K. Conaway

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Yes. We recently passed the D.C. Voting Rights bill which is a separate conversation. It had a modest amount of money in terms of D.C. modesty. In terms of District 11, there aren't very many people out there who have a deposit slip big enough to deposit the $14 million that it is going to cost. It will cost $14 million to add two additional Members of Congress. The bill that was passed violated PAYGO on its face. They had a convoluted rule that said even though that bill has passed the House, if we don't pass the fix, the PAYGO fix, then neither bill will actually pass. So they winked at themselves on the first bill, saying we are going to fix the $14 million hole. Then the next bill that came forward to fix their PAYGO issue did not raise taxes on anyone to pay for it. They did not cut spending anywhere, and it didn't raise the taxes necessary to do that. The manager of the time that afternoon actually said from the microphone right over there in the middle, we are not raising taxes on any American. What they are doing, though, is basically taking an advance on next month's salary. What they did was said taxpayers who have an adjusted gross income of more than $5 million, which is a relatively small group of people and not a crowd that draws much sympathy among folks, we are going to insist that they advance their tax payments a little quicker than they would have otherwise. The overall tax that they are going to owe is not going to change, but we want them to pay in an amount a little quicker. However the CBO scored that cash flow, they scored it as a positive which allowed them to wink and say yes, we now have conformed with our own PAYGO rules. So the Blue Dogs have to explain to us how their new version or definition of PAYGO works where they can simply advance moneys out of next month's salary, in effect, and that somehow meets the PAYGO standard. Tomorrow we will debate this issue that the tax rates happen on their own. We intend to not let it happen. But in order to do that, they have to raise taxes somewhere else. So they have to take that 39.6 new rate in 2011 and raise it even higher in order to make up for reducing taxes on the folks at the bottom of the deal. Republicans have said that this is a tax increase. You allow it to happen. You have the choice to not allow it to happen. You allow it to happen and you spent the money. So both sides have got arguments that have some substance of truth, some version of truth in them, and you have to look at the total package. But at the end of day, at the end of their 5-year budget window that we will be debating tomorrow, good Americans will pay in another $400 billion in taxes. And guess what, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle found a place to spend it. They didn't reduce the deficit. They didn't reduce the national debt or put it into a rainy day fund, or save it. They spent it. Their rhetoric to the contrary that they are not raising taxes is hollow at best given the action that their budget will actually do. I want to talk a little bit about overall tax policy in this country, if I can. I pose this idea. We tax capital gains, dividends and interest at rates that are less than the rate we tax earned income. So what we are saying is as a policy of this government, we think that hardworking people who sweat should pay higher taxes than our money does when it is working for us in the capital markets. Now that is an interesting philosophy and one that has been accepted around these halls for a long, long time, and we can have a debate whether or not that makes sense. But what is the correct tax rate on capital gains? I know what the Tax Code says, but what should that rate be? What should we tax earnings from capital gains and interest and dividends? What should the tax rate be? What is magic about the current number? Should it be twice that, half that? It is not like math classes where you went to the back of the book and the even or odd-numbered questions had the answers. There is no back of the book. I will pose the same question about earned income. A person working for Parker Drilling Company in West Texas or UTI Patterson Drilling Company, folks who work hard and understand what work is, what you and I do here, we call it work but it is not work in the tradition that I understand hard work is. What should we tax that guy or that woman for their earned income, their work? What should we tax accountants and doctors and lawyers for the work that they do day in and day out, providing the services and goods we want? What is the correct rate? We have rates in the code. We think the rates that have been in place for the last 7 years may or may not be right, but they have helped produce an economy that has boomed and is continuing to grow. Now Ronald Reagan said the stuff you don't like, you ought to tax it. If we don't like people working, we raise taxes. As we have this debate night after night and year in and year out, let us talk about the idea what should the correct rate be. Regardless of the Byrd rule and regardless of the 10-year plan and regardless of the budget act nonsense that we have to tie our hands with, what ought to be the rate? Is there a better tax collection scheme than the one we currently have? Should we go to a national sales tax or flat tax? Let's begin to have those discussions. I have spent 30-plus years helping clients comply with this incredibly difficult Tax Code. No, I am not an expert in it. I have some background and some depth, but this thing is incredible. We have narrow experts in the accounting world who take on various segments of it who don't know the full deal. It is incredibly complex. Let's begin to discuss how should we collect money? How should we collect the minimum amount of money needed to fund this Federal Government in ways that are fair, simple, straightforward, easy to comply with, and don't cost the estimated $260 billion a year that Americans spend complying with this incredibly complex code. This code has all sorts of winners and losers. As we begin to talk about PAYGO, and you look at the tax increases that the Democrats will propose, every one of those have winners and losers. Every one of those pit some segment of society against the other, some level of wealth against another, and I don't think that makes for a good way to do things, to create this constant tension between taxpayers. We are in this all together. We all want the Federal Government to work as efficiently as we can.

