Lloyd Doggett

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, this last bizarre argument that was made that this amendment would somehow violate our world trade obligations, does the gentleman understand that argument to be that we are forced to outsource our national security and our homeland security to China or France, which are WTO members? That seemed to be the logical extension of this bizarre new argument.

Mr. DOGGETT. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, the indifference of the Administration to the outsourcing of American jobs is well known to the American people. But now as incredible as it will seem to most Americans, the Administration and House Republican leadership are intent on actually outsourcing our national security. A foreign- controlled corporation has received a $10 billion contract, billion with a ``B'', to implement a major element of the Administration's border security initiative. And that is what this debate is about. As usual, the House Republican leadership has this week blessed this outsourcing of our national security, even though this action is directly in defiance of the will of a strong bipartisan majority of this House. With Accenture, the accent is on tax dodging; and with this Republican leadership, since the first time we offered an amendment to deal with this, the accent has been on protecting and enabling abusive corporate tax dodgers. Now, the Republican leadership wants to reward those like Accenture. It wants to reward those who flee America to fleece America. Not only saying, do not worry about paying your fair share of taxes, but it is okay to come and get your competitors' share of taxes too. The money hardworking people pay in to the Treasury, their money is going to be taken and given to a corporation that has fled America. What makes this Republican leadership's actions particularly shameful is their refusal to hold the wealthy tax-dodging few accountable while others sacrifice so very much, sometimes everything that they have. We know about the young American men and women around the globe who are dying for America. We know of the billions of dollars that American taxpayers must expend when this Administration calls on Americans to do most all the paying for its adventures around the world. The sacrifice that our military is making is measured in blood and the sacrifice of the middle-class taxpayers is measured in dollars. But some corporations have decided that they do not have to pay their fair share of our security. Through this amendment we now can demand that they pay their fair share. This is a fair-share amendment. When this measure came up under the leadership of the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) in July of 2002, 318 Members of this House voted to impose the same restrictions that we are asking for today. And Accenture began hiring lobbyists right and left to weaken that amendment. So the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) came back with a bipartisan majority 35 to 17 in the Committee on Appropriations to approve this restriction. Then the Committee on Rules, recognizing that it was violating the will of the House, has approved language in this bill that says Accenture, despite all these wonderful arguments we have heard this morning, is not going to get any more contracts. We are just going to give it a $10 billion contract. We are going to give it the big pie it has already been rewarded, but it will just not get any crumbs down the way. This is an admission that there is strong merit to the arguments in favor of the gentlewoman's amendment. Let us go through one by one the arguments that have been advanced. It is difficult to do that because they can talk about getting their facts straight, then not get their argument straight. One of those who opposes this amendment has been at this podium declaring that Accenture has never been a U.S. company, followed by another speaker who insists that Accenture is a U.S. company with jobs all over America. Well, on that I have to yield to Accenture. If you turn to their Web site, you will see that they declare they have never been a U.S. company. The Department of Homeland Security has outsourced this contract to a foreign company. But what of the argument that they did not leave America after they formed here? No, the answer is they got there first and they have set an example for other corporations about incorporating abroad. Indeed, this month's issues of Corporate Executive Magazine has an ad from Accenture: ``To accomplish more, sometimes you need to receive less.'' And, in fact, in their case, pay less in taxes. And they offer advice on, among other things, outsourcing jobs. What of the argument that Accenture pays its taxes, everything that is legally due? They claim that they pay a higher tax rate than their American competitors. Well, I guess it all depends on whether you are paying taxes on all your income or part of your income because you are able to send some of your income abroad. Indeed, the name Accenture will be new to many people because it is a new name. The name Accenture did not exist a few years ago. The name Accenture, strangely enough, is owned by a foreign corporation and the U.S. company pays hefty royalties to this foreign company to use that name in the U.S. What Accenture has done is to strip its U.S. earnings out of the country so that it can say, we pay taxes on our earnings more than our competitors. We just do not pay U.S. taxes on about $200 million of our other earnings. Let me just say that it used to be that, if you cleaned out a bank vault, you would be put on the government's ``most wanted'' list and imprisoned. But under this Administration, when you drain the Federal Treasury by dodging taxes, you are placed on a ``most wanted'' list for government contractors. This is wrong. The American people know it is wrong. It is indefensible, and there is no good argument in favor of doing this. Vote for the DeLauro amendment.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, so does the gentleman know how much of their income has been stripped out by their use of this foreign approach of setting up their corporation abroad? In other words, he is just talking about their tax rate on the little bit of income they leave here, not on the $100 million that they shifted out on which they pay practically nothing.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, what the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis) is saying is that they pay that effective tax rate on their profits. Right?

