Lloyd Doggett

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, this budget has no true balance. It is rather only a retread of the same old Gingrich budget resolution that America rejected last year. And the understanding that the American people have of this budget is proven correct again today. You will remember, this is a budget whose main theme was how much it could cut Medicare in order to pay for tax breaks for the privileged. Well, today's resolution proposes to cut Medicare $100 billion less than last year's resolution, and guess what? Just by coincidence, the tax breaks are $100 billion less than last year's resolution, or more or less in that range. It demonstrates that the American people were correct in understanding that there is a direct relationship by how much Medicare gets cut, how much health security gets jeopardized, and how many tax breaks there are for the privileged. But what does this resolution omit? It refuses to do a single thing about the billionaire expatriates who renounced their U.S. citizenship in order to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. That would have gotten us over $2 billion in revenues. It refuses to cut a single corporate tax loophole. It imposes, you might say, a means test for welfare. But if you have got the means, every one of your tax loopholes and your corporate subsidies is protected. That is the thrust of this budget resolution, and it ought to be rejected.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to salute the candor, ultimately, of my colleague in Georgia, because after some parliamentary mumbo jumbo about what page of the rules book could be used to thwart the desire of the American people for a raise, he has finally come forward in his last few minutes and he has indicated that what all this parliamentary maneuvering is about is his objection to raising the minimum wage. He has told the American people, in response to my colleague from Michigan, Mr. Bonior, that it is not himself but it is the professors that made him do it. The American people knew that Professor Gingrich and Professor Armey were ready to fight with every fiber in their body to block the legitimate desire of the American people for a raise. All this parliamentary mumbo jumbo stuff can be explained in this chart. We have considered this issue of the minimum wage a number of times in this body. There is a strange thing that has occurred. Those Republicans who stood outside in front of the cameras and said they were for the minimum wage got their arms twisted, once they got in here at the voting box. They refused to vote to give the people of America a raise even though they said they were for it. As they begin to hear from the people, the number of those people change. The votes against the minimum wage have been going steadily down in this body. The votes for the minimum wage have been going steadily up. All that it will take this morning in a few minutes when we take up this previous question is five Members, five Republicans who will walk up and vote in favor of giving the people of America a raise. If they will do that, we will achieve an increase in the minimum wage and we will do it promptly. There is no reason to wait until tomorrow. There is no reason to wait until next Tuesday to consider this issue. We will get caught up in some other issue designed to ultimately kill it. Let us do it now. I know they think it is important to raise the wilderness in Utah, but I think the raise that the American people are interested in is in their basic living standards. Let us give it to them today.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman from Texas is right. It is the same old song. As the Four Tops would say, ``It's a different verse since you've been gone.'' That is what this budget is. The Republicans have come back, and they have taken their old last year's budget. What it did to seniors, what it did to schoolchildren, and they put a smiley face on it. But it is the same old bad budget. Mr. Speaker, for months they have tried to undermine the Federal commitment to education. On Sunday, the majority leader of the Republican Party even suggested that we compensate for a revenue loss by cutting education. It is as if Marie Antoinette were telling the peasants let them eat cake, but he says to students in America, let them pump gas. We need more opportunities in this country, not less. Is it any wonder that a Republican Party that cannot seem to learn its own lessons wants everyone else in America to pay more for learning.