Mr. CONAWAY. There is plenty of truth in the ATM issue, but the alternative minimum tax is AMT.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from Pennsylvania and good friend from Kentucky for coming down here tonight to talk about what the Countdown Crew has been talking about, and that is the pending tax increase that is looming large on the horizon. Part of the problem as I toured District 11 during the Easter break was that because the actual tax law change is still years away, many people in the district are not paying as much attention to it as I think they should. It is kind of like the fellow who fell off the 10 story building. As he passed the 5th floor, he was heard to say, ``so far, so good. So far, so good.'' We have fallen off the building. January 2, when the Democrats took over the House, we fell off the edge. It took them 14 days to raise taxes on the oil business, the first tax increase, and we are much like that gentleman who was in midair headed to an abrupt halt when he hit the ground, and that is the misguided idea that so far, so good; so far, so good. Back in March, these chambers heard an incredible amount of rhetoric about the budget and if you had just tuned in, you didn't really know which side was which. Basically what you heard was a schoolyard squabble in which our side said yes, you are, and their side said no, you're not, and yes, you are; no, you're not. We went back and forth, and I don't know that any of us really adequately explained to the people listening, Mr. Speaker, why both sides claimed the exact same set of facts with two totally different interpretations. Let me try to be a little instructive on that tonight, as best I can. The current tax law says that in 2011 most of the tax breaks as we refer to those that were enacted in 2001 and 2003 will expire on their own. Back in 2001 and 2003, the Senate, the Democrats particularly in the Senate, invoked the Byrd amendment or the Byrd rule, I guess, which restricts tax law thinking to a 10-year window. In other words, we handcuff ourselves with respect to tax policy in some artificial time frames that may or may not make sense. It is unfortunate that we do it that way, but that is kind of the ground rules we have. We could spend nights and nights talking about how we could reset the ground rules and have a much better way of developing tax policy in this House that would make much more sense. But, nevertheless, that 10-year window restricted the elimination of the death tax, the tax rate decreases, the marriage penalty, the earned income credits, that we wanted to make permanent that left this House. The bill that left the House would make all of those things permanent. But the compromise in the Senate, in order to get it out and passed the obstructionist Senators, Democrat Senators at that time, we were limited to 10 years. We are now coming on to the end of that time frame and existing law says that on January 1, 2011, tax rates, as an example, the top rate, which is now 33 percent of earned income, will rise to 39.6 percent, a 20-plus percent increase. The bottom rate, which is currently 10 percent, goes to 15 percent, a 50 percent tax increase on the folks who make the least amount of money in our society. So what is happening is that the Democrats are hiding behind the operation of law as it currently exists to say that they are not raising taxes. But the proof is in the pudding, because in their 5-year budget window that they have presented and passed through the House and that we will appoint conferees on tomorrow, spends the money that gets raised in the budget window of 2011 and 2012. So the Democrats actually let it work as it is supposed to, as it is going to, without intervention by the Republicans, and the Federal tax collection scheme will collect an extra $400 billion in 2011 and 2012. Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle say they are not intending to allow the tax increases on those 10 percent brackets, et cetera, et cetera, to actually happen. That we need to trust them. That their intent is to not allow that to happen before this 2011 timeframe. But the problem is, they spent the money that is raised. So in order to offset under their definition of PAYGO, that they invoke from time to time, and they change this definition, by the way, from time to time.

Mr. CONAWAY. Oh, absolutely. When you turn on a television program that is going to have some adult content in it, most of them say, viewers, give you a warning that this next program may not be suitable for young children. Well, I am going to give a warning that what I am about to go through may not be suitable for young children. This is Form 6251. Form 6251 is a 2-page form that every taxpayer who is caught up in the alternative minimum tax has to complete. Internal Revenue Service agents, when they audit you, if you have not put this form in your tax return, they will fill one out for you, thinking that maybe you screwed up and did not fill it out. It is in the instructions on how you audit taxpayers. It is a 2-page form. There are 10 pages of instructions to Form 6251, and it is relatively mind numbing to go through these instructions. I want to just kind of walk you through the first 28 lines quickly on this form. So hang on for dear life. It starts off: Line 1, ``If filing Schedule A (Form 1040), enter the amount from Form 1040, line 41 (minus any amount on Form 8914, line 6), and go to line 2. Otherwise, enter the amount from Form 1040, line 38 (minus any amount on Form 8914, line 6), and go to line 7.''