Mr. DOGGETT. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, over a century ago, my great-grandfather came from Sweden to chop sugarcane in Louisiana. He came for the same reason that so many people come to this country from Mexico today--to take on some of our society's most difficult jobs, to create a better life. And when an illegal entry occurs, it is not the result of the policy of the City of Pharr, Roma or McAllen, but they have to cope with the consequences of a Federal policy they do not control. If undocumented workers, who are too often the victims of crime, hesitate to report crime because they fear the police, then our entire community loses. Austin Assistant Police Chief Rudy Landeros has made the Austin Police Department a leader in building confidence with immigrants and working with them, giving them the respect crime victims deserve, because the Austin Police Department and so many others recognize it is essential to fulfilling the mission of public safety. The Tancredo amendment would destroy such pragmatic local initiatives and would endanger all of our families. It must be rejected. Our police departments have a difficult mission, and we do not need congressional interference at this critical time as they fulfill that mission.

Mr. DOGGETT. I yield to the gentleman from Iowa.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, would the gentleman be willing to modify his 20 minutes to a side then on this amendment, 20 minutes to a side? Because if someone were to come forward with an amendment to this amendment, I am confident it would require additional time on our part.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, further reserving the right to object, does the gentleman anticipate any amendments to this amendment?

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, and subject to my reservation, if I could just ask for clarification. This will be 20 minutes per side on this amendment. The gentleman does not envision any other amendments to the amendment being offered? Is that correct?

Mr. DOGGETT. I yield to the gentleman from Iowa.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the time. When $4 billion in sanctions are imposed for an unjustified tax break declared illegal in an international forum, this House Republican leadership produces this monstrosity of a bill to expand this $4 billion problem to an outrageous $150 billion chunk of corporate welfare. The title of a lead column in the Business section of the Washington Post captures the essence of this sorry legislation: ``Tax Legislation Only Worthy of the Trash Heap.'' At least one corporate lobbyist was candid in boasting that this bill has ``risen to a new level of sleaze.'' The latest bit of sleaze was added only in the wee hours of this morning, a provision to obstruct an ongoing investigation by the Internal Revenue Service of corporate tax shelters, denying our IRS even the identity of those who were sold abusive corporate tax products. Once again, with tax breaks for the private jets of corporate executives, for sonar devices for finding fish, for whale hunters, we can see that the big fish do rather well in this bill, while the American people are told one whopper after another. This is a jobs bill all right. It is a jobs bill for corporate lobbyists who have done rather well. It is also a jobs bill for people in Bermuda and China. Indeed, I think the taxpayers of Bermuda and China ought to be footing the $150 billion price tag for this bill, not the American taxpayers because they appear to be the ones benefiting from this legislation. To those corporations that will dodge their taxes by planting their corporate flags on the shores of Bermuda, this bill gives them a pat on the back. The Republicans once said they were opposed to this fleeing of American corporations abroad. Now they help buy them first class airfare at the expense of American taxpayers. Certainly, the most appalling provision of all is the $10 billion given to the producers of nicotine, a lethal product that ruins the lives of so many American families. Under this outrageous section, Big Tobacco will get cheaper tobacco, even more tobacco will be grown, and the American taxpayer will be the loser.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, one of those amendments denied debate was a bipartisan effort by me and the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake). Someone in Washington needs to speak up today for conservative principles because this House Republican leadership has lost any pretense of fiscal responsibility. Today, in this bill, Republicans are awarding $10 billion, this is billion with a B, to tobacco growers. They call it a buyout, but it is really a sellout to the tobacco industry. If this measure is approved, tobacco will get cheaper; more of it can be grown, and all American taxpayers will be the losers. With the near go-it-alone occupation of Iraq continuously draining funds out the Treasury spigot faster than American taxpayers can pour their hard-earned funds into it, there is nothing conservative about giving away $10 billion to the tobacco industry. Ten billion dollars would give tens of thousands of young Americans the college education they