Roy Blunt

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, we are. I think the point here we ought to make, too, is everything seems to be protected in our society except those things that relate to faith. In Edmond, Oklahoma, this cross was a symbol of faith. I do not think they came up with anything that was acceptable to replace that symbol so far as the city seal is concerned.

Mr. BLUNT. It is hard to think of anything else that 98 percent of all Americans would believe in that we would have to eradicate from our discussion, from our symbols, from our public places of assembly. In fact, I am not sure there is anything else that 98 percent of all Americans believe in. We try to focus our public discourse and our public displays under these court rulings as if the 2 percent were the 98 percent; that we all have to believe and act like we do not believe in any being greater than ourselves; that faith is not part of not only communities, but part of individual lives. It is just not there. I do not think there is another example of anything that is so universally held by Americans, that is so universally rejected by the Supreme Court over the last 30 years; that was so universally accepted by the Supreme Court in the 175 years that were closer to the founders who wrote the Constitution and added that Bill of Rights.

Mr. BLUNT. As I understand it, the community seal does not look like this anymore. The community seal still has these three reflections of community, but this is now a blank spot.

Mr. BLUNT. Is that right?

Mr. BLUNT. There is a blank spot. So where there was faith, there is now a blank spot. Where the community used to say we are a community based on faith, there is now a blank spot. We have got a community in my district in southwest Missouri, the city of Republic that is going through exactly that same thing right now. There is a copy of their city seal. Of course Republic is located just about where that star is. What does the seal say about that community? It says with this helping hand that this is a community that reaches out and helps people. It says with this family that this is a community based on family. Maybe we could even say family values, though that might get that struck off the seal as well, but certainly based on the concept of family. Of course this symbol, that is a symbol for faith, and, of course, in this case, a specific faith, but that is clearly the predominant faith in that community. Nobody came to the city council in Republic and said there are other faith groups in this community; could we put some more, could we create a collage of symbols here? That is not the challenge. The challenge is to eliminate this from the seal. The challenge is to do exactly what Edmond, Oklahoma did and wind up with a big white blotch where faith used to be. Of course the ACLU is coming into this small southwest Missouri community. They are saying we are going to go to court. It is going to cost you about $100,000 to fight us. Do you want to fight, or do you want to give in? At this point, the city council, and I think the vast majority of people in that community, say we want to fight because this is what our community is all about. Not everybody that lives in Republic lives in a family with children still at home. Probably as great as the community is, not everybody is totally helpful. But these are overall reflections of what that community is all about. Not everybody goes to church on Sunday, but the vast majority of people believe that church on Sunday is important. That is why that seal is that way and why that community, like the many you have mentioned now, suddenly has to decide can we fund this fight? Can we finance this fight? Is this a fight? Not even as much whether we can win it or not as should we give into clearly this blackmail virtually against what we want our city seal to look like. So they are fighting that same fight right now; and if the opposition wins, just, perhaps like Edmond, Oklahoma, suddenly faith will be gone as a reflection of that community.

