously, senior citizens fall into a different bracket. They have been using the 1040A, which is another simplified form; but we can improve on the 1040A.

I am very pleased that the commissioner of the IRS has demonstrated leadership once again with this 1040S, which I think will be a much better form. To help illustrate the order of events here, this bill before us, H.R. 4109, was introduced, but in the end was not consistent with the work under way at Treasury and IRS to develop a new IRS form. So H.R. 4109 was amended to reflect precisely the work being already done at Treasury. Well, let us salute them for a job well done. I guess we could clap them on the back with a resolution of congratulations. Instead, we will demonstrate our fervor by passing this legislative directive under the suspension bill.

All of that really does not matter. What matters is that we get a simpler form that is going to help seniors, make it easier than ever for seniors filing their taxes. That is what this resolution does. That is why I am going to vote for it.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, we should pass this bill. It is a good bill. We should simplify the Tax Code for seniors. That effort has been well under way. I am very pleased the IRS has had the work focus group tested so they have been able to draw direct feedback from senior constituents representative of those who will now be using the new form. I am pleased to vote for this bill.

I, just again, to put it all in perspective, let us not be claiming too much credit here. This effort was well under way, but it is a good thing to do. Let us do it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time and commend the gentleman as well as the chairman for what is a very interesting debate with some technical sophistication on the business of how we expand health insurance in the small business environment.

Let me begin by explaining briefly how purchase decisions work in a small business, unlike General Electric. General Electric has a human resources department. They have actuaries on contract. They can thoroughly do due diligence on any health insurance program they are evaluating for their employees.

Our Own Hardware store in Valley City, North Dakota, my hometown, is quite different. There is one business proprietor, may a half a dozen or a dozen employees, and when he sits down to visit with a person promoting a health insurance program, he does not have an ability to evaluate the rating scheme. He does not have an ability to assess the adequacy of the fairness of the medical underwriting. That Our Own Hardware store does not have the ability to determine whether the company is solvent and reserving adequately to pay future claims, the Our Own Hardware does not have to do that because when they sell health insurance now, it is regulated. We have a State insurance department that does that. That used to be my job. And the State insurance commissioners across this country are in their offices every day making certain that the presentations to the Our Own Hardware stores represents a product that is going to be there when they need it.

When we buy insurance, we pay premiums today with the hope of getting the claim paid tomorrow, and that means we have to have a reliable entity on the other end. That is what regulation brings us.

The bill before us would depart from that. They would basically substantially do away with State solvency checks, with the State regulation on underwriting criteria, with the assessment of whether or not the rating is fair. I believe there would be very, very damaging results. In order to bring the cost of insurance down, we have seen self-regulated companies like the AHPs try to cheat on the business of paying claims. They do not have the capital to pay the claims when the claims come due. In fact, the most recent version of the AHPs that have been out there, these MEWAs, the insurance commissioners tell us they left more than 400,000 people holding the bag with medical claims but no insurance company to pay them.

The majority talks a lot about trying to get coverage to those who do not have it. You sure do not want to give people the illusion of coverage that is not real because they count on that company in paying the claim. And what we see with these self-regulated

outfits, when you need them, they are not there. They have taken your money and they have left. So not only does it fail in a meaningful way to get coverage to those who need it, it undercuts the coverage of those who already have insurance. In fact, the estimate from the actuarial firm that a million would lose their coverage is yet another solid reason why we should not take this path and adopt the AHPs.

Vote ``no'' on this measure.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct.

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

Mr. Speaker, we know that we have a very large problem facing this Congress: we cannot pass a budget. We have got a budget that has passed the House, a budget that has passed the Senate, but an absolute train wreck in conference committee with neither side indicating any indication to reach compromise and finish the budget process.

