Lloyd Doggett

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, it is called CAFE, but unless this amendment is approved, special interests will enjoy another free lunch as they guzzle down plates piled high to satisfy a very hefty energy appetite. With 200 million tons of global-warming pollution pouring through this unwarranted loophole every year, all the rest of us are left choking on this all-you-can-pollute buffet, and billions of gallons of gasoline are wasted. Manufacturers have had 6 long years of Republican congressional dining at Cafe Delay to prepare for fuel economy. Now their allies combined some new ``do-little'' language with the same old doom-and- gloom scenario they have previously relied upon to oppose everything from seat belts to rollover protection. Reject the excuses and enact genuine fuel economy.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I certainly support this agreement, as I did in committee, but the handling of this bill really represents another foreign policy failure for the Bush Administration. During the last week alone, this Administration has stood alone and isolated from 178 other countries on how to resolve climate change and global warming. It has stood alone and isolated from seven years of negotiations about how to make an international agreement on germ warfare more effective. And it reasserted its intention to unilaterally reject the Antiballistic Missile Treaty that has contributed to three decades of peace. Little wonder that this week's conservative Economist magazine raises the question: ``Stop the World, I Want to Get Off: Has George Bush Ever Met a Treaty that He Liked?'' Well, it is not this one, because today the Republicans here on the House floor display their real paranoia about any attempt to protect workers and the environment from the potential adverse consequences of international trade. Mr. Speaker, this is an outmoded trade policy that the Bush Administration is advancing at the very time that a number of our trading partners are recognizing that environmental issues need to be addressed as we look at the question of international trade. It is a policy that is consistent only with the Bush Administration's anti- environmental attitudes and policies here in the United States. Trade is certainly vital to our country, but if more international commerce with a particular country leads to the reliance on more child labor or the destruction of rain forests or endangered species, those are important considerations to be avoided through negotiation. This agreement with the small, but important, country of Jordan fortunately did not involve any of those particular concerns; but the Clinton Administration, wisely working with the country of Jordan, provided that if there were repeated violations of a country's own laws, not our laws in Jordan but Jordan's laws in Jordan to protect workers and the environment, then that could be the subject of trade sanctions. That scares the Republicans to death, the very thought that on an international level we might give consideration to the way trade impacts workers, child laborers, the environment, endangered species, rain forests, or other sensitive environmental areas. They are opposed to even the most modest safeguards like those contained in this agreement, so they have not fast-tracked this agreement; rather, they have slow-tracked it. They have slow-tracked it for the last six or seven months, refusing to present this trade agreement to the Congress to act upon. Today they rush it to the floor with minimum debate because they do not want any attention on the contradictions in their own trade policy. That is a trade policy of slow-tracking that tells us a great deal about this so-called fast track proposal. I support more trade, but not by granting President Bush a blank check, open-ended trade authority to do anything he wants. It is clear from his rejection of these modest safeguards that he will not do right by workers and the environment unless we put strict conditions on any trade negotiating authority that Congress decides to delegate to him.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, 40 or 50 years, I would tell the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), indeed, 200 years and plus, because some of us think that just maybe our Founding Fathers, Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison and all those that played a role in our Bill of Rights, may have known just slightly more than the greats of today such as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), Mr. Gingrich, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey), and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert). Perhaps they understood the role, the important and vital role that religion would play in our society, and they would also recognize that we do not need government interfering with it. We do not need government funding it. Indeed, that is why hundreds of religious leaders, who are doing innovative work--enriching and changing lives across this country, have opposed this bill. Because they are doing their good deeds, they are living their faith and their religion, and they do not even need the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) to come in and pass a bill to let them do it. Today is a referendum on discrimination. We will have a vote today on which the Members of this House will have an opportunity to say whether they want to spend Federal tax dollars to encourage discrimination in employment or not. And the second matter, the ultimate faith-based initiative today is on the issue of fiscal responsibility. Mr. Speaker, these Republicans are draining the Medicare Trust Fund as quickly as they can turn the spigot. And when they get through emptying it, they are moving next to the Social Security Trust Fund. That is why rather than remaining true to recent Republican pledges to ``lockbox'' Medicare, The Director of the Office of Management and Budget calls the Medicare Trust Fund ``a fiction,'' Indeed, the real fiction is the claim that Republicans can provide tax breaks like this and maintain any sense of fiscal responsibility. If we think that the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) can keep coming in here, week after week, with one special interest tax break after another, today for those that helped in getting out the Republican vote last year in certain parts of the religious community, and next week with the breaks for the oil, gas industry nuclear and coal industries, if we think that he can provide all of those tax breaks and not pay for or provide offsets for a single one of them without invading the Medicare Trust Fund and the Social Security Trust Fund, Mr. Speaker, if we think he can accomplish that, we are really investing the ultimate faith-based initiative.