Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, the Khodorkovsky/Lebedev trial resumed on Monday last week before a three judge panel in Moscow. Since the last hearing three weeks ago, the physical appearance of the court was much improved: the courtroom had been air conditioned and the halls outside had been refurbished and painted.

Appearances are important, but substance is critical.

Respect for the rule of law in Russia is essential for the same reason it is essential in every democratic society--citizens, the press, and the business community must have confidence that the legal system affords them protection of their rights and that everyone is treated equally under that law.

In Russia there is a pattern of troubling signs that the rule of law and a free press are threatened. I know a number of my House colleagues share these concerns. Members of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, the Helsinki Commission, and the Russia Democracy Caucus are just some of those who have expressed their misgivings.

One high profile example of concern is the seizure of the assets of Russia's largest oil company, YUKOS, and the trial of two of YUKOS's largest stockholders, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev.

Many Russian and Western observers view the Russian Government seizure of the assets of YUKOS as a result of political motivations.

Here are just a few recent statements on these events:

On July 7, the Washington Post quoted a senior level U.S. diplomat as saying ``there are increasing signs that destruction of the company is the intended endpoint,'' and that it appears likely that a ``sizeable percentage of the company's assets will move into the hands of the state.''

On July 7, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) called the YUKOS affair ``a case of highly selective law enforcement'' and a case that reveals how ``the courts are often subservient to the executive, while the security services, prosecutors and police remain highly politicized.''

What is now occurring in Russia has significant human, political, and economic consequences. Justice, freedom, and human rights are all directly tied to the rule of law, open and accountable government, and a free press, which are increasingly absent in Russia.

There are several disturbing trends that demonstrate problems with the rule of law in Russia.

The general prosecutor and courts cannot be merely an extension of the political will and agenda of the Kremlin. In his visit to Moscow earlier this year, Secretary of State Colin Powell was unambiguous in his concern over the rule of law in Russia, saying ``Russia's democratic system seems not yet to have found the essential balance among the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. Political power is not yet fully tethered to the law.''

Furthermore, the selective and arbitrary use of judiciary power by the Kremlin undermines the rule of law.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, as many observers have noted, shows how a businessman has been singled out for prosecution because his political activities are not appreciated.

Journalist German Galkin was thrown into jail and prosecuted for revealing the corrupt behavior of local government officials. His appeal was denied and he was only freed under the weight of international pressure.

Aleksandr Nikitin is a former submarine officer and nuclear safety inspector who was pursued relentlessly through the courts by the Russian security service in retaliation for his outspokenness about radioactive contamination by the Russian military. These rulings bear out what prominent legal experts have been saying about the flawed legal system in Russia.

More recent events in Russia threaten a free press, an essential element of any strong democracy.

We do not know who murdered Paul Klebnikov, the editor in chief of Forbes Russia, who was writing the truth about Russia's dark

underside, but the government must insist on a thorough, open, and full investigation of his killers. As one observer noted in the New York Times, ``Twenty journalists have now been assassinated in Russia for their work; 14 since Mr. Putin became president. Not one of the murders has been solved.''

A crackdown of media freedom has resulted in all major TV networks under state control. The last independent TV station disappeared last summer. TV is the number one way Russians get their news.

If Russia continues down this path, she will never fully become the peaceful and democratic nation that the Russian people and the international community desire. It is essential that Russia undertake a sincere effort to reform its judicial system and establish the highest degree of credibility for the rule of law and free press, which are essential for a prosperous and peaceful Russia.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise to speak in support of this amendment and against the fleecing of the American taxpayer. At this time in our country's history, with soaring deficits, a soaring national debt, and, at the same time, a soaring understanding of the harmful consequences of tobacco, that almost everything tobacco and tobacco smoke touches is harmed, at this time the very notion that the Congress would contemplate taking $10 billion, that is billion with a B, $10 billion of taxpayer money and using it to set up a new welfare program for the tobacco industry would be absolutely ludicrous if it were not being seriously considered in this Congress; in fact, considered so seriously that the House has it tucked away in a piece of legislation that has already passed this body and gone to a conference committee.

That is why today's action is so important, because this is the first opportunity that the House has had an opportunity up or down to speak to the wisdom of taking $10 billion out of the taxpayers' pocket, not to improve public health, not to reduce the deficit, not to reach out and quiet the concern of millions of mothers whose children lack health insurance or to provide assistance to millions of young people who, if they had a doubling of their Pell Grant, would be able to go to college. No, to reach out and take that $10 billion not for any of those well-defined and worthy purposes but to take that $10 billion and create a new welfare program.

Who will get the benefit of that welfare? Well, there has been a recent study of that, and we learned that 354,000 people who would be eligible for this new benefit would get about $1,000 a year out of the program; but that two-thirds of the benefit would go to 10 percent of those who are eligible. One company in Kentucky would get $8 million.

This is a new welfare program where all the welfare goes to the people at the top and the fellow with the beat-up pickup truck, who some have claimed here today will somehow benefit from that program, is not going to get very much at all. Who will benefit from this program before us is the big tobacco companies. Because the big tobacco

companies will now have a larger supply of tobacco; it will be grown in any State in the Nation; they will have cheaper tobacco as a result of this. And to anyone who says it is not about smoking, I would say this amendment is all about smoking. It is about smoking a $10 billion hole in the wallet of the American taxpayer that the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake) is speaking out against, and it is about the danger that smoking poses to millions of young people and to all of those around them as they become addicted to nicotine.