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, Monday, April 23 of this year marked the beginning of Small Business Week, honoring small business owners and their employees for their dedication and hard work that has helped to ensure that this Nation continues to remain a strong leader in the global economy. This week, we celebrate their countless hours, their commitment to their families, communities and our Nation. The 11th district of Texas boasts a large number of successful small businesses and, combined, they have labored extraordinarily to establish themselves as a backbone of our economy. They have provided numerous jobs, endless opportunities, and sustained economic growth. Mathis Field Cafe in San Angelo, Texas, is one of the small businesses that I am proud to represent in Washington. Mathis Field Cafe employs 26 people, specializing in serving authentic Chinese cuisine. It was founded by two Chinese immigrants in 1988, Sam and Rose Ng, who are now United States citizens running this very successful small business. It is small establishments like this one in the 11th District of Texas that I proudly represent and that I want to honor and thank for their tireless efforts day in and day out. Steady pro- economic and pro-business policies encourage job growth and allow our small businesses to thrive. I expect to see cafe and other small businesses in District 11 reap the benefits of our strong economy and give back. This week we honor all small businesses alike.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 249 I was inadvertently detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. I had one more comment. I was also sitting with my older son, who is a broker with Merrill Lynch. And while his CPA was handing him his tax return, he was going through it, looking at it and he suddenly discovered that he owed a relatively sizeable amount of alternative minimum tax. And we will go through that concept on another night, but this is a tax that is going to catch a growing number of middle-income Americans that is, in effect, a tax increase on him. So once he discovered that he had now become subject to the alternative minimum tax, he was, shall I say, less than pleased with that number and is looking forward to this Chamber addressing the alternative minimum tax as a part of the overall tax fix. We are trying to come up with a tax scheme that collects the minimum amount of money needed to fund this Federal Government.

Mr. CONAWAY. In its purest form it would mean that any new spending that this House decides is good Federal new spending, whether that's new, new spending or a growth in expenditures that is built into current mechanisms, would be paid for, in effect, by raising taxes, new taxes from somewhere, or reducing expenses in some other place in this Federal Government so that you have a net zero. In its purest form it would apply to both new programs as well as existing entitlements that grow on their own, that we would continue to keep the number, in effect, flat if we are using offsets against expenses; or if we increased it, we would increase taxes to pay for it so that the deficit wouldn't get any worse or any better under PAYGO. We wouldn't cause any problems with new legislation that would cause the Federal deficit, in effect, to go up by either doing like we do at home, getting a part- time job to help pay for those other expenses, or making some tough hard choices on priorities, setting priorities to reduce spending in some other area to provide for monies for this new spending that may be coming in. So that is PAYGO in its purest form. It's unusual, not likely that we would get, collectively, both sides of the aisle to agree to that strict a term of PAYGO. The PAYGO that will probably be used often is some variation of what you may have heard about tonight, and others. Spending that grows on its own under the entitlements programs that are out there probably isn't subject to PAYGO. We won't have to offset that or increase expenses anywhere else. We just let that continue to grow out. So there will be a variety of definitions. So what I hope to be able to communicate to the folks in District 11, and, Mr. Speaker, what I hope other Americans understand is that when they hear the phrase ``PAYGO,'' it is all in the definition. It is all about what does it mean. Because apparently PAYGO has a variety of meanings in these Chambers from time to time. And the one that was used last week, in my view, is flawed in the purest sense of PAYGO. So if you would indulge me a couple more minutes to talk about sales taxes, that is particularly important to folks from Texas. The tax extensions and the tax changes that were brought about 2001- 2003 and more recently extended into 2006 address some inequities between States that have State income taxes and States that don't. Texas is one of those States that does not have a State individual income tax and, as such, funds its State and local governments through property taxes and sales taxes, along with a lot of other fees and excise taxes, those types of things. But under our current Federal Income Tax Code, all States that have income taxes, those citizens get to deduct their income taxes from their Federal taxable income in order to get to a net tax; in other words, they are not paying Federal tax on the monies that they have to pay into their State governments. They get a deduction for that, and that's fine. But to States like Texas, since we have no income tax, we don't get a deduction. In the past, beginning in 1986 and forward, off and on again, Texans were allowed to deduct their sales taxes in lieu of a State income tax. So a citizen could look at whichever tax they paid and deduct that, and it would put those citizens on a more equitable footing with citizens from States that pay taxes. In effect, what you get, if citizens from non- income tax States don't get to make that deduction, then they in effect are paying a higher Federal income tax than taxpayers in equivalent circumstances in States with an income tax, and that is inequitable and should be addressed. So the impact specifically on Texans, if this is not fixed, would be that the average tax increase per taxpayer, as computed by the Heritage Foundation, the average tax increase per taxpayer, not family, but per taxpayer, for Texans, would be $2,755 per year beginning in 2011. The loss of income per capita, and this is income lost on top of the increased taxes, is $510 per person. And Texas will lose, as a result of this, estimated in 2012, 75,000-plus jobs. Let me talk in a little further detail on District 11, which I represent. The tax increase there per person will be a little bit less than the state-wide average. We will have a tax increase per taxpayer of $2,091 a year, about $200 a month almost. And then on top of that there will be another $974 that each taxpayer will lose in income on top of this tax increase. And there will be 2,153 jobs lost across the district. This happens if we allow this unfair, inequitable circumstance to exist between States that have State income taxes and States that don't at the Federal level. And I am hoping that, while it's not provided for this year in the budget that was passed, I am hopeful that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will see this as one of those opportunities for tax equity in our Tax Code, and we will put in the right provisions in the next tax bill that would allow Texans to deduct sales taxes in lieu of their Federal income tax. My colleague from Pennsylvania, I appreciate you giving me this time tonight, and I yield back.