cannot afford. They could give tens of thousands of American mothers the peace of mind that comes when they know their children have health insurance. Ten billion dollars could also buy a lot of homeland security; but instead, Congress is spending that $10 billion to reward the producers of a lethal product that each year ruins the lives of families with death and disease. This is not a job-creation bill. It is a disease-creation bill. Eighty percent of registered voters this week across America expressed their opposition to this tobacco bailout by the Congress. Unfortunately, the well-heeled lobbyists of Big Tobacco not the people, are the ones dictating this. Little wonder that this outrageous giveaway never had a public hearing, was never debated in Committee, and is being considered today in a way that denies any amendment to strike it. If this measure is approved, the tobacco industry will once again make a killing out of this Congress, a Congress that is addicted to nicotine campaign contributions.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, two companies decide to compete for a government contract. This happens, in fact, with dozens of companies, hundreds of companies all over America seeking different government contracts and wanting business that is funded by the taxpayers. Of these two companies, however, one of them has chosen to denounce its American citizenship when it is time to pay its taxes, by moving overseas and declaring that it is a company organized in Hamilton, Bermuda. The other company is an American company, not only when it comes time to put their hand out to get a government contract, but also when it comes time to put their hand out to pay the taxes that they earned on their American business. Now, which one of those companies has the competitive advantage? The one that stayed home and was patriotic to America, or the one that dodged its taxes and has lower overhead because it has lower taxes? I think the answer is rather obvious. Yet this Republican leadership has defended a practice that encourages corporations to dodge their taxes and to head off to Bermuda or Barbados or somewhere else. Then, to add insult to injury, the same tax-dodging corporation that wants the protection of American troops when it comes to national security, and of our law enforcement here at home when it comes to homeland security, these same corporations that have dodged their fair share of our homeland security and national security expenses, recognizing the permissiveness of this House Republican leadership and of the Bush administration, come back to the American taxpayer and say, not only do we not want to pay our fair share of the taxes; we also want your share of the taxes. We want government business. We want what other taxpayers, including our competitors, have paid for; we want their tax monies so we can earn more money that we can dodge taxes on while we are staying in Bermuda. Mr. Speaker, I oppose this rule, because that is exactly what the Committee on Rules, with the encouragement of the Committee on Homeland Security, has approved. It gives the competitive advantage to the corporation that dodges its taxes. Just the night before last in the Committee on Ways and Means, we heard an official from the Treasury Department again oppose corporate expatriation proposals that have been approved in the other body with wide bipartisan support, because they really do not want to stop this trend of these corporations dodging their responsibilities by going to Bermuda. Now, with Accenture, the accent has been on tax avoidance. They have now been awarded a $10 billion contract that a bipartisan vote in the full House Appropriations Committee would have put a stop to. But the House Republican leadership, with its typical permissive attitude, has blessed that. So now Accenture, ahead of the pack, will get $10 billion in a government contract while it avoids taxes.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, there is a very good reason why we do not have an energy bill: the only bill this House can consider, this one, is a sorry piece of legislation. The only energy bill that we have is one that relies on the energy of generous campaign fund-raising and high-powered lobbying. It encourages pollution and it discourages conservation. Instead of securing our energy independence, it ensures our continued overdependence on countries as volatile as the oil they possess. This bill pays some pretense to supporting renewable energy, but the focus is definitely not on conservation or sustainable energy. The real focus is on subsidizing the same high-pollution industries that we have always relied on, with $32.5 billion in tax incentives and loan guarantees. One of the best examples of the energy scams that are in this bill is the so-called synthetic fuels tax credit, the ``synfuels'' credit, and my, is it a ``sin''. Starch or pine tar is poured on coal, and when that is done, the coal does not burn any more efficiently and it does not burn with any less pollution, but it does decrease taxes. If you take the costly synfuels provision in this bill that these folks have tried to peddle once again as a retread energy bill and pile the dollar bills up past the