Tom Allen

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the resolution because, like its author, I believe that the promise of Social Security should be kept for the millions of Americans, or in fact, all Americans who wind up qualifying for this vital program. But I do have to say, Mr. Speaker, that this is a remarkable resolution in many ways, because in one section it praises President Bush's Social Security Commission. On page 3 it reads: ``The President should be commended for recognizing that Social Security is not prepared to fully fund the retirement of the baby boom and future generations, and for establishing the bipartisan President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security,'' which is, coincidentally, reporting today. That commission was established in order to push privatization proposals, and hopefully to come up with one privatization proposal. But this resolution contains no mention of the central purpose of the commission, which was to find a way to privatize Social Security, in full or in part. When we go to the last section of the resolution, it is a sense of Congress that legislation should be developed which, among other things, would guarantee current law promised benefits, including cost- of-living adjustments that fully index for inflation for current and future retirees without increasing taxes. That is an admirable goal, one that I support, but one that is exactly the opposite of what the President's Social Security Commission is recommending. In fact, what we now know, what some of us have been arguing for a long period of time but we now know from the commission's report itself, is that if we do nothing but privatize Social Security and create these partial accounts, it will consume $1 trillion of Social Security or other funds over 10 years, $1 trillion. In response to the point of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw) that all of us, almost all of us, voted to allow the Railroad Retirement Fund to invest in the stock market, I would point out that that does not cost $1 trillion in transition costs in order to do. So in that case, it made some sense. But $1 trillion is real money. The fact of life is that there are substantial administrative costs for creating private accounts, which is, after all, why Wall Street is so interested in having an individual account for virtually every member of Social Security. Another point, another area of disagreement between us, is that the way we calculate the rate of return is subject to disagreement. We do not agree that it is 1 or 2 percent, we think the number is closer to 4 percent, and that that is comparable to guaranteed investments in U.S. Treasuries. But beyond that, when people have Social Security, they have two things that go along with that program: First, they have a form of disability insurance, because Social Security is there to provide a form of disability insurance. There is money there for survivors' benefits. In the aftermath of September 11, one thing we know about Social Security is that all those children who lost a parent in the attack on the World Trade Centers are qualifying for survivors' benefits. They will be helped by this program because that is part of what it does. Now, over the last 2 years, and let me say, as I said before, Wall Street loves privatization of accounts. They will make a lot of money doing that, but ordinary Americans should be terrified. In the last 2 years, the loss in value in the stock market approaches $5 trillion. In those 2 years, Social Security did not lose one thin dime, not one. It provides the kind of assurance that we need. The commission report coming out today did not do what the President wanted and have one plan for privatization; they rolled out three plans for privatization. But they do exactly what this resolution said we should not do. They do reduce Social Security benefits in different ways. For example, they tie future COLAs to growth in prices, not wages, which will reduce the increase that Social Security beneficiaries are expected to get every year. There is a disguised increase in the retirement age. There is a reduction in disability payments. What we are really talking about, Mr. Speaker, here is that we cannot privatize Social Security in full or in part without substantial costs. It is simply not possible, Mr. Speaker, to privatize Social Security, in full or in part, without these very substantial transition costs. It is worth pointing out that in the space of less than 12 months we have converted the Federal budget from a situation where we could see surpluses virtually as far as the eye could see to a situation where we now see deficits virtually as far as the eye can see. And most of that loss, most of that loss, 55 percent, is due to the tax cut passed by this House and signed by the President in June. Mr. Speaker, we are now using Social Security surplus dollars to fund the ordinary expenses of this government, and we are doing that in major part because of the tax cut that was passed here that was twice what a tax cut of reasonable size should have been. So in conclusion, Mr. Speaker, it is very important, I believe, that we pass this resolution because the promise of Social Security should be kept; but let us not cloud this debate by what is really going on here. This resolution rejects the principal purpose and the principal finding of the President's Commission on Social Security which was set up in order to push a privatization proposal, which now we know is the wrong thing for America.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I rise to support the Rangel- Levin bill and oppose the Thomas bill, which contains provisions favoring the pharmaceutical industry that will make it harder for Americans and our trading partners to get access to affordable medicines. The Thomas bill will force the Third World's poorest countries to move more quickly to pay the First World's high drug prices in order to treat diseases like AIDS. Unlike the Rangel-Levin bill, the Thomas bill completely ignores the health needs of developing countries. The Thomas bill directs the elimination of government measures, such as price controls and reference pricing, used by many trading partners, to keep prescription drugs affordable. This is not a proper trade objective, it is a greed objective for the pharmaceutical industry. By forcing higher drug prices in Canada, it could deprive many American seniors of an inexpensive source of drugs. In the U.S., it could force repeal of the deep discounts available for veterans and those on Medicaid. In the name of free trade, the Thomas bill protects the monopolies of this country's most profitable industry, and hurts the world's poorest disease-ridden countries. Vote down this bill.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be joined by my friend, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson). We are here tonight to talk about some of the choices that face us in Congress and face the American people as well. I know this is a time when all of us are preoccupied with the conflict in Afghanistan and the war against terrorism here in the United States. There is so much to do both on the foreign front and on the domestic front that perhaps we have not spent all the attention we need to on certain aspects of both the economic stimulus and the effort to protect Americans here at home. That is really what I want to talk about tonight. I want to begin by referring to the economic stimulus package that passed this House 2 weeks ago by a vote of 218 to 214, only a four-vote margin. If any two people in the majority had switched their votes, that bill would not have passed. So it obviously was one of the more controversial items that we have had in the last few weeks in front of this House. Now, from my point of view, what that so-called economic stimulus bill looked like was the same old tax cuts to the same old people that we have seen here before. Not quite the same old people because in this case it was the same old corporations. My friends on the Republican side of the aisle had concluded that the only way to stimulate this economy was to give hundreds of millions of dollars in some cases and more than a billion dollars in other cases to some of the wealthiest corporations in this country. In order to understand an important part of this bill that we passed 2 weeks ago, you have to understand something called the alternative minimum tax. The alternative minimum tax is assessed both against individuals and against corporations. It is assessed only against wealthier individuals and wealthier corporations in both cases because they have so many tax credits, so many deductions, so many loopholes that if they did not pay the alternative minimum tax, they would not be paying much of a tax at all. In the economic stimulus package, so-called, that the Republicans passed 2 weeks ago, there was a repeal of the alternative minimum tax for corporations. This will cost the American taxpayers $25 billion. This was not just a repeal of the Alternative Minimum Tax looking forward, it was a repeal and a rebate of the Alternative Minimum Tax paid by companies like IBM, Ford, General Motors, General Electric and several hundred or even several thousand other corporations. Tonight I want to talk about how much of a rebate those corporations will get that are in the top 16 of the beneficiaries of the largesse of my friends on the Republican side of the aisle. Let us turn to this particular chart. In the economic stimulus package, H.R. 3090, IBM would receive a rebate of over $1.4 billion. That is right, $1.4 billion in a check going from the Federal Government to IBM, all in the name of stimulating the economy. Now, a majority, though not all of American taxpayers, recently got a rebate of $300. But IBM gets a rebate of $1.4 billion to cover the minimum tax that it had been paying since 1986. Number two on the list is the Ford Motor Company. Ford gets $1 billion, $1 billion in a rebate, a check from the Federal Government. All of this is in the package, in the name