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I need to correct something. The sales tax issue that I was talking about is included within the overall numbers that I talked about. Those overall numbers are the same ones that compare to the $3,000 tax hit that you will have. The sales tax issue is included with the other expiring Tax Code provisions that we were able to implement in 2001 and 2003. So the numbers I quoted was not just sales taxes, but sales tax is an element in Texas of $2,755 increase, in District 11 a $2,391 increase. So it is more than just a sales tax. I think I misspoke earlier in our conversation when I was talking about sales taxes. That sales tax issue is included in that number as well.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for letting me join him tonight in this Special Order. I want to talk first about PAYGO, and then I want to talk about something a little closer to home for Texans, and that is the way sales taxes are treated in the budget and under the current Tax Code. For the entire time I have been here in Congress, which is a relatively short period of time, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have pounded away this idea, using the term ``PAYGO.'' ``Pay as you go'' is the phrase, which rolls easily off the tongue but can have a multitude of definitions. And most of the folks in District 11 who hear the term ``PAYGO,'' in other words, that you are going to pay for something as you go along, it really makes a lot of sense to them under a more traditional definition of that phrase. This past week we had an interesting parliamentary ploy that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle used in order to get a vote on whether or not the delegate from Washington, DC would have voting privileges. And that is, it was debated at length last week, and it did pass. But it had a fiscal limit attached to it. It cost money. And our colleagues across the aisle, particularly the Blue Dogs, had made a huge point over the last 2-plus years of not wanting to pass anything where any new spending wasn't offset with either, in their preference, tax increases, and the second least likely choice would be to reduce spending in other areas to in effect offset that so that any new spending would be paid for, as that phrase is used, with tax increases or, less likely, spending cuts in other areas. Well, the first bill that passed last week had an interesting rule attached to it in which our colleagues from the Rules Committee had said that if a bill passes on the floor of the House, if the companion bill does not pass, then in spite of the fact that the first bill passed on its own, neither bill would be able to be sent to the Senate if the latter bill didn't pass. The latter one is the one I want to talk about tonight, and that was the bill that was passed in order to pay for the additional spending for the delegate converted to a Member and the new Member for Utah is going to cost. Now, in terms of West Texans, it is a lot of money. But in terms of the overall budget and the numbers that we typically deal with here in D.C., it is a relatively modest amount of money. But, nevertheless, it is new spending. So the bill that did pass was to, in effect, alleviate the PAYGO violation that the first bill created by spending new money without offsetting it with increased taxes on someone or decreases in spending. And what the bill did was simply accelerate or increase the amount of estimated tax payments that taxpayers who make more than $5 million in adjusted gross income each year have to pay in. Now, admittedly, folks who make more than $5 million a year in adjusted gross income are not a particularly sympathetic group. They are easy targets; so this increase in the estimated tax payment would pay for the additional spending on a strict cash-flow basis. Now, what they have done, in effect, with this mechanism is to take an advance on next month's salary to pay for this month's expenses, which creates a very interesting definition of PAYGO. It is not by any means a traditional definition of PAYGO, but as I noted last time I looked, most of the colleagues on the other side of the aisle voted in favor of what I would call a very twisted version of PAYGO to get out from under this taint that their first bill passed. The mechanics are that folks who make more than $5 million a year in adjusted gross income have to make quarterly estimated tax payments, in addition to whatever withholding they may make on their salaries, in order that on April 15 of the following year they have paid in all of the money that they will owe in taxes that year, estimated to have made. So they will make a payment on April 15 for their 2007 taxes. They will make a payment on June 15 for 2007 taxes. They will make a payment on September 15, and then they will make a final payment on January 15 that should, in effect, pay 100 percent of their 2007 tax bill. What this provision does is it creates a safe harbor for those folks that says if their income went up substantially from one year to the next, then they may have paid in less money than is due for that year. The mechanics of this is the Tax Code creates a safe harbor for these taxpayers. It says if you've paid in 100 percent of what your actual was the year before, and you've paid that in by April 15 and your ultimate tax liability is a lot more than that, then there are no penalties and interest associated with it if you do the catch-up on April 15. So what the bill last week did is it increased that safe harbor number by one-tenth of a percent. Now, this is a bunch of mumbo-jumbo for most folks back home, but basically what this does is we have borrowed the money to pay for these additional expenses from someone that may or may not owe additional taxes. And, in fact, the bill sponsor from the other side specifically said at the end of his conversation on the floor last week that his bill raised taxes on no Americans, did not raise any new tax, did not raise any taxes. So what we had here is a cash flow issue that accelerated some cash flow to the Federal Government, and under this scoring mechanism that we use, it appears that PAYGO has not been violated, it has been honored. But basically what we've done with this version of PAYGO, and apparently there are going to be multiple versions of PAYGO that get talked about on this House floor, this version of PAYGO simply says that if we can take an advance from next month's salary to pay for next month's expenses, then we're okay, and we will worry about next month next month. So this is a very interesting concept for PAYGO. It is not the traditional PAYGO that most folks in District 11 would understand and agree to. It is a new version.