Mr. BLUNT. So our research here indicates this is a universal kind of symbol that reflects faith, religion, not exclusive, but reflective of something that that community would think was important.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, and I thank him for consistently leading this fight for the religious freedom amendment. You are constantly out there. There are many of us who help you. As you said, I think there are 150-plus cosponsors of this amendment in the House. But, clearly, your leadership has made a difference here as we are bringing the attention of the country to the constitutional rights, not that we need to put it in the Constitution, but that we need to restore the Constitution. Every time I read about this, every time I think about this, every time we discuss it here on the floor or in other places, I am more and more convinced that this effort is really merely an effort to restore the Constitution to what it was for 175 years. Before 1962, there really was no question in America about the place of religion in our society. There was no question in our history about how the Founding Fathers had felt about religious freedom and the difference, as they say it, between establishing one religion and eliminating God from country. In fact, every piece of money that we have has ``In God we trust'' on that money. How much more of a commitment to faith can we make than ``In God we trust'' on that money? As you see the potential for the amendment, as you and I see the Constitution, I do not think we are in disagreement with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court when you cited earlier when Judge Rehnquist said that this misinterpretation, this misunderstanding of separation of church and State creates incredible mischief in our society. In fact, also, it creates a disadvantage for religious groups who cannot do, in a public facility, what virtually any other group could do, any club could do, any group of students coming together could do unless they want to talk about religion, unless they want to study the Bible on public property, unless they want to have prayer in a public assembly that everybody agrees with. Clearly, we are rethinking America. I heard just here in Washington last week a person has recently written a great book on General Washington. He talked about the attributes that made Washington distinctive. As I left that breakfast meeting and got to thinking about the packed crowd that heard those attributes about Washington, it occurred to me immediately that the one attribute that he left out was Washington's faith. I advance you cannot understand Washington without understanding his faith. You cannot understand many of the founders without understanding their faith. I do not think you can understand their belief in the kind of government they were establishing unless you understand that they thought it was a government established for a Nation that would be built on godly principles and that those godly principles would be taught. Whether it was the posting of the Ten Commandments in school, the same Ten Commandments that the Supreme Court sets under the lawgiver as they talk about why we could not have the Ten Commandments posted in the school, or other religious teachings, I think the founders clearly thought that that was part of our society, part of how you define a community. I have got here the copy of a city seal from a community in the district of the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook), Edmond, Oklahoma, except that is what the community seal used to look like.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman's points are well made there, particularly the point about the idea that we cannot afford to give back this money. I think the real question is, can we afford to keep this money? Can we afford to continue to make marriage financially a penalty? It is just wrong to do that, and I think if this Congress needs to set any standard, that standard needs to be that every time one can leave money with American families, rather than take that money from them and bring it to Washington, American families and America is going to be better off. Last year we passed the tax bill that created real tax relief for families with children, and if somebody has three kids at home today who are 17 or younger, that person should be paying $100 less in Federal taxes every month this year than you paid last year; and if you are not, you had better go down to the employment office at work and ask what form you need to get filled out to get your taxes straightened back out, because what this Congress decided was that families could spend that $100 a month on their three kids, 17 or younger, better than some bureaucrat in Washington could spend that $100 a month on those same kids. Here is another chance to not do what, hopefully, we can ultimately do, which is get rid of this complex Tax Code that nobody understands and start all over toward a fairer, simpler Tax Code, but in the interim, we need to remove these inequities. The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Weller) said a minute ago about that couple he was talking about, that they are almost exactly the average of the 21 million American couples that are penalized by this, almost exactly at the $1,400 per year level. Is this fair? Of course it is not fair. Could that family do better with that $120 or so a month, better than the Federal Government would do with it? You bet they would do better with it for their family than the Federal Government would do with it for their family. And even if they would not, is it fair to take it from that family simply because they have chosen to be married, and suddenly have this penalty kick in? In this new and improved version of eliminating the marriage tax penalty, again I think the gentleman and Mr. Weller have worked hard, and hopefully, I have been part of that discussion, to make sure that we do not unintentionally do something that we did not mean to do. So, simply, we have gone in and we have doubled the brackets if you are a married couple. We have doubled the standard deduction from $4,150 to double that, $8,300. We have doubled the threshold where one goes from the 15 percent bracket to the 20 percent bracket, and in every other case where there was a figure that should