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[Time: 11:54]
Mr. MOORE and Mr. MALONEY of Connecticut changed their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
Mrs. KELLY changed her vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
So the resolution was agreed to.
[Page: H7261] GPO's PDF
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
Mr. ARCHER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 274, I call up the conference report on the bill (H.R. 2488) to provide for reconciliation pursuant to sections 105 and 211 of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2000, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. KOLBE). Pursuant to House Resolution 274, the conference report is considered as having been read.
(For conference report and statement, see proceedings of the House of Wednesday, August 4, 1999, at page H7027.)
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. ARCHER) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. RANGEL) each will control 30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. ARCHER).
GENERAL LEAVE
Mr. ARCHER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous matter on the conference report on H.R. 2488.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Texas?
There was no objection.
Mr. ARCHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, this conference report keeps our commitment to protect the taxpayers and not the tax takers. This Congress has already secured social security, Medicare, paying down the debt. Now we are ready to provide real tax relief.
[Time: 12:00]
Mr. Speaker, the American workers have known for a long time that they are caught in a tax trap. The harder they work, the longer they work, the more they pay; and that is not right.
It is their hard work and success that has provided the resources to give Washington a windfall surplus. That is an amount over and above what the government needs to operate. The amount is projected in the next 10 years to be $3.3 trillion.
The question is, Mr. Speaker, what do we do with that surplus? Republicans said strengthening Social Security and Medicare should happen first. We have already done that with the lockbox to ensure that every penny that goes into Social Security and Medicare cannot be spent on any other government programs. We have set aside 100 percent of the Social Security and Medicare surplus to be used only for Social Security and Medicare.
The Archer-Shaw Social Security plan available and publicized in detail has been certified by the Social Security Administration to save Social Security for all time at a cost of only half of that set-aside surplus. So there is plenty of money still there for Medicare.
Out of the surplus, surely we should be able to leave in the pockets of the people who have earned it and provided it one-quarter of the surplus. Twenty-five cents out of every dollar should be left in their pockets. In the meantime, we are paying down the Federal debt.
As has been mentioned earlier, the Congressional Budget Office nonpartisan body has said that the Republican budget pays off $200 billion more of the debt than the President's budget. The Democrats' statements that have been made over and over again are just flat wrong, and they know it. But it serves their political purposes to continue to state it over and over again because it employs fear. They know fear is a very, very powerful motivation with many Americans.
They have put every hurdle in the way of tax relief ever since we came into the majority in 1995. They revelled in their largest tax increase in the history of the United States which they passed on a straight party-line vote in 1993. They fight ferociously to keep money in Washington.
It expresses, I believe, Mr. Speaker, the genuine difference between our parties, generally held, that the Democrats believe Washington knows how to spend the people's money better than the people do themselves.
The President said this in Buffalo, New York, the day after his State of the Union Address when he said, ``We have a surplus. What should we do with it? We might be able to give some of it back to you, but then who would know that you would spend it right.''
So the Democrats say keep it in Washington, and we will spend it. We know better than the people who have earned it. We disagree. We do not think it is Washington's money. We think it belongs to the people who earned it.
After we have done all of these things, of saving Social Security, Medicare, paying down the debt, yes, we can use a part of the non-Social Security surplus for tax relief. If we do not get that money out of Washington, politicians will most surely spend it. They always have.
So I ask the President and my Democratic colleagues to reconsider their staunch opposition to this breath of relief to hard-pressed American families and individuals. Do not mock broad-based tax relief to every income taxpayer in this country, I say to my Democrat colleagues.
Do not discourage marriage by blocking marriage penalty relief. Let us help people caring for elderly relatives at home. Do not stop that. Do not block health and long-term care insurance tax deductibility. Do not stand in the way of pension incentives that will help more men and women enjoy retirement security. Do not block education incentives to make college more affordable and to give parents the ability to save for their children's education beginning in kindergarten through high school and college.
Now, many Democrats say they are for tax relief. In fact, some of them have cosponsored bills to end the marriage penalty. Some of them have cosponsored bills to end the punitive death penalty tax . Some have cosponsored bills to help the pension provisions that are in this bill and to expand IRAs.
I would say to my Democrat colleagues, now is their chance. Do not follow the political path of fear that has been put in their hands by their leaders and which has been articulated over and over again in this debate. Stand with married couples rather than more Washington spending. Stand with the family farms and businesses, and defend the death tax instead of more Washington spending.
In summary, help us protect the taxpayer, not big government and more spending. Because, Mr. Speaker, what this debate is really all about is downsizing the power of Washington and upsizing the power of people.
This is a great bill. I urge its passage.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I was really moved by the chairman's speech, almost to the extent that I would think that he would think this is on the level here. The theme of this is let us get this money out of Washington before the politicians in Washington spend the taxpayers' money. This is like the theme, ``Stop me before I kill again.''
