Lloyd Doggett

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. As the gentleman from California has noted,this House has been in session around the clock until just about an hour and a half ago. I just want to say that when it comes to protecting Medicare, when it comes to standing up for America's middle class, if we have to be here around the clock another few days, the fight has only begun from the Democratic side, because we are not going to be bullied. We are not going to permit committees to be stacked to implement this budget resolution by placing all the burden on Medicare recipients, by not doing anything about corporate welfare. We are going to stand up and tell the American people what is happening, and propose reasonable alternatives to that. Mr. Speaker, what is happening with reference to Medicare? We have one new piece of the agenda since this rule was proposed by one of the Members of the Republican leadership. We have been concerned in the past debate of this budget that they were simply going to reduce benefits and increase out-of-pocket costs. That is the most likely thing to happen. Now we are told there is a proposal that one of the ways this budget resolution, which is silent on the subject, will be implemented, one of the possibilities is to simply eliminate Medicare entirely for those Americans who are 65 or 66, and raise the eligibility age for medicare, not lower it to cover more Americans, but to cut out of whole age bracket of people that are turning 65 and 66, as a solution to this proposal. This particular budget is a day late and a dollar short. it is 2\1/2\ months late. It should have been approved April 15. They should not balance the budget on the backs of America's seniors.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, just a word about the tax-and-spend Republican budget resolution. Yes, tax and spend. That is a term we hear so much thrown against this side, but this is a tax-and-spend budget resolution for many Americans. It has been interesting, in listening through the course of this debate, not to have heard one word from our Republican colleagues about the 14 million American families that the Treasury Department estimates will have their taxes not cut but increased through what is being proposed in this budget resolution, about the earned income tax credit, the earned income tax credit, something that no less a revolutionary than Ronald Reagan described as the best jobs program ever devised by man. That program they propose to give a good whack to. I have been concerned about the impact of raising, not lowering taxes, for people like the Kierklewski family, that are struggling to get up the economic ladder, that are struggling to reach retirement. Of course, there are some who will benefit from their version of eliminating tax and spend. The large corporations that will not have to pay a nickel with their elimination of the minimum tax credit, they are getting a tax break, but not the Kierklewski family. What about the spend part of their resolution? Yes, they are cutting some Government spending, but they are going to spend a little more of Mr. Kierklewski's money. If he wants to go to his own doctor, he is going to have to pay maybe $20 a month more just for the opportunity to do that, as a Medicare recipient. If he wants home health care, they are going to spend more of [[Page H 6579]] his money if he wants to get the same level of service. What is so unfortunate about that for retirees, Mr. Speaker, is that they are already having to pay 21 percent of their health care costs. One out of every $5 already being spent by Medicare recipients is their money, so the tax-and-spend budget resolution needs to be rejected, even if we have to stay here all of another night to fight this stacking of the committees that will implement this resolution.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I object.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I suppose that our Republican colleagues offer this bill in the spirit of the season. It is, of course, the season of television reruns, and this bill is a bit of a rerun, at least as regards the tactic that is employed because it has something in common with the approach that our colleagues have used with reference to the task force to cut Social Security or, rather, to cut Medicare--Social Security is probably next in line--the same approach that was used to prepare to stack the committees that will impact and implement the budget resolution, and now this approach. They all have one thing in common: They rerun stealth, they rerun secrecy. It was Justice Brandeis who suggested that sunlight is the best disinfectant, that electric light is the best policeman, but his wisdom seems to have been lost on our colleagues, for it is for some reason that they hide their light under a bushel. At 11 last night this bill was presented to the Committee on Rules. All 119 pages of this piece of legislation, which according to the bill as filed were apparently just introduced yesterday, were presented at 11 last night, so that somewhere near midnight this bill was voted out of the Committee on Rules. I don't know if many Members of this House even know what is in this 119 pages. Indeed, we have been told by the distinguished gentleman from California that it is virtually identical to legislation that we have considered in this House before. I don't know what parts are identical, given the short period here, but I know one part that is not identical. The vast majority of the Members of this House, when this bill was in front of us last time, voted to put a lock box on this piece of legislation to ensure that every dollar of cuts went to deficit reduction. I am advised, though I could not find it in the 119 pages, that that virtually identical provision is no longer in here. What is in here are contingent cuts to some of our education programs that I think are very vital. I really liked the idea on day one in this Congress that we were going to [[Page H 6598]] shake the piece up, that there was going to be a real revolution with regard to change and how business is conducted here. Yet this piece of legislation comes out, not in the bright light of day but, rather, at the midnight hour, coming back to us without ever having a hearing in front of the substantive committee but, rather, having been considered here in the midst of lengthy debate last night and presented on only a few hours' notice, and without one of the provisions that received really bipartisan support when this measure was in front of the House, that provision being the lock box provision.

