Tom DeLay

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I would advise the gentleman that we are trying to work with both sides on the MFN issue. We are going to have a leadership meeting next week and we have been in discussion with our leadership team. There is a possibility that we would do MFN next week if we can get the floor time for it and do it. We would like to get it on to the floor and moving as quickly as we can, and we think we can do that. Although, we cannot, for certain, say it is going to be next week, there is a possibility it will be brought up next week.

Mr. DeLAY. Friday we will be out by 2 p.m. no matter what.

Mr. DeLAY. I would say that that is a real possibility.

Mr. DeLAY. If we do it next week, it would be several hours, but it would not be the 20 hours as required. We will consult with the minority leadership to make sure that every Member's requests are taken care of, but understanding that floor time is very precious.

Mr. DeLAY. As soon as we know, we will let the gentleman know.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I would say to him that we want to continue the reputation that we have established in the 104th Congress of being the reform Congress. We have every intention of continuing with our plans for a reform week. We intend to do a campaign finance reform bill. Unfortunately, we are slipping the schedule on our appropriations bills, and our first priority is to get through the 13 appropriation bills and use the precious floor time for them, but we have every intention of honoring our commitments on reforms, to continue the reforms that we have been working on, sometime in July.

Mr. DeLAY. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, the House has concluded its legislative business for the week. On Monday, June 24, we will meet in pro forma session Of course, there will be no legislative business and no votes that day. On Tuesday, June 25, the House will meet at 10:30 a.m. for morning hour, and 12 noon for legislative business. Members should note that we do expect recorded votes close to 1 p.m. Please be advised that we will have a full day planned for Tuesday, June 25. The House will first debate H.R. 2531, the House Parent Exemption Act, which is on the corrections day calendar. We will then take up under suspension of the rules H.R. 3604, the Safe Drinking Water Act. After consideration of the suspension on Tuesday, the House will consider the rule for H.R. 3666, the VA-HUD appropriations, and the bill itself. On Wednesday, June 26, and the balance of the week, the House will consider the appropriation bill for the Department of Transportation, and possibly for the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services. Mr. Speaker, I would also like to remind Members that we may take up a resolution holding the President's aides in contempt of Congress. It is our hope that the President will be forthcoming with the subpoenaed Travelegate documents before next week. However, in the event that these key documents are not provided, we may need to act on the contempt resolution. Mr. Speaker, we hope to finish legislative business and start the July 4th district period by 2 p.m. on Friday, June 28. Members should be prepared to return to Washington on Tuesday, July 9. We expect recorded votes to be held that day after 5 p.m.

Mr. DeLAY. Well, the reason I said possibly consideration of the Labor-HHS appropriations bill is that hopefully we can work some sort of agreement out between the ranking member, Mr. Obey, and the chairman, Mr. Livingston, so that we could go to that bill. If that is not possible, then we may not do the bill next week.

Mr. DeLAY. If the gentleman would continue to yield, those decisions have not been made as yet, and we are consulting with as many Members as possible to decide which is the best way to proceed. We expect that the first reconciliation bill, if indeed we split up the reconciliation bill, would come soon after the July 4th break. We have every intention of working with the minority's leadership to make sure that the minority will have plenty of time in which to craft any substitute that they may want to offer.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns on Monday, June 24, 1996, it adjourn to meet at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, June 25, 1996, for morning hour debates.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 2 p.m. on Monday next.

