Joe Barton

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, we followed absolute regular order this year. We did not bypass the subcommittee, we did not bypass the full committee, we did not bypass the Committee on Rules. We allowed any Member who wanted to to testify, and when it was before the subcommittee, those in opposition, at least the Members in opposition, chose not to appear and testify.

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

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Shimkus]. (Mr. SHIMKUS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Salmon].

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes. Mr. Speaker, we have heard quite a bit of dissemination about what the amendment may or may not cover. Let me actually read the relevant part of the amendment, section 1. Any bill, resolution or other legislative measure changing the internal revenue laws, and I want to emphasize, changing the internal revenue laws, shall require for final adoption in each House the concurrence of two-thirds of the Members of that House present and voting unless that bill is determined at the time of adoption and in a reasonable manner prescribed by law not to increase the internal revenue by more than a de minimis amount. For purposes of determining any increase in the internal revenue under this section, there shall be excluded any increase resulting from the lowering of an effective rate of any tax. On any vote for which the concurrence of two-thirds is required under this article, the yeas and nays of the Members of either House shall be entered on the journal of that House. So in plain English, it takes a two-thirds vote to raise Federal income taxes. Right now there is $5.7 trillion of personal income in this country, of which about $2.6 trillion is considered to be taxable. If we came to the floor of the House and tried to raise the Federal income tax rate 1 percent, that would be between $26 billion and $57 billion a year. It would take a two-thirds vote to do that, in plain simple English, a two-thirds vote to raise personal income taxes even 1 percent. So let there be no mistake. That is what we are trying to do, make it more difficult to raise income taxes. Members do not have to take some Congressman's word for this that it might work. They do not have to take a professor's word that it might work. We have 14 States that have this in their State constitution or in their State laws. There are 4 States that have passed it since last year, Missouri, Nevada, Oregon, and South Dakota have passed a supermajority requirement, in most cases a two-thirds supermajority requirement, since last year, and the total is 14 States, including the largest State, the great State of California, which has had this on the books since 1978. In those States that have it, in these 14 States, there are certain facts that are true in every State. What are those facts? In States that have a supermajority for a tax increase, taxes go up. We are not saying you would not prohibit any tax increase, but they go up more slowly: 102 percent in tax limitation States versus 112 percent in States that do not have any kind of tax limitations. That is a 10 percent difference. Ten percent at the Federal level would be over $100 billion a year. In the States that have tax limitation, consequently State spending goes up slower, 132 percent versus 141 percent. That is a 9 percent difference. And because the State spending is going up more slowly, the State economies, the private sector economies, grow faster, 43 percent versus 35 percent. And because the economies are growing faster in those States, employment is growing faster, 26 percent versus 21 percent, or a 5 percent difference. Again, in plain English, tax limitation works. Supermajority requirements for tax limitation actually works. If it works in these States, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, and Washington, it will also work in Washington, DC, at the Federal level. Again, we are not trying to make it impossible to raise income taxes; we are just trying to make it more difficult. When the time comes to vote on this, just keep in mind a 1 percent increase in personal income tax is going to result in $26 billion to $57 billion a year increase in Federal revenue, and as I pointed out earlier, Federal revenues have gone up an average of $88 billion a year the last 4 years.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Sessions], the distinguished gentleman from the Fifth District and one of the whips in this effort to pass the amendment today.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman, that did not state my preference. I simply said what the amendment would cover and would not cover.