of economic stimulus. Now, you might ask, well, does either IBM or Ford have to invest this money in anything? Are there any strings to this money, any conditions, anything that would assure that this money is going to be invested by IBM, Ford, General Motors, General Electric or any other companies that are the beneficiaries of this largesse? The answer is no. No strings, no conditions. Straight to the bottom line. Probably the stock would go up the next day if this happened, if this bill were passed by the Senate. But that is what you have got. Let me just read through a few of the larger beneficiaries of the House Republican economic stimulus bill. As I said, IBM gets $1.4 billion; Ford Motor Company gets $1 billion; General Motors gets $833 million; General Electric gets $671 million; the Texas Utility Company, TXU, gets $608 million; DaimlerChrysler, $600 million; and on down the list. Now, before I call on my colleagues, who I am sure are as astonished as I am by simply writing checks to profitable, huge American corporations in the name of economic stimulus, I want to refer to one of the alternatives just a moment. The Homeland Security Task Force of the Democratic Caucus has put together a bill to deal with the threat of bioterrorism in the United States. We have looked at a wide range of different risks to this country, and we have come up with a series of proposals to deal with those risks. Now, this bill, as I said, deals with the range of threats, threats presented by anthrax, smallpox, other threats to our food safety, emergency planning, coordination, all of those kinds of things. I recently held a meeting in my district with police and fire officials and EMT technicians, all of whom are under great stress since September 11. They have had extensive overtime, extensive extra expenses as a result of September 11. What they wanted was not just more funding, they wanted more training and they wanted better communication with Federal and State officials. Let us just take a look for a moment at the priorities of our caucus, the Democratic Caucus, as compared to those tax cuts for the larger corporations in this country. What we have decided as a caucus is we ought to spend about $1.4 billion acquiring and researching vaccines and antibiotics. This presents a choice. We are threatened by anthrax, we know. There is always a risk of smallpox or other diseases out there that could be the subject of a terrorist attack. We think we need to deal with this threat and we need to deal with it now. $1.4 billion will do it. That happens to be the same number that the House Republicans would write a check to IBM for, the same number. One more example. We need to improve the ability of our local responders to deal with these kinds of medical emergencies. We can do that across this entire country for $1 billion. $1 billion, the same amount that our friends on the Republican side of the aisle believe should go to Ford Motor Company in a check; no strings, no conditions whatsoever. We can go on down this list for some period of time and draw some of these contrasts, and we will do that in the course of this hour. But I would like to yield to my friend the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson), who has been deeply concerned about the implications of these priorities. I know that he, like all of us, is puzzled that, given the choices that are presented to this Congress, the majority would make a decision that seems so out of sync with the needs of this country.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge).

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for those comments. What he says about shared sacrifice is exactly the point. It is not what some of these large American corporations seem to be in the mood to do though. I thought I would go back to this chart for a moment. The House Republicans passed this economic stimulus package, and, as you can see, we have listed on this one chart the 16 corporations that get the largest checks from the Federal Government if this bill becomes law. It ranges from the $1.4 billion check that IBM would get to the $102 million check that K-Mart would get. But the repeal of the Alternative Minimum Tax in total represents a give-back to corporations across the country of $25 billion; $25 billion in checks to the largest corporations in the country. When you contrast that with not only prescription drugs and education and so many of the alternatives that the gentleman from Connecticut mentioned, but if you just looked at the Democratic proposal to deal with bioterrorism, the kinds of things that are here, not just acquiring and researching vaccines and antibiotics, that is pretty obvious. But, for example, improving the public health infrastructure. No one can question that that is not a very important priority today. Or improving border security and strengthening the Coast Guard. That is a no-brainer. It needs to be done. Protecting our water supply or addressing threats to mail delivery. These are not frivolous things that maybe we ought to do in 3 or 4 years if and when we can find the money. These are things that need to be done now; need to be done now and should be done now. And the truth is, this entire bill comes to $7.5 billion, less than one-third of the entire tax cut that would go to corporations under the repeal of the Alternative Minimum Tax. These are the choices we face as a Congress, and we need to make the right choice; and so far, this House has not done that. We are joined tonight by the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge), and we are pleased to have him here to speak on these issues. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for those comments. There really are so many ways we could go at this problem. Aviation security is one area where we need action and we need action now. I mean, we are hung up in this ideological debate about whether the security screeners at airports should be Federal employees or not; and the leadership on the other side here does not want any more Federal employees, as if that were a bad thing in itself. We know, of course, that if the security screeners were Federal employees, they would be paid probably twice as much, they would have some benefits, and they would stay on the job longer than the average of 9 months, which is the average length of time that a security screener in this country now stays on the job. Now, we have done a contrast here with the bioterrorism act that House Democrats have put together, but there are so many other ways to go at this problem. Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that the Democratic Chair of the Committee on Budget in the other body and the ranking Republican in the other body and the Republican Chair of the Committee on the Budget in the House and the ranking Democrat on the Committee on the Budget in the House, those four leading budget experts came together and they said, we need a stimulus package that is focused on the near term, focused on the next year, and that any tax cuts that are enacted should be temporary. They should be confined to that year, because that is when we need the stimulus. But the repeal of the alternative minimum tax is forever, and it is not only forever going forward, it is 15 years going back. We are going to rebate $25 billion in past taxes paid on a minimum base by some of the larger corporations in this country. It is a mistake. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's comments, because focusing on health care is very important. I mean, there is not a worker laid off in the country today who does not understand that when we qualify under COBRA, we wind up paying for the whole cost yourself; and when you have been laid off, the chances are good that you are not going to have the money to buy the health insurance you need. It is a tremendously serious problem. I yield again to the gentleman from Connecticut.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for those comments, Mr. Speaker. The point the gentleman is really making is that in this body we have choices. We have choices about what we are going to do. And the choice, when we look at the tax cuts, the corporate tax cuts in the Republican economic stimulus package, and compare them to some of the things that we have been talking about tonight, some of the profoundly important needs of the country, we can see that there is a choice, there is a difference. Let us take just one. I put this one point up to deal with one of the lines in the two previous charts we were using. Here is a choice that is a real choice that is faced by all of us in this Chamber. Now, under the Republican economic stimulus package there is an $833 million handout to General Motors, a check for $833 million for General Motors. Now, I know the auto industry is having some problems, but they are still selling a lot of cars, and $833 million in my book makes no sense. But this has already passed. By the same token, I talked to all sorts of constituents in Maine who are concerned about the food supply. We have come up with a proposal to make significant improvements in protecting agriculture and our food supply that would cost $725 million, over $100 million less than the check that would be given to General Motors under the Republican bill. That is a fundamental choice that we have. Members can substitute something else if they would like, but the fact is that our bill dealing with bioterrorism may never come up in the Chamber because the leadership on the other side will not allow it to come up. But they have an economic stimulus bill to come up that thinks, proposes, somehow believes that if we just write a check to General Motors for $833 million, that that will help somebody besides those who own General Motors stock, even though there are no conditions, no requirement to keep jobs, no requirement to invest; nothing, just a handout for past taxes paid. Those are the kinds of choices we face, and to date, this Congress is not making the right decisions. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge).

