Floor Statements

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

This debate is about one basic thing. Do you think the money coming into the Federal Government is the people's money or the government's money?

Number one, what are we talking about today? What we are talking about is whether we should keep taxes at the levels they are today. Should we keep the child tax credit where it is? Should we keep the marriage penalty relief where it is by and large? And what they are saying on the other side is, okay, if we want to keep these taxes from going up, we got to raise more taxes.

So what we are looking at here is an emphasis. Is it the people's money or is it the government's money? We believe this is the people's money. We believe most importantly that people ought to be able to keep more of their paycheck in their pockets. And what we get from the other side is, to pay for this, let us raise taxes. So we are saying, to prevent these taxes from going up, we will raise taxes over here.

What we are trying to do, Mr. Speaker, is accelerate the policies and keep the policies that have been working. Letting people keep more of their own hard earned money has been good for the economy and good for the individuals and good for the families of America. Just take a look at the fact that over the last year where we have had lower tax rates we have brought in

more revenues. That is right. We have got $56 billion in higher revenues this year, the deficit has gone down, under the lower tax rates that we are paying today, than a year ago under higher tax rates.

Why? Because we have better economic growth, because we have more jobs being produced in this economy, because more people are paying taxes because they have a job to pay taxes in.

So why would we want to go down the road of raising taxes to keep these tax levels where they are, to kill the goose that is laying the golden egg that is giving us this economic recovery that is now underway. Point number one.

Point number two, this is already in the President's budget. The President's budget, which is to slash the deficit in half within 5 years, accommodates this policy. I wish we had a budget resolution in full force which is what we passed in the House which froze domestic spending, met our priorities overseas in fighting the war on terrorism, in protecting the homeland and froze domestic spending. Unfortunately, the other body failed to do this.

So the question before us on this rule is do you think that the middle class families ought to be able to keep more of their own money? Do you think that these tax extenders which would go away and raise taxes on the economy and raise taxes on businesses should come into law or not? Or should we keep these tax increases from hitting the economy? Should we have keep these taxes from being raised on families, and is the only way to do that to just raise taxes on someone else?

No. Let us put the emphasis where it ought to be, on spending. Let us put the emphasis on where it ought to be, on letting people keep more hard earned money in their paychecks, in their wallets. Let us not put the emphasis on continuing to raise taxes.

There is a fundamental, philosophical difference between the two parties. You are seeing it on display here on the House floor. We just fundamentally disagree. We believe that people ought to be able to keep more of their own hard-earned money. It is a belief we have. And that belief has translated time and time again, under Jack Kennedy, under Calvin Coolidge, under Ronald Reagan, and, yes, now under this current President, to produce better economic growth, better economic policy and, yes, more revenues. That is what is happening today.

Let us keep the taxes low. Let us prevent the families have having tax increases. Let us not raise taxes. Let us keep them low. I urge adoption of this rule.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

First of all, this concern was already addressed in this plan design. The gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) says this is going to have a huge adverse selection, that all of the wealthy and all of the healthy Federal employees are going to run to these health savings accounts, and we are going to have a death spiral in the Federal employee health benefits situation.

Number one, all of the data that is coming out that is bearing fruit from the imposition of HSAs are proving that to be untrue. What we are finding out is the opposite is happening. Older folks and people with more health risk profiles are those who are buying health insurance.

Mr. Chairman, 42 percent of the people who have bought HSAs this year, according to eHealthInsurance, are people who did not have insurance.

Fifty-six percent of the people who bought HSAs are people over the age of 40 years old. We are finding that this is a good tool for people who are the very people who are vulnerable in our system. But more importantly, just in case there was concern that there was any legitimacy to this claim, the folks at OPM devised this system so that the premiums are basically the same as any other premium, so that they do not have a big, tiered premium, so that they have a huge discount on these higher deductible HSA plans versus other traditional plans within the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan, so they will not have that drain.

But more importantly, what this amendment does is it denies Federal employees choices. It takes one product that they now have as a choice, an option, and say they have got to take it or leave it for 3 years; for 3 years this is all they can have. They cannot participate in open season like they always could, like the other people in the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan, but it does not apply these limits to the rest of the programs.

So we are saying to all these Federal employees we have this new option, a choice, with premiums very similar to all the other options and choices. They can have it, but they have got to take it for 3 years. That is denying flexibility and choice that we have come to enjoy and appreciate in the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan.

I urge rejection of this amendment. Adverse selection is not occurring with these products.

I thank the gentleman for yielding time.

Mr. Chairman, I want to address just the main criticism the gentleman from Virginia just mentioned. Two things. He says adverse selection, which means healthy and wealthy people will leave other health care plans and premiums will go up for everybody else. Point number one. The Office of Personnel Management took this concern very seriously. So when they constructed this new health savings account option within the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan, an additional option for Federal employees, they designed the premium so that that would not happen. Specifically, Federal employees would pay $42.25 every 2 weeks for the Mail Handlers high deductible plan compared to $45.16 for the standard coverage, an insignificant difference of $2.81 for every 2 weeks. For family coverage, the difference would be 11 cents. These very small differences in premiums will ensure that healthy employees are not attracted to HSAs by their premium. So the concern of the gentleman, which is a concern, was already addressed by the OPM.

But one more point and the second point is this. All of the data on adverse selection has been coming back and none of it has been true. This was a concern that we were very concerned about. We want to make sure that the healthy and wealthy were not fleeing traditional health care plans, leaving them in jeopardy, raising premiums for other people.

Since these plans have been offered since January and believe me, Mr. Chairman, they have been really proliferating, the data is showing us the opposite has occurred. The data is showing us that sicker, older people are being more attracted to health savings accounts.

