Lloyd Doggett

Mr. DOGGETT

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

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record additional views that I offered individually to the Committee on Ways and Means report on H.R. 4986 and the additional views that I offered on behalf of myself, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis), and the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark) to the same report. Mr. Speaker, I also include for the Record a copy of the story in today's Washington Post entitled ``Tobacco Exports Get Aid in Bill Set for House Vote.'' Additional Views by Mr. Doggett In what is hardly a model of the way the democratic process should operate, this legislation has involved no public participation, no hearings, and no involvement of any but a handful of Committee members. This bill is basically a product of meetings between the Treasury Department and groups that will benefit from preferential tax treatment. The Chairman even went so far as to attempt to preclude the Committee members from making comments or offering amendments. The members were even denied the right to question Secretary Eizenstat, the principal Administration official responsible for this bill. The cost of this legislation to the Treasury, which must be paid for by American taxpayers, is between $4 billion and $6 billion per year, and growing. In response to the European community's criticism that tax advantages to American businesses are illegal, this legislation seeks to generously increase those advantages by $300 million a year. With this legislation, the Committee has basically made a public policy statement that local stores, which sell groceries or clothing to customers within our country, should pay higher taxes than multinational corporations, which sell cigarettes or machine guns abroad. Contrary to proponents' arguments that small and medium sized businesses share significantly in this tax break, the Internal Revenue Service Statistics of Income Division reports that 78% of FSC tax benefits go to companies with assets exceeding $1 billion. Another study based on a sample of corporate financial statements published in Tax Notes, August 14, 2000, indicates that, ``the top 20% of FSC beneficiaries (ranked by size of reported FSC benefit in 1998) obtained 87% of the FSC benefits.'' Moreover, there is substantial question as to the benefits that Americans truly will receive from this legislation. The Congressional Research Service summarized the most recent Treasury analysis of the Foreign Sales Corporation tax benefit by concluding that ``[r]epealing this provision would have a negligible effect on the trade balance.'' Treasury determined that such a repeal would reduce U.S. exports by \3/10\ of one percent and U.S. imports by \2/10\ of one percent. Encouraging Foreign Armaments Sales Because the benefits to ordinary Americans of this costly tax advantage are at best remote, every aspect of this law deserves the type of scrutiny that was wholly lacking during committee consideration. One glaring example of both what is wrong with this legislation and what is wrong with the process that produced it is the generosity shown to arms manufacturers. Their tax savings are doubled by this bill. The supposed justification for such largesse to those who promote arms sales abroad was previously rejected by the Treasury Department in August 1999: We have seen no evidence that granting full FSC benefits would significantly affect the level of defense exports, and indeed, we are given to understand that other factors, such as the quality of the product and the quality and level of support services, tend to dominate a buyer's decision whether to buy a U.S. defense product. Ironically, in 1997, the Congressional Budget Office, whose director was appointed by Republican leaders had reached a similar conclusion: U.S. defense industries have significant advantages over their foreign competitors and thus should not need additional subsidies to attract sales. Because the U.S. defense procurement budget is nearly twice that of all Western European countries combined, U.S. industries can realize economics of scale not available to other competitors. The U.S. defense research and development budget is five times that of all Western European countries combined, which ensures that U.S. weapon systems are and will remain technologically