The motion that we have before us, we believe, unlocks this problem. It would have the House pass the motion to instruct conferees relative to the PAYGO requirement, a requirement I will explain more fully in a moment. This passed the Senate and is now, I believe, the key to getting this resolved, will we have the PAYGO budget enforcement provision as part of the budget. Quite frankly, it appears very possible that without embracing some kind of bipartisan step toward budget discipline along the pay-as-you-go requirement, this House, this Congress, will not be able to pass a budget. Obviously, with the President, the Senate and the House in one-party control, one would not expect that that would be the result, but that is the result without some movement toward budget discipline.

Why has budget discipline become so central to the budget debate? I have got some charts that illustrate in very painful fashion what has happened to the Federal budget during the last 3\1/2\ years. This chart captures the skyrocketing deficit from years 2002 to projected end of year 2004. What we see is a budget spinning entirely out of control, an absolute hemorrhage of red ink with Congress now spending more than $1 billion a day more than it takes in. This all accumulates in the national debt, a soaring burden for our country and the next generation.

If that chart captured the whole story, it would be very dangerous and frightening. I hate to tell you this, but the story is actually worse than that. Because of budget rules, the full exploding nature of the tax cuts which throw our budget even more radically out of budget occurs after the measurement period of this budget debate. This chart captures that. The budget before us covers the first 5 years. What happens in the next 5 reveals the dirty little secret of their budget plan, skyrocketing red ink, a budget more out of balance than ever before, just at the period of time baby boomers leave the workforce, move into retirement, each one carrying a guarantee from the Federal Government that Social Security will be paid, that Medicare will be paid.

Knowing how many baby boomers there are relative to the rest of the population, the obvious thing for this country to do is pre-position and improve the fiscal condition of this country so that we are ready to take the tremendous hit entitlement spending will bring when baby boomers retire.

My colleagues can see what we are doing: exactly the opposite. It is fiscal lunacy as we borrow in ever-radical fashion just before baby boomers retire. The long-term trend here, assuming the administration budget policies, AMT reform and the ongoing war costs take us to a national debt situation of $14.8 trillion by the year 2014. The debt service cost on that alone is $400 billion, just in interest costs. So this is a very, very serious problem. It is a fiscal catastrophe that has been foisted upon this country. The only thing to do is to begin to deal with it.

This is not the first time the country has had budget problems. It is not the first time we have had people of good will trying to reach across a partisan aisle and come up with some answers. The pay-as-you- go requirement, in fact, that is before the House with this motion was initiated in a budget conference convened by President George Bush, not this President George Bush, his father, George H.W. Bush. They came upon a fairly basic budget enforcement mechanism. In light of not wanting to make the budget situation any worse, they agreed that a pay- as-you-go requirement would apply.

What does that mean? That means if you spend more, you are going to have to find the money to pay for it. You are going to have to either cut spending, or you are going to have to raise revenue. Also on the revenue side, if you cut taxes and reduce the inflow of revenue, you are going to have to deal with it. You are going to have to show at that time where the spending cuts are going to come that offset the revenue loss or what other revenue increases you would have to offset that revenue loss. This was ultimately adopted in a bipartisan vote in 1990. Many believed it was an extraordinarily important contribution to national budget discipline. Chairman Alan Greenspan spoke about the need to get such tools back in the budget process in his testimony to Congress just within recent weeks.

After the 1990 agreement, this thing started to show that it really could work. The budget picture continued to improve. In the budget vote of 1993, the budget votes thereafter, the bipartisan balanced budget agreement of 1997, the pay-as-you-go requirement was affirmed no fewer than two additional times by bipartisan votes of Congress. There is some confusion, I believe, raised by some of the arguments that I have heard coming from majority leadership that those early pay-as-you-go requirements were not applicable to the revenue side. That was misinformation. I have the language of the earlier pay-as-you-go requirements with me, and I am prepared to debate on the floor of this House the applicability of those earlier pay-as-you-go requirements to the motion before us. The motion is the same. And so to my friends in the majority who are inclined to look at this very carefully, thinking about their earlier votes back in 1995 and 1997 in favor of the pay-as- you-go

requirement, I am telling you that you have done this before, and now we need to do it again. We need to do it again worse than ever in light of the budget situation.