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, most of us can appreciate the feeling of the fellow who declared, ``I am proud to be paying taxes, but I could be just as proud for half the money!'' Some taxpayers have, in fact, discovered a way to get out for half the money by exploiting abusive tax avoidance schemes, gimmicks, and tax shelters. For the millions of Americans who are paying their fair share of taxes, it is long past time to plug some of the loopholes and eliminate the tax inequities that threaten public confidence in our tax system. Today, together with the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), the ranking member of the Committee on Ways and Means and a number of my Democratic colleagues on the committee, I am introducing the Abusive Tax Shelter Shutdown Act to address these concerns. With the Bush administration already dipping into the Medicare trust fund to pay for its many undertakings, we face a challenge. To implement a patients' bill of rights, to ensure that the dipping into the Medicare trust fund does not extend to an invasion of the Social Security trust fund, and to provide reasonable tax relief, we must ensure that lower tax revenues are offset. We must secure what are known around this House as ``pay-for's'' to pay for the enactment of any new initiatives. With the bill that we are introducing today, we say: what better place to start than with the high rollers who are cheating and gaming our tax system. This new bill represents a refinement of legislation that I originally introduced in 1999. The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and several other newspapers have already endorsed that initiative. The abuses that it addresses were first brought to my attention by a constituent in Austin who directed my attention to this Forbes magazine. Forbes, which proudly proclaims itself ``the capitalist tool,'' did a cover story called ``Tax Shelter Hustlers'' with a fellow in a fedora on the cover, and stated, ``Respectable accountants are peddling dicey corporate loopholes.'' Inside, that cover story begins, ``Respectable tax professionals and respectable corporate clients are exploiting the exotica of modern corporate finance to indulge in extravagant tax dodging schemes.'' Forbes reported that Big 5 accounting firms require staffers, in one case, to come up with at least one new corporate tax dodge per week. The literal hustling of these improper tax avoidance schemes is so commonplace that the representative of one major Texas-based multinational indicated that he gets a cold call every day from someone hawking such shelters. As Stefan Tucker, former Chair of the American Bar Association Tax Section, a group comprised of 20,000 tax lawyers across the country, told the Senate Finance Committee: ``[T]he concerns being voiced about corporate tax shelters are very real; these concerns are not hollow or misplaced, as some would assert. We deal with corporate and other major taxpayer clients every day who are bombarded, on a regular and continuous basis, with ideas or ``products'' of questionable merit.'' Two years later, we have this sequel from Forbes which raises the question, ``How to cheat on your taxes?'' It concludes that the marketing of push-the-edge and over-the-edge tax shelters ``represent the most striking evidence of the decline in [tax] compliance'' in our country today. The ``outrageous shelters'' that it reports about in its cover story are literally ``tearing this country's tax system apart.'' It raises the question that more and more taxpayers are asking: ``Am I a chump for paying what I owe?'' Here is basically what this bill seeks to do: First, it seeks to stop these schemes that have no ``economic substance.'' That is, deals that are done not to achieve economic gain in a competitive marketplace or for other legitimate business reasons but to generate losses that offer a way to avoid the tax collector. Second, it prevents tax cheats from buying the equivalent of a ``get- out-of-jail-free'' card to protect themselves in the unlikely event that they get caught. Some fancy legal opinion cannot be used as insurance against penalties for tax underpayments on transactions that have no economic substance. Third, the bill increases and tightens penalties for tax dodging so that there is at least some downside risk to cheating. Fourth, it requires the promoters and hustlers who market tax shelters to share a little of the penalty themselves with the offending taxpayer. Fifth, it punishes the lawyers who write ``penalty insurance'' opinions that any reasonable person would know are unjustified. Sixth, it penalizes those who fail to follow the disclosure rules. It recognizes that too often secrecy is the growth hormone for these complex tax-cheating shelter gimmicks. Seventh, it expands the types of tax shelters that must be registered with the IRS, thereby facilitating tax enforcement. Finally, it targets a few of what some might view as ``attractive nuisances.'' That is, tax code provisions that are particularly subject to manipulation and misuse. Battling these shelters one at a time, through years of costly litigation, has not prevented the steady growth in abusive practices. Indeed, the creativity and speed with which new and more complicated tax shelters are devised is remarkable. Following judicial and administrative rulings, tax shelters are repackaged and remarketed with creative titles like sequels to bad movies. One type of gimmickery, called LILO, has been used by an American company, which rents a Swiss town hall, not for any gathering, but only to rent it immediately back to the Swiss. The corporation takes a deduction from current taxable income for the total rental expense, while deferring income from its ``re-rental'' until far into the future. Within months of Treasury shutting down such abusive LILO transactions, products were soon being sold as the ``Son of LILO,'' with only a modicum of difference from the previous version. I have modified this legislation to take into account the comments that were raised at a November 1999 Committee on Ways and Means hearing. I have incorporated recommendations from the American Bar Association tax section, and bipartisan suggestions from leaders of the Senate Finance Committee last year. This bill has been carefully designed to curtail egregious behavior without impacting legitimate business deals. Most of these refinements have had a very plain purpose: eliminate the excuse for inaction. This bill should now be acceptable to everyone but most blatant shelter hustlers. But that may not be the case. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill recently gave an interview to a London newspaper in which he favored eliminating corporate taxation. If that is the ultimate objective, if he just waits a little while maintaining the same attitude of indifference in the face of rapidly proliferating shelter schemes it may eventually be accomplished. This will leave just a few ``corporate chumps'' paying anything close to their fair share. Most taxpayers realize that if someone in the corporate towers or just down the street is not paying their fair share, you and I, and the others who play by the rules, must pay more to pick up the slack. And that slack, that loss of revenue to abusive tax shelters, is not estimated to exceed $10 billion per year. And that lost revenue could be put to better use. The bipartisan leaders of the managed care reform bill in the last Congress relied upon this proposal to offset any reduced federal revenues associated with adopting the Patients Bill of Rights. Although blocked procedurally, Representative Charlie Norwood (R-GA) got it right in telling the House Rules Committee, ``There is a large difference in what you call a tax increase and stopping bogus tax shelters. That is really two different things. They aren't just asking them to pay more taxes, we are trying to keep them from cheating the system.'' Today, we sponsors of this legislation offer a constructive way of correcting abusive tax shelters, described by former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers as ``the most serious compliance issue threatening the American tax system.'' Battling corporate tax cheats is not a partisan issue, it is a question of fundamental fairness. This Congress should promptly respond. Technical Explanation of H.R. , the ``Abusive Tax Shelter Shutdown Act of 2001''