We attempted to deal with this issue in the Committee on Ways and Means and were denied any opportunity to raise the amendment. The gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake) and I offered an amendment to the Committee on Rules and were denied any opportunity to consider this. The only reason that this ludicrous welfare program has gotten to this point is through deceit; and today, this amendment attempts to break through the deceit and get at a new plan, a new entitlement program that would pull billions from the American taxpayers and do harm to American health. The gentleman from Arizona attempts to get at that program and put a stop to it once and for all, drive a stake through this very bad idea in which we get no advances in public health, no increased wealth for the Food and Drug Administration, but simply a draw on the American taxpayer.

In short, it is not a job-creation bill for any part of the country; it is a disease-creation proposal that he seeks to put a stop to.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, what the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis) is saying is that they pay that effective tax rate on their profits. Right?

Mr. Chairman, so does the gentleman know how much of their income has been stripped out by their use of this foreign approach of setting up their corporation abroad? In other words, he is just talking about their tax rate on the little bit of income they leave here, not on the $100 million that they shifted out on which they pay practically nothing.

Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, and subject to my reservation, if I could just ask for clarification. This will be 20 minutes per side on this amendment. The gentleman does not envision any other amendments to the amendment being offered? Is that correct?

I yield to the gentleman from Iowa.

Mr. Chairman, further reserving the right to object, does the gentleman anticipate any amendments to this amendment?

I yield to the gentleman from Iowa.

Mr. Chairman, would the gentleman be willing to modify his 20 minutes to a side then on this amendment, 20 minutes to a side? Because if someone were to come forward with an amendment to this amendment, I am confident it would require additional time on our part.

I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, this last bizarre argument that was made that this amendment would somehow violate our world trade obligations, does the gentleman understand that argument to be that we are forced to outsource our national security and our homeland security to China or France, which are WTO members? That seemed to be the logical extension of this bizarre new argument.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, the indifference of the Administration to the outsourcing of American jobs is well known to the American people. But now as incredible as it will seem to most Americans, the Administration and House Republican leadership are intent on actually outsourcing our national security. A foreign- controlled corporation has received a $10 billion contract, billion with a ``B'', to implement a major element of the Administration's border security initiative. And that is what this debate is about.

As usual, the House Republican leadership has this week blessed this outsourcing of our national security, even though this action is directly in defiance of the will of a strong bipartisan majority of this House. With Accenture, the accent is on tax dodging; and with this Republican leadership, since the first time we offered an amendment to deal with this, the accent has been on protecting and enabling abusive corporate tax dodgers.

Now, the Republican leadership wants to reward those like Accenture. It wants to reward those who flee America to fleece America. Not only saying, do not worry about paying your fair share of taxes, but it is okay to come and get your competitors' share of taxes too. The money hardworking people pay in to the Treasury, their money is going to be taken and given to a corporation that has fled America.

What makes this Republican leadership's actions particularly shameful is their refusal to hold the wealthy tax-dodging few accountable while others sacrifice so very much, sometimes everything that they have.

We know about the young American men and women around the globe who are dying for America. We know of the billions of dollars that American taxpayers must expend when this Administration calls on Americans to do most all the paying for its adventures around the world. The sacrifice that our military is making is measured in blood and the sacrifice of the middle-class taxpayers is measured in dollars. But some corporations have decided that they do not have to pay their fair share of our security.

Through this amendment we now can demand that they pay their fair share. This is a fair-share amendment. When this measure came up under the leadership of the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) in July of 2002, 318 Members of this House voted to impose the same restrictions that we are asking for today. And Accenture began hiring lobbyists right and left to weaken that amendment. So the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) came back with a bipartisan majority 35 to 17 in the Committee on Appropriations to approve this restriction.

Then the Committee on Rules, recognizing that it was violating the will of the House, has approved language in this bill that says Accenture, despite all these wonderful arguments we have heard this morning, is not going to get any more contracts. We are just going to give it a $10 billion contract. We are going to give it the big pie it has already been rewarded, but it will just not get any crumbs down the way. This is an admission that there is strong merit to the arguments in favor of the gentlewoman's amendment.

Let us go through one by one the arguments that have been advanced. It is difficult to do that because they can talk about getting their facts straight, then not get their argument straight. One of those who opposes this amendment has been at this podium declaring that Accenture has never been a U.S. company, followed by another speaker who insists that Accenture is a U.S. company with jobs all over America.

Well, on that I have to yield to Accenture. If you turn to their Web site, you will see that they declare they have never been a U.S. company. The Department of Homeland Security has outsourced this contract to a foreign company. But what of the argument that they did not leave America after they formed here? No, the answer is they got there first and they have set an example for other corporations about incorporating abroad. Indeed, this month's issues of Corporate Executive Magazine has an ad from Accenture: ``To accomplish more, sometimes you need to receive less.''

And, in fact, in their case, pay less in taxes. And they offer advice on, among other things, outsourcing jobs.

