Tom DeLay

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I take this special order to point out to the American people what we are going through, you just witnessed, here in the House. The liberal Democrats do not want to debate. They would not yield time even when they used a colleague's name and pulled out quotes of what a colleague has used on the floor. They did not even have the courtesy to debate that colleague because they know that they have taken the words of their colleagues and taken them out of context and twisted them. They are not the points that the colleagues were trying to make. They know it. That is why they will not yield to us. That is why they will not debate us. All they are doing is calling for a vote on minimum wage, and they really do not care about entry level workers or the poor in this country because, if they did, they would really want to debate this issue. But they do not want to debate. They want to get up and talk and talk and talk and talk, misrepresenting everything that these Members are doing down here, and trying to allow the American family to take home more pay by getting big government and Washington Government out of their pocket. Mr. Speaker, that is the way to help the American family in America, not some arbitrary Government-set wage and price controls that disrupts the market and actually puts people out of work and lowers the ability of people to create jobs, to put people to work. I yield to the gentleman from California [Mr. Dreier]. I am very happy to yield to the gentleman from California. Unfortunately, the liberal Democrats do not want to debate the gentleman from California.

Mr. DeLAY. The gentleman from California is so right in what he says. This is the kind of thing that we have been going through for months now, if not for a solid year, of statements, commercials, moneys, millions and millions of dollars, talking about things like cutting Medicare when actually we are increasing the Medicare benefits to senior citizens, cutting school lunches. It was just said on the floor, just a minute ago, that we wanted to cut school lunches when in fact we were increasing the spending on school lunches and they just keep talking about it this way. They used a quote of mine, and I need to answer that. It is a true quote taken out of context. The quote was, as put up by their chart, but they refused to answer or refused to yield to me so that we could debate the issue, emotional appeals about working families trying to get by on $4.25 an hour are hard to resist. Mr. Speaker, let me put it in context of exactly what I wrote and sent to my colleagues in a dear colleague. What I wrote was, and I will read it so that people can understand it and there will not be any misrepresentation about what my position is. ``Supporters of raising the minimum wage argue that no one can afford to raise a family on $4.25 an hour. That may be true. However, their argument conveniently ignores the fact that no one actually has to.'' As the table below shows, and I hold the table up that is in the piece, any parent who is earning the minimum wage is eligible for food stamps and earned income tax credit. They may also be eligible for other government programs such as Medicaid. Once these two benefits are added to the minimum wage, a single parent with one child has a total income of $5.76 an hour while a married couple with two children has a total income of $7.47 an hour. These amounts could be even higher depending on child care and housing expenses. As the chart shows, a married couple with one child on minimum wage makes $8,840 a year. With EITC, the earned income tax credit, benefits, they pick up another $2,152. That is a direct tax credit that is refundable to them by the Federal Government. On food stamps they would pick up $2,142, for a total income of $13,134 amounting to $6.31 an hour. So when they trot out here and talk about $4.25 and American families trying to live on $4.25, they are misrepresenting the truth. The other part of this that they keep trotting out here is that, and I have heard it, different numbers used, is that in some cases they said that 65 percent of those on minimum wage are families and so forth. I would be willing to submit to this House a study done by the Employment Policies Institute that uses 1992 and 1994 census data that shows that 90 percent of the people on minimum wage are single, living with parents or, living with a relative, and what I cannot understand is where do they get these figures? Most people know that people living on minimum wage are people that are on the entry level, just coming into the job market, are usually single and usually living at home, and usually living at home, in many cases, living at home with parents that are doing quite well. This is not a debate. This is a dialog back and forth. You see where the liberal Democrats do not want to debate. What they want is to present a picture that is not exactly true. But we want the debate. We want to lay it out for the American people so that the American people know exactly what is going on with this political agenda of the liberal Democrats. As the gentleman from California has already pointed out, the Democrats have had control of the House and the Senate and the White House for 2 years, in 1993 and 1994, and they chose not to bring the minimum wage to the floor. But because they think this puts