be doubled for a couple that had not been in the past, that is what this does. It is very simple. It is very easy to understand. It is not going to produce any unintended consequences; it is just going to have people who are married and both working paying the same taxes as people who are not married and both working. What could be fairer than that? The pro-family groups, the Christian Coalition, the Family Research Council, the Concerned Women of America, the Eagle Forum, the Traditional Values Coalition have all endorsed this bill. They have all said this is a giant step forward for American families. Mr. Speaker, I think it needs to be our number one tax priority. This should not be allowed to go through another April 15. That is good news about the budget, that this Congress is going to create a budget where we do not have to ask the question of whether we can afford not to have this money, this $1,400 times 21 million. That is the amount of money we are talking about. We do not have to have this money to balance the budget. We are going to balance the budget on principles of fairness and on principles that are pro-family and principles that encourage marriage. That is exactly what this bill does. I hear more and more talk in the halls of the Capitol that more and more people think this should be the first thing we do in tax reform this year. And hopefully we can do even more tax reform than this, but this should be job one when it comes to tax reform this year.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I am here today to talk about one of the great injustices in our tax system. We have in our tax system a penalty on the very institution that we should be doing everything we can to encourage, the institution of the family. No American that you ask about this thinks that we ought to have a marriage tax penalty, but that is exactly what we have in the system now. If two people are married and they are both working, they almost inevitably pay more taxes than if they were both working and decided not to be married. And, in fact, I saw somebody in my district early this year who had gotten married in January because their accountant had advised them that if they got married in December it would cost them $3,600. Twenty-one million American couples pay an average marriage tax penalty of $1,400 a year just because they are married. Nobody thinks that is right; we need to eliminate that from the penalty. Today I am going to be joined by two of my colleagues who have really been leaders in this fight, and they are the gentlemen from Indiana (Mr. McIntosh) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Weller), who have introduced a bill that I am cosponsoring along with them. This bill eliminates the marriage penalty; it eliminates the marriage penalty by raising the brackets, by doubling the brackets, the individual brackets so that if the standard deduction is $4,150 now for a single person, for two people who are married, the deduction now is only $6,900.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased again to join along with the Missouri State Senate and the Missouri House of Representatives in support of home education. The Missouri General Assembly has designated the second week of May as Home Education Week. Missouri is looked to as a leader nationwide in the home education movement. That would not be possible without the dedication of our parents who are continually committed to the strong educational principles that have ensured the success of home education. Those principles are the commitments to teaching the fundamentals in reading, writing and arithmetic. Home education has provided parents the flexibility to tailor education lessons to their child's needs. It also provides an environment where parents can apply the lessons they teach in real-life settings. That may be taking a trip to a botanical garden or national forest to learn about plant science or visiting a local newspaper to learn about a possible career in journalism, photography, printing or advertising. Home education is successful and history proves it. Since the founding of America many famous Americans have been home educated. That list includes George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Booker T. Washington, Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and Sandra Day O'Connor. A most recent example was last May when Rebecca Sealfon of Brooklyn, NY won the National Spelling Bee. So when I hear that over 3,500 families in Missouri alone are home educating, I am not surprised. Without hesitation, I thank each parent who is at home teaching their child the skills they will need to succeed in the competitive world we live in today. It takes countless hours of preparation and teaching time that may seemingly go unnoticed. Your efforts have not gone unnoticed and they did not go unnoticed when Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. I hope that my colleagues will join me today to let you know that those efforts are appreciated.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to be able to stand here in support of this bill. I think this bill moves highway funding in the right direction. Certainly I want to say in response to my friend, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), that I do not know what the third point was, but in response to the first two, this bill does increase spending for highways by about 40 percent. But the way it does this is by spending the Highway Trust Fund on transportation. That is the way this should have been done all the time. We would not be talking about spending more money on highways than we had planned for in the past if we had been doing what the American people thought we were doing all the time, which was spending their gas tax money for the purpose they thought it was going to be spent for. In terms of the offsets, we wouldn't have to be considering offsets if a year ago we had moved to move this transportation fund off budget. It is important, I think, to create and continue the credibility that the gas tax system has by spending the money for what Americans think the money is going to be spent for, by balancing the budget in a true and fair way, and the way to do that is to move this trust fund off budget, treat it as a trust fund, and of course that results in more money being spent on our infrastructure because that is exactly how people thought that money was going to be spent in the past. Of course in response to the questions on demonstration projects, the projects that have some input by the Members of Congress only reflect about 5 percent of the money being spent on total, on transportation. Those projects still have to be approved as part of the State-wide plan. Eighty-five percent of the dollars spent are spent by the departments of transportation in the various States. Seven percent is spent by the administration in one way or another; and only five percent receive real input from the Members of Congress, who know their districts better than anybody else. I urge adoption of the rule and adoption of the plan.