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight in recognition of Jack Calvert for 16 years of service as the mayor of the city of Lampasas in the 11th District of Texas. Mayor Calvert graduated from New Mexico Military Institute in 1956 and served in the Army as a second lieutenant. He served in various command and staff positions, including test officer in Greenland, assistant professor of chemistry at West Point, and he served in combat in Vietnam where he was awarded the Purple Heart. After a 3-year tour at the Pentagon, he served for 3 years in Germany. Mr. Calvert then served at Joliet Army Ammunition Plant and in 1979 was assigned to the Army War College. Following this assignment, Mayor Calvert then served as the director of Battlefield Automation at Fort Hood and after 3 years he retired from the United States Army as a colonel. Mayor Calvert's service to his community and his country did not end after his retirement from the military. He then served on different civic groups. He and his wife, Fran, chose Lampasas as their home and purchased a historic house to restore back to its original structure. Along with his service, he and his wife, Fran, raised three children: Charles Douglas, Lee Ann, and Mary. As mayor of Lampasas, he successfully guided the city and its councils through many growth issues. Jack Calvert is a true leader of leaders in the 11th Congressional District, and I am proud to represent him here in the House of Representatives.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's yielding the time. It is interesting, and our good colleague has left, but I would wonder why we constantly talk about history from 6 years ago that eliminates the conversation about 9/11, the recession that we went into, and an awful lot of things that had an impact on the financial circumstances or guesses at the financial circumstances over these intervening 10 or 12 years that seem to get lost whenever it is convenient. What I would like to speak to, though, is the mechanics of what is happening right here. This is a PAYGO fix and is intended to ``pay for'' the additional expenses for adding an additional Representative to this body. I disagree with that. It is unconstitutional from a straight reading, but that is not our issue. How do we pay for that? The folks back home understand the term ``PAYGO'' as if they want to pay for something, they have choices. They can borrow the money, which we have collectively done an awful lot of, or they can earn more money or they can cut spending in an area to pay for whatever the new expenditure is. This bill takes the first route. This is simply a cash flow issue. This does not actually raise the money that the Federal Government gets to keep to pay for these additional expenses. This bill simply looks at a very unsympathetic group of taxpayers out there, folks who are blessed to make over $5 million in AGI each year, and says, we are going to borrow the money from you to pay for this. And so our friends on the other side of the aisle have a very twisted, in my view, definition of PAYGO which involves simply borrowing money, whether it is to pay for your American Express bill off of this month's Visa or to sign up for a new Visa to pay the old Visa card. This bill doesn't pay for these added Federal expenses. It simply finances it through a borrowing from taxpayers who make more than $5 million in adjusted gross income. So we many times come to this floor with less than straightforward conversations about what we are doing. This is one of those times. This is not a PAYGO fix. This is simply a cash flow, borrowing the money from a certain number of taxpayers, because the bill does not raise anyone's tax. It does increase the amount of advanced payment that taxpayers have to make each year, depending on what their tax scheme is. But their ultimate tax bill is decided by the code that is in existence right now and will not be changed. So as the other side, Mr. Speaker, brags on this bill as being their answer to the additional spending under the D.C. voting bill, it is not right. This simply borrows the money from some other group and does not pay for it. So I would oppose this bill. It does not honor the traditional definition of PAYGO that we are all familiar with, and I would urge my colleagues to vote against it.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, because I was attending a funeral at West Point this morning, I missed rollcall No. 221, adoption of H. Res. 306: Offering heartfelt condolences to the victims and their families regarding the horrific violence at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, because I was attending a funeral at West Point this morning, I missed rollcall No. 220, adoption of H. Res. 301: Providing for consideration of H.R. 1257, to amend the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to provide shareholders with an advisory vote on executive compensation. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, because I was attending a funeral at West Point this morning, I missed rollcall No. 219, adoption of previous question for H. Res. 301: Providing for consideration of H.R. 1257, to amend the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to provide shareholders with an advisory vote on executive compensation. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Madam Chair, I want to speak against this Progressive Caucus budget in the strongest terms available. Over the last couple of weeks, I have somewhat tongue in cheek talked about when the Defeat in Iraq Caucus and when the Defeat in Afghanistan Caucus get their way that it won't be long before they declare a defeat dividend. As you recall in the 1990s when the Soviet Union failed, this Chamber and others declared a peace dividend. They took money that would have otherwise supported our troops in the fight and spent it somewhere else. I thought it would take until the defeat actually occurred, but I come today and find that the Progressive Caucus has already declared a $781 billion defeat dividend. We have men and women in harm's way right now giving their lives for this country. Whether you agree with it or not, that is what they are doing. Where was this group last week when they said let's keep them in the fight for 17 more months? Why did you stand up and say that was okay and yet call what they are doing the single largest waste of taxpayer money in American history? You cannot have it both ways. Vote your convictions. Get them out of Iraq now. That is a legitimate position to defend. But to say we are going to keep them there for 17 more months, strip them of $781 billion in flak jackets and up-armored Humvees and all of the things you would take away from them is simply unfair and unconscionable. I encourage my fellow colleagues to vote against this Progressive Caucus budget over and over. This is wrongheaded. It is not the way to lead this country. It sends a terrible message to our soldiers in the Armed Forces who are fighting this fight on our behalf.