Joe Barton

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I am the chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on Commerce. We have not issued a subpoena in the 3 years that we have been in the majority on that subcommittee. I would like to just make a couple of points. Number one, whether we have this rule change or not, the Congress gives the power to ultimately decide whether to televise or not televise to the television networks. They have the right under the first amendment to choose to televise or not to televise. We are not changing that. Number two, any witnesses that are not subpoenaed do not have the right to revoke television coverage. If they choose to appear voluntarily before our committee, and the networks choose to televise that particular hearing, then it is televised. Number three, if we grant this rule change, the committee still has the authority to vote to prohibit cameras if there is a sensitivity involved in the issue that the majority of that committee on a bipartisan basis feels that it should not be televised. So I would hope that we would vote this rule change. We should not give a witness the right to prevent the American people from knowing what it is that a witness is or is not going to say when it is a national issue and an issue of pressing public policy. Again, I would reiterate the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on Commerce has yet to issue a subpoena to any witness in the 3 years we have been in the majority. We ask our witnesses to appear voluntarily, and I would say 95 percent of the time the witnesses do appear. So I hope we vote for the rule change and let the American people know what it is that is going on before the committees of Congress.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, most of us go through life being blessed with good health for ourselves and our loved ones, but as Members of Congress, we have all been literally begged by parents of sick children and our very ill adult patients themselves to try to help them work through the regulatory nightmare that is the current FDA review process. When the bill before us becomes law, that nightmare will be no more. Instead of confrontation, we will have consultation and cooperation between the FDA, patient groups, researchers, and manufacturers. Instead of needless bureaucracy, we will have streamlined procedures for bringing the most comprehensive new medical devices and drugs to market as soon as is safely possible. In the medical device section of the bill that the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Eshoo] and I cosponsored together in the House, we have a very practical third-party review process, we have a dispute resolution procedure that will allow researchers and manufacturers to work out their differences with the FDA reviewers; we have a reclassification of the existing device section that will let a lot of devices that are now class 3 be class 1 or class 2. Very importantly, we have an expanded and reformed use for humanitarian medical devices that will bring some of these experimental devices as quickly as possible to the market. I must thank the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Eshoo], who has just been a one-man band in trying to force compromise and get me to back down when I really did not want to. She has done excellent in that. The staff level, in addition to the other staffers, I would like to thank Bill Bates of the office of the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Eshoo], Alan Sloboddin of the committee oversight staff, and Beth Hall of my staff, who have all done yeoman's work. This is not a perfect bill, but it is a great start. I am going to use the oversight chairmanship to oversee implementation, and I hope that we pass this unanimously this evening. It is good for the American public.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York for yielding. Let me make one real quick point. If we accept this and vote on it right now, and it never comes to the floor, Bob Dornan can never come to the floor again because it will never be resolved. Let me also point out, there have been between 20,000 and 30,000 Members of this body in the history of the United States of America. In my very brief study of the Record, and admittedly it is brief, we have never barred any other former Member from the floor. This is a terrible precedent to set. It says nothing about the despicable behavior that Mr. Dornan exhibited toward our colleague, but there are other remedies. We could have a Sense of the Congress resolution where we all vote unanimously deploring that. I have watched the majority leader of the Democratic Party and Congressman Dan Lungren engage in fisticuffs right outside the Chamber. They were not barred. They were not barred.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, if it is never resolved, we have barred one former Member in the history of the Nation from ever coming back on the floor of the House, and that is wrong.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I yield to the gentleman from Connecticut.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. If it does not come out of my time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I have given the gentleman from Minnesota, David Minge, and the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Moakley, my word that half of the time that I will control, that I will ask unanimous consent to yield it to the gentleman from Minnesota so that he may control that time as he sees fit.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Wamp], the father of Weston Wamp, one of the chief sponsors of our legislation.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Upton].