superior to those of other suppliers. Even the Department of Defense conceded the same in 1994: The forecasts support a continuing strong defense trade performance for U.S. defense products through the end of the decade and beyond. In a large number of cases, the U.S. is clearly the preferred provider, and there is little meaningful competition with suppliers from other countries. An increase in the level of support the U.S. government currently supplies is unlikely to shift the U.S. export market share outside a range of 53 to 59 percent of worldwide arms trade. In 1999, without the bonanza provided by this bill, US defense contractors sold almost $11.8 billion in weapons overseas--more than a third of the world's total and more than all European countries combined. A paper prepared for the Cato Institute in August 1999 by William D. Hartung, President's Fellow at the World Policy Institute, highlights the bad judgment shown here: ``If the government wanted to level the playing field between the weapons industry and other sectors, it would have to reduce weapons subsidies, not increase them.'' (These subsidies include thousands of federal employees at the Pentagon and other agencies whose very purpose is to increase arms sales.) He continued, ``Considering those massive subsidies to weapon manufacturers, granting additional tax breaks to an industry that is being so pampered by the U.S. government makes no sense.'' With no evidence to warrant its action, the Committee rejected fiscal responsibility in favor of wholly unjustified preferential tax treatment that means millions in savings to defense contractors. This costly decision is also bad for our country's true security interests. Instead of subsidizing arms promotion, our nation should be encouraging arms control. American armaments too often contribute to one arms race after another around the globe. Doubling this subsidy only encourages the sales of more arms overseas and creates more challenges to the maintenance of our own ``military superiority''--and, of course, more pressure for additional costly increases in the defense budget. As Lawrence Korb, President Reagan's Assistant Secretary for Defense for Manpower, Reserve Affairs, Installations and Logistics, has said: It has become a money game: an absurd spiral in which we export arms only to have to develop more sophisticated ones to counter those spread out all over the world . . . It is very hard for us to tell other people--the Russians, the Chinese, the French--not to sell arms, when we are out there peddling and fighting to control the market. Former Costa Rican President and 1987 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Oscar Arias offers another reason for rejecting the Committee's decision to increase the arms subsidy: By selling advanced weaponry throughout the world, wealthy military contractors not only weaken national security and squeeze taxpayers at home but also strengthen dictators and human misery abroad.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, to those who say it is not significant, nor should it be debated today that the American taxpayers will be asked to be unwilling accomplices to the tobacco industry at a cost of $100 million per year; that the pharmaceutical industry will get about $123 million per year as a reward for selling pharmaceuticals at lower prices abroad than they do here at home; that military contractors will get a doubling of their tax subsidy under this bill as they sell machine guns and land mines and other armaments around the world to fuel the world's arms races; that all of these things should be ignored, because in order to protect American jobs, we have to beat the clock before October 1, one wonders why it is that we do not even have this bill presented until 4:09 in the afternoon on September 12, if we, indeed, face such a crisis. In fact, we do not face such a crisis. The United States has never asked the Europeans for an extension of this deadline in order to explore other alternatives, and our country has every right to make that request. An opinion article in an authority no more extreme than Business Week on September 4 correctly said ``it's time to call a halt to such waste by both sides . . . the administration should drop its plan to expand FSC, get back to the negotiating table, and start proposing some real solutions such as eliminating export subsidies.''

