Steve Chabot

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I yield one-half of the time in support of the amendment to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers], and I ask unanimous consent that he be permitted to yield blocks of time to other Members.

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the very distinguished gentlewoman from Idaho [Mrs. Chenoweth].

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Flanagan], a very distinguished member of the Committee on the Judiciary. (Mr. FLANAGAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment, as modified.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to quote from the Employers for Responsible Immigration Reform, and what they state in their correspondence to us is that fully one-third of the Nation would be required to participate in the creation of a huge new Federal bureaucracy. Furthermore, there is no evidence to suggest that this system will work. They oppose the Federal mandate under the Gallegly- Stenholm-Seastrand-Bilbray-Stenholm amendment. I would just like to list a number of these business groups, because it has been stated in here that business wants this particular amendment. 1745 Those who oppose this amendment, among them are the American Association of Nurserymen, the American Hotel and Motel Association, the American Meat Institute, the Associated Landscape Contractors of America, Associated Builders and Contractors, Associated General Contractors, the College and University Personnel Association, the Food Marketing Institute, the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions, the International Foodservice Distributors Association, the National-American Wholesalers Grocers' Association, the National Association of Beverage Retailers, National Association of Convenience Stores, the National Federation of Independent Business, who in the last particular amendment took essentially a neutral position, not opposing nor endorsing the amendment that we took up before, but they oppose this amendment; the National Retail Federation, the Society for Human Resource Management, the National Retail Federation, the Christian Coalition, the Citizens for Sound Economy, Small Business Survival Committee, the American Civil Liberties Union, Concerned Women for America, National Center for Home Education, the American Bar Association, Eagle Forum, U.S. Catholic Conference, and on, and on, and on, and there are other groups that I did not have time to read. But this is a bad amendment. For that reason we oppose it. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this amendment originally, as we know in the Committee on the Judiciary we offered an amendment to strike out what I called 1- 800 Big Brother. We were unsuccessful there, but it was very close. It was 17 to 15. It had bipartisan support. We had 8 Democrat votes and 7 Republican votes. The fact of the matter is, there was so much opposition to making this mandatory that the proponent of this bill, I think, knew that were it mandatory, it would have lost. 1730 Now, I had concerns myself, as did the gentleman from Michigan. We did not even want what was a so-called voluntary system because we knew where this was going to lead. We knew that within a few years then it would be mandatory, and we knew within a few years, rather than being in just five States, it would be all across the country. So it would be nationwide and it would be mandatory. Mr. Chairman, the fact is that is exactly the way it was originally in the bill in Committee on the Judiciary. This was going to be not voluntary, not in just five States, but this was going to be mandatory for every single hiring decision anywhere in the entire country, all 50 States. That is where they wanted to go originally. Now, we defeated that and this is what we got sort of as a compromise. But let us not be misled where the proponents of this want to go, in order to make it truly effective, is mandatory, nationwide. The gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum], has stated very clearly in committee that even that will not really work unless we have a national ID card, which is the ultimate step here. Every American citizen at the end of this road will have to carry a national ID card around with their picture, perhaps retina scans, and God knows what is going to be on this card. But that is where we are headed. Mr. Chairman, to me that is big brother, and that is the reason I fought this in the committee. That is the reason, along with the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers], we have been fighting this on the floor today. Voluntary, it, in my opinion, was an unprecedented assertion of Federal power. To make it mandatory, which is what this amendment would do, clearly is unprecedented. From now on in those five States, every employment decision is going to have to be confirmed, affirmed by the Federal Government. That goes too far. I think it is just the opposite of why we were sent here. Many of us feel that we were sent here to reduce the scope and the power of the Federal Government. We do not all agree. Some people do not mind bigger government, some of us do. I happen to mind it very much. Another thing that I have heard this sold as, I have had several folks from California mention, well, the business people in California want this, to have a 1-800 number so that they can protect themselves in case there has been some foulup on the I-9 forms or some of the other Federal requirements. Let us look at what that basically means. Mr. Chairman, we have big government with the I-9 forms and all the rest. Since that did not work, then we are going to go to the next level, which is additional big government. The I-9's and that system did not work, so we are going to the next stage. This does not replace the I-9 forms. It does not replace that at all. It is an additional requirement that people