A couple of statistics. Assurant Health Care Plan, the leading provider of these in America, happens to be located in Milwaukee; 43 percent of their HSA applicants did not have any prior coverage at all. Forty-three percent of the people who bought these HSAs were uninsured. Thirty-two percent of HSA applicants had not had coverage for at least 6 months prior to enrollment. Half of all HSA applicants had incomes under $35,000. That is from eHealthInsurance, the major clearinghouse of all HSA products, the big Web site you go to to buy an HSA. Half of all their applicants earned under $35,000. EHealthInsurance again, the clearinghouse, 46 percent of HSA purchasers have family incomes less than 50 grand.

We are seeing that lower income workers and families are going toward HSAs and older, less healthy people are going toward HSAs. So the data is showing that that is not true.

Mr. Chairman, just three points need to be made about this amendment.

Point number one, this is an option from which Federal employees can choose. Why deprive them of this additional choice? They do not want the

product, they do not have to have it. Why take it away from them?

Point number two, just in case these adverse selection concerns are valid, that is why OPM designed this product with identical premiums so it does not occur. So they already addressed the concern just in case there is any adverse selection that occurs out there.

But now what we are seeing from the data is that adverse selection not only is not happening. The opposite is happening. Lower-income, older, sicker people are buying health savings accounts. The data we get every day is disproving this notion of adverse selection. But just in case OPM designed this so that the premium is virtually identical to the rest of the premiums so that there is a safety valve, an insurance policy, to make sure that those concerns are not validated, do not manifest themselves.

Do not take this option away from 8 million families. I urge a vote ``no'' on this amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the Janesville Performing Arts Center on its grand opening and spotlight this exciting new addition to Janesville, Wisconsin.

Today the Janesville Performing Arts Center opens its doors--and opens a new chapter of the life of historic Janesville High School on Main Street. The center will give our area's performers a wonderful new stage for their creative energies and serve as a resource for people of all ages throughout our community. Besides providing a terrific venue for local arts groups to showcase their talent and skill, the Janesville Performing Arts Center will bring new opportunities for entertainment to everyone in our region.

The grand opening of Janesville's first community performing arts center is a cause for celebration throughout our area and especially for those who have worked so hard to make this center a reality.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. I will just briefly pause and say, having a surplus with Morocco actually helps us with our trade deficit surplus figure because it adds to the surplus side of it.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to pause for a moment and thank those who made this possible. I would like to thank those negotiators at the U.S. Trade Representative who worked long and hard hours with the Moroccans to make this agreement possible. I would like to thank our committee chairman, the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas); our subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane); and also I would like to thank the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Dunn), who spearheaded this through committee and here in Congress. This is a great product. This is a great thing.

Now, specifically, why is this beneficial to our constituents? Why is this good for America?

Well, number one, manufacturing, a very important sector to our economy especially in my home State of Wisconsin. This is a great deal for manufacturing. This gets rid of the tariffs on our manufacturing goods going to Morocco.

Number two, and even more important, agriculture. For every $1 of imports we take from Morocco in imports, we export $10. This is a great agreement for agriculture, especially since the Europeans, who enjoy a 50 percent higher trade flow advantage with Morocco than we have at the present time, do not have an agreement with Morocco on agriculture. Let me say it another way. Morocco and Europe trade a lot with each other, 50 percent more than we do with Morocco. That is going to change with this agreement, thankfully; but the Europeans do not have an agriculture agreement with Morocco. We will, and that means we will sell even more agricultural products to Morocco. That is a great thing.

We have a trade surplus with Morocco. They are a great trading partner. This is good for jobs. It is good for manufacturing. It is good for agriculture; but Mr. Speaker, there is a broader vision here. There is a broader purpose for all of this.

This is part of the President's MEFTI plan. This is part of the Middle Eastern Free Trade Initiative. What is that initiative? That initiative is to recognize we need to play a constructive role in the Middle East; that in the war on terror, the most important aspect, long-term vision of that war on terror is improving our understanding and our relations with moderate Muslim countries, with the Arab world. This accomplishes this.

We have 10 TIFAs in place, 10 trade and investment framework agreements in place, throughout the Gulf, throughout Northern Africa, to engage in discussion and dialogue with those countries to help bring them up to the rules of democracy, rules of free enterprise, enforceable contracts, the rule of law, women's right to vote, open societies.

This is what these trade agreements produce. So not only do we produce trade agreements like this Moroccan agreement, which is good for jobs in America, we produce political reforms by engaging in a partnership with those in the Middle East who want democracy and want openness. Because of these agreements and because of the role we play in the world, we serve as a catalyst to getting these countries to open their societies.

Here is one example with the Moroccan agreement. Because of this trade agreement, Morocco passed a great piece of legislation in their constitution and their law for labor standards. They have been trying to do this for 20 years. For 20 years labor groups in Morocco have been trying to get the right to collectively bargain, a shorter workweek, better laws to protect against child labor. Those things are the law of the land in Morocco because of this agreement.

So what we are doing with this broad initiative, through trade investment framework agreements, which lead to these free trade agreements like we have with Jordan and Bahrain and now Morocco, what this accomplishes is bringing these nations into a partnership of democracy, of freedom, of openness and prosperity. That is how we end up improving the lives of people in the Middle East, and that at the end of the day, and I am going to make this connection, is how we make sure that young men and women who are susceptible to the likes of al- Qaeda, who grow up in tyrannical countries with lives where they have no hope and no place to put their creative energies and turn to the likes of al-Qaeda, now have hope in the countries where they did not have them before.

Now young people in these countries who are opening up their systems, bringing democracy, bringing open societies, they have hope. They have a place to channel their energies. This will be one if we improve our relationship, our cultural understanding, our dialogue, and, yes, our trade with these countries.