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, God bless America and God bless the democracy that involves public participation--a concept at the core of what our American government is all about. Such public participation was not very evident in the process that produced this bill. This bill was conceived behind closed doors with no public participation, no public hearings, no public involvement. It was designed to continue what is, in essence, a legal scheme of tax avoidance for the world's largest corporations by channeling some of their profits through foreign tax havens. This bill is basically a product of meetings between the Treasury Department and those who benefit from the tax subsidy. The lobbyists have met with the Treasury Department, but the Treasury Department official responsible for the bill was unwilling to answer questions in public from even the members of the Committee on Ways and Means. I voted for this bill in committee. I am committed to promoting international trade, but it was a very contrived circumstance that produced this bill, and the arrogance and the deception associated with this bill as well as the additional information that I now have about this bill cause me today to reconsider my position and to oppose strongly H.R. 4986. This bill is not actually the bill that our committee considered. Rather this is a bill that the lobby has massaged for another few weeks after the initial bill was approved in the Committee on Ways and Means. This particular version has never had a hearing or a vote. There are not three Members on this floor today that can say they have even read the particular bill that is before us today. The cost of this bill, however, is $4 million to $6 million, according to the best estimates we can get: every year that has to be made up by other American taxpayers. With this bill, the Congress would be saying basically that local stores that sell groceries or clothes to people on any Main Street or at any mall in America, those businesses would have to pay higher taxes so that multinational corporations that sell tobacco and cigarettes and machine guns abroad can pay lower taxes. Even then, an independent analysis of this bill by the Congressional Research Service says that it has ``a negligible effect on the trade balance.'' That its overall impact in creating trade is practically nil. Now, it was suggested that only some ill-informed people here on the floor were condemning this bill as corporate welfare. Well, perhaps the gentleman is unfamiliar with the recommendation of his own Republican Congressional Budget Office, I think for about 3 years in a row, suggesting that the Foreign Sales Corporation Act be repealed just as the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) has proposed in his own separate legislation. Perhaps he did not listen to Senator John McCain on ABC's This Week when in February he said he was opposed to the Foreign Sales Corporation Act. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. DOGGETT. A distinguished Arizona citizen commenting on ABC's This Week program made very clear his opposition to foreign sales corporations, as did the Washington Times which referred to the bipartisan involvement, called it ``an almost unanimous blunder.'' Let us be very clear about what this bill does. An eligible product need have little or no U.S. manufactured content in order to qualify for this special new tax treatment. If one has a pair of Levis and it is made entirely outside the United States but one slaps on a label that says ``Levis,'' under this bill's supporters are unable to say that this foreign manufactured product will not qualify for special tax relief. If one has a Marlboro cigarette that does not have one percentage point of tobacco from American tobacco farmers in it but one slaps ``Marlboro'' on it, and that gives it more than 50 percent value, it qualifies for a tax break. If one has a zocor tablet that is manufactured outside the United States but one puts ``zocor'' on it and adds 50 percent of the value, it qualifies for a tax break. Every one of those under this bill is going to receive a special tax subsidy, and that is not going to help American workers, and it certainly is unfair to American consumers who have to pay the highest pharmaceutical costs in the entire world; to pay a higher cost here and then to add insult to injury by being forced to provide a tax subsidy on top of that for the pharmaceutical company to sell it to someone else at a lesser price in another country. It is particularly outrageous that this bill would be taken up on the floor of the Congress on the very day that a new study is announced showing that tobacco is even more addictive for children than we ever knew previously. Only a couple of weeks of contact with cigarettes can addict children to a life of nicotine, posing the resulting threat of death and disease, very painful disease. This bill allows Phillip Morris to continue marketing to children around the world and addicting them as a part of what is becoming a pandemic that will kill 10 million people every year in this world as a result of our promotion of tobacco. Today the American people are asked to be an unwilling accomplice, to give $100 million a year to Phillip Morris and the other big tobacco companies that are in the addiction business to go around the world promoting their tobacco to other people's kids. Well, those other children of the world have value, too, and we ought to be concerned about their health and their lives. We certainly ought not to encourage these tobacco companies with $100 million per year in tax subsidy to cause death and disease for children around this world.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, if I understand what the gentleman is saying, we, of course, are well aware that America's seniors, indeed uninsured people in America of all ages, a young family that has a sick child that does not have insurance, these individuals across America, millions of them, are paying the highest price for drugs of anyplace in the entire world, and an American pharmaceutical company under this bill can continue to do that, to charge them the highest prices in the world and export the same drug to another country, whether it is Canada, Europe, wherever.