will have. The gentleman from California just said before, he said the voluntary system, which we just passed, the so-called voluntary system, the previous amendment that we just passed, he said it was not going to work. The bad guys, the people who are hiring illegal aliens off the books, paying them cash right now, they are not going to call this 1- 800 number. They are going to continue to keep hiring these illegal aliens and paying them under the table. Mr. Chairman, who is going to be affected? The law-abiding citizens, as usual. Those are going to be the people that would have the additional level of bureaucracy, the additional Federal requirements to call the Federal Government and get their OK before we can hire somebody. That is wrong. There are clearly going to be errors in this system. There was an L.A. Times article, and this was previously mentioned, that estimated the Social Security department had estimated that there would be 20-percent error rates. Then they said that would be early on. Then it would likely back off to, say, 5 percent. The Social Security Administration has indicated they really do not know what the error rate would be at this point. Even if it is 1 percent, we are talking about hundreds of thousands of American citizens that are going to get caught up in this system. They have to verify that, yes, indeed, they are employable, who could conceivably lose their jobs and have their lives put on hold if there are mistakes. I know in our office we have dealt many times with people in my community that have problems with the IRS where they have made mistakes, with the Social Security that has made mistakes, with Veterans that has made mistakes. In this debate, the previous debate, I have heard my name pronounced Cabot, Chabot, Chaboy, just about every name one can think of. I am dead meat in this system, you know, if it were pronunciation and the spellings. We have got the gentlewoman from Florida [Ms. Ros-Lehtinen], we have the gentleman from California [Mr. Radanovich]; there is the spellings. All you have to do is have one letter that is thrown off, and you are caught up in the system. It is going to be a nightmare for these people. Mr. Chairman, I would like to read from something here that we got from the NFIB. This is what the NFIB sent out on this. It says: On behalf of the more than 600,000 members of the National Federation of Independent Business, the NFIB, I urge you to oppose the Gallegly amendment which would mandate that employers in at least five of the seven States with the highest illegal immigrant population call a 1-800 number to verify every new hire's work eligibility. This amendment will be offered, et cetera. Small businesses across this country have sent a strong message time and time again that they do not want any more government one-size-fits- all mandates coming from Washington. In fact, a recent survey found that 62 percent of NFIB members oppose being required to call a 1-800 number for every new hire. Please let small business owners know we hear their pleas for less government requirement and that it is not Washington as usual. Vote no on the Gallegly amendment. Again, we lost on the so-called voluntary, but this is not voluntary anymore. This is clearly mandatory and it is clearly wrong, and for that reason, we strongly oppose this. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I first of all want to make very clear that those of us that oppose this amendment do very much want to crack down on illegal immigration. There are many things which I support. I supported the Tate amendment which basically stated that if, for example, somebody does try to come into this country illegally, they will then not be able to come into this country legally at some later time, so do not even bother to try to come in again. One-strike-and-you're-out. I think that is good policy. Harsh, tough, but I think it is good. I also very strongly support eliminating welfare as a magnet. We have got too many American citizens, I believe, on welfare in this country right now. I think we ought to completely overhaul the welfare system. We have got far too many people that ought to be supporting themselves and their own kids that are American citizens right now. But unfortunately we have got people coming into this country because welfare is too often a magnet. I do not think welfare ought to be given to illegal aliens. There are many things. We ought to beef up the patrols on our borders to keep illegal aliens out. But to have one more requirement on American businesses to call the government before they hire somebody or right after they hire somebody and clear everything up within 10 days, I think that is the wrong way to go. Malcolm Wallop, for example, a former Senator from Wyoming for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect said, ``This is one of the most intrusive government programs that America has ever seen.'' The Wall Street Journal called this system odious. The Washington Times asked, ``Since when did Americans have to ask the government's permission to work?'' The National Retail Federation said, ``It's yet another Federal Government mandate on business and we're trying to get rid of government mandates.'' This is a government mandate in essence that would require every American to get the government's OK to work in this country. It should not be that way. Many of us believe very strongly that we were sent here to lessen the intrusiveness of the Federal Government in their lives. This goes in just the opposite direction. It runs against the grain of many of us who are trying to reduce Federal involvement in our life. That is the reason I oppose this amendment. Also, it is not going to work. As I stated before, the bad guys that are hiring illegal aliens now, they are not going to call the number. So it is not going to work. It is just more government. We ought to oppose it.