That is the motion we have before us. This motion has had two very close votes. When it was offered by the gentleman from California (Mr. Thompson) last spring, it was a tie vote, 209-209. Last week, a similarly very close vote on an identical motion brought by the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moore), that one failing 208-215, although we have been informed that some of those voting late in the balloting against this bill were led to believe that the motion before us was different than the pay-as-you-go requirement they had voted for in the 90s.

Let the record be very clear on this. The motion before us on this pay-as-you-go requirement would reinstate the same pay-as-you-go requirement that we had in the 90s that many of my colleagues have voted for before. We have got a situation where we are going to leave our children with this as the legacy, or we are going to have to come to some kind of awakening and recognize it is time for us in a bipartisan way to begin to assault this monster. The way to do it is by reinstating budget discipline.

For that reason, I urge very careful consideration of the motion I have put before us.

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

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

To have the effort to break loose the budget stalemate in conference committee by having our House pass something similar to what the Senate in a bipartisan vote passed is a serious effort. Obviously they are taking it pretty seriously. They have the chairman of the Committee on the Budget on the floor. And rather than rebut the rather painful underlying reality about the Nation slipping into what would almost appear to be an irreversible hemorrhage of red ink, in very bellicose and sarcastic tones, he wants to point at individual votes and accuse other Members of hypocrisy. I guess that is kind of a refuge when they do not have arguments on the issue, let us blow a little smoke, let us have a little fun, let us throw a little political rhetoric around. But this deserves so much more than that.

I would say to my friend from Iowa, it is not ruining printers that concerns me, it is ruining the Nation. And I really do believe that the red ink that we are generating and continuing in escalating fashion as the baby boomers move into retirement is a dire threat to the future of our country. I believe that you have already put us on a path, with you serving in your leadership as position as Committee on the Budget chairman, working with the administration, working with the Senate Budget Committee, to diminish the prospects of our children by so undermining the fiscal strength of our country.

I yield to the gentleman from Iowa.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the gentleman has been most selective in the votes he has cited because I want to tell him, as he knows already, but tell my colleagues that I supported a budget that had the tax cuts mentioned and had them fully offset and paid for, bringing the budget to balance by the year 2008. That was the Democrat alternative, and that is what I voted for. And in addition, we have offered specific substitutes to each of the tax cuts he referenced, and those substitute motions which had the paid-for alternative have been voted down.

I believe there is a merit to those particular tax cut proposals, and I believe that the process is best served by moving them forward, moving them forward hopefully to be resolved ultimately in conference committee in a paid-for manner. So that is what is at stake with my votes. But really there is a whole lot broader issue to discuss on the floor right now, and that is not the voting record on two isolated votes, although I do fully offset in other votes that I have cast on those particular subject matters, but much more over the fiscal situation facing this country.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

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

Mr. Speaker, I would respond quickly. By omitting the revenue side of the equation in a pay-as-you-go requirement, you literally leave out a critical component of what drives the budget. This might straighten out the gentleman's history here.

Revenues have plunged as a result of the earlier tax cuts, the lowest percentage of GDP since the year 1950. As revenues plunge, you get yourself into deficit.

Can you imagine a family trying to balance their household budget saying, you know, we are going to have to get hold of this. We are going to have to cut spending, cut our family spending. Then, at the same time, saying, but, you know, we are working a little too hard, so I am going to take more vacation. I am only going to work part-time, because the revenue side, we are not going to deal with the revenue side, we are just dealing with the spending side.

That is as much lunacy as what is proposed in terms of dealing only with pay-as-you-go on spending and leaving off consideration of the revenue.

To put it in another way, revenues have plunged very significantly over the past 3 years. Revenue has declined 12 percent. So this business of we are going to cut taxes and get more revenue as the economy grows has not been demonstrated.