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

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, responding to the altar call of the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston] and agreeing with his appeal for bipartisanship, since last night I only got to 103, and your colleague pointed me to 104. Just tell me if on page 104, the provision to which the gentleman from California [Mr. Dreier] referred me, is that the same language that a bipartisan majority of this House, an overwhelming majority, approved? The language offered by the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Brewster]; is that language here?

Mr. DOGGETT. It is not the Brewster language. It is not the Brewster lockbox. That is the 1 percent that is different that some of us think is very important.

Mr. DOGGETT. I thank the gentleman. I am glad to hear the lock box is in here. parliamentary inquiry

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

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

Mr. DOGGETT. Let me just inquire there, because if I have misstated it and it includes the lock box, that would be great. So every penny that is saved in this bill will go to deficit reduction and only deficit reduction, and not to pay for a tax hike?

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, this is a debate about desecration. And goodness knows, we have had a significant amount of desecration in this country. Not desecration of the flag. In fact, you can go all the way across the 50 States these days and you will see few, if any, Americans now or at any other time in our recent past, even since this decision, who think so little of this country that they would dare desecrate this flag. There are, of course, a handful of the super rich in this country who have regularly desecrated their citizenship by repudiating that citizenship so they could burn any sense of patriotism and burn the American treasury at the same time. And, of course, this amendment does nothing about that desecration, just as our Republican colleagues have sat around on their hands throughout this session of Congress and have rejected the notion of effectively doing something about those who desecrate their American citizenship. But I must say in this rules debate, what really troubles me is the desecration that goes on in this body every day and is going on today with this very rule. And that is the desecration of the rules of the House of Representatives. You would think that someone who proposes to give the House of Representatives the job, along with this Congress, of protecting Old Glory would be concerned about protecting the dignity of its own rules. We sat here on the first day of this Congress and heard about reform, about revolution, about opening the House of Representatives to do truly the people's business. And what have we got? Certainly not reform. The chairman of the Committee on Rules stood on this floor and told us, we will have at least 70 percent open rules. Do we have an open rule today to consider something as important as how we protect Old Glory? No, sir, we do not. Why is it that there is such fear, if we are so proud of Old Glory, why is there such fear of having true openness? And the same thing is true with regard to the way the rules of this House are being desecrated today and every day of this session by those who refuse to abide by the rule that they serve on a limited number of subcommittees and committees. Thirty Republican Members of this House today desecrate that rule, as they have desecrated this rule for an open House.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I have just this moment come from a meeting with many young Americans who are deeply troubled about why the Republican budget proposes the largest cut in Federal assistance to students who want to attend college of any time in our Nation's history, and they are asking why, and one of the individuals who is asking why down in my district is a woman named Tina Henderson, who I had the opportunity and privilege to meet a few weeks ago in Austin. Tina Henderson is the first person in her family to go to college. She did so after working as a member of the U.S. Air Force. She is a single mom. She has a great daughter, a 5-year-old, Erica, that she is mighty proud of, but she told me that without Federal student assistance she would not be able to go to college. Mr. Speaker, every family like hers across America is being told in this budget, ``Come up with an extra $5,000 if you want to support a young person through college in America in the future.'' With the tremendous cuts that are being made in this budget, roadblocks are being erected to Tina Henderson, to her daughter, Erica, and we need to get those roadblocks out of the way.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, I object; there has been so much misinformation on this whole subject. And I fully and fairly object.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. We heard nothing of it. It would have allowed those Members like the gentlewoman from Michigan [Ms. Rivers] to keep her 100-percent voting record for the people of Michigan.