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I might consume. If a citizen is not approved to work, and that is really what this is all about here, is what the committee report says happens. And I would like to read from the committee's own report. If he or she wishes to contest this finding, secondary verification will be undertaken. Secondary verification is an expedited procedure set up to confirm the validity of information contained in the Government data bases. Under this process, the new hire will typically contact or visit the Social Security Administration and/or the INS. The employee has 10 days to reconcile the discrepancy. If the discrepancy is not reconciled by the end of this period, the employer must then dismiss the new hire as being ineligible to work in the United States. I find that to be very objectionable; in fact, outrageous. It is the individual employee, the individual American, that is the person who is really going to be hurt in this. The individual innocent American employee gets caught up in the mess because perhaps they used a maiden name or perhaps there was a typo or one of the numbers was typed in wrong or whatever. As I mentioned earlier today, we had a situation in my district where for 4 months they still have not been able to clear up the Social Security, the fact that they are married and ought to have a married name on there. What we also heard earlier referred to today is that it took 8 months to prove to Social Security that one particular woman was not dead. That is the proof she was not dead 8 months, and they still have not cleared it up. So that is the type of problem we got with this, and this particular person could be an American citizen, perfectly legal, has 10 days to clear it up, or they are out of work. And that is not the way it should be in this country. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Idaho [Mrs. Chenoweth].

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr Speaker, 50 days ago President Clinton stood before the American people right here behind me in this Chamber and said, ``The era of big government is over.'' I am here to announce that, unfortunately, rumors of the demise of big government were premature. Big government is in fact alive and well, and living in the White House. In case Members have not heard, Mr. Speaker, Bill Clinton has requested billions more in spending on many of his pet projects and liberals' constituencies. The President wants more money for corporate welfare, more money for ineffective job training programs, more money for the National Endowment for the Arts, and more money for Goals 2000, and on and on and on. Mr. Speaker, let us not delude ourselves into believing that big government is over. The President's pork barrel package proves that liberal Washington special interests and the bureaucrats still want big government. Let us continue the fight against big Federal Government, reduce the tax burden on hard-working Americans, and let us balance the budget.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the conference report and the rule, and I commend the leadership shown by the chairman of the committee, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman], the chairman of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Burton], the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Diaz-Balart], the gentlewoman from Florida [Ms. Ros-Lehtinen], and the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Menendez]. I also want to applaud President Clinton for finally having voiced support for the Cuban Liberty and Domestic Solidarity Act. It is unfortunate that it took the cold-blooded murder of unarmed American citizens to awaken the President to the harsh reality of the morally reprehensible Castro regime. Fidel Castro is a thug, an international outlaw. His 37-year reign has been noteworthy for its brutality and its unrelenting resistance to individual liberty and freedom. The misery that has been suffered by the Cuban people at the hands of Fidel Castro is one of the world's great tragedies. This legislation will tighten the existing United States embargo against Cuba, and it protects the rights of United States citizens and businesses whose property has been confiscated unlawfully by the Castro regime. It is a good bill and it is long overdue. I urge passage.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, I am a former schoolteacher. I taught the seventh and eighth grades in an inner city school in Cincinnati. There is perhaps no greater argument for education reform than the school system right here in Washington, DC. The numbers and the statistics are shocking. The District spends 76 percent more per pupil than any other jurisdiction in the Nation. Yet its students rank last in eighth-grade math proficiency, last in fourth-grade math proficiency, and last in fourth-grade reading proficiency. Washington, DC teachers are among the best paid teachers in the entire country, and they have a very favorable student-teacher ratio. But even with these advantages, the District ranks 49th in on-time graduations. Despite these shortcomings, the liberal special interests continue to block any meaningful reform of Washington schools, including school choice. Let us improve educational opportunities and the lives of the children here in Washington and across the Nation. Even more importantly, let us pass the Back to Basics Education Act, which takes the power and the money away from the bureaucrats here in Washington and gives it back to parents and teachers and local school boards where it ought to be.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Stenholm].