the Republicans in a politically vulnerable position, they are throwing up their hands and wailing and gnashing their teeth by calling for increasing the minimum wage. The minority party has made the minimum wage their cause celebre. They are fixated on a government mandate that most experts agree will kill jobs and kill opportunities for people who just want a chance to achieve the American dream. Proponents of increasing the minimum wage argue that work must pay, that the minimum wage is not a living ago. They argue that simply adjusting the minimum wage upward will help poor people out of poverty. They say that a family of four cannot afford to live on a wage that pays $4.25 an hour. Of course, they forget to tell you that a single parent with two children actually gets close to $7 an hour once you figure in EITC and food stamps, and that is only part of the intellectual dishonesty that surrounds this debate. The proposition to raise the minimum wage is fools' gold. It appeals to the naked eye, but upon closer inspection it is fraud, pure and simple. I am not an economist, so I will not give the economists' view of the mandated minimum wage, but I am a former small business owner, and I do understand the impact that this will have on entry level jobs. Raising the minimum wage will kill entry level jobs. Without entry level jobs, low-skilled and young workers cannot gain valuable work skills that will lead to later higher-wage positions. The liberal Democrats make the point as if people lived the rest of their lives making minimum wage. What usually happens is that it is the first job that you get, either as a teenager or right out of high school, and it is your first job right off of welfare, and that is your entry level job, and you gain skills by working on the job and then move on to higher pay. In life you have to learn, you must learn to crawl before you can walk, and you must walk before you can run. Similarly, you must gain experience doing the tough work before you can move on to better paying, more complex positions. Raising the minimum wage takes away that opportunity to realize the American dream for too many citizens. As a former small business owner, I know that raising the minimum wage will kill jobs. But do not just take my word for it. Bruce Johnston of the Chamber of Commerce said this: Raising the minimum wage is a recipe for more unemployment where America needs it the least, in inner-city neighborhoods and among the rural poor. In Europe, where they have huge and high minimum wages, they have locked in unemployment at 11 percent, at 15 percent, and, in Spain, about 20 percent. They have locked it in because they have set such a high wage that the people will not, and raised the labor costs so high that they will not create jobs to bring on people in the entry-level positions. Joseph Stiglitz, who the gentleman from California has just quoted, the chairman, the chairman of President Clinton's Council on Economic Advisers, said this: ``A minimum wage does not seem to be a particularly useful way to help the poor.'' The Democrat Leadership Council, a group often used by President Clinton to promote his themes, said in a statement, ``Increasing the minimum wage is the wrong strategy to promote the goals of helping people work their way out of poverty in raising living standards and in reducing inequality.'' And President Clinton, the President himself, has said raising the minimum wage is the wrong way to raise incomes of low-wage workers. Why is this the case? Why all of a sudden is the President interested in raising the minimum wage when he had the House and the Senate for 2 whole years? All of a sudden in an election year, just 6 months before the November election, they have seen the light. Why is this the case? Why does not the minimum wage really work in helping low-wage workers? Here are some reasons: According to the Democrat Leadership Council, the President's own favorite think tank, the vast majority of minimum-wage workers are in families that do not need public wage supports because their incomes are well above the poverty level. Seventy percent of minimum-wage workers are families well above the poverty level, and nearly 40 percent are in families with incomes of the top half, the top half of the Nation's income distribution. More than 75 percent of all poor Americans are ineligible for the minimum wage and would not benefit from an increase. These are people who do not get the minimum wage, for a variety of reasons, including they do not work, they already earn more than the minimum wage, but only work part of the year, or they may be self-employed, or they work in jobs not covered by minimum-wage law. The costs of an increase in the minimum wage would hit the poor the hardest. Now, this is coming from the Democrat Leadership Council, the President's think tank. The cost of an increase in the minimum wage would hit the poor the hardest. The vast majority of the poor and the poor families would have to pay higher prices brought on by an increase in the minimum wage. Increasing the minimum wage would produce a regressive transfer, making poor people a little worse off in order to improve the lives of people who are not poor. And I submit to my colleagues standing here on the floor of the House that one of the reasons that we are hearing all of this call for the minimum wage is because the Washington union