Tom DeLay

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Of course I would defer any final decision to the Committee on Rules. I imagine as they did this week with the marriage penalty bill that they would be inclined to make in order a substitute amendment as a substitute.

Mr. DeLAY. I do not expect the 10 percent bill, the marginal rate bill, to be on the floor next week. We anticipate that bill being on the floor the following week, and then the $1,000 child tax credit on the floor the week after that.

Mr. DeLAY. That is so far down the road, as the gentleman knows. It is 2 weeks away. I would wait to see what the final bill looks like as it is introduced.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the business in order under the Calendar Wednesday rule be dispensed with on Wednesday next.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns on Friday, April 30, 2004, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 4, for morning hour debates.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, this week the House will take aim at a looming injustice. The marriage tax penalty was a relic of 40 years of persistent tax hikes codified by Democrat Congresses into Federal law. In essence, it punished married taxpayers simply for being married. The standard deduction married couples could take was less than that allowed for two single taxpayers, thus the Tax Code discouraged marriage and sent a message to married couples around the country that they were not as entitled to their own money as singles were. In 2001, a Republican Congress passed and a Republican President signed a tax relief package that corrected this injustice and brought marriage equity to the Tax Code. In 2003, as the economy worked to recover from 2 years of recession, terrorism, and war, we moved to expedite marriage penalty relief. Unfortunately, the marriage penalty, like some B-movie vampire, just will not die. It keeps rising from the dead to wreak more havoc on the paychecks of American families. The marriage penalty is hoping to reappear next year in a smaller form and to be fully revived in 2010. So this week the House will take up legislation to make sure that the marriage tax penalty does not get its sequel. Instead, we will pass a bill to extend full marriage penalty relief through 2010 and beyond so that marriage tax equity becomes a permanent principle in Federal law. Any way you look at it, marriage tax equity just makes sense. In the first place, any time we can establish flatter, fairer, and lower taxes on working families, we are doing right by the national economy. We are creating jobs, careers, and opportunities all across this country. And, second, we are telling those married couples struggling to make it that we will not turn our backs on them. Allowing the marriage penalty to resurface in the future would represent a targeted tax hike on married couples and a direct attack on family budgets around the country. We can and must protect families from such an attack, and the bill we will take up this week will accomplish that goal. Though the economy continues to rebound, working families still need our help. This week we will have an opportunity to provide it to some of the people who need it the most.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. If the gentleman will yield further, this is a very simple, straightforward provision. It is the same provision we have carried and passed by this House many times. It is not very complicated. I am advised that the chairman of the committee did not feel that he needed to use the time of the committee to mark up such a very simple bill that has been discussed and debated on this floor many times, and passed by the House many times.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, again, I would defer that kind of decision to the Committee on Rules; but, obviously, in most cases that I can remember a tax bill, there have been substitutes to the tax bills as long as they are germane.

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

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished whip for yielding to me. Mr. Speaker, next week the House will convene on Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. for morning hour and 2 p.m. for legislative business. We will consider several measures under suspension of rules. A final list of these bills will be sent to Members' offices by the end of this week. Any votes called on these measures will be rolled until 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday. On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will convene at 10 a.m. We plan to consider H.R. 4181, which would permanently remove the marriage tax penalty from the Internal Revenue Code. In addition, we expect to consider a short-term extension of the highway bill, as the current extension expires at the end of this month. Finally, I would like to remind all Members that we do not plan to have votes next Friday, April 30.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, it is just an extension of the authorization. As far as length of time, the bill has not been written yet, but in the discussions that I have been privy to, I am advised that it could very well be about 2 months.

Mr. DeLAY. Yes.

Mr. DeLAY. If the gentleman will yield further, based on the feedback that I have gotten from the gentleman from Iowa (Chairman Nussle) of the Committee on the Budget, I believe that we could very well see the budget resolution conference report be completed in time so that we could vote on it sometime next week.

Mr. DeLAY. If the gentleman will yield further, I am not privy to the discussions between the other body and the House in the conference committee, so I really cannot answer that question.

Mr. DeLAY. The marriage penalty bill, yes, will be marked up by the Committee on Ways and Means, I believe. I am being corrected, and I appreciate the correction. I think it is not going to be marked up by the Committee on Ways and Means. It is coming straight to the floor.

Mr. DeLAY. If the gentleman will yield further, as the gentleman knows, when we passed the Jobs and Economic Growth Tax Act last year, we accelerated several important provisions from the 2001 tax bill. Our goal was to allow more families and more businesses to keep more of their money, thereby encouraging private sector investment and consumer spending. These investments are driving, we feel, the economy forward. They are helping create more than half a million jobs in this year alone. Over the next few weeks, I expect the House to continue those efforts by considering legislation, as the gentleman has outlined, that will ensure that families do not face a tax increase next year by extending marriage penalty relief, continuing the new low 10 percent bracket, extending the $1,000-per-child tax credit, and I believe the Committee on Ways and Means is considering an AMT reform. That will be done over the next several weeks.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding. I cannot prejudge what the Committee on Ways and Means might decide to do on that particular bill, but I have a feeling that if this bill became law, the gentleman's concerns would all be taken care of.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding further. As the gentleman has already found out, I thought it was being marked up this week and was told differently. I do not know how to answer that question, other than the fact that each bill will be considered on its own merits by the Committee on Ways and Means, and they will have to make a decision whether the bill merits a markup or allow it to come straight to the floor.