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, America needs a raise. With the minimum wage providing the least purchasing power in almost four decades, America needs a raise. I concluded that our Republican colleagues have finally heard this call for a raise. They know American working people need a raise, and so they have given us their response this afternoon. They are going to raise rents instead of raising wages. I say it is time to raise the roof because it is not right and fair to American working people that are out there trying to make ends meet to raise their rents without raising their wages. We will have an opportunity in the next few seconds to vote on whether the minimum wage rises above its 40-year low. All that stands between American working families and an increase in the minimum wage are eight Republican colleagues; not very many, eight Members. Ironically, more than eight members of the Republican caucus have already gone out in front of the television cameras and announced that they are for an increase in the minimum wage. Yet, they have not yet mustered the willingness on the last two votes to raise the minimum wage in the last 2 weeks in this Congress to vote to do just that. I know the gentleman from California, my friend, says that it is not germane to this debate to talk about the minimum wage. It may not be germane to the elites, but let me tell you, it is mighty germane to the people that are out there scrubbing the floors, folding the linens in the motel rooms, serving the fast foods, picking the peas. These are the kinds of people that are doing the hard dirty work in our society. It was only on April 17 that the Speaker of the House, and he was out here on the floor earlier, front page story, headlines, ``Republicans Told To Brace for Vote on Minimum Wage, Gingrich Warns Caucus,'' April 17. But only a few days later, after all the special interest lobbyists had worked their way, they changed their tune. Let us vote to raise the minimum wage.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, this resolution is designed to implement the oft-repeated trademark of the self-styled Gingrich revolutionaries: Promises made, promises broken. They came to the floor of this Congress last January and told us they were interested in reforming the committee process and cutting the amount of taxpayer money spent in this Congress. As a new Member, I joined with them in that effort. How do they proposed to fulfill that promise today? By adding a $1 million subcommittee, $1 million paid by the taxpayers of America; another subcommittee that is five times more expensive than the average subcommittee in this House. That is promises made, promises broken. Who says the Republicans do not want to raise the minimum wage? They proposed to pay four of their political backers over $100,000 each to man this expensive subcommittee. They want to raise the minimum wage. They just want to do it for a handful of their political friends, instead of for the hardworking people of this country. This subcommittee should rightfully be called the rabbit trail subcommittee, because they are down there chasing another rabbit. They have not got the slightest idea how to solve the real problems of the American people, so instead of focusing on those problems, they head off to Bosnia. Instead of focusing on solving our problems here at home, in dealing with the real troubles that hardworking families across this country have, they want to chase off to Bosnia. Mr. Speaker, last year they caught shutdown fever and they could not seem to get rid of it. This year they are suffering another malady. It is the same malady, but there are other symptoms. They are called sinking spells. They just keep sinking right on down into the ground in the polls, because the American people understand that all they have given us is promises made, promises broken. As a solution for this sinking spell that they are now suffering, they proposed gimmicks like this subcommittee. Mr. Speaker, I would say to my Republican colleagues, heal thyselves. Stop wasting taxpayer money on this kind of frivolity.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, last year our Republican colleagues sought to place a $5,000 burden on young people who want a 4-year college education. At the same time, they came along and proposed to give thousands of our youngest Americans a wrong start instead of a head start by defunding much of the program needed for early childhood education. Fortunately, Americans spoke out against this extremism. In the early part of this year, our Republican colleagues yielded and we got an appropriations process approved for this year that protects education and the hopes and dreams of so many American families. But hardly had that victory been won than Sunday on television we had the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Armey], the majority leader, saying that he was willing to fund a tax break in order to do that through cuts in education. Mr. Speaker, education is not the place to cut. Though our Republican colleagues suffered from shutdown fever last year and this year they are having sinking spells that the American people understand their agenda, please do not provide this gimmick that you feel you need in order to get a rise in the polls. Do not fund it by cutting education.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield to a freshman Member who was not here 2 years ago and this is my first opportunity to raise the minimum wage?