bosses know that their contracts are coming up and most of their contracts are tied to the minimum wage. Therefore, if they can get the government to raise the minimum wage, they will be able to easily raise the wage to union workers. According to the Employment Policies Institute Foundation, if the Federal minimum wage were to increase to $5.15, America would lose 625,600 jobs. Now, my friends, that means that there will be 625,000 fewer opportunities for Americans to get a start on seizing the American dream. Some say that any negative impact on hiring is a small price to pay for higher wages. These are the people that claim that they work and protect the poor. They say that while we may hurt a few people, we will help many, many more. Well, unfortunately, the facts suggest otherwise. Even workers who keep their jobs after an increase in the minimum wage will be worse off. Workers are not paid solely in terms of cash wages. Even minimum-wage workers receive fringe benefits such as on-the-job training, flexible work schedules, commissions, bonuses, and employee discounts. When employers are forced to pay higher wages, they will have to reduce the value of these nonwage benefits in order to remain competitive. Students show that for every 10-percent increase in the minimum wage, workers are made 2 percent worse off. That means that the proposed 90 cent increase in the minimum wage would reduce the other fringe benefits by $1.08. The affected workers would be 18 cents per hour in the hole after the Democrats get through with them. With friends like that, who needs enemies? But the worst part of this unfunded mandate is the impact on the underclass, the underprivileged, of this country. Raising the minimum wage expands the number of people in the underclass while killing opportunities for people to escape it. These are the people, the liberal Democrats, who voted and tried to kill welfare reform and said many, many times in the well of this House that our welfare reform that eliminates entitlements, saves money to taxpayers but, more importantly, forces welfare recipients to go to work cannot happen because there are no jobs out there. Yet, now get the irony of this, they are against welfare and asking able-bodied welfare recipients to stay on welfare because you cannot get off of welfare and go to work because there are no jobs out there, and then on the other hand they want to raise the minimum wage so that there are no jobs out there. And what happens, and what I know as a former business owner, I understand how businesses think. This is not helping. Raising the minimum wage is not opposed by small businesses because it helps small businesses keep wages low. The victims are the underprivileged. The victims are the people on welfare. They are the true victims because when the cost of labor goes up, which will happen when the minimum wage is increased, the small business owner will look for alternatives to remain competitive. Instead of hiring a person to wish dishes at a minimum wage, the small business could very well go buy a dishwasher if the price of that real person gets too high. That is how the market works. Now, if you want to, and I am trying to remember the quote: not to everyone according to their wants, but to everyone according to their needs, as the gentleman from California [Mr. Miller] suggests, is that the Government, or the market, should give different wages for different people. If he has three cooks working at the same restaurant, and one cook is single and one cook has a family with two children and one cook has a family with 11 children, yet they all three do the same job, they ought to be paid differently because they need more money. Then what would that do to our economy? What would that do to the opportunity of having more jobs for everyone out there to compete for? And what would that real person do? Well, if too many of these entry-level jobs are eliminated, that poor person might very well go on welfare, and instead of getting people off of welfare and working in entry-level jobs, gaining the experience and the knowhow necessary to make it to higher-paying jobs, we will have people enter the underclass unable to participate fully in our economy, and obviously the liberal Democrats want to keep them there. They want to keep them there. In fact, according to a study of the Employment Policies Institute, based upon the Census, mothers on welfare in States that raised their minimum wage stayed on public assistance an average of 44 percent longer than welfare mothers living in States that did not raise their minimum wage. The gentleman from New Jersey was very eloquently talking about New Jersey has a real high minimum wage. They also have a huge welfare roll, because these jobs for entry level people, jobs that would be available for people who want to get off of welfare, are not there because labor costs are too high and artificially kept high because New Jersey's government decides that they will set the wages just by arbitrary means. If it makes sense to have a $6 minimum wage, why not have a $20 minimum wage, and just raise it and let us all decide that we are all going to make the same thing. We are being accused, as Congressmen, for making too much money; that we are making $133,000 a year and we are against the minimum wage, how terrible that is. Well, we are in Congress. We work at a different job. What we