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, could I inquire as to how much time I have remaining?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Yes, Mr. Speaker, I do.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I think we need to address directly what the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Bunning] has just talked about. First of all, he is absolutely correct that Social Security is a very important program and a very special program. I want to point out that it is a Federal entitlement program. It is an earned entitlement program, but it is a Federal program, so it should be a part of any comprehensive enforcement mechanism. I would also point out that the caps on Social Security in our bill are not arbitrary caps. They are the estimates of spending on Social Security over the next 5 years that have been put into the bill by the President and the congressional leadership. There is nothing arbitrary about them at all. They are based on the very best estimates of a very well run program. I would also point out that under our procedure on Social Security, the President and the Congress have three options: They can vote to waive the cap on Social Security, if they want to; they can vote to make some programmatic changes in Social Security, if they want to; and only as a last resort would sequestration go into effect. Last, I would point out that because of the special nature of the Social Security Program, and the concerns that the gentleman from Kentucky and others have raised, we did offer to the Committee on Rules an amendment yesterday that would have taken the first $100 billion of any budget surpluses and put that towards the Social Security trust fund, to actually put real dollars in the trust fund. The Committee on Rules decided not to make that in order. So I ask my colleagues not to be scared off by a diatribe or at least an attack on our overall bill because of Social Security. It is a Federal program. We know it is a special Federal program. We want to protect it. We have a lot of flexibilities in our bill to protect Social Security. But we cannot assume that just because it is Social Security, that it should be totally off limits. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Maryland [Mrs. Morella]. (Mrs. MORELLA asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Delaware [Mr. Castle], the chief cosponsor and former Governor of Delaware.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I will yield to the gentleman very briefly.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, last Saturday I took my daughter Kristin and my wife Janet to Philadelphia, the birthplace of freedom in this Nation. I stood in the room where Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. In the beginning of that declaration it says: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and among those rights are the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Those are very famous words that continue to echo down through the centuries. I stand on the floor of the House of Representatives today to issue the following declaration of budget accountability: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all items in the budget should be on the table, that enforcement mechanisms are necessary and that to implement those mechanisms we should have a bipartisan approach to budget enforcement. The bill before us today does that. I would like to point out that the caps and the targets in our bill are not something that the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Minge] and the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Barton] and the gentleman from Delaware [Mr. Castle] and the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Wamp] and the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Stenholm] came up with, they are numbers that President Clinton and the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] and the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Gingrich] and the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Gephardt] and Mr. Daschle and Mr. Lott came up with. They are not our numbers; they are the agreed-upon numbers. I would point out that this is a budget accountability bill. It forces us to address the problems. When the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Nussle] asked is it hard or is it soft, the truth is that as a last resort it is a hard enforcement bill. But the first resort is to give the President and the Congress the opportunity to waive any part of the cap or any part of the revenue target that we consciously vote on the floor to do so. The second option is to reform any program or any contingent tax cut that we consciously vote to do so, but as a last resort. If we stick our head in the sand and do nothing, under this bill the deficit is not going to go up, it is going to stay within the caps. That is what sequestration is all about or the delayed tax cut is all about. I would like to point out what the options are. If the spending does not come within the cap, Congress and the President can vote to waive the cap, Congress and the President can change the program, and as a last resort we can do this sequestration. Everything in our budget under our bill is on the table. Everything. It has to be, my colleagues. Look at this chart. If we do nothing, the uncontrollable part of the budget with interest on the debt is going to be 70 percent in the year 2002, 70 percent. That is a complete reversal of what it was 25 years ago. Our opponents have said we have to have budget enforcement; they just do not want to do it today or they do not want to do it like this. I will urge my colleagues to vote for the bill. Let us do the right thing and let us do it now.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, who has the right to close debate?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Neumann], one of the most passionate balanced budgeters in the Congress.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Goss], the distinguished subcommittee chairman of the Committee on Rules for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule to bring H.R. 2003 to the House floor as one of the chief sponsors, along with the gentleman from Delaware [Mr. Castle] and the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Wamp]. I think it is long overdue that we attempt to enforce the budget agreement that we are currently negotiating with the President and with the Senate of the United States of America. If we go back to 1975 or 1972, my colleagues will see that most of the spending in the Federal budget at that time was discretionary spending. We could control it so that the Congress could work its will. In the budget year that we are in now, we can see that that has been reversed. Fifty-two percent of the budget is entitlement spending. It is uncontrollable. And if we combine that with the red part of the pie chart, which is interest on the debt, two-thirds of the total Federal budget is off budget, it is uncontrollable. That is a problem. We need to do something about it. The budget agreement that is before us, in general, by the year 2002, which is the last year of the budget agreement, 58 percent of the budget agreement is going to be entitlements. Another 14 or 15 percent is going to be interest on the debt. That is, three-fourths of the total Federal budget is uncontrollable. My colleagues, if we do not