Mr. DOGGETT. That is the vote we will be taking today, whether to reward these companies that charge Americans more money than anywhere else in the world, reward them by giving them a tax subsidy?

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

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, because of my commitment to expanding international trade, I voted in favor of H.R. 4986 in committee. I must say that I was forced to cast that vote under very strange circumstances, with very limited information about the full content of this bill because of the way it was brought up. Because of the secrecy surrounding this bill and the deceit surrounding it, I am reconsidering that vote and will expand on the concerns that I just expressed in the discussion with my colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark). On pharmaceuticals, I question why it could possibly be right to subsidize an industry that overcharges American customers and sells the very same product made in America in other parts of the world for less. Why should there be a subsidy designed to encourage lower prices for seniors in other parts of the world for American pharmaceuticals than right here at home? The high cost of prescription drugs represents an injury to American consumers, but it really does add insult to injury to reward pharmaceutical companies with a tax break with reference to those foreign sales in addition to the gouging of the American consumer. It is very important for our colleagues to understand that H.R. 4986, which will be coming up for a vote later today, was considered under the most extraordinary and unusual circumstances before the Committee on Ways and Means. There was no public hearing. There was no report that has yet been published. There was even an attempt to limit the ability of the members of the committee to ask questions to any resource witnesses about the nature of this bill. The lead official for the administration on this, Secretary Eizenstat, was rushed out of the committee before he could answer a single question about the bill. Highly unusual that an administration official would be unwilling to publicly answer questions about a bill that will cost American taxpayers $4 billion to $6 billion each year. Apparently the entire process for putting this bill together was to gather in a room outside of public purview those people who would benefit, like the pharmaceutical industry, from the tax break and work with them to figure out how they could get the most tax break without any input from anyone other than those who stood to gain from the tax subsidy. It is particularly ironic that we would be taking this bill up today, because we have just had released this morning a new study concerning the very highly addictive quality of nicotine; that it takes a child a very short period of time of being exposed to a cigarette before they become addicted to nicotine. Yet one of the principal beneficiaries of this piece of legislation are the giant tobacco companies. They are involved in a worldwide effort to spread the plague of death and disease associated with tobacco use. We have learned today that tobacco is even more addictive than previously known for children. Phillip Morris, for example, runs these ads all the time, they are spending millions of dollars to tell us how they do not put their logos on clothing; they do not sponsor youth-oriented activities; they do not try to attract children to smoke in the United States. While such claims are very questionable even here at home, none of them apply abroad. Phillip Morris is directly targeting the world's children, as are other tobacco companies. Under this piece of legislation, the American taxpayer will be an unwilling accomplice of this attempt to addict children around the world. The tobacco industry, if this bill is passed, will get at least $100 million every year in special tax breaks for the purpose of allowing it to go around and do the same thing to children in other parts of the world, particularly in the developing countries, that it has done to our children. Nor does the American tobacco industry need a special tax break in order to enjoy a competitive advantage. Big tobacco companies have already gained extensive experience as they abused American children, as they successfully addicted millions of American children who grew up to die of emphysema and lung cancer and heart problems as a result of their exposure to tobacco. Big tobacco has the tremendous marketing expertise, paid for with millions of lives in this country, to apply to Eastern Europe, to Asia, to Africa, to South America, to addict the children in that part of the world. And, as I indicated, they have specifically refused to apply any of the very modest limitations on marketing to children that they now apply in this country to their efforts to addict children around the world. Why should we reward this malicious industry with $100 million a year tax cut? That is what the members of this Congress will have to answer this afternoon when this bill comes up.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. And with reference to next Friday, does the gentleman anticipate whether we will be able to get a notice, as we have been today, that there would be no votes next Friday?

Mr. DOGGETT. With this short list, would the gentleman anticipate we would have any late nights, any night next week?

Mr. DOGGETT. Does the gentleman have any indication of which day we would expect the vote on the marriage penalty veto override attempt?

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I have asked to address the House for 1 minute to inquire about next week's schedule.

Mr. DOGGETT. I thank the gentleman for his courtesy and wish him a good weekend.

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

Mr. DOGGETT. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, it looks like there are some rather familiar titles here, and I am wondering if the gentleman could indicate, other than the addition of the suspensions, whether we expect anything new next week or just what we did not reach this week.

Mr. DOGGETT. I believe the previously published schedule had us out by at least 2 p.m. next Friday. The gentleman would not anticipate we would go beyond that?