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I would just like to point out this is not just something that State constitutions recognize. An overwhelming majority of Americans in every single poll express belief in God, 96 percent, 97 percent, 98 percent. Then we go about our public business as if the 2 percent or the 3 percent that have questions about the existence of God should determine the way the rest of us approach these topics. Those constitutions reflect that every time Americans are polled. That is clear. Americans believe that there is a Creator. Certainly, if we approach our public business as if there is a Creator, we are going to approach public business differently than if we believe that all this is some bizarre accident, that these are not creatures of God indeed, but these are some accidental collision of protoplasm that have resulted in somebody who has become a person on the street. Americans believe in God. This amendment allows that to be expressed in whatever way they want to express it, and I would just also like to point out that the work that you have done on this has been so well received that the groups, among many other groups that support, those groups would include the American Conference of Jews and Blacks, the Catholic Alliance, the Concerned Women of America, the International Pentecostal Church of Christ, the Jewish Union, the Salvation Army, the Southern Baptist Convention, the Traditional Values Coalition, the U.S. Family Network, a broad base of groups that find many topics frankly that they do not agree on, agree that this amendment gets us back to what the Constitution was intended to say and allows, as our friend from California has so well pointed out, allows what is otherwise protecting the Constitution to also be part of public functions and public ceremonies, and I am grateful to you for your leadership on this and grateful to you for yielding me some time to join you tonight and in every other effort you make in this regard.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for yielding. As I am sitting here listening to your great explanation of the need for this amendment, it occurs to me that there is not a single thing in this amendment that was not thought to be commonplace, that was not thought to be absolute, that was not thought to be definite for the 175 years after the Bill of Rights became part of the Constitution. Certainly, when you look back at the Founding Fathers, the men, and they happened to be men at that time, we would have women if we had a constitutional convention today there, but those people who were in Philadelphia, as you look at their debates, as you look at their discussions, it is so clear that they understood, Mr. Istook, the difference in separation of church and State and removing God from country. In fact, in comment after comment that Washington and Franklin and others make, it is so clearly an interwoven part of what they thought was absolutely essential that we not eliminate God from country, that in the furthest reaches of their imagination, the interpretation of the documents they worked on that has happened in the last 5 years by the courts would not have been thought to be even remotely possible. When you look at Washington's comments that religion and morality are the key cornerstones for a democracy, when you look at John Adams' comments when he, I think he was the minister, the Ambassador to Great Britain, he saw the Constitution for the first time, and as he wrote back his observations about the Constitution, he said, surely this is a document for a godly people because it will serve no other. It was not the kind of document that could work in a society that did not have a basis and belief, and faith and belief in God. But they did not want to really determine what faith or what God that was. From the heritage that they were coming out of, where many of the colonies had had a State-supported church, it was clear what they wanted the first amendment to do. It was clear what that immediate addition to the Constitution was all about. Not to eliminate God from country, not to eliminate religion from society, but in fact to say, we are not going to have a State-sponsored church. We are not going to use tax money to support one religion over another. We are going to be sure that all religions can freely be expressed, can freely be established in this country. And then if you look at right away what happens, as the government is founded, you see that religion is part of that, that God is part of that. Washington, as he established the tradition when he wanted to put his hand on the Bible to be sworn in as the President of the United States, he wanted the document, the book that he based his faith on to be the basis for the beginning of that administration. And that has become obviously part of our tradition, that we swear not only before God as people become President of our country, but we swear with a binding commitment to what they have based their faith on as we use the Bible. As you have pointed out already, not only the first Congress, but every day of every Congress since then, as far as I know, and certainly every day of the Congress since I have been here, we start with ceremonies that would be a violation of high school graduation. We start every day with ceremonies that then we turn, by ignoring this problem, we turn to people all over America and say, we are certainly not going to start a day of the Congress without time to pause, time to meditate, time to ask the Chaplain or a guest Chaplain to come in and