Mr. ALLEN. The gentleman is so correct, Mr. Speaker. IBM is going to get $1.4 billion in a check from the Federal Government, and IBM is not sacrificing anything in the course of this great national effort to deal with terrorism both abroad and at home. But one of my concerns, among others, is the long-term effect of these permanent give-backs on the economy as a whole, because these are not targeted. These are not 1-year tax cuts to stimulate investment. I think we can make a case for that. We can make a case for a targeted tax cut to stimulate investment in the next year and in the next year only. But these are permanent, Mr. Speaker. These tax cuts that are being proposed not only are going to some of the largest corporations in the country, instead of going to, for example, acquiring vaccines and antibiotics, but they are not going to stimulate the economy. Alan Greenspan pointed out that the last tax cut, the personal tax cut, the one passed in July, that tax cut, he concluded, of every dollar of that tax cut, approximately 20 cents was actually spent. The rest was either saved or it went to pay down credit card debt or something else. If we provide a tax cut to those people who are really struggling, who have lost their jobs, who did not even earn enough money to get a $300 tax cut the last time, they have no choice, because they live from paycheck to paycheck. They will spend that money because that is the way it is, and that will help stimulate economic growth in this country. Moreover, these permanent, long-term tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals and the largest corporations in the country will have the effect of draining the Federal Treasury, which means that we will not be paying down the national debt anything like we were talking about just before this summer. That will not happen. As a result, the Federal Government will be taking money or will be borrowing money in the future that otherwise could go into the private sector, but we have lost our fiscal discipline. We have lost the ability in this Chamber now to say that we are going to constrain ourselves, we are not going to go overboard in spending, and we are not going to go overboard in tax cuts. The hard truth is, we have gone so far overboard on tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals and the largest corporations that we are endangering our long-term economic security. We are acting in such a way that we will drive up interest rates for home mortgages, that will drive up interest rates for business loans, because the Federal Government will have to borrow more and more simply to stay afloat. It is bad economic policy, and it will do great harm to the kinds of people that we are concerned about who are simply trying to get by, to pay the bills, to keep a job, and to keep their families together.

Mr. ALLEN. The gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge) makes an important point and it is worth elaborating on. If we write a check to IBM for $1.4 billion, that money comes out of the Federal Treasury. That is where it comes from. It is not available, for example, to acquire vaccines and antibiotics and we are going to have to do this. The President has said we have to do this. It is clear we have to do this. How much we have to do is the subject of debate, but we know we have to have more vaccines and antibiotics developed and acquired and stored and available. Now, if this $1.4 billion that is just simply given back to IBM is not available, the money for acquiring vaccines and antibiotics will be coming out of the general revenues of the Federal Government, but we are already well into the Social Security surplus. So what does that mean? That means that this $1.4 billion is coming out of the Social Security surplus. Who pays into the Social Security fund and how much do they pay? Well, 7.5 percent from the employees, 7.5 percent from the employer up to about $80,000. And there we have to it, and that is where that money is coming from. Essentially, it is all coming, it is all coming from salaries of $80,000 and below. Now, there will be some people who earn more than $80,000 but they are only paying their Social Security taxes on that first $80,000 or 82- or 83-, whatever the limit is now. So what we are doing is, we are getting to a place where we are funding with general revenues of the United States. We are actually starting to have a flat tax that hits the people at the lower end of the income scale much harder than the people at the upper end of the income scale, who are better able to afford it. We developed a progressive tax system in this country because we believed it was fair. And now as we slide back into deficits and as we do these handouts for the largest corporations in the country, the effect is to lean even harder on the ordinary people of this country, who are just getting up every day, trying to keep their jobs, support their families, somehow pay for their health care; and these are the people who we are asking to sacrifice, even as we write a check to IBM, according to the Republican House proposal, for $1.4 billion. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson).