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, at a time when the demands for seniors for real relief on prescription drugs are thwarted in this House, at a time when this House does absolutely nothing about the pharmaceutical companies that engage in price discrimination against our seniors that literally treat them worse than dogs, at a time when seniors find one health care provider after another who will not take Medicare patients because the reimbursements are so low, at this time, of all times, for the Republicans to come forward and engage in this cynical ploy is truly wrong. Having opposed Medicare from its outset back in the days when Lyndon Johnson was working so hard to get it, these Republicans are determined to fulfill the pledge of their so recently departed leader to let Medicare wither on the vine. That is why the National Council of Senior Citizens has condemned this measure as an irresponsible political gesture with ``severe consequences for Social Security and the solvency of the Medicare Trust Fund.'' The millions of seniors who rely on Social Security for most or all of their income will not get anything from this proposal. The gentleman referred to the person who has to choose between groceries and prescriptions. That person is not going to get any relief out of this bill. Indeed, four out of five seniors will not get a nickel from this proposal that is up before us today. But I guarantee my colleagues that five out of five seniors, every one of them, will be less secure with regard to Medicare if this measure is approved. The bipartisan Concord Coalition, cochaired by a Republican, has urged the House to reject this proposal on the grounds of fiscal responsibility and tax fairness. And this is one of those times that making the tough choice for fiscal responsibility goes hand in hand with meeting the needs of our seniors. They do not want an IOU, I would tell the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw). Do not be the undertaker for Social Security. Stand up for our seniors. It is a trust fund. We do not want to fill it with IOUs. We say to all of the do-not-wither-on-the-vine crowd to keep their hands off the Medicare trust fund.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, of course, our tax laws should not discriminate against marriage. And if ending such discrimination, if ending the marriage penalty were the true purpose of this initiative, it would have already been law and married couples would have benefited from it for a number of years, at least 3. Indeed, last year we Democrats again came to this House, and we offered more marriage tax penalty relief than our Republican colleagues. They were much more concerned with loading up their trillion-dollar tax cut with special interest provisions like the chicken manure tax subsidy and so forth that was really the mainstay of their effort last year rather than helping married couples. Again this year, we offered to work with them in a bipartisan fashion to create true marriage tax penalty relief. They have rejected that. They have done so, I must say, with some rather unusual arguments in favor of their proposal. This indicates, I suppose, what sheltered lives some Republicans live. Why, they have told us that the Tax Code is encouraging people to live out of wedlock; that it is encouraging illegitimacy. I hate to expose them to a rude awakening about premarital relations in this country, but I just have a feeling that the fine print of the Tax Code is not the first thing that young people look to before they decide on their living arrangements or their relations with the opposite sex. I think if they continue arguing that, they will only demonstrate that they are even more out of touch with what is happening in this country than they do by their usual endeavors here most every day. Leave it to the House Republicans to take something we all agree with, that there should be no discrimination in our tax code, and turn it from a workable, bipartisan plan into a total political ploy. You will remember the first time they came out here, they just happened to package it up in a loving way on Valentine's Day to present to the American people. That is the kind of political grandstanding with little action behind it that has characterized this entire Congress. I think that the only illegitimacy associated with this bill is its mislabeling. It is not marriage tax penalty relief. Over half of the dollar benefit in this bill goes to people who do not incur a marriage tax penalty, people who gain tax advantages because they are married and filing a joint tax return. I have been extremely fortunate to be married to the same woman who has put up with me for over 31 years, my parents together over 55 years. I value the institution of marriage. But there are many folks that have not been as lucky. Some of them are widows or widowers. Some of them are victims of domestic