There has been one area of growth, one very predictable area of growth; the deficit has grown to the largest level in the history of the country. And if there is a budget deal coming out of the conference committee, it is going to have an increase in borrowing authorization for this country, and we are told it might exceed borrowing authority in the amount of $10 trillion, debt we will pass on to our children.

We will have a better way to further explain that.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).

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

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

Mr. Speaker, that is a very interesting bit of economic history there, but I would put forward a different view. Which economy worked best, the economy of the nineties, when you had pay as you go, or the economy of this decade, so far a very stalling, disappointing economy?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to my friend, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as required to close and I will speak from the other podium.

I thank my friend from Iowa, the chairman of the Committee on the Budget, for joining in this spirited debate, but to any one of our colleagues watching, there is something that we know for sure and that is that bluster does not cover facts. Energetic presentation of lots and lots of stuff does not mask an economic record reflected in these charts.

This is what has happened to the deficit during the last 2 years, and this is where we are going over the next 10 years.

Now, what we are seeking with this motion is budget enforcement ability to try and level out this deeply alarming trend line on national debt. Pay-as-you-go means that if you spend more, you have got to cut somewhere else; or if you cut taxes, you have got to cut spending and show where you do it; or if you cut taxes, you have got to raise taxes somewhere else. It has all got to work out in a zero-sum game. You cannot continue to make the budget situation worse.

We can get lost in the economics and the numbers, but I think it is helpful to just think of it this way. We pay as you go now, or our kids pay when we go later, because these things are not balancing out. Representations that tax cuts are producing more revenue are not at all borne out. The Federal revenues from individual income taxes in the year 2000 was $1.4 trillion. The 2004 estimate is $765 billion, almost down a quarter.

As you have revenues fall so precipitously, you have had the debt line grow so significantly. We have had some job numbers thrown out. The fact is we are down 1.6 million jobs. This administration is the first administration on track to have a net loss of jobs since Herbert Hoover was President, but those are issues for another day.

Let us just understand that if you like the economy of the 1990s better than the economy we have seen this decade, realize that throughout the 1990s we had pay-as-you-go budget enforcement, which meant we were trying to get a handle on national debt. We have absolutely lost our way when it comes to fiscal sanity, and that is why we have had this explosion of debt, a deficit leading to debt, and we have got to get our hands around it.

So I believe that if this House took the step of instructing conferees to go with what the Senate has passed, and that is a bipartisan vote to embrace this pay-as-you-go requirement, we can once again get on track. This has been the very issue that has received bipartisan agreement in the past, 1990, 1995, 1997, and now it is time in 2004 for us to do it once again.

It is time for us to do this for our children. We put pay-as-you-go in the budget or it is you pay when we go to our children. As a father of an 8- and a 10-year old back home in Bismarck, North Dakota, I know we owe them a good deal better than this, a very unstable fiscal situation just when baby boomers retire and start drawing on Medicare and Social Security. We could turn this around, and passing this motion is the place to do it.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, subject to rule XXII, clause 7(c), I hereby announce my intention to offer a motion to instruct on S. Con. Res. 95, Concurrent Resolution on the Budget For Fiscal Year 2005.

The form of the motion is as follows:

Mr. Speaker, here we are, another week, another tax debate. Another occasion in the House of Representatives where the GOP majority has offered nothing, nothing substantive about the looming deficit crisis that is racking up historic levels of debt in this country.

I do not suppose it is a mystery they do not want to talk about it because when they bring their budget, whenever they can get it out of conference, it will include, we are told, an increase in the borrowing limit for our country. It will take the borrowing limit to the highest levels in the history of the United States. Some are saying it will take the borrowing limit over $10 trillion. That is $10 trillion of debt to be incurred under their fiscal plan for this Nation. Debt we will leave to our children and debt we can not responsibly pass on.

So as we take a look at something imperative like doing something to respond to the AMT, let us, for goodness sake, put in place a provision to pay for it so we do not even drive this monstrous debt they have given us even deeper. That is what the substitute is about.