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 thank the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Salmon] for his wonderful words, trying to straighten out exactly what is going on in this Congress, and particularly as it pertains to all the political rhetoric that gets thrown around out here. People's memories seem to be rather short when it comes to remembering, one, that six Senators, six Democrat Senators on the Senate side campaigned on the notion that they wanted a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, and yet they are the very ones who stopped us from being able to pass that amendment to the Constitution and send it to the States. The gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Salmon] was very eloquent in pointing out the fact that leaders of both the House and the Senate supported medical savings accounts when they controlled the House, but when it came time to actually vote for them and work for them and actually put them into place, they were nowhere to be found and in fact worked very hard against it. The same thing happened last week. Last week the House Democrat leadership issued a report regarding the efforts of the Republican Congress to bring change to the Federal Government. Now, not surprising, the Democrats had very few kind words to say about the Republican Congress. Coming from the guardians of gridlock, the masters of disaster, the stalwarts of the status quo, their words of disapproval should be seen by the American people as affirmation of all of our efforts over the last 16 months. To the Democrat leadership, any change that makes the Government work better, that brings power back to the people, that cuts wasteful Washington spending, is mean and extreme. But my colleagues, who is the extremist? The one who fights to change Washington, or the one who battles that change? Let us go through 10 legislative issues, just 10 issues, that the Congress considered this last year to find out who really is extreme. First, a balanced budget. Now, do you support a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution? Should the Congress actually balance the Nation's books like families are forced to balance their own books? Eighty-three percent of the American people support a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. The Democrat Congress, the 103d Congress, failed to pass a balanced budget and rejected a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. But in the Republican Congress, the House passed a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. It also passed a budget which balanced in 7 years, without raising taxes, the first balanced budget in a generation. Second, taxes. Do you think the American people should be taxed more, like many Democrats think, or do you feel that cutting taxes is the right thing to do, both fiscally and morally, like many Republicans believe? Do you get tired of giving more and more of your money to Washington, or do you think that you need to give more of your fair share? Two out of every three Americans think they pay too much in taxes. The Democrat Congress, I might point out on this chart, the Democrat Congress increased taxes by $241 billion, the largest tax increase in history. But the Republican Congress cut taxes by $223 billion, tax cuts that would have given families needed relief and would have spurred economic growth. Sadly, the President vetoed these tax cuts. Just look: These are the facts. Under Clinton's tax increases, they imposed in 1994 $115 billion on the so-called rich. To them the rich is anyone that makes over $90,000. Gasoline tax, they put a gasoline tax on the so-called rich, $4.3 cents a gallon, that amounted to $31 billion. They raised the Medicare payroll tax by $29 billion. They raised the Social Security benefit tax. They taxed senior citizens in this country by $25 billion. They put a tax on corporate and business by $32 billion. They did expand the EITC that saved $2 billion, and then raised another $11 billion, for a total of $240 billion. Now, that did the Republican Congress do, that was vetoed by the President? We cut taxes on 30 percent health insurance deduction by $5 billion. We raised the earnings limit test. The earnings limit is where when senior citizens make over $11,520, then they are penalized by higher taxes. We raised that limit to $30,000, and we hope next year to repeal it altogether. That saved senior citizens $6 billion. We had a $500 per child tax credit, that was $150 billion, vetoed by the President. We had a medical savings account that saved $2 billion, vetoed by the President. We had a capital gains tax cut. Now, this is the so-called tax cut for the rich. But you tell a small farmer that just sold their farm, or you tell your parents who are trying to sell their house in order to take care of themselves in their retirement years, they have to pay huge capital gains taxes. We cut it by $35 billion. Vetoed by the President. We expanded the use of investment retirement accounts by $12 billion, vetoed by the President. We even gave estate tax relief, that is inheritance tax relief, so you could pass on what you worked for all your life to your children, we cut it by $12 billion, vetoed by the President. This comes to a total tax cut package of $223 billion. The third issue is wasteful Washington spending. Do you think we need more wasteful Washington spending programs? Or do you think that Washington should spend less of your hard-earned money? Do you support questionable Washington spending on pork-barrel projects inserted by Washington insiders? Well, 71 percent of the American people support reducing funding for all Government agencies. The Democrat Congress, I might say, on Government spending and under the line-item