What of the argument that Accenture pays its taxes, everything that is legally due? They claim that they pay a higher tax rate than their American competitors. Well, I guess it all depends on whether you are paying taxes on all your income or part of your income because you are able to send some of your income abroad. Indeed, the name Accenture will be new to many people because it is a new name. The name Accenture did not exist a few years ago. The name Accenture, strangely enough, is owned by a foreign corporation and the U.S. company pays hefty royalties to this foreign company to use that name in the U.S. What Accenture has done is to strip its U.S. earnings out of the country so that it can say, we pay taxes on our earnings more than our competitors. We just do not pay U.S. taxes on about $200 million of our other earnings.

Let me just say that it used to be that, if you cleaned out a bank vault, you would be put on the government's ``most wanted'' list and imprisoned. But under this Administration, when you drain the Federal Treasury by dodging taxes, you are placed on a ``most wanted'' list for government contractors.

This is wrong. The American people know it is wrong. It is indefensible, and there is no good argument in favor of doing this. Vote for the DeLauro amendment.

Mr. Chairman, over a century ago, my great-grandfather came from Sweden to chop sugarcane in Louisiana. He came for the same reason that so many people come to this country from Mexico today--to take on some of our society's most difficult jobs, to create a better life. And when an illegal entry occurs, it is not the result of the policy of the City of Pharr, Roma or McAllen, but they have to cope with the consequences of a Federal policy they do not control. If undocumented workers, who are too often the victims of crime, hesitate to report crime because they fear the police, then our entire community loses.

Austin Assistant Police Chief Rudy Landeros has made the Austin Police Department a leader in building confidence with immigrants and working with them, giving them the respect crime victims deserve, because the Austin Police Department and so many others recognize it is essential to fulfilling the mission of public safety.

The Tancredo amendment would destroy such pragmatic local initiatives and would endanger all of our families. It must be rejected.

Our police departments have a difficult mission, and we do not need congressional interference at this critical time as they fulfill that mission.

Mr. Speaker, one of those amendments denied debate was a bipartisan effort by me and the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake). Someone in Washington needs to speak up today for conservative principles because this House Republican leadership has lost any pretense of fiscal responsibility.

Today, in this bill, Republicans are awarding $10 billion, this is billion with a B, to tobacco growers. They call it a buyout, but it is really a sellout to the tobacco industry. If this measure is approved, tobacco will get cheaper; more of it can be grown, and all American taxpayers will be the losers.

With the near go-it-alone occupation of Iraq continuously draining funds out the Treasury spigot faster than American taxpayers can pour their hard-earned funds into it, there is nothing conservative about giving away $10 billion to the tobacco industry.

Ten billion dollars would give tens of thousands of young Americans the college education they cannot afford. They could give tens of thousands of American mothers the peace of mind that comes when they know their children have health insurance. Ten billion dollars could also buy a lot of homeland security; but instead, Congress is spending that $10 billion to reward the producers of a lethal product that each year ruins the lives of families with death and disease.

This is not a job-creation bill. It is a disease-creation bill. Eighty percent of registered voters this week across America expressed their opposition to this tobacco bailout by the Congress. Unfortunately, the well-heeled lobbyists of Big Tobacco not the people, are the ones dictating this. Little wonder that this outrageous giveaway never had a public hearing, was never debated in Committee, and is being considered today in a way that denies any amendment to strike it.

If this measure is approved, the tobacco industry will once again make a killing out of this Congress, a Congress that is addicted to nicotine campaign contributions.

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

When $4 billion in sanctions are imposed for an unjustified tax break declared illegal in an international forum, this House Republican leadership produces this monstrosity of a bill to expand this $4 billion problem to an outrageous $150 billion chunk of corporate welfare.

The title of a lead column in the Business section of the Washington Post captures the essence of this sorry legislation: ``Tax Legislation Only Worthy of the Trash Heap.'' At least one corporate lobbyist was candid in boasting that this bill has ``risen to a new level of sleaze.'' The latest bit of sleaze was added only in the wee hours of this morning, a provision to obstruct an ongoing investigation by the Internal Revenue Service of corporate tax shelters, denying our IRS even the identity of those who were sold abusive corporate tax products.

Once again, with tax breaks for the private jets of corporate executives, for sonar devices for finding fish, for whale hunters, we can see that the big fish do rather well in this bill, while the American people are told one whopper after another.

This is a jobs bill all right. It is a jobs bill for corporate lobbyists who have done rather well. It is also a jobs bill for people in Bermuda and China. Indeed, I think the taxpayers of Bermuda and China ought to be footing the $150 billion price tag for this bill, not the American taxpayers because they appear to be the ones benefiting from this legislation. To those corporations that will dodge their taxes by planting their corporate flags on the shores of Bermuda, this bill gives them a pat on the back.

The Republicans once said they were opposed to this fleeing of American corporations abroad. Now they help buy them first class airfare at the expense of American taxpayers. Certainly, the most appalling provision of all is the $10 billion given to the producers of nicotine, a lethal product that ruins the lives of so many American families. Under this outrageous section, Big Tobacco will get cheaper tobacco, even more tobacco will be grown, and the American taxpayer will be the loser.

Mr. Speaker, two companies decide to compete for a government contract. This happens, in fact, with dozens of companies, hundreds of companies all over America seeking different government contracts and wanting business that is funded by the taxpayers. Of these two companies, however, one of them has chosen to denounce its American citizenship when it is time to pay its taxes, by moving overseas and declaring that it is a company organized in Hamilton, Bermuda.