pray, but we are not really going to stand up and make it clear that you should be able to do that, too. I think that the Capitol, most Americans would sense that we were in a very public building, that we were definitely in a tax-supported and, most people would probably say, tax-supported in excess institution, as we are here in the Congress and in the Capitol. And we start each day with that prayer. As I think you also pointed out, the Speaker looks directly in front of him and sees Moses, the lawgiver. The Supreme Court sets under the carving of the lawgiver, of Moses, the giver of the Ten Commandments and decides we cannot put those same commandments on a schoolhouse wall if the school board wants to. How contradictory could you be? How can the court do that without asking that somebody come in and sandblast the lawgiver, that very reference to the Ten Commandments, sandblast that off their wall. If they are going to say that some school can't hang that on the wall for fear that the students who walk by it every day might begin to emulate those commandments, might begin to think, well, you know, maybe stealing and killing and lying is wrong. Our society, our laws are based on those very premises. And, really, all the amendment that I was pleased to cosponsor with my colleague, along with many others in this Congress, all this does is get us back to where Americans from 1787 until the 1960s thought without question we could and should in our Nation be. This is just going back and clarifying something that nobody had a problem with for 175 years. But somehow, in our sophistication, somehow in our higher view of things, we figured out what the people that drafted these documents apparently did not understand. Because if they understood them, they were immediately and constantly and consistently in violation of them. And then in the 1960s and the 1970s and 1980s and 1990s, we further and further move away from those principles that are so basic and were so easily understood for so long in America.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, for 40 years, as Americans watched the Tax Code grow to 5.5 million words, special interests were gaining power at the expense of working families, families who formed the backbone of America, who work hard, play by the rules, and pay more than their fair share of the taxes. James Madison warned about the evils of special interests, which he called ``factions'' because special interests could make demands, demands at the expense of the public good, at the expense of common interests, at the expense of sound policy. James Madison was right, and history, for the past 40 years, has shown that special interests have grown in power while ordinary middle- class families watch their tax bills grow year after year. Last year, for the first time in 16 years, we gave American families a tax break. Let us eliminate the marriage penalty; let us help working families. Let us let the Tax Code work for Americans and not for the special interests.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend the Drury Panther's Men's and Women's Swimming & Diving Teams. During the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division II Swimming & Diving National Championship this year the men placed second overall for the second year in a row and the women placed first overall for the second year in a row. I congratulate both the men and women for their tremendous success at the national level. Even though these teams are made of great athletes, their success did not come easily. It came by spending between twenty-four to thirty hours a week in the pool. It came swimming between forty-two and sixty miles, six days a week. When you stop and realize that their time and commitment to swimming and diving doesn't happen in isolated preparation but as full time students at a college known for their high academic standards, it causes you to appreciate these student-athletes even more for their accomplishments both individually and as a team. The Drury Panther's Swimming and Diving program is a program of success. It has been compared to the tradition of Nebraska Cornhusker football or Kentucky basketball. Only four years ago, Drury entered competition at the NCAA Division II level and both teams placed third overall in the first and second years. Before entering Division II, the men's team won seven national championships back to back at the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) level. The women's program was established in 1988 and claimed three national championships at the NAIA level before going on the NCAA Division II. Any athletic program becoming a national force in ten years is almost unheard of at any level of competition. Much of that credit goes to Coach Brian Reynold's, a former All-American swimmer for Drury. He has been named National-Coach-of-the-Year at the NAIA level and the women's NCAA Division II Coach of the Year last season. I congratulate Coach Reynold's, his coaching staff and most especially the young men and women on the Drury Swimming and Diving team for their success this year and wish them continued successes in the years to come.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, next week we have a chance to give taxpayers some tax relief simply by spending their tax dollars the way they were supposed to be spent. We are going to be dealing in the House with a highway bill that has the potential to take the highway trust fund off budget so that it can never again be used to mask the size of the deficit. In other words, this highway bill enable us to spend highway money to really help the infrastructure and the transportation needs of America. If we are going to maintain a highway trust fund and collect tax revenues for it, then we should spend that money for transportation needs. If we can't do that, or won't do that, then we should eliminate the gas tax and the trust fund altogether. Many of our colleagues think we ought to continue to ``borrow'' from the highway trust fund to make the budget look better than it really is. We have a chance to say no to that kind of ``sleight of hand'' next week. Spending money for the purpose we tell taxpayers we're collecting it for is one of the kinds of tax relief that taxpayers will appreciate. One of our priorities should be ``truth in taxing.''