veto, the Democrat Congress passed spending bills that increased spending by $8 billion. It also tried to pass a pork-laden spending package, which they mistakenly named an economic stimulus package, a package that paid for efficient atlases or building swimming pools, to the tune of $3.2 billion. Have you ever heard of midnight basketball? That was in their stimulus package. they also gave the IRS $148 million more to get involved in your personal life. They even gave $800,000 to whitewater canoeing teams. The Republican Congress though, the Republican Congress cut $43 billion in real wasteful Washington spending. The Republican Congress also passed a line-item veto to get rid of these pork-barrel spending projects, which the President did sign into law. We give him credit for that. The next President of the United States, starting in January of next year, will be able to use for the first time in the history of the United States, the line-item veto. The fourth issue is Congressional reform. Are you concerned that the Congress is out of touch, that special interests and lobbyists have too much power over what happens in Washington, that Members of Congress should live under the same laws as everyone else? Ninety-two percent of the American people are concerned that special interests and lobbyists have too much power over what happens in Congress. The Democrat Congress failed to pass any, any, Congressional reform. They failed to pass a law that required Congress to live under the laws it passes on everyone else. It also failed to pass any reform regarding ethics or lobbyist influence. The Republican Congress succeeded in passing all kinds of reforms. It passed a Congressional compliance law, making it certain that Members of Congress live under the laws it passes on everyone else. I guarantee you, Members of Congress' eyes are growing bigger and bigger when they have the notion of an OSHA inspector coming in and inspecting their offices, they get an EOC complaint filed against them, or many other ways. Right now we have labor unions on the Hill trying to organize our employees. It has a lot of Members thinking about living in the real world, and it has changed their thinking about what this body does in imposing regulations on the rest of the country. We also ban the gifts that Members can accept from lobbyists and require greater disclosure of lobbyist activities. We cut our committee staff by one-third. We eliminated ghost voting. Now, in committee, in order for a Member's vote to count he has got to be sitting in that chair and raise his hand and vote. No more ghost voting. We have gone on and on with all kinds of reforms and opening this House up and giving it back to the people. These are real reforms desired by the American people. The fifth legislative issue, welfare reform. Now, do you support a complete overhaul of the welfare system? Should we create a system where able-bodied Americans must work? That ends the cycle of dependency and despair? That limits the time people can spend collecting welfare without working? Well, 71 percent of the American people support a mandatory 2-year cutoff for welfare without work. The Democrat Congress under welfare reform produced nothing, nothing, to end welfare as we know it. Not one proposal in the 103d Democrat Congress even passed out of the full committee. And this is when they controlled both houses and they had the President of the United States at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, who promised the American people in 1992 that he would end welfare as we know it. Not one proposal got out of a full committee. But the Republican Congress produced far-reaching welfare reform that placed time limits, work requirements, and other incentives that give poor people a hand up, not a handout. The President vetoed this plan twice. Now, we are going to send it to him again. Maybe he will wake up and honor his promises and will not veto it, because we are going to send him another welfare reform package. The sixth legislative issue: Health care reform. Now, do you think we need government-run health care, where your family's health care decisions are made by bureaucrats based in Washington? Or should we have commonsense health care reform that allows families to make their own health care decisions, allows people who change jobs to take their health care with them, and weeds out waste, fraud, and abuse from the health care system? The gentleman from Arizona, who spoke right before me, laid this out perfectly and eloquently. By the time the Democrat Congress gave up on the Clinton health care plan, a majority of Americans thought it would hurt health care quality and drive up health care costs. The Democrat Congress tried but failed to pass out of either House the President's huge government-run health care proposal. The Republican Congress has passed a health care reform which will guarantee portability with no preexisting conditions. It creates medical savings accounts, it cuts down on frivolous lawsuits, and cuts out waste, fraud, and abuse in the health care system. We expect this measure to get to the President's desk in the next few days and we hope the President will sign it. Part of the health care debate includes saving Medicare. Do you think that Congress should take responsible steps to rescue Medicare for the next generation, or do you prefer that the Congress put off until later any commonsense changes to the Medicare system, despite the overwhelming evidence that the system is going broke faster than previously anticipated? Should Congress pass Medicare reforms that will weed out waste, fraud, and abuse, as the Republicans want; or should it increase payroll taxes on working Americans to keep the current system in