Barney Frank

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield for one question?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, no, it does not. The gentleman has not read his own amendment, much less written it. What this says is, you do not get any funds under this act if you violate the Illegal Immigration Act. It does not say that the funds come under the act; it is a 2-part amendment. It says, first, you do not get any funds under this act. It does not define this act later on; it defines what forfeits money under this act. What causes you to forfeit money under this act is a violation of the Immigration Act. It does not say in here that you lose money under the Immigration Act; it says you lose money under this appropriation if you violate that act. I will yield again.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise to strike the last word in an effort to understand the first few words. The gentleman from Colorado said to the gentleman from Minnesota that the only funds involved were funds under the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, but that is not what it says. The amendment says ``none of the funds made available in this act.'' The reference to the Immigration Responsibility jaw-breaker does not come until the bottom. What it says is that if you violate the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, then you get no funds under this act. I know we debated what ``is'' is, but I thought we were pretty clear on what ``this'' is. This is this. This is the act. It says ``none of the funds made available in this act.'' So the question is, in line 2 of the gentleman's amendment, when it says ``none of the funds made available in this act,'' what act is he talking about? And it would appear to be the act that we are now about to enact. I wanted to ask the question precisely. I would ask the gentleman when it says in line 1, none of the funds made available, and in line 2, this act, in line 2, what do the words ``this act'' refer to? I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I would say to the gentleman, I understand his concern with making clear, and I have heard him say this in other contexts, that English is the official language, and I would urge him to work on that, because English is what it states here, and it says, in English, this is in English now, the only language I speak being a typical American; it says in English, ``none of the funds made available in this act may be used to provide assistance to any State that violates the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Act.'' So it is very clear. It is this act to which the funds refer. The act that was passed in 1996 triggers the loss of funds under this act. And it seems to me it is a far harsher penalty for the violation and the very fact that the gentleman offers the amendment in one form and then explains it in another is, I think, an indication of its weakness.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, this resolution is really record-setting. I have not in all my years here seen so much wind up and so little pitch. This goes on quite eloquently and quite accurately about the importance of homeownership, and it talks about the need for affordable housing. It says, ``Whereas an integral element of a strong community is a sufficient supply of affordable housing.'' It says, on the next page, ``Whereas affordable housing may be provided in traditional and nontraditional forms.'' It talks a very good game about the importance of housing, and particularly affordable housing; and it delivers virtually nothing. I have been lamenting for some time the opposition of my Republican colleagues to a housing production program in this country. In many parts of this country you will not get affordable housing, as we define that, that is housing for lower-income working people, middle-income people in some areas, unless there is some element of subsidy. We are not talking about the Federal Government simply building the housing. We are talking about a whole range of cooperative programs, many of them private-public cooperations. But it is clearly the case that unless the Federal Government contributes something, you will not get affordable housing. Now, my Republican colleagues have been strongly against most production programs, but I see now they have come up with one. It is in this resolution, which I am going to vote for, because I am all in favor of good wishes. I think we should all, at all times, be in favor of things that we should be in favor of. And this resolution is clearly in favor of a lot of things that we should be in favor of. It just does not do anything about them. Does not make them worse. And it does have a production program. I call Members' attention to page 3, paragraph 3. It says, ``During the years of the 108th and 109th sessions of Congress, Members of the Senate and the House should sponsor and construct two homes in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.'' Now, the legislative draftsmanship is perhaps not perfect. I will read that as being two homes each. I assume this does not mean that we should all of us build two homes. And I hope not, because there are people here that I would not want to be near them when they had a hammer or a saw or a drill. So I would not want to have to be in a joint effort to build some of these homes. So we are talking about two homes each for 4 years. Now, there are 535 Members of Congress. Two homes apiece would be 1,070 homes a year for 4 years. So we now have the affordable housing program of the Republican Party for production: 4,280 