The other company is an American company, not only when it comes time to put their hand out to get a government contract, but also when it comes time to put their hand out to pay the taxes that they earned on their American business.

Now, which one of those companies has the competitive advantage? The one that stayed home and was patriotic to America, or the one that dodged its taxes and has lower overhead because it has lower taxes? I think the answer is rather obvious.

Yet this Republican leadership has defended a practice that encourages corporations to dodge their taxes and to head off to Bermuda or Barbados or somewhere else. Then, to add insult to injury, the same tax-dodging corporation that wants the protection of American troops when it comes to national security, and of our law enforcement here at home when it comes to homeland security, these same corporations that have dodged their fair share of our homeland security and national security expenses, recognizing the permissiveness of this House Republican leadership and of the Bush administration, come back to the American taxpayer and say, not only do we not want to pay our fair share of the taxes; we also want your share of the taxes. We want government business. We want what other taxpayers, including our competitors, have paid for; we want their tax monies so we can earn more money that we can dodge taxes on while we are staying in Bermuda.

Mr. Speaker, I oppose this rule, because that is exactly what the Committee on Rules, with the encouragement of the Committee on Homeland Security, has approved. It gives the competitive advantage to the corporation that dodges its taxes.

Just the night before last in the Committee on Ways and Means, we heard an official from the Treasury Department again oppose corporate expatriation proposals that have been approved in the other body with wide bipartisan support, because they really do not want to stop this trend of these corporations dodging their responsibilities by going to Bermuda.

Now, with Accenture, the accent has been on tax avoidance. They have now been awarded a $10 billion contract that a bipartisan vote in the full House Appropriations Committee would have put a stop to. But the House Republican leadership, with its typical permissive attitude, has blessed that.

So now Accenture, ahead of the pack, will get $10 billion in a government contract while it avoids taxes.

Mr. Speaker, there is a very good reason why we do not have an energy bill: the only bill this House can consider, this one, is a sorry piece of legislation.

The only energy bill that we have is one that relies on the energy of generous campaign fund-raising and high-powered lobbying. It encourages pollution and it discourages conservation. Instead of securing our energy independence, it ensures our continued overdependence on countries as volatile as the oil they possess.

This bill pays some pretense to supporting renewable energy, but the focus is definitely not on conservation or sustainable energy. The real focus is on subsidizing the same high-pollution industries that we have always relied on, with $32.5 billion in tax incentives and loan guarantees.

One of the best examples of the energy scams that are in this bill is the so-called synthetic fuels tax credit, the ``synfuels'' credit, and my, is it a ``sin''. Starch or pine tar is poured on coal, and when that is done, the coal does not burn any more efficiently and it does not burn with any less pollution, but it does decrease taxes. If you take the costly synfuels provision in this bill that these folks have tried to peddle once again as a retread energy bill and pile the dollar bills up past the ceiling of this building and burn them, you will generate more energy than they do with the money that they have wasted from the public treasury. And this is only one of the many outrageous examples of the scams in this bill.

At the same time that they do this, they ignore the public health by making our air dirtier, by weakening the Clean Water Act, and by granting total protection to MTBE as it pollutes the public waterways. They endanger the health of Americans at the same time that they fail to ensure that we will pay less at the pump or anywhere else.

What we have, in short, is a collection of unjustified tax breaks, loopholes, exemptions and dodges masquerading as a new energy policy. These tax giveaways are not offset. They endanger our fiscal health and our national treasury, as well as our hope for a better energy policy.

Mr. Speaker, we need a conservative national energy policy that conserves our resources, that increases energy efficiency, and provides reasonable production incentives. This bill fails on all fronts. Energy conservation can be a great jobs program for America, but not through this bill.

Mr. Speaker, our border communities face some tremendous health care challenges. This bill would simply add to their burdens. It seems to confuse TV shows, trying to merge ``ER'' with ``NYPD Blue.'' It would involve our health care workers, our physicians, and instead of being physicians, it would turn them into Homeland Security deputies. When a doctor asks the nurse for a patient's vital signs, it ought not to mean fingerprints and a visa entry number.

Think of it. A parent who is rushing a child to the emergency room with an excessively high fever, with a rattlesnake bite, with an accidental-fall injury is thinking, ``can I get my child to the doctor on time?'', not ``did I bring my employment history, my immigration status, my financial status?'' Some of our border physicians face such immense burdens. That physician is thinking, ``how can I take care and save the life and the future of this young person?'' Involving doctors and nurses in the red tape of the federal bureaucracy jeopardizes all of us, because these viruses and bacteria are equal opportunity pathogens. Tuberculosis, typhus and hepatitis do not ask for your immigration status. All of us could be adversely affected if fear forces people not to seek treatment at a medical facility.

It is also important to consider that, finally, there is a small amount of relief for our border communities. Starr County, one of the poorest counties in the entire country, ought not to have to bear all of the cost of our federal immigration policy, nor should physicians in Mission or McAllen bear the entire cost of a policy that is federal in nature. Finally, there is some assistance on the way under legislation approved last year. Let us not destroy it with this bill. The Border Health Caucus has been leading the way in trying to find solutions to address the care of all the people in the border region.