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I want to say that I appreciate the debate here today. The debate has been on constitutional principles. It has been enlightening for me as a freshman Member. But I rise in support of this resolution. I rise in support of this resolution because I am persuaded by the argument that we should remove this law from the books if we are not going to enforce it. I also believe that if we remove this law from the books, we need to find other ways to assert the responsibility of the Congress in making these decisions. The decisions like the decision we are talking about today is, of course, I believe, a decision not about policy, but a decision about principle and a decision about the congressional involvement in that principle. Beyond that, even the facts of this case do not relate to imminent threat to Americans, to immediate decisions that have to be made by the President. The Cold War is over. The allocation of responsibility, the abdication of responsibility to the President that may have been well understood during the 50 years of the Cold War no longer serve that purpose. This is clearly not a decision created by approaching the nuclear precipice. This is not a decision that one person has to make in the middle of the night. This is not a decision that needs to be made without the Congress taking part of the responsibility. We probably should give some credit to the President for being willing to shoulder the entire responsibility if we abdicate our responsibility, but we should stand up for the responsibility that we have been sworn to uphold, the responsibility to be involved in a decision to commit American troops in harm's way. I urge that we vote for this resolution. The debate on the policy clearly comes later. We can argue many things about that policy. Very few Members of this Congress want to withdraw funding from American troops. We have to deal with the policy, not with the appropriation. I urge support of this resolution.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to welcome our friends from the National Newspaper Association, who are in Washington this week to discuss ``Critical Issues Facing America's Communities'' as part of their annual Government Affairs Conference. Small town newspapers have been the cornerstone of our democracy since the first community newspaper was founded by Benjamin Harris in Boston in 1690. Clearly, they are deserving of our gratitude and recognition. This year's president of the National Newspaper Association is my good friend Dalton Wright of Lebanon, Missouri. Dalton is the most recent example of a long line of notable journalists from the state of Missouri including Joseph Pulitzer, who started his career at the Westliche Post in St. Louis, and Walter Williams, who helped establish the nation's first school of journalism at the University of Missouri. Small town newspapers, like the Strafford News Express in my hometown of Strafford, Missouri, are the ties that bind our communities together. Local residents look to their newspaper for school lunch menus, local weather forecasts, and information about upcoming community events. And, of course, most members of Congress use community newspapers to keep them informed of events back home so that we are better able to represent our constituents in Washington. I hope that my colleagues will join me in recognizing the men and women of the National Newspaper Association for their service to our communities.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I want to encourage my colleagues to support this legislation. I certainly want to thank Senator Bond for the leadership role he has played in the Senate, and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Ortiz) here in the House for addressing this problem that is really the number one cause of infant death. As the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) has already said, 150,000 births every year are affected with serious birth defects, but about 3 percent of all births have birth defects. Three out of 100 families with new babies deal with birth defects. This bill will put a system in place where we can begin for the first time to collect and share that information. It also puts a system in place where for the first time we can begin on a project basis to look and see if we cannot solve these specific problems that lead to these results, and eliminate this problem. This is an incredible challenge, not only important to the families and individuals involved, but it is a challenge in our society that we should not let continue to be a challenge for our society. We can solve it. This bill does solve it. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, in spite of the fact that the United States has the most advanced health care system in the world, 3 percent of our children are born with birth defects. Approximately 150,000 babies are born each year in this country with a serious birth defect. Although some birth defects are minor and have no permanent consequences, others cause permanent disability, which necessitates constant medical care, special education and other services that cost victims and their families countless tears and thousands of dollars each year. All too often serious birth defects result in death. In fact, birth defects are the leading cause of infant death in America today. Next week, the House will consider legislation that could dramatically reduce the incidence of birth defects in America. The Birth Defects Prevention Act, sponsored by Senator Kit Bond and passed by the Senate last year, would direct the Centers for Disease Control to serve as the national clearinghouse for the collection and storage of data on birth defects, help states establish birth defect surveillance programs or improve existing ones, and make grants available to the public and nonprofit organizations to develop and implement birth defect prevention strategies.