do something to really enforce this agreement, we are not going to have a balanced budget in the year 2002. If we look at the components of entitlement spending, these are the top 11. The Federal budget, in their annual rate of growth by program over the last several years, we can see that the Medicaid Program has been growing at 16 percent a year. That is unsustainable over time. The budget agreement that is currently in negotiations with the President reins in the overall rate of growth in entitlement spending to approximately 7 percent on an annual basis. But there are higher rates of growth for Medicare and Medicaid and lower rates of growth for some of the others. What we have done, in a bipartisan fashion, with the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Minge], the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Stenholm], the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Tanner], and others on the Democratic side is come up with a simple concept: If we are going to enforce the budget agreement, we have got to enforce everything. What makes up an agreement? Spending and revenues. So we take on the revenue side and say that $85 billion tax cut package over 5 years is on the table. On the spending side, we say all spending, including entitlement spending, is on the table. This chart right here shows entitlement spending, first year of the budget agreement, $900 billion; tax cuts about $5 billion. Over the life of the agreement, $85 billion in tax cuts, $5 trillion in entitlement spending. That is 50-to-1 spending versus revenue. How does our enforcement mechanism work? If any target is broached on the revenue side, the President and the Congress can vote to change the package so that the targets are met. The President and the Congress can vote to waive the cap, saying we are not going to force that part of the agreement this year. But if the Congress and the President consciously decide to do nothing, the deficit does not go up. The deficit does not go up. If the Congress and the President decide to do nothing, there is an automatic enforcement that reins in the tax cuts that have not yet been put into place until the revenues are met. The same thing happens on the spending side. Every program has a cap. Every program that spends $20 billion or more has its own cap. If a program is within its budget, nothing happens. If the program goes over the budget, the President and the Congress can fix that program, they can decide to waive the cap on that program. But if they do nothing, a procedure called sequestration goes into effect that brings that program back under the cap. My colleagues, we need to pass this amendment. Vote for the rule. Vote for the bill.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we are going to have before the floor of the House of Representatives an historic piece of legislation, H.R. 2003, which is the Bipartisan Budget Enforcement Act of 1997. This piece of legislation is dedicated to the premise that whatever the budget agreement ultimately turns out to be, it has to have enforcement to actually result in a balanced budget by the year 2002. If we look back 25 years ago to 1975, we can see that the blue area in this pie chart shows that well over 55 percent of the Federal budget was discretionary. That means that it was controlled by the Congress on an annual basis by the appropriators in both the House and Senate. We had about 7 percent interest on the debt, which was the red part of this pie chart. And then mandatory or entitlement spending was the balance, which was about 38 percent. If we fast forward to the year that we are in now, fiscal year 1997, we can see that 51 percent is entitlement spending, we have 15 percent that is interest on the debt, and the discretionary part of the budget is now down to around 34 percent. If we go to the last year of the budget agreement, which is 5 years from now, fiscal year 2002, the picture is even worse. The interest on the debt is up to 14 percent. Entitlement spending is at 58 percent. So we are at 74 percent uncontrollable spending. We cannot have a budget agreement that actually results in a balanced budget if three-fourths of the budget is uncontrollable. So what we have done on a bipartisan basis is come up with a piece of legislation that says let us take the numbers that are agreed to by the President and the Congress and enforce them on the spending. On the spending side, every program would have a cap. Under current law, only discretionary spending has a cap. So we apply the caps to the entitlement portion of the budget. On the revenue side, we take the revenue numbers that are in the budget for tax revenues and make those goals. After the first year of the agreement, in fiscal year 1998, if the revenue numbers are not up to what they are supposed to be, under the agreement we would delay on a contingent basis next year's tax cut. If spending goes beyond caps, we give the President and Congress three options. They can vote to waive the cap. They can vote to change the program so that it actually comes within the cap. Or if they vote to do nothing; instead of the deficit going up, there is sequestration by program that brings the spending back under control. If you look at the ratio in the current budget agreement, entitlement spending, which is the blue bar, versus the tax cuts in the bill, which is the red bar, it is a ratio of about 50-to-1. About $900 billion in entitlement spending the first year of the agreement, and we have about $10 billion in tax cuts. We can see each year the tax cuts get marginally larger, $12 million, $15 billion, $20 billion. But the entitlement spending continues to go up. So it is over a trillion dollars fiscal year 2001. So by putting $85 billion over 5 years on a net basis in tax cuts on the table, we get entitlement caps on $5 trillion of entitlement spending. That is a 50-to-1 trade-off. We think that is a tremendous agreement. If we look at what the entitlement programs are, these are the top 11 entitlement programs, they have grown at an average of over 9 percent in the last 6 years. Some of them, like the Medicaid program, has grown 16 percent. In the budget agreement, they grow at an average of over 7 percent. Medicaid continues to grow at over 9 percent. So we are letting the entitlement programs grow. We are talking the numbers that the President and congressional leadership have agreed but we simply say those are caps and you cannot go over those numbers unless the Congress votes to waive the cap. So I would hope that tomorrow, on a bipartisan basis, with the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Minge] and the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Stenholm] and the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Tanner] on the Democratic side leading the effort, myself, the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Metcalf] and the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Wamp] on the Republican side, that we would vote to include enforcement in the budget agreement that is pending before the House and the Senate.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I want to express my commitment to the chairman of the Committee on Rules that I will vote for this rule and I will encourage all of the Republican Members who I have been discussing this issue with to also vote for the rule, so that we can bring this reconciliation package to the floor.