It talks about clamping down on high-flying tax cheats, some of the worst avoidance schemes, some of the most shallow, unjustifiable schemes created simply to cheat the Federal Government by the high flyers that can afford the hundreds of thousands of dollars of legal and accounting bills to dream up these schemes.

The Republican majority in this debate has become ``amen corner'' for tax cheats in this country. You might think the next thing we will see from this outfit is a resolution commending the Enron executives for their creative financing.

The fact is there is a whole lot of tax avoidance illegally done in this country. I am very pleased with the announcement made by IRS Commissioner Mark Everson today about an initiative launched by the IRS that they believe is going to target just in 1,500 to potentially 5,000 multi-millionaires and corporations, a crackdown on an illegal tax scheme that they think will generate for this Treasury 5 to $10 billion.

So do not stand over here and tell us that cracking down on tax cheats is raising taxes. Taxes are what hard working Americans pay because they owe it. But the tax avoidance and tax cheats that you salute so highly in this debate is something else again. We believe we ought to capture that revenue so we do not drive this debt deeper for our kids. That is what the substitute is about. I urge Members' support.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

The bill before us is not the least we can do. It is well beneath the least we should do. It is saying that if, when they are serving their country on extended deployment in the National Guard, they need to go into their retirement accounts to avoid family bankruptcy, that we are not going to charge them the penalty fee for early withdrawal of their retirement money.

I am going to support this legislation because grim reality is many of our soldiers and their families are in precisely this fiscal predicament. But the leadership on the that majority side that allowed this bill to come up on the suspension calendar had so many other options, I wish it had done something more meaningful. One of the options is legislation I have introduced, the Guard and Reserve Fairness Act, H.R. 3317, and let me contrast the rather pitiful step we are taking with this legislation to what is in this bill.

This bill, the Guard and Reserve Fairness Act, would allow those employers that continue to top off the pay of their employee who is on Guard deployment, it would allow them a tax credit for the dollars they advance holding the salary of their soldier level. This is a step we have to take to encourage employers to make the extra step so that their soldiers, their departed employees now on deployment, do not take the financial hit.

On Sunday night I greeted a planeload of returning guardsmen from about 15 months of very hazardous duty in Iraq as they arrived home in Bismark, North Dakota. It was quite a scene; tears of joy as families were reunited after all they had been through. But to think that we are putting them through, on top of everything else, great financial hardship because the pay in the military is below what so many of them are making in the private sector, it is just unacceptable.

So let us advance the step of doing much more than this so that we can avoid the financial hardship to our soldiers.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I commend him and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), Chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, for their very hard work in trying to move this through conference committee. I also see my friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman), in the Chamber. He has been a tireless advocate of moving in place this much- needed pension fix. I admire very much his leadership and work in this effort.

The bill before us must pass. It is estimated by Watson Wyatt, the consulting firm, that 20 percent of defined benefit pension plans, one in five, have been frozen or canceled within the last 3 years alone.

We are seeing a wholesale rout in the marketplace of defined benefit plans, and what is so sad about this is this is the old traditional pension. This is the thing that provides that guaranteed monthly payment upon retirement based upon a calculation of earnings and years served that really does provide secure retirement income in retirement.

We have some work ahead of us, Mr. Speaker, in trying to fix the underlying funding requirements of pension plans in this country. Because when times are good, we prohibit additional funding flowing into the plans. When times are bad, and we are asking these businesses to do everything they can to grow and hire more workers, we also require, under the formula, disproportionate funding of the pension program. At a time when they can least afford it, we make them fund it the most.

There are many industries hard hit with this, but the airline industry has been particularly hard hit. They have encountered the perfect storm of unfortunate circumstances. No need to go into them here. We are all aware of them. But we literally are going to be pushing airlines into bankruptcy if this legislation does not move. Now we need to again look longer term at addressing their pension funding issues and doing so in a way that comports with reason.