homes over the next 4 years in the metropolitan Washington area, D.C. and Fairfax County, although they probably would not get that many, Alexandria, Arlington, parts of Montgomery and maybe more in Prince George's. Now, 4,280 houses is better than nothing, although I have to say I am willing to do my part; and I have to say this, we are not often sufficiently modest around here, and each of us is supposed to build two houses, but, Madam Speaker, I would not want to live in a house I built. There are some things I think I am good at, some things I am not so good at. The notion of all of us building houses is an interesting one. Actually, this is motivated both by a desire to do affordable housing, but it also carries out the Republican approach to unions. Because their entire production program would be built by overwhelmingly nonunion labor. There are a couple of Members here who are members of unions, although it is rarely the building trades. My colleague from Boston, the gentleman from Massachusetts, was an iron worker; but he can only do so much. And I do not know how many of the houses would be made out of iron or structural steel or whatever anyway. So here they have a housing production program, 4,280 houses for the entirety of America, built almost exclusively by nonunion labor, without a penny of Federal Government contribution. Unless we built them during work hours. I suppose if we built them during working hours, when we were getting paid, it would be some Federal contribution. I assume the position is that we do not. Now, I guess I am a little ambivalent about the notion of unleashing every Member of the House and the Senate to build two houses. I know you cannot comment on Senators, I understand that, Madam Speaker; but I think you can comment on past Senators, and I guess I can say that I am pleased Strom Thurmond will no longer be covered by this. It is a lucky thing we did not pass this last year, because Strom Thurmond would have been charged with building two houses somewhere, and I would want to live in those even less than the ones I would build. But the problem is not so much with what it says, but with what it does not say. We have not for some time had a program in this country to have Federal resources go for housing production. And in the absence of a housing production program, families will have a hard time getting affordable housing. We have some programs that help. We have the programs that help build housing for the elderly and for the disabled. We have the low-income tax credit, which does a good job; but it is limited. We have the section 8 voucher program which works well in a lot of areas, but the section 8 program does not contribute to production, particularly when we have rulings now that say you can only use a voucher 1 year at a time. No one can build a house on a year-by- year commitment. So I am all in favor of the goals of this resolution. I just wish it did something other than asking this workforce to go out and build a couple of houses a year to carry it out. We have a terrible crisis in this country with regard to affordable housing. And let me just say, Madam Speaker, that one of the arguments we have when some of us talk about the need for the Federal Government to participate in doing things that are important for the quality of our lives, we are told we should not worry about it, the private economy will take care of it. The private economy does a great deal. The private economy supplies many of our needs, and a private sector is something we should all work for. But there are some things it will not do. And with the very prosperity of the 1990s, which was so important in helping people achieve so many goals, for many people it made the housing situation worse. Because prosperity is obviously not uniformly distributed. Under the policies now in power, it is even less uniformly distributed than ever, as a conscious choice. But even at its best, prosperity will be uneven. And many people in this country, in the greater Boston area, in the area around San Francisco, in Chicago, in many of our great metropolitan areas people whose incomes were somewhat fixed, many of them public employees, teachers, firefighters, police officers, and social workers, and public works people, people on relatively fixed incomes found themselves worse off in the housing market because prosperity drove up the value of many properties, and some people benefited enormously, and some were left behind. We are told, well, a rising tide will lift all boats. But if you are too poor to afford a boat, the rising tide will go over your head and drown you. And that happened to many people. The very prosperity of the 1990s that were so welcome nationally exacerbated the housing crisis. That does not mean the government building all the housing is the answer. It does mean that a sensible, well-funded production program, where the government contributes along with the private sector an element of subsidy so that new housing can be built in many parts of the country, is the only way this resolution will be more than just empty rhetoric. So at this point we only have this resolution. But we will later in the year have a chance to address this, I hope. I hope the committee which brought this out, the Committee on Financial Services, which has jurisdiction over housing, will be allowed by the leadership of this House to formulate a sensible production program and bring it forward. And if we do, we may be able to rescue this resolution from the charge of being just empty rhetoric. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt).