As we discuss immigrants, some here see numbers, but these are real live human beings that face crisis every bit as real as that of someone like myself who has lived here forever. This is a chance for groups to come together to stop bad legislation and start us on the way to solving our health care problems along the border.

Mr. Speaker, I visited with a group of small business people from Texas this morning who came to discuss, among other things, their concerns about being able to provide health coverage for themselves and for their employees. Their stories were very similar to ones I have heard while visiting with small retailers in Phaw and in Mission, Texas, and in talking with musicians in Austin, Texas--that we have a growing crisis in this country in trying to ensure that working Americans can get the health protection and the health insurance access that they need.

As I talked with them, one of the concerns that I raised was this need versus another one that is also the tragic result of the misleadership of this administration and this Republican Congress. They are driving our country into an economic ditch with the largest deficit in the history of America last year, to be surpassed this year, and to be exceeded in the future under a broken economic scheme.

In fact, the deficits are rising at such a rate that our Republican colleagues are continually coming to ask for an increase in the debt ceiling. They will have to do it again in the very near future. I think they probably need to keep an extension ladder in this House so that they can continue raising the ceiling upward, up to what will become $10 trillion or $11 trillion. That is trillion with a ``T'' that they will be raising the debt ceiling to as a result of their misguided economic policies and their willingness to give tax break after tax break to those at the top of the economic ladder without paying for it. They get it for free.

Today, we have another example of that. We have an example of an unwillingness to consider the cost and the burden on future generations of Americans and the adverse effect on our economy of continuing to incur more and more debt, as has been true in the past, by adding more and more tax breaks.

So we have come forward with a substitute and said that if you are going to make these changes--even though this is probably not the most efficient way to deliver health care and there are much preferable approaches--but if you are going to do this, at least pay

for it. Do not add more and more to the national debt.

And we have done it in very reasonable ways. One is to deal with something that Republicans in this House would like to forget about as just ancient history: the scandal called Enron, the scandal that led to so much trouble for our economy and to a reduction in the public's confidence in our economic marketplace.

Enron manipulated our tax laws. In fact, as The Washington Post reported last year, Enron was turning its tax department into a profit center. Its senior executives, along with leading accounting, banking, and legal advisers were seeking to manipulate tax laws through complex concealed transactions. These were transactions that involved things like synthetic leases. These were transactions that, as one of their people reported, were so intentionally complicated it would take a year or more to construct a single deal.

Well, we have adopted in this substitute very modest proposals, recommended by the Joint Committee on Taxation and approved overwhelmingly in the United States Senate, to do something about those Enron tax abuses. What has the House of Representatives done in the two years since these abuses were disclosed? Absolutely nothing. The Senate was willing to look at the tax returns of Enron to see how these manipulations occurred, but the House Committee on Ways and Means was afraid to look under that rock because it knew the scandal it would find. They have been unwilling to address this problem.

The same is true of the unpatriotic corporations that retreat to Bermuda or Barbados, who basically say that they do not want to pay their fair share of our homeland security and defense. Oh, yes, they are proud of our flag when they want our fighting men and women defending their position. They are so proud of our flag when they are being defended by our Armed Forces. They are so proud of our flag when they want to do business with the United States Government.

Some of these same unpatriotic corporations come and ask for hundreds of millions of tax dollars in government contracts. In fact, one contracts with the Internal Revenue Service. Another one contracts with the Department of Homeland Security. On the one hand they will not pay their fair share of taxes, but they sure want all the tax money they can get in contracts with the government.

We have a proposal to pay for health care through reforms to prevent another Enron scandal and through reforms that simply ask for a level playing field. Those corporations that want the protection of the American flag ought to be willing to pay their fair share.

The Committee on Ways and Means and the Republican leadership in the House will never make these needed changes unless they are forced to do it through proposals just like this. They feel so comfortable with the Enron philosophy that a tax department is a profit center that they will continue to defend these abuses.

I ask your support for the substitute.

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

Though we honor the life's work of Dr. Miguel Nevarez by designating a post office with his name, his real legacy is reflected in the lives and the careers of the students that he has helped for over a quarter of a century with his leadership and service, mostly as president of UT Pan American.

Dr. Nevarez is the first Hispanic president of UT Pan Am and the longest seated Hispanic president of any four-year institution of higher learning. He has a total of over 30 years of service to UT Pan Am, including his tenure as a professor in the education department, associate dean of men, vice president for student and university affairs and, of course, as president and leader of the university.

Dr. Nevarez has repeatedly been recognized for his leadership, including being named one of the ``100 Most Influential Hispanics in America'' and as one of the ``50 Most Influential Hispanics in Business Technology.'' His commitment to education has fundamentally and forever changed not only the Rio Grande Valley but elsewhere across our Nation as UT Pan Am graduates have assumed positions of leadership.

It is not surprising to any of us who have worked with Dr. Nevarez that, after a much-deserved sabbatical, he will be returning to work with Dr. Velma Menchaca and the outstanding faculty of the Department of Educational Leadership. There, he will return to teaching, and he will be working primarily with the doctoral and master's programs involving higher education, organizational behavior and organizational management, programs that came into being through his leadership as the president at UT Pan American.

