John Boehner

Mr. BOEHNER

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 4737 is a top priority for President Bush and one of the most important bills we'll consider this year. The 1996 welfare reform law--one the most successful social policy initiatives in recent memory--is set to expire later this year. In February, President Bush unveiled his principles for reauthorizing this important law; H.R. 4737, the Personal Responsibility, Work and Family Promotion Act, is based on those principles. Its goal is simple: to put even more Americans on the path to self- sufficiency and independence. While the '96 law has been an unqualified success, there is more work to be done. A majority of TANF recipients-- 58 percent--still aren't working for their benefits. That's why H.R. 4737 strengthens current work requirements. It asks welfare recipients to engage in work-related activities for 40 hours a week--16 of which could be in education, job training, or other constructive activities as defined by states. The measure also gradually increases the work participation rate required of states--by 2007, 70 percent of a state's TANF recipients must be in work-related activities, up from 50 percent in current law. Moreover, the bill makes significant improvements to the Child Care and Development Block Grant. It adds $1 billion in discretionary funding to the program over five years and requires states to devote more money to improving child care quality. The bill also incorporates key elements of President Bush's Good Start, Grow Smart early childhood education plan, encouraging states to make sure children are developmentally prepared to enter school. H.R. 4737 also significantly enhances flexibility for states and localities to integrate a variety of federal programs, including TANF, food stamps, housing assistance, the child care block grant, and workforce investment programs. This innovative plan will give states and localities the opportunity to respond creatively to recipients' needs and improve the efficiency of federal welfare and workforce programs. As a recent Wall Street Journal editorial noted, the State Flex proposal ``has the potential to spur the next wave of reform.'' With this bill, we have the chance to build on the success of the last five years. I look forward to working with my colleagues on this important issue as we move forward. This proposal has been approved by three different House Committees; many Members have had the opportunity to consider and amend this bill. The rule today before us is a fair rule, and I urge members to support it.

Mr. BOEHNER

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I claim the time in opposition to the bill.

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, is the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) opposed to the bill?

Mr. BOEHNER. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, earlier I pointed out my broad concern with the high loan rates that we have in this bill and the fact that it will depress commodity prices requiring more of net farm income to come from the government. Last year's figure was 40 percent of net farm income came from the government. I believe with lower prices as a result of this bill, that number will exceed 50 percent quickly. There are other problems with the bill. I think the message this sends to our trading partners around the world is the wrong message. These payments will violate our trade agreements with the World Trade Organization, and send a strong signal to our allies who worked with us to reduce trade barriers around the world that we are not serious about this. It tells our competitors we are going to continue to do what we have been asking them not to do. Secondly, when it comes to the issue of labeling, I think it violates our agreement with our neighbors, Mexico and Canada, and I think it is discriminatory against our other trading partners around the world. So from a trade standpoint, I think we are sending some mixed and bad messages. The dairy program that we have contained in this bill is totally unnecessary. Over the last 4 years, in all of agriculture, dairy prices were at record highs. Dairy farmers had the best 4 years they ever had. Why do we need to spend $2 billion for dairy? Pure and simple, for political reasons coming from the other body. It is unnecessary, it will drive down prices, and will drive up exposure to the taxpayers. But as I close, as Members of Congress, we are here, and we are here to make decisions on behalf of our constituents. As I said earlier, this is not an easy decision on my part or others who are opposing this bill. We have great respect for the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Combest) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) who have guided this process; but we have to make a decision as Members of Congress, and the decision I have made, reluctantly, is to oppose this bill because in the end, it will lead to much bigger problems. We have heard that if we do not pass this bill, we will have really big problems. We can do an emergency supplemental to fix those problems in the short run, and we can produce this bill in a much more sane political environment that will give us a much better product after the election early next year. Mr. Speaker, the point I want to make to my colleagues is that we can do better. I know that it is a difficult process to come up with a uniform policy for the whole country, but the fact is that we can do better. We must do better to balance the interest amongst those in agriculture, and to balance the interest of those in agriculture with the interest of the taxpayers and others who are always here seeking our government help.

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dooley), my friend and colleague on the Committee on Agriculture.

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to our colleague, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Latham). (Mr. LATHAM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BOEHNER. Reclaiming my time, I would argue that the opposite is exactly true. I reluctantly urge Members to vote no on this bill.