ceiling of this building and burn them, you will generate more energy than they do with the money that they have wasted from the public treasury. And this is only one of the many outrageous examples of the scams in this bill. At the same time that they do this, they ignore the public health by making our air dirtier, by weakening the Clean Water Act, and by granting total protection to MTBE as it pollutes the public waterways. They endanger the health of Americans at the same time that they fail to ensure that we will pay less at the pump or anywhere else. What we have, in short, is a collection of unjustified tax breaks, loopholes, exemptions and dodges masquerading as a new energy policy. These tax giveaways are not offset. They endanger our fiscal health and our national treasury, as well as our hope for a better energy policy. Mr. Speaker, we need a conservative national energy policy that conserves our resources, that increases energy efficiency, and provides reasonable production incentives. This bill fails on all fronts. Energy conservation can be a great jobs program for America, but not through this bill.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, our border communities face some tremendous health care challenges. This bill would simply add to their burdens. It seems to confuse TV shows, trying to merge ``ER'' with ``NYPD Blue.'' It would involve our health care workers, our physicians, and instead of being physicians, it would turn them into Homeland Security deputies. When a doctor asks the nurse for a patient's vital signs, it ought not to mean fingerprints and a visa entry number. Think of it. A parent who is rushing a child to the emergency room with an excessively high fever, with a rattlesnake bite, with an accidental-fall injury is thinking, ``can I get my child to the doctor on time?'', not ``did I bring my employment history, my immigration status, my financial status?'' Some of our border physicians face such immense burdens. That physician is thinking, ``how can I take care and save the life and the future of this young person?'' Involving doctors and nurses in the red tape of the federal bureaucracy jeopardizes all of us, because these viruses and bacteria are equal opportunity pathogens. Tuberculosis, typhus and hepatitis do not ask for your immigration status. All of us could be adversely affected if fear forces people not to seek treatment at a medical facility. It is also important to consider that, finally, there is a small amount of relief for our border communities. Starr County, one of the poorest counties in the entire country, ought not to have to bear all of the cost of our federal immigration policy, nor should physicians in Mission or McAllen bear the entire cost of a policy that is federal in nature. Finally, there is some assistance on the way under legislation approved last year. Let us not destroy it with this bill. The Border Health Caucus has been leading the way in trying to find solutions to address the care of all the people in the border region. As we discuss immigrants, some here see numbers, but these are real live human beings that face crisis every bit as real as that of someone like myself who has lived here forever. This is a chance for groups to come together to stop bad legislation and start us on the way to solving our health care problems along the border.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I visited with a group of small business people from Texas this morning who came to discuss, among other things, their concerns about being able to provide health coverage for themselves and for their employees. Their stories were very similar to ones I have heard while visiting with small retailers in Phaw and in Mission, Texas, and in talking with musicians in Austin, Texas--that we have a growing crisis in this country in trying to ensure that working Americans can get the health protection and the health insurance access that they need. As I talked with them, one of the concerns that I raised was this need versus another one that is also the tragic result of the misleadership of this administration and this Republican Congress. They are driving our country into an economic ditch with the largest deficit in the history of America last year, to be surpassed this year, and to be exceeded in the future under a broken economic scheme. In fact, the deficits are rising at such a rate that our Republican colleagues are continually coming to ask for an increase in the debt ceiling. They will have to do it again in the very near future. I think they probably need to keep an extension ladder in this House so that they can continue raising the ceiling upward, up to what will become $10 trillion or $11 trillion. That is trillion with a ``T'' that they will be raising the debt ceiling to as a result of their misguided economic policies and their willingness to give tax break after tax break to those at the top of the economic ladder without paying for it. They get it for free. Today, we have another example of that. We have an example of an unwillingness to consider the cost and the burden on future generations of Americans and the adverse effect on our economy of continuing to incur more and more debt, as has been