The Moroccan trade agreement is a perfect example of this vision. I urge Members to pass this trade agreement. It is good for jobs, it is good for Americans, it is good for Moroccans, and it is good for our foreign policy in the Middle East. That is a very, very important goal.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to be very brief about this. This is a similar motion to instruct that we have seen before. The practical result of this motion to instruct is to make sure that a tax increase hits all middle-income families next year.

We have a problem and the problem is when the tax cuts passed into law last July and in the original tax cuts when they passed in 2001, the intention of this body was to make those tax cuts permanent. The tax cut that passed the House originally was that the child tax credits would be doubled, the marriage tax penalty would be vastly eliminated, and the 10 percent bracket would be expanded, and that that would be the law of the land in perpetuity.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

I am getting there.

Reclaiming my time, I am making a larger point that will come around to the practical effect of this motion to instruct.

The point I was trying to make, Mr. Speaker, is that because of an arcane rule in the other body, those tax cuts were made temporary, meaning next year if Congress does not act, the per child tax credits will go from $1,000 down to $700. The marriage penalty relief will go away and the marriage penalty will come back into full force which costs the average married couple $1,400 in higher taxes. And the 10 percent bracket which is income tax relief to low-income Americans will go away and go back to the 15 percent tax bracket.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Reclaiming my time, the point I am coming to is that the practical effect of this by saying ``does not increase the Federal budget deficit,'' is to say that this will not, in effect, end up happening. And what we want to do is make sure these tax cuts stay in place.

The point is this, Mr. Speaker, when the House passed its budget resolution, when the House deemed its budget resolution passed, we budgeted for this. We planned for this. It is within our budget, which is also a broader plan to reduce the budget deficit. The point is if you put this emphasis as this motion to instruct is created, it will put a bias in to keep these taxes high. It will put pressure not on reducing spending, but keeping taxes high. That is my concern with the gentleman's motion to instruct.

By saying, ``extend the tax relief provisions that expired at the end of 2004 and does not increase the Federal budget deficit,'' that puts emphasis on keeping taxes high or raise raising taxes somewhere else to make this tax cut extended, rather than putting the emphasis where it ought to be, and that is reducing spending like we budget for in the budget resolution which we have deemed here.

So the points is this: we want these tax cuts to be permanent. It was always the intention they be permanent. By having these kinds of motions to instruct which will have the practical effect, in my opinion, of derailing these tax relief measures, we will have a tax increase on the middle-income family earners.

This is in our budget resolution. We budget for these tax cuts to be made permanent. That is what should happen. That is why I urge a ``no'' vote on this motion to instruct.

With that, I understand my friend from Texas disagrees with my assessment of this, but that is my assessment. I think that is exactly what would happen if this were to be the case. That is why I urge a ``no'' vote.

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

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

As this motion to instruct is written, number one, under the PAYGO rules that you are advocating, you will have to raise taxes somewhere else to pay for this tax cut or you will cut entitlements because that is how PAYGO works for these tax reliefs.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Does PAYGO allow for cuts in discretionary spending to be used to pay for tax relief?

I have a different understanding on that.

If the gentleman is suggesting that when the budget resolution sets its 302(a) and reconciles its provisions, then the answer is you can put credit on the PAYGO score card to pay for a tax cut. But given the fact that we already have a budget resolution that is deemed, that accommodates this tax relief provision extending this tax cut so that it does not expire, we already have in our budget this budgeted for.

The House deemed a budget, so we for practical purposes are operating under the House budget resolution which we deemed to be the budget of the House because we could not get a budget agreement with the other body.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

I was thinking we were going to yield all time back.

I want to be very brief. We do want to reduce the deficit. We are trying to reduce the deficit. I think there is a better way than this vehicle. That is the point I am trying to make.

I do believe there is a difference of opinion on how the PAYGO rules work. But also I think it is important to point out the fact that the tax cuts that took place last year, since then we have actually raised more money in tax receipts under these new lower tax rates than we did last year under the higher tax rates. So the facts are there; but, nevertheless, the point of this is we passed budget resolutions. We have not gotten one with the other body for a lot of reasons, but we have deemed it here. We passed the budget to try to get a handle on spending and reduce the deficit. I would have done even more on spending control in our budget resolution.

This is not the vehicle to do it because I believe this vehicle will make it harder to extend this tax relief; and, therefore, you will have a tax increase on middle-income workers. And I believe the better vehicle to get a hold of our deficit is to pass a good budget that gets down our deficit, that reduces our deficit.

I thank the gentleman for giving me the time.

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

And I would like to say to the last speaker the hand was reached out on an amendment and the last speaker took the hand and that is why he and I have an amendment on the floor today on a very important item. So while all the minority's amendments were not made in order, there are a couple of amendments that were bipartisan that he and I have. And I hope that he does not count among the silly amendments the one that he and I have.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I appreciate the clarification.

Mr. Speaker, let me frame what this is all about. What are we doing here today? What we are trying to accomplish here today is to clean up this silly budget process we have here in Washington. All of us have different ideas on how to fix this system.

There are some differences in philosophies. We heard the gentleman talking about the PAYGO, their version of PAYGO, our version of PAYGO, that the basis of that philosophical difference is we do not believe fiscal discipline in Washington should come from tax increases. We believe fiscal discipline in Washington should come from spending cuts. And when we have the PAYGO system, much like what we have had in the past, history already shows that it puts a bias in the law for tax increases, not spending cuts.

So what we want to accomplish, because we believe this, we want the discipline, we want the inertia, we want the pressure to be on controlling spending, not raising taxes. There is the big philosophy difference.

But going down the road of the system we have here in Washington, Mr. Speaker, I would argue that we have this thing in place since 1974; and since 1974, Washington has had a horrible record of getting its handle on our budgets, when Republicans ran things and when Democrats ran things. For a while in the 1990s, we did a pretty good job, but since then we have not; and I would argue that.