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind). (Mr. KIND asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake). (Mr. FLAKE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith).

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today very, very reluctantly to oppose this bill. I have worked very closely with the chairman, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Combest) and the ranking member, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) over the course of the last several years trying to craft a sensible farm policy. I do want to congratulate them for all of their hard work, their tenacity, and their ability to produce a bill in a very difficult political environment. But maybe it was the political environment itself that causes us to be here. We have a closely divided Congress, we have big elections in November, and as a result, trying to do good sound farm policy in the midst of this frankly is almost impossible. But they have, in fact, produced a bill that they are very proud of, and I am very proud of them for bringing a bill out. But in the end we have to make decisions as Members of Congress about whether it is the right policy. And as I look at the bill that we have before us, I stand to reluctantly oppose it. And I do so for a number of reasons, but at this point I would like to talk about the overall and overriding reason why I am in opposition to the bill. For 60 years in America we put a hand, a lid, over the abilities of farmers' opportunity to succeed, all in an effort to be helpful to them. We had a system of loan rates and price guarantee, acreage reduction; and we did it from 1935 until 1996. Farmers did not have a chance at succeeding because we always had the lid over the top of the commodity prices, never gave them a chance to succeed. In 1996, we made a break from that policy and we went to Freedom to Farm. It worked well for a couple of years, but then when we had the Southeast Asian problem, prices began to collapse. We had the strength of the dollar that also inhibited our ability to export products around the world. Then in a closely divided Congress fighting for control in the House and the Senate, got into a bidding war as to who could be the biggest friend of agriculture. And over the last few years we have had generous, very generous, emergency payments. But instead of staying the course and trying to allow farmers the opportunity to get their income from the market where farmers want to get their income, what we are doing is we are going back to what we know did not work for 60 years; and that is because the loan rates in the bill that we have before us and the target prices that we have will in fact drive more production. It will bring more marginal lands into production because of these high loan rates that will further decrease the commodity prices that we have today. And what happens then? We expose the taxpayer to pick up the difference between those low commodity prices and the loan rates that we are setting. Farmers will have no chance to succeed, no chance of letting the marketplace ever work; and as a result small farmers are going to continue to go by in the way of a dust storm and only the biggest and strongest producers who frankly do not need this help will be getting most of the help. I do not think that is what we want to do. I just think that American agriculture does in fact want the market to work. Farmers do not want checks from the Federal Government; they want them from the market place. But in my view of the bill we have before us, ask where it will lead us over the next several years. We will in fact see a collapse of commodity prices and as a result the 10 years' number of an additional $73.5 billion will in fact get eaten up in my view rather quickly over the next couple of years. And then we will have a real disaster on our hands. So my opposition to the bill is to say let us fix it now before we get ourselves into a box where we have excess products laying all over the country, very low prices and huge government expenditures. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BOEHNER

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, in honor of National Charter Schools Week, I rise in strong support of House Concurrent Resolution 386 introduced by my friend and colleague, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Keller), also a member of our committee. This week-long celebration, which runs through Friday, is cosponsored by more than 75 grassroots charter school support organizations in 45 States, and is coordinated by the Charter Friends National Network and the Center for Education Reform. Also during this week there will be six charter school nights at major league baseball games in Colorado and in California. In addition, other national organizations have signed on as national supporting organizations for National Charter Schools Week, including the National Council of La Raza, the National Cooperative Bank Development Corporation, the Gates-EdVisions Project, and Youthbuild USA. Although a relatively new phenomenon, charter schools have been at the cutting edge of educational reform for the past several years. Nowhere is this more true than in Dayton, Ohio, a new part of my district, the site of one of the fastest growing charter school movements in the Nation. In Dayton, more than a dozen charter schools are up and running, serving thousands of area children. In Dayton and across the Nation, the contributions of charter schools are helping to strengthen our Nation's public schools. They are playing a key role in the effort to raise expectations and ensure that every child of every income and ethnic background has the chance for a safe and world-class education. There are not many things that I and the editors of the Dayton Daily News agree on usually, but they were right on this one earlier this month when they wrote, and I will quote, ``Charter schools deserve a chance. They can serve as models for public schools, and the competition they provide is a good thing.'' In exchange for flexibility and freedom from regulations, charter schools are held accountable for improving the academic achievement of their students. This new-found flexibility and freedom has not only translated into higher test scores, but also innovative practices. I think it has empowered parents with the ability to seek out the best education possible for their own children. In fact, we mirror these same principles of freedom, flexibility, and accountability through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in H.R. 1, the No Child Left Behind Act, which the President signed into law earlier this year. Currently, 37 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have passed charter school laws, and more than a half a million students attend charter schools somewhere nationwide. My hope is that every State will have passed a charter school law in the very near future. That said, Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate all of the students, parents, teachers, principals, and administrators who have embraced the charter school movement and are working to make it a success. I would also like to recognize the efforts of two Ohio officials, State auditor Jim Petro and State Representative Jon Husted of Dayton, who have worked tirelessly on behalf of our State's charter schools. Finally, I want to thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Keller), the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Isakson), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton), and the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) for their efforts in bringing this resolution to the floor.