want and what we feel strongly about are those that are in poverty, on welfare, and hopefully getting them to understand the dignity and the self-esteem that is gained by holding a job. It is no small irony that the party that vetoed welfare reform now proposes to expand the welfare state by increasing the minimum wage. Mr. Speaker, I just urge the American people to take notice; liberal Democrats favor efforts that will expand the underclass while vetoing efforts to end it. I do not believe that the Federal Government should be actively limiting the opportunities of the American people. Of course, we should not be surprised by this newest policy initiative of the House Democrat Caucus. They make the Luddites look progressive in their economic theory. But the American people are tired of fighting over a shrinking pie. They want policies that will lead to a growing economy, better job opportunities, a greater chance to capture the American dream. It is not surprising that liberal Democrats are fighting for an increase in the minimum wage, just as they fight against comprehensive welfare reform; that they battle to preserve the welfare handouts while fighting against an economic growth agenda is part and parcel of their efforts to bring greater economic equality to the American society. This is no theory, this has been going on for years. Just look at history. But is equality of misery really better than the equality of opportunity? I do not think so. Fighting for greater opportunity means giving the private sector the tools to create jobs. It means lowering the costs of job creation, and it means encouraging small business expansion. Increasing the minimum wage has exactly the opposite effect. It takes away the important tools that create jobs. It increases the cost of job creation. It encourages small business retrenchment. It is simply the wrong answer. But the question remains, how do we increase opportunities for lower- wage workers? Let me just sketch out briefly several ideas that would lead to a boom in economic growth and opportunity and more jobs available to those trying to come into the job market. Number one, enact commonsense regulatory reform. Reducing the costs of labor and capital will give companies more opportunities to pay the government less and their employees more. It will also lead to the creation of more small businesses and more jobs. Yet, that side of the aisle opposed us every step of the way on commonsense regulatory reform. Enact commonsense welfare reform. Welfare is now more profitable than work in most States across this country. In Hawaii, for example, the average welfare recipient receives the equivalent of $17.50 an hour. In my own State of Texas, that number is more than $7 an hour. But welfare is a dead-end road that leads not to the American dream, but to a nightmare of dependency and despair. Rewarding work, rather than welfare, is a necessary component to economic growth. Get rid of the Internal Revenue Service. There is no bigger job killer than the IRS. We need a simpler tax system that does not drain the critical resources away from businesses that can create jobs. Target relief for families. Give parents with children relief, to help them achieve certain acceptable standards, while maintaining job opportunities for those who simply want a chance at the American dream. By targeting subsidies to families who are supported by entry-level jobs, we would not put an unfunded government mandate on small businesses, but, rather, give a refund to parents who work hard to provide for their children. In fact, Republican proposals to enact the targeted relief will yield far greater benefits to working Americans than a simple mandate to raise the minimum wage; relief that goes on for years and years and years. Mr. Speaker, I just urge my colleagues who support the expansion of the Federal minimum wage for entry-level workers to rethink their position. Will an increase in the minimum wage help lower-wage workers? The answer is no. Will it improve American competitiveness across the world? The answer is no. Will it lead to greater economic growth? The answer is no. Will it increase opportunities for the poor? The answer is no. Will it help small businesses grow? The answer, once again, is no. Should we blindly increase the minimum wage to help Washington labor union bosses achieve their anti-growth goals? The answer is no. That leads me to the real reason why the Democrats are pushing for an increase in the minimum wage. The reason is pure partisan politics. Let there be no mistake about it; if big labor did not want a mandated minimum wage increase, we would not be discussing this issue today. Indeed, when Democrats ran the Congress and the White House a year and a half ago, they did not do anything to raise the minimum wage. Back then, they knew this would hurt job creation. Back then, they knew this would slow economic growth. Back then, they knew this was a misguided policy. But now, in this political year, with big labor giving them big money to buy big ads, we have this sudden push for an increase in the minimum wage. Mr. Speaker, a political payoff is a lousy reason to limit opportunities for entry-level workers, for poor workers. We must say no to the minimum wage increase. This is not the time for the United States to take away the American dream from so many people who just want a chance to achieve it.