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I appreciate his being with me tonight during this special order. In 1854 Abraham Lincoln wrote, ``The role of governments is to do those things that a community of individuals cannot do or cannot do so well alone.'' What he was talking about is, our governments are there to do things that we, of necessity, do together. And so many of the things that relate to homeland security are just that. We cannot have an individual Coast Guard. We cannot protect our borders individual by individual. We cannot deal with the threat of terrorism. We cannot provide vaccines. We cannot deal with all of these threats to our existence, these national security threats, as individuals. We can only do it through our government, our governments really at all levels. It is a tragedy that in the aftermath of September 11, when we think about the way people in this country have responded, this is, in my opinion, the greatest sense of common purpose, the most resolve, the greatest unity that we have had in my lifetime. And to squander that unity, that resolve, by returning to an old agenda of giving corporate tax breaks in the $25 billion range for this one tax cut alone, at a time when the country as a whole needs attention, not just aviation security, not just threats of bioterrorism but trying to deal with health care and education needs in this country, it is a tragedy that we would be so divided this way. It is my hope that there will be a reconsideration of this issue, and that in the other body and in whatever conference emerges, that we will find a new way to express our common purpose, our common goals, the things we have to do together to deal with the threats that we are faced with today. If we do that, I think that the sense of unity, the kind of resolve, the determination that we have, the sense that we are all in this together as the people of New York feel, as the people of Maine feel, and the people of Connecticut, and the people all across this country, if we do that, then I think this sense of common purpose can be preserved for a long time to come. But if we degenerate into the same old tax breaks for the wealthiest individuals and the largest corporations in this country, if we degenerate into that, we will have lost an opportunity to pull ourselves together and lead this country over the next 10 years to a place we have not been before. That is our challenge. We have choices and we need to make better choices than we made 2 weeks ago. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for being with me.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the motion to instruct. What we have here across the country is a system with private companies hiring people at the lowest possible wages with no benefit. The system is broken, it does not work, and the public knows that. For example, the turnover in these screening positions is 126 percent a year. That means the average screener is on the job for 9 months. It is not possible to have a well-trained, well-educated work force with that kind of turnover. At the root of this debate is a deep and profound suspicion of the Federal Government. For 20 years, my friends on the other side have been pounding away at the Federal Government and Federal employees, and now we need those employees. This job needs to be one where we have well-trained, professional Federal employees protecting the public. I will just end by saying that in Portland, Maine, where I come from, they have not been able to hire enough security screeners to deal with the crush of people because they pay $7.50 an hour and they will not pay a penny more. It needs to change.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, let us just talk the facts about this particular bill, the economic stimulus bill that the Republican leadership is bringing to the floor. Most Americans got a $300 tax rebate not so long ago. Now we understand where the Republican leadership is really coming from. This bill on the floor today will give a $1.4 billion rebate to IBM, $1.4 billion; it will give a $833 million rebate to General Motors; it will give a $671 million rebate to General Electric, and on down the line. It gives $2.3 billion to the Ford Motor Company. My friends on the Republican side of the aisle call this ``economic stimulus.'' These are good corporations. They are strong corporations. They do not need a rebate of taxes they have paid since 1986. What we need in this country is an economic stimulus package that goes to people who will spend it, not $25 billion to the largest American corporations.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I want to turn the debate in a different direction. I met with a number of people in the State of Maine, which I represent, the other day. They were concerned about all of the added costs that the State and the municipality were incurring as a result of their efforts to respond to terrorism. State revenues are declining because of the reduced economy and State expenses are going up. But this bill from the Committee on Ways and Means will further reduce State revenues by $5 billion in each of the next 3 years because the tax systems of so many States are tied to changes in the Federal Tax Code, a reduction in State revenues of $5 billion. How will Members from New York and California, which are both facing $9 million deficits, say to their folks back home about what they are doing to reduce State revenues even further? In Ohio, Florida, New Jersey, and Michigan, in those States a billion-dollar deficit is going to be made worse by this bill.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, over the past few days, I have been meeting with constituents in Maine, including a couple of meetings with fire department, police department, and EMT personnel about what they have been going through since September 11. My colleague, the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Baldacci), and I did one of those meetings together; and I did another one yesterday morning in Portland. What those people said to me over and over again is we need help with the added costs that we have run up since September 11; and, after all, this was an attack on the United States and not on the State of Maine or the City of Portland or the towns in my district or anywhere else in the country. Second, they said we need training to cope with these new threats, chemical and biological threats or other threats, that we are not entirely prepared for. And, third, they said we need better communication with Federal officials, State officials, and others, in fact with each other, in order to do the jobs that we have set out to do. But when we look at what is happening to our States right now, we notice several things. First, costs are up. Costs are up because of overtime and all sorts of additional tasks that are being undertaken since September 11. Revenues are down because of the slowing economy. Sales taxes have dropped; and other State revenues are down, so that for many States deficits are looming. In fact, for more than half a dozen States in this country, the deficits look like they could be over $1 billion. Tomorrow, this Congress, back in session, will take up an economic stimulus bill; and I have to say how disappointed I am in the bill that has been reported out by the Committee on Ways and Means on a partisan, not a bipartisan, basis. First of all, it provides huge tax breaks to some of the largest corporations in the country. Second, it will cut State revenues, I said cut State revenues, by $5 billion a year for each of the next 3 years. And, third, it is, as I said, not a bipartisan bill, not in the spirit of unity and resolve that we have shown in this Congress and around the country since September 11 but a partisan bill. Let me touch for a moment on the tax cuts to corporations, largely coming from the repeal of the corporate alternative minimum tax and certain AMT tax credit carry-forwards, a technical term. But let us look at this. People around this country, many of them, got $300 for a tax rebate a little while ago. IBM, if the bill passes tomorrow and is signed by the President and passed by the Senate, would get $1.4 billion in a tax rebate. General Motors would get $833 million in a tax rebate. General Electric would get $671 million in a tax rebate. What sense does that make? I cannot explain that to people back in Maine. We have $25 billion going to some of the largest and most successful corporations in this country. They are good companies, they work hard; but these corporations do not need $25 billion in tax rebates now. Let me go quickly to another point. I mentioned what has been happening in our States. Revenues are down; costs are up. A report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that the States collectively will lose $5 billion in revenues over each of the next 5 years precisely because of the tax changes that are going to be made at the Federal level if the House bill passes tomorrow. Now, why does that happen? It happens because so many States, in fact, 49, have their tax laws tied to the Federal tax laws, so when we make a change here, it affects State revenues. What does this mean for economic stimulus? It means that State revenues will be cut. They will have to increase taxes or lay off people because of the changes that we make. What will that do? It will slow down the economy. So the steps that are proposed to be taken by the Republican majority tomorrow are steps that will slow down economic activity in our states. It makes no sense. Now we are engaged in a war on terrorism. We are engaged in conflict abroad, and we are engaged in a major effort here at home to protect our citizens. We are asking our citizens for sacrifice; we are asking our citizens to pull together. Tomorrow, we will have an economic stimulus package from the House Committee on Ways and Means on a partisan basis which hands out $25 billion to the largest corporations in this country and will take away $5 billion a year from our State governments at a time when they need it most. Mr. Speaker, the majority should be embarrassed by this legislation that is coming to the House floor tomorrow. These major American companies in energy areas, in automobiles, they should be embarrassed by this $25 billion handout. We should turn our back on it and develop a real economic stimulus package for the people of this country.