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, the corrupting influence of money on public policy is evident in this House every day. It is evident not only as a principal concern that arises here on vote after vote, significantly influenced by who, gave how much, to whom, when, but it is also particularly evident in the silence on critical issues of public policy, on what is never discussed. When we are unable to consider critical issues of public health because of the soft money contributions from Philip Morris and the tobacco industry; when we are never able to debate the outrageous price discrimination against our seniors on their pharmaceuticals because of the millions of dollars that the pharmaceutical companies contribute, and by the multiple issues never considered that impact our children, who make no campaign contribution. Today we have an opportunity to consider a very modest, a very incomplete and imperfect answer to this troubling predicament through bipartisan legislation. This legislation represents our best hope to begin to correct this outrage and restore our democracy to the people.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield. The gentleman served on the Committee on National Security, and I know he must have heard many demands to see that our men and women in arms are justly paid, to see that they have the facilities that they need, that all of the branches of the armed services have the equipment and the support that they need. I listened recently to the former chair of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, Sam Nunn, who noted that we risk the possibility of having vital resources that we need for other aspects of the military all sucked up into this one plan that does not work. I have been surprised as I have traveled around my district in Texas at how many people who are coming up and expressing opposition to this plan who are veterans who have served and who recognize how foolhardy it is to divert all our resources into one area, and that area being one that is not proven to work. I am wondering if the gentleman is hearing from other people who are in our military services informally or have served in the military who recognize the danger that has been spotlighted tonight and that former Senator Nunn has voiced publicly?

