Peter DeFazio

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. In conclusion, I could say we can do all those things and, in my opinion, with the proper priorities, we can balance the Federal budget.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Sure. Let us start at the top. American Telephone and Telegraph, profit, $24,898,000,000 from 1982 to 1985 in profits. And guess how much they paid in taxes?

Mr. DeFAZIO. I brought the list, just so we could review a few. 1982 to 1985, 42 major corporations paying zero or less.

Mr. DeFAZIO. In response to that, I think that part of what breeds the disenfranchisement, the fact that people are turned off, is things like the bill that was passed here in the wee hours last night. Funny thing, when Mr. Gingrich had things in his contract and he wanted to trump it, we always stopped about the middle of the evening and then brought them up the next day so they could play it prime time. But two bills, term limits and now tax breaks, were voted on very, very late at night. They are very cynically named. This was a bill to provide middle income tax relief. The gentleman touched on this very well. The only group of people who are consistently paying higher taxes in 1995 than in 1980 are middle-income wage earners, small business owners and people who work for hourly wages or a salary. They are paying more, because Congress jacked up the FICA tax, Social Security, dramatically, a regressive flat tax which is capped at $64,000 a year of income, and also what has happened with bracket creep and other things. The wealthy, those who earn over 200,000 a year, they were yelling and screaming like stuck pigs over the Clinton budget which put them in the normal 39 percent tax bracket, which is down from the 70 percent tax bracket that they were in in 1979. And, of course, they only paid the 7 percent FICA tax on the first $60,000 of their earnings. But then what people see, they tune in. And some of them would have voted for the new majority who were disenchanted with what had happened to them. They saw their standard of living declined, and they asked for help and reached out for change and help. And they brought in a group of people who turned back the clock to the point from the bill that was passed last evening, but what there will be is tremendous court relief. They did not talk much about those parts of the bill on the floor. They talked about some of the smaller portions. Just the repeal of the corporate alternative minimum tax, your eyes glaze over when you hear that. But it is so significant.

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

Mr. DeFAZIO. The gentleman is on the Banking Committee. Has there been a vote in the Banking Committee on this issue?

Mr. DeFAZIO. No, we have not been allowed to directly bring the issue to the floor, although there was some language attached to today's Department of Defense conference report.

Mr. DeFAZIO. They had 24 billion in profits. Would you think, if they were working for wages, they would have paid even a little more than 6 billion? They would have paid 28 percent? No, try one more time.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Let me list a couple of others. This is serious. And we do not want to be facetious. I will jump down to, say, the middle of the list. Xerox Corporation, over that three-year period, $670,300,000 in profits. And they received a tax credit of $42.8 million. So their tax rate was minus 6.5 percent.

Mr. DeFAZIO. One more. Let us pick a high tech company, Tectronics-- they have not been doing so well lately but back then they did better-- $163,300,000 profits over three years, and they got a $13,800,000 tax rebate for a negative 8.5 percent rate of taxation. Just last night we repealed the law that did away with this scandal. That was part of the contract on America, to do away with the corporate alternative minimum tax. That means that an American who works in a factory job for 10 bucks an hour, if Mr. Gingrich's dream bill here goes through, the crown jewel, will pay absolutely, not in rates, but will pay absolutely more in taxes than some of these largest corporations in the world.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I stand in opposition to this Republican tax giveaway. Mr. Chairman, the legislation before us will not provide meaningful tax relief for the middle class, but instead is merely a giveaway for corporate American and the Nation's wealthiest taxpayers. Most importantly, the Republicans have not come up with enough revenue to pay for the more than $600 billion shortfall over the next ten years. Our first responsibility is to get the deficit under control, not hand out politically popular goodies for multibillion dollar corporations and families that make more than $200,000 a year. Our country now owes more than $4.6 trillion, and that figure is growing fast. The interest payment on this debt will exceed $200 billion this year. Worst of all, we're adding to that debt at the rate of $4 billion every single week. Our first priority should be to reduce the deficit, not engage in politics-as-usual. I must admit, the Republicans have made some attempts to pay for their tax giveaway. Tax cuts would be paid for by cutting $110 billion out of a number of domestic programs, including WIC, food stamps and other Federal nutrition programs, Medicare, and welfare for legal immigrants in the United States. In