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, Rapid population growth and urbanization have become catalysts for many serious environmental problems that are applying substantial pressures on our country's infrastructure. This is especially apparent in sanitation, health, and public safety problems, making urbanization an issue we cannot afford to ignore. Cities and urban areas today occupy only 2 percent of the earth's land, but contain half of the world's population and consume 75 percent of its resources. It is therefore important for us to recognize the problems associated with rapid population growth and urbanization. Governor Angus King has proclaimed the week of October 21-27 of this year as Population Awareness Week in the great state of Maine, and I would like to support the Governor in this effort by entering his proclamation into the Congressional Record. Whereas, the world population stands today at more than 6.1 billion and increases by one billion people every 13 years; and Whereas, the most significant feature of the 20th century phenomenon of unprecedented world population growth was rapid urbanization; and Whereas, cities and urban areas today occupy only 2% of the earth's land, but contain 50% of its population and consume 74% of its resources; and Whereas, the most rapid urban growth over the next two decades is expected in cities with populations ranging from 250,000 to one million; and Whereas, along with advantages and amenities, the rapid growth of cities leads to substantial pressure on their infrastructure, manifested in sanitary, health and crime problems; and Whereas, in the interest of national and environmental security, rations must redouble voluntary and humanitarian efforts to stabilize their population growth at sustainable levels, while at all times respecting the cultural and religious beliefs and values of their citizens. Now, therefore, I, Angus S. King, Jr., Governor of the State of Maine, do hereby proclaim October 21-28, 2001 as Population Awareness Week throughout the State of Maine, and urge all citizens to take cognizance of this event.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, on October 27th, Barry Mills will be inaugurated as the 14th president of Bowdoin College, my alma mater and one of the finest liberal arts colleges in the nation. The selection of Barry Mills by the Bowdoin College Board of Trustees last January was an ideal choice. He brings to this position qualities and experience that will serve Bowdoin's students, faculty and alumni exceptionally well. The community in which Bowdoin is located, Brunswick, Maine, as well as the entire nation, will also benefit enormously. Barry knows Bowdoin well, both as a graduate (Class of 1972) and as a member of the College's Board of Trustees. I came to appreciate Barry's abilities when we served together on that Board. He combines a sharp intelligence, leadership skills and energy with a warm and empathetic personality. His business acumen, scholarship and experience will be a great value in his new position. Barry holds a doctorate in biology and a law degree. He formerly served as the deputy presiding partner of Debevoise & Plimpton in New York City, one of the nation's preeminent international law firms. He joined the firm in 1979 and became a partner in 1986. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, on September 8, 1950, Barry graduated in 1968 from Pilgrim High School in Warwick, Rhode Island. A Dean's List student at Bowdoin, Barry graduated cum laude in 1972 with a double major in biochemistry and government. He earned his doctorate in biology in 1976 at Syracuse University, where he taught courses as a graduate student in introductory biology, cell physiology, and animal physiology. He earned his law degree at the Columbia University School of Law in 1979, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. Barry has published papers in the field of biology and, as a lawyer, has produced numerous publications and speeches in his field. He was also a leader with the firm's continuing legal education program at Debevoise & Plimpton. He is married to Karen Gordon Mills, a founder and managing director of Solera Capital, LLC, a private equity firm located in New York City. As a student at Radcliffe College, Karen Mills was president of the Harvard Dramatic Club. She graduated magna cum laude from Radcliffe in 1975 with a degree in economics and earned her M.B.A. at the Harvard Business School in 1977. She is currently a member of the Harvard University Board of Overseers. As President of Bowdoin, Barry has already begun to focus on priorities he has wisely identified as important for the College's future: increasing campus diversity, improving technology and expanding Bowdoin College's international presence. Barry known how to find out what's going on at the campus: by listening and by doing what students do. In an interview with the Portland Press Herald earlier this year, he said, ``I love talking with students. I invited them to send me an e-mail telling me when they think my office hours should be, to be most accessible to them. That could be 8 to 11 at night, when they hit their bio-rhythms. They are going to see me at concerts, lectures, art shows, on the football field, and in training rooms. I'm really going to be a part of this campus. And I'm going to be a part of their lives.'' I am pleased that Barry Mills will play an even greater role in the life of Bowdoin College. I congratulate him on his inauguration and congratulate Bowdoin College on the wisdom of his selection.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, the decision before the Chair on the point of order is vitally important. As the gentleman from New York said, this will be tough to explain to people in Maine because I believe, as they believe, that the issue dealing with the dairy compact has to be germane to the farm bill. Any other conclusion, it seems to me, is unexplainable. As the gentleman from New York just said, the Northeast Dairy Compact just expired on September 30. When that compact was created in 1997, the goal was to provide dairy farmers in the Northeast with some modicum of price stability and consumers in New England with some stability in retail milk prices. Mr. Chairman, 4 years later those goals have been achieved, and the compact should be allowed to continue. What do I say to consumers in Maine, dairy farmers in Maine. Well, the dairy compact, the future of the dairy industry in my home State of Maine is a matter that needs to go before the Committee on the Judiciary where there is not the expertise to deal with it. That will not wash. That will not wash in Maine, and it will not wash anywhere in the Northeast. Ray and Tina Ellsworth in Sabattus, Maine wrote to my office just last week, saying that without the dairy compact, they will not be able to afford to milk their cows. What do I tell Ray and Tina Ellsworth? ``Well, this is a matter that needs to go to the Judiciary Committee. They don't have the expertise on the Judiciary Committee. The expertise is on the Agriculture Committee.'' But somehow they will not understand that kind of reasoning. Maine consumers have very simple requests. They want a reliable source of fresh milk, and the dairy compact makes that possible. The dairy compact protects farmers. It costs taxpayers nothing. It does not lead to overproduction of milk. This is a case where we have been able, through the compact in the Northeast, to satisfy our dairy farmers, to protect our consumers and provide stability. The last thing I would say is, well, two things. First of all, the desire for dairy compacts around the country is well known. Twenty-five States have passed legislation. This is a direction that makes sense for farmers and for consumers. But in the State of Maine, we have got our potato industry, which is smaller than it used to be. The chicken farms are all gone. We have got some roadside stands. Agriculture in Maine outside of potatoes has almost everything to do with dairy. That is all we have got, 460 dairy farms. That is it. If we lose this dairy compact, those farms are in severe jeopardy. They probably, most of them, will not be able to continue. And it is a travesty for us not to be able to come to the floor of this House and have a vote, up or down, across the country on this issue. Mr. Chairman, you have the matter before you, but I urge you to reject the point of order.