Just as the commencements that we are celebrating across America represent both an end and a beginning, so does this announcement by Dr. Nevarez. The opportunity is there for us to step up to the challenge of giving students all the education for which each is willing to work. We can honor this legacy of Dr. Nevarez not only by the quite appropriate naming of a post office down the street in his honor, but by giving our public institutions of higher learning the financial support that they need to do the job to which he has dedicated his life, and particularly, in preparing our students for quality jobs upon graduation, by giving them the financial assistance that they deserve.

With the overwhelming majority of students at UT Pan American qualifying for student financial assistance, but with too many unable to receive the assistance that they need at current funding levels, it would be particularly appropriate to honor Dr. Nevarez with the further tribute of extending and expanding that financial assistance. I believe that we must double the maximum amount of Pell Grants in order to achieve that objective.

Dr. Nevarez already has the grateful thanks of a community that he has served for decades. Today, as we designate this post office with his name, this body, the United States Congress, affirms our gratitude for his life's work in service, not just to the Rio Grande Valley but to our entire Nation in developing the leaders who will guide our country in the future.

Mr. Speaker, to visit an Austin widow with three preschool children and no longer a husband is to understand that far more than $87 billion is involved in what we do today. We all honor those who die for our country. But the question for Congress is whether we can pursue a policy that allows more of these brave young Americans to live for America.

We do not have a shortage of money in Iraq. We have a shortage of sound thinking and in good planning in pursuit of international cooperation in Washington, DC, where we have Washington ideologues paired up against courageous young Americans who are fighting for us in Iraq.

Our responsibility in Congress is to ensure that more lives and more tax dollars are not squandered as quickly as this Administration squandered international goodwill after 9/11. To those in Washington who defend this failed policy by saying, ``we have to stand with our troops,'' of course, this Administration did not even ask for additional spending until last month. Until that point, they told us nothing was necessary. Indeed a nonpartisan report released yesterday, as reflected in this chart, indicates that if we did not appropriate a single cent today, the Army has enough appropriations to last through half of next year. This question is not about providing more Kevlar vests for our troops. It is about providing ``political Kevlar'' for those who want to get through the next election.

Those who pursued an extreme ideology have reversed 50 years of bipartisan American foreign policy in favor of a preemptive war, and today a large number of Members of this Congress are going to say ``no,'' not to our troops, who we stand with and honor, but ``no'' to a failed policy. We are going to stand by the courageous young men and women in Iraq in uniform, but not with the ideologues in Washington in business suits who have failed them with their policies.

Mr. Speaker, with more than 2,000 young Americans dead and injured in Iraq, we have a constitutional obligation to hold this Administration accountable. We here in Congress need to demonstrate a little more of the type of courage that our young people have shown in Iraq.

We are having this vote now because the Administration has been unwilling to build a genuine international coalition. The price of going it mostly alone is that American taxpayers continue to do most all the paying and our young men and women do most all the dying. Americans must ``pay it all'' because of the ``know-it-all'' ideologues who rejected the advice of our leading military experts, of our strongest allies and the experienced weapons inspectors.

This is not a problem of too little money, it is a problem of too little thinking and planning.

Throwing more taxpayer money at the problem has nothing to do with ``standing by our troops.'' As the data in this chart demonstrates, if the supplemental is rejected entirely, at its current rate of spending, the Army will still have plenty of money for half a year. But the choice need not be between zero and $87 billion. If you really want to stand by the troops, then supplement some now and force the Administration to come back no later than January 2004 with a plan to protect our troops and ensure security in Iraq. Do not give the Administration a pass on accountability and a blank check through the next election.

This vote has nothing to do about supplying Kevlar vests to our troops. It is about providing ``political Kevlar'' to the defenders of a failed policy.

Do not allow the failure of the Administration ideologues in business suits to continue endangering those who so bravely serve us in uniform.

This is an Administration that cannot find Osama bin Laden, cannot find Saddam Hussein, cannot find weapons of mass destruction, cannot even find the person in the White House who was responsible for illegally endangering a woman who put her life on the line working for the CIA. The only thing the Administration can find is the taxpayers' wallet, again and again.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I just wanted further clarification as to whether the plan remains that, as announced by the majority leader here about 10 days ago, that we would have essentially an open rule on the $87 billion to assure that all Members could advance their ideas?

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, I appreciate that. I had planned to ask that question for clarification directly to the majority leader, but I understand he has really got great affection for my hometown of Austin and he has pretty much moved down there for the time being to try to reshape these districts.

Mr. Speaker, on January 29, 2002, President Bush stood at this podium, and he told this Congress and the Nation ``our budget will run a deficit that will be small and short term.'' He had hardly gotten out of the room before the deficit began soaring, soaring so much that this year, we have the largest deficit in the history of the United States. Soaring so much that over the course of this year and next year, we will probably exceed $1 trillion in additional national debt. Any honest projection shows that these deficits will continue rising throughout this decade. We have the largest fiscal reversal in the history of the United States, if not the history of the world, moving from the surplus the Bush Administration inherited to the unending debt with which we are now being burdened.

We begin to understand why they call this a ``faith-based'' initiative because despite this devastating fiscal record, they ask us to have faith that somehow their speeches will balance the budget even while they continue depleting the national treasury with one good cause and some not so good causes after another, taking out $10 billion here, $20 billion there, $50 billion some other place.