addition, Federal employees would be required to increase their pension fund contributions. The increase is expected to cost a Federal employee earning $30,000 a year an additional $750 in taxes each year. And what does the Republican's tax plan pay for? Not relief for the average families. The Republican majority tax cut proposals would give only a nod toward tax relief for middle income families. In the Republican plan, a family would receive the so-called family tax breaks if they earn between $20,000 and $250,000--those who earn less than $20,000 would receive nothing. When you take the other tax breaks into account, the average family doesn't do much better, but the rich would see a windfall. Families making more than $200,000 would see more than $11,000. Let me put that into perspective. Average families may see enough of a tax break to pay for a tank of gas each month. However, if you make more than $200,000, your tax break would be enough to buy a new BMW. That is right, the rich will get enough of a tax rebate for the monthly payments on a new luxury car. I am particularly outraged over the Republican proposal to do away with the alternative minimum tax for profitable corporations. There was a huge public outcry during the early 1980's when many were very large and profitable corporations paid little or no income tax. Some of these corporations even received refundable tax credits. For example, AT&T made $24.9 billion in profits from 1982-1985. However, their team of tax lawyers wrangled a rebate of $636 million from the U.S. Treasury. The alternative minimum tax was established to stop large corporations from abusing the tax code. A repeal of this system would represent a government subsidy of the Nation's largest corporations and cost the Treasury $17 billion. I can't support that. This Nation does need tax relief for working Americans and small businesses. I examine tax proposals to see whether working Americans would benefit. First, does it address the inequities of the last two decades when middle income people paid the largest share of increases? Second, if the proposal includes a revenue decrease, does it also include a corresponding revenue increase to ensure that it doesn't increase the federal debt? For example, I would support cutting taxes for working Americans, while also increasing the share of taxes paid by foreign multinational corporations, which enjoyed substantial windfalls in the 1980's. One of my colleagues tried to put forward legislation this week to end special tax breaks for multinational corporations and foreign investors. Unfortunately, the Republicans did not allow us to vote on the language by Representative Evans. We will have no opportunity to save $24 billion in revenue by closing loopholes and special tax breaks for these foreign investors. I agree, we have got to encourage savings and investment in this country. I would support an equitable capital gains tax cut that really encouraged long-term, productive investment and job creation in the United States. That's not the case with the Republican proposal, which established no limits on the types of investments, nor provided adequate incentives for longer term investment. Only about 25 percent of this multibillion dollar tax break would go to families earning less than $150,000 a year--the same families who were hit hard by the tax changes of the 1980's. Most families would get no benefit at all. The proposed capital gains tax cut would not distinguish between the rapidly growing world of high stakes gambling in derivatives, and other speculative investments, versus productive investment. When I think of how such a tax cut could truly benefit working Americans, I think of the Oregon family who realized the fruits of 35 years investment in a tree farm. Shouldn't the tax codes encourage this type of investment as opposed to derivative speculation on Wall Street? Unfortunately, the Republican proposal does not discriminate between productive investment and speculation. So at the end of the Republican majority's first hundred days. Here's the heart of the Republican agenda. Take from the middle class and the needy, and give to the rich. It is trickle down economics all over again, and we know how well that worked in the 1980's.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, the reason we are still doing 1-minutes is because the Republican leadership is twisting the arms of their caucus to try to get the votes for this tax giveaway, the same arms that they did not twist last week when term limits was on the floor. There was a shameful time in this country in the mid-1980's when the largest, most profitable corporations in the land paid no income taxes, and we are about to turn back the clock. This bill repeals a modest income tax on the largest, most profitable corporations in this country, so they can go back to paying zero. People who earn over $200,000 a year, they can get capital gains at 14 percent. That is half of the tax bracket for middle income Americans. Is it not a great country when people, Members of Congress earning $133,000 a year, can vote themselves a wonderful juicy tax break, because they are in a big enough tax bracket to take advantage of it? When the dust settles, average Americans are going to get it stuck to them again, and the rich are going to be drinking champagne and eating caviar.