We are doing well in many years, but when we look at a system, for example, that allows some appropriations to come to the floor, say, adding $50 million for a rain forest museum in Coraville, Iowa, and if we want to come to this floor and pass an amendment so that we can do so on behalf of our taxpayer constituents to say I do not think we should pay $50 million for a rain forest museum in Coraville, Iowa, I have an amendment to strike that proposal. We could pass that amendment. But by the rules of this institution from the 1974 Budget Act, that $50 million would have to be re-spent somewhere else in the Federal Government. It could not be saved. That is ridiculous. That is just one example of how crazy this budget system is that we have today.

Another crazy example of these rules is when we pass budgets, and we really work hard on passing these budget resolutions, as soon as we pass these budget resolutions, they amount to nothing more than mere guidelines. They are not actual, enforceable budgets. They do not take the force of law.

What we propose today, through an amendment and through a couple of substitutes, is that when we actually pass a budget here, it means something. We stick to it. We enforce it. It is honest. It is going to work. It is going to happen. That is not what happens today.

So we want to have a budget process that is done at the beginning of the budget process where the President signs it into law, and because the budget becomes law, it therefore is enforceable so that we can make sure we stick to the budget, that we plan the finances of this country so that we can factor in all the things we need to think about: the level of taxation, the level of debt, the deficits, getting ready for the baby boomer retirement, all of those things so that when we actually pass a budget, it works and it is enforceable. These are not really crazy ideas. These are commonsense ideas to bring common sense to a budget system that is broken.

I would challenge anyone to come to the floor and argue on behalf of this current budget system to say that this is the epitome of common sense, that this thing works right as it should. We have not changed this system since 1974. It is high time we changed it. We are going to have a lot of amendments to try to do that. We are going to have some big substitute votes on big bills to do that. This is the product of a collaborative work. It is a product of Democrats and Republicans. It is a product that needs to come to this floor. It is a product that needs to pass into law so that we bring common sense back to our budget process.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to repeat a couple things said in the past. If a small business makes $1 million, what does that mean? That means they are making money and hiring people. Two-thirds of our jobs in America come from small businesses. Two-thirds of all those who file in the top bracket are small businesses. In this new rate structure being proposed, this new tax increase, 75 percent of those people are small business people.

Why would we want to tax the recovery of this economy at this time? What we accomplished in the last tax bill was finally lowering the tax rate on small businesses down to a level large corporations pay.

Remember, Mr. Speaker, that before the July tax cuts, we were charging small business owners higher tax rates than we charged the largest corporations in America, like Exxon or IBM or General Motors. What this bill will do is do that again. It will increase taxes on small businesses and make small businesses pay higher tax rates than the largest corporations in America. Why would we want to reintroduce that injustice back into the Tax Code?

We want to keep low tax rates on small businesses. That is who are creating jobs right now. Two-thirds of our jobs today come from small businesses. This big tax increase on small businesses is not the way to go. We want small businesses making money. This is a tax on their income that they reinvest in their businesses.

More importantly, this proposal adds $130 billion to our deficit over the next 10 years. It is fiscally irresponsible, taxing small business and spending more money. Adding to the deficits is what has given us this hole we are trying to dig out of in the first place.

Mr. Speaker, two-thirds of all those who file their taxes in the top bracket are people who report small business income, subchapter S corporations, limited liability corporations. Seventy-five percent of all those in this new tax bracket covered in this bill are those who report small business income.

Small businesses do not pay taxes as corporations; they pay taxes as people. So we are not talking about tax increases on millionaires who are hanging out on yachts. We are talking about tax increases on people who are running businesses. They have 25 employees, they have 50 employees, they have 100 employees, they have two employees, they have five employees.

The point is, these small businesses, the engine of economic growth, the job creator of this economy, pay their taxes on the individual rate; and these are the people whose taxes are being increased under this proposal.

Mr. Speaker, my friend and I, we get along very well personally when the mikes are not on; but I just have to say, that is not what this proposal says. This proposal says ``reduction in tax cuts for taxpayers with incomes above $1 million,'' period, end of story. The committee figures out how to do the rest of it.

The point is, if businesses are becoming successful, that means they are going to start hiring people again. We do not want to raise their taxes

I yield to the gentleman from Iowa.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to comment on a couple other aspects of this amendment that I think are very important. This amendment really dovetails well with another amendment that is coming, which is breaking it into five simple categories so that we do not have these stalemates we have every year in Congress between the other Chamber and the White House. What we want to do is make the budget amendment easier to achieve in the beginning of the process. Also what this does is it has emergency spending protection so that we save for emergencies ahead of time, so that we have a rainy day fund to prepare for these kinds of emergencies.

We also clean up the definition of emergencies in this amendment. Far too often in this body, we designate things that really do not pass the smell test as to what are emergencies. We want to have real emergencies being funded under the emergency spending reserve fund, not nonemergencies. That is why we think we need to clean up that rule that allows Congress to designate things like a summit house on top of Pikes Peak an emergency.

So this bill makes it easier to get a budget agreement, cleans up our emergency spending designation and helps us set money aside so we can prepare for these inevitable emergencies that occur every year Congress spends this money.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to respond to a few things the gentleman from South Carolina said.

Number one, the cap is indexed to inflation at the CPI or another inflation adjuster, such as, in the case of Medicare, medical inflation, Medicare price. So how can he say that it is a cut if each of these programs grows by inflation plus new beneficiaries and the inflation within those kinds of programs?

The problem we have, Mr. Chairman, is when we put most of the Federal Government off limits to budget discipline, it grows out of control. I hope that those who are in charge of discretionary spending in Congress also join with us in trying to control mandatory spending, because if we can control mandatory spending, we can get our hands around the big problem in our budget system in the Federal Government, and that is out-of-control spending. We do this in an honest way, we do this in a sincere way, and we do this in a way to protect those. That is why earned entitlements are off limits, like Social Security and Medicare benefits. We do this in a way that we protect beneficiaries, we protect them from inflation, and we get our hands around the biggest part of our Federal budget, entitlements.