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, the cotton program, as well as many of the other commodity programs, were originally devised during the Depression. These things were supposed to be temporary, as many of the things which came into law during the Depression years were supposed to be temporary. We have a program which is supposed to benefit relatively small cotton farmers. The fact of the matter is, as I stated before, 80 percent of the benefits go to the top 20 high-income agribusinesses, cotton farmers in this country. The money is corporate welfare. That is where it is going. I want to be very up front here. What I would have preferred to do and what I also offered with the gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] is to eliminate all farm subsidies, all price supports, altogether, 1 year after that bill passed. We are not going to get there right away. This is one step. This is an improvement in this particular farm bill, and I hope this amendment passes.

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this amendment, which I am pleased to offer along with my friend from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy, will significantly reform taxpayer subsidies to cotton growers. As you know, the Cotton Program is the epitome of corporate welfare. Everyone involved with the Cotton Program gets a subsidy--except the taxpayers who foot the bill. The Cotton Program is an affront to hard-working American citizens who are forced to finance these corporate hand outs. Since 1986, taxpayers have forked over an average of $1.5 billion each year to inflate the profits of producers. For every dollar that the cotton conglomerates made by selling their cotton, the taxpayers were forced to spend another 33 cents to support the Cotton Program. Now, many believe that farm programs such as the Cotton Program benefit small farmers. That's simply not true: The Cotton Program benefits a few powerful special interests. The top 20 percent of cotton producers reap some 80 percent of the Cotton Program's benefits. And in 1993 alone, four of the largest cotton growers received more than $1 million in Government payments, while one cotton magnate received a staggering $4.4 million. In fact, as the Environmental Working Groups points out, and I quote, ``the top 2 percent of cotton program recipients--just 2,776 very large farming operations--will each be eligible to earn nearly $419,999 over the next 7 years under the House bill. That amounts to an average of more than $59,800 per recipient per year for 7 years.'' So much for the argument that the Cotton Program helps ``small farmers.'' Moreover, many of those lucky few who get this Government hand out don't even live on a farm: Between 1985 and 1994, cotton producers who happened to live in Los Angeles reaped some $1.9 million in cotton payments, while cotton producers who lived in that small rural community on the Potomac--Washington, DC--took in some $138,169. Now, if the Cotton Program isn't a glaring example of corporate welfare, then I don't know what is. Here's how the Cotton Program works: Huge cotton agribusinesses are able to take taxpayer-financed loans which are set at a Government- established rate. If cotton prices are lower than this rate, then cotton growers pay back the loan at the lower market value, and not at the Government-established rate. In other words, cotton producers pocket the difference between the market value and the Government- established rate. In agribusiness circles, this is know as a marketing loan gain. While this so-called gain is a boon to cotton producers, it is a significant loss to the taxpayer: Since 1992, these gains have cost taxpayers over $1.1 billion alone. The Chabot-Kennedy amendment would eliminate this loss to the taxpayer, just as Chairman Roberts' original Freedom to Farm Act would have done. Our amendment would do two things: First, we would stop allowing huge agribusinesses from taking these loans after 1998. Second, if these agribusinesses were to realize a gain in the remaining 3 years that they are eligible for these loans, the amount of the gain would be deducted from the cotton producers transition contract. Efforts to reform the Cotton Program are supported by a broad coalition of groups including the National Taxpayers Union, Citizens Against Government Waste, Taxpayers for Common Sense, The Heritage Foundation, Friends of the Earth, Public Voice for Food and Health Policy, the Environmental Working Group, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues' support for the Chabot-Kennedy amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this program continues at really great expense to the consumers and the taxpayers. Our amendment is pro-taxpayer, it is pro- free market, and I want to emphasize again, the groups that support this are Friends of the Earth, the Public voice for Food and Health Policy, the Environmental Working Group, the National Taxpayers Union, the Heritage Foundation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, and the Taxpayers for Common Sense. Mr. Chairman, I think this is a very good amendment. It would be a good addition to the farm bill. I would urge its passage. Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Stenholm].