If you have faith in the bill that you are advancing today, have the good faith to deal straight with the American people instead of just giving them another IOU. And I commend the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Ford) for having the courage to support the substitute paying for this chartible giving initiative to which I know he is so committed. The Republican sponsor in the last Congress of this measure (Mr. Watts) was willing to do the same until he found out paying for it requires more than a speech.

We can pay for this initiative today, and then some, by correcting a considerable inequity in our tax system. The Founding Fathers believed that there should be no ``taxation without representation,'' and certainly we all agree. But some taxpayers, as a result of the inaction of the House Committee on Ways and Means and the leadership of this House, are today turning that on its head. They believe that we should have no ``taxation through misrepresentation.'' Too many corporations have misrepresented to their shareholders, their investors, to the tax collector the true nature of their income. They give new meaning to Leona Helmsley's claim that ``only the little people pay taxes.'' And today my colleagues talk about charity. Charity is when Congress ignores $10 billion a year, according to some estimates, in losses due to sham corporate tax shelters--shelters that are abuses of our current legal system. Charity is when the Republican leadership persists turning a blind eye to that abuse.

Since 1999, we have had a way to solve this problem. We have been asking for approval of a tax shelter measure that has had broad support in this body and is so ``controversial'' that almost every Republican Member of the United States Senate has voted for it. It passed 95 to 5 as a part not of some other bill, but of this very chartible giving bill. So what happens when it gets to the House Committee on Ways and Means? The same people that have been protecting these corporate tax abusers all this time have again offered them a little ``charity'' by removing all of the tax shelter language.

They stripped out the ``pay-for'' in this bill, a ``pay-for'' that brings equity to our tax system, that ensures that these corporate tax abusers get a little fair treatment. When such tax evaders dodge their taxes, guess who has to pay for national security and homeland security? All of the small businesses and large businesses and taxpayers large and small, who are already doing their fair share, already paying their fair portion of taxes.

Mr. Speaker, we have an opportunity today through the Democratic alternative to end this abuse of corporate tax shelters and at the same time pay for this charitable bill giving instead of incurring more public debt.

Mr. Speaker, without a doubt there are many good features of this proposal. That is why so many people support it. Perhaps the benefits are a bit exaggerated in the suggestion there will be $40 billion or $50 billion in additional money motivated by tax considerations instead of the heart. That probably overstates the case. But the important argument in favor of the Democratic substitute is that this proposal is presented as just another free lunch, like so many other allegedly pain free measures that keep rolling through this House.

As proposed, this bill will add to the burden of our children and our grandchildren billions of dollars that could and should be paid for now. That is why one of the cosponsors, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Ford), has said he supports the substitute. He is ready to pay for his bill, he has that much confidence in it. The only argument against paying for it was the unusual suggestion of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman) that it would be ``difficult.''

I agree, it has proven very difficult for the Committee on Ways and Means to do anything about corporate tax cheats. They have known about this problem since at least 1999, and they have chosen to sit on their hands.

Most people have heard about something called Enron, a Texas corporation. The Committee on Ways and Means was afraid though to look under the rock for all the Enron dirty tax secrets, about how much it avoided paying of its fair share of taxes, for fear of what Republicans might find, and they have still not, until this very day, found it possible to overcome what they call the ``difficulties'' of dealing with the Enron tax transgressions, nor those of any other corporation.

Pay for this bill. The Democratic substitute does.

Mr. Speaker, I will yield to the gentleman for purposes of a colloquy on my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the gentleman intended no deceit of the House in complaining of one of the 16 effective dates listed in the bill, the only one of the 16 that has a date that is retroactive; isn't that correct?

I yield to the gentleman from California.

There are effective dates throughout the bill. There is one effective date that applies on February 13 of this year. They are all specific dates on transactions this year with the exception of the last one, which is totally retroactive. The very last one on page 121 is totally retroactive and copies, as I understand it, verbatim language that the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) introduced last year in his international tax bill. It was not, apparently, ``fundamentally unfair'' last year when you introduced it.

There is one thing that is consistent because whether it is retroactive, prospective, past, present or future, the indifference of the Committee on Ways and Means to corporate tax abuse is consistent.

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

I believe there are three very important issues in this debate. First, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) has proposed a bipartisan initiative to complement the good intention of the sponsors of this measure to help children, especially abused children, in the

State of Texas. This proposal was good enough for every one of our Republican colleagues across the Capitol to support as a part of this bill. It was in the bill when it came from the Senate, and it is being stripped out today in a way that I think is indifferent to the needs of many children and many others who the sponsors of this bill say they want to help.

The second issue is: is the bill good enough to be paid for? When this bill arrived from the Senate it was paid for. It was a fiscally- responsible bill, and that responsibility has also now been stripped from the bill. How will our children and our grandchildren pay for the debt to which this bill contributes, piled upon, more debt atop even more debt? Our Nation is headed in the direction of the economic disaster of Argentina. We are mortgaging our prosperity--leaving our children and our grandchildren the hope of holding out a tin cup and begging for charity themselves to pay off this National debt unless we pay now for proposals like this.

Mr. Speaker, that is why the bipartisan sponsor of this measure, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Ford), says he is ready to pay for it. That is why Mr. J.C. Watts, the Republican sponsor of this measure in the last Congress, told our committee he was willing to pay for it. Why do today's Republican sponsors of this bill not put their money where their mouth is? If they are so concerned about charity, how about financing this bill instead of shifting more of the burden to future generations?