Mr. Chairman, I just would like to bring some illumination to this with numbers. This brinksmanship that this process brings us to has brought us a lot of extra spending. In fiscal year 2002, the discretionary spending level in the budget resolution was $661 billion. We spent $734 billion.

In FY 2003, the discretionary spending level was set out in the budget resolution at $750 billion. We ended up spending $849 billion.

In FY 2004, the discretionary spending was $784 billion. We ended up spending $873 billion.

This brinksmanship brings us to this overspending limit. This amendment stops that.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, let me just briefly explain what this amendment does. What this does is this elevates the budget resolution to a level of a law.

Specifically, this would change the current nonbinding concurrent budget resolution into a joint resolution, which would give the force of law when signed by the President. This would encourage the President to get involved early in the process, instead of having this typical annual brinksmanship that we have in the budget process at the end of the year, so that we can settle on the numbers between the other body, this body, and the White House and move on to good legislation.

A joint resolution would be binding and have the force of law so that both the Congress and the White House would work these issues out in the beginning of the annual year.

The simplicity of this budget resolution makes agreements easier to reach because negotiations will be forced early on in the process.

I would like to go through how this would work. I have a chart that makes it easier for me to explain this.

First, like we have anytime, the President submits his budget. Then Congress would pass a joint budget resolution. Then the question is whether the President would sign it or not. If with those negotiations the President then signs that joint budget resolution, then Congress passes its appropriations, its reconciliation, its tax and entitlement bills and its conference reports, and the President signs those bills into law. Very easy, very clear process.

If, for example, the President does not sign that joint budget resolution, there is a fallback provision similar to what we have today, where it would go back to Congress and Congress would adopt a concurrent resolution, much like we have right now.

For example, this year, where we actually do not have a concurrent resolution in place because we could not get one through the other body, we would end up deeming it.

The point is this, Mr. Chairman: we have to front-load this system so we can get these agreements reached at the beginning of the year so we can move forward on the same page. Most importantly, we need to make this budget have the force of law so that it can be enforced. That is the problem. Our budget resolutions ends up becoming mere guidelines and do not actually have the force of law. Therefore, they are not enforceable. We always break our budgets.

If we make this have the force of law, it becomes enforceable. Therefore, we can actually stick to the budgets we have.

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

Mr. Chairman, before yielding to my cosponsor of this amendment, I yield myself 10 seconds.

Number one, the President already has the power to sign these bills into law. He signs appropriation bills, he signs tax bills, he signs entitlement bills. So this does not give him new power he does not already have.

Number two, the gentleman from South Carolina, who is a leader in this area, has been a leader in this area for a long time, sponsored a bill in 1991 that did just this. So I think this is a good idea.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, it is my understanding the gentleman supported this in the past. Either way, good people can disagree on these things.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht).

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

The current system we have is dysfunctional. It has games built into the system so that the House can do one thing; the other body, the Senate, but I am not supposed to say that word, can do another; and the President can do a third thing. What happens in the current budget system is we go into a stalemate and to get out of that stalemate at the end of the year, we end up spending more money than the budget ever planned on spending.

What we simply want to do is to bring this budget up to the level of the law so that we are all on the same page at the beginning of the budget process so that we can enforce that budget because it is in law.

The budgets we pass here are not really binding, they are guidelines. They are not legally protected. We cannot protect and enforce our budget if it does not rise to the level of the law. We cannot be on the same page at the beginning of the year, if we are not on the same page at the beginning of the year. That is why we are trying to pass this very common sense idea, so that we are all on the same page and so that this can be law and, therefore, our budgets can be enforced.

I urge adoption of this amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, this is part of our larger effort, which is in our substitute. But what this will do is allow to have a sequester to kick in if Congress exceeds its spending items. Just like the sequesters we have talked about before in the old Committee on the Budget days, if Congress overspends, because we have this in law, a sequester kicks in and brings spending back into conformity with the budget.

But we waive our budget caps all of the time under the current system.

This way the President could veto breaking the

budget caps early in the process and we could keep to these numbers.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

The Chairman pro tempore. The Clerk will designate the amendment.

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

I bring this amendment to the desk with my cosponsor, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer). Let me briefly explain it.

This is what we call budget protection accounts. Here is how the current appropriations process works. If we have a piece of spending in the budget that we think is wasteful, let me take two examples here; the $200,000 for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, or the $500,000 for the Anaheim Resort Transit to fund buses at Disneyland, or the $50 million to fund the Coralville Rain Forest Museum in Coralville, Iowa.

Let us take, for example, if we want to get rid of that spending, we can bring an amendment to the floor, pass it, make sure that spending does not go to those projects, but by the rules of this institution, that money has to be spent somewhere else in the Federal government. That is ridiculous, Mr. Chairman.

All we are proposing is this: if Members can come to the floor with amendments to eliminate or reduce wasteful spending, they ought to be able to save that money. That is all we are proposing.

So what we do here is when a cutting amendment comes to the floor to reduce spending, the entire 302(a) allocation, the entire discretionary allocation goes down by the amount of that amendment. So that at the end of the year, that money either goes to reducing the deficit or that money goes to reduce taxes. We have a mechanism that makes sure that this reconciles with the other body appropriately.

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

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I can explain it. Basically, it works like this. A Member brings an amendment to the House Floor to cut spending. The 302(a) allocation goes down by that amount. At the end of the day, the conference report for the appropriation bills goes down by the lower of the two different amounts between the House amendments and the Senate amendments. At the end of the year, because the 302(a) will have gone down by that amount, the Committee on Ways and Means can use the savings for tax relief. If it does not do that by the end of the fiscal year, the savings, the lower of the amendments between the House or the Senate, is going toward deficit reduction.