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, the Speaker said it all over the weekend. He talked about the crown jewel, or the crowning achievement of the Republican Contract on America; that is, the coming tax cuts. I would say it is a crowning achievement for certain, because we are talking about $188 billion over 5 years. That is even more than these precious jewels on this crown here could represent: $630 billion over 10 years. This is quite an achievement. We have been cutting and hacking our way through domestic programs the school lunch program, the Women, Infants, and Children Program, and a whole host of other things that are important to middle-income Americans. We are putting that in the pot. That is going to help begin to pay for the crowning achievement, for the crown jewels. We could say, in fact, that figuratively the Speaker and his party have been taking dollars and cents out of the pockets of middle-income and less-well-off Americans, thrown them all together in one big pot, in order to buy a crown for those who are already at the top. Mr. Speaker, one of the most startling proposals, and this wasn't in the contract to come forward, but it has been added after some corporate arm-twisting and lobbying, big business got a very, very special break here. Everyone's eyes start to glaze over a bit when you talk taxes, so I guess no one thought much when suddenly the Republican contract had a little addition; that is, a repeal of the alternative corporate minimum tax. had a corporate alternative minimum tax. Here is what it meant back then. From 1982 to 1985, AT&T--American Telephone and Telegraph--had profits of $24,898,000,000, and guess how much they paid in taxes: nothing. In fact, after $24,898,000,000 in profits over that 4-year period, they were entitled to a $635.5 million tax credit. That is, working Americans people who go to work every day, and every day the Government takes something out of their paycheck, a little bit of that went to give AT&T a tax credit for taxes that it did not pay. Who else? What else did this mean back in 1982? The Boeing Company was doing a little better back then. They were selling more airplanes. They had profits of $2,271,000. How much did they pay in taxes? Not one red cent. In fact, they got a refundable tax credit of $121 million. The list goes on; Texaco, $1.5 billion, a $68 million credit. Finally, Mr. Speaker, the loser at the bottom of this list of 50, Middle South utilities, with a puny $2.5 billion in profits, paid nothing, but they were not eligible for a credit. They did not get the crown. However, maybe under this new proposal they will. It is ironic that the Republican tax proposal would not give a refundable tax credit for children. That is right, for people who are already at the bottom of the rung, people earning around $20,000 to $25,000 a year, they cannot get a refundable tax credit for their children, but our corporations now will be able to get refundable tax credits. Doesn't that make you feel a lot better? Doesn't that give you a little bit better idea what this is all about? The estimates are that these credits would flow to the largest corporations in this country; 90 percent of the alternative minimum tax that was paid in 1990 was paid by firms with assets of more than $250 million. Three-quarters--75 percent--of those firms had assets of more than $2 billion, so it is those poor struggling firms with only $2 billion in assets to whom we are going to extend a refundable tax credit through this legislation this week. Working Americans, the day after the crowning achievement of the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Gingrich], the Contract With America, passes, will go to work and the Government will still take a nice piece of change out of their paycheck. That will not change a bit, particularly if you only earned $20,000 or $25,000 a year. However, the corporation you work for might just get a nice big, fat tax break, particularly if they are worth more than $2 billion. Think about it.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, on March 9, I was having dinner at a nearby restaurant with the Oregon State labor commissioner and apparently my electronic beeper malfunctioned and I missed a recorded vote on the Cox amendment to H.R. 956 which would cap non-economic pain and suffering damages in health care liability cases at $250,000. If I had been present I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, Speaker Gingrich's whip organization has been awesome as he has rolled up victory after victory no matter how controversial his legislative agenda. He rolled up a large majority of Republicans to push GATT through a lame duck Congress. Speaker Gingrich did yeoman's work behind the scenes to deter any congressional scrutiny of the $40 billion Mexico bailout, and when we finally forced a vote on the floor the Republican leader threatened committee assignments, subcommittee chairs and other retaliations if his minions did not toe the line. Just last week they flexed their leadership muscle gain on welfare and nutrition reform, but the muscles of the Speaker's whip organization have suddenly gone flaccid with the prospect of term limits. amendments that are designed to fail. It is time for supporters of the Republican contract to sue for breach of contract, or maybe to invoke the ultimate term limits in November 1996 and vote the rascals out.