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman yield?

Mr. DOGGETT. I know one of the areas that the gentlewoman has considerable expertise in is in reference to agriculture and her work for farmers across the country. It has been suggested by some administration officials that we apply an agricultural approach to this. We take this $100 billion, and it does not make any difference if it works because it can be a giant scarecrow and it will scare off the people from around the world. I am wondering from your expertise in agriculture if you think that using Star Wars as a scarecrow might be sufficient to protect our families?

Mr. DOGGETT. I know the gentleman from Wisconsin is well known in this body as a hawk of sorts, a deficit hawk. He is always up there on the top in the ratings of the Concord Coalition on fiscal responsibility. We have got a budget. This plan that they are not sure what they are going to do and when they are going to do it, has there been any provision made for that in this budget or in future budgets to tell the American people what this questionable project will cost and how we are going to pay for it?

Mr. DOGGETT. I just wanted to point out to the gentleman from Wisconsin that former Defense Secretary William Perry made much the same point that you are making within the last few months in saying that even, quote, a relatively small deployment of defensive systems could have the effect of triggering a regional nuclear arms race of considerable proportion. As we look around the world, as you were just doing, you really cannot find any enthusiasm out there among our weak allies or among our strongest allies, some of whom we will have to count on to put these forward radar stations in their countries. None of them are coming forward and saying, please give us this defense. It seems to be more of a political defense in this country. Certainly there are some weapons manufacturers who see hundreds of billions of dollars of future contracts out of this. But as you search around the world, have you seen any indication of support in other parts of the world for this kind of system? I know the current Lone Star approach as carried here and somewhat misguidedly to Washington is that it no longer makes any difference what the rest of the world thinks, but what does the rest of the world think about this?

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. This motion is an attempt to improve a bill that is probably insusceptible to improvement. Indeed, it has always been challenging in discussing this tax measure whether to focus on its fundamental inequity or to consider its gross fiscal irresponsibility, because this measure has embodied so many aspects of both. It need not have been that way. There has been strong bipartisan support in this Congress for reasonable tax relief. But reason does not seem to be in vogue in Washington this year. Take, for example, the matter of correcting the marriage penalty tax. We could have done that the day after the Inauguration and done it on a unanimous basis in this Congress. Democrats tried in 1995 to implement the so-called Contract on America, but Republicans had higher priorities and they rejected any correction of the marriage penalty in the Committee on Ways and Means. Again this year, we find very much the same set of priorities. Because the bill that comes to us tonight from the United States Senate does not provide one cent of relief to those Americans who thought they were going to receive marriage penalty correction during this year. They have deferred the entire thing for another 5 or 6 years. So all these pretty photos of married couples and the discrimination they face, they need to know that if we approve the bill that was just approved over at the United States Senate, they will not get a penny of relief out of this bill. It need not have been that way. The priorities could have been different. A bipartisan moderate approach to resolve the major inequities could have been accomplished, but instead, things like the marriage tax penalty were used as political ploys instead of as a basis for coming about with reasonable reform. As the Senate Committee on Finance chairman said of the bill this week, quote, one criticism is that this bill's tax cuts are backloaded for high-income taxpayers. In other words, high-income taxpayers receive a lot of relief toward 2011 instead of 2001. This is a true fact, but not a valid criticism. That is some real double-speak. What it really means is they are loading up these tax cuts in a way that at the very time more people are making their demands felt as they retire as baby boomers, there will not be the resources there to meet those needs. Need increases, the ability to meet those needs decreases. And this is part of an overall plan of this administration and those within this Congress. This weekend, the Secretary of the Treasury gave an interview to a paper in London where he called for the total abolition of the corporate income tax. We will see one measure after another. As one of our Republican colleague said, there is another bill pending here. And the special interest lobbyists seeking tax breaks are swarming around it like ants at a picnic. This bill is presented to us tonight as a great picnic for the American people. But all they will get out of it is one series of stings after another.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. All right, Mr. Speaker. Then on H.R. 1 and H.R. 1836, when might they be considered?