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, America needs a raise. The minimum wage, its purchasing power, is approaching a 40-year low, almost as old as I am, since the minimum wage has had purchasing power with as little capability as it does at present. The gentleman from Pennsylvania says that it is not germane to this debate to talk about the minimum wage, the need for the American people to have a raise. Well, let me tell you, it is mighty germane to the working people of this country that they get a raise. It may not be germane to the elitist, but it is germane to the people that are out there scrubbing the floors, tending to the nursing homes, picking the peas, as my colleague from Texas said, serving the meals at the fast food restaurants. It is very germane to them. For many it is a question of whether or not they can get out of poverty by having the means to do that. All that stands between us today and getting a raise for the American people are 10 Members of the Republican side coming over and joining a few of their colleagues from last week and so many Democrats, because it was a mere 10 Republican votes that defeated the raise for America when we considered this issue last week. If they will simply have the courage to vote the same way they spoke at the press conference when they were facing the TV cameras and said they wanted to give even more than a 90-cent raise, if they will simply vote with us today, those 10 Members who defected, with all the arm twisting that occurred from the Republican leadership last week, then America will get a raise. Of course, I realize not every Republican Member is going to do that. In fact, the one thing that has changed since last week is that Mr. Boehner, the chair of the Republican Conference, has said, ``I will commit suicide before I vote on a clean minimum wage bill.'' Can you imagine that, hari-kari right here on the floor of the House, falling on their sword? True, the Republicans have been falling on their political swords for the last 16 months, but we finally have a chance for them today to see the light, to join us in doing something to give the people of America a raise that they very much deserve.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I would like to be heard on the point or order. Mr. Speaker, we find ourselves this morning in exactly the same procedural setting and procedural context as when this House considered the omnibus appropriations bill when we met last week. At that time, recognizing that the majority leader, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Armey], had said that he would oppose a minimum wage with every fiber in his body, and that the Speaker of the House had made clear that the American people would have no opportunity to be considered for a raise on this floor by bringing any bill our of committee, we had a procedural context in which the omnibus appropriations bill was before the House, and many Members of this body, indeed, a majority of the Members of this body, having already publicly expressed their support for a minimum wage increase, and so the majority party, the Democrats, on a previous question, decided to raise this issue. We devoted most of our limited half hour, and unfortunately, we only had a half hours, and we should have been able to devote, indeed, a full day to debating the merits of the need for the American people for a raise. But in exactly the same situation that we find ourselves this morning, we considered the plight of minimum wage families, discussed fully that issue, and today we have the same situation. Unless the standard has changed, Mr. Speaker, or unless the Republicans are simply fearful that the 10 of their Member who voted against the minimum wage last week, after having had a press conference saying they were in favor of the minimum wage, might this way not have their arms twisted enough, then we ought to be able to have a full and fair debate of this minimum wage issue today in exactly the same situation we were in last week.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, America needs a raise. With the purchasing power of the minimum wage now approaching a 40-year low, America needs a raise. And just a few minutes ago we had an opportunity to vote on whether America should get a raise. Unfortunately, at the last minute the Gingrich leadership was able to twist enough arms, apply enough pressure, cajole enough Members, to succeed on a very narrow vote, and I think that one thing we can see from this vote, as disappointing as it is, the setback that it is to America, is that all Americans can now see that all that stands between them and this House of Representatives and a raise, all that stands between them and that raise, are 10 Republican Members and their votes, 10 Republican Members and their votes who were not willing to come forward this morning and cast a critical vote in favor of giving America a raise. Now, what is particularly ironic about this development is the fact that there were some 15 Republican Members of this body who have already signed their name onto an increase in the minimum wage of even greater than that proposed by President Clinton, and yet those 15 Members, when they had an opportunity to come to the well of this House and cast a vote in favor of a raise for the American people, a vote that they have stood in front of the cameras and said they think the American people deserve, well, this morning they choose to vote against that raise. It is a setback, and it is a disappointment to the people that are out there this morning working in the nursing homes, washing dishes in the back of the restaurants, cleaning our buildings, and doing the other kinds of tasks that make life possible to go forward in America, and yet receiving the lowest wage that anyone in our country receives. But, you know, despite this temporary setback, I remain hopeful about where we are headed in this country, hopeful because of what is happening in the budget process today. You see, it was only a year ago that Republicans came to the well of this House and demanded that we terminate the COPS Program. That is the program that is designed to get 100,000 law enforcement officers into our neighborhoods, and our streets to assure the security of our families and our businesses, and they said they did not want that program anymore. It was only 