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the ranking member of the committee for yielding. This budget resolution we are talking about tonight is a target-rich environment for things that we can disagree about that are in there. I have been tasked to talk about the things that aren't in the budget that we wish we would have been able to get in the budget, such as process reform. Every year that we have this opportunity to do a budget, we have an opportunity to reform our processes and do this budgeting process in a better way. We spent all day last week in the Budget Committee during the hearing to try to get some of that done; and, quite frankly, we failed miserably on our side to convince our colleagues of the value of some these reforms. Reforms like strengthening PAYGO to make it really mean PAYGO in the way our folks back home would understand it, to have PAYGO apply to the very first year of this budget. We were unable to get that done. I offered an amendment that said if you are going to start a new program, a new, great idea in this vast array of programs that we have in our Federal Government, you would have to kill an existing program of equal or greater spending. Well, in the rarified air of that room that night, I got laughed out of the room. I don't do instant messages, but I think the term ``LOL'' comes to mind. They were laughing out loud. One Member rolled their eyes the way my 14-year-old daughter used to do about, I guess, how naive I was about this process. But I can assure you, I can assure you that back in Texas the idea of setting priorities, of trying to decide between good things, what we can afford and what we can't afford, and putting in place a mechanism that helps us with that discipline, does not get laughed out of the room. It is only in Washington that would be a laughingstock. We also attempted to do away with the Gephardt rule. I have heard for the first 2 years of my service here night after night after night people decrying the fact that we had hidden in our arcane way of doing business raising the debt ceiling without taking an up-or-down vote, without standing in here and doing it the way we ought to do. We offered an amendment that would have eliminated the Gephardt rule. A vote for this resolution is a vote for whatever requisite debt ceiling limits are necessary; a separate vote would have been better on that. We offered up other process reforms that had been offered in the 109th Congress by the Democrats. We brought these to the committee hearing on a word-for-word basis for what they proposed, brought and voted for just last year. Not one of those passed. Every single one of those went down on a party-line vote. I am here tonight to express my disappointment with the fact that we were not able to gain some process reforms in this resolution. I am disappointed that it is not in the underlying resolution. I will oppose it for that reason and a lot of others. I am here to express my disappointment, and I urge my colleagues to vote against this resolution.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Madam Speaker, on rollcall No. 157, H. Res. 138-- Recognizing the importance of Hot Springs National Park on its 175th Anniversary. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and congratulate Mr. Larry Carroll on 30 years of outstanding service with the Permian Basin Community Centers. Mr. Carroll represents the model public citizen. He has served the Permian Basin Community Center as director of finance, deputy executive director, and now as the center's executive director. I served on and chaired the board of directors for the PBCC and know Mr. Carroll to be one of the finest, most capable executive directors in the community center system. It is his commitment, dedication and wisdom that has helped develop the center into one of the most outstanding community organizations the Permian Basin has to offer. Mr. Carroll has made a personal commitment to helping others through his additional valued work with the Rotary Club and Leadership Odessa, and I am proud to represent my friend in Congress. The 11th District of Texas congratulates and graciously thanks Mr. Carroll for this milestone and his exemplary service to the community.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. If you look at our history, if you look at the year 1776 and you study George Washington that year, he got up every day thinking that was the last day of the revolution. His army in many cases was in tatters, it was unpaid, it was underequipped. He could not have made the certification that the Democrats are demanding that this President make in order to send a single unit into combat; Washington could not have made that certification and he would have had to give up. He got up every day thinking, This is the last day of the deal. I am sure there were critics all over the place saying we are done, it is over, this grand experiment that turned into America, turned into 230 years of a beacon for liberty and democracy around the world, would have failed had he not stuck to this plan and stuck to the understanding that we could win this fight. And it was hard. Good men lost their lives every day, and it was hard. We are there at the same place today in Iraq. It is hard and good men and women risk their lives and some lose their lives every single day. I mourn with the families and I cry with them, just as you do, when somebody from the district is killed or maimed or injured. This has serious consequences to what we do. But failure in Iraq, a disaster that would be an immediate pullout, is simply unacceptable on every level. Let me switch gears for a minute, and then I will let my good colleague close, with some good news, totally unrelated to the supplemental except that it does have to do with this year's financial results. As you know, I am a CPA and I like to look at numbers and all those kinds of things. If you look at the first 5 months of fiscal 2007, our revenue collections into this Federal Government are up $81 billion over the equivalent 5-month period in fiscal 2006. An additional $81 billion has been collected, not because we raised taxes, not because we had any changes to the Tax Code, because we haven't implemented any of those, but it is because this economy is ginning along. Expenses are also up almost $26 billion. So the net of those two is that we have got a deficit for the first 5 months of fiscal 2007 that is $55.5 billion less than the equivalent 5-month deficit for fiscal 2006. I just wanted to inject a little great news into the conversation and get that into the record. These numbers come directly from the Treasury Department's monthly financial reports that are available on the Web for anybody to look at. I wanted to highlight those numbers tonight as we finish up this Countdown hour that we spent tonight talking about Iraq. These are grave times, tough times, hard times, and I think our resolve is firm. We will see this week the integrity of our colleagues in this Chamber as to how they vote, how they have talked in this Chamber versus how they vote on this deal. There are only two positions: stay and fight, win this thing and be successful; or get out, get our folks out now. There is no half step in between that you can orchestrate any kind of a justification that makes any sense. It will be interesting to watch our colleagues as they struggle with this vote this week, with their own integrity and their own ideas of what is right and wrong. With that, to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, I will yield back. Thank you for having this Special Order tonight.