Mr. DOGGETT. Of course, the conference has not been convened because the Senate has not acted. Is the gentleman saying in the event the tax reconciliation conference report, if that is not available by Thursday night, we might be facing some interference with the Memorial Day weekend?

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, backing up to Monday, does the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon) anticipate that there will be any business other than suspensions on Monday evening?

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, it had been my understanding that was beginning on Tuesday, but there is a possibility of general debate, not amendments on Monday night?

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, because there is such interest in the education bill, is the gentleman from California informed as to what days we would be considering the education bill next week?

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that explanation. If I might inquire further, many Members, of course, have travel plans for next Thursday evening, does the gentleman anticipate any event that would prevent our departing at least by 6 p.m. on Thursday?

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire about next week's schedule. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon).

Mr. DOGGETT. The gentleman mentioned both H.R. 1831 and H.R. 1885. Does he know on which days those are most likely to be considered?

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, finally, the Republican tax plan and the Republican energy plan are one. In the amazing words of President Bush on Friday, ``The quickest way to help people with their energy bills is tax relief.'' This year the benefit to the typical taxpaying American family from this Republican plan that we are considering today will amount to the cost of about 3 gallons of gas per week. That is probably not enough gas to get most Americans to and from work, but it will keep your lawn looking pretty good. I guess you could ride your lawn mower to work. Mr. Speaker, perhaps, though, Democrats have been a little harsh in criticizing this bill as being designed solely for the wealthy, because just being affluent, just being rich is not enough to really rake in a bonanza from this bill. As The New York Times reported yesterday morning, ``The biggest cuts would go more to the extraordinarily wealthy'' as opposed to just the ``merely affluent or wealthy'' and, ``the very richest would save more than $1 million a year under this House plan.'' Your family gets 3 gallons of gasoline a week, the super-rich, each of them, gets $1 million a year from this scheme. This summer many American consumers cannot afford to go to the gas station and say ``fill 'er up'' unless it is a very small quantity for their lawn mower. But the privileged few, they have already said ``fill 'er up'' to these Republicans, who have been all too willing to reward the few at the expense of the many. That expense will come not just this year, but when it is time over this decade to fund student financial assistance, so that every young person can get all of the education for which he or she is willing to work wants; when it is time to address the many unmet health care needs of Americans such as access to the soaring cost of prescription drugs; when it is time to put more cops on the street to protect our neighborhoods; when it is time to meet a wide range of future needs of this country including reasonable tax relief and correction of inequities in the Tax Code. The same Republicans who offer your family 3 gallons of gas a week while they give other folks a million dollars a year, they are going to be saying, well, we are sorry we cannot do that. We just do not have the money to do it. The reason they do not have the money is no accident. It is a result of a purposeful policy to shortchange the American people in the way quite similar to how they are being shortchanged today.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, every aspect of this budget and the way that it has been crafted and presented to this House indicate that the same folks who ran this House during the Gingrich years, their same spirit has dominated every aspect; they are still calling all the shots. Bipartisanship has been all pretense and no reality. Cutting our commitment to educational opportunities for our children, even to a level lower than the limited commitment that President Bush recommended, represents that mean-spirited approach and a true shortchanging of our Nation's future. The full implementation of this budget will mean that we will consume entirely the Medicare Trust Fund and we will deplete significantly the Social Security Trust Fund, returning to a path of using Social Security contributions to pay for non-Social Security purposes, and that is wrong. If my colleagues do not understand anything else about this budget, remember that those two pages that were supposedly lost in the middle of the night last week did two things: for education, monies that had been added with the support of even a Republican Member, Mr. Jeffords, they were cut. Educational opportunities were cut in order, in those same two pages, to have massive tax cuts for those at the top of the economic ladder. A budget is supposed to be a statement of our national priorities. And this irresponsible budget invades the security of our seniors and those who will be retiring in the future; this budget rejects opportunities for our children. All of this results from an unrealistic tax cut to shower benefits on those at the top of the economic ladder. Vote no!