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, we did get good news yesterday, and that good news was that for the first time in 30 years, the Federal Government is about to pay its bills. For the first time in 30 years, we are about to run a surplus, not a deficit. But we also need to remember that we run two sets of books here in Washington. One is the external set of books, the books that reflect the money that comes in and the money that goes out into all funds, and the second set of books reflects what we are doing to continue to borrow from the Social Security Trust Fund and from the Highway Trust Fund. Mr. Speaker, we need to not only balance the budget on that one set of books, but we need to balance the budget on the second set of books as well. Do not continue to increase the debt; do not spend this new money, this external surplus, on new programs; stop borrowing from the Social Security Trust Fund and stop borrowing from the Highway Trust Fund. Pay all the bills and be truthful with the American people, and treat the trust funds like they are truly trust funds.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Let me say in that regard, the President, I think yesterday, started right down the path that we all should anticipate in the fight to sunset the Tax Code. The President said, if we sunset the Tax Code, we would not have mortgage deductions anymore. Who says we would not have mortgage deductions anymore? The President takes a couple of hundred words, a couple thousand words, maybe, out of a 5.5 million word Tax Code and holds those up to the American people and says, now, to save this, we have to have all of this. The pressure to maintain the Tax Code is going to be right here in Washington. There is not a single thing in the Tax Code that somebody did not want in there. There is not a single thing in the Tax Code that some special interest did not want in there. The Tax Code is out of control. It is not a creature of the IRS. It is a creature of the Congress. But I think yesterday we saw exactly the reason that we need to go ahead and commit to slay the dragon of the Tax Code and then have the debate about a new system, because we saw the President get some response by just taking one appealing thing in a Tax Code that largely does not appeal to anybody and saying, you do not want to lose this. And if you slay the Tax Code without a new plan, you are going to lose this. The truth is that the folks who are really out there to protect the 5.5 million word Tax Code, and by the way, the Declaration of Independence had 1,300 words in it, the entire Old and New Testament has 773,000 words in it. The Tax Code is eight times as big as the Old and New Testament. I think it is 42,000 pages of Tax Code and 20,000 pages of the IRS interpretations of what the 42,000 pages mean, and nobody understands that Tax Code. But if we do not commit ourselves to eliminate the code first, the debate on what to replace it with will be used as the way to ensure that we never eliminate the code, because you will see the greatest efforts at class warfare. You will see the greatest efforts at generational warfare, all waged by people who want to save some sliver of that Tax Code that they worked so hard to get in there that does not help anybody in America but them. The commitment that we would make as a Congress to eliminate the Tax Code at a future date, and I believe the bill that many of us, I am certainly cosponsoring the legislation, the date on our legislation is December 31, 2001, with the commitment to have a new system in place by Independence Day 2001, 6 months in advance of when it would necessarily have to go into effect, to slay that Tax Code and then have this national debate that has to meet the framework of being fairer, being simpler, producing no more revenue than the current Tax Code produces and to really truly eliminate the IRS as we know it, because the IRS is only the IRS because of a Tax Code that nobody fully understands. And that is what allows the IRS in its worst cases to be the IRS. One of the most frustrating things in the world would have to be a well-intentioned IRS employee with a Tax Code that can mean anything somebody at the IRS decides it may mean in any given instance. We need to commit to eliminate that code, and I think the President is just as wrong on this as he was last spring when he told us the IRS does not need to be reformed. And then, again, 6 weeks ago here he turned to the Senate and says, and why do you not pass those IRS reforms that the House passed last year. Remember, he was opposed to those IRS reforms and said the IRS was running better than it ever had in any time certainly than it was 5 years ago when he took office. That is just not true. He admitted as much in the State of the Union message.