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I rise to speak to the point of order.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Madam Chairman, I thank the chairman and ranking member for putting together a good bill. While I take issue with the bill's acceleration of national missile defense, the overall bill is worthy of support, especially given the importance of supporting our troops in the war on terrorism. Let me take a moment to mention a little-noticed but important part of the bill, the maritime section. I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), the chairman of the Merchant Marine Panel, for crafting a quality bipartisan product. The likelihood of a military buildup overseas shows that the need for a ready and viable Merchant Marine fleet and a shipbuilding industrial base remains as critical as ever. The committee recommends $104 million to maintain the Title 11 loan guarantee program, and provides $99 million for operation of the Maritime Administration, including the U.S. and State maritime academies. In addition, we did not support the President's request to transfer the maritime security program from the Department of Transportation to the Department of Defense because the committee has not received any justification for the transfer. As the Nation stands united after the terrorist attacks, today is not the time for controversial debates. But there are items in this bill worthy of a full debate and vote in the future. For example, I believe the massive increase for a technologically unproven national missile defense to deal with the least likely terrorist threat to this country is misguided, given the more conventional and readily apparent terrorist threats that we face. Moreover, withdrawal from the ABM Treaty could undermine our ability to keep Russia as a reliable partner in the antiterrorism coalition. The administration's fiscal year 2002 budget adds $3 billion for missile defense, a 57 percent increase. Its original increase for counterterrorism was only one-eighth as large, a mere 7 percent increase. The response to September 11 has already required defense increases, from air patrols at home to reserve call-ups to deployments overseas. But we should not use this tragedy as an excuse to throw money at the Pentagon. New spending should be justified by an overall strategy and reviewed by Congress. This crisis does not obviate the necessity to prioritize. Again, I urge support for this bill to give full support to the American men and women who may be asked to put themselves in harm's way in our war on terrorism.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, words are inadequate to express the agony we feel today for those who lost their lives yesterday, for their families, and for this country. But we will recover, rebuild and move on. In the dark days of late 1941, it was Winston Churchill, speaking for the Western allies, who said, ``We have not journeyed all this way across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains and across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy.'' We are not. In truth, the people of this country are big in heart and strong in character. We will maintain our open society and fight terrorism around the globe with freedom-loving peoples everywhere, and we will prevail.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to discuss the topic that is foremost on the minds of many Americans, which is the state of our budget, the question of what happened to the surplus that existed in this country in the Federal budget only a few short months ago, and the consequences of the change and the dilemmas that we face over the next few years. What has happened recently, of course, by now is well known. Both the Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office have come up with revised projections of the surplus for this year and for the next 10 years. Those surplus projections are, of course, dramatically different from what the President was saying and what my friends on the Republican side of the aisle were saying just a few short months ago. As an example of the kind of statement that the President was making when he was traveling across the country pitching his tax cut, I thought I would give this example of what he said in Portland, Maine, in my district on March 23 of this year. This was his basic argument. He said, ``Now I know these numbers sound like a lot, but this is reality I'm talking about. We have increased discretionary spending by 4 percent, we pay down $2 trillion worth of debt, we set aside $1 trillion in the budget over a 10-year period for contingencies, and guess what, there's still money left over, and that's the debate. The fundamental question is, what to do with it.'' Today we know there is no money left over. Apart from some small surplus over the next 5 or 6 years in the Medicare and Social Security accounts, a very small surplus, there is no surplus over the next 5 years. In fact, almost all of what remains of the surplus is in fact a Social Security surplus that is primarily in the second 5 years of the next decade and not in the next 5 years. What I want to do tonight is to begin by focusing on some of these statements. The first one worth calling attention to is the statement of the President that ``We have increased discretionary spending by 4 percent.'' Let us look at the reality. At the time, March 23, when he made this statement, the President had not submitted a budget for defense. As we all know now, he asked for a major increase in defense spending, over $30 billion. Let us take a look for a moment at a chart which shows or which compares this Administration's budget request to the last year of the Clinton administration's budget request. The Clinton administration asked for $38 billion in fiscal year 2001, the year in which we are in, above budget outlays in fiscal year 2000; $38 billion more last year. Of course, our current President has roundly criticized President Clinton and the previous administration for being big spenders, for spending out of control. Members will note that that budget request is about a 6.7 percent increase in budget authority over the previous year. That is what President Clinton was asking for in his last year. Who is the big spender here? President Bush's request is $44 billion, $6 billion more than President Clinton requested in his last year in office. This $44 billion represents the extent to which that is the increase in budget outlays requested by this administration for fiscal year 2002 above the fiscal 2001 budget: a $44 billion increase. That works out to almost around a 7.2 percent increase in budget authority. When he was back in Portland in May, and in fact in speeches all around the country, the President said over and over again, ``We are only asking for a 4 percent increase in discretionary spending, only 4 percent, and that is a reasonable. That is far less than the Clinton administration was asking.'' But when the defense request rolls in and is considered, the President, this President, is actually asking for a bigger increase in spending than the previous administration did in its last year in office. That is part, but only part, of the problem. Let us go back to another part of the statement that President Bush made in Portland, Maine, on March 23. He said, ``We set aside $1 trillion in the budget over a 10-year period for contingencies, and guess what? There is money left over.'' I have been reading the newspapers, as any other American in the last month and a half, and I have not heard one word, not one word, either in the press or from this administration, about the $1 trillion in contingencies. Whatever happened to the $1 trillion contingency fund? Surely a slight decline in economic productivity, a decline in economic growth in this year, which should have been able to be handled by $1 trillion in contingencies. Well, as the ad says, not exactly. There was not exactly a $1 trillion fund for contingencies; and in fact, it was not there at all. Those contingencies were, in fact, obligations, and not all of them that we will have to meet in this Congress and with the administration over the next 10 years. There was no trillion dollar fund, a true contingency fund. It did not exist in March, and it clearly does not exist today. Let us talk about what the situation is today. The truth is that this year, the fiscal year that ends on September 30, is very different from what it