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I believe that the question that our Republican friends joined by one of my colleagues from Georgia just now need to answer, is if they are so much against the so-called death tax, why is it that this morning they are so modest, so timid, indeed so fearful of providing relief now to the small businesses and the family farms? The real problem with their ``repeal'' is that it does not actually repeal anything any time soon. I heard just now my colleague refer to service stations and funeral homes. How much relief do all of these supporters of the repeal of the death tax provide for such enterprises? Well, I heard the 55 percent tax described as confiscatory, and under their repeal, what relief do all of those people get next year that have been coming around, that have been stirred up by all of these Republican lobby groups to repeal the death tax? Well, they certainly do not get repeal. Anyone who dies next year, they are going to get an amazing amount of relief. The confiscatory 55 percent tax will be lowered all the way down to 53 percent. That is the amount of relief that these timid supporters of ``repeal'' of the death tax are offering for next year. How about carrying it on down a few years to 2006. Well, by that time, these timid supporters of the ``repeal'' of the death tax are still not repealing any tax for anybody, instead, they are only lowering it for all to 46 percent. Mr. Speaker, they do not repeal the death tax for a single American next year. Indeed, they do not repeal the death tax during the entire decade, for a single American. All these groups, these service stations, funeral homes, family farms, family enterprises that have been so concerned, that have been stirred up by all the Republican rhetoric, they do not get any repeal of the death tax next year or during the next decade. The only hope that family enterprises have for repeal under the Republican proposal occurs a decade from now, in 2011, at the very time that the baby boomers are placing the greatest demands on Social Security and Medicare. If at that time we have, and it seems inconceivable, but if, at that time, we have a Congress that is as fiscally irresponsible as the current one, and it remains willing to repeal the tax from the billionaires, from the super rich in this country, then, and only then, perhaps relief will trickle down to family enterprises. Today House Republicans say that Teddy Roosevelt, a great Republican who first advocated the inheritance tax, that he was all wrong and that inherited wealth is no longer a problem, inherited economic power that concentrates more and more of the wealth in this country in the hands of a few super-rich billionaires; that that is okay, that we do not need to worry about it, that it does not threaten our democracy. But in the meantime, the small businesses and the family farms, and all of the tearful stories that we have heard here this morning, those people are being held hostage. They will have to pay a tax for the next decade because the Republicans are fearful of repealing it for them. Our Democratic substitute repeals that tax for the first $2 million for an individual, $4 million for a couple. It repeals it for 77 percent of the estates that pay taxes today and does so promptly, in January, not in future decades.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley) for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, this is truly one of the most bizarre debates that we have had here in the House. We are at a time of economic slow down, an economic slow down that began about the time that President Bush began talking down our economy, and so Republicans tell us they want to stimulate the economy. Well, they have about the same chance of reviving the economy with this bill as they do reviving the dead. This bill is not designed to stimulate the economy; it is designed to stimulate the financial statements of America's billionaires. Then they parade out the horribles of all the people across America that are subject to the estate tax--all 2 percent of them--the family farms being shut down, the small businesses unable to continue. We Democrats come forward and say, let us get together now to resolve that problem. Let us proceed 8 months from now, in January, to repeal the estate tax for 77 percent of the small number of people that are even subject to the estate tax in this country. Let us eliminate it for small businesses and family farms and eliminate it promptly. The Republicans say, no, we do not want to do that. We want to ``repeal'' the death tax, and in order to repeal the death tax for the billionaires, we must impose upon and hold hostage every one of these small businesses and family farms that we are so concerned about, we will hold them hostage and make them subject to tax for the next 10 years. We will continue to assess them a 53 percent tax next year and still a 39 percent tax in the year 2010. Republicans are continuing to impose that tax and refusing to exempt one family farm, refusing to save one family business for the next decade here in America, because they are so committed to reducing taxes for the billionaires of this country. Mr. Speaker, this bill does not have to do with the millions, it has to do with the billions, and the billionaires. They talk about class warfare, they are winning the class warfare. They are saying to the small businesses, to the family farms across this country, we will not do anything about your estate taxes and repeal them all for you next January, as Democrats are ready and eager to do. We are so intent on protecting the billionaires in this society, and we do not care if it wrecks the budget, we do not care if it jeopardizes Social Security and Medicare, we do not care if it undermines our ability to assure educational opportunity for young people in this country; we do not even care if it means imposing the so-called death tax on small businesses and family farms for the next decade, because we will not actually repeal it for anyone until the year 2011. And even though you Democrats, even according to today's Wall Street Journal, offer small businesses and family farms a better way, a better, speedier form of estate tax relief than Republicans, we have to do it the Republican way or no way to assure full benefit and protection for the billionaires. And that is wrong, and that is why the Democratic substitute must be adopted.