So I support the bill. Everything in it is good, but something is missing: support for the multi-employer pension plans.

I specifically asked the Secretary of Labor when she was before the Ways and Means if the administration opposed helping multi-employer plans. She refused to answer. She said she would get back to us. I am still waiting. But we know what is clear is the role they played in the conference committee in terms of trying to stop the conference from providing assistance to the multi-employer plans as well.

Our motion to recommit will fix that, which is why I will be voting for the motion to recommit and then for the underlying bill.

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

Mr. Chairman, included in this bill is a provision drawn from H.R. 3119, the ``Renewable Fuels and Transportation Infrastructure Enhancement Act of 2003.'' This is a proposal which I introduced along with my friend and colleague on the Committee on Ways and Means, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Hulshof). I am very pleased that this provision has, through this action, been included in this legislation.

The bill restructures the ethanol tax incentive from an excise tax exemption to an excise tax credit, and it eliminates hundreds of millions of dollars of waste, fraud, and abuse by those blending gasoline with ethanol.

The provisions attributed to the ethanol tax incentive will add up to $14.2 billion in revenues to the Highway Trust Fund over the 6-year life of the transportation bill. As we wrestle with the size of the highway package, let us keep in mind this provision alone relating to ethanol is generating $14.2 billion in revenues.

Mr. Chairman, the provision is important for a number of reasons, but I want to especially mention the jobs that will flow from this highway bill. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, each billion dollars spent on transportation and highway projects creates 47,500 jobs. Therefore, the ethanol proposal will create an additional 674,500 jobs, much-needed jobs, in this economy.

Separately, the ethanol industry itself is a significant generator of additional jobs for our economy. The industry has built 74 ethanol plants, created nearly 150,000 new jobs, 12,000 jobs in America's beleaguered manufacturing sector. In 2004 alone, the industry will add 22,000 new jobs and more than $1.3 billion to the gross output of the American economy.

The industry is going to continue to grow with this legislation. There are thirteen plants already under construction and dozens more in the final planning stage.

Further, as newly-drafted, this ethanol tax incentive will have no negative impact on the Highway Trust Fund. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, it will save the Federal Government more than $3.2 billion in lower farm program payments this year.

The ethanol tax incentive makes a particular difference with the creation of jobs in rural America. The one new 40 million gallon ethanol plant can expand the economic base of the local economy by $110 million, creating as many as 694 permanent new jobs throughout the entire economy and generating $1.2 million in new tax revenues for State and local governments. Beyond all of that, it increases the local average basis of corn by an estimated 5 cents to 10 cents per bushel.

Mr. Chairman, our Nation is suffering from a growing energy crisis, a stagnant economy where job development is scarce, particularly across rural America. That is why Congress's commitment to the increased production and use of ethanol is so important.

This brings me to my next point, the one issue where the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Hulshof) and I will continue to work, because this provision was left out of the bill. Other domestically-produced renewable fuels can and should have a role in our total fuel strategies as a Nation. To this end, I specifically encourage the inclusion of a new tax incentive for biodiesel, consistent with the agreement reached during the energy bill conference last year.

Together, ethanol and biodiesel can enhance the country's energy independence, increase domestic fuel supplies, reduce crude oil imports, reduce the U.S. trade deficit, and improve air quality. Together, the transportation and ethanol sectors are creating jobs across America. This bill establishes that good transportation policy and good energy policy can go hand in hand.

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

Mr. Chairman, I have learned that my cosponsor on the portion of ethanol tax that is included in this bill, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Hulshof), is not participating in debate this morning because he is attending, tragically, the funeral of his mother. We will all remember the gentleman from Missouri in our thoughts and prayers as he deals with this issue, even while the work of the Congress continues.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones).

(Mrs. JONES of Ohio asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson).

Mr. Chairman, I have no further speakers. I urge passage of this bill and yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take my Special Order at this time.