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, let us talk a little bit about phony baselines, which is where the gentleman on the other side of the aisle left off before the time expired. That is a funny place here inside the Beltway in Washington, DC. The Pentagon gets its own special baseline. That is, at the Pentagon things are very expensive, you know, over there at the Pentagon. So they get not only the inflation that seniors get on Social Security or the inflation that anybody else might think about, they get their own special inflation index. And at the Pentagon a cut is a decrease in the increase. So say next year the Pentagon determines its own little special inflation index is 6 percent. If they only get a 5 percent increase in their $271 billion budget, that is if they only get an increase around $11 billion, if they only get $10 billion, that is a decrease, and we would hear screams from that side of the aisle. We heard screams earlier. We have appropriated more money for the Pentagon this year. God forbid we should ask them to produce something. It costs extra. We had to come up with a supplemental bill to pay for the Pentagon to do something. They couldn't squeeze it out of their $271 billion budget. Now with the nutrition programs, of course, they apply a different ruler. That is, are there going to be more kids going to school next year? Yes; is food going to be more expensive next year? Yes. There might even be a little bit of an increase in the wages for the people who cook those meals in the schools. A lot of them are getting minimum wage, and if we increase the minimum wage they will get a little bit more. Now in their world those increases don't count. Only increases in inflation for the Pentagon count. So here is the world we are looking at. We know there will be more kids in school. We know there will be more need for those kids. I visited a school lunch last week and talked about it last Monday night on the floor. So I won't repeat the stories about how hungry those kids are on Mondays and Fridays and what the needy really is. But the point is, in their world we will only give them enough money to increase it just a little bit. And if there are more kids, the portions get smaller. Or if there are more kids, ketchup becomes a vegetable again, whatever. We are just--can't afford those things. But we can afford an infinite amount of money for the Pentagon. That is what is wrong with this debate. Let's put our priorities in order here. This debate is about priorities. What will make America stronger tomorrow? Is it hungry kids who can't learn because we cut back on the school lunch program, the school breakfast program? Or is it imaginary programs like star wars and the fat defense contractors taking people out to dinner every night on the Federal budget, which we all know goes on with these Pentagon lobbyists. So I would like to put it in that perspective. And let's just remember, when it comes to the Pentagon, a decrease and an increase is a cut, but when it comes to school lunches, a decrease in a real need is not a cut. That is what the Republicans are trying to feed us here. It is about as real as feeding people ketchup and calling it a vegetable They talk a lot about the bureaucrats. I checked that out. I was disturbed about that. I thought, well, maybe they are right. We could eliminate some of these administrative cuts if we eliminated every administrator. That is from the woman who runs the program downtown here in Washington, DC., down to the person who takes the little lunch tickets, to the person who cooks in the school. That is if Congress could miraculously appropriate the money and deliver the food straight to the kids with no one in between. That would be one-eighth of the cuts the Republicans are making in the real needs of these programs. So it is a lie. It is a lie to say we just want to eliminate the bureaucrats. No, you can't just eliminate the bureaucrats. Where are you going to get the other seven-eighths of your cut? The gentleman, Mr. Olver, made a great point. How is it they can talk about $7 billion, ``b'', billion dollars, in savings in school nutrition programs, WIC programs and other children's nutrition programs and then tell us there aren't any cuts. I would like to make $7 billion in savings over at the Pentagon, and I would be happy to tell the Pentagon that those things don't constitute cuts. But we would hear screams from that side of the aisle because it is a different standard. It is a different ruler when it comes to kids. They come after the Pentagon.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, the United States of America set a record last month or in January, a $16.3 billion merchandise trade deficit, not something to be proud of by our Commerce Department who measures that. That means we lost 244,000 American manufacturing jobs. The trade deficit was up 69 percent in January, the largest imbalance with Mexico in a decade, $863 million deficit with Mexico. Yes, NAFTA is working just great, thank you very much. Japan, a $4.9 billion deficit, and China $2.7 billion, up 34 percent. The dollar has plunged to record lows. We cannot go on piling deficit on deficit, month after month, year after year without bankrupting our economy. We bailed out Mexico when they could not pay their international bills. Who will bail us out and what conditions will they impose? Our trade policy in this country is a failure, it is a disaster and the silence in Washington is deafening.