And the third equally important issue: we can pay for this and at the same time correct a gross injustice in our tax system.

In 1999 an Austin constituent drew my attention to Forbes magazine. It prouldly bears the title proudly ``The Capitalist Tool,'' and it published this cover story, ``Tax Shelter Hustlers, Respectable Accountants Are Peddling Dicey Tax Loopholes.''

In 1999 after I introduced legislation and we had a hearing great sympathy was expressed by the Republican members of the Committee on Ways and Means, but no action. Absolutely nothing was done about a problem that one Texas multinational told my office was receiving at one point a cold call every day trying to con them into these abusive corporate tax shelters. It had become an industry for major accounting firms like Arthur Andersen to engage in promoting these corporate tax shelters.

With the passage of several additional years and one corporate scandal after another, still no remedial action in the House, there has been some hope that this problem might be addressed because this year, not in a Democratic bill, but in the tax bill that President Bush offered, the Republican Members of the Senate added essentially the same tax shelter language that the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) and I are offering today in that tax bill. The Republican Senate passed it overwhelmingly. Yet it was stripped out by the same House Committee on Ways and Means that has consistenly turned a blind eye to this abuse since at least 1999.

So the Senate put it in again in this charitable giving bill to pay for it--to be fiscally responsible. They sent legislative language over here similar to that the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) and I are proposing, and today we hear Republican colleagues in the House tell us that although it was good enough for all of the Senate Republicans it is not good enough for us. ``We think it is difficult.'' ``We think it is challenging.'' ``We think it is confusing.''

Well, it is not ``confusing'' to anyone other than to those who are the so-called respectable accountants, who choose to use challenging, confusing tax gimmicks so their well-healed clients can avoid paying their fair share of taxes. This unfairly doged ``fair share of taxes'' is believed to run as high as $10 billion a year. When one of those corporations does not pay its fair share, the rest of us have to pay the difference and this is wrong. We can correct this abuse today in the same way that the Republican Senate corrected it, and on behalf of all honest taxpayers, I hope we will.

Mr. Speaker, each morning these recent months we are awakened with the disturbing news that one, two, perhaps three, young Americans have been killed in Iraq.

Our tours of duty for the National Guard and for the Reserves are being extended with great complications for many small American communities, and certainly for many American families.

It was just back on March 16 that Vice President Cheney declared to the Nation that the most important rationale for war with Iraq was the fact Iraq had all of these weapons of mass destruction. And I think as the weeks go by and as the lives of young Americans are lost, that more and more of our American families are asking: Why is it that each morning we hear that the body of another young American has been found, but we hear nothing about the location of any weapons of mass destruction? In fact, that term has almost been banned now from administration speeches justifying the war in Iraq.

So desperate is the administration to make the claim about weapons of mass destruction that incredibly, yesterday, Secretary of State Powell went to the scene of a horrific crime involving weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but it was a crime that happened 15 years ago, in 1988; and no evidence was provided suggesting any weapons of mass destruction had been located that would justify the loss of the lives of our sons and daughters in Iraq.

Now, surely, with thousands of people being paid by American taxpayers at this very moment to comb Iraq for weapons of mass destruction, sooner or later they will find at least a trace. But an honest assessment of this whole weapons of mass destruction question requires asking whether this third-rate tyrant, Saddam Hussein, unable to effectively defend himself and his own family, really ever had the capability to pose an imminent threat to our families here in America. Meanwhile, Americans continue to do most all of the dying, and American taxpayers are asked to continue to do most all of the paying for the cost of this administration's war justified by weapons of mass destruction.

In view of this, more and more Americans are contacting us here in Congress about the weapons of mass destruction question. Many of these people have done so through the organization called moveon.org, a citizens' organization to advance concerns in a way that I think is very healthy. I just want to share with my colleagues tonight the thoughts of some of those people from central Texas who share my concern about the rationale the administration used, how quickly it is walking away from that rationale, and the tremendous cost in the meantime, not only in dollars, but in blood.

Glee Ingram. Glee is a small business owner in Austin, and she writes: ``I strongly support an independent investigation of the claims that were made by the Bush administration as a prelude to declaring war on Iraq. Using deception to create support to go to war is absolutely unacceptable. We, the citizens who must reap the consequences of this decision, are due all honesty,'' and indeed they are. And it is particularly questionable why this administration that made such bold claims about how weapons of mass destruction posed a danger to our families now resists a complete investigation of why they have been unable to find them.

Chantal Tetreault, who is a University of Texas student, contacted me saying: ``Please support an independent commission to investigate the Bush administration's distortion of evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. My confidence in the government is shattered and will only be restored if the American people are given the truth about government intelligence prior to the Iraqi war. Innocent Americans have died and continue to die, along with many Iraqi civilians in this war.''

I think she raises some important questions, as does Kathy Goodwin, who is an Austin social worker who contacted me saying: ``I firmly believe that when we witnessed the bombing of September 11, people everywhere shared our grief and millions in the United States and all over the world have since come to the conclusion that war will not solve all our problems. The terrorism that caused 9-11 will not be stopped through a war with Iraq. We need the truth.'' And that is what an independent investigation of the whole WMD controversy would get to.

I believe the voices of these Austinites and others across the country should be heeded. We need action now to find out why and what occurred here.