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I just want to make sure I understand. The gentleman is proposing that we pass a Federal statute that would say that no local zoning regulation could go into effect?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) who is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity of the Committee on Financial Services, and a great leader in this field.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. If the gentleman will yield further, I think the gentleman, however, is being inconsistent. I have been critical of the use of local zoning in many cases to block housing proposals, but I do want to be clear. These are local and State laws. The Endangered Species Act is Federal. But most of what the gentleman talked about are local and State laws, and I am asking the gentleman, is he proposing that at the Federal level we pass statutes that regulate and restrict and limit what form local zoning can take, saying that it has to have a cost-benefit analysis, et cetera? I might be interested in joining that, if that is what the gentleman is advocating.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. I notice on page 4 it says each Congress Building America house should be constructed primarily by Members of the Senate and House, their families and staff. Now, presumably, if we do this, it is voluntarily. But if we pass a bill like this and our staffs do it, it might not be voluntary. We might need an interpretation from you, Madam Speaker, under the bill you have been sponsoring. If our staffs show up to build housing and they have to work overtime, would we pay them overtime or would they get comp time? So I think we will have to have further interpretation when our staffs report for home building, which some of them probably did not sign up for. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), a very active leader in the fight for affordable housing in our committee.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I am glad to join in urging support for this bill. I want to recognize the good work done by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kanjorski) who is the ranking Democrat on this subcommittee, who could not be here with us today, but he spent a lot of time on it, and we have a very useful compromise. Essentially, we had this situation where we all agreed there was a need to expand the Securities and Exchange Commission. We responded more slowly than it would have liked, but we responded by increasing the budget to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Essentially, what happened is the legislation passed last year to improve the regulation of the corporate sector authorized increased spending for the SEC. The Congress was slow in living up to that promise, but finally, by early this year, we did it, but then the question was having voted on the additional money, in their case overwhelmingly for staff, how quickly could we hire people because under the normal rules the Federal Government is not expeditious in hiring people, and that is reasonable. There is often not an emergency, and we want to make sure we do it right. In this case, we wanted to see that hiring was done more quickly. There was an original proposal that came that would have allowed people to be hired very quickly and, once hired, to remain in a somewhat separate status from other employees. I want to acknowledge the very responsive attitude of the union that represents employees at the SEC, the National Treasury Employees Union. I met and talked with them, as did the gentleman from Pennsylvania whom I have mentioned, and we found them to be, not surprisingly, as they usually are, in a very cooperative mood, and they understood that there were two important issues. One was to enhance the ability of the SEC to hire people quickly so we could put the regulatory structure in place, but also to make sure that employees hired had the protections that any employee is entitled to have against political abuse, against arbitrary mistreatment, et cetera. So what this legislation embodies is a very sensible compromise. The SEC will be given under this bill the ability to hire quickly. It will be able to hire without some of the normal rules that would slow them down, but once the people are hired, they will then have all the rights and all of the protections that any other employee would have had. It meets the need and sometimes what we do in government is kind of overdo or underdo. The need here was to hire quickly. There was not the need, we felt, to totally revamp the employee procedures of the SEC. This bill is carefully tailored to do exactly what was needed and no more. It allows the SEC to hire quickly, to take full advantage of the additional funds. My understanding is that over 500 people will be hired under this, accountants and economists and others, but once they are hired, they will not be different than the other employees. We will not have this problem of two classes of employees, some with this set of rights, some with that set of rights. They will be fully integrated into the SEC's workforce. It is a workforce which does very good work, which has been overstressed because we gave them a lot more to do and did not immediately give them the resources. This is a case where taking the appropriation bill, together with this bill, we will have given the SEC, whose new chairman, I must say Mr. Donaldson seems to be performing admirably, and I think we are all encouraged that he has done so well, and I think that contributes to the enthusiasm with which we support this legislation. There is a great deal of confidence that he will use this authority in a very appropriate way. What we have done now is to structure things so the SEC will be able to take full advantage of the appropriation. They will be able to hire the people and the investing public and the American economy will get the protection they deserve. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, if the gentlewoman has no further requests for time, I congratulate the gentlewoman on being given the right to control nothing, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, point of order. This is not a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Perhaps if the White House has a shortage of space, it might help if they invite the Members without staff and next week they invite the staff without the Members, and we might function better.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I apologize to the gentleman from California. I know he is very thick-skinned, so he did not mind. But he had been speaking under the guise of a parliamentary inquiry, and he was not making a parliamentary inquiry, although the parliamentary inquiry made was about a rule which has been in effect ever since he got here, and I was surprised he had forgotten it. But he did not say he was going to use his time. I did want to clarify. Apparently he decided to use his time, but he decided to use his time to tell us he did not plan to use his time. I think it is somewhat unfortunate that, having shut off debate, having refused to an allow an amendment, he is suggesting that it is somehow improper for Members on our side to talk about the substance. He has said that he will accept the instruction, having made it clear with his usual consideration for other opinions that having accepted it in the vote, he plans to disregard it in the conference. So we continue to think it is important to point out the difference between what we want to do, provide real help to poor children, and what he plans to do.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, where are the libertarians when we need them? What we have before us is the Inconsistency Act of 2003. Rarely has a bill come forward which is in conflict with as many principles as Members of this House have professed. In the first place, we have the question as to whether or not we should substitute the government's opinion for individuals' choices. Now, there are ills in this world against which people should be protected. There are economic injustices, there are environmental problems, there are criminal elements who would prey on people. I spend all of my energy trying to protect people against things done by others, whether forces of nature or individuals, that would harm them. I envy my colleagues who have more energy than I. I do not have enough left to protect people against themselves. This is an example of our deciding that we cannot trust adults to decide what to do with their own money. Now, if we were talking about someone who was being forced to gamble at gunpoint, I am with you. If there are people who are being coerced into putting down a bet, let us protect them. But if an individual has gone out and earned his or her money and decides he or she wants to gamble, why in the world is it anybody in this building's business? So we, first of all, have this inconsistency with the principle of let us keep big government off our backs. I do not myself gamble. I do not like to see my money go when I do not have any control over it, and so I do not gamble. And other people who are opposed to gambling, I do not always hold myself out as an example, but I will in this case. Be like me: do not gamble. But if other people want to put a bet down, mind your own business. Now, there are people for whom this is enjoyable. I do not understand why we should cast aspersions on them. And it is true, some people will abuse it. There are a minority of people who will abuse this. But the notion that we prevent adults from making their own choices with their own money, to do things which have no harmful effect on anyone else, because a minority of people will abuse them is, of course, a very dangerous principle. There are people who drink too much. There are people who go to too many movies. There are people who do a lot of things in excess that most of us do in moderation. Ban the excess, if you want to; deal with the consequences of the excess. This is a violation, though, what we are doing now, of the fundamental principle: leave people alone. There is another principle that I have heard: the sanctity of the Internet. We are told that we should not interfere with the Internet. Indeed, this House has refused to cooperate with State governments; now, many of them are in terrible fiscal crises, cutting back on health care, laying off public safety officials, but we will not cooperate with them in collecting sales taxes from people who buy things over the Internet in competition with local communities, and they lose tax revenue. But we say, oh, no, we cannot touch the Internet, unless it is being used for something people here do not like. That is basically what is involved here. We have, and there is an interesting conjunction here of liberals and conservatives. Conservatives do not like it, some of them because I read from some of the very conservative groups that it is immoral to gamble. I am often baffled by their morality, and I do not understand why it is immoral to gamble. I am struck by so many of my liberal friends who do not want people to gamble. Indeed, gambling is, to many liberals, what sex-oriented literature is to conservatives. They do not like it, so they do not want anyone else to do it. There are people who do not like gambling; then do not gamble. But why use the law to prevent other people from doing it? Now, I know they say, well, but this is not just making it illegal; this is doing this, that, and the other. But let us cut right down to it. This is being put forward by people who do not like gambling and want to make it harder to gamble, and their principle of keeping government out of private choices, forget about it; their principle of being able