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, for too long the extremes in the debate over western forest management have dominated the stage. On one side there are those who oppose any timber harvests in our public lands, even if it is necessary to improve forest health and reduce the risk of catastrophic fires. On the other side there are those who would treat our national forests as little more than industrial tree farms, sacrificing even the most basic environmental protections in the interests of short-term profit. Last summer's western fires provided a hint of what may lie ahead. Catastrophic fires, unlike the low intensify fire regime that has been the historical norm, could devastate habitat for many declining and threatened species, including Columbia Basin salmon populations. An ecologically sensitive program of thinning. Controlled burning and salvage logging is essential to restore forest health across millions of acres in the West. If done with care, such a program could improve forest increased fiber supplies for our region's mills. Mr. Chairman, I would have liked to offer a balanced alternative to this proposal today, but the Republican leadership would not allow it. The issue should never have been brought to the floor in this fashion. Salvage and forest health should be properly debated in the committees with jurisdiction and expertise and not written by special interests in the back rooms out of the public eye. This proposal lacks even the most basic environmental protections for steep, unstable slopes, fragile soils, critical riparian habitat, even wild and scenic rivers. It defines what is to be harvested as dead, dying, diseased or associated with the large stands of green timber to be harvested. I have legislated salvage before, but I did it properly in my first term in Congress. I played a major role in resolving a salvage controversy at least as contentious as the forest debate now raging here in Congress. The Silver Fire burned and erodes this area of the Siskiyou National Forest, long defended by environmental activists. That salvage was successfully done without harm. We could do the same across the Western United States if we were given the chance to offer a proper amendment. Mr. Chairman, for too long, the extremes in the debate over western forest management have dominated the stage. On one side, are those who oppose any timber harvest on our public lands, even if it is necessary to improve forest health and reduce the risk of catastrophic fires. On the other side, there are those who would treat our National Forests as little more than industrial tree farms, sacrificing even the most basic environmental protections in the interests of short-term profit. In my first term in Congress, I played a major role in resolving a salvage controversy at least as contentious as the forest health debate now raging in Congress. The Silver Fire burned in a roadless area of the Siskiyou National Forest long defended by environmental activists. The industry wanted to extend a road into the area and engage in wholesale salvage of dead and green timber. I was able to mediate an agreement that prevented new road building and green timber harvest, but allowed a significant amount of helicopter salvage of burned timber. Neither the industry nor the environmental community were entirely happy with the agreement we reached. But today the Silver Fire salvage stands as an example of environmentally sound salvage that had the additional benefit of providing a significant volume of timber. Today, I once again find myself somewhere between the extremes. On one side are those who oppose any thinning and salvage logging in the fire and pest-stricken forests of the West. On the other side are those who would throw all environmental protection out the window, and maximize timber production under the guise of a sound salvage program. Neither side has it right. Forests across the West are in the grip of an ecological crisis of unprecedented proportions. The forest health crisis is the result of long term drought and a century of human impacts in the form of fire suppression, timber harvesting, and the introduction of foreign pests, to name a few. The result is that millions of acres of public forest are in the worst shape they've ever been, victim to disease, insect infestation, and fire. Fire suppression has played a big part in undermining forest health. Controlling wildfires in forests where frequent, low intensity fires historically kept vegetation sparse has allowed a huge build-up of dense understory vegetation to take place. One study on the Boise National Forest in Idaho found that tree density on one site was about 29 trees per acre for the 300-plus years before 1906. Today on the same site, tree density has increased to 533 trees per acre and the species composition has changed from predominantly Ponderosa pine to predominantly Douglas Fir. Last summer's Western wildfires provided a hint of what may lie ahead. Catastrophic fires, unlike the low-intensity fire regime that has been the historical norm, could devastate habitat for many declining and threatened species, including Columbia basin salmon populations. An ecologically sensitive program of thinning, controlled burning and salvage logging is essential to restoring forest health across millions of acres in the West. If done with