violence. Some of them are single mothers that are trying to do as good a job as we tried to do for our family to rear their children. Why should our tax laws discriminate against those individuals? That is exactly what this bill does. Not every family has the good fortune to be married. Some choose to remain single for a variety of reasons. My feeling is that our tax code ought not to discriminate for or against someone depending on their marital status. This bill could also be called the Single Mothers Tax Penalty Act, or the Widow and Widowers Tax Penalty Act. The gentleman from Illinois seems to have so many statistics on those individuals that are going to benefit from this act, I wonder if he has statistics on how many will be discriminated against by a bill that accords over half of its benefits to people that do not suffer any marriage tax penalty. Unfortunately, instead of crafting bipartisan legislation, we have another political ploy that would produce more bad public policy.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley) for his leadership on this important issue. We have an incredible situation, where those who are least able to pay for the important prescription medications that they require, our uninsured seniors and uninsured families, in fact, of all ages across the country, are asked to pay the highest prices for their prescription medications of any place in the entire world. This burden has been imposed on those least able to pay and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley) has come forward with a constructive proposal that will at least benefit those, who are near the Canadian and Mexican borders, since Canada does not impose price discrimination. I think it is, however, very important to recognize that while Canada does not encourage price discrimination, this House has encouraged price discrimination. I have on two separate occasions with my colleague, the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Thurman) advanced before the Committee on Ways and Means proposals that would permit seniors, not just to get on a bus to Canada or Mexico, but would allow them in their own neighborhood pharmacy to get prescription medications, as the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) has proposed, at the price that the pharmaceutical companies make those available to their most favored customers. Unfortunately, every single Republican on the Committee on Ways and Means has joined with the pharmaceutical industry in saying no, in saying that it is right to continue charging our seniors, who are uninsured, more than anyone else in the world. So I applaud the effort of the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley), but by blocking our proposal in committee, by blocking the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) when he offered the proposal last week, as Republicans presented not a Medicare prescription drug plan, but a political ploy here on the eve of the election, seniors have been denied the relief that they so desperately need. And this House has been denied the opportunity to extend to all Americans what the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley) would tonight extend at least to those near the Canadian and Mexican borders to gain access to bring more reasonably priced medications. Last week, I joined with some seniors in central Texas to explore this issue of at all places, the Austin Humane Society. I learned through a study that we conducted that in this country if you have four legs and a tail and need a particular prescription drug, if you can say meow or woof or arf, you get a much better deal on prescriptions than if you are simply a senior, who is in serious need of medication. I know that the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) and others have made similar findings in other parts of the country. We demonstrated that on one very important arthritis drug, Lodine, for example, that the manufacturer is charging 188 percent more to those who would use the exact same quality and quantity for animals, for a dog, a cat or a horse or a cow, than it does for a senior, who lacks insurance. I think that such price discrimination is wrong, the kind of discrimination that says it is okay for the same quality and quantity and type of drugs for manufacturers price to charge the wholesaler 188 percent more than for an individual, a senior, who is in need of that drug. That is the kind of price discrimination that groups masquerading under names like Citizens for Better Medicare, which really is a front for the pharmaceutical industry, are imposing on us. Tonight the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley) proposes that we do just a little bit about it, and I encourage the House to adopt his approach, but hope that eventually we can move on to a broader proposal like that advanced by the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen).