Mr. DeLAY. Not only did the President veto tax cuts for the American family, the people that have been calling the loudest for a minimum wage voted against tax cuts for the American family.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Well, then, would the gentlewoman yield to me, because she used my name on the floor?

Mr. DeLAY. Would the gentlewoman yield? She used my name. Would she yield?

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the sympathy expressed about my foot attire. I just want to commend my Texas colleagues, Mr. Barton and Mr. Archer, on their fine work in developing this balanced budget initiative alternative. I can give you one simple reason this tax limitation balanced budget amendment is necessary: Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton wants to raise taxes to pay for more spending. He did it in the first half of his term in office when he signed the largest tax increase in history. If Republicans did not control the Congress in the second half, I believe he would have raised taxes then, too. Even today, Bill Clinton is trying to raise taxes to pay for more spending. Mr. Speaker, the American people contribute more to government spending than they do to family spending. In fact, the government now takes more money from families, 52 percent, than families are allowed to spend on their own. The government takes 52 cents out of every hard- earned dollar that the American family makes today. Mr. Speaker, I just think this is outrageous. According to the latest polls, 66 percent of the American people believe they are being taxed too much, while 1 percent believe they are being taxed too little. It is time to bring our tax rates in the line with what the American people want, not what Washington politicians want. The current budget impasse is being fought over the principle of Washington spending. The President wants Washington bureaucrats to spend more of the American people's money. We believe that the American people would rather spend their own money for themselves. This battle of principle is what this tax limitation balanced budget amendment is all about and that is why I support it. Mr. Speaker, it is time to get responsible about Washington spending. So I urge my colleagues to vote for this legislation and send it to the Senate.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his words. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Contract With America Advancement Act, and I urge my colleagues to vote for it. This bill proves the pundits wrong. The Contract With America is alive and well, and is working to better the lives of American families. I am especially pleased by two provisions in this legislation. The regulatory flexibility act is a small but significant step in the right direction for making commonsense changes to our regulatory system. This bill will bring much needed congressional accountability to the regulatory process. No Congress before this one has been willing to take responsibility for the way laws are implemented after they are signed. I believe it is both appropriate and necessary for Congress to conduct oversight over agencies' promulgation of regulations, and am very pleased that this, the first Republican Congress in 40 years, is the one to make it happen. We also are finally enacting the line-item veto. When I was first elected to the House, I made the line-item veto one of my top priorities. This may not be a good week for pork, but it is a great week for the American taxpayer. Gone are the days, when Congresses inserted pork barrel projects to buy votes for their Members. With this line-item veto, we will make certain that those days of wasting taxpayer dollars are gone forever. I applaud my colleagues for their work on this legislation, and I urge them to send this bill to the President.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I hope Members are watching this debate because this is the first time that we have had this kind of vote in the 104th Congress, and I am urging a ``no'' vote on this particular motion. I hope Members will really take a look at what is happening here. This is blatant politics and blatant hypocrisy. The gentleman from New York who just spoke before I did said in his speech that we owe the American workers this vote and we owe the American workers to raise the minimum wage. Where did he get that? I submit he got that from the convention that was just held in this town by the AFL-CIO who said that they would raise over $35 million to take this majority out. That is what this vote is all about. This group over here on this side of the aisle has been screaming and yelling for the last many weeks.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, all I was trying to say was is it not interesting that we are having a motion on the floor, 3 days after the AFL-CIO had a convention calling for an increase in the minimum wage and promising to raise $35 million by assessing their membership more of their hard-earned wages, to take out the majority that is trying to allow working families to keep more of their hard-earned wages? I hope everyone that was outraged by the gun vote last week will vote ``no'' on this, because we were accused of the same thing. Is it not also interesting that we have heard time and time again that we have not had enough hearings in this body; that we have to look at these issues, hold hearings on these issues. yet we have the Democrats bringing a motion to the floor that wants to do away with the unfunded mandate legislation that was passed by the Senate and debated in less than 20 minutes.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of small business owners who find themselves caught up in an expensive regulatory maze left by amendments to the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act passed in 1990. This act greatly broadened the Secretary of Transportation's authority to regulate the transportation of hazardous materials. Though it was intended for large carriers of toxic materials which can pose a risk to public health or safety, it has spilled over and poisoned the small business man instead. One study, which focused on the pest control industry, found that compliance of these rules and regulations cost the industry $135 million annually. These costs arise from truly burdensome Federal regulations which require pest control operators and employees to keep complex documents and markings for shipping and containers on a daily basis. And all of this is for small quantities of relatively benign materials, most of which are nearly identical to pest control products which we can all buy in home supply and garden stores--like Raid, for example. The legislation I have developed will relieve these burdens while maintaining the same high standards for safety. My bill simply amends the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act by providing an exemption for small commercial vehicles which are transporting common ``Raid'' like materials which do not pose a risk to public health or safety. Specifically, a vehicle with a gross weight of 10,000 pounds or less will be exempted unless it is transporting a material, such as a fumigant, which the Secretary of Transportation deems to require placarding. Let us keep small business healthy. With this bill we can stop poisoning the small business man with unneeded regulations that hurt both him and us. I hope you will join myself and my colleagues who have cosponsored this important legislation.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. If the gentleman will yield further, we do not know that, but the gentleman knows that a conference report can be brought up at any time.