That is essentially how it works. I know it is complicated.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman briefly yield again?

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's indulgence. First of all, it is true that you could eliminate a piece of pork here on the House Floor and it could get placed back in on the Senate floor. But by these rules, at least that amount of money would have to be saved, because the 302(a) allocation will go down by that amount. It would be up to the Committee on Appropriations to decide where that money comes from. But the point is, that money would have to be saved.

Mr. Chairman, that is up to the Committee on the Budget.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the cosponsor of this amendment, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer).

Mr. Chairman, I yield the remaining time to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I will explain this. We are going to go after wasteful spending in another direction with this amendment. This is a bipartisan amendment with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), also with the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle), who is not here with us on the floor this moment, supporting this amendment. This is what we call enhanced rescissions.

The way this amendment works is that the President, after signing a bill into law, an appropriations bill into law, has the ability to pull out a wasteful spending measure or a number of wasteful spending measures that he or she deems wasteful.

Now, this makes sure that we retain the power of the purse so that that bill comes back to the House and the Senate among expedited procedures where we vote up or down on that rescission package.

Now, if my colleagues will recall, during the line item veto debate of a number of years ago, the Supreme Court ended up striking down the line item veto. The reason the Supreme Court struck down the line item veto is a reason I agree with, which was it is unconstitutional for the legislative branch to delegate its lawmaking power to the executive branch the power of the purse.

So what we are doing in place of that is this. As a consequence to those who oppose the line item veto at the same time, they were the folks who were actually proposing this legislation, what happens is the President pulls out spending from a spending bill, sends it back to Congress on an expedited procedural basis, Congress votes up or down on those spending cuts. And we have the final say as to whether or not that spending occurs.

Now, the great point of all of this is we end up having to vote on these huge appropriation bills. Last year's omnibus appropriation bill had seven different appropriation bills bundled into one. So we had one vote on the conference report up or down. So we had to vote on veterans health care, on Labor Department spending, on Health and Human Services; but we also had to vote for the $50 million rain forest museum in Coralville, Iowa.

This gives the President the ability to say we probably should not be spending money on that rain forest museum in Coralville, Iowa, and a few other things. I am pulling those out of this bill and sending it back to Congress for a revote, and then Congress has the final decision as to whether or not that spending takes place.

We retain the power of the purse, but we have a tool to go after wasteful spending.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the remainder of the time.

Mr. Chairman, I want to answer the points the gentleman from South Carolina made. We did look at the issue of whether there are tax expenditures included in the enhanced rescission power, and some raised the constitutional question. Because in article I, section 7, the U.S. Constitution clearly states that bills for raising revenue shall originate only in the House of Representatives.

There are some who have a constitutional concern, and this is a debated point, that it would be unconstitutional for the President to alter tax legislation because this would be an originating bill even after this other bill would be passed into law.

So there is a constitutional question about the tax expenditure side. But, more importantly, we want to focus on spending. We wanted to focus this tool to go after wasteful spending.

Let me just conclude with showing a few things that we have done around here. Both parties are to blame for this; 13.4 million for community resilience project in Virginia.

Mr. Chairman, $916,000 for a study about what makes a meaningful day, $500,000 for the Anaheim Resort Transit to fund buses for Disneyland, $270,000 for wool research in Montana and Wyoming, $72,000 for the study by the National Institute of Health on dorm room wall decorations and Web pages.

These are ridiculous expenditures that I believe are an embarrassment to this body, and it is a good thing, and I think we all agree, to have the President have the ability to bring those things out and send it back and have us vote on those things in the light of day instead of tucking them in big appropriations bill.

Mr. Chairman, a couple of us were not in Congress back then when you guys decided that, so we have been consistent.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to address a few of the things that the gentleman from South Carolina said. As far as the estimate on the $1.8 trillion cut, that is not accurate for this bill. Number one, this bill addresses those issues that were raised in that estimate. Number two, entitlement spending will go up. It will go up by the number of beneficiaries coming to these programs, it will go up by inflation, and medical inflation in Medicare's instance. And we do take care of putting into the baseline the new prescription drug benefit.

I would like to just quickly go through the summary of what this legislation actually accomplishes in a very, very quick order. Number one, what this budget does is it raises the budget to the point of law by making a joint budget resolution so we do not have these stalemates at the end of Congress every year like we do.

It also has a one-page budget so it is easier for the Congress, the House, the Senate, and the President to agree on a budget at the beginning of the session. It also abolishes the practice of designating everything as emergencies. One of the problems we have is we can designate just about anything an emergency. The census was designated an emergency. We knew that one was coming.

So what we are trying to do is tighten up that definition so true emergencies are designated emergencies. We go to biennial budget so that we do our budgeting in the first year of our cycle, and then in the second year we conduct oversight. We think that Congress does not do nearly enough government oversight into how our taxpayers' dollars are being spent.

We also have government shut-down protection so that, if for some reason we have this brinksmanship which has been common around here, we do not hold hostage government workers and shut down the government. We keep things going with an automatic continuing resolution.

We also have very important spending caps which we have been talking about on discretionary and entitlement spending. It will take two- thirds of a vote in Congress to break those spending caps. This is the real heart of this bill so that we do not violate our spending caps. Because all too often, we will pass a budget, we will set spending caps, lo and behold, a couple months go by, we break the spending caps.

In this bill, it takes two-thirds of the vote in the House and Senate to break those spending caps. We also protect ourselves from the point of order so we here in this body, unlike those in the other body who can have this power, we can raise points of order if they try to waive points of the Budget Act so that House Members can also play a role in enforcing the budget act. We also make sure we amend the Byrd Rule so we do not have temporary tax cuts. That was an arcane rule that occurred that is now giving us the largest tax increase we will ever see if we fail to make these tax cuts permanent.