true in the past, by adding more and more tax breaks. So we have come forward with a substitute and said that if you are going to make these changes--even though this is probably not the most efficient way to deliver health care and there are much preferable approaches--but if you are going to do this, at least pay for it. Do not add more and more to the national debt. And we have done it in very reasonable ways. One is to deal with something that Republicans in this House would like to forget about as just ancient history: the scandal called Enron, the scandal that led to so much trouble for our economy and to a reduction in the public's confidence in our economic marketplace. Enron manipulated our tax laws. In fact, as The Washington Post reported last year, Enron was turning its tax department into a profit center. Its senior executives, along with leading accounting, banking, and legal advisers were seeking to manipulate tax laws through complex concealed transactions. These were transactions that involved things like synthetic leases. These were transactions that, as one of their people reported, were so intentionally complicated it would take a year or more to construct a single deal. Well, we have adopted in this substitute very modest proposals, recommended by the Joint Committee on Taxation and approved overwhelmingly in the United States Senate, to do something about those Enron tax abuses. What has the House of Representatives done in the two years since these abuses were disclosed? Absolutely nothing. The Senate was willing to look at the tax returns of Enron to see how these manipulations occurred, but the House Committee on Ways and Means was afraid to look under that rock because it knew the scandal it would find. They have been unwilling to address this problem. The same is true of the unpatriotic corporations that retreat to Bermuda or Barbados, who basically say that they do not want to pay their fair share of our homeland security and defense. Oh, yes, they are proud of our flag when they want our fighting men and women defending their position. They are so proud of our flag when they are being defended by our Armed Forces. They are so proud of our flag when they want to do business with the United States Government. Some of these same unpatriotic corporations come and ask for hundreds of millions of tax dollars in government contracts. In fact, one contracts with the Internal Revenue Service. Another one contracts with the Department of Homeland Security. On the one hand they will not pay their fair share of taxes, but they sure want all the tax money they can get in contracts with the government. We have a proposal to pay for health care through reforms to prevent another Enron scandal and through reforms that simply ask for a level playing field. Those corporations that want the protection of the American flag ought to be willing to pay their fair share. The Committee on Ways and Means and the Republican leadership in the House will never make these needed changes unless they are forced to do it through proposals just like this. They feel so comfortable with the Enron philosophy that a tax department is a profit center that they will continue to defend these abuses. I ask your support for the substitute.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Though we honor the life's work of Dr. Miguel Nevarez by designating a post office with his name, his real legacy is reflected in the lives and the careers of the students that he has helped for over a quarter of a century with his leadership and service, mostly as president of UT Pan American. Dr. Nevarez is the first Hispanic president of UT Pan Am and the longest seated Hispanic president of any four-year institution of higher learning. He has a total of over 30 years of service to UT Pan Am, including his tenure as a professor in the education department, associate dean of men, vice president for student and university affairs and, of course, as president and leader of the university. Dr. Nevarez has repeatedly been recognized for his leadership, including being named one of the ``100 Most Influential Hispanics in America'' and as one of the ``50 Most Influential Hispanics in Business Technology.'' His commitment to education has fundamentally and forever changed not only the Rio Grande Valley but elsewhere across our Nation as UT Pan Am graduates have assumed positions of leadership. It is not surprising to any of us who have worked with Dr. Nevarez that, after a much-deserved sabbatical, he will be returning to work with Dr. Velma Menchaca and the outstanding faculty of the Department of Educational Leadership. There, he will return to teaching, and he will be working primarily with the doctoral and master's programs involving higher education, organizational behavior and organizational management, programs that came into being through his leadership as the president at UT Pan American. Just as the commencements that we are celebrating across America represent both an end and a beginning, so does this announcement by Dr. Nevarez. The opportunity is there for us to step up to the challenge of giving students all the education for which each is willing to work. We can honor this legacy of