Mr. DeLAY. I think the gentleman knows that we are trying to put 1996 behind us as far as the spending and debt limit is concerned. Unless the President vetoes those two bills, we expect to be out by no later than 6 p.m. on Friday.

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. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, we have concluded our legislative business for the week and I am happy to announce that the Members are now free to return to their districts and families. Next Monday, March 25, the House will meet in pro forma session at 2 p.m. There will be no legislative business that day. On Tuesday, March 26, the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning hour and 2 p.m. for business to consider a number of suspensions, as follows: H. Con. Res. 146, 1996 Special Olympics Torch Relay; H. Con. Res. 147, 1996 National Peace Officers' Memorial Service; H. Res. 345, expressing concern about the deterioration of human rights in Cambodia; H. Res. 379, expressing the Sense of the House concerning the anniversary of the massacre of Kurds by the Iraqi Government; H. Con. Res. 102, concerning the emancipation of the Iranian Baha'i Community; H.J. Res. 158, to recognize the Peace Corps on the occasion of the 35th anniversary and the Americans who have served as Peace Corps volunteers; and H.R. 3121, to amend the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act to make improvements to certain defense and security assistance provisions and to authorize the transfer of naval vessels to certain foreign countries. If any recorded votes are ordered on Tuesday, they will be held until 5 p.m. on Wednesday, March 27. On Wednesday, the House will meet at 2 p.m. for legislative business. We will dispose of the Senate amendments to H.R. 1833, the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act. On Thursday, March 28 the House will meet at 10 a.m. to take up the conference report to H.R. 2854, the Agricultural Market Transition Act, and also H.R. 3103, the Health Coverage Availability and Affordability Act of 1996. On Friday, March 29, it is our hope that the House will consider an appropriations conference report for fiscal year 1996. We will also consider a bill to increase the debt ceiling.

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 Tuesday, March 26, 1996, it adjourn to meet at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, March 27.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns on Monday, March 25, 1996, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 26 for morning hour debates.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 86, I was unavoidably detained due to my attendance at the funeral of a close friend. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.'' amendment offered by mr. burr

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, the witch hunt is over and the accused has been found innocent. The charges by the Federal Elections Commission and trumpeted by the liberals regarding Speaker Newt Gingrich and GOPAC have been found to be baseless. In his ruling regarding this case, Judge Lewis Oberdorfer found that there ``is no proffer of admissible material evidence in the record that the material and services which GOPAC provided to support Congressman Gingrich's work as GOPAC General Chairman were ever used by GOPAC or by him to support his reelection campaign.'' In other words, the FEC's case held no water. Mr. Speaker, while this attack on GOPAC and Republicans by the liberal Democrats is not surprising, the fact that the case was summarily dismissed exposes it for what it really is, an effort to change the subject. Ever since Republicans first won control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years, liberals have tried every trick in the book to derail our agenda for real change. They have filibustered, fear-mongered, and filed lawsuits. They have convinced their outside activist allies, the trial lawyers, the labor unions, the Naderites, to put every ounce of energy, every bit of money, and every kind of demagoguery, into derailing our agenda. This ruling by Judge Oberdorfer finally exposes the truth, that this distortion campaign is false and it is malicious. Mr. Speaker, the American people are not interested in GOPAC. They are not interested in smear campaigns. They are tired of partisanship and bickering. They want the budget balanced. They want lower taxes. They want more opportunities for jobs. They want better schools for our children. And they want us to do the jobs we were sent here to do. It is time to quit while you are behind. Stop this Ethics Committee abuse and start debating the real issues of the day.