We also try and clean up this omnibus appropriation problem so we do not bundle all these big bills that we have at the end of the cycle. For instance, last year 7 appropriations bills bundled into one bill. Each of us on the floor had one vote up or down on half of the discretionary spending in the Federal Government.

We also have very important spending control provisions. We talked about some of these. Discretionary caps, having the ability to save money when you

bring amendments to the floor to stop wasteful spending. Having the ability to make sure that we can give the President the power to take bad, wasteful spending out of the budget.

We also have an amendment that did pass already which is a commission to look at all of our Federal programs with respect to our earned entitlements, but also have a sunset in law of our programs on a rotating basis so that Congress actually does its oversight to see if the programs we have in our Federal Government are really meeting the spirit of the original intent of the law or whether they are really serving our constituents and serving our taxpayers so that we can make sure that no wasteful spending continues in this government.

The problem we have basically is that our budget process is not a clean process. It is not a functional process. It is not honest. It is not transparent, and we want to make it so.

We want to pass a budget and stick to a budget. We want to make sure that the American people really see how their money is being spent, and we want to make sure that those of us who want to see wasteless spending go away have the tools in which we can do that. That is what we are trying to accomplish with this bill.

What we simply want is the ability to treat our constituents' money like it ought to be treated. It is their money. That is what we are trying to do. It is a very big bill and project. We have 102 cosponsors. I urge passage of this substitute amendment.

Mr. Speaker, in this very negative bitter political year, we hear a lot of negative stories. I want to talk about something that is good that is happening in America, and that is jobs are coming back in our economy.

If you take a look at what is happening in this economy, our U.S. economy is growing at the fastest rate it has grown in 20 years. We have added 1.4 million jobs in economy since last August alone.

In my home State of Wisconsin, where we are so dependent on manufacturing jobs, we are seeing a great recovery in manufacturing. Over 3,000 jobs just last month alone in high paid manufacturing jobs, almost 12,000 jobs in total alone last month in the State of Wisconsin.

So what is happening is the tax cuts that passed a year ago, the good economic policies that have been put in place, the seeds that were planted are bearing fruit and we are now on the

road to an economic recovery. Yes, everyone who lost a job has not yet found one, but the good news is the fastest growth in 20 years, over a million jobs created within a year, we are on record pace to earn back and build back the jobs that we lost and that is good news for America.

Mr. Speaker, let us look at what this bill is all about. What we do when our companies go overseas to compete, to sell goods and services, to create jobs here at home and sell overseas, they pay two taxes. Our foreign competitor countries pay one tax. When an American company sells a good and service overseas, they pay the U.S. tax and the foreign country tax at the same time. When our foreign competitors compete against us, they pay one tax. We are double taxing American jobs and American operations overseas.

So in replacing this current tax policy we have which goes to \1/2\ of 1 percent of American manufacturers, we are giving a tax rate reduction for all American manufacturing corporations on what they produce in America, and we are removing this double tax so when we operate overseas by selling goods and services overseas to create jobs here at home, we are not tying one hand behind our backs.

We are pushing jobs overseas with the American Tax Code we have today, and this bill corrects that problem. This protects jobs, and this is a good bill that has to pass because we have to get rid of these tariffs. I urge adoption of this legislation.

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

That was a very interesting speech. I do not think the speech really applied to the bill we have on the floor, though. I would first mention that this waiver authority is nothing different than the current waiver authority the EPA has. Last year when we had a pipeline break in Arizona when they could not get a lot of gasoline, the EPA waived certain parts of the Clean Air Act so they could get gas supplies to meet the demand that was occurring because they had a huge supply shock.

Now, I would like to set this issue up in the following way. What this bill does is recognize the fact that we can have cheap gas and clean gas in America. The goal here is to improve the Clean Air Act, make it function better and make our gas more affordable while maintaining every ounce of environmental standards that we already have on the books. This bill will help make it easier to meet the Clean Air Act, but let me put this issue in perspective.

When we started the Clean Air Act, we had a good idea. The idea in the Clean Air Act at the time was if your area has dirty air, you need to clean it up. One of the things you need to do is burn cleaner gasoline through your cars. A very good idea. The problem is when they wrote this law, they did not think of the fact that if they allow cities, counties, States to select their own kinds of gasoline, that they would cause this huge problem we have today. Here is the problem.

Please, Madam Speaker, look at this chart. What this chart shows is the map of America. It looks like a piece of modern art. It shows all of the different blends of gasoline that are required to occur in the summer in America. There are 16 different base blends of gasoline which translate today into 45 different fuels in America.

However, we have a pipeline and refinery infrastructure system in America that has not been upgraded since the 1970s. No new refineries have been built since 1976, and when we built that system we had one kind of gasoline flowing through America. Now because of the Clean Air Act, a very good law, but one that does not take into account this problem, when we go from winter-blend gasoline, which is basically conventional gas, to summer-blend gasoline, we move from one kind of gas to 45 different blends of gasoline required around America.

When we have our refinery capacity running at 96 percent, any little hiccup in supply, any little refinery fire that has happened all across America, a problem with the pipeline breaking like in St. Louis or Arizona, we have huge supply shortages and giant price spikes. What is more is all of these different blends of gasoline, we can have four different blends by going from Green Bay, Wisconsin, to St. Louis,

Missouri. In Green Bay, they may have conventional gas; in Kenosha, they may have reformulated gas. Springfield, Illinois, may have a low RVP conventional gas. East St. Louis may have 7.0 RVP. Across the river in West St. Louis, they may have 7.2 RVP.

The problem is these gas lines are not fungible, even though in Detroit and Chicago and Milwaukee and St. Louis and Kansas City and Minneapolis we have the same environmental requirements. They are out of compliance with the Clean Air Act. They have the same requirements with respect to the fuel standards they have to achieve, but they all have different blends of gasoline, proprietary blends of gasoline.