Mr. BOEHNER

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, the reauthorization of the Office of Education Research and Improvement has been waiting for more than 3 years to receive action on the floor of the House. And today we have the Education Science Reform Act of 2002 here through the hard work of the chairman of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle), the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee), who have done a marvelous job in bringing this bill together through subcommittee and full committee and here on the floor today. And without the leadership of the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle), it just would not have happened at all. Providing high quality, scientifically based education research is vital if we are going to improve our Nation's schools. The Education Science Act of 2002 does just that. In addition, it provides technical assistance to regions, States, districts, and schools that is accountable, customer-driven and focused on the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act. Let me emphasize that the reforms in this bill will greatly assist in helping the No Child Left Behind Act, successfully transform and reform our schools. Mr. Speaker, I especially want to thank the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) for their bipartisan leadership in working out this agreement. This is no small task since we have so few legislative days this year and I want to thank both of them very much. But they are not alone. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Keller), the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Schaffer), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers), the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind), the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens) and others have rolled up their sleeves and worked out the many differences that were in this bill. The result was the bill went through both the subcommittee and the full committee by unanimous consent, and we expect the same level of support today here on the House floor. The President and the administration also support this bill. I especially want to thank Assistant Secretaries Russ Whitehurst and Becky Campoverde who, with their staff, worked closely with us as we brought this legislation forward. My thanks also to Jay Lefkowitz and Noel Franciso from the Office of Policy Development at the White House for their help. Once again, I want to thank my colleague, the ranking Democrat on our committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), for making this bipartisan process work. We have continued the good relationship we had during the year-long work on the No Child Left Behind Act, and I am hopeful that we have set a new tone and a new example for the Congress, and that the approval of the House today of the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 demonstrates once again that we can do great things when we work together. The staff of the committee on both sides of the aisle is to be commended as well for all of their efforts in working with the Members and really doing the grunt work that brings us to a successful conclusion today. With that, I am going to thank my colleagues once again.