Mr. DeLAY

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

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding me time. Why I was asking the gentleman from Wisconsin to yield is the gentleman from Wisconsin is trying to rewrite history. The gentleman's claim that the reason that the appropriations bills are not passed is because the Republicans have not passed them and sent them to the President. The gentleman is correct that three of the bills were vetoed by the President. What he fails to show you on his chart, the biggest part of that pie, the red part, is the Labor-HHS appropriations bill being held up in the Senate by liberal Democrats. We could pass that bill today if the liberal Democrats would stop their filibuster. So I come to this floor in support of this legislation that takes a dramatic step toward fiscal responsibility, while freeing the Federal workers from the perils of the President's poisoned veto pen and his lack of memory of commitments that he has made. This bill marks the beginning; this bill is the first day of the rest of the year. Let me explain. I am convinced that the President does not want a balanced budget. For 46 days the President could negotiate a balanced budget, and he has chosen not only not to negotiate, but the President has not even chosen to uphold the law that he signed on November 20 that expired last Wednesday. So I am convinced that there is not going to be a balanced budget. So what do we do for the rest of the year? We do what we were sent here to do, and that is to pass appropriation bills and send them to the President. Now, this President wants more spending. That is why he does not want a balanced budget, because the minute he lays a 7-year balanced budget on the table he has just cut $1 trillion of spending over the next 7 years, and the liberals are fighting that with every fiber of their soul. They want to continue to spend the American family's money, they want to continue to raise the debt on the American family. That is what this is all about. So, we have found another way of funding these agencies, a very creative way. This is not giving in. This is not moving toward the President. This is what we were sent here to do. We are going to do a targeted appropriations, and we are going to fund those agencies that we want to fund. We are not going to fund those agencies that we do not want to fund. Now, I was asked, well, then why are you only paying the Federal employees to January 26? The reason I do not want to pay them for the rest of the year is I could guarantee, if this process continues, there are going to be some Federal employees sometime around January 26 or around February that are going to get notices that they better go look for another job because their agency or their program is not going to be funded. That is why we only paid them to January 26. That is where we are today. And I might say, later on this afternoon we are going to pass a CR triggered by the President. Finally, if he just will lay out a 7-year balanced budget, honestly scored by CBO using honest numbers, he can open the Government and give those workers that my colleagues say have nothing to do, something to do, because he could open the Government until January 26. It is in the President's hands to give these people, especially the furloughed workers, something to do to earn their pay. The President could just simply do it by honoring his promises that actually started in his campaign. To those who question our resolve about getting to a balanced budget, let me just say that the Republicans will never surrender in our efforts to get a balanced budget, but we will not keep Federal employees on the firing line when it is Bill Clinton who should be fired for not coming up with a real budget using honest numbers. This legislation is a very important step to getting to that balanced budget. After all, we will not make targeted appropriations for programs that waste taxpayers' money for no reason. Do not expect Republicans to make targeted appropriations for Ron Brown's Commerce Department or Hazel O'Leary's Energy Department, or other wasteful Government agencies. We, in the House, are now in control. Members, we do not have to consult with the Senate, we do not have to consult with the Democrats. If we do not like an agency, we just do not have to bring it up here to vote on it and it is unfunded. It will not be funded.

Mr. DeLAY. I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is correct; all the President has to do is keep his promise, or at least obey the law that he signed.

Mr. DeLAY. That is right. It has to be certified by CBO as being honest.