Mr. DeLAY. I appreciate the gentleman yielding further. Of course, I obviously would defer for a final decision to the Committee on Rules, but I imagine, as is our long-standing tradition and custom of the House procedures, particularly in regard to tax measures, I would believe that they would prefer to limit the number of amendments, if any, to limit those amendments to germane substitutes.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding. I can appreciate his disappointment, but I need to point out to the gentleman that this is not limited to Republicans. The gentleman has already said that Dr. Rice would gladly brief his caucus. Just as the President meets with bipartisan leadership, he has meetings with bipartisan Members of Congress, he also has meetings with Republicans. And he has on occasion had meetings with Democrats. This is not limiting or closing out anybody. It is just in this particular case we invited the NSC director to speak to the Republican Conference. We have had and have notified your leadership that bipartisan briefings will be held by the NSC director as bipartisan meetings, as the gentleman has pointed out, have been held by the Secretary of Defense, the Chiefs of Staff, the CIA, and many, many others. It is just an added briefing that we felt we wanted to have. And certainly, the NSC director made sure that the same courtesy was paid to the Democratic Caucus, and she is more than willing to come before the Democratic Caucus. No one is trying to be shut out, but there are times when our caucus wants to talk to this administration and we ought to be allowed to do that as long as we get briefings and open briefings in a bipartisan way as well.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the business in order under the Calendar Wednesday rule be dispensed with on Wednesday next.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman and both chairmen for bringing this important piece of legislation to the floor. I rise in opposition to the amendment. It seems 75 days may be necessary to run a special election, but our experience in Texas is we can run a special election in less than 30 days. Ours is 36 days. I guarantee Members, when people get fired up to do an election, they can do it quite quickly, particularly with everybody interested in winning that election. I think 75 days is way too long to allow this body to sit and wait for something to happen. I want to talk now about something even more fundamental. I carry the Constitution around with me in my pocket in order to constantly remind myself when I get dressed in the morning there still is a Constitution in this country. I know some, particularly those on the other side of the aisle, call this a living document, it does not mean a whole lot, and they are willing to change it and not even consider the unintended consequences or consider why the genius of our Founding Fathers understood what it took to build a democracy and what it took to maintain a democracy. That is why we have checks and balances. That is why we do not place all of the power into one person or even one branch. It is vitally important for this body to be elected, and there is a reason for that. The reason is this is the people's House. We have to be elected in order to reflect the will of the people at the moment. The other body is set up in our Constitution to slow us down, but we are set up to reflect the will of the people at the moment. We cannot do that if we put all of the power, particularly after a catastrophe, in the hands of one or two people to make the appointments. The appointees, the people who would come here to serve, would have no allegiance to the American people. They would not care about what the American people did because they were not elected by the American people. They were appointed by some big power broker back in their State or in their district, or even in their local counties. That is not the way to continue this democracy. We cannot have a democracy if we have a body sitting here in judgment of what is good for this country by appointed people. I heard a Member from the other side of the aisle earlier say, well, we changed the Constitution in 1913, and we now elect Senators. I am willing to have a debate that electing Senators by popular vote has had a very real negative impact on this country. I am prepared to say why in the world would anybody want to take away the will of the people to have their own House, the United States House of Representatives, by election and not by some power-broker-type appointment. I am opposed to those who have suggested that we ought to appoint our successors. That is the worst thing we could do is for us to announce, once we get elected, who is going to succeed us. That would create all kinds of havoc. Who is the leader in the congressional district, the elected Member of Congress or the heir-apparent appointed by that Member of Congress? It is important in order for the continuity of this government and the continuity of freedom in this country to understand the genius of our Founding Fathers and the genius that put it together and not change it and not change the way this country works. We have to pass this bill. We have to elect this House. This is the people's House.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today it adjourn to meet at noon on Monday, April 26, 2004; and further, when the House adjourns on that day, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 27, for morning hour debate.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, before I start my remarks, I was just moved by the prayer by the chaplain, and I hope everyone hearing our voice and through the miracle of television can pick that up on the Web site and read it once again because it is a prayer that the American people need to focus on and take to heart. Mr. Speaker, by taking up the Continuity in Representation Act this week, the House will not only address a glaring deficiency in Federal law, it will also make an unequivocal statement about America's national resolve on the war on terror. None of us in this Chamber or in this Nation wants to think of a scenario that would compel the Speaker to invoke this legislation, but such are the responsibilities of leadership in the post-9/11 world. The bill will therefore put in place a process by which Congress can quickly reconstitute itself after a catastrophic event. If such an event occurs and an extreme number of resulting vacancies threaten the continuity of congressional activity, the Speaker may, under this legislation, order States to call special elections to fill those vacancies within 45 days. By passing this legislation, we will guarantee the failure of any terrorist attempt to decapitate the legislative branch of the United States Government. But just as importantly, the vote this week will show our Nation and our enemies two things: our unity and our resolve. The Continuity in Representation Act has bipartisan support thanks to the long and tireless work of the distinguished gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary. And despite our policy differences, everyone on both sides of the aisle can plainly see the need that this bill meets; and everyone has come to this issue, even in an election year, with sincerity and patriotism. Many believe that bipartisanship disappears whenever the calendar year ends with an even number, but this issue and this bill disprove that cynical assumption. The vote this week will also affirm once again our national commitment to victory in the war on terror. Our prosecution of this war must be relentless and comprehensive. On the battlefield we have to continue to take the war to the terrorists. And here at home we have to maintain a united front and advance every policy we can to support our troops and discourage our enemies. So with this legislation that we pass this week, the House will send a very clear message to those enemies that no amount of violence that they hope to visit upon us will interrupt the continuity of our national service.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr Speaker, I offer a privileged concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 404) and ask for its immediate consideration.