care, such a program could improve forest conditions, while providing the secondary benefit of increased fiber supplies for the region's mills. We need legislation to help expedite a response to the forest health crisis in the West. But a sound salvage and forest health program needs some environmental safeguards. Unfortunately, the Taylor-Dicks amendment contains none. The Taylor-Dicks amendment would allow logging in Wild and Scenic River corridors and sensitive riparian and roadless areas, with no restrictions based on slope or soil conditions. Its definition of salvage is so broad that it opens the door to wholesale logging in the region's remaining old growth forests and roadless areas. This is not the balanced approach to forest management that most Oregonians want to see. By setting an arbitrary minimum timber sale level, while prohibiting any environmental considerations on the part of the Forest Service, the Taylor-Dicks salvage amendment guarantees that sensitive salmon streams will be damaged, roadless areas will be opened up to commercial timber harvest, and areas that are simply unsuitable for timber management will be logged. This is a proposal that lurches from one unacceptable extreme to the other. That's why I will vote against this proposal and hope we have the opportunity to craft a salvage bill that gets the job done while protecting the values that Oregonians share. I would have liked to offer a balanced alternative to this proposal today, but the Republican leadership wouldn't allow it. The issue should never have been brought to the floor in this fashion. Salvage and forest health should be properly debated in the committees with jurisdiction and expertise, not written by industry lawyers in backrooms out of the public eye. So I am faced with two unacceptable choices--an extreme salvage program with no environmental safeguards or the status quo, which is simply not getting the job done. It bears stating that the Forest Service is moving ahead with a salvage program, though slowly. The agency plans to offer at least 1.4 billion board feet of salvage in each of the next 2 years. Assistant Secretary Lyons tells me they could offer even more if Congress would appropriate more money for sale preparation and other related activities. But this salvage bill contains no additional money for sale preparation. Oregonians, by and large, support policies that protect our environment and quality of life, without sacrificing our state's economic well-being. I hope to have an opportunity in the weeks ahead to offer a balanced Oregon alternative to the extreme log-it-at-all- costs salvage approach offered here today. I believe I'll have the support of most of my state's citizens when I do so.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman who preceded me in the well talked about the front lines. I do not know where he was yesterday, but I was at the front lines. I went and visited a WIC program in Springfield, my hometown in Springfield, OR. Apparently the gentleman is quite unfamiliar with the programs. They are run by local boards. In fact, the chairman of the board of our local WIC program is a Republican lawyer who a couple of years ago thought about running against me. So there is an incredible amount of discretion and weight given to local control. What did I not see at the WIC program yesterday? I did not see this: I did not see a low-birthweight baby who was suffering tremendously and who was going to be an extraordinary expense all paid for out of the other pocket of the taxpayers, by Medicaid. I did not see one of these yesterday. But what I did see were a bunch of healthy kids and some parents coming from a whole bunch of different circumstances. I want to talk just a little bit about that. I saw a teen mom yesterday, a category of recipient who would be cut off from benefits in the Ozzie and Harriet world of the other side of the aisle. We should not have teenage pregnancies, and, by God, if they have them, they are not going to get any benefits. What is going to happen to the baby in that world? You want to punish the teenager. What about the baby? I do not even think you should be punishing the teenager. A little counseling is a little more in order. I met a teen mom, and she had gotten some of that counseling at that WIC program. Counseling is one of the things cut off under the Republican block-grant proposal. You will give them the food vouchers still, but you will not get the nutrition counseling. They taught here how to breast-feed her little baby, and they were there yesterday, and they were a testimony to how well this program works. I saw a working mom with two kids. She is working, a single parent, but she qualified for the WIC program, and you know what, her kids had nutritional problems. They both had a problem with dairy. They had dairy sensitivity. She did not know how to deal with it. She did not have the wherewithal to nutrition counseling. She got a diet. I saw those two kids yesterday. They are beautiful kids. They are thriving now through the WIC program. They talk a lot about fraud and abuse. There are no allegations of fraud and abuse in the WIC program. People get vouchers for a healthy diet. You know, there are allegations, substantial allegations, in the food stamp program. What is very interesting is the Republicans originally proposed to block grant the food stamp program. But you know what, they backed