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) for yielding the time. Mr. Speaker, I want to reiterate that if there are any Members who believe that President Bush had this marriage penalty tax solution correct last year during his campaign, they need to vote against this proposal, because this bill rejects the Bush solution to this marriage penalty problem. Indeed, the only witness that the Republicans brought forward on this issue said President Bush's approach was worse than doing nothing. Now after I said that earlier in the debate, a piece of paper was advanced that the Administration has endorsed today's proposal. I have not seen that yet, but certainly this would not be the first campaign promise that the President has chosen to reverse himself on this year. Mr. Speaker, I would just emphasize that the better approach is not to place an additional penalty on single individuals, whether a widow, a single mom or simply some person that chooses to live as a single individual. Our tax system ought to be based on equity and be designed so as not to discriminate based on marital status. This particular Republican proposal discriminates instead of following the approach that President Bush recommended last year. One of the issues that has not gotten as much attention in this debate as I think it needs is the question of what stimulus, if any, comes out of this tax package. Members will recall that the Bush tax proposal was not developed during hard times, at least not economic hard times, they were developed during campaign hard times, when he feared Steve Forbes' challenge in the Republican primary. The economy was doing well. His campaign was faltering a little bit. So he tried to come up with an approach that would stimulate the financial statements of the wealthiest people in our society and to out-Steve Forbes, Steve Forbes. I think that that is what his overall tax proposal was designed to do last year. Now we face more challenging economic times, and it would seem to me that we ought to focus tax relief in ways that might help with our economic slowdown. We do not know how long or how deep this Bush economic slowdown will be, since he began talking down the economy, but we can be certain that there is no economic stimulus to turn the economy around found in today's piece of legislation. Like their estate tax proposal, this tax package has a better chance of resurrecting the dead than of resurrecting the economy.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, there is broad bipartisan support in this House for correcting the marriage tax penalty. Indeed, this is a measure that could have been approved the week after President Bush's inauguration. In fact, there is such broad bipartisan support, it could have been approved last year. Or it could have been approved back in 1995 when the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) offered it in the Committee on Ways and Means to implement the Republican contract on America by correcting the marriage tax penalty. But our Republican colleagues at that time had higher priorities: they preferred tax relief for corporations rather than couples; and they rejected his proposal. Last year they had a higher priority than relief for married couples, which was to try and win an election by preserving this as a campaign issue instead of coming together to agree on genuine marriage tax penalty relief. Married couples in this country should and could have had this penalty corrected years ago. Yet, today, we find ourselves together, not in bipartisan agreement, but in disagreement, because once again our Republican colleagues offer a proposal that offers more relief to those who have no marriage tax penalty than those that do. Any Member of this body, who believes that President Bush got it right in his campaign last year with his proposal for marriage tax penalty correction, needs to vote against the Republican proposal. They brought, as their principal witness to our Committee on Ways and Means, a gentleman who testified that President Bush's proposal on marriage penalty relief was worse than doing nothing at all. Yes, that is correct, as difficult as it is to believe. The Republican witness came and said President Bush had it all wrong last year in the campaign and that we ought to reject his proposal. I actually happen to think that the President came a lot closer to getting it right on this issue than the House Republicans with their old proposal that they have revised here, which is designed to shower benefits on those who have no penalty instead of focusing relief on those who have a legitimate complaint. Let us be sure we understand what this bill does in that regard. Anyone in this House who believes we should not discriminate against single people ought to vote against this proposal, because that is exactly what it does by focusing more relief on those who incur no marriage penalty than those who do. In fact, under this proposal, if someone has the misfortune to become a widow or a widower, on their income after this bill passes, that individual may well face a tax increase. I guess you might call it a ``death tax'' or the ``single's discrimination tax''. On the same amount of earnings that say a retired couple might have, a surviving spouse will face a higher rate filing individually--a single's tax discrimination. The same applies to the abused spouse who separates from her husband. The same applies to any single individual out there, who is penalized under this bill.