Mr. CONAWAY. I would like to add one aspect that hasn't been discussed. We hate to engage in too much speculation, but let us assume that this thing passes and the President vetoes it or let us assume that cooler heads prevail and this thing fails this week on the floor. What next? What is this Congress going to do to actually continue to provide the funds needed, this $99 billion that is needed right now, this year, this fiscal year to fight this fight? What will be the next step? How will we, in effect, bring this about? What kind of a scramble will go on that is totally unnecessary? Instead of dealing with the problem now in a rational, thoughtful manner, this Democratic majority sees fit to play a giant game of chicken, it seems like, to run at this thing in what I believe is an irresponsible manner with loading another $21.8 billion of funding on it, getting away from what the true nature of it is, trying to incite a veto by the President, trying to flex muscle and see who is the strongest as opposed to what do we need to do to deal with the troops' needs and then separate that from the broader discussion of where we should be. So I think we are on a collision course that has the potential for being very disruptive and very harmful to the men and women who fight this fight on our behalf.

Mr. CONAWAY. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania. I want to make sure, Mr. Speaker, that as we talk tonight about an incredibly serious matter that those listening don't have a sense that we have a callous disregard for the men and women who are fighting this fight. We stand up here night after night and talk about the sacrifices made and the dedication of this all-volunteer force, and the phrase kind of rolls off our tongue very easily. I want to make sure that those listening understand that each one of those lives lost is incredibly precious. When I am out and about in the district in Texas talking to folks, I typically ask the question, how many folks have someone they know serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, and a lot of times a lot of hands will go up. I will then ask, no, I need to know how many people out here have somebody in harm's way that when they hear about a death in Iraq, their stomach gets in a knot until they know it is not their loved one, and most of the hands go down. So we are fighting a fight there that while it has a dramatic impact on an awful lot of lives, broadly across this country, day in and day out, most Americans aren't really affected by this sacrifice, by this magnificent fighting force that we have in place. I typically challenge that audience to say, look, anytime you hear about sacrifice for this country, dying for this country, fighting for this country, make sure you think about it in the terms of some specific person. Not the global group, because that defuses the impact. That lessens the tugs at our hearts and helps us deal with it. I want you to think about some specific person that has given their life on behalf of this country. For me, it is a high school buddy of mine that died in Vietnam, a Medal of Honor winner. I look at all that I have done since he and I graduated from high school. He gave up all of that so that we could live in freedom today. We have got the exact kind of men and women fighting in Iraq today and in Afghanistan today and in other places around this world that we don't get to talk about that are laying their lives on the line, laying their futures on the line, laying their ability to walk a daughter down the aisle at her wedding, the ability to hold a grandchild, and all those kinds of things that those of us who make it into this stage of life have gotten to do. Yet our men and women volunteer to take on these responsibilities, take these risks, and put themselves between you and I and some really, really bad people. So as we come to this Chamber night after night to talk about this fight, we need to make sure we understand exactly who it is we are talking about, who we are talking to. We got an e-mail 2 weeks ago, 3 weeks ago, when we were debating that nonsense on the meaningless, toothless House resolution from a buck sergeant in Mosul who made the comment, he said, you know, the professional veneer we keep in place that says that debate, that conversation going on back in America, has no impact on our ability total fight, our moral, he said that veneer is very thin. Underneath, we are angry, we are mad. We think we are being sold out. So the things that we say in this Chamber and in front of newspapers and televisions have a deep impact on the men and women who fight this fight. It is almost as if we taunt them when we talk about, well, we are going to support you, but we don't believe in what you do. We want to support you, but we think you are screwing things up. We want to support you, but we are not going to pay for it. All of those kinds of things are a mixed message that has deep impact, and while I would defend my colleagues' rights to continue to say those things and have those opinions and debate those things, I would also challenge them to understand the deep impact they have as they make those statements, as they talk about their positions, as they put forth their ideas on what we should and should not be doing in Iraq. It comes with a great responsibility that each one of us brings to this Chamber when we talk.