place, as the Democrats prefer? The Medicare trustees, which include members of the President's own Cabinet, have concluded that Medicare is going broke faster than previously anticipated. The Democrat Congress failed to enact any of these reforms of the Medicare system that will save it for the next generation, but the Republican Congress, this Congress, passed Medicare reforms which will maintain a growth rate of 7.2 percent in the program. A growth rate. Now, a lot of Americans around the country are watching these commercials, millions of dollars spent buying commercials that claim that we cut Medicare, that we have slashed Medicare, that we are going to throw seniors out on the street. But in our plan we allow Medicare to grow faster than health care in the private sector, at the same time we are trying to weed out the waste and fraud and promoting greater choices in health care for seniors, which raises the quality of care for senior citizens. The seventh legislative issue: Legal reform. Do you support commonsense legal reforms? Do you think trial lawyers make too much money filing frivolous lawsuits in this country? Do you think trial lawyers have too much influence on the White House? Two-thirds of southern California voters are afraid that either they or a loved one will someday be a victim of lawsuit abuse. The Democrat Congress failed to even try to enact any significant reforms of our legal system, but the Republican Congress enacted, over the President's veto, securities litigation reform which will make it more difficult for trial lawyers to file frivolous lawsuits, and we also passed a product liability reform. Unfortunately, the President vetoed that, and we are working right now to try to get the votes to overturn his veto. The eighth legislative issue: Immigration reform. Now, do you support giving illegal immigrants welfare benefits available to American citizens; or do you think that we need to make some commonsense changes to make it more difficult for illegal immigrants to get welfare? Do you believe that illegal immigration is becoming one of the biggest problems in America today; or do you think that it is all blown out of proportion by the media? Well, 83 percent of the American people favor a lower level of immigration. Now, the Democrat Congress failed to pass any significant reform of immigration policies when they controlled the Congress and the White House. The Republican Congress has passed significant immigration reform that would make it more difficult for illegal immigrants to get welfare, while making it more difficult for illegal immigrants to enter the country. And, finally, the legislation that is so important to all of us, and that is crime. Do you think anticrime initiatives should fund more social welfare programs; or should it make the death penalty more effective? Seventy-nine percent of the American people support the death penalty for murderers. The Democrat Congress, in fighting crime, passed a crime bill, signed by the President, which would increase spending on prevention programs for things like midnight basketball. The Republican Congress passed a crime bill, a real crime bill. It was signed by the President, and we got to give him credit for that, which would reform the death penalty procedure to end all these endless appeals, a process that has frustrated the American people, all these endless appeals by death row inmates. Of course, there are other issues that are not reflected on this chart, issues such as regulatory reform, an issue very close to my heart as a former small businessowner. But do you think we need more Washington power, more crazy Washington regulations, more Washington mandates? Eighty-two percent of the American people believe that the Government is intruding more and more on their personal rights and freedom. The Democrat Congress expanded on the regulatory state of earlier Congresses, putting more and more regulations on small- and medium- sized firms, costing jobs. The Republican Congress worked to clean up the regulatory environment, bringing common-sense, sound science, and cost-benefit analysis to regulations that come from the executive branch, to make regulations work better, to make regulations work more efficiently, to make regulations actually do some good. Mr. Speaker, this Republican Congress can best be described as remarkable. We are doing the people's business the way that they want it done. Democrats have taken to calling the Republicans extremists. I say that defending the status quo is extreme. Defending the disastrous Democrat Congress is extreme. Defending a broken welfare system is extreme. Defending wasteful Washington spending is extreme. Defending the largest tax increase in the history of this country is extreme. Make no mistake about it, when the Democrats ran the Congress, they did an extremely bad job. So, I urge my colleagues to remember this very simple point. Extremism in the defense of status quo is no virtue. And, sadly, that is all the liberal left has to offer these days.