was projected earlier in this year. This year, the Government will tap $29 billion from Medicare surplus taxes and $9 billion from Social Security revenues simply to fund government operations for fiscal year 2002, for the coming fiscal year. Over the next 5 years the President's tax cut and the decline in economic growth together will force a $30 billion diversion from the Social Security Trust Fund and a $170 billion diversion from the Medicare Trust Fund. These are uses of Medicare revenues and of Social Security revenues that virtually every Member of this House pledged not to do. Virtually every Member of this House stood up and said we are going to protect Social Security revenues, excess revenues, Social Security surplus, and we are going to protect the Medicare surplus; but today, it is very different. These are, of course, CBO projections, the recent CBO projections; and, in fact, they are too conservative themselves to actually be realistic. Why? Because the way CBO does its projections, it assumes that there will be no change in existing law, and we know there will be changes in existing law. Let me give a few examples. These baseline estimates do not assume any of the additional spending included either in the budget that President Bush has presented or the congressional budget resolution for defense, for education, or for a prescription drug benefit under Medicare. Those increases are simply not included in the CBO projections. In fact, some of that funding will occur; and so the problem we have is one that was created by the fact that, as many of us said back in March and April, the President's tax cut was too big to be responsible budgeting. We also argued it was too weighted to the wealthiest Americans, which it was and which it is. Fundamentally, we argued at the time, we said over and over again, this will use up all of the available on-budget, non-Social Security, non-Medicare surplus; and as we said repeatedly, we have agreed not to use surplus funds for Medicare and Social Security. Today, we know that the President's tax cut has threatened that possibility. I am not talking about the $300 or the $600 tax rebates that about 60 percent of American taxpayers have received or will receive. That is a relatively small factor in the problem that we face. What I am talking about is what happens over the next few years. Over the next few years, compared to the last eight, during the greatest period of economic expansion in our Nation's history, what is happening over the next few years is we will divert billions and billions and billions of dollars to people in this country, the wealthiest 1 percent who earn over $300,000 every single year. Though we have enormous problems in this country, problems with finding qualified teachers to teach our young people, problems with ensuring that people who graduate from high school and want to go to college can actually get there and get the education they need to be productive citizens in this world, problems with those seniors in my district and all around the country who look at people who are employed who have health care, who get prescription drug coverage through their health care plan, they say to me, why do we not have prescription drug coverage through our health care plan, which is Medicare. Those people need some help. They deserve some help. It is outrageous that the wealthiest country in the world at the time, until just recently, of its greatest prosperity, cannot somehow find the resources to provide our seniors with a prescription drug benefit that is comparable to the benefit that those Americans who are employed, who are working, have for a prescription drug benefit through their own insurance. What is fair for our working people ought to be fair for our seniors. But back for a moment to the CBO projections. As I said, the CBO estimates do not assume any additional spending included in the Bush budget or the congressional budget resolution for defense, for education or for Medicare prescription drugs. The figures also omit the cost of extending expiring tax credits, funding anticipated emergencies for natural disasters, or paying for the $73.5 billion farm reauthorization bill for which the budget resolution provided. Let us look at what this means over the next few years. The President's budget alone plus his tax policies and spending requests invades the Social Security surplus for the next 6 years for a total of $128 billion. It invades the Medicare surplus for the next 8 years for a total of $304 billion. This year, fiscal year 2001 ending on September 30, the Government must tap $29 billion from Medicare and $9 billion from Social Security to fund routine government operations. Now, one of the reasons that that is true in fiscal year 2001 is this administration, knowing that it faced a shortfall in next year, fiscal year 2002, they delayed the date on which certain corporate income taxes would have to be paid from September 30 to October 15. That is a gimmick. We can only do this once. The effect of that was to move $33 billion in current revenues to the next fiscal year in revenues. When we move that $33 billion, we are very close to creating the deficit that we have created in the current fiscal year. That kind of gimmick which now it appears this administration has adopted in a number of areas is irresponsible budgeting. Let us go for a moment to a different chart. Let us go to a chart which talks about the impact of the surplus over the next several years. As this chart shows, the Bush budget wipes out the surplus. There is going to be a lot of debate in these Chambers about what happened to the surplus, not just what happened to that supposed $1 trillion contingency fund, but what happened to the surplus. It was not so long ago that people were saying we can see surpluses as far as the eye can see. Now they are gone. They are all gone. Here is basically what happened: the CBO in May 2001 baseline showed a surplus of $2.745 trillion. Now, what has happened to that? Well, $1.66 trillion of that is the total cost of the Bush tax cut. Then we have had an economic slowdown. That is also a factor. The economic slowdown and certain technical factors have caused us to lose another $639 billion or .639 trillion dollars. Now you have additional funding requests from the President of .767 trillion or $767 billion, and it is the combination of these three factors that drive us into deficit over a 10-year period. Let me say a little bit about that surplus. This deficit and the surpluses are not distributed evenly over the next 10 years. In fact, if you look at a chart that shows year by year what happens to the surplus, in fact, there is either a deficit or a minuscule surplus for the next 5 years, and then you have a projected surplus over the second 5 years of the decade with the largest surplus of all, over $200 billion in the final year. Well, why is the largest piece of surplus the tenth year out? Well, another gimmick because basically what happened when the tax cut was passed, the House passed a $1.6 trillion tax cut. The other body passed a $1.35 trillion tax cut, both of them calculated over 10 years. But when the conferees got together, they liked tax cuts so much, not just the $300 and $600 rebate this year, but tax cuts for the wealthy extending out over the 10-year period that really drained enormous amounts of revenue from the Federal budget, making it extraordinarily difficult to meet the educational, the health care, the environmental, and the job-training needs of our population. When you look at that last year, you will find that the tax cut sunsets on December 31, 2010. So that the last year of this coming decade is one where the estate tax is back just as it is today, where the tax rates are back just as they are today. All of the tax code changes that are passed in the President's tax cut bill are eliminated and the tax code reverts to what it is today. Why was that done? Well, it was done to keep all the tax breaks and yet to stay within a $1.35 trillion number. That gimmick makes all of these budget numbers look actually better than they are in the real world. In the real world this country faces some enormous challenges. This is going to be a difficult fall. I think Members on both sides of the aisle agree because we have gone from surpluses from the non-Social Security, non-Medicare accounts to deficits; and we have done it within just a few months of this administration's election to office. We have done it primarily, not exclusively, but primarily because the size of the Bush tax cut was so large as to be completely irresponsible. That is why back in March, back in April, back in May so many of us on the Democratic side of the aisle were saying we ought to have a tax cut, we ought to have a large tax cut. It ought to be about $800 billion. If we had set aside a tax cut, if we had done a tax cut of $800 billion, we would not be running into deficit projections now. We, in fact, would have those funds to make sure that Social Security and Medicare would be shored up over the next few years and not at the risk of being