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

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I want to speak in this 2-minute period about the tax issue directly. I notice that my distinguished colleagues on the other side do everything but talk about the direct issue, which is taxes. In the 4 years of the Clinton administration, including this fiscal year 1997, Federal revenues have gone up an average of $88 billion a year, $88 billion. The high year was $104 billion; the low year, the year that we are currently in, it is estimated to be $52 billion. So that is an average of $88 billion increase in Federal revenues during the Clinton administration. If we go back to the Bush administration, the average was $65 billion, the high year being, and the low year being $23 billion. If we go back to the last 10 years, to include the last 2 years of the Reagan administration, we still have an average increase, including the Clinton years, the Bush years and the last 2 years of President Reagan, $65 billion a year. We do not have a problem of Federal revenues going up. We have a problem limiting the revenues going up in terms of tax increases and limiting the ability to increase spending. I would point out again, in the original Constitution there was a zero; there was zero income tax, 100 percent prohibition against any direct tax, Article I, Section 9. The 16th amendment to the Constitution, 1913, changed that. We need to go back, maybe not 100 percent prohibition as the Founding Fathers, but a two-thirds vote requirement would make it more difficult to raise taxes. I would point out, if we would have had a two-thirds requirement on the books, 4 of the last 5 major tax increases totaling $666 billion would not have occurred. I would hope that we can talk about the substance of the amendment and what it would do, which would make it more difficult to raise taxes.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Duncan].