Dr. Nevarez not only by the quite appropriate naming of a post office down the street in his honor, but by giving our public institutions of higher learning the financial support that they need to do the job to which he has dedicated his life, and particularly, in preparing our students for quality jobs upon graduation, by giving them the financial assistance that they deserve. With the overwhelming majority of students at UT Pan American qualifying for student financial assistance, but with too many unable to receive the assistance that they need at current funding levels, it would be particularly appropriate to honor Dr. Nevarez with the further tribute of extending and expanding that financial assistance. I believe that we must double the maximum amount of Pell Grants in order to achieve that objective. Dr. Nevarez already has the grateful thanks of a community that he has served for decades. Today, as we designate this post office with his name, this body, the United States Congress, affirms our gratitude for his life's work in service, not just to the Rio Grande Valley but to our entire Nation in developing the leaders who will guide our country in the future.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, to visit an Austin widow with three preschool children and no longer a husband is to understand that far more than $87 billion is involved in what we do today. We all honor those who die for our country. But the question for Congress is whether we can pursue a policy that allows more of these brave young Americans to live for America. We do not have a shortage of money in Iraq. We have a shortage of sound thinking and in good planning in pursuit of international cooperation in Washington, DC, where we have Washington ideologues paired up against courageous young Americans who are fighting for us in Iraq. Our responsibility in Congress is to ensure that more lives and more tax dollars are not squandered as quickly as this Administration squandered international goodwill after 9/11. To those in Washington who defend this failed policy by saying, ``we have to stand with our troops,'' of course, this Administration did not even ask for additional spending until last month. Until that point, they told us nothing was necessary. Indeed a nonpartisan report released yesterday, as reflected in this chart, indicates that if we did not appropriate a single cent today, the Army has enough appropriations to last through half of next year. This question is not about providing more Kevlar vests for our troops. It is about providing ``political Kevlar'' for those who want to get through the next election. Those who pursued an extreme ideology have reversed 50 years of bipartisan American foreign policy in favor of a preemptive war, and today a large number of Members of this Congress are going to say ``no,'' not to our troops, who we stand with and honor, but ``no'' to a failed policy. We are going to stand by the courageous young men and women in Iraq in uniform, but not with the ideologues in Washington in business suits who have failed them with their policies.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, with more than 2,000 young Americans dead and injured in Iraq, we have a constitutional obligation to hold this Administration accountable. We here in Congress need to demonstrate a little more of the type of courage that our young people have shown in Iraq. We are having this vote now because the Administration has been unwilling to build a genuine international coalition. The price of going it mostly alone is that American taxpayers continue to do most all the paying and our young men and women do most all the dying. Americans must ``pay it all'' because of the ``know-it-all'' ideologues who rejected the advice of our leading military experts, of our strongest allies and the experienced weapons inspectors. This is not a problem of too little money, it is a problem of too little thinking and planning. Throwing more taxpayer money at the problem has nothing to do with ``standing by our troops.'' As the data in this chart demonstrates, if the supplemental is rejected entirely, at its current rate of spending, the Army will still have plenty of money for half a year. But the choice need not be between zero and $87 billion. If you really want to stand by the troops, then supplement some now and force the Administration to come back no later than January 2004 with a plan to protect our troops and ensure security in Iraq. Do not give the Administration a pass on accountability and a blank check through the next election. This vote has nothing to do about supplying Kevlar vests to our troops. It is about providing ``political Kevlar'' to the defenders of a failed policy. Do not allow the failure of the Administration ideologues in business suits to continue endangering those who so bravely serve us in uniform. This is an Administration that cannot find Osama bin Laden, cannot find Saddam Hussein, cannot find weapons of mass destruction, cannot even find the person in the White House who was responsible for illegally endangering a woman who put her life on the line working for the CIA. The only thing the Administration can find is the taxpayers' wallet, again and again.