off, not because they did not want to get at the $3 billion of fraud and abuse. I believe they want to get at that as much as I do and the organized crime. But because Safeway and A&P and Stop and Shop and all the farm lobby came in and said, ``You can't do that to us.'' Now, WIC unfortunately, the Women, Infants, and Children's Program, low-birthweight babies, the nursing moms, they do not have those kinds of lobbyists, the same kind of lobbyists Safeway has or the agriculture groups have. So food stamps is back on with ineffective measures to deal with the $3 billion of fraud and abuse, but WIC is on the chopping block. It is going into a block grant program about 80 percent of the funding it gets now, and 20 percent of that money can be diverted by the Governor of any State to any other purpose they want. And they tell me, ``Don't worry, the WIC program won't be hurt.'' Well, there is an unmet need in my hometown of Springfield, OR, and I know there are unmet needs in many other towns across America, and the WIC program is one of the most cost-effective ways of meeting that need. I met another gentleman, a man, who was there with his baby. He and his wife, both college graduates, both employed, but in the current job market they are not making a lot of money; they are having a little trouble making ends meet. They are new parents. They qualified for the WIC program. They are getting nutritional supplements for their baby, and they have learned a lot about parenting through this program. I met another woman there whose child had had a routine pinprick blood test. They do that to the kids who come into the program to see if they have any deficiencies. They discovered that that child had childhood leukemia, and the child is now in treatment. But this program in their world will not be required to exist anymore because of all of the Federal bureaucrats mandating so many things. I was there yesterday. I did not see any Federal bureaucrats. I saw a bunch of healthy, happy kids. I saw a bunch of parents who were doing better and getting just a little bit of help, and most everybody there was working. Funny thing, given the current minimum wage; and how well do you think you can provide for a family of four? That is why we have the Women, Infants, Children Program. What does one low-birthweight baby cost, both in terms of trauma to the parents, both in terms of developmental disabilities for that child, both in terms of cost to the Medicaid program? Is it too much to ask that we continue the Women, Infants, Children's feeding program and prevent those low-birthweight babies? I do not think so. And I think America can afford that.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, in case Members have not been following the debate closely, it has been a great break for Wall Street and the advice of the day is buy insurance company stocks because this legislation is a tremendous gift to the insurance companies. The gentleman who preceded me talked about generous contributions of the Democrats to the trial lawyers and consumers groups but what he forgot was that more than 12 times as much money flowed from insurance companies and other corporations to the Republican Party. And they are getting their payoff here today. We are going to preempt the judgment of every jury in America on this floor today. The judgment of that side of the aisle is better than those 12 or 10 men and women who sit in judgment of their peers. We are throwing equal justice out the window. We are imposing caps, we are imposing discriminatory caps, caps that say, well, if you are a middle- income worker or you are a spouse or you are a child or a college student, you are worth a lot less in terms of punitive damages than a corporate executive. That is what this amendment would overturn. Otherwise we will impose that discrimination, we will give that benefit to the better off, enshrine it in Federal law. We always knew the wealthy have done better in court. Now we are going to mandate that the wealthy do better in court. What about the Ford Pinto? There has not been much discussion of that down here today. Do my colleagues not think there is a place for punitive damages when one of the largest corporations in the world willfully, it knows that its product is defective and it will cause death, and it willfully hides that.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, a school principal in my district told me of children lined up at the door of one of our neighborhood schools on a Monday morning, not because they were so anxious to learn, but because they were hungry. Their school breakfast was to be their first hot meal since school lunch on Friday, 2\1/2\ days without a hot meal. Those hungry kids are just going to have to go a little bit longer if the Republican cuts in the Nutrition Programs and the School Lunch Programs go through. They tell us it is just the administrative costs, they just want to eliminate the Federal bureaucrats to the cook in the local school, that would be 4 percent of the costs. Their cuts are seven times the administrative costs. Mr. Speaker, just a little decrease or increase in the price of food? More eligible hungry kids? The Republicans have an answer for that: Give them smaller portions, that is the Republican plan. Two centuries ago Marie Antoinette said ``Let them eat cake.'' Today's Gingrich revolutionaries say ``Let them eat block grants.''

