Joe Barton

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. That is not quite correct.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. That is over an extended period of time based on the existing Tax Code. But obviously the gentleman from Virginia can go to the Webster's Dictionary and--we picked the least offensive word that we could to put in. The intent is to, in a broad sense, keep the tax burden, the Federal tax burden, on the American people in 19 percent or less, which it has been historically.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. On the eve of what we now call the First World War is when we got the 16th amendment that made the income tax constitutional. On the eve of the second war, which we now call World War II, we were in the throes of the Great Depression, and not only were we not spending much on military preparedness, we were not spending much on anything.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. That is correct.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. It would not, no, sir. Unless you did it with a two-thirds vote.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Yes. It would not apply to the gentleman from Virginia's comments about floods and droughts.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. But you are paying the part A tax now.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. You are not.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Is the gentleman from Colorado paying that premium right now?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. You can choose not to pay that. That is voluntary.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. That is a premium.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Again, the concept is not one that you have to be a physics major to understand. If you would realize that two-thirds is a larger number than one-half, you have grasped the principle that we are trying to establish.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I will certainly join the Member in having hearings. After we pass it this evening with a two-thirds vote, we can continue to have these hearings.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. It was the subject of a hearing in the Committee on Rules when we went to the Committee on Rules to ask for consideration today.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. We hope.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. But, of course, the response to that is that living in the future, living in the present, we are the world's greatest military power. No one questions that. We spend a higher percentage of our GNP today on military preparedness than we did before World War I or World War II. We are not in the dismal shape that we were in terms of military defenses.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I thank the gentleman from Arkansas. I would like to yield to the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Lewis].

Mr. BARTON of Texas. The tax limitation works, the supermajority vote for tax increases works in Arkansas.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Is there any move in Arkansas to repeal the three-fourths requirement?

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, this evening at approximately 9 p.m., this House is going to have a historic opportunity to vote on the tax limitation constitutional amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The wording of the pertinent paragraph of that article is to my left. It states ``Any bill, resolution, or other legislative measure changing the internal laws shall require for final adoption in either House the concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present * * *.'' Back in 1787, when our Founding Fathers wrote the original Constitution and sent it to the States for ratification, there were 7 requirements in it to require some sort of supermajority. A two-thirds vote was required to ratify treaties, a two-thirds vote was required to expel Members from Congress, a two-thirds vote was required to impeach Federal judges and so on. The Founding Fathers did not require a supermajority vote to raise taxes, but they were aware that the ability to raise taxes should be restrained in some way. So they gave the authority to introduce tax bills to one body, the House of Representatives, because in 1787 the only Federal institution that had to be directly elected by the people was the House of Representatives. That limitation worked fine for 125 years, and then in 1913, the 16th amendment to the Constitution said an income tax was constitutional. I have a copy of the first 1040 form back in 1913 with me this morning. It shows that the tax was 1 percent on income up to $20,000, net income. Only one-tenth of 1 percent of all American citizens had to file a 1040 back in 1913. Since that time, though, there has been an explosion in Federal taxes. I have with me a photocopy of my 1040 that I sent to Austin, TX, last week, and the instruction booklet that goes along with it. The marginal tax rate on American citizens today is not 1 percent, it is 40 percent. That is an increase in marginal taxation on the American people of 4,000 percent, 4,000 percent in less than 90 years. Enough is enough. It is now time to add an amendment to the Constitution that says there should be a supermajority vote required to raise taxes. Why a supermajority tax limitation amendment? Quite simply, as I have already said, it is necessary. More importantly, it works. There are 10 States that currently have some sort of supermajority requirement in their State constitutions. They are Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and South Dakota. In those 10 States, there are four things that are true in every State: Taxes are lower than in States that do not have supermajority; taxes go up slower than in States that do not have supermajority; consequently, jobs increase faster; and the economic growth in that State goes up faster. So we know that in the 10 States, including the largest State, the State of California, including the State where our President is from, Arkansas, tax limitation works. Interestingly, no State that has adopted tax limitation has repealed the constitutional amendment or the law that put it in place. Tax limitation would require in this House and in the Senate, if adopted, that there be a consensus to raise taxes. It would not make raising taxes impossible. We could still raise taxes, but it would take a two-thirds vote, which would mean you would not have the kind of tax bill that we had 2 years ago or 3 years ago that passed the House by two votes, all Republicans voting against it, and some Democrats voting against it, and passed the Senate on a tie breaker vote by Vice President Gore. It would require consensus, which is what supermajorities are all about. The bottom line on why we need to pass this amendment is not about Washington, DC and it is not about macroeconomics analysis. It is about real people. For example, my district representative, Linda Gillespie, is a divorced mother of two. Her oldest son is married now. He and his wife both work. Linda's daughter is going to college and works part time. Linda works for me, but on the weekends she did have a part-time job at a blue jeans store in Ennis, TX, until it went out of business, trying to make enough money to make ends meet for her family. Tax limitation is important to Linda Gillespie and Billy Gillespie and Julie Gillespie, because they want to make their own way, and they are finding it more and more difficult to do so because of the tax burden today and the probability, if we do not pass the supermajority requirement for tax increases, of an increase in their tax burden in the future. Mr. Speaker, I would hope that later this evening, when we have this vote, that all Members of the House will vote for the tax limitation supermajority amendment to the Constitution.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I want to also express my support to the leadership on both sides of the aisle that have pushed this legislation. Special thanks to my good friend, Jack Fields, who is retiring at the end of this session and this is going to be his legacy. He gets triple gold stars for his work. I want to give a special thought on the local control of the right- of-way. The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Stupak, and myself and Senator Hutchison in the Senate have worked on that. I had a phone conversation with the president of the League of Mayors this morning, the gentleman from Knoxville, TN. They are supporting the bill. I would urge all Members who have had some concerns expressed by their mayors to be supportive. We have worked out language in the bill and in the conference report that gives cities absolute guarantees to control their right-of-way and to charge fair and reasonable nondiscriminatory pricing for the use of that right-of-way. This is a good piece of work, it is comprehensive, it is revolutionary. As my good friend, the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Boucher], said, this opens up seamless interactive communications for all Americans, and I would urge an ``aye'' vote on the bill. Mr. Speaker, section 702 of the bill adds a new section 222(e) to the Communications Act which would prohibit any provider of local telephone service from charging discriminatory and/or unreasonable rates, or setting discriminatory and/or unreasonable terms or conditions, for independent directory publishers buying subscriber list information. Subscriber list information is essential to publishing directories. Carriers that charge excessive prices or set unfair conditions on listing sales deprive consumers and advertisers of cheaper, more innovative, more helpful directory alternatives. Under section 257 of the bill, within 15 months from the date of enactment, the FCC is to undertake rulemakings to identify and remove barriers to entry for small businesses involved with telecommunications and information services. Clearly, the requirements of section 702 with respect to subscriber list information fall within this rulemaking requirement. As the FCC determines what constitutes a ``reasonable'' price for listings, it seems clear that the most significant factor in that determination should be the actual, or incremental cost of providing the listing to the independent publisher. This approach assures that providers get back what it actually costs them to deliver the listings to a publisher without being allowed to ``load'' the price with unrelated costs and cross-subsidies.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would continue to yield, does the gentleman have information that leads him to believe that these other 41 States are going to get out of their existing compacts and want to come into this particular compact?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would continue to yield, on a personal level I do not have a problem with that.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield for an answer to the question?