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, we consider this bill today for one reason and one reason only: the Republicans took a poll. Here are the results in this report. Their pollster told them that Americans believe, ``Republicans aren't doing anything for seniors.'' I cannot believe these folks paid good money to learn the obvious. For the last 6 years, a principal Republican concern for seniors has been how to dismantle Medicare, or in the words of their great leader, how to let Medicare ``wither on the vine.'' Then this pollster gave them four pages of what were called ``phrases that work'' to explain away the well-justified feeling of the American people that Republicans are totally indifferent to the plight of seniors who have to choose between purchasing groceries and prescription medications. And here are particularly important words from Public Opinion Strategies delivered to the Republican Caucus: ``It is more important to communicate that you have a plan than it is to communicate what is in the plan.'' This is not a plan. It is a ploy. The Republican Congress is a prescription for failure. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, subject to my reservation, I believe the part that was being read regards the ability of any citizen under the Medicare program to be able to go out to their own pharmacy. There will be, under this plan, the right for a guaranteed benefit instead of the ploy that we have heard about all day that is really the product of the public relations firm.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, on my reservation I believe that this is the same bill that was submitted to the Committee on Rules last night and the night before and that they rejected last night, or perhaps it was 2:30 or 3:00 this morning. It is the only genuine Medicare plan that is before us. We have been denied an opportunity to see it other than at this point. She is really in the reading just getting to the good part, which is the plan itself that will provide real benefit. Mr. Speaker, I would object to suspending the reading.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, briefly, this is in no way a substitute for comprehensive campaign finance reform of the type that the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan) have so admirably led this House in pursuing. But to those who have said they wanted a much broader bill, the first thing to point out is that 527s can be used by a union, they can be used by the trial lawyers, they can be used by right-to-life, by Planned Parenthood. This treats everyone who chooses to use a 527 in exactly the same way. It discriminates neither for nor in favor of anyone. The second thing, however, is that in the committee, seven Republicans, led by the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle), and six Democrats came to the committee and they said, why do we not take a Republican idea advanced by Senator Snow and Senator Jeffords and add that onto the bill so we will cover more people. And we Democrats on the committee said, yes, that is a good idea. We will do that. Republicans on the committee raised numerous objections that that just was not broad enough, so we said, well, we will do more than that. We will extend this. We will do more to be sure we are covering and ensuring fairness and equity. We will cover unions and their activities, we will cover business organizations and their activities. We will try to treat everyone fairly and comprehensively. And both privately in our discussions with Members on the other side and publicly in the committee we sought to pursue this in a bipartisan way. Not one change, not the slightest change, were our Republican colleagues willing to even contemplate. So what they produced was a bill that all Members have heard about. They have heard from right-to-life, they have heard, I believe, from at least 30 organizations, saying that it is blatantly unconstitutional, and they are absolutely right. The bill that came out of that committee was blatantly unconstitutional, and the woman that wrote it admitted she could not find the lawyer that would say it was constitutional. It is unfortunate that such a bill should come out of the committee. I am very proud I voted against it, and so did every other Democrat, in urging a constructive alternative, in trying to negotiate a way to deal fairly with all these problems. The problem all along has been that we are attacked from both directions. The bill is either too narrow or it is too broad. It is either too deep or it is too shallow. So it has been impossible to meet all of the conflicting objections that have been raised. So we find ourselves back tonight where we started in March essentially, as my colleague, the gentleman from Massachusetts, said, voting on the same issue that the House has already voted on twice, but hopefully with a better outcome. I think we are moving forward with what is an important but obviously a small step to open up the secret organizations to sunshine. For months while we have waited for this coming together on this approach there have been those who have obstructed reform that have been working as hard as they can to raise as much secret money as they can to fill our air waves with hate in the fall and our mailboxes with misinformation. We are going to get a very narrow window now, a too narrow window, I must say, because of the way the effective date is constructed in this legislation, but a very narrow window to look at those stealth organizations with their secret stash. As they plan for the fall, we will at least be able to know who is launching the attack and identify the attackers. Tonight I believe we must take a firm stance on the only action we can on this very constricted midnight debate that denies an opportunity for Republicans or Democrats to add and strengthen and expand and perfect this bill, but we should take the action that we are permitted to take because it is aimed directly at corruption in the American political system, where someone can come in and ask for a favor one day and deliver a contribution that is never disclosed on the next day. Disclosure by the secret 527 political funds is the one modest reform that we can still put in place to affect a little bit of this year's election, and we ought to do it without any more delay. I believe that this represents one small triumph for democracy over secrecy.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, since March, we have called on the House to come together to support in a bipartisan fashion a cleanup of some of the worst excesses in our campaign finance system, what one expert referred to as the most dangerous loophole that has ever come along, period, what Senator McCain has rightly called this 527 political loophole, an egregious and obscene distortion of everything the American people believe in. I think it is unfortunate that we have this sudden switch to the suspension calender at this late hour, which will deny Members, both Republicans and Democrats, an opportunity to offer amendments to perfect the reform that has been advanced and to broaden it to be more comprehensive reform, and certainly its passage is imperiled by the two-thirds requirement. Mr. Speaker, I did not pick the procedure. We have it, I think we should utilize it now to try to move forward in the most constructive way possible to approve a reform that will be significant, though modest, in addressing this abuse.