to use the Internet without interference, forget about that; and their respect for financial institutions, forget about that. Now, they say children will abuse it. I understand that. That is a serious effort. I am prepared to cooperate in efforts to try to protect children, although we should know that the major protection of children ought to be their own parents. This is protecting children, forgetting about any parental role; but that is another principle that is a problem. You cannot, in my judgment, sensibly, in a society like ours, make it illegal for adults to do things because there is a possibility that some young people will do them when they should not. Let us work on ways to prevent children from doing this sort of thing. Gambling is a perfectly legitimate human activity. There are people who enjoy it. There are people who find that it engages them. I do not think they ought to be anesthetized on the floor of the House, but being anesthetized, I guess a lot of people do not pay a lot of attention to what we say. No real harm there. But when you take the law of the United States and you now put further criminal penalties here and further restrict people, I think we are making a very grave error. So I hope Members who have talked about States' rights, who have talked about individual liberty being protected from an overreaching government, who have talked about not stifling the Internet and its creativity, will think about one of those things when you come to vote on this bill and vote it down. I thank the gentlewoman for managing this time and yielding this time to me. I am the senior minority member, but since the majority of members of my committee, in a temporary lapse from their usual good judgment, supported this bill; I did not think it was appropriate for me to be the manager. But I do hope that individual freedom, a distrust of overreaching government, a respect for the rights of State and local jurisdictions, and a respect for the Internet will count for something when we vote.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I did want to note today, though, and I guess I may need the Parliamentarian, Mr. Speaker. I know under our rules it is forbidden to speak ill of the Senate and from time to time people get exasperated and they speak ill of the Senate and they are duly chided. But the question I have, Mr. Speaker, is, is it permissible to speak well of the Senate? Is it within the rules to lavish on the Senate the praise they deserve for passing the child tax credit bill?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. In any way. Well, I regret my inability to give credit where credit is due. I was hoping that an example recently given would be followed in this side of the Capitol; but I will abide by the rules, though as foolish as I think this particular rule is, and not comment on the Senate. I will, though, have to say that the refusal of the Republican leadership in the House to allow the House to vote on a proposal that would extend to hard-working, low-income people financial relief after all of the financial relief we have given to people in the upper brackets is truly distressing. I know there has been an effort on the House floor to portray our interest in providing a tax credit to people, and let us be clear, we are talking about here people who work. They work very hard. They work at jobs that are not very pleasant, and that, by definition, are not well paid. Many of them have families. It is true that because they work hard at jobs that this society has devalued in many cases they do not pay much or any income tax. They do, however, pay a significant percentage of their income in taxes. They pay the Social Security tax and the tax on Medicare. They pay the withholding tax. For many of them because there are no exemptions from that, there are no deductions, they pay the full thing no matter how many children they have, no matter how many other expenses they have. For some of those people this is a larger percentage of their income paid in tax than is paid by many wealthier people. That reduction will be further. What this House says is, no, they get no relief out of this bill comparable to what others get. It is unworthy of this House to say that to these hardworking people struggling to provide for their children when the Republicans have said, in the tax bill, this looks like $350 billion, but we are going to convert it into hundreds of billions more. A bill is going to be introduced that would cost a total of $10 billion, or would expend $10 billion; but it would be neutral revenue- wise to help these low-income people. We are told we cannot do that. When there was a parliamentary situation that the President confronted, and he was told he could only get $350 billion in tax relief over the next 10 years, he said that he did not think people should be for such a little bitty piece of tax relief. So $350 billion is a little bitty. We are asking for a very small percentage of that little bitty for the poorest, hardest-working people in this country. The Republican leadership, I can understand in the core Republican philosophy that they would say no to these people, but to refuse to allow the House of Representatives to vote on it seems to me unpardonable. We are just asking, okay, let it come to the floor. Let us have a debate. Are they so afraid that their resistance to helping these low-income people is so out of sync with the American people that they will not let it come forward? I hope we will see that bill on the floor fairly soon.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I am the ranking minority member on the committee of jurisdiction, and I am pleased that we forestalled a suspension proposal here and that we do have a chance to debate some of the amendments. I will talk about that bill in due time. Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.