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I will not use 15 minutes, I assure the Chair and the other Members of the body. I do want to speak for more than 1 or 2 minutes. Mr. Speaker, when I was elected in 1984, I came to the Congress in January 1985, I had the honor to be placed on what was then called the Interior Committee, chaired by the distinguished gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Mo Udall. One of the pieces of legislation that that committee moved that year was the Low-Level Waste Policy Act Amendments of 1985, in which it gave States the authority to create interstate compacts with other States for the disposal of low-level nuclear waste. At that time, the State of Texas chose to create a compact simply within its State boundaries and not to create an interstate compact with other States. Since that time, the State of Texas has been in negotiations with the State of Vermont and the State of Maine and has decided to take advantage of the 1985 act and create an interstate compact. Nine other interstate compacts have been approved by this Congress since the Low-Level Waste Policy Act Amendments of 1985. When this bill first came to the floor earlier this year, it was defeated, and it was defeated primarily because many Members felt like that since one or two Members in the State of Texas on the Republican side were opposed to this legislation, that the State of Texas itself and the Republican delegation in general was opposed. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Governor of the State of Texas, the Honorable George Bush, strongly supports the passage of this act. The former Governor, the Honorable Ann Richards, formerly when she was Governor supported this act. So both our Democrat former Governor and Republican Governor support the passage of H.R. 558. When it comes to a vote later this week, my guess is that almost, not every Texan, but almost every Texas Member will support this act. On the Republican side, all but one or two will support it. This bill does not site the low-level waste depository within the State of Texas. It simply gives the State the authority to contract with Vermont and Maine for their low-level waste. It will be a State decision within Texas where to put the depository. The Members from our State delegation that oppose this legislation apparently oppose it because they oppose where the State has so far decided to locate the depository. But this act in and of itself is not site specific. It simply gives the State of Texas and the State of Vermont and the State of Maine the right to enter into a compact as this Congress or other previous Congresses have given nine other compacts. So I want to strongly support the rule. I hope we pass the rule, and then I would hope that all Members would vote positively on the underlying bill, H.R. 558. It is simply giving these three States, Texas, Vermont, and Maine, the right, as other States have, to enter into an interstate compact for the transmission and disposal of low- level nuclear waste.