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, article 5 of the Constitution of the United States gives the House of Representatives the right to propose amendments to the Constitution of the United States if two- thirds of the Members present voting vote in the affirmative. So we are here today to propose such an amendment requiring a two-thirds vote to increase income taxes or any other tax in the Internal Revenue Code of this country. I want to speak briefly about the process which has brought us to this day and then if I have time, talk a little bit about the policy. We had this same vote last year on tax day, April 15, and we got 243 Members of the House to vote in the affirmative if that was 37 votes short of the vote necessary to get the two-thirds vote. The Speaker of the House at the time, Speaker Gingrich, said that as long as he was Speaker we would have the same vote every April 15, tax day, until we actually pass the amendment and send it to the Senate. So that is why we are here today on April 15. In order to take advantage of the regular process, we went to the committee of jurisdiction for constitutional amendments, the Committee on the Judiciary, and asked them to hold hearings on this important amendment. The distinguished subcommittee chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady], did so. We had a hearing on the merits, the pros and the cons of the amendment, and I would point out that at that hearing Members were invited to attend, and not one Member of the minority party took advantage of the opportunity to attend and speak in the negative, although we did have several Members speak in the affirmative. We then went to the full committee where again every member of the Committee on the Judiciary had an opportunity to offer amendments, offer substitutes, offer alternatives. A number were offered. The amendment was slightly modified and reported out on a 18 to 10 vote, which is only one vote short of having a two-thirds vote in the full committee. The gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum] offered an amendment on the effective rate issue. He offered and withdrew it. We worked on that issue until we had it refined to the point that the Committee on Ways and Means and myself and the other cosponsors were very supportive. He took that amendment to the Committee on Rules, and yesterday the Committee on Rules voted to put it into the constitutional amendment. The rule that is before us makes in order an alternative by the minority, the minority leader, Mr. Gephardt of Missouri, if he wishes to offer such. It also makes in order a motion to recommit with instructions. So if we want to talk about the process, the process has been imminently fair, reasonable and according to regular order. It is a modified closed rule because it is a constitutional amendment. Now let me talk a little bit about the policy. Several Members in the opposition have spoken about violating the Constitution, that somehow it is unfair to amend the Constitution, that we have a two-thirds vote requirement for a tax increase. I would point out that in article I, section 9 of the original Constitution there is a direct prohibition against any direct taxes, zero tolerance, and I want to read article I, section 9: ``No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.'' We had zero, we had 100 percent prohibition against income taxes in the original Constitution. But on February 13, 1913, the amendment XVI to the Constitution said we could have an income tax. So in 1915 we had an income tax for the first time. It was 1 percent, 1 percent of income. Today that 1 percent has moved up to an average of 19 percent, the marginal rate has moved from 1 percent to 40 percent, so the marginal rate is 4,000 times more than the marginal rate was in 1915. The reason we need a two-thirds vote for a tax increase, for an income tax increase, is because the ability to restrain taxes has been abolished by the 16th amendment, and I would point out again that in the original Constitution there was a direct prohibition against any direct tax. That has been repealed so we at least need to raise the bar above a simple majority vote to the two-thirds. Now let me speak about this majority vote if I can very quickly, and again in the original Constitution there is nowhere in here that says votes have to be only by majority. In fact, there are seven specific instances in the Constitution that you have to have a supermajority, in most cases a two-thirds supermajority to ratify treaties, to expel a Member, to impeach a Federal judge or to amend the Constitution. So everything we are doing today on the floor on this amendment is totally constitutional, it is totally regular order, and it is totally in the spirit that the original Founding Fathers would have had us. I have no doubt that if Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were here they would vote for the constitutional amendment.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this time to voice my strong support for the House to pass H.R. 1003, the Assisted Suicide Funding Restriction Act of 1997. I was an original cosponsor of this legislation when it was introduced in the 104th Congress. I was also an original cosponsor of the bill when it was reintroduced in this Congress. H.R. 1003 was marked up in the Commerce Committee, of which I am a member. It passed out of the full committee by a vote of 45 to 2. The bill has 118 cosponsors. I commend Congressman Ralph Hall for his hard work on this legislation. The American people's support for this legislation is evident. When asked on election day in 1996, ``Should tax dollars be spent to pay for the cost of assisting suicide and euthanasia?'' Eighty-seven percent said no in a national poll by Wirthlin Worldwide. Our purpose to pass this legislation here today is clear: the potentially imminent legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia could lead to the spending of Federal tax dollars to subsidize them. The U.S. Supreme Court is currently reviewing decisions of the second and ninth circuit court of appeals that have declared a new constitutional right to assisted suicide. If the Supreme Court decides this summer to uphold the decisions of the lower courts, this decision would legalize assisted suicide. This would immediately bring up the question of whether or not Federal tax funds should be used to subsidize assisted suicide. That is why we must address this issue now, by passing this bill and sending it to the Senate. The Federal Government should not be in the business of paying for people to end their lives. But more importantly, the American people, who have indicated that they are opposed to this, should not be compelled to provide funds so that Federal health programs like Medicare or Medicaid may provide assistance to patients in efforts to end their lives. My father passed away December 7, 1996. He suffered from diabetes, prostate cancer, and stomach ulcers. He did not go out of his way to prolong his life, yet he also did not go out of his way to artificially end his life. The fundamental belief that we should preserve life is one that people of all religious denominations can agree on. Again, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' today on the Assisted Suicide Funding Restriction Act of 1997.