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy].

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Dooley]. (Mr. DOOLEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds. Mr. Chairman, the cotton program was started back in the Depression. This particular marketing loan program was started back in 1985. This is just one among many programs that started back in the Depression that we are still living under, we are still getting ripped off. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy].

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy]. Mr. Chairman, I would like to compliment the gentleman for his great work in this area. I know that he wants to get rid of some of these corporate boondoggles.

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the amendment. Every time an American consumer purchases a bottle of Pepsi or a Coke or a candy bar, the big sugar producers in Florida crack a smile. And why should they not? The Federal sugar program inflates sugar prices to nearly twice the world average and cost American families $1.4 billion every year. This money lines the already deep pockets of huge sugar conglomerates at the expense of hard-working Americans. Many of us, when we ran for Congress, promised to work to change the way Washington works. I cannot think of a better example of one of those Federal programs that needs to be reformed and reformed immediately than the sugar program. The sugar subsidy encourages the type of overproduction that is bringing great harm to our environment. This amendment represents real reform by phasing out the program over five years, and not a moment too soon. Sugar subsidies may be a sweet deal for sugar growers, but they are a raw deal for consumers and for taxpayers. Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds only to say to the gentleman that just preceded me that the soft-drink industry uses corn syrup and not only uses sugar; also to our colleague from South Carolina who stood here and said, your side of the aisle, your side of the aisle, this is not the 1-minute Democrat bashing time. This is very serious business for jobs in the United States of America.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, the existing welfare system is a mess. It hurts the very people that it is supposed to help. In 1992, President Clinton campaigned on a pledge to end welfare as we know it. Remember that? Now, after 3 years of the Clinton Presidency, he has not lifted a finger to do anything about the failed welfare state. It is true that he has talked about the values of work and family, but if we examine the record, the President has not signed into law any reform of welfare. In fact, he vetoed the only genuine welfare reform bill to pass this Congress in a generation. The President is now in the midst of backing away from the compromise welfare agreement passed unanimously by the National Governors' Association, both Democratic and Republican Governors. He had originally praised the plan as a huge step in the right direction. It is time for the President to cut the cord with the special interest groups, the liberal groups, and to help us fix the failed welfare system in this country.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning in defense of the middle-class tax cuts that the middle class gets. They keep getting promised these tax cuts, but they never seem to get them. It is a fact that hard-working people in this country are overtaxed. The Federal Government continues to rip off hard-working people in order to benefit special-interest elites. This Government taxes families in my community in Cincinnati so that Hazel O'Leary-types can continue to jet around the world on five-star junkets. The Government continues to tax people in Cincinnati so that huge corporations can get subsidies to advertise their products around the world, advertising that they would do anyway. It is an absolute outrage. We continue to rip off the American people to give tax subsidies and price supports to people who do not need them. Taxes are absolutely too high in this country. The special-interest groups and their fellow defenders here in Washington will now scream, tax cuts for the rich, tax cuts for the rich, but I think the American people know better; they know the people in this country are overtaxed. We need to cut taxes now.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the proceedings had during the recess be printed in the Record.