weakened simply because of our irresponsible budgeting. We would be looking at fully funding special education. I do not know anyone, Republican or Democrat, who is not hearing from people in his district about the need to live up to our commitment to fully fund special education at the 40 percent that, frankly, was the goal when the special education IDEA Act was enacted in 1974. But if the money is not there, if the surplus is gone, it will not happen. That is what we were saying. We were saying that you cannot project over 10 years with any degree of confidence. Boy, were we right about that one. We did not have to wait 2 years or 4 years or 5 years or 8 years to test the accuracy of these projections. In just 3 months, in just 3 months the numbers change dramatically. As you can see right here, minus $639 billion dollars over 10 years, a change in the projection in just 3 months. But it is that kind of change that many of us were saying, you cannot predict the future with any degree of confidence; and, therefore, what we need to do is to be cautious, not have a tax cut so large that it eats up all of the budget surplus and causes us to dipping into revenues from Social Security and Medicare. We argued then it was irresponsible, and it is more clear than ever today that that course of action was, in fact, irresponsible. I see that I am joined by a couple of my colleagues here tonight, and I want to recognize them in a few moments. I think I would like to close these brief remarks by saying this. When Members look at what is happening with the tax cut, so large that it is jeopardizing our fiscal health, so large that it is making Alan Greenspan's actions at the Fed not as effective as they might be because people understand if we are moving straight to deficit as projections of surplus, long-term interest rates are going to stay up; and for businesses, for homeowners, for all of those people who borrow over some extended period of time, if long-term interest rates are going to stay up, we are not going to do as well. The Federal Government is going to be paying higher interest. The businesses will be paying higher long-term interest rates. Homeowners will be paying higher long-term interest rates. Remember, this economy took off in 1993. This Congress and the administration said, we are going to cut spending and make sure that the very wealthiest Americans pay their fair share of taxes. What happened? Interest rates went down and the deficits turned into surpluses, and the economy took off. It is the reversal of those fundamental policies which is jeopardizing the economic health of this country which is so serious. We are going to be debating in the--next last few weeks and perhaps months about the budget. It is really fundamentally a debate about the future. Fundamentally it is a debate about whether we are going to reduce the amount that we spend together on those things that we can only do together. What am I talking about is, Abraham Lincoln said in 1854, the role of governments is to do those things that a community of individuals cannot do or cannot do so well alone. We cannot create a public education system one by one, and yet every business in this country depends on having a well-educated, well-trained work force. We cannot take care of our seniors one by one, individually. That is why Medicare and Social Security were created. We cannot do an interstate highway system, we cannot provide for the common defense, we cannot lift up this country so that individuals in this country can reach their full potentials unless we use our government, as well as other voluntary associations, to do things together that we cannot do as individuals. The fundamental theory underlying the President's tax cut was that we take every dollar out of Washington, and that is good. Even if that dollar would educate a kid who cannot get Head Start now because there is not enough money to serve every kid who qualifies for Head Start, even if that dollar would help seniors pay for prescription drugs when they are not taking their medicine now because they have to buy food instead, even if that dollar represents a loan to someone who could then go on and get the college education that they feel they need. That is what this country ultimately is all about. We are here somehow to help each other lift each other up, to hang together on things that are of fundamental public importance. But this tax cut was about me and not about we. The health of this country depends on getting back and moving from me to we, from doing well, investing in ourselves, investing in this country, making sure that the people of this country have a fighting chance to get ahead. They cannot do that. They will not do that. They have no chance to do that. If the Federal Government slides back into deficits, if we cannot fund education, if we cannot fund health care and shore up the infrastructure of this country and provide opportunity for all of the people who live here and to our children. The last thing we wanted to do was to shift expenses, shift costs from this generation to our children, but the President's tax cut was so large that is exactly what it is doing. Unless we make changes and unless we figure out how to get out of this problem, we are right back in deficits and we are jeopardizing the future of this country. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones).

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman's comments. They help shed light on what the gentlewoman's constituents and many others are facing. Mr. Speaker, the President's tax cut is the primary reason for the elimination of the surplus within just a few months of his administration. Now that we are in this predicament, it is up to him to come forward and say, how do we deal with this. During the campaign, the President said I will not touch $1 of the Social Security revenue. A few weeks ago, on August 24, 2001, he conceded that he might have to invade the Social Security surplus in time of war or recession. We are certainly not in a recession now. Yesterday he said that he would not do anything that would invade the Social Security surpluses, but the Congressional Budget Office numbers say we are and we are doing it now. We are doing it this year, and there needs to be some leadership from the White House to explain how we possibly get out of this predicament. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind) is here today, and I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. ALLEN. I had a couple of thoughts that were triggered by the gentleman's comments. First of all, the gentleman from Wisconsin is correct. It was the Republicans insisting on using CBO numbers and not OMB numbers because they said then the CBO numbers were more accurate than the OMB numbers. The same holds true today.

Mr. ALLEN. And not something we want to go through again. But there is a further point in that connection. I had another chart but I do not have it here today which shows that during the first Bush administration, the economic projections from OMB as to the health of the economy were always significantly above, about .8, .7 percent above the consensus private forecasts. That is about what the first year of this administration's projections of economic growth are above the private forecasts. So now under both the first Bush administration and now the second Bush administration, we see that OMB is more optimistic about the economy than the private forecasts. You have to say to yourself, what is going on here? They are trying to make the numbers look good so the budgets look good so they can get through an immediate funding crisis. If you look at the Clinton administration, in the 8 years of the Clinton administration, only in 2 years were the OMB projections above the consensus private forecasts. In 2 of those years, they were exactly the same. In the other 4 years, they were actually lower. They were more conservative than the consensus private forecasts. One of the disturbing aspects of this administration in its first few months is that it looks and feels as if the Office of Management and Budget has become an arm of the spin machine, that numbers are being manipulated, not just numbers related to projections of future economic growth but numbers that make the accounting change in Social Security that the gentleman was referring to, the gimmick I mentioned earlier about moving $33 billion in corporate tax revenues from 2001 to 2002, all of these gimmicks, all of this manipulation is really a way to kind of make the numbers come out right. But that is not the way we ought to be doing our budgeting. It is not conservative. It is not fiscally responsible. We ought to be getting the best numbers we can and then be arguing policy. But we should not have to be doing what we have wound up doing the first few months of this administration which is arguing about the accuracy of the numbers. That did not happen to anything like this extent before. It really is important that OMB get back on track with CBO and stop manipulating numbers because we have got a real problem.