Mr. Speaker, at the last count, even though it is dwindling, the Republicans are in charge. We cannot stop them. They may kill again. We watch them every day. So we know they are out of control. But do not just say spend the money. Send the money back that they have not got.
Now, first of all, the gentleman from Texas (Chairman ARCHER) said, when the Republicans came into office, they had great ideas. They have been in office and the leadership for 5 1/2 years attempting to pull the tax code up by the roots. Now, the last we saw of the tax code, we cannot get a truck to bring that bill over from the Senate over to the Committee on Rules. It is loaded with fertilizer. So what are they pulling up by the roots?
This is something that they really should not want to go home and campaign on, except if they know it is not on the level, and except if they know it is going to be vetoed, and except if they know that, after they finish all this work, they are not going to take it to the President.
Why would they not put this bill on the President's desk until after Labor Day? Answer: it is not a bill. It is a piece of campaign literature. It is a lobbyist's wish list. It is Christmas in July, and the President is supposed to be the scrooge and veto it and deny the
[Page: H7262] GPO's PDF
Give us a break. If my colleagues really wanted a tax bill, they would have found at least one Democrat in the House they could have trusted, one Democrat in the Senate that they could have trusted. They could have brought in the administration for a trillion dollars.
It is not a Republican thing; it is something that we should work with in a bipartisan way. So I am suggesting that my colleagues have taken one big political crapshoot in what they have done, and it is my belief that they are going to pay for this with their campaign bill.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. ARCHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. GOODLING), chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce.
Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
Mr. Speaker, improving retirement security is one of the top priorities that Congress has this year. Just improving the retirement security by fixing Social Security will not do it.
In this legislation, fortunately, we have 15 provisions from H.R. 1102, which is the Comprehensive Retirement Security and Pension Reform Act that was reported out of our committee in a bipartisan fashion. These reforms will directly improve the retirement security of millions of American workers, particularly low and middle-income American workers.
So I am very pleased that the 60 Republicans and 60 Democrats that cosigned this legislation for pension reform finds that it is part of this very important piece of legislation that we are going to enact today.
I would hope that the President looks thoroughly at the entire bill and understands that there is an awful lot here that will help families in the future to save and to have a decent retirement in their golden years.
Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. CARDIN), a member of the committee.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the ranking member for yielding me this time.
Quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, if one looks at this conference report and one supports it, one is going back to the days of large deficits for our country. That is why the Democrats want an economic program that will continue our economic prosperity into the future.
We think, and I think the American public will agree, that the approval of this conference report is reckless, and it is an unreasonable risk for our future.
Let me explain why. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. ARCHER), the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, explains that we are projecting a $3 trillion, projecting a $3 trillion surplus over the next 10 years. Now two-thirds of that, approximately $2 trillion is generated because of Social Security. Now we have all agreed we should not touch that money. We cannot use that. We have got to protect it for Social Security, and I agree.
But that gives us a $1 trillion surplus to work with. We have not gotten one dime of it yet. Yet this conference report would spend just about all of that projected surplus. Not a dime would be available for Medicare. No money would be available for the programs that already are being spent by calling them emergency spending.
That is why we believe this is reckless and wrong. We think priorities should be set. The surplus should first be used to preserve Social Security and Medicare. Then we should pay down the debt.
The conference report is estimated to provide the average family in this Nation 10 years from now when it is fully implemented a little over $200 a year in tax relief. But, yet, what the proponents are not telling us, is that because of the recklessness of the bill, interest rates were likely to go up, and we are going to take away more in increased interest costs to the average taxpayer.
I urge my colleagues to reject the conference report.
Mr. ARCHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 1/2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. THOMAS), chairman of the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Ways and Means.
(Mr. THOMAS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)
Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I do find it rather curious that this line of argument now comes from the Democrats. In fact, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. CARDIN), who just spoke, voted for the 1997 tax bill, which clearly we were in a much more serious budget situation.
I think perhaps the situational ethics, that the politics of the situation dictates their rhetoric, their concern about our trying to put a budget together for 10 years and how reckless that is.
Let me go back to January 19 when the President was in this Chamber and said, ``Now we are on course for budget surpluses for the next 25 years.'' No concern from them about looking a decade and a half beyond where we are.
The President went on to say that he is going to dedicate 60 percent of the budget surplus for the next 15 years to Social Security. How reckless is that? We do not know what the next 15 years is going to look like. Republicans put 100 percent away.
[Time: 12:15]
We have a plan that will save Social Security forever. The President goes on to talk about Medicare. He has a program to ensure it for the next 15 years. We have a program that does better than that.
The Democrats are now the party of ``I can't.'' Republicans are ``we can.'' We can do this.
Something else is interesting. The last time the Democrats were in the majority, they passed a tax bill that the low rate was 15 and the high rate for the rich folks they are talking about was 28 percent. This bill lowers that bracket on the lower end to 14 and it is 38 percent for the rich people.
When we listen to them, they are arguing politics, not policy.
Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. CLAY).
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