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, this is the body constitutionally that is closest to the people. We are the only Federal officials that have to be elected by the people. Therefore, we have the responsibility to conduct the oversight for the people more than any other body of the Federal Government. I would like to point out that the resolution before us today is to give some additional assets for oversight, not just the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight but some of the other committees. I am the chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations for the Committee on Commerce, and I would point out that in the last Congress, in a bipartisan way, we did oversight over the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Energy, and other Federal agencies that resulted in significant cost savings; that resulted in significant policy changes. Let me give my colleagues an example. One of the leading causes of death among American women is breast cancer. The FDA has had under consideration for 10 years, for 10 years, a sensor pad device that a woman can use in the privacy of her home to see or give increased sensitivity to determine if there is a lump in her breast. FDA refused to approve that for over-the-counter dissemination. Because of investigations and oversight in the last Congress, in a bipartisan way, we were at least able to get the FDA to approve that for use by a physician; by a physician. There is much more that needs to be done. This is not just a debate about one specific committee. It is a debate of whether the House of Representatives is going to use its constitutional authority to represent the American people across the breadth and scope of the oversight responsibilities. I would hope we will vote for this bill so we can move forward.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from Texas for yielding me the time. I rise with some degree of uneasiness because I believe I have established a reputation in this body as one of the strongest antidrug crusaders that there is. With the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Rules [Mr. Solomon], we have been successful in having a rule put in that sometime in this Congress there needs to be a drug testing plan put in for Members of Congress. At one time I had a full- time antidrug coordinator on my staff in Texas. I have consistently voted for the most tough and effective measures to fight the war on drugs so that it would appear that I would stand in support of the rule and in support of the resolution to decertify Mexico. I am not going to do that. I spent 2 days in Mexico this past weekend. I am convinced that, while they have problems in their antidrug efforts, President Zedillo and his Government are making a good-faith effort to be a good-faith partner with the United States in the war against drugs. If we go ahead today, report this rule, report the resolution and pass either the Gilman resolution that came out of committee or the Hastert substitute, what we are doing is an exercise in self- flagellation. Neither of those has true sanctions. One waives the sanctions, the other delays it for 90 days. So we have a symbolic effort where we are pointing fingers at Mexico with no teeth behind the finger pointing which is going to infuriate not the Mexican Government but the Mexican people. When the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Stearns] and the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Boucher] and myself were in Mexico over the weekend, all the Mexican papers had front-page headlines that Mexico viewed this as a very serious issue of national sovereignty. Quite frankly, they could not understand how we could be thinking about decertifying their Government without decertifying our Government. For example, there are 20,000 Mexican troops in the field eradicating marijuana crops. How many law enforcement officials are in the United States eradicating marijuana crops? My information is the answer in the United States is zero. Last year the Mexican Government extradited or expelled 16 people to this country that were wanted on either murder charges or drug charges or charges of that nature. How many did we expel to Mexico? My understanding is the answer is zero. I could go on and on, and in the debate later in the afternoon I will go into some detail. But the pure point of the matter is, if we continue with this exercise, we are going to make the House of Representatives irrelevant in a true dialog with Mexico and the administration on the war against drugs. We need to be involved. We have got expertise in this House that needs to be involved, but a symbolic vote that is a 1-day political victory is not the answer. I hope we would vote against the rule and, if that passes, vote against the resolution.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, we are here today engaged in a debate about whether the government of Mexico has fully complied in their efforts to cooperate with the United States of America in the war against drugs. We seem to be putting a lot of emphasis on the word ``fully.'' I want to ask the Members of this body, have we fully cooperated with ourselves? How many Members of this body have a drug testing program in their office? One, two. I have got mandatory, and the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Shaw] has one. That is 2 out of 435. How many Members of this body have a full-time antidrug coordinator on their congressional staffs in their district and how many Members of this body have done everything possible in terms of education and outreach in their congressional districts? I think we should first look at ourselves before we look south of the border. But let us look south of the border, and look at what happened just in the last year. Is Mexico trying to do its part? In 1996, they eradicated 56,000 acres of marijuana production. How many did we eradicate in this country? In 1996, they eradicated 36,000 acres of poppy production. In 1996, they seized 24,000 kilograms of cocaine, they seized 363 kilograms of heroin, and they seized 1,006 of marijuana. Let us look at extradition. There seems to be quite a bit of concern in the Congress about extradition. Before 1995, the Government of Mexico had never extradited anyone, nada, zero. In 1995, they extradited 5 non-Mexicans. In 1996, last year, 16, of which 2 were Mexican nationals. In the 2 months of this year, January and February, they have extradited six people. We have pending 135 active requests for extradition, of which we classify 14 as priority. Eight of those are drug related, three are murder related, and two are violent crimes-related. Eleven of them are Mexican nationals, one is a United States citizen, and one is a Cuban. I feel very confident that throughout the legislative process this year, many of those people will be extradited once they have been apprehended in Mexico. Let us look internally. In 1996, Mexico arrested within their borders 28 major drug kingpins. They made over 11,000 total arrests. Within their own law enforcement agencies they arrested, detained, or dismissed 1,200 of their 4,500 national antidrug force. They have passed and changed their Constitution to have the first organized crime statutes on their books. That was not passed until October 1996. They changed their Constitution and changed their penal code to make money laundering illegal. That was done in the latter part of this year, begun in May 1996. They have decided they cannot totally cleanse their antidrug law enforcement agencies as they are, so they are starting from scratch to rebuild in totality. Overall, they spent $1.7 billion, which is double as a percent of their Federal budget what we spent on antidrug efforts. Are they doing enough? No, they are not. Should we decertify them because they are not doing anything? No, we should not. Please vote against these resolutions.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I would like to offer my congratulations to Police Chief Roy Vaughn of Midlothian, TX, on the occasion of his retirement on March 14, 1997. Mr. Vaughn served the citizens of Midlothian as chief of police for 10 years, following a successful 22-year career with the Dallas Police Department. I join Chief Vaughn's wife, Margie, his four children and numerous grandchildren in thanking him for his years of dedicated service to our community, and offer him my best wishes for the future.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute of my remaining 2 minutes to my distinguished friend and colleague, the gentleman from the great State of Texas and the city of Houston [Mr. Gene Green].