Mr. BOEHNER

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. As I said earlier, with all due respect to my colleagues, some on the other side who believe that the base bill before us does not go far enough, I would argue that the proposal offered by my good friend, the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), does in fact go way too far. Let me point out several of those differences. As the gentleman said, when it comes to company-matched stock in a 401(k) plan, companies today can require you to hold that until such time as you retire, not allowing you to take the company match and to convert it into some other type of stock or bond, or cash for that matter, within the account. And so the gentleman from California has a 3-year limit that would go into effect at the signing of the bill, but after that there is no holding period at all. The underlying bill, beyond the 5-year phase-in, has a 3-year rolling average. Any new matched company stock, the maximum it could be required to be held by the company is 3 years. Many employers are already doing it on their own, doing 1 year, doing quicker time frames. But why do we have a 3-year rolling average? Because we do not want to discourage companies from offering the company match that many do in stock today. They find that this is a perfect way of trying to retain employees, to encourage employees to stay with the company. And I am concerned that in a proposal similar to the one the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) is proposing, that many employers would in fact eliminate the match of company stock that they do today. We do not want to do anything in this bill that would hurt the ability of employees to maximize their employment security. Another problem we see with the substitute being offered is that we expand remedies. We expand more remedies, more lawsuits for those who may have just made a mistake. I am not talking about criminal behavior here, we will get into that in a moment. But to expand remedies is a nice big red flag for employers that says, if you open a pension plan, you are going to be opening yourselves to expanded liability. What that is going to do, plain and simple, is discourage, especially small companies, from setting up a pension plan for their employees, at a time when we have worked for years here to try to encourage more employers to offer these plans to their employees. I think there are sufficient remedies today within ERISA and within the code, and expanding those remedies at this time I think is a very big mistake. Let me also say that the substitute creates criminal penalties that do lead to personal liability again for mere mistakes that someone might make. Again, there is another red flag. If I am an employer looking at setting up a plan or maintaining my plan, why would I want to open myself up for the possibility of criminal wrongdoing if I made a mistake in the administration of my plan? Again, I think we have sufficient remedies today within ERISA to deal with this. One of the other issues that the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) talked about is the fact that corporate executives have insured plans and 401(k) plans are not insured. Now, we are dealing a little bit here with apples and oranges, because when it comes to the corporate governance issues, it is controlled by another committee, and we are strictly dealing here with ERISA and with the Tax Code and with pension issues. But one of the issues that is in the gentleman's bill is he would require liability insurance for the full value of all of the 401(k) accounts within the company. Now, if you want to talk about a staggering bill that would discourage employers from setting up 401(k) accounts, here is probably the single one big issue that would stop them cold in their tracks. They would say, listen, if I have got to buy an insurance policy for several hundred million dollars, do I really want to have 401(k) accounts? The last issue I would like to talk about, though, that is of great concern to all of us is the issue of investment advice. We have some 50 million Americans today who have self-directed 401(k)-type of accounts. We all know that they need good, solid investment advice that meets their particular needs. So both sides have the issue in their bill. But the difference here is very simply this: There are two issues that have to be dealt with to get more investment advice into the marketplace. One, we have to do something about employer liability, and both the Miller substitute and the underlying bill, the Pension Security Act, deal with protecting employers from liability, other than they have to exercise their fiduciary duty in hiring a good investment advisor. But the second issue is this: It says if you sell products, you are prohibited from giving investment advice. Now, the idea here is to get more investment advice in the marketplace, and under the Miller proposal they would have to go get independent third-party advice. It is well-meaning, well-intentioned, but very expensive, and, I would add, most employers are not going to ever go down that path. My point is, we will end up with very little investment advice in the marketplace. Under the underlying bill, we say you could go out and get independent advice if you like, or you could have those who sell product set up investment advice under these conditions: You have to disclose any potential conflicts; you have to disclose any differences in fees between the products that you are selling; you have to do this at the same time commensurate with the giving of the advice; and, above all, you are required to be held to the highest fiduciary duty in the giving of that advice, which means that when you give the advice, it has to be solely in the interest of that employee, and there are penalties if you violate any or all of those. We believe what this will do is to bring more investment advice into the marketplace in a much quicker way and cover far more employees. As a matter of fact, the House thought this was such a good idea last November, before we knew what we know today about Enron, that the House voted 280 to 141 to support the exact investment advice bill, virtually the same investment advice bill, that is contained here. So I would say to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, my Democrat friends are as concerned about this as we are. I do in fact believe that if we were to adopt the Miller substitute, that we would in fact limit the ability of employers to set up plans, we would discourage employers from setting up plans, and we would see companies fold up their plans. I do not think that is what we want to do at this day and hour. We should be looking at how can we secure the retirement security for more American workers, how we can expand the number of workers covered by high-quality retirement plans, and not go in the other direction. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, let me close with our section on the general debate and thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their contributions to this process. Members on both sides of the aisle believe it is important to protect retirement security of American workers, and Members need to understand that there are outdated Federal laws that need to be dealt with. A bipartisan group of Members believes that the bill, the Pension Security Act, the base bill today, is the reasonable approach to deal with this issue in a balanced way that protects the rights of employees further than it does under current law without driving employers out of the pension business or discouraging employers from setting up new pensions; nor does it restrict the ability of employees to make decisions with regard to their own accounts. I believe my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to go too far, too far that will have unintended consequences. As we get into the substitute in a few minutes, we will have an opportunity to talk about those differences and shortcomings.

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne).

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Isakson).

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to my colleague and friend, the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon).

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Fletcher).

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for his work on this issue, and I want to state that we, too, believe that his study could be important in informing future public policy positions on this issue. And we regret that there was not enough time to finish out the few remaining details of the study to include his provision in this bill at this time. It is our intention to continue working with him, the other committee of jurisdiction on this issue, and the other body, as this issue goes to conference.