Mr. CONAWAY. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for hosting this hour tonight. It is particularly important, given it is the first of these hours for the week in which rumor has it that the war supplemental will be on the House floor this week up for debate. We don't even have really good rumors as to whether or not the other side will recognize the normal order of business with appropriations bills and bring it to the floor as an open rule, as has been the tradition certainly under the 12 years of Republican leadership. And so we are anxious to see the arrival of this first spending bill, if the other side brings it with a modified closed rule or a closed rule.

Mr. CONAWAY. If the gentleman will yield back. We don't know for sure. I know that, during the debate last week, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee could not confirm his instructions from his leadership as to what he should be doing. In other words, were we going to have an open rule, as has been the tradition. Well beyond the 12 years' takeover that the Republican's experienced, it has just been a tradition on each floor that we bring an appropriations bill to the floor with open rules. And as late as last week, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, a guy that you would think would be in the know, would be in the inner circle, in the inside skinny with respect to the Democrat leadership, even he didn't know what the Speaker had decided in this arena. So the caveats placed in there, the restrictions on our ability to fight this fight, the instructions to the President, I want to speak at from a little different angle. You yourself talked about the advantages that gives our enemies if we have a date certain that we have to be out of Iraq. That is pretty obvious. It doesn't take a lot of common sense, it doesn't take a lot of warfighting experience to understand that if you give your enemy that kind of an advance notice, that that is a clear advantage to the enemy. I want to look at it from the other side. I want to look at it from the side of our troops. How do we ask good men and women who defend this country with their lives to fight under those considerations? One of the great lines that the other side has used to argue about the war is, well, if we would have just known in 2002 what we know today, we would have voted differently. Well, yeah. Right. Well, let me maybe take a bit of a twist on that. How do we face that mom and dad in March of 2008 whose son or daughter has been maimed or killed? How do we look them in the eye and say, yeah, you know, if we had known in March of 2007, when we were setting the arbitrary and artificial dates, that your son was going to get killed in March of 2008, gee, we would have set the date at March 28 or January 31. And so what we are doing to our troops is that we are undermining their morale, their strength of purpose by asking them to do things that are just unbelievably untenable. Night after night after night we listen to these floor speeches and we hear people build a case that in their mind we need to get out. We have had a couple earlier tonight, in fact, Mr. Speaker, that went through a litany of information they have used, they have gleaned to make their decision that we have lost this fight and that we need to get out. Well, this body, from time to time, like daily, has its integrity challenged. Each one of us has a challenge to our integrity all the time; whether it is from a campaign contribution that we got and they are trying to link it to some sort of official act, all those integrity issues play out in the media constantly, and we rarely get our day in court. We rarely have an opportunity to stand tall and vote our conscience. I am going to argue, Mr. Speaker, that the Out of Iraq Caucus and all those other Members who have come in here night after night after night saying we have got to get out of Iraq have got an opportunity to vote their conscience this week. I will argue, Mr. Speaker, that there are only two legitimate positions with respect to what we are doing in Iraq. The first, that I agree with, is to fight this fight and win it. The other legitimate circumstance is to get out today. There is no half ground. There is no half-stepping it. There is no run up the white flag and retreat the way that this supplemental would argue. There are no other choices but to fight the fight or get out. And so all of these colleagues of ours that have night after night after night preached about getting out of Iraq have got an opportunity to demonstrate their integrity to their convictions. We will see how they vote. Will they vote the party line, come down here, 233 of them strong, vote in favor of this supplemental with these restrictions on them that are unworkable in the extreme, but that put our men and women in harm, that make it very difficult for our combat leaders? Our good colleague tonight is an experienced pilot in the Airborne. How do you ask a sergeant, how do you ask a first lieutenant to go do a dangerous mission in the last half of March of 2008, knowing that by the end of the month we are getting out of there? And how do you ask people to do that? You simply can't. You can't ask people to do that. You can't ask people to put their lives on the line under that kind of a restriction.

Mr. CONAWAY. I appreciate my colleague's comment. This war, this fight has been compared with Vietnam. I think it is a lousy comparison. I think it is flawed on every level. But if we look at what happened when America withdrew, under Democratic leadership, withdrew, Democratic House, withdrew from Vietnam, look what happened to the people of Vietnam, the boat people exodus, the death inside Vietnam, and then the spillover into Cambodia with Pol Pot, 2 million lives lost under that ripple effect. But the one thing that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have yet to answer, in addition to how do you face that mom and dad as a part of this artificial deadline, how do you manage the disaster in Iraq if we did pull out tonight, if we did get our guys out of there? The regional fight, the spillover into other countries, the humanitarian suffering on an incredible scale, how do, in fact, we manage that disaster if your answer is that we have to get out of Iraq tonight?