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, as I heard the former Member speaking, I could hear a distant sound and I think it was champagne corks popping on Wall Street. This is extraordinary. I am not an attorney, so I will not cite chapter and verse of precedents. I will go straight to the heart of the matter. If a person who has worked hard their whole life to put together a little bit of savings for retirement, or maybe they want to annuitize their pension, they have to depend upon someone for advice. And they go and they depend upon the advice of a stockbroker or a prospectus written by some $500-an-hour lawyer on Wall Street. And there is a little omission in that prospectus. It forgets to tell you that you are not investing in Treasury bills, you are investing in derivatives. You lose your money, your life savings, your annuitized pension. It is gone. You are broke. Do my colleagues know what? You now have a little problem. Two things. One is if you want to sue, this has loser pay in it. So if you are the individual who lost your life savings, you have to find the wherewithal to come with the money to pay for the costs. Second, it has a new and novel defense from a lay person's perspective. I do not know of any other law in America where you can say, ``I forgot. I forgot.'' What this means is the next time that someone tries to go to court to recover against the next Charles Keating--there will not be another Charles Keating--that would be great if there were no more frauds that cost the American people millions of dollars like the savings and loan scandals. No, that is not what it means. What it means is you will not have recourse to sue them because they forgot or they just overlooked the disclosure that the bank was on the brink of insolvency when you put your money in there, or when you invested it in that bank. At a time of turmoil in international markets, just after the bank's scandal, not very long after the Orange County scandal, how is it that we can come credibly before the American people and say Wall Street needs protection from those little stockholders, Wall Street needs protection from people who are putting their life savings in their hands. Why? Well, because Wall Street might forget to tell them something crucial. This is absolutely outrageous beyond the pale. It is a step through a looking glass into some bizarre new world.

Mr. DeFAZIO. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Reclaiming my time, if someone recklessly disregards and they lose your pension or your annuity, I think at that point they should be liable. I do not think they should have the defense of they forgot. I do not think the average American is going to think depending on experts, that is an incredible position to be taken by the U.S. Congress.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I hate to disagree with colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I do not think it is tremendously important to the American people, you know, who allowed more amendments when. The question is: What does this bill do to or for the American people? This Corporate Liability Shield Act which we will take up tomorrow I heard earlier described as pro-consumer, and I heard some discussion of Alice in Wonderland. If you think this bill is pro- consumer, you have stepped through the looking glass. The next time the Ford Motor Co. knowingly puts out a defective product and keeps it on the road and people burn to death, they will have a little different equation to deal with. It will be easier to keep it on the road, because they know the punitive damages are going to be limited next time around. That is pro-consumer? Is it pro-consumer to preempt the States, 200 years of State law, to preempt every jury in every State in America with your judgment and cap damages? I do not think that is pro-consumer. And how about the special provision for the wealthy? You know, if you get punitive damages under this bill, you are going to enshrine something into Federal law. You can get three times your monetary damages, generally including your wages. So if you are an electrician and you earn $30,000 a year, you are limited, but if you are a fat cat and you earn $250,000 a year, you can get three times that amount. That is pro-consumer? Well, I suppose that is pro-consumer if the people you think of as consumers are the wealthiest people in America. This sticks it to average Americans, again, like every other bill this week.