Mr. BLUNT. We have warmer winters in Missouri, and there are lots of other good things about our State. Mr. Speaker, one of those is, I think it was one of my predecessors in Congress from our State about 100 years ago gave our State the name, the Show-me State. He said, I am from Missouri, you have to show me. And certainly we are skeptical, as many people are in my district are, about really what is happening as we work to balance this budget. Now clearly, clearly the last two Congresses and the hard work of the American people have gotten us a long way. I think in January of 1995 the projected deficit for last year was $365 billion. This was after the President's tax increase, this was after 2, 3 years of the Clinton administration, and the projected deficit was $365 billion. It turned out to be $22 billion. We got that announcement yesterday. As the gentleman from South Dakota (Mr. Thune) mentioned, it looks like now for the first time in 30 years we are running a surplus, but of course what Missourians wonder about is how we could be running a surplus and still be increasing the national debt. Clearly that does not make sense from the show-me standard that we would want to set for whether you are in a surplus situation or not. We need to continue to work to be sure that we quit, that we stop this process of borrowing from the trust funds, that we really do run a surplus, before we even think about how to spend that surplus. That does not mean we cannot do some tax relief, that does not mean we cannot take advantage of these good economic times, but it certainly does mean that we should not be committing the government to new programs based on some surplus, when we are still borrowing this year $100-plus billion from the Social Security trust fund, from the Highway Trust Fund. We want to see that surplus in our State become a real surplus. We would like to say that this unified budget is actually treating the trust funds like they were trust funds, and is actually paying all the bills that the government has coming in, and beginning to pay down the national debt, not continuing to increase the national debt. It would be pretty hard to convince any Missourians, particularly southwest Missourians, where I am from, that you have a surplus, and you are continuing to borrow and you are continuing to increase your debt by around $150 billion. That does not sound like a surplus to us. The Washington standard is not a good enough standard for hard-working taxpayers who want to see us have a real surplus. But again, I do not want to say that in a way that takes away from what has already happened, because we have gone from a projected deficit of $365 billion to, today, a surplus under the same standards, the same rules, the same guidelines, of about $8 billion. That is a pretty big turnaround. We just need to turn that corner a little bit more before we feel like we are totally in the kind of situation where we are starting to paying off the debt instead of increasing the debt. I think the hard work of the American people and the vitality of our economy, and frankly, the hard work of this Congress to set those budget caps that our friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) has talked about, and to stay within those caps and see the interest rates go down and the economic vitality that produces and the additional tax dollars that that produces, the additional tax dollars that the tax cuts that we were able to do last year have produced, have made a real change in America. But we have to be careful that we do not follow the lead of the President just a month ago, 6 weeks ago in this Chamber where in 75 minutes, in a 75-minute State of the Union message, he proposed about $75 billion in new spending. That sounds like the era of big government is definitely back. And certainly a $75 billion, $1-billion-per-minute record is probably the record for anybody's State of the Union address ever in the history of the country, and this Congress and the taxpayers of America really cannot let that happen. I do not think they want that to happen. Frankly, I think that is why we have not heard much about the President's spending proposals since he walked out of here at the State of the Union message and nobody responded to an America that goes right back into deep, deep debt the first time we think we may be able to make our payments in one month. That is not going to happen. I think we are all hearing that as we have had time to go back home.

Mr. BLUNT. If the gentleman will yield, I think that is exactly right. I think what happens is, if you do have sunset provisions, every agency not only is aware that it is going to have to come up for review, but every assignment it is given is going to have to come up for review, and that just does not happen now. We have lots of programs on the books that are not funded, are underfunded, or just out there waiting for that moment when they can come back in and grab some more money. Nobody ever challenges those things. I think that one of the great reviews we could do would be to do that. I think one of our freshman colleagues, the gentleman from Texas (Kevin Brady) has legislation he is working on that would really put sunset provisions in as an automatic part of any new program that goes into effect, any new agency that goes into effect. Then of course we ought to go back and attach those same provisions to old agencies. I think what happens in Colorado and other States that have this is the departments themselves pretty quickly come back to the legislature and say, when they see something that is going to be a problem for them, when it comes time to defend it, when it comes time for them to be reauthorized, they say in advance, you know, we think this is really not working out like we thought it would. We think you ought to eliminate this, because we do not want to come back 2 years from now and explain why we have not been able to make it work. I think that is one of the things we could do to begin to get this government under control. Also the other thing that has been mentioned so often tonight that we have taken great advantage of over the last 3 years has been the States themselves. How many times tonight in our discussion have we talked about, whether it is welfare programs or education programs, how much benefit we are getting by letting the 50 States be 50 laboratories for change? There are great results happening in State after State after State where we have allowed them leeway in areas like welfare that they have not had before. The Governor of Wisconsin just the other day, as was pointed out, wrote the last welfare check. There are not going to be any more of those checks issued in that State. It has made a dramatic difference in the way they approach this problem.