Mr. DOGGETT. I think there is no doubt about the outcome of this vote on my objection than any of the other votes that we have had this time. But I would commend to the majority leader the leadership of a member of the majority of the subcommittee on which I serve on the Committee on Science, the distinguished gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Schiff], because we went through a subcommittee hearing on some of the same legislation being considered in the Committee on Science. It was without disruption, it was without ill feeling, even though we disagree on some of the substance as much as with any member of the full committee. That is the way that the committees and the subcommittees of this Congress need to be operated. The people did not ask for us to come here and get engaged in some kind of partisan tussle. They simply wanted a full exchange of ideas where every Member is accorded the dignity of a vote, to represent their constituents. I would ask the distinguished majority leader, whatever the outcome, perhaps the predetermined outcome of this vote, to simply work with us to see that this does not happen again, to see that Members are not forced to a choice between representing their constituents within a committee and representing them on the floor of the House. That is what all this is about, so that there can be informed representation, fair representation. We ask for no special privilege on the Democratic side, only the opportunity to represent our constituents and hopefully work toward a bipartisan answer to some of the problems that this country faces. I know that there will be times when the crush of campaign duties may draw people away. But let that not be at the expense of the normal workday. There is no reason why this body cannot work until at least 5. There will be plenty of time to fly off in the corporate jets and deal with the contributors that I know are so vital to the Republican Party. They can do that and still conduct the people's business in a fair and proper way. I think that yesterday democracy was trampled twice, once on the floor of this House, once in the Committee on Science. Let us see in today's action that in addition to revotes, that we actually have a commitment to reform. When I came here in Congress for the first day in January of this year, I have to admit that I was not all that happy about finding myself in the minority. But I will also admit that I was quite happy to see Republican colleagues saying they were going to shake this place up. I think business as usual needed to be shaken up in this place. If I have any disagreement with them now, it is not that they shake too much but that they did not shake enough. When things like this happen, it suggests we are right back to business as usual. It is not enough to say, ``Well, that's the way somebody else did it 10 or 20 years ago.'' These are supposed to be revolutionaries, committed to revolutionary change in this House. It is nothing but revolting to see what happened yesterday. We do need revolutionary change in this House, and I think that assuring that every Member gets to cast their vote fully and fairly in committee and on the floor of the Congress is absolutely vital to that reform. If we can combine with that opportunity some affirmative and immediate action, if we could have as much of a rush to true campaign finance reform, as much of a rush to a gift ban and free trips and this kind of thing, to changing our rules to deal with that as there was a rush to justice yesterday to get to that fund-raiser up in Manhattan, we would begin to reform this system so that people had not only their full 100-percent right to vote on the floor of this House and in the Committee on Science but so that our citizens were dealt with fully and fairly, so that the ties that seem to bind too many Members of this body to the lobby, the gifts, the freebies, the free trips, so that those would be ended, as my colleague the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Bryant] has been trying to do with a true gift ban limitation in our rules but which we cannot get up for a vote on the floor of this House. Maybe we could have done that after 4:00 yesterday. Likewise, so that we could move forward as there appeared to be some bipartisan support for moving forward earlier in the week but it seems to have vanished away, to do something about campaign finance reform. That gets to the heart of real reform, to genuinely shaking this body up and giving the American people the kind of reform that they need to have a Congress that is responsible first and foremost to the people that are struggling to climb up that economic ladder instead of tilting all of the benefit to those who are sitting comfortably on top. That is what this is about. I object and ask for a ``no'' vote on this attempt of the Committee on Science to continue to operate under the same old procedures. I ask that we assure democracy and fair play for our constituents as well as our Members and hopefully put some genuine meaning in the term ``reform.''

Mr. DOGGETT. They are serious issues, because democracy has to work both ways. It has to be the same rule for Democrats and Republicans and people of no party affiliation. I certainly do not object to their need to rush off to a fundraiser in Manhattan with the tobacco lobbyists and the other big corporate interests, buy why is it that the people's workday had to be cut short in the middle of the afternoon? The folks I represent down in Texas do not usually get off at 3 or 4 in the afternoon to head off to some big bucks party. They have to stay and put in at least their full 8 hours of labor. Had these folks been willing to put in their full 8 hours of labor and then catch their corporate jet to New York and enjoy the chance to be wined and dined with the big corporate lobbyists, then we would not have had this problem. We could well have permitted people to vote in due order in the Committee on Science and to vote here on the floor of the House without rancor, without any kind of interruption or disruption such as we have had, and we would be much further along on the people's business today had these nasty incidents, one here on the floor of the House, one in the Committee on Science, totally uncalled for, totally unnecessary, had those no occurred.