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join the growing chorus of protest against the increasingly violent and chaotic situation in the former Soviet satellite nation of Belarus. As many of my colleagues know, Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Belarusan President Alexander Lukashenko last month signed an agreement that would reintegrate the political, economic, and social ties between the two nations. While I realize the importance of neighborly alliances, I am afraid that this new treaty has ominous implications for emerging democracies in the newly independent nations of Eastern Europe. In point of fact, the agreement has already produced frightening results. Tens of thousands of Belarusans, realizing the very real threat to their new-found independence, have taken to the streets of Minsk to protest the agreement. In response, President Lukashenko has initiated a campaign of fear and terror meant to intimidate the Belarusan people into silence. Lukashenko has placed former members of the Soviet Armed Forces in top posts throughout the Belarusan secret police and military, sending them out into the streets to arrest thousands of his own people and to raid their homes and places of business. The Belarusan President's regard for his own countrymen, fighting homespun terrorism at the hands of their longtime oppressors, is so low that he has referred to them as `` * * * sick people who have placed themselves outside of the law.'' Standing in stark contrast to President Lukashenko's repressive tactics is Yury Khadyka, a longtime Belarusan freedom fighter. Mr. Khadyka fought the heavy yoke of communism when Belarus was a Soviet satellite and now that his homeland has tasted freedom, he has become a leading figure in the fight to preserve Belarusan independence. Distressingly, Mr. Khadyka has been imprisoned since April 27 for standing up to President Lukashenko's growing campaign of terror and intimidation. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, the saddest chapter in this sordid story is the complicity of the Clinton administration in Mr. Khadyka's imprisonment. To fulfill a political agenda, this administration has stood idly by while the fragile framework of a newly independent nation crumbles and innocent people like Mr. Khadyka are imprisoned at the hands of a present-day dictator. In order to prop up Boris Yeltsin's reelection campaign, this administration has signaled its tacit approval of the reintegration of Russia and Belarus. In fact, President Lukashenko, a career Communist Party bureaucrat, has given every indication that he would prefer to see one of President Yeltsin's more hard-line rivals prevail in the upcoming elections. If that happens, and if the Communist Party once again takes the reigns of power in Moscow, this agreement will signal the functional end of independence in Belarus. I support President Yeltsin's efforts to implement democratic and free-market reforms in Russia, but I would urge Mr. Yeltsin to recognize that Belarus has the right to pursue these same goals on its own terms. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, ``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.'' I do not quote this famous document lightly--the simple truth is that these words represent a plain, concise distillation of what we, as Americans, believe to be true for all people, everywhere. That is why I urge President Clinton to put political maneuvering aside and to support those ideals upon which the United States was founded. Now, as freedom takes root throughout Eastern Europe, the United States must support the standard-bearers of liberty on this democratic frontier. Yury Khadyka is such an individual, and he deserves our support and assistance as he strives to preserve democracy in his beloved homeland.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, Medicare needs to be rescued, yet the President and the Democrats prefer to save their own political futures. Millions of seniors will lose their health care benefits if the Medicare system goes bankrupt, yet Bill Clinton and the Democrats would rather scare seniors about plans to protect it. The Medicare trustees have concluded that Medicare is going broke faster than previously thought, yet Bill Clinton has done nothing to save it. Medicare would not be around for the next generation, yet Bill Clinton runs millions of dollars of ads attacking the Republicans for trying to find ways to preserve it. Mr. Speaker, who is being responsible when it comes to Medicare, and who is being irresponsible? The answer, to me, is obvious. The White House has taken demagoguery to a new level. They have scared seniors to secure their own political futures. Mr. Speaker, that is wrong. I urge the White House to change their tactics and join with the Republicans in saving Medicare.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, as we know, this Saturday, Washington will be the site of a rally for children, called the Stand for Children. I commend the organizers of this rally for their commitment to helping children. I hope this rally will be a balanced presentation on how best the Federal Government can help our children, and more importantly, make our children's future brighter. I am taking this special order tonight to let the American people know what the Congress has been doing for children. The truth is that the 104th Congress is the most prochild Congress in the last 40 years. What is a prochild Congress? What does that mean for people outside the beltway, people who struggle to raise a family, people who want to pass on a better America to their children? A prochild Congress must meet three tests. First, it must be fiscally responsible. Passing on a bankrupt nation is the surest way to undermine our children's future. This Congress passed the first balanced budget in a generation. It tried to restrain the growth of entitlement programs that will bankrupt the country in 10 years unless action is taken now. Our children, individually, already owe hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, because of the profligate spending habits of past Congresses. We must stop spending our children's futures. This Congress has succeeded in reigning in wasteful Washington spending, and that is probably the best thing we could do, to stand for children. Second, a prochild Congress works to strengthen the family. Villages do not make the best parents. Parents make the best parents. It does not