1 year ago that the Republicans came to the well of this House, and they were saying, ``You know, we have got to raise the cost of going to college for those middle-class families that are working and struggling with their young people to get them through college. What we have in mind is $5,000 more for a Stafford loan for 4 years, the standard cost of a Federal loan to go to college.'' And the Republicans said, ``We will place another obstacle in the way of those who are trying to educate their young people.'' It was only 1 year ago that they were working to jeopardize the health care security of our seniors with their pay more, get less that they called a reform in the Medicare system, but to those seniors whose pocket was going to be invaded, to pay more, to get less, in they way of health care, who were going to face increases in premiums, increases in copayments, increases in deductible, it was a pretty heavy hit. It was only 1 year ago that our Republican colleagues were here, indeed it was less than 1 year ago, demanding that we do further damage to the air and the water of this country with a series of very restrictive riders that they were placing on the Republican appropriations bill with reference to the environment. Indeed, they were working on that only within the last few weeks, and it was only 1 year ago, indeed only a few weeks ago, that Republicans were pursuing cuts in public education that in my hometown of Austin, TX, stood the costs about 2,300 of our youngest Texans, our pre-kindergarten children, to lose half of their pre-kindergarten program. It was the same kind of cutback that would have affected public education in a most detrimental way in our part of the country and really across this country. What has happened in the course of that year? All of those mean- spirited, extremist initiatives, whether it was to permit more pollution of our air and water, to erect more obstacles to our young people with reference to their ability to get public education, to get a college education, whether it was the threat to the security of health with reference to our oldest citizens, all of those initiatives, including the one concerning putting more law enforcement officers in our neighborhoods, all of those initiatives that the Gingrich leadership declared they had to have in order to have a revolution, they have now yielded on in this new budget bill.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, the American people have won a victory with reference to these budget negotiations. We are reversing the deficit spiral under Republican administrations in the 1980's. We are making continued progress toward balancing the budget. It is, as my Republican colleagues have said this morning, a historic moment. It is just that they miss what the historic moment is all about. For, as my colleagues can see, all of this could have been accomplished last year without the Gingrich goofs, without the Government shutdowns that cost the American people $1.5 billion, without the pain that that caused people all over this country. Today we have achieved this negotiation without taking cops off the street, as they wanted to, without savaging the School Lunch Program, without wrecking the environment. We have accomplished this because the American people have spoken out and said they have had enough of extremism. We Democrats did not have a majority of votes to accomplish this, but we had a majority of right on our side, and thanks to the involvement of the American people we have said no to the Gingrich extremisms and achieved a victory.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, in a few minutes all of America will be able to see a vote on whether or not the people of America, the working families of this country, will get the increase in their wages that they deserve, get a raise. I believe American working families deserve a raise, and finally this morning we are going to have a vote on that subject. And if my colleagues believe that way, all of America will be able to see that they voted against this call for the previous question and we have finally an up-and-down vote on the minimum wage. But, as my colleagues can see, what we have been hearing this morning is the same old Republican story: Promises made, promises broken. That is what this Republican majority is all about. It was only last week that the Republican leadership of this House and of the Senate were telling us: We would have a vote on the minimum-wage increase. But they forgot to ask the lobby. As we can see, this would be like the Republicans writing environmental legislation without getting a bill from the polluters. They just do not do that. They made their announcement, and they had a traffic jam out here. As we can see, they forgot to ask the special-interest lobbyists, and the limousines starting converging on the Capitol, almost a traffic jam out here on the avenue, because these lobbyists expect this Republican majority to do exactly what they tell them to do, and they made the mistake of not asking. They listened to the American people, for once, who demand that they get the kind of raise that they deserve because they are out there struggling with their families. We are not talking about people that have got limousines that benefit from this minimum-wage increase. We are talking about the people that mop the floors, we are talking about the people that take out the trash, that wash the dishes, the hard-working people of this country who can barely make ends meet on the little bit of minimum wage they have got. And this morning we are going to decide are we going to stand by those people who are working so hard to build a future for their families, or are we going to fold and join the limousine crowd who did not get asked but made their voice heard and caused the Republicans once again to break their promise to the American people? Let us stand up for the little folks of this country.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. That is reality. That demonstrates the ability of the American people to get past these stickers saying ``I have been to the zoo'' or ``I planted a tree'' or ``I have a green sport coat,'' and get down to the fact that some people who say they are green at election time have been voting consistently to destroy the environment and to have an assault on environmental law enforcement.