Mr. DOGGETT. I yield to the gentlewoman from Colorado.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me, and would like to be heard in opposition to this motion. Normally, Mr. Speaker, it would be my feeling that this House should proceed in all due speed to attend to matters, certainly on the Committee on Science on which I serve. However, yesterday we had an incredible display of arrogance in that committee. It is not the first time that it has happened, unfortunately. That is that after the bell had rung for Members of the Committee on Science to come to the floor of this house and cast their vote on behalf of the over half a million people that each of those Members represent, after that bell had rung, the chairman of the committee attempted to force the committee to vote in committee at the same time, several blocks away from where they were being asked to vote on the floor of this House. The effect of that action is to deny that half a million Americans the opportunity to cast their vote either in the committee or on the floor, since even the Committee on Science, as advanced as its outlook might be, has not [[Page H 6211]] figured out a way to have Members of Congress sit in two places at the same time. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, with this having happened on a prior occasion, I began talking about this in the Committee on Science in hopes that there would be an opportunity to simply have the common decency and the common courtesy to postpone the vote until immediately after the vote here, because several members of the Committee on Science, Democratic members, had already left, realizing how really critical this vote was on the floor of the House concerning, ironically, the Office of Technology Assessment, a matter that relates directly to the jurisdiction of our committee. Those members left. They included the distinguished gentlewoman from Michigan, Lynn Rivers. Ms. Rivers, as she told the House yesterday, has never missed a vote on the floor of this House. She has never missed a vote in any of the committees on which she served until yesterday. The only reason that she missed that vote was the vote was forced while she was trying to cast her vote on the floor of the House, the vote was forced in the Committee on Science. Mr. Speaker, I talked for 5 minutes, asking for the opportunity to simply delay the vote until such time as all our Members could return, and that opportunity, that common courtesy, was rejected. It is for that reason that I oppose this motion, because I think that the House needs to make a statement that we will not place any Member of this House, Democratic or Republican, in the position, the dilemma, of deciding shall I vote on the floor for my constituents, shall I vote on the committee to which my expertise is called? Mr. Speaker, none of this would have been necessary yesterday. None of this rush to justice would have occurred had it not been, as several Members have pointed out this morning, for the fact that some of our Republican colleagues just could not move fast enough to get to that big bucks fundraiser up in New York City, where all of the corporate elite was gathered to shower down benefits on them. There is nothing wrong with having a fundraiser. They do go on all the time on both sides. It is the only way this place seems to be able to operate. However, what is wrong is when democracy is trampled in the process, and people are cut off and denied their right to vote, be it on the floor or in an important committee of this House like the Committee on Science.

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

Mr. DOGGETT. They are over there right now meeting. That is the problem. They cannot be in two places at once.

Mr. DOGGETT. Perhaps at a time when simple common courtesy and decency and collegiality could prevail, instead of pomposity and arrogance, which is what we have had too much of.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I might point out what happened yesterday as it relates to what occurred here on the floor. I know the gentleman is interested in the total inconsistency, because when we did rush over here, literally in a gallop from way over at the Rayburn building, to try to be two places at once, we found, or I did, in response to a parliamentary inquiry, that a phone call had been made, and that the vote had been extended far beyond 17 minutes, but that was the vote immediately before the one that was cut off a few seconds shy, and 1 million Americans' right to vote shy, of being able to be cast here.

Mr. DOGGETT

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

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, yesterday our Republican colleagues were in a rush to get to a big bucks fundraiser up in Manhattan, and democracy was trampled in their stampede to get to those big dollars. You can look at today's New York Post. You can see what it was all about. An all-star list of corporate bigwigs was slated to attend, the same corporate bigwigs that are being benefited by the tax shift to the superrich at the expense of people who want school lunches and the protection of Medicare. It is more of the same thing. But it is a dark day indeed for democracy in this country when the rights not just of two Members, but over 1 million Americans to have their voice heard in this House, are trampled and cut off. And, amazingly, only moments before this occurred, in the Committee on Science on which I serve, in an incredible display of arrogance, there was an attempt to force people to vote there or vote here. This is a true setback for democracy.