take a village to raise a child. It takes a family. It takes parents. Allowing parents to keep more of their money to spend on their children is the quickest way to take the strain off the family structure. Our $500-per-child tax credit is real relief for parents to help them meet the higher costs of raising children. Welfare reform is another way we have worked to strengthen the family. Our current welfare system has destroyed too many families. It has actually made it harder for two-parent families to stay together. We have worked to change that system, by requiring work, by removing the disincentives for marriage, and by making it harder for fathers to abandon their kids. A prochild Congress also promotes adoption. I read with interest the First Lady's recent discussions of adoption, and the President's endorsement of our adoption reform bills. Getting children into safe, loving, and permanent homes should be the paramount concern, not political correctness. I hope the President's words match his deeds and that he continues to support our efforts to promote adoption and remove the barriers to adoption. Finally, a prochild Congress is a prolife Congress. We have been the most prolife Congress in the last 20 years. Some on the liberal left will make the argument that you can be both prochild and proabortion. I disagree. You cannot speak on behalf of children on one hand wile promoting policies that kill them on the other. I am proud of the work of this Congress, and I am proud of the work they have done to help children have a brighter and more prosperous future. The 104th Congress does stand for children and for that we should all be proud.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I never thought I would see this day, but I rise in opposition to this amendment offered by my good friend, the gentleman from California [Mr. Riggs]. Increasing the minimum wage makes minimum sense. As a former small businessowner, I remember well what intrusive government mandates did to my business. It hurt the bottom line, it hurt productivity, it hurt competitiveness, and more important, it hurt my ability to create jobs. Mr. Speaker, that is what my Democrat colleagues refuse to talk about. They will not talk about the opportunities lost. They will not talk about the jobs that are not created. They will not talk about those people who cannot get off welfare because they cannot get the chance to get a job that was killed by another Washington mandate. But that is the most important part of this debate. The Democrat Party is to job creation what Dr. Kevorkian is to health care, a job-killer cloaked in kindness. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have made this debate an argument of fairness. They say that it is unfair for starting workers to make dramatically less than corporate CEO's. I am not going to respond to that kind of economic mumbo-jumbo. But let me ask this: Is it fair to kill the opportunities of people who want to work but cannot because of this unfunded mandate? My friend, the gentleman from Texas, will stand up and talk about the number of workers that will not see their wages go up in the State of Texas. How about the number of workers in his own district that will not have a job available for them when they want to go to work? Is it fair to kill jobs in order to cure political headaches? Is it fair to make job creation too expensive for the various small businesses? That is the kind of fairness that liberal Democrats conveniently ignore. The most amusing aspect of this debate is its timing. When Democrats ran the Congress just 2 years ago and had the White House, not once did they talk about raising the minimum wage. They were too busy raising taxes on middle-class families. But now that they have been thrown out of power, they have seized on this issue as their saving grace. This saving grace for the Democrats is a coup de grace for thousands of entry-level jobs. It is those people who want just a chance to have the opportunity to get a job, a chance to achieve the American dream, who are most victimized by this unfunded mandate. Mr. Speaker, increasing the minimum wage is the wrong way to provide more opportunities for the American people. It is a political throwaway which will do away with thousands of jobs. For that reason, I urge my colleagues to vote against it.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 195, I was unavoidably absent. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.'' The title of the bill was amended so as to read: ``A bill to provide tax relief for small businesses, to protect jobs, to create opportunities, to increase the take home pay of workers, to amend the Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947 relating to the payment of wages to employees who use employer owned vehicles, and to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to increase the minimum wage rate and to prevent job loss by providing flexibility to employers in complying with minimum wage and overtime requirements under that Act.'' A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 194, I was unavoidably absent. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for bringing this bill to the floor. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill to repeal the President's unfair and unwise gas tax. This is an amazing debate, do you not think? On this side of the aisle, there is not a tax that they do not love. They are trying every way they can to hang on to more taxes on the American family, and they claim ``we did it for deficit reduction.'' One of the reasons that maybe some of the Republicans voted for the gas tax back in 1990, I did not, but they wanted that tax to go to roads. It is more of a user fee. What the Democrats did and what the President did in 1993 is take an honored tax, that usually goes for roads, a user fee, and put it into deficit reduction so that they could spend more money. Let us not be under any illusion about this legislation. It probably will not have a profound impact on the price of gas at the pump. It will lead to slightly lower gas prices, but in the marketplace the laws of supply and demand still play the biggest role in the price of gasoline. There is, however, a bigger story behind this gas tax repeal. Three years ago, without one single Republican vote, President Clinton and the Democrats raised the largest tax increase in history on the American people. Today, we are saying that those tax increases were wrong. This gas tax repeal is the start, only the start, of a process, an ongoing process, of reversing the President's tax increases. Now, some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will come down here, and we have seen it in speech after speech, and they will argue against this repeal of the gas tax. They will say that the Government should keep this nickel in revenue, it is only a nickel, to pay for more social welfare programs. Well, my friends, I say for 40 years the Congress has been nickel-and-diming the American family to death. Today, the Government takes over 50 percent, 50 percent, of the average family's paycheck. Today, both parents are forced to work, one to support their family and the other to pay for the Government, and they want to hold on to that money because they can spend it better. The American family can spend it better. We need to lower the cost of government. We need to lower the levels of taxation and lower the strains on the family and get the country on the right track again. This gas tax repeal is a start in that process, and for that reason I support it and urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I really appreciate this very vigorous debate. It has been very encouraging and very stimulating. I hope the American people are watching, because there are two very clear differences held here on the floor as to where this country ought to be going. My good friend from Houston, TX, my neighbor who just spoke, was very clear about where the Democrats are, where the liberals are. They want priorities and they want to maintain the Washington spending that they have been so proud of for all these 40 years. They want to continue these programs. They do not want to change them, and they are hanging on by their fingernails every chance that they can to continue taking money from the American families and paying for their priorities. That is what this is all about. That is why I rise in opposition to the President's budget substitute and I urge my colleagues to support the Dole budget. Mr. Chairman, today's debate mirrors the greater debate going on in this country. On the one hand we have the President's budget which is much like the present administration. Rhetorically the President's budget looks great. It seemingly balances the budget. It seemingly gives tax relief to American families. It seemingly urges welfare reform. But if we look at the numbing details, a very different picture emerges. It is the picture of a President who promised a middle-class tax cut and then socked a gas tax on middle-class families and a Social Security tax on America's seniors. It is the picture of a President who promised to end welfare as we know it and then vetoed commonsense welfare reform twice. It is the picture of a President who promised to balance the budget in 5 years, then in 10 years, and then every year in between. And it is the picture of a President that says one thing and does another. Mr. Chairman, it is easy to see why this President is so strongly supported by Hollywood. His budget is kind of like a Hollywood set. It is a sturdy-looking facade backed by nothing more than a vivid imagination. The contrast with the Dole budget is very striking. The Dole budget is the real thing, much like the man himself. It cuts taxes for American families, not as much as I would like, but certainly more than the President even pretends to cut; it saves Medicare for the next generation, and it balances in 6 years using real numbers, real assumptions, and real cuts in wasteful Washington spending. So, Mr. Chairman, the American people yearn for the real thing. They do not want any more empty promises. They do not want any more phony numbers, and they do not want bigger government cloaked in Clinton rhetoric. They want a smaller, more effective Federal Government. They want lower taxes. They want real welfare reform. And they want a balanced budget. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to reject the Clinton budget and vote for the real thing, the Dole budget.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 171, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. I understand the gentleman's suggestion. I appreciate the suggestion. I do not think other Members would, in that we are trying to hold to the schedules as announced many weeks ago. And Members, particularly those Members from the West Coast, need the time to get here by 5 o'clock Tuesday night or they would have to fly the ``red eye'' Monday night. It is an announced schedule, it has been preannounced. Members have already planned their schedules back in their districts, and I think it would be very difficult to start earlier.

Mr. DeLAY. If the gentleman will yield further, right now we are hoping to get our work done on the appropriations bills, and those 3 days, at least at this point, we are planning on using to pass appropriations bills. So we anticipate working those 3 days.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 14, 1996, for morning hour debates.