What we want to do is bring common sense to this system. What this legislation does is it simply says we are going to have now a preferred list of fuels that people can choose from, local governments can choose from when they select their new gasoline blends to come into compliance with the Clean Air Act. We are capping the amount of boutique fuels so we do not proliferate more blends, but especially now when we go to the new 8-hour ozone requirement and we now recognize the fact that we have 42 areas of America, as we see on this chart, which have 45 different fuel blends, we are adding 82 new areas of America this year that are going to be out of compliance with the Clean Air Act because of the new 8-hour ozone standard.

As we add these new 82 areas, do we want to have that many more different kinds of fuel in America? No, we simply want to bring some common sense to the system so that when all these new areas of America have to come into compliance with the Clean Air Act, we want to give them guidance so they can pick from a list of preferred clean blends of fuel that are compliant with the Clean Air Act that are standard blends of fuel so we can standardize not only the kinds of fuels we use in America, but stabilize our supply of gasoline in America.

Why does that matter? Because gas is priced like any other commodity. It is priced based upon its supply. If we can stabilize the supply of gas, we can stabilize the price of gasoline and bring down the price of gasoline.

What the intent of this legislation is to do is to make sure in the short term if we have huge supply problems, a refinery fire or a pipeline break, we have the authority to meet those supply problems; but in the medium term and long term, make sure we standardize our blends of gasoline so we can comply with the Clean Air Act and have inexpensive, affordable, clean-burning gasoline.

What I believe this bill will actually achieve at the end of the day will be less expensive and more clean gas around America, even in areas that do not have to have clean gasoline. I think this is going to help us clean up our air, and it is going to help us have affordable gasoline.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to respond.

Madam Speaker, this is the same kind of waiver authority they already have under law. This is included in the Bush administration energy plan. This was in the Bush administration energy policy recommendations to solidify and consolidate boutique fuels. We have had numerous studies on this issue. A very comprehensive study was done on this issue by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2001, which recommended doing exactly this. We had another study by the National Association of Convenience Stores recommending doing exactly this. Plus, we have already had multiple sources of testimony from gasoline marketers, from gasoline wholesalers, all talking about the need to consolidate the fuel blends. So this has been done based upon studies; this is a policy endorsed by the Bush administration. This is a policy talked about, vetted, and had hearings on for 3 years now.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Green), a cosponsor of this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. This does not give any extra waiver authority to the EPA that it does not already have.

This bill does not do a lot of the things he mentioned. It does very few things. What the intent of this bill is, is to have a preapproved list of fuels by the EPA for areas to choose from that

are clean fuels so that we consolidate the fuel blends we have in America. That is it. And then study and make sure we are doing it right. And if the study says there is another way to do it better, we will do that. That would be the fourth study we would have on this matter.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt), the majority whip and cosponsor of this legislation, for the purpose of closing.

Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to share my heartfelt condolences with Nancy Reagan and the Reagan children. Our nation owes them a special debt of gratitude for their strength in caring for their husband and father over the past decade as he battled Alzheimer's disease and for everything they've done to uphold his dignity and legacy for our country.

As we prepare to lay former U.S. President Ronald Reagan to rest, it's important that we reflect on his brave and principled leadership-- and the hope he gave to countless individuals in our country and around the world.

Looking back at the footage of Reagan's speeches and other public appearances, one of his most striking qualities was his enduring optimism. At the time that he entered the White House, self-doubt and pessimism had practically paralyzed our nation and most Americans saw no end in sight to soaring inflation, economic stagnation and the Cold War.

Though he had a realistic view of the challenges that faced the United States, Reagan believed in us. He knew that free individuals have immense potential for good, and he knew the strength of our American system of free enterprise and self-government. His ``can-do'' spirit infused our country and brought a renewed sense of hope and opportunity to those who had nearly forgotten what America stands for.

Fundamentally, Ronald Reagan trusted us. He trusted that Americans know how to spend the money they earn better than the federal government does. He trusted that, once barriers to private enterprise and economic growth were lifted, American creativity and drive would bring our economy and jobs back. He trusted American resolve in defense of liberty. And he trusted people enough to speak plainly with them about his beliefs and intentions.

President Reagan's words carried weight because we knew he meant what he said--and the Soviets and the rest of the world knew it too. He was not a poll-watcher. He was a man of conviction--a man with a clear philosophy that guided his actions. This philosophy was rooted in a love of freedom and a deep faith in God.

Speaking to students at Moscow State University on May 31, 1988, Ronald Reagan said ``Democracy is less a system of government than it is a system to keep government limited, unintrusive: A system of constraints on power to keep politics and government secondary to the important things in life, the true sources of value found only in family and faith.''

Imagine what it must have been like for him to bring this message to the heart of an empire where government had for decades superceded individual rights. Reagan's commitment to actually winning the Cold War, his determination to secure peace through strength, and his recognition that communism is a bankrupt, immoral ideology were essential to ending the Soviet threat and liberating the Eastern bloc nations and their people.

When you consider the countless individuals who owe their freedom in part to Ronald Reagan's leadership and the many Americans who today have close friends or family with whom they have reunited in areas formerly off-limits--who had been shut away behind the Iron Curtain-- you get a sense of why so many across the world feel a personal connection with Reagan.

On top of all his achievements, beyond all that Reagan did to rejuvenate our economy, win the Cold War, and renew our country's sense of purpose and optimism, there was the man himself. He had great confidence in America's founding values as well as an excellent sense of humor. And he succeeded in raising the level of discourse in our political arena. People might have disagreed with him on policy decisions, and his opponents in Congress argued fiercely with him, but at the end of the day they respected one another. It was a time of greater civility in politics, and we should strive to recapture that.

We look to Ronald Reagan's example as an inspiration today and express once more the thanks of a very grateful nation.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.