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, I want to show my respects to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde], the full committee chairman, and to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady], subcommittee chairman, for their efforts to bring some focus to this debate. I recognize the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Dingell], my good friend, for cosponsoring the amendment. There is nothing magic about this. It is pretty straightforward. Term limits main purpose is to get entrenched incumbents out of office as quickly as possible so that there is turnover. There is one better way to do that. That is to support retroactivity. If my colleagues support what their people support, vote for Dingell- Barton retroactive term limits and let us send it to the States for ratification, if the Senate goes along and sends it out with a two- thirds vote and the House of Representatives. This is not a sham amendment. It is a serious amendment. It is a chance to get a majority vote, to be the vote on final passage. We need everybody who is for term limits to vote for it, and then we will beat the requirement for two-thirds on final passage. I want to thank the Chair for his excellent handling of the proceedings in this part of the debate, also, the gentleman from Nebraska.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman, I am a little bit puzzled, as we get into this debate, about the use of the word ``hypocrisy.'' I am a sincere supporter of term limits. I think the Dingell-Barton amendment is the closest to the spirit of the people. In my town meetings and in my public meetings with constituents, they are very adamant that the problem they are attempting to solve is the problem of entrenched incumbency, especially Congressmen and Congresswomen who serve a long tenure in Washington and are out of touch with their constituencies. The way to address that is through a retroactivity clause. Members can argue whether they want three 2-year terms in the House or six 2- year terms, or two 4-year terms, but I do not think they can argue this. If they support term limits, they should support that they be retroactive, so we can go at the problem immediately, which is incumbents who are out of touch. The Dingell-Barton amendment does that. If it were to pass and be ratified, whenever it was ratified, anybody who had served 6 years prior to their current term or were in their sixth term would not be eligible for reelection immediately. It is that simple. It is a sincere attempt to address the problem the people want addressed, which is removing an entrenched incumbency that is out of touch in Washington, DC. I believe that this amendment has an excellent chance to get a majority. I would encourage all my Republican friends who voted for the other term limit amendments to vote for this one, and I would encourage my friends on the Democratic side to support the dean of the delegation of the House of Representatives, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Dingell] and support this. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. BARTON of Texas. If the gentleman will yield, I will give him an explicit response. The term they are then serving would count, plus any prior terms would count. If that term you were in plus prior terms equaled six terms, you would not be eligible for reelection. You would be able to serve out that term.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Florida mischaracterizes my position. I am not an opponent of term limits. I have opposed the provisions that restrict the House to three 2-year terms. I am a proponent of six 2-year terms, and I am also a proponent of letting the States take different positions, but I am not an opponent of the six 2- year terms. So he mischaracterizes my position. I would not be a supporter of this amendment if I did not believe in term limits. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, first I would point out to the gentleman that under our amendment, retroactivity means that whenever--

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