Mr. DOGGETT. I am encouraged to hear that, though I read just this week in the April 15 issue of Congress Daily an announcement concerning a draft committee recommendation on clean water legislation, and it was an expression of great concern by the environmental working group that the committee draft, and this would be, of course, the Republican majority committee draft, would weaken community right-to-know provisions and allow new industry oriented peer review panels to veto EPA standards. That is that the people that pollute the water would be able to determine what pollution is and is not appropriate for our public law enforcement agencies to protect us against. I would just point out that this is not, as this very cynical Republican strategy memo that the gentleman referred to, this is not just something coming from Washington. One of the people who wrote me within the last week is Pamela Garcia, who writes that Austin currently has the highest pure water standards in the State of Texas and I would like to see it stay that way. These high standards must be maintained to protect those most at risk from contamination. I had a third grade teachers write, a woman who has committed her life to working with young people, to write to express concern about what she had heard about this same weakness in the community right-to- know provisions. Holly Long from Austin says that it may just be my imagination, but I thought the Government of our country is a place in the position that they are in to protect the rights of citizens that they represent. We should have the right to clean water and that right should be assured to us by the people that represent us. I know the gentleman shares that view, that our job here is not to get on the side of whoever has the strongest lobby in Washington, but to stand up for people like Holly Long, who is out there trying to teach young people and bring them into the whole American dream; that we have a responsibility to ensure that she has an advocate here in Washington fighting for the right to be able to see endangered species in someplace other than a zoo, and to not have all those trees clearcut in our old growth forests, and certainly to be able to be sure when they get a drink of water out of the Colorado River in Austin, TX, that it meets the standards that we would expect and that the gentleman would want in New Jersey.

Mr. DOGGETT. I thank you for yielding and for your leadership concerning environmental protection. I thought that one of the other really important aspects of this Gingrich attack on the environment, this Gingrich attempt to essentially have unilateral disarmament of the environmental law protection relates to the whole problem of clean water drinking standards. Where I come from, the city of Austin, TX, Colorado on the Rocks, with the Colorado River running through there, is considered to be a pretty good drink. I have begun to get a series of calls and letters from people throughout central Texas expressing concern that this Congress, and particularly this House, given its atrocious environmental record during the last year, intends to weaken the safe drinking water standards. Another concern that you may be familiar with, and the irony at a time when so many in this House have talked about more local responsibility, more community responsibility, is that they would come in and limit the community's right to know about dangerous substances in our water supply. I am wondering if the gentleman, in your leadership role with reference to the environment, is familiar with some of the dangers posed to our water supplies by the assault on the environment?

Mr. DOGGETT. Or we could expect the same type of thing that we saw last year when there was a bill out here that was called the Clean Water Act amendments, but most everyone that looked at it referred to it as the dirty water act. Most of the commentators who studied it noted that it was not surprising that it was a dirty water measure that actually weakened, in the name of clean water, the existing law, because it had been written behind closed doors by the various polluters who had a vested interest in this matter.

Mr. DOGGETT. Empowering the local communities to address these issues. And, of course, I am so amazed at those who will come here on the floor of Congress and they will say, well, I am against pollution. I mean I am not in favor of pollution, I am just against the Environmental Protection Agency. Well, that is like saying I am not in favor of crime, I am just not in favor of the police. It is the Environmental Protection Agency and some of our other protection authorities that are the law enforcement authorities with reference to the environment, just as our police and our highway patrolmen and highway troopers are the law enforcement for some of the other areas that affect our lives. Just to give you another example, if I might. I am sure you have some of these from New Jersey, but another person who contracted me expressing concern about what this Congress is doing, particularly in the area of water quality, and I think again it really brings it home, it is not a battle between political parties or between Washington and Texas or New Jersey, but the fact that this affects the lives of real people who are struggling out there in America to make ends meet and who do not need the Congress getting in the way of their standard of living. Susan Truesdale writes me: Clean water is important to central Texans like me and my family. I can't imagine finding out 12 days after the fact that the water that my family and I had been drinking, bathing in, watering our pets and yards with, is contaminated with something that could possibly kill us or make us terminally ill. I don't want my kids drinking this stuff and not knowing. Vote to protect the right of Texans to be told immediately if our water is unsafe, for more protective standards not weaker ones. And remember, she says, that many of our most vulnerable citizens are young people, are old people, people who have certain physical problems, certainly young women who are pregnant, who are most vulnerable to water that is polluted, to drinking water that does not meet clean water standards. So I think, it is important that you have spent this time this evening bringing to the attention of our colleagues and to the American people how really far-reaching this very extremist agenda to undermine environmental law protection is, because I have found some people who are out there beginning to notice it and beginning to say, do not let this happen; that we have a responsibility to stand up and pose an obstacle to those who want to undermine environmental law enforcement.

Mr. DOGGETT. My concern is that that is all they plan to do; that they want to have good public relations but that they intend to continue, as far as I know they have not stopped their closed-door meetings with the polluters and special interest lobbies that they have here every week; that they will have the smiley face out there but they will still be trying to sneak attack with the environmental riders and the slashing of the law enforcement budgets for those that are there to try to assure that we have the clean drinking water that people in central Texas want and the clean air that I know people across the country want.

Mr. DOGGETT. This was after they began the weekly meetings with the polluters behind closed doors here in the Capitol?

Mr. DOGGETT. A gimmick.

Mr. DOGGETT. The gentleman is talking about the House Republican strategy for this year. That is where they got the public relations firm in to help them put a smiley face on their commitment to the environment by doing things like petting their dogs and that sort of thing?

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. In this very serious and weighty debate, I cannot help but be a little amused that some of the same forces that come here and complain about the litigation explosion, about how our courts are too crowded are the same folks that I read about this week in USA Today who are going around the country making it against the law to speak ill of vegetables. Yes, if you bad mouth brussels sprouts, the USA Today reports, it could cost you, if you are opposed to onions, if you diss a kiwi. Now in 12 States, it is against the law to do that and you can be hauled into court. So the same folks that come here and say there are too many lawsuits in our courts are going around the country, in fact they are trying to do it this week in Maryland, enacting laws to get us in trouble for speaking ill of vegetables. But if they turn us into a vegetable because of their disregard for safety and health in this country, then our rights will be limited. Mr. Speaker, this is not about the litigation explosion, it is about limiting the rights of individuals whose health and safety is affected. What about the effect on cost and on jobs that we have heard so much about? Well, the folks that put out Consumer Reports, that is the magazine that a lot of us turn to when we have got to buy a refrigerator or television or some kind of service and we want to find out what the most cost effective alternative is, they report that over 30 million Americans each year are injured by consumer products and 29,000 are killed. Only a small fraction of those result in lawsuits, but the total cost to us of having assurance that there is protection in the event that there is harm caused by a defective product comes to about one penny one of a $5 purchase. That is a very small price to pay for the assurance that someone who is burned and who will face one painful skin graft after another, to a young family whose infant is going to require care for the rest of that child's life, to a young child who is scarred for life, why deny rights to those people when the cost to America is 1 cent for a $5 purchase? But we are told, of course, that this is a jobs bill, that it means more jobs. It is only anecdotal evidence that tells us that, but why then if it is a jobs bill are we replacing the concept of personal responsibility with giving foreign manufacturers an advantage over American manufacturers? We say that if you build your project in Taiwan, in Singapore, in Germany, you are going to have under this piece of legislation advantages that are not available to American manufacturers. I think that has got it all backward. Just as this reliance on something other than personal responsibility has got it all backwards, just as the argument of States' rights, of letting our States resolve these issues, rather than turning them all over to the Federal Government to resolve, has got it all backwards.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, strangely, this piece of legislation rejects the notion that I have heard so often voiced from this microphone about the concept of personal responsibility. It is OK to demand personal responsibility of the most disadvantaged, of the poorest people, of the most vulnerable people in our society. But, for some reason, it is the position of those who support this conference report that it is inappropriate to demand full personal responsibility of those who kill and maim and destroy the lives of their neighbors. In many cases, the cases that generate the largest verdicts, that get talked about the most, result from those who place profits over safety, time and time again, when they had one report after another coming in from across America that people were being damaged, that they were being hurt, being killed by their products, and those reports were ignored and the lives of other Americans were endangered as a result. But that concept of personal responsibility is totally and completely disregarded by those who support this bill. The second concept that has been talked about so much, as if it were a new invention, is that of States rights. What is wrong with the jurisdiction and the legislatures of these 50 United States addressing this issue? Why is it that from this microphone there is only support for State wrongs, but never support for States rights? I say that the States ought to be able to address these issues themselves. I had a small business person in my office last week speaking generally in favor of this piece of legislation. Yet every one of the reforms that he thought were important to be implemented in this legislation had already been implemented by the Texas legislature. Why not have these decisions made on Congress Avenue in Austin, TX, instead of up here on the Potomac in Washington? What is going to be the dividing line? If we are going to have the Congress of the United States interfere in States rights in this issue, why not in every other part of our life?

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. The Contract With America Advancement Act: what a true abuse of the English language. If this is an advancement of the Contract With America, the one thing it demonstrates is that some of our Republican colleagues cannot tell backward from forward. Let us look at what is included in this great advancement of the Contract With America failed agenda. Well, the first thing is an increase in the Social Security earnings limit. A laudable measure. So laudable that 411 Members of this body last year voted to approve it, and only four voted against it. Our seniors would have this Social Security earnings limit adjusted already if our Republican colleagues had advanced it at the beginning of this Congress instead of at this point. What is the second item? Regulatory reform. Far different from the regulatory wreckage of the unilateral disarmament of our health and safety laws that they proposed last year. Again, if they had advanced this very modest regulatory reform, our small businesses across America would have had relief in 1995, not a promise in 1996. Finally and most important, it advances the contract through the line-item veto. What is the history of the line-item veto in this body? Well, last February we took it up, and we considered it, and we approved it by a vote of 294 to 134. It is true that the version that is here before us today is improved, improved in part because at the time of that debate in February, my Republican colleagues rejected the sunset amendment that I proposed, and today they have incorporated that very amendment into this proposal. The Speaker of the House came to the floor that night and he told us, and I quote: ``You have a Republican majority giving to a Democratic President this year without any gimmicks an increased power over spending, which we think is important.'' Unfortunately, he did not think it was important enough to appoint conferees for 6 months, or the President would have had this tool last year. What we have here is a Contract With America that is a flop, and this advancement act is a sop.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, among the greatest failures of this failed Republican Congress is the failure to address the real health care needs of the American people. Mr. Speaker, the failed Contract on America was essentially silent on this question. Last year Speaker Gingrich's entire program on health care was, to use his words, let Medicare wither on the vine for the health care security of our seniors. This year the strategy is a little different. It has been spelled out here in black and white in the House Republican national strategic plan for 1996. The health care plan they outline is, and I quote: ``We will pursue a targeted inoculation strategy on Medicare''; not to inoculate against illness among the American people, but to inoculate against one of the most highly contagious illnesses politically in this country, and that is that the American people are beginning to understand the neglect and the failure of this Congress brought on by this Republican Party that cares more about special interests than the true national interests of the American people. Do not let them obstruct health care reform today. Let us do something for the 42 million American people who lack health insurance, health insurance coverage.